CHAPTER X.

The nest of the tuneful Burnhams, although in the suburbs of Indian

Spring, was not in ordinary weather and seasons hidden from the longing

eyes of the youth of that settlement. That night, however, it was

veiled in the smoke that encompassed the great highway leading to

Excelsior. It is presumed that the Burnham brood had long since folded

their wings, for there was no sign of life nor movement in the house as

a rapidly driven horse and buggy pulled up before it. Fortunately, the

paternal Burnham was an early bird, in the habit of picking up the

first stirring mining worm, and a resounding knock brought him half

dressed to the street door. He was startled at seeing Father Wynn

before him, a trifle flushed and abstracted.

"Ah ha! up betimes, I see, and ready. No sluggards here--ha, ha!" he

said heartily, slamming the door behind him, and by a series of pokes

in the ribs genially backing his host into his own sitting-room. "I'm

up, too, and am here to see Nellie. She's here, eh--of course?" he

added, darting a quick look at Burnham.

But Mr. Burnham was one of those large, liberal Western husbands who

classified his household under the general title of "woman folk," for

the integers of which he was not responsible. He hesitated, and then

propounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--"You

don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"

There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctant

throats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degrees of

grievance and mental distress which indicate too early roused young

womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeit

accompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just

been discovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.

"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterous

geniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to

spare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here

but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"

and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring

Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering on

the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,

hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general

classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor. At the same moment the

father shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and with

the other seized her wrist.

"Where were you yesterday?" he asked.

Nellie looked at him, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Here."

"You were in the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there in

disguise; you've met him there before. He is your clandestine lover;

you have taken pledges of affection from him; you have"--

"Stop!" she said.

He stopped.

"Did he tell you this?" she asked, with an expression of disdain.

"No; I overheard it. Dunn and Brace were at the house waiting for you.

When the coach did not bring you, I went to the office to inquire. As I

left our door I thought I saw somebody listening at the parlor windows.

It was only a drunken Mexican muleteer leaning against the house; but

if _he_ heard nothing, _I_ did. Nellie, I heard Brace tell Dunn that he

had tracked you in your disguise to the woods--do you hear? that when

you pretended to be here with the girls you were with Low--alone; that

you wear a ring that Low got of a trader here; that there was a cabin

in the woods"--

"Stop!" she repeated.

Wynn again paused.

"And what did _you_ do?" she asked.

"I heard they were starting down there to surprise you and him

together, and I harnessed up and got ahead of them in my buggy."

"And found me here," she said, looking full into his eyes.

He understood her and returned the look. He recognized the full

importance of the culminating fact conveyed in her words, and was

obliged to content himself with its logical and worldly significance.

It was too late now to take her to task for mere filial disobedience;

they must become allies.

"Yes," he said hurriedly; "but if you value your reputation, if you

wish to silence both these men, answer me fully."

"Go on," she said.

"Did you go to the cabin in the woods yesterday?"

"No."

"Did you ever go there with Low?"

"No; I do not know even where it is."

Wynn felt that she was telling the truth. Nellie knew it; but as she

would have been equally satisfied with an equally efficacious

falsehood, her face remained unchanged.

"And when did he leave you?"

"At nine o'clock, here. He went to the hotel."

"He saved his life, then, for Dunn is on his way to the woods to kill

him."

The jeopardy of her lover did not seem to affect the young girl with

alarm, although her eyes betrayed some interest.

"Then Dunn has gone to the woods?" she said thoughtfully.

"He has," replied Wynn.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"I want to know what you are going to do?"

"I _was_ going back to bed."

"This is no time for trifling, girl."

"I should think not," she said, with a yawn; "it's too early, or too

late."

Wynn grasped her wrist more tightly. "Hear me! Put whatever face you

like on this affair, you are compromised--and compromised with a man

you can't marry."

"I don't know that I ever wanted to marry Low, if you mean him," she

said quietly.

"And Dunn wouldn't marry you now."

"I'm not so sure of that either."

"Nellie," said Wynn excitedly, "do you want to drive me mad? Have you

nothing to say--nothing to suggest?"

"Oh, you want me to help you, do you? Why didn't you say that first?

Well, go and bring Dunn here."

"Are you mad? The man has gone already in pursuit of your lover,

believing you with him."

"Then he will the more readily come and talk with me without him. Will

you take the invitation--yes or no?"

"Yes, but"--

"Enough. On your way there you will stop at the hotel and give Low a

letter from me."

"Nellie!"

"You shall read it, of course," she said scornfully, "for it will be

your text for the conversation you will have with him. Will you please

take your hand from the lock and open the door?"

Wynn mechanically opened the door. The young girl flew up-stairs. In a

very few moments she returned with two notes: one contained a few lines

of formal invitation to Dunn; the other read as follows:--

"DEAR MR. DORMAN: My father will tell you how deeply I regret that our

recent botanical excursions in the Carquinez Woods have been a source

of serious misapprehension to those who had a claim to my

consideration, and that I shall be obliged to discontinue them for the

future. At the same time he wishes me to express my gratitude for your

valuable instruction and assistance in that pleasing study, even though

approaching events may compel me to relinquish it for other duties. May

I beg you to accept the enclosed ring as a slight recognition of my

obligations to you?

"Your grateful pupil,

"NELLIE WYNN."

When he had finished reading the letter, she handed him a ring, which

he took mechanically. He raised his eyes to hers with perfectly genuine

admiration. "You're a good girl, Nellie," he said, and, in a moment of

parental forgetfulness, unconsciously advanced his lips towards her

cheek. But she drew back in time to recall him to a sense of that human

weakness.

"I suppose I'll have time for a nap yet," she said, as a gentle hint to

her embarrassed parent. He nodded and turned towards the door.

"If I were you," she continued, repressing a yawn, "I'd manage to be

seen on good terms with Low at the hotel; so perhaps you need not give

the letter to him until the last thing. Good-by."

The sitting-room door opened and closed behind her as she slipped

up-stairs, and her father, without the formality of leave-taking,

quietly let *himselt out by the front door.

When he drove into the highroad again, however, an overlooked

possibility threatened for a moment to indefinitely postpone his

amiable intentions regarding Low. The hotel was at the farther end of

the settlement toward the Carquinez Woods, and as Wynn had nearly

reached it he was recalled to himself by the sounds of hoofs and wheels

rapidly approaching from the direction of the Excelsior turnpike. Wynn

made no doubt it was the sheriff and Brace. To avoid recognition at

that moment, he whipped up his horse, intending to keep the lead until

he could turn into the first cross-road. But the coming travelers had

the fleetest horse; and finding it impossible to distance them, he

drove close to the ditch, pulling up suddenly as the strange vehicle

was abreast of him, and forcing them to pass him at full speed, with

the result already chronicled. When they had vanished in the darkness,

Mr. Wynn, with a heart overflowing with Christian thankfulness and

universal benevolence, wheeled round, and drove back to the hotel he

had already passed. To pull up at the veranda with a stentorian shout,

to thump loudly at the deserted bar, to hilariously beat the panels of

the landlord's door, and commit a jocose assault and battery upon that

half-dressed and half-awakened man, was eminently characteristic of

Wynn, and part of his amiable plans that morning.

"Something to wash this wood smoke from my throat, Brother Carter, and

about as much again to prop open your eyes," he said, dragging Carter

before the bar, "and glasses round for as many of the boys as are up

and stirring after a hard-working Christian's rest. How goes the honest

publican's trade, and who have we here?"

"Thar's Judge Robinson and two lawyers from Sacramento, Dick Curson

over from Yolo," said Carter, "and that ar young Injin yarb doctor from

the Carquinez Woods. I reckon he's jist up--I noticed a light under his

door as I passed."

"He's my man for a friendly chat before breakfast," said Wynn. "You

needn't come up. I'll find the way. I don't want a light; I reckon my

eyes ain't as bright nor as young as his, but they'll see almost as far

in the dark--he-he!" And, nodding to Brother Carter, he strode along

the passage, and with no other introduction than a playful and

preliminary "Boo!" burst into one of the rooms. Low, who by the light

of a single candle was bending over the plates of a large quarto,

merely raised his eyes and looked at the intruder. The young man's

natural imperturbability, always exasperating to Wynn, seemed accented

that morning by contrast with his own over-acted animation.

"Ah ha!--wasting the midnight oil instead of imbibing the morning

dews," said Father Wynn archly, illustrating his metaphor with a

movement of his hand to his lips. "What have we here?"

"An anonymous gift," replied Low simply, recognizing the father of

Nellie by rising from his chair. "It's a volume I've longed to possess,

but never could afford to buy. I cannot imagine who sent it to me."

Wynn was for a moment startled by the thought that this recipient of

valuable gifts might have influential friends. But a glance at the bare

room, which looked like a camp, and the strange, unconventional garb of

its occupant, restored his former convictions. There might be a promise

of intelligence, but scarcely of prosperity, in the figure before him.

"Ah! We must not forget that we are watched over in the night season,"

he said, laying his hand on Low's shoulder, with an illustration of

celestial guardianship that would have been impious but for its

palpable grotesqueness. "No, sir, we know not what a day may bring

forth."

Unfortunately, Low's practical mind did not go beyond a mere human

interpretation. It was enough, however, to put a new light in his eye

and a faint color in his cheek.

"Could it have been Miss Nellie?" he asked, with half-boyish

hesitation.

Mr. Wynn was too much of a Christian not to bow before what appeared to

him the purely providential interposition of this suggestion. Seizing

it and Low at the same moment, he playfully forced him down again in

his chair.

"Ah, you rascal!" he said, with infinite archness; "that's your game,

is it? You want to trap poor Father Wynn. You want to make him say

'No.' You want to tempt him to commit himself. No, sir!--never,

sir!--no, no!"

Firmly convinced that the present was Nellie's and that her father only

good-humoredly guessed it, the young man's simple, truthful nature was

embarrassed. He longed to express his gratitude, but feared to betray

the young girl's trust. The Reverend Mr. Wynn speedily relieved his

mind.

"No," he continued, bestriding a chair, and familiarly confronting Low

over its back. "No, sir--no! And you want me to say 'No,' don't you,

regarding the little walks of Nellie and a certain young man in the

Carquinez Woods?--ha, ha! You'd like me to say that I knew nothing of

the botanizings, and the herb collectings, and the picnickings

there--he-he!--you sly dog! Perhaps you'd like to tempt Father Wynn

further and make him swear he knows nothing of his daughter disguising

herself in a duster and meeting another young man--isn't it another

young man?--all alone, eh? Perhaps you want poor old Father Wynn to say

'No.' No, sir, nothing of the kind ever occurred. Ah, you young

rascal!"

Slightly troubled, in spite of Wynn's hearty manner, Low, with his

usual directness however, said, "I do not want any one to deny that I

have seen Miss Nellie."

"Certainly, certainly," said Wynn, abandoning his method, considerably

disconcerted by Low's simplicity, and a certain natural reserve that

shook off his familiarity. "Certainly it's a noble thing to be able to

put your hand on your heart and say to the world, 'Come on, all of you!

Observe me; I have nothing to conceal. I walk with Miss Wynn in the

woods as her instructor--her teacher, in fact. We cull a flower here

and there; we pluck an herb fresh from the hand of the Creator. We

look, so to speak, from Nature to Nature's God.' Yes, my young friend,

we should be the first to repel the foul calumny that could

misinterpret our most innocent actions."

"Calumny?" repeated Low, starting to his feet. "What calumny?"

"My friend, my noble young friend, I recognize your indignation. I know

your worth. When I said to Nellie, my only child, my perhaps too simple

offspring--a mere wildflower like yourself--when I said to her, 'Go, my

child, walk in the woods with this young man, hand in hand. Let him

instruct you from the humblest roots, for he has trodden in the ways of

the Almighty. Gather wisdom from his lips, and knowledge from his

simple woodman's craft. Make, in fact, a collection not only of herbs,

but of moral axioms and experience,'--I knew I could trust you, and,

trusting you, my young friend, I felt I could trust the world. Perhaps

I was weak, foolish. But I thought only of her welfare. I even recall

how that, to preserve the purity of her garments, I bade her don a

simple duster; that, to secure her from the trifling companionship of

others, I bade her keep her own counsel, and seek you at seasons known

but to yourselves."

"But ... did Nellie ... understand you?" interrupted Low hastily.

"I see you read her simple nature. Understand me? No, not at first! Her

maidenly instinct--perhaps her duty to another--took the alarm. I

remember her words. 'But what will Dunn say?' she asked. 'Will he not

be jealous?'"

"Dunn! jealous! I don't understand," said Low, fixing his eyes on Wynn.

"That's just what I said to Nellie. 'Jealous!' I said. 'What, Dunn,

your affianced husband, jealous of a mere friend--a teacher, a guide, a

philosopher. It is impossible.' Well, sir, she was right. He is

jealous. And, more than that, he has imparted his jealousy to others!

In other words, he has made a scandal!"

Low's eyes flashed. "Where is your daughter now?" he said sternly.

"At present in bed, suffering from a nervous attack brought on by these

unjust suspicions. She appreciates your anxiety, and, knowing that you

could not see her, told me to give you this." He handed Low the ring

and the letter.

The climax had been forced, and, it must be confessed, was by no means

the one Mr. Wynn had fully arranged in his own inner consciousness. He

had intended to take an ostentatious leave of Low in the bar-room,

deliver the letter with archness, and escape before a possible

explosion. He consequently backed towards the door for an emergency.

But he was again at fault. That unaffected stoical fortitude in acute

suffering, which was the one remaining pride and glory of Low's race,

was yet to be revealed to Wynn's civilized eyes.

The young man took the letter, and read it without changing a muscle,

folded the ring in it, and dropped it into his haversack. Then he

picked up his blanket, threw it over his shoulder, took his trusty

rifle in his hand, and turned toward Wynn as if coldly surprised that

he was still standing there.

"Are you--are you--going?" stammered Wynn.

"Are you _not_?" replied Low dryly, leaning on his rifle for a moment

as if waiting for Wynn to precede him. The preacher looked at him a

moment, mumbled something, and then shambled feebly and ineffectively

down the staircase before Low, with a painful suggestion to the

ordinary observer of being occasionally urged thereto by the moccasin

of the young man behind him.

On reaching the lower hall, however, he endeavored to create a

diversion in his favor by dashing into the barroom and clapping the

occupants on the back with indiscriminate playfulness. But here again

he seemed to be disappointed. To his great discomfiture, a large man

not only returned his salutation with powerful levity, but with equal

playfulness seized him in his arms, and after an ingenious simulation

of depositing him in the horse-trough set him down in affected

amazement. "Bleth't if I didn't think from the weight of your hand it

wath my old friend, Thacramento Bill," said Curson apologetically, with

a wink at the bystanders. "That'th the way Bill alwayth uthed to tackle

hith friendth, till he wath one day bounthed by a prithe-fighter in

Frithco, whom he had mithtaken for a mithionary." As Mr. Curson's

reputation was of a quality that made any form of apology from him

instantly acceptable, the amused spectators made way for him as,

recognizing Low, who was just leaving the hotel, he turned coolly from

them and walked towards him.

"Halloo!" he said, extending his hand. "You're the man I'm waiting for.

Did you get a book from the exthpreth offithe latht night?"

"I did. Why?"

"It'th all right. Ath I'm rethponthible for it, I only wanted to know."

"Did _you_ send it?" asked Low, quickly fixing his eyes on his face.

"Well, not exactly _me_. But it'th not worth making a mythtery of it.

Teretha gave me a commithion to buy it and thend it to you

anonymouthly. That'th a woman'th nonthenth, for how could thee get a

retheipt for it?"

"Then it was _her_ present," said Low gloomily.

"Of courthe. It wathn't mine, my boy. I'd have thent you a Tharp'th

rifle in plathe of that muthle loader you carry, or thomething

thenthible. But, I thay! what'th up? You look ath if you had been

running all night."

Low grasped his hand. "Thank you," he said hurriedly; "but it's

nothing. Only I must be back to the woods early. Good-by."

But Curson retained Low's hand in his own powerful grip.

"I'll go with you a bit further," he said. "In fact, I've got

thomething to thay to you; only don't be in thuch a hurry; the woodth

can wait till you get there." Quietly compelling Low to alter his own

characteristic Indian stride to keep pace with his, he went on: "I

don't mind thaying I rather cottoned to you from the time you acted

like a white man--no offenthe--to Teretha. She thayth you were left

when a child lying round, jutht ath promithcuouthly ath she wath; and

if I can do anything towardth putting you on the trail of your people,

I'll do it. I know thome of the _voyageurth_ who traded with the

Cherokeeth, and your father wath one--wasn't he?" He glanced at Low's

utterly abstracted and immobile face. "I thay, you don't theem to take

a hand in thith game, pardner. What 'th the row? Ith anything wrong

over there?" and he pointed to the Carquinez Woods, which were just

looming out of the morning horizon in the distance.

Low stopped. The last words of his companion seemed to recall him to

himself. He raised his eyes automatically to the woods, and started.

"There _is_ something wrong over there," he said breathlessly. "Look!"

"I thee nothing," said Curson, beginning to doubt Low's sanity;

"nothing more than I thaw an hour ago."

"Look again. Don't you see that smoke rising straight up? It isn't

blown over from the Divide; it's new smoke! The fire is in the woods!"

"I reckon that 'th so," muttered Curson, shading his eyes with his

hand. "But, hullo! wait a minute! We'll get hortheth. I say!" he

shouted, forgetting his lisp in his excitement--"stop!" But Low had

already lowered his head and darted forward like an arrow.

In a few moments he had left not only his companion but the last

straggling houses of the outskirts far behind him, and had struck out

in a long, swinging trot for the disused "cut-off." Already he fancied

he heard the note of clamor in Indian Spring, and thought he

distinguished the sound of hurrying hoofs on the great highway. But the

sunken trail hid it from his view. From the column of smoke now plainly

visible in the growing morning light he tried to locate the scene of

the conflagration. It was evidently not a fire advancing regularly from

the outer skirt of the wood, communicated to it from the Divide; it was

a local outburst near its centre. It was not in the direction of his

cabin in the tree. There was no immediate danger to Teresa, unless fear

drove her beyond the confines of the wood into the hands of those who

might recognize her. The screaming of jays and ravens above his head

quickened his speed, as it heralded the rapid advance of the flames;

and the unexpected apparition of a bounding body, flattened and flying

over the yellow plain, told him that even the secure retreat of the

mountain wild-cat had been invaded. A sudden recollection of Teresa's

uncontrollable terror that first night smote him with remorse and

redoubled his efforts. Alone in the track of these frantic and

bewildered beasts, to what madness might she not be driven!

The sharp crack of a rifle from the highroad turned his course

momentarily in that direction. The smoke was curling lazily over the

heads of a party of men in the road, while the huge bulk of a grizzly

was disappearing in the distance. A battue of the escaping animals had

commenced! In the bitterness of his heart he caught at the horrible

suggestion, and resolved to save her from them or die with her there.

How fast he ran, or the time it took him to reach the woods, has never

been known. Their outlines were already hidden when he entered them. To

a sense less keen, a courage less desperate, and a purpose less

unaltered than Low's, the wood would have been impenetrable. The

central fire was still confined to the lofty tree-tops, but the

downward rush of wind from time to time drove the smoke into the aisles

in blinding and suffocating volumes. To simulate the creeping animals,

and fall to the ground on hands and knees, feel his way through the

underbrush when the smoke was densest, or take advantage of its

momentary lifting, and without uncertainty, mistake, or hesitation

glide from tree to tree in one undeviating course, was possible only to

an experienced woodsman. To keep his reason and insight so clear as to

be able in the midst of this bewildering confusion to shape that course

so as to intersect the wild and unknown tract of an inexperienced,

frightened wanderer belonged to Low, and to Low alone. He was making

his way against the wind towards the fire. He had reasoned that she was

either in comparative safety to windward of it, or he should meet her

being driven towards him by it, or find her succumbed and fainting at

its feet. To do this he must penetrate the burning belt, and then pass

under the blazing dome. He was already upon it; he could see the

falling fire dropping like rain or blown like gorgeous blossoms of the

conflagration across his path. The space was lit up brilliantly. The

vast shafts of dull copper cast no shadow below, but there was no sign

nor token of any human being. For a moment the young man was at fault.

It was true this hidden heart of the forest bore no undergrowth; the

cool matted carpet of the aisles seemed to quench the glowing fragments

as they fell. Escape might be difficult, but not impossible; yet every

moment was precious. He leaned against a tree, and sent his voice like

a clarion before him: "Teresa!" There was no reply. He called again. A

faint cry at his back from the trail he had just traversed made him

turn. Only a few paces behind him, blinded and staggering, but

following like a beaten and wounded animal, Teresa halted, knelt,

clasped her hands, and dumbly held them out before her. "Teresa!" he

cried again, and sprang to her side.

She caught him by the knees, and lifted her face imploringly to his.

"Say that again!" she cried, passionately. "Tell me it was Teresa you

called, and no other! You have come back for me! You would not let me

die here alone!"

He lifted her tenderly in his arms, and cast a rapid glance around him.

It might have been his fancy, but there seemed a dull glow in the

direction he had come.

"You do not speak!" she said. "Tell me! You did not come here to seek

her?"

"Whom?" he said quickly.

"Nellie!"

With a sharp cry he let her slip to the ground. All the pent-up agony,

rage, and mortification of the last hour broke from him in that

inarticulate outburst. Then, catching her hands again, he dragged her

to his level.

"Hear me!" he cried, disregarding the whirling smoke and the fiery

baptism that sprinkled them--"hear me! If you value your life, if you

value your soul, and if you do not want me to cast you to the beasts

like Jezebel of old, never--never take that accursed name again upon

your lips. Seek her--_her_? Yes! Seek her to tie her like a witch's

daughter of hell to that blazing tree!" He stopped. "Forgive me," he

said in a changed voice. "I'm mad, and forgetting myself and you.

Come."

Without noticing the expression of half savage delight that had passed

across her face, he lifted her in his arms.

"Which way are you going?" she asked, passing her hands vaguely across

his breast, as if to reassure herself of his identity.

"To our camp by the scarred tree," he replied.

"Not there, not there," she said, hurriedly. "I was driven from there

just now. I thought the fire began there until I came here."

Then it was as he feared. Obeying the same mysterious law that had

launched this fatal fire like a thunderbolt from the burning mountain

crest five miles away into the heart of the Carquinez Woods, it had

again leaped a mile beyond, and was hemming them between two narrowing

lines of fire. But Low was not daunted. Retracing his steps through the

blinding smoke, he strode off at right angles to the trail near the

point where he had entered the wood. It was the spot where he had first

lifted Nellie in his arms to carry her to the hidden spring. If any

recollection of it crossed his mind at that moment, it was only shown

in his redoubled energy. He did not glide through the thick underbrush,

as on that day, but seemed to take a savage pleasure in breaking

through it with sheer brute force. Once Teresa insisted upon relieving

him of the burden of her weight, but after a few steps she staggered

blindly against him, and would fain have recourse once more to his

strong arms. And so, alternately staggering, bending, crouching, or

bounding and crashing on, but always in one direction, they burst

through the jealous rampart, and came upon the sylvan haunt of the

hidden spring. The great angle of the half fallen tree acted as a

barrier to the wind and drifting smoke, and the cool spring sparkled

and bubbled in the almost translucent air. He laid her down beside the

water, and bathed her face and hands. As he did so his quick eye caught

sight of a woman's handkerchief lying at the foot of the disrupted

root. Dropping Teresa's hand, he walked towards it, and with the toe of

his moccasin gave it one vigorous kick into the ooze at the overflow of

the spring. He turned to Teresa, but she evidently had not noticed the

act.

"Where are you?" she asked, with a smile.

Something in her movement struck him. He came towards her, and bending

down looked into her face.

"Teresa! Good God!--look at me! What has happened?"

She raised her eyes to his. There was a slight film across them; the

lids were blackened; the beautiful lashes gone forever!

"I see you a little now, I think," she said, with a smile, passing her

hands vaguely over his face. "It must have happened when he fainted,

and I had to drag him through the blazing brush; both my hands were

full, and I could not cover my eyes."

"Drag whom?" said Low, quickly.

"Why, Dunn."

"Dunn! He here?" said Low, hoarsely.

"Yes; didn't you read the note I left on the herbarium? Didn't you come

to the camp-fire?" she asked hurriedly, clasping his hands. "Tell me

quickly!"

"No!"

"Then you were not there--then you didn't leave me to die?"

"No! I swear it, Teresa!" the stoicism that had upheld his own agony

breaking down before her strong emotion.

"Thank God!" She threw her arms around him, and hid her aching eyes in

his troubled breast.

"Tell me all, Teresa," he whispered in her listening ear. "Don't move;

stay there, and tell me all."

With her face buried in his bosom, as if speaking to his heart alone,

she told him part, but not all. With her eyes filled with tears, but a

smile on her lips, radiant with new-found happiness, she told him how

she had overheard the plans of Dunn and Brace, how she had stolen their

conveyance to warn him in time. But here she stopped, dreading to say a

word that would shatter the hope she was building upon his sudden

revulsion of feeling for Nellie. She could not bring herself to repeat

their interview--that would come later, when they were safe and out of

danger; now not even the secret of his birth must come between them

with its distraction, to mar their perfect communion. She faltered that

Dunn had fainted from weakness, and that she had dragged him out of

danger. "He will never interfere with us--I mean," she said softly,

"with _me_ again. I can promise you that as well as if he had sworn

it."

"Let him pass now," said Low; "that will come later on," he added,

unconsciously repeating her thought in a tone that made her heart sick.

"But tell me, Teresa, why did you go to Excelsior?"

She buried her head still deeper, as if to hide it. He felt her broken

heart beat against his own; he was conscious of a depth of feeling her

rival had never awakened in him. The possibility of Teresa loving him

had never occurred to his simple nature. He bent his head and kissed

her. She was frightened, and unloosed her clinging arms; but he

retained her hand, and said, "We will leave this accursed place, and

you shall go with me as you said you would; nor need you ever leave me,

unless you wish it."

She could hear the beating of her own heart through his words; she

longed to look at the eyes and lips that told her this, and read the

meaning his voice alone could not entirely convey. For the first time

she felt the loss of her sight. She did not know that it was, in this

moment of happiness, the last blessing vouchsafed to her miserable

life.

A few moments of silence followed, broken only by the distant rumor of

the conflagration and the crash of falling boughs. "It may be an hour

yet," he whispered, "before the fire has swept a path for us to the

road below. We are safe here, unless some sudden current should draw

the fire down upon us. You are not frightened?" She pressed his hand;

she was thinking of the pale face of Dunn, lying in the secure retreat

she had purchased for him at such a sacrifice. Yet the possibility of

danger to him now for a moment marred her present happiness and

security. "You think the fire will not go north of where you found me?"

she asked softly.

"I think not," he said; "but I will reconnoitre. Stay where you are."

They pressed hands and parted. He leaped upon the slanting trunk and

ascended it rapidly. She waited in mute expectation.

There was a sudden movement of the root on which she sat, a deafening

crash, and she was thrown forward on her face.

The vast bulk of the leaning tree, dislodged from its aerial support by

the gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumbling of

the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and,

falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in its

resistless momentum, a broad opening to the underbrush.

With a cry to Low, Teresa staggered to her feet. There was an interval

of hideous silence, but no reply. She called again. There was a sudden

deepening roar, the blast of a fiery furnace swept through the opening,

a thousand luminous points around her burst into fire, and in an

instant she was lost in a whirlwind of smoke and flame! From the onset

of its fury to its culmination twenty minutes did not elapse; but in

that interval a radius of two hundred yards around the hidden spring

was swept of life and light and motion.

For the rest of that day and part of the night a pall of smoke hung

above the scene of desolation. It lifted only towards the morning, when

the moon, riding high, picked out in black and silver the shrunken and

silent columns of those roofless vaults, shorn of base and capital. It

flickered on the still, overflowing pool of the hidden spring, and

shone upon the white face of Low, who, with a rootlet of the fallen

tree holding him down like an arm across his breast, seemed to be

sleeping peacefully in the sleeping water.

* * * * *

Contemporaneous history touched him as briefly, but not as gently. "It

is now definitely ascertained," said "The Slumgullion Mirror," "that

Sheriff Dunn met his fate in the Carquinez Woods in the performance of

his duty; that fearless man having received information of the

concealment of a band of horse thieves in their recesses. The

desperadoes are presumed to have escaped, as the only remains found are

those of two wretched tramps, one of whom is said to have been a

digger, who supported himself upon roots and herbs, and the other a

degraded half-white woman. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the

fire originated through their carelessness, although Father Wynn of the

First Baptist Church, in his powerful discourse of last Sunday, pointed

at the warning and lesson of such catastrophes. It may not be out of

place here to say that the rumors regarding an engagement between the

pastor's accomplished daughter and the late lamented sheriff are

utterly without foundation, as it has been an _on dit_ for some time in

all well-informed circles that the indefatigable Mr. Brace, of Wells,

Fargo & Co.'s Express, will shortly lead the lady to the hymeneal

altar."

AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL.

PROLOGUE.

It was noon of the 10th of August, 1838. The monotonous coast line

between Monterey and San Diego had set its hard outlines against the

steady glare of the Californian sky and the metallic glitter of the

Pacific Ocean. The weary succession of rounded, dome-like hills

obliterated all sense of distance; the rare whaling vessel or still

rarer trader, drifting past, saw no change in these rusty undulations,

barren of distinguishing peak or headland, and bald of wooded crest or

timbered ravine. The withered ranks of wild oats gave a dull procession

of uniform color to the hills, unbroken by any relief of shadow in

their smooth, round curves. As far as the eye could reach, sea and

shore met in one bleak monotony, flecked by no passing cloud, stirred

by no sign of life or motion. Even sound was absent; the Angelus, rung

from the invisible Mission tower far inland, was driven back again by

the steady northwest trades, that for half the year had swept the coast

line and left it abraded of all umbrage and color.

But even this monotony soon gave way to a change and another monotony

as uniform and depressed. The western horizon, slowly contracting

before a wall of vapor, by four o'clock had become a mere cold, steely

strip of sea, into which gradually the northern trend of the coast

faded and was lost. As the fog stole with soft step southward, all

distance, space, character, and locality again vanished; the hills upon

which the sun still shone bore the same monotonous outlines as those

just wiped into space. Last of all, before the red sun sank like the

descending Host, it gleamed upon the sails of a trading vessel close in

shore. It was the last object visible. A damp breath breathed upon it,

a soft hand passed over the slate, the sharp pencilling of the picture

faded and became a confused gray cloud.

The wind and waves, too, went down in the fog; the now invisible and

hushed breakers occasionally sent the surf over the sand in a quick

whisper, with grave intervals of silence, but with no continuous murmur

as before. In a curving bight of the shore the creaking of oars in

their rowlocks began to be distinctly heard, but the boat itself,

although apparently only its length from the sands, was invisible.

"Steady now; way enough!" The voice came from the sea, and was low, as

if unconsciously affected by the fog. "Silence!"

The sound of a keel grating the sand was followed by the order, "Stern

all!" from the invisible speaker.

"Shall we beach her?" asked another vague voice.

"Not yet. Hail again, and all together."

"Ah hoy--oi--oi--oy!"

There were four voices, but the hail appeared weak and ineffectual,

like a cry in a dream, and seemed hardly to reach beyond the surf

before it was suffocated in the creeping cloud. A silence followed, but

no response.

"It's no use to beach her and go ashore until we find the boat," said

the first voice, gravely; "and we'll do that if the current has brought

her here. Are you sure you've got the right bearings?"

"As near as a man could off a shore with not a blasted pint to take his

bearings by."

There was a long silence again, broken only by the occasional dip of

oars, keeping the invisible boat-head to the sea.

"Take my word for it, lads, it's the last we'll see of that boat again,

or of Jack Cranch, or the captain's baby."

"It _does_ look mighty queer that the painter should slip. Jack Cranch

ain't the man to tie a granny knot."

"Silence!" said the invisible leader. "Listen."

A hail, so faint and uncertain that it might have been the

long-deferred, far-off echo of their own, came from the sea, abreast of

them.

"It's the captain. He hasn't found anything, or he couldn't be so far

north. Hark!"

The hail was repeated again faintly, dreamily. To the seamen's trained

ears it seemed to have an intelligent significance, for the first voice

gravely responded, "Aye, aye?" and then said softly, "Oars."

The word was followed by a splash. The oars clicked sharply and

simultaneously in the rowlocks, then more faintly, then still fainter,

and then passed out into the darkness.

The silence and shadow both fell together; for hours sea and shore were

impenetrable. Yet at times the air was softly moved and troubled, the

surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was

dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow

out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank

away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous

gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even

as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle

sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate laughter

or spoken words. But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on

the sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the

ear, asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in

the gloom became an opaque object on the shore.

With the first rays of the morning light the fog lifted. As the

undraped hills one by one bared their cold bosoms to the sun, the long

line of coast struggled back to life again. Everything was unchanged,

except that a stranded boat lay upon the sands, and in its stern sheets

a sleeping child.

I.

The 10th of August, 1852, brought little change to the dull monotony of

wind, fog, and treeless coast line. Only the sea was occasionally

flecked with racing sails that outstripped the old, slow-creeping

trader, or was at times streaked and blurred with the trailing smoke of

a steamer. There were a few strange footprints on those virgin sands,

and a fresh track, that led from the beach over the rounded hills,

dropped into the bosky recesses of a hidden valley beyond the coast

range.

It was here that the refectory windows of the Mission of San Carmel had

for years looked upon the reverse of that monotonous picture presented

to the sea. It was here that the trade winds, shorn of their fury and

strength in the heated, oven-like air that rose from the valley, lost

their weary way in the tangled recesses of the wooded slopes, and

breathed their last at the foot of the stone cross before the Mission.

It was on the crest of those slopes that the fog halted and walled in

the sun-illumined plain below; it was in this plain that limitless

fields of grain clothed the flat adobe soil; here the Mission garden

smiled over its hedges of fruitful vines, and through the leaves of fig

and gnarled pear trees; and it was here that Father Pedro had lived for

fifty years, found the prospect good, and had smiled also.

Father Pedro's smile was rare. He was not a Las Casas, nor a Junipero

Serra, but he had the deep seriousness of all disciples laden with the

responsible wording of a gospel not their own. And his smile had an

ecclesiastical as well as a human significance, the pleasantest object

in his prospect being the fair and curly head of his boy acolyte and

chorister, Francisco, which appeared among the vines, and his sweetest

pastoral music, the high soprano humming of a chant with which the boy

accompanied his gardening.

Suddenly the acolyte's chant changed to a cry of terror. Running

rapidly to Father Pedro's side, he grasped his _sotana_, and even tried

to hide his curls among its folds.

"'St! 'st!" said the Padre, disengaging himself with some impatience.

"What new alarm is this? Is it Luzbel hiding among our Catalan vines,

or one of those heathen Americanos from Monterey? Speak!"

"Neither, holy father," said the boy, the color struggling back into

his pale cheeks, and an apologetic, bashful smile lighting his clear

eyes. "Neither; but oh! such a gross, lethargic toad! And it almost

leaped upon me."

"A toad leaped upon thee!" repeated the good father with evident

vexation. "What next? I tell thee, child, those foolish fears are most

unmeet for thee, and must be overcome, if necessary, with prayer and

penance. Frightened by a toad! Blood of the Martyrs! 'T is like any

foolish girl!"

Father Pedro stopped and coughed.

"I am saying that no Christian child should shrink from any of God's

harmless creatures. And only last week thou wast disdainful of poor

Murieta's pig, forgetting that San Antonio himself did elect one his

faithful companion, even in glory."

"Yes, but it was so fat, and so uncleanly, holy father," replied the

young acolyte, "and it smelt so."

"Smelt so?" echoed the father doubtfully. "Have a care, child, that

this is not luxuriousness of the senses. I have noticed of late you

gather over-much of roses and syringa, excellent in their way and in

moderation, but still not to be compared with the flower of Holy

Church, the lily."

"But lilies don't look well on the refectory table, and against the

adobe wall," returned the acolyte, with a pout of a spoilt child; "and

surely the flowers cannot help being sweet, any more than myrrh or

incense. And I am not frightened of the heathen Americanos either,

_now_. There was a small one in the garden yesterday, a boy like me,

and he spoke kindly and with a pleasant face."

"What said he to thee, child?" asked Father Pedro, anxiously.

"Nay, the matter of his speech I could not understand," laughed the

boy, "but the manner was as gentle as thine, holy father."

"'St, child," said the Padre, impatiently. "Thy likings are as

unreasonable as thy fears. Besides, have I not told thee it ill becomes

a child of Christ to chatter with those sons of Belial? But canst thou

not repeat the words--the _words_ he said?" he continued suspiciously.

"'T is a harsh tongue the Americanos speak in their throat," replied

the boy. "But he said 'Devilishnisse' and 'pretty-as-a-girl,' and

looked at me."

The good father made the boy repeat the words gravely, and as gravely

repeated them after him with infinite simplicity. "They are but

heretical words," he replied, in answer to the boy's inquiring look;

"it is well you understand not English. Enough. Run away, child, and be

ready for the Angelus. I will commune with myself awhile under the pear

trees."

Glad to escape so easily, the young acolyte disappeared down the alley

of fig trees, not without a furtive look at the patches of chickweed

around their roots, the possible ambuscade of creeping or saltant

vermin. The good priest heaved a sigh and glanced round the darkening

prospect. The sun had already disappeared over the mountain wall that

lay between him and the sea, rimmed with a faint white line of outlying

fog. A cool zephyr fanned his cheek; it was the dying breath of the

_vientos generales_ beyond the wall. As Father Pedro's eyes were raised

to this barrier, which seemed to shut out the boisterous world beyond,

he fancied he noticed for the first time a slight breach in the

parapet, over which an advanced banner of the fog was fluttering. Was

it an omen? His speculations were cut short by a voice at his very

side.

He turned quickly and beheld one of those "heathens" against whom he

had just warned his young acolyte; one of that straggling band of

adventurers whom the recent gold discoveries had scattered along the

coast. Luckily the fertile alluvium of these valleys, lying parallel

with the sea, offered no "indications" to attract the gold-seekers.

Nevertheless, to Father Pedro even the infrequent contact with the

Americanos was objectionable: they were at once inquisitive and

careless; they asked questions with the sharp perspicacity of

controversy; they received his grave replies with the frank

indifference of utter worldliness. Powerful enough to have been

tyrannical oppressors, they were singularly tolerant and gentle,

contenting themselves with a playful, good-natured irreverence, which

tormented the good father more than opposition. They were felt to be

dangerous and subversive.

The Americano, however, who stood before him did not offensively

suggest these national qualities. A man of middle height, strongly

built, bronzed and slightly gray from the vicissitudes of years and

exposure, he had an air of practical seriousness that commended itself

to Father Pedro. To his religious mind it suggested self-consciousness;

expressed in the dialect of the stranger, it only meant "business."

"I'm rather glad I found you out here alone," began the latter; "it

saves time. I haven't got to take my turn with the rest, in there,"--he

indicated the church with his thumb,--"and you haven't got to make an

appointment. You have got a clear forty minutes before the Angelus

rings," he added, consulting a large silver chronometer, "and I reckon

I kin git through my part of the job inside of twenty, leaving you ten

minutes for remarks. I want to confess."

Father Pedro drew back with a gesture of dignity. The stranger,

however, laid his hand upon the Padre's sleeve with the air of a man

anticipating objection, but never refusal, and went on.

"Of course, I know. You want me to come at some other time, and in

_there_. You want it in the reg'lar style. That's your way and your

time. My answer is: it ain't _my_ way and _my_ time. The main idea of

confession, I take it, is gettin' at the facts. I'm ready to give 'em

if you'll take 'em out here, now. If you're willing to drop the Church

and confessional, and all that sort o' thing, I, on my side, am willing

to give up the absolution, and all that sort o' thing. You might," he

added, with an unconscious touch of pathos in the suggestion, "heave in

a word or two of advice after I get through; for instance, what _you'd_

do in the circumstances, you see! That's all. But that's as you please.

It ain't part of the business."

Irreverent as this speech appeared, there was really no trace of such

intention in his manner, and his evident profound conviction that his

suggestion was practical, and not at all inconsistent with

ecclesiastical dignity, would alone have been enough to touch the

Padre, had not the stranger's dominant personality already overridden

him. He hesitated. The stranger seized the opportunity to take his arm,

and lead him with the half familiarity of powerful protection to a

bench beneath the refectory window. Taking out his watch again, he put

it in the passive hands of the astonished priest, saying, "Time me,"

cleared his throat, and began:--

"Fourteen years ago there was a ship cruisin' in the Pacific, jest off

this range, that was ez nigh on to a Hell afloat as anything rigged kin

be. If a chap managed to dodge the cap'en's belaying-pin for a time he

was bound to be fetched up in the ribs at last by the mate's boots.

There was a chap knocked down the fore hatch with a broken leg in the

Gulf, and another jumped overboard off Cape Corrientes, crazy as a

loon, along a clip of the head from the cap'en's trumpet. Them's facts.

The ship was a brigantine, trading along the Mexican coast. The cap'en

had his wife aboard, a little timid Mexican woman he'd picked up at

Mazatlan. I reckon she didn't get on with him any better than the men,

for she ups and dies one day, leavin' her baby, a year-old gal. One o'

the crew was fond o' that baby. He used to get the black nurse to put

it in the dingy, and he'd tow it astern, rocking it with the painter

like a cradle. He did it--hatin' the cap'en all the same. One day the

black nurse got out of the dingy for a moment, when the baby was

asleep, leavin' him alone with it. An idea took hold on him, jest from

cussedness, you'd say, but it was partly from revenge on the cap'en and

partly to get away from the ship. The ship was well in shore, and the

current settin' towards it. He slipped the painter--that man--and set

himself adrift with the baby. It was a crazy act, you'd reckon, for

there was n't any oars in the boat; but he had a crazy man's luck, and

he contrived, by sculling the boat with one of the seats he tore out,

to keep her out of the breakers, till he could find a bight in the

shore to run her in. The alarm was given from the ship, but the fog

shut down upon him; he could hear the other boats in pursuit. They

seemed to close in on him, and by the sound he judged the cap'en was

just abreast of him in the gig, bearing down upon him in the fog. He

slipped out of the dingy into the water without a splash, and struck

out for the breakers. He got ashore after havin' been knocked down and

dragged in four times by the undertow. He had only one idea then,

thankfulness that he had not taken the baby with him in the surf. You

kin put that down for him; it's a fact. He got off into the hills, and

made his way up to Monterey."

"And the child?" asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity

that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ruthlessly

abandoned--what became of it?"

"That's just it, the child," said the stranger, gravely. "Well, if that

man was on his death-bed instead of being here talking to you, he'd

swear that he thought the cap'en was sure to come up to it the next

minit. That's a fact. But it wasn't until one day that he--that's

me--ran across one of that crew in Frisco. 'Hallo, Cranch,' sez he to

me, 'so you got away, didn't you? And how's the cap'en's baby? Grown a

young gal by this time, ain't she?' 'What are you talking about,' sez

I; 'how should I know?' He draws away from me, and sez,'D--it,' sez he,

'you don't mean that you' ... I grabs him by the throat and makes him

tell me all. And then it appears that the boat and the baby were never

found again, and every man of that crew, cap'en and all, believed I had

stolen it."

He paused. Father Pedro was staring at the prospect with an

uncompromising rigidity of head and shoulder.

"It's a bad lookout for me, ain't it?" the stranger continued, in

serious reflection.

"How do I know," said the priest harshly, without turning his head,

"that you did not make away with this child?"

"Beg pardon."

"That you did not complete your revenge by--by--killing it, as your

comrade suspected you? Ah! Holy Trinity," continued Father Pedro,

throwing out his hands with an impatient gesture, as if to take the

place of unutterable thought.

"How do _you_ know?" echoed the stranger coldly.

"Yes."

The stranger linked his fingers together and threw them over his knee,

drew it up to his chest caressingly, and said quietly, "Because you

_do_ know."

The Padre rose to his feet.

"What mean you?" he said, sternly fixing his eyes upon the speaker.

Their eyes met. The stranger's were gray and persistent, with hanging

corner lids that might have concealed even more purpose than they

showed. The Padre's were hollow, open, and the whites slightly brown,

as if with tobacco stains. Yet they were the first to turn away.

"I mean," returned the stranger, with the same practical gravity, "that

you know it wouldn't pay me to come here, if I'd killed the baby,

unless I wanted you to fix things right with me up there," pointing

skyward, "and get absolution; and I've told you _that_ wasn't in my

line."

"Why do you seek me, then?" demanded the Padre, suspiciously.

"Because I reckon I thought a man might be allowed to confess something

short of a murder. If you're going to draw the line below that"--

"This is but sacrilegious levity," interrupted Father Pedro, turning as

if to go. But the stranger did not make any movement to detain him.

"Have you implored forgiveness of the father--the man you

wronged--before you came here?" asked the priest, lingering.

"Not much. It wouldn't pay if he was living, and he died four years

ago."

"You are sure of that?"

"I am."

"There are other relations, perhaps?"

"None."

Father Pedro was silent. When he spoke again, it was with a changed

voice. "What is your purpose, then?" he asked, with the first

indication of priestly sympathy in his manner. "You cannot ask

forgiveness of the earthly father you have injured, you refuse the

intercession of Holy Church with the Heavenly Father you have

disobeyed. Speak, wretched man! What is it you want?"

"I want to find the child."

"But if it were possible, if she were still living, are you fit to seek

her, to even make yourself known to her, to appear before her?"

"Well, if I made it profitable to her, perhaps."

"Perhaps," echoed the priest, scornfully. "So be it. But why come

here?"

"To ask your advice. To know how to begin my search. You know this

country. You were here when that boat drifted ashore beyond that

mountain."

"Ah, indeed. I have much to do with it. It is an affair of the

alcalde--the authorities--of your--your police."

"Is it?"

The Padre again met the stranger's eyes. He stopped, with the snuffbox

he had somewhat ostentatiously drawn from his pocket still open in his

hand.

"Why is it not, Señor?" he demanded.

"If she lives, she is a young lady by this time, and might not want the

details of her life known to any one."

"And how will you recognize your baby in this young lady?" asked Father

Pedro, with a rapid gesture, indicating the comparative heights of a

baby and an adult.

"I reckon I'll know her, and her clothes too; and whoever found her

wouldn't be fool enough to destroy them."

"After fourteen years! Good! You have faith, Señor"--

"Cranch," supplied the stranger, consulting his watch. "But time's up.

Business is business. Good-by; don't let me keep you."

He extended his hand.

The Padre met it with a dry, unsympathetic palm, as sere and yellow as

the hills. When their hands separated, the father still hesitated,

looking at Cranch. If he expected further speech or entreaty from him

he was mistaken, for the American, without turning his head, walked in

the same serious, practical fashion down the avenue of fig trees, and

disappeared beyond the hedge of vines. The outlines of the mountain

beyond were already lost in the fog. Father Pedro turned into the

refectory.

"Antonio."

A strong flavor of leather, onions, and stable preceded the entrance of

a short, stout _vaquero_ from the little _patio_.

"Saddle Pinto and thine own mule to accompany Francisco, who will take

letters from me to the Father Superior at San José to-morrow at

daybreak."

"At daybreak, reverend father?"

"At daybreak. Hark ye, go by the mountain trails and avoid the highway.

Stop at no _posada_ nor _fonda_, but if the child is weary, rest then

awhile at Don Juan Briones' or at the rancho of the Blessed Fisherman.

Have no converse with stragglers, least of all those gentile

Americanos. So" ...

The first strokes of the Angelus came from the nearer tower. With a

gesture Father Pedro waved Antonio aside, and opened the door of the

sacristy.

"_Ad Majorem Dei Gloria_."

II.

The hacienda of Don Juan Briones, nestling in a wooded cleft of the

foot-hills, was hidden, as Father Pedro had wisely reflected, from the

straying feet of travelers along the dusty highway to San José. As

Francisco, emerging from the _cañada_, put spurs to his mule at the

sight of the whitewashed walls, Antonio grunted:

"Oh aye, little priest! thou wast tired enough a moment ago, and though

we are not three leagues from the Blessed Fisherman, thou couldst

scarce sit thy saddle longer. Mother of God! and all to see that little

mongrel, Juanita."

"But, good Antonio, Juanita was my playfellow, and I may not soon again

chance this way. And Juanita is not a mongrel, no more than I am."

"She is a _mestiza_, and thou art a child of the Church, though this

following of gypsy wenches does not show it."

"But Father Pedro does not object," urged the boy.

"The reverend father has forgotten he was ever young," replied Antonio,

sententiously, "or he wouldn't set fire and tow together."

"What sayest thou, good Antonio?" asked Francisco quickly, opening his

blue eyes in frank curiosity; "who is fire, and who is tow?"

The worthy muleteer, utterly abashed and confounded by this display of

the acolyte's direct simplicity, contented himself by shrugging his

shoulders, and a vague "_Quien sabe?_"

"Come," said the boy, gayly, "confess it is only the _aguardiente_ of

the Blessed Fisherman thou missest. Never fear, Juanita will find thee

some. And see! here she comes."

There was a flash of white flounces along the dark brown corridor, the

twinkle of satin slippers, the flying out of long black braids, and

with a cry of joy a young girl threw herself upon Francisco as he

entered the _patio_, and nearly dragged him from his mule.

"Have a care, little sister," laughed the acolyte, looking at Antonio,

"or there will be a conflagration. Am I the fire?" he continued,

submitting to the two sounding kisses the young girl placed upon either

cheek, but still keeping his mischievous glance upon the muleteer.

"_Quien sabe_?" repeated Antonio, gruffly, as the young girl blushed

under his significant eyes. "It is no affair of mine," he added to

himself, as he led Pinto away. "Perhaps Father Pedro is right, and this

young twig of the Church is as dry and sapless as himself. Let the

_mestiza_ burn if she likes."

"Quick, Pancho," said the young girl, eagerly leading him along the

corridor. "This way. I must talk with thee before thou seest Don Juan;

that is why I ran to intercept thee, and not as that fool Antonio would

signify, to shame thee. Wast thou ashamed, my Pancho?"

The boy threw his arm familiarly round the supple, stayless little

waist, accented only by the belt of the light flounced _saya_, and

said, "But why this haste and feverishness, 'Nita? And now I look at

thee, thou hast been crying."

They had emerged from a door in the corridor into the bright sunlight

of a walled garden. The girl dropped her eyes, cast a quick glance

around her, and said:

"Not here; to the _arroyo_;" and half leading, half dragging him, made

her way through a copse of _manzanita_ and alder until they heard the

faint tinkling of water. "Dost thou remember," said the girl, "it was

here," pointing to an embayed pool in the dark current, "that I

baptized thee, when Father Pedro first brought thee here, when we both

played at being monks? They were dear old days, for Father Pedro would

trust no one with thee but me, and always kept us near him."

"Aye, and he said I would be profaned by the touch of any other, and so

himself always washed and dressed me, and made my bed near his."

"And took thee away again, and I saw thee not till thou camest with

Antonio, over a year ago, to the cattle branding. And now, my Pancho, I

may never see thee again." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed

aloud.

The little acolyte tried to comfort her, but with such abstraction of

manner and inadequacy of warmth that she hastily removed his caressing

hand.

"But why? What has happened?" he asked eagerly.

The girl's manner had changed. Her eyes flashed, and she put her brown

fist on her waist and began to rock from side to side.

"But I'll not go," she said, viciously.

"Go where?" asked the boy.

"Oh, where?" she echoed, impatiently. "Hear me, Francisco. Thou knowest

I am, like thee, an orphan; but I have not, like thee, a parent in the

Holy Church. For, alas," she added, bitterly, "I am not a boy, and have

not a lovely voice borrowed from the angels. I was, like thee, a

foundling, kept, by the charity of the reverend fathers, until Don

Juan, a childless widower, adopted me. I was happy, not knowing and

caring who were the parents who had abandoned me, happy only in the

love of him who became my adopted father. And now"--She paused.

"And now?" echoed Francisco, eagerly.

"And now they say it is discovered who are my parents."

"And they live?"

"Mother of God! no," said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. "There

is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems,

who is to be my guardian."

"But how? Tell me all, dear Juanita," said the boy with a feverish

interest, that contrasted so strongly with his previous abstraction

that Juanita bit her lips with vexation.

"Ah! How? Santa Barbara! An extravaganza for children. A necklace of

lies. I am lost from a ship of which my father--Heaven rest him!--is

General, and I am picked up among the weeds on the sea-shore, like

Moses in the bulrushes. A pretty story, indeed."

"O how beautiful!" exclaimed Francisco enthusiastically. "Ah, Juanita,

would it had been me!"

"_Thee_!" said the girl bitterly,--"thee! No!--it was a girl wanted.

Enough, it was me."

"And when does the guardian come?" persisted the boy, with sparkling

eyes.

"He is here even now, with that pompous fool the American alcalde from

Monterey, a wretch who knows nothing of the country or the people, but

who helped the other American to claim me. I tell thee, Francisco, like

as not it is all a folly, some senseless blunder of those Americanos

that imposes upon Don Juan's simplicity and love for them."

"How looks he, this Americano who seeks thee?" asked Francisco.

"What care I how he looks," said Juanita, "or what he is? He may have

the four S's, for all I care. Yet," she added with a slight touch of

coquetry, "he is not bad to look upon, now I recall him."

"Had he a long mustache and a sad, sweet smile, and a voice so gentle

and yet so strong that you felt he ordered you to do things without

saying it? And did his eye read your thoughts?--that very thought that

you must obey him?"

"Saints preserve thee, Pancho! Of whom dost thou speak?"

"Listen, Juanita. It was a year ago, the eve of Natividad; he was in

the church when I sang. Look where I would, I always met his eye. When

the canticle was sung and I was slipping into the sacristy, he was

beside me. He spoke kindly, but I understood him not. He put into my

hand gold for an _aguinaldo_. I pretended I understood not that also,

and put it into the box for the poor. He smiled and went away. Often

have I seen him since; and last night, when I left the Mission, he was

there again with Father Pedro."

"And Father Pedro, what said he of him?" asked Juanita.

"Nothing." The boy hesitated. "Perhaps--because I said nothing of the

stranger."

Juanita laughed. "So thou canst keep a secret from the good father when

thou carest. But why dost thou think this stranger is my new guardian?"

"Dost thou not see, little sister? He was even then seeking thee," said

the boy with joyous excitement. "Doubtless he knew we were friends and

playmates--maybe the good father has told him thy secret. For it is no

idle tale of the alcalde, believe me. I see it all! It is true!"

"Then thou wilt let him take me away," exclaimed the girl bitterly,

withdrawing the little hand he had clasped in his excitement.

"Alas, Juanita, what avails it now? I am sent to San José, charged with

a letter to the Father Superior, who will give me further orders. What

they are, or how long I must stay, I know not. But I know this: the

good Father Pedro's eyes were troubled when he gave me his blessing,

and he held me long in his embrace. Pray Heaven I have committed no

fault. Still it may be that the reputation of my gift hath reached the

Father Superior, and he would advance me;" and Francisco's eyes lit up

with youthful pride at the thought.

Not so Juanita. Her black eyes snapped suddenly with suspicion, she

drew in her breath, and closed her little mouth firmly. Then she began

a _crescendo_.

Mother of God! was that all? Was he a child, to be sent away for such

time or for such purpose as best pleased the fathers? Was he to know no

more than that? With such gifts as God had given him, was he not at

least to have some word in disposing of them? Ah! _she_ would not stand

it.

The boy gazed admiringly at the piquant energy of the little figure

before him, and envied her courage. "It is the _mestizo_ blood," he

murmured to himself. Then aloud, "Thou shouldst have been a man,

'Nita."

"And thou a woman."

"Or a priest. Eh, what is that?"

They had both risen, Juanita defiantly, her black braids flying as she

wheeled and suddenly faced the thicket, Francisco clinging to her with

trembling hands and whitened lips. A stone, loosened from the hillside,

had rolled to their feet; there was a crackling in the alders on the

slope above them.

"Is it a bear, or a brigand?" whispered Francisco, hurriedly, sounding

the uttermost depths of his terror in the two words.

"It is an eavesdropper," said Juanita, impetuously; "and who and why, I

intend to know," and she started towards the thicket.

"Do not leave me, good Juanita;" said the young acolyte, grasping the

girl's skirt.

"Nay; run to the hacienda quickly, and leave me to search the thicket.

Run!"

The boy did not wait for a second injunction, but scuttled away, his

long coat catching in the brambles, while Juanita darted like a kitten

into the bushes. Her search was fruitless, however, and she was

returning impatiently, when her quick eye fell upon a letter lying amid

the dried grass where she and Francisco had been seated the moment

before. It had evidently fallen from his breast when he had risen

suddenly, and been overlooked in his alarm. It was Father Pedro's

letter to the Father Superior of San José.

In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been

the interloper she was seeking. She knew that she held in her fingers

the secret of Francisco's sudden banishment. She felt instinctively

that this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red

seal, was his sentence and her own. The little _mestizo_, had not been

brought up to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both

being unknown in the patriarchal life of the hacienda. Yet with a

certain feminine instinct she looked furtively around her, and even

managed to dislodge the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of

the crossed keys impressed upon it. Then she opened the letter and

read.

Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples. Then

a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her

neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes. This continued

until she was fairly crying, dropping the letter from her hands and

rocking to and fro. In the midst of this she quickly stopped again; the

clouds broke, a sunshine of laughter started from her eyes, she laughed

shyly, she laughed loudly, she laughed hysterically. Then she stopped

again as suddenly, knitted her brows, swooped down once more upon the

letter, and turned to fly. But at the same moment the letter was

quietly but firmly taken from her hand, and Mr. Jack Cranch stood

beside her.

Juanita was crimson, but unconquered. She mechanically held out her

hand for the letter; the American took her little fingers, kissed them,

and said:

"How are you again?"

"The letter," replied Juanita, with a strong disposition to stamp her

foot.

"But," said Cranch, with business directness, "you've read enough to

know it isn't for you."

"Nor for you either," responded Juanita.

"True. It is for the Reverend Father Superior of San José Mission. I'll

give it to him."

Juanita was becoming alarmed, first at this prospect, second at the

power the stranger seemed to be gaining over her. She recalled

Francisco's description of him with something like superstitious awe.

"But it concerns Francisco. It contains a secret he should know."

"Then you can tell him it. Perhaps it would come easier from you."

Juanita blushed again. "Why?" she asked, half dreading his reply.

"Because," said the American, quietly, "you are old playmates; you are

attached to each other."

Juanita bit her lips. "Why don't you read it yourself?" she asked

bluntly.

"Because I don't read other people's letters, and if it concerns me

you'll tell me."

"What if I don't?"

"Then the Father Superior will."

"I believe you know Francisco's secret already," said the girl, boldly.

"Perhaps."

"Then, Mother of God! Señor Crancho, what do you want?"

"I do not want to separate two such good friends as you and Francisco."

"Perhaps you'd like to claim us both," said the girl, with a sneer that

was not devoid of coquetry.

"I should be delighted."

"Then here is your occasion, Senor, for here comes my adopted father,

Don Juan, and your friend, Senor Br--r--own, the American alcalde."

Two men appeared in the garden path below them. The stiff, glazed,

broad-brimmed black hat, surmounting a dark face of Quixotic gravity

and romantic rectitude, indicated Don Juan Briones. His companion,

lazy, specious, and red-faced, was Señor Brown, the American alcalde.

"Well, I reckon we kin about call the thing fixed," said Señor Brown,

with a large wave of the hand, suggesting a sweeping away of all

trivial details. "Ez I was saying to the Don yer, when two high-toned

gents like you and him come together in a delicate matter of this kind,

it ain't no hoss trade nor sharp practice. The Don is that lofty in

principle that he's willin' to sacrifice his affections for the good of

the gal; and you, on your hand, kalkilate to see all he's done for her,

and go your whole pile better. You'll make the legal formalities good.

I reckon that old Injin woman who can swear to the finding of the baby

on the shore will set things all right yet. For the matter o' that, if

you want anything in the way of a certificate, I'm on hand always."

"Juanita and myself are at your disposition, _caballeros_," said Don

Juan, with a grave exaltation. "Never let it be said that the Mexican

nation was outdone by the great Americanos in deeds of courtesy and

affection. Let it rather stand that Juanita was a sacred trust put into

my hands years ago by the goddess of American liberty, and nurtured in

the Mexican eagle's nest. Is it not so, my soul?" he added, more

humanly, to the girl, when he had quite recovered from the intoxication

of his own speech. "We love thee, little one, but we keep our honor."

"There's nothing mean about the old man," said Brown, admiringly, with

a slight dropping of his left eyelid; "his head is level, and he goes

with his party."

"Thou takest my daughter, Señor Cranch," continued the old man, carried

away by his emotion; "but the American nation gives me a son."

"You know not what you say, father," said the young girl, angrily,

exasperated by a slight twinkle in the American's eye.

"Not so," said Cranch. "Perhaps one of the American nation may take him

at his word."

"Then, _caballeros_, you will, for the moment at least, possess

yourselves of the house and its poor hospitality," said Don Juan, with

time-honored courtesy, producing the rustic key of the gate of the

_patio_. "It is at your disposition, _caballeros_," he repeated,

leading the way as his guests passed into the corridor.

Two hours passed. The hills were darkening on their eastern slopes; the

shadows of the few poplars that sparsedly dotted the dusty highway were

falling in long black lines that looked like ditches on the dead level

of the tawny fields; the shadows of slowly moving cattle were mingling

with their own silhouettes, and becoming more and more grotesque. A

keen wind rising in the hills was already creeping from the _cañada_ as

from the mouth of a funnel, and sweeping the plains. Antonio had

forgathered with the servants, had pinched the ears of the maids, had

partaken of _aguardiente_, had saddled the mules,--Antonio was becoming

impatient.

And then a singular commotion disturbed the peaceful monotony of the

patriarchal household of Don Juan Briones. The stagnant courtyard was

suddenly alive with _peons_ and servants, running hither and thither.

The alleys and gardens were filled with retainers. A confusion of

questions, orders, and outcrys rent the air, the plains shook with the

galloping of a dozen horsemen. For the acolyte Francisco, of the

Mission San Carmel, had disappeared and vanished, and from that day the

hacienda of Don Juan Briones knew him no more.

III.

When Father Pedro saw the yellow mules vanish under the low branches of

the oaks beside the little graveyard, caught the last glitter of the

morning sun on Pinto's shining headstall, and heard the last tinkle of

Antonio's spurs, something very like a mundane sigh escaped him. To the

simple wonder of the majority of early worshipers--the half-breed

converts who rigorously attended the spiritual ministrations of the

Mission, and ate the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers--he

deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary

in hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees. Whether there was

any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their

gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and

goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one

of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks there was a rude seat. Here

Father Pedro sank, his face toward the mountain wall between him and

the invisible sea. The relentless, dry, practical Californian sunlight

falling on his face grimly pointed out a night of vigil and suffering.

The snuffy yellow of his eyes was injected yet burning, his temples

were ridged and veined like a tobacco leaf; the odor of desiccation

which his garments always exhaled was hot and feverish, as if the fire

had suddenly awakened among the ashes.

Of what was Father Pedro thinking?

He was thinking of his youth, a youth spent under the shade of those

pear trees, even then venerable as now. He was thinking of his youthful

dreams of heathen conquest, emulating the sacrifices and labors of

Junipero Serra; a dream cut short by the orders of the archbishop, that

sent his companion, Brother Diego, north on a mission to strange lands,

and condemned him to the isolation of San Carmel. He was thinking of

that fierce struggle with envy of a fellow-creature's better fortune,

that, conquered by prayer and penance, left him patient, submissive,

and devoted to his humble work; how he raised up converts to the faith,

even taking them from the breast of heretic mothers.

He recalled how once, with the zeal of propagandism quickening in the

instincts of a childless man, he had dreamed of perpetuating his work

through some sinless creation of his own; of dedicating some virgin

soul, one over whom he could have complete control, restricted by no

human paternal weakness, to the task he had begun. But how? Of all the

boys eagerly offered to the Church by their parents there seemed none

sufficiently pure and free from parental taint. He remembered how one

night, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin herself, as he

firmly then believed, this dream was fulfilled. An Indian woman brought

him a _Waugee_ child--a baby-girl that she had picked up on the

sea-shore. There were no parents to divide the responsibility, the

child had no past to confront, except the memory of the ignorant Indian

woman, who deemed her duty done, and whose interest ceased in giving it

to the Padre. The austere conditions of his monkish life compelled him

to the first step in his adoption of it--the concealment of its sex.

This was easy enough, as he constituted himself from that moment its

sole nurse and attendant, and boldly baptized it among the other

children by the name of Francisco. No others knew its origin, nor cared

to know. Father Pedro had taken a _muchacho_ foundling for adoption;

his jealous seclusion of it and his personal care was doubtless some

sacerdotal formula at once high and necessary.

He remembered with darkening eyes and impeded breath how his close

companionship and daily care of this helpless child had revealed to him

the fascinations of that paternity denied to him; how he had deemed it

his duty to struggle against the thrill of baby fingers laid upon his

yellow cheeks, the pleading of inarticulate words, the eloquence of

wonder-seeing and mutely questioning eyes; how he had succumbed again

and again, and then struggled no more, seeing only in them the

suggestion of childhood made incarnate in the Holy Babe. And yet, even

as he thought, he drew from his gown a little shoe, and laid it beside

his breviary. It was Francisco's baby slipper, a duplicate to those

worn by the miniature waxen figure of the Holy Virgin herself in her

niche in the transept.

Had he felt during these years any qualms of conscience at this

concealment of the child's sex? None. For to him the babe was sexless,

as most befitted one who was to live and die at the foot of the altar.

There was no attempt to deceive God; what mattered else? Nor was he

withholding the child from the ministrations of the sacred sisters.

There was no convent near the Mission, and as each year passed, the

difficulty of restoring her to the position and duties of her sex

became greater and more dangerous. And then the acolyte's destiny was

sealed by what again appeared to Father Pedro as a direct interposition

of Providence. The child developed a voice of such exquisite sweetness

and purity that an angel seemed to have strayed into the little choir,

and kneeling worshipers below, transported, gazed upwards, half

expectant of a heavenly light breaking through the gloom of the

raftered ceiling. The fame of the little singer filled the valley of

San Carmel; it was a miracle vouchsafed the Mission; Don José Peralta

remembered, ah yes, to have heard in old Spain of boy choristers with

such voices!

And was this sacred trust to be withdrawn from him? Was this life,

which he had brought out of an unknown world of sin, unstained and

pure, consecrated and dedicated to God, just in the dawn of power and

promise for the glory of the Mother Church, to be taken from his side?

And at the word of a self-convicted man of sin--a man whose tardy

repentance was not yet absolved by the Holy Church? Never! never!

Father Pedro dwelt upon the stranger's rejections of the ministrations

of the Church with a pitiable satisfaction; had he accepted it, he

would have had a sacred claim upon Father Pedro's sympathy and

confidence. Yet he rose again, uneasily and with irregular steps

returned to the corridor, passing the door of the familiar little cell

beside his own. The window, the table, and even the scant toilette

utensils were filled with the flowers of yesterday, some of them

withered and dry; the white gown of the little chorister was hanging

emptily against the wall. Father Pedro started and trembled; it seemed

as if the spiritual life of the child had slipped away with its

garments.

In that slight chill, which even in the hottest days in California

always invests any shadow cast in that white sunlight, Father Pedro

shivered in the corridor. Passing again into the garden, he followed in

fancy the wayfaring figure of Francisco, saw the child arrive at the

rancho of Don Juan, and with the fateful blindness of all dreamers

projected a picture most unlike the reality. He followed the pilgrims

even to San José, and saw the child deliver the missive which gave the

secret of her sex and condition to the Father Superior. That the

authority at San José might dissent with the Padre of San Carmel, or

decline to carry out his designs, did not occur to the one-idea'd

priest. Like all solitary people, isolated from passing events, he made

no allowance for occurrences outside of his routine. Yet at this moment

a sudden thought whitened his yellow cheek. What if the Father Superior

deemed it necessary to impart the secret to Francisco? Would the child

recoil at the deception, and, perhaps, cease to love him? It was the

first time, in his supreme selfishness, he had taken the acolyte's

feelings into account. He had thought of him only as one owing implicit

obedience to him as a temporal and spiritual guide.

"Reverend Father!"

He turned impatiently. It was his muleteer, José. Father Pedro's sunken

eye brightened.

"Ah, José! Quickly, then; hast thou found Sanchicha?"

"Truly, your reverence! And I have brought her with me, just as she is;

though if your reverence make more of her than to fill the six-foot

hole and say a prayer over her, I'll give the mule that brought her

here for food for the bull's horns. She neither hears nor speaks, but

whether from weakness or sheer wantonness, I know not."

"Peace, then! and let thy tongue take example from hers. Bring her with

thee into the sacristy and attend without. Go!"

Father Pedro watched the disappearing figure of the muleteer and

hurriedly swept his thin, dry hand, veined and ribbed like a brown

November leaf, over his stony forehead, with a sound that seemed almost

a rustle. Then he suddenly stiffened his fingers over his breviary,

dropped his arms perpendicularly before him, and with a rigid step

returned to the corridor and passed into the sacristy.

For a moment in the half-darkness the room seemed to be empty. Tossed

carelessly in the corner appeared some blankets topped by a few

straggling black horsetails, like an unstranded _riata_. A trembling

agitated the mass as Father Pedro approached. He bent over the heap and

distinguished in its midst the glowing black eyes of Sanchicha, the

Indian centenarian of the Mission San Carmel. Only her eyes lived.

Helpless, boneless, and jelly-like, old age had overtaken her with a

mild form of deliquescence.

"Listen, Sanchicha," said the father, gravely. "It is important that

thou shouldst refresh thy memory for a moment. Look back fourteen

years, mother; it is but yesterday to thee. Thou dost remember the

baby--a little _muchacha_ thou broughtest me then--fourteen years ago?"

The old woman's eyes became intelligent, and turned with a quick look

towards the open door of the church, and thence towards the choir.

The Padre made a motion of irritation. "No, no! Thou dost not

understand; thou dost not attend me. Knowest thou of any mark of

clothing, trinket, or amulet found upon the babe?"

The light of the old woman's eyes went out. She might have been dead.

Father Pedro waited a moment, and then laid his hand impatiently on her

shoulder.

"Dost thou mean there are none?"

A ray of light struggled back into her eyes.

"None."

"And thou hast kept back or put away no sign nor mark of her parentage?

Tell me, on this crucifix."

The eyes caught the crucifix, and became as empty as the orbits of the

carven Christ upon it.

Father Pedro waited patiently. A moment passed; only the sound of the

muleteer's spurs was heard in the courtyard.

"It is well," he said at last, with a sigh of relief. "Pepita shall

give thee some refreshment, and José will bring thee back again. I will

summon him."

He passed out of the sacristy door, leaving it open. A ray of sunlight

darted eagerly in, and fell upon the grotesque heap in the corner.

Sanchicha's eyes lived again; more than that, a singular movement came

over her face. The hideous caverns of her toothless mouth opened--she

laughed. The step of José was heard in the corridor, and she became

again inert.

The third day, which should have brought the return of Antonio, was

nearly spent. Father Pedro was impatient but not alarmed. The good

fathers at San José might naturally detain Antonio for the answer,

which might require deliberation. If any mischance had occurred to

Francisco, Antonio would have returned or sent a special messenger. At

sunset he was in his accustomed seat in the orchard, his hands clasped

over the breviary in his listless lap, his eyes fixed upon the mountain

between him and that mysterious sea that had brought so much into his

life. He was filled with a strange desire to see it, a vague curiosity

hitherto unknown to his preoccupied life; he wished to gaze upon that

strand, perhaps the very spot where she had been found; he doubted not

his questioning eyes would discover some forgotten trace of her; under

his persistent will and aided by the Holy Virgin, the sea would give up

its secret. He looked at the fog creeping along the summit, and

recalled the latest gossip of San Carmel; how that since the advent of

the Americanos it was gradually encroaching on the Mission. The hated

name vividly recalled to him the features of the stranger as he had

stood before him three nights ago, in this very garden; so vividly that

he sprang to his feet with an exclamation. It was no fancy, but Señor

Cranch himself advancing from under the shadow of a pear tree.

"I reckoned I'd catch you here," said Mr. Cranch, with the same dry,

practical business fashion, as if he were only resuming an interrupted

conversation, "and I reckon I ain't going to keep you a minit longer

than I did t'other day." He mutely referred to his watch, which he

already held in his hand, and then put it back in his pocket. "Well! we

found her!"

"Francisco," interrupted the priest with a single stride, laying his

hand upon Cranch's arm, and staring into his eyes.

Mr. Cranch quietly removed Father Pedro's hand. "I reckon that wasn't

the name as _I_ caught it," he returned dryly. "Hadn't you better sit

down?"

"Pardon me--pardon me, Señor," said the priest, hastily sinking back

upon his bench, "I was thinking of other things. You--you--came upon me

suddenly. I thought it was the acolyte. Go on, Señor! I am interested."

"I thought you'd be," said Cranch, quietly. "That's why I came. And

then you might be of service too."

"True, true," said the priest, with rapid accents; "and this girl,

Señor, this girl is"--

"Juanita, the _mestiza_, adopted daughter of Don Juan Briones, over on

the Santa Clare Valley," replied Cranch, jerking his thumb over his

shoulder, and then sitting down upon the bench beside Father Pedro.

The priest turned his feverish eyes piercingly upon his companion for a

few seconds, and then doggedly fixed them upon the ground. Cranch drew

a plug of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a portion, placed it in his

cheek, and then quietly began to strap the blade of his jack-knife upon

his boot. Father Pedro saw it from under his eyelids, and even in his

preoccupation despised him.

"Then you are certain she is the babe you seek?" said the father,

without looking up.

"I reckon as near as you can be certain of anything. Her age tallies;

she was the only foundling girl baby baptized by you, you know,"--he

partly turned round appealingly to the Padre,--"that year. Injin woman

says she picked up a baby. Looks like a pretty clear case, don't it?"

"And the clothes, friend Cranch?" said the priest, with his eyes still

on the ground, and a slight assumption of easy indifference.

"They will be forthcoming, like enough, when the time comes," said

Cranch. "The main thing at first was to find the girl; that was _my_

job; the lawyers, I reckon, can fit the proofs and say what's wanted,

later on."

"But why lawyers," continued Padre Pedro, with a slight sneer he could

not repress, "if the child is found and Señor Cranch is satisfied?"

"On account of the property. Business is business!"

"The property?"

Mr. Cranch pressed the back of his knife-blade on his boot, shut it up

with a click, and putting it in his pocket said calmly:

"Well, I reckon the million of dollars that her father left when he

died, which naturally belongs to her, will require some proof that she

is his daughter."

He had placed both his hands in his pockets, and turned his eyes full

upon Father Pedro. The priest arose hurriedly.

"But you said nothing of this before, Señor Cranch," said he, with a

gesture of indignation, turning his back quite upon Cranch, and taking

a step towards the refectory.

"Why should I? I was looking after the girl, not the property,"

returned Cranch, following the Padre with watchful eyes, but still

keeping his careless, easy attitude.

"Ah, well! Will it be said so, think you? Eh! _Bueno_. What will the

world think of your sacred quest, eh?" continued the Padre Pedro,

forgetting himself in his excitement, but still averting his face from

his companion.

"The world will look after the proofs, and I reckon not bother if the

proofs are all right," replied Cranch, carelessly; "and the girl won't

think the worse for me for helping her to a fortune. Hallo! you've

dropped something." He leaped to his feet, picked up the breviary which

had fallen from the Padre's fingers, and returned it to him with a

slight touch of gentleness that was unsuspected in the man.

The priest's dry, tremulous hand grasped the volume without

acknowledgment.

"But these proofs?" he said hastily; "these proofs, Señor?"

"Oh, well, you'll testify to the baptism, you know."

"But if I refuse; if I will have nothing to do with this thing! If I

will not give my word that there is not some mistake," said the priest,

working himself into a feverish indignation. "That there are not slips

of memory, eh? Of so many children baptized, is it possible for me to

know which, eh? And if this Juanita is not your girl, eh?"

"Then you'll help me to find who is," said Cranch, coolly.

Father Pedro turned furiously on his tormentor. Overcome by his vigil

and anxiety, he was oblivious of everything but the presence of the man

who seemed to usurp the functions of his own conscience. "Who are you,

who speak thus?" he said hoarsely, advancing upon Cranch with

outstretched and anathematizing fingers. "Who are you, Señor Heathen,

who dare to dictate to me, a Father of Holy Church? I tell you, I will

have none of this. Never! I will not! From this moment, you

understand--nothing. I will never" ...

He stopped. The first stroke of the Angelus rang from the little tower.

The first stroke of that bell before whose magic exorcism all human

passions fled, the peaceful bell that had for fifty years lulled the

little fold of San Carmel to prayer and rest, came to his throbbing

ear. His trembling hands groped for the crucifix, carried it to his

left breast; his lips moved in prayer. His eyes were turned to the

cold, passionless sky, where a few faint, far-spaced stars had silently

stolen to their places. The Angelus still rang, his trembling ceased,

he remained motionless and rigid.

The American, who had uncovered in deference to the worshiper rather

than the rite, waited patiently. The eyes of Father Pedro returned to

the earth, moist as if with dew caught from above. He looked half

absently at Cranch.

"Forgive me, my son," he said, in a changed voice. "I am only a worn

old man. I must talk with thee more of this--but not to-night--not

to-night;--to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow."

He turned slowly and appeared to glide rather than move under the

trees, until the dark shadow of the Mission tower met and encompassed

him. Cranch followed him with anxious eyes. Then he removed the quid of

tobacco from his cheek.

"Just as I reckoned," remarked he, quite audibly. "He's clean gold on

the bed rock after all!"

IV.

That night Father Pedro dreamed a strange dream. How much of it was

reality, how long it lasted, or when he awoke from it, he could not

tell. The morbid excitement of the previous day culminated in a febrile

exaltation in which he lived and moved as in a separate existence.

This is what he remembered. He thought he had risen at night in a

sudden horror of remorse, and making his way to the darkened church had

fallen upon his knees before the high altar, when all at once the

acolyte's voice broke from the choir, but in accents so dissonant and

unnatural that it seemed a sacrilege, and he trembled. He thought he

had confessed the secret of the child's sex to Cranch, but whether the

next morning or a week later he did not know. He fancied, too, that

Cranch had also confessed some trifling deception to him, but what, or

why, he could not remember; so much greater seemed the enormity of his

own transgression. He thought Cranch had put in his hands the letter he

had written to the Father Superior, saying that his secret was still

safe, and that he had been spared the avowal and the scandal that might

have ensued. But through all, and above all, he was conscious of one

fixed idea: to seek the sea-shore with Sanchicha, and upon the spot

where she had found Francisco, meet the young girl who had taken his

place, and so part from her forever. He had a dim recollection that

this was necessary to some legal identification of her, as arranged by

Cranch, but how or why he did not understand; enough that it was a part

of his penance.

It was early morning when the faithful Antonio, accompanied by

Sanchicha and José, rode forth with him from the Mission of San Carmel.

Except on the expressionless features of the old woman, there was

anxiety and gloom upon the faces of the little cavalcade. He did not

know how heavily his strange abstraction and hallucinations weighed

upon their honest hearts. As they wound up the ascent of the mountain

he noticed that Antonio and José conversed with bated breath and many

pious crossings of themselves, but with eyes always wistfully fixed

upon him. He wondered if, as part of his penance, he ought not to

proclaim his sin and abase himself before them; but he knew that his

devoted followers would insist upon sharing his punishment; and he

remembered his promise to Cranch, that for _her_ sake he would say

nothing. Before they reached the summit he turned once or twice to look

back upon the Mission. How small it looked, lying there in the peaceful

valley, contrasted with the broad sweep of the landscape beyond,

stopped at the farther east only by the dim, ghost-like outlines of the

Sierras. But the strong breath of the sea was beginning to be felt; in

a few moments more they were facing it with lowered _sombreros_ and

flying _serapes_, and the vast, glittering, illimitable Pacific opened

out beneath them.

Dazed and blinded, as it seemed to him, by the shining, restless

expanse, Father Pedro rode forward as if still in a dream. Suddenly he

halted, and called Antonio to his side.

"Tell me, child, didst thou say that this coast was wild and desolate

of man, beast, and habitation?"

"Truly I did, reverend father."

"Then what is that?" pointing to the shore.

Almost at their feet nestled a cluster of houses, at the head of an

_arroyo_ reaching up from the beach. They looked down upon the smoke of

a manufactory chimney, upon strange heaps of material and curious

engines scattered along the sands, with here and there moving specks of

human figures. In a little bay a schooner swung at her cables.

The _vaquero_ crossed himself in stupefied alarm. "I know not, your

reverence; it is only two years ago, before the _rodeo_, that I was

here for strayed colts, and I swear by the blessed bones of San Antonio

that it was as I said."

"Ah! it is like these Americanos," responded the muleteer. "I have it

from my brother Diego that he went from San José to Pescadero two

months ago across the plains, with never a hut nor _fonda_ to halt at

all the way. He returned in seven days, and in the midst of the plain

there were three houses and a mill and many people. And why was it? Ah!

Mother of God! one had picked up in the creek where he drank that much

of gold;" and the muleteer tapped one of the silver coins that fringed

his jacket sleeves in place of buttons.

"And they are washing the sands for gold there now," said Antonio,

eagerly pointing to some men gathered round a machine like an enormous

cradle. "Let us hasten on."

Father Pedro's momentary interest had passed. The words of his

companions fell dull and meaningless upon his dreaming ears. He was

conscious only that the child was more a stranger to him as an outcome

of this hard, bustling life, than when he believed her borne to him

over the mysterious sea. It perplexed his dazed, disturbed mind to

think that if such an antagonistic element could exist within a dozen

miles of the Mission, and he not know it, could not such an atmosphere

have been around him, even in his monastic isolation, and he remain

blind to it? Had he really lived in the world without knowing it? Had

it been in his blood? Had it impelled him to--He shuddered and rode on.

They were at the last slope of the zigzag descent to the shore, when he

saw the figures of a man and woman moving slowly through a field of

wild oats, not far from the trail. It seemed to his distorted fancy

that the man was Cranch. The woman! His heart stopped beating. Ah!

could it be? He had never seen her in her proper garb: would she look

like that? Would she be as tall? He thought he bade José and Antonio go

on slowly before with Sanchicha, and dismounted, walking slowly between

the high stalks of grain lest he should disturb them. They evidently

did not hear his approach, but were talking earnestly. It seemed to

Father Pedro that they had taken each other's hands, and as he looked

Cranch slipped his arm round her waist. With only a blind instinct of

some dreadful sacrilege in this act, Father Pedro would have rushed

forward, when the girl's voice struck his ear. He stopped, breathless.

It was not Francisco, but Juanita, the little _mestiza_.

"But are you sure you are not pretending to love me now, as you

pretended to think I was the _muchacha_ you had run away with and lost?

Are you sure it is not pity for the deceit you practiced upon me--upon

Don Juan--upon poor Father Pedro?"

It seemed as if Cranch had tried to answer with a kiss, for the girl

drew suddenly away from him with a coquettish fling of the black

braids, and whipped her little brown hands behind her.

"Well, look here," said Cranch, with the same easy, good-natured,

practical directness which the priest remembered, and which would have

passed for philosophy in a more thoughtful man, "put it squarely, then.

In the first place, it was Don Juan and the alcalde who first suggested

you might be the child."

"But you have said you knew it was Francisco all the time," interrupted

Juanita.

"I did; but when I found the priest would not assist me at first, and

admit that the acolyte was a girl, I preferred to let him think I was

deceived in giving a fortune to another, and leave it to his own

conscience to permit it or frustrate it. I was right. I reckon it was

pretty hard on the old man, at his time of life, and wrapped up as he

was in the girl; but at the moment he came up to the scratch like a

man."

"And to save him you have deceived me? Thank you, Señor," said the girl

with a mock curtsey.

"I reckon I preferred to have you for a wife than a daughter," said

Cranch, "if that's what you mean. When you know me better, Juanita," he

continued, gravely, "you'll know that I would never have let you

believe I sought in you the one if I had not hoped to find in you the

other."

"_Bueno_! And when did you have that pretty hope?"

"When I first saw you."

"And that was--two weeks ago."

"A year ago, Juanita. When Francisco visited you at the rancho. I

followed and saw you."

Juanita looked at him a moment, and then suddenly darted at him, caught

him by the lapels of his coat and shook him like a terrier.

"Are you sure that you did not love that Francisco? Speak!" (She shook

him again.) "Swear that you did not follow her!"

"But--I did," said Cranch, laughing and shaking between the clenching

of the little hands.

"Judas Iscariot! Swear you do not love her all this while."

"But, Juanita!"