CHAPTER IV.

It must not be supposed that Miss Sally did not feel some contrition

over the ineffective part she had played in this last episode.

But Joseph Corbin had committed the unpardonable sin to a woman of

destroying her own illogical ideas of him, which was worse than if he

had affronted the preconceived ideas of others, in which case she might

still defend him. Then, too, she was no longer religious, and had no

“call” to act as peacemaker. Nevertheless she resented Julia Jeffcourt's

insinuations bitterly, and the cousins quarreled--not the first time in

their intercourse--and it was reserved for the latter to break the news

of Corbin's arrival with the body to Mrs. Jeffcourt.

How this was done and what occurred at that interview has not been

recorded. But it was known the next day that, while Mrs. Jeffcourt

accepted the body at Corbin's hands,--and it is presumed the funeral

expenses also,--he was positively forbidden to appear either at the

services at the house or at the church. There had been some wild talk

among the younger and many of the lower members of the community,

notably the “poor” non-slave-holding whites, of tarring and feathering

Joseph Corbin, and riding him on a rail out of the town on the day

of the funeral, as a propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of Thomas

Jeffcourt; but it being pointed out by the undertaker that it might

involve some uncertainty in the settlement of his bill, together with

some reasonable doubt of the thorough resignation of Corbin, whose

previous momentary aberration in that respect they were celebrating, the

project was postponed until AFTER THE FUNERAL. And here an unlooked-for

incident occurred.

There was to be a political meeting at Kirby on that day, when certain

distinguished Southern leaders had gathered from the remoter Southern

States. At the instigation of Captain Dows it was adjourned at the hour

of the funeral to enable members to attend, and it was even rumored,

to the great delight of Pineville, that a distinguished speaker or two

might come over to “improve the occasion” with some slight allusion to

the engrossing topic of “Southern Rights.” This combined appeal to

the domestic and political emotions of Pineville was irresistible. The

Second Baptist Church was crowded. After the religious service there

was a pause, and Judge Reed, stepping forward amid a breathless silence,

said that they were peculiarly honored by the unexpected presence in

their midst “of that famous son of the South, Colonel Starbottle,”

who had lately returned to his native soil from his adopted home in

California. Every eye was fixed on the distinguished stranger as he

rose.

Jaunty and gallant as ever, femininely smooth-faced, yet polished and

high colored as a youthful mask; pectorally expansive, and unfolding the

white petals of his waistcoat through the swollen lapels of his coat,

like a bursting magnolia bud, Colonel Starbottle began. The present

associations were, he might say, singularly hallowed to him; not only

was Pineville--a Southern centre--the recognized nursery of Southern

chivalry, Southern beauty (a stately inclination to the pew in which

Miss Sally and Julia Jeffcourt sat), Southern intelligence, and Southern

independence, but it was the home of the lamented dead who had been,

like himself and another he should refer to later, an adopted citizen of

the Golden State, a seeker of the Golden Fleece, a companion of Jason.

It was the home, fellow-citizens and friends, of the sorrowing sister of

the deceased, a young lady whom he, the speaker, had as yet known only

through the chivalrous blazon of her virtues and graces by her attendant

knights (a courteous wave towards the gallery where Joyce Masterton,

Chester Brooks, Calhoun Bungstarter, and the embattled youth generally

of Pineville became empurpled and idiotic); it was the home of the

afflicted widowed mother, also personally unknown to him, but with whom

he might say he had had--er--er--professional correspondence. But it

was not this alone that hallowed the occasion, it was a sentiment that

should speak in trumpet-like tones throughout the South in this uprising

of an united section. It was the forgetfulness of petty strife, of

family feud, of personal wrongs in the claims of party! It might not be

known that he, the speaker, was professionally cognizant of one of

these regrettable--should he say accidents?--arising from the chivalrous

challenge and equally chivalrous response of two fiery Southern spirits,

to which they primarily owe their coming here that day. And he should

take it as his duty, his solemn duty, in that sacred edifice to proclaim

to the world that in his knowledge as a professional man--as a man of

honor, as a Southerner, as a gentleman, that the--er--circumstances

which three years ago led to the early demise of our lamented friend

and brother, reflected only the highest credit equally on both of the

parties. He said this on his own responsibility--in or out of this

sacred edifice--and in or out of that sacred edifice he was personally

responsible, and prepared to give the fullest satisfaction for it. He

was also aware that it might not be known--or understood--that since

that boyish episode the survivor had taken the place of the departed

in the bereaved family and ministered to their needs with counsel

and--er--er--pecuniary aid, and had followed the body afoot across the

continent that it might rest with its kindred dust. He was aware that

an unchristian--he would say but for that sacred edifice--a DASTARDLY

attempt had been made to impugn the survivor's motives--to suggest an

unseemly discord between him and the family, but he, the speaker, would

never forget the letter breathing with Christian forgiveness and replete

with angelic simplicity sent by a member of that family to his client,

which came under his professional eye (here the professional eye for a

moment lingered on the hysteric face of Miss Sally); he did not envy the

head or heart of a man who could peruse these lines--of which the mere

recollection--er--er--choked the utterance of even a professional

man like--er--himself--without emotion. “And what, my friends and

fellow-citizens,” suddenly continued the Colonel, replacing his white

handkerchief in his coat-tail, “was the reason why my client, Mr.

Joseph Corbin--whose delicacy keeps him from appearing among these

mourners--comes here to bury all differences, all animosities, all petty

passions? Because he is a son of the South; because as a son of the

South, as the representative, and a distant connection, I believe, of

my old political friend, Major Corbin, of Nashville, he wishes here

and everywhere, at this momentous crisis, to sink everything in the one

all-pervading, all-absorbing, one and indivisible UNITY of the South in

its resistance to the Northern Usurper! That, my friends, is the great,

the solemn, the Christian lesson of this most remarkable occasion in my

professional, political, and social experience.”

Whatever might have been the calmer opinion, there was no doubt that

the gallant Colonel had changed the prevailing illogical emotion of

Pineville by the substitution of another equally illogical, and Miss

Sally was not surprised when her father, touched by the Colonel's

allusion to his daughter's epistolary powers, insisted upon bringing

Joseph Corbin home with him, and offering him the hospitality of the

Dows mansion. Although the stranger seemed to yield rather from the fact

that the Dows were relations of the Jeffcourts than from any personal

preference, when he was fairly installed in one of the appropriately

gloomy guest chambers, Miss Sally set about the delayed work of

reconciliation--theoretically accepted by her father, and cynically

tolerated by her Aunt Miranda. But here a difficulty arose which she had

not foreseen. Although Corbin had evidently forgiven her defection on

that memorable evening, he had not apparently got over the revelation of

her giddy worldliness, and was resignedly apathetic and distrustful of

her endeavors. She was at first amused, and then angry. And her patience

was exhausted when she discovered that he actually seemed more anxious

to conciliate Julia Jeffcourt than her mother.

“But she spat in your face,” she said, indignantly.

“That's so,” he replied, gloomily; “but I reckoned you said something in

one of your letters about turning the other cheek when you were smitten.

Of course, as you don't believe it now,” he added with his upward

glance, “I suppose THAT'S been played on me, too.”

But here Miss Sally's spirit lazily rebelled.

“Look here, Mr. Joseph JEREMIAH Corbin,” she returned with languid

impertinence, “if instead of cavortin' round on yo' knees trying to

conciliate an old woman who never had a stroke of luck till you killed

her son, and a young girl who won't be above letting on afore you think

it that your conciliatin' her means SPARKIN' her; if instead of that

foolishness you'd turn your hand to trying to conciliate the folks here

and keep 'em from going into that fool's act of breaking up these United

States; if instead of digging up second-hand corpses that's already been

put out of sight once you'd set to work to try and prevent the folks

about here from digging up their old cranks and their old whims, and

their old women fancies, you'd be doing something like a Christian and

a man! What's yo' blood-guiltiness--I'd like to know--alongside of the

blood-guiltiness of those fools who are just wild to rush into it, led

by such turkey-cocks as yo' friend Colonel Starbottle? And you've been

five years in California--a free State--and that's all yo' 've toted out

of it--a dead body! There now, don't sit there and swing yo' hat under

that chyar, but rouse out and come along with me to the pawty if you can

shake a foot, and show Miss Pinkney and the gyrls yo' fit for something

mo' than to skirmish round as a black japanned spittoon for Julia

Jeffcourt!” It is not recorded that Corbin accepted this cheerful

invitation, but for a few days afterwards he was more darkly observant

of, and respectful to, Miss Sally. Strange indeed if he had not

noticed--although always in his resigned fashion--the dull green

stagnation of the life around him, or when not accepting it as part

of his trouble he had not chafed at the arrested youth and senile

childishness of the people. Stranger still if he had not at times been

startled to hear the outgrown superstitions and follies of his youth

voiced again by grown-up men, and perhaps strangest of all if he had not

vaguely accepted it all as the hereditary curse of that barbarism under

which he himself had survived and suffered.

The reconciliation between himself and Mrs. Jeffcourt was superficially

effected, so far as a daily visit by him to the house indicated it to

the community, but it was also known that Julia was invariably absent

on these occasions. What happened at those interviews did not transpire,

but it may be surmised that Mrs. Jeffcourt, perhaps recognizing the fact

that Corbin was really giving her all that he had to give, or possibly

having some lurking fear of Colonel Starbottle, was so far placated as

to exhibit only the average ingratitude of her species towards a regular

benefactor. She consented to the erection of a small obelisk over her

son's grave, and permitted Corbin to plant a few flowering shrubs,

which he daily visited and took care of. It is said that on one of these

pilgrimages he encountered Miss Julia, apparently on the same errand,

who haughtily retired. It was further alleged, on the authority of one

of Mammy Judy's little niggers, that those two black mourning figures

had been seen at nightfall sitting opposite to each other at the head

and foot of the grave, and “glowerin'” at one another “like two hants.”

But when it was asserted on the same authority that their voices had

been later overheard uplifted in some vehement discussion over the grave

of the impassive dead, great curiosity was aroused. Being pressed by

the eager Miss Sally to repeat some words or any words he had heard them

say, the little witness glibly replied, “Marse Linkum” (Lincoln), and

“The Souf,” and so, for the time, shipwrecked his testimony. But it was

recalled six months afterwards. It was then that a pleasant spring day

brought madness and enthusiasm to a majority of Pineville, and bated

breath and awe to a few, and it was known with the tidings that the

South had appealed to arms, that among those who had first responded to

the call was Joseph Corbin, an alleged “Union man,” who had, however,

volunteered to take that place in her ranks which might HAVE BEEN FILLED

BY THE MAN HE HAD KILLED. And then people forgot all about him.

*****

A year passed. It was the same place; the old familiar outlines of home

and garden and landscape. But seen now, in the choking breathlessness of

haste, in the fitful changing flashes of life and motion around it,

in intervals of sharp suspense or dazed bewilderment, it seemed to be

recognized no longer. Men who had known it all their lives, hurrying to

the front in compact masses, scurrying to the rear in straggling line,

or opening their ranks to let artillery gallop by, stared at it vaguely,

and clattered or scrambled on again. The smoke of a masked battery

in the woods struggled and writhed to free itself from the clinging

treetops behind it, and sank back into a gray encompassing cloud. The

dust thrown up by a column of passing horse poured over the wall in one

long wave, and whitened the garden with its ashes. Throughout the

dim empty house one no longer heard the sound of cannon, only a dull

intermittent concussion was felt, silently bringing flakes of plaster

from the walls, or sliding fragments of glass from the shattered

windows. A shell, lifted from the ominous distance, hung uncertain in

the air and then descended swiftly through the roof; the whole house

dilated with flame for an instant, smoke rolled slowly from the windows,

and even the desolate chimneys started into a hideous mockery of life,

and then all was still again. At such awful intervals the sun shone out

brightly, touched the green of the still sleeping woods and the red and

white of a flower in the garden, and something in a gray uniform writhed

out of the dust of the road, staggered to the wall, and died.

A mile down this road, growing more and more obscure with those rising

and falling apparitions or the shapeless and rugged heaps terrible in

their helpless inertia by hedge and fence, arose the cemetery hill.

Taken and retaken thrice that afternoon, the dead above it far

outnumbered the dead below; and when at last the tide of battle swept

around its base into the dull, reverberating woods, and it emerged from

the smoke, silenced and abandoned, only a few stragglers remained. One

of them, leaning on his musket, was still gloomily facing the woods.

“Joseph Corbin,” said a low, hurried voice.

He started and glanced quickly at the tombs around him. Perhaps it was

because he had been thinking of the dead,--but the voice sounded like

HIS. Yet it was only the SISTER, who had glided, pale and haggard, from

the thicket.

“They are coming through the woods,” she said quickly. “Run, or you'll

be taken. Why do you linger?”

“You know why,” he said gloomily.

“Yes, but you have done yo' duty. You have done his work. The task is

finished now, and yo' free.”

He did not reply, but remained gazing at the woods.

“Joseph,” she said more gently, laying her trembling hand on his arm,

“Joseph, fly--and--take me with you. For I was wrong, and I want you to

forgive me. I knew your heart was not in this, and I ought not to have

asked you. Joseph--listen! I never wanted to avenge myself nor HIM when

I spat on your face. I wanted to avenge myself on HER. I hated her,

because I thought she wanted to work upon you and use you for herself.”

“Your mother,” he said, looking at her.

“No,” she said, with widely opened eyes, “you know who I mean--Miss

Sally.”

He looked at her wonderingly for a moment, but quickly bent his

head again in the direction of the road. “They are coming,” he said,

starting. “YOU must go. This is no place for you. Stop! it's too

late; you cannot go now until they have passed. Come here--crouch down

here--over this grave--so.”

He almost forced her--kneeling down--upon the mound below the level of

the shrubs, and then ran quickly himself a few paces lower down the

hill to a more exposed position. She understood it. He wished to attract

attention to himself. He was successful--a few hurried shots followed

from the road, but struck above him.

He clambered back quickly to where she was still crouching.

“They were the vedettes,” he said, “but they have fallen back on the

main skirmish line and will be here in force in a moment. Go--while you

can.” She had not moved. He tried to raise her--her hat fell off---he

saw blood oozing from where the vedette's bullet that had missed him had

pierced her brain.

And yet he saw in that pale dead face only the other face which he

remembered now had been turned like this towards his own. It was very

strange. And this was the end, and this was his expiation! He raised his

own face humbly, blindly, despairingly to the inscrutable sky; it looked

back upon him from above as coldly as the dead face had from below.

Yet out of this he struck a faint idea that he voiced aloud in nearly

the same words which he had used to Colonel Starbottle only three years

ago. “It was with his own pistol too,” he said, and took up his musket.

He walked deliberately down the hill, occasionally trying the stock of

his musket in the loose earth, and at last suddenly remained motionless,

in the attitude of leaning over it. At the same moment there was a

distant shout; two thin parallel streams of blue and steel came issuing

through the woods like a river, appeared to join tumultuously in the

open before the hill, and out of the tumult a mounted officer called

upon him to surrender.

He did not reply.

“Come down from there, Johnny Reb, I want to speak to you,” called a

young corporal.

He did not move.

“It's time to go home, Johnny.”

No response.

The officer, who had been holding down his men with an unsworded but

masterful hand, raised it suddenly. A dozen shots followed. The men

leaped forward, and dashing Corbin contemptuously aside streamed up the

hill past him.

But he had neither heard nor cared. For they found he had already

deliberately transfixed himself through the heart on his own bayonet.

THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN.

CHAPTER I.

The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling

cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung

over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting

away, slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot platform of the

Laurel Run post-office.

Out of this cloud presently emerged the neat figure of the postmistress

with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the

top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their

hands to assist her, but the warning: “It's agin the rules, boys, for

any but her to touch it,” from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of

the head from the postmistress herself--much more effective than any

official interdict--withheld them. The bag was not heavy,--Laurel Run

was too recent a settlement to have attracted much correspondence,--and

the young woman, having pounced upon her prey with a certain feline

instinct, dragged it, not without difficulty, behind the partitioned

inclosure in the office, and locked the door. Her pretty face,

momentarily visible through the window, was slightly flushed with the

exertion, and the loose ends of her fair hair, wet with perspiration,

curled themselves over her forehead into tantalizing little rings. But

the window shutter was quickly closed, and this momentary but charming

vision withdrawn from the waiting public.

“Guv'ment oughter have more sense than to make a woman pick mail-bags

outer the road,” said Jo Simmons sympathetically. “'Tain't in her day's

work anyhow; Guv'mont oughter hand 'em over to her like a lady; it's

rich enough and ugly enough.”

“'Tain't Guv'ment; it's that stage company's airs and graces,”

interrupted a newcomer. “They think it mighty fine to go beltin' by,

makin' everybody take their dust, just because STOPPIN' ain't in their

contract. Why, if that expressman who chucked down the bag had any

feelin's for a lady”--but he stopped here at the amused faces of his

auditors.

“Guess you don't know much o' that expressman's feelin's, stranger,”

said Simmons grimly. “Why, you oughter see him just nussin' that bag

like a baby as he comes tearin' down the grade, and then rise up and

sorter heave it to Mrs. Baker ez if it was a five-dollar bokay! His

feelin's for her! Why, he's give himself so dead away to her that we're

looking for him to forget what he's doin' next, and just come sailin'

down hisself at her feet.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the partition, Mrs. Baker had brushed

the red dust from the padlocked bag, and removed what seemed to be a

supplementary package attached to it by a wire. Opening it she found

a handsome scent-bottle, evidently a superadded gift from the devoted

expressman. This she put aside with a slight smile and the murmured

word, “Foolishness.” But when she had unlocked the bag, even its

sacred interior was also profaned by a covert parcel from the adjacent

postmaster at Burnt Ridge, containing a gold “specimen” brooch and some

circus tickets. It was laid aside with the other. This also was vanity

and--presumably--vexation of spirit.

There were seventeen letters in all, of which five were for herself--and

yet the proportion was small that morning. Two of them were marked

“Official Business” and were promptly put by with feminine discernment;

but in another compartment than that holding the presents. Then the

shutter was opened, and the task of delivery commenced.

It was accompanied with a social peculiarity that had in time become a

habit of Laurel Run. As the young woman delivered the letters, in turn,

to the men who were patiently drawn up in Indian file, she made that

simple act a medium of privileged but limited conversation on special or

general topics,--gay or serious as the case might be, or the temperament

of the man suggested. That it was almost always of a complimentary

character on their part may be readily imagined; but it was invariably

characterized by an element of refined restraint, and, whether from some

implied understanding or individual sense of honour, it never passed the

bounds of conventionality or a certain delicacy of respect. The

delivery was consequently more or less protracted, but when each man

had exchanged his three or four minutes' conversation with the fair

postmistress,--a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or

timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,--he

resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by

the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience,

and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest

and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and the epoch,

and indeed implied the whole history of Mrs. Baker.

She was the wife of John Baker, foreman of “The Last Chance,” now for

a year lying dead under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in tunnel at

Burnt Ridge. There had been a sudden outcry from the depths at high

hot noontide one day, and John had rushed from his cabin--his young,

foolish, flirting wife clinging to him--to answer that despairing cry of

his imprisoned men. There was one exit that he alone knew which might be

yet held open, among falling walls and tottering timbers, long enough to

set them free. For one moment only the strong man hesitated between her

entreating arms and his brothers' despairing cry. But she rose suddenly

with a pale face, and said, “Go, John; I will wait for you here.” He

went, the men were freed--but she had waited for him ever since!

Yet in the shock of the calamity and in the after struggles of that

poverty which had come to the ruined camp, she had scarcely changed. But

the men had. Although she was to all appearances the same giddy, pretty

Betsy Baker, who had been so disturbing to the younger members, they

seemed to be no longer disturbed by her. A certain subdued awe and

respect, as if the martyred spirit of John Baker still held his arm

around her, appeared to have come upon them all. They held their breath

as this pretty woman, whose brief mourning had not seemed to affect her

cheerfulness or even playfulness of spirit, passed before them. But she

stood by her cabin and the camp--the only woman in a settlement of forty

men--during the darkest hours of their fortune. Helping them to wash and

cook, and ministering to their domestic needs, the sanctity of her cabin

was, however, always kept as inviolable as if it had been HIS tomb. No

one exactly knew why, for it was only a tacit instinct; but even one or

two who had not scrupled to pay court to Betsy Baker during John Baker's

life, shrank from even a suggestion of familiarity towards the woman who

had said that she would “wait for him there.”

When brighter days came and the settlement had increased by one or two

families, and laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve the still

beleaguered and locked-up wealth of Burnt Ridge, the needs of the

community and the claims of the widow of John Baker were so well told

in political quarters that the post-office of Laurel Run was created

expressly for her. Every man participated in the building of the pretty

yet substantial edifice--the only public building of Laurel Run--that

stood in the dust of the great highway, half a mile from the settlement.

There she was installed for certain hours of the day, for she could not

be prevailed upon to abandon John's cabin, and here, with all the added

respect due to a public functionary, she was secure in her privacy.

But the blind devotion of Laurel Run to John Baker's relict did not stop

here. In its zeal to assure the Government authorities of the necessity

for a post-office, and to secure a permanent competency to the

postmistress, there was much embarrassing extravagance. During the first

week the sale of stamps at Laurel Run post-office was unprecedented

in the annals of the Department. Fancy prices were given for the first

issue; then they were bought wildly, recklessly, unprofitably, and

on all occasions. Complimentary congratulation at the little window

invariably ended with “and a dollar's worth of stamps, Mrs. Baker.” It

was felt to be supremely delicate to buy only the highest priced stamps,

without reference to their adequacy; then mere QUANTITY was sought; then

outgoing letters were all over-paid and stamped in outrageous proportion

to their weight and even size. The imbecility of this, and its probable

effect on the reputation of Laurel Run at the General Post-office, being

pointed out by Mrs. Baker, stamps were adopted as local currency,

and even for decorative purposes on mirrors and the walls of cabins.

Everybody wrote letters, with the result, however, that those SENT were

ludicrously and suspiciously in excess of those received. To obviate

this, select parties made forced journeys to Hickory Hill, the next

post-office, with letters and circulars addressed to themselves at

Laurel Run. How long the extravagance would have continued is not

known, but it was not until it was rumored that, in consequence of

this excessive flow of business, the Department had concluded that a

postMASTER would be better fitted for the place that it abated, and a

compromise was effected with the General Office by a permanent salary to

the postmistress.

Such was the history of Mrs. Baker, who had just finished her afternoon

levee, nodded a smiling “good-by” to her last customer, and closed her

shutter again. Then she took up her own letters, but, before reading

them, glanced, with a pretty impatience, at the two official envelopes

addressed to herself, which she had shelved. They were generally a “lot

of new rules,” or notifications, or “absurd” questions which had nothing

to do with Laurel Run and only bothered her and “made her head ache,”

and she had usually referred them to her admiring neighbor at Hickory

Hill for explanation, who had generally returned them to her with the

brief indorsement, “Purp stuff, don't bother,” or, “Hog wash, let it

slide.” She remembered now that he had not returned the last two. With

knitted brows and a slight pout she put aside her private correspondence

and tore open the first one. It referred with official curtness to an

unanswered communication of the previous week, and was “compelled to

remind her of rule 47.” Again those horrid rules! She opened the other;

the frown deepened on her brow, and became fixed.

It was a summary of certain valuable money letters that had miscarried

on the route, and of which they had given her previous information.

For a moment her cheeks blazed. How dare they; what did they mean! Her

waybills and register were always right; she knew the names of every

man, woman, and child in her district; no such names as those borne by

the missing letters had ever existed at Laurel Run; no such addresses

had ever been sent from Laurel Run post-office. It was a mean

insinuation! She would send in her resignation at once! She would get

“the boys” to write an insulting letter to Senator Slocumb,--Mrs.

Baker had the feminine idea of Government as a purely personal

institution,--and she would find out who it was that had put them up to

this prying, crawling impudence! It was probably that wall-eyed old

wife of the postmaster at Heavy Tree Crossing, who was jealous of her.

“Remind her of their previous unanswered communication,” indeed! Where

was that communication, anyway? She remembered she had sent it to her

admirer at Hickory Hill. Odd that he hadn't answered it. Of course, he

knew about this meanness--could he, too, have dared to suspect her! The

thought turned her crimson again. He, Stanton Green, was an old “Laurel

Runner,” a friend of John's, a little “triflin'” and “presoomin',” but

still an old loyal pioneer of the camp! “Why hadn't he spoke up?”

There was the soft, muffled fall of a horse's hoof in the thick dust of

the highway, the jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread on the

platform. No doubt one of the boys returning for a few supplemental

remarks under the feeble pretense of forgotten stamps. It had been done

before, and she had resented it as “cayotin' round;” but now she was

eager to pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She had her hand

impulsively on the door of the partition, when she stopped with a new

sense of her impaired dignity. Could she confess this to her worshipers?

But here the door opened in her very face, and a stranger entered.

He was a man of fifty, compactly and strongly built. A squarely-cut

goatee, slightly streaked with gray, fell straight from his thin-lipped

but handsome mouth; his eyes were dark, humorous, yet searching. But the

distinctive quality that struck Mrs Baker was the blending of urban ease

with frontier frankness. He was evidently a man who had seen cities and

knew countries as well. And while he was dressed with the comfortable

simplicity of a Californian mounted traveler, her inexperienced

but feminine eye detected the keynote of his respectability in the

carefully-tied bow of his cravat. The Sierrean throat was apt to be

open, free, and unfettered.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Baker,” he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in

his hand, “I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco.” As he spoke his eye

swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and

well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk

mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the

wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled

clinging hair, and then--fell upon the leathern mailbag still lying

across the table. Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire of the

amorous expressman that yet remained hanging from the brass wards of the

lock, and he reached his hand toward it.

But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and had seized it in her arms. She

had been too preoccupied and bewildered to resent his first intrusion

behind the partition, but this last familiarity with her sacred official

property--albeit empty--capped the climax of her wrongs.

“How dare you touch it!” she said indignantly. “How dare you come in

here! Who are you, anyway? Go outside, at once!”

The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a

long silent laugh. “I'm afraid you don't know me, after all!” he said

pleasantly. “I'm Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco

office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems

to have miscarried too.”

Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she

had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine

secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept

silent.

“I ought to have explained,” he went on smilingly; “but you are quite

right, Mrs. Baker,” he added, nodding towards the bag. “As far as you

knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to

defend Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to

know” (pointing to the wire) “if that thing was on the bag when it was

delivered to you?”

Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all, this official

was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should

understand her power. “It's only the expressman's foolishness,” she

said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. “He thinks it smart

to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down.”

Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not

inhuman or unpardonable folly. “As long as he doesn't meddle with

the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it,” he said

laughingly. A dreadful recollection, that the Hickory Hill postmaster

had used the inside of the bag to convey HIS foolishness, came across

her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown

some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal,

half-reassuring air: “But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to

my business here. Briefly, then, it doesn't concern you in the least,

except so far as it may relieve you and some others, whom the Department

knows equally well, from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps,

anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns

Laurel Run, and I think” (with a slight bow) “we've known all about you

and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night

in receiving the 'Omnibus Way Bag,' that you know arrives here at 9.30,

doesn't it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Baker hurriedly; “but it never has anything for

us, except”--(she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as

she remembered the sighing Green's occasional offerings) “except a

notification from Hickory Hill post-office. It leaves there,” she went

on with an affectation of precision, “at half past eight exactly, and

it's about an hour's run--seven miles by road.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Home. “Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and

dispatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday.”

“But,” said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a

point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure

it offered, “there are the people who come for letters, you know.”

“I thought you said there were no letters at that time,” said Mr. Home

quickly.

“No--but--but”--(with a slight hysterical stammer) “the boys come all

the same.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Home dryly.

“And--O Lord!”--But here the spectacle of the possible discomfiture of

Laurel Run at meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead of her own

smooth cheeks, at the window, combined with her nervous excitement,

overcame her so that, throwing her little frilled apron over her head,

she gave way to a paroxym of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home waited with

amused toleration for it to stop, and, when she had recovered, resumed.

“Now, I should like to refer an instant to my first communication to

you. Have you got it handy?”

Mrs. Baker's face fell. “No; I sent it over to Mr. Green, of Hickory

Hill, for information.”

“What!”

Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the man's voice, she managed to

gasp out, however, that, after her usual habit, she had not opened the

official letters, but had sent them to her more experienced colleague

for advice and information; that she never could understand them

herself,--they made her head ache, and interfered with her other

duties,--but HE understood them, and sent her word what to do.

Remembering also his usual style of indorsement, she grew red again.

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing; he didn't return them.”

“Naturally,” said Mr. Home, with a peculiar expression. After a few

moments' silent stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the frightened

woman.

“You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more frankly to you than I had

intended. You have--unwittingly, I believe--given information to a man

whom the Government suspects of peculation. You have, without knowing

it, warned the postmaster at Hickory Hill that he is suspected; and,

as you might have frustrated our plans for tracing a series of

embezzlements to their proper source, you will see that you might have

also done great wrong to yourself as his only neighbor and the next

responsible person. In plain words, we have traced the disappearance of

money letters to a point when it lies between these two offices. Now,

I have not the least hesitation in telling you that we do not suspect

Laurel Run, and never have suspected it. Even the result of your

thoughtless act, although it warned him, confirms our suspicion of his

guilt. As to the warning, it has failed, or he has grown reckless, for

another letter has been missed since. To-night, however, will settle all

doubt in the matter. When I open that bag in this office to-night, and

do not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was last checked at

Heavy Tree Crossing, I shall know that it remains in Green's possession

at Hickory Hill.”

She was sitting back in her chair, white and breathless. He glanced at

her kindly, and then took up his hat. “Come, Mrs. Baker, don't let this

worry you. As I told you at first, YOU have nothing to fear. Even your

thoughtlessness and ignorance of rules have contributed to show your own

innocence. Nobody will ever be the wiser for this; we do not advertise

our affairs in the Department. Not a soul but yourself knows the real

cause of my visit here. I will leave you here alone for a while, so as

to divert any suspicion. You will come, as usual, this evening, and be

seen by your friends; I will only be here when the bag arrives, to open

it. Good-by, Mrs. Baker; it's a nasty bit of business, but it's all in

the day's work. I've seen worse, and, thank God, you're out of it.”

She heard his footsteps retreat into the outer office and die out of the

platform; the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat of his horse's

hoofs that seemed to find a dull echo in her own heart, and she was

alone.

The room was very hot and very quiet; she could hear the warping

and creaking of the shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level

sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that

followed, a woodpecker took up his interrupted work on the roof,

and seemed to beat out monotonously on her ear the last words of the

stranger: Stanton Green--a thief! Stanton Green, one of the “boys” John

had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in

the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours

to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! She remembered now, as a

thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his extravagance and fast living,

of which she had taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of presents

sent her, that she now clearly saw must have been far beyond his means.

What would the boys say? What would John have said? Ah! what would John

have DONE!

She started suddenly to her feet, white and cold as on that day that

she had parted from John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her hat

and mantle, and going to that little iron safe that stood in the corner,

unlocked it and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had

reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she

collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up

under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey

of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be

swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond.

CHAPTER II.

Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker

kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to

the right, and came upon an open slope of Burnt Ridge, where she knew

Jo Simmons' mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had

often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot reata

from his head-stall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity

of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The

tool-shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo's saddle and bridle always

hung, was but a canter farther on. She reached it unperceived,

and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side-saddle

from Simmons' Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the

aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her

mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under

one knee, and let it fall over her horse's flanks. By this time Blue

Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection and

pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he

remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.

The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and

dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road.

There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The

greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges

were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against

the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as

she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower

range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of

the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar

and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a

minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already

wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would

be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to anticipate

it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST

arrive before it left!

There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now,

Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little

chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and

the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back,

she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few

more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long,

cruel ascent of the Divide.

Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery,

impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream,

coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with

slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic

and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and

recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging,

caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now.

Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit,

bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, “loping” on three legs and

recreating himself,--as only a California mustang could,--the invincible

Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The evening

star had just pricked itself through the golden mist of the horizon

line,--eight o'clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first

hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, she knew the trail, she knew

herself,--but did she know THE MAN to whom she was riding? A cold chill

crept over her, and then she shivered in a sudden blast; it was Night at

last swooping down from the now invisible Sierras, and possessing all it

touched. But it was only one long descent to Hickory Hill now, and she

swept down securely on its wings. Half-past eight! The lights of the

settlement were just ahead of her--but so, too, were the two lamps of

the waiting stage before the post-office and hotel.

Happily the lounging crowd were gathered around the hotel, and she

slipped into the post-office from the rear, unperceived. As she stepped

behind the partition, its only occupant--a good-looking young fellow

with a reddish mustache--turned towards her with a flush of delighted

surprise. But it changed at the sight of the white, determined face

and the brilliant eyes that had never looked once towards him, but were

fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning mouth was still open and propped

up beside his desk.

“Where is the through money letter that came in that bag?” she said

quickly.

“What--do--you--mean?” he stammered, with a face that had suddenly grown

whiter than her own.

“I mean that it's a DECOY, checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, and that Mr.

Home, of San Francisco, is now waiting at my office to know if you have

taken it!”

The laugh and lie that he had at first tried to summon to mouth and lips

never reached them. For, under the spell of her rigid, truthful face, he

turned almost mechanically to his desk, and took out a package.

“Good God! you've opened it already!” she cried, pointing to the broken

seal.

The expression on her face, more than anything she had said, convinced

him that she knew all. He stammered under the new alarm that her

despairing tone suggested. “Yes!--I was owing some bills--the collector

was waiting here for the money, and I took something from the packet.

But I was going to make it up by next mail--I swear it.”

“How much have you taken?”

“Only a trifle. I”--

“How much?”

“A hundred dollars!”

She dragged the money she had brought from Laurel Run from her pocket,

and counting out the sum, replaced it in the open package. He ran

quickly to get the sealing wax, but she motioned him away as she dropped

the package back into the mail-bag. “No; as long as the money is found

in the bag the package may have been broken ACCIDENTALLY. Now burst open

one or two of those other packages a little--so;” she took out a packet

of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot

until the tape fastening was loosened. “Now give me something heavy.”

She caught up a brass two-pound weight, and in the same feverish

but collected haste wrapped it in paper, sealed it, stamped it, and,

addressing it in a large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, dropped

it in the bag. Then she closed it and locked it; he would have assisted

her, but she again waved him away. “Send for the expressman, and keep

yourself out of the way for a moment,” she said curtly.

An attitude of weak admiration and foolish passion had taken the place

of his former tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but without a word.

Mrs. Baker wiped her moist forehead and parched lips, and shook out

her skirt. Well might the young expressman start at the unexpected

revelation of those sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth at

the little window.

“Mrs. Baker!”

She put her finger quickly to her lips, and threw a world of unutterable

and enigmatical meaning into her mischievous face.

“There's a big San Francisco swell takin' my place at Laurel to-night,

Charley.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And it's a pity that the Omnibus Way Bag happened to get such a shaking

up and banging round already, coming here.”

“Eh?”

“I say,” continued Mrs. Baker, with great gravity and dancing eyes,

“that it would be just AWFUL if that keerful city clerk found things

kinder mixed up inside when he comes to open it. I wouldn't give him

trouble for the world, Charley.”

“No, ma'am, it ain't like you.”

“So you'll be particularly careful on MY account.”

“Mrs. Baker,” said Charley, with infinite gravity, “if that bag SHOULD

TUMBLE OFF A DOZEN TIMES between this and Laurel Hill, I'll hop down and

pick it up myself.”

“Thank you! shake!”

They shook hands gravely across the window-ledge.

“And you ain't going down with us, Mrs. Baker?”

“Of course not; it wouldn't do,--for I AIN'T HERE,--don't you see?”

“Of course!”

She handed him the bag through the door. He took it carefully, but in

spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the

road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like

miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker

came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself

into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an

outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly and she found

Green on his knees before her. She started to her feet.

“Don't move,” he said, with weak hysteric passion, “but listen to me,

for God's sake! I am ruined, I know, even though you have just saved me

from detection and disgrace. I have been mad!--a fool, to do what I have

done, I know, but you do not know all--you do not know why I did it--you

cannot think of the temptation that has driven me to it. Listen, Mrs.

Baker. I have been striving to get money, honestly, dishonestly--any

way, to look well in YOUR eyes--to make myself worthy of you--to make

myself rich, and to be able to offer you a home and take you away from

Laurel Run. It was all for YOU, it was all for love of YOU, Betsy, my

darling. Listen to me!”

In the fury, outraged sensibility, indignation, and infinite disgust

that filled her little body at that moment, she should have been large,

imperious, goddess-like, and commanding. But God is at times ironical

with suffering womanhood. She could only writhe her hand from his grasp

with childish contortions; she could only glare at him with eyes that

were prettily and piquantly brilliant; she could only slap at his

detaining hand with a plump and velvety palm, and when she found her

voice it was high falsetto. And all she could say was, “Leave me be,

looney, or I'll scream!”

He rose, with a weak, confused laugh, half of miserable affectation and

half of real anger and shame.

“What did you come riding over here for, then? What did you take all

this risk for? Why did you rush over here to share my disgrace--for YOU

are as much mixed up with this now as I am--if you didn't calculate to

share EVERYTHING ELSE with me? What did you come here for, then, if not

for ME?”

“What did I come here for?” said Mrs. Baker, with every drop of red

blood gone from her cheek and trembling lip. “What--did--I--come here

for? Well!--I came here for JOHN BAKER'S sake! John Baker, who stood

between you and death at Burnt Ridge, as I stand between you and

damnation at Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, lying under half of

Burnt Ridge, but more to me this day than any living man crawling over

it--in--in”--oh, fatal climax!--“in a month o' Sundays! What did I come

here for? I came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry on dead John

Baker's work. Yes, dirty work this time, may be, Mr. Green! but his work

and for HIM only--precious! That's what I came here for; that's what

I LIVE for; that's what I'm waiting for--to be up to HIM and his work

always! That's me--Betsy Baker!”

She walked up and down rapidly, tying her chip hat under her chin again.

Then she stopped, and taking her chamois purse from her pocket, laid it

sharply on the desk.

“Stanton Green, don't be a fool! Rise up out of this, and be a man

again. Take enough out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, send

in your resignation, and keep the rest to start you in an honest life

elsewhere. But light out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow.”

She pulled her mantle from the wall and opened the door.

“You are going?” he said bitterly.

“Yes.” Either she could not hold seriousness long in her capricious

little fancy, or, with feminine tact, she sought to make the parting

less difficult for him, for she broke into a dazzling smile. “Yes, I'm

goin' to run Blue Lightning agin Charley and that way bag back to Laurel

Run, and break the record.”

*****

It is said that she did! Perhaps owing to the fact that the grade of the

return journey to Laurel Run was in her favor, and that she could avoid

the long, circuitous ascent to the summit taken by the stage, or that,

owing to the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of the way

bag,--which had to be twice rescued from under the wheels of the

stage,--she entered the Laurel Run post-office as the coach leaders came

trotting up the hill. Mr. Home was already on the platform.

“You'll have to ballast your next way bag, boss,” said Charley, gravely,

as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, “or you'll

have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in

five miles over that bucking thing.”

Home did not reply, but quickly dragged his prize into the office,

scarcely noticing Mrs. Baker, who stood beside him pale and breathless.

As the bolt of the bag was drawn, revealing its chaotic interior, Mrs.

Baker gave a little sigh. Home glanced quickly at her, emptied the bag

upon the floor, and picked up the broken and half-filled money parcel.

Then he collected the scattered coins and counted them. “It's all right,

Mrs. Baker,” he said gravely. “HE'S safe this time.”

“I'm so glad!” said little Mrs. Baker, with a hypocritical gasp.

“So am I,” returned Home, with increasing gravity, as he took the coin,

“for, from all I have gathered this afternoon, it seems he was an old

pioneer of Laurel Run, a friend of your husband's, and, I think, more

fool than knave!” He was silent for a moment, clicking the coins against

each other; then he said carelessly: “Did he get quite away, Mrs.

Baker?”

“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about,” said Mrs. Baker, with

a lofty air of dignity, but a somewhat debasing color. “I don't see why

I should know anything about it, or why he should go away at all.”

“Well,” said Mr. Home, laying his hand gently on the widow's shoulder,

“well, you see, it might have occurred to his friends that the COINS

WERE MARKED! That is, no doubt, the reason why he would take their good

advice and go. But, as I said before, Mrs. Baker, YOU'RE all right,

whatever happens,--the Government stands by YOU!”

A NIGHT AT “HAYS.”

CHAPTER I.

It was difficult to say if Hays' farmhouse, or “Hays,” as it was

familiarly called, looked any more bleak and cheerless that winter

afternoon than it usually did in the strong summer sunshine. Painted

a cold merciless white, with scant projections for shadows, a roof of

white-pine shingles, bleached lighter through sun and wind, and covered

with low, white-capped chimneys, it looked even more stark and chilly

than the drifts which had climbed its low roadside fence, and yet seemed

hopeless of gaining a foothold on the glancing walls, or slippery,

wind-swept roof. The storm, which had already heaped the hollows of

the road with snow, hurled its finely-granulated flakes against the

building, but they were whirled along the gutters and ridges, and

disappeared in smokelike puffs across the icy roof. The granite outcrop

in the hilly field beyond had long ago whitened and vanished; the dwarf

firs and larches which had at first taken uncouth shapes in the drift

blended vaguely together, and then merged into an unbroken formless

wave. But the gaunt angles and rigid outlines of the building remained

sharp and unchanged. It would seem as if the rigors of winter had only

accented their hardness, as the fierceness of summer had previously made

them intolerable.

It was believed that some of this unyielding grimness attached to Hays

himself. Certain it is that neither hardship nor prosperity had touched

his character. Years ago his emigrant team had broken down in this wild

but wooded defile of the Sierras, and he had been forced to a winter

encampment, with only a rude log-cabin for shelter, on the very verge of

the promised land. Unable to enter it himself, he was nevertheless able

to assist the better-equipped teams that followed him with wood and

water and a coarse forage gathered from a sheltered slope of wild oats.

This was the beginning of a rude “supply station” which afterwards

became so profitable that when spring came and Hays' team were

sufficiently recruited to follow the flood of immigrating gold-seekers

to the placers and valleys, there seemed no occasion for it. His fortune

had been already found in the belt of arable slope behind the wooded

defile, and in the miraculously located coign of vantage on what was now

the great highway of travel and the only oasis and first relief of the

weary journey; the breaking down of his own team at that spot had

not only been the salvation of those who found at “Hays” the means of

prosecuting the last part of their pilgrimage, but later provided the

equipment of returning teams.

The first two years of this experience had not been without hardship and

danger. He had been raided by Indians and besieged for three days in his

stockaded cabin; he had been invested by wintry drifts of twenty feet of

snow, cut off equally from incoming teams from the pass and the

valley below. During the second year his wife had joined him with four

children, but whether the enforced separation had dulled her conjugal

affection, or whether she was tempted by a natural feminine longing for

the land of promise beyond, she sought it one morning with a fascinating

teamster, leaving her two sons and two daughters behind her; two years

later the elder of the daughters followed the mother's example, with

such maidenly discretion, however, as to forbear compromising herself by

any previous matrimonial formality whatever. From that day Hays had no

further personal intercourse with the valley below. He put up a hotel

a mile away from the farmhouse that he might not have to dispense

hospitality to his customers, nor accept their near companionship.

Always a severe Presbyterian, and an uncompromising deacon of a

far-scattered and scanty community who occasionally held their service

in one of his barns, he grew more rigid, sectarian, and narrow day

by day. He was feared, and although neither respected nor loved, his

domination and endurance were accepted. A grim landlord, hard creditor,

close-fisted patron, and a smileless neighbor who neither gambled nor

drank, “Old Hays,” as he was called, while yet scarce fifty, had few

acquaintances and fewer friends. There were those who believed that his

domestic infelicities were the result of his unsympathetic nature; it

never occurred to any one (but himself probably) that they might have

been the cause. In those Sierran altitudes, as elsewhere, the belief

in original sin--popularly known as “pure cussedness”--dominated and

overbore any consideration of passive, impelling circumstances or

temptation, unless they had been actively demonstrated with a revolver.

The passive expression of harshness, suspicion, distrust, and moroseness

was looked upon as inherent wickedness.

The storm raged violently as Hays emerged from the last of a long range

of outbuildings and sheds, and crossed the open space between him and

the farmhouse. Before he had reached the porch, with its scant shelter,

he had floundered through a snowdrift, and faced the full fury of the

storm. But the snow seemed to have glanced from his hard angular figure

as it had from his roof-ridge, for when he entered the narrow hall-way

his pilot jacket was unmarked, except where a narrow line of powdered

flakes outlined the seams as if worn. To the right was an apartment,

half office, half sitting-room, furnished with a dark and chilly iron

safe, a sofa and chairs covered with black and coldly shining horsehair.

Here Hays not only removed his upper coat but his under one also, and

drawing a chair before the fire sat down in his shirt-sleeves. It was

his usual rustic pioneer habit, and might have been some lingering

reminiscence of certain remote ancestors to whom clothes were an

impediment. He was warming his hands and placidly ignoring his gaunt

arms in their thinly-clad “hickory” sleeves, when a young girl of

eighteen sauntered, half perfunctorily, half inquisitively into

the room. It was his only remaining daughter. Already elected by

circumstances to a dry household virginity, her somewhat large features,

sallow complexion, and tasteless, unattractive dress, did not obviously

suggest a sacrifice. Since her sister's departure she had taken sole

charge of her father's domestic affairs and the few rude servants

he employed, with a certain inherited following of his own moods and

methods. To the neighbors she was known as “Miss Hays,”--a dubious

respect that, in a community of familiar “Sallies,” “Mamies,” “Pussies,”

was grimly prophetic. Yet she rejoiced in the Oriental appellation

of “Zuleika.” To this it is needless to add that it was impossible to

conceive any one who looked more decidedly Western.

“Ye kin put some things in my carpet bag agin the time the sled comes

round,” said her father meditatively, without looking up.

“Then you're not coming back tonight?” asked the girl curiously. “What's

goin' on at the summit, father?”

“I am,” he said grimly. “You don't reckon I kalkilate to stop thar!

I'm going on as far as Horseley's to close up that contract afore the

weather changes.”

“I kinder allowed it was funny you'd go to the hotel to-night. There's

a dance there; those two Wetherbee girls and Mamie Harris passed up the

road an hour ago on a wood-sled, nigh blown to pieces and sittin' up in

the snow like skeert white rabbits.”

Hays' brow darkened heavily.

“Let 'em go,” he said, in a hard voice that the fire did not seem to

have softened. “Let 'em go for all the good their fool-parents will ever

get outer them, or the herd of wayside cattle they've let them loose

among.

“I reckon they haven't much to do at home, or are hard put for company,

to travel six miles in the snow to show off their prinkin' to a lot of

idle louts shiny with bear's grease and scented up with doctor's stuff,”

added the girl, shrugging her shoulders, with a touch of her father's

mood and manner.

Perhaps it struck Hays at that moment that her attitude was somewhat

monstrous and unnatural for one still young and presumably like other

girls, for, after glancing at her under his heavy brows, he said, in a

gentler tone:--

“Never YOU mind, Zuly. When your brother Jack comes home he'll know

what's what, and have all the proper New York ways and style. It's nigh

on three years now that he's had the best training Dr. Dawson's Academy

could give,--sayin' nothing of the pow'ful Christian example of one

of the best preachers in the States. They mayn't have worldly, ungodly

fandangoes where he is, and riotous livin', and scarlet abominations,

but I've been told that they've 'tea circles,' and 'assemblies,' and

'harmony concerts' of young folks--and dancin'--yes, fine square dancin'

under control. No, I ain't stinted him in anythin'. You kin remember

that, Zuleika, when you hear any more gossip and backbitin' about your

father's meanness. I ain't spared no money for him.”

“I reckon not,” said the girl, a little sharply. “Why, there's that

draft fur two hundred and fifty dollars that kem only last week from the

Doctor's fur extras.”

“Yes,” replied Hays, with a slight knitting of the brows, “the Doctor

mout hev writ more particklers, but parsons ain't allus business men.

I reckon these here extrys were to push Jack along in the term, as the

Doctor knew I wanted him back here in the spring, now that his brother

has got to be too stiff-necked and self-opinionated to do his father's

work.” It seemed from this that there had been a quarrel between Hays

and his eldest son, who conducted his branch business at Sacramento, and

who had in a passion threatened to set up a rival establishment to his

father's. And it was also evident from the manner of the girl that she

was by no means a strong partisan of her father in the quarrel.

“You'd better find out first how all the schoolin' and trainin' of

Jack's is goin' to jibe with the Ranch, and if he ain't been eddicated

out of all knowledge of station business or keer for it. New York ain't

Hays' Ranch, and these yer 'assemblies' and 'harmony' doin's and their

airs and graces may put him out of conceit with our plain ways. I reckon

ye didn't take that to mind when you've been hustlin' round payin' two

hundred and fifty dollar drafts for Jack and quo'llin' with Bijah! I

ain't sayin' nothin', father, only mebbe if Bijah had had drafts and

extrys flourished around him a little more, mebbe he'd have been more

polite and not so rough spoken. Mebbe,” she continued with a little

laugh, “even I'D be a little more in the style to suit Master Jack when

he comes ef I had three hundred dollars' worth of convent schoolin' like

Mamie Harris.”

“Yes, and you'd have only made yourself fair game for ev'ry schemin',

lazy sport or counter-jumper along the road from this to Sacramento!”

responded Hays savagely.

Zuleika laughed again constrainedly, but in a way that might have

suggested that this dreadful contingency was still one that it was

possible to contemplate without entire consternation. As she moved

slowly towards the door she stopped, with her hand on the lock, and said

tentatively: “I reckon you won't be wantin' any supper before you go?

You're almost sure to be offered suthin' up at Horseley's, while if I

have to cook you up suthin' now and still have the men's regular supper

to get at seven, it makes all the expense of an extra meal.”

Hays hesitated. He would have preferred his supper now, and had his

daughter pressed him would have accepted it. But economy, which was

one of Zuleika's inherited instincts, vaguely appearing to him to be a

virtue, interchangeable with chastity and abstemiousness, was certainly

to be encouraged in a young girl. It hardly seems possible that with an

eye single to the integrity of the larder she could ever look kindly on

the blandishments of his sex, or, indeed, be exposed to them. He said

simply: “Don't cook for me,” and resumed his attitude before the fire as

the girl left the room.

As he sat there, grim and immovable as one of the battered fire-dogs

before him, the wind in the chimney seemed to carry on a deep-throated,

dejected, and confidential conversation with him, but really had very

little to reveal. There were no haunting reminiscences of his married

life in this room, which he had always occupied in preference to the

company or sitting-room beyond. There were no familiar shadows of the

past lurking in its corners to pervade his reverie. When he did reflect,

which was seldom, there was always in his mind a vague idea of a central

injustice to which he had been subjected, that was to be avoided by

circuitous movement, to be hidden by work, but never to be surmounted.

And to-night he was going out in the storm, which he could understand

and fight, as he had often done before, and he was going to drive a

bargain with a man like himself and get the better of him if he could,

as he had done before, and another day would be gone, and that central

injustice which he could not understand would be circumvented, and he

would still be holding his own in the world. And the God of Israel

whom he believed in, and who was a hard but conscientious Providence,

something like himself, would assist him perhaps some day to the

understanding of this same vague injustice which He was, for some

strange reason, permitting. But never more unrelenting and unsparing of

others than when under conviction of Sin himself, and never more harsh

and unforgiving than when fresh from the contemplation of the Divine

Mercy, he still sat there grimly holding his hand to a warmth that never

seemed to get nearer his heart than that, when his daughter re-entered

the room with his carpet-bag.

To rise, put on his coat and overcoat, secure a fur cap on his head by a

woolen comforter, covering his ears and twined round his throat, and to

rigidly offer a square and weather-beaten cheek to his daughter's dusty

kiss, did not, apparently, suggest any lingering or hesitation. The sled

was at the door, which, for a tumultuous moment, opened on the storm and

the white vision of a horse knee-deep in a drift, and then closed behind

him. Zuleika shot the bolt, brushed some flakes of the invading snow

from the mat, and, after frugally raking down the fire on the hearth her

father had just quitted, retired through the long passage to the kitchen

and her domestic supervision.

It was a few hours later, supper had long past; the “hands” had one by

one returned to their quarters under the roof or in the adjacent lofts,

and Zuleika and the two maids had at last abandoned the kitchen for

their bedrooms beyond. Zuleika herself, by the light of a solitary

candle, had entered the office and had dropped meditatively into a

chair, as she slowly raked the warm ashes over the still smouldering

fire. The barking of dogs had momentarily attracted her attention, but

it had suddenly ceased. It was followed, however, by a more startling

incident,--a slight movement outside, and an attempt to raise the

window!

She was not frightened; perhaps there was little for her to fear; it was

known that Hays kept no money in the house, the safe was only used for

securities and contracts, and there were half a dozen men within call.

It was, therefore, only her usual active, burning curiosity for novel

incident that made her run to the window and peer out; but it was with a

spontaneous cry of astonishment she turned and darted to the front door,

and opened it to the muffled figure of a young man.

“Jack! Saints alive! Why, of all things!” she gasped, incoherently.

He stopped her with an impatient gesture and a hand that prevented her

from closing the door again.

“Dad ain't here?” he asked quickly.

“No.”

“When'll he be back?”

“Not to-night.”

“Good,” he said, turning to the door again. She could see a motionless

horse and sleigh in the road, with a woman holding the reins.

He beckoned to the woman, who drove to the door and jumped out. Tall,

handsome, and audacious, she looked at Zuleika with a quick laugh of

confidence, as at some recognized absurdity.

“Go in there,” said the young man, opening the door of the office; “I'll

come back in a minute.”

As she entered, still smiling, as if taking part in some humorous but

risky situation, he turned quickly to Zuleika and said in a low voice:

“Where can we talk?”

The girl held out her hand and glided hurriedly through the passage

until she reached a door, which she opened. By the light of a dying fire

he could see it was her bedroom. Lighting a candle on the mantel, she

looked eagerly in his face as he threw aside his muffler and opened his

coat. It disclosed a spare, youthful figure, and a thin, weak face

that a budding mustache only seemed to make still more immature. For

an instant brother and sister gazed at each other. Astonishment on her

part, nervous impatience on his, apparently repressed any demonstration

of family affection. Yet when she was about to speak he stopped her

roughly.

“There now; don't talk. I know what you're goin' to say--could say it

myself if I wanted to--and it's no use. Well then, here I am. You saw

HER. Well, she's MY WIFE--we've been married three months. Yes, my WIFE;

married three months ago. I'm here because I ran away from school--that

is, I HAVEN'T BEEN THERE for the last three months. I came out with

her last steamer; we went up to the Summit Hotel last night--where they

didn't know me--until we could see how the land lay, before popping down

on dad. I happened to learn that he was out to-night, and I brought

her down here to have a talk. We can go back again before he comes, you

know, unless”--

“But,” interrupted the girl, with sudden practicality, “you say you

ain't been at Doctor Dawson's for three months! Why, only last week he

drew on dad for two hundred and fifty dollars for your extras!”

He glanced around him and then arranged his necktie in the glass above

the mantel with a nervous laugh.

“OH, THAT! I fixed that up, and got the money for it in New York to pay

our passage with. It's all right, you know.”

CHAPTER II.

The girl stood looking at the ingenious forger with an odd, breathless

smile. It was difficult to determine, however, if gratified curiosity

were not its most dominant expression.

“And you've got a wife--and THAT'S her?” she resumed.

“Yes.”

“Where did you first meet her? Who is she?”

“She's an actress--mighty popular in 'Frisco--I mean New York. Lot o'

chaps tried to get her--I cut 'em out. For all dad's trying to keep me

at Dawson's--I ain't such a fool, eh?”

Nevertheless, as he stood there stroking his fair mustache, his

astuteness did not seem to impress his sister to enthusiastic assent.

Yet she did not relax her breathless, inquisitive smile as she went

on:--

“And what are you going to do about dad?”

He turned upon her querulously.

“Well, that's what I want to talk about.”

“You'll catch it!” she said impressively. But here her brother's

nervousness broke out into a weak, impotent fury. It was evident, too,

that in spite of its apparent spontaneous irritation its intent was

studied. Catch it! Would he? Oh, yes! Well, she'd see WHO'D catch it!

Not him. No, he'd had enough of this meanness, and wanted it ended! He

wasn't a woman to be treated like his sister,--like their mother--like

their brother, if it came to that, for he knew how he was to be brought

back to take Bijah's place in the spring; he'd heard the whole story.

No, he was going to stand up for his rights,--he was going to be treated

as the son of a man who was worth half a million ought to be treated! He

wasn't going to be skimped, while his father was wallowing in money that

he didn't know what to do with,--money that by rights ought to have

been given to their mother and their sister. Why, even the law wouldn't

permit such meanness--if he was dead. No, he'd come back with Lottie,

his wife, to show his father that there was one of the family that

couldn't be fooled and bullied, and wouldn't put up with it any longer.

There was going to be a fair division of the property, and his sister

Annie's property, and hers--Zuleika's--too, if she'd have the pluck to

speak up for herself. All this and much more he said. Yet even while

his small fury was genuine and characteristic, there was such an evident

incongruity between himself and his speech that it seemed to fit

him loosely, and in a measure flapped in his gestures like another's

garment. Zuleika, who had exhibited neither disgust nor sympathy with

his rebellion, but had rather appeared to enjoy it as a novel domestic

performance, the morality of which devolved solely upon the performer,

retained her curious smile. And then a knock at the door startled them.

It was the stranger,--slightly apologetic and still humorous, but firm

and self-confident withal. She was sorry to interrupt their family

council, but the fire was going out where she sat, and she would like

a cup of tea or some refreshment. She did not look at Jack, but,

completely ignoring him, addressed herself to Zuleika with what seemed

to be a direct challenge; in that feminine eye-grapple there was a

quick, instinctive, and final struggle between the two women. The

stranger triumphed. Zuleika's vacant smile changed to one of submission,

and then, equally ignoring her brother in this double defeat, she

hastened to the kitchen to do the visitor's bidding. The woman closed

the door behind her, and took Zuleika's place before the fire.

“Well?” she said, in a half-contemptuous toleration.

“Well?” said Jack, in an equally ill-disguised discontent, but an

evident desire to placate the woman before him. “It's all right, you

know. I've had my say. It'll come right, Lottie, you'll see.”

The woman smiled again, and glanced around the bare walls of the room.

“And I suppose,” she said, drily, “when it comes right I'm to take the

place of your sister in the charge of this workhouse and succeed to the

keys of that safe in the other room?”

“It'll come all right, I tell you; you can fix things up here any way

you'll like when we get the old man straight,” said Jack, with the

iteration of feebleness. “And as to that safe, I've seen it chock full

of securities.”

“It'll hold one less to-night,” she said, looking at the fire.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, in querulous suspicion.

She drew a paper from her pocket.

“It's that draft of yours that you were crazy enough to sign Dawson's

name to. It was lying out there on the desk. I reckon it isn't a thing

you care to have kept as evidence, even by your father.”

She held it in the flames until it was consumed.

“By Jove, your head is level, Lottie!” he said, with an admiration that

was not, however, without a weak reserve of suspicion.

“No, it isn't, or I wouldn't be here,” she said, curtly. Then she added,

as if dismissing the subject, “Well, what did you tell her?”

“Oh, I said I met you in New York. You see I thought she might think it

queer if she knew I only met you in San Francisco three weeks ago. Of

course I said we were married.”

She looked at him with weary astonishment.

“And of course, whether things go right or not, she'll find out that

I've got a husband living, that I never met you in New York, but on the

steamer, and that you've lied. I don't see the USE of it. You said

you were going to tell the whole thing squarely and say the truth, and

that's why I came to help you.”

“Yes; but don't you see, hang it all!” he stammered, in the irritation

of weak confusion, “I had to tell her SOMETHING. Father won't dare to

tell her the truth, no more than he will the neighbors. He'll hush it

up, you bet; and when we get this thing fixed you'll go and get your

divorce, you know, and we'll be married privately on the square.”

He looked so vague, so immature, yet so fatuously self-confident, that

the woman extended her hand with a laugh and tapped him on the back as

she might have patted a dog. Then she disappeared to follow Zuleika in

the kitchen.

When the two women returned together they were evidently on the best

of terms. So much so that the man, with the easy reaction of a shallow

nature, became sanguine and exalted, even to an ostentatious exhibition

of those New York graces on which the paternal Hays had set such store.

He complacently explained the methods by which he had deceived Dr.

Dawson; how he had himself written a letter from his father commanding

him to return to take his brother's place, and how he had shown it to

the Doctor and been three months in San Francisco looking for work and

assisting Lottie at the theatre, until a conviction of the righteousness

of his cause, perhaps combined with the fact that they were also short

of money and she had no engagement, impelled him to his present heroic

step. All of which Zuleika listened to with childish interest, but

superior appreciation of his companion. The fact that this woman was an

actress, an abomination vaguely alluded to by her father as being even

more mysteriously wicked than her sister and mother, and correspondingly

exciting, as offering a possible permanent relief to the monotony of her

home life, seemed to excuse her brother's weakness. She was almost ready

to become his partisan--AFTER she had seen her father.

They had talked largely of their plans; they had settled small details

of the future and the arrangement of the property; they had agreed that

Zuleika should be relieved of her household drudgery, and sent to

a fashionable school in San Francisco with a music teacher and a

dressmaker. They had discussed everything but the precise manner in

which the revelation should be conveyed to Hays. There was still plenty

of time for that, for he would not return until to-morrow at noon,

and it was already tacitly understood that the vehicle of transmission

should be a letter from the Summit Hotel. The possible contingency of

a sudden outburst of human passion not entirely controlled by religious

feeling was to be guarded against.

They were sitting comfortably before the replenished fire; the wind was

still moaning in the chimney, when, suddenly, in a lull of the storm

the sound of sleigh-bells seemed to fill the room. It was followed by a

voice from without, and, with a hysterical cry, Zuleika started to her

feet. The same breathless smile with which she had greeted her brother

an hour ago was upon her lips as she gasped:--

“Lord, save us!--but it's dad come back!”

I grieve to say that here the doughty redresser of domestic wrongs and

retriever of the family honor lapsed white-faced in his chair idealess

and tremulous. It was his frailer companion who rose to the occasion

and even partly dragged him with her. “Go back to the hotel,” she said

quickly, “and take the sled with you,--you are not fit to face him now!

But he does not know ME, and I will stay!” To the staring Zuleika: “I am

a stranger stopped by a broken sleigh on my way to the hotel. Leave the

rest to me. Now clear out, both of you. I'll let him in.”

She looked so confident, self-contained, and superior, that the thought

of opposition never entered their minds, and as an impatient rapping

rose from the door they let her, with a half-impatient, half-laughing

gesture, drive them before her from the room. When they had disappeared

in the distance, she turned to the front door, unbolted and opened it.

Hays blundered in out of the snow with a muttered exclamation, and then,

as the light from the open office door revealed a stranger, started and

fell back.

“Miss Hays is busy,” said the woman quietly, “I am afraid, on my

account. But my sleigh broke down on the way to the hotel and I was

forced to get out here. I suppose this is Mr. Hays?”

A strange woman--by her dress and appearance a very worldling--and even

braver in looks and apparel than many he had seen in the cities--seemed,

in spite of all his precautions, to have fallen short of the hotel

and been precipitated upon him! Yet under the influence of some odd

abstraction he was affected by it less than he could have believed. He

even achieved a rude bow as he bolted the door and ushered her into

the office. More than that, he found himself explaining to the fair

trespasser the reasons of his return to his own home. For, like a direct

man, he had a consciousness of some inconsistency in his return--or

in the circumstances that induced a change of plans which might

conscientiously require an explanation.

“You see, ma'am, a rather singular thing happened to me after I passed

the summit. Three times I lost the track, got off it somehow, and found

myself traveling in a circle. The third time, when I struck my own

tracks again, I concluded I'd just follow them back here. I suppose

I might have got the road again by tryin' and fightin' the snow--but

ther's some things not worth the fightin'. This was a matter of

business, and, after all, ma'am, business ain't everythin', is it?”

He was evidently in some unusual mood, the mood that with certain

reticent natures often compels them to make their brief confidences to

utter strangers rather than impart them to those intimate friends who

might remind them of their weakness. She agreed with him pleasantly, but

not so obviously as to excite suspicion. “And you preferred to let your

business go, and come back to the comfort of your own home and family.”

“The comfort of my home and family?” he repeated in a dry, deliberate

voice. “Well, I reckon I ain't been tempted much by THAT. That isn't

what I meant.” But he went back to the phrase, repeating it grimly, as

if it were some mandatory text. “The comfort of my OWN HOME AND FAMILY!

Well, Satan hasn't set THAT trap for my feet yet, ma'am. No; ye saw my

daughter? well, that's all my family; ye see this room? that's all my

home. My wife ran away from me; my daughter cleared out too, my eldest

son as was with me here has quo'lled with me and reckons to set up

a rival business agin me. No,” he said, still more meditatively and

deliberately; “it wasn't to come back to the comforts of my own home and

family that I faced round on Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon.”

As the woman, for certain reasons, had no desire to check this

auspicious and unlooked for confidence, she waited patiently. Hays

remained silent for an instant, warming his hands before the fire, and

then looked up interrogatively.

“A professor of religion, ma'am, or under conviction?”