PART III.--IN CONGRESS

Produced by Donald Lainson and An Anonymous Volunteer

THE STORY OF A MINE

By Bret Har

UDO BRACHVOGEL, Esq.,

Whose clever translations of my writings have helped to introduce me

to the favor of his countrymen, both here and in Germany, this little

volume is heartily dedicated.

BRET HARTE.

New York, December, 1877.

THE STORY OF A MINE

PART--I.

CHAPTER I

WHO SOUGHT IT

It was a steep trail leading over the Monterey Coast Range. Concho was

very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much disgusted.

To Concho's mind there was but one relief for these insurmountable

difficulties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung over the machillas

of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his lips, took a long

draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated:

“Carajo!”

It appeared that the bottle did not contain aguardiente, but had lately

been filled in a tavern near Tres Pinos by an Irishman who sold had

American whisky under that pleasing Castilian title. Nevertheless Concho

had already nearly emptied the bottle, and it fell back against the

saddle as yellow and flaccid as his own cheeks. Thus reinforced Concho

turned to look at the valley behind him, from which he had climbed since

noon. It was a sterile waste bordered here and there by arable fringes

and valdas of meadow land, but in the main, dusty, dry, and forbidding.

His eye rested for a moment on a low white cloud line on the eastern

horizon, but so mocking and unsubstantial that it seemed to come and go

as he gazed. Concho struck his forehead and winked his hot eyelids. Was

it the Sierras or the cursed American whisky?

Again he recommenced the ascent. At times the half-worn, half-visible

trail became utterly lost in the bare black outcrop of the ridge, but

his sagacious mule soon found it again, until, stepping upon a loose

boulder, she slipped and fell. In vain Concho tried to lift her from

out the ruin of camp kettles, prospecting pans, and picks; she

remained quietly recumbent, occasionally raising her head as if to

contemplatively glance over the arid plain below. Then he had recourse

to useless blows. Then he essayed profanity of a secular kind, such as

“Assassin,” “Thief,” “Beast with a pig's head,” “Food for the Bull's

Horns,” but with no effect.

Then he had recourse to the curse ecclesiastic:

“Ah, Judas Iscariot! is it thus, renegade and traitor, thou leavest

me, thy master, a league from camp and supper waiting? Stealer of the

Sacrament, get up!”

Still no effect. Concho began to feel uneasy; never before had a mule of

pious lineage failed to respond to this kind of exhortation. He made one

more desperate attempt:

“Ah, defiler of the altar! lie not there! Look!” he threw his hand into

the air, extending the fingers suddenly. “Behold, fiend! I exorcise

thee! Ha! tremblest! Look but a little now,--see! Apostate!

I--I--excommunicate thee,--Mula!”

“What are you kicking up such a devil of row down there for?” said a

gruff voice from the rocks above.

Concho shuddered. Could it be that the devil was really going to fly

away with his mule? He dared not look up.

“Come now,” continued the voice, “you just let up on that mule, you

d----d old Greaser. Don't you see she's slipped her shoulder?”

Alarmed as Concho was at the information, he could not help feeling to a

certain extent relieved. She was lamed, but had not lost her standing as

a good Catholic.

He ventured to lift his eyes. A stranger--an Americano from his dress

and accent--was descending the rocks toward him. He was a slight-built

man with a dark, smooth face, that would have been quite commonplace and

inexpressive but for his left eye, in which all that was villainous in

him apparently centered. Shut that eye, and you had the features and

expression of an ordinary man; cover up those features, and the eye

shone out like Eblis's own. Nature had apparently observed this too, and

had, by a paralysis of the nerve, ironically dropped the corner of the

upper lid over it like a curtain, laughed at her handiwork, and turned

him loose to prey upon a credulous world.

“What are you doing here?” said the stranger after he had assisted

Concho in bringing the mule to her feet, and a helpless halt.

“Prospecting, Senor.”

The stranger turned his respectable right eye toward Concho, while his

left looked unutterable scorn and wickedness over the landscape.

“Prospecting, what for?”

“Gold and silver, Senor,--yet for silver most.”

“Alone?”

“Of us there are four.”

The stranger looked around.

“In camp,--a league beyond,” explained the Mexican.

“Found anything?”

“Of this--much.” Concho took from his saddle bags a lump of greyish iron

ore, studded here and there with star points of pyrites. The stranger

said nothing, but his eye looked a diabolical suggestion.

“You are lucky, friend Greaser.”

“Eh?”

“It IS silver.”

“How know you this?”

“It is my business. I'm a metallurgist.”

“And you can say what shall be silver and what is not.”

“Yes,--see here!” The stranger took from his saddle bags a little

leather case containing some half dozen phials. One, enwrapped in

dark-blue paper, he held up to Concho.

“This contains a preparation of silver.”

Concho's eyes sparkled, but he looked doubtingly at the stranger.

“Get me some water in your pan.”

Concho emptied his water bottle in his prospecting pan and handed it to

the stranger. He dipped a dried blade of grass in the bottle and then

let a drop fall from its tip in the water. The water remained unchanged.

“Now throw a little salt in the water,” said the stranger.

Concho did so. Instantly a white film appeared on the surface, and

presently the whole mass assumed a milky hue.

Concho crossed himself hastily, “Mother of God, it is magic!”

“It is chloride of silver, you darned fool.”

Not content with this cheap experiment, the stranger then took Concho's

breath away by reddening some litmus paper with the nitrate, and then

completely knocked over the simple Mexican by restoring its color by

dipping it in the salt water.

“You shall try me this,” said Concho, offering his iron ore to the

stranger;--“you shall use the silver and the salt.”

“Not so fast my friend,” answered the stranger; “in the first place

this ore must be melted, and then a chip taken and put in shape like

this,--and that is worth something, my Greaser cherub. No, sir, a man

don't spend all his youth at Freiburg and Heidelburg to throw away his

science gratuitously on the first Greaser he meets.”

“It will cost--eh--how much?” said the Mexican eagerly.

“Well, I should say it would take about a hundred dollars and expenses

to--to--find silver in that ore. But once you've got it there--you're

all right for tons of it.”

“You shall have it,” said the now excited Mexican. “You shall have it of

us,--the four! You shall come to our camp and shall melt it,--and show

the silver, and--enough! Come!” and in his feverishness he clutched the

hand of his companion as if to lead him forth at once.

“What are you going to do with your mule?” said the stranger.

“True, Holy Mother,--what, indeed?”

“Look yer,” said the stranger, with a grim smile, “she won't stray far,

I'll be bound. I've an extra pack mule above here; you can ride on her,

and lead me into camp, and to-morrow come back for your beast.”

Poor honest Concho's heart sickened at the prospect of leaving behind

the tired servant he had objurgated so strongly a moment before, but

the love of gold was uppermost. “I will come back to thee, little

one, to-morrow, a rich man. Meanwhile, wait thou here, patient

one,--Adios!--thou smallest of mules,--Adios!”

And, seizing the stranger's hand, he clambered up the rocky ledge until

they reached the summit. Then the stranger turned and gave one sweep of

his malevolent eye over the valley.

Wherefore, in after years, when their story was related, with the

devotion of true Catholic pioneers, they named the mountain “La Canada

de la Visitacion del Diablo,” “The Gulch of the Visitation of the

Devil,” the same being now the boundary lines of one of the famous

Mexican land grants.

CHAPTER II

WHO FOUND IT

Concho was so impatient to reach the camp and deliver his good news to

his companions that more than once the stranger was obliged to command

him to slacken his pace. “Is it not enough, you infernal Greaser, that

you lame your own mule, but you must try your hand on mine? Or am I to

put Jinny down among the expenses?” he added with a grin and a slight

lifting of his baleful eyelid.

When they had ridden a mile along the ridge, they began to descend again

toward the valley. Vegetation now sparingly bordered the trail, clumps

of chemisal, an occasional manzanita bush, and one or two dwarfed

“buckeyes” rooted their way between the interstices of the black-gray

rock. Now and then, in crossing some dry gully, worn by the overflow of

winter torrents from above, the grayish rock gloom was relieved by dull

red and brown masses of color, and almost every overhanging rock bore

the mark of a miner's pick. Presently, as they rounded the curving flank

of the mountain, from a rocky bench below them, a thin ghost-like

stream of smoke seemed to be steadily drawn by invisible hands into

the invisible ether. “It is the camp,” said Concho, gleefully; “I

will myself forward to prepare them for the stranger,” and before his

companion could detain him, he had disappeared at a sharp canter around

the curve of the trail.

Left to himself, the stranger took a more leisurely pace, which left him

ample time for reflection. Scamp as he was, there was something in the

simple credulity of poor Concho that made him uneasy. Not that his moral

consciousness was touched, but he feared that Concho's companions might,

knowing Concho's simplicity, instantly suspect him of trading upon it.

He rode on in a deep study. Was he reviewing his past life? A vagabond

by birth and education, a swindler by profession, an outcast by

reputation, without absolutely turning his back upon respectability, he

had trembled on the perilous edge of criminality ever since his boyhood.

He did not scruple to cheat these Mexicans,--they were a degraded

race,--and for a moment he felt almost an accredited agent of

progress and civilization. We never really understand the meaning of

enlightenment until we begin to use it aggressively.

A few paces further on four figures appeared in the now gathering

darkness of the trail. The stranger quickly recognized the beaming smile

of Concho, foremost of the party. A quick glance at the faces of the

others satisfied him that while they lacked Concho's good humor, they

certainly did not surpass him in intellect. “Pedro” was a stout vaquero.

“Manuel” was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San

Carmel, and “Miguel” a recent butcher of Monterey. Under the benign

influences of Concho that suspicion with which the ignorant regard

strangers died away, and the whole party escorted the stranger--who had

given his name as Mr. Joseph Wiles--to their camp-fire. So anxious were

they to begin their experiments that even the instincts of hospitality

were forgotten, and it was not until Mr. Wiles--now known as “Don

Jose”--sharply reminded them that he wanted some “grub,” that they came

to their senses. When the frugal meal of tortillas, frijoles, salt pork,

and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark-red rock brought

from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, glazed by some

peculiar local process, tightly fitted over it, and packed with clay and

sods. A fire was speedily built of pine boughs continually brought from

a wooded ravine below, and in a few moments the furnace was in full

blast. Mr. Wiles did not participate in these active preparations,

except to give occasional directions between his teeth, which were

contemplatively fixed over a clay pipe as he lay comfortably on his

back on the ground. Whatever enjoyment the rascal may have had in their

useless labors he did not show it, but it was observed that his left

eye often followed the broad figure of the ex-vaquero, Pedro, and often

dwelt on that worthy's beetling brows and half-savage face. Meeting that

baleful glance once, Pedro growled out an oath, but could not resist a

hideous fascination that caused him again and again to seek it.

The scene was weird enough without Wiles's eye to add to its wild

picturesqueness. The mountain towered above,--a heavy Rembrandtish

mass of black shadow,--sharply cut here and there against a sky so

inconceivably remote that the world-sick soul must have despaired of

ever reaching so far, or of climbing its steel-blue walls. The stars

were large, keen, and brilliant, but cold and steadfast. They did not

dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The furnace fire painted

the faces of the men an Indian red, glanced on brightly colored blanket

and serape, but was eventually caught and absorbed in the waiting

shadows of the black mountain, scarcely twenty feet from the furnace

door. The low, half-sung, half-whispered foreign speech of the group,

the roaring of the furnace, and the quick, sharp yelp of a coyote on

the plain below were the only sounds that broke the awful silence of the

hills.

It was almost dawn when it was announced that the ore had fused. And it

was high time, for the pot was slowly sinking into the fast-crumbling

oven. Concho uttered a jubilant “God and Liberty,” but Don Jose Wiles

bade him be silent and bring stakes to support the pot. Then Don Jose

bent over the seething mass. It was for a moment only. But in that

moment this accomplished metallurgist, Mr. Joseph Wiles, had quietly

dropped a silver half dollar into the pot!

Then he charged them to keep up the fires and went to sleep--all but one

eye.

Dawn came with dull beacon fires on the near hill tops, and, far in the

East, roses over the Sierran snow. Birds twittering in the alder fringes

a mile below, and the creaking of wagon wheels,--the wagon itself a

mere cloud of dust in the distant road,--were heard distinctly. Then

the melting pot was solemnly broken by Don Jose, and the glowing

incandescent mass turned into the road to cool.

And then the metallurgist chipped a small fragment from the mass and

pounded it, and chipped another smaller piece and pounded that, and then

subjected it to acid, and then treated it to a salt bath which became

at once milky,--and at last produced a white something,--mirabile

dictu!--two cents' worth of silver!

Concho shouted with joy; the rest gazed at each other doubtingly and

distrustfully; companions in poverty, they began to diverge and suspect

each other in prosperity. Wiles's left eye glanced ironically from the

one to the other.

“Here is the hundred dollars, Don Jose,” said Pedro, handing the gold to

Wiles with a decidedly brusque intimation that the services and presence

of a stranger were no longer required.

Wiles took the money with a gracious smile and a wink that sent Pedro's

heart into his boots, and was turning away, when a cry from Manuel

stopped him. “The pot,--the pot,--it has leaked! look! behold! see!”

He had been cleaning away the crumbled fragments of the furnace to get

ready for breakfast, and had disclosed a shining pool of QUICKSILVER!

Wiles started, cast a rapid glance around the group, saw in a flash that

the metal was unknown to them,--and then said quietly:

“It is not silver.”

“Pardon, Senor, it is, and still molten.” Wiles stooped and ran his

fingers through the shining metal.

“Mother of God,--what is it then?--magic?”

“No, only base metal.” But here, Concho, emboldened by Wiles's

experiment, attempted to seize a handful of the glistening mass, that

instantly broke through his fingers in a thousand tiny spherules, and

even sent a few globules up his shirt sleeves, until he danced around in

mingled fear and childish pleasure.

“And it is not worth the taking?” queried Pedro of Wiles.

Wiles's right eye and bland face were turned toward the speaker, but

his malevolent left was glancing at the dull red-brown rock on the hill

side.

“No!”--and turning abruptly away, he proceeded to saddle his mule.

Manuel, Miguel, and Pedro, left to themselves, began talking earnestly

together, while Concho, now mindful of his crippled mule, made his way

back to the trail where he had left her. But she was no longer there.

Constant to her master through beatings and bullyings, she could not

stand incivility and inattention. There are certain qualities of the sex

that belong to all animated nature.

Inconsolable, footsore, and remorseful, Concho returned to the camp

and furnace, three miles across the rocky ridge. But what was his

astonishment on arriving to find the place deserted of man, mule,

and camp equipage. Concho called aloud. Only the echoing rocks grimly

answered him. Was it a trick? Concho tried to laugh. Ah--yes--a good

one,--a joke,--no--no--they HAD deserted him. And then poor Concho bowed

his head to the ground, and falling on his face, cried as if his honest

heart would break.

The tempest passed in a moment; it was not Concho's nature to suffer

long nor brood over an injury. As he raised his head again his eye

caught the shimmer of the quicksilver,--that pool of merry antic metal

that had so delighted him an hour before. In a few moments Concho was

again disporting with it; chasing it here and there, rolling it in his

palms and laughing with boy-like glee at its elusive freaks and fancies.

“Ah, sprightly one,--skipjack,--there thou goest,--come here. This

way,--now I have thee, little one,--come, muchacha,--come and kiss me,”

until he had quite forgotten the defection of his companions. And even

when he shouldered his sorry pack, he was fain to carry his playmate

away with him in his empty leathern flask.

And yet I fancy the sun looked kindly on him as he strode cheerily down

the black mountain side, and his step was none the less free nor light

that he carried with him neither the brilliant prospects nor the crime

of his late comrades.

CHAPTER III

WHO CLAIMED IT

The fog had already closed in on Monterey, and was now rolling, a white,

billowy sea above, that soon shut out the blue breakers below. Once

or twice in descending the mountain Concho had overhung the cliff and

looked down upon the curving horse-shoe of a bay below him,--distant yet

many miles. Earlier in the afternoon he had seen the gilt cross on the

white-faced Mission flare in the sunlight, but now all was gone. By

the time he reached the highway of the town it was quite dark, and he

plunged into the first fonda at the wayside, and endeavored to forget

his woes and his weariness in aguardiente. But Concho's head ached, and

his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that he bethought him

of a medico,--an American doctor,--lately come into the town, who had

once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and

after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, that if

he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of his

money. The grotesque extravagance of life, of fruit and vegetables,

in California was inconsistent with infinitesimal doses. In Concho's

previous illness the doctor had given him a dozen 4 grain quinine

powders.

The following day the grateful Mexican walked into the Doctor's

office--cured. The Doctor was gratified until, on examination, it

appeared that to save trouble, and because his memory was poor, Concho

had taken all the powders in one dose. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders

and--altered his practice.

“Well,” said Dr. Guild, as Concho sank down exhaustedly in one of the

Doctor's two chairs, “what now? Have you been sleeping again in the tule

marshes, or are you upset with commissary whisky? Come, have it out.”

But Concho declared that the devil was in his stomach, that Judas

Iscariot had possessed himself of his spine, that imps were in his

forehead, and that his feet had been scourged by Pontius Pilate.

“That means 'blue mass,'” said the Doctor. And gave it to him,--a bolus

as large as a musket ball, and as heavy.

Concho took it on the spot, and turned to go.

“I have no money, Senor Medico.”

“Never mind. It's only a dollar, the price of the medicine.”

Concho looked guilty at having gulped down so much cash. Then he said

timidly:

“I have no money, but I have got here what is fine and jolly. It is

yours.” And he handed over the contents of the precious tin can he had

brought with him.

The Doctor took it, looked at the shivering volatile mass and said, “Why

this is quicksilver!”

Concho laughed, “Yes, very quick silver, so!” and he snapped his fingers

to show its sprightliness.

The Doctor's face grew earnest; “Where did you get this, Concho?” he

finally asked.

“It ran from the pot in the mountains beyond.”

The Doctor looked incredulous. Then Concho related the whole story.

“Could you find that spot again?”

“Madre de Dios, yes,--I have a mule there; may the devil fly away with

her!”

“And you say your comrades saw this?”

“Why not?”

“And you say they afterwards left you,--deserted you?”

“They did, ingrates!”

The Doctor arose and shut his office door. “Hark ye, Concho,” he said,

“that bit of medicine I gave you just now was worth a dollar, it was

worth a dollar because the material of which it was composed was made

from the stuff you have in that can,--quicksilver or mercury. It is one

of the most valuable of metals, especially in a gold-mining country.

My good fellow, if you know where to find enough of it, your fortune is

made.”

Concho rose to his feet.

“Tell me, was the rock you built your furnace of red?”

“Si, Senor.”

“And brown?”

“Si, Senor.”

“And crumbled under the heat?”

“As to nothing.”

“And did you see much of this red rock?”

“The mountain mother is in travail with it.”

“Are you sure that your comrades have not taken possession of the

mountain mother?”

“As how?”

“By claiming its discovery under the mining laws, or by pre-emption?”

“They shall not.”

“But how will you, single-handed, fight the four; for I doubt not your

scientific friend has a hand in it?”

“I will fight.”

“Yes, my Concho, but suppose I take the fight off your hands. Now,

here's a proposition: I will get half a dozen Americanos to go in with

you. You will have to get money to work the mine,--you will need funds.

You shall share half with them. They will take the risk, raise the

money, and protect you.”

“I see,” said Concho, nodding his head and winking his eyes rapidly.

“Bueno!”

“I will return in ten minutes,” said the Doctor, taking his hat.

He was as good as his word. In ten minutes he returned with six original

locaters, a board of directors, a president, secretary, and a deed of

incorporation of the 'Blue Mass Quicksilver Mining Co.' This latter

was a delicate compliment to the Doctor, who was popular. The President

added to these necessary articles a revolver.

“Take it,” he said, handing over the weapon to Concho. “Take it; my

horse is outside; take that, ride like h--l and hang on to the claim

until we come!”

In another moment Concho was in the saddle. Then the mining director

lapsed into the physician.

“I hardly know,” said Dr. Guild, doubtfully, “if in your present

condition you ought to travel. You have just taken a powerful medicine,”

and the Doctor looked hypocritically concerned.

“Ah,--the devil!” laughed Concho, “what is the quicksilver that is IN

to that which is OUT? Hoopa, la Mula!” and, with a clatter of hoofs and

jingle of spurs, was presently lost in the darkness.

“You were none too soon, gentlemen,” said the American Alcalde, as

he drew up before the Doctor's door. “Another company has just been

incorporated for the same location, I reckon.”

“Who are they?”

“Three Mexicans,--Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel, headed by that d----d

cock-eyed Sydney Duck, Wiles.”

“Are they here?”

“Manuel and Miguel, only. The others are over at Tres Pinos lally-gaging

Roscommon and trying to rope him in to pay off their whisky bills at his

grocery.”

“If that's so we needn't start before sunrise, for they're sure to get

roaring drunk.”

And this legitimate successor of the grave Mexican Alcaldes, having thus

delivered his impartial opinion, rode away.

Meanwhile, Concho the redoubtable, Concho the fortunate, spared neither

riata nor spur. The way was dark, the trail obscure and at times

even dangerous, and Concho, familiar as he was with these mountain

fastnesses, often regretted his sure-footed Francisquita. “Care not,

O Concho,” he would say to himself, “'tis but a little while, only a

little while, and thou shalt have another Francisquita to bless thee.

Eh, skipjack, there was a fine music to thy dancing. A dollar for an

ounce,--'tis as good as silver, and merrier.” Yet for all his good

spirits he kept a sharp lookout at certain bends of the mountain trail;

not for assassins or brigands, for Concho was physically courageous, but

for the Evil One, who, in various forms, was said to lurk in the Santa

Cruz Range, to the great discomfort of all true Catholics. He recalled

the incident of Ignacio, a muleteer of the Franciscan Friars, who,

stopping at the Angelus to repeat the Credo, saw Luzbel plainly in the

likeness of a monstrous grizzly bear, mocking him by sitting on his

haunches and lifting his paws, clasped together, as if in prayer.

Nevertheless, with one hand grasping his reins and his rosary, and the

other clutching his whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so rapidly

that he reached the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining

the far-off Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland,

he descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of

red rock and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had left

it that morning; there was no trace of recent human visitation. Revolver

in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, peered behind

trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and manzanita, and listened. There

was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind over the pines below

him. For a while he paced backward and forward with a vague sense of

being a sentinel, but his mercurial nature soon rebelled against this

monotony, and soon the fatigues of the day began to tell upon him.

Recourse to his whisky flask only made him the drowsier, until at last

he was fain to lie down and roll himself up tightly in his blanket. The

next moment he was sound asleep.

His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. Then

the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of rock

rolled near his feet, but he stirred not. And then two black figures

were outlined on the crags beyond.

“St-t-t!” whispered a voice. “There is one lying beside the furnace.”

The speech was Spanish, but the voice was Wiles's.

The other figure crept cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked

over. “It is Concho, the imbecile,” said Pedro, contemptuously.

“But if he should not be alone, or if he should waken?”

“I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notification.”

Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky

ledge, supporting himself by chemisal and brush-wood.

The next moment Pedro stood beside the unconscious man. Then he looked

cautiously around. The figure of his companion was lost in the shadow

of the rocks above; only a slight crackle of brush betrayed his

whereabouts. Suddenly Pedro flung his serape over the sleeper's head,

and then threw his powerful frame and tremendous weight full

upon Concho's upturned face, while his strong arms clasped the

blanket-pinioned limbs of his victim. There was a momentary upheaval,

a spasm, and a struggle; but the tightly-rolled blanket clung to the

unfortunate man like cerements.

There was no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was nothing

to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two men darkly

outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in each other's

arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of Wiles in the brush

above was distinctly audible.

Gradually the struggles grew fainter. Then a whisper from the crags:

“I can't see you. What are you doing?”

“Watching!”

“Sleeps he?”

“He sleeps!”

“Soundly?”

“Soundly.”

“After the manner of the dead?”

“After the fashion of the dead!”

The last tremor had ceased. Pedro rose as Wiles descended.

“All is ready,” said Wiles; “you are a witness of my placing the

notifications?”

“I am a witness.”

“But of this one?” pointing to Concho. “Shall we leave him here?”

“A drunken imbecile,--why not?”

Wiles turned his left eye on the speaker. They chanced to be standing

nearly in the same attitude they had stood the preceding night. Pedro

uttered a cry and an imprecation, “Carramba! Take your devil's eye from

me! What see you? Eh,--what?”

“Nothing, good Pedro,” said Wiles, turning his bland right cheek to

Pedro. The infuriated and half-frightened ex-vaquero returned the long

knife he had half-drawn from its sheath, and growled surlily: “Go on

then! But keep thou on that side, and I will on this.” And so, side by

side, listening, watching, distrustful of all things, but mainly of each

other, they stole back and up into those shadows from which they might

like evil spirits have been poetically evoked.

A half hour passed, in which the east brightened, flashed, and again

melted into gold. And then the sun came up haughtily, and a fog that

had stolen across the summit in the night arose and fled up the mountain

side, tearing its white robes in its guilty haste, and leaving them

fluttering from tree and crag and scar. A thousand tiny blades, nestling

in the crevices of rocks, nurtured in storms and rocked by the trade

winds, stretched their wan and feeble arms toward Him; but Concho

the strong, Concho the brave, Concho the light-hearted spake not nor

stirred.

CHAPTER IV

WHO TOOK IT

There was persistent neighing on the summit. Concho's horse wanted his

breakfast.

This protestation reached the ears of a party ascending the mountain

from its western face. To one of the party it was familiar.

“Why, blank it all, that's Chiquita. That d----d Mexican's lying drunk

somewhere,” said the President of the B. M. Co.

“I don't like the look of this at all,” said Dr. Guild, as they rode up

beside the indignant animal. “If it had been an American, it might have

been carelessness, but no Mexican ever forgets his beast. Drive ahead,

boys; we may be too late.”

In half an hour they came in sight of the ledge below, the crumbled

furnace, and the motionless figure of Concho, wrapped in a blanket,

lying prone in the sunlight.

“I told you so,--drunk!” said the President.

The Doctor looked grave, but did not speak. They dismounted and picketed

their horses. Then crept on all fours to the ledge above the furnace.

There was a cry from Secretary Gibbs, “Look yer. Some fellar has been

jumping us, boys. See these notices.”

There were two notices on canvas affixed to the rock, claiming the

ground, and signed by Pedro, Manuel, Miguel, Wiles, and Roscommon.

“This was done, Doctor, while your trustworthy Greaser locater,--d--n

him,--lay there drunk. What's to be done now?”

But the Doctor was making his way to the unfortunate cause of their

defeat, lying there quite mute to their reproaches. The others followed

him.

The Doctor knelt beside Concho, unrolled him, placed his hand upon his

wrist, his ear over his heart, and then said:

“Dead.”

“Of course. He got medicine of you last night. This comes of your d----d

heroic practice.”

But the Doctor was too much occupied to heed the speaker's raillery. He

had peered into Concho's protuberant eye, opened his mouth, and gazed at

the swollen tongue, and then suddenly rose to his feet.

“Tear down those notices, boys, but keep them. Put up your own. Don't

be alarmed, you will not be interfered with, for here is murder added to

robbery.”

“Murder?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, excitedly, “I'll take my oath on any inquest

that this man was strangled to death. He was surprised while asleep.

Look here.” He pointed to the revolver still in Concho's stiffening

hand, which the murdered man had instantly cocked, but could not use in

the struggle.

“That's so,” said the President, “no man goes to sleep with a cocked

revolver. What's to be done?”

“Everything,” said the Doctor. “This deed was committed within the last

two hours; the body is still warm. The murderer did not come our way,

or we should have met him on the trail. He is, if anywhere, between here

and Tres Pinos.”

“Gentlemen,” said the President, with a slight preparatory and half

judicial cough, “two of you will stay here and stick! The others will

follow me to Tres Pinos. The law has been outraged. You understand the

Court!”

By some odd influence the little group of half-cynical, half-trifling,

and wholly reckless men had become suddenly sober, earnest citizens.

They said, “Go on,” nodded their heads, and betook themselves to their

horses.

“Had we not better wait for the inquest and swear out a warrant?” said

the Secretary, cautiously.

“How many men have we?”

“Five!”

“Then,” said the President, summing up the Revised Statutes of the State

of California in one strong sentence; “then we don't want no d----d

warrant.”

CHAPTER V

WHO HAD A LIEN ON IT

It was high noon at Tres Pinos. The three pines from which it gained its

name, in the dusty road and hot air, seemed to smoke from their balsamic

spires. There was a glare from the road, a glare from the sky, a glare

from the rocks, a glare from the white canvas roofs of the few shanties

and cabins which made up the village. There was even a glare from the

unpainted red-wood boards of Roscommon's grocery and tavern, and a

tendency of the warping floor of the veranda to curl up beneath the

feet of the intruder. A few mules, near the watering trough, had shrunk

within the scant shadow of the corral.

The grocery business of Mr. Roscommon, although adequate and sufficient

for the village, was not exhausting nor overtaxing to the proprietor;

the refilling of the pork and flour barrel of the average miner was the

work of a brief hour on Saturday nights, but the daily replenishment of

the average miner with whisky was arduous and incessant. Roscommon spent

more time behind his bar than his grocer's counter. Add to this the fact

that a long shed-like extension or wing bore the legend, “Cosmopolitan

Hotel, Board or Lodging by the Day or Week. M. Roscommon,” and you

got an idea of the variety of the proprietor's functions. The “hotel,”

however, was more directly under the charge of Mrs. Roscommon, a lady of

thirty years, strong, truculent, and good-hearted.

Mr. Roscommon had early adopted the theory that most of his customers

were insane, and were to be alternately bullied or placated, as the case

might be. Nothing that occurred, no extravagance of speech nor act,

ever ruffled his equilibrium, which was as dogged and stubborn as it was

outwardly calm. When not serving liquor, or in the interval while it was

being drank, he was always wiping his counter with an exceedingly dirty

towel,--or indeed anything that came handy. Miners, noticing this

purely perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles

inconsistent with their service,--fragments of their shirts and

underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat

of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard. Roscommon would

continue his wiping without looking up, but yet conscious of the

presence of each customer. “And it's not another dhrop ye'll git, Jack

Brown, until ye've wiped out the black score that stands agin ye.”

“And it's there ye are, darlint, and it's here's the bottle that's been

lukin' for ye sins Saturday.” “And fwhot hev you done with the last

I sent ye, ye divil of a McCorkle, and here's me back that's bruk

entoirely wid dipping intil the pork barl to giv ye the best sides, and

ye spending yur last cint on a tare into Gilroy. Whist! and if it's

fer foighting ye are, boys, there's an illigant bit of sod beyant the

corral, and it may be meself'll come out with a shtick and be sociable.”

On this particular day, however, Mr. Roscommon was not in his usual

spirits, and when the clatter of horses' hoofs before the door announced

the approach of strangers, he absolutely ceased wiping his counter and

looked up as Dr. Guild, the President, and Secretary of the new Company

strode into the shop.

“We are looking,” said the President, “for a man by the name of Wiles,

and three Mexicans known as Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel.”

“Ye are?”

“We are!”

“Faix, and I hope ye'll foind 'em. And if ye'll git from 'em the score

I've got agin 'em, darlint, I'll add a blessing to it.”

There was a laugh at this from the bystanders, who, somehow, resented

the intrusion of these strangers.

“I fear you will find it no laughing matter, gentlemen,” said Dr. Guild,

a little stiffly, “when I tell you that a murder has been committed, and

the men I am seeking within an hour of that murder put up that notice

signed by their names,” and Dr. Guild displayed the paper.

There was a breathless silence among the crowd as they eagerly pressed

around the Doctor. Only Roscommon kept on wiping his counter.

“You will observe, gentlemen, that the name of Roscommon also appears on

this paper as one of the original beaters.”

“And sure, darlint,” said Roscommon, without looking up, “if ye've no

better ividince agin them boys then you have forninst me, it's home ye'd

bether be riding to wanst. For it's meself as hasn't sturred fut out of

the store the day and noight,--more betoken as the boys I've sarved kin

testify.”

“That's so, Ross, right,” chorused the crowd, “We've been running the

old man all night.”

“Then how comes your name on this paper?”

“O murdher! will ye listen to him, boys? As if every felly that owed

me a whisky bill didn't come to me and say, 'Ah, Misther Roscommon,' or

'Moike,' as the case moight be, sure it's an illigant sthrike I've made

this day, and it's meself that has put down your name as an original

locater, and yer fortune's made, Mr. Roscommon, and will yer fill me

up another quart for the good luck betune you and me. Ah, but ask Jack

Brown over yar if it isn't sick that I am of his original locations.”

The laugh that followed this speech, and its practical application,

convinced the party that they had blundered, that they could obtain no

clue to the real culprits here, and that any attempt by threats would

meet violent opposition. Nevertheless the Doctor was persistent:

“When did you see these men last?”

“When did I see them, is it? Bedad, what with sarvin up the liquor and

keeping me counters dry and swate, I never see them at all.”

“That's so, Ross,” chorused the crowd again, to whom the whole

proceeding was delightfully farcical.

“Then I can tell you, gentlemen,” said the Doctor, stiffly, “that they

were in Monterey last night, that they did not return on that trail this

morning, and that they must have passed here at daybreak.”

With these words, which the Doctor regretted as soon as delivered, the

party rode away.

Mr. Roscommon resumed his service and counter wiping. But late that

night, when the bar was closed and the last loiterer was summarily

ejected, Mr. Roscommon, in the conjugal privacy of his chamber, produced

a legal-looking paper. “Read it, Maggie, darlint, for it's meself never

had the larning nor the parts.”

Mistress Roscommon took the paper:

“Shure, it's law papers, making over some property to yis. O Moike! ye

havn't been spekilating!”

“Whist! and fwhotz that durty gray paper wid the sales and flourishes?”

“Faix, it bothers me intoirely. Shure it oin't in English.”

“Whist! Maggie, it's a Spanish grant!”

“A Spanish grant? O Moike, and what did ye giv for it?”

Mr. Roscommon laid his finger beside his nose and said softly,

“Whishky!”

PART II.--IN THE COURTS

CHAPTER VI

HOW A GRANT WAS GOT FOR IT

While the Blue Mass Company, with more zeal than discretion, were

actively pursuing Pedro and Wiles over the road to Tres Pinos, Senors

Miguel and Manuel were comfortably seated in a fonda at Monterey,

smoking cigarritos and discussing their late discovery. But they were

in no better mood than their late companions, and it appeared from their

conversation that in an evil moment they had sold out their interest

in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and Pedro for a few hundred

dollars,--succumbing to what they were assured would be an active

opposition on the part of the Americanos. The astute reader will easily

understand that the accomplished Mr. Wiles did not inform them of its

value as a quicksilver mine, although he was obliged to impart his

secret to Pedro as a necessary accomplice and reckless coadjutor. That

Pedro felt no qualms of conscience in thus betraying his two comrades

may be inferred from his recent direct and sincere treatment of Concho,

and that he would, if occasion offered or policy made it expedient, as

calmly obliterate Mr. Wiles, that gentleman himself never for a moment

doubted.

“If we had waited but a little he would have given more,--this

cock-eye!” regretted Manuel querulously.

“Not a peso,” said Miguel, firmly.

“And why, my Miguel? Thou knowest we could have worked the mine

ourselves.”

“Good, and lost even that labor. Look you, little brother. Show to me

now the Mexican that has ever made a real of a mine in California. How

many, eh? None! Not a one. Who owns the Mexican's mine, eh? Americanos!

Who takes the money from the Mexican's mine? Americanos! Thou

rememberest Briones, who spent a gold mine to make a silver one? Who

has the lands and house of Briones? Americanos! Who has the cattle of

Briones? Americanos! Who has the mine of Briones? Americanos! Who has

the silver Briones never found? Americanos! Always the same! Forever!

Ah! carramba!”

Then the Evil One evidently took it into his head and horns to worry and

toss these men--comparatively innocent as they were--still further, for

a purpose. For presently to them appeared one Victor Garcia, whilom a

clerk of the Ayuntamiento, who rallied them over aguardiente, and told

them the story of the quicksilver discovery, and the two mining claims

taken out that night by Concho and Wiles. Whereat Manuel exploded with

profanity and burnt blue with sulphurous malediction; but Miguel, the

recent ecclesiastic, sat livid and thoughtful.

Finally came a pause in Manuel's bombardment, and something like this

conversation took place between the cooler actors:

Miguel (thoughtfully). “When was it thou didst petition for lands in the

valley, friend Victor?”

Victor (amazedly). “Never! It is a sterile waste. Am I a fool?”

Miguel (softly). “Thou didst. Of thy Governor, Micheltorena. I have seen

the application.”

Victor (beginning to appreciate a rodential odor). “Si! I had forgotten.

Art thou sure it was in the valley?”

Miguel (persuasively). “In the valley and up the falda.” *

* Falda, or valda, i. e., that part of the skirt of a

woman's robe that breaks upon the ground, and is also

applied to the final slope of a hill, from the angle that it

makes upon the level plain.

Victor (with decision). “Certainly. Of a verity,--the falda likewise.”

Miguel (eying Victor). “And yet thou hadst not the grant. Painful is

it that it should have been burned with the destruction of the other

archives, by the Americanos at Monterey.”

Victor (cautiously feeling his way). “Possiblemente.”

Miguel. “It might be wise to look into it.”

Victor (bluntly). “As why?”

Miguel. “For our good and thine, friend Victor. We bring thee a

discovery; thou bringest us thy skill, thy experience, thy government

knowledge,--thy Custom House paper.” *

* Grants, applications, and official notifications, under

the Spanish Government, were drawn on a stamped paper known

as custom House paper.

Manuel (breaking in drunkenly). “But for what? We are Mexicans. Are we

not fated? We shall lose. Who shall keep the Americanos off?”

Miguel. “We shall take ONE American in! Ha! seest thou? This American

comrade shall bribe his courts, his corregidores. After a little he

shall supply the men who invent the machine of steam, the mill, the

furnace, eh?”

Victor. “But who is he,--not to steal?”

Miguel. “He is that man of Ireland, a good Catholic, at Tres Pinos.”

Victor and Manuel (omnes). “Roscommon?”

Miguel. “Of the same. We shall give him a share for the provisions, for

the tools, for the aguardiente. It is of the Irish that the Americanos

have great fear. It is of them that the votes are made,--that the

President is chosen. It is of him that they make the Alcalde in San

Francisco. And we are of the Church like him.”

They said “Bueno” altogether, and for the moment appeared to be upheld

by a religious enthusiasm,--a joint confession of faith that meant

death, destruction, and possibly forgery, as against the men who thought

otherwise.

This spiritual harmony did away with all practical consideration and

doubt. “I have a little niece,” said Victor, “whose work with the pen

is marvellous. If one says to her, 'Carmen, copy me this, or the other

one,'--even if it be copper-plate,--look you it is done, and you cannot

know of which is the original. Madre de Dios! the other day she makes me

a rubric* of the Governor, Pio Pico, the same, identical. Thou knowest

her, Miguel. She asked concerning thee yesterday.”

* The Spanish “rubric” is the complicated flourish attached

to a signature, and is as individual and characteristic as

the handwriting.

With the embarrassment of an underbred man, Miguel tried to appear

unconcerned, but failed dismally. Indeed, I fear that the black eyes of

Carmen had already done their perfect and accepted work, and had partly

induced the application for Victor's aid. He, however, dissembled so far

as to ask:

“But will she not know?”

“She is a child.”

“But will she not talk?”

“Not if I say nay, and if thou--eh, Miguel?”

This bit of flattery (which, by the way, was a lie, for Victor's niece

did not incline favorably to Miguel), had its effect. They shook hands

over the table. “But,” said Miguel, “what is to be done must be done

now.” “At the moment,” said Victor, “and thou shalt see it done. Eh?

Does it content thee? then come!”

Miguel nodded to Manuel. “We will return in an hour; wait thou here.”

They filed out into the dark, irregular street. Fate led them to pass

the office of Dr. Guild at the moment that Concho mounted his horse.

The shadows concealed them from their rival, but they overheard the last

injunctions of the President to the unlucky Concho.

“Thou hearest?” said Miguel, clutching his companion's arm.

“Yes,” said Victor. “But let him ride, my friend; in one hour we shall

have that that shall arrive YEARS before him,” and with a complacent

chuckle they passed unseen and unheard until, abruptly turning a corner,

they stopped before a low adobe house.

It had once been a somewhat pretentious dwelling, but had evidently

followed the fortunes of its late owner, Don Juan Briones, who had

offered it as a last sop to the three-headed Cerberus that guarded the

El Refugio Plutonean treasures, and who had swallowed it in a single

gulp. It was in very bad case. The furrows of its red-tiled roof looked

as if they were the results of age and decrepitude. Its best room had a

musty smell; there was the dampness of deliquescence in its slow decay,

but the Spanish Californians were sensible architects, and its massive

walls and partitions defied the earthquake thrill, and all the year

round kept an even temperature within.

Victor led Miguel through a low anteroom into a plainly-furnished

chamber, where Carmen sat painting.

Now Mistress Carmen was a bit of a painter, in a pretty little way, with

all the vague longings of an artist, but without, I fear, the artist's

steadfast soul. She recognized beauty and form as a child might, without

understanding their meaning, and somehow failed to make them even

interpret her woman's moods, which surely were nature's too. So she

painted everything with this innocent lust of the eye,--flowers, birds,

insects, landscapes, and figures,--with a joyous fidelity, but no

particular poetry. The bird never sang to her but one song, the flowers

or trees spake but one language, and her skies never brightened except

in color. She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss

you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or

a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old

master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed

itself in fanciful lettering,--and latterly in the imitation of fabrics

and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form, she had always

excelled in penmanship at the Convent,--an accomplishment which the good

sisters held in great repute.

In person she was petite, with a still unformed girlish figure, perhaps

a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too great

tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by blue-black

hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very dark hazel, were

not particularly large, but rather heavily freighted in their melancholy

lids with sleeping passion; her nose was of that unimportant character

which no man remembers; her mouth was small and straight; her teeth,

white and regular. The whole expression of her face was piquancy that

might be subdued by tenderness or made malevolent by anger. At present

it was a salad in which the oil and vinegar were deftly combined.

The astute feminine reader will of course understand that this is the

ordinary superficial masculine criticism, and at once make up her mind

both as to the character of the young lady and the competency of the

critic. I only know that I rather liked her. And her functions are

somewhat important in this veracious history.

She looked up, started to her feet, leveled her black brows at the

intruder, but, at a sign from her uncle, showed her white teeth and

spake.

It was only a sentence, and a rather common-place one at that; but if

she could have put her voice upon her canvas, she might have retrieved

the Garcia fortunes. For it was so musical, so tender, so sympathizing,

so melodious, so replete with the graciousness of womanhood, that she

seemed to have invented the language. And yet that sentence was only

an exaggerated form of the 'How d'ye do,' whined out, doled out, lisped

out, or shot out from the pretty mouths of my fair countrywomen.

Miguel admired the paintings. He was struck particularly with a crayon

drawing of a mule. “Mother of God, it is the mule itself! observe how it

will not go.” Then the crafty Victor broke in with, “But it is nothing

to her writing; look, you shall tell to me which is the handwriting

of Pio Pico;” and, from a drawer in the secretary, he drew forth two

signatures. One was affixed to a yellowish paper, the other drawn on

plain white foolscap. Of course Miguel took the more modern one

with lover-like gallantry. “It is this is genuine!” Victor laughed

triumphantly; Carmen echoed the laugh melodiously in child-like glee,

and added, with a slight toss of her piquant head, “It is mine!” The

best of the sex will not refuse a just and overdue compliment from

even the man they dislike. It's the principle they're after, not the

sentiment.

But Victor was not satisfied with this proof of his niece's skill. “Say

to her,” he demanded of Miguel, “what name thou likest, and it shall be

done before thee here.” Miguel was not so much in love but he perceived

the drift of Victor's suggestion, and remarked that the rubric of

Governor Micheltorena was exceedingly complicated and difficult. “She

shall do it!” responded Victor, with decision.

From a file of old departmental papers the Governor's signature and that

involved rubric, which must have cost his late Excellency many youthful

days of anxiety, was produced and laid before Carmen.

Carmen took her pen in her hand, looked at the brownish-looking

document, and then at the virgin whiteness of the foolscap before her.

“But,” she said, pouting prettily, “I should have to first paint this

white paper brown. And it will absorb the ink more quickly than that.

When I painted the San Antonio of the Mission San Gabriel for Father

Acolti, I had to put the decay in with my oils and brushes before the

good Padre would accept it.”

The two scamps looked at each other. It was their supreme moment. “I

think I have,” said Victor, with assumed carelessness, “I think I have

some of the old Custom-House paper.” He produced from the secretary a

sheet of brown paper with a stamp. “Try it on that.”

Carmen smiled with childish delight, tried it, and produced a marvel!

“It is as magic,” said Miguel, feigning to cross himself.

Victor's role was more serious. He affected to be deeply touched, took

the paper, folded it, and placed it in his breast. “I shall make a good

fool of Don Jose Castro,” he said; “he will declare it is the Governor's

own signature, for he was his friend; but have a care, Carmen! that you

spoil it not by the opening of your red lips. When he is fooled, I

will tell him of this marvel,--this niece of mine, and he shall buy her

pictures. Eh, little one?” and he gave her the avuncular caress, i. e.,

a pat of the hand on either cheek, and a kiss. Miguel envied him, but

cupidity outgeneraled Cupid, and presently the conversation flagged,

until a convenient recollection of Victor's--that himself and

comrade were due at the Posada del Toros at 10 o'clock--gave them the

opportunity to retire. But not without a chance shot from Carmen. “Tell

to me,” she said, half to Victor and half to Miguel, “what has chanced

with Concho? He was ever ready to bring to me flowers from the mountain,

and insects and birds. Thou knowest how he would sit, oh, my uncle, and

talk to me of the rare rocks he had seen, and the bears and the evil

spirits, and now he comes no longer, my Concho! How is this?

Nothing evil has befallen him, surely?” and her drooping lids closed

half-pathetically.

Miguel's jealousy took fire. “He is drunk, Senorita, doubtless, and

has forgotten not only thee but, mayhap, his mule and pack! It is his

custom, ha! ha!”

The red died out of Carmen's ripe lips, and she shut them together with

a snap like a steel purse. The dove had suddenly changed to a hawk; the

child-girl into an antique virago; the spirit hitherto dimly outlined

in her face, of some shrewish Garcia ancestress, came to the fore. She

darted a quick look at her uncle, and then, with her little hands on her

rigid lips, strode with two steps up to Miguel.

“Possibly, O Senor Miguel Dominguez Perez (a profound courtesy here), it

is as thou sayest. Drunkard Concho may be; but, drunk or sober, he never

turned his back on his friend--or--(the words grated a little here)--his

enemy.”

Miguel would have replied, but Victor was ready. “Fool,” he said,

pinching his arm, “'tis an old friend. And--and--the application is

still to be filled up. Are you crazy?”

But on this point Miguel was not, and with the revenge of a rival added

to his other instincts, he permitted Victor to lead him away.

On their return to the fonda, they found Master Manuel too far gone with

aguardiente, and a general animosity to the average Americano, to be

of any service. So they worked alone, with pen, ink, and paper, in the

stuffy, cigarrito-clouded back room of the fonda. It was midnight, two

hours after Concho had started, that Miguel clapped spurs to his

horse for the village of Tres Pinos, with an application to Governor

Micheltorena for a grant to the “Rancho of the Red Rocks” comfortably

bestowed in his pocket.

CHAPTER VII

WHO PLEAD FOR IT

There can be little doubt the coroner's jury of Fresno would have

returned a verdict of “death from alcoholism,” as the result of their

inquest into the cause of Concho's death, had not Dr. Guild fought nobly

in support of the law and his own convictions. A majority of the jury

objected to there being any inquest at all. A sincere juryman thought

it hard that whenever a Greaser pegged out in a sneakin' kind o' way,

American citizens should be taken from their business to find out what

ailed him. “S'pose he was killed,” said another, “thar ain't no time

this thirty year he weren't, so to speak, just sufferin' for it, ez his

nat'ral right ez a Mexican.” The jury at last compromised by bringing

in a verdict of homicide against certain parties unknown. Yet it was

understood tacitly that these unknown parties were severally Wiles and

Pedro; Manuel, Miguel, and Roscommon proving an unmistakable alibi.

Wiles and Pedro had fled to lower California, and Manuel, Miguel, and

Roscommon deemed it advisable, in the then excited state of the public

mind, to withhold the forged application and claim from the courts and

the public comment. So that for a year after the murder of Concho and

the flight of his assassins “The Blue Mass Mining Company” remained

in undisturbed and actual possession of the mine, and reigned in their

stead.

But the spirit of the murdered Concho would not down any more than

that of the murdered Banquo, and so wrought, no doubt, in a quiet,

Concho-like way, sore trouble with the “Blue Mass Company.” For a great

Capitalist and Master of Avarice came down to the mine and found it

fair, and taking one of the Company aside, offered to lend his name and

a certain amount of coin for a controlling interest, accompanying the

generous offer with a suggestion that if it were not acceded to he would

be compelled to buy up various Mexican mines and flood the market with

quicksilver to the great detriment of the “Blue Mass Company,” which

thoughtful suggestion, offered by a man frequently alluded to as one of

“California's great mining princes,” and as one who had “done much to

develop the resources of the State,” was not to be lightly considered;

and so, after a cautious non-consultation with the Company, and a

commendable secrecy, the stockholder sold out. Whereat it was speedily

spread abroad that the great Capitalist had taken hold of “Blue Mass,”

and the stock went up, and the other stockholders rejoiced--until the

great Capitalist found that it was necessary to put up expensive mills,

to employ a high salaried Superintendent, in fact, to develop the mine

by the spending of its earnings, so that the stock quoted at 112 was

finally saddled with an assessment of $50 per share. Another assessment

of $50 to enable the Superintendent to proceed to Russia and Spain and

examine into the workings of the quicksilver mines there, and also a

general commission to the gifted and scientific Pillageman to examine

into the various component parts of quicksilver, and report if it could

not be manufactured from ordinary sand-stone by steam or electricity,

speedily brought the other stockholders to their senses. It was at

this time the good fellow “Tom,” the serious-minded “Dick,” and the

speculative but fortunate “Harry,” brokers of the Great Capitalist,

found it convenient to buy up, for the Great Capitalist aforesaid, the

various other shares at great sacrifice.

I fear that I have bored my readers in thus giving the tiresome details

of that ingenuous American pastime which my countrymen dismiss in their

epigrammatic way as the “freezing-out process.” And lest any reader

should question the ethics of the proceeding, I beg him to remember that

one gentleman accomplished in this art was always a sincere and direct

opponent of the late Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler.

But for once the Great Master of Avarice had not taken into sufficient

account the avarice of others, and was suddenly and virtuously shocked

to learn that an application for a patent for certain lands, known as

the “Red-Rock Rancho,” was about to be offered before the United

States Land Commission. This claim covered his mining property. But

the information came quietly and secretly, as all of the Great Master's

information was obtained, and he took the opportunity to sell out his

clouded title and his proprietorship to the only remaining member of

the original “Blue Mass Company,” a young fellow of pith, before

many-tongued rumor had voiced the news far and wide. The blow was a

heavy one to the party left in possession. Saddled by the enormous debts

and expenses of the Great Capitalist, with a credit now further injured

by the defection of this lucky magnate, who was admired for his skill in

anticipating a loss, and whose relinquishment of any project meant ruin

to it, the single-handed, impoverished possessor of the mine, whose

title was contested, and whose reputation was yet to be made,--poor

Biggs, first secretary and only remaining officer of the “Blue Mass

Company,” looked ruefully over his books and his last transfer, and

sighed. But I have before intimated that he was built of good stuff, and

that he believed in his work,--which was well,--and in himself, which

was better; and so, having faith even as a grain of mustard seed, I

doubt not he would have been able to remove that mountain of

quicksilver beyond the overlapping of fraudulent grants. And, again,

Providence--having disposed of these several scamps--raised up to him

a friend. But that friend is of sufficient importance to this veracious

history to deserve a paragraph to himself.

The Pylades of this Orestes was known of ordinary mortals as Royal

Thatcher. His genealogy, birth, and education are, I take it, of little

account to this chronicle, which is only concerned with his friendship

for Biggs and the result thereof. He had known Biggs a year or two

previously; they had shared each other's purses, bunks, cabins,

provisions, and often friends, with that perfect freedom from obligation

which belonged to the pioneer life. The varying tide of fortune had just

then stranded Thatcher on a desert sand hill in San Francisco, with

an uninsured cargo of Expectations, while to Thatcher's active but not

curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark over the bar

in the Monterey mountains into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was

considerably surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport:

“DEAR ROY--Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a load for

one. Maybe we can make a team and pull 'Blue Mass' out yet. BIGGSEY.”

Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of his

next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as St.

Paul did. He wrote a promissory and soothing note to his landlady, but

fearing the “sweet sorrow” of personal parting, let his collapsed

valise down from his window by a cord, and, by means of an economical

combination of stage riding and pedestrianism, he presented himself, at

the close of the third day, at Biggs's door. In a few moments he was in

possession of the story; half an hour later in possession of half the

mine, its infelix past and its doubtful future, equally with his friend.

Business over, Biggs turned to look at his partner. “You've aged some

since I saw you last,” he said. “Starvation luck, I s'pose. I'd know

your eyes, old fellow, if I saw them among ten thousand; but your lips

are parched, and your mouth's grimmer than it used to be.” Thatcher

smiled to show that he could still do so, but did not say, as he might

have said, that self-control, suppressed resentment, disappointment, and

occasional hunger had done something in the way of correcting Nature's

obvious mistakes, and shutting up a kindly mouth. He only took off his

threadbare coat, rolled up his sleeves, and saying, “We've got lots of

work and some fighting before us,” pitched into the “affairs” of the

“Blue Mass Company” on the instant.

CHAPTER VIII

OF COUNSEL FOR IT

Meanwhile Roscommon had waited. Then, in Garcia's name, and backed

by him, he laid his case before the Land Commissioner, filing the

application (with forged indorsements) to Governor Micheltorena, and

alleging that the original grant was destroyed by fire. And why?

It seemed there was a limit to Miss Carmen's imitative talent. Admirable

as it was, it did not reach to the reproduction of that official seal,

which would have been a necessary appendage to the Governor's grant. But

there were letters written on stamped paper by Governor Micheltorena

to himself, Garcia, and to Miguel, and to Manuel's father, all of

which were duly signed by the sign manual and rubric of

Mrs.-Governor-Micheltorena-Carmen-de-Haro. And then there was “parol”

evidence, and plenty of it; witnesses who remembered everything about

it,--namely, Manuel, Miguel, and the all-recollecting De Haro; here were

details, poetical and suggestive; and Dame-Quicklyish, as when his late

Excellency, sitting not “by a sea-coal fire,” but with aguardiente and

cigarros, had sworn to him, the ex-ecclesiastic Miguel, that he

should grant, and had granted, Garcia's request. There were clouds of

witnesses, conversations, letters, and records, glib and pat to the

occasion. In brief, there was nothing wanted but the seal of his

Excellency. The only copy of that was in the possession of a rival

school of renaissant art and the restoration of antiques, then doing

business before the Land Commission.

And yet the claim was rejected! Having lately recommended two separate

claimants to a patent for the same land, the Land Commission became

cautious and conservative.

Roscommon was at first astounded, then indignant, and then warlike,--he

was for an “appale to onst!”

With the reader's previous knowledge of Roscommon's disposition this

may seem somewhat inconsistent; but there are certain natures to whom

litigation has all the excitement of gambling, and it should be borne

in mind that this was his first lawsuit. So that his lawyer, Mr.

Saponaceous Wood, found him in that belligerent mood to which counsel

are obliged to hypocritically bring all the sophistries of their

profession.

“Of course you have your right to an appeal, but calm yourself, my

dear sir, and consider. The case was presented strongly, the evidence

overwhelming on our side, but we happened to be fighting previous

decisions of the Land Commission that had brought them into trouble; so

that if Micheltorena had himself appeared in Court and testified to

his giving you the grant, it would have made no difference,--no Spanish

grant had a show then, nor will it have for the next six months. You

see, my dear sir, the Government sent out one of its big Washington

lawyers to look into this business, and he reported frauds, sir, frauds,

in a majority of the Spanish claims. And why, sir? why? He was bought,

sir, bought--body and soul--by the Ring!”

“And fwhot's the Ring?” asked his client sharply.

“The Ring is--ahem! a combination of unprincipled but wealthy persons to

defeat the ends of justice.”

“And sure, fwhot's the Ring to do wid me grant as that thaving Mexican

gave me as the collatherals for the bourd he was owin' me? Eh, mind that

now!”

“The Ring, my dear sir, is the other side. It is--ahem! always the Other

Side.”

“And why the divel haven't we a Ring too? And ain't I payin' ye five

hundred dollars,--and the divel of Ring ye have, at all, at all? Fwhot

am I payin' ye fur, eh?”

“That a judicious expenditure of money,” began Mr. Wood, “outside of

actual disbursements, may not be of infinite service to you I am not

prepared to deny,--but--”

“Look ye, Mr. Sappy Wood, it's the 'appale' I want, and the grant I'll

have, more betoken as the old woman's har-rut and me own is set on it

entoirely. Get me the land and I'll give ye the half of it,--and it's a

bargain!”

“But my dear sir, there are some rules in our profession,--technical

though they may be--”

“The divel fly away wid yer profession. Sure is it better nor me own?

If I've risked me provisions and me whisky, that cost me solid goold in

Frisco, on that thafe Garcia's claim, bedad! the loikes of ye can risk

yer law.”

“Well,” said Wood, with an awkward smile, “I suppose that a deed for one

half, on the consideration of friendship, my dear sir, and a dollar in

hand paid by me, might be reconcilable.”

“Now it's talkin' ye are. But who's the felly we're foighten, that's got

the Ring?”

“Ah, my dear sir, it's the United States,” said the lawyer with gravity.

“The States! the Government is it? And is't that ye're afeared of?

Sure it's the Government that I fought in me own counthree, it was the

Government that druv me to Ameriky, and is it now that I'm going back on

me principles?”

“Your political sentiments do you great credit,” began Mr. Wood.

“But fwhot's the Government to do wid the appale?”

“The Government,” said Mr. Wood significantly, “will be represented by

the District Attorney.”

“And who's the spalpeen?”

“It is rumored,” said Mr. Wood, slowly, “that a new one is to be

appointed. I, myself, have had some ambition that way.”

His client bent a pair of cunning but not over-wise grey eyes on his

American lawyer. But he only said, “Ye have, eh?”

“Yes,” said Wood, answering the look boldly; “and if I had the support

of a number of your prominent countrymen, who are so powerful with ALL

parties,--men like YOU, my dear sir,--why, I think you might in time

become a conservative, at least more resigned to the Government.”

Then the lesser and the greater scamp looked at each other, and for a

moment or two felt a warm, sympathetic, friendly emotion for each other,

and quietly shook hands.

Depend upon it there is a great deal more kindly human sympathy between

two openly-confessed scamps than there is in that calm, respectable

recognition that you and I, dear reader, exhibit when we happen to

oppose each other with our respective virtues.

“And ye'll get the appale?”

“I will.”

And he DID! And by a singular coincidence got the District Attorneyship

also. And with a deed for one half of the “Red-Rock Rancho” in his

pocket, sent a brother lawyer in court to appear for his client, the

United States, as against HIMSELF, Roscommon, Garcia, et al. Wild

horses could not have torn him from this noble resolution. There is an

indescribable delicacy in the legal profession which we literary folk

ought to imitate.

The United States lost! Which meant ruin and destruction to the “Blue

Mass Company,” who had bought from a paternal and beneficent Government

lands which didn't belong to it. The Mexican grant, of course, antedated

the occupation of the mine by Concho, Wiles, Pedro, et al., as well

as by the “Blue Mass Company,” and the solitary partners, Biggs and

Thatcher. More than that, it swallowed up their improvements. It made

Biggs and Thatcher responsible to Garcia for all the money the Grand

Master of Avarice had made out of it. Mr. District Attorney was

apparently distressed, but resigned. Messrs. Biggs and Thatcher were

really distressed and combative.

And then, to advance a few years in this chronicle, began real

litigation with earnestness, vigor, courage, zeal, and belief on the

part of Biggs and Thatcher, and technicalities, delay, equivocation, and

a general Fabian-like policy on the part of Garcia, Roscommon, et al.

Of all these tedious processes I note but one, which for originality and

audacity of conception appears to me to indicate more clearly the temper

and civilization of the epoch. A subordinate officer of the District

Court refused to obey the mandate ordering a transcript of the record

to be sent up to the United States Supreme Court. It is to be regretted

that the name of this Ephesian youth, who thus fired the dome of our

constitutional liberties, should have been otherwise so unimportant as

to be confined to the dusty records of that doubtful court of which he

was a doubtful servitor, and that his claim to immortality ceased with

his double-feed service. But there still stands on record a letter by

this young gentleman, arraigning the legal wisdom of the land, which

is not entirely devoid of amusement or even instruction to young men

desirous of obtaining publicity and capital. Howbeit, the Supreme

Court was obliged to protect itself by procuring the legislation of

his functions out of his local fingers into the larger palm of its own

attorney.

These various processes of law and equity, which, when exercised

practically in the affairs of ordinary business, might have occupied a

few months' time, dragged, clung, retrograded, or advanced slowly

during a period of eight or nine years. But the strong arms of Biggs and

Thatcher held POSSESSION, and possibly, by the same tactics employed

on the other side, arrested or delayed ejectment, and so made and sold

quicksilver, while their opponents were spending gold, until Biggs,

sorely hit in the interlacings of his armor, fell in the lists, his

cheek growing waxen and his strong arm feeble, and finding himself in

this sore condition, and passing, as it were, made over his share in

trust to his comrade, and died. Whereat, from that time henceforward,

Royal Thatcher reigned in his stead.

And so, having anticipated the legal record, we will go back to the

various human interests that helped to make it up.

To begin with Roscommon: To do justice to his later conduct and

expressions, it must be remembered that when he accepted the claim for

the “Red-Rock Rancho,” yet unquestioned, from the hands of Garcia, he

was careless, or at least unsuspicious of fraud. It was not until he had

experienced the intoxication of litigation that he felt, somehow, that

he was a wronged and defrauded man, but with the obstinacy of defrauded

men, preferred to arraign some one fact or individual as the impelling

cause of his wrong, rather than the various circumstances that led to

it. To his simple mind it was made patent that the “Blue Mass Company”

were making money out of a mine which he claimed, and which was not yet

adjudged to them. Every dollar they took out was a fresh count in

this general indictment. Every delay towards this adjustment of

rights--although made by his own lawyer--was a personal wrong. The mere

fact that there never was nor had been any quid pro quo for this immense

property--that it had fallen to him for a mere song--only added zest

to his struggle. The possibility of his losing this mere speculation

affected him more strongly than if he had already paid down the million

he expected to get from the mine. I don't know that I have indicated as

plainly as I might that universal preference on the part of mankind to

get something from nothing, and to acquire the largest return for

the least possible expenditure, but I question my right to say that

Roscommon was much more reprehensible than his fellows.

But it told upon him as it did upon all over whom the spirit of the

murdered Concho brooded,--upon all whom avarice alternately flattered

and tortured. From his quiet gains in his legitimate business, from the

little capital accumulated through industry and economy, he lavished

thousands on this chimera of his fancy. He grew grizzled and worn over

his self-imposed delusion; he no longer jested with his customers,

regardless of quality or station or importance; he had cliques to

mollify, enemies to placate, friends to reward. The grocery suffered;

through giving food and lodgment to clouds of unimpeachable witnesses

before the Land Commission and the District Court, “Mrs. Ros.” found

herself losing money. Even the bar failed; there was a party of

“Blue Mass” employees who drank at the opposite fonda, and cursed the

Roscommon claim over the liquor. The calm, mechanical indifference with

which Roscommon had served his customers was gone. The towel was no

longer used after its perfunctory fashion; the counter remained unwiped;

the disks of countless glasses marked its surface, and indicated other

preoccupation on the part of the proprietor. The keen grey eyes of the

claimant of the “Red-Rock Rancho” were always on the lookout for friend

or enemy.

Garcia comes next. That gentleman's inborn talent for historic

misrepresentation culminated unpleasantly through a defective memory;

a year or two after he had sworn in his application for the “Rancho,”

being engaged in another case, some trifling inconsistency was

discovered in his statements, which had the effect of throwing the

weight of evidence to the party who had paid him most, but was instantly

detected by the weaker party. Garcia's preeminence as a witness, an

expert and general historian began to decline. He was obliged to be

corroborated, and this required a liberal outlay of his fee. With the

loss of his credibility as a witness bad habits supervened. He was

frequently drunk, he lost his position, he lost his house, and Carmen,

removed to San Francisco, supported him with her brush.

And this brings us once more to that pretty painter and innocent forger

whose unconscious act bore such baleful fruit on the barren hill-sides

of the “Red-Rock Rancho,” and also to a later blossom of her life, that

opened, however, in kindlier sunshine.

CHAPTER IX

WHAT THE FAIR HAD TO DO ABOUT IT

The house that Royal Thatcher so informally quitted in his exodus to

the promised land of Biggs was one of those oversized, under-calculated

dwellings conceived and erected in the extravagance of the San

Francisco builder's hopes, and occupied finally in his despair. Intended

originally as the palace of some inchoate California Aladdin, it usually

ended as a lodging house in which some helpless widow or hopeless

spinster managed to combine respectability with the hard task of bread

getting.

Thatcher's landlady was one of the former class. She had unfortunately

survived not only her husband but his property, and, living in some

deserted chamber, had, after the fashion of the Italian nobility, let

out the rest of the ruin. A tendency to dwell upon these facts gave

her conversation a peculiar significance on the first of each month.

Thatcher had noticed this with the sensitiveness of an impoverished

gentleman. But when, a few days after her lodger's sudden disappearance,

a note came from him containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears

and charges, the widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the

golden wand gushed beneficence that shone in a new gown for the widow

and a new suit for “Johnny,” her son, a new oil cloth in the hall,

better service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier

consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then

dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, the calls

upon Miss De Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately been frequent,

perjury having declined in the Monterey market, through excessive

and injudicious supply, until the line of demarcation between it and

absolute verity was so finely drawn that Victor Garcia had remarked that

“he might as well tell the truth at once and save his soul, since the

devil was in the market.”

Mistress Plodgitt, the landlady, could not resist the desire to acquaint

Carmen De Haro with her good fortune. “He was always a friend of yours,

my dear,--and I know him to be a gentleman that would never let a

poor widow suffer; and see what he says about you!” Here she produced

Thatcher's note and read: “Tell my little neighbor that I shall come

back soon to carry her and her sketching tools off by force, and I shall

not let her return until she has caught the black mountains and the

red rocks she used to talk about, and put the 'Blue Mass' mill in the

foreground of the picture I shall order.”

What is this, little one? Surely, Carmen, thou needst not blush at

this, thy first grand offer. Holy Virgin! is it of a necessity that thou

shouldst stick the wrong end of thy brush in thy mouth, and then drop it

in thy lap? Or was it taught thee by the good Sisters at the convent to

stride in that boyish fashion to the side of thy elders and snatch from

their hands the missive thou wouldst read? More of this we would know,

O Carmen,--smallest of brunettes,--speak, little one, even in thine own

melodious speech, that I may commend thee and thy rare discretion to my

own fair countrywomen.

Alas, neither the present chronicler nor Mistress Plodgitt got any

further information from the prudent Carmen, and must fain speculate

upon certain facts that were already known.

Mistress Carmen's little room was opposite to Thatcher's, and once or

twice, the doors being open, Thatcher had a glimpse across the passage

of a black-haired and a sturdy, boyish little figure in a great blue

apron, perched on a stool before an easel, and on the other hand, Carmen

had often been conscious of the fumes of a tobacco pipe penetrating her

cloistered seclusion, and had seen across the passage, vaguely enveloped

in the same nicotine cloud, an American Olympian, in a rocking chair,

with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the

staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two

of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,--a courtesy which never really

offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the

slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to

recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always

SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to

try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this laughing Mercutio

the flesh and blood of a Romeo. Thatcher was by nature a defender and

protector; weakness, and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his

tenderness,--often, I fear, only through its half-humorous aspects,--and

on this plane he was pleased to place women and children. I mention this

fact for the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am

satisfied that an unconditional surrender and the complete laying down

at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity is a cheap Gallicism

that is untranslatable to most women worthy the winning. For a woman

MUST always look up to the man she truly loves,--even if she has to go

down on her knees to do it.

Only the masculine reader will infer from this that Carmen was in love

with Thatcher; the more critical and analytical feminine eye will

see nothing herein that might not have happened consistently with

friendship. For Thatcher was no sentimentalist; he had hardly paid a

compliment to the girl,--even in the unspoken but most delicate form

of attention. There were days when his room door was closed; there were

days succeeding these blanks when he met her as frankly and naturally as

if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed, on those days following his flight

the simple-minded Carmen, being aware--heaven knows how--that he had not

opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death,

or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly

in discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments

as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but little

sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto she had known only

Concho, her earliest friend, and was true to his memory, as against all

Americanos, whom she firmly believed to be his murderers.

So she dismissed the offer and the man from her mind, and went back

to her painting,--a fancy portrait of the good Padre Junipero Serra,

a great missionary, who, haply for the integrity of his bones and

character, died some hundred years before the Americans took possession

of California. The picture was fair but unsaleable, and she began to

think seriously of sign painting, which was then much more popular and

marketable. An unfinished head of San Juan de Bautista, artificially

framed in clouds, she disposed of to a prominent druggist for $50, where

it did good service as exhibiting the effect of four bottles of “Jones's

Freckle Eradicator,” and in a pleasant and unobtrusive way revived the

memory of the saint. Still, she felt weary and was growing despondent,

and had a longing for the good Sisters and the blameless lethargy of

conventual life, and then--

He came!

But not as the Prince should come, on a white charger, to carry away

this cruelly-abused and enchanted damsel. He was sunburned, he was

bearded like “the pard”; he was a little careless as to his dress, and

pre-occupied in his ways. But his mouth and eyes were the same; and when

he repeated in his old frank, half-mischievous way the invitation of his

letter, poor little Carmen could only hesitate and blush.

A thought struck him and sent the color to his face. Your gentleman

born is always as modest as a woman. He ran down stairs, and seizing the

widowed Plodgitt, said hastily:

“You're just killing yourself here. Take a change. Come down to Monterey

for a day or two with me, and bring miss De Haro with you for company.”

The old lady recognized the situation. Thatcher was now a man of vast

possibilities. In all maternal daughters of Eve there is the slightest

bit of the chaperone and match-maker. It is the last way of reviving the

past.

She consented, and Carmen De Haro could not well refuse.

The ladies found the “Blue Mass” mills very much as Thatcher had

previously delivered it to them, “a trifle rough and mannish.” But he

made over to them the one tenement reserved for himself, and slept with

his men, or more likely under the trees. At first Mrs. Plodgitt missed

gas and running water, and these several conveniences of civilization,

among which I fear may be mentioned sheets and pillow cases; but the

balsam of the mountain air soothed her neuralgia and her temper. As for

Carmen, she rioted in the unlimited license of her absolute freedom from

conventional restraint and the indulgence of her child-like impulses.

She scoured the ledges far and wide alone; she dipped into dark copses,

and scrambled over sterile patches of chemisal, and came back laden with

the spoil of buckeye blossoms, manzanita berries and laurel. But

she would not make a sketch of the “Blue Mass Company's” mills on a

Mercator's projection--something that could be afterwards lithographed

or chromoed, with the mills turning out tons of quicksilver through the

energies of a happy and picturesque assemblage of miners--even to please

her padrone, Don Royal Thatcher. On the contrary, she made a study of

the ruins of the crumbled and decayed red-rock furnace, with the black

mountain above it, and the light of a dying camp fire shining upon it,

and the dull-red excavations in the ledge. But even this did not satisfy

her until she had made some alterations; and when she finally brought

her finished study to Don Royal, she looked at him a little defiantly.

Thatcher admired honestly, and then criticised a little humorously and

dishonestly. “But couldn't you, for a consideration, put up a sign-board

on that rock with the inscription, 'Road to the Blue Mass Company's new

mills to the right,' and combine business with art? That's the fault of

you geniuses. But what's this blanketed figure doing here, lying before

the furnace? You never saw one of my miners there,--and a Mexican, too,

by his serape.” “That,” quoth Mistress Carmen, coolly, “was put in

to fill up the foreground,--I wanted something there to balance

the picture.” “But,” continued Thatcher, dropping into unconscious

admiration again, “it's drawn to the life. Tell me, Miss De Haro, before

I ask the aid and counsel of Mrs. Plodgitt, who is my hated rival, and

your lay figure and model?” “Oh,” said Carmen, with a little sigh, “It's

only poor Coucho.” “And where is Concho?” (a little impatiently.) “He's

dead, Don Royal.” “Dead?” “Of a verity,--very dead,--murdered by your

countrymen.” “I see,--and you know him?” “He was my friend.”

“Oh!”

“Truly.”

“But” (wickedly), “isn't this a rather ghastly advertisement--outside of

an illustrated newspaper--of my property?”

“Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps.”

“Ay” (in Spanish), “as the dead.”

Carmen (crossing herself hastily), “After the fashion of the dead.”

They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering. But, being

a woman, and tactful, she recovered her head first. “It is a study for

myself, Don Royal; I shall make you another.”

And she slipped away, as she thought, out of the subject and his

presence.

But she was mistaken; in the evening he renewed the conversation. Carmen

began to fence, not from cowardice or deceit, as the masculine reader

would readily infer, but from some wonderful feminine instinct that told

her to be cautious. But he got from her the fact, to him before unknown,

that she was the niece of his main antagonist, and, being a gentleman,

so redoubled his attentions and his courtesy that Mrs. Plodgitt made up

her mind that it was a foregone conclusion, and seriously reflected as

to what she should wear on the momentous occasion. But that night poor

Carmen cried herself to sleep, resolving that she would hereafter cast

aside her wicked uncle for this good-hearted Americano, yet never once

connected her innocent penmanship with the deadly feud between them.

Women--the best of them--are strong as to collateral facts, swift

of deduction, but vague as children are to the exact statement or

recognition of premises. It is hardly necessary to say that Carmen

had never thought of connecting any act of hers with the claims of her

uncle, and the circumstance of the signature she had totally forgotten.

The masculine reader will now understand Carmen's confusion and blushes,

and believe himself an ass to have thought them a confession of original

affection. The feminine reader will, by this time, become satisfied that

the deceitful minx's sole idea was to gain the affections of Thatcher.

And really I don't know who is right.

Nevertheless she painted a sketch of Thatcher,--which now adorns the

Company's office in San Francisco,--in which the property is laid out in

pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the future instinct

in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned her “wage,” as she

believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to Thatcher. Whereat that

gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a

certain meprise, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of

his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl,--to

be protected always,--to be feared, never. But even suspicion may be

insidiously placed in noble minds.

Mistress Plodgitt, thus early estopped of matchmaking, of course put the

blame on her own sex, and went over to the stronger side--the man's.

“It's a great pity gals should be so curious,” she said, sotto voce, to

Thatcher, when Carmen was in one of her sullen moods. “Yet I s'pose

it's in her blood. Them Spaniards is always revengeful,--like the

Eyetalians.”

Thatcher honestly looked his surprise.

“Why, don't you see, she's thinking how all these lands might have been

her uncle's but for you. And instead of trying to be sweet and--” here

she stopped to cough.

“Good God!” said Thatcher in great concern, “I never thought of that.”

He stopped for a moment, and then added with decision, “I can't believe

it; it isn't like her.”

Mrs. P. was piqued. She walked away, delivering, however, this Parthian

arrow: “Well, I hope 'TAINT NOTHING WORSE.”

Thatcher chuckled, then felt uneasy. When he next met Carmen, she found

his grey eyes fixed on hers with a curious, half-inquisitorial look she

had never noticed before. This only added fuel to the fire. Forgetting

their relations of host and guest, she was absolutely rude. Thatcher was

quiet but watchful; got the Plodgitt to bed early, and, under cover of

showing a moonlight view of the “Lost Chance Mill,” decoyed Carmen out

of ear-shot, as far as the dismantled furnace.

“What is the matter, Miss De Haro; have I offended you?”

Miss Carmen was not aware that anything was the matter. If Don Royal

preferred old friends, whose loyalty of course he knew, and who were

above speaking ill against a gentleman in his adversity--(oh, Carmen!

fie!) if he preferred THEIR company to LATER FRIENDS--why--(the

masculine reader will observe this tremendous climax and tremble)--why

she didn't know why HE should blame HER.

They turned and faced each other. The conditions for a perfect

misunderstanding could not have been better arranged between two people.

Thatcher was a masculine reasoner, Carmen a feminine feeler,--if I may

be pardoned the expression. Thatcher wanted to get at certain facts, and

argue therefrom. Carmen wanted to get at certain feelings, and then fit

the facts to THEM.

“But I am NOT blaming you, Miss Carmen,” he said gravely. “It WAS stupid

in me to confront you here with the property claimed by your uncle and

occupied by me, but it was a mistake,--no!” he added hastily, “it was

not a mistake. You knew it, and I didn't. You overlooked it before you

came, and I was too glad to overlook it after you were here.”

“Of course,” said Carmen pettishly, “I am the only one to be blamed.

It's like you MEN!” (Mem. She was just fifteen, and uttered this awful

'resume' of experience just as if it hadn't been taught to her in her

cradle.)

Feminine generalities always stagger a man. Thatcher said nothing.

Carmen became more enraged.

“Why did you want to take Uncle Victor's property, then?” she asked

triumphantly.

“I don't know that it is your uncle's property.”

“You--don't--know? Have you seen the application with Governor

Micheltorena's indorsement? Have you heard the witnesses?” she said

passionately.

“Signatures may be forged and witnesses lie,” said Thatcher quietly.

“What is it you call 'forged'?”

Thatcher instantly recalled the fact that the Spanish language held no

synonym for “forgery.” The act was apparently an invention of el Diablo

Americano. So he said, with a slight smile in his kindly eyes:

“Anybody wicked enough and dexterous enough can imitate another's

handwriting. When this is used to benefit fraud, we call it 'forgery.' I

beg your pardon,--Miss De Haro, Miss Carmen,--what is the matter?”

She had suddenly lapsed against a tree, quite helpless, nerveless, and

with staring eyes fixed on his. As yet an embryo woman, inexperienced

and ignorant, the sex's instinct was potential; she had in one plunge

fathomed all that his reason had been years groping for.

Thatcher saw only that she was pained, that she was helpless: that was

enough. “It is possible that your uncle may have been deceived,”

he began; “many honest men have been fooled by clever but deceitful

tricksters, men and women--”

“Stop! Madre de Dios! WILL YOU STOP?”

Thatcher for an instant recoiled from the flashing eyes and white face

of the little figure that had, with menacing and clenched baby fingers,

strode to his side. He stopped. “Where is this application,--this

forgery?” she asked. “Show it to me!”

Thatcher felt relieved, and smiled the superior smile of our sex over

feminine ignorance. “You could hardly expect me to be trusted with your

uncle's vouchers. His papers of course are in the hands of his counsel.”

“And when can I leave this place?” she asked passionately.

“If you consult my wishes you will stay, if only long enough to forgive

me. But if I have offended you unknowingly, and you are implacable--”

“I can go to-morrow at sunrise if I like?”

“As you will,” returned Thatcher gravely.

“Gracias, Senor.”

They walked slowly back to the house, Thatcher with a masculine sense

of being unreasonably afflicted, Carmen with a woman's instinct of being

hopelessly crushed. No word was spoken until they reached the door. Then

Carmen suddenly, in her old, impulsive way, and in a childlike treble,

sang out merrily, “Good night, O Don Royal, and pleasant dreams. Hasta

manana.”

Thatcher stood dumb and astounded at this capricious girl. She saw his

mystification instantly. “It is for the old Cat!” she whispered, jerking

her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the sleeping Mrs. P.

“Good night,--go!”

He went to give orders for a peon to attend the ladies and their

equipage the next day. He awoke to find Miss De Haro gone, with her

escort, towards Monterey. And without the Plodgitt.

He could not conceal his surprise from the latter lady. She, left

alone,--a not altogether unavailable victim to the wiles of our

sex,--was embarrassed. But not so much that she could not say to

Thatcher: “I told you so,--gone to her uncle. . . . To tell him ALL!”

“All. D--n it, WHAT can she tell him?” roared Thatcher, stung out of his

self-control.

“Nothing, I hope, that she should not,” said Mrs. P., and chastely

retired.

She was right. Miss Carmen posted to Monterey, running her horse nearly

off its legs to do it, and then sent back her beast and escort, saying

she would rejoin Mrs. Plodgitt by steamer at San Francisco. Then she

went boldly to the law office of Saponaceous Wood, District Attorney and

whilom solicitor of her uncle.

With the majority of masculine Monterey Miss Carmen was known and

respectfully admired, despite the infelix reputation of her kinsman. Mr.

Wood was glad to see her, and awkwardly gallant. Miss Carmen was cool

and business-like; she had come from her uncle to “regard” the papers in

the “Red-Rock Rancho” case. They were instantly produced. Carmen turned

to the application for the grant. Her cheek paled slightly. With her

clear memory and wonderful fidelity of perception she could not be

mistaken. THE SIGNATURE OF MICHELTORENA WAS IN HER OWN HANDWRITING!

Yet she looked up to the lawyer with a smile: “May I take these papers

for an hour to my uncle?”

Even an older and better man than the District Attorney could not have

resisted those drooping lids and that gentle voice.

“Certainly.”

“I will return them in an hour.”

She was as good as her word, and within the hour dropped the papers and

a little courtesy to her uncle's legal advocate, and that night took the

steamer to San Francisco.

The next morning Victor Garcia, a little the worse for the previous

night's dissipation, reeled into Wood's office. “I have fears for my

niece Carmen. She is with the enemy,” he said thickly. “Look you at

this.”

It was an anonymous letter (in Mrs. Plodgitt's own awkward fist)

advising him of the fact that his niece was bought by the enemy, and

cautioning him against her.

“Impossible,” said the lawyer; “it was only last week she sent thee

$50.”

Victor blushed, even through his ensanguined cheeks, and made an

impatient gesture with his hand.

“Besides,” added the lawyer coolly, “she has been here to examine the

papers at thy request, and returned them of yesterday.”

Victor gasped: “And-you-you-gave them to her?”

“Of course!”

“All? Even the application and the signature?”

“Certainly,--you sent her.”

“Sent her? The devil's own daughter?” shrieked Garcia. “No! A hundred

million times, no! Quick, before it is too late. Give to me the papers.”

Mr. Wood reproduced the file. Garcia ran over it with trembling fingers

until at last he clutched the fateful document. Not content with opening

it and glancing at its text and signature, he took it to the window.

“It is the same,” he muttered with a sigh of relief.

“Of course it is,” said Mr. Wood sharply. “The papers are all there.

You're a fool, Victor Garcia!”

And so he was. And, for the matter of that, so was Mr. Saponaceous Wood,

of counsel.

Meanwhile Miss De Haro returned to San Francisco and resumed her work. A

day or two later she was joined by her landlady. Mrs. P. had too large a

nature to permit an anonymous letter, written by her own hand, to stand

between her and her demeanor to her little lodger. So she coddled her

and flattered her and depicted in slightly exaggerated colors the grief

of Don Royal at her sudden departure. All of which Miss Carmen received

in a demure, kitten-like way, but still kept quietly at her work. In

due time Don Royal's order was completed; still she had leisure and

inclination enough to add certain touches to her ghastly sketch of the

crumbling furnace.

Nevertheless, as Don Royal did not return, through excess of business,

Mrs. Plodgitt turned an honest penny by letting his room, temporarily,

to two quiet Mexicans, who, but for a beastly habit of cigarrito smoking

which tainted the whole house, were fair enough lodgers. If they failed

in making the acquaintance of their fair countrywoman, Miss De Haro, it

was through the lady's pre-occupation in her own work, and not through

their ostentatious endeavors.

“Miss De Haro is peculiar,” explained the politic Mrs. Plodgitt to

her guests; “she makes no acquaintances, which I consider bad for her

business. If it had not been for me, she would not have known Royal

Thatcher, the great quicksilver miner,--and had his order for a picture

of his mine!”

The two foreign gentlemen exchanged glances. One said, “Ah, God! this is

bad,” and the other, “It is not possible;” and then, when the landlady's

back was turned, introduced themselves with a skeleton key into the then

vacant bedroom and studio of their fair countrywoman, who was absent

sketching. “Thou observest,” said Mr. Pedro, refugee, to Miguel,

ex-ecclesiastic, “that this Americano is all-powerful, and that this

Victor, drunkard as he is, is right in his suspicions.”

“Of a verity, yes,” replied Miguel, “thou dost remember it was Jovita

Castro who, for her Americano lover, betrayed the Sobriente claim. It

is only with us, my Pedro, that the Mexican spirit, the real God and

Liberty, yet lives!”

They shook hands nobly and with sentimental fervor, and then went to

work, i. e., the rummaging over the trunks, drawers, and portmanteaus of

the poor little painter, Carmen de Haro, and even ripped up the mattress

of her virginal cot. But they found not what they sought.

“What is that yonder on the easel, covered with a cloth?” said Miguel:

“it is a trick of these artists to put their valuables together.”

Pedro strode to the easel and tore away the muslin curtain that veiled

it; then uttered a shriek that appalled his comrade and brought him to

his side.

“In the name of God,” said Miguel hastily, “are you trying to alarm the

house?”

The ex-vaquero was trembling like a child. “Look,” he said hoarsely,

“look, do you see? It is the hand of God,” and fainted on the floor!

Miguel looked. It was Carmen's partly-finished sketch of the deserted

furnace. The figure of Concho, thrown out strongly by the camp fire,

occupied the left foreground. But to balance her picture she had

evidently been obliged to introduce another,--the face and figure of

Pedro, on all fours, creeping towards the sleeping man.

PART III.--IN CONGRESS