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BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
BRET HARTE'S WORKS. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION, in Seven Volumes, crown 8vo. cloth extra, f<s. each. 
 BRET HARTE'S COLLECTED WORKS. Arranged and Revised 
 
 by the Author. 
 
 Vol. I. COMPLETE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS. With Steel Portrait. 
 Vol. II. LUCK OF ROARING CAMP BOHEMIAN PAPERS AMERICAN 
 
 LEGENDS. 
 
 Vol. III. TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS EASTERN SKETCHES. 
 Vol. IV. GABRIEL CONROY. 
 Vol. V. STORIES CONDENSED NOVELS, &c. 
 Vol. VI. TALES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 
 Vol. VII. is in preparation. With a Portrait by JOHN PETTIE, R.A. 
 
 THE SELECT WORKS OF BRET HARTE, in Prose and Poetry. 
 With Introductory Essay by J. M. BELLEW, Portrait of Author, and 
 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 7$. 6d. 
 
 BRET HARTE'S POETICAL WORKS. Hand-made paper and 
 buckram. Crown 8vo. qs. 6d. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE. With 28 Original 
 
 Drawings by KATE GREENAWAY, reproduced in Colours by EDMUND EVANS. 
 Small 410. cloth, 5^. 
 
 Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3$. fsd. each. 
 
 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS. With 60 Illustrations by STANLEY 
 L. WOOD. 
 
 A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATE. With 59 Illustrations by 
 STANLEY L. WOOD. 
 
 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS, &c. With 2 Illustrations by 
 
 HUME NISBET. 
 
 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT, AND SOME OTHER 
 PEOPLE. With a frontispiece by FRED. BARNARD. 
 
 Post 8vo. illustrated boards, 2s. each. 
 
 GABRIEL CONROY. 
 
 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG, &c. 
 
 THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, &c. 
 
 CALIFORNIAN STORIES. 
 
 Post 8vo. illustrated boards, 2j. each ; cloth limp, is. 6d. each. 
 
 FLIP. | MARUJA. | A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 Fcp. 8vo. picture cover, is. each. 
 
 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN. 
 JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W. 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S 
 CLIENT 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 LONDON 
 
. . 
 
 \ *%[_ 
 
 
 \\ 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLPS CLIENT 
 
 0ome 
 
 (peopfe 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 
 ? . 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY FRED. BARNARD 
 
 J it b o u 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1892 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT i 
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN ... 79 
 
 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS'. . . .- . . . . 115 
 
 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' IS9 
 
 THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 189 
 
 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 233 
 
 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 263 
 
 OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 277 
 
 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE . . . . 291 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT may be remembered that it was the habit 
 of that gallant ' war horse ' of the Calaveras 
 democracy, Colonel Starbottle, at the close of 
 a political campaign, to return to his original 
 profession of the Law. Perhaps it could not be 
 called a peaceful retirement. The same fiery- 
 tongued eloquence and full-breasted chivalry 
 which had in turns thrilled and overawed free- 
 men at the polls were no less fervid and 
 embattled before a jury. Yet the Colonel was 
 counsel for two or three pastoral Ditch com- 
 panies and certain bucolic corporations, and 
 although he managed to import into the 
 simplest question of contract more or less 
 abuse of opposing counsel, and occasionally 
 mingled precedents of law with antecedents of 
 
 B 
 
2 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 his adversary, his legal victories were seldom 
 complicated by bloodshed. He was only once 
 shot at by a free-handed judge, and twice 
 assaulted by an over-sensitive litigant. Never- 
 theless, it was thought merely prudent, while 
 preparing the papers in the well-known case of 
 ' The Arcadian Shepherds' Association of Tuo- 
 lemne versus the Kedron Vine and Fig Tree 
 Growers of Calaveras,' that the Colonel should 
 seek with a shot gun the seclusion of his 
 partner's law office in the sylvan outskirts of 
 Rough and Ready for that complete rest and 
 serious pre-occupation which Marysville could 
 not afford. 
 
 It was an exceptionally hot day. The 
 painted shingles of the plain, wooden, one- 
 storied building in which the Colonel sat were 
 warped and blistering in the direct rays of the 
 fierce, untempered sun. The tin sign bearing 
 the dazzling legend, ' Starbottle and Bung- 
 starter, Attorneys and Counsellers/ glowed with 
 an insufferable light ; the two pine trees still 
 left in the clearing around the house, ineffec- 
 tive as shade, seemed only to have absorbed 
 the day-long heat through every scorched and 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 3 
 
 crisp twig and fibre, to radiate it again with the 
 pungent smell of a slowly smouldering fire ; the 
 air was motionless yet vibrating in the sun- 
 light ; on distant shallows the half-dried river 
 was Hashing and intolerable. 
 
 Seated in a wooden armchair before a table 
 covered with books and papers, yet with that 
 apparently haughty attitude towards it affected 
 by gentlemen of abdominal fulness, Colonel Star- 
 bottle supported himself with one hand grasping 
 the arm of his chair and the other vigorously 
 plying a huge palm-leaf fan. He was per- 
 spiring freely. He had taken off his charac- 
 teristic blue frock-coat, waistcoat, cravat, and 
 collar, and, stripped only to his ruffled shirt and 
 white drill trousers, presented the appearance 
 from the opposite side of the table of having 
 hastily risen to work in his night-gown. A 
 glass with a thin sediment of sugar and lemon- 
 peel remaining in it stood near his elbow. 
 Suddenly a black shadow fell on the staring, 
 uncarpeted hall. It was that of a stranger 
 who had just entered from the noiseless dust of 
 the deserted road. The Colonel cast a rapid 
 glance at his sword-cane, which lay on the table. 
 
 B2 
 
4 COLONEL STAKBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 But the stranger, although sallow and 
 morose-looking, was evidently of pacific intent. 
 He paused on the threshold in a kind of surly 
 embarrassment. 
 
 ' I reckon this is Colonel Starbottle,' he 
 said at last, glancing gloomily round him, as if 
 the interview was not entirely of his own 
 seeking. ' Well, I've seen you often enough, 
 though you don't know me. My name's Jo 
 Corbin. I guess,' he added still discontentedly, 
 ' I have to consult you about something.' 
 
 ' Corbin ? ' repeated the Colonel in his 
 jauntiest manner. ' Ah. Any relation to old 
 Maje Corbin of Nashville, sir ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said the stranger briefly. ' I'm from 
 Shelbyville.' 
 
 ' The Major,' continued the Colonel, half 
 closing his eyes as if to follow the Major into 
 the dreamy past, ' the old Major, sir, a matter 
 of five or six years ago, was one of my most 
 intimate political friends in fact, sir, my most 
 intimate friend. Take a chyar ! ' 
 
 But the stranger had already taken one, 
 and during the Colonel's reminiscence had 
 leaned forward with his eyes on the ground, 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE*S CLIENT 5 
 
 discontentedly swinging his soft hat between 
 his legs. ' Did you know Tom Frisbee, of 
 Yolo ? ' he asked abruptly. 
 
 ' Er no.' 
 
 ' Nor even heard anything about Frisbee, 
 nor what happened to him,' continued the man, 
 with aggrieved melancholy. 
 
 In point of fact the Colonel did not think 
 that he had. 
 
 ' Nor anything about his being killed over 
 at Fresno ? ' said the stranger, with a despond- 
 ing implication that the interview after all was 
 a failure. 
 
 1 If, er if you could, er give me a hint or 
 two,' suggested the Colonel blandly. 
 
 1 There wasn't much,' said the stranger, ' if 
 you don't remember.' He paused, then rising, 
 he gloomily dragged his chair slowly beside the 
 table, and taking up a paper-weight examined 
 it with heavy dissatisfaction. ' You see,' he 
 went on slowly, ' I killed him it was a quo'll. 
 He was my pardner, but I reckon he must have 
 drove me hard. Yes, sir,' he added with 
 aggrieved reflection, ' I reckon he drove me 
 hard. 
 
6 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 The Colonel smiled courteously, slightly ex- 
 panding his chest under the homicidical relation, 
 as if, having taken it in and made it a part of 
 himself, he was ready, if necessary, to become 
 personally responsible for it. Then lifting his 
 empty glass to the light, he looked at it with half 
 closed eyes, in polite imitation of his com- 
 panion's examination of the paper-weight, and 
 set it down again. A casual spectator from 
 the window might have imagined that the two 
 were engaged in an amicable inventory of the 
 furniture. 
 
 ' And the er actual circumstances ? ' asked 
 the Colonel. 
 
 ' Oh, it was fair enough fight. They II 
 tell you that. And so would he, I reckon if 
 he could. He was ugly and bedevlin but I 
 didn't care to quo'll and gave him the go-by all 
 the time. He kept on, followed me out of the 
 shanty, drew, and fired twice. I ' he stopped 
 and regarded his hat a moment as if it was a 
 corroborating witness ' I I closed with him 
 I had to it was my only chance, and that 
 ended it and with his own revolver. I never 
 drew mine.' 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 7 
 
 ' I see,' said the Colonel, nodding, ' clearly 
 justifiable and honourable as regards the Code. 
 And you wish me to defend you ? ' 
 
 The stranger's gloomy expression of asto- 
 nishment now turned to blank hopelessness. 
 
 ' I knew you didn't understand,' he said, 
 despairingly. ' Why, all that was two years ago. 
 It's all settled and done and gone. The jury 
 found for me at the inquest. It ain't that I 
 want to see you about. It's something arising 
 out of it.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said the Colonel, affably ' a vendetta 
 perhaps. Some friend or relation of his taken 
 up the quarrel ? ' 
 
 The stranger looked abstractedly at Star- 
 bottle. ' You think a relation might ; or would 
 feel in that sort of way ? ' 
 
 ' Why, blank it all, sir,' said the Colonel, 
 ' nothing is more common. Why, in '52 one of 
 my oldest friends, Doctor Byrne, of St. Jo, the 
 seventh in a line from old General Byrne, of 
 St. Louis, was killed, sir, by Pinkey Riggs, 
 seventh in a line from Senator Riggs, of 
 Kentucky. Original cause, sir, something 
 about a d d roasting ear, or a blank persimmun 
 
8 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 in 1832 ; forty-seven men wiped out in twenty 
 years. Fact, sir.' 
 
 ' It ain't that,' said the stranger, moving 
 hesitatingly in his chain ' If it was anything 
 of that sort I wouldn't mind it might bring 
 matters to a wind-up, and I shouldn't have to 
 come here and have this cursed talk with you.' 
 
 It was so evident that this frank and un- 
 affected expression of some obscure disgust 
 with his own present position had no other 
 implication, that the Colonel did not except to 
 it. Yet the man did not go on. He stopped 
 and seemed lost in sombre contemplation of his 
 hat. 
 
 The Colonel leaned back in his chair, fanned 
 himself elegantly, wiped his forehead with a 
 large pongee handkerchief, and looking at his 
 companion, whose shadowed abstraction seemed 
 to render him impervious to the heat, said : 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Corbin, I perfectly under- 
 stand you. Blank it all, sir, the temperature in 
 this infernal hole is quite enough to render any 
 confidential conversation between gentlemen 
 upon delicate matters utterly impossible. It's 
 almost as near Hades, sir, as they make it as I 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 9 
 
 trust you and I, Mr. Corbin, will ever experience. 
 I propose,' continued the Colonel, with airy 
 geniality, ' some light change and refreshment. 
 The bar-keeper of the Magnolia is er I may 
 say, s[r,facileprinceps in the concoction of mint- 
 juleps, and there is a back room where I have 
 occasionally conferred with political leaders at 
 election time. It is but a step, sir in fact, on 
 Main Street round the corner.' 
 
 The stranger looked up and then rose 
 mechanically as the Colonel resumed his coat 
 and waistcoat, but not his collar and cravat, 
 which lay limp and dejected among his papers. 
 Then, sheltering himself beneath a large- 
 brimmed Panama hat, and hooking his cane on 
 his arm, he led the way, fan in hand, into the 
 road, tip-toeing in his tight, polished boots 
 through the red, impalpable dust with his usual 
 jaunty manner, yet not without a profane 
 suggestion of burning ploughshares. The 
 stranger strode in silence by his side in the 
 burning sun, impenetrable in his own morose 
 shadow. 
 
 But the Magnolia was fragrant, like its 
 namesake, with mint and herbal odours, cool 
 
io COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 with sprinkled floors, and sparkling with broken 
 ice on its counters, like dewdrops on white, 
 unfolded petals and slightly soporific with the 
 subdued murmur of droning loungers, who were 
 heavy with its sweets. The gallant Colonel 
 nodded with confidential affability to the spotless- 
 shirted bar-keeper, and then taking Corbin by 
 the arm fraternally conducted him into a small 
 apartment in the rear of the bar-room. It was 
 evidently used as the office of the proprietor, 
 and contained a plain desk, table, and chairs. 
 At the rear window, Nature, not entirely evicted, 
 looked in with a few straggling buckeyes and 
 a dusty myrtle, over the body of a lately-felled 
 pine tree, that flaunted from an upflung branch a 
 still green spray as if it were a drooping banner 
 lifted by a dead but rigid arm. From the 
 adjoining room the faint, monotonous click of 
 billiard balls, languidly played, came at intervals 
 like the dry notes of cicala in the bushes. 
 
 The bar-keeper brought two glasses 
 crowned with mint and diademed with broken 
 ice. The Colonel took a long pull at his por- 
 tion, and leaned back in his chair with a bland 
 gulp of satisfaction and dreamily patient eyes, 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT n 
 
 The stranger mechanically sipped the contents 
 of his glass, and then, without having altered 
 his reluctant expression, drew from his breast- 
 pocket a number of old letters. Holding them 
 displayed in his fingers like a difficult hand of 
 cards, and with something of the air of a dis- 
 pirited player, he began : 
 
 ' You see, about six months after this yer 
 trouble I got this letter.' He picked out a 
 well-worn, badly-written missive, and put it into 
 Colonel Starbottle's hands, rising at the same 
 time and leaning over him as he read. ' You 
 see, she that writ it says as how she hadn't 
 heard from her son for a long time, but owing 
 to his having spoken once about me, she was 
 emboldened to write and ask me if I knew what 
 had gone of him.' He was pointing his finger 
 at each line of the letter as he read it, or rather 
 seemed to translate it from memory with a sad 
 familiarity. ' Now,' he continued in paren- 
 thesis, ' you see this kind o' got me. I knew 
 he had got relatives in Kentucky. I knew that 
 all this trouble had been put in the paper with 
 his name and mine, but this here name of 
 Martha Jeffcourt at the bottom didn't seem to 
 
12 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 jibe with it. Then I remembered that he had 
 left a lot of letters in his trunk in the shanty, and 
 I looked 'em over. And I found that his name 
 was Tom Jeffcourt, and that he'd been passin' 
 under the name of Frisbee all this time.' 
 
 ' Perfectly natural and a frequent occurrence,' 
 interposed the Colonel cheerfully. ' Only last 
 year I met an old friend whom we'll call Stidger, 
 of New Orleans, at the Union Club, Frisco. 
 " How are you, Stidger?" I said, " I haven't 
 seen you since we used to meet driving over 
 the Shell Road in '53." " Excuse me, sir," said 
 he, " my name is not Stidger, it's Brown." I 
 looked him in the eye, sir, and saw him quiver. 
 " Then I must apologise to Stidger," I said, " for 
 supposing him capable of changing his name." 
 He came to me an hour after, all in a tremble. 
 " For God's sake, Star," he said always called 
 me Star " don't go back on me, but you 
 know family affairs another woman, beautiful 
 creature," &c., &c. yes, sir, perfectly common, 
 but a blank mistake. When a man once funks 
 his own name he'll turn tail on anything. 
 Sorry for this man, Friezecoat, or Turncoat, or 
 whatever's his d d name ; but it's so.' 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 13 
 
 The suggestion did not, however, seem to 
 raise the stranger's spirits or alter his manner. 
 ' His name was Jeffcourt, and this here was his 
 mother/ he went on drearily ; ' and you see 
 here she says,' pointing to the letter again. 
 ' She's been expecting money from him and it 
 don't come, and she's mighty hard up. And 
 that gave me an idea. I don't know,' he went 
 on, regarding the Colonel with gloomy doubt, 'as 
 you'll think it was much ; I don't know as you 
 wouldn't call it a d d fool idea, but I got it all 
 the same.' He stopped, hesitated, and went on. 
 ' You see this man, Frisbee or Jeffcoat, was my 
 pardner. We were good friends up to the 
 killing:, and then he drove me hard. I think I 
 
 O * 
 
 told you he drove me hard didn't I ? Well, 
 he did. But the idea I got was this. Con- 
 siderin' I killed him after all and so to speak 
 disappointed them, I reckoned I'd take upon 
 myself the care of that family and send 'em 
 money every month. 
 
 The Colonel slightly straitened his clean- 
 shaven mouth. ' A kind of expiation or amerce- 
 ment by fine, known to the Mosaic, Roman, and 
 old English law. Gad, sir, the Jews might 
 
14 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 have made you marry his widow or sister. 
 An old custom, and I think superseded sir, 
 properly superseded by the alternative of 
 ordeal by battle in the mediaeval times. I don't 
 myself fancy these pecuniary fashions of settling 
 wrongs but go on.' 
 
 ' I wrote her,' continued Corbin, ' that her son 
 was dead, but that he and me had some interests 
 together in a claim, and that I was very glad to 
 know where to send her what would be his 
 share every month. I thought it no use to tell 
 her I killed him maybe she might refuse to 
 take it. I sent her a hundred dollars every 
 month since. Sometimes it's been pretty hard 
 sleddin' to do it, for I ain't rich ; sometimes I've 
 had to borrow the money, but I reckoned that I 
 was only paying for my share in this here busi- 
 ness of his bein' dead, and I did it.' 
 
 ' And I understand you that this Jeffcourt 
 really had no interest in your claim ? ' 
 
 Corbin looked at him in dull astonishment. 
 ' Not a cent, of course ; I thought I told you 
 that. But that weren't his fault, for he never 
 had anything, and owed me money. In fact,' 
 he added gloomily, 'it was because I hadn't 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 15 
 
 any more to give him havin' sold my watch 
 for grub that he quo'lled with me that day, 
 and up and called me a " sneakin' Yankee 
 hound.' I told you he drove me hard.' 
 
 The Colonel coughed slightly and resumed 
 his jaunty manner. ' And the er mother 
 was, of course, grateful and satisfied ? ' 
 
 1 Well, no not exactly.' He stopped 
 again and took up his letters once more, 
 sorted and arranged them as if to play out his 
 unfinished but hopeless hand, and, drawing out 
 another, laid it before the Colonel. ' You see 
 this Mrs. Jeffcourt, after a time, reckoned she 
 ought to have more money than I sent her, and 
 wrote saying that she had always understood 
 from her son (he that never wrote but once a 
 year, remember) that this claim of ours (that 
 she never knew of, you know) was paying much 
 more than I sent her and she wanted a 
 return of accounts and papers, or she'd write 
 to some lawyer, mighty quick. Well, I reckone-d 
 that all this was naturally in the line of my 
 trouble, and I did manage to scrape together 
 fifty dollars more for two months and sent it. 
 But that didn't seem to satisfy her as you see.' 
 
16 COLONEL STARBOTTLPS CLIENT 
 
 He dealt Colonel Starbottle another letter from 
 his baleful hand with an unchanged face. 
 ' When I got that, well, I just up and told her 
 the whole thing. I sent her the account of the 
 fight from the newspapers, and told her as how 
 her son was the Frisbee that was my pardner, 
 and how he never had a cent in the world but 
 how I'd got that idea to help her, and was 
 willing to carry it out as long as I could.' 
 
 ' Did you keep a copy of that letter ? ' 
 asked the Colonel, straitening his mask-like 
 mouth. 
 
 ' No,' said Corbin moodily. ' What was the 
 good ? I know'd she'd got the letter and she 
 did for that is what she wrote back.' He 
 laid another letter before the Colonel, who 
 hastily read a few lines and then brought his 
 fat white hand violently on the desk. 
 
 ' Why, d m it all, sir, this is blackmail. As 
 infamous a case of threatening and chantage as 
 I ever heard of.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Corbin, dejectedly, ' I don't 
 know. You see she allows that I murdered 
 Frisbee to get hold of his claim and that I'm 
 trying to buy her off, and that if I don't come 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 17 
 
 down with twenty thousand dollars on the nail, 
 and notes for the rest, she'll prosecute me. 
 Well, mebbee the thing looks to her like that 
 mebbee you know I've got to shoulder that 
 too. Perhaps it's all in the same line.' 
 
 Colonel Starbottle for a moment regarded 
 Corbin critically. In spite of his chivalrous 
 attitude towards the homicidical faculty, the 
 Colonel was not optimistic in regard to the 
 baser pecuniary interests of his fellow-man. It 
 was quite on the cards that his companion might 
 have murdered his partner to get possession of 
 the claim. It was true that Corbin had volun- 
 tarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto un- 
 known responsibility that had never been even 
 suspected, and was virtually self-imposed. But 
 that might have been the usual one unerring 
 blunder of criminal sagacity and forethought. It 
 was equally true that he did not look or act like 
 a mean murderer ; but that was nothing. How- 
 ever, there was no evidence of these reflections 
 in the Colonel's face. Rather he suddenly 
 beamed with an excess of politeness. ' Would 
 you rer mind, Mr. Corbin, whilst I am going 
 over those letters again, to er step across to 
 
 c 
 
1 8 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 my office and er bring me the copy of 
 " Wood's Digest " that lies on my table ? It 
 will save some time.' 
 
 The stranger rose, as if the service was 
 part of his self-imposed trouble, and as equally 
 hopeless with the rest, and taking his hat 
 departed to excute the commission. As soon 
 as he had left the building Colonel Starbottle 
 opened the door and mysteriously beckoned the 
 bar-keeper within. 
 
 ' Do you remember anything of the killing 
 of a man named Frisbee over in Fresno three 
 years ago ? ' 
 
 The bar - keeper whistled meditatively. 
 ' Three years ago Frisbee ? Fresno ? no ? 
 Yes but that was only one of his names. He 
 was Jack Walker over here. Yes and by 
 Jove! that feller that was here with you killed 
 him. Darn my skin, but I thought I recognised 
 him.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I know all that,' said the Colonel, 
 impatiently. ' But did Frisbee have any pro- 
 perty ? Did he have any means of his own ? ' 
 ' Property ? ' echoed the bar-keeper with 
 scornful incredulity. ' Property ? Means ? 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 19 
 
 The only property and means he ever had was 
 the free lunches or drinks he took in at some- 
 body else's expense. Why, the only chance he 
 ever had of earning a square meal was when 
 that fellow that was with you just now took him 
 up and made him his partner. And the only 
 way he could get rid of him was to kill him ! 
 And I didn't think he had it in him. Rather 
 a queer kind o' chap good deal of hayseed 
 about him. Showed up at the inquest so glum 
 and orkerd that if the boys hadn't made up 
 their minds this yer Frisbee orter been killed 
 it might have gone hard with him.' 
 
 ' Mr. Corbin,' said Colonel Starbottle, with a 
 pained but unmistakeable hauteur and a singular 
 elevation of his shirt frill, as if it had become 
 of its own accord erectile, ' Mr. Corbin er, er 
 is the distant relative of old Major Corbin, 
 of Nashville er one of my oldest political 
 friends. When Mr. Corbin er returns, you 
 can conduct him to me. And, if you please, 
 replenish the glasses.' 
 
 When the bar- keeper respectfully showed Mr. 
 Corbin and 'Wood's Digest' into the room again, 
 the Colonel was still beaming and apologetic. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 1 A thousand thanks, sir, but except to show 
 you the law if you require it hardly necessary. 
 I have er glanced over the woman's letters 
 again it would be better perhaps if you had 
 kept copies of your own but still these tell the 
 whole story and your own. The claim is pre- 
 posterous ! You have simply to drop the whole 
 thing. Stop your remittances, stop your cor- 
 respondence pay no heed to any further let- 
 ters and wait results. You need fear nothing 
 further, sir ; I stake my professional reputation 
 on it.' 
 
 The gloom of the stranger seemed only to 
 increase as the Colonel reached his triumphant 
 conclusion. 
 
 ' I reckoned you'd say that,' he said slowly, 
 ' but it won't do. I shall go on paying as far 
 as I can. It's my trouble and I'll see it 
 through.' 
 
 ' But, my dear sir, consider,' gasped the 
 Colonel. ' You are in the hands of an infamous 
 harpy, who is using her son's blood to extract 
 money from you. You have already paid 
 a dozen times more than the life of that d d 
 sneak was worth ; and more than that the 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 21 
 
 longer you keep on paying you are helping to 
 give colour to their claim and estopping your own 
 defence. And Gad, sir, you're making a prece- 
 dent for this sort of thing ! you are offering a 
 premium to widows and orphans. A gentleman 
 won't be able to exchange shots with another 
 without making himself liable for damages. I 
 am willing to admit that your feelings though, 
 in my opinion er exaggerated do you credit 
 but I am satisfied that they are utterly mis- 
 understood sir. ' 
 
 ' Not by all of them,' said Corbin, darkly. 
 
 ' Eh ? ' returned the Colonel quickly. 
 
 'There was another letter here which. I 
 didn't particularly point out to you,' said 
 Corbin, taking up the letters again, ' for I 
 reckoned it wasn't evidence, so to speak, being 
 from his cousin a girl and calculated you'd 
 read it when I was out.' 
 
 The Colonel coughed hastily. ' I was in 
 fact er just about to glance over it when you 
 came in.' 
 
 ' It was written,' continued Corbin, select- 
 ing a letter more bethumbed than the others, 
 ' after the old woman had threatened me. This 
 
22 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 here young woman allows that she is sorry 
 that her aunt has to take money of me on 
 account of her cousin being killed, and she is 
 still sorrier that she is so bitter against me. 
 She says she hadn't seen her cousin since he 
 was a boy, and used to play with her, and that 
 she finds it hard to believe that he should ever 
 grow up to change his name and act so as to 
 provoke anybody to lift a hand against him. 
 She says she supposed it must be something 
 in that dreadful California that alters people 
 and makes everybody so reckless. I reckon 
 her head 's level there, ain't it ? ' 
 
 There was such a sudden and unexpected 
 lightening of the man's face as he said it, such 
 a momentary relief to his persistent gloom, 
 that the Colonel, albeit inwardly dissenting 
 from both letter and comment, smiled conde- 
 scendingly. 
 
 ' She's no slouch of a scribe neither,' con- 
 tinued Corbin animatedly. ' Read that. 1 
 
 He handed his companion the letter, 
 pointing to a passage with his finger. The 
 Colonel took it with, I fear, a somewhat 
 lowered opinion of his client, and a new theory 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 23 
 
 of the case. It was evident that this weak 
 submission to the aunt's conspiracy was only 
 the result of a greater weakness for the niece. 
 Colonel Starbottle had a wholesome distrust of 
 the sex as a business or political factor. He 
 began to look over the letter, but was evidently 
 slurring it with superficial politeness, when 
 Corbin said 
 
 ' Read it out loud.' 
 
 The Colonel slightly lifted his shoulders, 
 fortified himself with another sip of the julep, 
 and, leaning back, oratorically began to read ; 
 the stranger leaning over him and following 
 line by line with shining eyes. 
 
 1 When I say I am sorry for you, it is 
 because I think it must be dreadful for you to 
 be going round with the blood of a fellow- 
 creature on your hands. It must be awful for 
 you in the stillness of the night season to hear 
 the voice of the Lord saying, " Cain, where is 
 thy brother?" and you saying, " Lord, I have 
 slayed him dead." It must be awful for you 
 when the pride of your wrath was surfitted, 
 and his dum' senseless corps' was before you, 
 
24 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 not to know that it is written, "Vengeance is 
 mine, I will repay," saith the Lord. ... It 
 was no use for you to say, " I never heard that 
 before," remembering your teacher and parents. 
 Yet verily I say unto you, " Though your sins 
 be as scarlet, they shall be washed whiter than 
 snow," saith the Lord. Isaiah i. 18 ; and 
 " Heart hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot 
 heal." My hymn book, ist Presbyterian 
 Church, page 79. Mr. Corbin, I pity your 
 feelins at the grave of my pore dear cousin, 
 knowing he is before his Maker, and you can't 
 bring him back.' ' Umph ! er er very 
 good very good indeed,' said the Colonel, 
 hastily refolding the letter. 'Very well 
 meaning and er. . . .' 
 
 ' Go on,' said Corbin over his shoulder, 
 1 you haven't read all.' 
 
 ' Ah, true. I perceive I overlooked some- 
 thing. Um um. " May God forgive you, 
 Mr. Corbin, as I do, and make aunty think 
 better of you, for it was good what you tried 
 to do for her and the fammely, and I've always 
 said it when she was raging round and wanting 
 money of you. I don't believe you meant to 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 25 
 
 do it anyway, owin' to your kindness of heart 
 to the ophanless and the widow since you did 
 it. Anser this letter, and don't mind what 
 aunty says. So no more at present from 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 ' " SALLY Dows. 
 
 1 " P.S. There's been some troubel in our 
 township, and some fitin'. May the Lord 
 change ther hearts and make them as a little 
 child, for if you are still young you may grow 
 up different. I have writ a short prayer for 
 you to say every night. You can coppy it out 
 and put it at the head of your bed. It is this : 
 O Lord, make me sorry for having killed Sarah 
 Dows' cousin. Give me, O Lord, that peace 
 that the world cannot give, and which fadeth 
 not away ; for my yoke is heavy, and my 
 burden is harder than I can bear." 
 
 The Colonel's deliberate voice stopped. 
 There was a silence in the room, and the air 
 seemed stifling. The click of the billiard balls 
 came distinctly through the partition from the 
 other room. Then there was another click, a 
 
26 COLONEL STARSOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 stamp on the floor, and a voice crying coarsely : 
 ' Curse it all missed again ! ' 
 
 To the stranger's astonishment, the Colonel 
 was on his feet in an instant, gasping with 
 inarticulate rage. Flinging the door open, he 
 confronted the startled bar-keeper empurpled 
 and stertorous. 
 
 ' Blank it all, sir, do you call this a saloon 
 for gentlemen, or a corral for swearing cattle ? 
 Or do you mean to say that the conversation 
 of two gentlemen upon delicate professional 
 and er domestic affairs is to be broken 
 upon by the blank profanity of low-bred 
 hounds over their picyuane gambling ! Take 
 them my kyard, sir,' choked the Colonel, who 
 was always Southern and dialectic in his 
 excited as in his softest moments, ' and tell 
 them that Colonel Starbottle will nevah dyarken 
 these doahs again.' 
 
 Before the astonished bar-keeper could 
 reply, the Colonel had dashed back into the 
 room, clapped his hat on his head, and seized 
 his book, letters, and cane. ' Mr. Corbin,' he 
 said with gasping dignity, ' I will take these 
 papahs, and consult them again in my own 
 
COLONEL STARBQTTL&S CLIENT 27 
 
 office where, if you will do me the honour, 
 sir, to call at ten o'clock to-morrow, I will give 
 you my opinion.' He strode out of the saloon 
 beside the half awe-stricken, half-amused, yet 
 all discreetly silent loungers, followed by his 
 wondering but gloomy client. At the door 
 they parted ; the Colonel tip-toeing towards 
 his office as if dancing with rage, the stranger 
 darkly plodding through the stifling dust in 
 the opposite direction, with what might have 
 been a faint suggestion to his counsellor, that 
 the paths of the homicide did not lie beside the 
 still cool waters. 
 
28 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE house of Captain Maste'rton Dows, at 
 Pineville, Kentucky, was a fine specimen of 
 Southern classical architecture, being an exact 
 copy of Major Fauquier's house in Virginia, 
 which was in turn only a slight variation from 
 a well-known statesman's historical villa in 
 Alabama, that everybody knew was designed 
 from a famous Greek Temple on the Piraeus. 
 Not but that it shared this resemblance with the 
 County Court House and the Oddfellows' Hall, 
 but the addition of training jessamine and 
 Cherokee rose to the columns of the portico, 
 and over the colonnade leading to its offices, 
 showed a certain domestic distinction. And the 
 sky line of its incongruously high roof was 
 pleasantly broken against adjacent green pines, 
 ' butternut,' and darker cypress. 
 
 A nearer approach showed the stuccoed 
 gate-posts whose red brick core was revealed 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 29 
 
 through the dropping plaster opening in a 
 wall of half-rough stone, half-wooden palisade, 
 equally covered with shining moss and parasi- 
 tical vines, which hid a tangled garden left to 
 its own unkempt luxuriance. Yet there was a 
 reminiscence of past formality and even preten 
 tiousness in a wide box-bordered terrace and 
 one or two stuccoed vases prematurely worn 
 and time-stained ; while several rare exotics 
 had, however, thriven so unwisely and well in 
 that stimulating soil as to lose their exclusive 
 refinement and acquire a certain temporary 
 vulgarity. A few, with the not uncommon en- 
 thusiasm of aliens, had adopted certain native 
 peculiarities with a zeal that far exceeded any 
 indigenous performance. But dominant through 
 all was the continual suggestion of precocious 
 fruition and premature decay that lingered like 
 a sad perfume in 'the garden, but made itself 
 persistent if less poetical in the house. 
 
 Here the fluted wooden columns of the por- 
 tico and colonnade seemed to have taken upon 
 themselves a sodden and unwholesome age un- 
 known to stone and mortar. Moss and creeper 
 plung to paint that time had neither dried nor 
 
30 COLONEL STARBOTTLE*S CLIENT 
 
 mellowed, but left still glairy in its white 
 consistency. There were rusty red blotches 
 around inflamed nail-holes in the swollen wood, 
 as of punctures in living flesh ; along the en- 
 tablature and cornices and in the dank gutters 
 decay had taken the form of a mild deliques- 
 cence ; and the pillars were spotted as if Nature 
 had dropped over the too early ruin a few un- 
 clean tears. The house itself was lifted upon 
 a broad wooden foundation painted to imitate 
 marble with such hopeless mendacity that the 
 architect at the last moment had added a green 
 border, and the owner permitted a fallen board 
 to remain off so as to allow a few privileged 
 fowls to openly explore the interior. When 
 Miss Sally Dows played the piano in the 
 drawing-room she was at times accompanied by 
 the uplifted voice of the sympathetic hounds who 
 sought its quiet retreat in ill-health or low 
 spirits, and from whom she was separated only 
 by an imperfectly carpeted floor of yawning 
 seams. The infant progeny of ' Mammy 
 Judy/ an old nurse, made this a hiding-place 
 from domestic justice, where they were eventu- 
 ally betrayed by subterranean giggling that had 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 31 
 
 once or twice brought bashful confusion to the 
 hearts of Miss Sally's admirers, and mis- 
 chievous security to that finished coquette 
 herself. 
 
 It was a pleasant September afternoon, on 
 possibly one of these occasions, that Miss Sally, 
 sitting before the piano, alternately striking a 
 few notes with three pink fingers and glancing 
 at her reflection in the polished rosewood sur- 
 face of the lifted keyboard case, was heard to 
 utter this languid protest : 
 
 ' Quit that kind of talk, Chet, unless you just 
 admire to have every word of it repeated all over 
 the county. Those little niggers of Mammy 
 Judy's are lying round somewhere and are 
 mighty 'cute, and sassy, I tell you. It's nothin' 
 to me, sure, but Miss Hilda mightn't like to hear 
 of it. So soon after your particular attention 
 to her at last night's pawty too.' 
 
 Here a fresh-looking young fellow of six- 
 and-twenty, leaning uneasily over the piano from 
 the opposite side, was heard to murmur that 
 he didn't care what Miss Hilda heard, nor the 
 whole world for the matter of that. ' But,' he 
 added, with a faint smile, ' folks allow that you 
 
32 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 know howto//^ 2tp sometimes, and put on the 
 loud pedal, when you don't want Mammy's 
 niggers to hear.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said the young lady, demurely. 
 ' Like this ? ' 
 
 She put out a distracting little foot, clothed 
 in the white stocking and cool black prunella 
 slippers, then derigueur'm the State, and press- 
 ing it on the pedal, began to drum vigorously 
 on the keys. In vain the amorous Chet pro- 
 tested in a voice which the instrument drowned. 
 Perceiving which the artful young lady opened 
 her blue eyes mildly and said : 
 
 ' I reckon it is so ; it does kind of prevent 
 you hearing what you don't want to hear.' 
 
 ' You know well enough what I mean,' said 
 the youth gloomily. ' And that ain't all that 
 folks say. They allow that you're doin' a heap 
 too much correspondence with that Californian 
 rough that killed Tom Jeffcourt over there.' 
 
 ' Do they ? ' said the young lady, with a 
 slight curl of her pretty lip. ' Then perhaps 
 they allow that if it wasn't for me he wouldn't 
 be sending a hundred dollars a month to Aunt 
 Martha ? ' 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 33 
 
 ' Yes,' said the fatuous youth ; ' but they 
 allow he killed Tom for his money. And they 
 do say it mighty queer doin's in yo' writin' 
 religious letters to him, and Tom your own 
 cousin.' 
 
 ' Oh, they tell those lies here, do they ? But 
 do they say anything about how, when the 
 same lies were told over in California, the 
 lawyer they've got over there, called Colonel 
 Starbottle a Southern man too got up and 
 just wrote to Aunt Martha that she'd better 
 quit that afore she got prosecuted ? They 
 didn't tell you that, did they, Mister Chester 
 Brooks ? ' 
 
 But here the unfortunate Brooks, after the 
 fashion of all jealous lovers, deserted his allies 
 for his fair enemy. ' I don't cotton to what 
 they say, Sally, but you do write to him, and I 
 don't see what you've got to write about you 
 and him. Jule Jeffcourt says that when you got 
 religion at Louisville during the revival, you felt 
 you had a call to write and save sinners, and you 
 did that as your trial and probation, but that 
 since you backslided and are worldly again, and 
 go to parties, you just keep it up for foolin' and 
 
 D 
 
34 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 flirtin' ! She ain't goin' to weaken on the man 
 that shot her brother, just because he's got a 
 gold mine and a moustache ! ' 
 
 ' She takes his money a.\\ the same,' said Miss 
 Sally. 
 
 ' She don't her mother does. She says if 
 she was a man she'd have blood for blood ! ' 
 
 ' My ! ' said Miss Sally, in affected consterna- 
 tion. ' It's a wonder she don't apply to you to 
 act for her.' 
 
 ' If it was my brother he killed, I'd chal- 
 lenge him quick enough,' said Chet, flushing 
 through his thin pink skin and light hair. 
 
 ' Marry her, then, and that'll make you one 
 of the family. I reckon Miss Hilda can bear 
 it,' rejoined the young lady pertly. 
 
 ' Look here, Miss Sally,' said the young 
 fellow with a boyish despair that was not with- 
 out a certain pathos in its implied inferiority, 
 ' I ain't gifted like you I ain't on yo' level no 
 how ; I can't pass yo' on the road, and so I 
 reckon I must take yo' dust as yo' make it. 
 But there's one thing, Miss Sally, I want to 
 tell you. You know what's going on in this 
 country you've heard your father say what the 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 35 
 
 opinion of the best men is, and what's likely to 
 happen if the Yanks force that nigger worship- 
 per, Lincoln, on the South. You know that 
 we're drawing the line closer every day, and 
 spottin' the men that ain't sound. Take care, 
 Miss Sally, you ain't sellin' us cheap to some 
 Northern Abolitionist who'd like to set Marm 
 Judy's little niggers to something worse than 
 eavesdropping down there, and mebbe teach 
 'em to kindle a fire underneath yo' own flo'.' 
 
 He had become quite dialectic in his appeal, 
 as if youthfully reverting to some accent of the 
 nursery, or as if he were exhorting her in some 
 recognised shibboleth of a section. Miss Sally 
 rose and shut down the piano. Then leaning 
 over it on her elbows, her rounded little chin 
 slightly elevated with languid impertinence, 
 and one saucy foot kicked backwards beyond 
 the hem of her white cotton frock, she said, 
 ' And let me tell you, Mister Chester Brooks, 
 that it's just such God-lorsaken, infant phe- 
 nomenons as you who want to run the whole 
 country that make all this fuss, when you ain't 
 no more fit to be trusted with matches than 
 Judy's children. What do you know of Mr. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 Jo Corbin, when you don't even know that he's 
 from Shelbyville, and as good a Suth'ner as 
 you, and if he hasn't got niggers it's because 
 they don't use them in his parts ? Yo'r for all 
 the world like one o' Mrs. Johnson's fancy 
 Bantams that ain't quit of the shell afore they 
 square off at their own mother. My goodness ! 
 Sho ! Sho-o-o ! ' And suiting the action to 
 the word the young lady, still indolently, even 
 in her simulation, swirled around, caught her 
 skirts at the side with each hand, and lazily 
 shaking them before her in the accepted 
 feminine method of frightening chickens as she 
 retreated backwards, dropped them suddenly 
 in a profound curtsey and swept out of the 
 parlour. 
 
 Nevertheless, as she entered the sitting- 
 room she paused to listen, then, going to the 
 window, peeped through the slits of the Venetian 
 blind and saw her youthful admirer, more de- 
 jected in the consciousness of his wasted efforts 
 and useless attire, mount his showy young 
 horse, as aimlessly spirited as himself, and ride 
 away. Miss Sally did not regret this ; neither 
 had she been entirely sincere in her defence 
 
37 
 
 of her mysterious correspondent. But, like 
 many of her sex, she was trying to keep up by 
 the active stimulus of opposition an interest 
 that she had begun to think if left to itself 
 might wane. She was conscious that her 
 cousin Julia, although impertinent and illogical, 
 was right in considering her first epistolary 
 advances to Corbin as a youthful convert's 
 religious zeal. But now that her girlish en- 
 thusiasm was spent, and the Revival itself had 
 proved as fleeting an excitement as the old 
 Tournament of Love and Beauty,' which it 
 had supplanted, she preferred to believe that 
 she enjoyed the fascinating impropriety because 
 it was the actual result of her religious freedom. 
 Perhaps she had a vague idea that Corbin's 
 conversion would expiate her present preference 
 for dress and dancing. She had certainly never 
 flirted with him ; they had never exchanged 
 photographs ; there was not a passage in his 
 letters that might not have been perused by 
 her parents which, I fear, was probably one 
 reason why she had never shown her corre- 
 spondence ; and beyond the fact that this letter- 
 writing gave her a certain importance in her 
 
38 COLONEL STARSOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 own eyes and those of her companions, it might 
 really be stopped. She even thought of writing 
 at once to him that her parents objected to its 
 further continuance, but remembering that his 
 usual monthly letter was now nearly due, she 
 concluded to wait until it came. 
 
 It is to be feared that Miss Sally had little 
 help in the way of family advice, and that the 
 moral administration of the Dows' household 
 was as prematurely developed and as preco- 
 ciously exhausted as the estate and mansion 
 themselves. Captain Dows' marriage with 
 Josephine Jeffcourt, the daughter of a ' poor 
 white,' had been considered a mesalliance by 
 his family, and his own sister, Miranda Dows, 
 had abandoned her brother's roof and refused to 
 associate with the Jeffcourts, only returning to 
 the house and an armed neutrality at the death 
 of Mrs. Dows a few years later. She had 
 taken charge of Miss Sally, sending her to 
 school at Nashville until she was recalled by 
 her father two years ago. It may be imagined 
 that Miss Sally's correspondence with Jeffcourt's 
 murderer had afforded her a mixed satisfaction ; 
 it was at first asserted that Miss Sally's forgive- 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 39 
 
 ness was really prompted by ' Miss Mirandy,' 
 as a subtle sarcasm upon the family. When, 
 however, that forgiveness seemed to become 
 a source of revenue to the impoverished Jeff- 
 courts, her Christian interference had declined. 
 For this reason possibly the young girl did 
 not seek her aunt in the bedroom, the dining- 
 room, or the business-room, where Miss Miranda 
 frequently assisted Captain Dows in the fatuous 
 and prejudiced mismanagement of the house 
 and property, nor in any of the vacant guest- 
 rooms, which, in their early wreck of latter- 
 day mahogany and rosewood, seemed to have 
 been unoccupied for ages, but went directly to 
 her own room. This was in the ' L,' a lately 
 added wing that had escaped the gloomy archi- 
 tectural tyranny of the main building, and gave 
 Miss Sally light, ventilation, the freshness and 
 spice of new pine boards and clean paper, and 
 a separate entrance and windows on a cool 
 verandah all to herself. Intended as a conces- 
 sion to the young lady's travelled taste, it was 
 really a reversion to the finer simplicity of the 
 pioneer. 
 
 New as the apartment appeared to be, it 
 
40 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 was old enough to contain the brief little records 
 of her maidenhood : the childish samplers and 
 pictures ; the sporting epoch with its foxheads 
 opossum and wild-cat skins, riding-whip, and the 
 goshawk in a cage, which Miss Sally believed 
 could be trained as a falcon ; the religious 
 interval of illustrated texts, ' Rock of Ages,' 
 cardboard crosses, and the certificate of her 
 membership with ' The Daughters of Sion ' 
 at the head of her little bed, down to the last 
 decadence of frivolity shown in the be-ribboned 
 guitar in the corner, and the dance cards, 
 favours, and rosettes, military buttons, dried 
 bouquets, and other love gages on the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
 The young girl opened a drawer of her 
 table and took out a small packet of letters tied 
 up with a green ribbon. As she did so she 
 heard the sound of hoofs in the rear courtyard. 
 This was presently followed by a step on the 
 verandah, and she opened the door to her 
 father with the letters still in her hand. There 
 was neither the least embarrassment nor self- 
 consciousness in her manner. 
 
 Captain Dows, superficially remarkable only 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 41 
 
 for a certain odd combination of high military 
 stock and turned-over planter's collar, was 
 slightly exalted by a sympathetic mingling 
 of politics and mint julep at Pineville Court 
 House. ' I was passing by the Post Office at 
 the Cross Roads last week, dear,' he began, 
 cheerfully, ' and I thought of you, and reckoned 
 it was about time that my Pussy got one of her 
 letters from her rich Californian friend and 
 sure enough there was one. I clean forgot to 
 give it to you then, and only remembered it 
 passing there to-day. I didn't get to see if 
 there was any gold dust in it,' he continued, 
 with great archness, and a fatherly pinch of her 
 cheek ; ' though I suspect that isn't the kind of 
 currency he sends to you.' 
 
 'It is from Mr. Corbin,' said Miss Sally, 
 taking it with a languid kind of doubt ; ' and 
 only now, Paw, I was just thinking that I'd 
 sort of drop writing any more ; it makes a good 
 deal of buzzing amongst the neighbours, and I 
 don't see much honey nor comb in it.' 
 
 ' Eh,' said the Captain, apparently more 
 astonished than delighted at his daughter's 
 prudence. 'Well, child, suit yourself! It's 
 
42 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 mighty mean, though, for I was just thinking 
 of telling you that Judge Read is an old friend 
 of this Colonel Starbottle, who is your friend's 
 friend and lawyer, and he says that Colonel 
 Starbottle is with MS, and working for the Cause 
 out there, and has got a list of all the So'thern 
 men in California that are sound and solid for 
 the South. Read says he shouldn't wonder 
 if he'd make California wheel into line too.' 
 
 ' I don't see what that's got to do with Mr. 
 Corbin,' said the young girl, impatiently, flick- 
 ing the still unopened letter against the packet 
 in her hand. 
 
 4 Well,' said the Captain, with cheerful 
 vagueness, ' I thought it might interest you 
 that's all,' and lounged judicially away. 
 
 ' Paw thinks,' said Miss Sally, still standing 
 in the doorway, ostentatiously, addressing her 
 pet goshawk, but with one eye following her 
 retreating parent ' Paw thinks that everybody 
 is as keen bent on politics as he is. There's 
 where Paw slips up, Jim.' 
 
 Re-entering the room, scratching her little 
 nose thoughtfully with the edge of Mr. Corbin's 
 letter, she went to the mantel-piece and picked 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 43 
 
 up a small ivory-handled dagger, the gift of 
 Joyce Masterton, aged eighteen, presented with 
 certain verses addressed to a ' Daughter of the 
 South,' and cut open the envelope. The first 
 glance was at her own name, and then at the 
 signature. There was no change in the 
 formality ; it was ' Dear Miss Sarah,' and 
 ' Yours respectfully, Jo Corbin,' as usual. She 
 was still secure. But her pretty brows con- 
 tracted slightly as she read as follows : 
 
 ' I've always allowed I should feel easier in 
 my mind if I could ever get to see Mrs. Jeff- 
 court, and that maybe she might feel easier 
 in hers if I stood before her face to face. 
 Even if she didn't forgive me at once, it might 
 do her good to get off what she had on her mind 
 against me. But as there wasn't any chance 
 of her coming to me, and it was out of the 
 question my coming to her and still keeping 
 up enough work in the mines to send her the 
 regular money, it couldn't be done. But at last 
 I've got a partner to run the machine when I'm 
 away. I shall be at Shelbyville by the time 
 this reaches you, where I shall stay a day or 
 two to give you time to break the news to 
 
44 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 Mrs. Jeffcourt, and then come on. You will 
 do this for me in your Christian kindness, Miss 
 Dows won't you ? and if you could soften her 
 mind so as to make it less hard for me I shall 
 be grateful. 
 
 'P.S. I forgot to say I have had him 
 exhumed you know who I mean and am 
 bringing him with me in a patent metallic 
 burial casket the best that could be got in 
 'Frisco, and will see that he is properly buried 
 in your own graveyard. It seemed to me that 
 it would be the best thing I could do, and might 
 work upon her feelings as it has on mine. 
 Don't you ? 
 
 'J. C.' 
 
 Miss Sally felt the tendrils of her fair hair 
 stir with consternation. The letter had arrived 
 a week ago ; perhaps he was in Pineville at 
 that very moment ! She must go at once to 
 the Jeffcourts it was only a mile distant. 
 Perhaps she might be still in time ; but even 
 then it was a terribly short notice for such a 
 meeting. Yet she stopped to select her newest 
 hat from the closet, and to tie it with the largest 
 of bows under her pretty chin ; and then 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 45 
 
 skipped from the verandah into a green lane 
 that ran beside the garden boundary. There, 
 hidden by a hedge, she dropped into a long, 
 swinging trot, that even in her haste still kept the 
 languid deliberation characteristic of her people, 
 until she had reached the road. Two or three 
 hounds in the garden started joyously to follow 
 her, but she drove them back with a portentous 
 frown, and an ill-aimed stone, and a suppressed 
 voice. Yet in that backward glance she could 
 see that her little Eumenides Mammy Judy's 
 children were peering at her from below the 
 wooden floor of the portico, which they were 
 grasping with outstretched arms and bowed 
 shoulders, as if they were black caryatides 
 supporting as indeed their race had done for 
 many a year the pre-doomed and decaying 
 mansion of their Master. 
 
46 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HAPPILY Miss Sally thought more of her 
 present mission than the past errors of her 
 people. The faster she walked the more 
 vividly she pictured the possible complications 
 of this meeting. She knew the dull, mean 
 nature of her aunt and the utter hopelessness 
 of all appeal to anything but her selfish cupidity, 
 and saw in this fatuous essay of Corbin only 
 an aggravation of her worst instincts. Even 
 the dead body of her son would not only whet 
 her appetite for pecuniary vengeance, but give 
 it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional 
 but ignorant neighbours. She had still less to 
 hope from Julia Jeffcourt's more honest and 
 human indignation but equally bigoted and pre- 
 judiced intelligence. It is true they were only 
 women, and she ought to have no fear of that 
 physical revenge which Julia had spoken of, but 
 she reflected that Miss Jeffcourt's unmistakable 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 4? 
 
 beauty, and what was believed to be a ' truly 
 Southern spirit,' had gained her many admirers 
 who might easily take her wrongs upon their 
 shoulders. If her father had only given her 
 that letter before she might have stopped 
 Corbin's coming at all ; she might even have met 
 him in time to hurry him and her cousin's 
 provocative remains out of the country. In 
 the midst of these reflections she had to pass 
 the little hill-side cemetery. It was a spot of 
 great natural beauty, cypress-shadowed and 
 luxuriant. It was justly celebrated in Pineville, 
 and, but for its pretentious tombstones, might 
 have been peaceful and suggestive. Here she 
 recognised a figure just turning from its gate. 
 It was Julia Jeffcourt. 
 
 Her first instinct that she was too late and 
 that her cousin had come to the cemetery to 
 make some arrangements for the impending 
 burial was, however, quickly dissipated by the 
 young girl's manner. 
 
 ' Well, Sally Dows, you here ! who'd have 
 thought of seeing you to-day ? Why, Chet 
 Brooks allowed that you danced every set last 
 night and didn't get home till daylight. And 
 
48 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 you you that are going to show up at another 
 party to-night too ! Well, I reckon I haven't 
 got that much ambition these times. And out 
 with your new bonnet too.' 
 
 There was a slight curl of her handsome 
 lip as she looked at her cousin. She was 
 certainly a more beautiful girl than Miss Sally ; 
 very tall, dark and luminous of eye, with a 
 brunette pallor of complexion, suggesting, it 
 was said, that remote mixture of blood which 
 was one of the unproven counts of Miss Mi- 
 randa's indictment against her family. Miss 
 Sally smiled sweetly behind her big bow. ' If 
 you reckon to tie to everything that Chet 
 Brooks says, you'll want lots of string, and 
 you won't be safe then. You ought have 
 heard him run on about this one, and that one, 
 and that other one, not an hour ago in our 
 parlour. I had to pack him off, saying he 
 was even making Judy's niggers tired.' She 
 stopped and added with polite languor, ' I 
 suppose there's no news up at yo' house either ? 
 Everything's going on as usual and you get 
 yo' California draft regularly ? 
 
 A good deal of the white of Julia's beauti- 
 
COLOtiEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 49 
 
 ful eyes showed as she turned indignantly on 
 the speaker. ' I wish, Cousin Sally, you'd just 
 let up talking to me about that money. You 
 know as well as I do that I allowed to Maw I 
 wouldn't take a cent of it from the first ! I 
 might have had all the gowns and bonnets' 
 (with a look at Miss Sally's bows) ' I wanted 
 from her ; she even offered to take me to St. 
 Louis for a rig out if I'd been willing to take 
 blood money. But I'd rather stick to this old 
 sleazy mou'nin' for Tom ' (she gave a dramatic 
 pluck at her faded black skirt) ' than flaunt 
 round in white muslins and China silks at ten 
 dollars a yard, paid for by his murderer.' 
 
 ' You know black's yo' colour always 
 taking in your height and complexion, Jule,' 
 said Miss Sally demurely, yet not without a 
 feminine consciousness that it really did set off 
 her cousin's graceful figure to perfection. ' But 
 you can't keep up this gait always. You know 
 some day you might come upon this Mr. 
 Corbin.' 
 
 ' He'd better not cross my path,' she said 
 passionately. 
 
 ' I've heard girls talk like that about a man 
 
 E 
 
50 COLONEL STARBOTTLE>S CLIENT 
 
 and then get just green and yellow after him,' 
 said Miss Sally critically. ' But, goodness me ! 
 speaking of meeting people reminds me I clean 
 forgot to stop at the Stage office and see about 
 bringing over the new overseer. Lucky I met 
 you, Jule ! Good-bye, dear. Come in to-night, 
 and we'll all go to the party together.' And 
 with a little nod she ran off before her indignant 
 cousin could frame a suitably crushing reply to 
 her Parthian insinuation. 
 
 But at the Stage office Miss Sally only 
 wrote a few lines on a card, put it in an envelope, 
 which she addressed to Mr. Joseph Corbin, and 
 then seating herself with easy carelessness on 
 a long packing box languidly summoned the 
 proprietor. 
 
 ' You're always on hand yourself at Kirby 
 station when the kyars come in to bring pas- 
 sengers to Pineville, Mr. Sledge ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, Miss.' 
 
 ' Yo' haven't brought any strangers over 
 lately?' 
 
 ' Well, last week Squire Farnham of Green 
 Ridge if he kin be called a stranger as 
 used to live in the very house yo' father 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 51 
 
 ' Yes, I know,' said Miss Sally, impatiently, 
 1 but if an entire stranger comes to take a seat 
 for Pineville, you ask him if that's " his name," ' 
 handing the letter, ' and give it to him if it is. 
 And Mr. Sledge its nobody's business but 
 yours and mine.' 
 
 ' I understand, Miss Sally,' with a slow, 
 paternal, tolerating wink. ' He'll get it, and 
 nobody else, sure.' 
 
 ' Thank you ; I hope Mrs. Sledge is getting 
 round again.' 
 
 ' Pow'fully, Miss Sally.' 
 
 Having thus, as she hoped, stopped the 
 arrival of the unhappy Corbin, Miss Sally 
 returned home to consider the best means of 
 finally disposing of him. She had insisted upon 
 his stopping at Kirby and holding no communi- 
 cation with the Jeffcourts until he heard from 
 her, and had strongly pointed out the hopeless 
 infelicity of his plan. She dare not tell her 
 Aunt Miranda, knowing that she would be too 
 happy to precipitate an interview that would 
 terminate disastrously to both the Jeffcourts 
 and Corbin. She might have to take her father 
 into her confidence a dreadful contingency. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 She was dressed for the evening party, 
 which was provincially early ; indeed, it was 
 scarcely past nine o'clock when she had 
 finished her toilet, when there came a rap 
 at her door. It was one of Mammy Judy's 
 children. 
 
 ' Dey is a gemplum, Miss Sally.' 
 
 1 Yes, yes,' said Miss Sally, impatiently, 
 thinking only of her escort. ' I'll be there in 
 a minute. Run away. He can wait.' 
 
 ' And he said I was to guv yo' dis yer,' con- 
 tinued the little negro with portentous gravity, 
 presenting a card. 
 
 Miss Sally took it with a smile. It was a 
 plain card on which was written with a pencil 
 in a hand she hurriedly recognised : 
 
 ' Joseph Corbin.' 
 
 Miss Sally's smile became hysterically rigid, 
 and pushing the boy aside with a little cry, she 
 darted along the verandah and entered the par- 
 lour from a side door and vestibule. To her 
 momentary relief she saw that her friends had 
 not yet arrived : a single figure a stranger's 
 rose as she entered. 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 53 
 
 Even in her consternation she had time to 
 feel the added shock of disappointment. She 
 had always present in her mind an ideal picture 
 of this man whom she had never seen or even 
 heard described. Joseph Corbin had been 
 tall, dark, with flowing hair and long mous- 
 tache. He had flashing fiery eyes which were 
 capable of being subdued by a single glance 
 of gentleness her own. He was tempestu- 
 ous, quick and passionate, but in quarrel would 
 be led by a smile. He was a combination 
 of an Italian brigand and a poker player 
 whom she had once met on a Mississippi 
 steamboat. He would wear a broad-brimmed 
 soft hat, a red shirt, showing his massive throat 
 and neck and high boots ! Alas ! the man 
 before her was of medium height, with light 
 close-cut hair, hollow cheeks that seemed to 
 have been lately scraped with a razor, and light 
 grey troubled eyes. A suit of cheap black, ill 
 fitting, hastily acquired and provincial even for 
 Pineville, painfully set off these imperfections, 
 to which a white cravat in a hopelessly tied 
 bow r was superadded. A terrible idea that 
 
b4 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 this combination of a country undertaker and 
 an ill-paid circuit preacher on probation was 
 his best holiday tribute to her, and not a 
 funeral offering to Mr. Jeffcourt, took posses- 
 sion of her. And when, with feminine quick- 
 ness, she saw his eyes wander over her own fine 
 clothes and festal figure, and sink again upon 
 the floor in a kind of hopeless disappointment 
 equal to her own, she felt ready to cry. But 
 the more terrible sound of laughter approach- 
 ing the house from the garden recalled her. 
 Her friends were coming. 
 
 ' For Heaven's sake,' she broke out despe- 
 rately, ' didn't you get my note at the station 
 telling you not to come ? ' 
 
 His face grew darker, and then took up its 
 look of hopeless resignation, as if this last mis- 
 fortune was only an accepted part of his greater 
 trouble, as he sat down again, and to Miss 
 Sally's horror, listlessly swung his hat to and 
 fro under his chair. 
 
 ' No,' he said gloomily, ' I didn't go to no 
 station. I walked here all the way from Shelby- 
 ville. I thought it might seem more like the 
 square thing to her for me to do. I sent him 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE*S CLIENT 55 
 
 by express ahead in the box. It's been at the 
 stage office all day.' 
 
 With a sickening conviction that she had 
 been sitting on her cousin's body while she 
 wrote that ill-fated card the young girl managed 
 to gasp out impatiently : 'But you must go 
 yes go now, at once ! Don't talk now, 
 but go.' 
 
 * I didn't come here,' he said, rising with a 
 kind of slow dignity, ' to interfere with things I 
 didn't kalkilate to see,' glancing again at her 
 dress, as the voices came nearer, ' and that I 
 ain't in touch with but to know if you think 
 I'd better bring him or ' 
 
 He did not finish the sentence, for the door 
 had opened suddenly, and a half-dozen laugh- 
 ing girls and their escorts burst into the room. 
 But among them, a little haughty and still 
 irritated from her last interview, was her cousin 
 Julia Jeffcourt, erect and beautiful in a sombre 
 silk. 
 
 ' Go,' repeated Miss Sally, in an agonised 
 whisper. ' You must not be known here.' 
 
 But the attention of Julia had been arrested 
 by her cousin's agitation, and her eye fell on 
 
56 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 Corbin, where it was fixed with some fatal 
 fascination that seemed in turn to enthral and 
 possess him also. To Miss Sally's infinite dis- 
 may the others fell back and allowed these two 
 black figures to stand out, then to move 
 towards each other with the same terrible 
 magnetism. They were so near she could 
 not repeat her warning to him without the 
 others hearing it. And all hope died when 
 Corbin, turning deliberately towards her with a 
 grave gesture in the direction of Julia, said 
 quietly : 
 
 ' Interduce me.' 
 
 Miss Sally hesitated, and then gasped 
 hastily, ' Miss Jeffcourt.' 
 
 ' Yer don't say my name. Tell her I'm 
 Joseph Corbin of 'Frisco, California, who killed 
 her brother.' He stopped and turned towards 
 her. ' I came here to try and fix things again 
 and I've brought him' 
 
 In the wondering silence that ensued the 
 others smiled vacantly, breathlessly, and ex- 
 pectantly, until Corbin advanced and held out 
 his hand, when Julia Jeffcourt, drawing hers 
 back to her bosom with the palms outward, 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 57 
 
 uttered an inarticulate cry and and spat in his 
 face ! 
 
 With that act she found tongue reviling 
 him, the house that harboured him, the insolence 
 that presented him, the insult that had been 
 put upon her ! ' Are you men ? ' she added 
 passionately, ' who stand here with the man 
 before you that killed my brother, and see him 
 offer me his filthy villainous hand and dare 
 not strike him down ! ' 
 
 And they dared not. Violently, blindly, 
 stupidly moved through all their instincts, 
 though they gathered hysterically around him, 
 there was something in his dull self-containment 
 that was unassailable and awful. For he wiped 
 his face and breast with his handkerchief with- 
 out a tremor, and turned to them with even a 
 suggestion of relief. 
 
 ' She's right, gentlemen,' he said gravely. 
 ' She's right. It might have been otherwise. 
 I might have allowed that it might be otherwise 
 but she's right. I'm a Soth'n man myself, 
 gentlemen, and I reckon to understand what she 
 has done. I killed the only man that had a 
 right to stand up for her, and she has now to 
 
58 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 stand up for herself. But if she wants and 
 you see she allows she wants to pass that on 
 to some of you, or all of you, I'm willing. As 
 many as you like, and in what way you like 
 I waive any chyce of weapon I'm ready, 
 gentlemen. I came here with him for that 
 purpose.' 
 
 Perhaps it may have been his fateful resigna- 
 tion ; perhaps it may have been his exceeding 
 readiness but there was no response. He sat 
 down again, and again swung his hat slowly and 
 gloomily to and fro under his chair. 
 
 ' I've got him in a box at the Stage office, 
 he went on apparently to the carpet. ' I had 
 him dug up that I might bring him here, and 
 mebbe bury some of the trouble and difference 
 along with his friends. It might be,' he added, 
 with a slightly glowering upward glance, as 
 to an overruling, but occasionally misdirecting 
 Providence, ' it might be from the way things 
 are piling up on me that someone might have 
 rung in another corpse instead o' him, but so 
 far as I can judge, allowin' for the space of 
 time and nat'ral wear and tear it's him \ ' 
 
 He rose slowly and moved towards the door 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 59 
 
 in a silence that was as much the result of 
 some conviction that any violent demonstration 
 against him would be as grotesque and mon- 
 strous as the situation, as of anything he had 
 said. Even the flashing indignation of Julia 
 Jeffcourt seemed to become suddenly as un- 
 natural and incongruous as her brother's chief 
 mourner himself, and although she shrank from 
 his passing figure she uttered no word. Chester 
 Brooks's youthful emotions, following the ex- 
 pression of Miss Sally's face, lost themselves 
 in a vague hysteric smile, and the other gentle- 
 men looked sheepish. Joseph Corbin halted at 
 the door. 
 
 ' Whatever,' he said, turning to the company, 
 ' ye make up your mind to do about me, I reckon 
 ye'd better do it after the funeral. I'm always 
 ready. But he, what with being in a box and 
 changing climate, had better go first? He 
 paused, and with a suggestion of delicacy in the 
 momentary dropping of his eyelids, added ' for 
 reasons' 
 
 He passed out through the door, on to the 
 portico and thence into the garden. It was 
 noticed at the time that the half-dozen hounds 
 
60 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 lingering there rushed after him with their 
 usual noisy demonstrations, but that they as 
 suddenly stopped, retreated violently to the 
 security of the basement, and there gave relief 
 to their feelings in a succession of prolonged 
 howls. 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'-S CLIENT 61 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT must not be supposed that Miss Sally did 
 not feel some contrition over the ineffective 
 part she had played in this last episode. But 
 Joseph Corbin had committed the unpardonable 
 sin to a woman of destroying her own illogical 
 ideas of him, which was worse than if he had 
 affronted the preconceived ideas of others, in 
 which case she might still defend him. Then, 
 too, she was no longer religious, and had no 
 ' call ' to act as peacemaker. Nevertheless she 
 resented Julia Jeffcourt's insinuations bitterly, 
 and the cousins quarrelled not the first time 
 in their intercourse and it was reserved for 
 the latter to break the news of Corbin's arrival 
 with the body to Mrs. Jeffcourt. 
 
 How this was done and what occurred at 
 that interview has not been recorded. But it 
 was known the next day that, while Mrs. Jeff- 
 court accepted the body at Corbin's hands 
 
62 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 and it is presumed the funeral expenses also 
 he was positively forbidden to appear either at 
 the services at the house or at the church. There 
 had been some wild talk among the younger 
 and many of the lower members of the com- 
 munity, notably the ' poor ' non-slave-holding 
 whites of tarring and feathering Joseph 
 Corbin, and riding him on a rail out of the 
 town on the day of the funeral, as a propitiatory 
 sacrifice to the manes of Thomas Jeffcourt ; but 
 it being pointed out by the undertaker that it 
 might involve some uncertainty in the settle- 
 ment of his bill, together with some reasonable 
 doubt of the thorough resignation of Corbin, 
 whose previous momentary aberration in that 
 respect they were celebrating, the project was 
 postponed until after the funeral. And here 
 an unlooked-for incident occurred. 
 
 There was to be a political meeting at 
 Kirby on that day, when certain distinguished 
 Southern leaders had gathered from the re- 
 moter Southern States. At the instigation of 
 Captain Dows it was adjourned at the hour of 
 the funeral to enable members to attend, and it 
 was even rumoured, to the great delight of 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE' S CLIENT 63 
 
 Pineville, that a distinguished speaker or two 
 might come over to ' improve the occasion ' 
 with some slight allusion to the engrossing topic 
 of ' Southern Rights.' This combined appeal 
 to the domestic and political emotions of Pine- 
 ville was irresistible. The Second Baptist 
 Church was crowded. After the religious 
 service there was a pause, and Judge Reed 
 stepping forward amid a breathless silence said 
 that they were peculiarly honoured by the un- 
 expected presence in their midst ' of that 
 famous son of the South, Colonel Starbottle,' 
 who had lately returned to his native soil from 
 his adopted home in California. Every eye 
 was fixed on the distinguished stranger as he 
 rose. 
 
 Jaunty and gallant as ever, femininely 
 smooth faced, yet polished and high coloured 
 as a youthful mask ; pectorally expansive, and 
 unfolding the white petals of his waistcoat 
 through the swollen lapels of his coat, like a 
 bursting magnolia bud, Colonel Starbottle 
 began. The present associations were, he 
 might say, singularly hallowed to him ; not 
 only was Pineville a Southern centre the 
 
64 COLONEL STARBOTTLB'S CLIENT 
 
 recognised nursery of Southern chivalry, South* 
 ern beauty (a stately inclination to the pew 
 in which Miss Sally and Julia Jeffcourt sat), 
 Southern intelligence, and Southern indepen- 
 dence, but it was the home of the lamented 
 dead who had been, like himself and another 
 he should refer to later, an adopted citizen of 
 the Golden State, a seeker of the Golden 
 Fleece, a companion of Jason. It was the 
 home, fellow-citizens and friends, of the sorrow- 
 ing sister of the deceased, a young lady whom 
 he, the speaker, had as yet known only through 
 the chivalrous blazon of her virtues and graces 
 by her attendant knights (a courteous wave 
 towards the gallery where Joyce Masterton, 
 Chester Brooks, Calhoun Bungsstarter, and the 
 embattled youth generally of Pineville became 
 empurpled and idiotic) ; it was the home of 
 the afflicted widowed mother, also personally 
 unknown to him, but with whom he might say 
 he had had er er professional correspon- 
 dence. But it was not this alone that hallowed 
 the occasion, it was a sentiment that should 
 speak in trumpet-like tones throughout the 
 South in this uprising of an united section, 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 65 
 
 It was the forgetfulness of petty strife, of family 
 feud, of personal wrongs in the claims of party ! 
 It might not be known that he, the speaker, 
 was professionally cognisant of one of these 
 regrettable should he say accidents arising 
 from the chivalrous challenge and equally chi- 
 valrous response of two fiery Southern spirits, 
 to which they primarily owe their coming here 
 that day. And he should take it as his duty, his 
 solemn duty, in that sacred edifice to proclaim 
 to the world that in his knowledge as a pro- 
 fessional man as a man of honour, as a 
 Southerner, as a gentleman, that the er 
 circumstances which three years ago led to 
 the early demise of our lamented friend and 
 brother reflected only the highest credit equally 
 on both of the parties. He said this on his 
 own responsibility in or out of this sacred 
 edifice and in or out of that sacred edifice he 
 was personally responsible, and prepared to 
 give the fullest satisfaction for it. He was 
 also aware that it might not be known or 
 understood that since that boyish episode the 
 survivor had taken the place of the departed 
 in the bereaved family and ministered to their 
 
 F 
 
66 COLONEL STARBOTTLE[S CLIENT 
 
 needs with counsel and er er pecuniary aid, 
 and had followed the body afoot across the 
 continent that it might rest with its kindred 
 dust. He was aware that an unchristian he 
 would say but for that sacred edifice a dastardly 
 attempt had been made to impugn the sur- 
 vivor's motives to suggest an unseemly dis- 
 cord between him and the family, but he, the 
 speaker, would never forget the letter breath- 
 ing with Christian forgiveness and replete with 
 angelic simplicity sent by a member of that 
 family to his client, which came under his pro- 
 fessional eye (here the professional eye for a 
 moment lingered on the hysteric face of Miss 
 Sally) ; he did not envy the head or heart of a 
 man who could peruse these lines of which the 
 mere recollection er er choked the utterance 
 of even a professional man like er himself 
 without emotion. ' And what, my friends and 
 fellow-citizens,' suddenly continued the Colonel, 
 replacing his white handkerchief in his coat 
 tail, ' was the reason why my client, Mr. Joseph 
 Corbin whose delicacy keeps him from ap- 
 pearing among these mourners comes here 
 to bury all differences, all animosities, all petty 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 67 
 
 passions ? Because he is a son of the South ; 
 because as a son of the South, as the repre- 
 sentative, and a distant connection, I believe, of 
 my old political friend, Major Corbin, of Nash- 
 ville, he wishes here and everywhere, at this 
 momentous crisis, to sink everything in the 
 one all-pervading, all-absorbing, one and indi- 
 visible unity of the South in its resistance to 
 the Northern Usurper! That, my friends, is the 
 great, the solemn, the Christian lesson of this 
 most remarkable occasion in my professional, 
 political, and social experience ! ' 
 
 Whatever might have been the calmer 
 opinion, there was no doubt that the gallant 
 Colonel had changed the prevailing illogical 
 emotion of Pineville by the substitution of 
 another equally illogical, and Miss Sally was 
 not surprised when her father, touched by the 
 Colonel's allusion to his daughter's epistolary 
 powers, insisted upon bringing Joseph Corbin 
 home with him, and offering him the hospitality 
 of the Dows' mansion. Although the stranger 
 seemed to yield rather from the fact that the 
 Dows were relations of the Jeffcourts than 
 from any personal preference, when he was 
 
 F 2 
 
5 OLONEL STAKBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 fa rly installed in one of the appropriately 
 jomy guest chambers, Miss Sally set about 
 the delayed work of reconciliation theoretically 
 accepted by her father, and cynically tolerated 
 by her Aunt Miranda. But here a difficulty 
 arose which she had not foreseen. Although 
 Corbin had evidently forgiven her defection on 
 that memorable evening, he had not apparently 
 got over the revelation of her giddy worldliness, 
 and was resignedly apathetic and distrustful of 
 her endeavours. She was at first amused, and 
 then angry. And her patience was exhausted 
 when she discovered that he actually seemed 
 more anxious to conciliate Julia Jeffcourt than 
 her mother. 
 
 ' But she spat in your face,' she said, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 ' That's so,' he replied, gloomily ; ' but I 
 reckoned you said something in one of your 
 letters about turning the other cheek when you 
 were smitten. Of course, as you don't believe 
 it now,' he added with his upward glance, ' I 
 suppose that's been played on me, too.' 
 
 But here Miss Sally's spirit lazily rebelled. 
 
 ' Look here, Mr. Joseph Jeremiah Corbin,' 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 69 
 
 she returned with languid impertinence, ' if 
 instead of cavortin' round on yo' knees trying 
 to conciliate an old woman who never had a 
 stroke of luck till you killed her son, and a 
 young girl who won't be above letting on afore 
 you think it that your conciliatin' her means 
 sparkiri her if instead of that foolishness 
 you'd turn your hand to trying to conciliate 
 the folks here and keep 'em from going into 
 that fool's act of breaking up these United 
 States ; if instead of digging up second-hand 
 corpses that's already been put out of sight 
 once you'd set to work to try and prevent the 
 folks about here from digging up their old 
 cranks and their old whims, and their old 
 women fancies, you'd be doing something 
 like a Christian and a man ! What's yo' blood- 
 guiltiness I'd like to know alongside of the 
 blood-guiltiness of those fools who are just wild 
 to rush into it, led by such turkey cocks as yo' 
 friend Colonel Starbottle ? And you've been 
 five years in California a free State and 
 that's all yo've toted out of it a dead body ! 
 There now, don't sit there and swing yo' hat 
 under that chyar, but rouse out and come along 
 
70 COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 
 
 with me to the pawty if you can shake a foot, 
 and show Miss Pinkney and the gyrls yo' fit for 
 something mo' than to skirmish round as a 
 black japanned spittoon for Julia Jeffcourt!' 
 It is not recorded that Corbin accepted this 
 cheerful invitation, but for a few days after- 
 wards he was more darkly observant of, and 
 respectful to, Miss Sally. Strange indeed if 
 he had not noticed although always in his 
 resigned fashion the dull green stagnation of 
 the life around him, or when not accepting it 
 as part of his trouble he had not chafed at the 
 arrested youth and senile childishness of the 
 people. Stranger still if he had not at times 
 been startled to hear the outgrown superstitions 
 and follies of his youth voiced again by grown- 
 up men, and perhaps strangest of all if he had 
 not vaguely accepted it all as the hereditary 
 curse of that barbarism under which he himself 
 had survived and suffered. 
 
 The reconciliation between himself and 
 Mrs. Jeffcourt was superficially effected, so far 
 as a daily visit by him to the house indicated 
 it to the community, but it was also known that 
 Julia was invariably absent on these occasions. 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 71 
 
 What happened at those interviews did not 
 transpire, but it may be surmised that Mrs. 
 Jeffcourt, perhaps recognising the fact that 
 Corbin was really giving her all that he had to 
 give, or possibly having some lurking fear of 
 Colonel Starbottle, was so far placated as to 
 exhibit only the average ingratitude of her 
 species towards a regular benefactor. She 
 consented to the erection of a small obelisk 
 over her son's grave, and permitted Corbin to 
 plant a few flowering shrubs, which he daily 
 visited and took care of. It is said that on 
 one of these pilgrimages he encountered Miss 
 Julia apparently on the same errand who 
 haughtily retired. It was further alleged, on 
 the authority of one of Mammy Judy's little 
 niggers, that those two black mourning figures 
 had been seen at nightfall sitting opposite to 
 each other at the head and foot of the grave, 
 and ' glowerin ' at one another ' like two hants.' 
 But when it was asserted on the same authority 
 that their voices had been later overheard up- 
 lifted in some vehement discussion over the 
 grave of the impassive dead, great curiosity 
 was aroused. Being pressed by the eager 
 
72 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 Miss Sally to repeat some words or any words 
 he had heard them say, the little witness glibly 
 replied, ' Marse Linkum' (Lincoln) and 'The 
 Souf/ and so, for the time, shipwrecked his 
 testimony. But it was recalled six months 
 afterwards. It was then that a pleasant spring 
 day brought madness and enthusiasm to a 
 majority of Pineville, and bated breath and 
 awe to a few, and it was known with the tidings 
 that the South had appealed to arms, that 
 among those who had first responded to the 
 call was Joseph Corbin, an alleged ' Union 
 man,' who had, however, volunteered to take 
 that place in her ranks which might have been 
 filled by the man he had killed. And then 
 people forgot all about him. 
 
 A year passed. It was the same place ; 
 the old familiar outlines of home and garden 
 and landscape. But seen now, in the choking 
 breathlessness of haste, in the fitful changing 
 flashes of life and motion around it, in intervals 
 of sharp suspense or dazed bewilderment, it 
 seemed to be recognised no longer. Men who 
 had known it all their lives, hurrying to the 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 73 
 
 front in compact masses, scurrying to the rear 
 in straggling line, or opening their ranks to let 
 artillery gallop by, stared at it vaguely, and 
 clattered or scrambled on again. The smoke 
 of a masked battery in the woods struggled 
 and writhed to free itself from the clinging tree- 
 tops behind it, and sank back into a grey en- 
 compassing cloud. The dust thrown up by a 
 column of passing horse poured over the wall 
 in one long wave, and whitened the garden 
 with its ashes. Throughout the dim empty 
 house one no longer heard the sound of cannon, 
 only a dull intermittent concussion was felt, 
 silently bringing flakes of plaster from the 
 walls, or sliding fragments of glass from the 
 shattered windows. A shell, lifted from the 
 ominous distance, hung uncertain in the air 
 and then descended swiftly through the roof; 
 the whole house dilated with flame for an 
 instant, smoke rolled slowly from the windows, 
 and even the desolate chimneys started into a 
 hideous mockery of life, and then all was still 
 again. At such awful intervals the sun shone 
 out brightly, touched the green of the still 
 sleeping woods and the red and white of a 
 
74 COLONEL STARBOTTLE^S CLIENT 
 
 flower in the garden, and something in a grey 
 uniform writhed out of the dust of the road, 
 staggered to the wall and died. 
 
 A mile down this road, growing more and 
 more obscure with those rising and falling appari- 
 tions or the shapeless and rugged heaps terrible 
 in their helpless inertia by hedge and fence, 
 arose the cemetery hill. Taken and retaken 
 thrice that afternoon, the dead above it far 
 outnumbered the dead below ; and when at 
 last the tide of battle swept around its base 
 into the dull, reverberating woods, and it 
 emerged from the smoke, silenced and aban- 
 doned, only a few stragglers remained. One 
 of them, leaning on his musket, was still 
 gloomily facing the woods. 
 
 ' Joseph Corbin,' said a low, hurried 
 voice. 
 
 He started and glanced quickly at the 
 tombs around him. Perhaps it was because 
 he had been thinking of the dead but the 
 voice sounded like his. Yet it was only the 
 sister, who had glided, pale and haggard, from 
 the thicket. 
 
 ' They are coming through the woods/ she 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTL&S CLIENT 75 
 
 said quickly. ' Run, or you'll be taken. Why 
 do you linger ? ' 
 
 ' You know why, 1 he said gloomily. 
 
 ' Yes, but you have done yo' duty. You 
 have done his work. The task is finished 
 now, and yo' free.' 
 
 He did not reply, but remained gazing at 
 the woods. 
 
 ' Joseph,' she said more gently, laying her 
 trembling hand on his arm, ' Joseph, fly 
 and take me with you. For I was wrong, and 
 I want you to forgive me. I knew your heart 
 was not in this, and I ought not to have asked 
 you. Joseph listen ! I never wanted to 
 avenge myself nor him when I spat on your 
 face. I wanted to avenge myself on her. I 
 hated her, because I thought she wanted to 
 work upon you and use you for herself.' 
 
 ' Your mother,' he said, looking at her. 
 
 ' No,' she said, with widely opened eyes ; 
 ' you know who I mean Miss Sally.' 
 
 He looked at her wonderingly for a mo- 
 ment, but quickly bent his head again in the 
 direction of the road. ' They are coming, 1 he 
 said, starting. 'You must go. This is no 
 
76 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 place for you. Stop ! it's too late ; you cannot 
 go now until they have passed. Come here 
 crouch down here over this grave so.' 
 
 He almost forced her kneeling down 
 upon the mound below the level of the shrubs, 
 and then ran quickly himself a few paces lower 
 down the hill to a more exposed position. 
 She understood it. He wished to attract at- 
 tention to himself. He was successful a few 
 hurried shots followed from the road, but 
 struck above him. 
 
 He clambered back quickly to where she 
 was still crouching. 
 
 ' They were the vedettes,' he said, ' but they 
 have fallen back on the main skirmish line 
 and will be here in force in a moment. Go 
 while you can.' She had not moved. He tried 
 to raise her her hat fell off he saw blood 
 oozing from where the vedette's bullet that had 
 missed him had pierced her brain. 
 
 And yet he saw in that pale dead face only 
 the other face which he remembered now had 
 been turned like this towards his own. It 
 was very strange. And this was the end, and 
 this was his expiation ! He raised his own 
 
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 77 
 
 face humbly, blindly, despairingly to the in- 
 scrutable sky ; it looked back upon him from 
 above as coldly as the dead face had from 
 below. 
 
 Yet out of this he struck a faint idea that 
 he voiced aloud in nearly the same words 
 which he had used to Colonel Starbottle only 
 three years ago. ' It was with his own pistol 
 too/ he said, and took up his musket. 
 
 He walked deliberately down the hill, occa- 
 sionally trying the stock of his musket in the 
 loose earth, and at last suddenly remained mo- 
 tionless, in the attitude of leaning over it. At 
 the same moment there was a distant shout ; 
 two thin parallel streams of blue and steel 
 came issuing through the woods like a river, 
 appeared to join tumultuously in the open 
 before the hill, and out of the tumult a 
 mounted officer called upon him to surrender. 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 ' Come down from there, Johnny Reb, I 
 want to speak to you,' called a young corporal. 
 
 He did not move. 
 
 '.It's time to go home, Johnny.' 
 
 No response. 
 
78 COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT 
 
 The officer who had been holding down 
 his men with an unsworded but masterful 
 hand, raised it suddenly. A dozen shots fol- 
 lowed. The men leaped forward, and dashing 
 Corbin contemptuously aside streamed up the 
 hill past him. 
 
 But he had neither heard nor cared. For 
 they found he had already deliberately transfixed 
 himself through the heart on his own bayonet. 
 
79 
 
 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL 
 RUN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE mail stage had just passed Laurel Run. 
 So rapidly that the whirling cloud of dust 
 dragged with it down the steep grade from 
 the summit hung over the level long after the 
 stage had vanished, and then, drifting away, 
 slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot 
 platform of the Laurel Run Post Office. 
 
 Out of this cloud presently emerged the 
 neat figure of the Postmistress with the mail 
 bag which had been dexterously flung at her 
 feet from the top of the passing vehicle. A 
 dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their 
 hands to assist her, but the warning : 'It's agin 
 the rules, boys, for any but her to touch it,' 
 from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of 
 the head from the Postmistress herself much 
 
So THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL 
 
 more effective than any official interdict 
 withheld them. The bag was not heavy 
 Laurel Run was too recent a settlement to 
 have attracted much correspondence and the 
 young wcfman, having pounced upon her prey 
 with a certain feline instinct, dragged it, not 
 without difficulty, behind the partitioned en- 
 closure in the office, and locked the door. 
 Her pretty face, momentarily visible through 
 the window, was slightly flushed with the 
 exertion, and the loose ends of her fair hair, 
 wet with perspiration, curled themselves over 
 her forehead into tantalising little rings. But 
 the window shutter was quickly closed, and 
 this momentary but charming vision withdrawn 
 from the waiting public. 
 
 ' Guv'ment oughter have more sense than 
 to make a woman pick mail bags outer the road,' 
 said Jo Simmons, sympathetically. ' 'Tain't in 
 her day's work anyhow ; Guv'ment oughter 
 hand 'em over to her like a lady ; it's rich 
 enough and ugly enough.' 
 
 ' 'Tain't Guv'ment ; it's that Stage Com- 
 pany's airs and graces,' interrupted a newcomer. 
 ' They think it mighty fine to go beltin' by, 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 81 
 
 makin' everybody take their dust just because 
 stoppin ain't in their contract. Why, if that 
 express-man who chucked down the bag had 
 any feelin's for a lady ' but he stopped here 
 at the amused faces of his auditors. 
 
 ' Guess you don't know much o' that ex- 
 press-man's feelin's, stranger,' said Simmons 
 grimly. ' Why, you oughter see him just 
 nussin' that bag like a baby as he comes tearin' 
 down the grade, and then rise up and sorter 
 heave it to Mrs. Baker ez if it was a five-dollar 
 bokay ! His feelin's for her! Why, he's give 
 himself so dead away to her that we're looking 
 for him to forget what he's doin' next, and just 
 come sailin' down hisself at her feet.' 
 
 Meanwhile, on the other side of the parti- 
 tion, Mrs. Baker had brushed the red dust 
 from the padlocked bag, and removed what 
 seemed to be a supplementary package attached 
 to it by a wire. Opening it she found a hand- 
 some scent-bottle, evidently a superadded gift 
 from the devoted express-man. This she put 
 aside with a slight smile and the murmured 
 word, ' Foolishness.' But when she had un- 
 locked the bag, even its sacred interior was 
 
 G 
 
82 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 also profaned by a covert parcel from the ad- 
 jacent Postmaster at Burnt Ridge, containing 
 a gold ' specimen ' brooch and some circus 
 tickets. It was laid aside with the other. 
 This also was vanity and presumably vexa- 
 tion of spirit. 
 
 There were seventeen letters in all, of 
 which five were for herself and yet the pro- 
 portion was small that morning. Two of them 
 were marked ' Official business,' and were 
 promptly put by with feminine discernment ; 
 but in another compartment than that holding 
 the presents. Then the shutter was opened, 
 and the task of delivery commenced. 
 
 It was accompanied with a social peculiarity 
 that had in time become a habit of Laurel Run. 
 As the young woman delivered the letters, in 
 turn, to the men who were patiently drawn up 
 in Indian file, she made that simple act a me- 
 dium of privileged but limited conversation 
 on special or general topics gay or serious 
 as the case might be or the temperament of 
 the man suggested. That it was almost always 
 of a complimentary character on their part may 
 be readily imagined ; but it was invariably 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 83 
 
 characterised by an element of refined restraint, 
 and, whether from some implied understanding 
 or individual sense of honour, it never passed 
 the bounds of conventionality or a certain deli- 
 cacy of respect. The delivery was consequently 
 more or less protracted, but when each man 
 had exchanged his three or four minutes' con- 
 versation with the fair Postmistress a con- 
 versation at times impeded by bashfulness or 
 timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often 
 to vague smiling he resignedly made way for 
 the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by 
 the informality of rustic tact, great good-humour, 
 and infinite patience, and would have been 
 amusing had it not always been terribly in 
 earnest and at times touching. For it was 
 peculiar to the place and the epoch, and indeed 
 implied the whole history of Mrs. Baker. 
 
 She was the wife of John Baker, foreman of 
 ' The Last Chance,' now for a year lying dead 
 under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in 
 tunnel at Burnt Ridge. There had been a 
 sudden outcry from the depths at high hot 
 noontide one day, and John had rushed from 
 his cabin his young, foolish, flirting wife 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 clinging to him to answer that despairing 
 cry of his imprisoned men. There was one 
 exit that he alone knew which might be yet 
 held open, among falling walls and tottering 
 timbers, long enough to set them free. For 
 one moment only the strong man hesitated 
 between her entreating arms and his brothers' 
 despairing cry. But she rose suddenly with a 
 pale face, and said, ' Go, John ; I will wait for 
 you here.' He went, the men were freed but 
 she had waited for him ever since ! 
 
 Yet in the shock of the calamity and in the 
 after struggles of that poverty which had come 
 to the ruined camp, she had scarcely changed. 
 But the men had. Although she was to all 
 appearances the same giddy, pretty Betsy 
 Baker, who had been so disturbing to the' 
 younger members, they seemed to be no longer 
 disturbed by her. A certain subdued awe and 
 respect, as if the martyred spirit of John 
 Baker still held his arm around her, appeared 
 to have come upon them all. They held their 
 breath as this pretty woman whose brief 
 mourning had not seemed to affect her 
 cheerfulness or even playfulness of spirit, 
 
passed before them. But she stood by her 
 cabin and the camp the only woman in a 
 settlement of forty men during the darkest 
 hours of their fortune. Helping them to wash 
 and cook, and ministering to their domestic 
 needs, the sanctity of her cabin was, however, 
 always kept as inviolable as if it had been his 
 tomb. No one exactly knew why, for it was 
 only a tacit instinct ; but even one or two who 
 had not scrupled to pay court to Betsy Baker 
 during John Baker's life, shrank from even a 
 suggestion of familiarity towards the woman who 
 had said that she would 'wait for him there.' 
 
 When brighter days came and the settle- 
 ment had increased by one or two families, and 
 laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve 
 the still beleaguered and locked-up wealth of 
 Burnt Ridge, the needs of the community and 
 the claims of the widow of John Baker were 
 so well told in political quarters that the post 
 office of Laurel Run was created expressly for 
 her. Every man participated in the building 
 of the pretty yet substantial edifice the only 
 public building of Laurel Run that stood in 
 the dust of the great highway, half a mile from 
 
86 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 the settlement. There she was installed for 
 certain hours of the day, for she could not be 
 prevailed upon to abandon John's cabin, and 
 here, with all the added respect due to a public 
 functionary, she was secure in her privacy. 
 
 But the blind devotion of Laurel Run to 
 John Baker's relict did not stop here. In its 
 zeal to assure the Government authorities of 
 the necessity for a post office, and to secure a 
 permanent competency to the Postmistress, 
 there was much embarrassing extravagance. 
 During the first week the sale of stamps at 
 Laurel Run Post Office was unprecedented in 
 the annals of the Department. Fancy prices 
 were given for the first issue ; then they were 
 bought wildly, recklessly, unprofitably, and on 
 all occasions. Complimentary congratulation 
 at the little window invariably ended with 
 ' and a dollar's worth of stamps, Mrs. Baker.' It 
 was felt to be supremely delicate to buy only 
 the highest priced stamps, without reference 
 to their adequacy ; then mere quantity was 
 sought ; then outgoing letters were all over- 
 paid and stamped in outrageous proportion 
 to their weight and even size. The imbecility 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 87 
 
 of this, and its probable effect on the reputa- 
 tion of Laurel Run at the General Post Office, 
 being pointed out by Mrs. Baker, stamps were 
 adopted as local currency, and even for decora- 
 tive purposes on mirrors and the walls of 
 cabins. Everybody wrote letters, with the re- 
 sult, however, that those sent were ludicrously 
 and suspiciously in excess of those received. 
 To obviate this, select parties made forced 
 journeys to Hickory Hill, the next post office, 
 with letters and circulars addressed to them- 
 selves at Laurel Run. How long the extra- 
 vagance would have continued is not known, 
 but it was not until it was rumoured that, in 
 consequence of this excessive flow of business, 
 the Department had concluded that a post- 
 master would be better fitted for the place that 
 it abated, and a compromise was effected with 
 the General Office by a permanent salary to 
 the Postmistress. 
 
 Such was the history of Mrs. Baker, who 
 had just finished her afternoon levee, nodded a 
 smiling ' good-bye ' to her last customer, and 
 closed her shutter again. Then she took up 
 her own letters, but, before reading them, 
 
88 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 glanced, with a pretty impatience, at the two 
 official envelopes addressed to herself, which 
 she had shelved. They were generally a ' lot 
 of new rules,' or notifications, or 'absurd ' 
 questions which had nothing to do with Laurel 
 Run and only bothered her and ' made her 
 head ache,' and she had usually referred them 
 to her admiring neighbour at Hickory Hill for 
 explanation, who had generally returned them 
 to her with the brief endorsement, ' Purp stuff, 
 don't bother,' or, ' Hog wash, let it slide.' She 
 remembered now that he had not returned the 
 last two. With knitted brows and a slight 
 pout she put aside her private correspondence 
 and tore open the first one. It referred with 
 official curtness to an unanswered communica- 
 tion of the previous week, and was ' compelled 
 to remind her of rule 47.' Again those horrid 
 rules ! She opened the other ; the frown 
 deepened on her brow, and became fixed. 
 
 It was a summary of certain valuable money 
 letters that had miscarried on the route, and of 
 which they had given her previous information. 
 For a moment her cheeks blazed. How dare 
 they ; what did they mean ! Her waybills and 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 89 
 
 register were always right ; she knew the names 
 of every man, woman, and child in her district ; 
 no such names as those borne by the missing 
 letters had ever existed at Laurel Run ; no 
 such addresses had ever been sent from Laurel 
 Run Post Office. It was a mean insinuation ! 
 She would send in her resignation at once ! 
 She would get ' the boys ' to write an insulting 
 letter to Senator Slocumb Mrs. Baker had 
 the feminine idea of Government as a purely 
 personal institution and she would find out 
 who it was that had put them up to this prying, 
 crawling impudence ! It was probably that wall- 
 eyed old wife of the Postmaster at Heavy Tree 
 Crossing, who was jealous of her. ' Remind 
 her of their previous unanswered communica- 
 tion,' indeed ! Where was that communication, 
 anyway ? She remembered she had sent it to 
 her admirer at Hickory Hill. Odd that he 
 hadn't answered it. Of course, he knew all 
 about this meanness could he, too, have dared 
 to suspect her ! The thought turned her 
 crimson again. He, Stanton Green, was an 
 old ' Laurel Runner,' a friend of John's, a little 
 ' trirlin' ' and ' presoomin',' but still an old loyal 
 
90 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 pioneer of the camp ! ' Why hadn't he spoke 
 up?' 
 
 There was the soft, muffled fall of a horse's 
 hoof in the thick dust of the highway, the 
 jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread 
 on the platform. No doubt one of the boys 
 returning for a few supplemental remarks under 
 the feeble pretence of forgotten stamps. It 
 had been done before, and she had resented it 
 as ' cayotin' round ; ' but now she was eager to 
 pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She 
 had her hand impulsively on the door of the 
 partition, when she stopped with a new sense 
 of her impaired dignity. Could she confess 
 this to her worshippers ? But here the door 
 opened in her very face, and a stranger 
 entered. 
 
 He was a man of fifty, compactly and 
 strongly built. A squarely-cut goatee, slightly 
 streaked with grey, fell straight from his thin- 
 lipped but handsome mouth ; his eyes were 
 dark, humorous, yet searching. But the dis- 
 tinctive quality that struck Mrs. Baker was 
 the blending of urban ease with frontier frank- 
 ness. He was evidently a man who had seen 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 91 
 
 cities and knew countries as well. And while 
 he was dressed with the comfortable simplicity 
 of a Californian mounted traveller, her in- 
 experienced but feminine eye detected the 
 keynote of his respectability in the carefully- 
 tied bow of his cravat. The Sierrean throat 
 was apt to be open, free, and unfettered. 
 
 ' Good morning, Mrs. Baker,' he said, 
 pleasantly, with his hat already in his hand. 
 ' I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco.' As he 
 spoke his eye swept approvingly over the neat 
 enclosure, the primly-tied papers, and well-kept 
 pigeon-holes ; the pot of flowers on her desk ; 
 her china-silk mantle, and killing little chip hat 
 and ribbons hanging against the wall ; thence 
 to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, 
 tendrilled clinging hair, and then fell upon the 
 leathern mail bag still lying across the table. 
 Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire 
 of the amorous express-man that yet remained 
 hanging from the brass wards of the lock, and 
 he reached his hand toward it. 
 
 But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and 
 had seized it in her arms. She had been too 
 pre-occupied and bewildered to resent his first 
 
92 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 intrusion behind the partition, but this last 
 familiarity with her sacred official property 
 albeit empty capped the climax of her 
 wrongs. 
 
 ' How dare you touch it ! ' she said, in- 
 dignantly. ' How dare you come in here ! 
 Who are you, anyway ? Go outside, at 
 once ! ' 
 
 The stranger fell back with an amused, 
 deprecatory gesture, and a long, silent laugh. 
 ' I'm afraid you don't know me, after all ! ' he 
 said, pleasantly. ' I'm Harry Home, the De- 
 partment Agent from the San Francisco office. 
 My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on 
 the envelope, seems to have miscarried too.' 
 
 Even in her fright and astonishment it 
 flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she had sent 
 that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with 
 it all the feminine secretive instinct within 
 her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept 
 silent. 
 
 ' I ought to have explained,' he went on 
 smilingly ; ' but you are quite right, Mrs. 
 Baker,' he added, nodding towards the bag. 
 ' As far as you knew, I had no business to go 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 93 
 
 near it. Glad to see you know how to defend 
 Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a 
 bit puzzled to know ' (pointing to the wire) ' if 
 that thing was on the bag when it was delivered 
 to you ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the 
 truth. After all, this official was a man like 
 the others, and it was just as well that he 
 should understand her power. ' It's only the 
 express-man's foolishness,' she said, with a 
 slightly coquettish toss of her head. ' He 
 thinks it smart to tie some nonsense on that 
 bag with the wire when he flings it down.' 
 
 Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, 
 seemed to think it a not inhuman or unpardon- 
 able folly. ' As long as he doesn't meddle with 
 the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put 
 up with it,' he said, laughingly. A dreadful 
 recollection that the Hickory Hill Postmaster 
 had used the inside of the bag to convey his 
 foolishness, came across her. It would never 
 do to confess it now. Her face must have 
 shown some agitation, for the official resumed 
 with a half-paternal, half-reassuring air : ' But 
 enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come 
 
94 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 to my business here. Briefly, then, it doesn't 
 concern you in the least, except so far as it may 
 relieve you and some others, whom the Depart 
 ment knows equally well, from a certain re- 
 sponsibility, and, perhaps, anxiety. We are 
 pretty well posted down there in all that 
 concerns Laurel Run, and I think ' (with a 
 slight bow), ' we've known all about you and 
 John Baker. My only business here is to take 
 your place to-night in receiving the " Omnibus 
 Way Bag," that you know arrives here at 9.30, 
 doesn't it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Baker, hurriedly ; ' but 
 
 it never has anything for us, except ' (she 
 
 caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as 
 she remembered the sighing Green's occasional 
 offerings), 'except a notification from Hickory 
 Hill Post Office. It leaves there,' she went on 
 with an affectation of precision, ' at half- past 
 eight exactly, and it's about an hour's run 
 seven miles by road.' 
 
 ' Exactly,' said Mr. Home. ' Well, 7 will 
 receive the bag, open it, and despatch it again. 
 You can, if you choose, take a holiday.' 
 
 ' But,' said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered 
 
95 
 
 that Laurel Run always made a point of attend- 
 ing her evening levee on account of the superior 
 leisure it offered, ' there are the people who 
 come for letters, you know.' 
 
 ' I thought you said there were no letters at 
 that time,' said Mr. Home, quickly. 
 
 ' No but but ' (with a slight hysterical 
 stammer) ' the boys come all the same.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Mr. Home, dryly. 
 
 ' And O Lord ! ' But here the spectacle 
 of the possible discomfiture of Laurel Run at 
 meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead 
 of her own smooth cheeks, at the window, 
 combined with her nervous excitement, over- 
 came her so that, throwing her little frilled 
 apron over her head, she gave way to a 
 paroxysm of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home 
 waited with amused toleration for it to stop, 
 and, when she had recovered, resumed. ' Now, 
 I should like to refer an instant to my first 
 communication to you. Have you got it 
 handy ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Baker's face fell. ' No : I sent it over 
 o Mr. Green, of Hickory Hill, for informa- 
 ion,' 
 
96 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 ' What ! ' 
 
 Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the 
 man's voice, she managed to gasp out, however, 
 that, after her usual habit, she had not opened 
 the official letters, but had sent them to her 
 more experienced colleague for advice and 
 information ; that she never could understand 
 them herself they made her head ache, and 
 interfered with her other duties but he under- 
 stood them, and sent her word what to do. 
 Remembering also his usual style of endorse- 
 ment, she grew red again. 
 ' And what did he say ? ' 
 ' Nothing ; he didn't return them.' 
 ' Naturally,' said Mr. Home, with a peculiar 
 expression. After a few moments' silent 
 stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the 
 frightened woman. 
 
 ' You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more 
 frankly to you than I had intended. You have 
 unwittingly, I believe given information to 
 a man whom the Government suspects of 
 peculation. You have, without knowing it, 
 warned the Postmaster at Hickory Hill that he 
 is suspected ; and, as you might have frustrated 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 97 
 
 our plans for tracing a series of embezzlements 
 to their proper source, you will see that you 
 might have also done great wrong to yourself 
 as his only neighbour and the next responsible 
 person. In plain words, we have traced the 
 disappearance of money letters to a point when 
 it lies between these two offices. Now, I have 
 not the least hesitation in telling you that we 
 do not suspect Laurel Run, and never have 
 suspected it. Even the result of your thought- 
 less act, although it warned him, confirms our 
 suspicion of his guilt. As to the warning, it 
 has failed, or he has grown reckless, for another 
 letter has been missed since. To-night, how- 
 ever, will settle all doubt in the matter. When 
 I open that bag in this office to-night, and do 
 not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was 
 last checked at Heavy tree Crossing, I shall 
 know that it remains in Green's possession at 
 Hickory Hill.' 
 
 She was sitting back in her chair, white and 
 breathless. He glanced at her kindly, and 
 then took up his hat. ' Come, Mrs. Baker 
 don't let this worry you. As I told you at first, 
 you have nothing to fear. Even your thought- 
 
 H 
 
98 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 lessness and ignorance of rules have contri- 
 buted to show your own innocence. Nobody 
 will ever be the wiser for this ; we do not 
 advertise our affairs in the Department. Not 
 a soul but yourself knows the real cause of my 
 visit here. I will leave you here alone for a 
 while, so as to divert any suspicion. You will 
 come, as usual, this evening, and be seen by 
 your friends ; I will only be here when the bag 
 arrives, to open it. Good-bye, Mrs. Baker ; it's 
 a nasty bit of business, but it's all in the day's 
 work. I've seen worse, and, thank God, you're 
 out of it.' 
 
 She heard his footsteps retreat into the 
 outer office and die out of the platform ; 
 the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat 
 of his horsehoofs that seemed to find a 
 dull echo in her own heart, and she was 
 alone. 
 
 The room was very hot and very quiet ; she 
 could hear the warping and creaking of the 
 shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level 
 sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In 
 the breathless silence that followed, a wood- 
 pecker took up his interrupted work on the 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 99 
 
 roof, and seemed to beat out monotonously on 
 her ear the last words of the stranger : Stanton 
 Green a thief! Stanton Green, one of the 
 ' boys ' John had helped out of the falling 
 tunnel ! Stanton Green, whose old mother in 
 the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel 
 Run, in a few hours to be a disgraced and ruined 
 man for ever! She remembered now, as a 
 thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his ex- 
 travagance and fast living, of which she had 
 taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of 
 presents sent her, that she now clearly saw 
 must have been far beyond his means. What 
 would the boys say ? What would John 
 have said ? Ah ! what would John have 
 done ! 
 
 She started suddenly to her feet, white and 
 cold as on that day that she had parted from 
 John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her 
 hat and mantle, and going to that little iron 
 safe that stood in the corner, unlocked it and 
 took out its entire contents of gold and silver.. 
 She had reached the door when another idea 
 seized her, and opening her desk she collected 
 her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 rolled them up under her cape. Then with a 
 glance at the clock, and a rapid survey of the 
 road from the platform, she slipped from it, 
 and seemed to be swallowed up in the waiting 
 woods beyond. 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 161 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ONCE within the friendly shadows of the long 
 belt of pines, Mrs. Baker kept them until she 
 had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run 
 far to the right, and came upon an open slope 
 of Burnt Ridge, where she knew Jo Simmons' 
 mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly 
 feeding. She had often ridden him before, and 
 when she had detached the fifty-foot riata from 
 his head-stall, he permitted her the further 
 recognised familiarity of twining her fingers 
 in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. 
 The tool shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where 
 Jo's saddle and bridle always hung, was but a 
 canter further on. She reached it unperceived, 
 and another trick of the old days quickly 
 extemporised a side saddle from Simmons' 
 Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn 
 bow, and the aid of a blanket. Then leaping 
 to her seat, she rapidly threw off her mantle, 
 
102 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked 
 it under one knee, and let it fall over her 
 horse's flanks. By this time Blue Lightning 
 was also struck with a flash of equine recollection 
 and pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered 
 a little chirping cry which he remembered, 
 and the next moment they were both careering 
 over the Ridge. 
 
 The trail that she had taken, though pre- 
 cipitate, difficult, and dangerous in places, was 
 a clear gain of two miles on the stage road. 
 There was less chance of her being followed 
 or meeting anyone. The greater canons were 
 already in shadow ; the pines on the further 
 ridges were separating their masses, and show- 
 ing individual silhouettes against the sky, but 
 the air was still warm, and the cool breath of 
 night, as she well knew it, had not yet begun 
 to flow down the mountain. The lower range 
 of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the 
 creeping shadow of the mountain ahead of her. 
 Without a watch, but with this familiar and 
 slowly changing dial spread out before her, she 
 knew the time to a minute. Heavy Tree Hill, 
 a lesser height in the distance, was already 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 103 
 
 wiped out by that shadowy index finger half- 
 past seven ! The stage would be at Hickory 
 Hill just before half-past eight; she ought to 
 anticipate it, if possible it would stay ten 
 minutes to change horses she must arrive 
 before it left ! 
 
 There was a good two-mile level before the 
 rise of the next range. Now, Blue Lightning ! 
 all you know ! And that was muchfor with 
 the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well 
 bent down over the bluish mane, and the 
 streaming gauze of her mantle almost level 
 with the horse's back, she swept down across 
 the long tableland like a skimming blue jay. 
 A few more bird-like dips up and down the 
 undulations, and then came the long, cruel 
 ascent of the Divide. 
 
 Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, 
 slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of 
 the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty 
 dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing ; be- 
 coming suddenly dejected, with slouching 
 haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly 
 spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue 
 Lightning began to have ideas and recollections ! 
 
104 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 Ah ! she was a devil for a lark this lightly- 
 clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature 
 up there ! He remembered her now. Ha ! 
 very well then. Hoop-la ! And suddenly leap- 
 ing out like a rabbit, bucking, trotting hard, 
 ambling lightly, ' loping ' on three legs and 
 recreating himself as only a Californian mus- 
 tang could the invincible Blue Lightning at 
 last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The 
 evening star had just pricked itself through the 
 golden mist of the horizon line eight o'clock ! 
 She could do it now ! But here, suddenly, her 
 first hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, 
 she knew the trail, she knew herself but did she 
 know the man to whom she was riding ? A 
 cold chill crept over her, and then she shivered 
 in a sudden blast ; it was Night at last swooping 
 down from the now invisible Sierras, and pos- 
 sessing all it touched. But it was only one long 
 descent to Hickory Hill now, and she swept 
 down securely on its wings. Half-past eight ! 
 The lights of the settlement were just ahead of 
 her but so, too, were the two lamps of the 
 waiting stage before the post office and hotel. 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 105 
 
 Happily the lounging crowd were gathered 
 around the hotel, and she slipped into the 
 post office from the rear, unperceived. As she 
 stepped behind the partition, its only occupant 
 a good-looking young fellow with a reddish 
 moustache turned towards her with a flush of 
 delighted surprise. But it changed at the sight 
 of the white, determined face and the brilliant 
 eyes that had never looked once towards him, 
 but were fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning 
 mouth was still open and propped up beside his 
 desk. 
 
 ' Where is the through money letter that 
 came in that bag ? ' she said quickly. 
 
 1 What do you mean ? ' he stammered, 
 with a face that had suddenly grown whiter than 
 her own. 
 
 ' I mean that it's a decoy, checked at Heavy 
 Tree Crossing, and that Mr. Home, of San 
 Francisco, is now waiting at my office to know 
 if you have taken it ! ' 
 
 The laugh and lie that he had at first tried 
 to summon to mouth and lips never reached 
 them. For, under the spell of her rigid, 
 
io6 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 ruthful face, he turned almost mechanically to 
 his desk, and took out a package. 
 
 ' Good God ! you've opened it already ! ' she 
 cried, pointing to the broken seal. 
 
 The expression on her face, more than any- 
 thing she had said, convinced him that she 
 knew all. He stammered under the new alarm 
 that her despairing tone suggested. ' Yes ! I 
 was owing some bills the collector was waiting 
 here for the money, and I took something from 
 the packet. But I was going to make it up by 
 next mail I swear it.' 
 
 'How much have you taken ? ' 
 
 1 Only a trifle. I ' 
 
 ' How much ? ' 
 
 ' A hundred dollars ! ' 
 
 She dragged the money she had brought 
 from Laurel Run from her pocket, and counting 
 out the sum, replaced it in the open package. 
 He ran quickly to get the sealing wax, but she 
 motioned him away as she dropped the package 
 back into the mail bag. ' No ; as long as the 
 money is found in the bag the package may 
 have been broken accidentally. Now burst 
 open one or two of those other packages a little 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 107 
 
 so ; ' she took out a packet of letters and 
 bruised their official wrappings under her little 
 foot until the tape fastening was loosened, 
 ' Now give me something heavy.' She caught 
 up a brass two-pound weight, and in the same 
 feverish but collected haste wrapped it in paper, 
 sealed it, stamped it, and, addressing it in a 
 large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, 
 dropped it in the bag. Then she closed it and 
 locked it ; he would have assisted her, but she 
 again waved him away. ' Send for the express- 
 man, and keep yourself out of the way for a 
 moment,' she said curtly. 
 
 An attitude of weak admiration and foolish 
 passion had taken the place of his former 
 tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but 
 without a word. Mrs. Baker wiped her moist 
 forehead and parched lips, and shook out her 
 skirt. Well might the young express-man 
 start at the unexpected revelation of those 
 sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth 
 at the little window. 
 
 ' Mrs. Baker ! ' 
 
 She put her finger quickly to her lips, 
 and threw a world of unutterable and 
 
lo8 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 enigmatical meaning into her mischievous 
 face. 
 
 ' There's a big San Francisco swell takin' 
 my place at Laurel to-night, Charley.' 
 
 1 Yes, ma'am.' 
 
 ' And it's a pity that the Omnibus Waybag 
 happened to get such a shaking up and banging 
 round already, coming here.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 ' I say,' continued Mrs. Baker, with great 
 gravity and dancing eyes, ' that it would be just 
 awful if that keerful City clerk found things 
 kinder mixed up inside when he comes to open 
 it. I wouldn't give him trouble for the world, 
 Charley.' 
 
 ' No, ma'am, it ain't like you.' 
 
 ' So you'll be particularly careful on my 
 account.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Baker,' said Charley, with infinite 
 gravity, 'if that bag should tumble off a dozen 
 times between this and Laurel Hill, I'll hop 
 down and pick it up myself.' 
 
 ' Thank you ! shake ! ' 
 
 They shook hands gravely across the 
 window-ledge. 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 109 
 
 1 And you ain't going down with us, Mrs. 
 Baker ? ' 
 
 ' Of course not ; it wouldn't do for / ain't 
 here don't you see ? ' 
 
 1 Of course ! ' 
 
 She handed him the bag through the door. 
 He took it carefully, but in spite of his great 
 precaution fell over it twice on his way to the 
 road, where from certain exclamations and 
 shouts it seemed that a like miserable mis- 
 chance attended its elevation to the boot. 
 Then Mrs. Baker came back into the office, 
 and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself 
 into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the 
 first time to an outburst of tears. Then her 
 hand was grasped suddenly and she found 
 Green on his knees before her. She started to 
 her feet. 
 
 ' Don't move,' he said, with weak hysteric 
 passion, ' but listen to me, for God's sake ! I 
 am ruined, I know, even though you have just 
 saved me from detection and disgrace. I have 
 been mad ! a fool, to do what I have done, I 
 know, but you do not know all you do not 
 know why I did it you cannot think of the 
 
I io THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 temptation that has driven me to it. Listen, 
 Mrs. Baker. I have been striving to get 
 money, honestly, dishonestly any way, to look 
 well in your eyes to make myself worthy of 
 you to make myself rich, and to be able to 
 offer you a home and take you away from 
 Laurel Run. It was all for you it was all for 
 love of you, Betsy, my darling. Listen to me!' 
 
 In the fury, outraged sensibility, indignation, 
 and infinite disgust that filled her little body at 
 that moment, she should have been large, 
 imperious, goddess-like, and commanding. But 
 God is at times ironical with suffering woman- 
 hood. She could only writhe her hand from 
 his grasp with childish contortions ; she could 
 only glare at him with eyes that were prettily 
 and piquantly brilliant ; she could only slap at 
 his detaining hand with a plump and velvety 
 palm, and when she found her voice it was 
 high falsetto. And all she could say was, 
 ' Leave me be, looney, or I'll scream !' 
 
 He rose, with a weak, confused laugh, half 
 of miserable affectation and half of real anger 
 and shame. 
 
 ' What did you come riding over here for, 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN in 
 
 then ? What did you take all this risk for ? 
 Why did you rush over here to share my 
 disgrace for you are as much mixed up with 
 this now as / am if you didn't calculate to 
 share everything else with me ? What did you 
 come here for, then, if not for me ? ' 
 
 ' What did / come here for ? ' said Mrs. 
 Baker, with every drop of red blood gone 
 from her cheek and trembling lip. ' What 
 did I come here for ? Well ! I came here 
 for John Baker s sake ! John Baker, who 
 stood between you and death at Burnt Ridge, 
 as I stand between you and damnation at 
 Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, 
 lying under half of Burnt Ridge, but more to 
 me this day than any living man crawling over 
 it in in' Oh, fatal climax ! 'in a month o' 
 Sundays ! What did I come here for ? I 
 came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry 
 on dead John Baker's work. Yes, dirty work 
 this time, maybe, Mr. Green ! but his work 
 and for him only precious ! That's what I 
 came here for ; that's what I live for ; that's 
 what I'm waiting for to be up to him and his 
 work always That's me Betsy Baker ! ' 
 
H2 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 She walked up and down rapidly, tying her 
 chip hat under her chin again. Then she 
 stopped, and taking her chamois purse from 
 her pocket, laid it sharply on the desk. 
 
 ' Stanton Green, don't be a fool ! Rise up 
 out of this, and be a man again. Take enough 
 out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, 
 send in your resignation, and keep the rest to 
 start you in a honest life elsewhere. But light 
 out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow.' 
 
 She pulled her mantle from the wall and 
 opened the door. 
 
 ' You are going ? ' he said, bitterly. 
 
 ' Yes.' Either she could not hold serious- 
 ness long in her capricious little fancy, or, with 
 feminine tact, she sought to make the parting 
 less difficult for him, for she broke into a 
 dazzling smile. ' Yes, I'm goin' to run Blue 
 Lightning agin Charley and that Way-bag back 
 to Laurel Run, and break the record.' 
 
 It is said that she did ! Perhaps owing to 
 the fact that the grade of the return journey 
 to Laurel Run was in her favour, and that she 
 could avoid the long, circuitous ascent to the 
 
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 113 
 
 summit taken by the stage, or that, owing to 
 the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of 
 the waybag which had to be twice rescued 
 from under the wheels of the stage she 
 entered the Laurel Run Post Office as the 
 coach leaders came trotting up the hill. Mr. 
 Home was already on the platform. 
 
 ' You'll have to ballast your next waybag, 
 boss,' said Charley, gravely, as it escaped his 
 clutches once more in the dust of the road, ' or 
 you'll have to make a new contract with the 
 company. We've lost ten minutes in five miles 
 over that bucking thing.' 
 
 Home did not reply, but quickly dragged 
 his prize into the office, scarcely noticing Mrs. 
 Baker, who stood beside him pale and breath- 
 less. As the bolt of the bag was drawn, 
 revealing its chaotic interior, Mrs. Baker gave 
 a little sigh. Home glanced quickly at her, 
 emptied the bag upon the floor, and picked up 
 the broken and half-filled money parcel. Then 
 he collected the scattered coins and counted 
 them. ' It's all right, Mrs. Baker,' he said 
 gravely. ' Hes safe this time.' 
 
 I 
 
114 THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN 
 
 'I'm so glad ! ' said little Mrs. Baker, with 
 a hypocritical gasp. 
 
 'So am I,' returned Home, with increasing 
 gravity, as he took the coin, ' for, from all I 
 have gathered this afternoon, it seems he 
 was an old pioneer of Laurel Run, a friend of 
 your husband's, and, I think, more fool than 
 knave ! ' He was silent for a moment, clicking 
 the coins against each other ; then he said 
 carelessly : ' Did he get quite away, Mrs. 
 Baker?' 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't know what you're talking 
 about,' said Mrs. Baker, with a lofty air of 
 dignity, but a somewhat debasing colour. ' I 
 don't see why / should know anything about 
 it, or why he should go away at all.' 
 
 'Well,' said Mr. Home, laying his hand 
 gently on the widow's shoulder, ' well, you see, 
 it might have occurred to his friends that the 
 coins were marked! That is, no doubt, the 
 reason why he would take their good advice 
 and go. But, as I said before, Mrs. Baker, 
 you re all right, whatever happens the Govern- 
 ment stands by you / ' 
 
A NIGHT AT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was difficult to say if Hays' farmhouse or 
 1 Hays,' as it was familiarly called, looked any 
 more bleak and cheerless that winter afternoon 
 than it usually did in the strong summer sun- 
 shine. Painted a cold merciless white, w T ith 
 scant projections for shadows, a roof of white- 
 pine shingles, bleached lighter through sun and 
 wind, and covered with low, white-capped 
 chimneys, it looked even more stark and chilly 
 than the drifts which had climbed its low road- 
 side fence, and yet seemed hopeless of gaining 
 a foothold on the glancing walls, or slippery, 
 wind-swept roof. The storm, which had already 
 heaped the hollows of the road with snow, 
 hurled its finely-granulated flakes against the 
 building, but they were whirled along the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 gutters and ridges, and disappeared in smoke- 
 like puffs across the icy roof. The granite 
 outcrop in the hilly field beyond had long ago 
 whitened and vanished ; the dwarf-firs and 
 larches which had at first taken uncouth shapes 
 in the drift blended vaguely together, and then 
 merged into an unbroken formless wave. But 
 the gaunt angles and rigid outlines of the build- 
 ing remained sharp and unchanged. It would 
 seem as if the rigours of winter had only 
 accented their hardness, as the fierceness of 
 summer had previously made them intoler- 
 able. 
 
 It was believed that some of this unyield- 
 ing grimness attached to Hays himself. Cer- 
 tain it is that neither hardship nor prosperity 
 had touched his character. Years ago his 
 emigrant team had broken down in this wild 
 but wooded defile of the Sierras, and he had 
 been forced to a winter encampment, with only 
 a rude log-cabin for shelter, on the very verge 
 of the promised land. Unable to enter it 
 himself, he was nevertheless able to assist the 
 better-equipped teams that followed him with 
 wood and water and a coarse forage gathered 
 
A NIGHT AT ' HAYS' 117 
 
 from a sheltered slope of wild oats. This was 
 the beginning of a rude ' supply station ' which 
 afterwards became so profitable that when 
 spring came and Hays' team were sufficiently 
 recruited to follow the flood of immigrating 
 gold-seekers to the placers and valleys, there 
 seemed no occasion for it. His fortune had 
 been already found in the belt of arable slope 
 behind the wooded defile, and in the miracu- 
 lously located coign of vantage on what was 
 now the great highway of travel and the only 
 oasis and first relief of the weary journey ; the 
 breaking down of his own team at that spot had 
 not only been the salvation of those who found 
 at ' Hays ' the means of prosecuting the last 
 part of their pilgrimage, but later provided the 
 equipment of returning teams. 
 
 The first two years of this experience had 
 not been without hardship and danger. He 
 had been raided by Indians and besieged for 
 three days in his stockaded cabin ; he had been 
 invested by wintry drifts of twenty feet of 
 snow, cut off equally from incoming teams 
 from the pass and the valley below. During 
 the second year his wife had joined him with 
 
Ii8 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 four children, but whether the enforced separa- 
 tion had dulled her conjugal affection, or whether 
 she was tempted by a natural feminine longing 
 for the land of promise beyond, she sought it one 
 morning with a fascinating teamster, leaving 
 her two sons and two daughters behind her ; two 
 years later the elder of the daughters followed 
 the mother's example, with such maidenly dis- 
 cretion, however, as to forbear compromising 
 herself by any previous matrimonial formality 
 whatever. From that day Hays had no further 
 personal intercourse with the valley below. 
 He put up an hotel a mile away from the 
 farmhouse that he might not have to dispense 
 hospitality to his customers, nor accept their 
 near companionship. Always a severe Presby- 
 terian, and an uncompromising deacon of a far- 
 scattered and scanty community who occasion- 
 ally held their service in one of his barns, he 
 grew more rigid, sectarian, and narrow day by 
 day. He was feared, and although neither 
 respected nor loved, his domination and en- 
 durance were accepted. A grim landlord, hard 
 creditor, close-fisted patron, and a smileless 
 neighbour who neither gambled nor drank, 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 119 
 
 1 Old Hays,' as he was called, while yet scarce 
 fifty, had few acquaintances and fewer friends. 
 There were those who believed that his domestic 
 infelicities were the result of his unsympathetic 
 nature ; it never occurred to anyone (but him- 
 self probably) that they might have been the 
 cause. In those Sierran altitudes, as elsewhere, 
 the belief in original sin popularly known as 
 ' pure cussedness' dominated and overbore 
 any consideration of passive, impelling circum- 
 stances or temptation, unless they had been 
 actively demonstrated with a revolver. The 
 passive expression of harshness, suspicion, 
 distrust, and moroseness was looked upon as 
 inherent wickedness. 
 
 The storm raged violently as Hays emerged 
 from the last of a long range of outbuildings and 
 sheds, and crossed the open space between him 
 and the farmhouse. Before he had reached the 
 porch, with its scant shelter, he had floundered 
 through a snow drift, and faced the full fury 
 of the storm. But the snow seemed to have 
 glanced from his hard angular figure as it had 
 from his roof-ridge, for when he entered the 
 narrow hall-way his pilot jacket was unmarked, 
 
120 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 except where a narrow line of powdered flakes 
 outlined the seams as if worn. To the right 
 was an apartment, half office, half sitting-room, 
 furnished with a dark and chilly iron safe, a 
 sofa and chairs covered with black and coldly 
 shining horsehair. Here Hays not only re- 
 moved his upper coat but his under one also, 
 and drawing a chair before the fire sat down 
 in his shirt-sleeves. It was his usual rustic 
 Pioneer habit, and might have been some lin- 
 gering reminiscence of certain remote ances- 
 tors to whom clothes were an impediment. He 
 was warming his hands and placidly ignoring 
 his gaunt arms in their thinly-clad ' hickory ' 
 sleeves, when a young girl of eighteen sauntered, 
 half perfunctorily, half inquisitively into the 
 room. It was his only remaining daughter. 
 Already elected by circumstances to a dry 
 household virginity, her somewhat large features, 
 sallow complexion, and tasteless, unattractive 
 dress, did not obviously suggest a sacrifice. 
 Since her sister's departure she had taken sole 
 charge of her father's domestic affairs and the 
 few rude servants he employed, with a certain 
 inherited following of his own moods and 
 
A NIGHT AT 'MAYS' 121 
 
 methods. To the neighbours she was known 
 as ' Miss Hays ' a dubious respect that in 
 a community of familiar ' Sallies,' ' Mamies,' 
 ' Pussies,' was grimly prophetic. Yet she re- 
 joiced in the Oriental appellation of ' Zuleika.' 
 To this it is needless to add that it was impos- 
 sible to conceive anyone who looked more de- 
 cidedly Western. 
 
 ' Ye kin put some things in my carpet bag 
 agin the time the sled comes round,' said her 
 father meditatively, without looking up. 
 
 ' Then you're not coming back to-night ? ' 
 asked the girl curiously. ' What's goin' on at 
 the summit, father ? ' 
 
 ' / am,' he said grimly. ' You don't reckon 
 I kalkilate to stop thar ! I'm going on as far 
 as Horseley's to close up that contract afore the 
 weather changes.' 
 
 ' I kinder allowed it was funny you'ld go to 
 the hotel to-night. There's a dance there ; 
 those two Wetherbee girls and Mamie Harris 
 passed up the road an hour ago on a wood sled, 
 nigh blown to pieces and sittin' up in the snow 
 like skeert white rabbits.' 
 
 Hays' brow darkened heavily. 
 
122 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 ' Let 'em go,' he said, in a hard voice that 
 the fire did not seem to have softened. ' Let 'em 
 go for all the good their fool-parents will ever 
 get outer them, or the herd of way-side cattle 
 they've let them loose among.' 
 
 ' I reckon they haven't much to do at home, 
 or are hard put for company, to travel six miles 
 in the snow to show off their prinkin' to a lot 
 of idle louts shiny with bear's grease and 
 scented up with doctor's stuff,' added the girl, 
 shrugging her shoulders, with a touch of her 
 father's mood and manner. 
 
 Perhaps it struck Hays at that moment that 
 her attitude was somewhat monstrous and un- 
 natural for one still young and presumably like 
 other girls, for, after glancing at her under his 
 heavy brows, he said, in a gentler tone : 
 
 ' Never you mind, Zuly. When your 
 brother Jack comes home he'll know what's 
 what, and have all the proper New York ways 
 and style. It's nigh on three years now that 
 he's had the best training Dr. Dawson's 
 Academy could give sayin' nothing of the 
 pow'ful Christian example of one of the best 
 preachers in the States. They mayn't have 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 123- 
 
 worldly, ungodly fandangoes where he is, 
 and riotous livin', and scarlet abominations, 
 but I've been told that they've " tea circles," 
 and " assemblies," and " harmony concerts " of 
 young folks and dancin' yes, fine square 
 dancin' under control. No, I ain't stinted 
 him in anythin'. You kin remember that, 
 Zuleika, when you hear any more gossip and 
 backbitin' about your father's meanness. I 
 ain't spared no money for him.' 
 
 ' I reckon not,' said the girl, a little sharply. 
 1 Why, there's that draft fur two hundred and fifty 
 dollars that kem only last week from the Doctor's 
 fur extras.' 
 
 1 Yes,' replied Hays, with a slight knitting 
 of the brows, ' the Doctor mout hev writ more 
 particklers, but parsons ain't allus business men. 
 I reckon these here extrys were to push Jack 
 along in the term as the Doctor knew I wanted 
 him back here in the spring, now that his brother 
 has got to be too stiff-necked and self-opinion- 
 ated to do his father's work.' It seemed from 
 this that there had been a quarrel between Hays 
 and his eldest son, who conducted his branch 
 business at Sacramento, and who had in a 
 
124 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 passion threatened to set up a rival establish- 
 ment to his father's. And it was also evident 
 from the manner of the girl that she was by no 
 means a strong partisan of her father in the 
 quarrel. 
 
 ' You'ld better find out first how all the 
 schoolin' and trainin' of Jack's is goin' to jibe 
 with the Ranch, and if he ain't been eddicated 
 out of all knowledge of station business or keer 
 for it. New York ain't Hays' Ranch, and these 
 yer "Assemblies" and "Harmony" doin's and 
 their airs and graces may put him out of conceit 
 with our plain ways. I reckon ye didn't take 
 that to mind when you've been hustlin' round 
 payin' two hundred and fifty dollar drafts for 
 Jack and quo'llin' with Bijah ! I ain't sayin' 
 nothin', father, only mebbe if Bijah had had 
 drafts and extrys flourished around him a little 
 more, mebbe he'd have been more polite and 
 not so rough spoken. Mebbe,' she continued 
 with a little laugh, ' even /'d be a little more in 
 the style to suit Master Jack when he conies ef 
 I had three hundred dollars worth of convent 
 schoolin' like Mamie Harris.' 
 
 ' Yes, and you'ld have only made yourself 
 
A NIGHT AT ' HAYS' 12$ 
 
 fair game for ev'ry schemin', lazy sport or 
 counter-jumper along the road from this to 
 Sacramento!' responded Hays, savagely. 
 
 Zuleika laughed again constrainedly, but in 
 a way that might have suggested that this 
 dreadful contingency was still one that it was 
 possible to contemplate without entire conster- 
 nation. As she moved slowly towards the 
 door she stopped with her hand on the lock and 
 said tentatively : ' I reckon you won't be wantin' 
 any supper before you go ? You're almost sure 
 to be offered somethin' up at Horseley's, while 
 if I have to cook you up suthin' now and still 
 have the men's regular supper to get at seven, 
 it makes all the expense of an extra meal.' 
 
 Hays hesitated. He would have preferred 
 his supper now, and had his daughter pressed 
 him would have accepted it. But economy, 
 which was one of Zuleika's inherited instincts, 
 vaguely appearing to him to be a virtue, inter- 
 changeable with chastity and abstemiousness, 
 was certainly to be encouraged in a young girl. 
 It hardly seems possible that with an eye single 
 to the integrity of the larder she could ever look 
 kindly on the blandishments of his sex, or, 
 
126 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 indeed, be exposed to them. He said simply : 
 ' Don't cook for me/ and resumed his attitude 
 before the fire as the girl left the room. 
 
 As he sat there grim and immovable as one 
 of the battered fire-dogs before him, the wind 
 in the chimney seemed to carry on a deep- 
 throated, dejected, and confidential conversation 
 with him, but really had very little to reveal. 
 There were no haunting reminiscences of his 
 married life in this room, which he had always 
 occupied in preference to the company or 
 sitting-room beyond. There were no familiar 
 shadows of the past lurking in its corners to 
 pervade his reverie. When he did reflect, 
 which was seldom, there was always in his mind 
 a vague idea of a central injustice to which he 
 had been subjected, that was to be avoided by 
 circuitous movement, to be hidden by work, 
 but never to be surmounted. And to-night he 
 was going out in the storm, which he could 
 understand and fight, as he had often done 
 before, and he was going to drive a bargain 
 with a man like himself and get the better of 
 him if he could as he had done before, and 
 another day would be gone, and that central 
 
A NIGHT AT ' HAYS' 127 
 
 injustice which he could not understand would 
 be circumvented, and he would still be holding 
 his own in the world. And the God of Israel 
 whom he believed in, and who was a hard but 
 conscientious Providence, something like him- 
 self, would assist him perhaps some day to the 
 understanding of this same vague injustice 
 which He was, for some strange reason, per- 
 mitting. But never more unrelenting and un- 
 sparing of others than when under conviction 
 of Sin himself, and never more harsh and un- 
 forgiving than when fresh from the contempla- 
 tion of the Divine Mercy, he still sat there 
 grimly holding his hands to a warmth that 
 never seemed to get nearer his heart than that, 
 when his daughter re-entered the room with 
 his carpet bag. 
 
 To rise, put on his coat and overcoat, 
 secure a fur cap on his head by a woollen com- 
 forter, covering his ears and twined round his 
 throat, and to rigidly offer a square and 
 weather-beaten cheek to his daughter's dusty 
 kiss, did not, apparently, suggest any lingering 
 or hesitation. The sled was at the door, which, 
 for a tumultuous moment, opened on the storm 
 
tag A NIGHT AT 
 
 and the white vision of a horse knee-deep in a 
 drift, and then closed behind him. Zuleika 
 shot the bolt, brushed some flakes of the in- 
 vading snow from the mat, and, after frugally 
 raking down the fire on the hearth her father 
 had just quitted, retired through the long 
 passage to the kitchen and her domestic super- 
 vision. 
 
 It was a few hours later, supper had long 
 past ; the ' hands ' had one by one returned to 
 their quarters under the roof or in the adjacent 
 lofts, and Zuleika and the two maids had at 
 last abandoned the kitchen for their bedroom 
 beyond. Zuleika herself, by the light of a 
 solitary candle, had entered the office and had 
 dropped meditatively into a chair, as she slowly 
 raked the warm ashes over the still smouldering 
 fire. The barking of dogs had momentarily 
 attracted hep attention, but it had suddenly 
 ceased. It was followed, however, by a more 
 startling incident a slight movement outside, 
 and an attempt to raise the window ! 
 
 She was not frightened ; perhaps there was 
 little for her to fear ; it was known that Hays 
 kept no money in the house, the safe was only 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 129 
 
 used for securities and contracts, and there 
 were half a dozen men within call. It was, there- 
 fore, only her usual active, burning curiosity 
 for novel incident that made her run to the 
 window and peer out ; but it was with a spon- 
 taneous cry of astonishment she turned and 
 darted to the front door, and opened it to the 
 muffled figure of a young man. 
 
 ' Jack ! Saints alive ! Why, of all things ! ' 
 she gasped, incoherently. 
 
 He stopped her with an impatient gesture, 
 and a hand that prevented her from closing the 
 door again. 
 
 ' Dad ain't here ? ' he asked, quickly. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' When'll he be back ? ' 
 
 1 Not to-night.' 
 
 ' Good/ he said, turning to the door again. 
 She could see a motionless horse and sleigh in 
 the road, with a woman holding the reins. 
 
 He beckoned to the woman, who drove to 
 the door and jumped out. Tall, handsome, 
 and audacious, she looked at Zuleika with a 
 quick laugh of confidence as at some recognised 
 absurdity, 
 
 K 
 
130 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 ' Go in there,' said the young man, opening 
 the door of the office ; ' I'll come back in a 
 minute.' 
 
 As she entered, still smiling, as if taking 
 part in some humorous but risky situation, he 
 turned quickly to Zuleika and said in a low 
 voice : ' Where can we talk ?' 
 
 The girl held out her hand and glided 
 hurriedly through the passage until she reached 
 a door, which she opened. By the light of a 
 dying fire he could see it was her bedroom. 
 Lighting a candle on the mantel, she looked 
 eagerly in his face as he threw aside his muffler 
 and opened his coat. It disclosed a spare, 
 youthful figure, and a thin, weak face that a 
 budding moustache only seemed to make still 
 more immature. For an instant brother and 
 sister gazed at each other. Astonishment on 
 her part, nervous impatience on his, apparently 
 repressed any demonstration of family affection. 
 Yet when she was about to speak he stopped 
 her roughly. 
 
 There now; don't talk. I know what 
 you're goin' to say could say it myself if I 
 wanted to and it's no use. Well then, here I 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 131 
 
 am. You saw her. Well, she's my wife we've 
 been married three months. Yes, my wife ; 
 married three months ago. I'm here because 
 I ran away from school that is, I haven t been 
 there for the last three months. I came out 
 with her last steamer ; we went up to the 
 Summit Hotel last night where they didn't 
 know me until we could see how the land lay, 
 before popping down on dad. I happened to 
 learn that he was out to-night, and I brought 
 her down here to have a talk. We can go 
 back again before he comes, you know, 
 unless ' 
 
 ' But,' interrupted the girl, with sudden 
 practicality, ' you say you ain't been at Doctor 
 Dawson's for three months ! Why, only last 
 week he drew on dad for two hundred and fifty 
 dollars for your extras ! ' 
 
 He glanced around him and then arranged 
 his necktie in the glass above the mantel with 
 a nervous laugh. 
 
 ' Oh, that ! I fixed that up, and got the 
 money for it in New York to pay our passage 
 with. It's all right, you know.' 
 
 K2 
 
132 A MGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 T HE girl stood looking at the ingenious forger 
 with an odd, breathless smile. It was difficult 
 to determine, however, if gratified curiosity 
 were not its most dominant expression. 
 
 ' And you've got a wife and thafs her ? ' 
 she resumed. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Where did you first meet her ? Who is 
 she?' 
 
 ' She's an actress mighty popular in 'Frisco 
 I mean New York. Lot o' chaps tried to 
 get her I cut 'em out. For all dad's trying 
 to keep me at Dawson's I ain't such a fool, 
 eh?' 
 
 Nevertheless, as he stood there stroking his 
 fair moustache, his astuteness did not seem to 
 impress his sister to enthusiastic assent. Yet 
 she did not relax her breathless, inquisitive 
 smile as she went on : 
 
A NIGHT AT HAYS' 133 
 
 ' And what are you going to do about 
 dad?' 
 
 He turned upon her querulously. 
 
 ' Well, that's what I want to talk about.' 
 
 ' You'll catch it ! ' she said impressively. 
 
 But here her brother's nervousness broke 
 out into a weak, impotent fury. It was evident, 
 too, that in spite of its apparent spontaneous 
 irritation its intent was studied. Catch it ! 
 Would he ? Oh, yes ! Well, she'd see whdd 
 catch it ! Not him. No, he'd had enough of 
 this meanness, and wanted it ended ! He 
 wasn't a woman to be treated like his sister like 
 their mother like their brother, if it came to 
 that, for he knew how he was to be brought 
 back to take Bijah's place in the spring ; he'd 
 heard the whole story. No, he was going to 
 stand up for his rights he was going to be 
 treated as the son of a man who was worth half 
 a million ought to be treated ! He wasn't going 
 to be skimped, while his father was wallowing 
 in money that he didn't know what to do with 
 money that by rights ought to have been given 
 to their mother and their sister. W T hy, even the 
 law wouldn't permit such meanness if he was 
 
134 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 dead. No, he'd come back with Lottie, his 
 wife, to show his father that there was one of 
 the family that couldn't be fooled and bullied, 
 and wouldn't put up with it any longer. There 
 was going to be a fair division of the property, 
 and his sister Annie's property, and hers 
 Zuleika's too, if she'd have the pluck to speak 
 up for herself. All this and much more he 
 said. Yet even while his small fury was 
 genuine and characteristic, there was such an 
 evident incongruity between himself and his 
 speech that it seemed to fit him loosely, and in 
 a measure flapped in his gestures like another's 
 garment. Zuleika, who had exhibited neither 
 disgust nor sympathy with his rebellion, but 
 had rather appeared to enjoy it as a novel 
 domestic performance, the morality of which 
 devolved solely upon the performer, retained 
 her curious smile. And then a knock at the 
 door startled them. 
 
 It was the stranger slightly apologetic and 
 still humorous, but firm and self-confident 
 withal. She was sorry to interrupt their family 
 council, but the fire was going out where she 
 sat, and she would like a cup of tea or some 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 135 
 
 refreshment. She did not look at Jack, but, 
 completely ignoring him, addressed herself to 
 Zuleika with what seemed to be a direct 
 challenge ; in that feminine eye-grapple there 
 was a quick, instinctive, and final struggle 
 between the two women. The stranger 
 triumphed. Zuleika's vacant smile changed to 
 one of submission, and then, equally ignoring 
 her brother in this double defeat, she hastened 
 to the kitchen to do the visitor's bidding. The 
 woman closed the door behind her, and took 
 Zuleika's place before the fire. 
 
 ' Well ? ' she said, in a half-contemptuous 
 toleration. 
 
 ' Well ? ' said Jack, in an equally ill-disguised 
 discontent, but an evident desire to placate the 
 woman before him. ' It's all right, you know. 
 I've had my say. It'll come right, Lottie, you'll 
 see.' 
 
 The woman smiled again, and glanced around 
 the bare walls of the room. 
 
 ' And I suppose,' she said, drily, ' when it 
 comes right I'm to take the place of your sister 
 in the charge of this workhouse and succeed to 
 the keys of that safe in the other room ? ' 
 
136 A NIGHT AT <HAYS> 
 
 ' It'll come all right, I tell you ; you can fix 
 things up here any way you'll like when we 
 get the old man straight,' said Jack, with the 
 iteration of feebleness. ' And as to that safe, 
 I've seen it chock full of securities.' 
 
 ' It'll hold one less to-night,' she said, looking 
 at the fire. 
 
 ' What are you talking about ? ' he asked, in 
 querulous suspicion. 
 
 She drew a paper from her pocket. 
 
 ' It's that draft of yours that you were 
 crazy enough to sign Dawson's name to. It 
 was lying out there on the desk. I reckon it 
 isn't a thing you care to have kept as evidence, 
 even by your father.' 
 
 She held it in the flames until it was con- 
 sumed. 
 
 ' By Jove, your head is level, Lottie ! ' he 
 said, with an admiration that was not, however, 
 without a weak reserve of suspicion. 
 
 ' No, it isn't, or I wouldn't be here,' she 
 said, curtly. Then she added, as if dismissing 
 the subject : ' Well, what did you tell her ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I said I met you in New York. You 
 see I thought she might think it queer if she 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 137 
 
 knew I only met you in San Francisco three 
 weeks ago. Of course I said we were married.' 
 
 She looked at him with weary astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 ' And of course, whether things go right or 
 not, she'll find out that I've got a husband 
 living, that I never met you in New York, but 
 on the steamer, and that you've lied. I don't 
 see the use of it. You said you were going to 
 tell the whole thing squarely and say the truth, 
 and that's why I came to help you.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but don't you see, hang it all ! ' he 
 stammered, in the irritation of weak confusion, 
 ' I had to tell her something. Father won't 
 dare to tell her the truth, no more than he will 
 the neighbours. He'll hush it up, you bet ; 
 and when we get this thing fixed you'll go 
 and get your divorce, you know, and we'll be 
 married privately on the square/ 
 
 He looked so vague, so immature, yet so 
 fatuously self-confident, that the woman ex- 
 tended her hand with a laugh and tapped him 
 on the back as she might have patted a dog. 
 Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in the 
 kitchen. 
 
138 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 When the two women returned together 
 they were evidently on the best of terms. So 
 much so that the man, with the easy reaction 
 of a shallow nature, became sanguine and 
 exalted, even to an ostentatious exhibition of 
 those New York graces on which the paternal 
 Hays had set such store. He complacently 
 explained the methods by which he had de- 
 ceived Doctor Dawson ; how he had himself 
 written a letter from his father commanding 
 him to return to take his brother's place, and 
 how he had shown it to the Doctor and been 
 three months in San Francisco looking for work 
 and assisting Lottie at the theatre, until a 
 conviction of the righteousness of his cause, 
 perhaps combined with the fact that they were 
 also short of money and she had no engage- 
 ment, impelled him to his present heroic step. 
 All of which Zuleika listened to with childish 
 interest, but superior appreciation of his com- 
 panion. The fact that this woman was an 
 actress, an abomination vaguely alluded to by 
 her father as being even more mysteriously 
 wicked than her sister and mother, and cor- 
 respondingly exciting, as offering a possible 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 139 
 
 permanent relief to the monotony of her home 
 life, seemed to excuse her brother's weakness. 
 She was almost ready to become his partisan 
 after she had seen her father. 
 
 They had talked largely of their plans ; 
 they had settled small details of the future and 
 the arrangement of the property ; they had 
 agreed that Zuleika should be relieved of her 
 household drudgery, and sent to a fashionable 
 school in San Francisco with a music teacher 
 and a dressmaker. They had discussed every- 
 thing but the precise manner in which the 
 revelation should be conveyed to Hays. There 
 was still plenty of time for that, for he would 
 not return until to-morrow at noon, and it was 
 already tacitly understood that the vehicle of 
 transmission should be a letter from the 
 Summit Hotel. The possible contingency of 
 a sudden outburst of human passion not en- 
 tirely controlled by religious feeling was to be 
 guarded against. 
 
 They were sitting comfortably before the 
 replenished fire ; the wind was still moaning in 
 the chimney, when, suddenly, in a lull of the 
 storm the sound of sleigh bells seemed to fill 
 
140 A NIGHT AT * HAYS' 
 
 the room. It was followed by a voice from 
 without, and, with a hysterical cry, Zuleika 
 started to her feet. The same breathless 
 smile with which she had greeted her brother 
 an hour ago was upon her lips as she gasped : 
 1 Lord, save us ! but it's dad come back ! ' 
 I grieve to say that here the doughty 
 redresser of domestic wrongs and retriever of 
 the family honour lapsed white-faced in his 
 chair idealess and tremulous. It was his 
 frailer companion who rose to the occasion and 
 even partly dragged him with her. ' Go back 
 to the hotel,' she said quickly, ' and take the 
 sled with you you are not fit to face him now ! 
 But he does not know me, and I will stay ! ' 
 To the staring Zuleika : ' I am a stranger 
 stopped by a broken sleigh on my way to the 
 hotel. Leave the rest to me. Now clear out 
 both of you. I'll let him in.' 
 
 She looked so confident, self-contained, 
 and superior, that the thought of opposition 
 never entered their minds, and as an impatient 
 rapping rose from the door they let her, with 
 a half-impatient, half-laughing gesture, drive 
 them before her from the room. When they 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 141 
 
 had disappeared in the distance, she turned to 
 the front door, unbolted and opened it. Hays 
 blundered in out of the snow with a muttered 
 exclamation, and then, as the light from the 
 open office door revealed a stranger, started 
 and fell back 
 
 ' Miss Hays is busy,' said the woman 
 quietly, ' I am afraid on my account. But my 
 sleigh broke down on the way to the hotel and 
 I was forced to get out here. I suppose this is 
 Mr. Hays?' 
 
 A strange woman by her dress and ap- 
 pearance a very worldling and even braver in 
 looks and apparel than many he had seen in the 
 cities seemed, in spite of all his precautions, 
 to have fallen short of the hotel and been pre- 
 cipitated upon him ! Yet under the influence of 
 some odd abstraction he was affected by it less 
 than he could have believed. He even achieved 
 a rude bow as he bolted the door and ushered 
 her into the office. More than that, he found 
 himself explaining to the fair trespasser the 
 reasons of his return to his own home. For, like 
 a direct man, he had a consciousness of some 
 inconsistency in his return or in the circum- 
 
1 4 2 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 stances that induced a change of plans which 
 might conscientiously require an explanation. 
 
 ' You see, ma'am, a rather singular thing 
 happened to me after I passed the summit. 
 Three times I lost the track, got off it some- 
 how, and found myself travelling in a circle. 
 The third time, when I struck my own tracks 
 again, I concluded I'd just follow them back 
 here. I suppose I might have got the road 
 again by tryin' and fightin' the snow but 
 ther's some things not worth the fightin'. This 
 was a matter of business and, after all, ma'am, 
 business ain't everythin' is it ? ' 
 
 He was evidently in some unusual mood, 
 the mood that with certain reticent natures 
 often compels them to make their brief confi- 
 dences to utter strangers rather than impart 
 them to those intimate friends who might 
 remind them of their weakness. She agreed 
 with him pleasantly, but not so obviously as to 
 excite suspicion. ' And you preferred to let 
 your business go, and come back to the comfort 
 of your own home and family.' 
 
 ' The comfort of my home and family ? ' he 
 repeated in a dry, deliberate voice. ' Well, I 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 143 
 
 reckon I ain't been tempted much by that. 
 That isn't what I meant.' But he went back 
 to the phrase, repeating it grimly as if it were 
 some mandatory text. ' The comfort of my 
 own home and family \ Well, Satan hasn't 
 set that trap for my feet yet, ma'am. No, ye 
 saw my daughter ? well, that's all my family ; 
 ye see this room ? that's all my home. My 
 wife ran away from me ; my daughter cleared 
 out too, my eldest son as was with me here 
 has quo'lled with me and reckons to set up a 
 rival business agin me. No,' he said, still more 
 meditatively and deliberately ; ' it wasn't to come 
 back to the comforts of my own home and 
 family that I faced round on Heavy tree Hill, I 
 reckon.' 
 
 As the woman, for certain reasons, had no 
 desire to check this auspicious and unlooked- 
 for confidence, she waited patiently. Hays re- 
 mained silent for an instant warming his hands 
 before the fire, and then looked up interro- 
 gatively. 
 
 ' A professor of religion, ma'am, or under 
 .conviction ? ' 
 
 ' Not exactly,' said the lady, smiling. 
 
144 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 ' Excuse me, but in spite of your fine clothes 
 I reckoned you had a serious look just now. A 
 reader of Scripture, may be ? ' 
 
 ' I know the Bible.' 
 
 ' You remember when the angel with the 
 flamin' sword appeared unto Saul on the road 
 to Damascus ? ' 
 
 1 Yes.' 
 
 ' It mout hev been suthin' in that style that 
 stopped me,' he said slowly and tentatively. 
 ' Though nat' rally / didn't see anything, and 
 only had the queer feelin'. It might hev been 
 that shied my mare off the track.' 
 
 ' But Saul was up to some wickedness, 
 wasn't he ? ' said the lady smilingly, ' while 
 you were simply going somewhere on busi- 
 ness ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Hays thoughtfully, 'but my 
 business might hev seemed like persecution. I 
 don't mind tellin' you what it was if you'ld care 
 to listen. But mebbe you're tired. Mebbe 
 you want to retire. ' You know,' he went on 
 with a sudden hospitable outburst, ' you needn't 
 be in any hurry to go ; we kin take care of you 
 here to-night, and it'll cost you nothin'. And 
 
A NIGHT AT <HAYS> 14$ 
 
 I'll send you on with my sleigh in the mornin'. 
 Per'aps you'ld like suthin' to eat a cup of tea 
 or I'll call Zuleika ; ' and he rose with an 
 expression of awkward courtesy. 
 
 But the lady, albeit with a self-satisfied 
 sparkle in her dark eyes, here carelessly as- 
 sured him that Zuleika had already given her 
 refreshment, and, indeed, was at that mo- 
 ment preparing her own room for her. She 
 begged he would not interrup this interesting 
 story. 
 
 Hays looked relieved. 
 
 ' Well, I reckon I won't call her, for what I 
 was goin' to say ain't exakly the sort o' thin' 
 for an innocent, simple sort o' thing like her to 
 hear I mean,' he interrupted himself hastily 
 ' that folks of more experience of the world like 
 you and me don't mind speakin' of I'm sorter 
 takin' it for granted that you're a married 
 woman, ma'am.' 
 
 The lady, who had regarded him with a 
 sudden rigidity, here relaxed her expression 
 and nodded. 
 
 ' Well,' continued Hays, resuming his place 
 by the fire, ' you see this yer man I was goin' 
 
 L 
 
146 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 to see lives about four miles beyond the summit 
 on a ranch that furnishes most of the hay for 
 the stock that side of the Divide. He's bin 
 holdin' off his next year's contracts with me, 
 hopin' to make better terms from the prospects 
 of a late spring and higher prices. He held 
 his head mighty high and talked big of waitin' 
 his own time. I happened to know he couldn't 
 do it.' 
 
 He put his hands on his knees and stared 
 at the fire, and then went on : 
 
 ' Ye see this man had had crosses and 
 family trials. He had a wife that left him to 
 jine a lot of bally dancers and painted women 
 in the 'Frisco playhouses when he was livin' in 
 the southern country. You'll say that was like 
 my own' case and mebbe that was why it 
 came to him to tell me about it but the dif- 
 ference betwixt him and me was that instead of 
 restin' unto the Lord and findin' Him, and 
 pluckin' out the eye that offended him 'cordin' 
 to Scripter, as I did, he followed after her tryin' 
 to get her back, until, findin' that wasn't no use, 
 he took a big disgust and came up here to hide 
 hisself, where there wasn't no playhouse nor 
 
A NIGHT AT < HAYS' 147 
 
 play-actors, and no wimmen but Injin squaws. 
 He preempted the land, and nat' rally, there 
 bein' no one ez cared to live there but himself, 
 he had it all his own way, made it pay, and, as 
 I was say in' before, held his head high for 
 prices. Well you ain't gettin' tired, ma'am ? ' 
 ' No,' said the lady, resting her cheek on 
 her hand and gazing at the fire, ' it's all very 
 interesting ; and so odd that you two men, with 
 nearly the same experiences, should be neigh- 
 bours.' 
 
 ' Say buyer and seller, ma'am, not neighbours 
 at least Scriptoorily nor friends. Well 
 now this is where the Speshal Providence comes 
 in only this afternoon Jim Briggs, hearin' me 
 
 speak of Horseley's offishness ' 
 
 ' Whose offishness ? ' asked the lady. 
 ' Horseley's offishness Horseley's the 
 name of the man I'm talkin' about. Well, 
 hearin' that, he says : " You hold on, Hays, and 
 he'll climb down. That wife of his has left the 
 stage got sick of it and is driftin' round in 
 'Frisco with some fellow. When Horseley gets 
 to hear that, you can't keep him here he'll 
 settle up, sell out, and realise on everything he's 
 
 L 2 
 
148 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 got to go after her agin you bet." That's what 
 Briggs said. Well, that's what sent me up to 
 Horseley's to-night to get there, drop the 
 news, and then pin him down to that contract.' 
 
 ' It looked like a good stroke of business 
 and a fair one,' said the lady in an odd voice. 
 It was so odd that Hays looked up. But she 
 had somewhat altered her position, and was 
 gazing at the ceiling, and with her hand to her 
 face seemed to have just recovered from a 
 slight yawn, at which he hesitated with a new 
 and timid sense of politeness. 
 
 ' You're gettin' tired, ma'am ? ' 
 
 ' Oh dear, no ! ' she said in the same voice, 
 but clearing her throat with a little cough. 
 ' And why didn't you see this Mr. Horseley after 
 all ? Oh, I forgot ! you said you changed 
 your mind from something you'd heard.' 
 
 He had turned his eyes to the fire again, 
 but without noticing as he did so that she 
 slowly moved her face, still half hidden by 
 her hand, towards him and was watching him 
 intently. 
 
 ' No,' he said, slowly, ' nothin' I heard, 
 somethin' I felt, I mout hev been that that 
 
A NIGHT AT 1 HAYS* 149 
 
 set off on the track. It kem to me all of a 
 sudden that he might be sittin' thar calm and 
 peaceful like ez I might be here, hevin' forgot 
 all about her and his trouble, and here was me 
 goin' to drop down upon him and start it all 
 fresh agin. It looked a little like persecution 
 yes, like persecution. I got rid of it, sayin' 
 to myself it was business. But I'd got off 
 the road meantime, and had to find it again, 
 and whenever I got back to the track and was 
 pointed Jbr his house, it all seemed to come 
 back on me and set me off again. When that 
 had happened three times, I turned round and 
 started for home.' 
 
 ' And do you mean to say,' said the lady, 
 with a discordant laugh, ' that you believe, 
 because you didn't go there and break the 
 news, that nobody else will ? That he won't 
 hear of it from the first man he meets ? ' 
 
 ' He don't meet anyone up where he lives, 
 and only Briggs and myself know it, and I'll 
 see that Briggs don't tell. But it was mighty 
 queer this whole thing comin' upon me suddenly 
 wasn't it ? ' 
 
 ' Very queer,' replied the lady, ' for/ with 
 
150 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 the same metallic laugh, ' you don't seem to be 
 given to this kind of weakness with your own 
 family.' 
 
 If there was any doubt as to the sarcastic 
 suggestion of her voice, there certainly could be 
 none in the wicked glitter of her eyes fixed 
 upon his face under her shading hand. But 
 haply he seemed unconscious of both, and 
 even accepted her statement without an ulterior 
 significance. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, communingly, to the glaring 
 embers of the hearth, ' it must have been a 
 special revelation.' 
 
 There was something so fatuous and one- 
 idead in his attitude and expression, so mon- 
 strously inconsistent and inadequate to what 
 was going on around him, and so hopelessly 
 stupid if a mere simulation that the angry 
 suspicion that he was acting a part slowly faded 
 from her eyes, and a hysterical smile began to 
 twitch her set lips. She still gazed at him. 
 The wind howled drearily in the chimney ; all 
 that was economic, grim, and cheerless in the 
 room seemed to gather as flitting shadows 
 around that central figure. Suddenly she arose 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 151 
 
 with such a quick rustling of her skirts that he 
 lifted his eyes with a start ; for she was standing 
 immediately before him, her hands behind her, 
 her handsome, audacious face bent smilingly 
 forward, and her bold, brilliant eyes within a 
 foot of his own. 
 
 ' Now, Mr. Hays, do you want to know 
 what this warning or special revelation of yours 
 really meant ? Well, it had nothing whatever 
 to do with that man on the summit. No. 
 The whole interest, gist, and meaning of it was 
 simply this, that you should turn round and 
 come straight back here and ' she drew back 
 and made him an exaggerated theatrical curtsey 
 ' have the supreme pleasure of making my 
 acquaintance ! That was all. And now, as 
 you've had it, in five minutes I must be off. 
 You've offered me already your horse and sleigh 
 to go to the summit. I accept it and go ! 
 Good-bye ! ' 
 
 He knew nothing of a woman's coquettish 
 humour ; he knew still less of that mimic stage 
 from which her present voice, gesture, and 
 expression were borrowed ; he had no know- 
 ledge of the burlesque emotions which that 
 
i$2 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 voice, gesture, and expression were supposed to 
 portray, and finally and fatally he was unable 
 to detect the feminine hysteric jar and discord 
 that underlay it all. He thought it was strong, 
 characteristic, and real, and accepted it literally. 
 He rose. 
 
 ' Ef you allow you can't stay, why I'll go 
 and get the horse. I reckon he ain't bin put 
 up yet.' 
 
 ' Do, please.' 
 
 He grimly resumed his coat and hat and 
 disappeared through the passage into the kit- 
 chen, whence, a moment later, Zuleika came 
 flying. 
 
 ' Well, what has happened ?' she said eagerly. 
 
 ' It's all right,' said the woman quickly, 
 ' though he knows nothing yet. But I've got 
 things fixed generally, so that he'll be quite 
 ready to have it broken to him by this time to- 
 morrow. But don't you say anything till I've 
 seen Jack and you hear from him. Re- 
 member.' 
 
 She spoke rapidly ; her cheeks were quite 
 glowing from some sudden energy; so were 
 Zuleika's with the excitement of curiosity. 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 153 
 
 Presently the sound of sleigh bells again filled 
 the room. It was Hays leading the horse and 
 sleigh to the door, beneath a sky now starlit 
 and crisp under a north-east wind. The fair 
 stranger cast a significant glance at Zuleika, 
 and whispered hurriedly, ' You know he must 
 not come with me. You must keep him here.' 
 
 She ran to the door mufHed and hooded, 
 leaped into the sleigh, and gathered up the 
 reins. 
 
 ' But you cannot go alone,' said Hays, with 
 awkward courtesy. ' I was kalkilatin ' 
 
 ' You're too tired to go out again, dad,' 
 broke in Zuleika's voice quickly. ' You ain't 
 fit ; you're all grey and krinkly now, like as 
 when you had one of your last spells. She'll 
 send the sleigh back to-morrow.' 
 
 ' I can find my way,' said the lady briskly ; 
 ' there's only one turn off, I believe, and 
 that ' 
 
 ' Leads to the stage station three miles 
 west. You needn't be afraid of gettin' off on 
 that, for you'll likely see the down stage crossin' 
 your road as soon ez you get clear of the 
 ranch.' 
 
i 54 A NIGHT AT ' HAYS 
 
 1 Good-night,' said the lady. An arc of 
 white spray sprang before the forward runner, 
 and the sleigh vanished in the road. 
 
 Father and daughter returned to the 
 office. 
 
 ' You didn't get to know her, dad, did ye ? ' 
 queried Zuleika. 
 
 ' No,' responded Hays gravely, ' except to 
 see she wasn't no backwoods or mountaineering 
 sort. Now, there's the kind of woman, Zuly, as 
 knows her own mind and yours too ; that a man 
 like your brother Jack oughter pick out when 
 he marries.' 
 
 Zuleika's face beamed behind her father. 
 ' You ain't goin' to sit up any longer, dad ? ' 
 she said, as she noticed him resume his seat by 
 the fire. ' It's gettin' late, and you look mighty 
 tuckered out with your night's work.' 
 
 ' Do you know what she said, Zuly ? ' re- 
 turned her father, after a pause, which turned 
 out to have been a long, silent laugh. 
 
 'No.' 
 
 1 She said,' he repeated slowly, ' that she 
 reckoned I came back here to-night to have 
 the pleasure of her acquaintance ! ' He 
 
A NIGHT AT 'HAYS* 155 
 
 brought his two hands heavily down upon his 
 knees, rubbing them down deliberately towards 
 his ankles, and leaning forward with his face to 
 the fire and a long-sustained smile of complete 
 though tardy appreciation. 
 
 He was still in this attitude when Zuleika 
 left him. The wind crooned over him confi- 
 dentially, but he still sat there, given up ap- 
 parently to some posthumous enjoyment of his 
 visitor's departing witticism. 
 
 It was scarcely daylight when Zuleika, 
 while dressing, heard a quick tapping upon 
 her shutter. She opened it to the scared and 
 bewildered face of her brother. 
 
 ' What happened with her and father last 
 night ? ' he said hoarsely. 
 
 1 Nothing why ? ' 
 
 ' Read that. It was brought to me half an 
 hour ago by a man in dad's sleigh, from the 
 stage station.' 
 
 He handed her a crumpled note with 
 trembling fingers. She took it and read : 
 
 ' The game's up and I'm out of it ! Take 
 my advice and clear out of it too, until you can 
 come back in better shape. Don't be such a 
 
156 A NIGHT AT 'HAYS' 
 
 fool as to try and follow me. Your father isn't 
 one, and that's where you've slipped up.' 
 
 ' He shall pay for it whatever he's done,' 
 said her brother with an access of wild passion. 
 ' Where is he ? ' 
 
 4 Why, Jack, you wouldn't dare to see him 
 now ?' 
 
 ' Wouldn't I ? ' He turned and ran, convulsed 
 with passion, before the windows towards the 
 front of the house. Zuleika slipped out of her 
 bedroom and ran to her father's room. He 
 was not there. Already she could hear her 
 brother hammering frantically against the locked 
 front door. 
 
 The door of the office was partly open. 
 Her father was still there. Asleep ? Yes, for 
 he had apparently sank foward before the cold 
 hearth. But the hands that he had always 
 been trying to warm were colder than the 
 hearth or ashes, and he himself never again 
 spoke nor stirred. 
 
 It was deemed providential by the neighbours 
 that his youngest and favourite son, alarmed by 
 news of his father's failing health, had arrived 
 
A NIGHT AT <HAYS> 157 
 
 from the Atlantic States just at the last moment. 
 But it was thought singular that after the divi- 
 sion of the property he entirely abandoned the 
 Ranch, and that even pending the division his 
 beautiful but fastidious Eastern bride declined 
 to visit it with her husband. 
 
159 
 
 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 
 
 IT was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was 
 becoming more indistinct before me at every 
 step. The difficulty had increased over the 
 grassy slope, where the overflow from some 
 smaller watercourse above had worn a number 
 of diverging gullies so like the trail as to be 
 undistinguishable from it. Unable to deter- 
 mine which was the right one, I threw the 
 reins over the mule's neck and resolved to trust 
 to that superior animal's sagacity, of which I 
 had heard so much. But I had not taken into 
 account the equally well-known weaknesses of 
 sex and species, and Chu Chu had already 
 shown uncontrollable signs of wanting her own 
 way. Without a moment's hesitation, feeling 
 the relaxed bridle, she laid down and rolled 
 over. 
 
 In this perplexity the sound of horse's hoofs 
 
160 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN > 
 
 ringing out of the rocky canon beyond was a 
 relief, even if momentarily embarrassing. An 
 instant afterwards a horse and rider appeared 
 cantering round the hill on what was evidently 
 the lost trail, and pulled up as I succeeded in 
 forcing Chu Chu to her legs again. 
 
 ' Is that the trail from Sonora ?' I asked. 
 
 ' Yes ; ' but with a critical glance at the 
 mule, ' I reckon you ain't going thar to-night.' 
 
 ' Why not ? ' 
 
 ' It's a matter of eighteen miles, and most 
 of it a blind trail through the woods after you 
 take the valley.' 
 
 ' Is it worse than this ? ' 
 
 ' What's the matter with this trail ? Ye 
 ain't expecting a racecourse or a shell road over 
 the foot hills are ye ? ' 
 
 ' No. Is there any hotel where I can 
 stop ? ' 
 
 ' Nary/ 
 
 ' Nor any house ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Thank you. Good-night.' 
 
 He had already passed on, when he halted 
 again and turned in his saddle.. ' Look yer. 
 
JOHNSONS 'OLD WOMAN* i6r 
 
 Just a spell over yon canon ye'll find a patch o' 
 buckeyes ; turn to the right and ye'll see a trail. 
 That'll take ye to a shanty. You ask if it's 
 Johnson's.' 
 
 'Who's Johnson?' 
 
 1 1 am. . You ain't lookin' for Vanderbilt 
 or God Almighty up here, are you ? Well, 
 then, you hark to me, will you ? You say to 
 my old woman to give you supper and a shake- 
 down somewhar to-night. Say / sent you. So 
 long.' 
 
 He was gone before I could accept or de- 
 cline. An extraordinary noise proceeded from 
 Chu Chu, not unlike a suppressed chuckle. I 
 looked sharply at her ; she coughed affectedly, 
 and, with her head and neck stretched to their 
 greatest length, appeared to contemplate her 
 neat little off fore shoe with admiring abstrac- 
 tion. But as soon as I had mounted she set 
 off abruptly, crossed the rocky canon, appa- 
 rently sighted the patch of buckeyes of her 
 own volition, and without the slightest hesita- 
 tion found the trail to the right, and in half an 
 hour stood before the shanty. 
 
 It was a log cabin with an additional ' lean- 
 
 M 
 
162 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 
 
 to ' of the same material, roofed with bark, and 
 on the other side a larger and more ambitious 
 ' extension ' built of rough, unplaned, and un- 
 painted redwood boards, lightly shingled. The 
 ' lean-to ' was evidently used as a kitchen, and 
 the central cabin as a living-room. The bark- 
 ing of a dog as I approached called four 
 children of different sizes to the open door, 
 where already an enterprising baby was feebly 
 essaying to crawl over a bar of wood laid 
 across the threshold to restrain it. 
 
 ' Is this Johnson's house ? ' 
 
 My remark was really addressed to the 
 eldest, a boy of apparently nine or ten, but I 
 felt that my attention was unduly fascinated 
 by the baby, who at that moment had toppled 
 over the bar, and was calmly eyeing me upside 
 down, while silently and heroically suffocating 
 in its petticoats. The boy disappeared with- 
 out replying, but presently returned with a 
 taller girl of fourteen or fifteen. I was struck 
 with the way that, as she reached the door, she 
 passed her hands rapidly over the heads of the 
 others as if counting them, picked up the baby, 
 reversed it, shook out its clothes, and returned 
 
JOHNSONS 'OLD WOMAN' 163 
 
 it to the inside without even looking at it. 
 The act was evidently automatic and habitual. 
 I repeated my question timidly. 
 Yes, it was Johnson's, but he had just gone 
 to King's Mills. I replied, hurriedly, that I 
 knew it that I had met him beyond the 
 canon. As I had lost my way and couldn't 
 get to Sonora to-night, he had been good 
 enough to say that I might stay there until 
 morning. My voice was slightly raised for 
 the benefit of Mr. Johnson's ' old woman/ who 
 I had no doubt, was inspecting me furtively 
 from some corner. 
 
 The girl drew the children away, except 
 the boy. To him she said simply, ' Show the 
 stranger whar to stake out his mule, 'Dolphus,' 
 and disappeared in the 'extension' without 
 another word. I followed my little guide, who 
 was perhaps more actively curious, but equally 
 unresponsive. To my various questions he 
 simply returned a smile of exasperating vacuity. 
 But he never took his eager eyes from me, and 
 I was satisfied that not a detail of my appear- 
 ance escaped him. Leading the way behind 
 the house to a little wood, whose only ' clear- 
 
i&4 JOHNSON* S 'OLD WOMAN' 
 
 ing' had been effected by decay or storm, he 
 stood silently apart while I picketed Chu Chu, 
 neither offering to assist me nor opposing 
 any interruption to my survey of the locality. 
 There was no trace of human cultivation in 
 the surroundings of the cabin ; the wilderness 
 still trod sharply on the heels of the pioneer's 
 fresh footprints, and even seemed to obliterate 
 them. For a few yards around the actual 
 dwelling there was an unsavoury fringe of 
 civilisation in the shape of cast-off clothes, 
 empty bottles, and tin cans, and the adjacent 
 thorn and elder bushes blossomed unwhole- 
 somely with bits of torn white paper and 
 bleaching dish-cloths. This hideous circle 
 never widened ; Nature always appeared to roll 
 back the intruding debris ; no bird nor beast 
 carried it away ; no animal ever forced the 
 uncleanly barrier ; civilisation remained grimly 
 trenched in its own exuvia. The old terrify- 
 ing girdle of fire around the hunters' camp 
 was not more deterring to curious night prowlers 
 than this coarse and accidental outwork. 
 
 When I regained the cabin I found it 
 empty, the doors of the lean-to and extension 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 165 
 
 closed, but there was a stool set before a rude 
 table, upon which smoked a tin cup of coffee, 
 a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit, and a plate 
 of fried beef. There was something odd and 
 depressing in this silent exclusion of my pre- 
 sence. Had Johnson's ' old woman ' from some 
 dark post of observation taken a dislike to my 
 appearance, or was this churlish withdrawal a 
 peculiarity of Sierran hospitality ? Or was 
 Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden 
 under the restricting ban of Johnson's jealousy, 
 or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bed- 
 ridden crone ? From the extension at times 
 came a murmur of voices, but never the accents 
 of adult womanhood. The gathering darkness, 
 relieved only by a dull glow from the smoulder- 
 ing logs in the adobe chimney, added to my 
 loneliness. In the circumstances I knew I 
 ought to have put aside the repast and given 
 myself up to gloomy and pessimistic reflection ; 
 but Nature is often inconsistent, and in that 
 keen mountain air, I grieve to say, my physical 
 and moral condition was not in that perfect 
 accord always indicated by romancers. I had 
 an appetite and I gratified it ; dyspepsia and 
 
1 66 JOHNSON'S 1 OLD WOMAN' 
 
 ethical reflections might come later. I ate the 
 saleratus biscuit cheerfully, and was medita- 
 tively finishing my coffee when a gurgling 
 sound from the rafters above attracted my 
 attention. I looked up ; under the overhang 
 of the bark roof three pairs of round eyes were 
 fixed upon me. They belonged to the children 
 I had previously seen, who, in the attitude of 
 Raphael's cherubs, had evidently been deeply 
 interested spectators of my repast. As our 
 eyes met an inarticulate giggle escaped the 
 lips of the youngest. 
 
 I never could understand why the shy 
 amusement of children over their elders is not 
 accepted as philosophically by its object as 
 when it proceeds from an equal. We fondly 
 believe that when Jones or Brown laughs at us 
 it is from malice, ignorance, or a desire to show 
 his superiority, but there is always a haunting 
 suspicion in our minds that these little critics 
 really see something in us to laugh at. I, 
 however, smiled affably in return, ignoring any 
 possible grotesqueness in my manner of eating 
 in private. 
 
 ' Come here, Johnny,' I said blandly. 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 167 
 
 The two elder ones, a girl and a boy, 
 disappeared instantly, as if the crowning joke 
 of this remark was too much for them. From 
 a scraping and kicking against the log wall I 
 judged that they had quickly dropped to the 
 ground outside. The younger one, the giggler, 
 remained fascinated, but ready to fly at a 
 moment's warning. 
 
 ' Come here, Johnny, boy,' I repeated 
 gently. ' I want you to go to your mother, 
 please, and tell her ' 
 
 But here the child, who had been working 
 its face convulsively, suddenly uttered a lugu- 
 brious howl and disappeared also. I ran to the 
 front door and looked out in time to see the 
 tallest girl, who had received me, walking away 
 with it under her arm, pushing the boy ahead 
 of her and looking back over her shoulder, not 
 unlike a youthful she-bear conducting her cubs 
 from danger. She ' disappeared at the end of 
 the extension, where there was evidently an- 
 other door. 
 
 It was very extraordinary. It was not 
 strange that I turned back to the cabin with a 
 chagrin and mortification which for a moment 
 
168 JOHNSONS ' OLD WOMAN* 
 
 made me entertain the wild idea of saddling 
 Chu Chu and shaking the dust of that taciturn 
 house from my feet. But the ridiculousness of 
 such an act, to say nothing of its ingratitude, as 
 quickly presented itself to me. Johnson had 
 offered me only food and shelter ; I could have 
 claimed no more from the inn I had asked him 
 to direct me to. I did not re-enter the house, 
 but, lighting my last cigar, began to walk 
 gloomily up and down the trail. With the 
 outcoming of the stars it had grown lighter ; 
 through a wind opening in the trees I could see 
 the heavy bulk of the opposite mountain, and 
 beyond it a superior crest denned by a red line 
 of forest fire, which, however, cast no reflection 
 on the surrounding earth or sky. Faint wood- 
 land currents of air, still w r arm from the after- 
 noon sun, stirred the leaves around me with 
 long-drawn aromatic breaths. But these in 
 time gave way to the steady Sierran night wind 
 sweeping down from the higher summits, and 
 rocking the tops of the tallest pines, yet leaving 
 the tranquillity of the dark lower aisles unshaken. 
 It was very quiet ; there was no cry nor call of 
 beast or bird in the darkness ; the long rustle of 
 
JOHNSONS 'OLD WOMAN 1 169 
 
 the tree-tops sounded as faint as the far-off 
 wash of distant seas. Nor did the resemblance 
 cease there ; the close-set files of the pines and 
 cedars, stretching in illimitable ranks to the 
 horizon, were filled with the immeasurable 
 loneliness of an ocean shore. In this vast 
 silence I began to think I understood the 
 taciturnity of the dwellers in the solitary cabin. 
 
 When I returned, however, I was surprised 
 to find the tallest girl standing by the door. 
 As I approached she retreated before me, and, 
 pointing to the corner where a common cot bed 
 had been evidently just put up, said, ' Ye can 
 turn in thar, only ye'll have to rouse out early 
 when 'Dolphus does the chores,' and was 
 turning towards the extension again, when I 
 stopped her almost appealingly. 
 
 ' One moment, please. Can I see your 
 mother ? ' 
 
 She stopped and looked at me with a sin- 
 gular expression. Then she said sharply : 
 
 ' You know, fust rate, she's dead.' 
 
 She was turning away again, but I think 
 she must have seen my concern in my face, for 
 she hesitated. ' But,' I said quickly, ' I cer- 
 
1 70 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 
 
 tainly understood your father, that is, Mr. 
 Johnson,' I added, interrogatively, ' to say that 
 that I was to speak to ' I didn't like to 
 repeat the exact phrase ' his wife.' 
 
 ( I don't know what he was playin' ye for,' 
 she said shortly. ' Mar has been dead mor'n a 
 year.' 
 
 ' But,' I persisted, ' is there no grown-up 
 woman here ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Then who takes care of you and the 
 children ? ' 
 
 ' I do.' 
 
 ' Yourself and your father eh ? ' 
 
 ' Dad ain't here two days running, and then 
 on'y to sleep.' 
 
 ' And you take the entire charge of the 
 house ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, and the log tallies.' 
 
 ' The log tallies ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; keep count and measure the logs 
 that go by the slide.' 
 
 It flashed upon me that I had passed the 
 slide or declivity on the hill side, where logs 
 were slipped down into the valley, and I 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 171 
 
 inferred that Johnson's business was cutting 
 timber for the mill. 
 
 ' But you're rather young for all this work,' 
 I suggested. 
 
 ' I'm" goin' on sixteen,' she said gravely. 
 
 Indeed, for the matter of that, she might 
 have been any age. Her face, on which sun- 
 burn took the place of complexion, was already 
 hard and set. But on a nearer view I was 
 struck with the fact that her eyes, which were 
 not large, were almost indistinguishable from 
 the presence of the most singular eyelashes I 
 had ever seen. Intensely black, intensely thick, 
 and even tangled in their profusion, they 
 bristled rather than fringed her eyelids, oblite- 
 rating everything but the shining black pupils 
 beneath, which were like certain lustrous hairy 
 mountain berries. It was this woodland sug- 
 gestion that seemed to uncannily connect her 
 with the locality. I went on playfully : 
 
 ' That's not very old but tell me does 
 your father, or did your father, ever speak of 
 you as "his old woman?" 
 
 She nodded, ' Then you thought I was 
 mar ? ' she said, smiling. 
 
172 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 
 
 It was such a relief to see her worn face 
 relax its expression of pathetic gravity al- 
 though this operation quite buried her eyes in 
 their black thickest hedge again that I con- 
 tinued cheerfully, ' It wasn't much of a mistake, 
 considering all you do for the house and family.' 
 
 'Then you didn't tell Billy "to go and be 
 dead in the ground with mar," as he 'lows you 
 did ? ' she said half suspiciously, yet trembling 
 on the edge of a smile. 
 
 No, I had not, but I admitted that my 
 asking him to go to his mother might have 
 been open to this dismal construction by a 
 sensitive infant mind. She seemed mollified, 
 and again turned to go. 
 
 ' Good-night, Miss ; you know your 
 father didn't tell me your real name,' I said. 
 
 ' Karline ! ' 
 
 ' Good-night, Miss Karline.' 
 
 I held out my hand. 
 
 She looked at it and then at me through 
 her intricate eyelashes. Then she struck it 
 aside briskly, but not unkindly, said * Quit 
 foolin', now,' as she might have said to one of 
 the children, and disappeared through the inner 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 173 
 
 door. Not knowing whether to be amused or 
 indignant, I remained silent a moment. Then 
 I took a turn outside in the increasing darkness, 
 listened to the now hurrying wind over the 
 tree-tops, re-entered the cabin, closed the door, 
 and went to bed. 
 
 But not to sleep. Perhaps the responsi- 
 bility towards these solitary children, which 
 Johnson had so lightly shaken off, devolved 
 upon me as I lay there, for I found myself 
 imagining a dozen emergencies of their unpro- 
 tected state, which the elder girl could scarcely 
 grapple. There was little to fear from depre- 
 datory man or beast desperadoes of the moun- 
 tain trail never stooped to ignoble burglary, 
 bear or panther seldom approached a cabin 
 but there was the chance of sudden illness, 
 fire, the accidents that beset childhood, to say 
 nothing of the narrowing moral and mental 
 effect of their isolation at that tender age. It 
 was scandalous in Johnson to leave them 
 alone. 
 
 In the silence I found I could hear quite 
 distinctly the sound of their voices in the 
 extension, and it was evident that Caroline was 
 
174 JOHNSON'S < OLD WOMAN' 
 
 putting them to bed. Suddenly a voice was 
 uplifted her own ! She began to sing and the 
 others to join her. It was the repetition of a 
 single verse of a well-known lugubrious negro 
 melody. ' All the world am sad and dreary,' 
 wailed Caroline, in a high head-note, ' every- 
 where I roam.' ' O, darkieth/ lisped the 
 younger girl in response, ' how my heart 
 growth weary, far from the old folkth at 
 h-o-o-me.' This was repeated two or three 
 times before the others seemed to get the full 
 swing of it, and then the lines rose and fell 
 sadly and monotonously in the darkness. I don't 
 know why, but I at once got the impression 
 that those motherless little creatures were under 
 a vague belief that their performance was de- 
 votional, and was really filling the place of an 
 evening hymn. A brief and indistinct kind of 
 recitation, followed by a dead silence, broken 
 only by the slow creaking of new timber, as if 
 the house were stretching itself to sleep too, 
 confirmed my impression. Then all became 
 quiet again. 
 
 But I was more wide awake than before. 
 Finally I rose, dressed myself, and dragging 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN* 175 
 
 my stool to the fire, took a book from my 
 knapsack, and by the light of a guttering 
 candle, which I discovered in a bottle in the 
 corner of the hearth, began to read. Presently 
 I fell into a doze. How long I slept I could 
 not tell, for it seemed to me that a dreamy 
 consciousness of a dog barking at last forced 
 itself upon me so strongly that I awoke. The 
 barking appeared to come from behind the cabin 
 in the direction of the clearing where I had 
 tethered Chu Chu. I opened the door hurriedly, 
 ran round the cabin towards the hollow, and 
 was almost at once met by the bulk of the 
 frightened Chu Chu, plunging out of the dark- 
 ness towards me, kept only in check by her 
 riata in the hand of a blanketed shape slowly 
 advancing with a gun over its shoulder out of 
 the hollow. Before I had time to recover from 
 my astonishment I was thrown into greater 
 confusion by recognising the shape as none 
 other than Caroline ! 
 
 Without the least embarrassment or even 
 self-consciousness of her appearance, she tossed 
 the end of the riata to me with the curtest 
 explanation as she passed by. Some prowling 
 
176 JOHNSON* S 'OLD 
 
 bear or catamount had frightened the mule. I 
 had better tether it before the cabin away from 
 the wind. 
 
 1 But I thought wild beasts never came so 
 near,' I said quickly. 
 
 ' Mule meat's mighty temptin',' said the 
 girl sententiously and passed on. I wanted to 
 thank her ; I wanted to say how sorry I was 
 that she had been disturbed ; I wanted to com- 
 pliment her on her quiet midnight courage, and 
 yet warn her against recklessness ; I wanted to 
 know whether she had been accustomed to such 
 alarms ; and if the gun she carried was really a 
 necessity. But I could only respect her reti- 
 cence, and I was turning away when I was 
 struck by a more inexplicable spectacle. As 
 she neared the end of the extension I distinctly 
 saw the tall figure of a man, moving with a 
 certain diffidence and hesitation that did not, 
 however, suggest any intention of concealment, 
 among the trees ; the girl apparently saw him 
 at the same moment and slightly slackened her 
 pace. Not more than a dozen feet separated 
 them. He said something that was inaudible 
 to my ears but whether from his hesitation or 
 
JOHNSON'S 1 OLD WOMAN' 177 
 
 the distance I could not determine. There was 
 no such uncertainty in her reply, however, 
 which was given in her usual curt fashion : ' All 
 right. You kin trapse along home now and 
 turn in.' 
 
 She turned the corner of the extension 
 and disappeared. The tall figure of the man 
 wavered hesitatingly for a moment, and then 
 vanished also. But I was too much excited 
 by curiosity to accept this unsatisfactory con- 
 clusion, and, hastily picketing Chu Chu a few 
 rods from the front door, I ran after him, with 
 an instinctive feeling that he had not gone far. 
 I was right. A few paces distant he had 
 halted in the same dubious, lingering way. 
 ' Hallo ! ' I said. 
 
 He turned towards me in the like awkward 
 fashion, but with neither astonishment nor con- 
 cern. 
 
 ' Come up and take a drink with me before 
 you go,' I said, ' if you're not in a hurry. I'm 
 alone here, and since I have turned out I don't 
 see why we mightn't have a smoke and a talk 
 together.' 
 
 ' I dursn't.' 
 
 N 
 
i;8 JOHNSONS 'OLD 
 
 I looked up at the six feet of strength 
 before me and repeated wonderingly, ' Dare 
 not?' 
 
 ' She wouldn't like it.' He made a move- 
 ment with his right shoulder towards the ex- 
 tension. 
 
 'Who?' 
 
 ' Miss Karline.' 
 
 * Nonsense ! ' I said. ' She isn't in the 
 cabin you won't see her. Come along.' He 
 hesitated, although from what I could discern 
 of his bearded face it was weakly smiling. 
 
 ' Come.' 
 
 He obeyed, following me not unlike Chu 
 Chu, I fancied, with the same sense of superior 
 size and strength and a slight whitening of the 
 eye, as if ready to shy at any moment. At the 
 door he ' backed.' Then he entered sideways. 
 I noticed that he cleared the doorway at the 
 top and the sides only by a hair's-breadth. 
 
 By the light of the fire I could see that, in 
 spite of his full first growth of beard, he was 
 young even younger than myself, and that 
 he was by no means bad-looking. As he still 
 showed signs of retreating at any moment, I 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 179 
 
 took my flask and tobacco from my saddle 
 bags, handed them to him, pointed to the stool, 
 and sat down myself upon the bed. 
 ' You live near here ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' he said a little abstractedly, as if 
 listening for some interruption, 'at Ten Mile 
 Crossing.' 
 
 ' Why, that's two miles away.' 
 ' I reckon.' 
 
 ' Then you don't live here on the clearing ? ' 
 ' No. I b'long to the mill at " Ten Mile." ' 
 ' You were on your way home ? ' 
 ' No/ he hesitated, looking at his pipe ; ' I 
 kinder meander round here at this time, when 
 Johnson's away, to see if everything's goin' 
 straight.' 
 
 ' I see you're a friend of the family.' 
 ''Deed no!' He stopped, laughed, looked 
 confused, and added, apparently to his pipe, 
 ' That is, a sorter friend. Not much. She ' 
 he lowered his voice as if that potential per- 
 sonality filled the whole cabin ' wouldn't like it.' 
 ' Then at night, when Johnson's away, you 
 do sentry duty round the house ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, " sentry dooty," that's it ' he seemed 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o JOHNSON'S 'OLD 
 
 impressed with the suggestion ' that's it ! 
 Sentry dooty. You've struck it, pardner.' 
 
 ' And how often is Johnson away ?' 
 
 ' 'Bout two or three times a week on an 
 average.' 
 
 ' But Miss Caroline appears to be able to 
 take care of herself. She has no fear.' 
 
 ' Fear ! Fear wasn't hangin' round when 
 she was born!' He paused. 'No, sir. Did 
 ye ever look into them eyes ? ' 
 
 I hadn't, on account of the lashes. But I 
 didn't care to say this, and only nodded. 
 
 ' There ain't the created thing livin' or dead 
 that she can't stand straight up to and look at.' 
 
 I wondered if he had fancied she experi- 
 enced any difficulty in standing up before that 
 innocently good-humoured face, but I could 
 not resist saying : 
 
 ' Then I don't see the use of your walking 
 four miles to look after her.' 
 
 I was sorry for it the next minute, for he 
 seemed to have awkwardly broken his pipe, 
 and had to bend down for a long time after- 
 wards to laboriously pick up the smallest 
 fragments of it. At last he said, cautiously : 
 
JOHXSOWS ^OLD WOMAN* 181 
 
 ' Ye noticed them bits o' flannin' round the 
 chillern's throats ? ' 
 
 I remembered that I had, but was uncer- 
 tain whether it was intended as a preventive of 
 cold or a child's idea of decoration. I nodded. 
 
 ' That's their trouble. One night, when 
 old Johnson had been off for three days to 
 Coulterville, I was prowling round here and 
 I didn't git to see no one, though there was 
 a light burnin' in the shanty all night. The 
 next night I w r as here again the same light 
 twinklin', but no one about. I reckoned that 
 was mighty queer, and I jess crep' up to the 
 house an' listened. I heard suthin' like a little 
 cough onest in a while, and times suthin' like 
 a little moan. I didn't durst to sing out, for I 
 knew she wouldn't like it, but I whistled keer- 
 less like, to let the chillern know I was there. 
 But it didn't seem to take. I was jess goin' 
 off, when darn my skin ! if I didn't come 
 across the bucket of water I'd fetched up from 
 the spring that morniri , standin' there full, and 
 never taken in \ When I saw that I reckoned 
 I'd jess wade in, anyhow, and I knocked. 
 Pooty soon the door was half opened, and I 
 
1 82 JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN* 
 
 saw her eyes blazin' at me like them coals. 
 Then she 'lowed I'd better "git up and get," 
 and shet the door to ! Then I 'lowed she 
 might tell me what was up through the door. 
 Then she said through the door as how the 
 chillern lay all sick with that hoss-distemper, 
 diphthery. Then she 'lowed she'd use a doctor 
 ef I'd fetch him. Then she 'lowed again I'd 
 better take the baby that hadn't ketched it yet 
 along with me, and leave it where it was safe. 
 Then she passed out the baby through the 
 door all wrapped up in a blankit like a papoose, 
 and you bet I made tracks with it. I knowed 
 thar wasn't no good going to the mill, so I let 
 out for White's, four miles beyond, whar there 
 was White's old mother. I told her how 
 things were pointin', and she lent me a hoss, 
 and I jess rounded on Doctor Green at Moun- 
 tain Jim's, and had him back here afore sun 
 up ! And then I heard she wilted regularly 
 played out, you see for she had it all along 
 wuss than the lot, and never let on or 
 whimpered ! ' 
 
 1 It was well you persisted in seeing her 
 that night,' I said, watching the rapt expression 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN 1 183 
 
 of his face. He looked up quickly, became 
 conscious of my scrutiny, and dropped his eyes 
 again, smiled feebly, and drawing a circle in 
 the ashes with the broken pipe-stem, said : 
 
 ' But she didn't like it, though.' 
 
 I suggested, a little warmly, that if she 
 allowed her father to leave her alone at night 
 with delicate children, she had no right to 
 choose who should assist her in an emergency. 
 It struck me afterwards that this was not very 
 complimentary to him, and I added hastily that 
 I wondered if she expected some young lady 
 to be passing along the trail at midnight ! But 
 this reminded me of Johnson's style of argu- 
 ment, and I stopped. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said meekly, ' and ef she didn't 
 keer enough for herself and her brothers and 
 sisters, she orter remember them Beazeley 
 chillern.' 
 
 ' Beazeley children ? ' I repeated wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 ' Yes ; them two little ones, the size of 
 Mirandy ; they're Beazeley's.' 
 
 'Who is Beazeley, and what are his chil- 
 dren doing here ? ' 
 
184 
 
 4 Beazeley up and died at the mill, and 
 she bedevilled her father to let her take his 
 two young 'uns here.' 
 
 ' You don't mean to say that with her other 
 work she's taking care of other people's children 
 too?' 
 
 ' Yes, and eddicatin' them.' 
 
 4 Educating them ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; teachin' them to read and write and 
 do sums. One of our loggers ketched her at 
 it when she was keepin' tally.' 
 
 We were both silent for some moments. 
 
 'I suppose you know Johnson ?' I said 
 finally. 
 
 ' Not much.' 
 
 4 But you call here at other times than when 
 you're helping her ? ' 
 
 ' Never been in the house before.' 
 
 He looked slowly around him as he spoke, 
 raising his eyes to the bare rafters above, and 
 drawing a few long breaths, as if he were in- 
 haling the aura of some unseen presence. He 
 appeared so perfectly gratified and contented, 
 and I was so impressed with this humble and 
 silent absorption of the sacred interior, that I 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN* 185 
 
 felt vaguely conscious that any interruption of 
 it was a profanation, and I sat still, gazing at 
 the dying fire. Presently he arose, stretched 
 out his hand, shook mine warmly, said, ' I 
 reckon I'll meander along,' took another long 
 breath, this time secretly, as if conscious of my 
 eyes, and then slouched sideways out of the 
 house into the darkness again, where he seemed 
 suddenly to attain his full height, and so loom- 
 ing, disappeared. I shut the door, went to bed, 
 and slept soundly. 
 
 So soundly that when I awoke the sun was 
 streaming on my bed from the open door. On 
 the table before me my breakfast was already 
 laid. When I had dressed and eaten it, struck 
 by the silence, I went to the door and looked 
 out. 'Dolphus was holding Chu Chu by the 
 riata a few paces from the cabin. 
 
 ' Where's Caroline ? ' I asked. 
 
 He pointed to the woods and said : ' Over 
 yon : keeping tally.' 
 
 ' Did she leave any message ? ' 
 
 ' Said I was to git your mule for you.' 
 
 1 Anything else ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; said you was to go.' 
 
1 86 JOHNSOWS 'OLD WOMAN^ 
 
 I went, but not until I had scrawled a few 
 words of thanks on a leaf of my note-book, 
 which I wrapped about my last Spanish dollar, 
 addressed it to ' Miss Johnson,' and laid it upon 
 the table. 
 
 It was more than a year later that in the 
 bar-room of the Mariposas Hotel a hand was 
 laid upon my sleeve. I looked up. It was 
 Johnson. 
 
 He drew from his pocket a Spanish dollar. 
 ' I reckoned,' he said, cheerfully, ' I'd run again 
 ye somewhar some time. My old woman told 
 me to give ye that when I did, and say that she 
 " didn't keep no hotel." But she allowed she'd 
 keep the letter, and has spelled it out to the 
 chillern.' 
 
 Here was the opportunity I had longed for 
 to touch Johnson's pride and affection in the 
 brave but unprotected girl. ' I want to talk to 
 you about Miss Johnson,' I said, eagerly. 
 
 ' I reckon so,' he said, with an exasperating 
 smile. ' Most fellers do. But she ain't Miss 
 Johnson no more. She's married.' 
 
JOHNSON'S 'OLD WOMAN' 187 
 
 ' Not to that big chap over from Ten Mile 
 Mills ? ' I said, breathlessly. 
 
 ' What's the matter with him,' said Johnson. 
 ' Ye didn't expect her to marry a nobleman, 
 did ye 
 
 I said I didn't see why she shouldn't and 
 believed that she had. 
 
1 8g 
 
 THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE 
 CLEARING SCHOOL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE schoolmistress of Pine Clearing was tak- 
 ing a last look around her school-room before 
 leaving it for the day. She might have done so 
 with pride, for the school-room was considered 
 a marvel of architectural elegance by the 
 citizens, and even to the ordinary observer was 
 a pretty, villa-like structure, with an open 
 cupola and overhanging roof of diamond- 
 shaped shingles and a deep Elizabethan porch. 
 But it was the monument of a fierce struggle 
 between a newer civilisation and a barbarism of 
 the old days, which had resulted in the clearing 
 away of the pines and a few other things as 
 incongruous to the new life and far less inno- 
 cent, though no less sincere. It had cost the 
 
igo THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 community fifteen thousand dollars, and the 
 lives of two of its citizens. 
 
 Happily there was no stain of this on the 
 clean white walls, the beautifully-written gilt 
 texts, or the shining blackboard that had offered 
 no record which could not be daily wiped 
 away. And, certainly, the last person in the 
 world to suggest any reminiscences of its bel- 
 ligerent foundation was the person of the school- 
 mistress. Mature, thin, precise not pretty 
 enough to have excited Homeric feuds, nor yet 
 so plain as to preclude certain soothing graces 
 she was the widow of a poor Congregational 
 minister, and had been expressly imported from 
 San Francisco to squarely mark the issue be- 
 tween the regenerate and unregenerate life. 
 Low-voiced, gentlewomanly, with the pallor of 
 ill-health perhaps unduly accented by her 
 mourning, which was still cut modishly enough 
 to show off her spare but good figure, she was 
 supposed to represent the model of pious, 
 scholastic refinement. The Opposition sullen 
 in ditches and at the doors of saloons, or in the 
 fields truculent as their own cattle neverthe- 
 less had lowered their crests and buttoned their 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 191 
 
 coats over their revolutionary red shirts when 
 she went by. 
 
 As she was stepping from the threshold, she 
 was suddenly confronted by a brisk business- 
 looking man, who was about to enter. ' Just 
 in time to catch you, Mrs. Martin,' he said, hur- 
 riedly ; then, quickly correcting his manifest 
 familiarity, he added : ' I mean, I took the liberty 
 of running in here on my way to the stage office. 
 That matter you spoke of is all arranged. I 
 talked it over with the other trustees, wrote to 
 Sam Barstow, and he's agreeable, and has sent 
 somebody up, and,' he rapidly consulted his 
 watch, ' he ought to be here now ; and I'm on 
 my way to meet him with the other trustees.' 
 
 Mrs. Martin, who at once recognised her 
 visitor as the Chairman of the School Board, 
 received the abrupt information with the slight 
 tremulousness, faint increase of colour, and 
 hurried breathing of a nervous woman. 
 
 ' But,' she said, ' it was only a suggestion of 
 mine, Mr. Sperry ; I really have no right to 
 ask I had no idea ! 
 
 ' It's all right, ma'am never you mind. 
 We put the case square to Barstow. We 
 
192 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 allowed that the school was getting too large 
 for you to tackle I mean, you know, to super- 
 intend single-handed ; and that these Pike 
 County boys they're running in on us are a 
 little too big and sassy for a lady like you to 
 lasso and throw down I mean, to sorter control 
 don't you see ? But, bless you, Sam Barstow 
 saw it all in a minit ! He just jumped at it. 
 I've got his letter here hold on' he hastily 
 produced a letter from his pocket, glanced over 
 it, suddenly closed it again with embarrassed 
 quickness, yet not so quickly but that the 
 woman's quicker eyes were caught, and ner- 
 vously fascinated by the expression ' I'm d d ' 
 in a large business hand and said in awkward 
 haste, ' No matter about reading" it now keep 
 you too long but he's agreed all right, you 
 know. Must go now they'll be waiting. 
 Only I thought I'd drop in a-passin', to keep 
 you posted ; ' and, taking off his hat he began 
 to back from the porch. 
 
 ' Is is this gentleman who is to assist 
 me a a mature professional man or a 
 graduate ? ' hesitated Mrs. Martin, with a faint 
 smile. 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 193 
 
 1 Don't really know I reckon Sam Mr. 
 Barstow fixed that all right. Must really go 
 now ; ' and, still holding his hat in his hand as 
 a polite compromise for his undignified haste, 
 he fairly ran off. 
 
 Arrived at the stage office, he found the two 
 other trustees awaiting him, and the still more 
 tardy stage-coach. One, a large, smooth-faced, 
 portly man, was the Presbyterian minister ; the 
 other, of thinner and more serious aspect, was a 
 large mill-owner. 
 
 ' I presume,' said the Rev. Mr. Peaseley, 
 slowly, ' that as our good brother Barstow, in 
 the urgency of the occasion, has, to some 
 extent, anticipated our functions in engaging 
 this assistant, he is a a satisfied with his 
 capacity ? ' 
 
 ' Sam knows what he's about,' said the mill- 
 owner cheerfully, ' and as he's regularly buckled 
 down to the work here, and will go his 
 bottom dollar on it, you can safely leave things 
 to him.' 
 
 ' He certainly has exhibited great zeal,' said 
 the reverend gentleman, patronisingly. 
 
 o 
 
I 9 4 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 1 Zeal,' echoed Sperry enthusiastically, ' zeal ? 
 Why, he runs Pine Clearing as he runs his 
 bank and his Express Company in Sacramento, 
 and he's as well posted as if he were here all 
 the time. Why, look here ; ' he nudged the 
 mill-owner secretly, and, as the minister's back 
 was momentarily turned, pulled out the letter 
 he had avoided reading to Mrs. Martin, and 
 
 pointed to a paragraph. ' I'll be d d, 1 said 
 
 the writer, 'but I'll have peace and quietness 
 at Pine Clearing, if I have to wipe out or make 
 over the whole Pike County gang. Draw on 
 me for a piano if you think Mrs. Martin can 
 work it. But don't say anything to Peaseley 
 first, or he'll want it changed for a harmonium, 
 and that lets us in for psalm-singing till you 
 can't rest. Mind ! I don't object to Church 
 influence it's a good hold ! but you must run 
 it with other things equal, and not let it run 
 you. I've got the school-house insured for 
 thirty thousand dollars special rates too.' 
 
 The mill-owner smiled. ' Sam's head is 
 level ! But,' he added, ' he don't say much 
 about the new assistant he's sending.' 
 
 ' Only here,' he says, ' I reckon the man I 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 195 
 
 send will do all round ; for Pike County has its 
 claims as well as Boston.' 
 
 ' What does that mean ? ' asked the mill- 
 owner. 
 
 ' I reckon he means he don't want Pine 
 Clearing to get too high-toned any more than 
 he wants it too low down. He's mighty 
 square in his averages is Sam.' 
 
 Here speculation was stopped by the rapid 
 oncoming of the stage-coach in all the impotent 
 fury of a belated arrival. 'Had to go round 
 by Montezuma to let off Jack Hill,' curtly ex- 
 plained the driver, as he swung himself from 
 the box, and entered the hotel bar-room in 
 company with the new express man, who had 
 evidently taken Hill's place on the box-seat. 
 Autocratically indifferent to further inquiry, he 
 called out cheerfully : ' Come along, boys, and 
 hear this yer last new yarn about Sam Barstow 
 it's the biggest thing out.' And in another 
 moment the waiting crowd, with glasses in 
 their hands, were eagerly listening to the re- 
 petition of the ' yarn ' from the new express 
 man, to the apparent exclusion of other matters, 
 mundane and practical. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 Thus debarred from information, the three 
 trustees could only watch the passengers as 
 they descended, and try to identify their ex- 
 pected stranger. But in vain : the bulk of the 
 passengers they already knew, the others were 
 ordinary miners and labourers ; there was no 
 indication of the new assistant among them. 
 Pending further inquiry they were obliged to 
 wait the conclusion of the express man's 
 humorous recital. This was evidently a per- 
 formance of some artistic merit, depending 
 upon a capital imitation of an Irishman, a 
 German Jew, and another voice, which was 
 universally recognised and applauded as being 
 ' Sam's style all over ! ' But for the presence 
 of the minister, Sperry and the mill-owner 
 would have joined the enthusiastic auditors, 
 and inwardly regretted the respectable obli- 
 gations of their official position. 
 
 When the story-teller had concluded amidst 
 a general call for more drinks, Sperry ap- 
 proached the driver. The latter recognising 
 him, turned to his companion carelessly, said, 
 ' Here's one of 'em,' and was going away when 
 Sperry stopped him. 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 197 
 
 'We were expecting a young man.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the driver, impatiently, ' and 
 there he is, I reckon.' 
 
 ' We don't mean the new express man,' said 
 the minister, smiling blandly, ' but a young man 
 who ' 
 
 ' That ain't no new express man,' returned 
 the driver in scornful deprecation of his inter- 
 locutor's ignorance. ' He only took Hill's place 
 from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver 
 and polisher for that University you're runnin' 
 here. I say you fellers oughter get him to 
 tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the 
 Chinaman. It'd limber you fellers up to hear it.' 
 
 ' I fear there's some extraordinary mistake 
 here,' said Mr. Peaseley, with a chilling Christian 
 smile. 
 
 ' Not a bit of it. He's got a letter from 
 Sam for one of ye. Yere, Charley what's 
 your name ! Com yere. Yere's all yer three 
 bosses waiting for ye.' 
 
 And the supposed express man and late 
 narrator of amusing stories came forward and 
 presented his credentials as the assistant teacher 
 of Pine Clearing. 
 
198 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EVEN the practical Mr. Sperry was taken aback 
 The young man before him was squarely built, 
 with broad shoulders, and a certain air of 
 muscular activity. But his face, although good- 
 humoured, was remarkable for offering not the 
 slightest indication of studious preoccupation 
 or mental training. A large mouth, light blue 
 eyes, a square jaw, the other features being 
 indistinctive were immobile as a mask except 
 that, unlike a mask, they seemed to actually re- 
 flect the vacuity of the mood within, instead 
 of concealing it. But as he saluted the 
 trustees they each had the same feeling that 
 even this expression was imported and not 
 instinctive. His face was clean-shaven, and 
 his hair cut so short as to suggest that a wig of 
 some kind was necessary to give it characteristic 
 or even ordinary human semblance. His man- 
 ner, self-assured yet lacking reality, and his 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 199 
 
 dress of respectable cut and material, yet worn 
 as if it did not belong to him, completed a 
 picture as unlike a student or schoolmaster as 
 could be possibly conceived. 
 
 Yet there was the letter in Mr. Peaseley's 
 hands from Barstow, introducing Mr. Charles 
 Twing as the first assistant teacher in the Pine 
 Clearing Free Academy ! 
 
 The three men looked hopelessly at each 
 other. An air of fatigued righteousness and a 
 desire to be spiritually at rest from other trials 
 pervaded Mr. Peaseley. Whether or not the 
 young man felt the evident objection he had 
 raised, he assumed a careless position, with his 
 back and elbows against the bar ; but even the 
 attitude was clearly not his own. 
 
 ' Are you personally known to Mr. Bar- 
 stow ? ' asked Sperry, with a slight business 
 asperity. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 1 That is you are quite well acquainted 
 with him ? ' 
 
 ' If you'd heard me gag his style a minute 
 ago, so that everybody here knew who it was, 
 you'd say so.' 
 
200 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 Mr. Peaseley's eyes sought the ceiling, and 
 rested on the hanging lamp, as if nothing short 
 of direct providential interference could meet 
 the occasion. Yet, as the eyes of his brother 
 trustees were bent on him expectantly, he 
 nerved himself to say something. 
 
 'I suppose, Mr. Mr. Twing, you have 
 properly understood the great I may say, 
 very grave, intellectual, and moral responsi- 
 bilities of the work you seek to undertake and 
 the necessity of supporting it by example, by 
 practice, by personal influence both in the 
 school and out of it. Sir, I presume, sir, you 
 feel that you are fully competent to undertake 
 this?' 
 
 ' I reckon he does/ 
 
 1 Who does ? ' 
 
 ' Sam Barstow, or he wouldn't have selected 
 me. I presume ' (with the slightest possible and 
 almost instinctive imitation of the reverend 
 gentleman's manner) ' his head is considered 
 level.' 
 
 Mr. Peaseley withdrew his eyes from the 
 ceiling. ' I have,' he said to his companions, 
 with a pained smile, 'an important choir 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 201 
 
 meeting to attend this afternoon. I fear I 
 must be excused.' As he moved towards the 
 door, the others formally following him, until 
 out of the stranger's hearing, he added : ' I 
 wash my hands of this. After so wanton and 
 unseemly an exhibition of utter incompetency, 
 and even of understanding of the trust imposed 
 upon him upon us my conscience forbids me 
 to interfere further. But the real arbiter in 
 this matter will be thank Heaven ! the 
 mistress herself. You have only to confront 
 her at once with this man. Her decision will 
 be speedy and final. For even Mr. Barstow 
 will not dare to force so outrageous a character 
 upon a delicate, refined woman, in a familiar 
 and confidential capacity.' 
 
 ' That's so,' said Sperry, eagerly ; ' she'll 
 settle it. And, of course,' added the mill- 
 owner, ' that will leave us out of any difficulty 
 with Sam.' 
 
 The two men returned to the hapless 
 stranger, relieved, yet constrained by the 
 sacrifice to which they felt they were leading 
 him. It would be necessary, they said, to 
 introduce him to his principal Mrs. Martin 
 
202 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 at once. They might still find her at the 
 school-house distant but a few steps. They 
 said little else, the stranger keeping up an 
 ostentatious whistling, and becoming more and 
 more incongruous, they thought, as they neared 
 the pretty school-house. Here they did find 
 Mrs. Martin, who had, naturally, lingered after 
 the interview with Sperry. 
 
 She came forward to meet them, with the 
 nervous shyness and slightly fastidious hesitation 
 that was her nature. They saw, or fancied 
 they saw, the same surprise and disappointment 
 they had themselves experienced pass over her 
 sensitive face, as she looked at him ; they felt 
 that their vulgar charge appeared still more 
 outrageous by contrast with this delicate 
 woman and her pretty, refined surroundings ; 
 but they saw that he enjoyed it, and was even 
 if such a word could be applied to so self- 
 conscious a man more at ease in her presence ! 
 
 4 1 reckon you and me will pull together 
 very well, ma'am,' he said confidently. 
 
 They looked to see her turn her back upon 
 him ; faint, or burst out crying ; but she did 
 neither, and only gazed at him quietly. 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 203 
 
 ' It's a mighty pretty place you've got here 
 and I like it, and if we can't run it, I don't 
 know who can. Only just let me know what 
 you want, ma'am, and you can count on me 
 every time.' 
 
 To their profound consternation Mrs. Mar- 
 tin smiled faintly. 
 
 ' It rests with you only, Mrs. Martin,' said 
 Sperry quickly and significantly. ' It's your 
 say, you know ; you're the only one to be con- 
 sidered or consulted here.' 
 
 ' Only just say what you want me to do,' 
 continued Twing, apparently ignoring the 
 trustees ; ' pick out the style of job ; give me a 
 hint or two how to work it, or what you'd think 
 would be the proper gag to fetch 'em, and I'm 
 there, ma'am. It may be new at first, but I'll 
 get at the business of it quick enough.' 
 
 Mrs. Martin smiled this time quite per- 
 ceptibly with the least little colour in her 
 cheeks and eyes. ' Then you've had no ex- 
 perience in teaching ? ' she said. 
 
 < Well no.' 
 
 ' You are not a graduate of any college ? ' 
 
 ' Not much.' 
 
204 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 The two trustees looked at each other. 
 Even Mr. Peaseley had not conceived such a 
 damning revelation. 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Martin slowly, ' perhaps 
 Mr. Twing had better come early to-morrow 
 morning and begin' 
 
 'Begin?' gasped Mr. Sperry in breathless 
 astonishment. 
 
 ' Certainly,' said Mrs. Martin in timid ex- 
 planation. 'If he is new to the work the 
 sooner the better.' 
 
 Mr. Sperry could only gaze blankly at his 
 brother official. Had they heard aright ? Was 
 this the recklessness of nervous excitement in 
 a woman of delicate health, or had the impostor 
 cast some glamour upon her ? Or was she 
 frightened of Sam Barstow and afraid to reject 
 his candidate ? The last thought was an inspi- 
 ration. He drew her quickly aside. ' One 
 moment, Mrs. Martin ! You said to me an hour 
 ago that you didn't intend to have asked Mr. 
 Barstow to send you an assistant. I hope that, 
 merely because he has done so, you don't feel 
 obliged to accept this man against your better 
 judgment?' 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 205 
 
 ' Oh no/ said Mrs. Martin quietly. 
 The case seemed hopeless. And Sperry 
 had the miserable conviction that by having in- 
 sisted upon Mrs. Martin's judgment being final 
 they had estopped their own right to object. 
 But how could they have foreseen her extra- 
 ordinary taste ? He, however, roused himself 
 for a last appeal. 
 
 ' Mrs. Martin/ he said in a lower voice, ' I 
 ought to tell you that the Reverend Mr. 
 Peaseley strongly doubts the competency of 
 that young man/ 
 
 ' Didn't Mr. Barstow make a selection at 
 your request ? ' asked Mrs. Martin, with a faint 
 little nervous cough. 
 
 ' Yes but ' 
 
 ' Then his competency only concerns me 
 and I don't see what Mr. Peaseley has to say 
 about it/ 
 
 Could be believe his senses ? There was a 
 decided flush in the woman's pale face, and the 
 first note of independence and asperity in her 
 voice. 
 
 That night, in the privacy of his conjugal 
 chamber, Mr. Sperry relieved his mind to 
 
206 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 another of the enigmatical sex the stout South- 
 western partner of his joys and troubles. But 
 the result was equally unsatisfactory. ' Well, 
 Abner,' said the lady, ' I never could see, for 
 all your men's praises of Mrs. Martin, what that 
 feller can see in her to like ! ' 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 207 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MRS. MARTIN was early at the school-house 
 the next morning, yet not so early but that she 
 discovered that the new assistant had been 
 there before her. This was shown in some re- 
 arrangement of the school seats and benches. 
 They were placed so as to form a horse-shoe 
 before her desk, and at the further extremity 
 of this semicircle was a chair evidently for 
 himself. She was a little nettled at his pre- 
 mature action, although admitting the utility of 
 the change, but she was still more annoyed at 
 his absence at such a moment. It was nearly 
 school hour when he appeared, to her sur- 
 prise, marshalling a file of some of the smaller 
 children whom he had evidently picked up 
 en route, and who were to her greater sur- 
 prise apparently on the best of terms with 
 him. ' Thought I'd better rake 'em in, intro- 
 
208 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 duce myself to 'em, and get 'em to know me 
 before school begins. Excuse me,' he went 
 on, hastily, 'but I've a lot more coming up, 
 and I'd better make myself square with them 
 outside' But Mrs. Martin had apparently de_ 
 veloped a certain degree of stiffness since their 
 evening's interview. 
 
 ' It seems to me quite as important, Mr. 
 Twing,' she said, drily, ' that you should first 
 learn some of your own duties, which I came 
 here early to teach you.' 
 
 ' Not at all,' he said, cheerfully. ' To-day I 
 take my seat, as I've arranged it, you see, over 
 there with them, and watch 'em go through the 
 motions. One rehearsal's enough for me. At 
 the same time I can chip in if necessary.' And 
 before she could reply he was out of the school- 
 house again, hailing the new-comers. This 
 was done with apparently such delight to the 
 children and with some evidently imported ex- 
 pression into his smooth mask-like face, that 
 Mrs. Martin had to content herself with 
 w r atching him with equal curiosity. She was 
 turning away with a sudden sense of forgotten 
 dignity, when a shout of joyous, childish 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 209 
 
 laughter attracted her attention to the window. 
 The new assistant with half a dozen small 
 children on his square shoulders, walking with 
 bent back and every simulation of advanced 
 senility, was evidently personating, with the 
 assistance of astonishingly distorted features, 
 the ogre of a Christmas pantomime. As his 
 eye caught hers the expression vanished, the 
 mask-like face returned ; he set the children 
 down, and moved away. And when school 
 began, although he marshalled them tri- 
 umphantly to the very door with what con- 
 tortion of face or simulation of character sh Q 
 was unable to guess after he had entered the 
 school-room and taken his seat every vestige 
 of his previous facial aberration was gone, and 
 only his usual solidity remained. In vain, 
 as Mrs. Martin expected, the hundred delighted 
 little eyes before her dwelt at first eagerly and 
 hopefully upon his face, but, as she had not 
 expected, recognising from the blankness of 
 his demeanour that the previous performance 
 was intended for them exclusively, the same 
 eager eyes were presently dropped again upon 
 their books in simple imitation, as if he were 
 
 p 
 
2io THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 one of themselves. Mrs. Martin breathed 
 freely, and lessons began. 
 
 Yet she was nervously conscious, meanwhile, 
 of a more ill-omened occurrence. This was 
 the non-arrival of several of her oldest pupils, 
 notably, the refractory and incorrigible Pike 
 County contingent to whom Sperry had alluded. 
 For the past few days they had hovered on the 
 verge of active insubordination, and had in- 
 dulged in vague mutterings which she had 
 resolutely determined not to hear. It was, 
 therefore, with some inward trepidations, not 
 entirely relieved by Twing's presence, that she 
 saw the three Mackinnons and the two 
 Hardees slouch into the school a full hour after 
 the lessons had begun. They did not even 
 excuse themselves, but were proceeding with a 
 surly and ostentatious defiance to their seats, 
 when Mrs. Martin was obliged to look up, and 
 as the eldest Hardee filed before her to de- 
 mand an explanation. The culprit addressed 
 a dull, heavy-looking youth of nineteen hesi- 
 tated with an air of mingled doggedness and 
 sheepishness, and then, without replying, nudged 
 his companion. 1 1 was evidently a preconcerted 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 211 
 
 signal of rebellion, for the boy nudged stopped, 
 and turning a more intelligent, but equally dis- 
 satisfied, face upon the schoolmistress, began 
 determinedly : 
 
 1 Wot's our excuse for coming an hour 
 late ? Well, we ain't got none. We don't call 
 it an hour late we don't. We call it the right 
 time. We call it the right time for our lessons, 
 for we don't allow to come here to sing hymns 
 with babbies. We don't want to know " where, 
 O where, are the Hebrew children ? " They 
 ain't nothin' to us Americans. And we don't 
 want any more Daniels in the Lions' Den 
 played off on us. We have enough of 'em 
 in Sunday-school. We ain't hankerin' much 
 for grammar and dictionary hogwash, and we 
 don't want no Boston parts o' speech rung in 
 on us the first thing in the mo'nin'. We ain't 
 Boston we're Pike County we are. We 
 reckon to do our sums, and our figgerin', and 
 our sale and barter, and our interest tables and 
 weights and measures when the time conies, 
 andour geograffy when it's on, and our readin 1 
 and writin' and the American Constitution in 
 reg'lar hours, and then we calkilate to git up 
 
 p 2 
 
2ta THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 and git afore the po'try, and the Boston airs 
 and graces come round. That's our rights and 
 what our fathers pay school taxes for, and we 
 want 'em.' 
 
 He stopped, looking less towards the 
 schoolmistress than to his companions, for 
 whom perhaps, after the schoolboy fashion, this 
 attitude was taken. Mrs. Martin sat quite 
 white and self-contained, with her eyes fixed 
 on the frayed rim of the rebel's straw hat, 
 which he still kept on his head. Then she said 
 quietly : 
 
 ' Take off your hat, sir.' 
 
 The -boy did not move. 
 
 ' He can't,' said a voice cheerfully. 
 
 It was the new assistant. The whole school 
 faced rapidly towards him. The rebel leader 
 and his followers, who had not noticed him 
 before, stared at the interrupter, who did not, 
 however, seem to exhibit any of the authority 
 of office, but rather the comment and criticism 
 of one of themselves. ' Wot you mean ? ' said 
 the boy indignantly. 
 
 4 1 mean you can't take off your hat because 
 you've got some things stowed away in it you 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 213 
 
 don't want seen,' said Twing, with an immovable 
 face. 
 
 ' Wot things ? ' said the boy, angrily. Then 
 suddenly recollecting himself, he added, ' Go 
 along ! You can't fool me ! Think you'll 
 make me take off my hat don't you ? ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Twing, advancing to the side of 
 the rebel, ' look here then ! ' With a dexterous 
 movement and a slight struggle from the boy, 
 he lifted the hat. A half-dozen apples, a bird's 
 nest, two birds' eggs, and a fluttering half-fledged 
 bird fell from it. A wave of delight and 
 astonishment ran along the benches, a blank 
 look of hopeless bewilderment settled upon the 
 boy's face, and the gravity of the situation dis- 
 appeared for ever in the irrepressible burst of 
 laughter, in which even his brother rebels 
 joined. The smallest child who had been half- 
 frightened, half- fascinated by the bold, bad, 
 heroic attitude of the mutineer, was quick to 
 see the ridiculousness of that figure crowned 
 with cheap schoolboy plunder. The eloquent 
 protest of his wrongs was lost in the ludicrous 
 appearance of the protester. Even Mrs. Martin 
 felt that nothing she could say at that moment 
 
214 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 could lift the rebellion into seriousness again. 
 But Twing was evidently not satisfied. 
 
 ' Beg Mrs. Martin's pardon, and say you 
 were foolin' with the boys,' he said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 The discomfited rebel hesitated. 
 
 ' Say it, or I'll show what y 021 ve got in your 
 pockets ! ' said Twing, in a terribly significant 
 aside. 
 
 The boy mumbled an apology to Mrs. 
 Martin, scrambled in a blank, hopeless way to 
 his seat, and the brief rebellion ignominiously 
 ended. But two things struck Mrs. Martin as 
 peculiar. She overheard the culprit say, with 
 bated breath and evident sincerity, to his 
 comrades : ' Hadn't nothing in my hat, any- 
 way ! ' and one of the infant class was heard to 
 complain, in a deeply-injured way, that the 
 bird's nest was his, and had been ' stoled ' from 
 his desk. And there still remained the fact for 
 which Twing's undoubted fascination over the 
 children had somewhat prepared her that at 
 recess the malcontents one and all seemed 
 to have forgiven the man who had overcome 
 them, and gathered round him with unmistak- 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 215 
 
 able interest. All this, however, did not blind 
 her to the serious intent of the rebellion, or 
 of Twing's unaccountable assumption of her 
 prerogative. While he was still romping with 
 the children she called him in. 
 
 ' I must remind you,' she said, with a slight, 
 nervous asperity, ' that this outrageous conduct 
 of Tom Hardee was evidently deliberated and 
 prepared by the others, and cannot end in this 
 way.' 
 
 He looked at her with a face so exasper- 
 atingly expressionless that she could have 
 slapped it as if it had belonged to one of the 
 older scholars, and said ' But it has ended. 
 It's a dead frost.' 
 
 ' I don't know what you mean ; and I must 
 remind you also that in this school we neither 
 teach nor learn slang.' 
 
 His immobile face changed for an instant 
 to a look of such decided admiration that she 
 felt her colour rise ; but he wiped his expression 
 away with his hand as if it had been some 
 artificial make-up, and said awkwardly, but 
 earnestly : 
 
 ' Excuse me won't you ? But, look here, 
 
216 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 Mrs. Martin, I found out early this morning, 
 when I was squaring myself with the other 
 children, that there was this row hangin' on 
 in fact, that there was a sort of idea that Pike 
 County wasn't having a fair show excuse me 
 in the running of the school, and that 
 Peaseley and Barstow were a little too much 
 on in every scene. In fact, you see, it was 
 just what Tom said.' 
 
 ' This is insufferable,' said Mrs. Martin, 
 her eyes growing darker as her cheeks grew 
 red. ' They shall go home to their parents, and 
 tell them from me ' 
 
 ' That they're all mistaken excuse me 
 but that's just what they re goiri to do. I tell 
 you, Mrs. Martin, their little game's busted I 
 beg pardon but it's all over. You'll have no 
 more trouble with them.' 
 
 ' And you think that just because you 
 found Tom had something in his hat, and 
 exposed him ? ' said Mrs. Martin scornfully. 
 
 ' Tom hadrit anything in his hat,' said 
 Twing, wiping his mouth slowly. 
 
 'Nothing?' repeated Mrs, Martin, 
 
 'No,' 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 217 
 
 ' But I saw you take the things out.' 
 
 ' That was only a trick \ He had nothing 
 except what I had up my sleeve, and forced on 
 him. He knew it, and that frightened him, 
 and made him look like a fool, and so bursted 
 up his conspiracy. There's nothin' boys are 
 more afraid of than ridicule, or the man or boy 
 that make 'em ridiculous.' 
 
 ' I won't ask you if you call i\\isfair to the 
 boy, Mr. Twing?' said Mrs. Martin, hotly; 
 ' but is this your idea of discipline ? ' 
 
 * I call it fair, because Tom knew it was 
 some kind of a trick, and wasn't deceived. I 
 call it discipline if it made him do what was 
 right afterwards, and makes him afraid or un- 
 willing to do anything to offend me or you 
 again. He likes me none the worse for giving 
 him a chance of being laughed out of a thing 
 instead of being driven out of it. And,' he 
 added, with awkward earnestness, ' if you'll 
 just leave all this to me, and only consider me 
 here to take this sort of work which ain't a 
 lady's off your hands, we'll just strike our 
 own line between the Peaseleys and Pike 
 County' and run this school in spite of both.' 
 
2i8 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 A little mollified, a good deal puzzled, and 
 perhaps more influenced by the man's manner 
 than she had imagined, Mrs. Martin said 
 nothing, but let the day pass without dismissing 
 the offenders. And on returning home that 
 evening she was considerably surprised to 
 receive her landlady's extravagant congratu- 
 lations on the advent of her new assistant. 
 'And they do say, Mrs. Martin,' continued 
 that lady enthusiastically, ' that your just set- 
 ting your foot down square on that Peaseley 
 and that Barstow, both of 'em and choosing 
 your own assistant yourself a plain young 
 fellow with no frills and fancies, but one that 
 you could set about making all the changes 
 you like, was just the biggest thing you ever 
 did for Pine Clearing.' 
 
 ' And they consider him quite com- 
 petent ? ' said Mrs. Martin, with timid colour 
 and a hesitating audacity. 
 
 ' Competent ! You ask my Johnny.' 
 
 Nevertheless, Mrs. Martin was somewhat 
 formally early at the school-house the next morn- 
 ing. ' Perhaps,' she said, with an odd mixture 
 of dignity and timidity, 'we'd better, before 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 219 
 
 school commences, go over the lessons for the 
 day.' 
 
 ' I have', he said quickly. ' I told you one 
 rehearsal was enough for me.' 
 
 ' You mean you have looked over them ? ' 
 
 ' Got 'em by heart. Letter perfect. Want 
 to hear me ? Listen.' 
 
 She did. He had actually committed to 
 memory, and without a lapse, the entire text 
 of rules, questions, answers, and examples of 
 the lessons for the day. 
 
220 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BEFORE a month had passed, Mr. Twing's 
 success was secure and established. So were 
 a few of the changes he had quietly instituted. 
 The devotional singing and Scripture reading 
 which had excited the discontent of the Pike 
 County children and their parents was not 
 discontinued, but half an hour before recess 
 was given up to some secular choruses, 
 patriotic or topical, in which the little ones 
 under Twing's really wonderful practical tuition 
 exhibited such quick and pleasing proficiency, 
 that a certain negro minstrel-camp meeting 
 song attained sufficient popularity to be lifted 
 by general accord to promotion to the de- 
 votional exercises, where it eventually ousted 
 the objectionable ' Hebrew children ' on the 
 question of melody alone. Grammar was still 
 taught at Pine Clearing School in spite of the 
 Hardees and Mackinnons, but Twing had 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 221 
 
 managed co import into the cognate exercises 
 of recitation a wonderful degree of enthusiasm 
 and excellence. Dialectical Pike County, that 
 had refused to recognise the governing powers 
 of the nominative case, nevertheless came out 
 strong in classical elocution, and Tom Hardee, 
 who had delivered his ungrammatical protest 
 on behalf of Pike County, was no less strong, 
 if more elegant, in his impeachment of Warren 
 Hastings as Edmund Burke, with the equal 
 sanction of his parents. The trustees, Sperry 
 and Jackson, had marvelled, but were glad 
 enough to accept the popular verdict only 
 Mr. Peaseley still retained an attitude of 
 martyr-like forbearance and fatigued toleration 
 towards the new assistant and his changes. As 
 to Mrs. Martin, she seemed to accept the work 
 of Mr. Twing after his own definition of it 
 as of a masculine quality ill-suited to a lady's 
 tastes and inclinations ; but it was noticeable 
 that while she had at first repelled any criticism 
 of him whatever, she had lately been given to 
 explaining his position to her friends, and had 
 spoken of him with somewhat laboured and 
 ostentatious patronage. Yet when they were 
 
222 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 alone together she frankly found him very 
 amusing, and his presumption and vulgarity so 
 clearly unintentional that it no longer offended 
 her. They were good friends without having 
 any confidences beyond the duties of the 
 school ; she had asked no further explana- 
 tion of the fact that he had been selected by- 
 Mr. Barstow without reference to any special 
 antecedent training. What his actual ante- 
 cedents were she had never cared to know, nor 
 he apparently to reveal ; that he had been 
 engaged in some other occupations of superior 
 or inferior quality would not have been re- 
 markable in a community where the principal 
 lawyer had been a soldier, and the miller a 
 doctor. The fact that he admired her was 
 plain enough to her ; that it pleased her, but 
 carried with it no ulterior thought or responsi- 
 bility, might have been equally clear to others. 
 Perhaps it was so to him. 
 
 Howbeit, this easy mutual intercourse was 
 one day interrupted by what seemed a trifling 
 incident. The piano, which Mr. Barstow had 
 promised, duly made its appearance in the 
 school-house, to the delight of the scholars and 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 223 
 
 the gentle satisfaction of Mrs. Martin, who, 
 in addition to the rudimentary musical instruc- 
 tion of the younger girls, occasionally played 
 upon it herself in a prim, refined, and conscien- 
 tious fashion. To this, when she was alone 
 after school hours, she sometimes added a faint, 
 colourless voice of limited range and gentle- 
 womanly expression. It was on one of these 
 occasions that Twing, becoming an accidental 
 auditor of this chaste, sad piping, was not only 
 permitted to remain to hear the end of a love 
 song of strictly guarded passion in the sub- 
 junctive mood, but at the close was invited to 
 try his hand a quick, if not a cultivated one 
 at the instrument. He did so. Like her, he 
 added his voice. Like hers, it was a love 
 song. But there the similitude ended. Negro 
 in dialect, illiterate in construction, idiotic in pas- 
 sion, and presumably addressed to the ' Rose of 
 Alabama,' in the very extravagance of its childish 
 infatuation it might have been a mockery of the 
 schoolmistress's song but for one tremendous 
 fact! In unrestrained feeling, pathetic yearning, 
 and exquisite tenderness of expression, it was un- 
 mistakably and appallingly personal and sincere. 
 
224 
 
 It was true the lips spoken of were ' lubly,' the 
 eyes alluded to were like ' lightenin' bugs,' but 
 from the voice and gestures of the singer Mrs. 
 Martin confusedly felt that they were intended for 
 hers, and even the refrain that ' she dressed so 
 neat and looked so sweet ' was glaringly allusive 
 to her own modish mourning. Alternately 
 flushing and paling, with a hysteric smile 
 hovering round her small reserved mouth, the 
 unfortunate gentlewoman was fain to turn to 
 the window to keep her countenance until 
 it was concluded. She did not ask him to re- 
 peat it, nor did she again subject herself to 
 this palpable serenade, but a few days after- 
 wards, as she was idly striking the keys in the 
 interval of a music lesson, one of her little 
 pupils broke out, ' Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo 
 ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune that 
 Mr. Twing sings ! ' 
 
 Nevertheless, when Twing, a week or two 
 later, suggested that he might sing the same 
 song as a solo at a certain performance to be 
 given by the school children in aid of a local 
 charity, she drily intimated that it was hardly 
 of a character to suit the entertainment. ' But,' 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 225 
 
 she added, more gently, ' you recite so well ; 
 why not give a recitation ? ' 
 
 He looked at her with questioning and 
 troubled eyes the one expression he seemed 
 to have lately acquired. ' But that would be 
 in public ! There'll be a lot of people there, 1 
 he said, doubtfully. 
 
 A little amused at this first apparent sign of 
 a want of confidence in himself, she said, with 
 a reassuring smile, ' So much the better you 
 do it really too well to have it thrown away 
 entirely on children.' 
 
 1 Do you wish it ? ' he said, suddenly. 
 
 Somewhat confused, but more irritated by 
 his abruptness, she replied, ' Why not ? ' But 
 when the day came, and before a crowded 
 audience, in which there was a fair sprinkling 
 of strangers, she regretted her rash suggestion. 
 For when the pupils had gone through certain 
 calisthenic exercises admirably taught and 
 arranged by him and ' spoken their pieces,' he 
 arose, and, fixing his eyes on her, began 
 Othello's defence before the Duke and Council. 
 Here, as on the previous occasion, she felt her- 
 self personally alluded to in his account of his 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 wooing. Desdemona, for some occult reason, 
 vicariously appeared for her in the unwar- 
 rantable picture of his passion, and to this 
 was added the absurd consciousness which she 
 could not put aside that the audience, following 
 with enthusiasm his really strong declamation, 
 was also following his suggestion and adopting 
 it. Yet she was also conscious, and, as she 
 thought, as inconsistently, of being pleased and 
 even proud of his success. At the conclusion 
 the applause was general, and a voice added 
 with husky admiration and familiarity : 
 
 ' Brayvo, Johnny Walker ! ' 
 
 Twing's face became suddenly white as a 
 Pierrot mask. There was a dead silence, in 
 which the voice continued, ' Give us " Sugar 
 in the Gourd," Johnny.' 
 
 A few hisses, and cries of ' Hush ! ' ' Put 
 him out ! ' followed. Mrs. Martin raised her 
 eyes quickly to where her assistant had stood 
 bowing his thanks a moment before. He was 
 gone ! 
 
 More concerned than she cared to confess, 
 vaguely fearful that she was in some way con- 
 nected with his abrupt withdrawal, and perhaps 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 227 
 
 a little remorseful that she had allowed her 
 personal feelings to interfere with her frank 
 recognition of his triumph, she turned back to 
 the school-room, after the little performers and 
 their audience had departed, in the hope that 
 he might return. It was getting late, the 
 nearly level rays of the sun were lying on the 
 empty benches at the lower end of the room, 
 but the desk where she sat with its lid raised 
 was in deep shadow. Suddenly she heard his 
 voice in a rear hall, but it was accompanied by 
 another's the same voice which had inter- 
 rupted the applause. Before she could either 
 withdraw, or make herself known, the two men 
 had entered the room, and were passing slowly 
 through it. She understood at once that Twing 
 had slipped out into a janitor's room in the 
 rear, where he had evidently forced an inter- 
 view and explanation from his interrupter, and 
 now had been waiting for the audience to dis- 
 perse before emerging by the front door. 
 They had evidently overlooked her in the 
 shadow. 
 
 1 But,' said the stranger, as if following an 
 aggrieved line of apology, ' if Barstow knew 
 
 Q2 
 
328 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 who you were, and what you'd done, and still 
 thought you good enough to rastle round here 
 and square up them Pike County fellers and 
 them kids what in thunder do you care if the 
 others do find you out, as long as Barstow 
 sticks to you ? ' 
 
 ' I've told you why, Dick,' returned Twing 
 gloomily. 
 
 ' Oh, the schoolma'am ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, she's a saint, an angel. More than 
 that she's a lady, Dick, to the tip of her fingers, 
 who knows nothing of the world outside a 
 parson's study. She took me on trust without 
 a word when the trustees hung back and 
 stared. She's never asked me about myself, 
 and now when she knows who and what I have 
 been she'll loathe me ! ' 
 
 ' But look here, Jim,' said the stranger, 
 anxiously. ' I'll say it's all a lie. I'll come here 
 and apologise to you afore her, and say I took 
 you for somebody else, I'll ' 
 
 ' It's too late,' said Twing, moodily. 
 
 ' And what'll you do ? ' 
 
 ' Leave here.' 
 
 They had reached the door together. To 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 229 
 
 Mrs. Martin's terror, as the stranger passed 
 out, Twing, instead of following him as she 
 expected, said ' Good night,' and gloomily re- 
 entered the school-room. Here he paused a 
 moment, and then throwing himself on one of 
 the benches, dropped his head upon a desk 
 with his face buried in his hands like a very 
 schoolboy. 
 
 What passed through Mrs. Martin's mind 
 I know not. For a moment she sat erect and 
 rigid at her desk. Then she slipped quietly 
 down, and, softly as one of the last shadows cast 
 by the dying sun, glided across the floor to 
 where he sat. 
 
 ' Mrs. Martin,' he said, starting to his feet. 
 
 ' I have heard all,' she said, faintly. ' I 
 couldn't help it. I was here when you came 
 in. But I want to tell you that I am content 
 to know you only as you seem to be as I have 
 always found you here strong and loyal to a 
 duty laid upon you by those who had a full 
 knowledge of all you had been.' 
 
 ' Did you ? Do you know what I have 
 been ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Martin looked frightened, trembled a 
 
230 THE NEW ASSISTANT 
 
 moment, and, recovering herself with an effort, 
 said gently, ' I know nothing of your past.' 
 
 ' Nothing ? ' he repeated, with a mirthless 
 attempt at laughter, and a quick breath. ' Not 
 that I've been a a mountebank, a variety 
 actor a clown, you know, for the amusement 
 of the lowest, at 25 cents a ticket. That I'm 
 " Johnny Walker," the song and dance man 
 the all-round man selected by Mr. Barstow to 
 teach these boors a lesson as to what they 
 wanted ! ' 
 
 She looked at him a moment timidly, yet 
 thoughtfully. ' Then you are an actor a 
 person who simulates what he does not feel ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' And all the time you have been here you 
 have been acting the schoolmaster playing a 
 part for for Mr. Barstow ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' Always ? ' 
 
 1 Yes.' 
 
 The colour came softly to her face again, 
 and her voice was very low. ' And when you 
 sang to me that day, and when you looked at 
 me as you did an hour or two ago while 
 
AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL 231 
 
 you were entertaining you were only 
 acting ? ' 
 
 Mr. Twing's answer was not known, but it 
 must have been a full and complete one, for it 
 was quite dark when he left the school-room 
 not for the last time with its mistress on his 
 arm. 
 
233 
 
 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THERE was probably no earthly reason why 
 the 'Poco Mas o Menos' Club of San Francisco 
 should have ever existed, or why its five harm- 
 less, indistinctive members should not have 
 met and dined together as ordinary individuals. 
 Still less was there any justification for the 
 gratuitous opinion which obtained, that it was 
 bold, bad, and brilliant. Looking back upon 
 it over a quarter of a century and half a globe, 
 I confess I cannot recall a single witticism, 
 audacity, or humorous characteristic that be- 
 longed to it. Yet there was no doubt that we 
 were thought to be extremely critical and 
 satirical, and I am inclined to think we honestly 
 believed it. To take our seats on Wednesdays 
 and Saturdays at a specially reserved table at 
 
234 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 the restaurant we patronised, to be conscious 
 of being observed by the other guests, and of 
 our waiter confidentially imparting our fame 
 to strangers behind the shaken-out folds of 
 a napkin, and of knowing that the faintest 
 indication of merriment from our table thrilled 
 the other guests with anticipatory smiles, was, 
 I am firmly convinced, all that we ever did to 
 justify our reputations. Nor, strictly speaking, 
 were we remarkable as individuals ; an assist- 
 ant editor, a lawyer, a young army quarter- 
 master, a bank clerk and a mining secretary 
 we could not separately challenge any special 
 social or literary distinction. Yet I am satis- 
 fied that the very name of our Club a common 
 Spanish colloquialism, literally meaning ' a 
 little more or less,' and adopted in Californian 
 slang to express an unknown quantity was 
 supposed to be replete with deep and con- 
 vulsing humour. 
 
 My impression is that our extravagant re- 
 putation, and, indeed, our continued existence 
 as a Club, was due solely to the proprietor of 
 the restaurant and two of his waiters, and that 
 we were actually ' run ' by them. When the 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 235 
 
 suggestion of our meeting regularly there was 
 first broached to the proprietor a German of 
 slow but deep emotions he received it with a 
 ' So ' of such impressive satisfaction that it 
 might have been the beginning of our vain- 
 glory. From that moment he became at 
 once our patron and our devoted slave. To 
 linger near our table once or twice during 
 dinner with an air of respectful vacuity as of 
 one who knew himself too well to be guilty of 
 the presumption of attempting to understand 
 our brilliancy to wear a certain parental pride 
 and unconsciousness in our fame, and yet to 
 never go further in seeming to comprehend it 
 than to obligingly translate the name of the 
 Club as 'a leedle more and nod quide so much ' 
 was to him sufficient happiness. That he 
 ever experienced any business profit from the 
 custom of the Club, or its advertisement, may 
 be greatly doubted ; on the contrary, that a 
 few plain customers, nettled at our self-satis- 
 faction, might have resented his favouritism 
 seemed more probable. Equally vague, dis- 
 interested, and loyal was the attachment of the 
 two waiters one an Italian, faintly reminiscent 
 
236 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 of better days and possibly superior extraction ; 
 the other a rough but kindly Western man, 
 who might have taken this menial position 
 from temporary stress of circumstances, yet 
 who continued in it from sheer dominance of 
 habit and some feebleness of will. They both 
 vied with each other to please us. It may 
 have been they considered their attendance 
 upon a reputed intellectual company less de- 
 grading than ministering to the purely animal 
 and silent wants of the average customers. It 
 may have been that they were attracted by our 
 general youthfulness. Indeed, I am inclined 
 to think that they themselves were much more 
 distinctive and interesting than any members 
 of the Club, and it is to introduce them that I 
 venture to recall so much of its history. 
 
 A few months after our advent at the 
 restaurant, one evening, Joe Tallant, the 
 mining secretary, one of our liveliest members, 
 was observed to be awkward and distrait during 
 dinner, forgetting even ' to offer the usual gra- 
 tuity to the Italian waiter who handed him 
 his hat, although he stared at him with an 
 imbecile smile. As we chanced to leave the 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 237 
 
 restaurant together, I was rallying him upon 
 his abstraction, when to my surprise he said 
 gravely : ' Look here, one of two things has 
 got to happen : either we must change our 
 restaurant or I'm going to resign.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' 
 
 ' Well, to make matters clear, I'm obliged 
 to tell you something that in our business we 
 usually keep a secret. About three weeks ago 
 I had a .notice to transfer twenty feet of Gold 
 Hill to a fellow named " Tournelli." Well, 
 Tournelli happened to call for it himself, and 
 who the devil do you suppose Tournelli was ? 
 Why, our Italian waiter. I was regularly 
 startled, and so was he. But business is busi- 
 ness ; so I passed him over the stock and said 
 nothing nor did he neither there nor here. 
 Day before yesterday he had thirty feet more 
 transferred to him, and sold out.' 
 
 ' Well ? ' I said impatiently. 
 
 ' Well,' repeated Tallant indignantly, ' Gold 
 Hill's worth 600 dollars a foot. That's 18,000 
 dollars cash. And a man who's good enough 
 for that much money is too good to wait upon 
 me. Fancy a man who could pay my whole 
 
238 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 year's salary with five feet of stock slinging 
 hash to me. Fancy you tipping him with a 
 quarter ! ' 
 
 ' But if he don't mind it and prefers to 
 continue a waiter why should you care ? And 
 were not supposed to know.' 
 
 ' That's just it,' groaned Tallant. ' That's 
 just where the sell comes in. Think how he 
 must chuckle over us! No, sir! There's nothing 
 aristocratic about me ; but, by thunder, if I 
 can't eat my dinner, and feel I am as good as 
 the man who waits on me, I'll resign from the 
 Club.' 
 
 After endeavouring to point out to him the 
 folly of such a proceeding, I finally suggested 
 that we should take the other members of our 
 Club into our confidence, and abide by their 
 decision ; to which he agreed. But, to his 
 chagrin, the others, far from participating in 
 his delicacy, seemed to enjoy Tournelli's unex- 
 pected wealth with a vicarious satisfaction and 
 increase of dignity as if we were personally 
 responsible for it. Although it had been 
 unanimously agreed that we should make no 
 allusions, jocose or serious, to him, nor betray 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 239 
 
 any knowledge of it before him, I am afraid 
 our attitude at the next dinner was singularly 
 artificial. A nervous expectancy when he 
 approached us, and a certain restraint during 
 his presence, a disposition to check any discus- 
 sion of shares or ' strikes ' in mining, lest he 
 should think it personal, an avoidance of un- 
 necessary or trifling ' orders,' and a singular 
 patience in awaiting their execution when 
 given ; a vague hovering between sympathetic 
 respect and the other extreme of indifferent 
 bluntness in our requests, tended, I think, to 
 make that meal far from exhilarating. Indeed, 
 the unusual depression affected the unfortunate 
 cause of it, who added to our confusion by 
 increased solicitude of service and as if fearful 
 of some fault, or having incurred our disfavour 
 by a deprecatory and exaggerated humility that 
 in our sensitive state seemed like the keenest 
 irony. At last, evidently interpreting our 
 constraint before him into a desire to be alone, 
 he retired to the door of a distant pantry, 
 whence he surveyed us with dark and sorrowful 
 Southern eyes. Tallant, who in this general 
 embarrassment had been imperfectly served, 
 
240 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 and had eaten nothing, here felt his grievance 
 reach its climax, and in a sudden outbreak of 
 recklessness he roared out, ' Hi, waiter you, 
 Tournelli. He may,' he added, turning darkly 
 to us, ' buy up enough stock to control the 
 board and dismiss me ; but, by thunder, if it 
 costs me my place, I'm going to have some 
 more chicken ! ' 
 
 It was probably this sensitiveness that kept 
 us from questioning him, even indirectly, and 
 perhaps led us into the wildest surmises. He 
 was acting secretly for a brotherhood or society 
 of waiters ; he was a silent partner of his Ger- 
 man employer ; he was a disguised Italian 
 stockbroker, gaining ' points ' from the un- 
 guarded conversation of ' operating ' customers ; 
 he was a political refugee with capital ; he was 
 a fugitive Sicilian bandit, investing his ill-gotten 
 gains in California ; he was a dissipated young 
 nobleman, following some amorous intrigue 
 across the ocean, and acting as his own Figaro 
 or Leporello. I think a majority of us favoured 
 the latter hypothesis, possibly because we were 
 young, and his appearance gave it colour. His 
 thin black moustaches and dark eyes, we felt, 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 241 
 
 were Tuscan and aristocratic ; at least, they 
 were like the baritone who played those parts, 
 and he ought to know. Yet nothing could be 
 more exemplary and fastidious than his conduct 
 towards the few lady frequenters of the ' Poodle 
 Dog ' restaurant, who, I regret to say, were not 
 puritanically reserved or conventual in manner. 
 But an unexpected circumstance presently 
 changed and divided our interest. It was 
 alleged by Clay, the assistant editor, that en- 
 tering the restaurant one evening he saw the 
 back and tails of a coat that seemed familiar 
 to him half-filling a doorway leading to the 
 restaurant kitchen. It was unmistakably the 
 figure of one of our Club members the young 
 lawyer Jack Manners. But what was he 
 doing there ? While the Editor was still gazing 
 after him, he suddenly disappeared, as if some- 
 one had warned him that he was observed. 
 As he did not reappear, when Tournelli entered 
 from the kitchen a few moments later, the 
 Editor called him and asked for his fellow- 
 member. To his surprise the Italian answered, 
 with every appearance of truthfulness, that he 
 had not seen Mr. Manners at all ! The Editor 
 
242 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 was staggered ; but as he chanced, some hours 
 later, to meet Manners, he playfully rallied him 
 on his mysterious conference with the Italian. 
 Manners replied briefly that he had had no 
 interview whatever with Tournelli, and changed 
 the subject quickly. The mystery as we per- 
 sisted in believing it was heightened when 
 another member deposed that he had seen 
 * Tom,' the Western waiter, coming from Man- 
 ners's office. As Manners had volunteered no 
 information of this, we felt that we could not 
 without indelicacy ask him if Tom was a client, 
 or a messenger from Tournelli. The only 
 result was that our Club dinner was even more 
 constrained than before. Not only was ' Tom ' 
 now invested with a dark importance, but it 
 was evident that the harmony of the Club was 
 destroyed by these singular secret relations of 
 two of its members with their employes. 
 
 It chanced that one morning, arriving from 
 a delayed journey, I dropped into the res- 
 taurant. It was that slack hour between the 
 lingering breakfast and coming luncheon, when 
 the tables are partly stripped, and unknown 
 doors, opened for ventilation, reveal the distant 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTA URANT 243 
 
 kitchen, and a mingled flavour of cold coffee- 
 grounds and lukewarm soups hangs heavy on 
 the air. To this cheerlessness was added a 
 gusty rain without, that filmed the panes of 
 the windows and doors, and veiled from the 
 passer-by the usual tempting display of snowy 
 cloths and china. 
 
 As I seemed to be the only customer at 
 that hour, I selected a table by the window for 
 distraction. Tom had taken my order ; the 
 other waiters, including Tournelli, were absent, 
 with the exception of a solitary German, who, 
 in the interlude of perfunctory trifling with the 
 castors, gazed at me with that abstracted irre- 
 sponsibility which one waiter assumes towards 
 another's customer. Even the proprietor had 
 deserted his desk at the counter. It seemed 
 to be a favourable opportunity to get some in- 
 formation from Tom. 
 
 But he anticipated me. When he had 
 dealt a certain number of dishes around me, as 
 if they were cards and he was telling my 
 fortune, he leaned over the table and said, with 
 interrogating confidence : 
 
 R 2 
 
244 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 ' I reckon you call that Mr. Manners of 
 yours a good lawyer ? ' 
 
 We were very loyal to each other in the 
 Club, and I replied with youthful enthusiasm 
 that he was considered one of the most promis- 
 ing at the bar. And, remembering Tournelli, I 
 added confidently that whoever engaged him to 
 look after their property interests had secured 
 a treasure. 
 
 ' But is he good in criminal cases before a 
 police-court, for instance ? ' continued Tom. 
 
 I believed I don't know on what grounds 
 that Manners was good in insurance and 
 Admiralty law, and that he looked upon 
 criminal practice as low ; but I answered 
 briskly though a trifle startled that as a 
 criminal lawyer he was perfect. 
 
 ' He could advise a man, who had a row 
 hanging on, how to steer clear of being up for 
 murder eh ?' 
 
 I trusted, with a desperate attempt at 
 jocosity, that neither he nor Tournelli had 
 been doing anything to require Manners's ser- 
 vices in that way. 
 
 ' It would be too late, then} said Tom, 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 245 
 
 coolly, ' and anybody could tell a man what he 
 ought to have done, or how to make the best 
 of what he had done ; but the smart thing in a 
 lawyer would be to give a chap points before- 
 hand, and sorter tell him how far he could go, 
 and yet keep inside the law. How he might 
 goad a fellow to draw on him, and then plug 
 him eh ? ' 
 
 I looked up quickly. There was nothing 
 in his ordinary, good-humoured, but not very 
 strong face to suggest that he himself was the 
 subject of this hypothetical case. If he were 
 speaking for Tournelli, the Italian certainly was 
 not to be congratulated on his ambassador's 
 prudence ; and, above all, Manners was to be 
 warned of the interpretation which might be 
 put upon his counsels, and disseminated thus 
 publicly. As I was thinking what to say, he 
 moved away, but suddenly returned again. 
 
 1 What made you think Tournelli had been 
 up to anything ? ' he asked sharply. 
 
 1 Nothing,' I answered ; ' I only thought 
 you and he, being friends ' 
 
 ' You mean we're both waiters in the same 
 restaurant. Well, I don't know him any better 
 
246 hV A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 than I know that chap over there,' pointing to 
 the other waiter. 'He's a Greaser or an 
 Italian, and, I reckon, goes with his kind.' 
 
 Why had we not thought of this before ? 
 Nothing would be more natural than that the 
 rich and imperious Tournelli should be exclu- 
 sive, and have no confidences with his enforced 
 associates. And it was evident that Tom had 
 noticed it and was jealous. 
 
 ' I suppose he's rather a swell, isn't he ? ' I 
 suggested tentatively. 
 
 A faint smile passed over Tom's face. It 
 was partly cynical and partly suggestive of that 
 amused toleration of our youthful credulity 
 which seemed to be a part of that discomposing 
 patronage that everybody extended to the 
 Club. As he said nothing, I continued en- 
 couragingly : 
 
 ' Because a man's a waiter, it doesn't follow 
 that he's always been one, or always will be.' 
 
 'No,' said Tom, abstractedly; 'but it's 
 about as good as anything else to lie low and 
 wait on.' But here two customers entered, and 
 he turned to them, leaving me in doubt whether 
 to accept this as a verbal pleasantry or an 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 247 
 
 admission. Only one thing seemed plain : I 
 had certainly gained no information, and only 
 added a darker mystery to his conference with 
 Manners, which I determined I should ask 
 Manners to explain. 
 
 I finished my meal in solitude. The rain 
 was still beating drearily against the windows 
 with an occasional accession of impulse that 
 seemed like human impatience. Vague figures 
 under dripping umbrellas, that hid their faces 
 as if in premeditated disguise, hurried from the 
 main thoroughfare. A woman in a hooded 
 waterproof like a domino, a Mexican in a black 
 scrape, might have been stage conspirators 
 hastening to a rendezvous. The cavernous 
 chill and odour which I had before noted as 
 coming from some sarcophagus of larder or 
 oven, where ' funeral baked meats ' might have 
 been kept in stock, began to oppress me. The 
 hollow and fictitious domesticity of this common 
 board had never before seemed so hopelessly 
 displayed. And Tom, the waiter, his napkin 
 twisted in his hand and his face turned with a 
 sudden dark abstraction towards the window, 
 appeared to be really ' lying low,' and waiting 
 for something outside his avocation, 
 
248 tN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE fact that Tom did not happen to be on 
 duty at the next Club dinner gave me an 
 opportunity to repeat his mysterious remark 
 to Manners, and to jokingly warn that rising 
 young lawyer against the indiscretion of vague 
 counsel. Manners, however, only shrugged 
 his shoulders ' I don't know what he meant,' he 
 said carelessly ; ' but since he chooses to talk of 
 his own affairs publicly, / don't mind saying 
 that they are neither very weighty nor very 
 dangerous. It's only the old story : the usual 
 matrimonial infidelities that are mixed up with 
 the Californian emigration. He leaves the 
 regular wife behind fairly or unfairly, I can't 
 say. She gets tired waiting, after the usual 
 style, and elopes with somebody else. The 
 Western Penelope isn't built for waiting. But 
 she seems to have converted some of his pro- 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTA URANT 249 
 
 perty into cash when she skipped from St. 
 Louis, and that's where his chief concern comes 
 in. That's what he wanted to see me for ; 
 that's why he inveigled me into that infernal 
 pantry of his one day to show me a plan of his 
 property, as if that was any good.' 
 
 He paused disgustedly. We all felt, I 
 think, that Tom was some kind of an impostor, 
 claiming the sympathies of the Club on false 
 pretences. Nevertheless, the Quartermaster 
 said, ' Then you didn't do anything for him 
 give him any advice, eh ? ' 
 
 ' No ; for the property's as much hers as his, 
 and he hasn't got a divorce ; and, as it's doubtful 
 whether he didn't desert her first, he can't get 
 one. He was surprised,' he added, with a grim 
 smile, ' when I told him that he was obliged to 
 support her, and was even liable for her debts. 
 But people who are always talking of invoking 
 the law know nothing about it.' We were 
 surprised too, although Manners was always 
 convincing us, in some cheerful but discom- 
 posing way, that we were all daily and hourly, 
 in our simplest acts, making ourselves re- 
 sponsible for all sorts of liabilities and actions, 
 
250 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 and even generally preparing ourselves for 
 arrest and imprisonment. The Quartermaster 
 continued lazily : 
 
 ' Then you didn't give him any points about 
 shooting ? ' 
 
 ' No ; he doesn't even know the man she 
 went off with. It was eighteen months ago, 
 and I don't believe he'd even know her again if 
 he met her. But, if he isn't much of a client, 
 we shall miss him to-night as a waiter, for the 
 place is getting full, and there are not enough 
 to serve.' 
 
 The restaurant was, indeed, unusually 
 crowded that evening ; the more so that, the 
 private rooms above being early occupied, 
 some dinner parties and exclusive couples had 
 been obliged to content themselves with the 
 public dining saloon. A small table nearest us, 
 usually left vacant to ensure a certain seclusion 
 to the Club, was arranged, with a deprecatory 
 apology from the proprietor, for one of those 
 couples, a man and woman. The man was a 
 well-known speculator cool, yet reckless and 
 pleasure-loving ; the woman, good-looking, pic- 
 turesquely attractive, self-conscious, and self- 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 251 
 
 possessed. Our propinquity was evidently 
 neither novel nor discomposing. As she settled 
 her skirts in her place, her bright, dark eyes 
 swept our table with a frank, almost childish, 
 familiarity. The younger members of the Club 
 quite unconsciously pulled up their collars and 
 settled their neckties ; the elders as uncon- 
 sciously raised their voices slightly, and some- 
 what arranged their sentences. Alas ! the 
 simplicity and unaffectedness of the Club were 
 again invaded. 
 
 Suddenly there was a crash, the breaking 
 of glass, and an exclamation. Tournelli, no 
 doubt disorganised by the unusual hurry, on 
 his way to our table had dropped his tray, 
 impartially distributed a plate of asparagus 
 over an adjoining table, and, flushed and 
 nervous, yet with an affectation of studied 
 calmness, was pouring the sauce into the 
 young Quartermaster's plate, in spite of his 
 languid protests. At any other time we 
 would have laughed, but there was something 
 in the exaggerated agitation of the Italian that 
 checked our mirth. Why should he be so 
 upset by a trifling accident ? He could afford 
 
252 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 to pay for the breakage ; he would laugh at 
 dismissal. Was it the sensitiveness of a re- 
 fined nature, or he was young and good-look- 
 ing was he disconcerted by the fact that our 
 handsome neighbour had witnessed his awk- 
 wardness ? But she was not laughing, and, 
 as far as I could see, was intently regarding 
 the bill of fare. 
 
 ' Waiter ! ' called her companion, hailing 
 Tournelli. 'Here!' The Italian, with a face 
 now distinctly white, leaned over the table, 
 adjusting the glasses, but did not reply. 
 
 ' Waiter ! ' repeated the stranger, sharply. 
 Tournelli's face twitched, then became set as 
 a mask ; but he did not move. The stranger 
 leaned forward and pulled his apron from 
 behind. Tournelli started with flashing eyes, 
 and turned swiftly round. But the Quarter- 
 master's hand had closed on his wrist. 
 
 1 That's my knife, Tournelli.' 
 
 The knife dropped from the Italian's fingers. 
 
 ' Better see what he wants. It may not 
 be that,' said the young officer, coolly but 
 kindly. 
 
 Tournelli turned impatiently towards the 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURAN1 253 
 
 stranger. We alone had witnessed this inci- 
 dent, and were watching him breathlessly. 
 Yet what bade fair a moment ago to be a 
 tragedy, seemed now to halt grotesquely. For 
 Tournelli, throwing open his linen jacket with 
 a melodramatic gesture, tapped his breast, and 
 with flashing eyes and suppressed accents said, 
 ' Sare ; you wantah me ? Look I am herre ! ' 
 
 The speculator leaned back in his chair 
 in good-humoured astonishment. The lady's 
 black eyes, without looking at Tournelli, 
 glanced backward round the room, and slipped 
 along our table, with half-defiant unconcern ; 
 and then she uttered a short hysterical laugh. 
 
 ' Ah ! ze lady madame ze signora eh 
 she wantah me ? ' continued Tournelli, leaning 
 on the table with compressed fingers, and 
 glaring at her. ' Perhaps she wantah Tour- 
 nelli eh ? ' 
 
 ' Well, you might bring some with the 
 soup,' blandly replied her escort, who seemed 
 to enjoy the Italian's excitement as a national 
 eccentricity ; ' but hurry up and set the table, 
 will you ? ' 
 
 Then followed, on the authority of the 
 
254 IN A PIONEER RESTA URANT 
 
 Editor, who understood Italian, a singular 
 scene. Secure, apparently, in his belief that his 
 language was generally uncomprehended, Tour- 
 nelli brought a decanter, and, setting it on the 
 table, said, ' Traitress ! ' in an intense whisper. 
 This was followed by the cruets, which he put 
 down with the exclamation, ' Perjured fiend ! ' 
 Two glasses, placed on either side of her, 
 carried the word ' Apostate ! ' to her ear ; and 
 three knives and forks, rattling more than was 
 necessary, and laid crosswise before her plate, 
 were accompanied with ' Tremble, wanton ! ' 
 Then, as he pulled the tablecloth straight, and 
 ostentatiously concealed a wine-stain with a 
 clean napkin, scarcely whiter than his lips, he 
 articulated under his breath : ' Let him beware ! 
 he goes not hence alive ! I will slice his craven 
 heart thus and thou shalt see it.' He turned 
 quickly to a side table and brought back a 
 spoon. ' And this is why I have not found 
 you ; ' another spoon, ' For this you have dis- 
 appeared ; ' a purely perfunctory polishing of 
 her fork, ' For him, bah ! ' an equally unneces- 
 sary wiping of her glass, ' Blood of God ! '- 
 more wiping ' It will end ! Yes ' general 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 255 
 
 wiping and a final flourish over the whole 
 table with a napkin ' I go, but at the door I 
 shall await you both.' 
 
 She had not spoken yet, nor even lifted her 
 eyes. When she did so, however, she raised 
 them level with his, showed all her white teeth 
 they were small and cruel-looking and said 
 smilingly in his own dialect : 
 'Thief!' 
 
 Tournelli halted, rigid. 
 ' You're talking his lingo, eh ? ' said her 
 escort, good-humouredly. 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' Well tell him to bustle around and be a 
 little livelier with the dinner, won't you ? This 
 is only skirmishing.' 
 
 ' You hear,' she continued to Tournelli in a 
 perfectly even voice ; ' or shall it be a police- 
 man, and a charge of stealing ? ' 
 
 ' Stealing ! ' gasped Tournelli. ' You say 
 stealing ! ' 
 
 ' Yes ten thousand dollars. You are well 
 disguised here, my little fellow ; it is a good 
 business yours. Keep it while you can.' 
 
 I think he would have sprung upon her 
 
256 IN A PIONEER REST A URANT 
 
 there and then, but that the Quartermaster, 
 who was nearest him, and had been intently 
 watching his face, made a scarcely perceptible 
 movement as if ready to anticipate him. He 
 caught the officer's eye ; caught, I think, in ours 
 the revelation that he had been understood, 
 drew back with a sidelong, sinuous movement, 
 and disappeared in the passage to the kitchen. 
 I believe we all breathed more freely, 
 although the situation was still full enough of 
 impending possibilities to prevent peaceful en- 
 joyment of our dinner. As the Editor finished 
 his hurried translation, it was suggested that 
 we ought to warn the unsuspecting escort of 
 Tournelli's threats. But it was pointed out 
 that this would be betraying the woman, and 
 that Jo Hays (her companion) was fully able 
 to take care of himself. ' Besides,' said the 
 Editor, aggrievedly, ' you fellows only think 
 of yoiirselves, and you don't understand the 
 first principles of journalism. Do you suppose 
 I'm going to do anything to spoil a half-column 
 of leaded brevier copy from an eye-witness, 
 too ? No ; it's a square enough fight as it 
 stands. We must look out for the woman, 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTA URANT 257 
 
 and not let Tournelli get an unfair drop on 
 Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn't a 
 bluff.' 
 
 But the Italian did not return. Whether 
 he had incontinently fled, or was nursing his 
 wrath in the kitchen, or already fulfilling his 
 threat of waiting on the pavement outside 
 the restaurant, we could not guess. Another 
 waiter appeared with the dinners they had 
 ordered, A momentary thrill of excitement 
 passed over us at the possibility that Tournelli 
 had poisoned their soup ; but it presently 
 lapsed, as we saw the couple partaking of it 
 comfortably, and chatting with apparent un- 
 concern. Was the scene we had just witnessed 
 only a piece of Southern exaggeration ? Was 
 the woman a creature devoid of nerves or feel- 
 ing of any kind ; or was she simply a consum- 
 mate actress ? Yet she was clearly not acting, 
 for in the intervals of conversation, and even 
 while talking, her dark eyes wandered carelessly 
 around the room, with the easy self-confidence 
 of a pretty woman. We were beginning to 
 talk of something else, when the Editor said 
 suddenly, in a suppressed voice : 
 
 s 
 
258 IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 ' Hullo ! What's the matter now ? ' 
 
 The woman had risen, and was hurriedly 
 throwing her cloak over her shoulders. But 
 it was her face that was now ashen and agitated, 
 and we could see that her hands were trembling. 
 Her escort was assisting her, but was evidently 
 as astonished as ourselves. ' Perhaps,' he sug- 
 gested hopefully, ' if you wait a minute it will 
 pass off.' 
 
 ' No, no,' she gasped, still hurriedly wrestling 
 with her cloak. ' Don't you see I'm suffocating 
 here I want air. You can follow ! ' She began 
 to move off, her face turned fixedly in the direc- 
 tion of the door. We instinctively looked there 
 perhaps for Tournelli. There was no one. 
 Nevertheless, the Editor and Quartermaster 
 had half-risen from their seats. 
 
 ' Halloo !' said Manners suddenly. ' There's 
 Tom just come in. Call him ! ' 
 
 Tom, evidently recalled from his brief fur- 
 lough by the proprietor on account of the press 
 of custom, had just made his appearance from 
 the kitchen. 
 
 ' Tom, where's Tournelli ? ' asked the 
 Lawyer hurriedly, but following the retreat- 
 ing woman with his eyes. 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 259 
 
 ' Skipped, they say. Somebody insulted 
 him/ said Tom curtly. 
 
 ' You didn't see him hanging round outside, 
 eh ? Swearing vengeance ? ' asked the Editor. 
 
 ' No,' said Tom, scornfully. 
 
 The woman had reached the door, and 
 darted out of it as her escort paused a moment 
 at the counter to throw down a coin. Yet in 
 that moment she had hurried before him 
 through the passage into the street. I turned 
 breathlessly to the window. For an instant 
 her face, white as a phantom's, appeared 
 pressed rigidly against the heavy plate-glass, 
 her eyes staring with a horrible fascination 
 back into the room I even imagined at us. 
 Perhaps, as it was evident that Tournelli was 
 not w^ith her, she fancied he was still here ; 
 perhaps she had mistaken Tom for him ! How- 
 ever, her escort quickly rejoined her ; their 
 shadows passed the window together they 
 were gone. 
 
 Then a pistol-shot broke the quiet of the 
 street. 
 
 The Editor and Quartermaster rose and ran 
 to the door. Manners rose also, but lingered 
 
 S 2 
 
2&c IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 
 
 long enough to whisper to me, ' Don't lose 
 sight of Tom,' and followed them. But to 
 my momentary surprise no one else moved. 
 I had forgotten, in the previous excitement, 
 that in those days a pistol-shot was not unusual 
 enough to attract attention. A few raised their 
 heads at the sound of running feet on the pave- 
 ment, and the flitting of black shadows past the 
 windows. Tom had not stirred, but, napkin in 
 hand, and eyes fixed on vacancy, was standing, 
 as I had seen him once before, in an attitude of 
 listless expectation. 
 
 In a few minutes Manners returned. I 
 thought he glanced oddly at Tom, who was 
 still lingering in attendance, and I even fancied 
 he talked to us ostentatiously for his benefit. 
 ' Yes, it was a row of Tournelli's. He was 
 waiting at the corner ; had rushed at Hays 
 with a knife, but had been met with a deringer- 
 shot through his hat. The lady, who, it seems, 
 was only a chance steamer acquaintance of 
 Hays', thought the attack must have been 
 meant for her, as she had recognised in the 
 Italian a man who had stolen from her divorced 
 husband in the States, two years ago, and was 
 
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT 261 
 
 a fugitive from justice. At least that was the 
 explanation given by Hays, for the woman had 
 fainted and been driven off to her hotel by 
 the Quartermaster, and Tournelli had escaped. 
 But the Editor was on his track. ' You didn't 
 notice that lady, Tom, did you ? ' 
 
 Tom came out of an abstracted study, and 
 said : 'No, she had her back to me all the 
 time.' 
 
 Manners regarded him steadily for a moment 
 without speaking, but in a way that I could not 
 help thinking was much more embarrassing to 
 the bystanders than to him. When we rose to 
 leave, as he placed his usual gratuity into Tom's 
 hand, he said carelessly, ' You might drop into 
 my office to-morrow if you have anything to 
 tell me! 
 
 1 1 haven't,' said Tom, quietly. 
 
 'Then I may have something to tell you.' 
 
 Tom nodded, and turned away to his duties. 
 
 The Mining Secretary and myself could 
 scarcely wait to reach the street before we 
 turned eagerly on Manners. 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 ' Well ; the woman you saw was Tom's run- 
 
262 IN A PIONEER RESTA URANT 
 
 away wife, and Tournelli the man she ran away 
 with.' 
 
 ' And Tom knew it ? ' 
 
 1 Can't say?' 
 
 ' And you mean to say that all this while 
 Tom never suspected him, and even did not 
 recognise her just now ?' 
 
 Manners lifted his hat and passed his fingers 
 through his hair meditatively. ' Ask me some- 
 thing easier, gentlemen.' 
 
25 3 
 
 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 HER father's house was nearly a mile from the 
 sea, but the breath of it was always strong at 
 the windows and doors in the early morning, 
 and when there were heavy ' south-westers ' 
 blowing in the winter, the wind brought the 
 sharp sting of sand to her cheek, and the rain 
 an odd taste of salt to her lips. On this 
 particular December afternoon, however, as 
 she stood in the doorway, it seemed to be 
 singularly calm ; the south-west trades blew but 
 faintly and scarcely broke the crests of the long 
 Pacific swell that lazily rose and fell on the 
 beach, which only a slanting copse of scrub- 
 oak and willow hid from the cottage. Never- 
 theless, she knew this league-long strip of 
 shining sand much better, it is to be feared, 
 than the scanty flower-garden, arid and stunted 
 by its contiguity. It had been her playground 
 when she first came there, a motherless girl of 
 
264 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 twelve, and she had helped her father gather 
 its scattered driftwood as the fortunes of the 
 Millers were not above accepting these occa- 
 sional offerings of their lordly neighbour. 
 
 ' I wouldn't go far to-day, Jenny/ said her 
 father, as the girl stepped from the threshold. 
 1 1 don't trust the weather at this season ; and 
 besides, you had better be looking over your 
 wardrobe for the Christmas Eve party at Sol 
 Catlin's.' 
 
 ' Why, father, you don't intend to go to 
 that man's ? ' said the girl, looking up with a 
 troubled face. 
 
 ' Lawyer Miller,' as he was called by his 
 few neighbours, looked slightly embarrassed. 
 ' Why not ? ' he asked in a faintly irritated 
 tone. 
 
 ' Why not ? Why, father, you know how 
 vulgar and conceited he is how everybody 
 here truckles to him ! ' 
 
 ' Very likely ; he's a very superior man of 
 his kind a kind they understand here, too a 
 great trapper, hunter, and pioneer.' 
 
 1 But I don't believe in his trapping, hunting, 
 and pioneering,' said the girl, petulantly. ' I 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 265 
 
 believe it's all as hollow and boisterous as 
 himself. It's no more real, or what one thinks 
 it should be, than he is. And he dares to 
 patronise you you, father, an educated man 
 and a gentleman ! ' 
 
 ' Say rather an unsuccessful lawyer who 
 was fool enough to believe that buying a ranch 
 could make him a farmer,' returned her father, 
 but half jestingly. ' I only wish I was as good 
 at my trade as he is.' 
 
 ' But you never liked him you always used 
 
 to ignore him ; you've changed, father ' 
 
 She stopped suddenly, for her recollection of 
 her father's quiet superiority and easy inde- 
 pendence when he first came there was in such 
 marked contrast to his late careless and weak 
 concession to the rude life around them, that she 
 felt a pang of vague degradation, which she 
 feared her voice might betray. 
 
 ' Very well ! Do as you like,' he replied, 
 with affected carelessness ; ' only I thought, as 
 we cannot afford to go elsewhere this Christ- 
 mas, it might be well for us to take what we 
 could find here.' 
 
 'Take what we could find here!' It was 
 
266 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 so unlike him he who had always been so 
 strong in preserving their little domestic refine- 
 ments in their rude surroundings, that their 
 poverty had never seemed mean, nor their 
 seclusion ignoble. She turned away to conceal 
 her indignant colour. She could share the 
 household work with a squaw and Chinaman, 
 she could fetch wood and water. Catlin had 
 patronisingly seen her doing it, but to dance to 
 his vulgar piping never ! 
 
 She was not long in reaching the sands 
 that now lay before her, warm, sweet-scented 
 from short beach grass, stretching to a dim 
 rocky promontory, and absolutely untrod by 
 any foot but her own. It was this virginity 
 of seclusion that had been charming to her 
 girlhood ; fenced in between the impenetrable 
 hedge of scrub-oaks on the one side, and the 
 lifting green walls of breakers tipped with 
 chevaux de frise of white foam on the other, 
 she had known a perfect security for her sports 
 and fancies that had captivated her town-bred 
 instincts and native fastidiousness. A few 
 white-winged sea-birds, as proud, reserved, and 
 maidenlike as herself, had been her only com- 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 267 
 
 panions. And it was now the custodian of her 
 secret a secret as innocent and childlike as 
 her previous youthful fancies but still a secret 
 known only to herself. 
 
 One day she had come upon the rotting ribs 
 of a wreck on the beach. Its distance from 
 the tide line, its position, and its deep im- 
 bedding of sand, showed that it was of ancient 
 origin. An omnivorous reader of all that per- 
 tained to the history of California, Jenny had 
 in fancy often sailed the seas in one of those 
 mysterious treasure-ships that had skirted the 
 coast in bygone days, and she at once settled 
 in her mind that her discovery was none other 
 than a cast-away Philippine galleon. Partly 
 from her reserve, and partly from a suddenly- 
 conceived plan, she determined to keep its 
 existence as unknown to her father, as careful 
 inquiry on her part had found it was equally 
 unknown to the neighbours. For this shy, 
 imaginative young girl of eighteen had con- 
 vinced herself that it might still contain a part 
 of its old treasure. She would dig for it her- 
 self, without telling anybody. If she failed, 
 no one would know it ; if she were successful, 
 
268 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 she would surprise her father and perhaps re- 
 trieve their fortune by less vulgar means than 
 their present toil. Thanks to the secluded 
 locality and the fact that she was known to 
 spend her leisure moments in wandering there, 
 she could work without suspicion. Secretly 
 conveying a shovel and a few tools to the spot 
 the next day, she set about her prodigious task. 
 As the upper works were gone, and the galleon 
 not large, in three weeks, working an hour or 
 two each day, she had made a deep excavation 
 in the stern. She had found many curious 
 things the flotsam and jetsam of previous 
 storms but as yet, it is perhaps needless to 
 say, not the treasure. 
 
 To-day she was filled with the vague hope 
 of making her discovery before Christmas 
 Day. To have been able to take her father 
 something on that day if only a few old coins 
 the fruit of her own unsuspected labour and 
 intuition not the result of vulgar barter or 
 menial wage would have been complete hap- 
 piness. It was perhaps a somewhat visionary 
 expectation for an educated girl of eighteen, 
 but I am writing of a young Californian girl, 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 269 
 
 who had lived in the fierce glamour of treasure- 
 hunting, and in whose sensitive individuality 
 some of its subtle poison had been instilled. 
 Howbeit, to-day she found nothing. She was 
 sadly hiding her pick and shovel, as was her 
 custom, when she discovered the fresh track 
 of an alien foot in the sand. Robinson Crusoe 
 was not more astounded at the savage foot- 
 print than Jenny Miller at this damning proof 
 of the invasion of her sacred territory. The 
 footprints came from and returned to the copse 
 of shrubs. Someone might have seen her at 
 work ! 
 
 But a singular change in the weather, over- 
 looked in her excitement, here forced itself 
 upon her. A light film over sea and sky, 
 lifted only by fitful gusts of wind, seemed to 
 have suddenly thickened until it became an 
 opaque vault, narrowing in circumference as 
 the wind increased. The promontory behind 
 her disappeared, as if swallowed up, the dis- 
 tance before her seemed to contract ; the ocean 
 at her side, the colour of dull pewter, vanished 
 in a sheet of slanting rain, and by the time she 
 reached the house, half running, half carried 
 
270 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 along by the quartering force of the wind, a 
 full gale was blowing. 
 
 It blew all the evening, reaching a climax 
 and fury at past midnight that was remembered 
 for many years along that coast. In the midst 
 of it they heard the booming of cannon, and 
 then the voices of neighbours in the road. 
 ' There was,' said the voices, ' a big steamer 
 ashore just afore the house.' They dressed 
 quickly and ran out. 
 
 Hugging the edge of the copse to breathe 
 and evade the fury of the wind, they struggled 
 to the sands. At first, looking out to sea, the 
 girl saw nothing but foam. But, following the 
 direction of a neighbour's arm, for in that wild 
 tumult man alone seemed speechless, she saw 
 directly before her, so close upon her that she 
 could have thrown a pebble on board, the high 
 bows of a ship. Indeed, its very nearness gave 
 her the feeling that it was already saved, and 
 its occasional heavy roll to leeward, drunken, 
 helpless, ludicrous, but never awful, brought a 
 hysteric laugh to her lips. But when a livid 
 blue light, lit in the swinging top, showed a 
 number of black objects clinging to bulwarks 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 271 
 
 and rigging, and the sea, with languid, heavy 
 cruelty, pushing rather than beating them 
 away, one by one, she knew that Death was 
 there. 
 
 The neighbours, her father with the others, 
 had been running hopelessly to and fro, or 
 cowering in groups against the copse, when 
 suddenly they uttered a cry their first of 
 joyful welcome. And with that shout, the 
 man she most despised and hated, Sol. Catlin, 
 mounted on a ' calico ' mustang, as outrageous 
 and bizarre as himself, dashed among them. 
 
 In another moment, what had been fear, 
 bewilderment, and hesitation was changed to 
 courage, confidence, and action. The men 
 pressed eagerly around him, and as eagerly 
 dispersed under his quick command. Galloping 
 at his heels was a team with the whale-boat, 
 brought from the river, miles away. He was 
 here, there, and everywhere ; catching the line 
 thrown by the rocket from the ship, marshalling 
 the men to haul it in, answering the hail from 
 those on board above the tempest, pervading 
 everything and everybody with the fury of the 
 storm ; loud, imperious, domineering, self- 
 
272 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 asserting, all-sufficient, and successful ! And 
 when the boat was launched, the last mighty 
 impulse came from his shoulder. He rode at 
 the helm into the first hanging wall of foam, 
 erect and triumphant ! Dazzled, bewildered, 
 crying and laughing, she hated him more than 
 ever. 
 
 The boat made three trips, bringing off, 
 with the aid of the hawser, all but the sailors 
 she had seen perish before her own eyes. The 
 passengers they were few the captain and 
 officers, found refuge in her father's house, and 
 were loud in their praises of Sol. Catlin. But 
 in that grateful chorus a single gloomy voice 
 arose, the voice of a wealthy and troubled 
 passenger. ' I will give,' he said, ' five thou- 
 sand dollars to the man who brings me a box 
 of securities 1 left in my state-room.' Every 
 eye turned instinctively to Sol. ; he answered 
 only those of Jenny's. ' Say ten thousand, and 
 if the dod-blasted hulk holds together two 
 hours longer I'll do it, d n me ! You hear 
 me! My name's Sol. Catlin, and when I say 
 a thing, by G d, I do it.' Jenny's disgust 
 here reached its climax. The hero of a night 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 273 
 
 of undoubted energy and courage had blotted 
 it out in a single moment of native vanity and 
 vulgar avarice. 
 
 He was gone ; not only two hours, but 
 daylight had come and they were eagerly 
 seeking him, when he returned among them, 
 dripping and empty-handed. He had reached 
 the ship, he said, with another ; found the 
 box, and trusted himself alone with it to 
 the sea. But in the surf he had to abandon 
 it to save himself. It had perhaps drifted 
 ashore, and might be found ; for himself, he 
 abandoned his claim to the reward. Had he 
 looked abashed or mortified, Jenny felt that 
 she might have relented, but the braggart was 
 as all-satisfied, as confident and boastful as 
 ever. Nevertheless, as his eye seemed to seek 
 hers, she was constrained, in mere politeness, 
 to add her own to her father's condolences. 
 ' I suppose,' she hesitated, in passing him, ' that 
 this is a mere nothing to you after all that you 
 did last night that was really great and un- 
 selfish.' 
 
 ' Were you never disappointed, Miss ? ' he 
 said, with exasperating abruptness. 
 
 T 
 
274 A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 
 
 A quick consciousness of her own thankless 
 labour on the galleon, and a terrible idea that 
 he might have some suspicion of, and perhaps 
 the least suggestion that she might have been 
 disappointed in him, brought a faint colour to 
 her cheek. But she replied with dignity : 
 
 ' I really couldn't say. But certainly,' she 
 added, with a new-found pertness, ' you don't 
 look it.' 
 
 ' Nor do you, Miss,' was his idiotic answer. 
 
 A few hours later, alarmed at what she had 
 heard of the inroads of the sea, which had 
 risen higher than ever known to the oldest 
 settler, and perhaps mindful of yesterday's 
 footprints, she sought her old secluded haunt. 
 The wreck was still there, but the sea had 
 reached it. The excavation between its gaunt 
 ribs was filled with drift and the sea-weed 
 carried there by the surges and entrapped in 
 its meshes. And there, too, caught as in a 
 net, lay the wooden box of securities Sol. 
 Catlin had abandoned to the sea. 
 
 This is the story as it was told to me. 
 The singularity of coincidences has challenged 
 
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON 275 
 
 some speculation. Jenny insisted at the time 
 upon sharing the full reward with Catlin, but 
 local critics have pointed out that from subse- 
 quent events this proved nothing. For she 
 had married him ! 
 
 T 2 
 
577 
 
 OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 
 
 IT was a slightly cynical, but fairly good- 
 humoured crowd that had gathered before a 
 warehouse on Long Wharf in San Francisco 
 one afternoon in the summer of '51. Although 
 the occasion was an auction, the bidders' chances 
 more -than usually hazardous, and the season 
 and locality famous for reckless speculation, 
 there was scarcely any excitement among the 
 bystanders, and a lazy, half-humorous curiosity 
 seemed to have taken the place of any zeal for 
 gain. 
 
 It was an auction of unclaimed trunks and 
 boxes the personal luggage of early emi- 
 grants which had been left on storage in hulk 
 or warehouse at San Francisco, while the owner 
 was seeking his fortune in the mines. The dif- 
 ficulty and expense of transport, often obliging 
 the gold-seeker to make part of his journey 
 on foot, restricted him to the smallest impedi- 
 
278 OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 
 
 menta, and that of a kind not often found in 
 the luggage of ordinary civilisation. As a con- 
 sequence, during the emigration of '49, he was 
 apt on landing to avail himself of the invita- 
 tion usually displayed on some of the doors 
 of the rude hostelries on the shore : ' Rest for 
 the Weary and Storage for Trunks.' In a 
 majority of cases he never returned to claim 
 his stored property. Enforced absence, pro- 
 tracted equally by good or evil fortune, accumu- 
 lated the high storage charges until they usually 
 far exceeded the actual value of the goods ; 
 sickness, further emigration, or death also 
 reduced the number of possible claimants, and 
 that more wonderful human frailty absolute 
 forgetfulness of deposited possessions com- 
 bined together to leave the bulk of the property 
 in the custodian's hands. Under an understood 
 agreement they were always sold at public auc- 
 tion after a given time. Although the contents 
 of some of the trunks were exposed, it was 
 found more in keeping with the public senti- 
 ment to sell the trunks locked and unopened. 
 The element of curiosity was kept up from 
 time to time by the incautious disclosures of the 
 
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 279 
 
 lucky or unlucky purchaser, and general bidding 
 thus encouraged except when the speculator, 
 with the true gambling instinct, gave no indi- 
 cation in his face of what was drawn in this 
 lottery. Generally, however, some suggestion 
 in the exterior of the trunk, a label or initials ; 
 some conjectural knowledge of its former owner, 
 or the idea that he might be secretly present in 
 the hope of getting his property back for less 
 than the accumulated dues, kept up the bidding 
 and interest. 
 
 A modest-looking, well-worn portmanteau 
 had been just put up at a small opening bid, 
 when Harry Flint joined the crowd. The young 
 man had arrived a week before at San Francisco 
 friendless and penniless, and had been forced 
 to part with his own effects to procure neces- 
 sary food and lodging while looking for an 
 employment. In the irony of fate that morning 
 the proprietors of a dry-goods store, struck with 
 his good looks and manners, had offered him a 
 situation, if he could make himself more pre- 
 sentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was 
 gazing half abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the 
 portmanteau without noticing the auctioneer's 
 
28o OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 
 
 persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he 
 was not aware that the auctioneer's assistant 
 was also looking at him curiously, and that 
 possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance 
 had excited the attention of one of the cynical 
 bystanders, who was exchanging a few words 
 with the assistant. He was, however, recalled 
 to himself a moment later when the port- 
 manteau was knocked down at fifteen dollars, 
 and considerably startled when the assistant 
 placed it at his feet with a grim smile. ' That's 
 your property, Fowler, and I reckon you look 
 as if you wanted it back bad.' 
 
 ' But there's some mistake,' stammered 
 Flint. ' I didn't bid.' 
 
 ' No, but Tom Flynn did for you. You 
 see, I spotted you from the first, and told 
 Flynn I reckoned you were one of those chaps 
 who came back from the mines dead broke. 
 And he up and bought your things for you 
 like a square man. That's Flynn's style, if he 
 is a gambler.' 
 
 'But,' persisted Flint, ' this never was my 
 property. My name isn't Fowler, and I never 
 left anything here.' 
 
OUT OF A PIONEERS TRUNK 281 
 
 The assistant looked at him with a grim, 
 half-credulous, half-scornful smile. ' Have it 
 your own way,' he said, ' but I oughter tell ye, 
 old man, that I'm the warehouse clerk, and I 
 remember you. I'm here for that purpose. 
 But as that thar valise is bought and paid for 
 by somebody else and given to you, it's 
 nothing more to me. Take or leave it.' 
 
 The ridiculousness of quarrelling over the 
 mere form of his good fortune here struck 
 Flint, and, as his abrupt benefactor had as 
 abruptly disappeared, he hurried off with his 
 prize. Reaching his cheap lodging-house, he 
 examined its contents. As he had surmised, it 
 contained a full suit of clothing of the better 
 sort, and suitable to his urban needs. There 
 were a few articles of jewellery, which he put 
 religiously aside. There were some letters, 
 which seemed to be of a purely business cha- 
 racter. There were a few daguerreotypes of 
 pretty faces, one of which was singularly fas- 
 cinating to him. But there was another, of a 
 young man, which startled him with its mar- 
 vellous resemblance to himself \ In a flash 
 of intelligence he understood it all now. It 
 
282 OUT OF A PIONEERS TRUNK 
 
 was the likeness of the former owner of the 
 trunk, for whom the assistant had actually 
 mistaken him ! He glanced hurriedly at the 
 envelopes of the letters. They were addressed 
 to Shelby Fowler, the name by which the as- 
 sistant had just called him. The mystery was 
 plain now. And for the present he could 
 fairly accept his good luck, and trust to later 
 fortune to justify himself. 
 
 Transformed in his new garb, he left his 
 lodgings to present himself once more to his 
 possible employer. His way led past one of 
 the large gambling saloons. It was yet too 
 early to find the dry-goods trader disengaged ; 
 perhaps the consciousness of more decent, 
 civilised garb emboldened him to mingle more 
 freely with strangers, and he entered the saloon. 
 He was scarcely abreast of one of the faro 
 tables when a man suddenly leaped up with an 
 oath and discharged a revolver full in his face. 
 The shot missed. Before his unknown assailant 
 could fire again the astonished Flint had closed 
 with him, and instinctively clutched the weapon. 
 A brief but violent struggle ensued. Flint 
 felt his strength failing him, when suddenly 
 
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 283 
 
 a look of astonishment came into the furious 
 eyes -of his adversary, and the man's grasp 
 mechanically relaxed. The half-freed pistol, 
 thrown upwards by this movement, was acci- 
 dentally discharged point blank into his temples, 
 and he fell dead. No one in the crowd had 
 stirred or interfered. 
 
 ' You've done for Australian Pete this time, 
 Mr. Fowler,' said a voice at his elbow. He 
 turned gaspingly, and recognised his strange 
 benefactor, Flynn. ' I call you all to witness, 
 gentlemen,' continued the gambler, turning 
 dictatorially to the crowd, ' that this man was 
 first attacked and was imarmed? He lifted 
 Flint's limp and empty hands and then pointed 
 to the dead man, who was still grasping the 
 weapon. ' ' Come ! ' He caught the half- 
 paralysed arm of Flint and dragged him into 
 the street. 
 
 ' But,' stammered the horrified Flint, as he 
 was borne along, ' what does it all mean ? 
 What made that man attack me ? ' 
 
 ' I reckon it was a case of shooting on sight, 
 Mr. Fowler ; but he missed it by not waiting 
 to see if you were armed. It wasn't the square 
 
OUT Of A PIONEER'S 
 
 thing, and you're all right with the crowd now, 
 whatever he might have had agin' you.' 
 
 ' But,' protested the unhappy Flint, ' I never 
 laid eyes on the man before, and my name isn't 
 Fowler.' 
 
 Flynn halted, and dragged him in a door- 
 way. ' Who the devil are you ? ' he asked 
 roughly. 
 
 Briefly, passionately, almost hysterically, 
 Flint told him his scant story. An odd ex- 
 pression came over the gambler's face. 
 
 ' Look here,' he said abruptly, ' I have 
 passed my word to the crowd yonder that you 
 are a dead-broke miner called Fowler. I 
 allowed that you might have had some row 
 with that Sydney Duck, Australian Pete, in 
 the mines. That satisfied them. If I go back 
 now, and say it's a lie, that your name ain't 
 Fowler, and you never knew who Pete was, 
 they'll jest pass you over to the police to deal 
 with you, and wash their hands of it altogether. 
 You may prove to the police who you are, and 
 how that d - clerk mistook you, but it will 
 give you trouble. And who is there here who 
 knows who you really are ? ' 
 
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 285 
 
 ' No one,' said Flint, with sudden hopeless- 
 ness. 
 
 ' And you say you're an orphan, and ain't 
 got any relations livin' that you're beholden to ? ' 
 
 ' No one.' 
 
 ' Then, take my advice, and be Fowler, and 
 stick to it ! Be Fowler until Fowler turns up, 
 and thanks you for it ; for you've saved Fowler's 
 life, as Pete would never have funked and lost 
 his grit over Fowler as he did with you ; and 
 you've a right to his name.' 
 
 He stopped, and the same odd, superstitious 
 look came into his dark eyes. 
 
 ' Don't you see what all that means ? Well, 
 I'll tell you. You're in the biggest streak of 
 luck a man ever had. You've got the cards 
 in your own hands ! They spell " Fowler " ! 
 Play Fowler first, last, and all the time. Good- 
 night, and good luck, Mr. Fowler' 
 
 The next morning's journal contained an 
 account of the justifiable killing of the notorious 
 desperado and ex-convict, Australian Pete, by 
 a courageous young miner by the name of 
 Fowler. ' An act of firmness and daring,' said 
 the ' Pioneer,' ' which will go far to counter- 
 
286 OUT OF A PIONEERS TRUNK 
 
 act the terrorism produced by those lawless 
 ruffians.' 
 
 In his new suit of clothes, and with this 
 paper in his hand, Flint sought the dry-goods 
 proprietor the latter was satisfied and con- 
 vinced. That morning Harry Flint began his 
 career as salesman and as ' Shelby Fowler.' 
 
 From that day Shelby Fowler's career was 
 one of uninterrupted prosperity. Within the 
 year he became a partner. The same miraculous 
 fortune followed other ventures later. He was 
 mill owner, mine owner, bank director a 
 millionaire ! He was popular, the reputation 
 of his brief achievement over the desperado 
 kept him secure from the attack of envy and 
 rivalry. He never was confronted by the real 
 Fowler. There was no danger of exposure by 
 others the one custodian of his secret, Tom 
 Flynn, died in Nevada the year following. He 
 had quite forgotten his youthful past, and even 
 the more recent lucky portmanteau ; remem- 
 bered nothing, perhaps, but the pretty face of 
 the daguerreotype that had fascinated him. 
 
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 287 
 
 There seemed to be no reason why he should 
 not live and die as Shelby Fowler. 
 
 His business a year later took him to 
 Europe. He was entering a train at one of 
 the great railway stations of London, when the 
 porter, who had just deposited his portmanteau 
 in a compartment, reappeared at the window 
 followed by a young lady in mourning. 
 
 ' Beg pardon, sir, but I handed you the 
 wrong portmanteau. That belongs to this 
 young lady. This is yours.' 
 
 Flint glanced at the portmanteau on the 
 seat before him. It certainly was not his, 
 although it bore the initials ' S. F.' He was 
 mechanically handing it back to the porter, 
 when his eyes fell on the young lady's face. 
 For an instant he stood petrified. It was the 
 face of the daguerreotype. ' I beg pardon,' he 
 stammered, ' but are these your initials ? ' She 
 hesitated, perhaps it was the abruptness of the 
 question, but he saw she looked confused. 
 
 ' No. A friend's.' 
 
 She disappeared into another carriage, but 
 from that moment Harry Flint knew that he 
 had no other aim in life but to follow this clue 
 
288 OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 
 
 and the beautiful girl who had dropped it. He 
 bribed the guard at the next station, and dis- 
 covered that she was going to York. On their 
 arrival, he was ready on the platform to respect- 
 fully assist her. A few words disclosed the 
 fact that she was a fellow - countrywoman, 
 although residing in England, and at present 
 on her way to join some friends at Harrogate. 
 Her name was West. At the mention of his, 
 he again fancied she looked disturbed. 
 
 They met again and again ; the informality 
 of his introduction was overlooked by her 
 friends, as his assumed name was already 
 respectably and responsibly known beyond 
 California. He thought no more of his future. 
 He was in love. He even dared to think it 
 might be returned ; but he felt he had no right 
 to seek that knowledge until he had told her 
 his real name and how he came to assume 
 another's. He did so alone scarcely a month 
 after their first meeting. To his alarm, she 
 burst into a flood of tears, and showed an 
 agitation that seemed far beyond any apparent 
 cause. When she had partly recovered, she 
 said, in a low, frightened voice ; 
 
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 289 
 
 ' You are bearing my brothers name. But 
 it was a name that the unhappy boy had so 
 shamefully disgraced in Australia that he 
 abandoned it, and, as he lay upon his death-bed, 
 the last act of his wasted life was to write an 
 imploring letter begging me to change mine 
 too. For the infamous companion of his crime 
 who had first tempted, then betrayed him, had 
 possession of all his papers and letters, many of 
 them from me, and was threatening to bring 
 them to our Virginia home and expose him to 
 our neighbours. Maddened by desperation, 
 the miserable boy twice attempted the life of 
 the scoundrel, and might have added that blood 
 guiltiness to his other sins had he lived. I did 
 change my name to my mother's maiden one, 
 left the country, and have lived here to escape 
 the revelations of that desperado, should he 
 fulfil his threat.' 
 
 In a flash of recollection Flint remembered 
 the startled look that had come into his as- 
 sailant's eye after they had clinched. It was 
 the same man who had too late realised that his 
 antagonist was not Fowler. ' Thank God ! 
 you are for ever safe from any exposure from 
 
 U 
 
290 OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK 
 
 that man,' he said, gravely, ' and the name of 
 Fowler has never been known in San Francisco 
 save in all respect and honour. It is for you to 
 take back fearlessly and alone ! ' 
 
 She did-^but not alone, for she shared it 
 with her husband. 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY 
 CASTLE 
 
 THERE should have been snow on the ground 
 to make the picture seasonable and complete, 
 but the Western Barbarian had lived long 
 enough in England to know that, except in the 
 pages of a holiday supplement, this was rarely 
 the accompaniment of a Christmas landscape, 
 and he cheerfully accepted, on the 24th of 
 December, the background of a low, brooding 
 sky, on which the delicate tracery of leafless 
 sprays and blacker chevaux de frise of pine was 
 faintly etched, as a consistent setting to the 
 turrets and peacefully stacked chimneys of 
 Stukeley Castle. Yet, even in this disastrous 
 eclipse of colour and distance, the harmonious 
 outlines of the long, grey, irregular pile seemed 
 to him as wonderful as ever. It still dominated 
 the whole landscape, and, as he had often 
 fancied, carried this subjection even to the 
 
 U 2 
 
292 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 human beings who had created it, lived in it, 
 but which it seemed to have in some dull, 
 senile way dozed over and forgotten. He 
 vividly recalled the previous sunshine of an 
 autumnal house party within its walls, where 
 some descendants of its old castellans, en- 
 countered in long galleries or at the very door 
 of their bedrooms, looked as alien to the house 
 as the Barbarian himself. 
 
 For the rest it may be found described in 
 the local guide-books, with a view of its ' South 
 Front,' ' West Front,' and ' Great Quadrangle.' 
 It was alleged to be based on an encampment 
 of the Romans that highly apocryphal race 
 who seemed to have spent their time in getting 
 up picnics on tessellated pavements, where, 
 after hilariously emptying their pockets of their 
 loose coin and 'throwing round their dishes, 
 they instantly built a road to escape by, leaving 
 no other record of their existence. Stowe and 
 Dugdale had recorded the date when a Norman 
 favourite obtained the Royal licence to ' em- 
 battle it ; ' it had done duty on Christmas 
 cards with the questionable snow already 
 referred to laid on thickly in crystal ; it had 
 
THE ^GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 293 
 
 been lovingly portrayed by a fair countrywoman 
 the vivacious correspondent of the East 
 Machias Sentinel in a combination of the 
 most delightful feminine disregard of facts 
 with the highest feminine respect for titles. It 
 was rich in a real and spiritual estate of tapes- 
 tries, paintings, armour, legends, and ghosts. 
 Everything the poet could wish for, and indeed 
 some things that decent prose might have 
 possibly wished out of it, were there. 
 
 Yet, from the day that it had been forcibly 
 seized by a Parliamentary General, until more 
 recently, when it had passed by the no less 
 desperate conveyance of marriage into the 
 hands of a Friendly Nobleman known to the 
 Western Barbarian, it had been supposed to 
 suggest something or other more remarkable 
 than itself. ' Few spectators,' said the guide- 
 book, ' even the most unimpassioned, can stand 
 in the courtyard and gaze upon those historic 
 walls without feeling a thrill of awe,' &c. The 
 Western Barbarian had stood there, gazed, and 
 felt no thrill. ' The privileged guest,' said the 
 grave historian, ' passing in review the linea- 
 ments of the illustrious owners of Stukeley, as 
 
294 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 he slowly paces the sombre gallery, must be 
 conscious of emotions of no ordinary character,' 
 &c., &c. The Barbarian had been conscious of 
 no such emotions. And it was for this reason, 
 and believing he might experience them if left 
 there in solitude, with no distracting or extra- 
 neous humanity around him, it had been agreed 
 between him and the Friendly Nobleman, who 
 had fine Barbarian instincts, that as he the 
 Friendly Nobleman and his family were to 
 spend their holidays abroad, the Barbarian 
 should be allowed, on the eve and day of Christ- 
 mas, to stay at Stukeley alone. ' But,' added his 
 host, ' you'll find it beastly lonely, and although 
 I've told the housekeeper to look after you 
 you'd better go over to dine at Audley Friars, 
 where there's a big party, and they know you, and 
 it will be a deuced deal more amusing. And 
 er I say you know you're really not looking 
 out for ghosts, and that sort of thing, are you ? 
 You know you fellows don't believe in them 
 over there.' And the Barbarian, assuring him 
 that this was a part of his deficient emotions, it 
 was settled then and there that he should come. 
 And that was why, on the 24th of December, 
 
THE 'GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 295 
 
 the Barbarian found himself gazing hopefully 
 on the landscape with his portmanteau at his 
 feet, as he drove up the avenue. 
 
 The ravens did not croak ominously from 
 the battlements as he entered. And the house- 
 keeper, although neither 'stately' nor 'tall,' 
 nor full of reminiscences of ' his late lordship, 
 the present Earl's father,' was very sensible 
 and practical. The Barbarian could, of course, 
 have his choice of rooms but she had thought 
 remembering his tastes the last time, that 
 the long blue room ? Exactly ! The long, low- 
 arched room, with the faded blue tapestry, 
 looking upon the gallery capital ! He had 
 always liked that room. From purely negative 
 evidence he had every reason to believe that 
 it was the one formidable-looking room in 
 England that Queen Elizabeth had not slept 
 in. 
 
 When the footman had laid out his clothes, 
 and his step grew fainter along the passage, 
 until it was suddenly swallowed up with the 
 closing of a red baize door in the turret stair- 
 case, like a trap in an oubliette, the whole 
 building seemed to sink back into repose. 
 
296 THE GHOSTS Of STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 Quiet it certainly was, but not more so, he 
 remembered, than when the chambers on either 
 side were filled with guests, and floating voices 
 in the corridor were lost in those all-absorbing 
 walls. So far, certainly, this was no new 
 experience. It was past four. He waited 
 for the shadows to gather. Light thickened 
 beyond his windows ; gradually the outflanking 
 wall and part of a projecting terrace crumbled 
 away in the darkness, as if Night were slowly 
 reducing the castle. The figures on the tapes- 
 try in his room stood out faintly. The gallery 
 seen through his open door, barred with black 
 spaces between the mullioned windows, presently 
 became obliterated, as if invaded by a dull 
 smoke from without. But nothing moved, 
 nothing glimmered. Really this might become 
 in time very stupid. 
 
 He was startled, however, while dressing, 
 to see from his windows that the great ban- 
 queting hall was illuminated, but on coming 
 down was amused to find his dinner served on 
 a small table in its oaken solitude lit by the 
 large electric chandelier for Stukeley Castle 
 under its present lord had all the modern 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 297 
 
 improvements shining on the tattered banners 
 and glancing mail above him. It was evidently 
 the housekeeper's reading of some written sug- 
 gestion of her noble master. The Barbarian, 
 in a flash of instinct, imagined the passage : 
 
 ' Humour him as a harmless lunatic ; the 
 plate is quite safe.' 
 
 Declining the further offer of an illumina- 
 tion of the picture gallery, grand drawing-room, 
 ball-room, and chapel, a few hours later he 
 found himself wandering in the corridor with a 
 single candle and a growing conviction of the 
 hopelessness of his experiment. The castle 
 had as yet yielded to him nothing that he had 
 not seen before in the distraction of company 
 and the garishness of day. It was becoming a 
 trifle monotonous. Yet fine exceedingly ; and 
 now that a change of wind had lifted the fog, 
 and the full moon shone on the lower half of the 
 pictures of the gallery, starting into the most 
 artificial simulation of life a number of Van 
 Dyke legs, farthingales, and fingers that would 
 have deceived nobody, it seemed gracious, 
 gentle, and innocent beyond expression. Wan- 
 dering down the gallery, conscious of being 
 
298 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 more like a ghost than any of the painted 
 figures, and that they might reasonably object 
 to him, he wished he could meet the original 
 of one of those pictured gallants and secretly 
 compare his fingers with the copy. He re- 
 membered an embroidered pair of gloves in 
 a cabinet and a suit of armour on the wall that, 
 in measurement, did not seem to bear out 
 the delicacy of the one nor the majesty of the 
 other. It occurred to him also to satisfy a 
 yearning he had once felt to try on a certain 
 breastplate and steel cap that hung over an 
 oaken settle. It will be perceived that he was 
 getting a good deal bored. For thus capari- 
 soned he listlessly, and, as will be seen, impru- 
 dently, allowed himself to sink back into a very 
 modern chair, and give way to a dreamy 
 cogitation. 
 
 What possible interest could the dead have 
 in anything that was here ? Admitting that 
 they had any, and that it was not the living, 
 whom the Barbarian had always found most 
 inclined to haunt the past, would not a ghost of 
 any decided convictions object to such a col- 
 lection as his descendant had gathered in this 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 299 
 
 gallery ? Yonder idiot in silk and steel had 
 blunderingly and cruelly persecuted his kinsman 
 in leather and steel only a few panels distant. 
 Would they care to meet here ? And if their 
 human weaknesses had died with them, what 
 would bring them here at all ? And if not them 
 who then ? He stopped short. The door at 
 the lower end of the gallery had opened ! Not 
 stealthily, not noiselessly, but in an ordinary 
 fashion, and a number of figures, dressed in the 
 habiliments of a bygone age came trooping in. 
 They did not glide in nor float in, but tram- 
 pled in awkwardly, clumsily, and unfamiliarly, 
 gaping about them as they walked. At the 
 head was apparently a steward in a kind of 
 livery, who stopped once or twice and 
 seemed to be pointing out and explaining 
 certain objects in the room. A flash of indig- 
 nant intelligence filled the brain of the 
 Barbarian! It seemed absurd! impossible! 
 but it was true ! It was a holiday excursion 
 party of ghosts, being shown over Stukeley 
 Castle by a ghostly Cicerone ! And as his 
 measured, monotonous voice rose on the 
 Christmas morning air, it could be heard that 
 
300 THE ^GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 he was actually showing off, not the antiquities 
 of the Castle, but the modern improvements \ 
 
 1 This 'ere, gossips ' the Barbarian instantly 
 detected the fallacy of all the so-called mediaeval 
 jargon he had read ' is the Helectric Bell, 
 which does away with our h'old, h'ordinary 
 'orn blowin', and the h'attendant waitin' in the 
 'all for the usual, " Without there, who waits ?" 
 which all of us was accustomed to in mortal 
 flesh. You h'observe this button. I press it 
 so, and it instantly rings a bell in the kitchen 
 'all, and shows in fair letters the name of this 
 'ere gallery as we will see later. Will h'any 
 good dame or gaffer press the button ? Will 
 you, Mistress ? ' said the Cicerone to a giggling, 
 kerchief-coifed lass. 
 
 ' Oi soy, Maudlin ! look out will yer ! 
 It's the soime old gag as them bloomin' knobs 
 you ketched hold of when yer was 'ere las' 
 Whitsuntide,' called out the mediaeval 'Any of 
 the party. 
 
 ' It is not the Galvanic-Magnetic machine 
 in 'is Lordship's library,' said the Cicerone, 
 severely, ' which is a mere toy for infants, and 
 h'old fashioned. And we have 'ere a much 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 301 
 
 later invention. I open this little door, I turn 
 this 'andle called a switch and, h'as you 
 perceive, the gallery is h'instantlyh' illuminated.' 
 
 There was a hoarse cry of astonishment 
 from the assemblage. The Barbarian felt an 
 awful thrill as this searching insufferable light 
 of the nineteenth century streamed suddenly 
 upon the up-turned, vacant-eyed, and dull faces 
 of those sightseers of the past. But there was 
 no responsive gleam in their eyes. 
 
 ' It be the sun,' gasped an old woman in a 
 grey cloak. 
 
 ' Toime to rouse out, Myryan, and make 
 the foire,' said the mediaeval 'Any. The 
 custodian smiled with superior toleration. 
 
 ' But what do 'ee want o' my old lanthorne,' 
 asked a yellow-jerkined stable boy, pointing 
 to an old-fashioned horned lantern, tempus 
 Edward III., ' with this brave loight ? ' Bancroft Library 
 
 ' You know,' said the custodian, with con- 
 descending familiarity, ' these mortals worship 
 what they call " curios " and the " antique," and 
 'is Lordship gave a matter of fifty pounds for 
 that same lanthern. That's what the modern 
 folk come 'ere to see like as ye.' 
 
302 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 1 Oi've an old three-legged stool in White- 
 chapel oi'll let his Lordship 'ave cheap for 
 five quid/ suggested the humourist. 
 
 ' The 'prentice wight knows not that he 
 speaks truly. For 'ere is a braver jest than 'is. 
 Good folks, wilt please ye to examine yon 
 coffer ? ' pointing to an oaken chest. 
 
 ' 'Tis but poor stuff, marry,' said Maudlin. 
 
 ' 'Tis a coffer the same being made in 
 Wardour Street last year 'is Lordship gave 
 one hundred pounds for it. Look at these 
 would-be worm-holes but they were made 
 with an auger. Marry, we know what worm- 
 holes are ! ' 
 
 A ghastly grin spread over the faces of the 
 spectral assembly as they gathered around the 
 chest with silent laughter. 
 
 ' Wilt walk 'ere and see the phonograph in 
 the libry, made by Hedison, an Hamerican, 
 which bottles up the voice and preserves it fresh 
 for a hundred years ? 'Tis a rare new fancy.' 
 
 ' Rot,' said 'Any. Then turning to the 
 giggling Maudlin, he whispered : ' Saw it las' 
 toime. 'Is Lordship got a piece o' moy moind 
 that Oi reeled off into it about this 'ere swindle. 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 303 
 
 Fawncy that old bloke there charging a tanner 
 a piece to us for chaffin' a bit of a barrel.' 
 
 ' Have you no last new braveries to show 
 us of the gallants and their mistresses, as you 
 were wont ? ' said Maudlin to the Cicerone. 
 ' 'Twas a rare show last time the modish silk 
 gowns and farthingales in the closets.' 
 
 ' But there be no company this Christmas,' 
 said the custodian, ' and 'is Lordship does not 
 entertain, unless it be the new Fool 'is Lordship 
 sent down 'ere to-day, who has been mopin' 
 and moonin' in the corridors, as is ever the 
 way of these wittol creatures when they are 
 not heeded. He was 'ere in a rare motley of 
 his own choosing, with which he thinks to 
 raise a laugh, a moment ago. Ye see him not 
 not 'avin' the gift that belongs by right to my 
 dread office. Tis a weird privilege I have 
 and may not be imparted to others save 
 
 ' Save what, good man steward ? Prithee, 
 speak ? ' said Marian earnestly. 
 
 ' 'Tis ever a shillin' extra.' 
 
 There was no response. A few of the more 
 bashful ghosts thrust their hands in their 
 pockets and looked awkwardly another way. 
 
304 THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 
 
 The Barbarian felt a momentary relief followed 
 by a slight pang of mortified vanity. He was 
 a little afraid of them. The price was an ex- 
 tortion, certainly, but surely he was worth the 
 extra shilling ! 
 
 ' He has brought but little braveries of 
 attire into the Castle,' continued the Cicerone, 
 ' but I 'ave something 'ere which was found on 
 the top of his portmanteau. I wot ye know 
 not the use of this.' To the Barbarian's intense 
 indignation, the Cicerone produced, from under 
 his, his (the Barbarian's) own opera hat. 
 ' Marry, what should be this ? Rede me this 
 riddle ! To it and unyoke ! ' 
 
 A dozen vacant guesses were made as the 
 showman held it aloft. Then with a conjuror's 
 gesture he suddenly placed his thumbs within 
 the rim, released the spring and extended the 
 hat. The assembly laughed again silently as 
 before. 
 
 ' 'Tis a hat,' said the Cicerone, with a 
 superior air. 
 
 'Nay,' said Maudlin, 'give it here.' She 
 took it curiously, examined it, and then with a 
 sudden coquettish movement lifted it towards 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 305 
 
 her own coifed head, as if to try it on. The 
 Cicerone suddenly sprang forward with a de- 
 spairing gesture to prevent her. And here the 
 Barbarian was conscious of a more startling 
 revelation. How and why he could not tell, 
 but he knew that the putting on of that article 
 of his own dress would affect the young girl as 
 the assumption of the steel cap and corselet 
 had evidently affected him, and that he would 
 instantly become as visible to her as she and 
 her companions had been to him. He at- 
 tempted to rise, but was too late ; she had 
 evaded the Cicerone by ducking, and, facing 
 in the direction of the Barbarian, clapped the 
 hat on her head. He saw the swift light of 
 consciousness, of astonishment, of sudden fear 
 spring into her eyes ! She shrieked, he started, 
 struggled, and awoke ! 
 
 But what was this ! He was alone in the 
 moonlit gallery, certainly ; the ghastly figures 
 in their outlandish garb were gone ; he was 
 awake and in his senses, but, in this first flash 
 of real consciousness, he could have sworn 
 that something remained ! Something terror- 
 stricken, and retreating even then before him 
 
 x 
 
30S THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE \ 
 
 something of the world, modern and even 
 as he gazed, vanishing through the gallery 
 door with the material flash and rustle of silk. 
 
 He walked quietly to the door. It was 
 open. Ah ! No doubt he had forgotten to 
 shut it fast ; a current of air or a. ^sudden 
 draught had opened it. That noise had awak- 
 ened him. More than that, remembering the 
 lightning flash of dream consciousness, it had 
 been the cause of his dream. Yet, for a few 
 moments he listened attentively. 
 
 What might have been the dull reverbera- 
 tion of a closing door in the direction of the 
 housekeeper's room, on the lower story, was all 
 he heard. He smiled, for even that, natural as it 
 might be, was less distinct and real than his 
 absurd vision. 
 
 Nevertheless the next afternoon he con- 
 cluded to walk over to Audley Friars for his 
 Christmas dinner. Its hospitable master greeted 
 him cordially. 
 
 ' But do you know, my dear fellow,' he 
 said, when they were alone for a moment, ' if 
 you hadn't come by yourself I'd have sent over 
 there for you. The fact is that A wrote 
 
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 307 
 
 to us that you were down at Stukeley alone, 
 ghost-hunting or something of that sort, and 
 I'm afraid it leaked out among the young 
 people of our party. Two of our girls I 
 shan't tell you which stole over there last 
 night to give you a start of some kind. They 
 didn't see you at all, but, by Jove, it seems 
 they got the biggest kind of a fright themselves, 
 for they declare that something dreadful in 
 armour, you know, was sitting in the gallery. 
 Awfully good joke, wasn't it ? Of course you 
 didn't see anything did you ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said the Barbarian, discreetly. 
 
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 It Is Never Too Late to Mend. 
 
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