Clytie turned red and white by turns, and her eyes filled with tears.

This denouement to her dreams was utterly unexpected. While a girl of

stronger character and active intelligence would have employed the time

in digesting plans of future retaliation and revenge, Clytie’s dull

brain and placid nature were utterly perplexed and shaken.

“Dear me!” said Clytie to herself, as she started home, “if he don’t

love me, why don’t he say so?”

The master, or Mr. Gray, as we may now call him as he draws near the

close of his professional career, took the old trail through the

forest, which led to M’liss’s former hiding-place. He walked on briskly,

revolving in his mind the feasibility of leaving Smith’s Pocket. The

late disaster, which would affect the prosperity of the settlement for

some time to come, offered an excuse to him to give up his situation.

On searching his pockets he found his present capital to amount to ten

dollars. This increased by forty dollars, due him from the trustees,

would make fifty dollars; deduct thirty dollars for liabilities, and he

would have twenty dollars left to begin the world anew. Youth and

hope added an indefinite number of ciphers to the right hand of these

figures, and in this sanguine mood our young Alnaschar walked on until

he had reached the old pine throne in the bank of the forest. M’liss was

not there. He sat down on the trunk of the tree, and for a few moments

gave himself up to the associations it suggested. What would become of

M’liss after he was gone? But he quickly dropped the subject as one too

visionary and sentimental for his then fiercely practical consideration,

and, to prevent the recurrence of such distracting fancies, began to

retrace his steps toward the settlement. At the edge of the woods, at a

point where the trail forked toward the old site of Smith’s Pocket, he

saw M’liss coming toward him. Her ordinary pace on such occasions was

a kind of Indian trot; to his surprise she was walking slowly, with her

apron thrown over her head,—an indication of meditation with M’liss

and the usual way in which she excluded the outer world in studying her

lessons. When she was within a few feet of him he called her by name.

She started as she recognized him. There was a shade of seriousness

in her dark eyes, and the hand that took his was listless and totally

unlike her old frank, energetic grasp.

“You look worried, M’liss,” said Mr. Gray soothingly, as the old

sentimental feeling crept over his heart. “What’s the matter now?”

M’liss replied by seating herself on the bank beside the road, and

pointed to a place by her side. Mr. Gray took the proffered seat. M’liss

then, fixing her eyes on some distant part of the view, remained for

some moments in silence. Then, without turning her head or moving her

eyes, she asked:—

“What’s that they call a girl that has money left her?”

“An heiress, M’liss?”

“Yes, an heiress.”

“Well?” said Mr. Gray.

“Well,” said M’liss, without moving her eyes, “I’m one,—I’m a heiress!”

“What’s that, M’liss?” said Mr. Gray laughingly.

M’liss was silent again. Suddenly turning her eyes full upon him, she

said:—

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gray, beginning to be impressed by the child’s manner.

“Listen, then.”

In short quick sentences, M’liss began. How Aristides had several times

hinted of the concealed riches of Smith’s Pocket. How he had last night

repeated the story to her of a strange discovery he had made. How she

remembered to have heard her father often swear that there was money “in

that hole,” if he only had means to work it. How, partly impressed by

this statement and partly from curiosity and pity for the prisoner, she

had visited him in confinement. An account of her interview, the origin

of the fire, her flight with Waters. (_Questions_ by Mr. Gray: What was

your object in assisting this man to escape? _Ans_. They were going to

kill him. _Ques_. Hadn’t he killed McSnagley. _Ans_. Yes, but McSnagley

ought to have been killed long ago.) How she had taken leave of him that

morning. How he had come back again “silly.” How she had dragged him

on toward the Wingdam road, and how he had told her that all the hidden

wealth of Smith’s Pocket had belonged to her father. How she had found

out, from some questions, that he had known her father. But how all his

other answers were “silly.”

“And where is he now?” asked Mr. Gray.

“Gone,” said M’liss. “I left him at the edge of the wood to go back

and get some provisions, and when I returned he was gone. If he had any

senses left, he’s miles away by this time. When he was off I went back

to Smith’s Pocket. I found the hidden opening and saw the gold.”

Mr. Gray looked at her curiously. He had, in his more intimate knowledge

of her character, noticed the unconcern with which she spoke of the

circumstances of her father’s death and the total lack of any sentiment

of filial regard. The idea that this man whom she had aided in escaping

had ever done her injury had not apparently entered her mind, nor did

Mr. Gray think it necessary to hint the deeper suspicion he had gathered

from Dr. Duchesne that Waters had murdered her father. If the story

of the concealed treasures of Smith’s Pocket were exaggerated he could

easily satisfy himself on that point. M’liss met his suggestion to

return to the Pocket with alacrity, and the two started away in that

direction.

It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Gray returned. His heightened

color and eager inquiry for Dr. Duchesne provoked the usual hope from

the people that he met “that it was nothing serious.” No, nothing was

the matter, the master answered with a slight laugh, but would they send

the doctor to his schoolhouse when he returned? “That young chap’s worse

than he thinks,” was one sympathizing suggestion; “this kind of life’s

too rough for his sort.”

To while away the interim, Mr. Gray stopped on his way to the

schoolhouse at the stage office as the Wingdam stage drew up and

disgorged its passengers. He was listlessly watching the passengers as

they descended when a soft voice from the window addressed him, “May I

trouble you for your arm as I get down?” Mr. Gray looked up. It was a

singular request, as the driver was at that moment standing by the door,

apparently for that purpose. But the request came from a handsome woman,

and with a bow the young man stepped to the door. The lady laid her hand

lightly on his arm, sprang from the stage with a dexterity that showed

the service to have been merely ceremonious, thanked him with an

elaboration of acknowledgment which seemed equally gratuitous, and

disappeared in the office.

“That’s what I call a dead set,” said the driver, drawing a long breath,

as he turned to Mr. Gray, who stood in some embarrassment. “Do you know

her?”

“No,” said Mr. Gray laughingly, “do you?”

“Nary time! But take care of yourself, young man; she’s after you,

sure!”

But Mr. Gray was continuing his walk to the schoolhouse, unmindful of

the caution. For the momentary glimpse he had caught of this woman’s

face, she appeared to be about thirty. Her dress, though tasteful and

elegant, in the present condition of California society afforded no

criterion of her social status. But the figure of Dr. Duchesne waiting

for him at the schoolhouse door just then usurped the place of all

others, and she dropped out of his mind.

“Now then,” said the doctor, as the young man grasped his hand, “you

want me to tell you why your eyes are bloodshot, why your cheeks burn,

and your hand is dry and hot?”

“Not exactly! Perhaps you’ll understand the symptoms better when you’ve

heard my story. Sit down here and listen.”

The doctor took the proffered seat on top of a desk, and Mr. Gray,

after assuring himself that they were entirely alone, related the

circumstances he had gathered from M’liss that morning.

“You see, doctor, how unjust were your surmises in regard to this girl,”

continued Mr. Gray. “But let that pass now. At the conclusion of her

story, I offered to go with her to this Ali Baba cave. It was no easy

job finding the concealed entrance, but I found it at last, and ample

corroboration of every item of this wild story. The pocket is rich with

the most valuable ore. It has evidently been worked for some time since

the discovery was made, but there is still a fortune in its walls, and

several thousand dollars of ore sacked up in its galleries. Look at

that!” continued Mr. Gray, as he drew an oblong mass of quartz and metal

from his pocket. “Think of a secret of this kind having been intrusted

for three weeks to a penniless orphan girl of twelve and an eccentric

schoolboy of ten, and undivulged except when a proper occasion offered.”

Dr. Duchesne smiled. “And Waters is really clear?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gray.

“And M’liss assisted him to escape?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you are an innocent one! And you see nothing in this but an act

of thoughtless generosity? No assisting of an old accomplice to escape?”

“I see nothing but truth in her statement,” returned Mr. Gray stoutly.

“If there has been any wrong committed, I believe her to be innocent of

its knowledge.”

“Well, I’m glad at least the money goes to her and not to him. But how

are you to establish her right to this property?”

“That was my object in conferring with you. At present the claim is

abandoned. I have taken up the ground in my own name (for her), and this

afternoon I posted up the usual notice.”

“Go on. You are not so much of a fool, after all.”

“Thank you! This will hold until a better claim is established. Now, if

Smith had discovered this lead, and was, as the lawyers say, ‘seized and

possessed’ of it at the time of his death, M’liss, of course, as next of

kin, inherits it.”

“But how can this be proved? It is the general belief that Smith

committed suicide through extreme poverty and destitution.”

Mr. Gray drew a letter from his pocket.

“You remember the memorandum I showed you, which came into my

possession. Here it is; it is dated the day of his death.”

Dr. Duchesne took it and read:—

“July 17th. Five hours in drift—dipping west. Took out 20 oz.—cleaned

up 40 oz.—Mem. Saw M. S.”

“This evidently refers to actual labor in the mine at the time,” said

Dr. Duchesne. “But is it legally sufficient to support a claim of this

magnitude? That is the only question now. You say this paper was the

leaf of an old memorandum, torn off and used for a letter by M’liss; do

you know where the orignal book can be found?”

“Aristides has it, or knows where it is,” answered Mr. Gray.

“Find it by all means. And get legal advice before you do anything.

Go this very evening to Judge Plunkett and state your case to him. The

promise of a handsome contingent fee won’t hurt M’liss’s prospects any.

Remember, our ideas of abstract justice and the letter of the law in

this case may be entirely different. Take Judge Plunkett your proofs;

that is,” said the Doctor, stopping and eying his friend keenly,

“if you have no fears for M’liss if this matter should be thoroughly

ventilated.”

Mr. Gray did not falter.

“I go at once,” said he gayly, “if only to prove the child’s claim to a

good name if we fail in getting her property.”

The two men left the schoolhouse together. As they reached the main

street, the doctor paused:—

“You are still determined?”

“I am,” responded the young man.

“Good-night, and God speed you, then,” and the doctor left him.

The fire had been particularly severe on the legal fraternity in the

settlement, and Judge Plunkett’s office, together with those of his

learned brethren, had been consumed with the courthouse on the previous

night. The judge’s house was on the outskirts of the village, and

thither Mr. Gray proceeded. The judge was at home, but engaged at that

moment. Mr. Gray would wait, and was ushered into a small room evidently

used as a kitchen, but just then littered with law books, bundles

of papers, and blanks that had been hastily rescued from the burning

building. The sideboard groaned with the weight of several volumes of

New York Reports, that seemed to impart a dusty flavor to the adjoining

victual. Mr. Gray picked up a volume of supreme court decisions from the

coal-scuttle, and was deep in an interesting case, when the door of the

adjoining room opened and Judge Plunkett appeared.

He was an oily man of about fifty, with spectacles. He was glad to see

the schoolmaster. He hoped he was not suffering from the excitement

of the previous evening. For his part, the spectacle of sober citizens

rising in a body to vindicate the insulted majesty of the laws of

society, and of man, had always something sublime in it. And the

murderer had really got away after all. And it was a narrow escape the

schoolmaster had, too, at Smith’s Pocket.

Mr. Gray took advantage of the digression to state his business. He

briefly recounted the circumstances of the discovery of the hidden

wealth of Smith’s Pocket, and exhibited the memorandum he had shown the

doctor. When he had concluded, Judge Plunkett looked at him over his

spectacles, and rubbed his hands with satisfaction.

“You apprehend,” said the judge eagerly, “that you will have no

difficulty in procuring this book from which the leaf was originally

torn?”

“None,” replied Mr. Gray.

“Then, sir, I should give as my professional opinion that the case was

already won.”

Mr. Gray shook the hand of the little man with great fervor, and thanked

him for his belief. “And so this property will go entirely to M’liss?”

he asked again.

“Well—ah—no—not exactly,” said Judge Plunkett, with some caution.

“She will benefit by it undoubtedly—undoubtedly,” and he rubbed his

hands again.

“Why not M’liss alone? There are no other claimants!” said Mr. Gray.

“I beg your pardon—you mistake,” said Judge Plunkett, with a smile.

“You surely would not leave out the widow and mother?”

“Why, M’liss is an orphan,” said Mr. Gray in utter bewilderment.

“A sad mistake, sir,—a painful though natural mistake. Mr. Smith,

though separated from his wife, was never divorced. A very affecting

history—the old story, you know—an injured and loving woman deserted

by her natural protector, but disdaining to avail herself of our

legal aid. By a singular coincidence that I should have told you, I am

anticipating you in this very case. Your services, however, I feel will

be invaluable. Your concern for her amiable and interesting daughter

Narcissa—ah, no, Melissa—will, of course, make you with us. You have

never seen Mrs. Smith? A fine-looking, noble woman, sir,—though still

disconsolate,—still thinking of the departed one. By another singular

coincidence that I should have told you, she is here now. You shall

see her, sir. Pray, let me introduce you;” and still rubbing his hands,

Judge Plunkett led the way to the adjoining room.

Mr. Gray followed him mechanically. A handsome woman rose from the sofa

as they entered. It was the woman he assisted to alight from the Wingdam

stage.

CHAPTER X

THE RED ROCK

In the strong light that fell upon her face, Mr. Gray had an opportunity

to examine her features more closely. Her eyes, which were dark and

singularly brilliant, were half closed, either from some peculiar

conformation of the lids, or an habitual effort to conceal expression.

Her skin was colorless with that satin-like lustre that belongs to some

brunettes, relieved by one or two freckles that were scarcely blemishes.

Her face was squared a little at the lower angles, but the chin was

round and soft, and the curves about the mouth were full and tender

enough to destroy the impression left by contemplation of those rigid

outlines. The effect of its general contour was that of a handsome woman

of thirty. In detail, as the eye dwelt upon any particular feature, you

could have added a margin of ten years either way.

“Mrs. Smith—Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer briskly. “Mr. Gray is the

gentleman who, since the decease of your husband, has taken such a

benevolent interest in our playful Narcissa—Melissa, I should say.

He is the preceptor of our district school, and beside his relation as

teacher to your daughter has, I may say in our legal fashion, stood _in

loco parentis_—in other words, has been a parent, a—a—father to her.”

At the conclusion of this speech Mrs. Smith darted a quick glance at Mr.

Gray, which was unintelligible to any but a woman. As there were none of

her own keen-witted sex present to make an ungracious interpretation of

it, it passed unnoticed, except the slight embarrassment and confusion

it caused the young man from its apparent gratuity.

“We have met before, I believe,” said Mrs. Smith, with her bright eyes

half hid and her white teeth half disclosed. “I can easily imagine Mr.

Gray’s devotion to a friend from his courtesy to a stranger. Let me

thank you again for both my daughter and myself.”

In the desperate hope of saying something natural, Mr. Gray asked if she

had seen Melissa yet.

“Oh, dear, no! Think how provoking! Judge Plunkett says it is absolutely

impossible till some tiresome formalities are over. There are so many

stupid forms to go through with first. But how is she? You have seen

her, have you not? you will see her again to-night, perhaps? How I long

to embrace her again! She was a mere baby when she left me. Tell her how

I long to fly to her.”

Her impassioned utterance and the dramatic gestures that accompanied

these words afforded a singular contrast to the cool way with which she

rearranged the folds of her dress when she had finished, folding her

hands over her lap and settling herself unmistakably back again on the

sofa. Perhaps it was this that made Mr. Gray think she had, at some

time, been an actress. But the next moment he caught her eye again and

felt pleased,—and again vexed with himself for being so,—and in

this mental condition began to speak in favor of his old pupil. His

embarrassment passed away as he warmed with his subject, dwelling at

length on M’liss’s better qualities, and did not return until in a

breathless pause he became aware that this woman’s bright eyes were bent

upon him. The color rose in his cheek, and with a half-muttered apology

for his prolixity he offered his excuses to retire.

“Stay a moment, Mr. Gray,” said the lawyer. “You are going to town, and

will not think it a trouble to see Mrs. Smith safely back to her

hotel. You can talk these things over with our fair friend on the way.

To-morrow, at ten, I trust to see you both again.”

“Perhaps I am taxing Mr. Gray’s gallantry too much,” interposed the lady

with a very vivid disclosure of eyes and teeth. “Mr. Gray would be

only too happy.” After he had uttered this civility, there was a slight

consciousness of truth about it that embarrassed him again. But Mrs.

Smith took his proffered arm, and they bade the lawyer good-night and

passed out in the starlit night together.

* * * * *

Four weeks have elapsed since the advent of Mrs. Smith to the

settlement,—four weeks that might have been years in any other but a

California mining camp, for the wonderful change that has been wrought

in its physical aspect. Each stage has brought its load of fresh

adventurers; another hotel, which sprang up on the site of the National,

has its new landlord, and a new set of faces about its hospitable board,

where the conventional bean appears daily as a modest vegetable or in

the insincerer form of coffee. The sawmills have been hard at work for

the last month, and huge gaps appear in the circling files of redwood

where the fallen trees are transmuted to a new style of existence in the

damp sappy tenements that have risen over the burnt district. The “great

strike” at Smith’s Pocket has been heralded abroad, and above and below,

and on either side of the crumbling tunnel that bears that name, as

other tunnels are piercing the bowels of the mountain, shafts are being

sunk, and claims are taken up even to the crest of Red Mountain, in the

hope of striking the great Smith lead. Already an animated discussion

has sprung up in the columns of the “Red Mountain Banner” in regard

to the direction of the famous lead,—a discussion assisted by

correspondents who have assumed all the letters of the alphabet in their

anonymous arguments, and have formed the opposing “angle” and “dip”

factions of Smith’s Pocket. But whatever be the direction of the lead,

the progress of the settlement has been steadily onward, with an impetus

gained by the late disaster. That classical but much abused bird, the

Phoenix, has been invoked from its ashes in several editorials in the

“Banner,” to sit as a type of resuscitated Smith’s Pocket, while in

the homelier phrase of an honest miner “it seemed as if the fire kem to

kinder clean out things for a fresh start.”

Meanwhile the quasi-legal administration of the estate of Smith is

drawing near a termination that seems to credit the prophetic assertion

of Judge Plunkett. One fact has been evolved in the process of

examination, viz., that Smith had discovered the new lead before he was

murdered. It was a fair hypothesis that the man who assumed the benefit

of his discovery was the murderer, but as this did not immediately

involve the settlement of the estate it excited little comment or

opposition. The probable murderer had escaped. Judicial investigations

even in the hands of the people had been attended with disastrous public

results, and there was no desire on the part of justice to open the case

and deal with an abstract principle when there was no opportunity of

making an individual example. The circumstances were being speedily

forgotten in the new excitement; even the presence of Mrs. Smith lost

its novelty. The “Banner,” when alluding to her husband, spoke of him as

the “late J. Smith, Esq.,” attributing the present activity of business

as the result of his lifelong example of untiring energy, and generally

laid the foundation of a belief, which thereafter obtained, that he

died comfortably in the bosom of his family, surrounded by disconsolate

friends. The history of all pioneer settlements has this legendary

basis, and M’liss may live to see the day when her father’s connection

with the origin of the settlement shall become apocryphal, and contested

like that of Romulus and Remus and their wolfish wet-nurse.

It is to the everlasting credit and honor of Smith’s Pocket that the

orphan and widow meet no opposition from the speculative community, and

that the claim’s utmost boundaries are liberally rendered. How far

this circumstance may be owing to the rare personal attractions of the

charming widow or to M’liss’s personal popularity, I shall not pretend

to say. It is enough that when the brief of Judge Plunkett’s case

is ready there are clouds of willing witnesses to substantiate and

corroborate doubtful points to an extent that is more creditable to

their generosity than their veracity.

M’liss has seen her mother. Mr. Gray, with his knowledge of his pupil’s

impulsiveness, has been surprised to notice that the new relationship

seems to awaken none of those emotions in the child’s nature that he

confidently looked for. On the occasion of their first meeting, to

which Mr. Gray was admitted, M’liss maintained a guarded shyness totally

different from her usual frank boldness,—a shyness that was the more

remarkable from its contrast with the unrepressed and somewhat dramatic

emotions of Mrs. Smith. Now, under her mother’s protection and care, he

observes another radical change in M’liss’s appearance. She is dressed

more tastefully and neatly—not entirely the result of a mother’s

influence, but apparently the result of some natural instinct now

for the first time indulged, and exhibited in a ribbon or a piece of

jewelry, worn with a certain air of consciousness. There is a more

strict attention to the conventionalities of life; her speech is more

careful and guarded; her walk, literally, more womanly and graceful.

Those things Mr. Gray naturally attributes to the influence of the new

relation, though he cannot help recalling his meeting with M’liss in the

woods, on the morning of the fire, and of dating many of these changes

from thence.

It is a pleasant morning, and Mr. Gray is stirring early. He has been

busied in preparation the night previous, for this is his last day

in Smith’s Pocket. He lingers for some time about the schoolhouse,

gathering up those little trifles which lie about his desk, which have

each a separate history in his experience of Smith’s Pocket, and are

a part of the incrustations of his life. Lastly, a file of the “Red

Mountain Banner,” is taken from the same receptacle and packed away in

his bag. He walks to the door and turns to look back. Has he forgotten

anything? No, nothing. But still he lingers. He wonders who will

take his place at the desk, and for the first time in his pedagogue

experience, perhaps, feels something of an awful responsibility as he

thinks of his past influence over the wretched little beings who used to

tremble at his nod, and whose future, ill or good, he may have helped

to fashion. At last he closes the door, almost tenderly, and walks

thoughtfully down the road. He has to pass the cabin of an Irish miner,

whose little boy is toddling in the ditch, with a pinafore, hands,

and face in a chronic state of untidiness. Mr. Gray seizes him with

an hilarious impulse, and after a number of rapid journeys to Banbury

Cross, in search of an old woman who mounted a mythical white horse, he

kisses the cleanest place on his broad expanse of cheek, presses some

silver into his chubby fist, tells him to be a good boy, and deposits

him in the ditch again. Having in this youthful way atoned for certain

sins of omission a little further back, he proceeds, with a sense of

perfect absolution, on his way to the settlement.

A few hours lie between him and his departure, to be employed in

friendly visits to Mrs. Morpher, Dr. Duchesne, M’liss, and her mother.

The Mountain Ranch is nearest, and thither Mr. Gray goes first. Mrs.

Morpher, over a kneading-trough, with her bare arm whitened with flour,

is genuinely grieved at parting with the master, and, in spite of Mr.

Gray’s earnest remonstrances, insists upon conducting him into the chill

parlor, leaving him there until she shall have attired herself in a

manner becoming to “company.” “I don’t want you to go at all—no more

I don’t,” says Mrs. Morpher, with all sincerity, as she seats herself

finally on the shining horsehair sofa. “The children will miss you. I

don’t believe that any one will do for Risty, Kerg, and Clytie what you

have done. But I suppose you know best what’s best. Young men like to

see the world, and it ain’t expected one so young as you should settle

down yet. That’s what I was telling Clytie this morning. That was just

the way with my John afore he was married. I suppose you’ll see M’liss

and _her_ before you go. They say that she is going to San Francisco

soon. Is it so?”

Mr. Gray understands the personal pronoun to refer to Mrs. Smith, a

title Mrs. Morpher has never granted M’liss’s mother, for whom she

entertains an instinctive dislike. He answers in the affirmative,

however, with the consciousness of uneasiness under the inquiry; and as

the answer does not seem to please Mrs. Morpher, he is constrained to

commend M’liss’s manifest improvement under her mother’s care.

“Well” says Mrs. Morpher, with a significant sigh, “I hope it’s so; but

bless us, where’s Clytie? You mustn’t go without saying ‘good-by’ to

her” and Mrs. Morpher starts away in search of her daughter.

The dining-room door scarcely closes before the bedroom door opens, and

Clytie crosses the parlor softly with something in her hands. “You are

going now?” she says hurriedly.

“Yes.”

“Will you take this?” putting a sealed package into his hand, “and keep

it without opening it until”—

“Until when, Clytie?”

“Until you are married.”

Mr. Gray laughs.

“Promise me,” repeats Clytie.

“But I may expire in the mean time, through sheer curiosity.”

“Promise!” says Clytie gravely.

“I promise, then.”

Mr. Gray receives the package. “Good-by,” says Clytie softly.

Clytie’s rosy cheek is very near Mr. Gray. There is nobody by. He is

going away. It is the last time. He kisses her just before the door

opens again to Mrs. Morpher.

Another shake of hands all around, and Mr. Gray passes out of the

Mountain Ranch forever.

Dr. Duchesne’s office is near at hand; but for some reason, that Mr.

Gray cannot entirely explain to himself, he prefers to go to Mrs.

Smith’s first. The little cottage which they have taken temporarily is

soon reached, and as the young man stands at the door he re-knots the

bow of his cravat, and passes his fingers through his curls,—trifles

that to Dr. Duchesne or any other critical, middle-aged person might

look bad.

M’liss and Mrs. Smith are both at home. They have been waiting for him

so long. Was it that pretty daughter of Mrs. Morpher—the fair young

lady with blond curls,—who caused the detention? Is not Mr. Gray a sly

young fellow for all his seeming frankness? So he must go to-day? He

cannot possibly wait a few days, and go with them? Thus Mrs. Smith,

between her red lips and white teeth, and under her half-closed eyes;

for M’liss stands quietly apart without speaking. Her reserve during the

interview contrasts with the vivacity of her mother as though they had

changed respective places in relationship. Mr. Gray is troubled by this,

and as he rises to go, he takes M’liss’s hand in his.

“Have you nothing to say to me before I go?” he asks.

“Good-by,” answers M’liss.

“Nothing more?”

“That’s enough,” rejoins the child simply.

Mr. Gray bites his lips. “I may never see you again, you know, Melissa,”

he continues.

“You will see us again,” says M’liss quietly, raising her great dark

eyes to his.

The blood mounted to his cheek and crimsoned his forehead. He was

conscious, too, that the mother’s face had taken fire at his own, as she

walked away toward the window.

“Good-by, then,” said Mr. Gray pettishly, as he stooped to kiss her.

M’liss accepted the salute stoically. Mr. Gray took Mrs. Smith’s hand;

her face had resumed its colorless, satin-like sheen.

“M’liss knows the strength of your good will, and makes her calculations

accordingly. I hope she may not be mistaken,” she said, with a languid

tenderness of voice and eye. The young man bent over her outstretched

hand, and withdrew as the Wingdam stage noisily rattled up before the

National Hotel.

There was but little time left to spend with Dr. Duchesne, so the

physician walked with him to the stage office. There were a few of

the old settlers lounging by the stage, who had discerned, just as

the master was going away, how much they liked him. Mr. Gray had gone

through the customary bibulous formula of leave-taking; with a hearty

shake of the doctor’s hand, and a promise to write, he climbed to the

box of the stage. “All aboard!” cried the driver, and with a preliminary

bound, the stage rolled down Main Street.

Mr. Gray remained buried in thought as they rolled through the town,

each object in passing recalling some incident of his past experience.

The stage had reached the outskirts of the settlement when he detected

a well-known little figure running down a by-trail to intersect the road

before the stage had passed. He called the driver’s attention to it, and

as they drew up at the crossing Aristides’s short legs and well-known

features were plainly discernible through the dust. He was holding in

his hand a letter.

“Well, my little man, what is it?” said the driver impatiently.

“A letter for the master,” gasped the exhausted child.

“Give it here!—Any answer?”

“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Gray.

“Look sharp, then, and get your billet duxis before you go next time.”

Mr. Gray hurriedly broke the seal and read these words:

Judge Plunkett has just returned from the county seat. Our case is

won. We leave here next week. J.S.

P.S. Have you got my address in San Francisco?

“Any answer?” said the driver.

“None.”

“Get up!”

And the stage rolled away from Smith’s Pocket, leaving the just

Aristides standing in the dust of its triumphal wheels.

HIGH-WATER MARK

When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness

was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and

tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open

bay, were all hard facts. So were the few green tussocks, with their

scant blades, their amphibious flavor, and unpleasant dampness. And

if you chose to indulge your fancy,—although the flat monotony of the

Dedlow Marsh was not inspiring,—the wavy line of scattered drift gave

an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters, and made the dead

certainty of the returning tide a gloomy reflection, which no present

sunshine could dissipate. The greener meadow-land seemed oppressed with

this idea, and made no positive attempt at vegetation until the work of

reclamation should be complete. In the bitter fruit of the low cranberry

bushes one might fancy he detected a naturally sweet disposition curdled

and soured by an injudicious course of too much regular cold water.

The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was also melancholy and

depressing. The sepulchral boom of the bittern, the shriek of the

curlew, the scream of passing brant, the wrangling of quarrelsome

teal, the sharp querulous protest of the startled crane, and syllabled

complaint of the “killdeer” plover were beyond the power of written

expression. Nor was the aspect of these mournful fowls at all cheerful

and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron, standing midleg deep in the

water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet

and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or

the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal

contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher—an ornithological

Marius—reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to

and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn’t

make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt low-spirited

in the reflection that after all this trouble he wouldn’t be able to

give a definite answer. On the contrary, it was evident at a glance that

the dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and

that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling

of relief and satisfaction by the full grown, and of extravagant

anticipation by the callow brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at

the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was

strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold glittering

expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another

tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows and the sinuous

line of slough; when the great shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees

arose again, and went forth on their dreary purposeless wanderings,

drifting hither and thither, but getting no farther toward any goal

at the falling tide or the day’s decline than the cursed Hebrew in the

legend; when the glossy ducks swung silently, making neither ripple nor

furrow on the shimmering surface; when the fog came in with the tide and

shut out the blue above, even as the green below had been obliterated;

when boatmen, lost in that fog, paddling about in a hopeless way,

started at what seemed the brushing of mermen’s fingers on the boat’s

keel, or shrank from the tufts of grass spreading around like the

floating hair of a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were lost

upon Dedlow Marsh, and must make a night of it, and a gloomy one at

that,—then you might know something of Dedlow Marsh at high water.

Let me recall a story connected with this latter view which never failed

to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh.

Although the event was briefly recorded in the county paper, I had the

story, in all its eloquent detail, from the lips of the principal actor.

I cannot hope to catch the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of

feminine delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I’ll try to give

at least its substance.

She lived midway of the great slough of Dedlow Marsh and a good-sized

river, which debouched four miles beyond into an estuary formed by

the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy peninsula which constituted the

southwestern boundary of a noble bay. The house in which she lived was

a small frame cabin raised from the marsh a few feet by stout piles, and

was three miles distant from the settlements upon the river. Her husband

was a logger,—a profitable business in a county where the principal

occupation was the manufacture of lumber.

It was the season of early spring, when her husband left on the ebb of a

high tide with a raft of logs for the usual transportation to the lower

end of the bay. As she stood by the door of the little cabin when the

voyagers departed, she noticed a cold look in the southeastern sky, and

she remembered hearing her husband say to his companions that they

must endeavor to complete their voyage before the coming of the

southwesterly gale which he saw brewing. And that night it began to

storm and blow harder than she had ever before experienced, and some

great trees fell in the forest by the river, and the house rocked like

her baby’s cradle.

But however the storm might roar about the little cabin, she knew that

one she trusted had driven bolt and bar with his own strong hand, and

that had he feared for her he would not have left her. This, and her

domestic duties, and the care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep

her mind from dwelling on the weather, except, of course, to hope that

he was safely harbored with the logs at Utopia in the dreary distance.

But she noticed that day, when she went out to feed the chickens and

look after the cow, that the tide was up to the little fence of their

garden patch, and the roar of the surf on the south beach, though miles

away, she could hear distinctly. And she began to think that she would

like to have some one to talk with about matters, and she believed that

if it had not been so far and so stormy, and the trail so impassable,

she would have taken the baby and have gone over to Ryekman’s, her

nearest neighbor. But then, you see, he might have returned in the

storm, all wet, with no one to see to him; and it was a long exposure

for baby, who was croupy and ailing.

But that night, she never could tell why, she didn’t feel like sleeping

or even lying down. The storm had somewhat abated, but she still “sat

and sat,” and even tried to read. I don’t know whether it was a Bible or

some profane magazine that this poor woman read, but most probably the

latter, for the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that

she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that dearer

volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf

as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mysterious future. And,

rocking the cradle, she thought of everything and everybody, but still

was wide awake as ever.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when she at last lay down in her clothes.

How long she slept she could not remember, but she awoke with a dreadful

choking in her throat, and found herself standing, trembling all over,

in the middle of the room, with her baby clasped to her breast, and she

was “saying something.” The baby cried and sobbed, and she walked up

and down trying to hush it, when she heard a scratching at the door.

She opened it fearfully, and was glad to see it was only old Pete, their

dog, who crawled, dripping with water, into the room. She would have

liked to look out, not in the faint hope of her husband’s coming, but to

see how things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that she

could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, and then walked

up and down a little while, and then she lay down again a little while.

Lying close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought she heard

once or twice something scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the

scraping of branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, “like the

baby made when it was swallowing;” then something went “click-click”

and “cluck-cluck,” so that she sat up in bed. When she did so she was

attracted by something else that seemed creeping from the back door

toward the centre of the room. It wasn’t much wider than her little

finger, but soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and began

spreading all over the floor. It was water!

She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw nothing but

water. She ran to the back door and threw it open, and saw nothing

but water. She ran to the side window, and throwing that open, she saw

nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that

there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people

could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than

the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide?

So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It

drifted away towards the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put

it eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and

not the tide!

It was then—oh, God be praised for his goodness! she did neither faint

nor fall; it was then—blessed be the Saviour, for it was his merciful

hand that touched and strengthened her in this awful moment—that fear

dropped from her like a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then

and thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through all the

trials of that gloomy night.

She drew the bedstead toward the middle of the room, and placed a table

upon it, and on that she put the cradle. The water on the floor

was already over her ankles, and the house once or twice moved so

perceptibly, and seemed to be racked so, that the closet doors all flew

open. Then she heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall,

and, looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain near

the road at the upper end of the pasture, had floated down to the house.

Luckily its long roots dragged in the soil and kept it from moving as

rapidly as the current, for had it struck the house in its full career,

even the strong nails and bolts in the piles could not have withstood

the shock. The hound had leaped upon its knotty surface, and crouched

near the roots, shivering and whining. A ray of hope flashed across her

mind. She drew a heavy blanket from the bed, and, wrapping it about

the babe, waded in the deepening waters to the door. As the tree swung

again, broadside on, making the little cabin creak and tremble, she

leaped on to its trunk. By God’s mercy she succeeded in obtaining a

footing on its slippery surface, and, twining an arm about its roots,

she held in the other her moaning child. Then something cracked near the

front porch, and the whole front of the house she had just quitted fell

forward,—just as cattle fall on their knees before they lie down,—and

at the same moment the great redwood tree swung round and drifted away

with its living cargo into the black night.

For all the excitement and danger, for all her soothing of her crying

babe, for all the whistling of the wind, for all the uncertainty of

her situation, she still turned to look at the deserted and water-swept

cabin. She remembered even then, and she wondered how foolish she was to

think of it at that time, that she wished she had put on another dress

and the baby’s best clothes; and she kept praying that the house would

be spared so that he, when he returned, would have something to come to,

and it wouldn’t be quite so desolate, and—how could he ever know what

had become of her and baby? And at the thought she grew sick and faint.

But she had something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the

long roots of her ark struck an obstacle the whole trunk made half a

revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The hound, who kept

distracting her by running up and down the tree and howling, at last

fell off at one of these collisions. He swam for some time beside her,

and she tried to get the poor beast upon the tree, but he “acted silly”

and wild, and at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her

baby were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes

in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not then

tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the

peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the tree was moving in a

line with the river. It must be about slack water, and she had

probably reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the tide and the

overflowing waters of the river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was

present danger of her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to

sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were

carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike one

of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till daylight.

Sometimes she thought she heard voices and shouts from the river, and

the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Then again it was only

the ringing in her ears and throbbing of her heart. She found at about

this time that she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position

that she could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to

her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she was so

frightened at that that she put her head under her shawl, and for the

first time cried bitterly.

When she raised her head again the boom of the surf was behind her, and

she knew that her ark had again swung round. She dipped up the water to

cool her parched throat, and found that it was salt as her tears. There

was a relief, though, for by this sign she knew that she was drifting

with the tide. It was then the wind went down, and the great and awful

silence oppressed her. There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed

sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her all was

black gloom and quiet. She spoke to the baby just to hear herself speak,

and to know that she had not lost her voice. She thought then—it was

queer, but she could not help thinking it—how awful must have been the

night when the great ship swung over the Asiatic peak, and the sounds of

creation were blotted out from the world. She thought, too, of mariners

clinging to spars, and of poor women who were lashed to rafts and beaten

to death by the cruel sea. She tried to thank God that she was thus

spared, and lifted her eyes from the baby who had fallen into a fretful

sleep. Suddenly, away to the southward, a great light lifted itself

out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered, and flickered and flashed

again. Her heart fluttered quickly against the baby’s cold cheek. It was

the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. As she was yet wondering the

tree suddenly rolled a little, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie

quiet and still. She put out her hand and the current gurgled against

it. The tree was aground, and, by the position of the light and the

noise of the surf, aground upon the Dedlow Marsh.

Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and croupy, had it not been

for the sudden drying up of that sensitive fountain, she would have

felt safe and relieved. Perhaps it was this which tended to make all her

impressions mournful and gloomy. As the tide rapidly fell, a great flock

of black brant fluttered by her, screaming and crying. Then the plover

flew up and piped mournfully as they wheeled around the trunk, and at

last fearlessly lit upon it like a gray cloud. Then the heron flew over

and around her, shrieking and protesting, and at last dropped its gaunt

legs only a few yards from her. But, strangest of all, a pretty white

bird, larger than a dove,—like a pelican, but not a pelican,—circled

around and around her. At last it lit upon a rootlet of the tree quite

over her shoulder. She put out her hand and stroked its beautiful white

neck, and it never appeared to move. It stayed there so long that she

thought she would lift up the baby to see it and try to attract her

attention. But when she did so, the child was so chilled and cold, and

had such a blue look under the little lashes, which it didn’t raise at

all, that she screamed aloud, and the bird flew away, and she fainted.

Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it was not so much, after

all, to any but herself. For when she recovered her senses it was bright

sunlight and dead low water. There was a confused noise of guttural

voices about her, and an old squaw, singing an Indian “hushaby,” and

rocking herself from side to side before a fire built on the marsh,

before which she, the recovered wife and mother, lay weak and weary. Her

first thought was for her baby, and she was about to speak when a young

squaw, who must have been a mother herself, fathomed her thought and

brought her the “mowitch,” pale but living, in such a queer little

willow cradle, all bound up, just like the squaw’s own young one, that

she laughed and cried together, and the young squaw and the old squaw

showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes, and said,

“Plenty get well, skeena mowitch,” “Wagee man come plenty soon,” and she

could have kissed their brown faces in her joy. And then she found

that they had been gathering berries on the marsh in their queer comical

baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar,

and the old squaw couldn’t resist the temptation of procuring a new

garment, and came down and discovered the “wagee” woman and child. And

of course she gave the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine,

and when _he_ came at last and rushed up to her, looking about ten years

older in his anxiety, she felt so faint again that they had to carry her

to the canoe. For, you see, he knew nothing about the flood until he met

the Indians at Utopia, and knew by the signs that the poor woman was

his wife. And at the next high tide he towed the tree away back home,

although it wasn’t worth the trouble, and built another house, using the

old tree for the foundation and props, and called it after her, “Mary’s

Ark!” But you may guess the next house was built above high-water mark.

And that’s all.

Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent capacity of the Dedlow

Marsh. But you must tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at

high tide, or get lost upon it once or twice in the fog, as I have,

to understand properly Mary’s adventure, or to appreciate duly the

blessings of living beyond high-water mark.

A LONELY RIDE

As I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a dark night,

a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger. Let me assure the

reader that I have no ulterior design in making this assertion. A

long course of light reading has forewarned me what every experienced

intelligence must confidently look for from such a statement. The

story-teller who willfully tempts fate by such obvious beginnings, who

is to the expectant reader in danger of being robbed or half-murdered,

or frightened by an escaped lunatic, or introduced to his lady-love for

the first time, deserves to be detected. I am relieved to say that none

of these things occurred to me. The road from Wingdam to Slumgullion

knew no other banditti than the regularly licensed hotel-keepers;

lunatics had not yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride of

their own free will in Californian stages; and my Laura, amiable and

long-suffering as she always is, could not, I fear, have borne up

against these depressing circumstances long enough to have made the

slightest impression on me.

I stood with my shawl and carpetbag in hand, gazing doubtingly on the

vehicle. Even in the darkness the red dust of Wingdam was visible on its

roof and sides, and the red slime of Slumgullion clung tenaciously to

its wheels. I opened the door; the stage creaked uneasily, and in the

gloomy abyss the swaying straps beckoned me, like ghostly hands, to come

in now, and have my sufferings out at once.

I must not omit to mention the occurrence of a circumstance which struck

me as appalling and mysterious. A lounger on the steps of the hotel,

who I had reason to suppose was not in any way connected with the stage

company, gravely descended, and, walking toward the conveyance, tried

the handle of the door, opened it, expectorated in the carriage, and

returned to the hotel with a serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his

position, when another individual, equally disinterested, impassively

walked down the steps, proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it,

expectorated carefully on the axle, and returned slowly and pensively to

the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of

the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a

moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then

returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism

that I grew quite nervous.

Perhaps I was out of spirits. A number of infinitesimal annoyances,

winding up with the resolute persistency of the clerk at the stage

office to enter my name misspelt on the way-bill, had not predisposed

me to cheerfulness. The inmates of the Eureka House, from a social

view-point, were not attractive. There was the prevailing opinion—so

common to many honest people—that a serious style of deportment and

conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and elevated station.

Obeying this principle, all hilarity ceased on my entrance to supper,

and general remark merged into the safer and uncompromising chronicle of

several bad cases of diphtheria, then epidemic at Wingdam. When I left

the dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been supping exclusively

on mustard and tea leaves, I stopped a moment at the parlor door. A

piano, harmoniously related to the dinner-bell, tinkled responsive to

a diffident and uncertain touch. On the white wall the shadow of an

old and sharp profile was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy

curls. “I sez to Mariar, ‘Mariar’ sez I, ‘praise to the face is open

disgrace’” I heard no more. Dreading some susceptibility to sincere

expression on the subject of female loveliness, I walked away, checking

the compliment that otherwise might have risen unbidden to my lips, and

have brought shame and sorrow to the household.

It was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily upon me that

I stood hesitatingly before the stage door. The driver, about to mount,

was for a moment illuminated by the open door of the hotel. He had

the wearied look which was the distinguishing expression of Wingdam.

Satisfied that I was properly way-billed and receipted for, he took no

further notice of me. I looked longingly at the box-seat, but he did

not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived

recklessly after it, and—before I was fairly seated—with a great

sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly

expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel door slipped behind,

the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows moved

solemnly upon us.

To say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity

that encompassed the vehicle. The roadside trees were scarcely

distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only by the

peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly flowed in at the

open window as we rolled by. We proceeded slowly; so leisurely that,

leaning from the carriage, I more than once detected the fragrant sigh

of some astonished cow, whose ruminating repose upon the highway we

had ruthlessly disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, more the

guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of

our own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey, that a

moment’s hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver would have

destroyed.

I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle I might obtain that rest

so often denied me in its crowded condition. It was a weak delusion.

When I stretched out my limbs it was only to find that the ordinary

conveniences for making several people distinctly uncomfortable were

distributed throughout my individual frame. At last, resting my arms

on the straps, by dint of much gymnastic effort I became sufficiently

composed to be aware of a more refined species of torture. The springs

of the stage, rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical beat,

which began to painfully absorb my attention. Slowly this thumping

merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female of the hotel

parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and benumbing

axiom: “Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.

Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.” Inequalities of the road only

quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length.

It was of no use to seriously consider the statement. It was of no

use to except to it indignantly. It was of no use to recall the many

instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting

honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to dwell sentimentally

on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open

commendation; of no use to except to the mysterious female,—to picture

her as rearing a thin-blooded generation on selfish and mechanically

repeated axioms,—all this failed to counteract the monotonous

repetition of this sentence. There was nothing to do but to give in, and

I was about to accept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions

of darkness and necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of

some other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last

few moments. How quiet the driver was!

Was there any driver? Had I any reason to suppose that he was not lying

gagged and bound on the roadside, and the highwayman, with blackened

face, who did the thing so quietly, driving me—whither? The thing is

perfectly feasible. And what is this fancy now being jolted out of me?

A story? It’s of no use to keep it back, particularly in this abysmal

vehicle, and here it comes: I am a marquis—a French marquis; French,

because the peerage is not so well known, and the country is better

adapted to romantic incident—a marquis, because the democratic reader

delights in the nobility. My name is something ligny. I am coming from

Paris to my country-seat at St. Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall

asleep and tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me, and dream

of an angel. The carriage at last stops at the chateau. It is so dark

that, when I alight, I do not recognize the face of the footman who

holds the carriage-door. But what of that?—peste! I am heavy with

sleep. The same obscurity also hides the old familiar indecencies of

the statues on the terrace; but there is a door, and it opens and shuts

behind me smartly. Then I find myself in a trap, in the presence of the

brigand who has quietly gagged poor Andre and conducted the carriage

thither. There is nothing for me to do, as a gallant French marquis,

but to say, “Parbleu!” draw my rapier, and die valorously! I am found,

a week or two after, outside a deserted cabaret near the barrier, with

a hole through my ruffled linen, and my pockets stripped. No; on second

thoughts, I am rescued,—rescued by the angel I have been dreaming of,

who is the assumed daughter of the brigand, but the real daughter of an

intimate friend.

Looking from the window again, in the vain hope of distinguishing the

driver, I found my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. I could

see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky woods relieving a lighter

sky. A few stars, widely spaced in this picture, glimmering sadly.

I noticed again the infinite depth of patient sorrow in their serene

faces; and I hope that the Vandal who first applied the flippant

“twinkle” to them may not be driven melancholy mad by their reproachful

eyes. I noticed again the mystic charm of space, that imparts a sense

of individual solitude to each integer of the densest constellation,

involving the smallest star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of

this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in my gloomy cavern.

When I awoke the full moon was rising. Seen from my window, it had an

indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was the full moon of

Norma—that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to

a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the Casta Diva is

sung—the “inconstant moon” that then and thereafter remains fixed in

the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated

by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that

improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold chills

ran down my back with the first strain of the recitative. The thumping

springs essayed to beat time, and the private box-like obscurity of

the vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view. But it was a vast

improvement upon my past experience, and I hugged the fond delusion.

My fears for the driver were dissipated with the rising moon. A familiar

sound had assured me of his presence in the full possession of at least

one of his most important functions. Frequent and full expectoration

convinced me that his lips were as yet not sealed by the gag of

highwaymen, and soothed my anxious ear. With this load lifted from my

mind, and assisted by the mild presence of Diana, who left, as when

she visited Endymion, much of her splendor outside my cavern,—I looked

around the empty vehicle. On the forward seat lay a woman’s hairpin. I

picked it up with an interest that, however, soon abated. There was no

scent of the roses to cling to it still, not even of hair-oil. No

bent or twist in its rigid angles betrayed any trait of its wearer’s

character. I tried to think that it might have been “Mariar’s.” I tried

to imagine that, confining the symmetrical curls of that girl, it might

have heard the soft compliments whispered in her ears which provoked the

wrath of the aged female. But in vain. It was reticent and unswerving in

its upright fidelity, and at last slipped listlessly through my fingers.

I had dozed repeatedly,—waked on the threshold of oblivion by

contact with some of the angles of the coach, and feeling that I was

unconsciously assuming, in imitation of a humble insect of my childish

recollection, that spherical shape which could best resist those

impressions, when I perceived that the moon, riding high in the heavens,

had begun to separate the formless masses of the shadowy landscape.

Trees isolated, in clumps, and assemblages, changed places before

my window. The sharp outlines of the distant hills came back as in

daylight, but little softened in the dry, cold, dewless air of a

California summer night. I was wondering how late it was, and thinking

that if the horses of the night traveled as slowly as the team before

us, Faustus might have been spared his agonizing prayer, when a sudden

spasm of activity attacked my driver. A succession of whip-snappings,

like a pack of Chinese crackers, broke from the box before me. The stage

leaped forward, and when I could pick myself from under the seat, a long

white building had in some mysterious way rolled before my window.

It must be Slumgullion! As I descended from the stage I addressed the

driver:—

“I thought you changed horses on the road?”

“So we did. Two hours ago.”

“That’s odd. I didn’t notice it.”

“Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap. Bully place

for a nice quiet snooze, empty stage, sir!”

THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT

His name was Fagg,—David Fagg. He came to California in ’52 with us,

in the Skyscraper. I don’t think he did it in an adventurous way. He

probably had no other place to go to. When a knot of us young fellows

would recite what splendid opportunities we resigned to go, and how

sorry our friends were to have us leave, and show daguerreotypes and

locks of hair, and talk of Mary and Susan, the man of no account used to

sit by and listen with a pained, mortified expression on his plain face,

and say nothing. I think he had nothing to say. He had no associates,

except when we patronized him; and, in point of fact, he was a good deal

of sport to us. He was always seasick whenever we had a capful of wind.

He never got his sea-legs on either. And I never shall forget how we all

laughed when Eattler took him the piece of pork on a string, and—But

you know that time-honored joke. And then we had such a splendid lark

with him. Miss Fanny Twinkler couldn’t bear the sight of him, and we

used to make Fagg think that she had taken a fancy to him, and sent him

little delicacies and books from the cabin. You ought to have witnessed

the rich scene that took place when he came up, stammering and very

sick, to thank her! Didn’t she flash up grandly, and beautifully, and

scornfully? So like “Medora,” Rattler said,—Rattler knew Byron by

heart,—and wasn’t Old Fagg awfully cut up? But he got over it, and when

Rattler fell sick at Valparaiso, Old Fagg used to nurse him. You see he

was a good sort of fellow, but he lacked manliness and spirit. He had

absolutely no idea of poetry. I’ve seen him sit stolidly by, mending his

old clothes, when Rattler delivered that stirring apostrophe of Byron’s

to the ocean. He asked Rattler once, quite seriously, if he thought

Byron was ever seasick. I don’t remember Rattler’s reply, but I know we

all laughed very much, and I have no doubt it was something good, for

Rattler was smart.

When the Skyscraper arrived at San Francisco we had a grand “feed.”

We agreed to meet every year and perpetuate the occasion. Of course we

didn’t invite Fagg. Fagg was a steerage passenger, and it was necessary,

you see, now we were ashore, to exercise a little discretion. But Old

Fagg, as we called him,—he was only about twenty-five years old, by the

way,—was the source of immense amusement to us that day. It appeared

that he had conceived the idea that he could walk to Sacramento, and

actually started off afoot. We had a good time, and shook hands with one

another all around, and so parted. Ah, me! only eight years ago, and yet

some of those hands, then clasped in amity, have been clenched at each

other, or have dipped furtively in one another’s pockets. I know that

we didn’t dine together the next year, because young Barker swore

he wouldn’t put his feet under the same mahogany with such a very

contemptible scoundrel as that Mixer; and Nibbles, who borrowed money

at Valparaiso of young Stubbs, who was then a waiter in a restaurant,

didn’t like to meet such people.

When I bought a number of shares in the Coyote Tunnel at Mugginsville,

in ’54, I thought I’d take a run up there and see it. I stopped at the

Empire Hotel, and after dinner I got a horse and rode round the town and

out to the claim. One of those individuals whom newspaper correspondents

call “our intelligent informant,” and to whom in all small communities

the right of answering questions is tacitly yielded, was quietly pointed

out to me. Habit had enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and

he never pretermitted either. He gave me a history of the claim, and

added: “You see, stranger (he addressed the bank before him), gold is

sure to come outer that theer claim (he put in a comma with his pick),

but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his

pick) warn’t of much account (a long stroke of the pick for a period).

He was green, and let the boys about here jump him,”—and the rest of

his sentence was confided to his hat, which he had removed to wipe his

manly brow with his red bandana.

I asked him who was the original proprietor.

“His name war Fagg.”

I went to see him. He looked a little older and plainer. He had worked

hard, he said, and was getting on “so-so.” I took quite a liking to

him and patronized him to some extent. Whether I did so because I was

beginning to have a distrust for such fellows as Rattler and Mixer is

not necessary for me to state.

You remember how the Coyote Tunnel went in, and how awfully we

shareholders were done! Well, the next thing I heard was that Rattler,

who was one of the heaviest shareholders, was up at Mugginsville keeping

bar for the proprietor of the Mugginsville Hotel, and that Old Fagg had

struck it rich, and didn’t know what to do with his money. All this was

told me by Mixer, who had been there settling up matters, and likewise

that Fagg was sweet upon the daughter of the proprietor of the aforesaid

hotel. And so by hearsay and letter I eventually gathered that old

Robins, the hotel man, was trying to get up a match between Nellie

Robins and Fagg. Nellie was a pretty, plump, and foolish little thing,

and would do just as her father wished. I thought it would be a good

thing for—Fagg if he should marry and settle down; that as a married

man he might be of some account. So I ran up to Mugginsville one day to

look after things. It did me an immense deal of good to make Rattler

mix my drinks for me,—Rattler! the gay, brilliant, and unconquerable

Rattler, who had tried to snub me two years ago! I talked to him

about Old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the subject was

distasteful. He never liked Fagg, and he was sure, he said, that Nellie

didn’t. Did Nellie like anybody else? He turned round to the mirror

behind the bar and brushed up his hair. I understood the conceited

wretch. I thought l’d put Fagg on his guard, and get him to hurry up

matters. I had a long talk with him. You could see by the way the poor

fellow acted that he was badly stuck. He sighed, and promised to pluck

up courage to hurry matters to a crisis. Nellie was a good girl, and I

think had a sort of quiet respect for Old Fagg’s unobtrusiveness. But

her fancy was already taken captive by Rattler’s superficial qualities,

which were obvious and pleasing. I don’t think Nellie was any worse than

you or I. We are more apt to take acquaintances at their apparent value

than their intrinsic worth. It’s less trouble, and except when we want

to trust them, quite as convenient. The difficulty with women is that

their feelings are apt to get interested sooner than ours, and then, you

know, reasoning is out of the question. This is what Old Fagg would have

known had he been of any account. But he wasn’t. So much the worse for

him.

It was a few months afterward, and I was sitting in my office when in

walked Old Fagg. I was surprised to see him down, but we talked over the

current topics in that mechanical manner of people who know that they

have something else to say, but are obliged to get at it in that formal

way. After an interval, Fagg in his natural manner said,—

“I’m going home!”

“Going home?”

“Yes,—that is, I think I’ll take a trip to the Atlantic States. I came

to see you, as you know I have some little property, and I have executed

a power of attorney for you to manage my affairs. I have some papers I’d

like to leave with you. Will you take charge of them?”

“Yes,” I said. “But what of Nellie?”

His face fell. He tried to smile, and the combination resulted in one

of the most startling and grotesque effects I ever beheld. At length he

said,—

“I shall not marry Nellie,—that is,”—he seemed to apologize internally

for the positive form of expression,—“I think that I had better not.”

“David Fagg,” I said with sudden severity, “you’re of no account!”

To my astonishment, his face brightened.

“Yes,” said he, “that’s it!—I’m of no account! But I always knew it.

You see, I thought Rattler loved that girl as well as I did, and I knew

she liked him better than she did me, and would be happier, I dare say,

with him. But then I knew that old Robins would have preferred me to

him, as I was better off,—and the girl would do as he said,—and,

you see, I thought I was kinder in the way,—and so I left. But,” he

continued, as I was about to interrupt him, “for fear the old man might

object to Rattler, I’ve lent him enough to set him up in business for

himself in Dogtown. A pushing, active, brilliant fellow, you know, like

Rattler can get along, and will soon be in his old position again,—and

you needn’t be hard on him, you know, if he doesn’t. Good-by.”

I was too much disgusted with his treatment of that Rattler to be at all

amiable, but as his business was profitable, I promised to attend to

it, and he left. A few weeks passed. The return steamer arrived, and a

terrible incident occupied the papers for days afterwards. People in all

parts of the State conned eagerly the details of an awful shipwreck, and

those who had friends aboard went away by themselves, and read the long

list of the lost under their breath. I read of the gifted, the gallant,

the noble, and loved ones who had perished, and among them I think I was

the first to read the name of David Fagg. For the “man of no account”

had “gone home!”

NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD

PART I

IN THE FIELD

It was near the close of an October day that I began to be disagreeably

conscious of the Sacramento Valley. I had been riding since sunrise, and

my course through the depressing monotony of the long level landscape

affected me more like a dull, dyspeptic dream than a business journey,

performed under that sincerest of natural phenomena,—a California sky.

The recurring stretches of brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures

in the dusty trail, the hard outline of the distant hills, and the

herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like features of some glittering

stereoscopic picture that never changed. Active exercise might have

removed this feeling, but my horse by some subtle instinct had long

since given up all ambitious effort, and had lapsed into a dogged trot.

It was autumn, but not the season suggested to the Atlantic reader under

that title. The sharply defined boundaries of the wet and dry seasons

were prefigured in the clear outlines of the distant hills. In the dry

atmosphere the decay of vegetation was too rapid for the slow hectic

which overtakes an Eastern landscape, or else Nature was too practical

for such thin disguises. She merely turned the Hippocratic face to the

spectator, with the old diagnosis of death in her sharp, contracted

features.

In the contemplation of such a prospect there was little to excite any

but a morbid fancy. There were no clouds in the flinty blue heavens, and

the setting of the sun was accompanied with as little ostentation as was

consistent with the dryly practical atmosphere. Darkness soon followed,

with a rising wind, which increased as the shadows deepened on the

plain. The fringe of alder by the watercourse began to loom up as I

urged my horse forward. A half-hour’s active spurring brought me to

a corral, and a little beyond a house, so low and broad, it seemed at

first sight to be half buried in the earth.

My second impression was that it had grown out of the soil like some

monstrous vegetable, its dreary proportions were so in keeping with the

vast prospect. There were no recesses along its roughly boarded walls

for vagrant and unprofitable shadows to lurk in the daily sunshine. No

projection for the wind by night to grow musical over, to wail, whistle,

or whisper to; only a long wooden shelf containing a chilly-looking

tin basin and a bar of soap. Its uncurtained windows were red with the

sinking sun, as though bloodshot and inflamed from a too long unlidded

existence. The tracks of cattle led to its front door, firmly closed

against the rattling wind.

To avoid being confounded with this familiar element, I walked to the

rear of the house, which was connected with a smaller building by a

slight platform. A grizzled, hard-faced old man was standing there, and

met my salutation with a look of inquiry, and, without speaking, led

the way to the principal room. As I entered, four young men who were

reclining by the fire slightly altered their attitudes of perfect

repose, but beyond that betrayed neither curiosity nor interest. A hound

started from a dark corner with a growl, but was immediately kicked by

the old man into obscurity and silenced again. I can’t tell why, but I

instantly received the impression that for a long time the group by the

fire had not uttered a word or moved a muscle. Taking a seat, I briefly

stated my business. Was a United States surveyor. Had come on account of

the Espiritu Santo rancho. Wanted to correct the exterior boundaries

of township lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of private

grants. There had been some intervention to the old survey by a Mr.

Tryan, who had preempted adjacent—“Settled land warrants,” interrupted

the old man. “Ah, yes! land warrants,—and then this was Mr. Tryan?”

I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccupied in connecting other

public lines with private surveys, as I looked in his face. It was

certainly a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect of

that mining operation known as “ground sluicing;” the harder lines of

underlying character were exposed, and what were once plastic curves and

soft outlines were obliterated by some powerful agency.

There was a dryness in his voice not unlike the prevailing atmosphere

of the valley, as he launched into an ex parte statement of the contest,

with a fluency which, like the wind without, showed frequent and

unrestrained expression. He told me—what I had already learned—that

the boundary line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described in the

loose phraseology of the deseno as beginning in the valda or skirt

of the hill, its precise location long the subject of litigation.

I listened and answered with little interest, for my mind was still

distracted by the wind which swept violently by the house, as well as

by his odd face, which was again reflected in the resemblance that the

silent group by the fire bore toward him. He was still talking, and the

wind was yet blowing, when my confused attention was aroused by a remark

addressed to the recumbent figures.

“Now, then, which on ye’ll see the stranger up the creek to Altascar’s

to-morrow?”

There was a general movement of opposition in the group, but no decided

answer.

“Kin you go, Kerg?”

“Who’s to look up stock in Strarberry per-ar-ie?”

This seemed to imply a negative, and the old man turned to another

hopeful, who was pulling the fur from a mangy bearskin on which he was

lying, with an expression as though it were somebody’s hair.

“Well, Tom, wot’s to hinder you from goin’?”

“Mam’s goin’ to Brown’s store at sun-up, and I s’pose I’ve got to pack

her and the baby again.”

I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate youth exhibited for

the filial duty into which he had been evidently beguiled was one of the

finest things I had ever seen.

“Wise?”

Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively thrust a worn and patched

boot into the discourse. The old man flushed quickly.

“I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the last time you war down

the river.”

“Said he wouldn’t without an order. Said it was like pulling gum-teeth

to get the money from you even then.”

There was a grim smile at this local hit at the old man’s parsimony,

and Wise, who was clearly the privileged wit of the family, sank back in

honorable retirement.

“Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you aren’t pestered with wimmin

and children, p’r’aps you’ll go,” said Tryan, with a nervous twitching,

intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably mirthful.

Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows and said shortly,—

“Got no saddle.”

“Wot’s gone of your saddle?”

“Kerg, there!” indicating his brother with a look such as Cain might

have worn at the sacrifice.

“You lie!” returned Kerg cheerfully.

Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flourishing it around his

head and gazing furiously in the hard young faces which fearlessly met

his own. But it was only for a moment; his arm soon dropped by his side,

and a look of hopeless fatality crossed his face. He allowed me to take

the chair from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by the assurance

that I required no guide, when the irrepressible Wise again lifted his

voice—

“Theer’s George comin’! Why don’t ye ask him? He’ll go and introduce you

to Don Fernandy’s darter, too, ef you ain’t pertickler.”

The laugh which followed this joke, which evidently had some domestic

allusion (the general tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a

light step on the platform, and the young man entered. Seeing a stranger

present, he stopped and colored, made a shy salute and colored again,

and then, drawing a box from the corner, sat down, his hands clasped

tightly together and his very handsome bright blue eyes turned frankly

on mine.

Perhaps I was in a condition to receive the romantic impression he made

upon me, and I took it upon myself to ask his company as guide, and he

cheerfully assented. But some domestic duty called him presently away.

The fire gleamed brightly on the hearth, and, no longer resisting the

prevailing influence, I silently watched the spirting flame, listening

to the wind which continually shook the tenement. Besides the one chair,

which had acquired a new importance in my eyes, I presently discovered a

crazy table in one corner, with an inkbottle and pen, the latter in

that greasy state of decomposition peculiar to country taverns and

farmhouses. A goodly array of rifles and double-barreled guns stocked

the corner; half a dozen saddles and blankets lay near, with a mild

flavor of the horse about them. Some deer and bear skins completed the

inventory. As I sat there, with the silent group around me, the shadowy

gloom within and the dominant wind without, I found it difficult to

believe I had ever known a different existence. My profession had often

led me to wilder scenes, but rarely among those whose unrestrained

habits and easy unconsciousness made me feel so lonely and

uncomfortable. I shrank closer to myself, not without grave

doubts—which I think occur naturally to people in like situations—that

this was the general rule of humanity, and I was a solitary and somewhat

gratuitous exception.

It was a relief when a laconic announcement of supper by a weak-eyed

girl caused a general movement in the family. We walked across the dark

platform, which led to another low-ceiled room. Its entire length was

occupied by a table, at the further end of which a weak-eyed woman was

already taking her repast as she at the same time gave nourishment to

a weak-eyed baby. As the formalities of introduction had been dispensed

with, and as she took no notice of me, I was enabled to slip into a seat

without discomposing or interrupting her. Tryan extemporized a grace,

and the attention of the family became absorbed in bacon, potatoes, and

dried apples.

The meal was a sincere one. Gentle gurglings at the upper end of the

table often betrayed the presence of the “wellspring of pleasure.” The

conversation generally referred to the labors of the day, and comparing

notes as to the whereabouts of missing stock. Yet the supper was such

a vast improvement upon the previous intellectual feast, that when a

chance allusion of mine to the business of my visit brought out the

elder Tryan, the interest grew quite exciting. I remember he inveighed

bitterly against the system of ranch-holding by the “Greasers,” as he

was pleased to term the native Californians. As the same ideas have been

sometimes advanced under more pretentious circumstances, they may be

worthy of record.

“Look at ’em holdin’ the finest grazin’ land that ever lay outer doors?

Whar’s the papers for it? Was it grants? Mighty fine grants,—most of

’em made arter the ’Merrikans got possession. More fools the ’Merrikans

for lettin’ ’em hold ’em. Wat paid for ’em? ’Merrikan blood and money.

“Didn’t they oughter have suthin’ out of their native country? Wot

for? Did they ever improve? Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not so

sensible as niggers, to look arter stock, and they a-sittin’ home and

smokin’. With their gold and silver candlesticks, and missions, and

crucifixens, priests and graven idols, and sich? Them sort things

wuren’t allowed in Mizzoori.”

At the mention of improvements I involuntarily lifted my eyes, and met

the half-laughing, half-embarrassed look of George. The act did not

escape detection, and I had at once the satisfaction of seeing that the

rest of the family had formed an offensive alliance against us.

“It was agin nater and agin God,” added Tryan. “God never intended

gold in the rocks to be made into heathen candlesticks and crucifixens.

That’s why he sent ’Merrikans here. Nater never intended such a climate

for lazy lopers. She never gi’n six months’ sunshine to be slept and

smoked away.”

How long he continued, and with what further illustration, I could not

say, for I took an early opportunity to escape to the sitting-room. I

was soon followed by George, who called me to an open door leading to a

smaller room, and pointed to a bed.

“You’d better sleep there to-night,” he said; “you’ll be more

comfortable, and I’ll call you early.”

I thanked him, and would have asked him several questions which were

then troubling me, but he shyly slipped to the door and vanished.

A shadow seemed to fall on the room when he had gone. The “boys”

returned, one by one, and shuffled to their old places. A larger log was

thrown on the fire, and the huge chimney glowed like a furnace, but it

did not seem to melt or subdue a single line of the hard faces that

it lit. Half an hour later, the furs which had served as chairs by

day undertook the nightly office of mattresses, and each received its

owner’s full-length figure. Mr. Tryan had not returned, and I missed

George. I sat there until, wakeful and nervous, I saw the fire fall and

shadows mount the wall. There was no sound but the rushing of the

wind and the snoring of the sleepers. At last, feeling the place

insupportable, I seized my hat, and, opening the door, ran out briskly

into the night.

The acceleration of my torpid pulse in the keen fight with the wind,

whose violence was almost equal to that of a tornado, and the familiar

faces of the bright stars above me, I felt as a blessed relief. I ran,

not knowing whither, and when I halted, the square outline of the house

was lost in the alder-bushes. An uninterrupted plain stretched before

me, like a vast sea beaten flat by the force of the gale. As I kept on I

noticed a slight elevation toward the horizon, and presently my progress

was impeded by the ascent of an Indian mound. It struck me forcibly as

resembling an island in the sea. Its height gave me a better view of

the expanding plain. But even here I found no rest. The ridiculous

interpretation Tryan had given the climate was somehow sung in my ears

and echoed in my throbbing pulse as, guided by the stars, I sought the

house again.

But I felt fresher and more natural as I stepped upon the platform. The

door of the lower building was open, and the old man was sitting beside

the table, thumbing the leaves of a Bible with a look in his face as

though he were hunting up prophecies against the “Greaser.” I turned to

enter, but my attention was attracted by a blanketed figure lying beside

the house on the platform. The broad chest heaving with healthy slumber,

and the open, honest face were familiar. It was George, who had given up

his bed to the stranger among his people. I was about to wake him, but

he lay so peaceful and quiet, I felt awed and hushed. And I went to

bed with a pleasant impression of his handsome face and tranquil figure

soothing me to sleep.

* * * * *

I was awakened the next morning from a sense of lulled repose and

grateful silence by the cheery voice of George, who stood beside my bed

ostentatiously twirling a riata, as if to recall the duties of the

day to my sleep-bewildered eyes. I looked around me. The wind had been

magically laid, and the sun shone warmly through the windows. A dash

of cold water, with an extra chill on, from the tin basin, helped to

brighten me. It was still early, but the family had already breakfasted

and dispersed, and a wagon winding far in the distance showed that the

unfortunate Tom had already “packed” his relatives away. I felt more

cheerful,—there are few troubles Youth cannot distance with the start

of a good night’s rest. After a substantial breakfast, prepared by

George, in a few moments we were mounted and dashing down the plain.

We followed the line of alder that defined the creek, now dry and baked

with summer’s heat, but which in winter, George told me, overflowed its

banks. I still retain a vivid impression of that morning’s ride; the

far-off mountains, like silhouettes, against the steel-blue sky; the

crisp, dry air, and the expanding track before me, animated often by

the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with jingling spurs

and picturesque with flying riata. He rode a powerful native roan,

wild-eyed, untiring in stride, and unbroken in nature. Alas! the curves

of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous machillas of the Spanish

saddle, which levels all equine distinctions. The single rein lay

loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe and, if need be, crush the jaw

it controls.

Again the illimitable freedom of the valley rises before me as we again

bear down into sunlit space. Can this be Chu-Chu, staid and respectable

filly of American pedigree,—Chu-Chu, forgetful of plank-roads and

cobble stones, wild with excitement, twinkling her small white feet

beneath me? George laughs out of a cloud of dust, “Give her her head;

don’t you see she likes it?” and Chu-Chu seems to like it, and, whether

bitten by native tarantula into native barbarism or emulous of the roan,

“blood” asserts itself, and in a moment the peaceful servitude of years

is beaten out in the music of her clattering hoofs. The creek widens to

a deep gully. We dive into it and up on the opposite side, carrying a

moving cloud of impalpable powder with us. Cattle are scattered over the

plain, grazing quietly or banded together in vast restless herds. George

makes a wide, indefinite sweep with the riata, as if to include them all

in his vaquero’s loop, and says, “Ours!”

“About how many, George?”

“Don’t know.”

“How many?”

“Well, p’r’aps three thousand head,” says George, reflecting. “We don’t

know; takes five men to look ’em up and keep run.”

“What are they worth?”

“About thirty dollars a head.”

I make a rapid calculation, and look my astonishment at the laughing

George. Perhaps a recollection of the domestic economy of the Tryan

household is expressed in that look, for George averts his eye and says

apologetically,—

“I’ve tried to get the old man to sell and build, but you know he says

it ain’t no use to settle down just yet. We must keep movin’. In fact,

he built the shanty for that purpose, lest titles should fall through,

and we’d have to get up and move stakes farther down,” Suddenly his

quick eye detects some unusual sight in a herd we are passing, and with

an exclamation he puts his roan into the centre of the mass. I follow,

or rather Chu-Chu darts after the roan, and in a few moments we are in

the midst of apparently inextricable horns and hoofs. “Toro!” shouts

George, with vaquero enthusiasm, and the band opens a way for the

swinging riata. I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume is

cast on Chu-Chu’s quivering flank.

Wild, devilish-looking beasts are they; not such shapes as Jove might

have chosen to woo a goddess, nor such as peacefully range the downs of

Devon, but lean and hungry Cassius-like bovines, economically got up to

meet the exigencies of a six-months’ rainless climate, and accustomed to

wrestle with the distracting wind and the blinding dust.

“That’s not our brand,” says George; “they’re strange stock,” and he

points to what my scientific eye recognizes as the astrological sign of

Venus deeply seared in the brown flanks of the bull he is chasing. But

the herd are closing round us with low mutterings, and George has again

recourse to the authoritative “Toro,” and with swinging riata divides

the “bossy bucklers” on either side. When we are free, and breathing

somewhat more easily, I venture to ask George if they ever attack any

one.

“Never horsemen,—sometimes footmen. Not through rage, you know, but

curiosity. They think a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a

chap afoot, they run him down and trample him under hoof, in the

pursuit of knowledge. But,” adds George, “here’s the lower bench of the

foothills, and here’s Altascar’s corral, and that white building you see

yonder is the casa.”

A whitewashed wall inclosed a court containing another adobe building,

baked with the solar beams of many summers. Leaving our horses in the

charge of a few peons in the courtyard, who were basking lazily in the

sun, we entered a low doorway, where a deep shadow and an agreeable

coolness fell upon us, as sudden and grateful as a plunge in cool water,

from its contrast with the external glare and heat. In the centre of a

low-ceiled apartment sat an old man with a black silk handkerchief tied

about his head, the few gray hairs that escaped from its folds relieving

his gamboge-colored face. The odor of cigarritos was as incense added to

the cathedral gloom of the building.

As Senor Altascar rose with well-bred gravity to receive us, George

advanced with such a heightened color, and such a blending of tenderness

and respect in his manner, that I was touched to the heart by so much

devotion in the careless youth. In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by

the effect of the outer sunshine, and at first I did not see the white

teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped into the corridor as we

entered.

It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars of business which

would deprive the old senor of the greater part of that land we had

just ridden over, and I did it with great embarrassment. But he listened

calmly,—not a muscle of his dark face stirring,—and the smoke curling

placidly from his lips showed his regular respiration. When I had

finished, he offered quietly to accompany us to the line of demarcation.

George had meanwhile disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in

broken Spanish and English in the corridor betrayed his vicinity. When

he returned again, a little absent-minded, the old man, by far the

coolest and most self-possessed of the party, extinguished his black

silk cap beneath that stiff, uncomely sombrero which all native

Californians affect. A serapa thrown over his shoulders hinted that he

was waiting. Horses are always ready saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in

half an hour from the time of our arrival we were again loping in the

staring sunlight. But not as cheerfully as before. George and myself

were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar was gravely quiet. To break

the silence, and by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him that

there might be further intervention or appeal, but the proffered oil

and wine were returned with a careless shrug of the shoulders and a

sententious “Que bueno? Your courts are always just.”

The Indian mound of the previous night’s discovery was a bearing

monument of the new line, and there we halted. We were surprised to find

the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time during our interview

the old Spaniard seemed moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek. I

was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out the corner boundaries as

clearly as my recollection served.

“The deputies will be here to-morrow to run the lines from this initial

point, and there will be no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen.”

Senor Altascar had dismounted and was gathering a few tufts of dried

grass in his hands. George and I exchanged glances. He presently arose

from his stooping posture, and advancing to within a few paces of Joseph

Tryan, said in a voice broken with passion,—

“And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put you in possession of my land

in the fashion of my country.”

He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points.

“I don’t know your courts, your judges, or your corregidores. Take the

llano!—and take this with it. May the drought seize your cattle till

their tongues hang down as long as those of your lying lawyers! May it

be the curse and torment of your old age, as you and yours have made it

of mine!”

We stepped between the principal actors in this scene, which only the

passion of Altascar made tragical, but Tryan, with a humility but ill

concealing his triumph, interrupted,—

“Let him curse on. He’ll find ’em coming home to him sooner than the

cattle he has lost through his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side

of the just, as well as agin all slanderers and revilers.”

Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the Missourian, yet

sufficiently to drive from his mind all but the extravagant power of his

native invective.

“Stealer of the sacrament! Open not!—open not, I say, your lying Judas

lips to me! Ah! half-breed, with the soul of a coyote!—Car-r-r-ramba!”

With his passion reverberating among the consonants like distant

thunder, he laid his hand upon the mane of his horse as though it had

been the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself into the saddle, and

galloped away.

George turned to me.

“Will you go back with us to-night?”

I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures by the fire, and

the roaring wind, and hesitated.

“Well, then, good-by.”

“Good-by, George.”

Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I had not ridden far, when I

turned and looked back. The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was

already sweeping across the plain. A cloud of dust traveled before it,

and a picturesque figure occasionally emerging therefrom was my last

indistinct impression of George Tryan.

PART II

IN THE FLOOD

Three months after the survey of the Espiritu Santo rancho I was again

in the valley of the Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation

had erased the memory of that event as completely as I supposed it had

obliterated the boundary monuments I had planted. The great flood of

1861–62 was at its height when, obeying some indefinite yearning, I took

my carpetbag and embarked for the inundated valley.

There was nothing to be seen from the bright cabin windows of the

Golden City but night deepening over the water. The only sound was the

pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous for the past two weeks,

and did not disturb the national gravity of my countrymen as they

silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on errands of relief to

friends and relatives wore anxious faces, and conversed soberly on

the one absorbing topic. Others like myself, attracted by curiosity,

listened eagerly to newer details. But, with that human disposition to

seize upon any circumstance that might give chance event the exaggerated

importance of instinct, I was half conscious of something more than

curiosity as an impelling motive.

The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water, and a leaden sky greeted

us the next morning as we lay beside the half-submerged levee of

Sacramento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to convey us to the

hotels was an appeal that was irresistible. I resigned myself to a

dripping rubber-cased mariner called Joe, and wrapping myself in a

shining cloak of the like material, about as suggestive of warmth as

court-plaster might have been, took my seat in the stern sheets of his

boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part from the steamer, that to

most of the passengers was the only visible connecting link between

us and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled away and entered the

city, stemming a rapid current as we shot the levee.

We glided up the long level of K Street,—once a cheerful busy

thoroughfare, now distressing in its silent desolation. The turbid

water, which seemed to meet the horizon edge before us, flowed at right

angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Nature had revenged

herself on the local taste by disarraying the regular rectangles by

huddling houses on street corners, where they presented abrupt gables to

the current, or by capsizing them in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds

were gliding in and out of low-arched doorways. The water was over the

top of the fences surrounding well-kept gardens, in the first stories

of hotels and private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet carpets as

well as roughly boarded floors. And a silence quite as suggestive as the

visible desolation was in the voiceless streets that no longer echoed

to carriage-wheel or footfall. The low ripple of water, the occasional

splash of oars, or the warning cry of boatmen were the few signs of life

and habitation.

With such scenes before my eyes and such sounds in my ears, as I lie

lazily in the boat, is mingled the song of my gondolier, who sings to

the music of his oars. It is not quite as romantic as his brother of

the Lido might improvise, but my Yankee Giuseppe has the advantage of

earnestness and energy, and gives a graphic description of the terrors

of the past week and of noble deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion,

occasionally pointing out a balcony from which some California Bianca

or Laura had been snatched, half-clothed and famished. Giuseppe is

otherwise peculiar, and refuses the proffered fare, for—am I not a

citizen of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the suffering

cry of Sacramento? and is not he, Giuseppe, a member of the Howard

Society? No, Giuseppe is poor, but cannot take my money. Still, if I

must spend it, there is the Howard Society, and the women and children

without food and clothing at the Agricultural Hall. I thank the generous

gondolier, and we go to the Hall,—a dismal, bleak place, ghastly with

the memories of last year’s opulence and plenty,—and here Giuseppe’s

fare is swelled by the stranger’s mite. But here Giuseppe tells me of

the “Relief Boat” which leaves for the flooded district in the interior,

and here, profiting by the lesson he has taught me, I make the resolve

to turn my curiosity to the account of others, and am accepted of those

who go forth to succor and help the afflicted. Giuseppe takes charge of

my carpetbag, and does not part from me until I stand on the slippery

deck of Relief Boat No. 3.

An hour later I am in the pilot-house, looking down upon what was once

the channel of a peaceful river. But its banks are only defined by

tossing tufts of willow washed by the long swell that breaks over a

vast inland sea. Stretches of tule land fertilized by its once regular

channel, and dotted by nourishing ranchos, are now cleanly erased.

The cultivated profile of the old landscape had faded. Dotted lines in

symmetrical perspective mark orchards that are buried and chilled in the

turbid flood. The roofs of a few farmhouses are visible, and here and

there the smoke curling from chimneys of half-submerged tenements

shows an undaunted life within. Cattle and sheep are gathered on Indian

mounds, waiting the fate of their companions, whose carcases drift by

us or swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns and outhouses. Wagons

are stranded everywhere where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the

moistened glass, I see nothing but water, pattering on the deck from the

lowering clouds, dashing against the window, dripping from the willows,

hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coiling, sapping, hurrying in

rapids, or swelling at last into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their

suggestive quiet and concealment.

As day fades into night the monotony of this strange prospect grows

oppressive. I seek the engine-room, and in the company of some of the

few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked up from temporary

rafts, I forget the general aspect of desolation in their individual

misery. Later we meet the San Francisco packet, and transfer a number

of our passengers. From them we learn how inward-bound vessels report

to having struck the well-defined channel of the Sacramento fifty

miles beyond the bar. There is a voluntary contribution taken among the

generous travelers for the use of our afflicted, and we part company

with a hearty “God speed” on either side. But our signal lights are not

far distant before a familiar sound comes back to us,—an indomitable

Yankee cheer,—which scatters the gloom.

Our course is altered, and we are steaming over the obliterated banks

far in the interior. Once or twice black objects loom up near us,—the

wrecks of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the sky towards

the north, and a few bearing stars to guide us over the waste. As we

penetrate into shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide our

party into smaller boats, and diverge over the submerged prairie. I

borrow a pea-coat of one of the crew, and in that practical disguise

am doubtfully permitted to pass into one of the boats. We give way

northerly. It is quite dark yet, although the rift of cloud has widened.

It must have been about three o’clock, and we were lying upon our oars

in an eddy formed by a clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer

is a solitary bright star in the distance, when the silence is broken by

the “bow oar”:—

“Light ahead.”

All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few seconds a twinkling

light appears, shines steadily, and again disappears, as if by the

shifting position of some black object apparently drifting close upon

us.

“Stern, all!—a steamer!”

“Hold hard, there! Steamer be d——d!” is the reply of the coxswain.

“It’s a house, and a big one too.”

It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a huge fragment of the

darkness. The light comes from a single candle which shines through a

window as the great shape swings by. Some recollection is drifting back

to me with it, as I listen with beating heart.

“There’s some one in it, by heavens! Give way, boys,—lay her alongside.

Handsomely, now! The door’s fastened; try the window; no! here’s

another!”

In another moment we are trampling in the water, which washes the floor

to the depth of several inches. It is a large room, at the farther end

of which an old man is sitting, wrapped in a blanket, holding a candle

in one hand, and apparently absorbed in the book he holds with the

other. I spring toward him with an exclamation:—

“Joseph Tryan!”

He does not move. We gather closer to him, and I lay my hand gently on

his shoulder, and say,—

“Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and children, where are they? The

boys,—George! Are they here? are they safe?”

He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to mine, and we

involuntarily recoil before his look. It is a calm and quiet glance,

free from fear, anger, or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling

through our veins. He bowed his head over his book again, taking no

further notice of us. The men look at me compassionately and hold their

peace. I make one more effort:—

“Joseph Tryan, don’t you know me—the surveyor who surveyed your

ranch,—the Espiritu Santo? Look up, old man!”

He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his blanket. Presently he

repeated to himself, “The surveyor who surveyed your ranch, Espiritu

Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a lesson he was trying to

fix in his memory.

I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he suddenly caught me fearfully

by the hand, and said:—

“Hush!”

We were silent.

“Listen!” He puts his arm around my neck, and whispers in my ear, “I’m

_a-moving off!_”

“Moving off?”

“Hush! Don’t speak so loud. Moving off! Ah! wot’s that? Don’t you

hear?—there!—listen!”

We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor.

“It’s them wot he sent I—old Altascar sent. They’ve been here all

night. I heard ’em first in the creek, when they came to tell the old

man to move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. They whispered

under the door, and I saw their eyes on the step,—their cruel, hard

eyes. Ah! why don’t they quit?”

I tell the men to search the room and see if they can find any farther

traces of the family, while Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is

so much like the figure I remember on the breezy night, that a

superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me. When they have returned, I

tell them briefly what I know of him, and the old man murmurs again,—

“Why don’t they quit, then? They have the stock,—all gone—gone,—gone

for the hides and hoofs,” and he groans bitterly.

“There are other boats below us. The shanty cannot have drifted far, and

perhaps the family are safe by this time,” says the coxswain hopefully.

We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless, and carry him to

the boat. He is still grasping the Bible in his right hand, though its

strengthening grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers in the

stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while a pale gleam in the sky

shows the coming day.

I was weary with excitement, and when we reached the steamer, and I had

seen Joseph Tryan comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a blanket

near the boiler and presently fell asleep. But even then the figure of

the old man often started before me, and a sense of uneasiness about

George made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams. I was awakened

at about eight o’clock in the morning by the engineer, who told me one

of the old man’s sons had been picked up and was now on board.

“Is it George Tryan?” I ask quickly.

“Don’t know; but he’s a sweet one, whoever he is,” adds the engineer,

with a smile at some luscious remembrance. “You’ll find him for’ard.”

I hurry to the bow of the boat, and find not George, but the

irrepressible Wise, sitting on a coil of rope, a little dirtier and

rather more dilapidated than I can remember having seen him.

He is examining, with apparent admiration, some rough, dry clothes

that have been put out for his disposal. I cannot help thinking that

circumstances have somewhat exalted his usual cheerfulness. He puts me

at ease by at once addressing me:—

“These are high old times, ain’t they? I say, what do you reckon’s

become o’ them thar bound’ry moniments you stuck? Ah!”

The pause which succeeds this outburst is the effect of a spasm of

admiration at a pair of high boots, which, by great exertion, he has at

last pulled on his feet.

“So you’ve picked up the ole man in the shanty, clean crazy? He must

have been soft to have stuck there instead o’ leavin’ with the old

woman. Didn’t know me from Adam; took me for George!”

At this affecting instance of paternal forgetfulness, Wise was

evidently divided between amusement and chagrin. I took advantage of the

contending emotions to ask about George.

“Don’t know whar he is! If he’d tended stock instead of running about

the prairie, packin’ off wimmin and children, he might have saved

suthin’. He lost every hoof and hide, I’ll bet a cooky! Say, you,” to

a passing boatman, “when are you goin’ to give us some grub? I’m hungry

’nough to skin and eat a hoss. Reckon I’ll turn butcher when things is

dried up, and save hides, horns, and taller.”

I could not but admire this indomitable energy, which under softer

climatic influences might have borne such goodly fruit.

“Have you any idea what you’ll do, Wise?” I ask.

“Thar ain’t much to do now,” says the practical young man. “I’ll have to

lay over a spell, I reckon, till things comes straight. The land ain’t

worth much now, and won’t be, I dessay, for some time. Wonder whar the

ole man’ll drive stakes next.”

“I meant as to your father and George, Wise.”

“Oh, the ole man and I’ll go on to Miles’s, whar Tom packed the old

woman and babies last week. George’ll turn up somewhar atween this and

Altascar’s, ef he ain’t thar now.”

I ask how the Altascars have suffered.

“Well, I reckon he ain’t lost much in stock. I shouldn’t wonder if

George helped him drive ’em up the foothills. And his casa’s built

too high. Oh, thar ain’t any water thar, you bet. Ah!” says Wise, with

reflective admiration, “those Greasers ain’t the darned fools people

thinks ’em. I’ll bet thar ain’t one swamped out in all ’er Californy.”

But the appearance of “grub” cut this rhapsody short.

“I shall keep on a little farther,” I say, “and try to find George.”

Wise stared a moment at this eccentricity until a new light dawned upon

him.

“I don’t think you’ll save much. What’s the percentage,—workin’ on

shares, eh?”

I answer that I am only curious, which I feel lessens his opinion of me,

and with a sadder feeling than his assurance of George’s safety might

warrant, I walked away.

From others whom we picked up from time to time we heard of George’s

self-sacrificing devotion, with the praises of the many he had helped

and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to return until I had seen

him, and soon prepared myself to take a boat to the lower valda of the

foothills, and visit Altascar. I soon perfected my arrangements, bade

farewell to Wise, and took a last look at the old man, who was sitting

by the furnace fires quite passive and composed. Then our boat-head

swung round, pulled by sturdy and willing hands.

It was again raining, and a disagreeable wind had risen. Our course lay

nearly west, and we soon knew by the strong current that we were in the

creek of the Espiritu Santo. From time to time the wrecks of barns

were seen, and we passed many half-submerged willows hung with farming

implements.

We emerge at last into a broad silent sea. It is the llano de Espiritu

Santo. As the wind whistles by me, piling the shallower fresh water into

mimic waves, I go back, in fancy, to the long ride of October over that

boundless plain, and recall the sharp outlines of the distant hills

which are now lost in the lowering clouds. The men are rowing silently,

and I find my mind, released from its tension, growing benumbed and

depressed as then. The water, too, is getting more shallow as we leave

the banks of the creek, and with my hand dipped listlessly over the

thwarts, I detect the tops of chimisal, which shows the tide to have

somewhat fallen. There is a black mound, bearing to the north of the

line of alder, making an adverse current, which, as we sweep to the

right to avoid it, I recognize. We pull close alongside, and I call to

the men to stop.

There was a stake driven near its summit with the initials, “L. E. S.

I.” Tied halfway down was a curiously worked riata. It was George’s. It

had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the loose gravelly soil of

the mound was deeply dented with horse’s hoofs. The stake was covered

with horsehairs. It was a record, but no clue.

The wind had grown more violent, as we still fought our way forward,

resting and rowing by turns, and oftener “poling” the shallower surface,

but the old valda, or bench, is still distant. My recollection of the

old survey enables me to guess the relative position of the meanderings

of the creek, and an occasional simple professional experiment to

determine the distance gives my crew the fullest faith in my ability.

Night overtakes us in our impeded progress. Our condition looks more

dangerous than it really is, but I urge the men, many of whom are still

new in this mode of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of

perfect safety and speedy relief ahead. We go on in this way until about

eight o’clock, and ground by the willows. We have a muddy walk for a few

hundred yards before we strike a dry trail, and simultaneously the white

walls of Altascar’s appear like a snow-bank before us. Lights are moving

in the courtyard; but otherwise the old tomb-like repose characterizes

the building.

One of the peons recognized me as I entered the court, and Altascar met

me on the corridor.

I was too weak to do more than beg his hospitality for the men who had

dragged wearily with me. He looked at my hand, which still unconsciously

held the broken riata. I began, wearily, to tell him about George and

my fears, but with a gentler courtesy than was even his wont, he gravely

laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Poco a poco, senor,—not now. You are tired, you have hunger, you have

cold. Necessary it is you should have peace.”

He took us into a small room and poured out some French cognac, which

he gave to the men that had accompanied me. They drank, and threw

themselves before the fire in the larger room. The repose of the

building was intensified that night, and I even fancied that the

footsteps on the corridor were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard’s

habitual gravity was deeper; we might have been shut out from the world

as well as the whistling storm, behind those ancient walls with their

time-worn inheritor.

Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired. In a few minutes two

smoking dishes of chupa with coffee were placed before us, and my men

ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my excitement and weariness kept

down the instincts of hunger.

I was sitting sadly by the fire when he reentered.

“You have eat?”

I said, “Yes,” to please him.

“Bueno, eat when you can,—food and appetite are not always.”

He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his

countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than

a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly

before him.

“It was made by me, senor.”

“I kept it as a clue to him, Don Altascar,” I said. “If I could find

him”—

“He is here.”

“Here! and”—but I could not say, “well!” I understood the gravity of

the old man’s face, the hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the

building, in an electric flash of consciousness: I held the clue to the

broken riata at last. Altascar took my hand, and we crossed the corridor

to a sombre apartment. A few tall candles were burning in sconces before

the window.

In an alcove there was a deep bed with its counterpane, pillows, and

sheets heavily edged with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the

humblest of these strange people lavish upon this single item of their

household. I stepped beside it and saw George lying, as I had seen him

one before, peacefully at rest. But a greater sacrifice than that he had

known was here, and his generous heart was stilled forever.

“He was honest and brave,” said the old man, and turned away.

There was another figure in the room; a heavy shawl drawn over her

graceful outline, and her long black hair hiding the hands that

buried her downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and, retiring

presently, left the loving and loved together.