Aunt Sally was making pies in the kitchen the next morning when Jeff
hesitatingly stole upon her. The moment was not a felicitous one.
Pie-making was usually an aggressive pursuit with Aunt Sally, entered
into severely, and prosecuted unto the bitter end. After watching her a
few moments Jeff came up and placed his arms tenderly around her. People
very much in love find relief, I am told, in this vicarious expression.
“Aunty.”
“Well, Jeff! Thar, now--yer gittin' all dough!” Nevertheless, the hard
face relaxed a little. Something of a smile stole round her mouth,
showing what she might have been before theology and bitters had
supplied the natural feminine longings.
“Aunty dear!”
“You--boy!”
It WAS a boy's face--albeit bearded like the pard, with an extra
fierceness in the mustaches--that looked upon hers. She could not help
bestowing a grim floury kiss upon it.
“Well, what is it now?”
“I'm thinking, aunty, it's high time you and me packed up our traps and
'shook' this yar shanty, and located somewhere else.” Jeff's voice was
ostentatiously cheerful, but his eyes were a little anxious.
“What for NOW?”
Jeff hastily recounted his ill luck, and the various reasons--excepting
of course the dominant one--for his resolution.
“And when do you kalkilate to go?”
“If you'll look arter things here,” hesitated Jeff, “I reckon I'll go up
along with Bill to-morrow, and look round a bit.”
“And how long do you reckon that gal would stay here after yar gone?”
This was a new and startling idea to Jeff. But in his humility he saw
nothing in it to flatter his conceit. Rather the reverse. He colored,
and then said apologetically,--
“I thought that you and Jinny could get along without me. The butcher
will pack the provisions over from the Fork.”
Laying down her rolling-pin, Aunt Sally turned upon Jeff with
ostentatious deliberation. “Ye ain't,” she began slowly, “ez taking a
man with wimmen ez your father was--that's a fact, Jeff Briggs! They
used to say that no woman as he went for could get away from him. But
ye don't mean to say yer think yer not good enough--such as ye are--for
this snip of an old maid, ez big as a gold dollar, and as yaller?”
“Aunty,” said Jeff, dropping his boyish manner, and his color as
suddenly, “I'd rather ye wouldn't talk that way of Miss Mayfield. Ye
don't know her; and there's times,” he added, with a sigh, “ez I reckon
ye don't quite know ME either. That young lady, bein' sick, likes to be
looked after. Any one can do that for her. She don't mind who it is. She
don't care for me except for that, and,” added Jeff humbly, “it's quite
natural.”
“I didn't say she did,” returned Aunt Sally viciously; “but seeing ez
you've got an empty house yer on yer hands, and me a-slavin' here on
jist nothin', if this gal, for the sake o' gallivantin' with ye for a
spell, chooses to stay here and keep her family here, and pay high
for it, I don't see why it ain't yer duty to Providence and me to take
advantage of it.”
Jeff raised his eyes to his aunt's face. For the first time it struck
him that she might be his father's sister and yet have no blood in her
veins that answered to his. There are few shocks more startling and
overpowering to original natures than this sudden sense of loneliness.
Jeff could not speak, but remained looking fiercely at her.
Aunt Sally misinterpreted his silence, and returned to her work on the
pies. “The gal ain't no fool,” she continued, rolling out the crust as
if she were laying down broad propositions. “SHE reckons on it too, ez
if it was charged in the bill with the board and lodging. Why, didn't
she say to me, last night, that she kalkilated afore she went away to
bring up some friends from 'Frisco for a few days' visit? and didn't she
say, in that pipin', affected voice o' hers, 'I oughter make some return
for yer kindness and yer nephew's kindness, Aunt Sally, by showing
people that can help you, and keep your house full, how pleasant it is
up here.' She ain't no fool, with all her faintin's and dyin's away! No,
Jeff Briggs. And if she wants to show ye off agin them city fellows ez
she knows, and ye ain't got spunk enough to stand up and show off with
her--why”--she turned her head impatiently, but he was gone.
If Jeff had ever wavered in his resolution he would have been steady
enough NOW. But he had never wavered; the convictions and resolutions of
suddenly awakened character are seldom moved by expediency. He was
eager to taste the bitter dregs of his cup at once. He began to pack his
trunk, and make his preparations for departure. Without avoiding Miss
Mayfield in this new excitement, he no longer felt the need of her
presence. He had satisfied his feverish anxieties by placing his trunk
in the hall beside his open door, and was sitting on his bed, wrestling
with a faded and overtasked carpet-bag that would not close and accept
his hard conditions, when a small voice from the staircase thrilled
him. He walked to the corridor, and, looking down, beheld Miss Mayfield
midway on the steps of the staircase.
She had never looked so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her in
those soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalid
femininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her present
walking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment.
There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the result
of climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulse
that had led her--a modest virgin--to seek a gentleman in this personal
fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm,
recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave or
a worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts her
charming little foot just over the threshold of Propriety.
“The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed must come to the
mountain,” said Miss Mayfield. “Mother is asleep, Aunt Sally is at work
in the kitchen, and here am I, already dressed for a ramble in this
bright afternoon sunshine, and no one to go with me. But, perhaps, you,
too, are busy?”
“No, miss. I will be with you in a moment.”
I wish I could say that he went back to calm his pulses, which the
dangerous music of Miss Mayfield's voice had set to throbbing, by a
few moments' calm and dispassionate reflection. But he only returned to
brush his curls out of his eyes and ears, and to button over his blue
flannel shirt a white linen collar, which he thought might better
harmonize with Miss Mayfield's attire.
She was sitting on the staircase, poking her parasol through the
balusters. “You need not have taken that trouble, Mr. Jeff,” she said
pleasantly. “YOU are a part of this mountain picture at all times; but I
am obliged to think of dress.”
“It was no trouble, miss.”
Something in the tone of his voice made her look in his face as she
rose. It was a trifle paler, and a little older. The result, doubtless,
thought Miss Mayfield, of his yesterday's experience with the
deputy-sheriff.
Such was her rapid deduction. Nevertheless, after the fashion of her
sex, she immediately began to argue from quite another hypothesis.
“You are angry with me, Mr. Jeff.”
“What, I--Miss Mayfield?”
“Yes, you!”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“Oh yes, you are. Don't deny it?”
“Upon my soul--”
“Yes! You give me punishments and--penances!”
Jeff opened his blue eyes on his tormentor. Could Aunt Sally have been
saying anything?
“If anybody, Miss Mayfield--” he began.
“Nobody but you. Look here!”
She extended her little hand with a smile. In the centre of her palm lay
four shining double B SHOT.
“There! I found those in my slipper this morning!” Jeff was speechless.
“Of course YOU did it! Of course it was YOU who found my slipper!” said
Miss Mayfield, laughing. “But why did you put shot in it, Mr. Jeff? In
some Catholic countries, when people have done wrong, the priests make
them do penance by walking with peas in their shoes! What have I ever
done to you? And why SHOT? They're ever so much harder than peas.”
Seeing only the mischievous, laughing face before him, and the open palm
containing the damning evidence of the broken Eley's cartridge, Jeff
stammered out the truth.
“I found the slipper in the bear-skin, Miss Mayfield. I put it in my
trunk to keep, thinking yer wouldn't miss it, and it's being a kind
of remembrance after you're gone away--of--of the night you came here.
Somebody moved the trunk in my room,” and he hung his head here. “The
things inside all got mixed up.”
“And that made you change your mind about keeping it?” said Miss
Mayfield, still smiling.
“No, miss.”
“What was it, then?”
“I gave it back to you, Miss Mayfield, because I was going away.”
“Indeed! Where?”
“I'm going to find another location. Maybe you've noticed,” he
continued, falling back into his old apologetic manner in spite of his
pride of resolution--“maybe you've noticed that this place here has no
advantages for a hotel.”
“I had not, indeed. I have been very comfortable.”
“Thank you, miss.”
“When do you go?”
“To-night.”
For all his pride and fixed purpose he could not help looking eagerly in
her face. Miss Mayfield's eyes met his pleasantly and quietly.
“I'm sorry to part with you so soon,” she said, as she stepped back a
pace or two with folded hands. “Of course every moment of your time now
is occupied. You must not think of wasting it on me.”
But Jeff had recovered his sad composure. “I'd like to go with you, Miss
Mayfield. It's the last time, you know,” he added simply.
Miss Mayfield did not reply. It was a tacit assent, however, although
she moved somewhat stiffly at his side as they walked towards the door.
Quite convinced that Jeff's resolution came from his pecuniary troubles,
Miss Mayfield was wondering if she had not better assure him of his
security from further annoyance from Dodd. Wonderful complexity of
female intellect! she was a little hurt at his ingratitude to her for
a kindness he could not possibly have known. Miss Mayfield felt that
in some way she was unjustly treated. How many of our miserable sex,
incapable of divination, have been crushed under that unreasonable
feminine reproof, “You ought to have known!”
The afternoon sun was indeed shining brightly as they stepped out before
the bleak angle of the “Half-way House”; but it failed to mitigate the
habitually practical austerity of the mountain breeze--a fact which Miss
Mayfield had never before noticed. The house was certainly bleak and
exposed; the site by no means a poetical one. She wondered if she had
not put a romance into it, and perhaps even into the man beside her,
which did not belong to either. It was a moment of dangerous doubt.
“I don't know but that you're right, Mr. Jeff,” she said finally, as
they faced the hill, and began the ascent together. “This place is a
little queer, and bleak, and--unattractive.”
“Yes, miss,” said Jeff, with direct simplicity, “I've always wondered
what you saw in it to make you content to stay, when it would be so much
prettier, and more suitable for you at the 'Summit.'”
Miss Mayfield bit her lip, and was silent. After a few moments' climbing
she said, almost pettishly, “Where is this famous 'Summit'?”
Jeff stopped. They had reached the top of the hill. He pointed across
an olive-green chasm to a higher level, where, basking in the declining
sun, clustered the long rambling outbuildings around the white blinking
facade of the “Summit House.” Framed in pines and hemlocks, tender with
soft gray shadows, and nestling beyond a foreground of cultivated slope,
it was a charming rustic picture.
Miss Mayfield's quick eye took in its details. Her quick intellect
took in something else. She had seated herself on the road-bank, and,
clasping her knees between her locked fingers, she suddenly looked up
at Jeff. “What possessed you to come half-way up a mountain, instead of
going on to the top?”
“Poverty, miss!”
Miss Mayfield flushed a little at this practical direct answer to
her half-figurative question. However, she began to think that moral
Alpine-climbing youth might have pecuniary restrictions in their high
ambitions, and that the hero of “Excelsior” might have succumbed to
more powerful opposition than the wisdom of Age or the blandishments of
Beauty.
“You mean that poverty up there is more expensive?”
“Yes, miss.”
“But you would like to live there?”
“Yes.”
They were both silent. Miss Mayfield glanced at Jeff under the corners
of her lashes. He was leaning against a tree, absorbed in thought.
Accustomed to look upon him as a pleasing picturesque object, quite
fresh, original, and characteristic, she was somewhat disturbed to find
that to-day he presented certain other qualities which clearly did not
agree with her preconceived ideas of his condition. He had abandoned
his usual large top-boots for low shoes, and she could not help noticing
that his feet were small and slender as were his hands, albeit browned
by exposure. His ruddy color was gone too, and his face, pale with
sorrow and experience, had a new expression. His buttoned-up coat and
white collar, so unlike his usual self, also had its suggestions--which
Miss Mayfield was at first inclined to resent. Women are quick to notice
and augur more or less wisely from these small details. Nevertheless,
she began in quite another tone.
“Do you remember your mother--MR.--MR.--BRIGGS?”
Jeff noticed the new epithet. “No, miss; she died when I was quite
young.”
“Your father, then?”
Jeff's eye kindled a little, aggressively. “I remember HIM.”
“What was he?”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“What was his business or profession?”
“He--hadn't--any!”
“Oh, I see--a gentleman of property.”
Jeff hesitated, looked at Miss Mayfield hurriedly, colored, and did not
reply.
“And lost his property, Mr. Briggs?” With one of those rare impulses of
an overtasked gentle nature, Jeff turned upon her almost savagely. “My
father was a gambler, and shot himself at a gambling table.”
Miss Mayfield rose hurriedly. “I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Jeff.”
Jeff was silent.
“You know--you MUST know--I did not mean--”
No reply.
“Mr. Jeff!”
Her little hand fluttered toward him, and lit upon his sleeve, where it
was suddenly captured and pressed passionately to his lips.
“I did not mean to be thoughtless or unkind,” said Miss Mayfield,
discreetly keeping to the point, and trying weakly to disengage her
hand. “You know I wouldn't hurt your feelings.”
“I know, Miss Mayfield.” (Another kiss.)
“I was ignorant of your history.”
“Yes, miss.” (A kiss.)
“And if I could do anything for you, Mr. Jeff--” She stopped.
It was a very trying position. Being small, she was drawn after her hand
quite up to Jeff's shoulder, while he, assenting in monosyllables, was
parting the fingers, and kissing them separately. Reasonable discourse
in this attitude was out of the question. She had recourse to strategy.
“Oh!”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“You hurt my hand.”
Jeff dropped it instantly. Miss Mayfield put it in the pocket of her
sacque for security. Besides, it had been so bekissed that it seemed
unpleasantly conscious.
“I wish you would tell me all about yourself,” she went on, with a
certain charming feminine submission of manner quite unlike her ordinary
speech; “I should like to help you. Perhaps I can. You know I am quite
independent; I mean--”
She paused, for Jeff's face betrayed no signs of sympathetic following.
“I mean I am what people call rich in my own right. I can do as I please
with my own. If any of your trouble, Mr. Jeff, arises from want of
money, or capital; if any consideration of that kind takes you away from
your home; if I could save you THAT TROUBLE, and find for you--perhaps a
little nearer--that which you are seeking, I would be so glad to do
it. You will find the world very wide, and very cold, Mr. Jeff,” she
continued, with a certain air of practical superiority quite natural
to her, but explicable to her friends and acquaintances only as the
consciousness of pecuniary independence; “and I wish you would be frank
with me. Although I am a woman, I know something of business.”
“I will be frank with you, miss,” said Jeff, turning a colorless face
upon her. “If you was ez rich as the Bank of California, and could throw
your money on any fancy or whim that struck you at the moment; if you
felt you could buy up any man and woman in California that was willing
to be bought up; and if me and my aunt were starving in the road, we
wouldn't touch the money that we hadn't earned fairly, and didn't belong
to us. No, miss, I ain't that sort o' man!”
How much of this speech, in its brusqueness and slang, was an echo
of Yuba Bill's teaching, how much of it was a part of Jeff's inward
weakness, I cannot say. He saw Miss Mayfield recoil from him. It added
to his bitterness that his thought, for the first time voiced, appeared
to him by no means as effective or powerful as he had imagined it would
be, but he could not recede from it; and there was the relief that the
worst had come, and was over now.
Miss Mayfield took her hand out of her pocket. “I don't think you
quite understand me, Mr. Jeff,” she said quietly; “and I HOPE I don't
understand you.” She walked stiffly at his side for a few moments, but
finally took the other side of the road. They had both turned, half
unconsciously, back again to the “Half-way House.”
Jeff felt, like all quarrel-seekers, righteous or unrighteous, the full
burden of the fight. If he could have relieved his mind, and at the
next moment leaped upon Yuba Bill's coach, and so passed away--without a
further word of explanation--all would have been well. But to walk back
with this girl, whom he had just shaken off, and who must now thoroughly
hate him, was something he had not preconceived, in that delightful
forecast of the imagination, when we determine what WE shall say and
do without the least consideration of what may be said or done to us in
return. No quarrel proceeds exactly as we expect; people have such a
way of behaving illogically! And here was Miss Mayfield, who was clearly
derelict, and who should have acted under that conviction, walking along
on the other side of the road, trailing the splendor of her parasol in
the dust like an offended goddess.
They had almost reached the house. “At what time do you go, Mr. Briggs?”
asked the young lady quietly.
“At eleven to-night, by the up stage.”
“I expect some friends by that stage--coming with my father.”
“My aunt will take good care of them,” said Jeff, a little bitterly.
“I have no doubt,” responded Miss Mayfield gravely; “but I was not
thinking of that. I had hoped to introduce them to you to-morrow. But
I shall not be up so late to-night. And I had better say good-by to you
now.”
She extended the unkissed hand. Jeff took it, but presently let the limp
fingers fall through his own.
“I wish you good fortune, Mr. Briggs.”
She made a grave little bow, and vanished into the house. But here,
I regret to say, her lady-like calm also vanished. She upbraided her
mother peevishly for obliging her to seek the escort of Mr. Briggs in
her necessary exercise, and flung herself with an injured air upon the
sofa.
“But I thought you liked this Mr. Briggs. He seems an accommodating sort
of person.”
“Very accommodating. Going away just as we are expecting company!”
“Going away?” said Mrs. Mayfield in alarm. “Surely he must be told that
we expect some preparation for our friends?”
“Oh,” said Miss Mayfield quickly, “his aunt will arrange THAT.”
Mrs. Mayfield, habitually mystified at her daughter's moods, said
no more. She, however, fulfilled her duty conscientiously by rising,
throwing a wrap over the young girl, tucking it in at her feet, and
having, as it were, drawn a charitable veil over her peculiarities, left
her alone.
At half past ten the coach dashed up to the “Half-way House,” with a
flash of lights and a burst of cheery voices. Jeff, coming upon
the porch, was met by Mr. Mayfield, accompanying a lady and two
gentlemen,--evidently the guests alluded to by his daughter. Accustomed
as Jeff had become to Mr. Mayfield's patronizing superiority, it seemed
unbearable now, and the easy indifference of the guests to his own
presence touched him with a new bitterness. Here were HER friends, who
were to take his place. It was a relief to grasp Yuba Bill's large hand
and stand with him alone beside the bar.
“I'm ready to go with you to-night, Bill,” said Jeff, after a pause.
Bill put down his glass--a sign of absorbing interest.
“And these yar strangers I fetched?”
“Aunty will take care of them. I've fixed everything.”
Bill laid both his powerful hands on Jeff's shoulders, backed him
against the wall, and surveyed him with great gravity.
“Briggs's son clar through! A little off color, but the grit all thar!
Bully for you, Jeff.” He wrung Jeff's hand between his own.
“Bill!” said Jeff hesitatingly.
“Jeff!”
“You wouldn't mind my getting up on the box NOW, before all the folks
get round?”
“I reckon not. Thar's the box-seat all ready for ye.”
Climbing to his high perch, Jeff, indistinguishable in the darkness,
looked out upon the porch and the moving figures of the passengers, on
Bill growling out his orders to his active hostler, and on the twinkling
lights of the hotel windows. In the mystery of the night and the
bitterness of his heart, everything looked strange. There was a light in
Miss Mayfield's room, but the curtains were drawn. Once he thought they
moved, but then, fearful of the fascination of watching them, he turned
his face resolutely away.
Then, to his relief, the hour came; the passengers re-entered the coach;
Bill had mounted the box, and was slowly gathering his reins, when a
shrill voice rose from the porch.
“Oh, Jeff!”
Jeff leaned an anxious face out over the coach lamps.
It was Aunt Sally, breathless and on tiptoe, reaching with a letter.
“Suthin' you forgot!” Then, in a hoarse stage whisper, perfectly audible
to every one: “From HER!”
Jeff seized the letter with a burning face. The whip snapped, and the
stage plunged forward into the darkness. Presently Yuba Bill reached
down, coolly detached one of the coach lamps, and handed it to Jeff
without a word.
Jeff tore open the envelope. It contained Cyrus Parker's bill receipted,
and the writ. Another small inclosure contained ten dollars, and a few
lines written in pencil in a large masculine business hand. By the light
of the lamp Jeff read as follows:--
“I hope you will forgive me for having tried to help you even in this
accidental way, before I knew how strong were your objections to help
from me. Nobody knows this but myself. Even Mr. Dodd thinks my father
advanced the money. The ten dollars the rascal would have kept, but I
made him disgorge it. I did it all while you were looking for the letter
in the woods. Pray forget all about it, and any pain you may have had
from J. M.”
Frank and practical as this letter appeared to be, and, doubtless, as
it was intended to be by its writer, the reader will not fail to notice
that Miss Mayfield said nothing of having overheard Jeff's quarrel with
the deputy, and left him to infer that that functionary had betrayed
him. It was simply one of those unpleasant details not affecting the
result, usually overlooked in feminine ethics.
For a moment Jeff sat pale and dumb, crushed under the ruins of his
pride and self-love. For a moment he hated Miss Mayfield, small and
triumphant! How she must have inwardly laughed at his speech that
morning! With what refined cruelty she had saved this evidence of his
humiliation, to work her vengeance on him now. He could not stand it!
He could not live under it! He would go back and sell the house--his
clothes--everything--to pay this wicked, heartless, cruel girl, that was
killing--yes, killing--
A strong hand took the swinging-lantern from his unsteady fingers, a
strong hand possessed itself of the papers and Miss Mayfield's note, a
strong arm was drawn around him,--for his figure was swaying to and fro,
his head was giddy, and his hat had fallen off,--and a strong voice,
albeit a little husky, whispered in his ear,--
“Easy, boy! easy on the down grade. It'll be all one in a minit.”
Jeff tried to comprehend him, but his brain was whirling.
“Pull yourself together, Jeff!” said Bill, after a pause. “Thar! Look
yar!” he said suddenly. “Do you think you can drive SIX?”
The words recalled Jeff to his senses. Bill laid the six reins in his
hands. A sense of life, of activity, of POWER, came back to the young
man, as his fingers closed deliciously on the far-reaching, thrilling,
living leathern sinews that controlled the six horses, and seemed to
be instinct and magnetic with their bounding life. Jeff, leaning back
against them, felt the strong youthful tide rush back to his heart, and
was himself again. Bill, meantime, took the lamp, examined the papers,
and read Miss Mayfield's note. A grim smile stole over his face. After
a pause, he said again, “Give Blue Grass her head, Jeff. D--n it, she
ain't Miss Mayfield!”
Jeff relaxed the muscles of his wrists, so as to throw the thumb and
forefingers a trifle forward. This simple action relieved Blue Grass,
alias Miss Mayfield, and made the coach steadier and less jerky.
Wonderful co-relation of forces.
“Thar!” said Yuba Bill, quietly putting the coach lamp back in its
place; “you're better already. Thar's nothing like six horses to draw a
woman out of a man. I've knowed a case where it took eight mustangs, but
it was a mulatter from New Orleans, and they are pizen! Ye might hit
up a little on the Pinto hoss--he ain't harmin' ye. So! Now, Jeff, take
your time, and take it easy, and what's all this yer about?”
To control six fiery mustangs, and at the same time give picturesque and
affecting exposition of the subtle struggles of Love and Pride, was a
performance beyond Jeff's powers. He had recourse to an angry staccato,
which somehow seemed to him as ineffective as his previous discourse
to Miss Mayfield; he was a little incoherent, and perhaps mixed his
impressions with his facts, but he nevertheless managed to convey to
Bill some general idea of the events of the past three days.
“And she sent ye off after that letter, that wasn't thar, while she
fixed things up with Dodd?”
“Yes,” said Jeff furiously.
“Ye needn't bully the Pinto colt, Jeff; he is doin' his level best. And
she snaked that ar ten dollars outer Dodd?”
“Yes; and sent it back to ME. To ME, Bill! At such a time as this! As if
I was dead broke!--a mere tramp. As if--”
“In course! in course!” said Bill soothingly, yet turning his head aside
to bestow a deceitful smile upon the trees that whirled beside them.
“And ye told her ye didn't want her money?”
“Yes, Bill--but it--it--it was AFTER she had done this!”
“Surely! I'll take the lines now, Jeff.”
He took them. Jeff relapsed into gloomy silence. The starlight of that
dewless Sierran night was bright and cold and passionless. There was no
moon to lead the fancy astray with its faint mysteries and suggestions;
nothing but a clear, grayish-blue twilight, with sharply silhouetted
shadows, pointed here and there with bright large-spaced constant stars.
The deep breath of the pine-woods, the faint, cool resinous spices of
bay and laurel, at last brought surcease to his wounded spirit. The
blessed weariness of exhausted youth stole tenderly on him. His head
nodded, dropped. Yuba Bill, with a grim smile, drew him to his side,
enveloped him in his blanket, and felt his head at last sink upon his
own broad shoulder.
A few minutes later the coach drew up at the “Summit House.” Yuba Bill
did not dismount, an unusual and disturbing circumstance that brought
the bar-keeper to the veranda.
“What's up, old man?”
“I am.”
“Sworn off your reg'lar pizen?”
“My physician,” said Bill gravely, “hez ordered me dry champagne every
three hours.”
Nevertheless, the bar-keeper lingered.
“Who's that you're dry-nussin' up there?”
I regret that I may not give Yuba Bill's literal reply. It suggested a
form of inquiry at once distant, indirect, outrageous, and impossible.
The bar-keeper flashed a lantern upon Jeff's curls and his drooping
eyelashes and mustaches.
“It's that son o' Briggs o' Tuolumne--pooty boy, ain't he?”
Bill disdained a reply.
“Played himself out down there, I reckon. Left his rifle here in pawn.”
“Young man,” said Bill gravely.
“Old man.”
“Ef you're looking for a safe investment ez will pay ye better than
forty-rod whiskey at two bits a glass, jist you hang onter that ar
rifle. It may make your fortin yet, or save ye from a drunkard's grave.”
With this ungracious pleasantry he hurried his dilatory passengers
back into the coach, cracked his whip, and was again upon the road. The
lights of the “Summit House” presently dropped here and there into the
wasting shadows of the trees. Another stretch through the close-set
ranks of pines, another dash through the opening, another whirl and
rattle by overhanging rocks, and the vehicle was swiftly descending.
Bill put his foot on the brake, threw his reins loosely on the necks of
his cattle, and looked leisurely back. The great mountain was slowly and
steadily rising between them and the valley they quitted.
And at that same moment Miss Mayfield had crept from her bed, and, with
a shawl around her pretty little figure, was pressing her eyes against a
blank window of the “Half-way House,” and wondering where HE was now.