Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river,
and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach,
leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long
shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the
two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining
superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little
anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below,
that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road.
A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they
gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that
stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble
and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of
that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral
glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline,
and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them,
furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their
cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging
wheels, they buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few
half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a
practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topography
and material resources of the scene of his future labors, had no time
to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before
a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, “Hotel and Stage Office,”
that he became fully aware of it.
“We can't stop HERE, papa,” said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake
of her pretty head. “You can't expect that.”
Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half saloon.
Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been hidden in the
rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling
of the shop.
“Certainly,” he replied hurriedly; “we'll see to that in a moment. I
dare say it's all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought
to be here.”
“But they're not,” said Jessie Carr indignantly; “and the few that were
here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us
get down.”
It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had
suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an
adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue
overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a
sashless window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although
a back door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The
stage-coach, with the other passengers, had already rattled away.
“I certainly think Fairfax understood that I--” began Mr. Carr.
He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie's fingers on his arm and
a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street.
“What are they?” she whispered in her sister's ear. “Nigger minstrels, a
circus, or what?”
The five millionaires of Devil's Ford had just turned the corner of the
straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was
sufficient to show that they had already availed themselves of the new
clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But
the result was startling.
Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only
one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black
cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding
boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other
by a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was
depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was
attired in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as
to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of
nankeen trousers and pumps.
The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing
a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink
striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the
trousers of his brother's suit, as a harmonious change to a shining
black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the
rear, had, with characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a
French workman's blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they
shown the least consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they
would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five
sunburnt and shining faces--a look of unaffected boyish gratification
and unrestricted welcome.
They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed
their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited until Fairfax
advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr's half-frightened
smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes; Christie
Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her.
“We reckoned--that is--we intended to meet you and the young ladies at
the grade,” said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to
conceal his too ready slang, “and save you from trapesing--from dragging
yourselves up grade again to your house.”
“Then there IS a house?” said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh
of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly
appreciative eyes of the young men.
“Such as it is,” responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he
glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and
dubiously regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on the
veranda. “I'm afraid it isn't much, for what you're accustomed to. But,”
he added more cheerfully, “it will do for a day or two, and perhaps
you'll give us the pleasure of showing you the way there now.”
The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual
business that had brought him there, at once took possession of
Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine,
occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the ditches,
and to examine the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not
displeased at being thus relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr.
Carr's daughters, nevertheless from time to time cast a paternal glance
backwards upon their escorts, who had each seized a handle of the two
trunks, and were carrying them in couples at the young ladies' side. The
occupation did not offer much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign
of discomfiture or uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the
young men. The necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens
brought a corresponding change of cavalier at the lady's side, although
it was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a
conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest the
young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm worn out
by exhaustion.
“The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the mules are
packin' gravel from the river this afternoon,” explained Dick Mattingly
apologetically to Christie, “or we'd have toted--I mean carried--you and
your baggage up to the shant--the--your house. Give us two weeks more,
Miss Carr--only two weeks to wash up our work and realize--and we'll
give you a pair of 2.40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the
top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you'd prefer
a regular carriage; some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what's the
use of planning anything? Afore that time comes we'll have run you up
a house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn't take
long--unless you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from
La Grange, if you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you
could put up for a time with something of stained glass and a mahogany
veranda--”
In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could understand
only a part of Mattingly's speech, Christie comprehended enough to make
her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she replied freezingly that
she feared she would not trouble them long with her company.
“Oh, you'll get over that,” responded Mattingly, with an exasperating
confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the manifest kindliness
of intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. “I felt that way
myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while,
until you get the hang of them. You'll naturally stamp round and cuss a
little--” He stopped in conscious consternation.
With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had put
down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.
“You mustn't mind Dick, or he'll go off and kill himself with shame,” he
whispered laughingly in her ear. “He means all right, but he's picked
up so much slang here that he's about forgotten how to talk English, and
it's nigh on to four years since he's met a young lady.”
Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with
the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to
crush further familiarity only ridiculous.
“Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?”
She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her
own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real
disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?
“In what way?” she returned, with a half smile.
“To play. On the piano, of course. There isn't one nearer here than
Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You
couldn't do anything on a banjo?” he added doubtfully; “Kearney's got
one.”
“I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those
mountains,” said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the
banjo.
“We got a billiard-table over from Stockton,” half bashfully interrupted
Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his
composure, “and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a
mule, so I don't see why--” He stopped short again in confusion, at a
sign from his brother, and then added, “I mean, of course, that a piano
is a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but
it's worth trying for.”
“Fairfax was always saying he'd get one for himself, so I reckon it's
possible,” said Joe.
“Does he play?” asked Christie.
“You bet,” said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. “He can
snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed.”
In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine
wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude “clearing,” and
beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There
was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney's
cabin and the newly-transported saloon from the flat--no architectural
illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed
to be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied
the whole of Kearney's cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary
articles for housekeeping, a “bunk” or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to
leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as
bedroom and boudoir.
There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude
utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the
two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor
Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young
men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments
before decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until
they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that
they were gone.
The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without
a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had
been the counter or “bar” of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold,
now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as
separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that
hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a
vestal altar.
The huge gilt plate-glass mirror which had hung behind the bar still
occupied one side of the room, but its length was artfully divided by
an enormous rosette of red, white, and blue muslin--one of the surviving
Fourth of July decorations of Thompson's saloon. On either side of the
door two pathetic-looking, convent-like cots, covered with spotless
sheeting, and heaped up in the middle, like a snow-covered grave, had
attracted their attention. They were still staring at them when Mr. Carr
anticipated their curiosity.
“I ought to tell you that the young men confided to me the fact that
there was neither bed nor mattress to be had on the Ford. They have
filled some flour sacks with clean dry moss from the woods, and put half
a dozen blankets on the top, and they hope you can get along until
the messenger who starts to-night for La Grange can bring some bedding
over.”
Jessie flew with mischievous delight to satisfy herself of the truth
of this marvel. “It's so, Christie,” she said laughingly--“three
flour-sacks apiece; but I'm jealous: yours are all marked 'superfine,'
and mine 'middlings.'”
Mr. Carr had remained uneasily watching Christie's shadowed face.
“What matters?” she said drily. “The accommodation is all in keeping.”
“It will be better in a day or two,” he continued, casting a longing
look towards the door--the first refuge of masculine weakness in an
impending domestic emergency. “I'll go and see what can be done,” he
said feebly, with a sidelong impulse towards the opening and freedom.
“I've got to see Fairfax again to-night any way.”
“One moment, father,” said Christie, wearily. “Did you know anything of
this place and these--these people--before you came?”
“Certainly--of course I did,” he returned, with the sudden testiness of
disturbed abstraction. “What are you thinking of? I knew the geological
strata and the--the report of Fairfax and his partners before I
consented to take charge of the works. And I can tell you that there is
a fortune here. I intend to make my own terms, and share in it.”
“And not take a salary or some sum of money down?” said Christie, slowly
removing her bonnet in the same resigned way.
“I am not a hired man, or a workman, Christie,” said her father sharply.
“You ought not to oblige me to remind you of that.”
“But the hired men--the superintendent and his workmen--were the only
ones who ever got anything out of your last experience with Colonel
Waters at La Grange, and--and we at least lived among civilized people
there.”
“These young men are not common people, Christie; even if they have
forgotten the restraints of speech and manners, they're gentlemen.”
“Who are willing to live like--like negroes.”
“You can make them what you please.”
Christie raised her eyes. There was a certain cynical ring in her
father's voice that was unlike his usual hesitating abstraction. It both
puzzled and pained her.
“I mean,” he said hastily, “that you have the same opportunity to direct
the lives of these young men into more regular, disciplined channels
that I have to regulate and correct their foolish waste of industry and
material here. It would at least beguile the time for you.”
Fortunately for Mr. Carr's escape and Christie's uneasiness, Jessie, who
had been examining the details of the living-room, broke in upon this
conversation.
“I'm sure it will be as good as a perpetual picnic. George Kearney says
we can have a cooking-stove under the tree outside at the back, and as
there will be no rain for three months we can do the cooking there,
and that will give us more room for--for the piano when it comes;
and there's an old squaw to do the cleaning and washing-up any
day--and--and--it will be real fun.”
She stopped breathlessly, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes--a
charming picture of youth and trustfulness. Mr. Carr had seized the
opportunity to escape.
“Really, now, Christie,” said Jessie confidentially, when they were
alone, and Christie had begun to unpack her trunk, and to mechanically
put her things away, “they're not so bad.”
“Who?” asked Christie.
“Why, the Kearneys, and Mattinglys, and Fairfax, and the lot, provided
you don't look at their clothes. And think of it! they told me--for they
tell one EVERYTHING in the most alarming way--that those clothes were
bought to please US. A scramble of things bought at La Grange, without
reference to size or style. And to hear these creatures talk, why, you'd
think they were Astors or Rothschilds. Think of that little one with
the curls--I don't believe he is over seventeen, for all his baby
moustache--says he's going to build an assembly hall for us to give
a dance in next month; and apologizes the next breath to tell us that
there isn't any milk to be had nearer than La Grange, and we must do
without it, and use syrup in our tea to-morrow.”
“And where is all this wealth?” said Christie, forcing herself to smile
at her sister's animation.
“Under our very feet, my child, and all along the river. Why, what
we thought was pure and simple mud is what they call 'gold-bearing
cement.'”
“I suppose that is why they don't brush their boots and trousers, it's
so precious,” returned Christie drily. “And have they ever translated
this precious dirt into actual coin?”
“Bless you, yes. Why, that dirty little gutter, you know, that ran along
the side of the road and followed us down the hill all the way here,
that cost them--let me see--yes, nearly sixty thousand dollars. And
fancy! papa's just condemned it--says it won't do; and they've got to
build another.”
An impatient sigh from Christie drew Jessie's attention to her troubled
eyebrows.
“Don't worry about our disappointment, dear. It isn't so very great. I
dare say we'll be able to get along here in some way, until papa is rich
again. You know they intend to make him share with them.”
“It strikes me that he is sharing with them already,” said Christie,
glancing bitterly round the cabin; “sharing everything--ourselves, our
lives, our tastes.”
“Ye-e-s!” said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent. “Yes, even
these:” she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand. “I found 'em
in the drawer of our dressing-table.”
“Throw them away,” said Christie impatiently.
But Jessie's small fingers closed over the dice. “I'll give them to the
little Kearney. I dare say they were the poor boy's playthings.”
The appearance of these relics of wild dissipation, however, had lifted
Christie out of her sublime resignation. “For Heaven's sake, Jessie,”
she said, “look around and see if there is anything more!”
To make sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited Christie
exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching obscure corners.
In the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or four books were
discovered: an odd volume of Thackeray, another of Dickens, a
memorandum-book or diary. “This seems to be Latin,” said Jessie, fishing
out a smaller book. “I can't read it.”
“It's just as well you shouldn't,” said Christie shortly, whose ideas
of a general classical impropriety had been gathered from pages of
Lempriere's dictionary. “Put it back directly.”
Jessie returned certain odes of one Horatius Flaccus to the corner, and
uttered an exclamation. “Oh, Christie! here are some letters tied up
with a ribbon.”
They were two or three prettily written letters, exhaling a faint odor
of refinement and of the pressed flowers that peeped from between the
loose leaves. “I see, 'My darling Fairfax.' It's from some woman.”
“I don't think much of her, whosoever she is,” said Christie, tossing
the intact packet back into the corner.
“Nor I,” echoed Jessie.
Nevertheless, by some feminine inconsistency, evidently the circumstance
did make them think more of HIM, for a minute later, when they had
reentered their own room, Christie remarked, “The idea of petting a
man by his family name! Think of mamma ever having called papa 'darling
Carr'!”
“Oh, but his family name isn't Fairfax,” said Jessie hastily; “that's
his FIRST name, his Christian name. I forget what's his other name, but
nobody ever calls him by it.”
“Do you mean,” said Christie, with glistening eyes and awful
deliberation--“do you mean to say that we're expected to fall in with
this insufferable familiarity? I suppose they'll be calling US by our
Christian names next.”
“Oh, but they do!” said Jessie, mischievously.
“What!”
“They call me Miss Jessie; and Kearney, the little one, asked me if
Christie played.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said that you did,” answered Jessie, with an affectation of cherubic
simplicity. “You do, dear; don't you? . . . There, don't get angry,
darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face of that poor
little creature; he looked so absurd--and so--so honest.”
Christie turned away, relapsing into her old resigned manner, and
assuming her household duties in a quiet, temporizing way that was,
however, without hope or expectation.
Mr. Carr, who had dined with his friends under the excuse of not adding
to the awkwardness of the first day's housekeeping returned late at
night with a mass of papers and drawings, into which he afterwards
withdrew, but not until he had delivered himself of a mysterious package
entrusted to him by the young men for his daughters. It contained a
contribution to their board in the shape of a silver spoon and battered
silver mug, which Jessie chose to facetiously consider as an affecting
reminiscence of the youthful Kearney's christening days--which it
probably was.
The young girls retired early to their white snow-drifts: Jessie not
without some hilarious struggles with hers, in which she was, however,
quickly surprised by the deep and refreshing sleep of youth; Christie to
lie awake and listen to the night wind, that had changed from the first
cool whispers of sunset to the sturdy breath of the mountain. At times
the frail house shook and trembled. Wandering gusts laden with the
deep resinous odors of the wood found their way through the imperfect
jointure of the two cabins, swept her cheek and even stirred her long,
wide-open lashes. A broken spray of pine needles rustled along the roof,
or a pine cone dropped with a quick reverberating tap-tap that for an
instant startled her. Lying thus, wide awake, she fell into a dreamy
reminiscence of the past, hearing snatches of old melody in the moving
pines, fragments of sentences, old words, and familiar epithets in the
murmuring wind at her ear, and even the faint breath of long-forgotten
kisses on her cheek. She remembered her mother--a pallid creature, who
had slowly faded out of one of her father's vague speculations in a
vaguer speculation of her own, beyond his ken--whose place she had
promised to take at her father's side. The words, “Watch over him,
Christie; he needs a woman's care,” again echoed in her ears, as if
borne on the night wind from the lonely grave in the lonelier cemetery
by the distant sea. She had devoted herself to him with some little
sacrifices of self, only remembered now for their uselessness in
saving her father the disappointment that sprang from his sanguine and
one-idea'd temperament. She thought of him lying asleep in the other
room, ready on the morrow to devote those fateful qualities to the new
enterprise that with equally fateful disposition she believed would end
in failure. It did not occur to her that the doubts of her own practical
nature were almost as dangerous and illogical as his enthusiasm, and
that for that reason she was fast losing what little influence she
possessed over him. With the example of her mother's weakness before her
eyes, she had become an unsparing and distrustful critic, with the sole
effect of awakening his distrust and withdrawing his confidence from
her.
He was beginning to deceive her as he had never deceived her mother.
Even Jessie knew more of this last enterprise than she did herself.
All that did not tend to decrease her utter restlessness. It was already
past midnight when she noticed that the wind had again abated. The
mountain breeze had by this time possessed the stifling valleys and
heated bars of the river in its strong, cold embraces; the equilibrium
of Nature was restored, and a shadowy mist rose from the hollow. A
stillness, more oppressive and intolerable than the previous commotion,
began to pervade the house and the surrounding woods. She could hear the
regular breathing of the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the
faint impulses of the more distant life in the settlement. The far-off
barking of a dog, a lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer
watercourse--mere phantoms of sound--made the silence more irritating.
With a sudden resolution she arose, dressed herself quietly and
completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened
the door between the living-room and her own. Her father was sleeping
soundly in his bunk in the corner. She passed noiselessly through the
room, opened the lightly fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed
the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of
the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical
putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of
her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered. The
view before her was a revelation--a reproach, a surprise that took away
her breath. Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of
silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the
river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the
Devil's Spur--no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady
exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and
unutterable beauty. In this magical light that beauty seemed to be
sustained and carried along by the river winding at its base, lifted
again to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the
distant vista of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where
she stood the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks
to absorb her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into
insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another sign
or indication of human life and habitation. She looked in vain for
the settlement, for the rugged ditches, the scattered cabins, and the
unsightly heaps of gravel. In the glamour of the moonlight they had
vanished; a veil of silver-gray vapor touched here and there with ebony
shadows masked its site. A black strip beyond was the river bank. All
else was changed. With a sudden sense of awe and loneliness she turned
to the cabin and its sleeping inmates--all that seemed left to her in
the vast and stupendous domination of rock and wood and sky.
But in another moment the loneliness passed. A new and delicious sense
of an infinite hospitality and friendliness in their silent presence
began to possess her. This same slighted, forgotten, uncomprehended,
but still foolish and forgiving Nature seemed to be bending over her
frightened and listening ear with vague but thrilling murmurings of
freedom and independence. She felt her heart expand with its wholesome
breath, her soul fill with its sustaining truth.
She felt--
What was that?
An unmistakable outburst of a drunken song at the foot of the slope:--
“Oh, my name it is Johnny from Pike,
I'm h-ll on a spree or a strike.” . . .
She stopped as crimson with shame and indignation as if the viewless
singer had risen before her.
“I knew when to bet, and get up and get--”
“Hush! D--n it all. Don't you hear?”
There was the sound of hurried whispers, a “No” and “Yes,” and then a
dead silence.
Christie crept nearer to the edge of the slope in the shadow of a
buckeye. In the clearer view she could distinguish a staggering
figure in the trail below who had evidently been stopped by two other
expostulating shadows that were approaching from the shelter of a tree.
“Sho!--didn't know!”
The staggering figure endeavored to straighten itself, and then slouched
away in the direction of the settlement. The two mysterious shadows
retreated again to the tree, and were lost in its deeper shadow.
Christie darted back to the cabin, and softly reentered her room.
“I thought I heard a noise that woke me, and I missed you,” said Jessie,
rubbing her eyes. “Did you see anything?”
“No,” said Christie, beginning to undress.
“You weren't frightened, dear?”
“Not in the least,” said Christie, with a strange little laugh. “Go to
sleep.”