162 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 son, now kept her from acknowledging them, 
 even for the gift of a title and domain. 
 There was only one question before her: 
 should she stay long enough to receive the 
 proposal of Lord Algernon, and then decline 
 it? Why should she not snatch that single 
 feminine joy out of the ashes of her burnt-up 
 illusion? She knew that an opportunity 
 would be offered that afternoon. The party 
 were to take tea at Broxby Hall, and Lord 
 Algernon was to drive her there in his dog- 
 cart. Miss Desborough had gone up to her 
 bedroom to put on a warmer cloak, and had 
 rung twice or thrice impatiently for her 
 maid. 
 
 When the girl made her appearance, 
 apologetic, voluble, and excited, Miss Des- 
 borough scarcely listened to her excuses, 
 until a single word suddenly arrested her 
 attention. It was "old Debs." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said 
 Sadie, pausing in the adjustment of her hat 
 on her brown hair. 
 
 "Old Debs, miss, that 's what they call 
 him; an old park-keeper, just found dead 
 in a pool of water in the fields ; the grand- 
 father of one of the servants here; and 
 there 's such an excitement in the servants' 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 163 
 
 hall. The gentlemen all knew it, too, for I 
 heard Lord Algernon say that he was look- 
 ing very queer lately, and might have had 
 a fit ; and Lord Beverdale has sent word to 
 the coroner. And only think, the people 
 here are such fools that they daren't touch 
 or move the poor man, and him lyin' there 
 in the rain all the time, until the coroner 
 comes! " 
 
 Miss Desborough had been steadily re- 
 garding herself in the glass to see if she had 
 turned pale. She had. She set her teeth 
 together until the color partly returned. 
 But she kept her face away from the maid. 
 "That '11 do," she said quietly. "You can 
 tell me all later. I have some important 
 news myself, and I may not go out after all. 
 I want you to take a note for me." She 
 went to her table, wrote a line in pencil, 
 folded it, scribbled an address upon it, 
 handed it to the girl, and gently pushed her 
 from the room. 
 
 The consul was lingering on the terrace 
 beside one of the carriages; at a little dis- 
 tance a groom was holding the nervous thor- 
 oughbred of Lord Algernon's dog-cart. Sud- 
 denly he felt a touch on his shoulder, and 
 
UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
 AUBREY DRURY 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 NfVER 
 CALT 
 
STORIES IN 
 LIGHT AND SHADOW 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 
 THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1898, Sf BREt HABTB 
 ALL BIGHTS RESERVED 
 
PS 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " UNSEB KABL " 1 
 
 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 35 
 
 SEE YUP 93 
 
 THE DESBOBOUGH CONNECTIONS 121 
 
 SALOMY JANE'S Kiss 180 
 
 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 219 
 
 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ . 244 
 
STOEIES IN LIGHT A1STD 
 SHADOW 
 
 "UNSER KARL" 
 
 THE American consul for Schlachtstadt 
 bad just turned out of the broad Konig's 
 Alice into the little square that held his con- 
 sulate. Its residences always seemed to him 
 to wear that singularly uninhabited air pe- 
 culiar to a street scene in a theatre. The 
 facades, with their stiff, striped wooden awn- 
 i'ngs over the windows, were of the regular- 
 ity, color, and pattern only seen on the stage, 
 and conversation carried on in the street be- 
 low always seemed to be invested with that 
 perfect confidence and security which sur- 
 rounds the actor in his painted desert of 
 urban perspective. Yet it was a peaceful 
 change to the other byways and highways 
 of Schlachtstadt which were always filled 
 with an equally unreal and mechanical sol- 
 diery, who appeared to be daily taken out 
 of their boxes of "caserne " or "de*pot " and 
 
2 UNSEK KAEL 
 
 loosely scattered all over the pretty linden- 
 haunted German town. There were soldiers 
 standing on street corners; soldiers staring 
 woodenly into shop windows ; soldiers halted 
 suddenly into stone, like lizards, at the ap- 
 proach of Offiziere ; Offiziere lounging stiffly 
 four abreast, sweeping the pavement with 
 their trailing sabres all at one angle. There 
 were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades 
 of blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with 
 glittering lances and pennons with or 
 without a band formally parading ; there 
 were straggling "fatigues" or "details" 
 coming round the corners ; there were dusty, 
 businesslike columns of infantry, going no- 
 where and to no purpose. And they one 
 and all seemed to be wound up for that 
 service and apparently always in the same 
 place. In the band of their caps invari- 
 ably of one pattern was a button, in the 
 centre of which was a square opening or key- 
 hole. The consul was always convinced 
 that through this keyhole opening, by means 
 of a key, the humblest caporal wound up 
 his file, the Hauptmann controlled his lieu- 
 tenants and non-commissioned officers, and 
 even the general himself, wearing the same 
 cap, was subject through his cap to a higher 
 
UNSEB KAEL 3 
 
 moving power. In the suburbs, when the 
 supply of soldiers gave out, there were sen- 
 try-boxes; when these dropped off, there 
 were "caissons," or commissary wagons. 
 And, lest the military idea should ever fail 
 from out the Schlachtstadt's burgher's mind, 
 there were police in uniform, street-sweepers 
 in uniform; the ticket- takers, guards, and 
 sweepers at the Bahnhof were in uniform, 
 but all wearing the same kind of cap, with 
 the probability of having been wound up 
 freshly each morning for their daily work. 
 Even the postman delivered peaceful in- 
 voices to the consul with his side-arms and 
 the air of bringing dispatches from the field 
 of battle; and the consul saluted, and felt 
 for a few moments the whole weight of his 
 consular responsibility. 
 
 Yet, in spite of this military precedence, 
 it did not seem in the least inconsistent with 
 the decidedly peaceful character of the town, 
 and this again suggested its utter unreality ; 
 wandering cows sometimes got mixed up 
 with squadrons of cavalry, and did not seem 
 to mind it; sheep passed singly between files 
 of infantry, or preceded them in a flock 
 when on the march ; indeed, nothing could 
 be more delightful and innocent than to see 
 
4 UNSER KARL 
 
 a regiment of infantry in heavy marching 
 order, laden with every conceivable thing 
 they could want for a week, returning after 
 a cheerful search for an invisible enemy in 
 the suburbs, to bivouac peacefully among 
 the cabbages in the market-place. Nobody 
 was ever imposed upon for a moment by 
 their tremendous energy and severe display ; 
 drums might beat, trumpets blow, dragoons 
 charge furiously all over the Exercier Platz, 
 or suddenly flash their naked swords in the 
 streets to the guttural command of an offi- 
 cer nobody seemed to mind it. People 
 glanced up to recognize Rudolf or Max " do- 
 ing their service," nodded, and went about 
 their business. And although the officers 
 always wore their side-arms, and at the most 
 peaceful of social dinners only relinquished 
 their swords in the hall, apparently that they 
 might be ready to buckle them on again and 
 rush out to do battle for the Fatherland be- 
 tween the courses, the other guests only 
 looked upon these weapons in the light of 
 sticks and umbrellas, and possessed their 
 souls in peace. And when, added to this 
 singular incongruity, many of these warriors 
 were spectacled, studious men, and, despite 
 their lethal weapons, wore a slightly profes- 
 
UNSER KARL 5 
 
 sional air, and were to a man deeply 
 sentimental and singularly simple, their at- 
 titude in this eternal Kriegspiel seemed to 
 the consul more puzzling than ever. 
 
 As he entered his consulate he was con- 
 fronted with another aspect of Schlachtstadt 
 quite as wonderful, yet already familiar to 
 him. For, in spite of these "alarums with- 
 out," which, however, never seem to pene- 
 trate beyond the town itself, Schlachtstadt 
 and its suburbs were known all over the 
 world for the manufactures of certain beau- 
 tiful textile fabrics, and many of the rank 
 and file of those warriors had built up the 
 fame and prosperity of the district over their 
 peaceful looms in wayside cottages. There 
 were great depots and counting-houses, larger 
 than even the cavalry barracks, where no 
 other uniform but that of the postman was 
 known. Hence it was that the consul' s- 
 chief duty was to uphold the flag of his own 
 country by the examination and certification 
 of divers invoices sent to his office by the 
 manufacturers. But, oddly enough, these 
 business messengers were chiefly women, 
 not clerks, but ordinary household servants, 
 and, on busy days, the consulate might have 
 been mistaken for a female registry office, 
 
6 UNSEB EAEL 
 
 so filled and possessed it was by waiting 
 Madchen. Here it was that Gretehen, Lies- 
 clien, and Clarchen, in the cleanest of blue 
 gowns, and stoutly but smartly shod, brought 
 their invoices in a piece of clean paper, or 
 folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, 
 with fingers more or less worn and stubby 
 from hard service, before the consul for his 
 signature. Once, in the case of a very young 
 Madchen, that signature was blotted by the 
 sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child 
 turned to go; but generally there was a 
 grave, serious business instinct and sense of 
 responsibility in these girls of ordinary pea- 
 sant origin which, equally with their sisters 
 of France, were unknown to the English or 
 American woman of any class. 
 
 That morning, however, there was a slight 
 stir among those who, with their knitting, 
 were waiting their turn in the outer office 
 as the vice-consul ushered the police inspector 
 into the consul's private office. He was in 
 uniform, of course, and it took him a mo- 
 ment to recover from his habitual stiff, mili- 
 tary salute, a little stiffer than that of the 
 actual soldier. 
 
 It was a matter of importance ! A stranger 
 had that morning been arrested in the town 
 
UNSER KAEL 1 
 
 and identified as a military deserter. He 
 claimed to be an American citizen; he was 
 now in the outer office, waiting the consul's 
 interrogation. 
 
 The consul knew, however, that the omi- 
 nous accusation had only a mild significance 
 here. The term "military deserter" in- 
 cluded any one who had in youth emigrated 
 to a foreign country without first fulfilling 
 his military duty to his fatherland. His 
 first experiences of these cases had been te- 
 dious and difficult, involving a reference 
 to his Minister at Berlin, a correspondence 
 with the American State Department, a con- 
 dition of unpleasant tension, and finally the 
 prolonged detention of some innocent Ger- 
 man naturalized American citizen, who 
 had forgotten to bring his papers with him 
 in revisiting his own native country. It so 
 chanced, however, that the consul enjoyed 
 the friendship and confidence of the General 
 Adlerkreutz, who commanded the 20th Di- 
 vision, and it further chanced that the same 
 Adlerkreutz was as gallant a soldier as ever 
 cried Yorwarts ! at the head of his men, as 
 profound a military strategist and organizer 
 as ever carried his own and his enemy's 
 plans in his iron head and spiked helmet, 
 
8 UNSEB KARL 
 
 and yet with as simple and unaffected a soul 
 breathing under his gray mustache as ever 
 issued from the lips of a child. So this grim 
 but gentle veteran had arranged with the 
 consul that in cases where the presumption 
 of nationality was strong, although the evi- 
 dence was not present, he would take the 
 consul's parole for the appearance of the 
 "deserter" or his papers, without the aid o 
 prolonged diplomacy. In this way the con- 
 sul had saved to Milwaukee a worthy but 
 imprudent brewer, and to New York an ex- 
 cellent sausage butcher and possible alder- 
 man; but had returned to martial duty one 
 or two tramps or journeymen who had never 
 seen America except from the decks of the 
 ships in which they were "stowaways," and 
 on which they were returned, and thus the 
 temper and peace of two great nations were 
 preserved. 
 
 "He says," said the inspector severely, 
 "that he is an American citizen, but has 
 lost his naturalization papers. Yet he has 
 made the damaging admission to others that 
 he lived several years in Rome! And," 
 continued the inspector, looking over his 
 shoulder at the closed door as he placed his 
 finger beside his nose, "he says he has rela- 
 
UNSEB KAEL 
 
 tions living at Palmyra, whom he frequently 
 visited. Ach! Observe this unheard-of - 
 and-not-to-be-trusted statement! " 
 
 The consul, however, smiled with a slight 
 flash of intelligence. "Let me see him," he 
 said. 
 
 They passed into the outer office ; another 
 policeman and a corporal of infantry saluted 
 and rose. In the centre of an admiring and 
 sympathetic crowd of Dienstmadchen sat the 
 culprit, the least concerned of the party; a 
 stripling a boy scarcely out of his teens ! 
 Indeed, it was impossible to conceive of a 
 more innocent, bucolic, and almost angelic 
 looking derelict. With a skin that had the 
 peculiar white and rosiness of fresh pork, he 
 had blue eyes, celestially wide open and star- 
 ing, and the thick flocculent yellow curls of 
 the sun god! He might have been an over- 
 grown and badly dressed Cupid who had 
 innocently wandered from Paphian shores. 
 He smiled as the consul entered, and wiped 
 from his full red lips with the back of his 
 hand the traces of a sausage he was eating. 
 The consul recognized the flavor at once, 
 he had smelled it before in Lieschen's little 
 hand-basket. 
 
 "You say you lived at Rome?" began 
 
10 UNSER KAEL 
 
 the consul pleasantly. "Did you take out 
 your first declaration of your intention of 
 becoming an American citizen there?'* 
 
 The inspector cast an approving glance at 
 the consul, fixed a stern eye on the cherubic 
 prisoner, and leaned back in his chair to 
 hear the reply to this terrible question. 
 
 "I don't remember," said the culprit, 
 knitting his brows in infantine thought. " It 
 was either there, or at Madrid or Syracuse." 
 
 The inspector was about to rise ; this was 
 really trifling with the dignity of the muni- 
 cipality. But the consul laid his hand on 
 the official's sleeve, and, opening an Ameri- 
 can atlas to a map of the State of New 
 York, said to the prisoner, as he placed the 
 inspector's hand on the sheet, "I see you 
 know the names of the towns on the Erie 
 and New York Central Eailroad. But " 
 
 "I can tell you the number of people in 
 each town and what are the manufactures," 
 interrupted the young fellow, with youthful 
 vanity. "Madrid has six thousand, and 
 there are over sixty thousand in " 
 
 "That will do," said the consul, as a mur- 
 mur of Wunderschon ! went round the group 
 of listening servant girls, while glances of 
 admiration were shot at the beaming accused. 
 
UNSEB KARL 11 
 
 "But you ought to remember the name of 
 the town where your naturalization papers 
 were afterwards sent." 
 
 " But I was a citizen from the moment ; 
 made my declaration," said tne strangei 
 smiling, and looking triumphantly at his 
 admirers, "and I could vote! " 
 
 The inspector, since he had come to grief 
 over American geographical nomenclature, 
 was grimly taciturn. The consul, however, 
 was by no means certain of his victory. His 
 alleged fellow citizen was too encyclopaedic 
 in his knowledge: a clever youth might 
 have crammed for this with a textbook, 
 but then he did not look at all clever; in- 
 deed7 he had rather the stupidity of the my- 
 thological subject he represented. "Leave 
 him with me," said the consul. The in- 
 spector handed him a precis of the case. 
 The cherub's name was Karl Schwartz, an 
 orphan, missing from Schlachtstadt since 
 the age of twelve. Relations not living, or 
 in emigration. Identity established by pris- 
 oner's admission and record. 
 
 "Now, Karl," said the consul cheerfully, 
 as the door of his private office closed upon 
 them, "what is your little game? Have 
 you ever had any papers? And if you were 
 
12 UNSER KARL 
 
 clever enough to study the map of New York 
 State, why weren't you clever enough to see 
 that it would n't stand you in place of your 
 papers?" 
 
 "Dot's joost it," said Karl in English; 
 "but you see dot if I haf declairet mine in- 
 tention of begomming a citizen, it 's all the 
 same, don't it?" 
 
 "By no means, for you seem to have no 
 evidence of the declaration; no papers at 
 all." 
 
 "Zo!" said Karl. Nevertheless, he 
 pushed his small, rosy, pickled-pig's -feet of 
 fingers through his fleecy curls and beamed 
 pleasantly at the consul. "Dot 's vot 's der 
 matter," he said, as if taking a kindly inter- 
 est in some private trouble of the consul's. 
 "Dot 's vere you vos, eh? " 
 
 The consul looked steadily at him for a 
 moment. Such stupidity was by no means 
 phenomenal, nor at all inconsistent with his 
 appearance. "And," continued the consul 
 gravely, "I must tell you that, unless you 
 have other proofs than you have shown, it 
 will be my duty to give you up to the au- 
 thorities." 
 
 " Dot means I shall serve my time, eh ? " 
 said Karl, with an unchanged smile. 
 
UNSER KARL 13 
 
 "Exactly so," returned the consul. 
 
 "Zo!" said Karl. "Dese town dese 
 Schlachtstadt is fine town, eh ? Fine vo- 
 mens. Goot men. Und beer und sausage. 
 Blenty to eat and drink, eh? Und," look- 
 ing around the room, "you and te poys haf 
 a gay times." 
 
 "Yes," said the consul shortly, turning 
 away. But he presently faced round again 
 on the unfettered Karl, who was evidently 
 indulging in a gormandizing reverie. 
 
 "What on earth brought you here, any- 
 way?" 
 
 "Was it das?" 
 
 "What brought you here from America, 
 or wherever you ran away from?" 
 
 "To see der volks." 
 
 "But you are an orphan, you know, and 
 you have no folks living here." 
 
 " But all Shermany is mine volks, de 
 whole gountry, don't it? Pet your poots/ 
 How's dot, eh?" 
 
 The consul turned back to his desk and 
 wrote a short note to General Adlerkreutz 
 in his own American German. He did not 
 think it his duty in the present case to inter- 
 fere with the authorities or to offer his parole 
 for Karl Schwartz. But he would claim 
 
14 UNSER KARL 
 
 that, as the offender was evidently an inno- 
 cent emigrant and still young, any punish- 
 ment or military degradation be omitted, 
 and he be allowed to take his place like any 
 other recruit in the ranks. If he might 
 have the temerity to the undoubted, far-see- 
 ing military authority of suggestion mak- 
 ing here, he would suggest that Karl was 
 for the commissariat fitted ! Of course, he 
 still retained the right, on production of sat- 
 isfactory proof, his discharge to claim. 
 
 The consul read this aloud to Karl. The 
 cherubic youth smiled and said, "Zo! " 
 Then, extending his hand, he added the 
 word "Zshake!" 
 
 The consul shook his hand a little remorse- 
 fully, and, preceding him to the outer room, 
 resigned him with the note into the inspec- 
 tor's hands. A universal sigh went up from 
 the girls, and glances of appeal sought the 
 <eonsul; but he wisely concluded that it 
 would be well, for a while, that Karl a 
 helpless orphan should be under some 
 sort of discipline ! And the securer business 
 of certifying invoices recommenced. 
 
 Late that afternoon he received a folded 
 bit of blue paper from the waistbelt of an 
 orderly, which contained in English charac- 
 
UNSER KARL 15 
 
 ters and as a single word "Alright," fol- 
 lowed by certain jagged pen-marks, which 
 he recognized as Adlerkreutz's signature. 
 But it was not until a week later that he 
 learned anything definite. He was return- 
 ing one night to his lodgings in the residen- 
 tial part of the city, and, in opening the door 
 with his pass-key, perceived in the rear of 
 the hall his handmaiden Trudschen, attended 
 by the usual blue or yellow or red shadow. 
 He was passing by them with the local 
 'n* Abend! on his lips when the soldier 
 turned his face and saluted. The consul 
 stopped. It was the cherub Karl in uni- 
 form! 
 
 But it had not subdued a single one of 
 his characteristics. His hair had been 
 cropped a little more closely under liis cap, 
 but there was its color and woolliness still 
 intact ; his plump figure was girt by belt and 
 buttons, but he only looked the more unreal, 
 and more like a combination of pen-wiper 
 and pincushion, until his puffy breast and 
 shoulders seemed to offer a positive invita- 
 tion to any one who had picked up a pin. 
 But, wonderful! according to his brief 
 story he had been so proficient in the 
 goose step that he had been put in uniform 
 
16 UNSER KARL 
 
 already, and allowed certain small privileges, 
 among them, evidently, the present one. 
 The consul smiled and passed on. But it 
 seemed strange to him that Trudschen, who 
 was a tall strapping girl, exceedingly popu= 
 lar with the military, and who had never 
 looked lower than a corporal at least, should 
 accept the attentions of an Einjahriger like 
 that. Later he interrogated her. 
 
 Ach ! it was only Unser Karl ! And the 
 consul knew he was Amerikanisch ! 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 "Yes! It was such a tearful story! " 
 
 "Tell me what it is," said the consul, with 
 a faint hope that Karl had volunteered some 
 communication of his past. 
 
 "Ach Gott! There in America he was 
 a man, and could ' vote,' make laws, and, 
 God willing, become a town councilor, 
 or Ober Intendant, and here he was no- 
 thing but a soldier for years. And this 
 America was a fine country. Wunderschon I 
 There were such big cities, and one 
 * Booflo ' could hold all Schlachtstadt, 
 and had of people five hundred thousand! " 
 
 The consul sighed. Karl had evidently 
 not yet got off the line of the New York 
 Central and Erie roads. "But does he re- 
 
UN8ER KARL 17 
 
 member yet what he did with his papers ? w 
 said the consul persuasively. 
 
 " Ach ! What does he want with papers 
 when he could make the laws? They were 
 dumb, stupid things these papers to 
 him." 
 
 "But his appetite remains good, I hope? " 
 suggested the consul. 
 
 This closed the conversation, although 
 Karl came on many other nights, and his 
 toy figure quite supplanted the tall corporal 
 of hussars in the remote shadows of the hall. 
 One night, however, the consul returned 
 home from a visit to a neighboring town a 
 day earlier than he was expected. As he 
 neared his house he was a little surprised 
 to find the windows of his sitting-room lit 
 up, and that there were no signs of Trud- 
 schen in the lower hall or passages. He 
 made his way upstairs in the dark and pushed 
 open the door of his apartment. To his as- 
 tonishment, Karl was sitting comfortably in 
 his own chair, his cap off before a student- 
 lamp on the table, deeply engaged in appar- 
 ent study. So profound was his abstraction 
 that it was a moment before he looked up, 
 and the consul had a good look at his usually 
 beaming and responsive face, which, how- 
 
18 UNSEB KARL 
 
 ever, now struck him as wearing a singular 
 air of thought and concentration. When 
 their eyes at last met, he rose instantly and 
 saluted, and his beaming smile returned. 
 But, either from his natural phlegm or ex- 
 traordinary self-control, he betrayed neither 
 embarrassment nor alarm. 
 
 The explanation he gave was direct and 
 simple. Trudschen had gone out with the 
 Corporal Fritz for a short walk, and had 
 asked him to "keep house " during their ab- 
 sence. He had no books, no papers, nothing 
 to read in the barracks, and no chance to 
 improve his mind. He thought the Herr 
 Consul would not object to his looking at 
 his books. The consul was touched; it was 
 really a trivial indiscretion, and as much 
 Trudschen's fault as Karl's! And if the 
 poor fellow had any mind to improve, his 
 recent attitude certainly suggested thought 
 and reflection, the consul were a brute to 
 reprove him. He smiled pleasantly as Karl 
 returned a stubby bit of pencil and some 
 greasy memoranda to his breast pocket, and 
 glanced at the table. But to his surprise it 
 was a large map that Karl had been study- 
 ing, and, to his still greater surprise, a map 
 of the consul's own district. 
 
UNSER EARL 19 
 
 "You seem to be fond of map-studying," 
 said the consul pleasantly. "You are not 
 thinking of emigrating again?" 
 
 "Ach, no!" said Karl simply; "it is my 
 cousine vot haf lif near here. I find her." 
 
 But he left on Trudschen's return, and 
 the consul was surprised to see that, while 
 Karl's attitude towards her had not changed, 
 the girl exhibited less effusiveness than be- 
 fore. Believing it to be partly the effect of 
 the return of the corporal, the consul taxed 
 her with faithlessness. But Trudschen 
 looked grave. 
 
 " Ah ! He has new friends, this Karl of 
 ours. He cares no more for poor girls like 
 us. When fine ladies like the old Frau von 
 Wimpfel make much of him, what will 
 you?" 
 
 It appeared, indeed, from Trudschen's ac- 
 count, that the widow of a wealthy shop- 
 keeper had made a kind of protege of the 
 young soldier, and given him presents. Fur- 
 thermore, that the wife of his colonel had 
 employed him to act as page or attendant at 
 an afternoon Gesellschaft, and that since 
 then the wives of other officers had sought 
 him. Did not the Herr Consul think it was 
 dreadful that this American, who could vote 
 
20 UNSER KAEL 
 
 and make laws, should be subjected to such 
 things ? 
 
 The consul did not know what to think. 
 It seemed to him, however, that Karl was 
 "getting on," and that he was not in need 
 of his assistance. It was in the expectation 
 of hearing more about him, however, that 
 he cheerfully accepted an invitation from 
 Adlerkreutz to dine at the Caserne one even- 
 ing with the staff. Here he found, some- 
 what to his embarrassment, that the dinner 
 was partly in his own honor, and at the close 
 of five courses, and the emptying of many 
 bottles, his health was proposed by the gal- 
 lant veteran Adlerkreutz in a neat address 
 of many syllables containing all the parts of 
 speech and a single verb. It was to the effect 
 that in his soul-friend the Herr Consul and 
 himself was the never-to-be-severed union 
 of Germania and Columbia, and in their 
 perfect understanding was the war-defying 
 alliance cf two great nations, and that in the 
 consul's noble restoration of Unser Karl to 
 the German army there was the astute di- 
 plomacy of a great mind. He was satisfied 
 that himself and the Herr Consul still united 
 in the great future, looking down upon a 
 common brotherhood, the great Germanic- 
 
UNSER KARL 21 
 
 American Confederation, would feel sat- 
 isfied with themselves and each other and 
 their never - to - be - forgotten earth - labors. 
 Cries of "Hoch! Hoch ! " resounded through 
 the apartment with the grinding roll of 
 heavy-bottomed beer-glasses, and the con- 
 sul, tremulous with emotion and a reserve 
 verb in his pocket, rose to reply. Fully 
 embarked upon this perilous voyage, and 
 steering wide and clear of any treacherous 
 shore of intelligence or fancied harbor of 
 understanding and rest, he kept boldly out 
 at sea. He said that, while his loving ad- 
 versary in this battle of compliment had dis- 
 armed him and left him no words to reply 
 to his generous panegyric, he could not but 
 join with that gallant soldier in his heartfelt 
 aspirations for the peaceful alliance of both 
 countries. But while he fully reciprocated 
 all his host's broader and higher sentiments, 
 he must point out to this gallant assembly, 
 this glorious brotherhood, that even a greater 
 tie of sympathy knitted him to the general, 
 the tie of kinship ! For while it was well 
 known to the present company that their 
 gallant commander had married an English- 
 woman, he, the consul, although always an 
 American, would now for the first time con- 
 
22 UNSER KARL 
 
 fess to them that he himself was of Dutch 
 descent on his mother's side! He would 
 say no more, but confidently leave them in 
 possession of the tremendous significance of 
 this until-then-unknown fact ! He sat down, 
 with the forgotten verb still in his pocket, 
 but the applause that followed this perfectly 
 conclusive, satisfying, and logical climax 
 convinced him of his success. His hand 
 was grasped eagerly by successive warriors; 
 the general turned and embraced him before 
 the breathless assembly ; there were tears in 
 the consul's eyes. 
 
 As the festivities progressed, however, he 
 found to his surprise that Karl had not only 
 become the fashion as a military page, but 
 that his nai've stupidity and sublime simpli- 
 city was the wondering theme and inexhaus- 
 tible delight of the whole barracks. Stories 
 were told of his genius for blundering which 
 rivaled Handy Andy's; old stories of fatu- 
 ous ignorance were rearranged and fitted to 
 "our Karl." It was "our Karl" who, on 
 receiving a tip of two marks from the hands 
 of a young lady to whom he had brought 
 the bouquet of a gallant lieutenant, exhib- 
 ited some hesitation, and finally said, " Yes, 
 but, gnadiges Fraulein, that cost us nine 
 
UNSER KARL 23 
 
 marks!" It was "our Karl" who, inter- 
 rupting the regrets of another lady that she 
 was unable to accept his master's invitation, 
 said politely, " Ah ! what matter, Gnadigste ? 
 I have still a letter for Fraulein Kopp [her 
 rival], and I was told that I must not invite 
 you both." It was "our Karl" who aston- 
 ished the hostess to whom he was sent at 
 the last moment with apologies from an offi- 
 cer, unexpectedly detained at barrack duty, 
 by suggesting that he should bring that un- 
 fortunate officer his dinner from the just 
 served table. Nor were these charming in- 
 felicities confined to his social and domestic 
 service. Although ready, mechanical, and 
 invariably docile in the manual and physical 
 duties of a soldier, which endeared him to 
 the German drill-master, he was still in- 
 vincibly ignorant as to its purport, or even 
 the meaning and structure of the military 
 instruments he handled or vacantly looked 
 upon. It was "our Karl" who suggested 
 to his instructors that in field-firing it was 
 quicker and easier to load his musket to the 
 muzzle at once, and get rid of its death-deal- 
 ing contents at a single discharge, than to 
 load and fire consecutively. It was "our 
 Karl" who nearly killed the instructor at 
 
24 UNSER KARL 
 
 sentry drill by adhering to the letter of his 
 instructions when that instructor had forgot- 
 ten the password. It was the same Karl 
 who, severely admonished for his reckless- 
 ness, the next time added to his challenge 
 the precaution, "Unless you instantly say 
 'Fatherland 7 I'll fire!" Yet his perfect 
 good humor and childlike curiosity were 
 unmistakable throughout, and incited his 
 comrades and his superiors to show him 
 everything in the hope of getting some char- 
 acteristic comment from him. Everything 
 and everybody were open to Karl and his 
 good-humored simplicity. 
 
 That evening, as the general accompanied 
 the consul down to the gateway and the 
 waiting carriage, a figure in uniform ran 
 spontaneously before them and shouted 
 "Heraus!" to the sentries. But the gen- 
 eral promptly checked "the turning out" of 
 the guard with a paternal shake of his finger 
 to the over-zealous soldier, in whom the con- 
 sul recognized Karl. "He is my Bursche 
 now," said the general explanatorily. "My 
 wife has taken a fancy to him. Ach ! he is 
 very popular with these women." The con- 
 sul was still more surprised. The Frau 
 Generalin Adlerkreutz he knew to be a pro- 
 
UNSEK KARL 25 
 
 nounced Englishwoman, carrying out her 
 English ways, proprieties, and prejudices in 
 the very heart of Schlachtstadt, uncompro- 
 misingly, without fear and without reproach. 
 That she should follow a merely foreign so- 
 ciety craze, or alter her English household 
 so as to admit the impossible Karl, struck 
 him oddly. 
 
 A month or two elapsed without further 
 news of Karl, when one afternoon he sud- 
 denly turned up at the consulate. He had 
 again sought the consular quiet to write a 
 few letters home; he had no chance in the 
 confinement of the barracks. 
 
 "But by this time you must be in the 
 family of a field-marshal, at least," sug- 
 gested the consul pleasantly. 
 
 "Not to-day, but next week," said Karl, 
 with sublime simplicity; "then I am going 
 to serve with the governor commandant of 
 Kheinfestung." 
 
 The consul smiled, motioned him to a 
 seat at a table in the outer office, and left 
 him undisturbed to his correspondence. 
 
 Returning later, he found Karl, his let- 
 ters finished, gazing with childish curiosity 
 and admiration at some thick official envel- 
 opes., bearing the stamp of the consulate, 
 
26 UNSER EARL 
 
 which were lying on the table. He was evi 
 dently struck with the contrast between them 
 and the thin, flimsy affairs he was holding 
 in his hand. He appeared still more im- 
 pressed when the consul told him what they 
 were. 
 
 "Are you writing to your friends?" con- 
 tinued the consul, touched by his simplicity. 
 
 "Ach ja! " said Karl eagerly. 
 
 " Would you like to put your letter in one 
 of these envelopes? " continued the official. 
 
 The beaming face and eyes of Karl were 
 a sufficient answer. After all, it was a 
 small favor granted to this odd waif, who 
 seemed to still cling to the consular protec- 
 tion. He handed him the envelope and left 
 him addressing it in boyish pride. 
 
 It was Karl's last visit to the consulate. 
 He appeared to have spoken truly, and the 
 consul presently learned that he had indeed 
 been transferred, through some high official 
 manipulation, to the personal service of the 
 governor of Rheinfestung. There was weep- 
 ing among the Dienstmadchen of Schlacht- 
 stadt, and a distinct loss of originality and 
 lightness in the gatherings of the gentler 
 Hausfrauen. His memory still survived in 
 the barracks through the later editions of 
 
UNSER KAEL 27 
 
 bis former delightful stupidities, many of 
 them, it is to be feared, were inventions, - 
 and stories that were supposed to have come 
 from Rheinfestung were described in the 
 slang of the Offiziere as being "colossal." 
 But the consul remembered Rheinfestung, 
 and could not imagine it as a home for Karl, 
 or in any way fostering his peculiar quali- 
 ties. For it was eminently a fortress of for- 
 tresses, a magazine of magazines, a depot of 
 depots. It was the key of the Rhine, the 
 citadel of Westphalia, the "Clapham Junc- 
 tion " of German railways, but defended, 
 fortified, encompassed, and controlled by the 
 newest as well as the oldest devices of mili- 
 tary strategy and science. Even in the pip- 
 ingest time of peace, whole railway trains 
 went into it like a rat in a trap, and might 
 have never come out of it; it stretched out 
 an inviting hand and arm across the river 
 that might in the twinkling of an eye be 
 changed into a closed fist of menace. You 
 "defiled" into it, commanded at every step 
 by enfilading walls; you "debouched" out 
 of it, as you thought, and found yourself 
 only before the walls; you "reentered" ifc 
 at every possible angle ; you did everything 
 apparently but pass through it. You thought 
 
28 UNSEE KAEL 
 
 yourself well out of it, and were stopped by 
 a bastion. Its circumvallations haunted 
 you until you came to the next station. It 
 had pressed even the current of the river 
 into its defensive service. There were se- 
 crets of its foundations and mines that only 
 the highest military despots knew and kept 
 to themselves. In a word it was impreg- 
 nable. 
 
 That such a place could not be trifled with 
 or misunderstood in its right-and-acute-an- 
 gled severities seemed plain to every one. 
 But set on by his companions, who were 
 showing him its defensive foundations, or in 
 his own idle curiosity, Karl managed to fall 
 into the Rhine and was fished out with diffi- 
 culty. The immersion may have chilled his 
 military ardor or soured his good humor, 
 for later the consul heard that he had visited 
 the American consular agent at an adjacent 
 town with the old story of his American citi- 
 zenship. "He seemed," said the consul's 
 colleague, "to be well posted about Ameri- 
 can railways and American towns, but he 
 had no papers. He lounged around the 
 office for a while and " 
 
 "Wrote letters home?" suggested the 
 consul, with a flash of reminiscence. 
 
UNSEE KARL 29 
 
 "Yes, the poor chap had no privacy at 
 the barracks, and I reckon was overlooked 
 or bedeviled." 
 
 This was the last the consul heard of Karl 
 Schwartz directly; for a week or two later 
 he again fell into the Rhine, this time so 
 fatally and effectually that in spite of the 
 efforts of his companions he was swept away 
 by the rapid current, and thus ended his 
 service to his country. His body was never 
 recovered. 
 
 A few months before the consul was trans- 
 ferred from Schlachtstadt to another post his 
 memory of the departed Karl was revived 
 by a visit from Adlerkreutz. The general 
 looked grave. 
 
 "You remember Unser Karl?" he said. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Do you think he was an impostor?" 
 
 "As regards his American citizenship, 
 yes! But I could not say more." 
 
 "So! " said the general. "A very singu- 
 lar thing has happened," he added, twirling 
 his mustache. "The inspector of police 
 has notified us of the arrival of a Karl 
 Schwartz in this town. It appears he is the 
 real Karl Schwartz, identified by his sister 
 as the only one. The other, who was 
 drowned, was an impostor. Hein? " 
 
30 UNSER KARL 
 
 "Then you have secured another recruit? " 
 said the consul smilingly. 
 
 "No. For this one has already served 
 his time in Elsass, where he went when he 
 left here as a boy. But, Donnerwetter, 
 why should that dumb fool take his name ? " 
 
 "By chance, I fancy. Then he stupidly 
 stuck to it, and had to take the responsibili- 
 ties with it. Don't you see?" said the con- 
 sul, pleased with his own cleverness. 
 
 "Zo-o!" said the general slowly, in his 
 deepest voice. But the German exclama- 
 tion has a variety of significance, according 
 to the inflection, and Adlerkreutz's ejacula- 
 tion seemed to contain them all. 
 
 It was in Paris, where the consul had lin- 
 gered on his way to his new post. He was 
 sitting in a well-known cafe, among whose 
 habitues were several military officers of 
 high rank. A group of them were gathered 
 round a table near him. He was idly watch- 
 ing them with an odd recollection of Schlacht- 
 stadt in his mind, and as idly glancing from 
 them to the more attractive Boulevard with- 
 out. The consul was getting a little tired 
 of soldiers. 
 
 Suddenly there was a slight stir in the 
 
UNSER KARL 31 
 
 gesticulating group and a cry of greeting. 
 The consul looked up mechanically, and then 
 his eyes remained fixed and staring at the 
 newcomer. For it was the dead Karl ; Karl, 
 surely ! Karl ! his plump figure belted in 
 a French officer's tunic; his flaxen hair 
 clipped a little closer, but still its fleece 
 showing under his kepi. Karl, his cheeks 
 more cherubic than ever unchanged but 
 for a tiny yellow toy mustache curling up 
 over the corners of his full lips. Karl, 
 beaming at his companions in his old way, 
 but rattling off French vivacities without 
 the faintest trace of accent. Could he be 
 mistaken? Was it some phenomenal re- 
 semblance, or had the soul of the German 
 private been transmigrated to the French 
 officer. 
 
 The consul hurriedly called the garqon. 
 "Who is that officer who has just arrived? " 
 
 "It is the Captain Christian, of the In- 
 telligence Bureau," said the waiter, with 
 proud alacrity. "A famous officer, brave 
 as a rabbit, un fier lapin, and one of our 
 best clients. So drole, too, such & farceur 
 and mimic. M'sieur would be ravished to 
 hear his imitations." 
 
 "But he looks like a German; and his 
 name! " 
 
32 UNSER KARL 
 
 "Ah, he is from Alsace. But not a Ger- 
 man ! " said the waiter, absolutely whitening 
 with indignation. "He was at Belfort. 
 So was I. Mon Dieu! No, a thousand 
 times no ! " 
 
 "But has he been living here long? " said 
 the consul. 
 
 "In Paris, a few months. But his De- 
 partment, M'sieur understands, takes him 
 everywhere ! Everywhere where he can gain 
 information." 
 
 The consul's eyes were still on the Cap- 
 tain Christian. Presently the officer, per- 
 haps instinctively conscious of the scrutiny, 
 looked towards him. Their eyes met. To 
 the consul's surprise, the ci-devant Karl 
 beamed upon him, and advanced with out- 
 stretched hand. 
 
 But the consul stiffened slightly, and re- 
 mained so with his glass in his hand. At 
 which Captain Christian brought his own 
 easily to a military salute, and said po- 
 litely: 
 
 "Monsieur le Consul has been promoted 
 from his post. Permit me to congratulate 
 him." 
 
 "You have heard, then?" said the consul 
 dryly. 
 
UNSEE KAEL 
 " 
 
 Otherwise I should not presume. For 
 our Department makes it a business in 
 Monsieur le Consul's case it becomes a plea- 
 sure to know everything." 
 
 "Did your Department know that the 
 real Karl Schwartz has returned? " said the 
 consul dryly. 
 
 Captain Christian shrugged his shoulders. 
 "Then it appears that the sham Karl died 
 none too soon," he said lightly. "And yet " 
 he bent his eyes with mischievous re- 
 proach upon the consul. 
 
 " Yet what ? " demanded the consul sternly. 
 
 " Monsieur le Consul might have saved the 
 unfortunate man by accepting him as an 
 American citizen and not helping to force 
 him into the German service." 
 
 The consul saw in a flash the full military 
 significance of this logic, and could not re- 
 press a smile. At which Captain Christian 
 dropped easily into a chair beside him, and 
 as easily into broken German English : 
 
 "Und," he went on, "dees town dees 
 Schlachtstadt is fine town, eh? Fine wo- 
 mens ? Goot men ? Und peer and sausage ? 
 Blenty to eat and trink, eh ? Und you und 
 te poys haf a gay times? " 
 
 The consul tried to recover his dignity, 
 
84 UNSER KAEL 
 
 The waiter behind him, recognizing only 
 the delightful mimicry of this adorable offi- 
 cer, was in fits of laughter. Nevertheless, 
 the consul managed to say dryly : 
 
 "And the barracks, the magazines, the 
 commissariat, the details, the reserves of 
 Schlachtstadt were very interesting? " 
 
 "Assuredly." 
 
 " And Rheinf estung its plans its de- 
 tails, even its dangerous foundations by the 
 river they were to a soldier singularly in- 
 structive?" 
 
 "You have reason to say so," said Cap- 
 tain Christian, curling his little mustache. 
 
 "And the fortress you think? " 
 
 " Impr enable ! Mais " 
 
 The consul remembered General Adler- 
 kreutz's "Zo-o," and wondered. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 THEY were partners. The avuncular title 
 was bestowed on them by Cedar Camp, pos- 
 sibly in recognition of a certain matured 
 good humor, quite distinct from the spas- 
 modic exuberant spirits of its other mem- 
 bers, and possibly from what, to its youth- 
 ful sense, seemed their advanced ages 
 which must have been at least forty ! They 
 had also set habits even in their improvi- 
 dence, lost incalculable and unpayable sums 
 to each other over euchre regularly every 
 evening, and inspected their sluice-boxes 
 punctually every Saturday for repairs 
 which they never made. They even got to 
 resemble each other, after the fashion of 
 old married couples, or, rather, as in matri- 
 monial partnerships, were subject to the dom- 
 ination of the stronger character; although 
 in their case it is to be feared that it was 
 the feminine Uncle Billy enthusiastic, im- 
 aginative, and loquacious who swayed the 
 masculine, steady-going, and practical Un- 
 
36 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 cle Jim. They had lived in the camp since 
 its foundation in 1849; there seemed to be 
 no reason why they should not remain there 
 until its inevitable evolution into a mining- 
 town. The younger members might leave 
 through restless ambition or a desire for 
 change or novelty; they were subject to no 
 such trifling mutation. Yet Cedar Camp 
 was surprised one day to hear that Uncle 
 Billy was going away. 
 
 The rain was softly falling on the bark 
 thatch of the cabin with a muffled murmur, 
 like a sound heard through sleep. The 
 southwest trades were warm even at that 
 altitude, as the open door testified, although 
 a fire of pine bark was flickering on the 
 adobe hearth and striking out answering 
 fires from the freshly scoured culinary uten- 
 sils on the rude sideboard, which Uncle Jim 
 had cleaned that morning with his usual se- 
 rious persistency. Their best clothes, which 
 were interchangeable and worn alternately 
 by each other on festal occasions, hung on 
 the walls, which were covered with a coarse 
 sailcloth canvas instead of lath-and-plaster, 
 and were diversified by pictures from illus- 
 trated papers and stains from the exterior 
 weather. Two "bunks," like ships' berths. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 37 
 
 an upper and lower one, occupied the 
 gable-end of this single apartment, and on 
 beds of coarse sacking, filled with dry moss, 
 were carefully rolled their respective blan- 
 kets and pillows. They were the only arti- 
 cles not used in common, and whose indi- 
 viduality was respected. 
 
 Uncle Jim, who had been sitting before 
 the fire, rose as the square bulk of his part- 
 ner appeared at the doorway with an armful 
 of wood for the evening stove. By that 
 sign he knew it was nine o'clock: for the 
 last six years Uncle Billy had regularly 
 brought in the wood at that hour, and Uncle 
 Jim had as regularly closed the door after 
 him, and set out their single table, contain- 
 ing a greasy pack of cards taken from its 
 drawer, a bottle of whiskey, and two tin 
 drinking-cups. To this was added a ragged 
 memorandum -book and a stick of pencil. 
 The two men drew their stools to the table. 
 
 "Hoi' on a minit," said Uncle Billy. 
 
 His partner laid down the cards as Uncle 
 Billy extracted from his pocket a pill-box, 
 and, opening it, gravely took a pill. This 
 was clearly an innovation on their regular 
 proceedings, for Uncle Billy was always in 
 perfect health. 
 
38 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 "What's this for?" asked Uncle Jim 
 half scornfully. 
 
 "Agin ager." 
 
 "You ain't got no ager," said Uncle Jim, 
 with the assurance of intimate cognizance 
 of his partner's physical condition. 
 
 " But it 's a pow'ful preventive ! Quinine I 
 Saw this box at Riley's store, and laid out 
 a quarter on it. We kin keep it here, com- 
 fortable, for evenings. It 's mighty soothin' 
 arter a man 's done a hard day's work on the 
 river-bar. Take one." 
 
 Uncle Jim gravely took a pill and swal- 
 lowed it, and handed the box back to his 
 partner. 
 
 "We'll leave it on the table, sociable 
 like, in case any of the boys come in," said 
 Uncle Billy, taking up the cards. "Well. 
 How do we stand?" 
 
 Uncle Jim consulted the memorandum- 
 book. "You were owin' me sixty-two thou- 
 sand dollars on the last game, and the limit 's 
 seventy -five thousand! " 
 
 " Je whillikins! " ejaculated Uncle Billy. 
 "Let me see." 
 
 He examined the book, feebly attempted 
 to challenge the additions, but with no effect 
 on the total. "We oughter hev made the 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 39 
 
 limit a hundred thousand," he said seriously; 
 "seventy-five thousand is only triflin' in a 
 game like ours. And you 've set down my 
 claim at Angel's? " he continued. 
 
 "I allowed you ten thousand dollars for 
 that," said Uncle Jim, with equal gravity, 
 "and it 's a fancy price too." 
 
 The claim in question being an unpro- 
 spected hillside ten miles distant, which Un- 
 cle Jim had never seen, and Uncle Billy had 
 not visited for years, the statement was prob- 
 ably true; nevertheless, Uncle Billy re- 
 torted : 
 
 "Ye kin never tell how these things will 
 pan out. Why, only this mornin' I was 
 taking a turn round Shot Up Hill, that ye 
 know is just rotten with quartz and gold, 
 and I couldn't help thinkin' how much it 
 was like my ole claim at Angel's. I must 
 take a day off to go on there and strike a 
 pick in it, if only for luck." 
 
 Suddenly he paused and said, "Strange, 
 ain't it, you should speak of it to-night? 
 Now I call that queer! " 
 
 He laid down his cards and gazed myste- 
 riously at his companion. Uncle Jim knew 
 perfectly that Uncle Billy had regularly once 
 a week for many years declared his final 
 
40 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 determination to go over to Angel's and 
 prospect his claim, yet nevertheless he half 
 responded to his partner's suggestion of 
 mystery, and a look of fatuous wonder crept 
 into his eyes. But he contented himself by 
 saying cautiously, "You spoke of it first." 
 
 "That 's the more sing'lar," said Uncle 
 Billy confidently. "And I 've been think- 
 ing about it, and kinder seeing myself thar 
 all day. It 's mighty queer! " He got up 
 and began to rummage among some torn 
 and coverless books in the corner. 
 
 "Where 's that 4 Dream Book ' gone to? " 
 
 "The Carson boys borrowed it," replied 
 Uncle Jim. "Anyhow, yours wasn't no 
 dream only a kind o' vision, and the book 
 don't take no stock in visions." Neverthe- 
 less, he watched his partner with some sym- 
 pathy, and added, "That reminds me that I 
 Lad a dream the other night of being in 
 'Frisco at a small hotel, with heaps o' 
 money, and all the time being sort o' scared 
 and bewildered over it." 
 
 "No?" queried his partner eagerly yet 
 reproachfully. "You never let on anything 
 about it to me I It 's mighty queer you hav- 
 in' these strange feelin's, for I 've had 
 'em myself. And only to-night, comin' up 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 41 
 
 from the spring, I saw two crows hopping 
 in the trail, and I says, ' If I see another, 
 it 's luck, sure ! ' And you '11 think I 'm 
 lyin', but when I went to the wood-pile just 
 now there was the third one sittin' up on a 
 log as plain as I see you. Tell 'e what folks 
 ken laugh but that 's just what Jim Filgee 
 saw the night before he made the big strike ! " 
 
 They were both smiling, yet with an un- 
 derlying credulity and seriousness as singu- 
 larly pathetic as it seemed incongruous to 
 their years and intelligence. Small wonder, 
 however, that in their occupation and envi- 
 ronment living daily in an atmosphere of 
 hope, expectation, and chance, looking for- 
 ward each morning to the blind stroke of a 
 pick that might bring fortune they should 
 see signs in nature and hear mystic voices 
 in the trackless woods that surrounded them. 
 Still less strange that they were peculiarly 
 susceptible to the more recognized diversions 
 of chance, and were gamblers on the turning 
 of a card who trusted to the revelation of a 
 shovelful of upturned earth. 
 
 It was quite natural, therefore, that they 
 should return from their abstract form of 
 divination to the table and their cards. But 
 they were scarcely seated before they heard 
 
42 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 a crackling step in the brush outside, and 
 the free latch of their door was lifted. A 
 younger member of the camp entered. He 
 uttered a peevish "Halloo!" which might 
 have passed for a greeting, or might have 
 been a slight protest at finding the door 
 closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim 
 had just risen before the fire, shook his wet 
 clothes like a Newfoundland dog, and sat 
 down. Yet he was by no means churlish 
 nor coarse-looking, and this act was rather 
 one of easy-going, selfish, youthful familiar- 
 ity than of rudeness. The cabin of Uncles 
 Billy and Jim was considered a public right 
 or "common" of the camp. Conferences 
 between individual miners were appointed 
 there. "I'll meet you at Uncle Billy's" 
 was a common tryst. Added to this was a 
 tacit claim upon the partners' arbitrative 
 powers, or the equal right to request them 
 to step outside if the interviews were of a 
 private nature. Yet there was never any 
 objection on the part of the partners, and 
 to-night there was not a shadow of resent- 
 ment of this intrusion in the patient, good- 
 humored, tolerant eyes of Uncles Jim and 
 Billy as they gazed at their guest. Perhaps 
 there was a slight gleam of relief in Uncle 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 43 
 
 Jim's when he found that the guest was un- 
 accompanied by any one, and that it was 
 not a tryst. It would have been unpleasant 
 for the two partners to have stayed out in 
 the rain while their guests were exchanging 
 private confidences in their cabin. While 
 there might have been no limit to their good 
 will, there might have been some to their 
 capacity for exposure. 
 
 Uncle Jim drew a huge log from beside 
 the hearth and sat on the driest end of it, 
 while their guest occupied the stool. The 
 young man, without turning away from his 
 discontented, peevish brooding over the fire, 
 vaguely reached backward for the whiskey- 
 bottle and Uncle Billy's tin cup, to which 
 he was assisted by the latter 's hospitable 
 hand. But on setting down the cup his eye 
 caught sight of the pill-box. 
 
 "Wot's that?" he said, with gloomy 
 scorn. " Rat poison ? " 
 
 "Quinine pills agin ager," said Uncle 
 Jim. "The newest thing out. Keeps out 
 damp like In j in -rubber ! Take one to follow 
 yer whiskey. Me and Uncle Billy would n't 
 think o' settin' down, quiet like, in the even- 
 ing arter work, without 'em. Take one 
 ye V welcome! We keep 'em out here for 
 the boys." 
 
44 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Accustomed as the partners were to adopt 
 and wear each other's opinions before folks, 
 as they did each other's clothing, Uncle 
 Billy was, nevertheless, astonished and de- 
 lighted at Uncle Jim's enthusiasm over his 
 pills. The guest took one and swallowed it. 
 
 "Mighty bitter! " he said, glancing at his 
 hosts with the quick Californian suspicion 
 of some practical joke. But the honest faces 
 of the partners reassured him. 
 
 "That bitterness ye taste," said Uncle 
 Jim quickly, "is whar the thing 's gittin' in 
 its work. Sorter sickenin' the malaria 
 and kinder water-proofin' the insides all to 
 onct and at the same lick! Don't yer see? 
 Put another in yer vest pocket; you'll be 
 cry in' for 'em like a child afore ye get home. 
 Thar! Well, how's things agoin' on your 
 claim, Dick? Boomin', eh?" 
 
 The guest raised his head and turned it 
 sufficiently to fling his answer back over his 
 shoulder at his hosts. "I don't know what 
 you 'd call ' boomin',' " he said gloomily ; "I 
 suppose you two men sitting here comfort- 
 ably by the fire, without caring whether 
 school keeps or not, would call two feet of 
 backwater over one's claim 'boomin';' I 
 reckon you 'd consider a hundred and fifty 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 45 
 
 feet of sluicing carried away, and drifting 
 to thunder down the South Fork, something 
 in the way of advertising to your old camp' 
 I suppose you 'd think it was an inducement 
 to investors! I shouldn't wonder," he 
 added still more gloomily, as a sudden dash 
 of rain down the wide-throated chimney 
 dropped in his tin cup " and it would be 
 just like you two chaps, sittin' there gor- 
 mandizing over your quinine if yer said 
 this rain that 's lasted three weeks was some- 
 thing to be proud of ! " 
 
 It was the cheerful and the satisfying cus- 
 tom of the rest of the camp, for no reason 
 whatever, to hold Uncle Jim and Uncle 
 Billy responsible for its present location, its 
 vicissitudes, the weather, or any convulsion 
 of nature; and it was equally the partners' 
 habit, for no reason whatever, to accept 
 these animadversions and apologize. 
 
 "It 's a rain that 's soft and mellowm'," 
 said Uncle Billy gently, "and supplin' to 
 the sinews and muscles. Did ye ever no- 
 tice, Jim " ostentatiously to his partner 
 "did ye ever notice that you get inter a 
 kind o' sweaty lather workin' in it? Sorter 
 openin' to the pores! " 
 
 "Fetches 'em every time," said Uncle 
 Billy. "Better nor fancy soap." 
 
46 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Their guest laughed bitterly. "Well, 
 I 'm going to leave it to you. I reckon to 
 cut the whole concern to-morrow, and ' lite ' 
 out for something new. It can't be worse 
 than this." 
 
 The two partners looked grieved, albeit 
 they were accustomed to these outbursts. 
 Everybody who thought of going away from 
 Cedar Camp used it first as a threat to these 
 patient men, after the fashion of runaway 
 nephews, or made an exemplary scene of 
 their going. 
 
 "Better think twice afore ye go," said 
 Uncle Billy. 
 
 "I 've seen worse weather afore ye came," 
 said Uncle Jim slowly. "Water all over 
 the Bar; the mud so deep ye couldn't get 
 to Angel's for a sack o' flour, and we had 
 to grub on pine nuts and jackass-rabbits. 
 And yet we stuck by the camp, and here 
 we are ! " 
 
 The mild answer apparently goaded their 
 guest to fury. He rose from his seat, threw 
 back his long dripping hair from his hand- 
 some but querulous face, and scattered a 
 few drops on the partners. "Yes, that's 
 just it. That 's what gets me! Here you 
 stick, and here you are ! And here you 'U 
 
UNCLE JIN AND UNCLE BILLY 47 
 
 stick and rust until you starve or drown 1 
 Here you are, two men who ought to be 
 out in the world, playing your part as grown 
 men, stuck here like children ' playing 
 house ' in the woods ; playing work in your 
 wretched mud - pie ditches, and content. 
 Two men not so old that you mightn't be 
 taking your part in the fun of the world, 
 going to balls or theatres, or paying atten- 
 tion to girls, and yet old enough to have 
 married and have your families around you, 
 content to stay in this God-forsaken place; 
 old bachelors, pigging together like poor- 
 house paupers. That 's what gets me! Say 
 you like it? Say you expect by hanging on 
 to make a strike and what does that 
 amount to ? What are your chances ? How 
 many of us have made, or are making, more 
 than grub wages ? Say you 're willing to 
 share and share alike as you do have you 
 got enough for two? Aren't you actually 
 living off each other? Are n't you grinding 
 each other down, choking each other's strug- 
 gles, as you sink together deeper and deeper 
 in the mud of this cussed camp ? And while 
 you 're doing this, are n't you, by your age 
 and position here, holding out hopes to oth- 
 ers that you know cannot be fulfilled? " 
 
48 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Accustomed as they were to the half -queru- 
 lous, half -humorous, but always extravagant, 
 criticism of the others, there was something 
 so new in this arraignment of themselves 
 that the partners for a moment sat silent. 
 There was a slight flush on Uncle Billy's 
 cheek, there was a slight paleness on Uncle 
 Jim's. He was the first to reply. But he 
 did so with a certain dignity which neither 
 his partner nor their guest had ever seen on 
 his face before. 
 
 "As it's our fire that's warmed ye up 
 like this, Dick Bullen," he said, slowly ris- 
 ing, with his hand resting on Uncle Billy's 
 shoulder, "and as it 's our whiskey that 's 
 loosened your tongue, I reckon we must put 
 up with what ye V saying, just as we 've 
 managed to put up with our own way o' liv- 
 ing, and not quo '11 with ye under our own 
 roof." 
 
 The young fellow saw the change in Uncle 
 Jim's face and quickly extended his hand, 
 with an apologetic backward shake of his 
 long hair. "Hang it all, old man," he said, 
 with a laugh of mingled contrition and amuse- 
 ment, "you mustn't mind what I said just 
 now. I 've been so worried thinking of 
 things about myself, and, maybe, a little 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 49 
 
 about you, that I quite forgot I had n't a call 
 to preach to anybody least of all to you. 
 So we part friends, Uncle Jim, and you too, 
 Uncle Billy, and you '11 forget what I said. 
 In fact, I don't know why I spoke at all 
 only I was passing your claim just now, and 
 wondering how much longer your old sluice - 
 boxes would hold out, and where in thun- 
 der you 'd get others when they caved in ! 
 I reckon that sent me off. That 's all, old 
 chap!" 
 
 Uncle Billy's face broke into a beaming 
 smile of relief, and it was his hand that first 
 grasped his guest's; Uncle Jim quickly fol- 
 lowed with as honest a pressure, but with 
 eyes that did not seem to be looking at Bul- 
 len, though all trace of resentment had died 
 out of them. He walked to the door with 
 him, again shook hands, but remained look- 
 ing out in the darkness some time after Dick 
 Bullen's tangled hair and broad shoulders 
 had disappeared. 
 
 Meantime, Uncle Billy had resumed his 
 seat and was chuckling and reminiscent as 
 he cleaned out his pipe. 
 
 "Kinder reminds me of Jo Sharp, when 
 he was cleaned out at poker by his own 
 partners in his own cabin, comin' up here 
 
50 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 and bedevilin' us about it! What was it 
 you lint him ? " 
 
 But Uncle Jim did not reply; and Uncle 
 Billy, taking up the cards, began to shuffle 
 them, smiling vaguely, yet at the same time 
 somewhat painfully. " Arter all, Dick was 
 mighty cut up about what he said, and I 
 felt kinder sorry for him. And, you know, 
 I rather cotton to a man that speaks his 
 mind. Sorter clears him out, you know, of 
 all the slumgullion that 's in him. It 's just 
 like washin' out a pan o' prospecting: you 
 pour in the water, and keep slushing it 
 round and round, and out conies first the 
 mud and dirt, and then the gravel, and then 
 the black sand, and then it 's all out, and 
 there 's a speck o' gold glistenin' at the bot- 
 tom!" 
 
 "Then you think there was suthin' in 
 what he said?" said Uncle Jim, facing 
 about slowly. 
 
 An odd tone in his voice made Uncle Billy 
 look up. "No," he said quickly, shying 
 with the instinct of an easy pleasure -loving 
 nature from a possible grave situation. " No, 
 I don't think he ever got the color! But 
 wot are ye moonin' about for? Ain't ye 
 goin' to play? It 's mor' 'n half past nine 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 51 
 
 Thus adjured, Uncle Jim moved up to 
 the table and sat down, while Uncle Billy 
 dealt the cards, turning up the Jack or right 
 bower but without that exclamation of 
 delight which always accompanied his good 
 fortune, nor did Uncle Jim respond with 
 the usual corresponding simulation of deep 
 disgust. Such a circumstance had not oc- 
 curred before in the history of their part- 
 nership. They both played in silence a 
 silence only interrupted by a larger splash 
 of raindrops down the chimney. 
 
 " We orter put a couple of stones on the 
 chimney-top, edgewise, like Jack Curtis 
 does. It keeps out the rain without inter- 
 ferin' with the draft," said Uncle Billy 
 musingly. 
 
 "What's the use if" 
 
 "If what?" said Uncle Billy quietly. 
 
 "If we don't make it broader," said Uncle 
 Jim half wearily. 
 
 They both stared at the chimney, but 
 Uncle Jim's eye followed the wall around to 
 the bunks. There were many discolorations 
 on the canvas, and a picture of the Goddess 
 of Liberty from an illustrated paper had 
 broken out in a kind of damp, measly erup- 
 tion. "I '11 stick that funny handbill of the 
 
52 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 ' Washin' Soda ' I got at the grocery store 
 the other day right over the Liberty gal. 
 It 's a mighty perty woman washin' with 
 short sleeves," said Uncle Billy. "That's 
 the comfort of them picters, you kin always 
 get somethin' new, and it adds thickness to 
 the wall." 
 
 Uncle Jim went back to the cards in si- 
 lence. After a moment he rose again, and 
 hung his overcoat against the door. 
 
 "Wind 's comin' in," he said briefly. 
 
 "Yes," said Uncle Billy cheerfully, "but 
 it wouldn't seem nat'ral if there wasn't 
 that crack in the door to let the sunlight in 
 o' mornin's. Makes a kind o' sundial, you 
 know. When the streak o' light 's in that 
 corner, I says ' six o'clock ! ' when it 's across 
 the chimney I say ' seven ! ' and so 't is ! " 
 
 It certainly had grown chilly, and the 
 wind was rising. The candle guttered and 
 flickered; the embers on the hearth bright- 
 ened occasionally, as if trying to dispel the 
 gathering shadows, but always ineffectually. 
 The game was frequently interrupted by the 
 necessity of stirring the fire. After an in- 
 terval of gloom, in which each partner suc- 
 cessively drew the candle to his side to ex- 
 amine his cards, Uncle Jim said : 
 
 "Say?" 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 5S 
 
 "Well! " responded Uncle Billy. 
 
 "Are you sure you saw that third crow 
 on the wood-pile? " 
 
 " Sure as I see you now and a darned 
 sight plainer. Why ? " 
 
 "Nothin', I was just thinkin'. Look 
 here ! How do we stand now ? " 
 
 Uncle Billy was still losing. " Neverthe- 
 less," he said cheerfully, "I 'm owin' you a 
 matter of sixty thousand dollars." 
 
 Uncle Jim examined the book abstract- 
 edly. "Suppose," he said slowly, but with- 
 out looking at his partner, "suppose, as it 's 
 gettin' late now, we play for my half share 
 of the claim agin the limit seventy thou- 
 sand to square up." 
 
 "Your half share ! " repeated Uncle Billy, 
 with amused incredulity. 
 
 " My half share of the claim, of this yer 
 house, you know, one half of all that Dick 
 Bullen calls our rotten starvation property," 
 reiterated Uncle Jim, with a half smile. 
 
 Uncle Billy laughed. It was a novel 
 idea; it was, of course, "all in the air," like 
 the rest of their game, yet even then he had 
 an odd feeling that he wovdd have liked Dick 
 Bullen to have known it. "Wade in, old 
 pard," he said. "I 'm on it." 
 
54 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Uncle Jim lit another candle to reinforce 
 the fading light, and the deal fell to Uncle 
 Billy. He turned up Jack of clubs. He 
 also turned a little redder as he took up his 
 cards, looked at them, and glanced hastily 
 at his partner. "It 's no use playing," he 
 said. "Look here!" He laid down his 
 cards on the table. They were the ace, 
 king and queen of clubs, and Jack of spades, 
 or left bower, which, with the turned- 
 up Jack of clubs, or right bower, com- 
 prised all the winning cards ! 
 
 "By jingo! If we'd been playin' four- 
 handed, say you an' me agin some other 
 ducks, we 'd have made ' four ' in that deal, 
 and h'isted some money eh?" and his 
 eyes sparkled. Uncle Jim, also, had a slight 
 tremulous light in his own. 
 
 "Oh no! I didn't see no three crows 
 this afternoon," added Uncle Billy glee- 
 fully, as his partner, in turn, began to shuffle 
 the cards with laborious and conscientious 
 exactitude. Then dealing, he turned up a 
 heart for trumps. Uncle Billy took up his 
 cards one by one, but when he had finished 
 his face had become as pale as it had been 
 red before. "What's the matter?" said 
 Uncle Jim quickly, his own face growing 
 white. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 55 
 
 Uncle Billy slowly and with breathless 
 awe laid down his cards, face up on the 
 table. It was exactly the same sequence in 
 hearts, with the knave of diamonds added. 
 He could again take every trick. 
 
 They stared at each other with vacant 
 faces and a half -drawn smile of fear. They 
 could hear the wind moaning in the trees 
 beyond ; there was a sudden rattling at the 
 door. Uncle Billy started to his feet, but 
 Uncle Jim caught his arm. "Don't leave 
 the cards! It 's only the wind; sit down," 
 he said in a low awe-hushed voice, "it's 
 your deal; you were two before, and two 
 now, that makes your four; you've only 
 one point to make to win the game. Go 
 on." 
 
 They both poured out a cup of whiskey, 
 smiling vaguely, yet with a certain terror in 
 their eyes. Their hands were cold; the 
 cards slipped from Uncle Billy's benumbed 
 fingers ; when he had shuffled them he passed 
 them to his partner to shuffle them also, but 
 did not speak. When Uncle Jim had shuf- 
 fled them methodically he handed them back 
 fatefully to his partner. Uncle Billy dealt 
 them with a trembling hand. He turned up 
 a club. "If you are sure of these tricks 
 
56 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 you know you 've won," said Uncle Jim in 
 a voice that was scarcely audible. Uncle 
 Billy did not reply, but tremulously laid 
 down the ace and right and left bowers. 
 
 He had won ! 
 
 A feeling of relief came over each, and 
 they laughed hysterically and discordantly. 
 Kidiculous and childish as their contest 
 might have seemed to a looker-on, to each 
 the tension had been as great as that of the 
 greatest gambler, without the gambler's 
 trained restraint, coolness, and composure. 
 Uncle Billy nervously took up the cards 
 again. 
 
 "Don't," said Uncle Jim gravely; "it's 
 no use the luck 's gone now." 
 
 "Just one more deal," pleaded his part- 
 ner. 
 
 Uncle Jim looked at the fire, Uncle Billy 
 hastily dealt, and threw the two hands face 
 up on the table. They were the ordinary 
 average cards. He dealt again, with the 
 same result. "I told you so," said Uncle 
 Jim, without looking up. 
 
 It certainly seemed a tame performance 
 after their wonderful hands, and after an- 
 other trial Uncle Billy threw the cards aside 
 and drew his stool before the fire. " Mighty 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 57 
 
 queer, warn't it?" he said, with reminis- 
 cent awe. "Three times running. Do you 
 know, I felt a kind o' creepy feelin' down 
 my back all the time. Criky ! what luck ! 
 None of the boys would believe it if we told 
 'em least of all that Dick Bullen, who 
 don't believe in luck, anyway. Wonder 
 what he 'd have said ! and, Lord ! how he 'd 
 have looked! Wall! what are you starin' 
 so for? " 
 
 Uncle Jim had faced around, and was 
 gazing at Uncle Billy's good-humored, sim- 
 ple face. "Nothin'!" he said briefly, and 
 his eyes again sought the fire. 
 
 "Then don't look as if you was seein' 
 suthin' you give me the creeps," returned 
 Unole Billy a little petulantly. "Let 's 
 turn in, afore the fire goes out! " 
 
 The fateful cards were put back into the 
 drawer, the table shoved against the wall. 
 The operation of undressing was quickly got 
 over, the clothes they wore being put on top 
 of their blankets. Uncle Billy yawned, "I 
 wonder what kind of a dream I '11 have to- 
 night it oughter be suthin' to explain that 
 luck." This was his "good-night" to his 
 partner. In a few moments he was sound 
 asleep. 
 
58 "UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Not so Uncle Jim. He heard the wind 
 gradually go down, and in the oppressive 
 silence that followed could detect the deep 
 breathing of his companion and the far-off 
 yelp of a coyote. His eyesight becoming 
 accustomed to the semi-darkness, broken 
 only by the scintillation of the dying embers 
 of their fire, he could take in every detail 
 of their sordid cabin and the rude environ- 
 ment in which they had lived so long. The 
 dismal patches on the bark roof, the wretched 
 makeshifts of each day, the dreary prolon- 
 gation of discomfort, were all plain to him 
 now, without the sanguine hope that had 
 made them bearable. And when he shut 
 his eyes upon them, it was only to travel in 
 fancy down the steep mountain side that he 
 had trodden so often to the dreary claim on 
 the overflowed river, to the heaps of "tail- 
 ings " that encumbered it, like empty shells 
 of the hollow, profitless days spent there, 
 which they were always waiting for the stroke 
 of good fortune to clear away. He saw again 
 the rotten "sluicing," through whose hope- 
 less rifts and holes even their scant daily 
 earnings had become scantier. At last he 
 arose, and with infinite gentleness let him- 
 elf down from his berth without disturbing 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 59 
 
 his sleeping partner, and wrapping himself 
 in his blanket, went to the door, which hr 
 noiselessly opened. From the position of { 
 few stars that were glittering in the northern 
 sky he knew that it was yet scarcely mid- 
 night; there were still long, restless hours 
 before the day! In the feverish state into 
 which he had gradually worked himself it 
 seemed to him impossible to wait the coming 
 of the dawn. 
 
 But he was mistaken. For even as he 
 stood there all nature seemed to invade his 
 humble cabin with its free and fragrant 
 breath, and invest him with its great com- 
 panionship. He felt again, in that breath, 
 that strange sense of freedom, that mystic 
 touch of partnership with the birds and 
 beasts, the shrubs and trees, in this greater 
 home before him. It was this vague com- 
 munion that had kept him there, that still 
 held these world-sick, weary workers in 
 their rude cabins on the slopes around him ; 
 and he felt upon his brow that balm that 
 had nightly lulled him and them to sleep 
 and forgetfulness. He closed the door, 
 turned away, crept as noiselessly as before 
 into his bunk again, and presently fell into 
 a profound slumber. 
 
60 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 But when Uncle Billy awoke the next 
 morning he saw it was late; for the sun, 
 piercing the crack of the closed door, was 
 sending a pencil of light across the cold 
 hearth, like a match to rekindle its dead 
 embers. His first thought was of his strange 
 luck the night before, and of disappointment 
 that he had not had the dream of divination 
 that he had looked for. He sprang to the 
 floor, but as he stood upright his glance fell 
 on Uncle Jim's bunk. It was empty. Not 
 only that, but his blankets Uncle Jim's 
 own particular blankets were gone ! 
 
 A sudden revelation of his partner's man- 
 ner the night before struck him now with 
 the cruelty of a blow ; a sudden intelligence, 
 perhaps the very divination he had sought, 
 flashed upon him like lightning! He 
 glanced wildly around the cabin. The table 
 was drawn out from the wall a little ostenta- 
 tiously, as if to catch his eye. On it was 
 lying the stained chamois-skin purse in 
 which they had kept the few grains of gold 
 remaining from their last week's "clean 
 up." The grains had been carefully di- 
 vided, and half had been taken ! But near 
 it lay the little memorandum-book, open, 
 with the stick of pencil lying across it. A 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 61 
 
 deep line was drawn across the page on which 
 was recorded their imaginary extravagant 
 gains and losses, even to the entry of Uncle 
 Jim's half share of the claim which he had 
 risked and lost ! Underneath were hurriedly 
 scrawled the words : 
 
 "Settled by your luck, last night, old 
 pard. JAMES FOSTER." 
 
 It was nearly a month before Cedar Camp 
 was convinced that Uncle Billy and Uncle 
 Jim had dissolved partnership. Pride had 
 prevented Uncle Billy from revealing his 
 suspicions of the truth, or of relating the 
 events that preceded Uncle Jim's clandestine 
 flight, and Dick Bullen had gone to Sacra- 
 mento by stage-coach the same morning. 
 He briefly gave out that his partner had 
 been called to San Francisco on important 
 business of their own, that indeed might ne- 
 cessitate his own removal there later. In 
 this he was singularly assisted by a letter 
 from the absent Jim, dated at San Fran- 
 cisco, begging him not to be anxious about 
 his success, as he had hopes of presently 
 entering into a profitable business, but with 
 no further allusions to his precipitate depar- 
 ture, nor any suggestion of a reason for it. 
 
62 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 For two or three days Uncle Billy was stag- 
 gered and bewildered; in his profound sim- 
 plicity he wondered if his extraordinary good 
 fortune that night had made him deaf to 
 some explanation of his partner's, or, more 
 terrible, if he had shown some "low" and 
 incredible intimation of taking his partner's 
 extravagant bet as real and binding. In 
 this distress he wrote to Uncle Jim an ap- 
 pealing and apologetic letter, albeit some- 
 what incoherent and inaccurate, and bris- 
 tling with misspelling, camp slang, and old 
 partnership jibes. But to this elaborate 
 epistle he received only Uncle Jim's re- 
 peated assurances of his own bright pro- 
 spects, and his hopes that his old partner 
 would be more fortunate, single-handed, on 
 the old claim. For a whole week or two 
 Uncle Billy sulked, but his invincible op- 
 timism and good humor got the better of 
 him, and he thought only of his old partner's 
 j*ood fortune. He wrote him regularly, but 
 r-always to one address a box at the San 
 Francisco post-office, which to the simple- 
 minded Uncle Billy suggested a certain offi- 
 cial importance. To these letters Uncle 
 Jim responded regularly but briefly. 
 
 From a certain intuitive pride in his part- 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 63 
 
 ner and his affection, Uncle Billy did not 
 show these letters openly to the camp, al- 
 though he spoke freely of his former part- 
 ner's promising future, and even read them 
 short extracts. It is needless to say that 
 the camp did not accept Uncle Billy's story 
 with unsuspecting confidence. On the con- 
 trary, a hundred surmises, humorous or se- 
 rious, but always extravagant, were afloat 
 in Cedar Camp. The partners had quar- 
 reled over their clothes Uncle Jim, who 
 was taller than Uncle Billy, had refused to 
 wear his partner's trousers. They had quar- 
 reled over cards Uncle Jim had discov- 
 ered that Uncle Billy was in possession of 
 a "cold deck," or marked pack. They had 
 quarreled over Uncle Billy's carelessness in 
 grinding up half a box of "bilious pills " in 
 the morning's coffee. A gloomily imagina- 
 tive mule-driver had darkly suggested that, 
 as no one had really seen Uncle Jim leave 
 the camp, he was still there, and his bones 
 would yet be found in one of the ditches; 
 while a still more credulous miner averred 
 that what he had thought was the cry of a 
 screech-owl the night previous to Uncle 
 Jim's disappearance, might have been the 
 agonized utterance of that murdered man. 
 
64 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 It was highly characteristic of that camp . 
 and, indeed, of others in California that 
 nobody, not even the ingenious theorists 
 themselves, believed their story, and that 
 no one took the slightest pains to verify or 
 disprove it. Happily, Uncle Billy never 
 knew it, and moved all unconsciously in this 
 atmosphere of burlesque suspicion. And 
 then a singular change took place in the at- 
 titude of the camp towards him and the dis- 
 rupted partnership. Hitherto, for no rea- 
 son whatever, all had agreed to put the blame 
 upon Billy possibly because he was pre- 
 sent to receive it. As days passed that 
 slight reticence and dejection in his manner, 
 which they had at first attributed to remorse 
 and a guilty conscience, now began to tell 
 as absurdly in his favor. Here was poor 
 Uncle Billy toiling through the ditches, 
 while his selfish partner was lolling in the 
 lap of luxury in San Francisco! Uncle 
 Billy's glowing accounts of Uncle Jim's suc- 
 cess only contributed to the sympathy now 
 fully given in his behalf and their execration 
 of the absconding partner. It was proposed 
 at Biggs 's store that a letter expressing the 
 indignation of the camp over his heartless 
 conduct to his late partner, William Fall, 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 65 
 
 should be forwarded to him. Condolences 
 were offered to Uncle Billy, and uncouth 
 attempts were made to cheer his loneliness. 
 A procession of half a dozen men twice a 
 week to his cabin, carrying their own whiskey 
 and winding up with a "stag dance " before 
 the premises, was sufficient to lighten his 
 eclipsed gayety and remind him of a happier 
 past. "Surprise" working parties visited 
 his claim with spasmodic essays towards 
 helping him, and great good humor and hi- 
 larity prevailed. It was not an unusual 
 thing for an honest miner to arise from an 
 idle gathering in some cabin and excuse him" 
 self with the remark that he "reckoned he 'd 
 put in an hour's work in Uncle Billy's tail- 
 ings! " And yet, as before, it was very im- 
 probable if any of these reckless benefactors 
 really believed in their own earnestness or 
 in the gravity of the situation. Indeed, a 
 kind of hopeful cynicism ran through their 
 performances. "Like as not, Uncle Billy 
 is still in ' cahoots ' [i. e. , shares] with his 
 old pard, and is just laughin' at us as he 's 
 sendin' him accounts of our tomfoolin'." 
 
 And so the winter passed and the rains, 
 and the days of cloudless skies and chill 
 starlit nights began. There were still fresh- 
 
66 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 ets from the snow reservoirs piled high in 
 the Sierran passes, and the Bar was flooded, 
 but that passed too, and only the sunshine 
 remained. Monotonous as the seasons were, 
 there was a faint movement in the camp 
 with the stirring of the sap in the pines and 
 cedars. And then, one day, there was a 
 strange excitement on the Bar. Men were 
 seen running hither and thither, but mainly 
 gathering in a crowd on Uncle Billy's claim, 
 that still retained the old partners' names 
 in "The Fall and Foster." To add to the 
 excitement, there was the quickly repeated 
 report of a revolver, to all appearance aim- 
 lessly exploded in the air by some one on 
 the outskirts of the assemblage. As the 
 crowd opened, Uncle Billy appeared, pale, 
 hysterical, breathless, and staggering a lit- 
 tle under the back-slapping and hand-shak- 
 ing of the whole camp. For Uncle Billy 
 had "struck it rich" had just discovered 
 a "pocket," roughly estimated to be worth 
 fifteen thousand dollars ! 
 
 Although in that supreme moment he 
 missed the face of his old partner, he could 
 not help seeing the unaffected delight and 
 happiness shining in the eyes of all who 
 surrounded him. It was characteristic of 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 6T 
 
 that sanguine but uncertain life that success 
 and good fortune brought no jealousy nor 
 envy to the unfortunate, but was rather a 
 promise and prophecy of the fulfillment o 
 their own hopes. The gold was there 
 Nature but yielded up her secret. There 
 was no prescribed limit to her bounty. So 
 strong was this conviction that a long-suffer- 
 ing but still hopeful miner, in the enthusi- 
 asm of the moment, stooped down and patted 
 a large boulder with the apostrophic " Good, 
 old gal!" 
 
 Then followed a night of jubilee, a next 
 morning of hurried consultation with a min- 
 ing expert and speculator lured to the camp 
 by the good tidings; and then the very next 
 night to the utter astonishment of Cedar 
 Camp Uncle Billy, with a draft for twenty 
 thousand dollars in his pocket, started for 
 San Francisco, and took leave of his claim 
 and the camp forever I 
 
 When Uncle Billy landed at the wharves 
 of San Francisco he was a little bewildered. 
 The Golden Gate beyond was obliterated by 
 the incoming sea-fog, which had also roofed 
 in the whole city, and lights already glit- 
 tered along the gray streets that climbed the 
 
00 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 grayer sand-hills. As a Western man, 
 brought up by inland rivers, he was fasci- 
 nated and thrilled by the tall-masted sea- 
 going ships, and he felt a strange sense of 
 the remoter mysterious ocean, which he 
 had never seen. But he was impressed and 
 startled by smartly dressed men and women, 
 the passing of carriages, and a sudden con- 
 viction that he was strange and foreign to 
 what he saw. It had been his cherished in- 
 tention to call upon his old partner in his 
 working clothes, and then clap down on the 
 table before him a draft for ten thousand 
 dollars as Ms share of their old claim. But 
 in the face of these brilliant strangers a sud- 
 den and unexpected timidity came upon him. 
 He had heard of a cheap popular hotel, 
 much frequented by the returning gold- 
 miner, who entered its hospitable doors 
 which held an easy access to shops and 
 emerged in a few hours a gorgeous butterfly 
 of fashion, leaving his old chrysalis behind 
 him. Thence he inquired his way; hence 
 he afterwards issued in garments glaringly 
 new and ill fitting. But he had not sacri- 
 ficed his beard, and there was still something 
 fine and original in his handsome weak face 
 that overcame the cheap convention of his 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 69 
 
 clothes. Making his way to the post-office, 
 he was again discomfited by the great size 
 of the building, and bewildered by the array 
 of little square letter-boxes behind glass 
 which occupied one whole wall, and an equal 
 number of opaque and locked wooden ones 
 legibly numbered. His heart leaped; he 
 remembered the number, and before him 
 was a window with a clerk behind it. Un- 
 cle Billy leaned forward. 
 
 "Kin you tell me if the man that box 
 690b'longsto is in?" 
 
 The clerk stared, made him repeat the 
 question, and then turned away. But he 
 returned almost instantly, with two or three 
 grinning heads besides his own, apparently 
 set behind his shoulders. Uncle Billy was 
 again asked to repeat his question. He 
 did so. 
 
 "Why don't you go and see if 690 is in 
 his box? " said the first clerk, turning with 
 affected asperity to one of the others. 
 
 The clerk went away, returned, and said 
 with singular gravity, "He was there a mo- 
 ment ago, but he 's gone out to stretch his 
 legs. It 's rather crampin' at first; and he 
 can't stand it more than ten hours at a time, 
 you know." 
 
70 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 But simplicity has its limits. Uncle Billy 
 had already guessed his real error in believ- 
 ing his partner was officially connected with 
 the building; his cheek had flushed and 
 then paled again. The pupils of his blue 
 eyes had contracted into suggestive black 
 points. " Ef you '11 let me in at that winder, 
 young fellers," he said, with equal gravity, 
 "I'll show yer howl kin make you small 
 enough to go in a box without crampin' ! 
 But I only wanted to know where Jim Fos- 
 ter lived. 1 " 
 
 At which the first clerk became perfunc- 
 tory again, but civil. "A letter left in his 
 box would get you that information," he 
 said, "and here 's paper and pencil to write 
 it now." 
 
 Uncle Billy took the paper and began to 
 write, "Just got here. Come and see me 
 at" He paused. A brilliant idea had 
 struck him ; he could impress both his old 
 partner and the upstarts at the window ; he 
 would put in the name of the latest "swell " 
 hotel in San Francisco, said to be a fairy 
 dream of opulence. He added "The Orien- 
 tal," and without folding the paper shoved 
 it in the window. 
 
 "Don't you want an envelope?" asked 
 the clerk. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 71 
 
 "Put a stamp on the corner of it," re- 
 sponded Uncle Billy, laying down a coin, 
 "and she '11 go through." The clerk smiled, 
 but affixed the stamp, and Uncle Billy turned 
 away. 
 
 But it was a short-lived triumph. The 
 disappointment at finding Uncle Jim's ad- 
 dress conveyed no idea of his habitation 
 seemed to remove him farther away, and 
 lose his identity in the great city. Besides, 
 he must now make good his own address, 
 and seek rooms at the Oriental. He went 
 thither. The furniture and decorations, 
 even in these early days of hotel-building in 
 San Francisco, were extravagant and over- 
 strained, and Uncle Billy felt lost and lonely 
 in his strange surroundings. But he took 
 a handsome suite of rooms, paid for them in 
 advance on the spot, and then, half fright- 
 ened, walked out of them to ramble vaguely 
 through the city in the feverish hope of meet- 
 ing his old partner. At night his inquietude 
 increased ; he could not face the long row of 
 tables in the pillared dining-room, filled with 
 smartly dressed men and women ; he evaded 
 his bedroom, with its brocaded satin chairs 
 and its gilt bedstead, and fled to his modest 
 lodgings at the Good Cheer House, and ap- 
 
72 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 peased his hunger at its cheap restaurant, 
 in the company of retired miners and freshly 
 arrived Eastern emigrants. Two or three 
 days passed thus in this quaint double exist- 
 ence. Three or four times a day he would 
 enter the gorgeous Oriental with affected 
 ease and carelessness, demand his key from 
 the hotel-clerk, ask for the letter that did 
 not come, go to his room, gaze vaguely from 
 his window on the passing crowd below for 
 the partner he could not find, and then re- 
 turn to the Good Cheer House for rest and 
 sustenance. On the fourth day he received 
 a short note from Uncle Jim ; it was couched 
 in his usual sanguine but brief and business- 
 like style. He was very sorry, but impor- 
 tant and profitable business took him out of 
 town, but he trusted to return soon and wel- 
 come his old partner. He was also, for the 
 first time, jocose, and hoped that Uncle Billy 
 would not "see all the sights" before he, 
 Uncle Jim, returned. Disappointing as this 
 procrastination was to Uncle Billy, a gleam 
 of hope irradiated it : the letter had bridged 
 over that gulf which seemed to yawn between 
 them at the post-office. His old partner 
 had accepted his visit to San Francisco with- 
 out question, and had alluded to a renewal 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 73 
 
 of their old intimacy. For Uncle Billy, 
 with all his trustful simplicity, had been tor- 
 tured by two harrowing doubts : one, whether 
 Uncle Jim in his new-fledged smartness as 
 a "city" man such as he saw in the 
 streets would care for his rough compan- 
 ionship ; the other, whether he, Uncle Billy, 
 ought not to tell him at once of his changed 
 fortune. But, like all weak, unreasoning 
 men, he clung desperately to a detail he 
 could not forego his old idea of astounding 
 Uncle Jim by giving him his share of the 
 "strike" as his first intimation of it, and 
 he doubted, with more reason perhaps, if 
 Jim would see him after he had heard of his 
 good fortune. For Uncle Billy had still a 
 frightened recollection of Uncle Jim's sud- 
 den stroke for independence, and that rigid 
 punctiliousness which had made him dog- 
 gedly accept the responsibility of his ex- 
 travagant stake at euchre. 
 
 With a view of educating himself for 
 Uncle Jim's company, he "saw the sights" 
 of San Francisco as an overgrown and 
 somewhat stupid child might have seen them 
 with great curiosity, but little contamina- 
 tion or corruption. But I think he was 
 chiefly pleased with watching the arrival of 
 
74 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 the Sacramento and Stockton steamers at 
 the wharves, in the hope of discovering hie 
 old partner among the passengers on the 
 gang-plank. Here, with his old supersti- 
 tious tendency and gambler's instinct, he 
 would augur great success in his search that 
 day if any one of the passengers bore the 
 least resemblance to Uncle Jim, if a man or 
 woman stepped off first, or if he met a single 
 person's questioning eye. Indeed, this got 
 to be the real occupation of the day, which 
 he would on no account have omitted, and 
 to a certain extent revived each day in his 
 mind the morning's work of their old part- 
 nership. He would say to himself, "It's 
 time to go and look up Jim," and put off 
 what he was pleased to think were his plea- 
 sures until this act of duty was accomplished. 
 In this singleness of purpose he made very 
 few and no entangling acquaintances, nor 
 did he impart to any one the secret of his 
 fortune, loyally reserving it for his partner's 
 first knowledge. To a man of his natural 
 frankness and simplicity this was a great 
 trial, and was, perhaps, a crucial test of his 
 devotion. When he gave up his rooms at 
 the Oriental as not necessary after his 
 partner's absence he sent a letter, with 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 75 
 
 his humble address, to the mysterious lock- 
 box of his partner without fear or false 
 shame. He would explain it all when they 
 met. But he sometimes treated unlucky 
 and returning miners to a dinner and a visit 
 to the gallery of some theatre. Yet while 
 he had an active sympathy with and under- 
 standing of the humblest, Uncle Billy, who 
 for many years had done his own and his 
 partner's washing, scrubbing, mending, and 
 cooking, and saw no degradation in it, was 
 somewhat inconsistently irritated by menial 
 functions in men, and although he gave ex- 
 travagantly to waiters, and threw a dollar 
 to the crossing-sweeper, there was always a 
 certain shy avoidance of them in his manner. 
 Coming from the theatre one night Uncle 
 Billy was, however, seriously concerned by 
 one of these crossing-sweepers turning has- 
 tily before them and being knocked down 
 by a passing carriage. The man rose and 
 limped hurriedly away ; but Uncle Billy was 
 amazed and still more irritated to hear from 
 his companion that this kind of menial occu- 
 pation was often profitable, and that at some 
 of the principal crossings the sweepers were 
 already rich men. 
 
 But a few days later brought a more not- 
 
76 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 able event to Uncle Billy. One afternoon 
 in Montgomery Street he recognized in one 
 of its smartly dressed frequenters a man 
 who had a few years before been a member 
 of Cedar Camp. Uncle Billy's childish de- 
 light at this meeting, which seemed to bridge 
 over his old partner's absence, was, however, 
 only half responded to by the ex-miner, and 
 then somewhat satirically. In the fullness 
 of his emotion, Uncle Billy confided to him 
 that he was seeking his old partner, Jim 
 Foster, and, reticent of his own good for- 
 tune, spoke glowingly of his partner's bril- 
 liant expectations, but deplored his inability 
 to find him. And just now he was away on 
 important business. "I reckon he 's got 
 back," said the man dryly. " I did n't know 
 he had a lock-box at the post-office, but I 
 can give you his other address. He lives at 
 the Presidio, at Washerwoman's Bay." He 
 stopped and looked with a satirical smile at 
 Uncle Billy. But the latter, familiar with 
 Californian mining-camp nomenclature, saw- 
 nothing strange in it, and merely repeated 
 his companion's words. 
 
 "You'll find him there! Good-by! So 
 long! Sorry I 'm in a hurry," said the ex- 
 ininer, and hurried away. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 77 
 
 Uncle Billy was too delighted with the 
 prospect of a speedy meeting with Uncle 
 Jim to resent his former associate's super- 
 cilious haste, or even to wonder why Uncle 
 Jim had not informed him that he had re- 
 turned. It was not the first time that he 
 had felt how wide was the gulf between him- 
 self and these others, and the thought drew 
 him closer to his old partner, as well as his 
 old idea, as it was now possible to surprise 
 him with the draft. But as he was going to 
 surprise him in his own boarding-house 
 probably a handsome one Uncle Billy re- 
 flected that he would do so in a certain style. 
 
 He accordingly went to a livery stable 
 and ordered a landau and pair, with a negro 
 coachman. Seated, in it, in his best and 
 most ill-fitting clothes, he asked the coach- 
 man to take him to the Presidio, and leaned 
 back in the cushions as they drove through 
 the streets with such an expression of beam- 
 ing gratification on his good-humored face 
 that the passers-by smiled at the equipage 
 and its extravagant occupant. To them it 
 seemed the not unusual sight of the success- 
 ful miner "on a spree." To the unsophisti- 
 cated Uncle Billy their smiling seemed only 
 a natural and kindly recognition of his hap- 
 
78 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 piness, and he nodded and smiled back to 
 them with unsuspecting candor and inno- 
 cent playfulness. "These yer 'Frisco fel- 
 lers ain't all slouches, you bet," he added 
 to himself half aloud, at the back of the 
 grinning coachman. 
 
 Their way led through well-built streeti 
 to the outskirts, or rather to that portion of 
 the city which seemed to have been over- 
 whelmed by shifting sand-dunes, from which 
 half -submerged fences and even low houses 
 barely marked the line of highway. The 
 resistless trade-winds which had marked this 
 change blew keenly in his face and slightly 
 chilled his ardor. At a turn in the road the 
 sea came in sight, and sloping towards it 
 the great Cemetery of Lone Mountain, with 
 white shafts and marbles that glittered in 
 the sunlight like the sails of ships waiting 
 to be launched down that slope into the Eter- 
 nal Ocean. Uncle Billy shuddered. What 
 if it had been his fate to seek Uncle Jim 
 there ! 
 
 "Bar's yar Presidio!" said the negro 
 coachman a few moments later, pointing 
 with his whip, "and dar 's yar Wash'wo- 
 man's Bay! " 
 
 Uncle Billy stared. A huge quadrangu- 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 79 
 
 lar fort of stone with a flag flying above its 
 battlements stood at a little distance, pressed 
 against the rocks, as if beating back the en- 
 croaching surges; between him and the fort 
 but farther inland was a lagoon with a num- 
 ber of dilapidated, rudely patched cabins or 
 cottages, like stranded driftwood around its 
 shore. But there was no mansion, no block 
 of houses, no street, not another habitation 
 or dwelling to be seen ! 
 
 Uncle Billy's first shock of astonishment 
 was succeeded by a feeling of relief. He 
 had secretly dreaded a meeting with his old 
 partner in the "haunts of fashion;" what- 
 ever was the cause that made Uncle Jim 
 seek this obscure retirement affected him 
 but slightly; he even was thrilled with a 
 vague memory of the old shiftless camp 
 they had both abandoned. A certain in- 
 stinct he knew not why, or less still that 
 it might be one of delicacy made him 
 alight before they reached the first house. 
 Bidding the carriage wait, Uncle Billy en- 
 tered, and was informed by a blowzy Irish 
 laundress at a tub that Jim Foster, or 
 " Arkansaw Jim," lived at the fourth shanty 
 "beyant." He was at home, for "he 'd 
 shprained his fut." Uncle Billy hurried 
 
80 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 on, stopped before the door of a shanty 
 scarcely less rude than their old cabin, and 
 half timidly pushed it open. A growling 
 voice from within, a figure that rose hur- 
 riedly, leaning on a stick, with an attempt 
 to fly, but in the same moment sank back in 
 a chair with an hysterical laugh and Un- 
 cle Billy stood in the presence of his old 
 partner! But as Uncle Billy darted for- 
 ward, Uncle Jim rose again, and this time 
 with outstretched hands. Uncle Billy caught 
 them, and in one supreme pressure seemed 
 to pour out and transfuse his whole simple 
 soul into his partner's. There they swayed 
 each other backwards and forwards and side- 
 ways by their still clasped hands, until Uncle 
 Billy, with a glance at Uncle Jim's ban- 
 daged ankle, shoved him by sheer force 
 down into his chair. 
 
 Uncle Jim was first to speak. "Caught, 
 b' gosh ! I mighter known you 'd be as big 
 a fool as me! Look you, Billy Fall, do 
 you know what you 've done? You 've druv 
 me out er the streets whar I was makin' an 
 honest livin', by day, on three crossings! 
 Yes," he laughed forgivingly, "you druv 
 me out er it, by day, jest because I reckoned 
 that some time I might run into your darned 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 81 
 
 fool face," another laugh and a grasp of 
 the hand, " and then, b' gosh ! not content 
 with ruinin' my business l>y day, when I 
 took to it at night, you took to go in' out at 
 nights too, and so put a stopper on me there ! 
 Shall I tell you what else you did ? Well, 
 by the holy poker ! I owe this sprained foot 
 to your darned foolishness and my own, for 
 it was getting away from you one night after 
 the theatre that I got run into and run over ! 
 "Ye see," he went on, unconscious of 
 Uncle Billy's paling face, and with a naivete, 
 though perhaps not a delicacy, equal to 
 Uncle Billy's own, "I had to play roots on 
 you with that lock -box business and these 
 letters, because I did not want you to know 
 what I was up to, for you mightn't like it, 
 and might think it was lowerin' to the old 
 firm, don't yer see? I wouldn't hev gone 
 into it, but I was played out, and I don't 
 mind tellin' you now, old man, that when I 
 wrote you that first chipper letter from the 
 lock-box I hed n't eat anythin' for two days. 
 But it 's all right now" with a laugh. " Then 
 I got into this business thinkin' it nothin' 
 jest the very last thing and do you 
 know, old pard, I could n't tell anybody but 
 you and, in fact, I kept it jest to tell you 
 
82 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 I 've made nine hundred and fifty-six dol- 
 lars! Yes, sir, nine hundred and fifty -six 
 dollars! solid money, in Adams and Co.'s 
 Bank, just out er my trade." 
 
 "Wot trade?" asked Uncle Billy. 
 
 Uncle Jim pointed to the corner, where 
 stood a large, heavy crossing - sweeper's 
 broom. "That trade." 
 
 "Certingly," said Uncle Billy, with a 
 quick laugh. 
 
 "It 's an outdoor trade," said Uncle Jim 
 gravely, but with no suggestion of awkward- 
 ness or apology in his manner; "and thar 
 ain't much difference between sweepin' a 
 crossin' with a broom and raking over tail- 
 ing with a rake, only wot ye get with a 
 broom you have handed to ye, and ye don't 
 have to pick it up and fish it out er the wet 
 rocks and sluice-gushin' ; and it's a heap 
 less tiring to the back." 
 
 "Certingly, you bet!" said Uncle Billy 
 enthusiastically, yet with a certain nervous 
 abstraction. 
 
 "I 'm glad ye say so ; for yer see I did n't 
 know at first how you 'd tumble to my do- 
 ing it, until I 'd made my pile. And ef I 
 hadn't made it, I wouldn't hev set eyes on 
 ye agin, old pard never ! " 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 83 
 
 "Do you mind my runniii' out a minit," 
 said Uncle Billy, rising. "You see, I 've 
 got a friend waitin' for me outside and I 
 reckon " he stammered "I '11 jest run 
 out and send him off, so I kin talk comf 'ble 
 to ye." 
 
 "Ye ain't got anybody you 're owin' 
 money to," said Uncle Jim earnestly, "any- 
 body follerin' you to get paid, eh? For I 
 kin jest set down right here and write ye off 
 a check on the bank! " 
 
 "No," said Uncle Billy. He slipped out 
 of the door, and ran like a deer to the wait- 
 ing carriage. Thrusting a twenty - dollar 
 gold-piece into the coachman's hand, he said 
 hoarsely, "I ain't wantin' that kerridge just 
 now; ye ken drive around and hev a private 
 jamboree all by yourself the rest of the 
 afternoon, and then come and wait for me 
 at the top o' the hill yonder." 
 
 Thus quit of his gorgeous equipage, he 
 hurried back to Uncle Jim, grasping his ten- 
 thousand dollar draft in his pocket. He was 
 nervous, he was frightened, but he must get 
 rid of the draft and his story, and have it 
 over. But before he could speak he was 
 unexpectedly stopped by Uncle Jim. 
 
 "Now, look yer, Billy boy! " said Uncle 
 
84 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 Jim; "I got suthin' to say to ye and 1 
 might as well clear it off my mind at once, 
 and then we can start fair agin. Now," he 
 went on, with a half laugh, "wasn't it 
 enough for me to go on pretendin' I was rich 
 and doing a big business, and gettin' up that 
 lock-box dodge so as ye couldn't find out 
 whar I hung out and what I was doin' 
 was n't it enough for me to go on with all 
 this play-actin', but you, you long-legged 
 or 'nary cuss ! must get up and go to lyin' 
 and play-actin', too! " 
 
 "Me play-actin'? Me lyin'?" gasped 
 Uncle Billy. 
 
 Uncle Jim leaned back in his chair and 
 laughed. "Do you think you could fool 
 me? Do you think I didn't see through 
 your little game o' going to that swell Orien- 
 tal, jest as if ye 'd made a big strike and 
 all the while ye wasn't sleepin' or eatin* 
 there, but jest wrastlin' yer hash and having 
 a roll down at the Good Cheer! Do you 
 think I did n't spy on ye and find that out? 
 Oh, you long-eared jackass-rabbit! " 
 
 He laughed until the tears came into his 
 eyes, and Uncle Billy laughed too, albeit 
 until the laugh on his face became quite 
 fixed, and he was fain to bury his head in 
 Ms handkerchief. 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 85 
 
 "And yet," said Uncle Jim, with a deep 
 breath, "gosh! I was frighted jest for a 
 minit ! I thought, mebbe, you had made a 
 big strike when I got your first letter 
 and I made up my mind what I 'd do ! And 
 then I remembered you was jest that kind 
 of an open sluice that couldn't keep any- 
 thin' to yourself, and you 'd have been sure 
 to have yelled it out to me the first thing v 
 So I waited. And I found you out, yoi\ 
 old sinner ! " He reached forward and dug 
 Uncle Billy in the ribs. 
 
 " What would you hev done ? " said Uncle 
 Billy, after an hysterical collapse. 
 
 Uncle Jim's face grew grave again. "I 'd 
 hev I'd hev cl'ared out ! Out er 
 'Frisco ! out er Calif orny ! out er Ameriky I 
 I couldn't have stud it! Don't think I 
 would hev begrudged ye yer luck ! No man 
 would have been gladder than me." He 
 leaned forward again, and laid his hand ca- 
 ressingly upon his partner's arm "Don't 
 think I 'd hev wanted to take a penny of it 
 but I thar! I couldn't hev stood up 
 under it ! To hev had you, you that I left 
 behind, comin' down here rollin' in wealth 
 and new partners and friends, and arrive 
 upon me and this shanty and " he 
 
86 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 threw towards the corner of the room a ter- 
 rible gesture, none the less terrible that it 
 was illogical and inconsequent to all that 
 had gone before "and and that 
 broom I " 
 
 There was a dead silence in the room. 
 With it Uncle Billy seemed to feel himself 
 again transported to the homely cabin at 
 Cedar Camp and that fateful night, with his 
 partner's strange, determined face before 
 him as then. He even fancied that he 
 heard the roaring of the pines without, and 
 did not know that it was the distant sea. 
 
 But after a minute Uncle Jim resumed : 
 
 " Of course you ' ve made a little raise 
 somehow, or you would n't be here? " 
 
 "Yes," said Uncle Billy eagerly. "Yes! 
 I've got" He stopped and stammered. 
 "I 've got a few hundreds." 
 
 "Oh, oh!" said Uncle Jim cheerfully. 
 He paused, and then added earnestly, "I 
 say! You ain't got left, over and above 
 your d d foolishness at the Oriental, as 
 much as five hundred dollars ? " 
 
 "I 've got," said Uncle Billy, blushing a 
 little over his first deliberate and affected 
 lie, " I 've got at least five hundred and sev- 
 enty-two dollars. Yes," he added tenta- 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 87 
 
 tively , gazing anxiously at his partner, " I ' ve 
 got at least that." 
 
 "Je whillikins! " said Uncle Jim, with a 
 laugh. Then eagerly, "Look here, pard! 
 Then we 're on velvet! I 've got nine hun- 
 dred ; put your five with that, and I know 
 a little ranch that we can get for twelve hun- 
 dred. That 's what I 've been savin' up for 
 that 's my little game! No more minin' 
 for me. It 's got a shanty twice as big as 
 our old cabin, nigh on a hundred acres, and 
 two mustangs. We can run it with two 
 Chinamen and jest make it howl ! Wot yer 
 say eh? " He extended his hand. 
 
 "I'm in," said Uncle Billy, radiantly 
 grasping Uncle Jim's. But his smile faded, 
 and his clear simple brow wrinkled in two 
 lines. 
 
 Happily Uncle Jim did not notice it. 
 "Now, then, old pard," he said brightly, 
 "we '11 have a gay old time to-night one 
 of our jamborees ! I 've got some whiskey 
 here and a deck o' cards, and we '11 have 
 a little game, you understand, but not for 
 'keeps' now! No, siree; we'll play for 
 beans." 
 
 A sudden light illuminated Uncle Billy's 
 face again, but he said, with a grim despera- 
 
88 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 tion, "Not to-night! I've got to go into 
 town. That fren' o' mine expects me to go 
 to the theayter, don't ye see? But I '11 be 
 out to-morrow at sun-up, and we '11 fix up 
 this thing o' the ranch." 
 
 " Seems to me you 're kinder stuck on this 
 fren'," grunted Uncle Jim. 
 
 Uncle Billy's heart bounded at his part- 
 ner's jealousy. "No but I must, you 
 know," he returned, with a faint laugh. 
 
 "I say it ain't a her, is it ? " said Uncle 
 Jim. 
 
 Uncle Billy achieved a diabolical wink 
 and a creditable blush at his lie. 
 
 "Billy?" 
 
 "Jim!" 
 
 And under cover of this festive gallantry 
 Uncle Billy escaped. He ran through the 
 gathering darkness, and toiled up the shift- 
 ing sands to the top of the hill, where he 
 found the carriage waiting. 
 
 "Wot," said Uncle Billy in a low confi- 
 dential tone to the coachman, "wot do you 
 'Frisco fellers allow to be the best, biggest, 
 and riskiest gamblin' -saloon here? Suthin' 
 high-toned, you know?" 
 
 The negro grinned. It was the usual case 
 of the extravagant spendthrift miner, though 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 89 
 
 perhaps he had expected a different question 
 and order. 
 
 "Dey is de Polka,' de ' El Dorado,' and 
 de ' Arcade ' saloon, boss," he said, flicking 
 his whip meditatively. "Most gents from 
 de mines prefer de ' Polka, ' for dey is dan- 
 cing wid de gals frown in. But de real 
 prima facie place for gents who go for buck- 
 in' agin de tiger and straight-out gamblin' 
 is de 4 Arcade.'" 
 
 "Drive there like thunder!" said Uncle 
 Billy, leaping into the carriage. 
 
 True to his word, Uncle Billy was at his 
 partner's shanty early the next morning. 
 He looked a little tired, but happy, and had 
 brought a draft with him for five hundred 
 and seventy -five dollars, which he explained 
 was the total of his capital. Uncle Jim was 
 overjoyed. They would start for Napa that 
 very day, and conclude the purchase of the 
 ranch; Uncle Jim's sprained foot was a 
 sufficient reason for his giving up his present 
 vocation, which he could also sell at a small 
 profit. His domestic arrangements were 
 yery simple ; there was nothing to take with 
 him there was everything to leave behind. 
 And that afternoon, at sunset, the two re- 
 
90 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 united partners were seated on the deck of 
 the Napa boat as she swung into the stream. 
 
 Uncle Billy was gazing over the railing 
 with a look of abstracted relief towards the 
 Golden Gate, where the sinking sun seemed 
 to be drawing towards him in the ocean a 
 golden stream that was forever pouring 
 from the Bay and the three-hilled city beside 
 it. What Uncle Billy was thinking of, or 
 what the picture suggested to him, did not 
 transpire; for Uncle Jim, who, emboldened 
 by his holiday, was luxuriating in an even- 
 ing paper, suddenly uttered a long-drawn 
 whistle, and moved closer to his abstracted 
 partner. "Look yer," he said, pointing to 
 a paragraph he had evidently just read, 
 "just you listen to this, and see if we ain't 
 lucky, you and me, to be jest wot we air 
 trustin' to our own hard work and not 
 thinkin' o' 'strikes' and 'fortins.' Jest 
 unbutton yer ears, Billy, while I reel off 
 this yer thing I 've jest struck in the paper, 
 and see what d d fools some men kin make 
 o' themselves. And that theer reporter wot 
 wrote it must hev seed it reely ! " 
 
 Uncle Jim cleared his throat, and holding 
 the paper close to his eyes read aloud 
 slowly : 
 
UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 91 
 
 " ' A scene of excitement that recalled the 
 palmy days of '49 was witnessed last night at 
 the Arcade Saloon. A stranger, who might 
 have belonged to that reckless epoch, and 
 who bore every evidence of being a success- 
 ful Pike County miner out on a " spree," 
 appeared at one of the tables with a negro 
 coachman bearing two heavy bags of gold. 
 Selecting a faro-bank as his base of opera- 
 tions, he began to bet heavily and with ap- 
 parent recklessness, until his play excited 
 the breathless attention of every one. In 
 a few moments he had won a sum variously 
 estimated at from eighty to a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. A rumor went round the 
 room that it was a concerted attempt to 
 " break the bank " rather than the drunken 
 freak of a Western miner, dazzled by some 
 successful strike. To this theory the man's 
 careless and indifferent bearing towards his 
 extraordinary gains lent great credence. 
 The attempt, if such it was, however, was 
 unsuccessful. After winning ten times in 
 succession the luck turned, and the unfortu- 
 nate " bucker " was cleared out not only of 
 his gains, but of his original investment, 
 which may be placed roughly at twenty thou- 
 sand dollars. This extraordinary play was 
 
92 UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY 
 
 witnessed by a crowd of excited players, who 
 were less impressed by even the magnitude 
 of the stakes than the perfect sang-froid 
 \nd recklessness of the player, who, it is 
 jaid, at the close of the game tossed a twenty- 
 dollar gold-piece to the banker and smilingly 
 withdrew. The man was not recognized by 
 any of the habitues of the place.' 
 
 "There ! " said Uncle Jim, as he hurriedly 
 slurred over the French substantive at the 
 close, "did ye ever see such God-forsaken 
 foolishness? ' 
 
 Uncle Billy lifted his abstracted eyes 
 from the current, still pouring its unreturn- 
 ing gold into the sinking sun, and said, with 
 a deprecatory smile, "Never! " 
 
 Nor even in the days of prosperity that 
 visited the Great Wheat Ranch of "Fall 
 and Foster" did he ever tell his secret to 
 his partner. 
 
SEE YUP 
 
 I DON'T suppose that his progenitors ever 
 gave him that name, or, indeed, that it was 
 a name, at all; but it was currently believed 
 that as pronounced " See Up " it meant 
 that lifting of the outer angle of the eye 
 common to the Mongolian. On the other 
 hand, I had been told that there was an old 
 Chinese custom of affixing some motto or 
 legend, or even a sentence from Confucius, 
 as a sign above their shops, and that two 
 or more words, which might be merely equi- 
 valent to "Virtue is its own reward," or 
 "Riches are deceitful," were believed by 
 the simple Calif ornian miner to be the name 
 of the occupant himself. Howbeit, "See 
 Yup " accepted it with the smiling patience 
 of his race, and never went by any ether. 
 If one of the tunnelmen always addressed 
 him as "Brigadier-General," "Judge," or 
 "Commodore," it was understood to be only 
 the American fondness for ironic title, and 
 was never used except in personal conversa- 
 
94 SEE YUP 
 
 tion. In appearance he looked like any 
 other Chinaman, wore the ordinary blue cot- 
 ton blouse and white drawers of the Sampan 
 coolie, and, in spite of the apparent cleanli- 
 ness and freshness of these garments, always 
 exhaled that singular medicated odor half 
 opium, half ginger which we recognized 
 as the common "Chinese smell." 
 
 Our first interview was characteristic of 
 his patient quality. He had done my wash- 
 ing for several months, but I had never yet 
 seen him. A meeting at last had become 
 necessary to correct his impressions regard- 
 ing "buttons" which he had seemed to 
 consider as mere excrescences, to be removed 
 like superfluous dirt from soiled linen. I 
 had expected him to call at my lodgings, but 
 he had not yet made his appearance. One 
 day, during the noontide recess of the little 
 frontier school over which I presided, I re- 
 turned rather early. Two or three of the 
 smaller boys, who were loitering about the 
 school-yard, disappeared with a certain 
 guilty precipitation that I suspected for the 
 moment, but which I presently dismissed 
 from my mind. I passed through the empty 
 school-room to my desk, sat down, and began 
 to prepare the coming lessons. Presently I 
 
SEE YUP 95 
 
 heard a faint sigh. Looking up, to my in- 
 tense concern, I discovered a solitary China- 
 man whom I had overlooked, sitting in a 
 rigid attitude on a bench with his back to 
 the window. He caught my eye and smiled 
 sadly, but without moving. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" I asked 
 sternly. 
 
 "Me washee shilts ; me talkee ' buttons. ' " 
 
 "Oh! you 're See Yup, are you?" 
 
 "Allee same, John." 
 
 "Well, come here." 
 
 I continued my work, but he did not 
 move. 
 
 "Come here, hang it! Don't you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 "Me shabbee, * comme yea.' But me no 
 shabbee Mellican boy, who catchee me, allee 
 same. You ' comme yea ' you shabbee ? " 
 
 Indignant, but believing that the unfortu- 
 nate man was still in fear of persecution from 
 the mischievous urchins whom I had evi- 
 dently just interrupted, I put down my pen 
 and went over to him. Here I discovered, 
 to my surprise and mortification, that hia 
 long pigtail was held hard and fast by the 
 closed window behind him, which the young 
 rascals had shut down upon it, after having 
 
96 SEE YUP 
 
 first noiselessly fished it outside with a hook 
 and line. I apologized, opened the window, 
 and released him. He did not complain, al- 
 though he must have been fixed in that un- 
 comfortable position for some minutes, but 
 plunged at once into the business that brought 
 him there. 
 
 "But why didn't you come to my lodg- 
 ings?" I asked. 
 
 He smiled sadly but intelligently. 
 
 "Mishtel Bally [Mr. Barry, my landlord] 
 he owce me five dollee fo washee, washee. 
 He no payee me. He say he knock hellee 
 outee me allee time I come for payee. So 
 me no come housee, me come schoolee* 
 Shabbee? Mellican boy no good, but not 
 so big as Mellican man. No can hurtee 
 Chinaman so much. Shabbee?" 
 
 Alas ! I knew that this was mainly true. 
 Mr. James Barry was an Irishman, whose 
 finer religious feelings revolted against pay- 
 ing money to a heathen. I could not find 
 it in my heart to say anything to See Yup 
 about the buttons; indeed, I spoke in com- 
 plimentary terms about the gloss of my 
 shirts, and I think I meekly begged him to 
 come again for my washing. When I went 
 home I expostulated with Mr. Barry, but 
 
SEE YUP 97 
 
 succeeded only in extracting from him the 
 conviction that I was one of "thim black 
 Republican felly s that worshiped naygurs." 
 I had simply made an enemy of him. But 
 I did not know that, at the same time, I had 
 made a friend of See Yup ! 
 
 I became aware of this a few days later, 
 by the appearance on my desk of a small pot 
 containing a specimen of camellia japonica 
 in flower. I knew the school-children were 
 in the habit of making presents to me in this 
 furtive fashion, leaving their own nosegays 
 of wild flowers, or perhaps a cluster of roses 
 from their parents' gardens, but I also 
 knew that this exotic was too rare to come 
 from them. I remembered that See Yup 
 had a Chinese taste for gardening, and a 
 friend, another Chinaman, who kept a large 
 nursery in the adjoining town. But my 
 doubts were set at rest by the discovery of 
 a small roll of red rice-paper containing my 
 washing-bill, fastened to the camellia stalk. 
 It was plain that this mingling of business 
 and delicate gratitude was clearly See Yup's 
 own idea. As the finest flower was the top- 
 most one, I plucked it for wearing, when I 
 found, to my astonishment, that it was sim- 
 ply wired to the stalk. This led me to look 
 
98 SEE YUP 
 
 at the others, which I found also wired! 
 More than that, they seemed to be an infe- 
 rior flower, and exhaled that cold, earthy 
 odor peculiar to the camellia, even, as I 
 thought, to an excess. A closer examina- 
 tion resulted in the discovery that, with the 
 exception of the first flower I had plucked, 
 they were one and all ingeniously constructed 
 of thin slices of potato, marvelously cut to 
 imitate the vegetable waxiness and formality 
 of the real flower. The work showed an in- 
 finite and almost pathetic patience in detail, 
 yet strangely incommensurate with the re- 
 sult, admirable as it was. Nevertheless, 
 this was also like See Yup. But whether 
 he had tried to deceive me, or whether he 
 only wished me to admire his skill, I could 
 not say. And as his persecution by my 
 scholars had left a balance of consideration 
 in his favor, I sent him a warm note of 
 thanks, and said nothing of my discovery. 
 
 As our acquaintance progressed, I became 
 frequently the recipient of other small pre- 
 sents from him: a pot of preserves of a 
 quality I could not purchase in shops, and 
 whose contents in their crafty, gingery dis- 
 simulation so defied definition that I never 
 knew whether they were animal, vegetable, 
 
SEE YUP 99 
 
 or mineral; two or three hideous Chinese 
 idols, "for luckee," and a diabolical fire- 
 work with an irregular spasmodic activity 
 that would sometimes be prolonged until the 
 next morning. In return, I gave him some 
 apparently hopeless oral lessons in English, 
 and certain sentences to be copied, which he 
 did with marvelous precision. I remember 
 one instance when this peculiar faculty of 
 imitation was disastrous in result. In set- 
 ting him a copy, I had blurred a word which 
 I promptly erased, and then traced the let- 
 ters more distinctly over the scratched sur- 
 face. To my surprise, See Yup trium- 
 phantly produced his copy with the erasion 
 itself carefully imitated, and, in fact, much 
 more neatly done than mine. 
 
 In our confidential intercourse, I never 
 seemed to really get nearer to him. His 
 sympathy and simplicity appeared like his 
 flowers to be a good-humored imitation 
 of my own. I am satisfied that his particu- 
 larly soulless laugh was not derived from 
 any amusement he actually felt, yet I could 
 not say it was forced. In his accurate im- 
 itations, I fancied he was only trying to 
 evade any responsibility of his own. That 
 devolved upon his taskmaster! In the at- 
 
100 SEE YUP 
 
 tention he displayed when new ideas were 
 presented to him, there was a slight conde- 
 scension, as if he were looking down upon 
 them from his three thousand years of his- 
 tory. 
 
 "Don't you think the electric telegraph 
 wonderful?" I asked one day. 
 
 "Very good for Mellican man," he said, 
 with his aimless laugh; "plenty makee him 
 jump ! " 
 
 I never could tell whether he had con- 
 founded it with electro-galvanism, or was 
 only satirizing our American haste and fe- 
 verishness. He was capable of either. For 
 that matter, we knew that the Chinese them- 
 selves possessed some means of secretly and 
 quickly communicating with one another. 
 Any news of good or ill import to their race 
 was quickly disseminated through the settle- 
 ment before we knew anything about it. 
 An innocent basket of clothes from the 
 wash, sent up from the river-bank, became 
 in some way a library of information ; a sin- 
 gle slip of rice-paper, aimlessly fluttering in 
 the dust of the road, had the mysterious 
 effect of diverging a whole gang of coolie 
 tramps away from our settlement. 
 
 When See Yup was not subject to the 
 
SEE YUP 101 
 
 persecutions of the more ignorant and brutal 
 he was always a source of amusement to all, 
 and I cannot recall an instance when he was 
 ever taken seriously. The miners found 
 diversions even in his alleged frauds and 
 trickeries, whether innocent or retaliatory, 
 and were fond of relating with great gusto 
 his evasion of the Foreign Miners' Tax. 
 This was an oppressive measure aimed prin- 
 cipally at the Chinese, who humbly worked 
 the worn-out "tailings" of their Christian 
 fellow miners. It was stated that See Yup, 
 knowing the difficulty already alluded to 
 of identifying any particular Chinaman 
 by name, conceived the additional idea of 
 confusing recognition by intensifying the 
 monotonous facial expression. Having paid 
 his tax himself to the collector, he at once 
 passed the receipt to his fellows, so that the 
 collector found himself confronted in differ- 
 ent parts of the settlement with the receipt 
 and the aimless laugh of, apparently, See 
 Yup himself. Although we all knew that 
 there were a dozen Chinamen or more at 
 work at the mines, the collector never was 
 able to collect the tax from more than two, 
 - See Yup and one See Yin, and so great 
 was their facial resemblance that the unfor- 
 
102 SEE YUP 
 
 tunate official for a long time hugged him- 
 self with the conviction that he had made 
 See Yup pay twice, and withheld the money 
 from the government! It is very probable 
 that the Calif ornian's recognition of the 
 sanctity of a joke, and his belief that "cheat- 
 ing the government was only cheating him- 
 self," largely accounted for the sympathies 
 of the rest of the miners. 
 
 But these sympathies were not always 
 unanimous. 
 
 One evening I strolled into the bar-room 
 of the principal saloon, which, so far as 
 mere upholstery and comfort went, was also 
 the principal house in the settlement. The 
 first rains had commenced; the windows 
 were open, for the influence of the south- 
 west trades penetrated even this far-off moun- 
 tain mining settlement, but, oddly enough, 
 there was a fire in the large central stove, 
 around which the miners had collected, with 
 their steaming boots elevated on a projecting 
 iron railing that encircled it. They were 
 not attracted by the warmth, but the stove 
 formed a social pivot for gossip, and sug- 
 gested that mystic circle dear to the grega- 
 rious instinct. Yet they were decidedly a 
 despondent group. For some moments the 
 
SEE YUP 103 
 
 silence was only broken by a gasp, a sigh, a 
 muttered oath, or an impatient change of 
 position. There was nothing in the fortunes 
 of the settlement, nor in their own indi- 
 vidual affairs to suggest this gloom. The 
 singular truth was that they were, one and 
 all, suffering from the pangs of dyspepsia. 
 
 Incongruous as such a complaint might 
 seem to their healthy environment, their 
 outdoor life, their daily exercise, the healing 
 balsam of the mountain air, their enforced 
 temperance in diet, and the absence of all 
 enervating pleasures, it was nevertheless 
 the incontestable fact. Whether it was the 
 result of the nervous, excitable temperament 
 which had brought them together in this 
 feverish hunt for gold; whether it was the 
 quality of the tinned meats or half -cooked 
 provisions they hastily bolted, begrudging 
 the time it took to prepare and to consume 
 them; whether they too often supplanted 
 their meals by tobacco or whiskey, the singu- 
 lar physiological truth remained that these 
 young, finely selected adventurers, living 
 the lives of the natural, aboriginal man, and 
 looking the picture of health and strength, 
 actually suffered more from indigestion than 
 the pampered dwellers of the cities. The 
 
104 SEE YUP 
 
 quantity of "patent medicines," "bitters," 
 "pills," "panaceas," and "lozenges " sold in 
 the settlement almost exceeded the amount 
 of the regular provisions whose effects they 
 were supposed to correct. The sufferers 
 eagerly scanned advertisements and placards. 
 There were occasional "runs" on new "spe- 
 cifics," and general conversation eventually 
 turned into a discussion of their respective 
 merits. A certain childlike faith and trust 
 in each new remedy was not the least dis- 
 tressing and pathetic of the symptoms of 
 these grown-up, bearded men. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Cyrus Parker, 
 glancing around at his fellow sufferers, "ye 
 kin talk of your patent medicines, and I 've 
 tackled 'em all, but only the other day I 
 struck suthin' that I 'm goin' to hang on to, 
 you bet." 
 
 Every eye was turned moodily to the 
 speaker, but no one said anything. 
 
 "And I did n't get it out er advertisements, 
 nor off of circulars. I got it out er my head, 
 just by solid thinking," continued Parker. 
 
 "What was it, Cy?" said one unsophisti- 
 cated and inexperienced sufferer. 
 
 Instead of replying, Parker, like a true 
 artist, knowing he had the ear of his audi- 
 
SEE YUP 105 
 
 ence, dramatically flashed a question upon 
 them. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of a Chinaman hav- 
 ing dyspepsy? " 
 
 "Never heard he had sabe enough to hev 
 anything^ said a scorner. 
 
 "No, but did ye?" insisted Parker. 
 
 "Well, no! " chorused the group. They 
 were evidently struck with the fact. 
 
 "Of course you didn't," said Parker tri- 
 umphantly. " 'Cos they ain't. Well, gen- 
 tlemen, it did n't seem to me the square thing 
 that a pesky lot o' yellow-skinned heathens 
 should be built different to a white man, and 
 never know the tortur' that a Christian feels ; 
 and one day, arter dinner, when I was just 
 a-lyin' flat down on the bank, squirmin', 
 and clutching the short grass to keep from 
 yellin', who should go by but that pizened 
 See Yup, with a grin on his face. 
 
 "' Mellican man plenty playee to him 
 Joss after eatin',' sez he; 'but Chinaman 
 smellee punk, allee same, and no hab got.' 
 
 "I knew the slimy cuss was just purtend- 
 in' he thought I was pray in' to my Joss, but 
 I was that weak I hadn't stren'th, boys, to 
 heave a rock at him. Yet it gave me an 
 idea." 
 
106 SEE YUP 
 
 "What was it?" they asked eagerly. 
 
 "I went down to his shop the next day, 
 when he was alone, and I was feeling mighty 
 bad, and I got hold of his pigtail and I al- 
 lowed I 'd stuff it down his throat if he 
 did n't tell me what he meant. Then he took 
 a piece of punk and lit it, and put it under 
 my nose, and, darn my skin, gentlemen, you 
 migh' n't believe me, but in a minute I felt 
 better, and after a whiff or two I was all 
 right." 
 
 "Was it pow'ful strong, Cy?" asked the 
 inexperienced one. 
 
 "No," said Parker, "and that's just 
 what 's got me. It was a sort o' dreamy, 
 spicy smell, like a hot night. But as I 
 could n't go 'round 'mong you boys with a 
 lighted piece o' punk in my hand, ez if I 
 was settin' off Fourth of July firecrackers, 
 I asked him if he could n't fix me up suthin' 
 in another shape that would be handier to 
 use when I was took bad, and I 'd reckon to 
 pay him for it like ez I 'd pay for any other 
 patent medicine. So he fixed me up this." 
 
 He put his hand in his pocket, and drew 
 out a small red paper which, when opened, 
 disclosed a pink powder. It was gravely 
 passed around the group. 
 
SEE YUP 107 
 
 "Why, it smells and tastes like ginger," 
 said one. 
 
 "It is only ginger!" said another scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 "Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn't," re- 
 turned Cy Parker stoutly. "Mebbe ut 's 
 only my fancy. But if it 's the sort o' stuff 
 to bring on that fancy, and that fancy cures 
 me, it 's all the same. I 've got about two 
 dollars' worth o' that fancy or that ginger, 
 and I 'm going to stick to it. You hear 
 me! " And he carefully put it back in his 
 pocket. 
 
 At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. 
 If he (Cy Parker), a white man, was going 
 to "demean himself" by consulting a Chi- 
 nese quack, he 'd better buy up a lot o' idols 
 and stand 'em up around his cabin. If he 
 had that sort o' confidences with See Yup, 
 he ought to go to work with him on his 
 cheap tailings, and be fumigated all at the 
 same time. If he 'd been smoking an opium 
 pipe, instead of smelling punk, he ought to 
 be man enough to confess it. Yet it was 
 noticeable that they were all very anxious to 
 examine the packet again, but Cy Parker 
 was alike indifferent to demand or entreaty. 
 
 A few days later I saw Abe Wynford, 
 
108 SEE YUP 
 
 one of the party, coming out of See Yup's 
 wash-house. He muttered something in 
 passing about the infamous delay in sending 
 home his washing, but did not linger long 
 in conversation. The next day I met an- 
 other miner at the wash-house, but he lin- 
 gered so long on some trifling details that 
 I finally left him there alone with See Yup. 
 When T called upon Poker Jack of Shasta, 
 there was a singular smell of incense in his 
 cabin, which he attributed to the very resi- 
 nous quality of the fir logs he was burning. 
 I did not attempt to probe these mysteries 
 by any direct appeal to See Yup himself : I 
 respected his reticence; indeed, if I had not, 
 I was quite satisfied that he would have lied 
 to me. Enough that his wash-house was 
 well patronized, and he was decidedly "get- 
 ting on." 
 
 It might have been a month afterwards 
 that Dr. Duchesne was setting a broken 
 bone in the settlement, and after the opera- 
 tion was over, had strolled into the Palmetto 
 Saloon. He was an old army surgeon, much 
 respected and loved in the district, although 
 perhaps a little feared for the honest rough- 
 ness and military precision of his speech. 
 After he had exchanged salutations with the 
 
SEE YUP 101 
 
 miners in his usual hearty fashion, and ac- 
 cepted their invitation to drink, Cy Parker, 
 with a certain affected carelessness which 
 did not, however, conceal a singular hesita- 
 tion in his speech, began : 
 
 "I 've been wantin' to ask ye a question, 
 Doc, a sort o' darned fool question, ye 
 know, nothing in the way of consultation, 
 don't you see, though it 's kin er in the way 
 o' your purfeshun. Sabe?" 
 
 "Go on, Cy," said the doctor good-hu- 
 moredly, "this is my dispensary hour." 
 
 "Oh! it ain't anything about symptoms, 
 Doc, and there ain't anything the matter 
 with me. It 's only just to ask ye if ye 
 happened to know anything about the medi- 
 cal practice of these yer Chinamen?" 
 
 "/don't know," said the doctor bluntly, 
 "and I don't know anybody who does." 
 
 There was a sudden silence in the bar, 
 and the doctor, putting down his glass, con- 
 tinued with slight professional precision : 
 
 "You see, the Chinese know nothing of 
 anatomy from personal observation. Au- 
 topsies and dissection are against their 
 superstitions, which declare the human body 
 sacred, and are consequently never prac- 
 ticed." 
 
110 SEE YUP 
 
 There was a slight movement of inquiring 
 interest among the party, and Cy Parker, 
 after a meaning glance at the others, went 
 on half aggressively, half apologetically : 
 
 "In course, they ain't surgeons like you, 
 Doc, but that don't keep them from having 
 their own little medicines, just as dogs eat 
 grass, you know. Now I want to put it to 
 you, as a fa'r-minded man, if you mean ter 
 say that, jest because those old women who 
 sarve out yarbs and spring medicines in 
 families don't know anything of anatomy, 
 they ain't fit to give us their simple and 
 nat'ral medicines?" 
 
 "But the Chinese medicines are not sim- 
 ple or natural," said the doctor coolly. 
 
 "Not simple? " echoed the party, closing 
 round him. 
 
 "I don't mean to say," continued the doc- 
 tor, glancing around at their eager, excited 
 faces with an appearance of wonder, "that 
 they are positively noxious, unless taken in 
 large quantities, for they are not drugs at 
 all, but I certainly should not call them 
 ' simple. ' Do you know what they princi- 
 pally are?" 
 
 "Well, no," said Parker cautiously, "per- 
 haps not exactly." 
 
SEE TUP 111 
 
 "Come a little closer, and I '11 tell you." 
 
 Not only Parker's head but the others 
 were bent over the counter. Dr. Duchesne 
 uttered a few words in a tone inaudible to 
 the rest of the company. There was a pro- 
 found silence, broken at last by Abe Wyn- 
 ford's voice : 
 
 "Ye kin pour me out about three fingers 
 o' whiskey, Barkeep. I '11 take it straight." 
 
 "Same to me," said the others. 
 
 The men gulped down their liquor; two 
 of them quietly passed out. The doctor 
 wiped his lips, buttoned his coat, and began 
 to draw on his riding-gloves. 
 
 "I 've heerd," said Poker Jack of Shasta, 
 with a faint smile on his white face, as he 
 toyed with the last drops of liquor in his 
 glass, "that the darned fools sometimes 
 smell punk as a medicine, eh?" 
 
 "Yes, that's comparatively decent," said 
 the doctor reflectively. "It 's only sawdust 
 mixed with a little gum and formic acid." 
 
 "Formic acid? Wot 's that ? " 
 
 "A very peculiar acid secreted by ants. 
 It is supposed to be used by them offensively 
 in warfare just as the skunk, eh? " 
 
 But Poker Jack of Shasta had hurriedly 
 declared that he wanted to speak to a man 
 
112 SEE YUP 
 
 who was passing, and had disappeared. The 
 doctor walked to the door, mounted his 
 horse, and rode away. I noticed, however, 
 that there was a slight smile on his bronzed, 
 impassive face. This led me to wonder if 
 he was entirely ignorant of the purpose for 
 which he had been questioned, and the effect 
 of his information. I was confirmed in the 
 belief by the remarkable circumstances that 
 nothing more was said of it; the incident 
 seemed to have terminated there, and the 
 victims made no attempt to revenge them- 
 selves on See Yup. That they had one and 
 all, secretly and unknown to one another, 
 patronized him, there was no doubt; but, at 
 the same time, as they evidently were not 
 sure that Dr. Duchesne had not hoaxed 
 them in regard to the quality of See Yup's 
 medicines, they knew that an attack on the 
 unfortunate Chinaman would in either case 
 reveal their secret and expose them to the 
 ridicule of their brother miners. So the 
 matter dropped, and See Yup remained mas- 
 ter of the situation. 
 
 Meantime he was prospering. The coolie 
 gang he worked on the river, when not en- 
 gaged in washing clothes, were "picking 
 over" the "tailings," or refuse of gravel, 
 
SEE YUP 
 
 left on abandoned claims by successful min- 
 ers. As there was no more expense attend- 
 ing this than in stone-breaking or rag-pick- 
 ing, and the feeding of the coolies, which 
 was ridiculously cheap, there was no doubt 
 that See Yup was reaping a fair weekly re- 
 turn from it ; but, as he sent his receipts to 
 San Francisco through coolie managers, after 
 the Chinese custom, and did not use the 
 regular Express Company, there was no way 
 of ascertaining the amount. Again, neither 
 See Yup nor his fellow countrymen ever ap- 
 peared to have any money about them. In 
 ruder times and more reckless camps, raids 
 were often made by ruffians on their cabins 
 or their traveling gangs, but never with 
 any pecuniary result. This condition, how- 
 ever, it seemed was destined to change. 
 
 One Saturday See Yup walked into Wells, 
 Fargo & Co.'s Express office with a pack- 
 age of gold-dust, which, when duly weighed, 
 was valued at five hundred dollars. It was 
 consigned to a Chinese company in San 
 Francisco. "When the clerk handed See 
 Yup a receipt, he remarked casually : 
 "Washing seems to pay, See Yup." 
 "Washee velly good pay. You wantee 
 washee, John?" said See Yup eagerly. 
 
114 SEE YUP 
 
 "No, no," said the clerk, with a laugh. 
 "I was only thinking five hundred dollars 
 would represent the washing of a good many 
 shirts." 
 
 "No leplesent washee shirts at all! 
 Catchee gold-dust when washee tailings. 
 Shabbee?" 
 
 The clerk did "shabbee," and lifted his 
 eyebrows. The next Saturday See Yup ap- 
 peared with another package, worth about 
 four hundred dollars, directed to the same 
 consignee. 
 
 "Didn't pan out quite so rich this week, 
 eh? " said the clerk engagingly. 
 
 "No," returned See Yup impassively; 
 "next time he payee more." 
 
 When the third Saturday came, with the 
 appearance of See Yup and four hundred 
 and fifty dollars' worth of gold-dust, the 
 clerk felt he was no longer bound to keep 
 the secret. He communicated it to others, 
 and in twenty -four hours the whole settle- 
 ment knew that See Yup's coolie company 
 were taking out an average of four hun- 
 dred dollars per week from the refuse and 
 tailings of the old abandoned Palmetto 
 claim! 
 
 The astonishment of the settlement was 
 
SEE YUP 115 
 
 profound. In earlier days jealousy and in- 
 dignation at the success of these degraded 
 heathens might have taken a more active 
 and aggressive shape, and it would have 
 fared ill with See Yup and his companions. 
 But the settlement had become more pro- 
 sperous and law-abiding; there were one or 
 two Eastern families and some foreign capi- 
 tal already there, and its jealousy and indig- 
 nation were restricted to severe investigation 
 and legal criticism. Fortunately for See 
 Yup, it was an old-established mining law 
 that an abandoned claim and its tailings be- 
 came the property of whoever chose to work 
 it. But it was alleged that See Yup's com- 
 pany had in reality "struck a lead," dis- 
 covered a hitherto unknown vein or original 
 deposit of gold, not worked by the previous 
 company, and having failed legally to de- 
 clare it by preemption and public registry, 
 in their foolish desire for secrecy, had thus 
 forfeited their right to the property. A 
 surveillance of their working, however, did 
 not establish this theory; the gold that See 
 Yup had sent away was of the kind that 
 might have been found in the tailings over- 
 looked by the late Palmetto owners. Yet it 
 was a very large yield for mere refuse. 
 
116 SEE TUP 
 
 "Them Palmetto boys were mighty keer- 
 less after they 'd made their big 4 strike ' 
 and got to work on the vein, and I reckon 
 they threw a lot of gold away," said Cy 
 Parker, who remembered their large-handed 
 recklessness in the "flush days." "On'y 
 that we didn't think it was white man's 
 work to rake over another man's leavin's, 
 we might hev had what them derned China- 
 men hev dropped into. Tell ye what, boys, 
 we 've been a little too ' high and mighty, ' 
 and we '11 hev to climb down." 
 
 At last the excitement reached its climax, 
 and diplomacy was employed to effect what 
 neither intimidation nor espionage could se- 
 cure. Under the pretense of desiring to 
 buy out See Yup's company, a select com- 
 mittee of the miners was permitted to exam- 
 ine the property and its workings. They 
 found the great bank of stones and gravel, 
 representing the cast-out debris of the old 
 claim, occupied by See Yup and four or five 
 plodding automatic coolies. At the end of 
 two hours the committee returned to the sa- 
 loon bursting with excitement. They spoke 
 under their breath, but enough was gathered 
 to satisfy the curious crowd that See Yup's 
 pile of tailings was rich beyond their expec- 
 
SEE YUP 117 
 
 tations. The committee had seen with their 
 own eyes gold taken out of the sand and 
 gravel to the amount of twenty dollars in 
 the two short hours of their examination. 
 And the work had been performed in the 
 stupidest, clumsiest, yet patient Chinese 
 way. What might not white men do with 
 better appointed machinery! A syndicate 
 was at once formed. See Yup was offered 
 twenty thousand dollars if he would sell out 
 and put the syndicate in possession of the 
 claim in twenty -four hours. The Chinaman 
 received the offer stolidly. As he seemed 
 inclined to hesitate, I am grieved to say that 
 it was intimated to him that if he declined 
 he might be subject to embarrassing and 
 expensive legal proceedings to prove his 
 property, and that companies would be 
 formed to "prospect" the ground on either 
 side of his heap of tailings. See Yup at 
 last consented, with the proviso that the 
 money should be paid in gold into the hands 
 of a Chinese agent in San Francisco on the 
 day of the delivery of the claim. The syn- 
 dicate made no opposition to this character- 
 istic precaution of the Chinaman. It was 
 like them not to travel with money, and the 
 implied uncomplimentary suspicion of dange* 
 
118 SEE YUP 
 
 from the community was overlooked. See 
 Yup departed the day that the syndicate 
 took possession. He came to see me before 
 he went. I congratulated him upon his good 
 fortune; at the same time, I was embar- 
 rassed by the conviction that he was unfairly 
 forced into a sale of his property at a figure 
 far below its real value. 
 
 I think differently now. 
 
 At the end of the week it was said that 
 the new company cleared up about three 
 hundred dollars. This was not so much as 
 the community had expected, but the syndi- 
 cate was apparently satisfied, and the new 
 machinery was put up. At the end of the 
 next week the syndicate were silent as to 
 their returns. One of them made a hurried 
 visit to San Francisco. It was said that he 
 was unable to see either See Yup or the 
 agent to whom the money was paid. It was 
 also noticed that there was no Chinaman 
 remaining in the settlement. Then the fatal 
 secret was out. 
 
 The heap of tailings had probably never 
 yielded the See Yup company more than 
 twenty dollars a week, the ordinary wage of 
 such a company. See Yup had conceived 
 the brilliant idea of "booming " it on a bor- 
 
SEE YUP 119 
 
 rowed capital of five hundred dollars in gold- 
 dust, which he openly transmitted by ex- 
 press to his confederate and creditor in San 
 Francisco, who in turn secretly sent it back 
 to See Yup by coolie messengers, to be 
 again openly transmitted to San Francisco. 
 The package of gold-dust was thus passed 
 backwards and forwards between debtor and 
 creditor, to the grave edification of the Ex- 
 press Company and the fatal curiosity of 
 the settlement. When the syndicate had 
 gorged the bait thus thrown out, See Yup, 
 on the day the self-invited committee in- 
 spected the claim, promptly "salted" the 
 tailings by conscientiously distributing the 
 gold-dust over it so deftly that it appeared 
 to be its natural composition and yield. 
 
 I have only to bid farewell to See Yup, 
 and close this reminiscence of a misunder- 
 stood man, by adding the opinion of an emi- 
 nent jurist in San Francisco, to whom the 
 facts were submitted: "So clever was this 
 alleged fraud, that it is extremely doubtful 
 if an action would lie against See Yup in 
 the premises, there being no legal evidence 
 of the * salting, ' and none whatever of his 
 actual allegation that the gold-dust was the 
 ordinary yield of the tailings, that implica- 
 
120 SEE YUP 
 
 tion resting entirely with the committee who 
 examined it under false pretense, and who 
 subsequently forced the sale by intimida- 
 tion." 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 "THEN it isn't a question of property or 
 next of kin? " said the consul. 
 
 "Lord! no," said the lady vivaciously. 
 "Why, goodness me! I reckon old Des- 
 borough could, at any time before he died, 
 have ' bought up ' or ' bought out ' the whole 
 lot of his relatives on this side of the big 
 pond, no matter what they were worth. 
 No, it 's only a matter of curiosity and just 
 sociableness." 
 
 The American consul at St. Kentigorn 
 felt much relieved. He had feared it was 
 only the old story of delusive quests for im- 
 aginary estates and impossible inheritances 
 which he had confronted so often in nervous 
 wan-eyed enthusiasts and obstreperous claim- 
 ants from his own land. Certainly there 
 was no suggestion of this in the richly 
 dressed and be-diamonded matron before 
 him, nor in her pretty daughter, charming 
 in a Paris frock, alive with the consciousness 
 of beauty and admiration, and yet a little 
 
122 THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 ennuye from gratified indulgence. He knew 
 the mother to be the wealthy widow of a 
 New York millionaire, that she was travel- 
 ing for pleasure in Europe, and a chance 
 meeting with her at dinner a few nights be- 
 fore had led to this half -capricious, half- 
 confidential appointment at the consulate. 
 
 "No," continued Mrs. Desborough; "Mr. 
 Desborough came to America, when a small 
 boy, with an uncle who died some years ago. 
 Mr. Desborough never seemed to hanker 
 much after his English relatives as long as 
 I knew him, but now that I and Sadie are 
 over here, why we guessed we might look 
 'em up and sort of sample 'em ! ' Desbor- 
 ough ' 's rather a good name," added the 
 lady, with a complacency that, however, had 
 a suggestion of query in it. 
 
 "Yes," said the consul; "from the French, 
 I fancy." 
 
 " Mr. Desborough was English very 
 English," corrected the lady. 
 
 "I mean it may be an old Norman name," 
 said the consul. 
 
 "Norman 's good enough for me," said 
 the daughter, reflecting. " We '11 just set- 
 tle it as Norman. I never thought about 
 that Des." 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 123 
 
 "Only you may find it called s Debbor- 
 ough ' here, and spelt so," said the consul, 
 smiling. 
 
 Miss Desborough lifted her pretty shoul- 
 ders and made a charming grimace. " Then 
 we won't acknowledge 'em. No Debbor- 
 ough for me ! " 
 
 "You might put an advertisement in the 
 papers, like the ' next of kin ' notice, inti- 
 mating, in the regular way, that they would 
 ' hear of something to their advantage ' 
 as they certainly would," continued the con- 
 sul, with a bow. "It would be such a re- 
 freshing change to the kind of thing I 'm 
 accustomed to, don't you know this idea 
 of one of my countrywomen coming over 
 just to benefit English relatives ! By Jove ! 
 I would n't mind undertaking the whole 
 thing for you it's such a novelty." He 
 was quite carried away with the idea. 
 
 But the two ladies were far from partici- 
 pating in this joyous outlook. "No," said 
 Mrs. Desborough promptly, "that wouldn't 
 do. You see," she went on with superb 
 frankness, "that would be just giving our- 
 selves away, and saying who we were before 
 we found out what they were like. Mr. 
 Desborough was all right in his way, but we 
 
124 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 don't know anything about his folks ! We 
 ain't here on a mission to improve the Des- 
 boroughs, nor to gather in any ' lost tribes. ' ' 
 It was evident that, in spite oi the humor 
 of the situation and the levity of the ladies, 
 there was a characteristic national practical- 
 ness about them, and the consul, with a 
 sigh, at last gave the address of one or two 
 responsible experts in genealogical inquiry, 
 as he had often done before. He felt it 
 was impossible to offer any advice to ladies 
 as thoroughly capable of managing their 
 own affairs as his fair countrywomen, yet he 
 was not without some curiosity to know the 
 result of their practical sentimental quest. 
 That he should ever hear of them again he 
 doubted. He knew that after their first 
 loneliness had worn off in their gregarious 
 gathering at a London hotel they were not 
 likely to consort with their own country peo- 
 ple, who indeed were apt to fight shy of 
 one another, and even to indulge in invidious 
 criticism of one another when admitted in 
 that society to which they were all equally 
 strangers. So he took leave of them on 
 their way back to London with the belief 
 that their acquaintance terminated with that 
 brief incident. But he was mistaken. 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 125 
 
 In the year following he was spending his 
 autumn vacation at a country house. It 
 was an historic house, and had always struck 
 him as being even in that country of his- 
 toric seats a singular example of the vicis- 
 situdes of English manorial estates and the 
 mutations of its lords. His host in his 
 prime had been recalled from foreign service 
 to unexpectedly succeed to an uncle's title 
 and estate. That estate, however, had come 
 into the possession of the uncle only through 
 his marriage with the daughter of an old 
 family whose portraits still looked down 
 from the walls upon the youngest and alien 
 branch. There were likenesses, effigies, 
 memorials, and reminiscences of still older 
 families who had occupied it through for- 
 feiture by war or the favoritism of kings, 
 and in its stately cloisters and ruined chapel 
 was still felt the dead hand of its evicted re- 
 ligious founders, which could not be shaken 
 off. 
 
 It was this strange individuality that af- 
 fected all who saw it. For, however changed 
 were those within its walls, whoever were 
 its inheritors or inhabiters, Scrooby Priory 
 never changed nor altered its own character. 
 However incongruous or ill-assorted the por- 
 
126 THE DESBOKOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 traits that looked from its walls, so ill met 
 that they might have flown at one another's 
 throats in the long nights when the family 
 were away, the great house itself was in- 
 dependent of them all. The be-wigged, be- 
 laced, and be-furbelowed of one day's gath- 
 ering, the round-headed, steel-fronted, and 
 prim -kerchief ed congregation of another day, 
 and even the black-coated, bare-armed, and 
 bare-shouldered assemblage of to-day had no 
 effect on the austerities of the Priory. Mod- 
 ern houses might show the tastes and prepos- 
 sessions of their dwellers, might have caught 
 some passing trick of the hour, or have re- 
 corded the augmented fortunes or luxurious- 
 ness of the owner, but Scrooby Priory never ! 
 No one had dared even to disturb its outer 
 rigid integrity; the breaches of time and 
 siege were left untouched. It held its calm 
 indifferent sway over all who passed its low- 
 arched portals, and the consul was fain to 
 believe that he a foreign visitor was no 
 xnore alien to the house than its present 
 owner. 
 
 "I 'm expecting a very charming compa 
 triot of yours to-morrow," said Lord Bever- 
 dale as they drove from the station together. 
 "You must tell me what to show her." 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 127 
 
 "I should think any countrywoman of 
 mine would be quite satisfied with the Pri- 
 ory," said the consul, glancing thoughtfully 
 towards the pile dimly seen through the 
 park. 
 
 "I shouldn't like her to be bored here," 
 continued Beverdale. "Algy met her at 
 Eome, where she was occupying a palace 
 with her mother they 're very rich, you 
 know. He found she was staying with Lady 
 Minever at Hedham Towers, and I went 
 over and invited her with a little party. 
 She 's a Miss Desborough." 
 
 The consul gave a slight start, and was 
 aware that Beverdale was looking at him. 
 
 " Perhaps you know her ? " said Beverdale. 
 
 "Just enough to agree with you that she 
 is charming," said the consul. "I dined 
 with them, and saw them at the consulate." 
 
 "Oh yes; I always forget you are a con- 
 sul. Then, of course, you know all about 
 them. I suppose they 're very rich, and in 
 society over there?" said Beverdale in a 
 voice that was quite animated. 
 
 It was on the consul's lips to say that the 
 late Mr. Desborough was an Englishman, 
 and even to speak playfully of their pro- 
 posed quest, but a sudden instinct withheld 
 
128 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 him. After all, perhaps it was only a ca 
 price, or idea, they had forgotten, perhaps, 
 who knows ? that they were already 
 ashamed of. They had evidently "got on" 
 in English society, if that was their real in- 
 tent, and doubtless Miss Desborough, by this 
 time, was quite as content with the chance 
 of becoming related to the Earl of Bever- 
 dale, through his son and heir, Algernon, as 
 if they had found a real Lord Desborough 
 among their own relatives. The consul knew 
 that Lord Beverdale was not a rich man, 
 that like most men of old family he was not 
 a slave to class prejudice ; indeed, the con- 
 sul had seen very few noblemen off the stage 
 or out of the pages of a novel who were. 
 So he said, with a slight affectation of au- 
 thority, that there was as little doubt of the 
 young lady's wealth as there was of her per- 
 sonal attractions. 
 
 They were nearing the house through a 
 long avenue of chestnuts whose variegated 
 leaves were already beginning to strew the 
 ground beneath, and they could see the vista 
 open upon the mullioned windows of the 
 Priory, lighted up by the yellow October 
 sunshine. In that sunshine stood a tall, 
 clean-limbed young fellow, dressed in a 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 129 
 
 shooting-suit, whom the consul recognized 
 at once as Lord Algernon, the son of his 
 companion. As if to accent the graces of 
 this vision of youth and vigor, near him, in 
 the shadow, an old man had halted, hat in 
 hand, still holding the rake with which he 
 had been gathering the dead leaves in the 
 avenue; his back bent, partly with years, 
 partly with the obeisance of a servitor. 
 There was something so marked in this con- 
 trast, in this old man standing in the shadow 
 of the fading year, himself as dried and with- 
 ered as the leaves he was raking, yet paus- 
 ing to make his reverence to this passing 
 sunshine of youth and prosperity in the pre- 
 sence of his coming master, that the consul, 
 as they swept by, looked after him with a 
 stirring of pain. 
 
 "Rather an old man to be still at work," 
 said the consul. 
 
 Beverdale laughed. "You must not let 
 him hear you say so; he considers himself 
 quite as fit as any younger man in the place, 
 and, by Jove! though he's nearly eighty, 
 I 'm inclined to believe it. He 's not one of 
 our people, however; he comes from the vil- 
 lage, and is taken on at odd times, partly to 
 please himself. His great aim is to be in- 
 
130 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 dependent of his children, he has a grand- 
 daughter who is one of the maids at the 
 Priory, and to keep himself out of the 
 workhouse. He does not come from these 
 parts somewhere farther north, I fancy. 
 But he 's a tough iot, ana has a deal of 
 work in him yet." 
 
 "Seems to be going a bit stale lately," 
 said Lord Algernon, "and I think is getting 
 a little queer in nis head. He has a trick 
 of stopping and staring straight ahead, at 
 times, when he seems to go off for a minute 
 or two. There! " continued the young man, 
 with a light laugh. "I say! he 's doing it 
 now ! " They both turned quickly and gazed 
 at the bent figure not fifty yards away 
 standing in exactly the same attitude as be- 
 fore. But, even as they gazed, he slowly 
 lifted his rake and began his monotonous 
 work again. 
 
 At Scrooby Priory, the consul found that 
 the fame of his fair countrywoman had in- 
 deed preceded her, and that the other guests 
 were quite as anxious to see Miss Desbor- 
 ough as he was. One of them had already 
 met her in London; another knew her as 
 one of the house party at the Duke of North- 
 foreland's, where she had been a central fig- 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 131 
 
 ure. Some of her nai've sallies and frank 
 criticisms were repeated with great unction 
 by the gentlemen, and with some slight trep- 
 idation and a "fearful joy" by the ladies. 
 He was more than ever convinced that mo- 
 ther and daughter had forgotten their lineal 
 Desboroughs, and he resolved to leave any 
 allusion to it to the young lady herself. 
 
 She, however, availed herself of that privi- 
 lege the evening after her arrival. "Who 'd 
 have thought of meeting you here?" she 
 said, sweeping her skirts away to make room 
 for him on a sofa. "It 's a coon's age since 
 I saw you not since you gave us that letter 
 to those genealogical gentlemen in London." 
 
 The consul hoped that it had proved suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 "Yes, but maw guessed we didn't care 
 to go back to Hengist and Horsa, and when 
 they let loose a lot of ' Debboroughs ' and 
 ' Daybrooks ' upon us, maw kicked ! We 've 
 got a drawing ten yards long, that looks like 
 a sour apple tree, with lots of Desboroughs 
 hanging up on the branches like last year's 
 pippins, and I guess about as worm-eaten. 
 We took that well enough, but when it came 
 to giving us a map of straight lines and 
 dashes with names written under them like 
 
132 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 an old Morse telegraph slip, struck by light- 
 ning, then maw and I guessed that it made 
 us tired. 
 
 "You know," she went on, opening her 
 clear gray eyes on the consul, with a charac- 
 teristic flash of shrewd good sense through 
 her quaint humor, "we never reckoned 
 where this thing would land us, and we 
 found we were paying a hundred pounds, 
 not only for the Desboroughs, but all the 
 people they 'd married, and their children, 
 and children's children, and there were a lot 
 of outsiders we 'd never heard of, nor wanted 
 to hear of. Maw once thought she 'd got 
 on the trail of a Plantagenet, and followed 
 it keen, until she found she had been read- 
 ing the dreadful thing upside down. Then 
 we concluded we wouldn't take any more 
 stock in the family until it had risen." 
 
 During this speech the consul could not 
 help noticing that, although her attitude was 
 playfully confidential to him, her voice really 
 was pitched high enough to reach the ears 
 of smaller groups around her, who were not 
 only following her with the intensest admi- 
 ration, but had shamelessly abandoned their 
 own conversation, and had even faced towards 
 her. Was she really posing in her naivete? 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 133 
 
 There was a certain mischievous, even ag- 
 gressive, consciousness in her pretty eyelids. 
 Then she suddenly dropped both eyes and 
 voice, and said to the consul in a genuine 
 aside, "I like this sort of thing much bet- 
 ter." 
 
 The consul looked puzzled. " What sort 
 of thing?" 
 
 "Why, all these swell people, don't you 
 see? those pictures on the walls! this elegant 
 room ! everything that has come down from 
 the past, all ready and settled for you, you 
 know ages ago! Something you have n't 
 to pick up for yourself and worry over." 
 
 But here the consul pointed out that the 
 place itself was not "ancestral " as regarded 
 the present earl, and that even the original 
 title of his predecessors had passed away 
 from it. "In fact, it came into the family 
 by one of those ' outsiders ' you deprecate. 
 But I dare say you 'd find the place quite as 
 comfortable with Lord Beverdale for a host 
 as you would if you had found out he were 
 a cousin," he added. 
 
 "Better," said the young lady frankly. 
 
 "I suppose your mother participates in 
 these preferences?" said the consul, with a 
 smile. 
 
134 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 "No," said Miss Desborough, with the 
 same frankness, "I think maw 's rather cut 
 up at not finding a Desborough. She was 
 invited down here, but she 's rather inde- 
 pendent, you know, so she allowed I could 
 take care of myself, while she went off to 
 stay with the old Dowager Lady Mistowe, 
 who thinks maw a very proper womanly 
 person. I made maw mad by telling her 
 that 's just what old Lady Mistowe would 
 say of her cook for I can't stand these 
 people's patronage. However, I shouldn't 
 wonder if I was invited here as a ' most origi- 
 nal person. ' ' 
 
 But here Lord Algernon came up to im- 
 plore her to sing them one of " those planta- 
 tion songs;" and Miss Desborough, with 
 scarcely a change of voice or manner, al- 
 lowed herself to be led to the piano. The 
 consul had little chance to speak with her 
 again, but he saw enough that evening to 
 convince him not only that Lord Algernon 
 was very much in love with her, but that the 
 fact had been equally and complacently ac- 
 cepted by the family and guests. That her 
 present visit was only an opportunity for a 
 formal engagement was clear to every woman 
 in the house not excepting, I fear, even 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 135 
 
 the fair subject of gossip herself. Yet she 
 seemed so unconcerned and self-contained 
 that the consul wondered if she really cared 
 for Lord Algernon. And having thus won- 
 dered, he came to the conclusion that it 
 did n't much matter, for the happiness of so 
 practically organized a young lady, if she 
 loved him or not. 
 
 It is highly probable that Miss Sadie Des- 
 borough had not even gone so far as to ask 
 herself that question. She awoke the next 
 morning with a sense of easy victory and 
 calm satisfaction that had, however, none of 
 the transports of affection. Her taste was 
 satisfied by the love of a handsome young 
 fellow, a typical Englishman, who, if 
 not exactly original or ideal, was, she felt, 
 of an universally accepted, "hall-marked" 
 standard, the legitimate outcome of a highly 
 ordered, carefully guarded civilization, whose 
 repose was the absence of struggle or ambi- 
 tion ; a man whose regular features were not 
 yet differentiated from the rest of his class 
 by any of those disturbing lines which peo- 
 ple call character. Everything was made 
 ready for her, without care or preparation ; 
 she had not even an ideal to realize or to 
 modify. She could slip without any jar or 
 
136 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 dislocation into this life which was just saved 
 from self-indulgence and sybaritic luxury by 
 certain conventional rules of activity and 
 the occupation of amusement which, as obli- 
 gations of her position, even appeared to 
 suggest the novel aspect of a duty! She 
 could accept all this without the sense of be- 
 ing an intruder in an unbroken lineage 
 thanks to the consul's account of the Bever- 
 dales' inheritance. She already pictured 
 herself as the mistress of this fair domain, 
 the custodian of its treasures and traditions, 
 and the dispenser of its hospitalities, but 
 as she conscientiously believed without 
 pride or vanity, in her position; only an 
 intense and thoughtful appreciation of it. 
 Nor did she dream of ever displaying it os- 
 tentatiously before her less fortunate fellow 
 countrywomen; on the contrary, she looked 
 forward to their possible criticism of her 
 casting off all transatlantic ties with an un- 
 easy consciousness that was perhaps her 
 nearest approach to patriotism. Yet, again, 
 she reasoned that, as her father was an Eng- 
 lishman, she was only returning to her old 
 home. As to her mother, she had already 
 comforted herself by noticing certain dis- 
 crepancies in that lady's temperament, which 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 137 
 
 led her to believe that she herself alone in- 
 herited her father's nature for her mother 
 was, of course, distinctly American! So 
 little conscious was she of any possible snob- 
 bishness in this belief, that in her superb 
 naivete she would have argued the point with 
 the consul, and employed a wit and dialect 
 that were purely American. 
 
 She had slipped out of the Priory early 
 that morning that she might enjoy alone, 
 unattended and unciceroned, the aspect of 
 that vast estate which might be hers for the 
 mere accepting. Perhaps there was some 
 instinct of delicacy in her avoiding Lord 
 Algernon that morning ; not wishing, as she 
 herself might have frankly put it, "to take 
 stock" of his inheritance in his presence. 
 As she passed into the garden through the 
 low postern door, she turned to look along 
 the stretching fa$ade of the main building, 
 with the high stained windows of its ban- 
 queting-hall and the state chamber where a 
 king had slept. Even in that crisp Octo- 
 ber air, and with the green of its ivied bat- 
 tlements against the gold of the distant 
 wood, it seemed to lie in the languid repose 
 of an eternal summer. She hurried on down 
 the other terrace into the Italian garden, a 
 
138 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 quaint survival of past grandeur, passed the 
 great orangery and numerous conservatories, 
 making a crystal hamlet in themselves 
 seeing everywhere the same luxury. But 
 it was a luxury that she fancied was re- 
 deemed from the vulgarity of ostentation 
 by the long custom of years and generations, 
 so unlike the millionaire palaces of her own 
 land ; and, in her enthusiasm, she even fan- 
 cied it was further sanctified by the grim 
 monastic founders who had once been con- 
 tent with bread and pulse in the crumbling 
 and dismantled refectory. In the plenitude 
 of her feelings she felt a slight recognition 
 of some beneficent being who had rolled this 
 golden apple at her feet, and felt as if she 
 really should like to "do good " in her 
 sphere. 
 
 It so chanced that, passing through a 
 small gate in the park, she saw walking, a 
 little ahead of her, a young girl whom she 
 at once recognized as a Miss Amelyn, one 
 of the guests of the evening before. Miss 
 Desborough remembered that she played the 
 accompaniment of one or two songs upon the 
 piano, and had even executed a long solo 
 during the general conversation, without at- 
 tention from the others, and apparently with 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 139 
 
 little irritation to herself, subsiding after- 
 wards into an armchair, quite on the fringe 
 of other people's conversation. She had 
 been called "my dear" by one or two dow- 
 agers, and by her Christian name by the 
 earl, and had a way of impalpably melting 
 out of sight at times. These trifles led Miss 
 Desborough to conclude that she was some 
 kind of dependent or poor relation. Here 
 was an opportunity to begin her work of 
 "doing good." She quickened her pace and 
 overtook Miss Amelyn. 
 
 "Let me walk with you," she said gra- 
 ciously. 
 
 The young English girl smiled assent, but 
 looked her surprise at seeing the cynosure 
 of last night's eyes unattended. 
 
 "Oh," said Sadie, answering the mute 
 query, "I didn't want to be ' shown round ' 
 by anybody, and I 'm not going to bore you 
 with asking to see sights either. We '11 just 
 walk together ; wherever you 're going is 
 good enough for me." 
 
 "I'm going as far as the village," said 
 Miss Amelyn, looking down doubtfully at 
 Sadie's smart French shoes "if you care 
 to walk so far." 
 
 Sadie noticed that her companion was 
 
140 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 more solidly booted, and that her straight* 
 short skirts, although less stylish than her 
 own, had a certain character, better fitted to 
 the freer outdoor life of the country. But 
 she only said, however, "The village will 
 do," and gayly took her companion's arm. 
 
 "But I 'm afraid you '11 find it very unin- 
 teresting, for I am going to visit some poor 
 cottages," persisted Miss Amelyn, with a 
 certain timid ingenuousness of manner which, 
 however, was as distinct as Miss Desbor- 
 ough's bolder frankness. "I promised the 
 rector's daughter to take her place to-day." 
 
 "And I feel as if I was ready to pour oil 
 and wine to any extent," said Miss Desbor- 
 ough, "so come along! " 
 
 Miss Amelyn laughed, and yet glanced 
 around her timidly, as if she thought that 
 Miss Desborough ought to have a larger and 
 more important audience. Then she con- 
 tinued more confidentially and boldly, " But 
 it is n't at all like ' slumming, ' you know. 
 These poor people here are not very bad, 
 and are not at all extraordinary." 
 
 "Never mind," said Sadie, hurrying her 
 along. After a pause she went on, "You 
 know the Priory very well, I guess?" 
 
 "I lived there when I was a little girl, 
 
THE DESBOBOUGH CONNECTIONS 141 
 
 with my aunt, the Dowager Lady Bever- 
 dale," said Miss Amelyn. "When my 
 cousin Fred, who was the young heir, died, 
 and the present Lord Beverdale succeeded, 
 he never expected it, you know, for there 
 were two lives, his two elder brothers, besides 
 poor Fred's, between, but they both died, 
 we went to live in the Dower House." 
 
 "The Dower House?" repeated Sadie. 
 
 "Yes, Lady Beverdale' s separate pro- 
 perty." 
 
 "But I thought all this property the 
 Priory came into the family through her." 
 
 "It did this was the Amelyns' place; 
 but the oldest son or nearest male heir al- 
 ways succeeds to the property and title." 
 
 "Do you mean to say that the present 
 Lord Beverdale turned that old lady out?" 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked shocked. "I mean 
 to say," she said gravely, "Lady Beverdale 
 would have had to go when her own son be- 
 came of age, had he lived." She paused, 
 and then said timidly, "Isn't it that way in 
 America?" 
 
 "Dear no!" Miss Desborough had a 
 faint recollection that there was something 
 in the Constitution or the Declaration of 
 Independence against primogeniture. " No I 
 
142 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 the men have n't it all their own way there 
 not much! " 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked as if she did not care 
 to discuss this problem. After a few mo- 
 ments Sadie continued, "You and Lord 
 Algernon are pretty old friends, I guess? " 
 
 "No," replied Miss Amelyn. "He came 
 once or twice to the Priory for the holidays, 
 when he was quite a boy at Marlborough 
 for the family weren't very well off, and 
 his father was in India. He was a very shy 
 boy, and of course no one ever thought of 
 him succeeding." 
 
 Miss Desborough felt half inclined to be 
 pleased with this, and yet half inclined to 
 resent this possible snubbing of her future 
 husband. But they were nearing the vil- 
 lage, and Miss Amelyn turned the conversa- 
 tion to the object of her visit. It was a new 
 village an unhandsome village, for all 
 that it stood near one of the gates of the 
 park. It had been given over to some mines 
 that were still worked in its vicinity, and 
 to the railway, which the uncle of the present 
 earl had resisted; but the railway had tri- 
 umphed, and the station for Scrooby Priory 
 was there. There was a grim church, of a 
 blackened or weather-beaten stone, on the 
 
THE DESBOBOUGH CONNECTIONS 143 
 
 hill, with a few grim Amelyns reposing 
 cross-legged in the chancel, but the charac- 
 ter of the village was as different from the 
 Priory as if it were in another county. 
 They stopped at the rectory, where Miss 
 Amelyn provided herself with certain doles 
 and gifts, which the American girl would 
 have augmented with a five -pound note but 
 for Miss Amelyn's horrified concern. "As 
 many shillings would do, and they would be 
 as grateful, " she said. " More they would n't 
 understand." 
 
 "Then keep it, and dole it out as you 
 like," said Sadie quickly. 
 
 "But I don't think that that Lord 
 Beverdale would quite approve," hesitated 
 Miss Amelyn. 
 
 The pretty brow of her companion knit, 
 and her gray eyes flashed vivaciously. 
 "What has he to do with it?" she said 
 pertly; "besides, you say these are not his 
 poor. Take that five -pound note or 
 I '11 double it, get it changed into sovereigns 
 at the station, and hand 'em round to every 
 man, woman, and child." 
 
 Miss Amelyn hesitated. The American 
 girl looked capable of doing what she said; 
 perhaps it was a national way of almsgiv- 
 
144 THE DESBOBOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 ing! She took the note, with the mental 
 reservation of making a full confession to 
 the rector and Lord Beverdale. 
 
 She was right in saying that the poor of 
 Scrooby village were not interesting. There 
 was very little squalor or degradation ; their 
 poverty seemed not a descent, but a condi- 
 tion to which they had been born ; the faces 
 which Sadie saw were dulled and apathetic 
 rather than sullen or rebellious; they stood 
 up when Miss Amelyn entered, paying her 
 the deference, but taking little note of the 
 pretty butterfly who was with her, or rather 
 submitting to her frank curiosity with that 
 dull consent of the poor, as if they had lost 
 even the sense of privacy, or a right to re- 
 spect. It seemed to the American girl that 
 their poverty was more indicated by what 
 they were satisfied with than what she 
 thought they missed. It is to be feared that 
 this did not add to Sadie's sympathy; all 
 the beggars she had seen in America wanted 
 all they could get, and she felt as if she were 
 confronted with an inferior animal. 
 
 "There 's a wonderful old man lives here," 
 said Miss Amelyn, as they halted before a 
 stone and thatch cottage quite on the out- 
 skirts of the village. u We can't call him 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 145 
 
 one of our poor, for he still works, although 
 over eighty, and it 's his pride to keep out 
 of the poorhouse, and, as he calls it, ' off ' 
 the hands of his granddaughters. But we 
 manage to do something for them, and we 
 hope he profits by it. One of them is at 
 the Priory; they 're trying to make a maid 
 of her, but her queer accent they 're from 
 the north is against her with the servants. 
 I am afraid we won't see old Debs, for he 's 
 at work again to-day, though the doctor has 
 warned him." 
 
 " Debs ! What a funny name ! " 
 
 "Yes, but as many of these people cannot 
 read or write, the name is carried by the 
 ear, and not always correctly. Some of the 
 railway navvies, who come from the north 
 as he does, call him ' Debbers.' ' 
 
 They were obliged to descend into the 
 cottage, which was so low that it seemed to 
 have sunk into the earth until its drooping 
 eaves of thatch mingled with the straw heap 
 beside it. Debs was not at home. But his 
 granddaughter was there, who, after a pre- 
 liminary "bob," continued the stirring of 
 the pot before the fire in tentative silence. 
 
 "I am sorry to find that your grandfather 
 has gone to work again in spite of the doc- 
 tor's orders," said Miss Amelyn. 
 
146 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTION'S 
 
 The girl continued to stir the pot, and 
 then said without looking up, but as if also 
 continuing a train of aggressive thoughts 
 with her occupation: "Eay, but 'e 's so set 
 oop in 'issen 'ee doan't take orders from nob- 
 but leastways doctor. Moinds 'em now 
 moor nor a floy. Says 'ee knaws there nowt 
 wrong wi' 'is 'eart. Mout be roight 
 how'siver, sarten sewer, 'is 'ead 's a' in a 
 muddle! Toims 'ee goes off stamrin' and 
 starin' at nowt, as if 'ee a'nt a n'aporth o' 
 sense. How'siver I be doing my duty by 
 'em and 'ere 's 'is porritch when a' cooms 
 'gin a' be sick or maad." 
 
 What the American understood of the 
 girl's speech and manner struck her as hav- 
 ing very little sympathy with either her 
 aged relative or her present visitor. And 
 there was a certain dogged selfish independ- 
 ence about her that Miss Desborough half 
 liked and half resented. However, Miss 
 Amelyn did not seem to notice it, and, after 
 leaving a bottle of port for the grandfather, 
 she took her leave and led Sadie away. As 
 they passed into the village a carriage, re- 
 turning to the Priory, filled with tneir fel- 
 low guests, dashed by, but was instantly 
 pulled up at a word from Lord Algernon, 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 147 
 
 who leaped from the vehicle, hat in hand, 
 and implored the fair truant and her com- 
 panion to join them. 
 
 " We 're just making a tour around Wind- 
 over Hill, and back to luncheon," he said, 
 with a rising color. "We missed you aw- 
 fully ! If we had known you were so keen 
 on ' good works, ' and so early at it, by 
 Jove ! we 'd have got up a ' slummin' party,' 
 and all joined! " 
 
 "And you haven't seen half," said Lord 
 Beverdale from the box. "Miss Amelyn 's 
 too partial to the village. There 's an old 
 drunken retired poacher somewhere in a hut 
 in Crawley Woods, whom it 's death to ap- 
 proach, except with a large party. There 's 
 malignant diphtheria over at the South 
 Farm, eight down with measles at the keep- 
 er's, and an old woman who has been bed- 
 ridden for years." 
 
 But Miss Desborough was adamant, 
 though sparkling. She thanked him, but 
 said she had just seen an old woman "who 
 had been lying in bed for twenty years, and 
 hadn't spoken the truth once!" She pro- 
 posed "going outside of Lord Beverdale 's 
 own preserves of grain-fed poor," and start- 
 ing up her own game. She would return in 
 
148 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 time for luncheon if she could; if not, 
 she " should annex the gruel of the first kind 
 incapable she met." 
 
 Yet, actually, she was far from displeased 
 at being accidentally discovered by these 
 people while following out her capricious 
 whim of the morning. One or two elder 
 ladies, who had fought shy of her frocks 
 and her frankness the evening before, were 
 quite touched now by this butterfly who was 
 willing to forego the sunlight of society, and 
 soil her pretty wings on the haunts of the 
 impoverished, with only a single companion, 
 of her own sex ! and smiled approv- 
 ingly. And in her present state of mind, 
 remembering her companion's timid attitude 
 towards Lord Beverdale's opinions, she was 
 not above administering this slight snub to 
 him in her presence. 
 
 When they had driven away, with many 
 regrets, Miss Amelyn was deeply concerned. 
 "I am afraid," she said, with timid conscien- 
 tiousness, "I have kept you from going with 
 them. And you must be bored with what 
 you have seen, I know. I don't believe you 
 really care one bit for it and you are only 
 doing it to please me." 
 
 "Trot out the rest of your show," said 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 149 
 
 Sadie promptly, "and we '11 wind up by 
 lunching with the rector." 
 
 "He 'd be too delighted," said Miss Ame- 
 lyn, with disaster written all over her girl- 
 ish, truthful face, "but but you know 
 it really would n't be quite right to Lord 
 Beverdale. You 're his principal guest 
 you know, and they 'd think I had taken 
 you off." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Desborough impetu- 
 ously, "what's the matter with that inn 
 the Red Lion? We can get a sandwich 
 there, I guess. I 'm not very hungry." 
 
 Miss Amelyn looked horrified for a mo- 
 ment, and then laughed; but immediately 
 became concerned again. "No! listen to 
 me, really now! Let me finish my round 
 alone ! You '11 have ample time if you go 
 now to reach the Priory for luncheon. Do, 
 please! It would be ever so much better 
 for everybody. I feel quite guilty as it is, 
 and I suppose I am already in Lord Bever- 
 dale 's black books." 
 
 The trouble in the young girl's face was 
 unmistakable, and as it suited Miss Desbor- 
 ough 's purpose just as well to show her in- 
 dependence by returning, as she had set out, 
 alone, she consented to go. Miss Amelyn 
 
150 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 showed her a short cut across the park, and 
 they separated to meet at dinner. In this 
 Jbrief fellowship, the American girl had kept 
 a certain supremacy and half-fascination 
 over the English girl, even while she was 
 conscious of an invincible character in Miss 
 Amelyn entirely different from and superior 
 to her own. Certainly there was a differ- 
 ence in the two peoples. Why else this 
 inherited conscientious reverence for Lord 
 Beverdale's position, shown by Miss Ame- 
 lyn, which she, an American alive to its 
 practical benefits, could not understand? 
 Would Miss Amelyn and Lord Algernon 
 have made a better match? The thought 
 irritated her, even while she knew that she 
 herself possessed the young man's affec- 
 tions, the power to marry him, and, as she 
 believed, kept her own independence in the 
 matter. 
 
 As she entered the iron gates at the lower 
 end of the park, and glanced at the inter- 
 woven cipher and crest of the Amelyns still 
 above, she was conscious that the wind was 
 blowing more chill, and that a few clouds 
 had gathered. As she walked on down the 
 long winding avenue, the sky became over- 
 cast, and, in one of those strange contrasts 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 151 
 
 of the English climate, the glory of the 
 whole day went out with the sunshine. The 
 woods suddenly became wrinkled and gray, 
 the distant hills sombre, the very English 
 turf beneath her feet grew brown; a mile 
 and a half away, through the opening of the 
 trees, the west part of the Priory looked a 
 crumbling, ivy-eaten ruin. A few drops of 
 rain fell. She hurried on. Suddenly she 
 remembered that the avenue made a long 
 circuit before approaching the house, and 
 that its lower end, where she was walking, 
 was but a fringe of the park. Consequently 
 there must be a short cut across some fields 
 and farm buildings to the back of the park 
 and the Priory. She at once diverged to 
 the right, presently found a low fence, which 
 she clambered over, and again found a foot- 
 path which led to a stile. Crossing that, 
 she could see the footpath now led directly 
 to the Priory, now a grim and austere look- 
 ing pile in the suddenly dejected landscape > 
 and that it was probably used only by 
 the servants and farmers. A gust of wind 
 brought some swift needles of rain to her 
 cheek; she could see the sad hills beyond 
 the Priory already veiling their faces; she 
 gathered her skirts and ran. The next field 
 
152 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 was a long one, but beside the further stile 
 was a small clump of trees, the only ones 
 between her and the park. Hurrying on to 
 that shelter, she saw that the stile was al- 
 ready occupied by a tall but bent figure, 
 holding a long stick in his hand, which gave 
 him the appearance, against the horizon, of 
 the figure of Time leaning on his scythe. 
 As she came nearer she saw it was, indeed, 
 an old man, half resting on his rake. He 
 was very rugged and weather-beaten, and 
 although near the shelter of the trees, ap- 
 parently unmindful of the rain that was fall- 
 ing on his bald head, and the limp cap he 
 was holding uselessly in one hand. He was 
 staring at her, yet apparently unconscious 
 of her presence. A sudden instinct came 
 upon her it was "Debs " ! 
 
 She went directly up to him, and with 
 that frank common sense which ordinarily 
 distinguished her, took his cap from his 
 hand and put it on his head, grasped his 
 arm firmly, and led him to the shelter of the 
 tree. Then she wiped the raindrops from 
 his face with her handkerchief, shook out 
 her own dress and her wet parasol, and, 
 propping her companion against the tree, 
 said : - 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 153 
 
 "There, Mr. Debs! I 've heard of people 
 who did n't know enough to come in when it 
 rained, but I never met one before." 
 
 The old man started, lifted his hairy, 
 sinewy arm, bared to the elbow, and wiped 
 his bare throat with the dry side of it. 
 Then a look of intelligence albeit half 
 aggressive came into his face. "Wheer 
 beest tha going? " he asked. 
 
 Something in his voice struck Sadie like 
 a vague echo. Perhaps it was only the 
 queer dialect or some resemblance to his 
 granddaughter's voice. She looked at him 
 a little more closely as she said : 
 
 "To the Priory." 
 
 "Whaat?" 
 
 She pointed with her parasol to the gray 
 pile in the distance. It was possible that 
 this demented peasant didn't even under- 
 stand English. 
 
 "The hall. Oh, ay!" Suddenly his 
 brows knit ominously as he faced her. " An' 
 wassist tha doin' drest oop in this foinery? 
 Wheer gettist thee that goawn? Thissen, 
 or thy maester? Nowt even a napron, fit 
 for thy wark as maaid at serviss; an' parson 
 a getthv tha plaace at Hall! So thou 'It 
 be high and moity will tha ! thou 'It not 
 
154 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 walk wi' maaids, but traipse by thissen like 
 a slut in the toon dang tlia ! " 
 
 Although it was plain to Sadie that the 
 old man, in his wandering perception, had 
 mistaken her for his granddaughter in ser- 
 vice at the Priory, there was still enough 
 rudeness in his speech for her to have re- 
 sented it. But, strange to say, there was a 
 kind of authority in it that touched her with 
 an uneasiness and repulsion that was stronger 
 than any other feeling. "I think you have 
 mistaken me for some one else," she said 
 hurriedly, yet wondering why she had admit- 
 ted it, and even irritated at the admission. 
 "I am a stranger here, a visitor at the Pri- 
 ory. I called with Miss Amelyn at your 
 cottage, and saw your other granddaughter ; 
 that 's how I knew your name." 
 
 The old man's face changed. A sad, 
 senile smile of hopeless bewilderment crept 
 into his hard mouth; he plucked his limp 
 cap from his head and let it hang submis- 
 sively in his fingers, as if it were his sole 
 apology. Then he tried to straighten him- 
 self, and said, "Naw offins, miss, naw offins ! 
 If tha knaws mea tha '11 knaw I 'm grand- 
 feyther to two galls as moight be tha owern 
 age; tha '11 tell 'ee that old Debs at haaty 
 
THE DESBOBOUGH CONNECTIONS 155 
 
 years 'as warked and niver lost a day as 
 man or boy; has niver coome oopen 'em 
 for n'aporth. An' 'e '11 keep out o' warkus 
 till he doy. An' 'ee 's put by enow to loy 
 wi' his own feythers in Lanksheer, an' not 
 liggen aloane in parson's choorchyard. " 
 
 It was part of her uneasiness that, scarcely 
 understanding or, indeed, feeling any inter- 
 est in these maundering details, she still 
 seemed to have an odd comprehension of 
 his character and some reminiscent know- 
 ledge of him, as if she were going through 
 the repetition of some unpleasant dream. 
 Even his wrinkled face was becoming famil- 
 iar to her. Some weird attraction was hold- 
 ing her; she wanted to get away from it as 
 much as she wanted to analyze it. She 
 glanced ostentatiously at the sky, prepared 
 to open her parasol, and began to edge cau- 
 tiously away. 
 
 "Then tha beant from these pearts?" he 
 said suddenly. 
 
 "No, no," she said quickly and emphati- 
 cally, "no, I 'm an American." 
 
 The old man started and moved towards 
 her, eagerly, his keen eyes breaking through 
 the film that at times obscured them. 
 "'Merrikan! tha baist 'Merrikan? Then 
 
156 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 tha knaws ma son John, 'ee war nowt but 
 a bairn when brether Dick took un to 'Mer- 
 riky ! Naw ! Now ! that wor fifty years sen ! 
 niver wroate to his old feyther niver 
 coomed back. 'Ee wor tall-loike, an' thea 
 said 'e feavored mea." He stopped, threw 
 up his head, and with his skinny fingers 
 drew back his long, straggling locks from 
 his sunken cheeks, and stared in her face. 
 The quick transition of fascination, repul- 
 sion, shock, and indefinable apprehension 
 made her laugh hysterically. To her terror 
 he joined in it, and eagerly clasped her 
 wrists. "Eh, lass! tha knaws John tha 
 coomes from un to ole grandfeyther. 
 Who-rr-u! Eay! but tha tho't to fool 
 mea, did tha, lass? Whoy, I knoawed tha 
 voice, for a' tha foine peacock feathers. 
 So tha be John's gell coom from Ameriky. 
 Dear! a dear! Coom neaur, lass! let 's see 
 what tha 's loike. Eh, but thou 'It kiss tha 
 grandfather, sewerly?" 
 
 A wild terror and undefined consternation 
 had completely overpowered her! But she 
 made a desperate effort to free her wrists, 
 and burst out madly : 
 
 "Let me go! How dare you! I don't 
 know you or yours ! I'm nothing to you or 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 157 
 
 your kin ! My name is Desborough do 
 you understand do you hear me, Mr. 
 Debs ? Desborough ! " 
 
 At the word the old man's fingers stiffened 
 like steel around her wrists, as he turned 
 upon her a hard, invincible face. 
 
 " So thou 'It call thissen Des-borough, wilt 
 tha? Let me tell tha, then, that ' Debs/ 
 ' Debban, ' ' Debbrook, ' and ' Des-borough ' 
 are all a seame ! Ay ! thy f eyther and thy 
 feyther's feyther! Thou 'It be a Des-bor- 
 ough, will tha? Dang tha! and look doon 
 on tha kin, and dress thissen in silks o' 
 shame! Tell 'ee thou 'rt an ass, gell! 
 Don't tha hear? An ass! for all tha bean 
 John's bairn! An ass! that's what tha 
 beast!" 
 
 With flashing eyes and burning cheeks 
 she made one more supreme effort, lifting 
 her arms, freeing her wrists, and throwing 
 the old man staggering from her. Then she 
 leaped the stile, turned, and fled through 
 the rain. But before she reached the end 
 of the field she stopped! She had freed 
 herself she was stronger than he what 
 had she to fear? He was crazy! Yes, he 
 must be crazy, and he had insulted her, but 
 he was an old man and God knows what ! 
 
158 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 Her heart was beating rapidly, her breath 
 was hurried, but she ran back to the stile. 
 
 He was not there. The field sloped away 
 on either side of it. But she could distin- 
 guish nothing in the pouring rain above the 
 wind-swept meadow. He must have gone 
 home. Believed for a moment she turned 
 and hurried on towards the Priory. 
 
 But at every step she was followed, not 
 by the old man's presence, but by what he 
 had said to her, which she could not shake 
 off as she had shaken off his detaining fin- 
 gers. Was it the ravings of insanity, or 
 had she stumbled unwittingly upon some 
 secret was it after all a secret ? Perhaps 
 it was something they all knew, or would 
 know later. And she had come down here 
 for this. For back of her indignation, back 
 even of her disbelief in his insanity, there 
 was an awful sense of truth ! The names he 
 had flung out, of "Debs," "Debban," and 
 "Debbrook" now flashed upon her as some- 
 thing she had seen before, but had not un- 
 derstood. Until she satisfied herself of this, 
 she felt she could not live or breathe ! She 
 loathed the Priory, with its austere exclu- 
 siveness, as it rose before her; she wished 
 she had never entered it; but it contained 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 159 
 
 that which she must know, and know at 
 once! She entered the nearest door and 
 ran up the grand staircase. Her flushed 
 face and disordered appearance were easily 
 accounted for by her exposure to the sud- 
 den storm. She went to her bedroom, sent 
 her maid to another room to prepare a change 
 of dress, and sinking down before her trav- 
 eling-desk, groped for a document. Ah! 
 there it was the expensive toy that she 
 had played with! She hastily ran over its 
 leaves to the page she already remembered. 
 And there, among the dashes and perpen- 
 dicular lines she had jested over last night, 
 on which she had thought was a collateral 
 branch of the line, stood her father's name 
 and that of Richard, his uncle, with the 
 bracketed note in red ink, "see Debbrook, 
 Daybrook, Debbers, and Debs." Yes! this 
 gaunt, half -crazy, overworked peasant, con- 
 tent to rake the dead leaves before the roll- 
 ing chariots of the Beverdales, was her 
 grandfather; that poorly clad girl in the 
 cottage, and even the menial in the scul- 
 lery of this very house that might be hers, 
 were her cousins ! She burst into a laugh, 
 and then refolded the document and put it 
 away. 
 
160 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 At luncheon she was radiant and spar- 
 kling. Her drenched clothes were an excuse 
 for a new and ravishing toilette. She had 
 never looked so beautiful before, and signifi- 
 cant glances were exchanged between some 
 of the guests, who believed that the expected 
 proposal had already come. But those who 
 were of the carriage party knew otherwise, 
 and of Lord Algernon's disappointment. 
 Lord Beverdale contented himself with ral- 
 lying his fair guest on the becomingness of 
 "good works." But he continued, "You 're 
 offering a dreadful example to these ladies, 
 Miss Desborough, and I know I shall never 
 hereafter be able to content them with any 
 frivolous morning amusement at the Priory. 
 For myself, when I am grown gouty and 
 hideous, I know I shall bloom again as a 
 district visitor." 
 
 Yet under this surface sparkle and ner- 
 vous exaltation Sadie never lost conscious- 
 ness of the gravity of the situation. If her 
 sense of humor enabled her to see one side of 
 its grim irony ; if she experienced a wicked 
 satisfaction in accepting the admiration and 
 easy confidence of the high-born guests, 
 knowing that her cousin had assisted in pre- 
 paring the meal they were eating, she had 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 161 
 
 never lost sight of the practical effect of the 
 discovery she had made. And she had come 
 to a final resolution. She should leave the 
 Priory at once, and abandon all idea of a 
 matrimonial alliance with its heir! Incon- 
 sistent as this might seem to her selfish, 
 worldly nature, it was nevertheless in keep- 
 ing with a certain pride and independence 
 that was in her blood. She did not love 
 Lord Algernon, neither did she love her 
 grandfather ; she was equally willing to sac- 
 rifice either or both ; she knew that neither 
 Lord Algernon nor his father would make 
 her connections an objection, however they 
 might wish to keep the fact a secret, or oth- 
 erwise dispose of them by pensions or emi- 
 gration, but she could not bear to know it 
 herself! She never could be happy as the 
 mistress of Scrooby Priory with that know- 
 ledge ; she did not idealize it as a principle ! 
 Carefully weighing it by her own practical 
 common sense, she said to herself that "it 
 wouldn't pay." The highest independence 
 is often akin to the lowest selfishness; she 
 did not dream that the same pride which 
 kept her grandfather from the workhouse 
 and support by his daughters, and had even 
 kept him from communicating with his own 
 
162 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 son, now kept her from acknowledging them, 
 even for the gift of a title and domain. 
 There was only one question before her: 
 should she stay long enough to receive the 
 proposal of Lord Algernon, and then decline 
 it? Why should she not snatch that single 
 feminine joy out of the ashes of her burnt-up 
 illusion? She knew that an opportunity 
 would be offered that afternoon. The party 
 were to take tea at Broxby Hall, and Lord 
 Algernon was to drive her there in his dog- 
 cart. Miss Desborough had gone up to her 
 bedroom to put on a warmer cloak, and had 
 rung twice or thrice impatiently for her 
 maid. 
 
 When the girl made her appearance, 
 apologetic, voluble, and excited, Miss Des- 
 borough scarcely listened to her excuses, 
 until a single word suddenly arrested her 
 attention. It was "old Debs." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said 
 Sadie, pausing in the adjustment of her hat 
 on her brown hair. 
 
 "Old Debs, miss, that 's what they call 
 him; an old park-keeper, just found dead 
 in a pool of water in the fields ; the grand- 
 father of one of the servants here; and 
 there 's such an excitement in the servants' 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 163 
 
 hall. The gentlemen all knew it, too, for I 
 heard Lord Algernon say that he was look- 
 ing very queer lately, and might have had 
 a fit ; and Lord Beverdale has sent word to 
 the coroner. And only think, the people 
 here are such fools that they daren't touch 
 or move the poor man, and him lyin' there 
 in the rain all the time, until the coroner 
 
 comes! " 
 
 Miss Desborough had been steadily re- 
 garding herself in the glass to see if she had 
 turned pale. She had. She set her teeth 
 together until the color partly returned. 
 But she kept her face away from the maid. 
 "That '11 do," she said quietly. "You can 
 tell me all later. I have some important 
 news myself, and I may not go out after all. 
 I want you to take a note for me." She 
 went to her table, wrote a line in pencil, 
 folded it, scribbled an address upon it, 
 handed it to the girl, and gently pushed her 
 from the room. 
 
 The consul was lingering on the terrace 
 beside one of the carriages; at a little dis- 
 tance a groom was holding the nervous thor- 
 oughbred of Lord Algernon's dog-cart. Sud- 
 denly he felt a touch on his shoulder, and 
 
164 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 Miss Desborough's maid put a note in his 
 hand. It contained only a line : 
 
 Please come and see me in the library, 
 but without making any fuss about it at 
 once. S. D. 
 
 The consul glanced around him; no one 
 had apparently noticed the incident. He 
 slipped back into the house and made his 
 way to the library. It was a long gallery ; 
 at the further end Miss Desborough stood 
 cloaked, veiled, and coquettishly hatted. 
 She was looking very beautiful and ani- 
 mated. "I want you to please do me a 
 great favor," she said, with an adorable 
 smile, "as your own countrywoman, you 
 know for the sake of Fourth of July and 
 Pumpkin Pie and the Old Flag! I don't 
 want to go to this circus to-day. I am go- 
 ing to leave here to-night ! I am ! Honest 
 Injin ! I want you to manage it. I want 
 you to say that as consul you 've received 
 important news for me: the death of some 
 relative, if you like; or better, something 
 affecting my property, you know," with a 
 little satirical laugh. " I guess that would 
 fetch 'em! So go at once." 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 165 
 
 "But really, Miss Desborough, do let us 
 talk this over before you decide ! " implored 
 the bewildered consul. " Think what a dis- 
 appointment to your host and these ladies. 
 Lord Algernon expects to drive you there ; 
 he is already waiting! The party was got 
 up for you ! " Miss Desborough made a 
 slight grimace. "I mean you ought to sac- 
 rifice something but I trust there is really 
 nothing serious to them ! " 
 
 "If you do not speak to them, I will!" 
 said Miss Desborough firmly. "If you say 
 what, I tell you, it will come the more plau- 
 sibly from you. Come ! My mind is made 
 up. One of us must break the news ! Shall 
 it be you or I?" She drew her cloak over 
 her shoulders and made a step forwards. 
 
 The consul saw she was determined. 
 "Then wait here till I return, but keep 
 yourself out of sight," he said, and hurried 
 away. Between the library and the terrace 
 he conceived a plan. His perplexity lent 
 him a seriousness which befitted the gravity 
 of the news he had to disclose. "I am sorry 
 to have to tell you," he said, taking Lord 
 Beverdale aside, "that I was the unlucky 
 bearer of some sad news to Miss Desborough 
 this morning, through my consular letters 
 
166 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 some matter concerning the death of a rela- 
 tion of hers, and some wearisome question 
 of property. I thought that it was of little 
 importance, and that she would not take it 
 seriously, but I find I was mistaken. It 
 may even oblige her to catch the London 
 train to-night. I promised to make her ex- 
 cuses to you for the present, and I 'm afraid 
 I must add my own to them, as she wishes 
 me to stay and advise her in this matter, 
 which requires some prompt action." 
 
 Miss Desborough was right: the magic 
 word "property" changed the slight annoy- 
 ance on the earl's face to a sympathetic 
 concern. "Dear me! I trust it is nothing 
 really serious," he said. "Of course you 
 will advise her, and, by the way, if my so- 
 licitor, Withers, who '11 be here to-morrow, 
 can do anything, you know, call him in. I 
 hope she '11 be able to see me later. It could 
 not be a near relation who died, I fancy; 
 she has no brothers or sisters, I understand." 
 
 "A cousin, I think; an old friend," said 
 the consul hastily. He heard Lord Bever- 
 dale say a few words to his companions, saw 
 with a tinge of remorse a cloud settle upon 
 Lord Algernon's fresh face, as he appealed 
 in a whisper to old Lady Mesthyn, who 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 167 
 
 leaned forward from the carriage, and said, 
 "If the dear child thought / could be of 
 any service, I should only be too glad to 
 stay with her." 
 
 " I knew she would appreciate Lady Mes- 
 thyn's sympathy," said the ingenious consul 
 quickly, "but I really think the question is 
 more a business one and " 
 
 "Ah, yes," said the old lady, shaking her 
 head, "it 's dreadful, of course, but we must 
 all think of that!" 
 
 As the carriage drove away, the consul 
 hurried back a little viciously to his fair 
 countrywoman. "There! " he said, "I have 
 done it ! If I have managed to convey either 
 the idea that you are a penniless orphan, or 
 that I have official information that you are 
 suspected of a dynamite conspiracy, don't 
 blame me! And now," he said, "as I have 
 excused myself on the ground that I must de- 
 vote myself to this dreadful business of yours, 
 perhaps you '11 tell me what it really is." 
 
 "Not a word more," said Miss Desbor- 
 ough; "except," she added, checking her 
 smile with a weary gesture, " except that 
 I want to leave this dreadful place at once ! 
 There! don't ask me any more! " 
 
 There could be no doubt of the girl's sin- 
 
168 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 cerity. Nor was it the extravagant caprice 
 of a petted idol. What had happened ? He 
 might have believed in a lovers' quarrel, but 
 he knew that she and Lord Algernon could 
 have had no private interview that evening. 
 He must perforce accept her silence, yet he 
 could not help saying : 
 
 "You seemed to like the place so much 
 last night. I say, you haven't seen the 
 Priory ghost, have you?" 
 
 "The Priory ghost," she said quickly. 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "The old monk who passes through the 
 cloisters with the sacred oil, the bell, and 
 the smell of incense whenever any one is to 
 die here. By Jove ! it would have been a 
 good story to tell instead of this cock-and- 
 bull one about your property. And there was 
 a death here to-day. You 'd have added the 
 sibyl's gifts to your other charms." 
 
 "Tell me about that old man," she said, 
 looking past him out of the window. " I was 
 at his cottage this morning. But, no ! first 
 let us go out. You can take me for a walk, 
 if you like. You see I am all ready, and 
 I 'm just stifling here." 
 
 They descended to the terrace together. 
 "Where would you like to go?" he asked. 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 169 
 
 "To the village. I may want to tele- 
 graph, you know." 
 
 They turned into the avenue, but Miss 
 Desborough stopped. 
 
 "Is there not a shorter cut across the 
 fields," she asked, "over there?" 
 
 "There is," said the consul. 
 
 They both turned into the footpath which 
 led to the farm and stile. After a pause 
 she said, "Did you ever talk with that poor 
 old man? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then you don't know if he really was 
 crazy, as they think." 
 
 "No. But they may have thought an old 
 man's forgetfulness of present things and 
 his habit of communing with the past was 
 insanity. For all that he was a plucky, in- 
 dependent old fellow, with a grim purpose 
 that was certainly rational." 
 
 "I suppose in his independence he would 
 not have taken favors from these people, or 
 anybody?" 
 
 "I should think not." 
 
 "Don't you think it was just horrid 
 their leaving him alone in the rain, when 
 he might have been only in a fit? " 
 
 "The doctor says he died suddenly of 
 
170 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 heart disease," said the consul. "It might 
 have happened at any moment and without 
 warning." 
 
 "Ah, that was the coroner's verdict, 
 then," said Miss Desborough quickly. 
 
 "The coroner did not think it necessary 
 to have any inquest after Lord Beverdale's 
 statement. It would n't have been very joy- 
 ous for the Priory party. And I dare say 
 he thought it might not be very cheerful for 
 you." 
 
 "How very kind!" said the young girl, 
 with a quick laugh. "But do you know 
 that it 's about the only thing human, origi- 
 nal, and striking that has happened in this 
 place since I 've been here ! And so unex- 
 pected, considering how comfortably every- 
 thing is ordered here beforehand." 
 
 "Yet you seemed to like that kind of 
 thing very well, last evening," said the con- 
 sul mischievously. 
 
 "That was last night," retorted Miss Des- 
 borough; "and you know the line, ' Colors 
 seen by candlelight do not look the same 
 by day.' But I 'm going to be very consist- 
 ent to-day, for I intend to go over to that 
 poor man's cottage again, and see if I can 
 be of any service. Will you go with me? " 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 171 
 
 "Certainly," said the consul, mystified by 
 his companion's extraordinary conduct, yet 
 apparent coolness of purpose, and hoping 
 for some further explanation. Was she 
 only an inexperienced flirt who had found 
 herself on the point of a serious entangle- 
 ment she had not contemplated? Yet even 
 then he knew she was clever enough to ex- 
 tricate herself in some other way than this 
 abrupt and brutal tearing through the 
 meshes. Or was it possible that she really 
 had any intelligence affecting her property? 
 He reflected that he knew very little of the 
 Desboroughs, but on the other hand he knew 
 that Beverdale knew them much better, and 
 was a prudent man. He had no right to 
 demand her confidence as a reward for his 
 secrecy; he must wait her pleasure. Per- 
 haps she would still explain ; women seldom 
 could resist the triumph of telling the secret 
 that puzzled others. 
 
 When they reached the village she halted 
 before the low roof of Debs's cottage. "I 
 had better go in first," she said; "you can 
 come in later, and in the meantime you 
 might go to the station for me and find out 
 the exact time that the express train leaves 
 for the north." 
 
172 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 "But," said the astonished consul, "I 
 thought you were going to London?" 
 
 "No," said Miss Desborough quietly, "I 
 am going to join some friends at Harrogate." 
 
 "But that train goes much earlier than 
 the train south, and and I 'm afraid Lord 
 Beverdale will not have returned so soon." 
 
 "How sad! " said Miss Desborough, with 
 a faint smile, "but we must bear up under 
 it, and I '11 write him. I will be here 
 until you return." 
 
 She turned away and entered the cottage. 
 The granddaughter she had already seen 
 and her sister, the servant at the Priory, 
 were both chatting comfortably, but ceased 
 as she entered, and both rose with awkward 
 respect. There was little to suggest that 
 the body of their grandfather, already in a 
 rough oak shell, was lying upon trestles be- 
 side them. 
 
 "You have carried out my orders, I see," 
 said Miss Desborough, laying down her par- 
 asol. 
 
 "Ay, miss; but it was main haard get- 
 tin' et dooan so soon, and et cboast " 
 
 "Never mind the cost. I 've given you 
 money enough, I think, and if I have n't, I 
 guess I can give you more." 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 173 
 
 "Ay, miss! Abbut the pa'son 'ead gi' 
 un a funeral for nowt." 
 
 "But I understood you to say," said Miss 
 Desborough, with an impatient flash of eye, 
 "that your grandfather wished to be buried 
 with his kindred in the north? " 
 
 "Ay, miss," said the girl apologetically, 
 "an naw 'ees savit th' munny. Abbut e 'd 
 bean tickled 'ad 'ee knowed it! Dear! 
 dear! 'ee niver thowt et 'ud be gi'en by 
 stranger an' not 'es ownt fammaly." 
 
 "For all that, you need n't tell anybody it 
 was given by me," said Miss Desborough. 
 "And you'll be sure to be ready to take 
 the train this afternoon without delay." 
 There was a certain peremptoriness in her 
 voice very unlike Miss Amelyn's, yet appar- 
 ently much more effective with the grand- 
 daughter. 
 
 "Ay, miss. Then, if tha '11 excoose 
 mea, I '11 go streight to 'oory oop sexten." 
 
 She bustled away. "Now," said Miss 
 Desborough, turning to the other girl, "I 
 shall take the same train, and will probably 
 see you on the platform at York to give my 
 final directions. That 's all. Go and see 
 if the gentleman who came with me has re- 
 turned from the station." 
 
174 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 The girl obeyed. Left entirely alone, 
 Miss Desborougli glanced around the room, 
 and then went quietly up to the unlidded 
 coffin. The repose of death had softened 
 the hard lines of the old man's mouth and 
 brow into a resemblance she now more than 
 ever understood. She had stood thus only 
 a few years before, looking at the same face 
 in a gorgeously inlaid mahogany casket, 
 smothered amidst costly flowers, and sur- 
 rounded by friends attired in all the luxuri- 
 ous trappings of woe; yet it was the same 
 face that was now rigidly upturned to the 
 bare thatch and rafters of that crumbling 
 cottage, herself its only companion. She 
 lifted her delicate veil with both hands, and, 
 stooping down, kissed the hard, cold fore- 
 head, without a tremor. Then she dropped 
 her veil again over her dry eyes, readjusted 
 it in the little, cheap, black-framed mirror 
 that hung against the wall, and opened the 
 door as the granddaughter returned. The 
 gentleman was just coming from the sta- 
 tion. 
 
 "Bemember to look out for me at York," 
 said Miss Desborough, extending her gloved 
 hand. "Good-by till then." The young 
 girl respectfully touched the ends of Miss 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 175 
 
 Desborough 's fingers, dropped a curtsy, and 
 Miss Desborough rejoined the consul. 
 
 "You have barely time to return to the 
 Priory and see to your luggage," said the 
 consul, "if you must go. But let me hope 
 that you have changed your mind." 
 
 "I have not changed my mind," said Miss 
 Desborough quietly, "and my baggage is 
 already packed." After a pause, she said 
 thoughtfully, "I 've been wondering" 
 
 "What? " said the consul eagerly. 
 
 "I 've been wondering if people brought 
 up to speak in a certain dialect, where cer- 
 tain words have their own significance and 
 color, and are part of their own lives and 
 experience if, even when they understand 
 another dialect, they really feel any sympa- 
 thy with it, or the person who speaks it?" 
 
 "Apropos of" asked the consul. 
 
 "These people I 've just left! I don't 
 think I quite felt with them, and I guess 
 they didn't feel with me." 
 
 "But," said the consul laughingly, "you 
 know that we Americans speak with a de- 
 cided dialect of our own, and attach the 
 same occult meaning to it. Yet, upon my 
 word, I think that Lord Beverdale OP 
 shall I say Lord Algernon ? would not only 
 
176 THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 understand that American word 4 guess ' as 
 you mean it, but would perfectly sympathize 
 with you." 
 
 Miss Desborough's eyes sparkled even 
 through her veil as she glanced at her com- 
 panion and said, "I guess not." 
 
 As the "tea " party had not yet returned, 
 it fell to the consul to accompany Miss Des- 
 borough and her maid to the station. But 
 here he was startled to find a collection of 
 villagers upon the platform, gathered round 
 two young women in mourning, and an omu 
 nous-looking box. He mingled for a mo- 
 ment with the crowd, and then returned to 
 Miss Desborough's side. 
 
 "Keally," he said, with a concern that 
 was scarcely assumed, "I ought not to let 
 you go. The omens are most disastrous! 
 You came here to a death; you are going 
 away with a funeral! " 
 
 "Then it 's high time I took myself off ! " 
 said the lady lightly. 
 
 "Unless, like the ghostly monk, you came 
 here on a mission, and have fulfilled it." 
 
 " Perhaps I have. Good-by ! " 
 
 In spite of the bright and characteristic 
 letter which Miss Desborough left for her 
 
THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 177 
 
 host, a letter which mingled her peculiar 
 shrewd sense with her humorous extrava- 
 gance of expression, the consul spent a 
 somewhat uneasy evening under the fire of 
 questions that assailed him in reference to 
 the fair deserter. But he kept loyal faith 
 with her, adhering even to the letter of her 
 instructions, and only once was goaded into 
 more active mendacity. The conversation 
 had turned upon "Debs," and the consul 
 had remarked on the singularity of the 
 name. A guest from the north observed, 
 however, that the name was undoubtedly a 
 contraction. "Possibly it might have been 
 4 Debborough, ' or even the same name as 
 our fair friend." 
 
 "But didn't Miss Desborough tell you 
 last night that she had been hunting up her 
 people, with a family tree, or something 
 like that?" said Lord Algernon eagerly. 
 "I just caught a word here and there, for 
 you were both laughing." 
 
 The consul smiled blandly. "You may 
 well say so, for it was all the most delight- 
 ful piece of pure invention and utter extrava- 
 gance. It would have amused her still more 
 if she had thought you were listening and 
 took it seriously! " 
 
178 THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS 
 
 "Of course; I see!" said the young feL 
 low, with a laugh and a slight rise of color. 
 "I knew she was taking some kind of a rise 
 out of you, and that remark reminded me 
 of it." 
 
 Nevertheless, within a year, Lord Alger- 
 non was happily married to the daughter of 
 a South African millionaire, whose bridal 
 offerings alone touched the sum of half a 
 million. It was also said that the mother 
 was "impossible" and the father "unspeak- 
 able," the relations "inextinguishable; " but 
 the wedding was an "occasion," and in the 
 succeeding year of festivity it is presumed 
 that the names of "Debs" and "Desbor- 
 ough " were alike forgotten. 
 
 But they existed still in a little hamlet 
 near the edge of a bleak northern moor, 
 where they were singularly exalted on a 
 soaring shaft of pure marble above the sub- 
 merged and moss-grown tombstones of a 
 simple country churchyard. So great was 
 the contrast between the modern and preten- 
 tious monument and the graves of the hum- 
 bler forefathers of the village, that even the 
 Americans who chanced to visit it were 
 shocked at what they believed was the osten- 
 tatious and vulgar pride of one of their own 
 
THE DESBOEOUGH CONNECTIONS 179 
 
 Country women. For on its pedestal was 
 inscribed : 
 
 Sacred to the Memory 
 
 of 
 JOHN DEBS DESBOROUGH, 
 
 Formerly of this parish, 
 Who departed this life October 20th, 1892, 
 
 At Scrooby Priory, 
 
 At the age of eighty-two years. 
 
 This monument was erected as a loving testimony 
 
 by his granddaughter, 
 Sadie Desborough, of New York, U. S. A. 
 
 " And evening brings us home." 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 ONLY one shot had been fired. It had 
 gone wide of its mark, the ringleader of 
 the Vigilantes, and had left Ked Pete, 
 who had fired it, covered by their rifles and 
 at their mercy. For his hand had been 
 cramped by hard riding, and his eye dis- 
 tracted by their sudden onset, and so the 
 inevitable end had come. He submitted 
 sullenly to his captors; his companion fugi- 
 tive and horse -thief gave up the protracted 
 struggle with a feeling not unlike relief. 
 Even the hot and revengeful victors were 
 content. They had taken their men alive. 
 At any time during the long chase they 
 could have brought them down by a rifle- 
 shot, but it would have been unsportsman- 
 like, and have ended in a free fight, instead 
 of an example. And, for the matter of 
 that, their doom was already sealed. Their 
 end, by a rope and a tree, although not 
 sanctified by law, would have at least the 
 deliberation of justice. It was the tribute 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 181 
 
 paid by the Vigilantes to that order which 
 they had themselves disregarded in the pur- 
 suit and capture. Yet this strange logic of 
 the frontier sufficed them, and gave a cer- 
 tain dignity to the climax. 
 
 " Ef you ' ve got anything to say to your 
 folks, say it now, and say it quick," said the 
 ringleader. 
 
 Red Pete glanced around him. He had 
 been run to earth at his own cabin in the 
 clearing, whence a few relations and friends, 
 mostly women and children, non-combat- 
 ants, had outflowed, gazing vacantly at the 
 twenty Vigilantes who surrounded them. 
 All were accustomed to scenes of violence, 
 blood-feud, chase, and hardship ; it was only 
 the suddenness of the onset and its quick 
 result that had surprised them. They looked 
 on with dazed curiosity and some disappoint- 
 ment; there had been no fight to speak of 
 no spectacle! A boy, nephew of Red 
 Pete, got upon the rain-barrel to view the 
 proceedings more comfortably; a tall, hand- 
 some, lazy Kentucky girl, a visiting neigh- 
 bor, leaned against the doorpost, chewing 
 gum. Only a yellow hound was actively 
 perplexed. He could not make out if a 
 kunt were just over or beginning, and ran 
 
182 SALOMY JAN&S KISS 
 
 eagerly backwards and forwards, leaping 
 alternately upon the captives and the cap- 
 tors. 
 
 The ringleader repeated his challenge. 
 Bed Pete gave a reckless laugh and looked 
 at his wife. 
 
 At which Mrs. Eed Pete came forward. 
 It seemed that she had much to say, inco- 
 herently, furiously, vindictively, to the ring- 
 leader. His soul would roast in hell for 
 that day's work! He called himself a man, 
 skunkin' in the open and afraid to show 
 himself except with a crowd of other "Ki- 
 yi's " around a house of women and children. 
 Heaping insult upon insult, inveighing 
 against his low blood, his ancestors, his du- 
 bious origin, she at last flung out a wild 
 taunt of his invalid wife, the insult of a 
 woman to a woman, until his white face 
 grew rigid, and only that Western -Ameri- 
 can fetich of the sanctity of sex kept his 
 twitching fingers from the lock of his rifle. 
 Even her husband noticed it, and with a 
 half -authoritative "Let up on that, old 
 gal," and a pat of his freed left hand on her 
 back, took his last parting. The ringleader, 
 still white under the lash of the woman's 
 tongue, turned abruptly to the second cap- 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 183 
 
 tive. "And if you 've got anybody to say 
 4 good-by ' to, now 's your chance." 
 
 The man looked up. Nobody sth-red or 
 spoke. He was a stranger there, being a 
 chance confederate picked up by Ked Pete, 
 and known to no one. Still young, but an 
 outlaw from his abandoned boyhood, of 
 which father and mother were only a forgot- 
 ten dream, he loved horses and stole them, 
 fully accepting the frontier penalty of life 
 for the interference with that animal on 
 which a man's life so often depended. But 
 he understood the good points of a horse, as 
 was shown by the one he bestrode until a 
 few days before the property of Judge Boom- 
 pointer. This was his sole distinction. 
 
 The unexpected question stirred him for a 
 moment out of the attitude of reckless in- 
 difference, for attitude it was, and a part of 
 his profession. But it may have touched 
 him that at that moment he was less than 
 his companion and his virago wife. How- 
 ever, he only shook his head. As he did so 
 his eye casually fell on the handsome girl 
 by the doorpost, who was looking at him. 
 The ringleader, too, may have been touched 
 by his complete loneliness, for he hesitated. 
 At the same moment he saw that the girl 
 was looking at his friendless captive. 
 
184 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 A grotesque idea struck him. 
 
 "Salomy Jane, ye might do worse than 
 come yere and say ' good -by ' to a dying 
 man, and him a stranger," he said. 
 
 There seemed to be a subtle stroke of 
 poetry and irony in this that equally struck 
 the apathetic crowd. It was well known 
 that Salomy Jane Clay thought no small 
 potatoes of herself, and always held off the 
 local swain with a lazy nymph -like scorn. 
 Nevertheless, she slowly disengaged herself 
 from the doorpost, and, to everybody's as- 
 tonishment, lounged with languid grace and 
 outstretched hand towards the prisoner. The 
 color came into the gray reckless mask which 
 the doomed man wore as her right hand 
 grasped his left, just loosed by his captors. 
 Then she paused; her shy, fawn-like eyes 
 grew bold, and fixed themselves upon him. 
 She took the chewing-gum from her mouth, 
 wiped her red lips with the back of her 
 hand, by a sudden lithe spring placed her 
 foot on his stirrup, and, bounding to the 
 saddle, threw her arms about his neck and 
 pressed a kiss upon his lips. 
 
 They remained thus for a hushed moment 
 the man on the threshold of death, the 
 young woman in the fullness of youth and 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 185 
 
 beauty linked together. Then the crowd 
 laughed ; in the audacious effrontery of the 
 girl's act the ultimate fate of the two men 
 was forgotten. She slipped languidly to 
 the ground; she was the focus of all eyes, 
 she only! The ringleader saw it and his 
 opportunity. He shouted: "Time's up 
 Forward! " urged his horse beside his cap- 
 tives, and the next moment the whole caval- 
 cade was sweeping over the clearing into the 
 darkening woods. 
 
 Their destination was Sawyer's Crossing, 
 the headquarters of the committee, where 
 the council was still sitting, and where both 
 culprits were to expiate the offense of which 
 that council had already found them guilty. 
 They rode in great and breathless haste, 
 a haste in which, strangely enough, even 
 the captives seemed to join. That haste 
 possibly prevented them from noticing the 
 singular change which had taken place in 
 the second captive since the episode of the 
 kiss. His high color remained, as if it had 
 burned through his mask of indifference; 
 his eyes were quick, alert, and keen, his 
 mouth half open as if the girl's kiss still 
 lingered there. And that haste had made 
 them careless, for the horse of the man who 
 
186 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 led him slipped in a gopher -hole, rolled 
 over, unseated his rider, and even dragged 
 the bound and helpless second captive from 
 Judge Boompointer's favorite mare. In an 
 instant they were all on their feet again, 
 but in that supreme moment the second cap- 
 tive felt the cords which bound his arms 
 had slipped to his wrists. By keeping his 
 elbows to his sides, and obliging the others 
 to help him mount, it escaped their notice. 
 By riding close to his captors, and keeping 
 in the crush of the throng, he further con- 
 cealed the accident, slowly working his hands 
 downwards out of his bonds. 
 
 Their way lay through a sylvan wilder- 
 ness, mid -leg deep in ferns, whose tall fronds 
 brushed their horses' sides in their furious 
 gallop and concealed the flapping of the cap- 
 tive's loosened cords. The peaceful vista, 
 more suggestive of the offerings of nymph 
 and shepherd than of human sacrifice, was 
 in a strange contrast to this whirlwind rush 
 of stern, armed men. The westering sun 
 pierced the subdued light and the tremor of 
 leaves with yellow lances ; birds started into 
 song on blue and dove-like wings, and on 
 either side of the trail of this vengeful storm 
 could be heard the murmur of hidden and 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 187 
 
 tranquil waters. In a few moments they 
 would be on the open ridge, whence sloped 
 the common turnpike to "Sawyer's," a mile 
 away. It was the custom of returning cav- 
 alcades to take this hill at headlong speed, 
 with shouts and cries that heralded their 
 coming. They withheld the latter that day, 
 as inconsistent with their dignity; but, 
 emerging from the wood, swept silently like 
 an avalanche down the slope. They were 
 well under way, looking only to their 
 horses, when the second captive slipped his 
 right arm from the bonds and succeeded in 
 grasping the reins that lay trailing on the 
 horse's neck. A sudden vaquero jerk, 
 which the well-trained animal understood, 
 threw him on his haunches with his forelegs 
 firmly planted on the slope. The rest of 
 the cavalcade swept on; the man who was 
 leading the captive's horse by the riata, 
 thinking only of another accident, dropped 
 the line to save himself from being dragged 
 backwards from his horse. The captive 
 wheeled, and the next moment was galloping 
 furiously up the slope. 
 
 It was the work of a moment; a trained 
 horse and an experienced hand. The caval- 
 cade had covered nearly fifty yards before 
 
188 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 they could pull up; the freed captive had 
 covered half that distance uphill. The road 
 was so narrow that only two shots could be 
 fired, and these broke dust two yards ahead 
 of the fugitive. They had not dared to fire 
 low; the horse was the more valuable ani- 
 mal. The fugitive knew this in his extrem- 
 ity also, and would have gladly taken a shot 
 in his own leg to spare that of his horse. 
 Five men were detached to recapture or kill 
 him. The latter seemed inevitable. But 
 he had calculated his chances ; before they 
 could reload he had reached the woods 
 again ; winding in and out between the pil- 
 lared tree trunks, he offered no mark. They 
 knew his horse was superior to their own ; 
 at the end of two hours they returned, for 
 he had disappeared without track or trail. 
 The end was briefly told in the "Sierra 
 Record: "- 
 
 "Red Pete, the notorious horse-thief, who 
 had so long eluded justice, was captured 
 and hung by the Sawyer's Crossing Vigi- 
 lantes last week; his confederate, unfortu- 
 nately, escaped on a valuable horse belong- 
 ing to Judge Boompointer. The judge had 
 refused one thousand dollars for the horse 
 only a week before. As the thief, who is 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 189 
 
 still at large, would find it difficult to dis- 
 pose of so valuable an animal without detec- 
 tion, the chances are against either of them 
 turning up again." 
 
 Salomy Jane watched the cavalcade until 
 it had disappeared. Then she became aware 
 that her brief popularity had passed. Mrs. 
 Red Pete, in stormy hysterics, had included 
 her in a sweeping denunciation of the whole 
 universe, possibly for simulating an emotion 
 in which she herself was deficient. The 
 other women hated her for her momentary 
 exaltation above them; only the children 
 still admired her as one who had undoubt- 
 edly "canoodled" with a man "a-going to 
 be hung" a daring flight beyond their 
 wildest ambition. Salomy Jane accepted 
 the change with charming unconcern. She 
 put on her yellow nankeen sunbonnet, a 
 hideous affair that would have ruined any 
 other woman, but which only enhanced the 
 piquancy of her fresh brunette skin, tied 
 the strings, letting the blue-black braids es- 
 cape below its frilled curtain behind, jumped 
 on her mustang with a casual display of agile 
 ankles in shapely white stockings, whistled 
 to the hound, and waving her hand with a 
 
190 8ALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 "So long, sonny! " to the lately bereft but 
 admiring nephew, flapped and fluttered away 
 in her short brown holland gown. 
 
 Her father's house was four miles distant. 
 Contrasted with the cabin she had just quit- 
 ted, it was a superior dwelling, with a long 
 "lean-to" at the rear, which brought the 
 eaves almost to the ground and made it look 
 like a low triangle. It had a long barn and 
 cattle sheds, for Madison Clay was a "great " 
 stock-raiser and the owner of a "quarter 
 section." It had a sitting-room and a par- 
 lor organ, whose transportation thither had 
 been a marvel of "packing." These things 
 were supposed to give Salomy Jane an un- 
 due importance, but the girl's reserve and 
 inaccessibility to local advances were rather 
 the result of a cool, lazy temperament and 
 the preoccupation of a large, protecting ad- 
 miration for her father, for some years a 
 "widower. For Mr. Madison Clay's life had 
 been threatened in one or two feuds, it was 
 ;said, not without cause, and it is possible 
 that the pathetic spectacle of her father do- 
 ing his visiting with a shotgun may have 
 touched her closely and somewhat prejudiced 
 her against the neighboring masculinity. 
 The thought that cattle, horses, and "quar- 
 
SAXOMT JANE'S KISS 191 
 
 ter section " would one day be hers did not 
 disturb her calm. As for Mr. Clay, he ac- 
 cepted her as housewifely, though somewhat 
 "interfering," and, being one of "his own 
 womankind," therefore not without some 
 degree of merit. 
 
 "Wot 's this yer I 'm hearin' of your do- 
 in 's over at Red Pete's? Honeyfoglin' 
 with a horse-thief, eh?" said Mr. Clay two 
 days later at breakfast. 
 
 "I reckon you heard about the straight 
 thing, then," said Salomy Jane uncon- 
 cernedly, without looking round. 
 "What do you kalkilate Rube will say to 
 it? What are you goin' to tell him ? " said 
 Mr. Clay sarcastically. 
 
 "Rube," or Reuben Waters, was a swain 
 supposed to be favored particularly by Mr. 
 Clay. Salomy Jane looked up. 
 
 "I '11 tell him that when he 's on his way 
 to be hung, I '11 kiss him, not till then," 
 said the young lady brightly. 
 
 Tnis delightful witticism suited the pater- 
 nal humor, and Mr. Clay smiled ; but, nev- 
 ertheless, he frowned a moment afterwards. 
 
 "But this yer hoss-thief got away arter 
 all, and that 's a hoss of a different color," 
 he said grimly. 
 
192 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 Salomy Jane put down her knife and 
 fork. This was certainly a new and differ- 
 ent phase of the situation. She had never 
 thought of it before, and, strangely enough, 
 for the first time she became interested in 
 the man. "Got away?" she repeated. 
 "Did they let him off?" 
 
 "Not much," said her father briefly. 
 "Slipped his cords, and going down the 
 grade pulled up short, just like a vaquero 
 agin a lassoed bull, almost draggin' the 
 man leadin' him off his hoss, and then 
 skyuted up the grade. For that matter, on 
 that hoss o' Judge Boompointer's he mout 
 have dragged the whole posse of 'em down 
 on their knees ef he liked! Sarved 'em 
 right, too. Instead of stringin' him up 
 afore the door, or shootin' him on sight, 
 they must allow to take him down afore the 
 hull committee ' for an example.' ' Exam- 
 ple ' be bio wed! Ther' 's example enough 
 when some stranger comes unbeknownst slap 
 onter a man hanged to a tree and plugged 
 full of holes. That 's an example, and he 
 knows what it means. Wot more do ye 
 want? But then those Vigilantes is allus 
 clingin' and hangin' onter some mere scrap 
 o' the law they 're pretendin' to despise. It 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 193 
 
 makes me sick! Why, when Jake Myers 
 shot your ole Aunt Viney's second husband, 
 and I laid in wait for Jake afterwards in 
 the Butternut Hollow, did / tie him to his 
 hoss and fetch him down to your Aunt 
 Viney's cabin ' for an example ' before I 
 plugged him ? No ! " in deep disgust. "No ! 
 Why, I just meandered through the wood, 
 careless-like, till he comes out, and I just 
 rode up to him, and I said " 
 
 But Salomy Jane had heard her father's 
 story before. Even one's dearest relatives 
 are apt to become tiresome in narration. 
 "I know, dad," she interrupted; "but this 
 yer man, this hoss-thief , did he get 
 clean away without gettin' hurt at all?" 
 
 "He did, and unless he 's fool enough to 
 sell the hoss he kin keep away, too. So ye 
 see, ye can't ladle out purp stuff about a 
 ' dyin' stranger ' to Kube. He won't swal- 
 ler it." 
 
 "All the same, dad," returned the girl 
 cheerfully, "I reckon to say it, and say 
 more ; I '11 tell him that ef he manages to 
 get away too, I '11 marry him there ! But 
 ye don't ketch Eube takin' any such risks 
 in gettin' ketched, or in gettin' away arter ! " 
 
 Madison Clay smiled grimly, pushed back 
 
194 SALOMY JANETS KISS 
 
 his chair, rose, dropped a perfunctory kiss 
 on his daughter's hair, and, taking his shot- 
 gun from the corner, departed on a peace- 
 ful Samaritan mission to a cow who had 
 dropped a calf in the far pasture. Inclined 
 as he was to Reuben's wooing from his eli- 
 gibility as to property, he was conscious that 
 he was sadly deficient in certain qualities 
 inherent in the Clay family. It certainly 
 would be a kind of mesalliance. 
 
 Left to herself, Salomy Jane stared a 
 long while at the coffee-pot, and then called 
 the two squaws who assisted her in her 
 household duties, to clear away the things 
 while she went up to her own room to make 
 her bed. Here she was confronted with a 
 possible prospect of that proverbial bed she 
 might be making in her willfulness, and on 
 which she must lie, in the photograph of a 
 somewhat serious young man of refined fea- 
 tures Reuben Waters stuck in her win- 
 dow-frame. Salomy Jane smiled over her 
 last witticism regarding him and enjoyed it, 
 like your true humorist, and then, catching 
 sight of her own handsome face in the little 
 mirror, smiled again. But was n't it funny 
 about that horse-thief getting off after all? 
 Good Lordyl Fancy Reuben hearing he 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 195 
 
 was alive and going round with that kiss of 
 hers set on his lips ! She laughed again, a 
 little more abstractedly. And he had re- 
 turned it like a man, holding her tight and 
 almost breathless, and he going to be hung 
 the next minute! Salomy Jane had been 
 kissed at other times, by force, chance, or 
 .stratagem. In a certain ingenuous forfeit 
 game of the locality known as "I 'm a-pin- 
 in'," many had "pined" for a "sweet kiss" 
 from Salomy Jane, which she had yielded 
 in a sense of honor and fair play. She had 
 never been kissed like this before she 
 would never again; and yet the man was 
 alive! And behold, she could see in the 
 mirror that she was blushing ! 
 
 She should hardly know him again. A 
 young man with very bright eyes, a flushed 
 and sunburnt cheek, a kind of fixed look in 
 the face, and no beard; no, none that she 
 could feel. Yet he was not at all like Keu- 
 ben, not a bit. She took Eeuben's picture 
 from the window, and laid it on her work- 
 box. And to think she did not even know 
 this young man's name ! That was queer. 
 To be kissed by a man whom she might 
 never know ! Of course he knew hers. She 
 wondered if he remembered it and her. But 
 
196 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 of course he was so glad to get off with his 
 life that he never thought of anything else. 
 Yet she did not give more than four or five 
 minutes to these speculations, and, like a 
 sensible girl, thought of something else. 
 Once again, however, in opening the closet, 
 she found the brown holland gown she had 
 worn on the day before; thought it very un- 
 becoming, and regretted that she had not 
 worn her best gown on her visit to Red 
 Pete's cottage. On such an occasion she 
 really might have been more impressive. 
 
 When her father came home that night 
 she asked him the news. No, they had not 
 captured the second horse-thief, who was 
 still at large. Judge Boompointer talked of 
 invoking the aid of the despised law. It 
 remained, then, to see whether the horse- 
 thief was fool enough to try to get rid of the 
 animal. Red Pete's body had been delivered 
 to his widow. Perhaps it would only be 
 neighborly for Salomy Jane to ride over to 
 the funeral. But Salomy Jane did not take 
 to the suggestion kindly, nor yet did she ex- 
 plain to her father that, as the other man 
 was still living, she did not care to undergo 
 a second disciplining at the widow's hands. 
 Nevertheless, she contrasted her situation 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 197 
 
 with that of the widow with a new and sin- 
 gular satisfaction. It might have been Red 
 Pete who had escaped. But he had not the 
 grit of the nameless one. She had already 
 settled his heroic quality. 
 
 "Ye ain't harkenin' to me, Salomy." 
 
 Salomy Jane started. 
 
 "Here I'm askin' ye if ye 've see that 
 hound Phil Larrabee sneaking by yer to- 
 day?" 
 
 Salomy Jane had not. But she became 
 interested and self -reproachful, for she knew 
 that Phil Larrabee was one of her father's 
 enemies. "He wouldn't dare to go by here 
 unless he knew you were out," she said 
 quickly. 
 
 "That 's what gets me," he said, scratch- 
 ing his grizzled head. "I 've been kind o' 
 thinkin' o' him all day, and one of them 
 Chinamen said he saw him at Sawyer's 
 Crossing. He was a kind of friend o' Pete's 
 wife. That 's why I thought yer might find 
 out ef he 'd been there." Salomy Jane grew 
 more self -reproachful at her father's self- 
 interest in her "neighborliness." "But that 
 ain't all," continued Mr. Clay. "Thar was 
 tracks over the far pasture that warn't mine. 
 I followed them, and they went round and 
 
198 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 round the house two or three times, ez ef 
 they mout hev bin prowlin', and then I lost 
 'em in the woods again. It 's just like that 
 sneakin' hound Larrabee to hev bin lyin' 
 in wait for me and afraid to meet a man 
 fair and square in the open." 
 
 "You just lie low, dad, for a day or two 
 more, and let me do a little prowlin'," said 
 the girl, with sympathetic indignation in her 
 dark eyes. "Ef it 's that skunk, I '11 spot 
 him soon enough and let you know whar 
 he 's hiding." 
 
 "You '11 just stay where ye are, Salomy," 
 said her father decisively. "This ain't no 
 woman's work though I ain't say in' you 
 haven't got more head for it than some 
 men I know." 
 
 Nevertheless, that night, after her father 
 had gone to bed, Salomy Jane sat by the 
 open window of the sitting-room in an ap- 
 parent attitude of languid contemplation, 
 but alert and intent of eye and ear. It was 
 a fine moonlit night. Two pines near the 
 door, solitary pickets of the serried ranks of 
 distant forest, cast long shadows like paths 
 to the cottage, and sighed their spiced breath 
 in the windows. For there was no frivol- 
 ity of vine or flower round Salomy Jane's 
 
SALOMT JAN&S KISS 199 
 
 bower. The clearing was too recent, the 
 life too practical for vanities like these. 
 But the moon added a vague elusiveness to 
 everything, softened the rigid outlines of the 
 sheds, gave shadows to the lidless windows, 
 and touched with merciful indirectness the 
 hideous debris of refuse gravel and the 
 gaunt scars of burnt vegetation before the 
 door. Even Salomy Jane was affected by 
 it, and exhaled something between a sigh 
 and a yawn with the breath of the pines. 
 Then she suddenly sat upright. 
 
 Her quick ear had caught a faint "click, 
 click," in the direction of the wood; her 
 quicker instinct and rustic training enabled 
 her to determine that it was the ring of a 
 horse's shoe on flinty ground; her knowledge 
 of the locality told her it came from the 
 spot where the trail passed over an outcrop 
 of flint scarcely a quarter of a mile from 
 where she sat, and within the clearing. It 
 was no errant "stock," for the foot was 
 shod with iron ; it was a mounted trespasser 
 by night, and boded no good to a man like 
 Clay. 
 
 She rose, threw her shawl over her head, 
 more for disguise than shelter, and passed 
 out of the door. A sudden impulse made 
 
200 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 her seize lier father's shotgun from the cor- 
 ner where it stood, not that she feared any 
 danger to herself, but that it was an excuse. 
 She made directly for the wood, keeping in 
 the shadow of the pines as long as she could. 
 At the fringe she halted ; whoever was there 
 must pass her before reaching the house. 
 
 Then there seemed to be a suspense of all 
 nature. Everything was deadly still even 
 the moonbeams appeared no longer tremu- 
 lous; soon there was a rustle as of some 
 stealthy animal among the ferns, and then 
 a dismounted man stepped into the moon- 
 light. It was the horse - thief the man 
 she had kissed! 
 
 For a wild moment a strange fancy seized 
 her usually sane intellect and stirred her 
 temperate blood. The news they had told 
 her was not true; he had been hung, and 
 this was his ghost! He looked as white and 
 spirit-like in the moonlight, dressed in the 
 same clothes, as when she saw him last. He 
 had evidently seen her approaching, and 
 moved quickly to meet her. But in his 
 haste he stumbled slightly; she reflected 
 suddenly that ghosts did not stumble, and a 
 feeling of relief came over her. And it was 
 no assassin of her father that had been prowl- 
 
SALOMY JANWS KISS 201 
 
 ing around only this unhappy fugitive. 
 A momentary color came into her cheek; 
 her coolness and hardihood returned ; it was 
 with a tinge of sauciness in her voice that 
 she said : 
 
 "I reckoned you were a ghost." 
 
 "I mout have been," he said, looking at 
 her fixedly; "but I reckon I'd have come 
 back here all the same." 
 
 "It 's a little riskier comin' back alive," 
 she said, with a levity that died on her lips, 
 for a singular nervousness, half fear and 
 half expectation, was beginning to take the 
 place of her relief of a moment ago. "Then 
 it was you who was prowlin' round and 
 makin' tracks in the far pasture? " 
 
 "Yes; I came straight here when I got 
 away." 
 
 She felt his eyes were burning her, but 
 did not dare to raise her own. "Why," she 
 began, hesitated, and ended vaguely. "How 
 did you get here?" 
 
 "You helped me!" 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Yes. That kiss you gave me put life 
 into me gave me strength to get away. I 
 swore to myself I 'd come back and thank 
 you, alive or dead." 
 
202 SALOMT JANE'S KISS 
 
 Every word he said she could have antici- 
 pated, so plain the situation seemed to her 
 now. And every word he said she knew 
 was the truth. Yet her cool common sense 
 struggled against it. 
 
 "What's the use of your escaping, ef 
 you 're comin' back here to be ketched 
 again ? " she said pertly. 
 
 He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed 
 to her the more awkward as she resumed her 
 self-possession. His voice, too, was broken, 
 as if by exhaustion, as he said, catching his 
 breath at intervals : 
 
 " I '11 tell you. You did more for me than 
 you think. You made another man o' me. 
 I never had a man, woman, or child do to 
 me what you did. I never had a friend 
 only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up 
 ' on shares. ' I want to quit this yer 
 what I 'm doin'. I want to begin by doin' 
 the square thing to you" He stopped, 
 breathed hard, and then said brokenly, "My 
 hoss is over thar, staked out. I want to 
 give him to you. Judge Boompointer will 
 give you a thousand dollars for him. I 
 ain't lyin'; it's God's truth! I saw it on 
 the handbill agin a tree. Take him, and 
 I '11 get away afoot. Take him. It 's the 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 203 
 
 only thing I can do for you, and I know it 
 don't half pay for what you did. Take it; 
 your father can get a reward for you, if you 
 can't." 
 
 Such were the ethics of this strange local- 
 ity that neither the man who made the offer 
 nor the girl to whom it was made was 
 struck by anything that seemed illogical or 
 indelicate, or at all inconsistent with justice 
 or the horse-thief's real conversion. Salomy 
 Jane nevertheless dissented, from another 
 and weaker reason. 
 
 "I don't want your hoss, though I reckon 
 dad might; but you 're just starvin'. I'll 
 &*% suthin'." She turned towards the house. 
 
 u Say you '11 take the hoss first," he said, 
 grasping her hand. At the touch she felt 
 herself coloring and struggled, expecting 
 perhaps another kiss. But he dropped her 
 hand. She turned again with a saucy ges- 
 ture, said, "Hoi' on; I '11 come right back," 
 and slipped away, the mere shadow of a coy 
 and flying nymph in the moonlight, until 
 she reached the house. 
 
 Here she not only procured food and 
 whiskey, but added a long dust-coat and hat 
 of her father's to her burden. They would 
 serve as a disguise for him and hide that 
 
204 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 heroic figure, which she thought everybody 
 must now know as she did. Then she re- 
 joined him breathlessly. But he put the 
 food and whiskey aside. 
 
 "Listen," he said; "I 've turned the hoss 
 into your corral. You '11 find him there in 
 the morning, and no one will know but that 
 he got lost and joined the other bosses." 
 
 Then she burst out. "But you you 
 what will become of you ? You '11 be 
 ketched!" 
 
 "I '11 manage to get away," he said in a 
 low voice, "ef ef " 
 
 "Ef what?" she said tremblingly. 
 
 "Ef you '11 put the heart in me again, 
 as you did ! " he gasped. 
 
 She tried to laugh to move away. She 
 could do neither. Suddenly he caught her 
 in his arms, with a long kiss, which she re- 
 turned again and again. Then they stood 
 embraced as they had embraced two days 
 before, but no longer the same. For the 
 cool, lazy Salomy Jane had been transformed 
 into another woman a passionate, clinging 
 savage. Perhaps something of her father's 
 blood had surged within her at that supreme 
 moment. The man stood erect and deter- 
 mined. 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 205 
 
 "Wot 's your name? " she whispered 
 quickly. It was a woman's quickest way of 
 defining her feelings. 
 
 "Dart." 
 
 "Yer first name?" 
 
 "Jack." 
 
 "Let me go now, Jack. Lie low in the 
 woods till to-morrow sunup. I '11 come 
 again." 
 
 He released her. Yet she lingered a mo- 
 ment. "Put on those things," she said, 
 with a sudden happy flash of eyes and teeth, 
 "and lie close till I come." And then she 
 sped away home. 
 
 But midway up the distance she felt her 
 feet going slower, and something at her 
 heartstrings seemed to be pulling her back. 
 She stopped, turned, and glanced to where 
 he had been standing. Had she seen him 
 then, she might have returned. But he had 
 disappeared. She gave her first sigh, and 
 then ran quickly again. It must be nearly 
 ten o'clock ! It was not very long to morn- 
 ing! 
 
 She was within a few steps of her own 
 door, when the sleeping woods and silent air 
 appeared to suddenly awake with a sharp 
 "crack!" 
 
206 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 She stopped, paralyzed. Another " crack ! n 
 followed, that echoed over to the far corral. 
 She recalled herself instantly and dashed off 
 wildly to the woods again. 
 
 As she ran she thought of one thing only. 
 He had been "dogged" by one of his old 
 pursuers and attacked. But there were two 
 shots, and he was unarmed. Suddenly she 
 remembered that she had left her father's 
 gun standing against the tree where they 
 were talking. Thank God ! she may again 
 have saved him. She ran to the tree ; the 
 gun was gone. She ran hither and thither, 
 dreading at every step to fall upon his life- 
 less body. A new thought struck her; she 
 ran to the corral. The horse was not there ! 
 He must have been able to regain it, and 
 escaped, after the shots had been fired. 
 She drew a long breath of relief, but it was 
 caught up in an apprehension of alarm. 
 Her father, awakened from his sleep by the 
 shots, was hurriedly approaching her. 
 
 "What 's up now, Salomy Jane? " he de- 
 manded excitedly. 
 
 "Nothin'," said the girl with an effort. 
 "NotmV, at least, that / can find." She 
 was usually truthful because fearless, and a 
 lie stuck in her throat; but she was no 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 207 
 
 longer fearless, thinking of him. "I was n't 
 abed ; so I ran out as soon as I heard the 
 shots fired," she answered in return to his 
 curious gaze. 
 
 "And you 've hid my gun somewhere 
 where it can't be found," he said reproach- 
 fully. "Ef it was that sneak Larrabee, 
 and he fired them shots to lure me out, he 
 might have potted me, without a show, a 
 dozen times in the last five minutes." 
 
 She had not thought since of her father's 
 enemy ! It might indeed have been he who 
 had attacked Jack. But she made a quick 
 point of the suggestion. "Run in, dad, 
 run in and find the gun ; you 've got no show 
 out here without it." She seized him by 
 the shoulders from behind, shielding him 
 from the woods, and hurried him, half ex- 
 postulating, half struggling, to the house. 
 
 But there no gun was to be found. It 
 was strange; it must have been mislaid in 
 some corner ! Was he sure he had not left 
 it in the barn ? But no matter now. The 
 danger was over; the Larrabee trick had 
 failed; he must go to bed now, and in the 
 morning they would make a search together. 
 At the same time she had inwardly resolved 
 to rise before him and make another search 
 
208 SALOMY JANETS KISS 
 
 of the wood, and perhaps fearful joy as 
 she recalled her promise ! find Jack alive 
 and well, awaiting her ! 
 
 Salomy Jane slept little that night, nor 
 did her father. But towards morning he 
 fell into a tired man's slumber until the sun 
 was well up the horizon. Far different was 
 it with his daughter : she lay with her face 
 to the window, her head half lifted to catch 
 every sound, from the creaking of the sun- 
 warped shingles above her head to the far-off 
 moan of the rising wind in the pine trees. 
 Sometimes she fell into a breathless, half- 
 ecstatic trance, living over every moment of 
 the stolen interview; feeling the fugitive's 
 arm still around her, his kisses on her lips; 
 hearing his whispered voice in her ears 
 the birth of her new life! This was fol- 
 lowed again by a period of agonizing dread 
 that he might even then be lying, his life 
 ebbing away, in the woods, with her name 
 on his lips, and she resting here inactive, 
 until she half started from her bed to go to 
 his succor. And this went on until a pale 
 opal glow came into the sky, followed by a 
 still paler pink on the summit of the white 
 Sierras, when she rose and hurriedly began 
 to dress. Still so sanguine was her hope of 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 209 
 
 meeting him, that she lingered yet a moment 
 to select the brown holland skirt and yellow 
 sunbonnet she had worn when she first saw 
 him. And she had only seen him twice! 
 Only twice ! It would be cruel, too cruel, 
 pot to see him again ! 
 
 She crept softly down the stairs, listening 
 to the long-drawn breathing of her father 
 in his bedroom, and then, by the light of a 
 guttering candle, scrawled a note to him, 
 begging him not to trust himself out of the 
 house until she returned from her search, 
 and leaving the note open on the table, 
 swiftly ran out into the growing day. 
 
 Three hours afterwards Mr. Madison 
 Clay awoke to the sound of loud knocking. 
 At first this forced itself upon his conscious- 
 ness as his daughter's regular morning sum- 
 mons, and was responded to by a grunt of 
 recognition and a nestling closer in the 
 blankets. Then he awoke with a start and 
 a muttered oath, remembering the events of 
 last night, and his intention to get up early, 
 and rolled out of bed. Becoming aware by 
 this time that the knocking was at the outer 
 door, and hearing the shout of a familiar 
 voice, he hastily pulled on his boots, his 
 jean trousers, and fastening a single sus- 
 
210 SALOMY JANETS KISS 
 
 pender over his shoulder as he clattered 
 downstairs, stood in the lower room. The 
 door was open, and waiting upon the thresh- 
 old was his kinsman, an old ally in many a 
 blood-feud Breckenridge Clay ! 
 
 "You are a cool one, Mad!" said the 
 latter in half -admiring indignation. 
 
 "What 's up ? " said the bewildered Madi- 
 son. * 
 
 " You ought to be, and scootin' out o' 
 this," said Breckenridge grimly. "It's all 
 very well to ' know nothin' ; ' but here Phil 
 Larrabee's friends hev just picked him up, 
 drilled through with slugs and deader nor a 
 crow, and now they 're lettin' loose Larra- 
 bee's two half-brothers on you. And you 
 must go like a derned fool and leave these 
 yer things behind you in the bresh," he 
 went on querulously, lifting Madison Clay's 
 dust-coat, hat, and shotgun from his horse, 
 which stood saddled at the door. "Luckily 
 I picked them up in the woods comin' here. 
 Ye ain't got more than time to get over the 
 state line and among your folks thar afore 
 they '11 be down on you. Hustle, old man ! 
 What are you gawkin' and star in' at?" 
 
 Madison Clay had stared amazed and be- 
 wildered horror-stricken. The incidents 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 211 
 
 of the past night for the first time flashed 
 upon him clearly hopelessly! The shot; 
 his finding Salomy Jane alone in the woods ; 
 her confusion and anxiety to rid herself of 
 him; the disappearance of the shotgun; and 
 now this new discovery of the taking of his 
 hat and coat for a disguise ! She had killed 
 Phil Larrabee in that disguise, after pro- 
 voking his first harmless shot! She, his 
 own child, Salomy Jane, had disgraced her- 
 self by a man's crime; had disgraced him by 
 usurping his right, and taking a mean ad- 
 vantage, by deceit, of a foe ! 
 
 "Gimme that gun," he said hoarsely. 
 
 Breckenridge handed him the gun in won- 
 der and slowly gathering suspicion. Madi- 
 son examined nipple and muzzle ; one barrel 
 had been discharged. It was true! The 
 gun dropped from his hand. 
 
 "Look here, old man," said Brecken- 
 ridge, with a darkening face, "there 's bin 
 no foul play here. Thar 's bin no hiring of 
 men, no deputy to do this job. You did it 
 fair and square yourself? " 
 
 "Yes, by God! " burst out Madison Clay 
 in a hoarse voice. "Who says I did n't? " 
 
 Eeassured, yet believing that Madison 
 Clay had nerved himself for the act by an 
 
212 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 over-draught of whiskey, which had affected 
 his memory, Breckenridge said curtly, 
 " Then wake up and ' lite ' out, ef ye want 
 me to stand by you." 
 
 " Go to the corral and pick me out a hoss," 
 said Madison slowly, yet not without a cer- 
 tain dignity of manner. "I've suthin' to 
 say to Salomy Jane afore I go." He was 
 holding her scribbled note, which he had 
 just discovered, in his shaking hand. 
 
 Struck by his kinsman's manner, and 
 knowing the dependent relations of father 
 and daughter, Breckenridge nodded and 
 hurried away. Left to himself, Madison 
 Clay ran his fingers through his hair, and 
 straightened out the paper on which Salomy 
 Jane had scrawled her note, turned it over, 
 and wrote on the back : 
 
 You might have told me you did it, and 
 not leave your ole father to find it out how 
 you disgraced yourself and him, too, by 
 a low-down, underhanded, woman's trick! 
 I 've said I done it, and took the blame my>. 
 self, and all the sneakiness of it that folks 
 suspect. If I get away alive and I don't 
 care much which you need n't f oiler. The 
 house and stock are yours; but you ain't 
 
SALOMY JANE'S KISS 213 
 
 any longer the daughter of your disgraced 
 father, MADISON CLAY. 
 
 He had scarcely finished the note when, 
 with a clatter of hoofs and a led horse, 
 Breckenridge reappeared at the door elate 
 and triumphant. "You 're in nigger luck, 
 Mad! I found that stole hoss of Judge 
 Boompointer's had got away and strayed 
 among your stock in the corral. Take him 
 and you're safe; he can't be outrun this 
 side of the state line." 
 
 "I ain't no hoss-thief," said Madison 
 grimly. 
 
 "Nobody sez ye are, but you 'd be wuss 
 
 a fool ef you did n't take him. I 'm 
 testimony that you found him among your 
 bosses ; I '11 tell Judge Boompointer you 've 
 got him, and ye kin send him back when 
 you 're safe. The judge will be mighty 
 glad to get him back, and call it quits. So 
 ef you 've writ to Salomy Jane, come." 
 
 Madison Clay no longer hesitated. Sa- 
 lomy Jane might return at any moment, it 
 would be part of her "fool womanishness," 
 
 and he was in no mood to see her before 
 a third party. He laid the note on the 
 table, gave a hurried glance around the 
 
214 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 house, which he grimly believed he was 
 leaving forever, and, striding to the door, 
 leaped on the stolen horse, and swept away 
 with his kinsman. 
 
 But that note lay for a week undisturbed 
 on the table in full view of the open door. 
 The house was invaded by leaves, pine cones, 
 birds, and squirrels during the hot, silent, 
 empty days, and at night by shy, stealthy 
 creatures, but never again, day or night, by 
 any of the Clay family. It was known in 
 the district that Clay had flown across the 
 state line, his daughter was believed to have 
 joined him the next day, and the house was 
 supposed to be locked up. It lay off the 
 main road, and few passed that way. The 
 starving cattle in the corral at last broke 
 bounds and spread over the woods. And 
 one night a stronger blast than usual swept 
 through the house, carried the note from 
 the table to the floor, where, whirled into a 
 crack in the flooring, it slowly rotted. 
 
 But though the sting of her father's re- 
 proach was spared her, Salomy Jane had no 
 need of the letter to know what had hap- 
 pened. For as she entered the woods in the 
 dim light of that morning she saw the figure 
 of Dart gliding from the shadow of a pine 
 
SALOMY JANES KISS 215 
 
 towards her. The unaffected cry of joy that 
 rose from her lips died there as she caught 
 sight of his face in the open light. 
 
 "You are hurt," she said, clutching his 
 arm passionately. 
 
 "No," he said. "But I would n't mind 
 that if" 
 
 "You're thinkin' I was afeard to come 
 back last night when I heard the shootin', 
 but I did come," she went on feverishly. 
 "I ran back here when I heard the two 
 shots, but you were gone. I went to the 
 corral, but your hoss wasn't there, and I 
 thought you 'd got away." 
 
 "I did get away," said Dart gloomily. 
 "I killed the man, thinkin' he was huntin' 
 me, and forgettin' I was disguised. He 
 thought I was your father." 
 
 "Yes," said the girl joyfully, "he was 
 after dad, and you you killed him." She 
 again caught his hand admiringly. 
 
 But he did not respond. Possibly there 
 were points of honor which this horse-thief 
 felt vaguely with her father. "Listen," he 
 said grimly. "Others think it was your 
 father killed him. When /did it for he 
 fired at me first I ran to the corral again 
 and took my hoss, thinkin' I might be fol- 
 
216 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 lered. I made a clear circuit of the house, 
 and when I found he was the only one, and 
 no one was follerin', I come back here and 
 took off my disguise. Then I heard his 
 friends find him in the wood, and I know 
 they suspected your father. And then an- 
 other man come through the woods while I 
 was hidin' and found the clothes and took 
 them away." He stopped and stared at her 
 gloomily. 
 
 But all this was unintelligible to the girl. 
 "Dad would have got the better of him ef 
 you hadn't," she said eagerly, "so what's 
 the difference?" 
 
 "All the same," he said gloomily, "I 
 must take his place." 
 
 She did not understand, but turned her 
 head to her master. "Then you '11 go back 
 with me and tell him all?" she said obedi- 
 ently. 
 
 "Yes," he said. 
 
 She put her hand in his, and they crept 
 out of the wood together. She foresaw a 
 thousand difficulties, but, chiefest of all, 
 that he did not love as she did. She would 
 not have taken these risks against their hap- 
 piness. 
 
 But alas for ethics and heroism. As 
 
SALOMY JANETS KISS 217 
 
 they were issuing from the wood they heard 
 the sound of galloping hoofs, and had barely 
 time to hide themselves before Madison 
 Clay, on the stolen horse of Judge Boom- 
 pointer, swept past them with his kinsman. 
 Salomy Jane turned to her lover. 
 
 And here I might, as a moral romancer, 
 pause, leaving the guilty, passionate girl 
 eloped with her disreputable lover, destined 
 to lifelong shame and misery, misunderstood 
 to the last by a criminal, fastidious parent. 
 But I am confronted by certain facts, on 
 which this romance is based. A month later 
 a handbill was posted on one of the sentinel 
 pines, announcing that the property would 
 be sold by auction to the highest bidder by 
 Mrs. John Dart, daughter of Madison Clay, 
 Esq., and it was sold accordingly. Still 
 later by ten years the chronicler of 
 these pages visited a certain "stock" or 
 "breeding farm," in the "Blue Grass Coun- 
 try," famous for the popular racers it has 
 produced. He was told that the owner was 
 the " best judge of horse-flesh in the country." 
 "Small wonder," added his informant, "for 
 they say as a young man out in California 
 he was a horse-thief, and only saved himself 
 
218 SALOMY JANE'S KISS 
 
 by eloping with some rich farmer's daugh- 
 ter. But he 's a straight-out and respecta- 
 ble man now, whose word about horses can't 
 be bought; and as for his wife, she 's a 
 beauty ! To see her at the ' Springs,' rigged 
 out in the latest fashion, you 'd never think 
 she had ever lived out of New York or 
 wasn't the wife of one of its millionaires." 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 HE was such a large, strong man that, 
 when he first set foot in the little parallelo- 
 gram I called my garden, it seemed to shrink 
 to half its size and become preposterous. 
 But I noticed at the same time that he was 
 holding in the open palm of his huge hand 
 the roots of a violet, with such infinite ten- 
 derness and delicacy that I would have 
 engaged him as my gardener on the spot. 
 But this could not be, as he was already the 
 proud proprietor of a market-garden and 
 nursery on the outskirts of the suburban 
 Californian town where I lived. He would, 
 however, come for two days in the week, 
 stock and look after my garden, and impart 
 to my urban intellect such horticultural 
 hints as were necessary. His name was 
 "Riitli," which I presumed to be German, 
 but which my neighbors rendered as "Root- 
 leigh," possibly from some vague connection 
 with his occupation. His own knowledge 
 of English was oral and phonetic. I have 
 
220 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 a delightful recollection of a bill of his in 
 which I was charged for "fioletz," with the 
 vague addition of "maine cains." Subse- 
 quent explanation proved it to be "many 
 kinds." 
 
 Nevertheless, my little garden bourgeoned 
 and blossomed under his large, protecting 
 hand. I became accustomed to walk around 
 his feet respectfully when they blocked the 
 tiny paths, and to expect the total eclipse of 
 that garden-bed on which he worked, by his 
 huge bulk. For the tiniest and most reluc- 
 tant rootlet seemed to respond to his caress- 
 ing paternal touch ; it was a pretty sight to 
 see his huge fingers tying up some slender 
 stalk to its stick with the smallest thread, 
 and he had a reverent way of laying a bulb 
 or seed in the ground, and then gently shap- 
 ing and smoothing a small mound over it, 
 which made the little inscription on the stick 
 above more like an affecting epitaph than 
 ever. Much of this gentleness may have 
 been that apology for his great strength, com- 
 mon with large men; but his face was dis- 
 tinctly amiable, and his very light blue eye* 
 were at times wistful and doglike in their 
 kindliness. I was soon to learn, however, 
 that placability was not entirely his nature. 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 221 
 
 The garden was part of a fifty vara lot of 
 land, 011 which I was simultaneously erect- 
 ing a house. But the garden was finished 
 before the house was, through certain cir- 
 cumstances very characteristic of that epoch 
 and civilization. I had purchased the Span- 
 ish title, the only legal one, to the land, 
 which, however, had been in possession of 
 a "squatter." But he had been unable to 
 hold that possession against a "jumper," 
 another kind of squatter who had entered 
 upon it covertly, fenced it in, and marked it 
 out in building sites. Neither having legal 
 rights, they could not invoke the law; the 
 last man held possession. There was no 
 doubt that in due course of litigation and 
 time both these ingenuous gentlemen would 
 have been dispossessed in favor of the real 
 owner, myself, but that course would be 
 a protracted one. Following the usual cus- 
 tom of the locality, I paid a certain sum to 
 the jumper to yield up peaceably his posses- 
 sion of the land, and began to build upon it. 
 It might be reasonably supposed that the 
 question was settled. But it was not. The 
 house was nearly finished when, one morn- 
 ing, I was called out of my editorial sanctum 
 by a pallid painter, looking even more white* 
 
222 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 leaded than usual, who informed me that 
 my house was in the possession of five armed 
 men ! The entry had been made peaceably 
 during the painters' absence to dinner under 
 a wayside tree. When they returned, they 
 had found their pots and brushes in the 
 road, and an intimation from the windows 
 that their reentrance would be forcibly re- 
 sisted as a trespass. 
 
 I honestly believe that Eiitli was more 
 concerned than myself over this disposses- 
 sion. While he loyally believed that I would 
 get back my property, he was dreadfully 
 grieved over the inevitable damage that 
 would be done to the garden during this in- 
 terval of neglect and carelessness. I even 
 think he would have made a truce with my 
 enemies, if they would only have let him 
 look after his beloved plants. As it was, 
 he kept a passing but melancholy surveil- 
 lance of them, and was indeed a better spy 
 of the actions of the intruders than any I 
 could have employed. One day, to my as- 
 tonishment, he brought me a moss-rose bud 
 from a bush which had been trained against 
 a column of the veranda. It appeared that 
 he had called, from over the fence, the at- 
 tention of one of the men to the neglected 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 223 
 
 condition of the plant, and had obtained 
 permission to "come in and tie it up." The 
 men, being merely hirelings of the chief 
 squatter, had no personal feeling, and I was 
 not therefore surprised to hear that they 
 presently allowed Riitli to come in occasion- 
 ally and look after his precious "slips." If 
 they had any suspicions of his great strength, 
 it was probably offset by his peaceful avoca- 
 tion and his bland, childlike face. Mean- 
 time, I had begun the usual useless legal 
 proceeding, but had also engaged a few ras- 
 cals of my own to be ready to take advan- 
 tage of any want of vigilance on the part of 
 my adversaries. I never thought of Riitli 
 in that connection any more than they had. 
 
 A few Sundays later I was sitting in the 
 little tea-arbor of Riitli 's nursery, peacefully 
 smoking with him. Presently he took his 
 long china-bowled pipe from his mouth, and, 
 looking at me blandly over his yellow mus- 
 tache, said: 
 
 "You vonts sometimes to go in dot house, 
 eh?" 
 
 I said, "Decidedly." 
 
 "Mit a revolver, and keep dot house dose 
 men out?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
224 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 "Veil! I put you in dot house to- 
 day!" 
 
 "Sunday?" 
 
 " Shoost so ! It is a goot day ! On der 
 Suntay dree men vill out go to valk mit 
 demselluffs, and visky trinken. Two" hold- 
 ing up two gigantic fingers, apparently only 
 a shade or two smaller than his destined vic- 
 tims, "stay dere. Dose I lift de fence over." 
 
 I hastened to inform him that any vio- 
 lence attempted against the parties ivhile in 
 possession, although that possession was il- 
 legal, would, by a fatuity of the law, land 
 him in the county jail. I said I would not 
 hear of it. 
 
 "But suppose dere vos no fiolence? Sup- 
 pose dose men vos villin', eh? How vos dot 
 for high?" 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "So! You shall not understand! Dot 
 is better. Go away now and dell your men 
 to coom dot house arount at halluff past 
 dree. But you coom, mit yourselluff alone, 
 shoost as if you vos spazieren gehen, for a 
 valk, by dat fence at dree ! Ven you shall 
 dot front door vide open see, go in, and dere 
 you vos ! You vill der rest leef to me ! " 
 
 It was in vain that I begged Riitli to di- 
 
THE MAN AND TEE MOUNTAIN 225 
 
 vulge his plan, and pointed out again the 
 danger of his technically breaking the law. 
 But he was firm, assuring me that I my- 
 self would be a witness that no assault 
 would be made. I looked into his clear, 
 good-humored eyes, and assented. I had a 
 burning desire to right my wrongs, but I 
 think I also had considerable curiosity. 
 
 I passed a miserable quarter of an hour 
 after I had warned my partisans, and then 
 walked alone slowly down the broad leafy 
 street towards the scene of contest. I have 
 a very vivid recollection of my conflicting 
 emotions. I did not believe that I would 
 be killed ; I had no distinct intention of kill- 
 ing any of my adversaries; but I had some 
 considerable concern for my loyal friend 
 Kiitli, whom I foresaw might be in some 
 peril from the revolver in my unpracticed 
 hand. If I could only avoid shooting him, 
 I would be satisfied. I remember that the 
 bells were ringing for church, a church of 
 which my enemy, the chief squatter, was a 
 deacon in good standing, and I felt guiltily 
 conscious of my revolver in my hip-pocket, 
 as two or three church-goers passed me with 
 their hymn-books in their hands. I walked 
 leisurely, so as not to attract attention, and 
 
226 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 to appear at the exact time, a not very easy 
 task in my youthful excitement. At last I 
 reached the front gate with a beating heart. 
 There was no one on the high veranda, which 
 occupied three sides of the low one-storied 
 house, nor in the garden before it. But the 
 front door was open ; I softly passed through 
 the gate, darted up the veranda and into the 
 house. A single glance around the hall and 
 bare, deserted rooms, still smelling of paint, 
 showed me it was empty, and with my pistol 
 in one hand and the other on the lock of the 
 door, I stood inside, ready to bolt it against 
 any one but Riitli. But where was lie ? 
 
 The sound of laughter and a noise like 
 skylarking came from the rear of the house 
 and the back yard. Then I suddenly heard 
 Kiitli's heavy tread on the veranda, but it 
 was slow, deliberate, and so exaggerated in 
 its weight that the whole house seemed to 
 shake with it. Then from the window I be- 
 held an extraordinary sight ! It was Kiitli, 
 swaying from side to side, but steadily car- 
 rying with outstretched arms two of the 
 squatter party, his hands tightly grasping 
 their collars. Yet I believe his touch was 
 as gentle as with the violets. His face was 
 preternaturally grave ; theirs, to my intense 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 227 
 
 astonishment, while they hung passive from 
 his arms, wore that fatuous, imbecile smile 
 seen on the faces of those who lend them- 
 selves to tricks of acrobats and strong men 
 in the arena. He slowly traversed the whole 
 length of one side of the house, walked down 
 the steps to the gate, and then gravely de- 
 posited them outside. I heard him say, 
 "Dot vins der pet, ain't it?" and immedi- 
 ately after the sharp click of the gate-latch. 
 
 Without understanding a thing that had 
 happened, I rightly conceived this was the 
 cue for my appearance with my revolver at 
 the front door. As I opened it I still heard 
 the sound of laughter, which, however, in- 
 stantly stopped at a sentence from Kiitli, 
 which I could not hear. There was an oath, 
 the momentary apparition of two furious 
 and indignant faces over the fence; but 
 these, however, seemed to be instantly ex- 
 tinguished and put down by the enormous 
 palms of Riitli clapped upon their heads. 
 There was a pause, and then Riitli turned 
 around and quietly joined me in the door- 
 way. But the gate was not again opened 
 until the arrival of my partisans, when the 
 house was clearly in my possession. 
 
 Safe inside with the door bolted, I turned 
 
228 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 eagerly to Riitli for an explanation. It 
 then appeared that during his occasional 
 visits to the garden he had often been an 
 object of amusement and criticism to the 
 men on account of his size, which seemed to 
 them ridiculously inconsistent with his great 
 good humor, gentleness, and delicacy of 
 touch. They had doubted his strength and 
 challenged his powers. He had responded 
 once or twice before, lifting weights or even 
 carrying one of his critics at arm's length 
 for a few steps. But he had reserved his 
 final feat for this day and this purpose. It 
 was for a bet, which they had eagerly ac- 
 cepted, secure in their belief in his simpli- 
 city, the sincerity of his motives in coming 
 there, and glad of the opportunity of a little 
 Sunday diversion. In their security they 
 had not locked the door when they came 
 out, and had not noticed that he had opened 
 it. This was his simple story. His only 
 comment, "I haf von der pet, but I dinks 
 I shall nod gollect der money." The two 
 men did not return that afternoon, nor did 
 their comrades. Whether they wisely con- 
 ceived that a man who was so powerful in 
 play might be terrible in earnest; whether 
 they knew that his act, in which they had 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 229 
 
 been willing performers, had been witnessed 
 by passing citizens, who supposed it was 
 skylarking; or whether their employer got 
 tired of his expensive occupation, I never 
 knew. The public believed the latter; 
 Eiitli, myself, and the two men he had 
 evicted alone kept our secret. 
 
 From that time Kiitli and I became firm 
 friends, and, long after I had no further 
 need of his services in the recaptured house, 
 I often found myself in the little tea-arbor 
 of his prosperous nursery. He was frugal, 
 sober, and industrious; small wonder that 
 in that growing town he waxed rich, and 
 presently opened a restaurant in the main 
 street, connected with his market-garden, 
 which became famous. His relations to me 
 never changed with his changed fortunes; 
 he was always the simple market-gardener 
 and florist who had aided my first house- 
 keeping, and stood by me in an hour of 
 need. Of all things regarding himself he 
 was singularly reticent; I do not think he 
 had any confidants or intimates, even among 
 his own countrymen, whom I believed to be 
 German. But one day he quite acciden- 
 tally admitted he was a Swiss. As a youth- 
 ful admirer of the race I was delighted, and 
 
230 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 told him so, with the enthusiastic addition 
 that I could now quite understand his inde- 
 pendence, with his devoted adherence to an- 
 other's cause. He smiled sadly, and aston- 
 ished me by saying that he had not heard 
 from Switzerland since he left six years 
 ago. He did not want to hear anything; 
 he even avoided his countrymen lest he 
 should. I was confounded. 
 
 "But," I said, "surely you have a long- 
 ing to return to your country; all Swiss 
 have ! You will go back some day just to 
 breathe the air of your native mountains." 
 
 "I shall go back some days," said Riitli, 
 "after I have made mooch, mooch money, 
 but not for dot air." 
 
 "What for, then?" 
 
 "For revenge to get efen." 
 
 Surprised, and for a moment dismayed as 
 I was, I could not help laughing. " Kiitli 
 and revenge ! " Impossible ! And to make 
 it the more absurd, he was still smoking 
 gently and regarding me with soft, compla- 
 cent eyes. So unchanged was his face and 
 manner that he might have told me he was 
 going back to be married. 
 
 "You do not oonderstand," he said for- 
 givingly. "Some days I shall dell to you 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 231 
 
 id. Id is a story. You shall make it your- 
 selluff for dose babers dot you write. It is 
 not bretty, berhaps, ain't it, but it is droo. 
 And de endt is not yet." 
 
 Only that Kiitli never joked, except in a 
 ponderous fashion with many involved sen- 
 tences, I should have thought he was taking 
 a good-humored rise out of me. But it was 
 not funny. I am afraid I dismissed it from 
 my mind as a revelation of something weak 
 and puerile, quite inconsistent with his prac- 
 tical common sense and strong simplicity, 
 and wished he had not alluded to it. I 
 never asked him to tell me the story. It 
 was a year later, and only when he had in- 
 vited me to come to the opening of a new 
 hotel, erected by him at a mountain spa of 
 great resort, that he himself alluded to it. 
 
 The hotel was a wonderful affair, even 
 for those days, and Kiitli 's outlay of capital 
 convinced me that by this time he must 
 have made the "mooch money" he coveted. 
 Something of this was in my mind when we 
 sat by the window of his handsomely fur- 
 nished private office, overlooking the pines 
 of a Californian canon. I asked him if the 
 scenery was like Switzerland. 
 
 "Ach! no!" he replied; "but I villpuild 
 a hotel shoost like dis dare." 
 
232 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 "Is that a part of your revenge? " 1 
 asked, with a laugh. 
 
 "Ah! so! abart." 
 
 I felt relieved ; a revenge so practical did 
 not seem very malicious or idiotic. After 
 a pause he puffed contemplatively at his 
 pipe, and then said, " I dell you somedings 
 of dot story now." 
 
 He began. I should like to tell it in his 
 own particular English, mixed with Ameri- 
 can slang, but it would not convey the sim- 
 plicity of the narrator. He was the son of 
 a large family who had lived for centuries 
 in one of the highest villages in the Bernese 
 Oberland. He attained his size and strength 
 early, but with a singular distaste to use 
 them in the rough regular work on the farm, 
 although he was a great climber and moun- 
 taineer, and, what was at first overlooked as 
 mere boyish fancy, had an insatiable love 
 and curious knowledge of plants and flowers. 
 He knew the haunts of Edelweiss, Alpine 
 rose, and blue gentian, and had brought 
 home rare and unknown blossoms from un- 
 der the icy lips of glaciers. But as he did 
 this when his time was supposed to be occu- 
 pied in looking after the cows in the higher 
 pastures and making cheeses, there was trou- 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 233 
 
 ble in that hard-working, practical family. 
 A giant with the tastes and disposition of a 
 schoolgirl was an anomaly in a Swiss vil- 
 lage. Unfortunately again, he was not stu- 
 dious ; his record in the village school had 
 been on a par with his manual work, and 
 the family had not even the consolation of 
 believing that they were fostering a genius. 
 In a community where practical industry 
 was the highest virtue, it was not strange, 
 perhaps, that he was called "lazy " and 
 "shiftless;" no one knew the long climbs 
 and tireless vigils he had undergone in ret 
 mote solitudes in quest of his favorites, or, 
 knowing, forgave him for it. Abstemious, 
 frugal, and patient as he was, even the 
 crusts of his father's table were given him 
 grudgingly. He often went hungry rather 
 than ask the bread he had failed to earn. 
 How his great frame was nurtured in those 
 days he never knew; perhaps the giant 
 mountains recognized some kin in him and 
 fed and strengthened him after their own 
 fashion. Even his gentleness was con- 
 founded with cowardice. " Dot vos de hardt- 
 est," he said simply; "it is not goot to be 
 opligit to half crush your brudder, ven he 
 would make a laugh of you to your sweet* 
 
234 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 heart." The end came sooner than he ex- 
 pected, and, oddly enough, through this 
 sweetheart. "Gottlieb," she said to him 
 one day, "the English Fremde who stayed 
 here last night met me when I was carrying 
 some of those beautiful flowers you gave me. 
 He asked me where they were to be found, 
 and I told him only you knew. He wants 
 to see you; go to him. It maybe luck 'to 
 you." Riitli went. The stranger, an Eng- 
 lish Alpine climber of scientific tastes, talked 
 with him for an hour. At the end of that 
 time, to everybody's astonishment, he en- 
 gaged this hopeless idler as his personal 
 guide for three months, at the sum of five 
 francs a day ! It was inconceivable, it was 
 unheard of ! The Englander was as mad as 
 Gottlieb, whose intellect had always been 
 under suspicion ! The schoolmaster pursed 
 up his lips, the pastor shook his head; no 
 good could come of it; the family looked 
 upon it as another freak of Gottlieb's, but 
 there was one big mouth less to feed and 
 more room in the kitchen, and they let him 
 go. They parted from him as ungraciously 
 as they had endured his presence. 
 
 Then followed two months of sunshine in 
 Riitli 's life association with his beloved 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 235 
 
 plants, and the intelligent sympathy and 
 direction of a cultivated man. Even in al- 
 titudes so dangerous that they had to take 
 other and more experienced guides, Riitli 
 was always at his master's side. That sa^ 
 vant's collection of Alpine flora excelled all 
 previous ones; he talked freely with Riitli 
 of further work in the future, and relaxed 
 his English reserve so far as to confide to 
 him that the outcome of their collection and 
 observation might be a book. He gave a 
 flower a Latin name, in which even the ig- 
 norant and delighted Riitli could distinguish 
 some likeness to his own. But the book 
 was never compiled. In one of their later 
 and more difficult ascents they and their two 
 additional guides were overtaken by a sud- 
 den storm. Swept from their feet down an 
 ice-bound slope, Riitli alone of the roped- 
 together party kept a foothold on the treach- 
 erous incline. Here this young Titan, with 
 bleeding fingers clenched in a rock cleft, 
 sustained the struggles and held up the lives 
 of his companions by that precious thread 
 for more than an hour. Perhaps he might 
 have saved them, but in their desperate ef- 
 forts to regain their footing the rope slipped 
 upon a jagged edge of outcrop and parted as 
 
236 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 if cut by a knife. The two guides passed 
 without an outcry into obscurity and death; 
 Riitli, with a last despairing exertion, 
 dragged to his own level his unconscious 
 master, crippled by a broken leg. 
 
 Your true hero is apt to tell his tale sim- 
 ply. Riitli did not dwell upon these details, 
 nor need I. Left alone upon a treacherous 
 ice slope in benumbing cold, with a helpless 
 man, eight hours afterwards he staggered, 
 half blind, incoherent, and inarticulate, into 
 a "shelter" hut, with the dead body of his 
 master in his stiffened arms. The shelter- 
 keepers turned their attention to Riitli, who 
 needed it most. Blind and delirious, with 
 scarce a chance for life, he was sent the next 
 day to a hospital, where he lay for three 
 months, helpless, imbecile, and unknown. 
 The dead body of the Englishman was iden- 
 tified, and sent home; the bodies of the 
 guides were recovered by their friends; but 
 no one knew aught of Riitli, even his name. 
 While the event was still fresh in the minds 
 of those who saw him enter the hut with the 
 body of his master, a paragraph appeared in 
 a Berne journal recording the heroism of 
 this nameless man. But it could not be 
 corroborated nor explained by the demented 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 237 
 
 hero, and was presently forgotten. Six 
 months from the day he had left his home 
 he was discharged cured. He had not a 
 kreutzer in his pocket ; he had never drawn 
 his wages from his employer; he had pre- 
 ferred to have it in a lump sum that he 
 might astonish his family on his return. 
 His eyes were still weak, his memory fee- 
 ble; only his great physical strength re- 
 mained through his long illness. A few 
 sympathizing travelers furnished him the 
 means to reach his native village, many 
 miles away. He found his family had heard 
 of the loss of the Englishman and the guides, 
 and had believed he was one of them. Al- 
 ready he was forgotten. 
 
 "Ven you vos once peliefed to be det," 
 said Kiitli, after a philosophic pause and 
 puff, "it vos not goot to ondeceif beoples. 
 You oopset somedings, soomdimes always. 
 Der hole dot you hef made in der grount, 
 among your frients and your family, vos 
 covered up alretty. You are loocky if you 
 vill not fint some vellars shtanding upon id ! 
 My frent, ven you vos dink det, shtay det, 
 be det, and you vill lif happy! " 
 
 "But your sweetheart? " I said eagerly. 
 
 A slight gleam of satire stole into Eiitli's 
 
238 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 light eyes. "My sweetheart, ven I vos 
 dinks det, is der miller engaged do bromply ! 
 It is mooch better dan to a man dot vos 
 boor and plint and grazy ! So ! Veil, der 
 next day I pids dem goot-py, und from der 
 door I say, ' I am det now ; but ven I next 
 comes pack alife, I shall dis village py ! der 
 lants, der houses all togedders. And den 
 for yourselluffs look oudt ! ' 
 
 "Then that's your revenge? That is 
 what you really intend to do? " I said, half 
 laughing, yet with an uneasy recollection of 
 his illness and enfeebled mind. 
 
 "Yes. Look here! I show you some- 
 dings." He opened a drawer of his desk 
 and took out what appeared to be some dia- 
 grams, plans, and a small water-colored 
 map, like a surveyor's tracing. "Look," 
 he said, laying his finger on the latter, "dat 
 is a map from my fillage. I hef myselluff 
 made it out from my memory. Dot," point- 
 ing to a blank space, "is der mountain side 
 high up, so far. It is no goot until I vill 
 a tunnel make or der grade lefel. Dere 
 vas mine fader's house, dere vos der church, 
 der schoolhotise, dot vos de burgomaster's 
 house," he went on, pointing to the respec- 
 tive plots in this old curving parallelogram 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 239 
 
 of the mountain shelf. " So was the fillage 
 when I leave him on the 5th of March, eigh- 
 teen hundred and feefty. Now you shall 
 see him shoost as I vill make him ven I go 
 back." He took up another plan, beauti- 
 fully drawn and colored, and evidently done 
 by a professional hand. It was a practical, 
 yet almost fairylike transformation of the 
 same spot ! The narrow mountain shelf was 
 widened by excavation, and a boulevard 
 stretched on either side. A great hotel, not 
 unlike the one in which we sat, stood in an 
 open terrace, with gardens and fountains 
 the site of his father's house. Blocks of 
 pretty dwellings, shops, and cafes filled the 
 intermediate space. I laid down the paper. 
 
 "How long have you had this idea?" 
 
 "Efer since I left dere, fifteen years ago." 
 
 "But your father and mother may be 
 dead by this time?" 
 
 "So, but dere vill be odders. Und der 
 blace it vill remain." 
 
 "But all this will cost a fortune, and you 
 are not sure " 
 
 "I know shoost vot id vill gost, to a 
 cend." 
 
 "And you think you can ever afford to 
 carry out your idea? " 
 
240 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 "I vill affort id. Ven you shall make 
 yet some moneys and go to Europe, you 
 shall see. I vill infite you dere first. Now 
 coom and look der house around." 
 
 I did not make "some moneys," but I did 
 go to Europe. Three years after this last 
 interview with Eiitli I was coming from In- 
 terlaken to Berne by rail. I had not heard 
 from him, and I had forgotten the name of 
 his village, but as I looked up from the 
 paper I was reading, I suddenly recognized 
 him in the further end of the same compart- 
 ment I occupied. His recognition of me was 
 evidently as sudden and unexpected. After 
 our first hand-grasp and greeting, I said : 
 
 "And how about our new village?" 
 
 "Dere is no fillage." 
 
 " What ! You have given up the idea ? " 
 
 "Yes. There is no fillage, olt or new." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 He looked at me a moment. "You have 
 not heard?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 He gently picked up a little local guide* 
 book that lay in my lap, and turning its 
 leaves, pointed to a page, and read as fol- 
 lows : 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 241 
 
 "5 M. beyond, the train passes a curve R., 
 where a fine view of the lake may be seen. 
 A little to the R. rises the steep slopes of 
 
 the , the scene of a terrible disaster. 
 
 At three o'clock on March 5, 1850, the lit- 
 tle village of , lying midway of the 
 
 slope, with its population of 950 souls, was 
 completely destroyed by a landslip from the 
 top of the mountain. So sudden was the 
 catastrophe that not a single escape is re- 
 corded. A large portion of the mountain 
 crest, as will be observed when it is seen in 
 profile, descended to the valley, burying the 
 unfortunate village to a depth variously es- 
 timated at from 1000 ft. to 1800 ft. The 
 geological causes which produced this ex- 
 traordinary displacement have been fully 
 discussed, but the greater evidence points 
 to the theory of subterranean glaciers. 
 
 5 M. beyond the train crosses the R. 
 
 bridge." 
 
 I laid down the guide-book in breathless 
 astonishment. 
 
 "And you never heard of this in all these 
 years?" 
 
 "Nefer! I asked no questions, I read 
 uo pooks. I have no ledders from home." 
 
 "And yet you " I stopped, I could not 
 
242 THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 call him a fool; neither could I, in the face 
 of his perfect composure and undisturbed 
 eyes, exhibit a concern greater than his 
 own. An uneasy recollection of what he 
 confessed had been his mental condition im- 
 mediately after his accident came over me. 
 Had he been the victim of a strange hallu- 
 cination regarding his house and family all 
 these years? "Were these dreams of re- 
 venge, this fancy of creating a new village, 
 only an outcome of some shock arising out 
 of the disaster itself, which he had long 
 since forgotten? 
 
 He was looking from the window. 
 "Coom," he said, "ve are near der blace. 
 I vill show id to you." He rose and passed 
 out to the rear platform. We were in the 
 rear car, and a new panorama of the lake 
 and mountains flashed upon us at every 
 curve of the line. I followed him. Pre- 
 sently he pointed to what appeared to be a 
 sheer wall of rock and stunted vegetation 
 towering two or three thousand feet above 
 us, which started out of a gorge we were 
 passing. "Dere it vos!" he said. I saw 
 the vast stretch of rock face rising upward 
 and onward, but nothing else. No debris, 
 no ruins, nor even a swelling or rounding of 
 
THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN 243 
 
 the mountain flank over that awful tomb. 
 Yet, stay! as we dashed across the gorge, 
 and the face of the mountain shifted, high 
 up, the sky-line was slightly broken as if a 
 few inches, a mere handful, of the crest was 
 crumbled away. And then both gorge 
 and mountain vanished. 
 
 I was still embarrassed and uneasy, and 
 knew not what to say to this man at my 
 side, whose hopes and ambition had been as 
 quickly overthrown and buried, and whose 
 life-dream had as quickly vanished. But 
 he himself, taking his pipe from his lips, 
 broke the silence. 
 
 "It vos a narrow esgabe! " 
 
 "What was?" 
 
 "Vy, dis dings. If I had stayed in my 
 fader's house, I vould haf been det for 
 goot, and perried too ! Somedimes dose dings 
 cooms oudt apout right, don't id? " 
 
 Unvanquished philosopher ! As we stood 
 there looking at the flying landscape and 
 sinking lesser hills, one by one the great 
 snow peaks slowly arose behind them, lift- 
 ing themselves, as if to take a last wonder- 
 ing look at the man they had triumphed 
 over, but had not subdued. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 WHEN Enriquez Saltillo ran away with 
 Miss Mannersley, as already recorded in 
 these chronicles, 1 her relatives and friends 
 found it much easier to forgive that ill- 
 assorted union than to understand it. For, 
 after all, Enriquez was the scion of an old 
 Spanish-Californian family, and in due time 
 would have his share of his father's three 
 square leagues, whatever incongruity there 
 was between his lively Latin extravagance 
 and Miss Mannersley 's Puritan precision 
 and intellectual superiority. They had gone 
 to Mexico; Mrs. Saltillo, as was known, 
 having an interest in Aztec antiquities, and 
 he being utterly submissive to her wishes. 
 For myself from my knowledge of Enri- 
 quez's nature, I had grave doubts of his 
 entire subjugation, although I knew the 
 prevailing opinion was that Mrs. Saltillo 's 
 superiority would speedily tame him. Since 
 
 1 See " The Devotion of Enrique-/," in Barker's Luck, 
 and Other Stories. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 245 
 
 his brief and characteristic note apprising 
 me of his marriage, I had not heard from 
 him. It was, therefore, with some surprise, 
 a good deal of reminiscent affection, and a 
 slight twinge of reproach that, two years 
 after, I looked up from some proofs, in the 
 sanctum of the "Daily Excelsior," to recog- 
 nize his handwriting on a note that was 
 handed to me by a yellow Mexican boy. 
 
 A single glance at its contents showed me 
 that Mrs. Saltillo's correct Bostonian speech 
 had not yet subdued Enriquez's peculiar 
 Spanish -American slang : 
 
 " Here we are again, right side up with 
 care, at 1110 Dupont Street, Telegraph 
 Hill. Second floor from top. ' Ring and 
 push.' ' No book agents need apply.' 
 How 's your royal nibs? I kiss your hand! 
 Come at six, the band shall play at seven, 
 and regard your friend ' Mees Boston/ 
 who will tell you about the little old nigger 
 boys, and your old Uncle 'Ennery." 
 
 Two things struck me : Enriquez had not 
 changed; Mrs. Saltillo had certainly yielded 
 up some of her peculiar prejudices. For 
 the address given, far from being a fashion- 
 able district, was known as the "Spanish 
 quarter," which, while it still held some old 
 
246 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 Spanish families, was chiefly given over to 
 half-castes and obscurer foreigners. Even 
 poverty could not have driven Mrs. Saltillo 
 to such a refuge against her will ; neverthe- 
 less, a good deal of concern for Enriquez's 
 fortune mingled with my curiosity, as I im- 
 patiently waited for six o'clock to satisfy it. 
 It was a breezy climb to 1110 Dupont 
 Street; and although the street had been 
 graded, the houses retained their airy eleva- 
 tion, and were accessible only by successive 
 flights of wooden steps to the front door, 
 which still gave perilously upon the street, 
 sixty feet below. I now painfully appre- 
 ciated Enriquez's adaptation of the time- 
 honored joke about the second floor. An 
 invincible smell of garlic almost took my 
 remaining breath away as the door was 
 opened to me by a swarthy Mexican woman, 
 whose loose camisa seemed to be slipping 
 from her unstable bust, and was held on 
 only by the mantua-like shawl which sup- 
 plemented it, gripped by one brown hand. 
 Dizzy from my ascent to that narrow perch, 
 which looked upon nothing but the distant 
 bay and shores of Contra Costa, I felt as 
 apologetic as if I had landed from a balloon ; 
 but the woman greted me with a languid 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 247 
 
 Spanish smile and a lazy display of white 
 teeth, as if my arrival was quite natural. 
 Don Enriquez, "of a fact," was not himself 
 in the casa, but was expected "on the in- 
 stant." "Donna Urania" was at home. 
 
 "Donna Urania "? For an instant I had 
 forgotten that Mrs. Saltillo's first name was 
 Urania, so pleasantly and spontaneously did 
 it fall from the Spanish lips. Nor was I 
 displeased at this chance of learning some- 
 thing of Don Enriquez 's fortunes and the 
 Saltillo menage before confronting my old 
 friend. The servant preceded me to the 
 next floor, and, opening a door, ushered me 
 into the lady's presence. 
 
 I had carried with me, on that upward 
 climb, a lively recollection of Miss Manners- 
 ley as I had known her two years before. 
 I remembered her upright, almost stiff, 
 slight figure, the graceful precision of her 
 poses, the faultless symmetry and taste of 
 her dress, and the atmosphere of a fastidious 
 and wholesome cleanliness which exhaled 
 from her. In the lady I saw before me, 
 half reclining in a rocking-chair, there was 
 none of the stiffness and nicety. Habited 
 in a loose gown of some easy, flexible, but 
 rich material, worn with that peculiarly in- 
 
248 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 dolent slouch of the Mexican woman, Mrs. 
 Saltillo had parted with half her individual- 
 ity. Even her arched feet and thin ankles, 
 the close-fitting boots or small slippers of 
 which were wont to accent their delicacy, 
 were now lost in a short, low-quartered kid 
 shoe of the Spanish type, in which they 
 moved loosely. Her hair, which she had 
 always worn with a certain Greek simplicity, 
 was parted at one side. Yet her face, with 
 its regularity of feature, and small, thin, 
 red-lipped mouth, was quite unchanged; 
 and her velvety brown eyes were as beauti- 
 ful and inscrutable as ever. 
 
 With the same glance I had taken in her 
 surroundings, quite as incongruous to her 
 former habits. The furniture, though of 
 old and heavy mahogany, had suffered from 
 careless alien hands, and was interspersed 
 with modern and unmatchable makeshifts, 
 yet preserving the distinctly scant and for- 
 mal attitude of furnished lodgings. It was 
 certainly unlike the artistic trifles and deli- 
 cate refinements of her uncle's drawing- 
 room, which we all knew her taste had dic- 
 tated and ruled. The black and white 
 engravings, the outlined heads of Minerva 
 and Diana, were excluded from the walls for 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 249 
 
 two cheap colored Catholic prints, a soul- 
 less Virgin, and the mystery of the Bleeding 
 Heart. Against the wall, in one corner, 
 hung the only object which seemed a me- 
 mento of their travels, a singular-looking 
 upright Indian "papoose-case " or cradle, 
 glaringly decorated with beads and paint, 
 probably an Aztec relic. On a round table, 
 the velvet cover of which showed marks of 
 usage and abusage, there were scattered 
 books and writing materials; and my edi- 
 torial instinct suddenly recognized, with a 
 thrill of apprehension, the loose leaves of an 
 undoubted manuscript. This circumstance, 
 taken with the fact of Donna Urania's hair 
 being parted on one side, and the general 
 negligee of her appearance, was a disturbing 
 revelation. 
 
 My wandering eye apparently struck her, 
 for after the first greeting she pointed to 
 the manuscript with a smile. 
 
 "Yes; that is the manuscript. I suppose 
 Enriquez told you all about it ? He said he 
 had written." 
 
 I was dumfounded. I certainly had not 
 understood all of Enriquez 's slang; it was 
 always so decidedly his own, and peculiar. 
 Yet I could not recall any allusion to this. 
 
250 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 "He told me something of it, but very 
 vaguely," I ventured to say deprecatingly ; 
 "but I am afraid that I thought more of 
 seeing my old friend again than of anything 
 else." 
 
 "During our stay in Mexico," continued 
 Mrs. Saltillo, with something of her old 
 precision, "I made some researches into 
 Aztec history, a subject always deeply inter- 
 esting to me, and I thought I would utilize 
 the result by throwing it on paper. Of 
 course it is better fitted for a volume of ref- 
 erence than for a newspaper, but Enriquez 
 thought you might want to use it for your 
 journal." 
 
 I knew that Enriquez had no taste for 
 literature, and had even rather depreciated 
 it in the old days, with his usual extrava- 
 gance ; but I managed to say very pleasantly 
 that I was delighted with his suggestion 
 and should be glad to read the manuscript. 
 After all, it was not improbable that Mrs. 
 Saltillo, who was educated and intelligent, 
 should write well, if not popularly. "Then 
 Enriquez does not begrudge you the time 
 that your work takes from him," I added 
 laughingly. "You seem to have occupied 
 your honeymoon practically." 
 
THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 251 
 
 " We quite comprehend our respective du- 
 ties," said Mrs. Saltillo dryly; "and have 
 from the first. We have our own lives to 
 live, independent of my uncle and Enri- 
 quez' s father. We have not only accepted 
 the responsibility of our own actions, but 
 we both feel the higher privilege of creating 
 our own conditions without extraneous aid 
 from our relatives." 
 
 It struck me that this somewhat exalted 
 statement was decidedly a pose, or a return 
 of Urania Manner sley's old ironical style. 
 I looked quietly into her brown, near-sighted 
 eyes ; but, as once before, my glance seemed 
 to slip from their moist surface without 
 penetrating the inner thought beneath. 
 "And what does Enriquez do for his part? " 
 I asked smilingly. 
 
 I fully expected to hear that the energetic 
 Enriquez was utilizing his peculiar tastes 
 and experiences by horse-breaking, stock- 
 raising, professional bull-fighting, or even 
 horse-racing, but was quite astonished when 
 she answered quietly : 
 
 " Enriquez is giving himself up to geology 
 and practical metallurgy, with a view to 
 scientific, purely scientific, mining." 
 
 Enriquez and geology! In that instant 
 
252 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 all I could remember of it were his gibes at 
 the "geologian," as he was wont to term 
 Professor Dobbs, a former admirer of Miss 
 Mannersley's. To add to my confusion 
 Mrs. Saltillo at the same moment absolutely 
 voiced my thought. 
 
 "You may remember Professor Dobbs," 
 she went on calmly, "one of the most emi- 
 nent scientists over here, and a very old 
 Boston friend. He has taken Enriquez in 
 hand. His progress is most satisfactory; 
 we have the greatest hopes of him." 
 
 " And how soon do you both hope to have 
 some practical results of his study ? " I could 
 not help asking a little mischievously; for 
 I somehow resented the plural pronoun in 
 her last sentence. 
 
 "Very soon," said Mrs. Saltillo, ignoring 
 everything but the question. "You know 
 Enriquez's sanguine temperament. Perhaps 
 he is already given to evolving theories with- 
 out a sufficient basis of fact. Still, he has 
 the daring of a discoverer. His ideas of 
 the oolitic formation are not without origi- 
 nality, and Professor Dobbs says that in his 
 conception of the Silurian beach there are 
 gleams that are distinctly precious." 
 
 I looked at Mrs. Saltillo, who had rein- 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 253 
 
 forced her eyes with her old piquant pince- 
 nez, but could detect no irony in them. She 
 was prettily imperturbable, that was all. 
 There was an awkward silence. Then it 
 was broken by a bounding step on the stairs, 
 a wide-open fling of the door, and Enriquez 
 pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of 
 old, unchanged from the crown of his smooth, 
 coal-black hair to the tips of his small, nar- 
 row Arabian feet ; Enriquez, with his thin, 
 curling mustache, his dancing eyes set in his 
 immovable face, just as I had always known 
 him! 
 
 He affected to lapse against the door for 
 a minute, as if staggered by a resplendent 
 vision. Then he said : 
 
 "What do I regard? Is it a dream, or 
 have I again got them thees jimjams? 
 My best friend and my best I mean my 
 only wife ! Embrace me ! " 
 
 He gave me an enthusiastic embrace and 
 a wink like sheet-lightning, passed quickly 
 to his wife, before whom he dropped on one 
 knee, raised the toe of her slipper to his 
 lips, and then sank on the sofa in simulated 
 collapse, murmuring, "Thees is too mooch 
 of white stone for one day! " 
 
 Through all this I saw his wife regarding 
 
254 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 him with exactly the same critically amused 
 expression with which she had looked upon 
 him in the days of their strange courtship. 
 She evidently had not tired of his extrava- 
 gance, and yet I feel as puzzled by her 
 manner as then. She rose and said: "I 
 suppose you have a good deal to say to each 
 other, and I will leave you by yourselves." 
 Turning to her husband, she added, " I have 
 already spoken about the Aztec manuscript." 
 
 The word brought Enriquez to his feet 
 again. "Ah! The little old nigger you 
 have read?" I began to understand. "My 
 wife, my best friend, and the little old nig- 
 ger, all in one day. Eet is perfect! " Nev- 
 ertheless, in spite of this ecstatic and over- 
 powering combination, he hurried to take 
 his wife's hand; kissing it, he led her to a 
 door opening into another room, made her 
 a low bow to the ground as she passed out, 
 and then rejoined me. 
 
 "So these are the little old niggers you 
 spoke of in your note," I said, pointing to 
 the manuscript. "Deuce take me if I un- 
 derstood you ! " 
 
 "Ah, my leetle brother, it is you who 
 have changed!" said Enriquez dolorously. 
 u ls it that you no more understand Ameri- 
 
THE PASSING OF SNEIQUEZ 255 
 
 can, or have the ' big head ' of the editor? 
 Kegard me ! Of these Aztecs my wife have 
 made study. She have pursued the little 
 nigger to his cave, his grotto, where he is 
 dead a thousand year. I have myself assist, 
 though I like it not, because thees mummy, 
 look you, Pancho, is not lively. And the 
 mummy who is not dead, believe me ! even 
 the young lady mummy, you shall not take 
 to your heart. But my wife " he stopped, 
 and kissed his hand toward the door whence 
 she had flitted "ah, she is wonderful! 
 She has made the story of them, the peecture 
 of them, from the life and on the instant! 
 You shall take them, my leetle brother, for 
 your journal; you shall announce in the big 
 letter : ' Mooch Importance. The Aztec, 
 He is Found.' c How He Look and Lif.' 
 ' The Everlasting Nigger. ' You shall sell 
 many paper, and Urania shall have scoop in 
 much spondulics and rocks. Hoop-la ! For 
 you comprehend ? my wife and I have 
 settled that she shall forgif her oncle; I 
 shall forgif my father; but from them we 
 take no cent, not a red, not a scad! We 
 are independent! Of ourselves we make a 
 Fourth of July. United we stand; divided 
 we shall fall over ! There you are ! Buenv * " 
 
256 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 It was impossible to resist his wild, yet 
 perfectly sincere, extravagance, his dancing 
 black eyes and occasional flash of white teeth 
 in his otherwise immovable and serious 
 countenance. Nevertheless, I managed to 
 say : 
 
 "But how about yourself, Enriquez, and 
 this geology, you know?" 
 
 His eyes twinkled. " Ah, you shall hear. 
 But first you shall take a drink. I have 
 the very old Bourbon. He is not so old as 
 the Aztec, but, believe me, he is very much 
 liflier. Attend! Hoi' on!" He was al- 
 ready rummaging on a shelf, but apparently 
 without success; then he explored a buffet, 
 with no better results, and finally attacked 
 a large drawer, throwing out on the floor, 
 with his old impetuosity, a number of geo- 
 logical specimens, carefully labeled. I picked 
 up one that had rolled near me. It was la- 
 beled "Conglomerate sandstone." I picked 
 up another : it had the same label. 
 
 "Then you are really collecting? " I said, 
 with astonishment. 
 
 " Ciertamente," responded Enriquez, 
 "what other fool shall I look? I shall re- 
 late of this geology when I shall have found 
 this beast of a bottle. Ah, here he have 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 257 
 
 hide ! " He extracted from a drawer a bot- 
 tle nearly full of spirits, tippling was not 
 one of Enriquez's vices. "You shall say 
 ' when. ' 'Ere 's to our noble selfs ! " 
 
 When he had drunk, I picked up another 
 fragment of his collection. It had the same 
 label. "You are very rich in ' conglomer- 
 ate sandstone,'" I said. "Where do you 
 find it?" 
 
 "In the street," said Enriquez, with great 
 calmness. 
 
 "In the street?" I echoed. 
 
 " Yes, my friend ! He ees call the ' cob- 
 blestone, ' also the ' pouding-stone, ' when he 
 ees at his home in the country. He ees also 
 a small ' boulder. ' I pick him up ; I crack 
 him; he made three separate piece of con- 
 glomerate sandstone. I bring him home 
 to my wife in my pocket. She rejoice; we 
 are happy. When comes the efening, I sit 
 down and make him a label ; while my wife, 
 she sit down and write of the Aztec. Ah, 
 my friend, you shall say of the geology it 
 ees a fine, a beautiful study ; but the study 
 of the wife, and what shall please her, be- 
 lieve me, ees much finer! Believe your old 
 Uncle 'Ennery every time! On thees ques- 
 tion he gets there; he gets left, nevarrel " 
 
258 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 "But Professor Dobbs, your geologian, 
 what does he say to this frequent recurrence 
 of the conglomerate sandstone period in your 
 study?'' I asked quickly. 
 
 "He say nothing. You comprehend? 
 He ees a profound geologian, but he also 
 has the admiration excessif for my wife 
 Urania." He stopped to kiss his hand 
 again toward the door, and lighted a ciga- 
 rette. "The geologian would not that he 
 should break up the happy efening of his 
 friends by thees small detail. He put aside 
 his head so ; he say, ' A leetle freestone, 
 a leetle granite, now and then, for variety ; 
 they are building in Montgomery Street.' 
 I take the hint, like a wink to the horse 
 that has gone blind. I attach to myself 
 part of the edifice that is erecting himself in 
 Montgomery Street. I crack him; I bring 
 him home. I sit again at the feet of my 
 beautiful Urania, and I label him ' Free- 
 stone, ' ' Granite ; ' but I do not say ' from 
 Parrott's Bank' eet is not necessary for 
 our happiness." 
 
 "And you do this sort of thing only be- 
 cause you think it pleases your wife?" I 
 asked bluntly. 
 
 "My friend," rejoined Enriquez, perching 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 259 
 
 himself on the back of the sofa, and caress- 
 ing his knees as he puffed his cigarette 
 meditatively, "you have ask a conundrum. 
 Gif to me an easier one ! It is of truth that 
 I make much of these thing to please Urania. 
 But I shall confess all. Behold, I appear to 
 you, my leetle brother, in my camisa my 
 shirt ! I blow on myself; I gif myself away." 
 He rose gravely from the sofa, and drew 
 a small box from one of the drawers of the 
 wardrobe. Opening it, he discovered sev- 
 eral specimens of gold-bearing quartz, and 
 one or two scales of gold. " Thees," he 
 said, "friend Pancho, is my own geology; 
 for thees I am what you see. But I say 
 nothing to Urania ; for she have much dis- 
 gust of mere gold, of what she calls ' vul- 
 gar mining,' and believe me, a fear of the 
 effect of ' speculation ' upon my temper a- 
 mento you comprehend my complexion, my 
 brother? Reflect upon it, Pancho! T, who 
 am thejilosofo, if that I am anything ! " He 
 looked at me with great levity of eye and 
 supernatural gravity of demeanor. "But 
 eet ees the jealous affection of the wife, my 
 friend, for which I make play to her with 
 the humble leetle pouding-stone rather than 
 the gold quartz that affrights." 
 
260 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 "But what do you want with them, if you 
 have no shares in anything and do not spec- 
 ulate?" I asked. 
 
 "Pardon! That ees where you slip up, 
 my leetle friend." He took from the same 
 drawer a clasped portfolio, and unlocked it, 
 producing half a dozen prospectuses and 
 certificates of mining shares. I stood aghast 
 as I recognized the names of one or two ex- 
 travagant failures of the last ten years, 
 "played-out" mines that had been galvan- 
 ized into deceptive life in London, Paris, 
 and New York, to the grief of shareholders 
 abroad and the laughter of the initiated at 
 home. I could scarcely keep my equanim- 
 ity. "You do not mean to say that you 
 have any belief or interest in this rubbish? " 
 I said quickly. 
 
 "What you call ' rubbish,' my good 
 Pancho, ees the rubbish that the American 
 speculator have dump himself upon them in 
 the shaft, the rubbish of the advertisement, 
 of the extravagant expense, of the salary, of 
 the assessment, of the * freeze-out.' For 
 thees, look you, is the old Mexican mine. 
 My grandfather and hees father have both 
 seen them work before you were born, and 
 the American knew not there was gold in 
 California." 
 
THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 261 
 
 I knew he spoke truly. One or two were 
 original silver mines in the south, worked 
 by peons and Indian slaves, a rope windlass, 
 and a venerable donkey. 
 
 "But those were silver mines," I said sus- 
 piciously, u and these are gold specimens." 
 
 "They are from the same mother," said 
 the imperturbable Enriquez, " the same 
 mine. The old peons worked him for silver, 
 the precious dollar that buy everything, that 
 he send in the galleon to the Philippines for 
 the silk and spice! That is good enough 
 for him! For the gold he made nothing, 
 even as my leetle wife Urania. And re- 
 gard me here ! There ees a proverb of my 
 father's which say that ' it shall take a gold 
 mine to work a silver mine, ' so mooch more 
 he cost. You work him, you are lost ! JYa- 
 turalmente, if you turn him round, if it take 
 you only a silver mine to work a gold mine, 
 you are gain. Thees ees logic! " 
 
 Tne intense gravity of his face at this ex- 
 traordinary deduction upset my own. But 
 as I was never certain that Enriquez was not 
 purposely mystifying me, with some ulterior 
 object, I could not help saying a little wick- 
 edly : 
 
 "Yes, I understand all that; but ho\f 
 
262 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 about this geologian ? Will lie not tell your 
 wife? You know he was a great admirer 
 of hers." 
 
 " That shall show the great intelligence of 
 him, my Pancho. He will have the four 
 * S's,' especially the secretof " 
 
 There could be no serious discussion in 
 his present mood. I gathered up the pages 
 of his wife's manuscript, said lightly that, 
 as she had the first claim upon my time, I 
 should examine the Aztec material and re- 
 port in a day or two. As I knew I had 
 little chance in the hands of these two in- 
 comprehensibles together, I begged him not 
 to call his wife, but to convey my adieus to 
 her, and, in spite of his embraces and pro- 
 testations, I managed to get out of the room. 
 But I had scarcely reached the front door 
 when I heard Enriquez's voice and his bound- 
 ing step on the stairs. In another moment 
 his arm was round my neck. 
 
 "You must return on the instant! Mo- 
 ther of God ! I haf forget, she haf forget, 
 we all haf forget ! But you have not seen 
 him!" 
 
 "Seen whom?" 
 
 "El nino, the baby! You comprehend, 
 pig ! The criaturica, the leetle child of our- 
 Belfsl" 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 263 
 
 "The baby?" I said confusedly. "7s 
 there is there a ~bdby ? " 
 
 "You hear him? " said Enriquez, sending 
 an appealing voice upward. " You hear him, 
 Urania? You comprehend. This beast of 
 a leetle brother demands if there ees one! " 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I said, hurriedly 
 reascending the stairs. On the landing I 
 met Mrs. Saltillo, but as calm, composed, 
 and precise as her husband was extravagant 
 and vehement. "It was an oversight of 
 Enriquez *s," she said quietly, reentering the 
 room with us; "and was all the more strange, 
 as the child was in the room with you all the 
 time." 
 
 She pointed to the corner of the wall, 
 where hung what I had believed to be an 
 old Indian relic. To my consternation, it 
 was a bark "papoose-case," occupied by a 
 living child, swathed and bandaged after 
 the approved Indian fashion. It was asleep, 
 I believe, but it opened a pair of bright 
 huckleberry eyes, set in the smallest of fea- 
 tures, that were like those of a carved ivory 
 idol, and uttered a "coo" at the sound of 
 its mother's voice. She stood on one side 
 with unruffled composure, while Enriquez 
 threw himself into an attitude before it, with 
 
264 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 clasped hands, as if it had been an image 
 of the Holy Child. For myself, I was too 
 astounded to speak; luckily, my confu- 
 sion was attributed to the inexperience of a 
 bachelor. 
 
 "I have adopted," said Mrs. Saltillo, 
 with the faintest touch of maternal pride in 
 her manner, "what I am convinced is the 
 only natural and hygienic mode of treating 
 the human child. It may be said to be a 
 reversion to the aborigine, but I have yet to 
 learn that it is not superior to our civilized 
 custom. By these bandages the limbs of 
 the infant are kept in proper position until 
 they are strong enough to support the body, 
 and such a thing as malformation is un- 
 known. It is protected by its cradle, which 
 takes the place of its incubating-shell, from 
 external injury, the injudicious coddling of 
 nurses, the so-called ' dancings ' and perni- 
 cious rockings. The supine position, as in 
 the adult, is imposed only at night. By the 
 aid of this strap it may be carried on long 
 journeys, either by myself or by Enriquez, 
 who thus shares with me, as he fully recog- 
 nizes, its equal responsibility and burden." 
 
 "It certainly does not cry," I stam- 
 mered. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENKIQUEZ 265 
 
 "Crying," said Mrs. Saltillo, with a 
 curve of her pretty red lip, "is the protest 
 of the child against insanitary and artificial 
 treatment. In its upright, unostentatious 
 cradle it is protected against that injudicious 
 fondling and dangerous promiscuous oscula- 
 tion to which, as an infant in human arms, 
 it is so often subjected. Above all, it is 
 kept from that shameless and mortifying 
 publicity so unjust to the weak and unformed 
 animal. The child repays this consideration 
 by a gratifying silence. It cannot be ex- 
 pected to understand our thoughts, speech, 
 or actions ; it cannot participate in our plea- 
 sures. Why should it be forced into pre- 
 mature contact with them, merely to feed 
 our vanity or selfishness? Why should we 
 assume our particular parental accident as 
 superior to the common lot ? If we do not 
 give our offspring that prominence before 
 our visitors so common to the young wife 
 and husband, it is for that reason solely; 
 and this may account for what seemed the 
 forgetfulness of Enriquez in speaking of it 
 or pointing it out to you. And I think his 
 action in calling you back to see it was 
 somewhat precipitate. As one does not 
 usually introduce an unknown and inferior 
 
266 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 stranger without some previous introduction, 
 he might have asked you if you wished to 
 see the baby before he recalled you." 
 
 I looked from Urania's unfathomable eyes 
 to Enriquez's impenetrable countenance. I 
 might have been equal to either of them 
 alone, but together they were invincible. I 
 looked hopelessly at the baby. With its 
 sharp little eyes and composed face, it cer- 
 tainly was a marvelous miniature of Enri- 
 quez. I said so. 
 
 "It would be singular if it was not," said 
 Mrs. Saltillo dryly; "and as I believe it is 
 by no means an uncommon fact in human 
 nature, it seems to me strange that people 
 should insist upon it as a discovery. It is 
 an inheritance, however, that in due time 
 progress and science will no doubt interrupt, 
 to the advancement of the human race. I 
 need not say that both Enriquez and myself 
 look forward to it with confident tranquil- 
 lity." 
 
 There was clearly nothing for me to do 
 now but to shake hands again and take my 
 leave. Yet I was so much impressed with 
 the unreality of the whole scene that when 
 I reached the front door I had a strong im- 
 pulse to return suddenly and fall in upon 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 267 
 
 them in their relaxed and natural attitudes. 
 They could not keep up this pose between 
 themselves ; and I half expected to see their 
 laughing faces at the window, as I glanced 
 up before wending my perilous way to the 
 street. 
 
 I found Mrs. Saltillo's manuscript well 
 written and, in the narrative parts, even 
 graphic and sparkling. I suppressed some 
 general remarks on the universe, and some 
 correlative theories of existence, as not ap- 
 pertaining particularly to the Aztecs, and as 
 not meeting any unquenchable thirst for in- 
 formation on the part of the readers of the 
 "Daily Excelsior." I even promoted my 
 fair contributor to the position of having 
 been commissioned, at great expense, to 
 make the Mexican journey especially for the 
 "Excelsior." This, with Mrs. Saltillo's 
 somewhat precise preraphaelite drawings and 
 water-colors, vilely reproduced by woodcuts, 
 gave quite a sensational air to her produc- 
 tion, which, divided into parts, for two or 
 three days filled a whole page of the paper. 
 I am not aware of any particular service that 
 it did to ethnology; but, as I pointed out 
 in the editorial column, it showed that the 
 people of California were not given over by 
 
268 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 material greed to the exclusion of intellec- 
 tual research; and as it was attacked in- 
 stantly in long communications from one or 
 two scientific men, it thus produced more 
 copy. 
 
 Briefly, it was a boom for the author and 
 the "Daily Excelsior." I should add, how- 
 ever, that a rival newspaper intimated that 
 it was also a boom for Mrs. Saltillo's hus- 
 band, and called attention to the fact that a 
 deserted Mexican mine, known as "El Bo- 
 lero," was described graphically in the Aztec 
 article among the news, and again appeared 
 in the advertising columns of the same paper. 
 I turned somewhat indignantly to the file 
 of the "Excelsior," and, singularly enough, 
 found in the elaborate prospectus of a new 
 gold-mining company the description of the 
 El Bolero mine as a quotation from the Az- 
 tec article, with extraordinary inducements 
 for the investment of capital in the projected 
 working of an old mine. If I had had any 
 difficulty in recognizing in the extravagant 
 style the flamboyant hand of Enriquez in 
 English writing, I might have read his name 
 plainly enough displayed as president of the 
 company. It was evidently the prospectus 
 of one of the ventures he had shown me. I 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 269 
 
 was more amused than indignant at the 
 little trick he had played upon my editorial 
 astuteness. After all, if I had thus bene- 
 fited the young couple I was satisfied. I 
 had not seen them since my first visit, as I 
 was very busy, my communications with 
 Mrs. Saltillo had been carried on by letters 
 and proofs, and when I did finally call at 
 their house, it was only to find that they 
 were visiting at San Jose. I wondered 
 whether the baby was still hanging on the 
 wall, or, if he was taken with them, who 
 carried him. 
 
 A week later the stock of El Bolero was 
 quoted at par. More than that, an incom- 
 prehensible activity had been given to all 
 the deserted Mexican mines, and people be- 
 gan to look up scrip hitherto thrown aside 
 as worthless. Whether it was one of those 
 extraordinary fevers which attacked Calif or- 
 nian speculation in the early days, or whether 
 Enriquez Saltillo had infected the stock- 
 market with his own extravagance, I never 
 knew ; but plans as wild, inventions as fan- 
 tastic, and arguments as illogical as ever 
 emanated from his own brain, were set forth 
 "on 'Change" with a gravity equal to his 
 own. The most reasonable hypothesis was 
 
270 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 that it was the effect of the well-known fact 
 that the Spanish Californian hitherto had 
 not been a mining speculator, nor connected 
 in any way with the gold production on his 
 native soil, deeming it inconsistent with his 
 patriarchal life and landed dignity, and that 
 when a "son of one of the oldest Spanish 
 families, identified with the land and its pe- 
 culiar character for centuries, lent himself 
 to its mineral exploitations," I beg to say 
 that I am quoting from the advertisement 
 in the "Excelsior," "it was a guerdon of 
 success." This was so far true that in a 
 week Enriquez Saltillo was rich, and in a 
 fair way to become a millionaire. 
 
 It was a hot afternoon when I alighted 
 from the stifling Wingdam coach, and stood 
 upon the cool, deep veranda of the Carqui- 
 nez Springs Hotel. After I had shaken 
 off the dust which had lazily followed us, in 
 our descent of the mountain road, like a red 
 smoke, occasionally overflowing the coach 
 windows, I went up to the room I had en- 
 gaged for my brief holiday. I knew the 
 place well, although I could see that the 
 hotel itself had lately been redecorated and 
 enlarged to meet the increasing requirements 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 271 
 
 of fashion. I knew the forest of enormous 
 redwoods where one might lose one's self in 
 a five minutes' walk from the veranda. I 
 knew the rocky trail that climbed the moun- 
 tain to the springs, twisting between giant 
 boulders. I knew the arid garden, deep in 
 the wayside dust, with its hurriedly planted 
 tropical plants, already withering in the dry 
 autumn sunshine, and washed into fictitious 
 freshness, night and morning by the hy- 
 draulic irrigating-hose. I knew, too, the 
 cool, reposeful night winds that swept down 
 from invisible snow-crests beyond, with the 
 hanging out of monstrous stars, that too 
 often failed to bring repose to the feverish 
 guests. For the overstrained neurotic work- 
 ers who fled hither from the baking plains 
 of Sacramento, or from the chill sea-fogs of 
 San Francisco, never lost the fierce unrest 
 that had driven them here. Unaccustomed 
 to leisure, their enforced idleness impelled 
 them to seek excitement in the wildest gaye- 
 ties ; the bracing mountain air only reinvig- 
 orated them to pursue pleasure as they had 
 pursued the occupations they had left be- 
 hind. Their sole recreations were furious 
 drives over break-neck roads; mad, scam- 
 pering cavalcades through the sedate woods ; 
 
272 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 gambling parties in private rooms, where 
 large sums were lost by capitalists on leave; 
 champagne suppers; and impromptu balls 
 that lasted through the calm, reposeful night 
 to the first rays of light on the distant snow- 
 line. Unimaginative men, in their tempo- 
 rary sojourn they more often outraged or 
 dispossessed nature in her own fastnesses 
 than courted her for sympathy or solitude. 
 There were playing-cards left lying behind 
 boulders, and empty champagne bottles for- 
 gotten in forest depths. 
 
 I remembered all this when, refreshed 
 by a bath, I leaned from the balcony of my 
 room and watched the pulling up of a brake, 
 drawn by six dusty, foam-bespattered horses, 
 driven by a noted capitalist. As its hot, 
 perspiring, closely veiled yet burning-faced 
 fair occupants descended, in all the daz- 
 zling glory of summer toilets, and I saw the 
 gentlemen consult their watches with satis- 
 faction, and congratulate their triumphant 
 driver, I knew the characteristic excitement 
 they had enjoyed from a "record run," 
 probably for a bet, over a mountain road in 
 a burning sun. 
 
 "Not bad, eh? Forty -four minutes from 
 the summit! " 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 273 
 
 The voice seemed at my elbow. I turned 
 quickly, to recognize an acquaintance, a 
 young San Francisco broker, leaning from 
 the next balcony to mine. But my atten- 
 tion was just then preoccupied by the face 
 and figure, which seemed familiar to me, of 
 a woman who was alighting from the brake. 
 
 "Who is that?" I asked; "the straight 
 slim woman in gray, with the white veil 
 twisted round her felt hat? " 
 
 "Mrs. Saltillo," he answered; "wife of 
 ' El Bolero ' Saltillo, don't you know. 
 Mighty pretty woman, if she is a little stiff - 
 ish and set up." 
 
 Then I had not been mistaken! "Is En- 
 riquez is her husband here ? " I asked 
 quickly. 
 
 The man laughed. "I reckon not. This 
 is the place for other people's husbands, 
 don't you know." 
 
 Alas! I did know; and as there flashed 
 upon me all the miserable scandals and gos- 
 sip connected with this reckless, frivolous 
 caravansary, I felt like resenting his sug- 
 gestion. But my companion's next words 
 were more significant: 
 
 "Besides, if what they say is true, Saltillo 
 wouldn't be very popular here." 
 
274 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 "I don't understand," I said quickly. 
 
 "Why, after all that row he had with the 
 El Bolero Company." 
 
 "I never heard of any row," I said, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 The broker laughed incredulously. 
 " Come ! and you a newspaper man ! Well, 
 maybe they did try to hush it up, and keep 
 it out of the papers, on account of the stock. 
 But it seems he got up a reg'lar shindy with 
 the board, one day; called 'em thieves and 
 swindlers, and allowed he was disgracing 
 himself as a Spanish hidalgo by having any- 
 thing to do with 'em. Talked, they say, 
 about Charles V. of Spain, or some other 
 royal galoot, giving his ancestors the land 
 in trust! Clean off his head, I reckon. 
 Then shunted himself off the company, and 
 sold out. You can guess he wouldn't be 
 very popular around here, with Jim Bestley, 
 there," pointing to the capitalist who had 
 driven the brake, "who used to be on the 
 board with him. No, sir. He was either 
 lying low for something, or was off his head. 
 Think of his throwing up a place like that ! " 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said indignantly. "He 
 is mercurial, and has the quick impulsive- 
 aess of his race, but I believe him as sane 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 275 
 
 as any who sat with him on the board. 
 There must be some rftistake, or you have n't 
 got the whole story." Nevertheless, I did 
 not care to discuss an old friend with a mere 
 acquaintance, and I felt secretly puzzled to 
 account for his conduct, in the face of his 
 previous cleverness in manipulating the El 
 Bolero, and the undoubted fascination he 
 had previously exercised over the stock- 
 holders. The story had, of course, been 
 garbled in repetition. I had never before 
 imagined what might be the effect of Enri- 
 quez's peculiar eccentricities upon matter- 
 of-fact people, I had found them only 
 amusing, and the broker's suggestion an- 
 noyed me. However, Mrs. Saltillo was 
 here in the hotel, and I should, of course, 
 meet her. Would she be as frank with me ? 
 I was disappointed at not finding her in 
 the drawing-room or on the veranda; and 
 the heat being still unusually oppressive, I 
 strolled out toward the redwoods, hesitating 
 for a moment in the shade before I ran the 
 fiery gauntlet of the garden. To my sur- 
 prise, I had scarcely passed the giant senti- 
 nels on its outskirts before I found that, 
 from some unusual condition of the atmo- 
 sphere, the cold undercurrent of air which 
 
276 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 generally drew through these pillared aisles 
 was withheld that afternoon; it was abso- 
 lutely hotter than in the open, and the wood 
 was charged throughout with the acrid spices 
 of the pine. I turned back to the hotel, 
 reascended to my bedroom, and threw my- 
 self in an armchair by the open window. 
 My room was near the end of a wing; the 
 corner room at the end was next to mine, 
 on the same landing. Its closed door, at 
 right angles to my open one, gave upon the 
 /staircase, but was plainly visible from where 
 I sat. I remembered being glad that it was 
 shut, as it enabled me without offense to 
 keep my own door open. 
 
 The house was very quiet. The leaves of 
 a catalpa, across the roadway, hung motion- 
 less. Somebody yawned on the veranda 
 below. I threw away my half -finished cigar, 
 and closed my eyes. I think I had not lost 
 consciousness for more than a few seconds 
 before I was awakened by the shaking and 
 thrilling of the whole building. As I stag- 
 gered to my feet, I saw the four pictures 
 hanging against the wall swing outwardly 
 from it on their cords, and my door swing 
 back against the wall. At the same mo- 
 ment, acted upon by the same potential im- 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 277 
 
 pulse, the door of the end room in the hall, 
 opposite the stairs, also swung open. In 
 that brief moment I had a glimpse of the 
 interior of the room, of two figures, a man 
 and a woman, the latter clinging to her com- 
 panion in abject terror. It was only for an 
 instant, for a second thrill passed through 
 the house, the pictures clattered back against 
 the wall, the door of the end room closed 
 violently on its strange revelation, and my 
 own door swung back also. Apprehensive 
 of what might happen, I sprang toward it, 
 but only to arrest it an inch or two before 
 it should shut, when, as my experience had 
 taught me, it might stick by the subsidence 
 of the walls. But it did stick ajar, and re- 
 mained firmly fixed in that position. From 
 the clattering of the knob of the other door, 
 and the sound of hurried voices behind it, 
 I knew that the same thing had happened 
 there when that door had fully closed. 
 
 I was familiar enough with earthquakes 
 to know that, with the second shock or sub- 
 sidence of the earth, the immediate danger 
 was passed, and so I was able to note more 
 clearly what else was passing. There was 
 the usual sudden stampede of hurrying feet, 
 the solitary oath and scream, the half -hyster- 
 
278 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 ical laughter, and silence. Then the tumult 
 was reawakened to the sound of high voices, 
 talking all together, or the impatient calling 
 of absentees in halls and corridors. Then I 
 heard the quick swish of female skirts on 
 the staircase, and one of the fair guests 
 knocked impatiently at the door of the end 
 room, still immovably fixed. At the first 
 knock there was a sudden cessation of the 
 hurried whisperings and turning of the door- 
 knob. 
 
 "Mrs. Saltillo, are you there? Are you 
 frightened?" she called. 
 
 "Mrs. Saltillo"! It was she, then, who 
 was in the room ! I drew nearer my door, 
 which was still fixed ajar. Presently a voice, 
 Mrs. Saltillo 's voice, with a constrained 
 laugh in it, came from behind the door: 
 "Not a bit. I '11 come down in a minute." 
 
 "Do," persisted the would-be intruder. 
 "It 's all over now, but we 're all going out 
 into the garden; it 's safer." 
 
 "All right," answered Mrs. Saltillo. 
 "Don't wait, dear. I '11 follow. Kun 
 away, now." 
 
 The visitor, who was evidently still ner- 
 vous, was glad to hurry away, and I heard 
 her retreating step on the staircase. The 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 279 
 
 rattling of the door began again, and at last 
 it seemed to yield to a stronger pull, and 
 opened sufficiently to allow Mrs. Saltillo to 
 squeeze through. I withdrew behind my 
 door. I fancied that it creaked as she 
 passed, as if, noticing it ajar, she had laid 
 an inquiring hand upon it. I waited, but 
 she was not followed by any one. I won- 
 dered if I had been mistaken. I was going 
 to the bell-rope to summon assistance to 
 move my own door when a sudden instinct 
 withheld me. If there was any one still in 
 that room, he might come from it just as 
 the servant answered my call, and a pub- 
 lic discovery would be unavoidable. I was 
 right. In another instant the figure of a 
 man, whose face I could not discern, slipped 
 out of the room, passed my door, and went 
 stealthily down the staircase. 
 
 Convinced of this, T resolved not to call 
 public attention to my being in my own 
 room at the time of the incident; so I did 
 not summon any one, but, redoubling my 
 efforts, I at last opened the door sufficiently 
 to pass out, and at once joined the other 
 guests in the garden. Already, with char- 
 acteristic recklessness and audacity, the 
 earthquake was made light of; the only die- 
 
280 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 tate of prudence had resolved itself into a 
 hilarious proposal to "camp out" in the 
 woods all night, and have a "torch-light 
 picnic." Even then preparations were be- 
 ing made for carrying tents, blankets, and 
 pillows to the adjacent redwoods; dinner 
 and supper, cooked at campfires, were to 
 be served there on stumps of trees and fallen 
 logs. The convulsion of nature had been 
 used as an excuse for one of the wildest 
 freaks of extravagance that Carquinez 
 Springs had ever known. Perhaps that 
 quick sense of humor which dominates the 
 American male in exigencies of this kind 
 kept the extravagances from being merely 
 bizarre and grotesque, and it was presently 
 known that the hotel and its menage were 
 to be appropriately burlesqued by some of 
 the guests, who, attired as Indians, would 
 personate the staff, from the oracular hotel 
 proprietor himself down to the smart hotel 
 clerk. 
 
 During these arrangements I had a chance 
 of drawing near Mrs. Saltillo. I fancied 
 she gave a slight start as she recognized me ; 
 but her greetings were given with her usual 
 precision. "Have you been here long?" 
 she asked. 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 281 
 
 "I have only just come," I replied laugh- 
 ingly; "in time for the shock." 
 
 "Ah, you felt it, then? 1 was telling 
 these ladies that our eminent geologist, Pro- 
 fessor Dobbs, assured me that these seismic 
 disturbances in California have a very re- 
 mote centre, and are seldom serious." 
 
 "It must be very satisfactory to have the 
 support of geology at such a moment," I 
 could not help saying, though I had not the 
 slightest idea whose the figure was that I 
 had seen, nor, indeed, had I recognized it 
 among the guests. She did not seem to de- 
 tect any significance in my speech, and I 
 added: "And where is Enriquez? He 
 would enjoy this proposed picnic to-night." 
 
 " Enriquez is at Salvatierra Rancho, which 
 he lately bought from his cousin." 
 
 "And the baby? Surely, here is a chance 
 for you to hang him up on a redwood to- 
 night, in his cradle." 
 
 "The boy," said Mrs. SaltiUo quickly, 
 "is no longer in his cradle; he has passed 
 the pupa state, and is now free to develop 
 his own perfected limbs. He is with his 
 father. I do not approve of children being 
 submitted to the indiscriminate attentions 
 of a hotel. I am here myself only for that 
 
282 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 supply of ozone indicated for brain exhaus- 
 tion." 
 
 She looked so pretty and prim in her gray 
 dress, so like her old correct self, that I 
 could not think of anything but her mental 
 attitude, which did not, by the way, seem 
 much like mental depression. Yet I was 
 aware that I was getting no information of 
 Enriquez's condition or affairs, unless the 
 whole story told by the broker was an exag- 
 geration. I did not, however, dare to ask 
 more particularly. 
 
 "You remember Professor Dobbs?" she 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 This recalled a suspicion awakened by my 
 vision, so suddenly that I felt myself blush- 
 ing. She did not seem to notice it, and was 
 perfectly composed. 
 
 "I do remember him. Is he here? " 
 
 "He is; that is what makes it so particu- 
 larly unfortunate for me. You see, after 
 that affair of the board, and Enriquez's 
 withdrawal, although Enriquez may have 
 been a little precipitate in his energetic way, 
 I naturally took my husband's part in pub- 
 lic ; for although we preserve our own inde- 
 pendence inviolable, we believe in absolute 
 confederation as against society." 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 283 
 
 "But what has Professor Dobbs to do 
 with the board? " I interrupted. 
 
 "The professor was scientific and geolo- 
 gical adviser to the board, and it was upon 
 some report or suggestion of his that Enri- 
 quez took issue, against the sentiment of the 
 board. It was a principle affecting Enri- 
 quez's Spanish sense of honor." 
 
 "Do tell me all about it," I said eagerly; 
 "I am very anxious to know the truth." 
 
 "As I was not present at the time," said 
 Mrs. Saltillo, rebuking my eagerness with 
 a gentle frigidity, "I am unable to do so. 
 Anything else would be mere hearsay, and 
 more or less ex parte. I do not approve of 
 gossip." 
 
 "But what did Enriquez tell you? You 
 surely know that." 
 
 " That, being purely confidential, as be- 
 tween husband and wife, perhaps I should 
 say partner and partner, of course you do 
 not expect me to disclose. Enough that 1 
 was satisfied with it. I should not have 
 spoken to you about it at all, but that, 
 through myself and Enriquez, you are an 
 acquaintance of the professor's, and I might 
 save you the awkwardness of presenting 
 yourself with him. Otherwise, although 
 
284 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 you are a friend of Enriquez, it need not 
 affect your acquaintance with the professor." 
 
 "Hang the professor! " I ejaculated. "I 
 don't care a rap for him." 
 
 "Then I differ with you," said Mrs. Sal- 
 tillo, with precision. "He is distinctly an 
 able man, and one cannot but miss the con- 
 tact of his original mind and his liberal 
 teachings." 
 
 Here she was joined by one of the ladies, 
 and I lounged away. I dare say it was very 
 mean and very illogical, but the unsatisfac- 
 tory character of this interview made me 
 revert again to the singular revelation I had 
 seen a few hours before. I looked anxiously 
 for Professor Dobbs; but when I did meet 
 him, with an indifferent nod of recognition, 
 I found I could by no means identify him 
 with the figure of her mysterious companion. 
 And why should I suspect him at all, in the 
 face of Mrs. Saltillo's confessed avoidance 
 of him? Who, then, could it have been? I 
 had seen them but an instant, in the opening 
 and the shutting of a door. It was merely 
 the shadowy bulk of a man that flitted 
 past my door, after all. Could I have ima- 
 gined the whole thing ? Were my perceptive 
 faculties -just aroused from slumber, too 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 285 
 
 sufficiently clear to be relied upon? 
 Would I not have laughed had Urania, or 
 even Enriquez himself, told ine such a 
 story ? 
 
 As I reentered the hotel the clerk handed 
 me a telegram. "There 's been a pretty big 
 shake all over the country," he said eagerly. 
 "Everybody is getting news and inquiries 
 from their friends. Anything fresh ?" He 
 paused interrogatively as I tore open the en- 
 velope. The dispatch had been redirected 
 from the office of the "Daily Excelsior." It 
 was dated, "Salvatierra Rancho," and con- 
 tained a single line: "Come and see your 
 old uncle 'Ennery." 
 
 There was nothing in the wording of the 
 message that was unlike Enriquez 's usual 
 light-hearted levity, but the fact that he 
 should have telegraphed it to me struck me 
 uneasily. That I should have received it 
 at the hotel where his wife and Professor 
 Dobbs were both staying, and where I had 
 had such a singular experience, seemed to 
 me more than a mere coincidence. An in- 
 stinct that the message was something per- 
 sonal to Enriquez and myself kept me from 
 imparting it to Mrs. Saltillo. After worry- 
 ing half the night in our bizarre camp in 
 
286 THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 
 
 the redwoods, in the midst of a restless fes- 
 tivity which was scarcely the repose I had 
 been seeking at Carquinez Springs, I re- 
 solved to leave the next day for Salvatierra 
 Rancho. I remembered the rancho, a 
 low, golden-brown, adobe-walled quadrangle, 
 sleeping like some monstrous ruminant in 
 a hollow of the Contra Costa Range. I re- 
 called, in the midst of this noisy picnic, the 
 slumberous coolness of its long corridors and 
 soundless courtyard, and hailed it as a re- 
 lief. The telegram was a sufficient excuse 
 for my abrupt departure. In the morning 
 I left, but without again seeing either Mrs. 
 Saltillo or the professor. 
 
 It was late the next afternoon when I rode 
 through the Canada that led to the rancho. 
 I confess my thoughts were somewhat 
 gloomy, in spite of my escape from the noisy 
 hotel ; but this was due to the sombre scen- 
 ery through which I had just ridden, and 
 the monotonous russet of the leagues of wild 
 oats. As I approached the rancho, I saw 
 that Enriquez had made no attempt to mod- 
 ernize the old casa, and that even the gar- 
 den was left in its lawless native luxuriance, 
 while the rude tiled sheds near the walled 
 corral contained the old farming implements, 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 287 
 
 unchanged for a century, even to the ox- 
 carts, the wheels of which were made of a 
 single block of wood. A few peons, in 
 striped shirts and velvet jackets, were sun- 
 ning themselves against a wall, and near 
 them hung a half -drained pellejo, or goat- 
 skin water-bag. The air of absolute shift- 
 lessness must have been repellent to Mrs. 
 Saltillo's orderly precision, and for a mo- 
 ment I pitied her. But it was equally in- 
 consistent with Enriquez's enthusiastic ideas 
 of American progress, and the extravagant 
 designs he had often imparted to me of the 
 improvements he would make when he had 
 a fortune. I was feeling uneasy again, when 
 I suddenly heard the rapid clack of unshod 
 hoofs on a rocky trail that joined my own. 
 At the same instant a horseman dashed past 
 me at full speed. I had barely time to 
 swerve my own horse aside to avoid a colli- 
 sion, yet in that brief moment I recognized 
 the figure of Enriquez. But his face I 
 should have scarcely known. It was hard 
 and fixed. His upper lip and thin, pen- 
 ciled mustache were drawn up over his 
 teeth, which were like a white gash in his 
 dark face. He turned into the courtyard 
 of the rancho. I put spurs to my horse, 
 
288 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 and followed, in nervous expectation. He 
 turned in his saddle as I entered. But the 
 next moment he bounded from his horse, 
 and, before I could dismount, flew to my 
 side and absolutely lifted me from the sad- 
 dle to embrace me. It was the old Enri- 
 quez again; his face seemed to have utterly 
 changed in that brief moment. 
 
 "This is all very well, old chap," I said; 
 " but do you know that you nearly ran me 
 down, just now, with that infernal half- 
 broken mustang? Do you usually charge 
 the casa at that speed ? " 
 
 "Pardon, my leetle brother! But here 
 you shall slip up. The mustang is not half- 
 broken; he is not broke at all! Look at his 
 hoof never have a shoe been there. For 
 myself attend me ! When I rride alone, 
 I think mooch ; when I think mooch I think 
 fast; my idea he go like a cannon-ball! 
 Consequent, if I ride not thees horse like 
 the cannon-ball, my thought he arrive first, 
 and where are you? You get left! Believe 
 me that I fly thees horse, thees old Mexican 
 plug, and your de' uncle 'Ennery and his 
 leetle old idea arrive all the same time, and 
 on the instant." 
 
 It was the old Enriquez ! I perfectly un- 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 289 
 
 derstood his extravagant speech and illustra- 
 tion, and yet for the first time I wondered 
 if others did. 
 
 "Tak'-a-drink! " he said, all in one word. 
 "You shall possess the old Bourbon or the 
 rhum from the Santa Cruz! Name your 
 poison, gentlemen!" 
 
 He had already dragged me up the steps 
 from the patio to the veranda, and seated 
 me before a small round table still covered 
 with the chocolate equipage of the morning. 
 A little dried-up old Indian woman took it 
 away, and brought the spirits and glasses. 
 
 "Mirar the leetle old one!" said Enri- 
 quez, with unflinching gravity. " Consider 
 her, Pancho, to the bloosh! She is not 
 truly an Aztec, but she is of years one hun- 
 dred and one, and lifs! Possibly she haf 
 not the beauty which ravishes, which devas- 
 tates. But she shall attent you to the hot 
 water, to the bath. Thus shall you be pro- 
 tect, my leetle brother, from scandal." 
 
 "Enriquez," I burst out suddenly, "tell 
 me about yourself. Why did you leave the 
 El Bolero board? What was the row 
 about? " 
 
 Enriquez 's eyes for a moment glittered; 
 then they danced as before. 
 
290 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 "Ah," he said, "you have heard?'* 
 
 "Something; but I want to know the 
 truth from you." 
 
 He lighted a cigarette, lifted himself 
 backward into a grass hammock, on which 
 he sat, swinging his feet. Then, pointing 
 to another hammock, he said : " Tranquillize 
 yourself there. I will relate; but, truly, it 
 ees nothing." 
 
 He took a long pull at his cigarette, and 
 for a few moments seemed quietly to exude 
 smoke from his eyes, ears, nose, even his 
 finger-ends everywhere, in fact, but his 
 mouth. That and his mustache remained 
 fixed. Then he said slowly, flicking away 
 the ashes with his little finger : 
 
 "First you understand, friend Pancho, 
 that / make no row. The other themself 
 make the row, the shindig. They make 
 the dance, the howl, the snap of the finger, 
 the oath, the ' Helen blazes/ the ' Wot the 
 devil,' the 'That be d d,' the bad lan- 
 guage; they themselves finger the revolver, 
 advance the bowie-knife, throw off the coat, 
 square off, and say 4 Come on.' I remain 
 as you see me now, little brother tran- 
 quil." He lighted another cigarette, made 
 his position more comfortable in the ham- 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 291 
 
 oiock, and resumed : " The Professor Dobbs, 
 #ho is the geologian of the company, made 
 a report for which he got two thousand 
 dollar. But thees report look you, friend 
 Pancho he is not good for the mine. For 
 in the hole in the ground the Professor 
 Dobbs have found a ' hoss. ' ' 
 
 "A what?" I asked. 
 
 "A hoss," repeated Enriquez, with infi- 
 nite gravity. "But not, leetle Pancho, the 
 hoss that run, the hoss that buck-jump, but 
 what the miner call a ' hoss, ' a something 
 that rear up in the vein and stop him. You 
 pick around the hoss ; you pick under him ; 
 sometimes you find the vein, sometimes you 
 do not. The hoss rear up, and remain! 
 Eet ees not good for the mine. The board 
 
 say, ' D the hoss ! ' ' Get rid of the 
 
 hoss.' 'Chuck out the hoss.' Then they 
 talk together, and one say to the Professor 
 Dobbs : ' Eef you cannot thees hoss remove 
 from the mine, you can take him out of the 
 report.' He look to me, thees professor. 
 I see nothing ; I remain tranquil. Then the 
 board say : ' Thees report with the hoss in 
 him is worth two thousand dollar, but with- 
 out the hoss he is worth five thousand dol- 
 lar. For the stockholder is frighted of the 
 
292 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 rearing hoss. It is of a necessity that the 
 stockholder should remain tranquil. With- 
 out the hoss the report is good; the stock 
 shall errise ; the director shall sell out, and 
 leave the stockholder the hoss to play with. ' 
 The professor he say, ' Al-right ; ' he scratch 
 out the hoss, sign his name, and get a check 
 for three thousand dollar." 
 
 "Then I errise so!" He got up from 
 the hammock, suiting the action to the word, 
 and during the rest of his narrative, I hon- 
 estly believe, assumed the same attitude and 
 deliberate intonation he had exhibited at the 
 board. I could even fancy I saw the reck- 
 less, cynical faces of his brother directors 
 turned upon his grim, impassive features. 
 "I am tranquil- I smoke my cigarette. I 
 say that 'or three hundred year my family 
 have held the land of thees mine; that it 
 pass from father to son, and from son to 
 son; it pass by gift, it pass by grant, but 
 that nevarre there pass a lie with it! I say 
 it was a gift by a Spanish Christian king to 
 a Christian hidalgo for the spread of the 
 gospel, and not for the cheat and the swin- 
 dle! I say that this mine was worked by 
 the slave, and by the mule, by the ass, but 
 never by the cheat and swindler. I say 
 
THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 293 
 
 that if they have struck the hoss in the 
 mine, they have struck a hoss in the land, 
 a Spanish hoss; a hoss that have no bridle 
 worth five thousand dollar in his mouth, but 
 a hoss to rear, and a hoss that cannot bo 
 struck out by a Yankee geologian ; and that 
 hoss is Enriquez Saltillo ! " 
 
 He paused, and laid aside his cigarette. 
 "Then they say, Dry up,' and ' Sell out; ' 
 and the great bankers say, 4 Name your own 
 price for your stock, and resign.' And I 
 say, ' There is not enough gold in your 
 bank, in your San Francisco, in the mines 
 of California, that shall buy a Spanish gen- 
 tleman. When I leave, I leave the stock 
 at my back; I shall take it, nevarre! ' 
 Then the banker he say, ' And you will go 
 and blab, I suppose ? ' And then, Pancho, 
 I smile, I pick up my mustache so ! and 
 I say: ' Pardon, senor, you haf mistake. 
 The Saltillo haf for three hundred year no 
 stain, no blot upon him. Eet is not now 
 the last of the race who shall confess 
 that he haf sit at a board of disgrace and 
 dishonor ! ' And then it is that the band 
 begin to play, and the animals stand on 
 their hind leg and waltz, and behold, the 
 row he haf begin! " 
 
294 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 I ran over to Mm, and fairly hugged him. 
 But he put me aside with a gentle and 
 philosophical calm. "Ah, eet is nothing, 
 Pancho. It is, believe me, all the same a 
 hundred years to come, and where are you, 
 then? The earth he turn round, and then 
 come el temblor, the earthquake, and there 
 you are ! Bah ! eet is not of the board that 
 I have asked you to come ; it is something 
 else I would tell you. Go and wash your- 
 self of thees journey, my leetle brother, as I 
 have " looking at his narrow, brown, well- 
 bred hands "wash myself of the board. 
 Be very careful of the leetle old woman, 
 Pancho; do not wink to her of the eye! 
 Consider, my leetle brother, for one hun- 
 dred and one year lie haf been as a nun, a 
 saint! Disturb not her tranquillity." 
 
 Yes, it was the old Enriquez; but he 
 seemed graver, if I could use that word 
 of one of such persistent gravity; only his 
 gravity heretofore had suggested a certain 
 irony rather than a melancholy which I now 
 fancied I detected. And what was this 
 "something else " he was to "tell me later "? 
 Did it refer to Mrs. Saltillo? I had pur- 
 posely waited for him to speak of her, be- 
 fore I should say anything of my visit to 
 
THE PASSING OF ENKIQUEZ 295 
 
 Carquinez Springs. I hurried through my 
 ablutions in the hot water, brought in a 
 bronze jar on the head of the centenarian 
 handmaid; and even while I was smiling 
 over Enriquez's caution regarding this aged 
 Ruth, I felt I was getting nervous to hear 
 his news. 
 
 I found him in his sitting-room, or study, 
 a long, low apartment with small, deep 
 windows like embrasures in the outer adobe 
 wall, but glazed in lightly upon the veranda. 
 He was sitting quite abstractedly, with a 
 pen in his hand, before a table, on which 
 a number of sealed envelopes were lying. 
 He looked so formal and methodical for 
 Enriquez. 
 
 "You like the old casa, Pancho?" he 
 said in reply to my praise of its studious 
 and monastic gloom. "Well, my leetle bro- 
 ther, some day that is fair who knows ? 
 it may be at your disposition ; not of our 
 politeness, but of a truth, friend Pancho. 
 For, if I leave it to my wife " it was the 
 first time he had spoken of her " for my 
 leetle child," he added quickly, U I shall 
 put in a bond, an obligation, that my friend 
 Pancho shall come and go as he will." 
 
 "The Saltillos are a long-lived race," I 
 
296 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 laughed. "I shall be a gray -haired man, 
 with a house and family of my own by that 
 time." But I did not like the way he had 
 spoken. 
 
 " Quien sabe ? " he only said, dismissing 
 the question with the national gesture. Af- 
 ter a moment he added: "I shall tell you 
 something that is strrange, so strrange that 
 you shall say, like the banker say, ' Thees 
 Enriquez, he ees off his head; he ees a 
 crank, a lunatico ; ' but it ees a fact / be- 
 lieve me, I have said! " 
 
 He rose, and, going to the end of the 
 room, opened a door. It showed a pretty 
 little room, femininely arranged in Mrs. 
 Saltillo's refined taste. "Eet is pretty; 
 eet is the room of my wife. Bueno ! attend 
 me now." He closed the door, and walked 
 back to the table. "I have sit here and 
 write when the earthquake arrive. I have 
 feel the shock, the grind of the walls on 
 themselves, the tremor, the stagger, and 
 that door he swing open ! " 
 
 "The door?" I said, with a smile that I 
 felt was ghastly. 
 
 "Comprehend me," he said quickly; "it 
 ees not that which ees strrange. The wall 
 lift, the lock slip, the door he fell open ; it 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 297 
 
 is frequent ; it comes so ever when the earth- 
 quake come. But eet is not my wife's room 
 I see; it is another room, a room I know 
 not. My wife Urania, she stand there, of 
 a fear, of a tremble ; she grasp, she cling to 
 some one. The earth shake again ; the door 
 shut. I jump from my table ; I shake and 
 tumble to the door. I fling him open. 
 Maravilloso ! it is the room of my wife 
 again. She is not there; it is empty; it is 
 nothing! " 
 
 I felt myself turning hot and cold by 
 turns. I was horrified, and and I blun- 
 dered. "And who was the other figure?'* 
 I gasped. 
 
 " Who ? " repeated Enriquez, with a pause, 
 a fixed look at me, and a sublime gesture. 
 "Who should it be, but myself, Enriquez 
 Saltillo?" 
 
 A terrible premonition that this was a 
 chivalrous lie, that it was not himself he had 
 seen, but that our two visions were identi- 
 cal, came upon me. "After all," I said, 
 with a fixed smile, "if you could imagine 
 you saw your wife, you could easily imagine 
 you saw yourself too. In the shock of the 
 moment you thought of her naturally, for 
 then she would as naturally seek your pro- 
 
298 THE PASSING OF ENBIQUEZ 
 
 tection. You have written for news of 
 her? " 
 
 "No," said Enriquez quietly. 
 
 "No?" I repeated amazedly. 
 
 "You understand, Pancho! Eef it was 
 the trick of my eyes, why should I affright 
 her for the thing that is not? If it is the 
 truth, and it arrive to me, as a warning, 
 why shall I affright her before it come?" 
 
 " Before what comes ? What is it a warn- 
 ing of ? " I asked impetuously. 
 
 "That we shall be separated! That 1 
 go, and she do not." 
 
 To my surprise, his dancing eyes had a 
 slight film over them. "I don't understand 
 you," I said awkwardly. 
 
 "Your head is not of a level, my Pancho. 
 Thees earthquake he remain for only ten 
 seconds, and he fling open the door. If he 
 remain for twenty seconds, he fling open the 
 wall, the hoose toomble, and your friend 
 Enriquez is feenish." 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said. "Professor I 
 mean the geologists say that the centre of 
 disturbance of these Californian earthquakes 
 is some far-away point in the Pacific and 
 there never will be any serious convulsions 
 here." 
 
THE PASSING OF ENEIQUEZ 299 
 
 "Ah, the geologist," said Enriquez 
 gravely, "understand the hoss that rear in 
 the mine, and the five thousand dollar, be- 
 lieve me, no more. He haf lif here three 
 year. My family haf lif here three hun- 
 dred. My grandfather saw the earth swal- 
 low the church of San Juan Baptista." 
 
 I laughed, until, looking up, I was 
 shocked to see for the first time that his 
 dancing eyes were moist and shining* But 
 almost instantly he jumped up, and declared 
 that I had not seen the garden and the cor- 
 ral, and, linking his arm in mine, swept me 
 like a whirlwind into the patio. For an 
 hour or two he was in his old invincible 
 spirits. I was glad I had said nothing of 
 my visit to Carquinez Springs and of seeing 
 his wife; I determined to avoid it as long 
 as possible; and as he did not again refer 
 to her, except in the past, it was not diffi- 
 cult. At last he infected me with his ex- 
 travagance, and for a while I forgot even 
 the strangeness of his conduct and his con- 
 fidences. We walked and talked together 
 as of old. I understood and enjoyed him 
 perfectly, and it was not strange that in the 
 end I began to believe that this strange reve- 
 lation was a bit of his extravagant acting, 
 
300 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 got up to amuse me. The coincidence of 
 bis story with my own experience was not, 
 after all, such a wonderful thing, consider- 
 ing what must have been the nervous and 
 mental disturbance produced by the earth- 
 quake. We dined together, attended only 
 by Pedro, an old half-caste body-servant. 
 It was easy to see that the household was 
 carried on economically, and, from a word 
 or two casually dropped by Enriquez, it 
 appeared that the rancho and a small sum 
 of money were all that he retained from his 
 former fortune when he left the El Bolero. 
 The stock he kept intact, refusing to take 
 the dividend upon it until that collapse of 
 the company should occur which he confi- 
 dently predicted, when he would make good 
 the swindled stockholders. I had no reason 
 to doubt his perfect faith in this. 
 
 The next morning we were up early for a 
 breezy gallop over the three square miles 
 of Enriquez' s estate. I was astounded, 
 when I descended to the patio, to find Enri- 
 quez already mounted, and carrying before 
 him, astride of the horn of his saddle, a 
 small child, the identical papoose of my 
 memorable first visit. But the boy was no 
 longer swathed and bandaged, although, for 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 301 
 
 security, his plump little body was engirt by 
 the same sash that encircled his father's own 
 waist. I felt a stirring of self-reproach; I 
 had forgotten all about him ! To my sug- 
 gestion that the exercise might be fatiguing 
 to him, Enriquez shrugged his shoulders : 
 
 "Believe me, no! He is ever with me 
 when I go on the pasear. He is not too 
 yonge. For he shall learn ' to rride, to 
 shoot, and to speak the truth, ' even as the 
 Persian chile. Eet ees all I can gif to 
 him." 
 
 Nevertheless, I think the boy enjoyed it, 
 and I knew he was safe with such an accom- 
 plished horseman as his father. Indeed, it 
 was a fine sight to see them both careering 
 over the broad plain, Enriquez with jingling 
 spurs and whirling riata> and the boy, with 
 a face as composed as his father's, and his 
 tiny hand grasping the end of the flapping 
 rein with a touch scarcely lighter than the 
 skillful rider's own. It was a lovely morn- 
 ing; though warm and still, there was a 
 faint haze a rare thing in that climate 
 on the distant range. The sun-baked soil, 
 arid and thirsty from the long summer 
 drought, and cracked into long fissures, 
 broke into puffs of dust, with a slight deto- 
 
302 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 nation like a pistol-shot, at each stroke of 
 our pounding hoofs. Suddenly my horse 
 swerved in full gallop, almost lost his foot- 
 ing, "broke," and halted with braced fore 
 feet, trembling in every limb. I heard a 
 shout from Enriquez at the same instant, 
 and saw that he too had halted about a hun- 
 dred paces from me, with his hand uplifted 
 in warning, and between us a long chasm in 
 the dry earth, extending across the whole 
 field. But the trembling of the horse con- 
 tinued until it communicated itself to me. 
 / was shaking, too, and, looking about for 
 the cause, when I beheld the most weird 
 and remarkable spectacle I had ever wit- 
 nessed. The whole llano, or plain, stretch- 
 ing to the horizon-line, was distinctly undu- 
 lating ! The faint haze of the hills was 
 repeated over its surface, as if a dust had 
 arisen from some grinding displacement of 
 the soil. I threw myself from my horse, 
 but the next moment was fain to cling to 
 him, as I felt the thrill under my very feet. 
 Then there was a pause, and I lifted my 
 head to look for Enriquez. He was no- 
 where to be seen ! With a terrible recollec- 
 tion of the fissure that had yawned between 
 us, I sprang to the saddle again, and spurred 
 
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 303 
 
 the frightened beast toward that point. But 
 it was gone, too! I rode backward and 
 forward repeatedly along the line where I 
 had seen it only a moment before. The 
 plain lay compact and uninterrupted, with- 
 out a crack or fissure. The dusty haze that 
 had arisen had passed as mysteriously away ; 
 the clear outline of the valley returned; the 
 great field was empty ! 
 
 Presently I was aware of the sound of 
 galloping hoofs. I remembered then 
 what I had at first forgotten that a few 
 moments before we had crossed an arroyo, 
 or dried bed of a stream, depressed below 
 the level of the field. How foolish that I 
 had not remembered! He had evidently 
 sought that refuge; there were his return- 
 ing hoofs. I galloped toward it, but only 
 to meet a frightened vaquero, who had taken 
 that avenue of escape to the rancho. 
 
 "Did you see Don Enriquez?" I asked 
 impatiently. 
 
 I saw that the man's terror was extreme, 
 and his eyes were staring in their sockets. 
 He hastily crossed himself : 
 
 "Ah, God, yes!" 
 
 "Where is he?" I demanded. 
 
 "Gone!" 
 
304 THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 He looked at me with staring, vacant 
 eyes, and, pointing to the ground, said in 
 Spanish: "He has returned to the land of 
 his fathers!" 
 
 We searched for him that day and the 
 next, when the country was aroused and his 
 neighbors joined in a quest that proved use- 
 less. Neither he nor his innocent burden 
 was ever seen again of men. W r hether he 
 had been engulfed by mischance in some 
 unsuspected yawning chasm in that brief 
 moment, or had fulfilled his own prophecy 
 by deliberately erasing himself for some pur- 
 pose known only to himself, no one ever 
 knew. His country-people shook their heads 
 and said "it was like a Saltillo." And the 
 few among his retainers who knew him and 
 loved him, whispered still more ominously: 
 "He will yet return to his land to confound 
 the Americanos." 
 
 Yet the widow of Enriquez did not marry 
 Professor Dobbs. But she too disappeared 
 from California, and years afterward I was 
 told that she was well known to the ingen- 
 uous Parisians as the usual wealthy widow 
 "from South America." 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 JAN 1 9 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
3 2106 00206 9992