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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
CCEUR D ALENE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HALLOCK FOOTE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1894 
 
Copyright, 1894, 
 BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass , U. S. A. 
 Electrotype*! and Printed by II. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
("S.I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. A GIRL WHOSE NAME is FAITH ... 1 
 
 II. AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION .... 33 
 
 III. THE UNION FROM A NON-UNION POINT OF 
 
 VIEW ........ 46 
 
 IV. A BROKEN REED 62 
 V. A CUP OF TEA ....... 75 
 
 VI. UNDER THE TAMARACKS . . . 100 
 
 VII. UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER . .110 
 
 VIII. THE LETTER ...... 130 
 
 IX. THE SPARE BEDROOM AT THE DOCTOR S 148 
 
 X. IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS . . 159 
 
 XI. OUT OF THE GULCH 175 
 
 XII. THE EXPULSION 187 
 
 XIII. THE MASSACRE . 211 
 
 908942 
 
CCEUB D ALEKE. 
 I. 
 
 A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 
 
 ON the trail which crosses Sunset Peak 
 from the gold-camps of Eagle and Murray 
 to the mines in Big Horn Gulch is a pros 
 pect tunnel located under the name of the 
 Black Dwarf. 
 
 In the summer of 1892, two men were 
 working it, and sharing the cabin of mud- 
 chinked logs that made a trifling excrescence 
 on the profile of the hill into which the tun 
 nel of the Black Dwarf retreated. The 
 senior partner and more experienced miner 
 of the firm was a big, valiant, hilarious 
 Irishman, Mike McGowan, a man of his 
 hands, yet not disdaining weapons ; the 
 other was a young gentleman of prepos 
 sessing appearance and uncertain antece- 
 
2 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 dents, who had come into the partnership 
 rather! on; the strength of a small capital 
 than of. his muscle. Mike called him 
 " little Darcie }" but this must be under 
 stood as a term of endearment, for Darcie s 
 inches were as many as Mike s, though his 
 pounds avoirdupois were fewer. 
 
 Mike had learned that his partner was of 
 Scottish family and English education, and 
 that he had traveled in various parts of the 
 world. He was easy-tempered, and clever 
 in ways in which Mike had the skill of a 
 bear; but he was slack about camp-work 
 and cleaning up after meals. Mike s ac 
 quaintances said he was too " tony " for a 
 miner. People called him Darcie because 
 he seemed to expect it; but doubts were 
 entertained in cautious circles as to its be 
 ing his name, or all of it, caution, not to 
 say suspicion, being the common attitude, 
 in the summer of 1892, of persons who 
 were not sure of one another s sympathies 
 and business in the Co3ur d Alene. 
 
 The situation of the Black Dwarf is ex 
 ceedingly shy. The crypt-dark entrance to 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 3 
 
 the tunnel gives upon a narrow ledge 
 formed by an excavation of the hill; the 
 trail crosses this ledge, after diving down 
 toward it with extreme and slippery sud 
 denness, between the tunnel-mouth and the 
 dump. From above or from below, the 
 humble plant is equally invisible; but all 
 travelers by the old trail know of the Black 
 Dwarf, and on the last night of June, clos 
 ing in thunderous and wild with rain, two 
 riders, overtaken on their way from Canon 
 Creek, came knocking at the door of the 
 cabin. 
 
 Imagine the consternation, delight, em 
 barrassment, and concern of the two hosts 
 of the Black Dwarf when it was seen that 
 one of their guests was the lovely young 
 lady of the Big Horn, and that her first 
 imperative need, after shelter from the 
 storm, was a total change of clothing. 
 
 She stood beside her father, the manager 
 of the famous Big Horn, a commonplace 
 man who borrowed his importance from 
 the mine, in front of the fire which 
 McGowan was heaping with fuel, while 
 
4 COSUE WALENE. 
 
 Darcie, the only member of the firm pos 
 sessed of a trunk, searched wildly among its 
 contents for any garment remotely sugges 
 tive of the needs and proportions of a 
 nymph-like girl. Her glowing cheeks told 
 of a rough encounter with the wind and 
 rain, her eyes beamed intelligence and 
 mirth, her lips smiled pleasure and sympa 
 thy and appreciation : she was an adorable 
 girl. 
 
 In despair, Darcie placed at her disposal 
 his entire wardrobe, including his boots, 
 and she made clever selection of a Turk 
 ish bathrobe, a red-and-white Navajo blan 
 ket for drapery, and a set of deplorable 
 flannels which Mistress Malony of Gem had 
 soaped and punched and kneaded till 110 
 vestige remained of their original size, sex, 
 or condition. 
 
 "It s better than going to bed, like a 
 naughty child," laughed the girl. She res 
 cued the situation from much of its awk 
 wardness by her lightness of touch and her 
 practical, womanly frankness, which rather 
 abashed the more conventional young Briton, 
 
A GIEL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 5 
 
 while her beauty and girlish rapture in the 
 night s adventure quite went to his head. 
 
 Mike, in a trice, rigged a rope across the 
 low, far end of the cabin, and strung upon 
 it a line of camp blankets, to make a dress 
 ing-room for the lady, who retired to her 
 bower as damp as Undine, and as gay, but 
 to a modern Hildebrand more entrancing 
 because so entirely human. 
 
 Meantime, in the men s part of the cabin 
 a most distressing complication was waxing 
 to a crisis. Mike was cooking supper, sit 
 ting on his heels in front of the mud 
 hearth, with his old hat on his head, taking 
 it off occasionally to use it as a holder, in 
 shifting his sauce-pans over the coals. Dar- 
 cie was laying the table in a high ecstasy, 
 brought to earth only by the discovery that 
 there was no more butter, and by a renewed 
 sense of the deplorable state of the Black 
 Dwarf s table service, the dinginess of its 
 tin-plate, and the grittiness of its cutlery. 
 Manager Bingham, that great personage, 
 dressed partly in his own clothes, partly in 
 the lendings of his hosts, was lapsing deeper 
 
6 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 and deeper, in his chair by the fire, into a 
 state of semi-obliviousness from fatigue 
 and other causes. 
 
 Mike looked at him critically, and lis 
 tened to his remarks, which were infrequent 
 and far from lucid ; but he kept his suspi 
 cions to himself for the present, and went 
 on with his cooking. 
 
 "Mike," asked Darcie, who was full of 
 his own share in the entertainment, " where 
 is the cup and saucer ? " 
 
 "The which? "said Mike. 
 
 " The china cup and saucer that I bought 
 at the hospital fair. You need n t ask 
 4 which when there never was but one. 
 Where have you hid the pieces ? " 
 
 " Wisha, don t bother me wid your cups 
 and saucers. I ve me bacon to fry, and 
 the rain is peltin down the chimbly in me 
 pan, and it s shpittin fat like blazes upon 
 the lady s habit-skirt. Take hould, and set 
 back the chair a bit." 
 
 "You are the worst old duffer of a 
 cook ! groaned Darcie, scolding Mike 
 softly, 011 account of the neighboring guest. 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 1 
 
 "You have sliced the bacon as if it was 
 ham. Go hang yourself up somewhere out 
 of the way! Find me that cup and sau- 
 
 "If it s for herself ," - - Mike glanced 
 toward the screen of blankets, " she 11 
 have to dhrink her coffee out av tin, or 
 1 ave it alone, God bless her ! The saucer s 
 broke, it s the trut I m tellin ye,- 
 and the cup, barrin the han le, ye 11 find in 
 the chink at the left av the chimbly : it s 
 got me boot-grease in it." 
 
 "It would be money in my pocket if 
 you d never been born," Darcie informed 
 his senior partner, for the hundredth time 
 that summer; and Mike duly responded: 
 "Faith, an it would in me own! And 
 f what s the matter wid tin, that she can 
 not put her lips to it?" he remonstrated. 
 " Tin is wan av the precious metals, these 
 days : there s a howlin djuty on it. A 
 poor man s dead bruk if he buys a four-bit 
 dinner-pail to pack his cowld vittles in. 
 Mabby this cup, now, is made av that 
 Amerrykin tin they do be blowin about." 
 
8 C(EUR &ALENE. 
 
 He took a murky tin cup from the table, 
 and polished it on the leg of his trousers. 
 " The world knows it s cost its weight in 
 gold to prodjuce it, and who would n t be 
 proud to dhrink out av it ! " 
 
 " Oh, stow your tin-horn racket ! " Dar- 
 cie requested. " Save it for election ; keep 
 it for the man in a tin hat. Don t waste it 
 on a British free-trader, who has n t got a 
 vote." 
 
 But now the drowsiness of Mr. Bingham 
 was invading his whole system and becom 
 ing progressive and alarming. Darcie 
 studied him anxiously, and thought that he 
 recognized the symptoms ; Mike said that he 
 " shmelt it on him when first he come into 
 the room." 
 
 " He s exceeded himself, and I hear it s 
 a habit he has. He s tuk wan too many, 
 or maybe more than wan, to countherac the 
 wettin he got ; it s risin on him, like yeast- 
 powdher, wid the hate av the room." 
 
 "How s he going to get home?" was 
 the next question, and a very serious one, 
 in view of the daughter. 
 
A GIEL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 9 
 
 " He 11 not get home the night, unless 
 he s fetched," said Mike. 
 
 " Well, you need n t give it all away to 
 her, in that stage-ghost whisper of yours," 
 admonished Darcie. 
 
 " Be aisy ; she can t hear a word we re 
 sayin , wid the torrent sluishin down the 
 gulch and the t under rowlin . I niver 
 h ard the like o that in the Cor de Lanes ! 
 It aquils the boss storrums ye 11 get in the 
 Saw Tooth. Hark now ! The mountains 
 is crackiii their ould nobs together. Sure 
 it can t -hould long like this." 
 
 "This is a horrible business, Mike. 
 Help me here ; we must move his chair 
 back into the shadow : he s not pretty to 
 look at." 
 
 " He 11 not look pretty to her when she 11 
 be comin out to her supper: a hoary- 
 headed shpectacle he 11 be. We d best get 
 him into the bed at wanst." 
 
 " It will be the last of him, Mike, if we 
 do." 
 
 " First and last, there s no more power in 
 him. He s shuccumbed to the dlirink ; 
 
10 CCEUR WALENE. 
 
 and a pity for m, a man av his age, not to 
 know betther how much he can carry. And 
 a cruel shame it is for her, alone wid the 
 baste and the two strange men av us for 
 comp ny. I dunno fwhat will she do wid 
 herself, an the night comin on, and five 
 mile o nasty grade bechune her and the 
 mine." 
 
 Darcie went to the window and looked 
 out into the storm. " I think it s lifting a 
 bit : it s lighter, surely, in the east. What 
 time does the moon get up? " 
 
 " Wan hour later than she rose last even- 
 in , if ye remimber what time that was," 
 said Mike. He was dishing the bacon ar 
 tistically, on a granite-iron plate, and now 
 he tossed some sliced cold potatoes into the 
 remaining fat, for frying. " Shall I touch 
 her up wid a weenty taste av onion, or 
 no?" 
 
 But at this moment the lady put back 
 her curtains an inch or two, and called 
 brightly, "Father!" 
 
 The two young men looked at each other 
 in guilty silence. 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 11 
 
 " Father dear ! " the fresh voice repeated, 
 a trifle impatiently. 
 
 " * Father dear, says she. To her, lad ! 
 Shpake up to her Father dear, : whis 
 pered Mike. 
 
 Darcie felt the perspiration start as he 
 stepped into the breach. 
 
 " Your father s asleep, Miss a Bing- 
 ham ; quite sound, you know. He s aw 
 fully comfortable. Do you wish me to 
 speak to him ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Pray, don t disturb him," said 
 the voice sweetly. " It s only my things : 
 are they at all dry yet ? I m such a fright, 
 I can t bear to come out as I am." 
 
 Darcie examined the lady s garments, re 
 spectful deprecation in the tips of his fin 
 gers, and reported that the habit was dry, 
 but that the boots were not yet fit to put 
 on. If only there were something any 
 thing they could dare to offer her, that 
 she could possibly keep on her feet ! 
 
 " Show her me herring-boxes, Darcie 
 dear," exclaimed Mike, in an ecstatic aside. 
 " And your own little shlippers wid the hob- 
 
12 CGEUR D ALENE. 
 
 nails. Tis a pity we couldn t fit her out, 
 wid the tons av shoe-leather that s in it ! " 
 
 Darcie bethought him of a tiny pair of 
 squaw s moccasins which he had purchased, 
 as a specimen of native aboriginal work, to 
 send home. These he produced in triumph, 
 and the curtain dropped upon the lady s 
 toilet. 
 
 With the rain still cutting off the sound 
 of their voices, Darcie commanded sternly : 
 " Lend a hand here, Mike ; we must get 
 him out of sight at once. Mind, now, we 
 are doing the simple-minded act. You 
 don t know when a man has had too many 
 pegs, neither do I. The old beggar s 
 asleep, d you see? Collapsed, played out, 
 stupefied with fatigue." 
 
 " Ashleep, or dead, if ye prefar t. But 
 don t think that ye 11 kape it from her. If 
 she has been two months in it and has niver 
 seen him the way he is now, thin merakles 
 is happenin in the Cor de Lane, and I m 
 a livin witness. 
 
 "Bear a hand, now! Have wid ye. 
 Steady, me boy!" to Mr. Bingham, who 
 
A GIEL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 13 
 
 roused as they lifted him, and attempted to 
 enter into conversation with his bearers. 
 "Kape a shtill tongue lettin your own 
 cat out o the bag ! " 
 
 "Dash it, Mike," said Darcie; "I feel 
 as if we were all drunk ! I feel personally 
 implicated. I d give a thousand pounds if 
 she was safe home at the mine, or if I 
 thought she d let me take her home. A 
 jag picnic in the rain is n t just the thing 
 to ask your daughter to, is it, Mike? " 
 
 "Mabby t would be betther we pur- 
 tended he s sick, and wan av us go for 
 the little docther at the mine, and he could 
 beau her home," suggested Mike. 
 
 " To the devil with your doctor ! Would 
 you like to hear him diagnose the case be 
 fore her in plain English? " 
 
 " Musha, the man has some sinse ! And 
 ye c u d aisy give him the wink beforehand. 
 The mischief av it is to find a way to get 
 her home." 
 
 " The doctor is not in it, do you under 
 stand ? I 11 take her home myself, if the 
 weather holds up." 
 
14 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 " And if she 11 consint to go wid ye, 
 which I misdoubt she 11 do nothing av the 
 kind. She d feel safer shtayin wid the 
 two av us, than goin wid wan." 
 
 " We shall see," said Darcie. " If she s 
 the lady she looks, she will know by in 
 stinct that she is safe with either or both of 
 us, or with forty like us." 
 
 " Ye niver can tell what notions they 11 
 take," rumbled Mike, in the whisper of a 
 bass-drum. " The inshtinc av a woman is, 
 does she like him, or does she not." 
 
 " Well, is there anything the matter with 
 that?" 
 
 " There s nothing the matther wid it 
 for him she happens to lay her fancy on. 
 T is a good thing kissin goes be favor 
 for thim that gets the kisses. Belike I m 
 as honest a man as yourself, but when it 
 comes to seein her home, I m like the doc- 
 ther, I m not in it. It s him wid the shou - 
 thers and the tony walk to him, and the 
 nate pair av hands, she 11 take ; and there 
 may be inshtinc in it, but there s small 
 sinse, to be sure." 
 
A GIEL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 15 
 
 " Good-evening, gentlemen," said Miss 
 Bingham gayly, putting back the curtains 
 of her tent, and stepping forth into the 
 light. Her high spirits, and her happy ig 
 norance of everything but the bright side of \ 
 the evening s adventure, struck the young 
 men silent with shame and pity. 
 
 " I could smell the most delicious supper 
 cooking," she exclaimed. " I hope I have 
 n t kept you waiting. Why, where is 
 he ? " She stared in astonishment about 
 the room. " Is not my father here ? " 
 
 " In bed and ashleep, miss, wid his boots 
 on, and happy as a man can be," Mike un 
 hesitatingly informed her, as if it had been 
 the most natural thing in the world for her 
 father to go to bed in his clothes before 
 supper. " Ye 11 best not dishturb him, but 
 sit and ate whilst the vittles is hot. He s 
 doin betther where he is." 
 
 "In bed! In what bed?" Miss Bing 
 ham demanded, her color rising. 
 
 " In me ould bunk over anenst the wall. 
 And sorry I d be to have ye go a shtep 
 nigher to t. T is an ould miner s byste, 
 
16 C03UR D ALENE. 
 
 an not fit for a lady to put her eye on. 
 The ould man s that weary, sure he s not 
 partic ler ; he d fall ashleep in the middle 
 av the road. Will ye please to sit and ate 
 whilst the supper is hot ? It 11 not improve 
 be standin ." 
 
 Miss Bingham turned doubtfully toward 
 the table, anxious, yet unwilling to confess 
 her uneasiness. 
 
 " Am I to eat all this nice supper alone ? 
 Are you not going to sit down with me?" 
 she asked, looking from one to the other of 
 the two young men, her hosts, passing Dar- 
 cie by with a blush, and resting her smile 
 upon Mike, who answered, beaming : 
 
 " Me supper s ate these two hours, 
 miss ; but the long lad there is fasting yet. 
 Sit down an make less o yourself ! " he 
 whispered to Darcie energetically ; " sure I 
 can t break bread beside her ! " and Mike 
 displayed his brawny, battered paws, grimy 
 with pine-smoke, and more or less done up, 
 as to the fingers, in soiled cotton rags, as a 
 reason sufficient. 
 
 Darcie took the seat opposite Miss Bing- 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 17 
 
 ham, and devoted himself, somewhat ner 
 vously, to serving her and keeping her at 
 tention from her father. 
 
 " Everybody is so kind in these extraor 
 dinary places," she began, and her voice be 
 trayed her unconfessed anxiety, through the 
 forced society key she had struck into ner 
 vously. " It s impossible to believe all 
 that we hear about the trouble with the 
 miners: they seem such respectable men 
 when you meet them." She stopped in 
 confusion, and looked at Darcie helplessly. 
 
 " Are you excuse me are you a 
 
 O " 
 
 miner t 
 
 " Very much so," Darcie answered, drop 
 ping his eyes. 
 
 Her own glance fell, and lighted upon a 
 brown, sinewy hand resting upon the table 
 
 a hand that looked as if it might have 
 
 been familiar with golf-stick and tennis- 
 racket, or with paddle and gun, but scarcely 
 showed a lo ng acquaintance with pick and 
 barrow and drill. Darcie straightened him 
 self back in his chair, and slipped the tell 
 tale member into his pocket. His compan 
 ion was too observing by far. 
 
18 CCEUR WALENE. 
 
 "And is he a miner?" she asked, indi 
 cating Mike with her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Bingham." 
 
 " The same as yourself ? " 
 
 " We don t inhabit the same person, 
 quite." 
 
 " But you do the same work ? " 
 
 " Yes ; only Mike does rather more of it 
 than I do." 
 
 Darcie s face wore such an odd, embar 
 rassed, defensive expression that Miss Bing 
 ham laughed out loud, a sudden girlish 
 peal that sent light shivers through the 
 young man s nerves ; then, as suddenly, 
 her eyes brimmed up with tears. She 
 leaned a little toward him, and asked con 
 fidingly : 
 
 "Whereas my father?" 
 
 " He is in bed, I assure you ; he s quite 
 used up, you know." 
 
 She sighed. " I believe I can t eat any 
 supper : thanks, so much." 
 
 " Oh, do won t you try ? I know the 
 stuff s abominable." 
 
 " No, it is n t at all ; it s very nice. But 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 19 
 
 if you had anything to tell me, you would 
 tell me, would n t you ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly," Darcie assured her. 
 
 She did not believe him ; but there was 
 nothing to be done but wait for the facts 
 to develop. 
 
 Darcie was not conscious how intense 
 was his observation of the girl, while his 
 thoughts were busy with her situation, and 
 his own rather mad plan for taking her fa 
 ther s place. How should he put it before 
 her? In the mean time, how lovely she 
 was! The wind had burned her lips and 
 cheeks, and roughened her fair hair, which 
 made a soft nimbus, in the firelight, around 
 her glowing face : the fire was in league 
 with the wind and rain, weaving spells of 
 light and shadow to enhance the charms 
 of color, and feminine expression in line 
 and attitude. Darcie must have looked 
 what he could not say. 
 
 "You you are not an American, are 
 you, Mr. Miss Bingham hesitated 
 questioningly. 
 
 " Darcie," the presumptive owner of that 
 name subjoined. 
 
20 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 " Mr. Darcie ? " the girl repeated. 
 
 "No" he dwelt upon the word as if 
 trying to recall her question " no ; I m 
 a British tenderfoot not so tender as I 
 was last April." 
 
 His accent pleased her very much, 
 though she would not have chosen to ac 
 knowledge it : her lips parted in a smile 
 as she repeated his "last April," under 
 her breath, the broad " a " as broadly as 
 possible. 
 
 "I m rather glad, on the whole, that 
 you re not an American," she said. " We 
 are all Americans, and it gets a bit tire 
 some," she added, with another gleam. 
 "And besides, it helps to account for 
 things." 
 
 " Does it ? " said Darcie. " I m very 
 glad if it does. Could you impart some of 
 your light to me ? " 
 
 " Well," she hesitated, " if you had been 
 an American, with something about you 
 which seems to place you, it would seem 
 odd that one should never have heard of 
 you. I know very few people, of course, 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 21 
 
 because I in a tenderfoot myself ; but my 
 father knows everybody. All the men who 
 come from the East with letters, you 
 know sooner or later always visit the 
 mine. This is very absurd of me. There s 
 really no reason why I should insist upon 
 accounting for you. But if you are from 
 the other side, you may know some of our 
 Big Horn people ? Some of them are very 
 swell, I believe." 
 
 "I know a good many people on the 
 other side who are not swell," Darcie re 
 plied evasively. 
 
 " But do you know any one of our syn 
 dicate ? " the girl persisted. " Of course 
 we think everybody has heard of the Big 
 Horn who has ever heard of the Coeur 
 d Alene." 
 
 " Excuse me," said Darcie clumsily ; 
 " I think your shoes are too close to the 
 fire. It s a great bore I can t be ac 
 counted for in the usual way," he con 
 tinued, on resuming his seat ; " still, the 
 chances are I m better as a riddle without 
 the answer. The answer is sure to be 
 
22 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 stupid. Let us assume that you have 
 placed me, even if you have misplaced me 
 a trifle ; it can do no harm for one night. 
 And it may give you that confidence which 
 which gives me confidence to a 
 offer you my escort to the mine ? " 
 
 " Am I in need of an escort ? " Miss 
 Bingham asked in astonishment. She saw 
 no reason for so much confidence in her 
 confidence on the part of an interesting, 
 certainly, but rather inexplicable young 
 stranger. 
 
 "Quite so. I mean temporarily. Your 
 father he s quite well ; but as I ve told 
 you, he s unconscionably tired. It would 
 be positive cruelty to ask him to turn out 
 again to-night. I m taking for granted, 
 out of modesty, I assure you, in view of 
 our accommodations, that you d rather go 
 home." 
 
 " We must both go home," said Miss 
 Bingham, rising quickly. "I can t ima 
 gine why you should think my father is not 
 able!" 
 
 But her imagination was assisting her 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 23 
 
 vividly at that moment, and painful pre 
 science born of unyouthful experience was 
 shedding its light upon Darcie s remark 
 able proposition and the awkwardness of his 
 reasons. 
 
 " I did not say he was n t able," he des 
 perately interposed ; " he s forty fathoms 
 deep in sleep. Why drag him out^ when 
 I m so entirely at your service ? That s a 
 brute of a horse of his for mountain work." 
 
 "What, Colonel? Why he s a perfect 
 rocking-chair ! " 
 
 "I mean getting chilled, you know. 
 He s a heavy man in the saddle. He s 
 he s not very used to riding, is he ? " 
 
 " Why, he never walks ! " 
 
 " Pray have a little consideration." 
 
 " I must see if he is well." 
 
 "But"- 
 
 "But this is the very excess of consid 
 eration ! Please let me speak to my fa 
 ther ! " 
 
 Darcie retreated to the fire, with a ges 
 ture of despair to Mike, who made a sud 
 den clatter with his saucepans, while Faith, 
 
24 COEUR D ALENE. 
 
 under cover of the shadow at the far side of 
 the cabin, satisfied herself as to her father s 
 condition. 
 
 Mike was right in assuming that she had 
 seen him " that way " before. 
 
 " Oh, this is too much ! " confessed to 
 herself the heartsick girl. "I think he 
 might have spared me this. And those 
 poor things trying to keep it from me with 
 their silly excuses! Of course they must 
 know what ails him. What shall I do? 
 I m certain they don t wish me to stay: 
 he all but asked me to go, and no wonder, 
 they have enough with him on their 
 hands. Yes ; I must go back and stop the 
 inquiries at the mine ; I must tell a few 
 more lies. No ; I will not cry. They shall 
 not know that I know. I will be as inno 
 cent as they think me." 
 
 She had remained sometime by the side 
 of the bed, long enough to gain control of 
 herself, as she thought. When she came 
 forward into the light, the hot color burned 
 in her cheeks, her head was high, her eyes 
 wide and bright. 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 25 
 
 " She takes it beautifully," thought Dar 
 cie, scarcely permitting himself to look at 
 her ; " but who knows how she takes it 
 when she is alone with it ! " 
 
 " Yes ; I think I had better go back to 
 the mine," said Faith, coldly, "if if 
 either of you gentlemen will take me. My 
 father is too tired ; it would be too selfish 
 of me not to let him sleep." She fixed her 
 eyes upon Darcie as if daring him to doubt 
 that she believed what she was saying. 
 " But I will go. Our people might be 
 anxious. Can we start, do you think, 
 pretty soon ? " 
 
 " We might wait an hour," said Darcie 
 gently, " and still reach the mine before 
 ten." 
 
 " An hour ! But the rain has stopped, I 
 think. That roaring is the gulch." 
 
 Mike stepped to the window to take a 
 look at the weather. " It s a wildish 
 night," he reported, "but there s nothing 
 the matter wid startin now, if the lady 
 wishes. I can see the crown o the full 
 moon risin the summit ; she 11 be high and 
 
26 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 clear before ye 11 come to the funny part av 
 the grade. The thrail is shinin with wet ; 
 it s as plain as the lines on me pa m. Will 
 ye have up the harses or no? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; the horses, please." 
 
 McGowan went out. The wind sucked 
 the door to after him with a loud slam, and 
 a lump of dried mud fell from a chink in 
 the wall. There was a moment s silence ; 
 then Faith threw away all concealment in 
 one tragic look. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of such a thing as 
 this!" 
 
 " I may say I ve never heard of any 
 thing else," said Darcie recklessly; "the 
 thing is so common." 
 
 " Oh, but not like this ! " 
 
 " Why, if it s possible at all, there s no 
 reason it shouldn t happen anywhere or 
 anyhow. It s not a matter of intention, 
 and it s the commonest accident in the 
 world." 
 
 " That makes it so much better ! " flashed 
 the girl, with a glance of her proud, hurt 
 eyes. 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 27 
 
 "I mentioned the fact merely." 
 
 " I would be ashamed to mention it ; if 1 
 did, I would call it what it is ! " 
 
 Darcie smiled. 
 
 " You call it an accident just to comfort 
 me, as we all lie to one another about a dis 
 grace that cannot be hid. It does not com 
 fort me much to be told that all men are 
 so liable and all women " - her lips 
 quivered. "Why, this is my father!" 
 She broke down, and hid her face. 
 
 Presently Darcie said gently : 
 
 " You take it so much too hard." 
 
 " I take it hard that you should expect 
 me to take it any other way," she cried 
 with passionate explicitness. "Are Eng 
 lishwomen so philosophical ? " 
 
 " Ah, we cannot discuss it." 
 
 " I should think not, when my heart is 
 breaking with it ! " She drew in her 
 breath quickly, stifling a sob. "Mr. Dar 
 cie," she whispered. 
 
 "Dear Miss Bingham?" There was a 
 pause. Faith s eyes searched his face, and 
 Darcie trembled, looking down. He was 
 
28 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 very handsome, standing before her on his 
 manhood, under her pure testing eyes ; but 
 she saw now only what she was seeking 
 for, the truth in him, though she might 
 have been helped by the outward shape 
 of him to perceive the truth. She was not 
 less a child than other girls of her age, not 
 withstanding the unhappy progress she had 
 lately made in worldly knowledge. 
 
 " Well," she said at last, " you know me 
 better in this one hour than my dearest 
 friends at home will ever know me. It is 
 a strange, terrible thing that you should 
 have to come into my life in this way. It 
 is a dreadful liberty we have taken for 
 cing our troubles upon you in your own 
 house." 
 
 Darcie s chest rose, but he did not speak. 
 
 " I want to ask you yet it s such a silly 
 thing do men talk of this sort of 4 acci 
 dent - among themselves, generally the 
 thing being so common ? " 
 
 "I don t know what some men do; do 
 you think I shall make common talk of a 
 trouble of yours ? " 
 
A GIRL WHOSE NAME IS FAITH. 29 
 
 " And Mike ? Will you tell him, please, 
 how hard I take it?" 
 
 " I can answer for Mike," said Darcie ; 
 " but I will speak to him if you wish." 
 
 " It s not that I doubt either of you," 
 
 Darcie winced a little at this free classifica 
 tion, "but seeing it so differently, you 
 know, you might make light of it. I should 
 wish it never to be mentioned even to 
 excuse it." 
 
 " You mistake me : I don t excuse it. As 
 an accident, touching your father, a man 
 would say it is nothing. But, as a sorrow 
 affecting you, it is anything you please. It 
 is monstrous ; and it shall be guarded as I 
 would guard a trouble of my own." 
 
 " Ah," said Faith, musing bitterly, " men 
 are more charitable than women, I suppose ; 
 they see so much more of the world. But 
 what would they think of us if we laid traps 
 for our own weaknesses, and then claimed 
 to be pitied for falling into them ! " 
 
 Darcie looked at her with prof oundest ten 
 derness, and resorted to pulling his mustache 
 in lieu of speech. 
 
32 CCEUB WALENE. 
 
 door. " I 11 be bound he niver gev her the 
 ch ice, but just sided in for himself. He s 
 a very limber lad, and I have not the meas 
 ure av him in me mind, entirely. But I m 
 wid him ; I m solid for ye, me little Darcie." 
 
II. 
 
 AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 
 
 THE manager s residence at the Big Horn 
 is the first house above the bridge, where the 
 wagon-road joins the trail. It has a high 
 gallery across the second-story front, over 
 looking the gulch, which is reached by long 
 windows from the rooms opening upon it, 
 and by an outside staircase from the ground. 
 The gallery forms the roof of a cement- 
 floored porch in front of the lower entrance, 
 a favorite evening lounging-place for the 
 men employed at the mine when they are 
 fortunate enough to be on good terms with 
 Miss Steers, the manager s housekeeper. 
 
 On the night of Mr. Bingham s detention 
 at the Black Dwarf, two friends of Miss 
 Steers and several friends of theirs were sit 
 ting on chairs tipped back against the house 
 wall, under the shadow of the gallery, talk- 
 
34 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 ing in low voices and not smoking, an un 
 usual precaution, denoting secrecy. They 
 ceased speaking as soon as horses feet were 
 heard approaching, but concluding that, as 
 they came by way of the trail, it must be the 
 manager returning home with his daughter, 
 they did not trouble to look out. 
 
 The moon was shining on the wet roofs, 
 sheening them with silver; the tamarack 
 timber up the gulch supplied the contrast of 
 pitch-blackness broadened by impenetrable 
 masses of shadow. Gleams from the house- 
 lights revealed the figures of two young peo 
 ple who had dismounted and were parting at 
 the foot of the gallery stairs. 
 
 " I will say good-night here, and so many 
 thanks ! " The girl s voice trembled on the 
 stillness. 
 
 " That s not her father," one of the lis 
 teners whispered. The men became mute, 
 scarcely breathing from excess of attention. 
 
 " I would ask you to come in, but I have 
 my little part, you know and I should 
 hate to have you hear me say it," Faith 
 apologized. She spoke with greater freedom, 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 35 
 
 in a full, low voice charged with womanly 
 feeling. The ride through the dark woods 
 had proved to be one of those perilous short 
 cuts to sudden intimacy, for better or worse, 
 by which the way of acquaintanceship is 
 abridged for the young and fearless. The 
 life of the frontier is remarkably productive , 
 of such opportunities, and it seems to be a 
 question of family and past history with the 
 high contracting parties, whether these facile 
 roads lead to the divorce courts and the 
 newspapers, or to those faithful and incon 
 spicuous comradeships which we all know of, 
 and seldom read of, in the published stories 
 of the West ; Western marriages being like 
 Western mortgages t is the ones that 
 don t pay interest of which we chiefly hear. 
 
 " What shall you say if anybody asks you 
 questions ? " Faith inquired. 
 
 " Is it necessary to say anything? " 
 
 " / have to say things : the moment the 
 door opens I have to be ready with my lie." 
 
 " We had better say the same thing, had 
 n t we ? " Darcie suggested. " What do you 
 generally call it when he is a " 
 
34 CCEUE &ALENE. 
 
 ing in low voices and not smoking, an un 
 usual precaution, denoting secrecy. They 
 ceased speaking as soon as horses feet were 
 heard approaching, but concluding that, as 
 they came by way of the trail, it must be the 
 manager returning home with his daughter, 
 they did not trouble to look out. 
 
 The moon was shining on the wet roofs, 
 sheening them with silver ; the tamarack 
 timber up the gulch supplied the contrast of 
 pitch-blackness broadened by impenetrable 
 masses of shadow. Gleams from the house- 
 lights revealed the figures of two young peo 
 ple who had dismounted and were parting at 
 the foot of the gallery stairs. 
 
 " I will say good-night here, and so many 
 thanks ! " The girl s voice trembled on the 
 stillness. 
 
 " That s not her father," one of the lis 
 teners whispered. The men became mute, 
 scarcely breathing from excess of attention. 
 
 " I would ask you to come in, but I have 
 my little part, you know and I should 
 hate to have you hear me say it," Faith 
 apologized. She spoke with greater freedom, 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 35 
 
 in a full, low voice charged with womanly 
 feeling. The ride through the dark woods 
 had proved to be one of those perilous short 
 cuts to sudden intimacy, for better or worse, 
 by which the way of acquaintanceship is 
 abridged for the young and fearless. The 
 life of the frontier is remarkably productive 
 of such opportunities, and it seems to be a 
 question of family and past history with the 
 high contracting parties, whether these facile 
 roads lead to the divorce courts and the 
 newspapers, or to those faithful and incon 
 spicuous comradeships which we all know of, 
 and seldom read of, in the published stories 
 of the West ; Western marriages being like 
 Western mortgages t is the ones that 
 don t pay interest of which we chiefly hear. 
 
 " What shall you say if anybody asks you 
 questions ? " Faith inquired. 
 
 " Is it necessary to say anything? " 
 
 " / have to say things : the moment the 
 door opens I have to be ready with my lie." 
 
 " We had better say the same thing, had 
 n t we ? " Darcie suggested. " What do you 
 generally call it when he is a 
 
36 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " You have some name for it, have n t 
 you? Headache, indigestion, cramps?" 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! " the girl implored. " Say 
 again what you said at the cabin. I thought 
 it perfectly imbecile at the time, but I sup 
 pose it will do as well as anything." 
 
 " He d been pounding down the mountain 
 on a" 
 
 " Not on a brute of a horse ! Everybody 
 knows what Colonel is." 
 
 " Got himself wet to the skin," Darcie re 
 cited. "Ate a monstrous supper too soon 
 after "- 
 
 "He ate no supper at all! Don t say 
 things you need n t say, just for the pleas 
 ure of inventing." 
 
 "Leave out the supper, then. But the 
 supper s the best reason of all." 
 
 " And this you call a little thing ! " cried 
 Faith tragically. 
 
 " Did I say little ? I meant it was a 
 common thing." 
 
 " Well, men surely are not proud ! This, 
 then, is the common weakness ! " 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 37 
 
 " Almost any weakness is common with 
 our half of humanity," Darcie allowed; 
 " but God knows, a man may be easy on a 
 fault that s not his own ! " 
 
 " The young men have no faults, I sup 
 pose," Faith exclaimed bitterly. " Charity 
 and forgiveness are for the poor, slipshod 
 fathers, too old to be cured of their weak 
 ness ! " It was her " wound s imperious 
 anguish" that spoke in this unnatural tone. 
 
 Darcie answered humbly, constrained by 
 the pricking of his conscience, and not un 
 willing, perhaps, to draw her attention upon 
 himself : 
 
 " I know one young man who is in need 
 of forgiveness of yours, if you could 
 spare him a little of it. / wish to confess, 
 before I leave you, to a fault in my position 
 toward yourself a most damaging, fatal 
 inconsistency. 
 
 "A fault toward me? You must be 
 dreaming ! When have you ever seen me 
 before to-night?" 
 
 "Never; and yet I did you an uncon 
 scious injury before I knew of your exis- 
 
38 CfEUE D ALENE. 
 
 tence. I am in a cruelly equivocal posi 
 tion." 
 
 " I am not in a very nice position my 
 self," Faith grieved. 
 
 "But it is not your own doing. I am 
 speaking of acts my own, on my own re 
 sponsibility." 
 
 " Cannot you get out of this position ? " 
 
 " I shall be out of it by to-morrow s 
 Eastern mail. But I want your forgiveness 
 to-night. The thing sticks in my record : 
 I don t know what moment it might turn 
 up and injure me with you." 
 
 " I don t think it can be very serious," 
 said Faith, " if you can get out of it so 
 easily. I wish I could send all my worries 
 away by to-morrow s Eastern mail, if I 
 were sure they would not travel to anybody 
 I care for " 
 
 " But my forgiveness ? " the penitent per 
 sisted, in love with confessing to such a 
 confessor. 
 
 "Why, I forgive you anything, every 
 thing. What is there I am not bound to 
 forgive, after to-night ! " 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 39 
 
 " But I do not want it that way. You 
 shall not be bound. Let us be more expli 
 cit : suppose I should tell you plainly that 
 I am not what you think I am ? " 
 
 " I think you are a gentleman and a true 
 friend. Are you not that ? " asked Faith. 
 
 " I hope so, and much more as much 
 more, than your friend, as you will allow." 
 
 " That is enough," said Faith hurriedly. 
 " Yes ; enough to thank Heaven for, after 
 such a night as this ! Think of the place 
 where I might have been left ! Now, good 
 night, and more thanks than I can say ! " 
 
 But Darcie would not take his dismis 
 sal. " Must I go ? " he frankly despaired. 
 " And I have not the dimmest idea how I 
 shall ever see you again." 
 
 " But I am always here, if you really 
 wish to see me." Faith smiled sedately in 
 the darkness. " It would be strange if we 
 forgot all about you, after what you have 
 done for us." 
 
 " That is the last thing I should wish you 
 to remember me for ! " Darcie spurned her 
 gratitude. 
 
40 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 " Well, I can t help but thank you, 
 whether you like it or not. If my father 
 should ask you to dinner, would you de 
 spise that sort of remembrance, too ? " 
 
 There was an unexpected silence. Then 
 Darcie said, 
 
 "It is not likely I shall be asked to 
 dine at the Big Horn. The Black Dwarf 
 is a small affair, and I am a miner 
 partner of Mike McGowan." 
 
 " A miner may be anybody," said Faith. 
 She spoke coldly, and Darcie, though he 
 could not see her face, knew she was hurt. 
 He was furious with his absurd entangle 
 ments, from which he longed to tear himself 
 free, all at once, before it should be too late ; 
 he could not even tell her what they were. 
 
 " You think I am mysterious? " 
 
 " I have no reason to think so ; no mys 
 tery is needed to account for your not 
 caring to dine with my father after to 
 night." 
 
 " Heaven and earth ! " groaned Darcie. 
 " I told you it would stick. Yet you would 
 understand it, if I could only tell you." 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 41 
 
 " I will understand," said Faith quickly, 
 " without understanding. Good-night ! " 
 
 He kept hold of her hand while she hur 
 riedly warned him : " I heard them go to 
 the other door, but they are coming here 
 now. Good-night you must go ! " 
 
 " Please one moment ! " he entreated. 
 " There was something I wanted to say to 
 you just for the last word, to remember. 
 Do you know a flower they call the moun 
 tain-lily ? You never could forget it if you 
 saw it. I never knew before to-night why 
 it was here the exquisite thing a per 
 fect wonder! But every coming has its 
 heralds ; there are foretokens of joy as well 
 as sorrow. I found you when I found the 
 mountain-lily. Oh, do you understand me 
 my joy my sorrow ? which is it going 
 to be? No; I don t ask you! Don t tell 
 me!" 
 
 " You are crazy ! " gasped Faith. 
 
 " I know it. But at least there s excuse 
 for it. I have found you, my mountain- 
 lily!" 
 
 He dropped his face an instant on her 
 
42 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 hand. Then he rushed for his horse and 
 rode away. 
 
 "Where are you going?" Faith called 
 after him, for he had taken, or rather 
 Colonel had taken, the lower road, to the 
 stables. Faith s horse, tied to the hitching- 
 post, whinnied after his comrade. Darcie 
 did not hear the girl s call, but he had dis 
 covered his mistakes, and was making it 
 unpleasant for Colonel. There was a scuf 
 fling of hoofs in the road, a grunt from 
 the horse as he was forced around in the 
 way he did not want to go, and back they 
 came, and charged up the trail into the 
 deep timber. Faith had laughed weakly 
 until she cried. She was shocked at herself 
 for laughing; but that was not why she 
 cried. 
 
 " O father, father ! " she whispered tragi 
 cally. But that was not why she cried. 
 There was a stir underneath the dark porch, 
 after the girl had gone slowly, giddily, up 
 the stairs, and the house door had shut. 
 
 " That horse was Colonel. Where s the 
 old man, then ? " a voice inquired. 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 43 
 
 " I guess they ve put him in his little 
 bed somewheres between here and Canon 
 Creek ; at the Black Dwarf, likely," another 
 voice rejoined. 
 
 "At the Black Dwarf, you bet. That 
 was McGowan s pardner, the Englishman," 
 said a heavy, suppressed voice, in a tone of 
 authority. 
 
 "Lads, did ye hear him chewin the 
 scenery, givin himself away like a play 
 actor ? ; I m not what ye think I am] says 
 he. I m in a cruel equizzical position. 
 You re solid there, me chappie equizzical 
 you 11 find it. There s comin a snow- 
 slide in these mountains, and some that s 
 on top now will be lyin underneath, and 
 they won t be lookin for their hat ! " 
 
 There were dissenting voices to this im 
 plied train of reasoning. 
 
 " What s he got to do with snow-slides ? " 
 asked one. 
 
 "You can t make evidence out of such 
 rot as he was talkin ," said another "a 
 young fellah turnin his chin loose about his 
 mash ! " 
 
44 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 " Evidence, is it ? Here s me evidence 
 if ye want it," said the first voice. " He 
 calls himself Jack Darcie : it may be his 
 name, or it may be only wan av them. He 
 chins wid us an listens to our talk, but he s 
 too fancy for a miner. Malony s widdy 
 does his washin , and he chucks her a dollar 
 as aisy as two bits. He s a bird, he s a 
 swell, and makes out he s a workin man 
 like the rest av us. His han kychers is 
 marked wid a monnygram, and there s 
 more letters in it than J. D. He writes 
 big thick letters, and posts them himself ; 
 he walks to Wallace to post em wid his 
 own hand. He s workin some game on 
 the quiet. He s a spy, I bet yez ; he s 
 one of Pinkerton s men ; he s a bloody 
 monop list sneakin in the scabs on us ; else 
 
 he s a repourter doin us up with lies 
 
 in the papers. Whatever he s here for, 
 he 11 have to quit it. We 11 give him the 
 word to pack his blankets." 
 
 " I bet you ve got the wrong pig by the 
 ear," said one of the conservatives. 
 
 "Dan, ye d betther not be toyin wid 
 
AN EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 45 
 
 him. There s no knowin which end he d 
 go off," said another. 
 
 "He won t take no invite off n you, 
 Dan." 
 
 " He will take it, then," said the voice 
 addressed as Dan. He 11 take it polite, at 
 a day s outsthandin notice, or he 11 take it 
 as he 11 get it, at the end av a gun." 
 
III. 
 
 THE UNION FROM A NON-UNION POINT 
 OF VIEW. 
 
 " Not the least among the hardships of the peaceable, 
 frugal, and laborious poor it is to endure the tyranny of 
 mobs, who with lawless force dictate to them, under 
 penalty of peril to limb and life, where, when, and upon 
 what terms they may earn a livelihood for themselves 
 and their families. Any government tkat is worthy of 
 the name will strenuously endeavor to secure to all with 
 in its jurisdiction freedom to follow their lawful voca 
 tions in safety for their property and their persons while 
 obeying the law. And the law is common sense." 
 
 "MiKE," said Darcie, looking up from 
 the table, where he had cleared a space for 
 his writing-materials, "I am telling my 
 people at home something about the labor 
 troubles here, but upon my life I don t 
 know how to put the thing fairly. / can t 
 see the need of union intervention in tha 
 Coeur d Alene. Do you know what the 
 miners grievances are ? " 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 47 
 
 " I 11 be domned if I do," Mike replied 
 without hesitation. "We was doin well. 
 Every man was gettin his three dollars, or 
 his three and a half, or his four dollars, a 
 day, accordin to what he could arn, and 
 we knew no betther than be fri n s with the 
 men that ped us our wages. That s how it 
 was whin first I come. T was the age av 
 innocence with us : the lion an the lamb 
 was lyin down together, and there was n t 
 a man av us suspicioned what a set of rob 
 bers and iron-heeled oppressors thim mine- 
 owners was till the brotherhood in Butte 
 cast their eye on us in the parlous shtate 
 we was in. 
 
 " Luk at thim sons av toil over there, 
 says they, in darkest Idyho, sellin thim- 
 selves for what wages the monop lists 
 chooses to fling them, and not a dollar 
 comin into the union! We ll attind to 
 that, they says. And they put up a con- 
 varsion fund for to carry the goshpel into 
 Idyho ; yes, and a good thing they med av 
 it, too. They set up the union in our 
 midst, and they med thimselves the priests, 
 
48 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 and gev out the law, and gethered the off - 
 rin s. They cursed us this wan, and they 
 cursed us that wan, and most partic ler they 
 cursed him that would n t put up his money 
 and come into the tint av meetiii ." 
 
 Darcie began to laugh. " It s the trut 
 I m tellin ye," Mike insisted hotly, 
 " though ye 11 get a different tale off o 
 them. But ye re askin me, and I m 
 givin it straight, the way I hare it. T is 
 the game they Ve worked in every new camp 
 betuxt the Black Hills an the coast. 
 
 " There was n t a miner come into the 
 Cor de Lane but they nabbed him for a 
 convart; and if he belonged to no union, 
 an would n t be pershuaded, they put their 
 shpite on him, and med his bread bitter to 
 him by ivery mane parsecution they could 
 lay their hand to. There was moighty few 
 stud out against them. I dunno fwhere 
 I d be now an I had n t been me own mine- 
 owner, workin a contrac wid meself. But 
 they ped me more than wan visit, an they 
 toiled and shweated wid me for to jine 
 them. 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 49 
 
 " Fwhat do I want wid a union ? I 
 says. I m me own union, head and hands 
 as God made me. And I niver yet seen 
 the time whin me head could n t set me 
 hands to work, and me hands could n t 
 keep me head whilst I was doin it. And 
 if I can t find work in the Cor de Lane, 
 says I, 4 1 11 lay me two feet to the road till 
 I 11 come where it is. 
 
 " And they tould me I was bought by 
 the labor-devourers, and they had their eye 
 on me for wan that was sowin treason and 
 settin a bad example. 
 
 " Kape your eye on me all ye want, I 
 says ; c ye 11 find me neither makin nor 
 meddlin . And any man that follies my 
 example, he 11 be doin his work and 
 mindin his business, and kapin his carcass 
 out av Peg-leg s saloon. 
 
 " Begor ! I ve seen fellys, that five dol 
 lars w u d buy all they was worth in the 
 world, walk into Peg-leg s wid a month s 
 wages in their clothes, and put down a 
 twinty-dollar piece, and call for Dhrinks 
 for the crowd, and domn the change ! Av 
 
50 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 the unions could put some sinse into them, 
 and tache them they can t ate their cake 
 and have it too, or thramp it into the mire, 
 and thin bawl for the next man s that s 
 saved his, why, they d be doin some 
 good." 
 
 Darcie pushed back his papers and took 
 up his cigar, swinging about in his chair 
 that he might follow Mike s movements, as 
 the latter talked, and cut "whangs" out 
 of an old boot-leg with that multifarious 
 tool, his pocket-knife. 
 
 It was the evening of the day after the 
 visit of the manager and his daughter to 
 the Black Dwarf. Darcie had been notice 
 ably idle in the tunnel all day, and, to 
 Mike s thinking, more than usually silent; 
 and as soon as the table was cleared after 
 supper in the cabin, he began walking and 
 pondering, and finally seated himself with 
 his writing-case before him, as if to free his 
 mind on paper. 
 
 "But what was the final hitch? When 
 did the worm conclude to turn ? " he in 
 quired. 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 51 
 
 " Manin by the worrum " - . 
 
 " The mine-owners, I should say." 
 
 "Well, ye re right. The worrum was 
 makin money along first, ye 11 understand ; 
 and a man will suffer a dale in his proide 
 an his principles so long as his pocket s 
 doin well. But there come a change in 
 that afther a while. The smelters began to 
 squeeze them; an betune the returns an 
 the union s interfarence t was a rocky road 
 for the mine-owners. 
 
 " The ould scale av wages, as I was tellin 
 ye, was three for shovelers an trammers, 
 three an a half for skilled men underground, 
 and timber-men and shaf -men was gettin 
 four. But whin the union begun to lay the| 
 law on us, it was three an a half, they said, 
 every man underground was to get, no mat 
 ter what he c u d arn. 
 
 " The managers gev in at the first, though 
 not widout a big kick, on account av the 
 injustice to their best men. They said 
 there d be throuble, an there was. Whin 
 the timber-men found themselves redjuced 
 to the same as shovelers, they wint out, and 
 
52 CCEUE &ALENE. 
 
 the managers called the union bosses to Ink 
 at what they done. 
 
 " We ll attind to our own men, says 
 they. And the wans that woiddn t give in 
 and take what the union said they sh u d get, 
 was forced to quit and 1 ave the counthry. 
 
 " It was n t this nor it was n t that, nor it 
 was n t a matther av fifty cints a day, more 
 nor less for the miner ; it was the question 
 which sh u d run the mines, the men that 
 owned them, or the union that owned the 
 miners. Twas the power of the brother 
 hood that was at shtake, and whatever man 
 resisted t row him out ! 
 
 " Are ye listenin ? " Mike inquired, see 
 ing that Darcie was eying his papers in a 
 meditative way. " Beca se av ye are not, 
 I 11 not waste me breath." 
 
 "Go on," said Darcie. "I was only 
 comparing what I have said myself with 
 what you are saying. It s odd we should 
 look at it in the same way. You re a hot 
 headed Irishman, like all the rest of them, 
 Mike. Why aren t you swearing vows 
 against the oppressors?" 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 53 
 
 " Beca se I m wan av thim meself . It s 
 not a hobo I am, packin me blankets from 
 camp to camp, i ve a shtake av me own in 
 the counthry ; and if this foolishness goes 
 on, I m clane ruined. There s no man 
 can run a mine in the Cor de Lane no, 
 nor sell it, av he was to give it away the 
 gait things is goin now. 
 
 " Ah, it s not a question av the miner at 
 all ! They wants to run things here the same 
 as they does in Montany. Ye would n t be 
 lieve the power av the union in Butte. 
 Things was gettin mighty quare last spring 
 before the mine-owners tuk the definsive. 
 Faith, there was little law in the Cor de 
 Lanes that could howld above the law av 
 the union ! 
 
 "Whin Hogan, the shif boss, was mur- 
 dhered in the Caltrop mine, shtabbed in 
 the breast wid the prong av a miner s can le- 
 shtick, an him comin out o the tunnel to 
 the dhryin -house in broad day, there was 
 plenty that saw it ; but him that done it was 
 a union man, an divil a witness c u d be 
 found to say he seen it. They wouldn t 
 
54 C(EUE &ALENE. 
 
 dast, for the union can protect its own, be 
 they lambs or wolves. The hand av it was 
 that heavy on the owners, a man couldn t 
 be seen shpakin fri ndly on the street with 
 wan av them but the union tuk note av him 
 for a thraitor. There was not a thing the 
 mines c u d do but combine, or quit business, 
 or be dictated to by the union bosses, like 
 childher ! Last autumn, whin the mines 
 shut down by common consint, it was partly 
 to get betther rates for transportation ; but 
 that would n t go down with the union boys. 
 They had it the owners had turned the 
 tables on them, and gone on a shtrike them 
 selves ; and that would n t do, ye know ; for 
 the first principle av the unions is that no 
 body shall combine but themselves. 
 
 " Well, the shuttin down did n t work in 
 all ways as they hoped. Fightin it out is 
 bad; whichever side makes the kick, the 
 wrong ones is sure to get hurted. The best 
 men wint off seekin work where they could 
 find it ; the wans that shtayed an growled, 
 they was the worst av the lot, and all winter 
 they was cussin an blowin an gettin up 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 55 
 
 shteam for a big fight. Take a town full av 
 idle men, an free whiskey flowin by the 
 gallon, and a set av bull-headed chumps that 
 never did an honest day s work in their lives 
 talkin about the wrongs av the lab rin - 
 man ye know what 11 be the end of that. 
 
 " The mines gev out in the spring they 
 was ready to reshume, and published their 
 scale av wages: three for unshkilled and 
 three and a half for shkilled miners, the same 
 as it was at first. And then the union put 
 forth its last word : ivery man workin un- 
 dherground sh u d get three-fifty, and no 
 man sh u d take less and work wid his life 
 in the Cor de Lane. T was then the own 
 ers shied their hat into the ring, and both 
 sides shtripped for fight. 
 
 " T was aisy bringin in men that was 
 willin to work for three dollars, and glad 
 to get it, but it wasn t aisy kapin them 
 here. They could n t bide the life they led, 
 with the union puttin its shpite on them. 
 Some was sedjuced into j inin , but more 
 was scared out av the counthry entirely. 
 They leaked away faster than they was 
 
56 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 fetched in ; and thim that stayed was that 
 harassed an* worried they could n t do their 
 work like min. 
 
 " At last there was two boys workin in 
 the Tale o Woe that had the sand to say 
 they would nayther jine nor quit. They 
 stud out an tuk their punishment. Wan 
 av them was an Amerikin, and he was cliver 
 wid his talk about his rights to work where 
 he pl ased, and for who he pl ased, under the 
 laws av the counthry, widout 1 ave av the 
 brotherhoods. But they quinched him and 
 his prattle about his rights. Him and the 
 other lad that was workin wid him, they 
 haled up the mountain by a long thrail. 
 
 " 4 Where are ye takin us ? says they. 
 4 We 11 go out p aceful, the way we come in, 
 by the railroad. 
 
 " 4 Ye might get hurted that way, says 
 big Dan Rafferty, pokin his ugly fun at 
 thim. Wallace and Gem is full av excited 
 min ; it might not be safe for ye. We 11 
 take ye by a quiet road where ye 11 meet 
 wid no wan. 
 
 " And they prodded the boys up the 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 57 
 
 mountain, abusin thim all the way; two 
 hundhred men dhrivin two b atin on ile- 
 cans wid sliticks, and cussin them wid every 
 foul name they could turn their tongue to. 
 They shoved them out over the Montany 
 divide, and the clothes half tore off them 
 wid the handlin they got. T was the 
 month av April, an the snows was cruel 
 deep. They put them out on a forsaken road 
 to wally through the drifts forty-five miles 
 to Thompson s Falls, and they strangers to 
 the way. There s nare a house but wan, 
 an that wan closed ag inst them for fear av 
 the union. 
 
 " And that s how wan lab rin -man taches 
 another who are his bosses in this free coun- 
 thry. By the Lord above ! if I come to 
 have bosses over me, I 11 not choose them 
 wid the heart av an awl and the head av a 
 han shpike ! Do they think they re doin 
 the lab riii man any good by such blaggard 
 work as this ? Faith, I think we re like to 
 have a labor inquisition here, if things goes 
 on. T is too much power to put in the 
 hands av men as ignorant as they is sassy." 
 
58 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 "Did the scabs get through?" asked 
 Darcie. 
 
 " Wan av thim got through, an teshtified 
 in coort to what I m tellin ye ; and wid him 
 and other witnesses and affidavits by scores 
 the owners got an injunction laid on the 
 miners unions, all and siveral, for to quit 
 intimidatin an conshpirin in the Cor de 
 Lane. But t was no use at all, except to 
 make thim mad; ye moight as well shake 
 an ould broom at a grizzly bear. Ye know 
 the rest yourself. But that s how guarded 
 train-loads av shcabs come into the Cor de 
 Lanes; and that s how it is the mines is 
 armed an barricaded all but the Big 
 Horn, sole and lone, which niver come into 
 the owners association at all, and gives the 
 union all it asks." 
 
 " What reason did Bingham offer, do you 
 know, for not coming into the association ? " 
 asked Darcie. 
 
 " He gev the reason that the Big Horn is 
 a wet mine, which it is; but nayther the 
 water, nor the work, in the mine iver kep 
 the Big Horn boys underground whin the 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 59 
 
 union wanted thim on top. They trots back 
 and fort the same as they owned the mine. 
 Some says the ould man s that tied up wid 
 his own foolishness he can t help the way 
 things is goin . Pether Banning, the fore 
 man, that s in it since Misther Bingham 
 come, has the pull on him entirely. He s a 
 mighty man in the union, is Pete ; and he s 
 well acquainted wid the saycrets av the 
 managemint. T is he knows all about the 
 commissions the ould man has pocketed 
 along av ivery order for supplies that he 
 gets in ; and a costly mine it is to run 
 for the comp ny, ye may lay your life on 
 that. Times when I was workin in it, I d 
 hear outside that the mine was doin poorly 
 not a hatful av ore in sight ; whin I d 
 know meself there was bodies av ore bein 
 covered up by order av the manager, for 
 reasons that he kep to himself. Pether 
 Banning is in all that, ye see ; so the ould 
 man has got to be fri nds wid Pether s 
 friends." 
 
 " Come, Mike, don t be scandalous," said 
 Darcie, rising to his feet. " He s a soaker, 
 
60 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 if you like ; a coward, I suspect ; an inca 
 pable, if ever there was one ; but not a com 
 mon thief and swindler ! " 
 
 " Ah, ye know it well enough ! T is as 
 public as the winds. The comp ny s far 
 away from the rumor av it, or t would have 
 been known before now. The ould man s 
 name is rife wid shcandals ; and how he come 
 by such a darlin for his daughter is a thing 
 I can t cipher out meself, niver havin seen 
 the lady he buried, Mrs. Bingham that 
 was." 
 
 " We are not discussing the ladies of the 
 management," Darcie demurred. 
 
 " t)od, I m not like a fasset, thin, to be 
 turned on and off wid a twisht av the screw," 
 Mike rejoined. "Ye can take me as I 
 come, or 1 ave me alone." 
 
 " I 11 leave you alone," smiled Darcie, 
 and then was silent for a long while ; but he 
 was too restless, apparently, to return to his 
 writing. 
 
 Mike had a suspicion that his partner did 
 not sleep much that night not that he lay 
 awake himself to see; but somebody had 
 
A NON-UNION POINT OF VIEW. 61 
 
 been up, burning firewood in unreasonable 
 quantities. Darcie, who never complained 
 of his food, left his breakfast untasted, and 
 Mike ruefully scraped into the fire the whole 
 of a fine boiled potato soaked in ham gravy. 
 " It s the heart av him shakin his insides 
 so that he cannot ate. I have been that 
 way meself. Ah, me little Darcie, ye d 
 betther have wint for the docther, or shtayed 
 wid the ould man and put me to the proof, 
 that has a girl av me own. I think I see ye 
 this minute, Kitty darlin ; God s blessin on 
 ye, wheriver ye are ! " 
 
IV. 
 
 A BROKEN REED. 
 
 THE threatened notice for Darcie to pack 
 his blankets was not, in his case, delivered 
 in person. It appeared without visible hu 
 man agency on the outside of the door of 
 the Black Dwarf, and the language was 
 such that it cannot be repeated here. 
 
 Darcie and Mike worked close together, 
 and were* never unarmed or off their guard. 
 When Mike, two or three days after the 
 storm, was obliged to go to Wallace for 
 supplies, he avoided the railroad track and 
 took the old trail, and Darcie remained in 
 the tunnel, with his Winchester handy, and 
 an ore-car on the track by way of barricade. 
 He was in his working-clothes, but he was 
 not making wages, not even the wages of 
 a trammer, according to company prices. 
 He was still grinding away at that equivo- 
 
A BROKEN EEED. 63 
 
 cal position from which, as he had volun 
 teered to Miss Bingham, the next Eastern 
 mail was to release him. He was already 
 free in intention, and his conscience toward 
 her was clear, but evidence of his previous 
 position was still upon his person in the 
 contents of a certain letter which he had 
 written on the very day before the day that 
 brought her to the cabin. To send it, or 
 not to send it, that was the question. To 
 whom did that letter belong ? 
 
 " I m a broken reed," he said aloud, and 
 then he could not help laughing, for he was 
 in a curious case. His meditations went on 
 in the silence somewhat to the following 
 effect : 
 
 " I can t do their work, and I won t take 
 their money. They must send out another 
 man ; better not send a young one. By 
 Jove, it s rough on the old company ! 
 I m the fourth one, and I ve succumbed, 
 as Mike says, like my predecessors. No, 
 hang it, not like my predecessors. I 
 thank the Lord I m boodle-proof, and 
 drink-proof, and proof, at a pinch, against 
 
64 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 the seductions of the elk and the big-horn 
 in their native wilds. When Singleton 
 came out, the foxy old manager took him 
 hunting. Happy thought: hunt first, in 
 vestigate afterward. Big time they had. 
 They got so chummy over their camp-fire 
 that Singleton felt like a brother to the 
 whole outfit ; by the time he d shot a brace 
 of big-horn and lost his money regularly 
 at poker with the boys, there was n t a 
 spot on the sun of his regard. It was a 
 simple matter to investigate after that. 
 Took Bingham s word for everything. 
 
 " Poor Langley went down with a run : 
 what with the altitude, and the fancy pota 
 tions they seduced him with, he drank him 
 self silly, and was shipped home like a 
 sheep. 
 
 " Grant, they claim, never got any nearer 
 the Big Horn than New York. That was a 
 slander, I dare say. I did n t stop in New 
 York ; I never tempted the gods, and denied 
 my weakness ; I never professed to be girl- 
 proof. I came straight on ; thought I d 
 be safe when I d got into the mountains. 
 
A BEOKEN EEED. 65 
 
 " Comes a knock at the door one pitch- 
 black night, and in she steps in her wet 
 skirt like a lily in its sheath a rose and 
 lily in one. And I am gone, all at once, 
 like a snow-slide in March; a chinook is 
 nothing to it : there s not enough left of 
 me to wipe np the floor with. 
 
 "What shall I call it, mountain fever? 
 No ; Langley said he had mountain fever : 
 mine is not the same kind. Say I ve 
 struck it rich in the Black Dwarf ? No ; 
 the governor will ask for assays, and 
 want to organize a company: no company 
 wanted here. No ; I 11 give it to em 
 straight : say that things are rotten, rot 
 ten as the devil ; but I m not the man for 
 a committee of one to investigate Manager 
 Bingham s administration. Let them dis 
 cover the reason for themselves ; they 
 wouldn t believe mine if I gave it. I 
 have told them there s a miners war 
 toward, and the time is not good for inves 
 tigations." 
 
 Again Darcie spoke aloud, using, I regret 
 to say, a strong expression in regard to the 
 
66 C(EUB D ALENE. 
 
 letter which he held in his hand. He flung 
 it on the table : 
 
 "Why in thunder didn t I send it the 
 minute it was written? The information 
 in it belongs to the company. Is it 
 theirs is it mine ? It s on my conscience 
 that it ought to go. The amount of sys 
 tematic robbery, and lying, and corrupting 
 of the company s agents that s gone on 
 here is almost too picturesque for belief. 
 I wonder what they would have put up on 
 me if I had come announced as the com 
 pany s representative authorized to make a 
 report? I should have succumbed a little 
 more previously, that s all. I should have 
 looked at her and tendered my resignation 
 on the spot. A curious fatality that we ve 
 both been here about the same tune, and I 
 never saw her till last night I mean two 
 nights ago. It is an age, yet it is the very 
 present moment that I live in. Hang the let 
 ter ! How can I send it after our little talk 
 about her troubles ? I will trust you with 
 all my troubles, said she. She shall trust 
 me! If her notorious old parent is to be 
 
A BEOKEN HEED. 67 
 
 investigated, they must send another man. 
 We re a rum crowd over there. A set of 
 doting grandmammas were wiser. It moves 
 me to tears and laughter, the faith that is 
 in us when faith is downright silliness, and 
 the fantastic suspicions that feed upon us 
 whenever suspicion s the wrong card." 
 
 Here a sound of footsteps crossing the 
 dump from below was heard. Darcie 
 crouched behind the car and reached for 
 his rifle ; he listened sharply till he heard 
 Mike s whistle, then he sang out : 
 
 " Are ye there, Moriarty ? ; 
 
 Yes; Mike was there, and he had 
 brought news, of which he disburdened 
 himself together with his bacon, and flour, 
 and pail of lard, and matches, and can 
 dles, and coffee. He had, as he said, made 
 a pack-horse of himself. 
 
 " I dunno fwhat country this is we re 
 livin in now," he began in his richest base, 
 shaking out a reef in his "r-r s" till the 
 timbers rang. "It s not a free country, 
 be gosh! Call a man a foul name, and 
 bate the loif e out av him that s right ! 
 
68 CCEUB &ALENE. 
 
 t 
 Thim anarchists rounded up wan o the 
 
 Caltrop boys in town last eveniii , and 
 settled wid him for a shcab and a thraitor. 
 The gyards found him at daybreak, and 
 tiliphoned to the manager, and word come 
 down he was to be sint up to the harspital 
 on a han -cyar. T ree av the Caltrop 
 boys shoved him up the thrack, and as they 
 was bringin the cyar back the union min 
 set upon them, and mishandled them, and 
 two got away and wan was left on the 
 thrack wid the sinse knocked out av him. 
 And the mine showed its guns to purtect 
 its min whilst they was fetchin him in, and 
 the women began to screech that the mine 
 was firin on the town. And all the big- 
 mouths was talkin , and I think the crisis 
 has come. And that scriptur they nailed 
 upon the door outside, that manes busi 
 ness, Darcie dear. Tis a small private 
 matther, but I think they ll be lookin 
 afther us pretty soon." 
 
 "Why do you say us, Mike? Your 
 name is not in it." 
 
 " I in in whatever my pardner s in. 
 
A BROKEN REED. 69 
 
 But here s the quarest go, and, by the 
 cross, I duiino f what to make av it ! I m 
 none so fond o the nayborhood av the 
 Big Horn, but it s the shortest way, and 
 the boys is mostly in town on this racket I 
 was tellin ye, so I shnaked along up the 
 thrack, and as I was steppin up the thrail 
 by the manager s house, a nate little gurl 
 foregathered wid me. 
 
 " Is this Mike McGowan ? says she. 
 
 " * It s bound to be Mike, says I, 
 whin a purty gurl is passin the word. 
 I m thinkin t was Abby Steers that s 
 housekeepin for Misther Bingham, but I 
 thought her a good bit oulder than this 
 wan. But ye niver can tell; they make 
 themselves what age they please. 
 
 " Has that pardner av yours, Jack Dar- 
 cie, has he left ? says she. 
 
 " He has not, says I. 4 For why shoidd 
 he leave ? 
 
 " I hear he got notice, that s all, says 
 she. There s a lady wants to see him if 
 he has n t skipped ; but she can t go to 
 him, and it ll not be healthy for him to 
 
70 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 come where she is, if anybody happens to 
 see him. 
 
 " Does the lady wear number nines/ 
 says I, an does she shmoke the Seal o 
 North Carliny ? And I gev her the wink. 
 
 " G long, says she ; for what do you 
 take me ? 
 
 " For somebody s darlin , says I, and 
 for nobody s fool. And I axed her which 
 av her fri n s was wantin Jack Darcie. 
 
 " Do you think, says she, confidential- 
 like, c that if the boys did want him they 
 could n t get him ? 
 
 " Well, says I, him an me is workin 
 pardners; whin they want him they can 
 have Mike too. We goes by pairs, like the 
 cap and the fuse: if ye meddle wid wan, 
 ye 11 likely hear from the other. 
 
 " Thin she laughed. 4 Do you go 
 sparkin in pairs ? says she. For I think 
 the lady s business is not wid the two av 
 yez. " 
 
 " Mike, what are you giving me now ? " 
 said Darcie sternly. 
 
 " It s God s trut I m givin ye, in the 
 
A BROKEN REED. 71 
 
 very words av her mouth and maybe 
 there was a kiss or two frown in, but 
 that s not for me to mintion. I brung the 
 word straight as she gev it me." 
 
 " What is the word ? Who does it come 
 from?" 
 
 "It comes from the parlor at the Big 
 Horn, by the way av the kitchen, which is 
 not always the safest way, thinks I, but 
 that s no business av mine. And whin I 
 chaffed her about the * lady, she answered 
 me plain, lookin me in the eye. 
 
 " 4 You betther not be monkey in wid 
 this message, says she, there s more in it 
 than you know. And if he thinks we re 
 puttiii up a game on him, tell him this : 
 The word is from her he called the Moun 
 tain Lily. " 
 
 "Mike," said Darcie, flushing, "I don t 
 know what to make of this. Are you all 
 right, old man honor bright? How 
 many friends did you meet down at Peg- 
 leg s saloon ? " 
 
 " I m as straight as a string," Mike as 
 severated. " Ye know well enough I have 
 
72 CGEUR D ALENE. 
 
 no truck wid any o that crowd. (Faith, 
 t would be as much as me life is worth to 
 be seen in town wid a jag on.) By the 
 cross and I niver take me oath on that 
 but I m tellin the trut , I m givin ye 
 the very words ; and where she got thim 
 how should I know? Mabby you know 
 yourself who s your lily ? " 
 
 " Where did you say I was to meet 
 her?" 
 
 "In a quare place entirely, yet not so 
 onhandy to the mine. On the fringe o the 
 tamaracks, up the gulch, where ye niver 
 will meet wid a soid, passin up or down ; 
 and by token, there s a big, lone cedar 
 standin in a bit av a clearin . If ye go 
 there to pluck lilies, I m wid ye, Darcie 
 dear." 
 
 "Go along with your blarney! When 
 did she say I was to be there ? " 
 
 "The hour is the quarest av all; be- 
 chune half afther tin and eliven o clock next 
 Chuesday night. * An unwholesome hour, 
 says I, and a great wish she must have for 
 him, to be pacin the woods at that hour ! 
 
A BROKEN REED. 73 
 
 " Hut ! says she, don t you be scared. 
 It 11 all be proper, for she 11 have me wid 
 her. " 
 
 " Thin I ll be there, darlin , says I. 
 4 You may bet on me. But me own notion 
 av that meetin is that we 11 shmell pow- 
 dher before we 11 get so much as a scent av 
 the lily. And she tossed her head. 
 
 " I 11 tell the lady he s afraid to come 
 widout his little Mike to purtect him. 
 
 " I dunno fwhat he 11 be, says I, nor 
 where he 11 be next Chuesday night ; but 
 where he is, little Mike will be. And don t 
 fail me, says I, for the joys av life is 
 fadin on me. " 
 
 " Mike, you ve ruined me ! It s like 
 your blazing impudence to answer my mes 
 sages for me. You will go straight back to 
 your girl, whoever she is, and get another 
 kiss, and tell her I 11 be there if I m alive 
 and can get there ; and you will not be with 
 me!" 
 
 " I would n t put me fut to that road 
 again to-night for the kiss av peace in Par 
 adise," Mike drawled. 
 
74 CCKUE &ALENE. 
 
 "Then I must go myself. Are you 
 sick ? Are you afraid ? What s the mat 
 ter with you ? " shouted Darcie. 
 
 " I m thinkin what size boots the Moun 
 tain Lily wears. I bet she wears thirteens, 
 and the print av her f ut is studded wid 
 nails." 
 
V. 
 
 A CUP OF TEA. 
 
 ME. FREDERICK BINGHAM, of the Big 
 Horn Mine, was the detrimental member of 
 an old New York family, far too proud and 
 united to be willing to own to the world 
 that it had failed in the person of its eldest 
 son. Therefore his brothers, sagacious, re 
 sponsible men, and conscientious, for the 
 most part, in the use of their name, had 
 never questioned but it was their right to 
 use it for Fred to repair his mistakes, 
 and cover up his failures, and procure him 
 another chance ; and for years, with con 
 stant devotion to the private before the 
 public obligation, to sentiment before prin 
 ciple, they had saddled the family problem, 
 in the person of their unremunerative bro 
 ther, upon one hopeful young enterprise 
 after another of the broad and charitable 
 West. 
 
76 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 His little daughter s letters followed him, 
 from this remote mining camp, or cattle 
 station, to the next one, inclosed in long, 
 fluent, circumstantial epistles from her 
 aunts, explaining and apologizing concern 
 ing matters relating to the child to which 
 he had never given a thought, or had for 
 gotten all about. These he glanced over 
 and smiled at, and often did not trouble 
 himself to read. After a time his brothers 
 were informed, in dignified phrases, that he 
 had " resigned " from the disappointing af 
 fairs of the new scheme which he had last 
 had in charge, and he presently returned, 
 and was on their hands once more ; a little 
 older and fatter, a little harder in the ex 
 pression and looser in the structure of the 
 face, and a trifle less sure of himself in the 
 company to which he was bred ; and his 
 sisters winced and blushed at his free com 
 ments upon themselves, the life of the home 
 and of the East, as it appeared to him after 
 an interval of absence ; and his mother 
 wistfully took note of her boy s gray hairs 
 and his old, tired, unspiritual appearance, 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 77 
 
 but would not discuss him or hear him criti 
 cised ; and his brothers pointedly requested 
 him to pay a visit to their tailor, and they 
 sometimes forgot to mention to mutual din 
 ner-giving friends that Fred was in town. 
 Yet they thought he might be presentable 
 enough, according to Western standards. 
 He had, at his best, a good manner, a trifle 
 out of date, to be sure ; he had the indurate 
 remains of an expensive education ; he 
 drank too much, undoubtedly, though that 
 was a not exceptional failing with the men 
 of their set. They did not conceive the 
 manner of his drinking when he was at his 
 lonely posts of unwatched responsibility: 
 how he drank alone, and continued idioti 
 cally replenishing, in solitary boredom; 
 how he drank with his inferiors lest they 
 should think him proud, and with his subor 
 dinates, of course, because at an isolated 
 mine the manager s "boys" are his sole 
 companions and sometimes better-bred men 
 than himself ; nor the perilous stuff that a 
 man drinks, at those altitudes, who is care 
 less of himself. These things the mother s 
 
78 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 heart divined, shrinkingly, without a ques 
 tion or a fact. But the prosperous Eastern 
 brothers, sensible of the continental scope 
 and importance of their own affairs, thought 
 that a second-rate man might do well 
 enough for such places as they sought for 
 Fred. It could not be expected that first- 
 class men would be willing to exile them 
 selves to holes and corners of the earth, at 
 any price. So the good name, and the 
 good manner that was not quite up to date, 
 and the family influence, were in requisition 
 once more to cover up the inner facts of 
 Fred s latest failure (what the facts were 
 his brothers hardly knew, and they had not 
 been very particular in their inquiries), and 
 he was passed on, like a counterfeit coin, to 
 his next opportunity, at some other person s 
 expense. 
 
 Of late years friends of the family had 
 hesitated to ask, " What is Fred doing 
 now ? " He changed his occupation so 
 often, or it seemed often to persons who 
 thought of him only once in three or four 
 years ; and they said to one another, 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 79 
 
 " What a mercy that he has never married 
 again ! " and they bethought them that they 
 must "do something" for that pretty crea 
 ture, his daughter, and perhaps were a 
 trifle relieved, on casting up her years, to 
 remember that she could not be more than 
 a school-girl, and there was plenty of time. 
 And her aunts were such very sensible 
 women, no doubt they were bringing her 
 up to a fit sense of what her father s 
 daughter might have to look forward to ; 
 which they were not doing at all, but were 
 petting her, and making as much ado over 
 the child as if all the good fairies had met 
 at her christening. They were not even 
 attempting to revise her innocent impres 
 sions of a parent known to her chiefly 
 through his munificence in gifts and pocket- 
 money. Her aunts never told her of the 
 carelessness that went with the munifi 
 cence ; of the lapses, when there were no 
 remittances even for shoes and school-bills ; 
 nor how often their own private means had 
 been drawn upon, to spare the little inher 
 itance that they held in trust from their 
 
80 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 sister to her child. This money, they were 
 resolved, should not be touched, neither 
 principal nor interest, while they were its 
 custodians; and in this way alone they 
 showed their prudence. For why should 
 she need to know, poor child, what the 
 world said of her father? They themselves 
 did not pretend to know or to judge him, 
 but always, for the sake of their sister who 
 had known him and had been silent to the 
 last, they too were silent. What the child s 
 own mother would never have told her, 
 they believed that they, who stood in the 
 mother s place, had no right to tell her. 
 
 When at last they were startled by their 
 brother-in-law s unexpected demand that his 
 daughter should follow him into the far 
 West, they knew not what to say. They 
 had no objections that they could dare to 
 offer now, and they had no rights in the 
 child herself, that they could set against the 
 right of a father; and Faith, as any girl 
 would be, was wild to go. They watched 
 and prayed, feeling as if some unhallowed 
 bargain, transacted long ago, in which an 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 81 
 
 unconscious life was the innocent forfeit, 
 had been fatally foreclosed. And they had 
 made no effort to prepare the girl for what 
 ever surprises, or shocks, or ordeals, this 
 foreclosure involved. They could not have 
 said just what it was that they feared 
 simply they did not trust the man, her fa 
 ther, and they greatly feared the life to 
 which he was taking her. But they never 
 questioned that she must go. 
 
 Those gentle, unassertive, maiden mo 
 thers who, with more than maternal unself 
 ishness, had fulfilled every duty and made 
 every sacrifice for their sister s child, 
 yielded her up to the natural tie, and every 
 one said that it was well done. A few out 
 spoken old gentlemen who had no daughters 
 of their own, and one or two defrauded 
 young ones, declared it was a shame ; but 
 the wives and mothers generally said that it 
 was the right place for Faith ; all the more 
 if, as was hinted, her father was not in 
 all respects just what he should be. So, 
 with no more preparation for the experience 
 before her than girls have who go to the 
 
82 CCEUR D\ALENE. 
 
 altar with men they are expected to reform, 
 Faith had journeyed blithely westward, to 
 cast in her life, in the sombre solitude of 
 the Big Horn, with that of the dull, hard, 
 careless, coarse old man on whom her in 
 stinct had conferred every grace and dig 
 nity of fatherhood. 
 
 And now, with her first trouble, her 
 woman s defensive strength of silence came 
 to her, and her letters to her aunts were 
 models of pious deception. To one person 
 only had she uttered a word of all her 
 heart s shame and indignation, and that 
 one, as she remembered with a burning 
 face, had been all too ready to listen. 
 
 At the Big Horn Mine on Tuesday night, 
 there were indications that the manager was 
 expecting guests to dinner. He had put on 
 his senatorial black frock suit, a white stiff 
 shirt, and a light tie, with a large diamond 
 sparkling on the full-blown folds of silk. 
 Faith was reluctantly lovely in the most 
 reserved of her simple, dainty dinner- 
 dresses. Her simplicity annoyed her fa 
 ther. He would have had her come before 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 83 
 
 him like Esther before the king. The table 
 was set for six persons, and there were 
 three wine-glasses at each plate. There 
 were no flowers, nor any little feminine 
 touches about the rooms, to show that the 
 fair daughter of the house had taken either 
 pride or pleasure in preparing for her 
 father s guests,- nor was there in her face 
 any of the brightness of happy expectancy. 
 
 Mr. Bingham was reading in the library, 
 off the dining-room, when Faith entered by 
 the curtain-draped door, which half revealed 
 the table, aglow with candles and gleaming 
 with glass and silver. The manager was a 
 luxurious provider ; he loved that his house 
 hold should fare sumptuously and dress 
 bravely, and he was not behind in setting a 
 prosperous example. 
 
 "Father, may I speak to you about 
 something ? " 
 
 Mr. Bingham turned to his daughter with 
 a slightly forced look of amiable interest. 
 " Certainly, my dear. Nothing unpleasant, 
 I hope." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; it is unpleasant. It is about 
 
84 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 Abby. I wish you would tell me what she 
 did do before I came. I can never ask her 
 to do a thing but she is perfectly amazed. 
 She says she never waited on table when 
 you gave dinners never ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, she did ; but a you 
 need n t say I said so. She makes a dis 
 tinction in her own mind, very likely, be 
 tween waiting on men, who are supposed 
 to be helpless creatures anyway, and wait 
 ing when a lady sits at table and gives 
 orders. You haven t struck her right, 
 that s all." 
 
 " Why, father, I cannot speak to her ! 
 I positively cringe to her, now. She has 
 the most extraordinary manners ! If I 
 meet her she never steps aside ; she pushes 
 ahead, and I simply retire to avoid a colli 
 sion. She goes out and in at the front 
 door, and sits on the front porch ; she 
 does n t think of rising if I happen to come 
 out she does n t see me. She answers 
 the bell or not, as she pleases. I have 
 opened the door, myself, to men who asked 
 if 4 Miss Steers was in, evidently expect- 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 85 
 
 ing I should call her ; which I did ! I 
 thought it a joke at first on the country 
 and the way we live. But it s getting past 
 a joke. To-night, with four men to dinner, 
 I took for granted that she proposed to 
 make herself useful. I did n t ask her to 
 wait on table ; I thought it safer to assume 
 that she would condescend that much. But 
 I gave her a few hints which she certainly 
 needed, I was as pleasant and as careful 
 as I could be, and she flew up in a per 
 fect rage. I was obliged to leave the room. 
 " Now, what are we to do ? You know 
 what a scramble it is when Wan has to 
 come in ; he has all he can possibly do with 
 his dinner. I would wait on table myself, 
 but, father, for your own sake, I cannot do 
 such things with Abby in the house. Send 
 her away, and I will do her work, I al 
 most do it now, but I cannot do it, for 
 your own sake, father, so conspicuously." 
 
 " In Heaven s name, who has asked you 
 to do Abby s work! Do you suppose I 
 want my daughter to do the work of the 
 house ? " 
 
86 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 " Your daughter does a good deal of it. 
 I don t know whose work it is, or who is 
 mistress here; that is what troubles me, 
 father. I spoke to Abby one day about 
 something that wasn t quite right in my 
 bedroom ; since then she has never entered 
 the room. I do it myself, or I did, until 
 Wan saw me, and took the work out of 
 my hands. What did Abby do, before I 
 came ? " 
 
 " Well, she pretty much ran the house, 
 that is a fact, and I was too lazy to keep 
 her in order. I m too lazy to discharge 
 her now." 
 
 "They are all pretty much of a much 
 ness," Mr. Bingham expatiated uncomfor 
 tably. " They aU make a point, the Ameri 
 can ones, of sitting at meals with you, or 
 being asked to. If you had thougjit to ask 
 Abby to sit down with you to luncheon, 
 sometimes, when you were alone, that would 
 have made it all right. Now she thinks 
 you set yourself above her, which the more 
 you are the less she 11 acknowledge it, of 
 course. She s 011 her ear, now, about some 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 87 
 
 trifle. I suspect you are a bit too particular 
 about trifles. Young housekeepers are apt 
 to be. I know she slams around the house 
 as if she d been brought up in a boiler- 
 shop, but she has her good points. You 11 
 get used to her." 
 
 " There seems to be no question of her 
 getting used to me," said Faith, with rising- 
 temper. " If she makes any distinction at 
 all between us, it s entirely in favor of 
 herself. And, father, I m ashamed to have 
 such a looking woman about the house, so 
 frightfully dressed, and so made up. Why, 
 she does n t look respectable ! " 
 
 Mr. Bingham smiled a sickly smile. 
 " Oh, well, that s her little privilege, to fix 
 herself up to suit herself. I don t admire 
 all that powder and paint, but she does, and 
 it s her own face." 
 
 " But there are such nice-looking girls at 
 Wallace," Faith pleaded. " You ve never 
 tried anybody but Abby, have you? She 
 has been here too long, and it s hard for 
 me to begin with a woman who has never 
 had a mistress so she gives me to under- 
 
88 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 stand. Of course we can t discuss it to 
 night, but do think about it, father." 
 
 Mr. Bingham promised to think about it. 
 As Faith closed the door, he took up his 
 newspaper with a sigh, but threw it down 
 again emphatically on hearing the brassy 
 tones of Abby, talking loudly as she en 
 tered the dining-room by way of the back 
 hall. Mr. Bingham got upon his feet, and 
 fled from the wrath to come. 
 
 " He was in here. I heard them talking. 
 I bet they were talking me over. Perhaps 
 he s stepped into her room. Set down, 
 and I 11 see," Miss Steers said briskly. A 
 young man with a hard but not dissipated 
 face, with his hat well planted on the back 
 of his head, had followed her into the room. 
 
 " Don t be in a hurry," said Peter Ban 
 ning. He had taken his stand between the 
 door-curtains, and his eye, roving from 
 room to room, rested with truculent admira 
 tion on the showy dinner-table. 
 
 " Big doin s to-night, eh ? The old man 
 puts 011 a heap o dog. What s all this 
 truck for, anyhow? Three silver forks to 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 89 
 
 every plate ! How many knives an forks 
 an spoons an pickers does a man want on 
 an average to eat his dinner with ? I know 
 chaps as good as Bingham that s eatin 
 theirs off a tin plate with a rusty case-knife, 
 and durn glad to get it. I say, Ab, the 
 whole of this camp could be fed and clothed 
 with what goes to waste off this table." 
 
 "No, they couldn t," said Abby flatly. 
 " I know what they spend in camp, and I 
 know what he spends. He don t spend so 
 much as he looks to; they don t eat their 
 silver forks. The things they put the din 
 ner in costs more, in this house, than the 
 dinners, ten times over." 
 
 " That s sure," Banning gloomily agreed. 
 " But we ve got to eat ; we can t live on the 
 looks of things. Why should we be diggin 
 and sweatin underground, and he be get- 
 tin big money for doin the Lord knows 
 what ! Who would these forks and spoons 
 belong to, I d like to know, if everybody 
 got their rightful share ? " 
 
 " Aw, you men always arg from your 
 stommicks, as if eatin and drinkin was all 
 
90 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 there is to it ! How d you like to be me, 
 and have to set and eat all alone, less you 
 eat with the Chinaman, and have a little 
 stuck-up schoolgirl tell you, Abby, put on 
 your apron ? Put on my apron ! I guess I 
 can dress myself without any advice from 
 her. You need n t laugh. I tell you I 
 i don t want to live in no country where one 
 woman can tell another woman to put on 
 her apron. She s had the cheek to send 
 to New York city for caps and aprons for 
 me to wear. Caps to cover up my hair, 
 and aprons that go way round and come 
 down to the hem of my dress. And if I 
 hand her anything, my hands ain t good 
 enough to pass it with; it s got to be 
 handed on a tray. My hands nor my 
 hair nor my clothes ain t fit to touch 
 anything she touches and she 11 eat what 
 that dirty Chinaman has had his paws in 
 and think nothin of it ! I wiped my hands 
 on one of her bedroom towels one day, and 
 do you think she d use it after me ? She 
 told me right to my face to put it in the 
 wash ! Yes, sir, she got as red as a 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 91 
 
 beet, and she says: Abby, you needn t 
 hang it up ; you may put it in the hamper, 
 says she. Oh, I d like to hamper her ! " 
 
 " If a woman done that thing to me I d 
 kiss her or I d slap her face," said Ban 
 ning seriously. "I d get even with her 
 somehow. I tell you, they re gettin to be 
 like kings and queens. " 
 
 "Well, she did n t queen it over me 
 much. I just threw the towel on the floor 
 and walked out of the room, and I hain t 
 ever been in it since. I let her towels 
 alone after that; she can put em in the 
 wash herself. I d just like her to see 
 Wan sprinklin them towels an napkins she 
 wipes her face on squirtin water on them 
 out of his gums. Mebby she thinks I m 
 goin to stand behind her chair to-night, 
 with a cap on my head and a tray in my 
 hand, waitin to jump every time she looks 
 at me. She d ought to V brought her 
 slaveys out here with her." 
 
 " Don t you worry, girl ; there 11 be din 
 ners in this house when you won t be stand- 
 in behind chairs," said Abby s prophetic ad- 
 
92 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 mirer. " As for her, she won t be here long ; 
 the Cor d Lane won t be no picnic-ground 
 for ladies this summer." 
 
 " If you want to see Mr. Bingham, you 
 better let me go call him, " Abby advised. 
 " The folks will be comin pretty soon." 
 
 " I don t want to see him, I want to see 
 you ; but I was n t going to say so before 
 that sneaking Chinaman. He makes out 
 he don t sabe, but he catches on all the 
 same. How about to-night, Abby? Is 
 everything fixed ? " 
 
 " He 11 be there," said Abby. 
 
 " And where will Mike McGowan be ? " 
 
 "Do you most always bring another 
 man along when you come to see me? 
 What are you goin to do with him ? " 
 
 "That depends. What is it to you? 
 Have you seen him ? " 
 
 "How should I see him? But I know 
 who he is." 
 
 " You do ? Well, that s more than I do. 
 I know what he calls himself." 
 
 " But don t hurt him, I say ; and I say it 
 on your account as much as on his." 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 93 
 
 "If he gets hurt, it s his own doin s," 
 Banning reasoned grimly. "He s had 
 three days to hunt for a safer place. It s 
 working close now to the time when every 
 man has got to show his colors : who s not 
 for us is against us ; the lines is drawn." 
 
 the clock struck ten. Faith had left the 
 table, and taken refuge in her own room 
 from the waxing hilarity. She knew by 
 the bursts of laughter and hoarse singing, 
 which sounded near or distant as the door 
 of the dining-room opened or shut, that her 
 father and his friends were keeping it up 
 as usual. The clock ticked on in its silver- 
 gilt frame on the tiled chimney-piece. She 
 was very tired, for she counted by sleepless 
 nights the nights when Wan assisted her 
 father to his bed. She started nervously 
 on hearing a knock, and then, remembering 
 there was only one person in the house who 
 knocked with that deferential modesty, she 
 said, " Come in." 
 
 Entered Wan, most respectable of yellow 
 house-servants, bearing a neat tray. 
 
94 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 " You like some tea, Miss Bingham ? " 
 " Thank you, Wan. Set it here, please. 
 That was very good of you." 
 
 "Tea velly good. You no eat much 
 dinna. I see all plate when he come out. 
 I say, Abby, who plate that no likee din 
 na? Abby come down pantly, eat plenty 
 dinna, dlink plenty wine. Abby say : Her 
 plate. She no like Chinaman cooking. " 
 
 "I do like your cooking, Wan. The 
 dinner was very good." 
 
 " I no much sabe cook ; all same camp- 
 cook ; twenty men forty dolla mont." 
 
 "No, no, Wan; you are no camp-cook; 
 very good cook very good man." 
 
 Wan beamed with pleasure ; he produced 
 from beneath his blouse a flame-colored silk 
 handkerchief, with which he mopped his 
 face, deprecating the smiles of gratification 
 that it was manners to conceal. 
 
 "I no speak velly good ; heap sabe ; 
 
 heap sabe ev ything. Abby mean w ite 
 
 woman; too much talkee-talkee all time 
 
 talkee. I no talk. By m by tell you. 
 
 " Say, Miss Bingham ! " Wan came a 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 95 
 
 step nearer, and lowered his voice discreetly. 
 " You sabe one nice man, Da cie all same 
 miner, all same boss ? 
 
 " Has he got a partner named Mike Mc- 
 Gowan ? " asked Faith, sitting up straight 
 in her chair. 
 
 " Same man, same man ! You sabe all 
 light. Miss Bingham, you tell Abby tell 
 Mike McGowan tell Da cie come see 
 you to-night ? " 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "You want see Da cie, all self lone, 
 leven o clock to-night? " 
 
 " What are you saying ? " 
 
 " Miss Bingham," - Wan approached 
 still nearer as his manner grew more ex 
 cited and mysterious ; he was evidently much 
 wrought up over the communication he was 
 making, " I tell you one littee thing you 
 no teD Abby? Abby heap mean w ite wo 
 man." 
 
 "Go on, Wan; I will not tell Abby. 
 What is this thing, for pity s sake? " 
 
 " Miss Bingham, Abby talk Mike Mc 
 Gowan, all same good friend Abby say, 
 
96 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 lady want see Da cie all self lone leven 
 clock to-night. You tell Abby say that ? " 
 
 " Merciful Heavens ! what are you saying ? 
 Do / want to see that man to-night, alone ? 
 Did Abby send him that word from me ? Is 
 that what she has done ? " 
 
 Wan responded with nods and grins, and 
 mopped himself with tremulous hands. 
 
 " You no tell Abby, Miss Bingham ? " 
 
 "Don t be afraid. Tell me what this 
 thing means. Tell me all you know about 
 it, this instant." 
 
 " You catchem all light ; Abby send word 
 you want see Da cie. I sabe all t ing she 
 say. I pick up some tin can ; longside old 
 dump plenty tin can sell him some China 
 man melt him get plenty lead make 
 some littee money." 
 
 "Never mind the cans! Tell me why 
 Abby did this thing. Does she want 
 Darcie to get hurt ? Is that it ? " 
 
 " I no sabe. Abby know heap bad men. 
 Union miner ; no like Mike McGowan ; 
 call him 4 scab. No like Da cie. Nail 
 paper on Da cie house say you go ! 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 97 
 
 Da cie laugh say no go anywhere. Da cie 
 heap good shoot. Mike McGowan heap good 
 shoot. All time heap good friends. Union 
 men get mad ; no can catchee Da cie. Send 
 word lady want see all self lone leven 
 clock night. Da cie come see lady. Mike 
 no come. Lady no come. Man deep behind 
 tlee plenty gun good-by Da cie ! " 
 
 Wan illustrated his meaning by an ex 
 pressive pantomime, which was unnecessary 
 so far as Faith was concerned. She under 
 stood him perfectly. She looked at the 
 clock ; it was half past ten. 
 
 " Where is this place? " she asked. 
 
 " You no want go there, Miss Bingham ! " 
 Wan protested hurriedly. 
 
 " I want you to go there, and take this 
 letter to Mr. Darcie." Faith was writing 
 the note as she talked. "You are a very 
 good man, Wan. You have saved a man s 
 life. I will give you anything you ask if 
 you 11 get this letter there in time." 
 
 " N-n , Miss Bingham ! " Wan grunted 
 an impassioned negative. " I no can go that 
 place. Heap bad place, heap bad men." 
 
98 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 " But you must go ; there is no one else 
 to go. What, you won t take the letter? 
 You miserable creature, will you let that 
 man be killed ? You wretched coward, did 
 you come here to talk?" 
 
 Wan was shaking in his loose starched 
 blouse; his lips and nails were livid; his 
 eyes rolled in his head with fear. He was 
 incapable of speech. He had exposed the 
 plot, out of spite to Abby, without an idea 
 of possible consequences to himself. Faith 
 saw that his eyes were on the door. She 
 flew and locked it, and set her back against 
 it:- 
 
 " Now, see here, Wan ; you must tell me 
 where that place is. I am going myself. 
 Hush, will you! You will go with me as 
 far as the place, because I might go wrong. 
 Then you can run away. Will you do that ? 
 You need not be afraid with me ; they will 
 not shoot me." 
 
 Wan signified by incoherent mutterings 
 that she must not, and that he could not, go, 
 and reiterated his warning, " Heap bad place, 
 heap bad men." 
 
A CUP OF TEA. 99 
 
 " Very well ; then I will go tell Abby what 
 you have told me. Abby s bad men will 
 catch you some dark night ; then it will be 
 Good-by Wan. Do you sabe ? Will you 
 go, now, or shall I tell Abby ? Quick 
 make up your mind ! " 
 
 In that moment Wan prayed his gods 
 that the whole impossible race of white 
 women might be forever accursed ; but in 
 the mean time he decided to do what this 
 strange, terrible young one demanded. He 
 had thought her much the best of her ex 
 traordinary kind ; but they were all alike. 
 "No got sense. Heap dam clazy." 
 
 Faith did not drink her tea ; it grew cold 
 in the pot while the clock ticked on, and 
 the drowsy fire fell to ashes on the hearth. 
 
 And in the dining-room they were sing 
 ing in a hoarse, staggering male chorus : 
 
 " my darling, my darling, 
 O my darling Clementine ; 
 You are lost and gone forever, 
 Drefful sorry, Clementine I " 
 
VI. 
 
 UNDER THE TAMARACKS. 
 
 DARCIE thought that he had cleverly 
 outwitted his friendly double, on the night 
 of Tuesday, and sped away alone through 
 the woods to the place of meeting, avoiding 
 the railroad track in the gulch as likely to 
 bring him more company than he wanted. 
 The Big Horn men "kep the track hot," 
 as Mike expressed it. 
 
 The risk he was taking, he argued, was 
 quite the ordinary one; he, with many 
 another man at that time in the Coeur 
 d Alene, was taking it every day. About 
 the other risk, of not going, there could be 
 no reasoning. His heart closed with a 
 pang, and stopped his thinking, whenever 
 he fancied that girl wanting him, waiting 
 for him, perhaps, and he not there. It was 
 not, he owned, a message or a messenger 
 
UNDEB THE TAMARACKS. 101 
 
 befitting his mountain lily; "but by that 
 token the name was enough, atxrlVf as he* fax 
 quarrel with happiness because it came a 
 little sooner or otherwise than he had ex 
 pected or deserved? It was a time of 
 general uncertainty and peril. Who could 
 tell the needs, the fears, of a girl so iso 
 lated, and in such company as that "outfit" 
 at the Big Horn ? Knowing what he knew, 
 Darcie thought of the mine as a Circe s I [ 
 palace of the wild and woolly West, with 
 Abby Steers for the enchantress, and his 
 lily as the Lady Una, beset by brutish types 
 of humanity in shapes of unblushing de 
 formity. But he had plenty of imagination, 
 and he was living the life of solitude and 
 repression which breeds exaggerated fan 
 cies. Moreover, in his thoughts the charm 
 of the girl, like a strong light, blackened 
 the adjacent shadows. 
 
 The moon, which had fitfully lighted 
 their way down the trail on the night of 
 the storm, was too old and belated to assist 
 at this meeting. Under the tamaracks the 
 darkness was impenetrable. The lone cedar 
 
102 CCUUR &ALENE. 
 
 whispered to itself, and seemed to pause 
 and listen for responses from the ranks of 
 standing timber that mounted the gulch, 
 file above file, with a wedge of night sky 
 opening a way to the zenith. 
 
 The car that was to carry the dinner 
 guests back to Wallace stood on the track, 
 the engine steaming. Darcie took his sta 
 tion under the cedar, and waited in silence. 
 The alternate whispering and hushing of 
 the forest continued; often the sound was 
 that of feet carefully lifted, and cautiously 
 set down in the rustling underbrush. Mo 
 mently his errand there seemed more and 
 more preposterous and foolishly unreal ; he 
 could have laughed aloud had the place and 
 the hour been merrier. 
 
 When he considered that at least half an 
 hour must have passed, and no sound that 
 he could distinctly interpret was heard, he 
 took out his watch and struck a match to 
 look at the time. As the spark flamed up, 
 a volley of pistol-shots pattered about him 
 and pecked at the tree above his head. 
 The flashes came from the edge of the 
 
UNDER THE TAMARACKS. 103 
 
 tamaracks that darkly environed the small 
 cleared space where he stood on every side 
 but that next the gulch; on that side was 
 the trail. 
 
 He jumped behind the cedar, and emp 
 tied his pistol in the direction of the flashes. 
 At the same instant three or four shots in 
 rapid succession cracked from across the 
 trail, and with a characteristic yell and 
 bound Mike was at his side, holding forth 
 with his gun from his own side of the tree. 
 The men could hear each other s breathing, 
 but neither spoke till Darcie said : 
 
 " Load for me, Mike ; my right flipper is 
 hit." 
 
 " The beggars is leavin , said Mike. 
 " Are ye hit bad ? " 
 
 Mike s counter-ambush had disconcerted 
 the executive committee ; their shots fell 
 off, and they were dispersing at a trot 
 through the woods, when, with a rush of 
 light skirts across the dark evergreens, 
 Faith came flying, wild with the fear that 
 she had come too late. 
 
 "Where are you?" she cried. "Oh, 
 answer, somebody ! Are you killed ? " 
 
104 COSUR &ALENE. 
 
 Though she addressed " somebody " it 
 was Mike who answered promptly : 
 
 " Kape qui t, darlin ; he s here, and he s 
 hurted." 
 
 Darcie was at her side, speechless, but 
 mightily glad ; he did not feel his wound. 
 
 "That wretched Wan!" cried Faith. 
 " He would n t come a step to save you till 
 I made him, and then he tried to lose me 
 in the woods. I heard the shots and I 
 thought I should die ! " 
 
 " The message was not your message, 
 then?" 
 
 " That message from me ! Is that what 
 you think of me ? " 
 
 "What matter? The meetin s over, 
 and the man we want now is the doc- 
 ther," said Mike. "Thrip on ahead, miss 
 dear, and lend us the light av your white 
 frock t rough the trees. Are ye hurt bad ? " 
 he inquired again of Darcie, with as much 
 gentleness as he could put into his voice. 
 " Can ye make it, or will I pack ye on me 
 back?" 
 
 " Go on ; I can make it," said Darcie. 
 
UNDER THE TAMAEACKS. 105 
 
 " No ; I 11 not go on ; I 11 cover the re- 
 trate so we goes in good ordher. Darcie, 
 did ye hear me howl ? That s the rale 
 ould Tipperary yell. I knew they d be 
 lookin for the back door av the woods 
 when they h ard that, and I gev it to em 
 good." 
 
 " I heard you, Mike," the sweetest voice 
 lilted in the darkness, with a sob in it of 
 tears and of joy. 
 
 " Did ye, darlin ? Did ye mind how I 
 reinforshed him ? " 
 
 " Behave yourself, Mike ; don t go off 
 your head, quite," said Darcie sternly. 
 
 " Sure there s a power o fight in me yet. 
 It s a pity they did n t let blood on me, 
 shtead av me little Darcie. Are your legs 
 failin ye? I cud pack ye aisy as a sack 
 av ore." 
 
 " Go on ! go on ! " said Darcie. 
 
 "I I m so thankful ! " said the sweet 
 voice, a little wildly. " You did n t think 
 I could send you such a message as that, 
 did you?" 
 
 " It was not for me to think ; I came." 
 
106 CCEUB WALENE. 
 
 Darcie s sentences were brief and some 
 what breathless, for his wound was coming 
 to life; the passion of pain and love, and 
 the weakness of fear lest this strange joy 
 might all fade and pass by daylight, or 
 some new obstruction arise, were nearly 
 overpowering him. 
 
 "You will have to give me your arm, 
 Mike," he said. "I m worse than I 
 thought." 
 
 " Run on ahead, miss dear, that s a lady, 
 and rouse up the docther." 
 
 " Do mind who you are talking to ! 
 said Darcie peevishly. 
 
 " Sure, I do mind. Was n t it her own 
 doin s, and why shouldn t she run? " 
 
 "She had not a thing to do with it! 
 Mike, let me down; my head is going! 
 Don t go back to the cabin to-night, will 
 you ? It won t be safe for you." 
 
 "Niver fear; I ll be dustin out o this 
 pretty quick. I ll be huntin high grass 
 before sunrise." 
 
 "Is it good-by then, old fellow?" mur 
 mured Darcie. 
 
UNDEE THE TAMARACKS. 107 
 " I dunno what it is ; but niver fear. 
 Ye 11 hear me whoop again." 
 
 The doctor was not at his own house ; he 
 had been one of the guests at dinner, and 
 was the only one of the company now in 
 condition to render assistance. Wan was 
 getting the other gentlemen into their over 
 coats, and sorting their hats and coats for 
 them in the haU. Abby was down in the 
 gulch exchanging news with the wives and 
 maidens of the camp. The manager was 
 sitting on the front stairs with every appear 
 ance of staying there all night unless help 
 should come. 
 
 It was Faith who waited upon the doctor, 
 and, as Darcie fainted under the examina 
 tion of his wound, it may be imagined what 
 an ordeal this service was for the girl, fol 
 lowing the earlier events of the night. It 
 was at this violent pace that the wild little 
 romance, so squalidly begun on the night of 
 the storm, was progressing. 
 
 In the back hall after breakfast, on the 
 following morning, Wan was brushing and 
 cleaning the clothes that Darcie had worn 
 
108 C(EUR D ALENE. 
 
 on the preceding night, discussing with him 
 self their condition and probable destination. 
 
 " Tlowsa all light, vest all light, coat heap 
 all blood ; no can clean him good. Think 
 he no wear coat any more. Think give him 
 Wan. Say, John, you burn him up, tlow 
 him away, give him some poor miner. 
 Plenty good coat; me all same miner. 
 Some littee thing in pocket? One silk 
 hankcha; one littee book, velly thin; one 
 big book some letta inside. I look see." 
 
 Hereupon Abby, appearing by a side 
 door, took in the situation at once. 
 
 44 Them things belong to you ? Looks 
 like you re makin mighty free with em. 
 Here, hand em over to me. I 11 take care 
 of em. You no business goin through a 
 gentleman s clothes like that. Take em 
 out to your own place ; you can t be cleanin 
 clothes in my back hall." 
 
 Wan looked black, but his fear of Abby 
 was scarcely less than his hatred of her; 
 she possessed herself of the contents of Mr. 
 Darcie s pockets, including the letter of evi 
 dence against the manager, which he had 
 
UN DEE THE TAMARACKS. 109 
 
 not sent, nor yet destroyed, and departed, 
 leaving Wan in a grinning rage. He car 
 ried the clothes out into the back area, 
 muttering curses in his jargon of heathen 
 English. 
 
 " Huh ! " he grunted savagely, " mean 
 dam w ite woman ! Heap no good. Mist 7 
 Da cie say : John, where my letta ? I no 
 can fin . Tell me plenty I say, 
 
 Mist Da cie, you go catchee Abby, tell 
 her " 
 
VII. 
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 
 
 ON the morning of July 10, Darcie, still 
 a prisoner to his wound and a guest of the 
 Big Horn, was strolling restlessly about the 
 manager s handsome dining-room, his right 
 arm in a sling, and a cigar he was not smok 
 ing in his left hand. Wan had just entered 
 with a tray of glass and silver, which he was 
 putting away in the sideboard at the end of 
 the room. 
 
 " John Sam where is your mis 
 tress ? " Darcie inquired, with a vagueness 
 in the second person which put the heathen 
 upon his dignity at once. It did not please 
 Wan to be addressed by divers and sundiy 
 names that were not his own. 
 
 " No sabe ; maybe gone out," he answered 
 shortly. 
 
 Darcie was quite sure that she had not 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. Ill 
 
 gone out, having been listening the last 
 hour for her steps about the house. He 
 crossed the room as Wan was leaving it, 
 and absently slipped a dollar into his dis 
 creetly receptive hand. 
 
 " Think you can t find her, eh ? " 
 
 " Maybe upstairs ; I go look see," said 
 Wan, mollified and relenting. 
 
 " Do, and be quick about it. Tell her my 
 arm is a is very bad." 
 
 Wan hesitated ; if the typical Chinaman 
 has a sense of humor he does not usually 
 obtrude it. " Think better go catchum doc- 
 tah ? " Wan suggested, with every appear 
 ance of polite concern. 
 
 His humor was wasted on Darcie. " Did 
 you hear me say doctor? When I want 
 you to catch me the doctor, I will say so. 
 Sabe?" 
 
 " All light." Wan smiled abstractedly. 
 " I go look see." 
 
 In a few moments Faith entered. Her 
 hands were pink and cold, her cheeks glow 
 ing with exercise ; but her radiant face be 
 came grave and solicitous as she looked at 
 Darcie. 
 
112 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 "Wan says your arm is very bad. Is 
 it worse since breakfast ? " 
 
 " I don t remember how it was at break 
 fast ; I was n t thinking about it then. Per 
 haps this scarf is tied too short ; will you let 
 it down a bit?" 
 
 Faith undid the fastening of the sling, 
 and lowered it a trifle. She did this with 
 great earnestness, frowning a little as she 
 worked at the knot. 
 
 " Do you think you should keep walking 
 about so much with your arm hanging down ? 
 I m afraid it s not good for the blood to 
 settle in the wound." 
 
 " It must go somewhere ; just at present 
 it seems to have a tendency to my head. 
 It s a very odd sensation to feel one s self 
 blushing like a girl." 
 
 "That is because you are weak. Try 
 this chair with the broad arm. I will put 
 the cushion so; could you bear it a little 
 higher? How is that?" 
 
 " Delicious for a time. But don t go ! 
 I always want something directly you are 
 gone." 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 113 
 
 "I had a little thing I was doing up 
 stairs." 
 
 " Can t you bring the little thing down ? " 
 
 "Bring down the beds I am making?" 
 Faith recovered her self-possession with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "Beds! Do you make beds in this 
 house?" 
 
 "At present I do; Abby has gone to 
 Gem." 
 
 "Has she? I congratulate you on her 
 absence. I never see her sailing down the 
 road with those auburn bangs in the wind 
 but I think of the 
 
 " Bright hair uplifted from the head 
 Of some fierce maenad . . . 
 The locks of the approaching storm. 
 
 Still, the maenad may be a convenience when 
 it comes to making beds." 
 
 " She is no convenience to me," said Faith 
 inflexibly. " You may congratulate me all 
 you like. I dote on her very absence ; I 
 have n t been so happy since I came to the 
 mine." 
 
 " I wonder if any other lady of the Coeur 
 
114 CCEUE WALENE. 
 
 d Alene is saying this morning she is happy. 
 We know that Big Horn Gulch is a union 
 stronghold, but the seat of war is very near. 
 From what the doctor tells me there is sure 
 to be a collision at Gem. When did you 
 say your father would be home ? " 
 
 "To-night, surely. But everything is 
 quiet here, for the reason, as you say, that 
 here there s no opposition. I am very anx 
 ious about you, though. At present they 
 have enough to do elsewhere, but if they 
 are successful, they will come back more 
 insolent than ever. And those men who 
 were waiting for you in the woods, they 
 have not forgotten." 
 
 " Ah, well, there is no time to waste. 
 There may be c hurrying to and fro, and 
 mounting in hot haste, not to speak of 
 sudden partings. And yet I notice a 
 marked falling-off in the attentions of my 
 nurse. When I was supposed to be in pos 
 sible peril she was very nice to me, but the 
 moment I take a favorable turn, off she 
 goes to her beds, or her sweeping, or 
 whatever it is that keeps her, anywhere but 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 115 
 
 where I am. I don t know where you go, 
 and I couldn t follow you if I did. You 
 have me at a cruel disadvantage." 
 
 " You take advantage of your disadvan 
 tage," said Faith in a low voice. 
 
 " Can you blame me ? I am reduced to 
 bribery and corruption, to every sort of sub 
 terfuge. My character is in shreds all to 
 compass the sight of you for five minutes 
 once in six hours or so. Pray sit down! 
 That attitude of premeditated flight is very 
 pretty, but it makes me horribly nervous." 
 
 " I am restless with all these troubles ; I 
 can t sit down," pleaded Faith. 
 
 " The troubles will go on without us. 
 Why waste time ? Is there any new thing 
 that you are alleging against me, Faith 
 dear?" 
 
 "There could not be anything against 
 you except that I do not know you ; yet I 
 know you far too well." 
 
 " Too well to draw back now and say you 
 do not know me. How is it possible for 
 two persons to know each other better? 
 Have we not been under fire together? 
 
116 CCEUR WALENE. 
 
 Have we not looked in the face that which 
 you insist on calling your disgrace ? Have 
 you not forgiven me an offense you do not 
 even know the name of ? At this moment 
 we may both be in danger; and whether 
 the crisis shall bring us together or force us 
 apart, what do we know? Only these few 
 moments are our own. Is there any other 
 thing for us to try except happiness ? " 
 
 "Can we say, Let there be happiness, 
 in the midst of all this trouble and fear ? " 
 
 " / can, if you will only give me the 
 chance." 
 
 " It is too sudden and too strange. My 
 father does not even know all that happened 
 on Tuesday night, or how it happened 
 unless Abby has told him ; and mercy knows 
 what she has told ! " 
 
 " I don t quite understand how that can 
 be." 
 
 "It was simple enough," said Faith bit 
 terly. "He was incapable of listening to 
 anything I could say to him till Wednesday 
 evening, if he was then. He always avoids 
 me when after well, Abby waited on 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SUBBENDEB. 117 
 
 him, and I think she went to Gem partly to 
 look after him." 
 
 " Has not the doctor seen him ? " 
 
 " I do not speak of my father to the doc 
 tor. He knows more than I do about him. 
 I have no doubt he is keeping an eye on 
 him, and I am afraid he needs it. He is 
 much worried about the troubles, and I 
 think he wishes to keep out of it as much 
 as possible " 
 
 " Then he had better keep out of Gem." 
 
 " I don t believe it makes much differ 
 ence where he is, in his present condition. 
 Don t let us talk about it." 
 
 " Come to me ! Why do you take your 
 troubles as far away from me as you can ? 
 Only a little while ago you said you had not 
 been so happy since you came to the mine. 
 Was that because you were upstairs all by 
 yourself?" 
 
 " Partly ; it is so nice to feel I can roam 
 about the house and not meet Abby any 
 where, and there is such a heavenly view of 
 the mountains from my window." 
 
 " I wish I were a mountain ; would you 
 
118 CCEUE &ALENE. 
 
 come to me, or should I have to go to you? 
 I think I should get a move on, if you 
 were anywhere in sight." 
 
 "I will ask you once more not to take 
 for granted a certain fact until it is a fact. 
 We are not on such terms as you constantly 
 assume. If anything should happen it will 
 only make it harder " - 
 
 "No. If anything should happen, so 
 much would be saved from overwhelming 
 loss and pain. That s the way I look at it. 
 Perhaps I look at it selfishly." 
 
 Faith did not deny that he did ; but there 
 were matters that seemed to weigh upon her 
 more pressingly than Darcie s selfishness. 
 
 " My father will ask if you have spoken 
 to me; you will not like to say that you 
 have without a word to him." 
 
 " How can I speak to him when he is at 
 Gem? But, seriously, I am not yet in a 
 suitable position to speak. In the first 
 place, I am a damaged article, and it s sup 
 posed that I owe my injuries to men in his 
 employ, or to friends of those men. The 
 situation is awkward for us both. In point 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 119 
 
 of fact I am a wounded prisoner within the 
 enemy s lines. When my arm is well, when 
 martial law is out, and these bragging bullies 
 have had their combs cut, I shall be in a 
 better position to ask for what I want. A 
 treaty on the basis of such pretensions as 
 mine would be rather absurd just now." 
 
 " That sounds very sensible ; it s just 
 what I think." 
 
 "But, in the mean time, why so much 
 thinking ? Why not be ourselves, since the 
 main thing is settled ? " 
 
 "Is there no other thing in the way 
 not anything at all? You spoke of my 
 forgiving something without knowing 
 what it was. Will you not tell me now 
 what it was that you spoke of ? " 
 
 "It is all past history; I told you I 
 should get out of the fix I was in ; and I 
 did I have." 
 
 "But what was it?" 
 
 " Dearest, I cannot tell you. The matter 
 is confidential, and it relates to business 
 which is not my own. The position it 
 placed me in became insupportable from the 
 
120 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 1 1 moment I saw you, and I resigned my part 
 in it ; but having done so, I cannot now give 
 it away." 
 
 "I do not like mysteries. I have told 
 you everything about myself, even to my 
 silliest dreams and fancies." 
 
 " This is no dream, my darling ; it is seri 
 ous business, and it is not my own. Any 
 trust is serious, and though I took this one 
 on me rather lightly, it is not lightly that I 
 give it up; and if I should now betray 
 it"- 
 
 "To tell it to me, merely to satisfy a 
 shade of doubt about yourself, is not betray 
 ing. I don t care in the least about their 
 business. I should forget it all as soon as 
 I knew about your part in it." 
 
 " I have no longer any part in it, and 
 I cannot give away a confidential trust the 
 moment I resign it. You cannot ask me to 
 do that." 
 
 " Oh, I ask you nothing." 
 
 " And yet punish me for telling you no 
 thing. This is a horrible waste of time. 
 Have you had so much happiness in your 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 121 
 
 life that you can afford to play with mo 
 ments like these ? " 
 
 " If it were play ! What is the matter ? 
 Are you ill ? " cried Faith, as Darcie s head 
 went down on his arm that rested on the 
 chair-back, with a sound like a half-sup 
 pressed groan. 
 
 " All my aches are aching at once, and 
 the fear of fears is on me," he said. 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " The fear that haunts me whenever you 
 are not with me, in the night when I can 
 not sleep, and before I see you in the morn 
 ing, that the next time I see you you will 
 not be the same to me. And here you are 
 changing before my very eyes. Not any of 
 it, then, has been true ? You never did 
 trust me?" 
 
 " Always ! I do trust you. But my life, 
 lately, has not strengthened my faith in hap 
 piness, where men are concerned I ought 
 to be ashamed, calling myself your nurse, 
 and here I have been talking you nearly 
 to death ! " 
 
 "I will complain of you to the doctor, 
 
122 COEUE &ALENE. 
 
 and he will say I am not to be crossed ; you 
 must give me everything I want. Let me 
 take your hand; your left hand, please. 
 Now do not talk about it any more." 
 
 Faith was silent for half a minute, then 
 she gently drew her hand away, and laid it 
 j over the hot, closed lids of her unreasonable 
 lover, who wanted everything all at once, 
 and could show no claim to anything. She 
 began to speak quietly, as if to herself : 
 
 " When you got that message, with a word 
 which you thought could come from no one 
 but me ; when you came, and I was not 
 there, and you saw it was a death-trap, did 
 you for an instant think it possible I could 
 have lent my name not my name, but a 
 word more sacred than any name " 
 
 " Not for an instant." 
 
 " You had not one doubt of me, then ? " 
 
 " No more than of the stars above." 
 
 " Then I cannot doubt. It shall be my 
 faith for your faith." 
 
 A moment later Wan opened the door 
 and announced the doctor. 
 
 The doctor was one of the few men who 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SUBRENDER. 123 
 
 at that time, in the troubled district, could 
 consistently and honorably remain neutral ; 
 still, he had his sympathies, which he ex 
 pressed on occasions to the proper persons. 
 
 When Darcie asked for the latest news 
 from the seat of war, he replied that he had 
 had only conflicting rumors since the night 
 before ; but he expected that when news did 
 come it would be bad, and he spoke of the 
 guarded barricades on the one side, and on 
 the other the armed intimidators pouring 
 into Gem, filled with oaths and whiskey and 
 truculence. 
 
 " And where is my father, doctor ? " Faith 
 inquired. 
 
 " Mr. Bingham is understood to be a non-j 
 combatant like myself: the union bosses 
 have nothing against him." 
 
 " It would be more to his credit, perhaps, 
 if they had," thought Faith. 
 
 "And Abby?" said she. "I suppose I 
 need not be anxious about Abby ? " 
 
 " Bred and bawn in a brier-patch ! " 
 laughed the doctor. "Abby s in her ele 
 ment ; she has a friend behind every union 
 
124 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 gun. She could go through I beg your 
 pardon through Hades 011 the strength of 
 her connections." 
 
 When Faith had left the room to fetch 
 the warm water and the sponges and a few 
 more articles which the doctor required, he 
 freed his mind with a great oath : 
 
 " The old man is a beast, and a coward to 
 boot. He s gone on a monstrous spree, and 
 I think it s deliberate, in case he should be 
 hauled up for aiding and abetting this nice 
 work that s going on. There were not 
 eleven men out of three hundred answered 
 to the pay-roll this morning; they are on 
 duty elsewhere. He wants to be able to 
 prove an alibi in the person of the devil of 
 drink that s in him. He is afraid of his 
 union friends, now, because they are on top 
 and they stick at nothing; but he knows 
 their time is short ; he has an eye to wind 
 ward." 
 
 " And what will become of her ? " 
 
 " God knows. She is worse than father 
 less. She cannot stay, yet she cannot go. 
 Here s a knot for somebody to untie ; per- 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SUEEENDEE. 125 
 haps a lover. I have thanked the Lord 
 that my wife is in Spokane, but I could 
 almost wish, for that poor child s sake, that 
 she were here ; then I could be a father to 
 her myself till we hear from the lover. 
 And speaking of Spokane," the doctor con 
 tinued, " there s a lawyer down there who 
 has been telegraphing at a great rate to 
 know if Jack Dacey, reported shot at the 
 Big Horn mine, is John Darcie. Says your 
 friends are worried about you." 
 
 " My friends what friends ? " 
 
 " Your folks in England. He says there 
 will be the devil to pay if Dacey is Darcie. 
 Says you re a great deal bigger man than 
 we take you for in the Coeur d Alenes." 
 
 "I wish you would wire him to keep 
 quiet," said Darcie. "Tell him to cable 
 my people that I m aU right, and then to 
 hold his peace." 
 
 " Who are you, anyhow, Darcie ? What 
 racket are you working ? You may as well 
 trust me ; the doctor knows everything and 
 says nothing, you know." 
 
 "I m John Darcie, half owner of the 
 
126 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 Black Dwarf, and partner of Mike Mc- 
 Gowan." 
 
 " Anything else ? " 
 " Nothing else worth mentioning." 
 "It is sometimes safest to mention things, 
 in times like these, to the right person. 
 
 " Very true, doctor. I will mention a 
 few things that I am not : I m not a Pink- 
 erton detective ; I m not a reporter for the 
 press ; I ve not run away from my regi 
 ment ; I ve not hypothecated bonds ; I m 
 not raising funds for an Irish rebellion ; 
 I m not the murderer of Dr. Cronin ; and 
 I m not anybody s lost heir. And I m go 
 ing to get out of these Coetir d Alenes as 
 soon as I can get a bond on the one thing 
 here that I want." 
 
 " Which property is that, may I ask ? " 
 " You may ask, but I shall not tell you." 
 " You are a Scotchman plain enough, by 
 the way you answer questions." 
 
 " I need not ask what you are, doctor, by 
 the way you ask them ; but I take your in 
 tention." 
 
 "You had much better take my advice, 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 127 
 
 and tell me what sort of lay-out you are on. 
 What s your game ? What are trumps 
 spades or hearts? Are you making a 
 heart solo ? " 
 
 "What s a heart solo ? " 
 
 "Ah, you don t know the great Idaho 
 game the greatest game out ! Better 
 camp with us five years or so and learn 
 the rudiments. There are points in solo 
 that I can t do justice to in a phrase ; but 
 for a snap-shot, a heart solo is where 
 hearts are trumps, and you play the crowd 
 for three times your loss if you lose, and 
 the same if you win. The idea is, you are 
 pretty deep in, and if you don t make it, and 
 the widow goes back on you, you re apt to 
 leave your dead and wounded on the field." 
 
 " There is no 4 widow in mine," said 
 Darcie, " unless it s the widow at Wind 
 sor ; but not all the sons of the widow, 
 nor all the goods in er shop, can help me 
 if I don t make it, as you say." 
 
 " I believe it is a heart solo, " said the 
 doctor ; " you need n t mind confiding in 
 me ; I Ve been married only a year." 
 
128 C(EUR D ALENE. 
 
 " There is a thing I should like to con 
 fide to you on the spot, and that s a letter, 
 doctor. I wish you d mail it to this busy 
 body lawyer to forward for me. It s im 
 portant, if you please." 
 
 "With pleasure; mail it with my own 
 hands," said the doctor. 
 
 " That s what I mean. Where is that 
 Chinaboy ? He will get it, and I shall be 
 eternally obliged when the thing is gone." 
 
 Faith, returning, said that Wan was ha 
 bitually invisible at that hour, it being the 
 time when he retired to commune with him 
 self, and to compose his nerves with a pipe 
 of the soothing drug. But anything that 
 was wanted she herself would be most 
 happy to get for him. 
 
 " In the top drawer of the chiffonnier in 
 my room is a brown leather letter-case. 
 Will you be so good as to fetch it ? I am 
 asking the doctor to mail a letter for me." 
 
 Faith brought the letter-case, and the 
 letter containing Darcie s resignation, which 
 he had written, but had not mailed, was 
 confided to the doctor s care. 
 
UNCONDITIONAL SUBBENDEB. 129 
 
 " There was another letter," said Darcie, 
 breathing deeply. "I do not see it here. 
 Do you know who it was gave out my 
 clothes to be cleaned? " 
 
 " It was I," said Faith. " Was the other 
 letter in that case ? " 
 
 " It was," said Darcie. " Would you 
 mind taking another look for it in the 
 drawer ? It is a thick letter in a long, blue 
 envelope, unsealed." 
 
 As Faith left the room, Darcie s head 
 sank back on the chair-cushions. He was 
 white to the lips. 
 
 " What s the matter now ? " asked the 
 doctor. " Is that letter so important ? " 
 
 " Very important that it should be 
 burnt," said Darcie. " It s the mistake of 
 my life that I did n t burn it." 
 
 " Perhaps it will be found," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 But Faith returned without the letter. 
 When she saw Darcie s white face, against 
 the chair-back, and his quivering nostrils 
 and closed eyelids, she looked reproachfully 
 at the doctor, as if asking what he had been 
 doing to the patient in her absence. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 ABBY S object in following Mr. Bingham 
 to Gem was to be first with the story of 
 the shooting on Tuesday night, and to tell 
 it in her own way. She had found him in 
 a very fit state to accept her version of the 
 awkward facts. That half of Mr. Bing- 
 ham s brain which operated his being when 
 he was emerging from the delirium of drink 
 received the distorted tale, and took a 
 coarse, sullen satisfaction in conceiving that 
 possibly it might be true. He purposed to 
 treat it as the truth, as Abby had given it 
 to him; it suited him in several ways to 
 do so. For one reason, it helped him to a 
 sort of apology for himself, in his conscious 
 betrayal of his daughter, to be able to con 
 struct a countercharge against the girl her 
 self. He had been bored by her face of 
 
THE LETTER. 131 
 
 innocence; now he could confront those 
 blue, astonished eyes with questions as 
 searching as their own. 
 
 The manager had returned to the mine 
 with his temper at sixes and sevens, and 
 himself in a general state of disrepair. 
 Faith had been summoned to speak with 
 him in the library, a demand which very 
 much surprised her, for she was the last one 
 he yearned to see, as a rule, after one of 
 his temporary evanishments from the affairs 
 of men. 
 
 Abby, with her bangs more maenad-like 
 than ever, was seated, rocking herself, both 
 feet leaving the floor at once. She looked 
 hard at Faith as she entered the room, but 
 did not rise or cease rocking. 
 
 Mr. Bingham languidly rose, and placed 
 a chair for his daughter ; she could not 
 look him in the face, his appearance was so 
 deplorable. 
 
 " Sit down, Faith," he requested, for the 
 girl had remained proudly standing. 
 
 " I thought you wished to see me only for 
 a moment ; I am not very well," she said. 
 
132 CCEUR WALENE. 
 
 "I am sorry you are not well," said her 
 father. " I feel pretty rocky myself. Sit 
 down, please. Ah Abby, I have some 
 thing I wish to say to Miss Bingham; I 
 will see you after a while about the din 
 ner, you know." 
 
 Abby seemed half disposed to resent this 
 intimation that her company was not de 
 sired ; but apparently thinking it not worth 
 while, she rose, and left the room. Her 
 chair continued to oscillate for some seconds 
 with the parting repulsion communicated to 
 it by her retreating form. 
 
 Faith raised her reluctant eyes to her fa 
 ther s face. 
 
 Mr. Bingham began hurriedly in a queru 
 lous key, clearing his throat, and tapping 
 the buttons of his vest with his gold-rimmed 
 eyeglass. 
 
 "It does not become you, Faith, under 
 the circumstances, to be so excessively on 
 your dignity ; a little more respect for your 
 self in more important ways, and these little 
 forms would not matter. I am afraid you 
 have had a very artificial training. Upon 
 
THE LETTER. 133 
 
 my word, I don t know how a man is to 
 bring up his daughters, or whom he can 
 trust them with ; I thought that your aunts 
 had made at least a good girl of you." 
 
 " Father, if there is anything you have to 
 find fault with me about, please don t do it 
 through my aunts. If I have disappointed 
 you, it s not their fault." 
 
 " No ; you are right. It s not their fault 
 any more than it is mine. We have all 
 been deceived. But, I say, it s enough to 
 shake a man s faith in the daylight ! Why, 
 I thought that you were pride and inno 
 cence itself." 
 
 Faith replied with a sad little laugh, " Is 
 it my pride or my innocence that s in 
 doubt ? " 
 
 " Bless me, bless me, I did not think you 
 could be so hard; I must be plain, then. 
 You cannot be ignorant of the critical situa 
 tion we are in : a war between capital and 
 labor seems inevitable. I have serious re 
 sponsibilities on both sides, and friends, I 
 hope, on both sides. But it s imperative I 
 should know who are my friends and whom 
 
 
134 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 I can trust. A man would naturally think 
 that he might trust his own child." Mr. 
 Bingham paused, but Faith simply looked 
 at him in pale-faced astonishment. "How 
 do you suppose I feel when I discover that 
 I am harboring a spy, and that I owe his 
 presence in my house to the connivance 
 and sympathy of my daughter ? " 
 
 " A spy ! " Faith repeated. " A spy on 
 whom ? If there is such a person in this 
 house I did not know it." 
 
 " You did not know it ? And you can 
 face me down with that innocent look ! 
 Are you acquainted with Mr. John Darcie, 
 as he calls himself? " 
 
 The pink rose of consciousness in the 
 girl s cheek flamed into a red rose of anger. 
 " Have you any reason to suppose that he 
 is not what he calls himself ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have his own signature to prove that 
 he is not. I will show it to you presently. 
 He is a cowardly detective, sent over here 
 by the faction in London that is trying to 
 down me and discredit my management. 
 He sneaked in here, and has been doing the 
 
THE LETTER. 135 
 
 scavenger on the sly for months ; raking up 
 lies and dirty gossip, listening to every sore 
 head that nurses a grudge against me or 
 the mine. He has been carrying the stuff 
 around with him, waiting for a chance to 
 send it off his letters and reports and so 
 on to his backers in London. He sends 
 them under cover to a shyster lawyer in 
 Spokane, who is in with him. I say, is this 
 the man my daughter gives secret meetings 
 to in places where no young girl who valued 
 her good name would be seen, alone, with a 
 stranger, at twelve o clock at night ? " 
 
 " Do you wish me to think that you be 
 lieve this, father ? " asked Faith, with the 
 look of the lamb when the wolf accused it 
 of roiling the stream. 
 
 " Think that I believe it ! Do you deny 
 that you were there in the tamaracks, on 
 Tuesday night, with Darcie, the man I am 
 speaking of ? " 
 
 " I was there yes to prevent murder. 
 You know it is in all the papers that a man 
 was shot here, in cold blood, by our own 
 men, for some offense against their miners 
 
136 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 " We are not talking of what is in the 
 papers. I am talking of something that 
 was not in the papers, most fortunately for 
 us. What was this man doing here, on my 
 premises, without business with me or with 
 any of my employees ? What was the oc 
 casion, the inducement, that brought him 
 five miles after dark through the woods to a 
 place where there was nothing to see, or do, 
 or learn, except by secret appointment with 
 some other person? What was he there 
 for ? Do you know ? " 
 
 " Because somebody sent him a false mes 
 sage, I believe." 
 
 " In whose name ? " 
 
 " In my name. O father, please let me 
 tell you all ! " 
 
 " You are telling me a good deal, I think. 
 And why should a message be sent to this 
 young man in your name? Was that the 
 surest way to bring him ? " 
 
 "Father, you must ask those who sent 
 the message. I did not send it." 
 
 " You seem to know a good deal about it, 
 considering that you did not send it. How 
 
THE LETTEE. 137 
 
 did you learn the hour and the place of 
 meeting so accurately ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell you how I learned it ; you 
 will have to trust me for that." 
 
 " Did you happen to learn the words of 
 the message ? " 
 
 "I did not, father I mean not at 
 first." 
 
 " c Not at first. What am I to under 
 stand by that ? Let me repeat the words ; 
 perhaps you may recognize them." 
 
 " Oh, don t repeat them ! The whole thing 
 is frightful. How can I talk to you at all 
 when you begin by accusing me of such 
 things?" 
 
 " It is certainly not very pleasant for me 
 to pursue this kind of an investigation, but 
 we may as well go through with it; for 
 your own sake the thing must be cleared up. 
 Abby tells me that she took that message 
 herself, precisely in your language, because 
 you were unwilling to trust it on paper 
 naming the place and the time of the meet 
 ing ; and in case there should be a doubt in 
 the young man s mind that the message was 
 
138 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 genuine, you added these words, Tell him it 
 comes from her he called his Mountain Lily. 
 Faith, I don t wonder that you cover your 
 face ! " 
 
 Faith instantly raised her head. " I deny 
 that I sent that message or any messsage," 
 she uttered with white lips. " If Abby says 
 that I did, you will have to choose between 
 the word of a servant and the word of your 
 daughter." 
 
 " Don t get excited," said Mr. Bingham. 
 " I will have this thing decided on no one s 
 word but your own and his. Do you deny 
 that those words you have just heard me re 
 peat were the words of that message ? " 
 
 " I do not ; I deny that they were my 
 words, or that I ever used them." 
 
 " It scarcely matters whose words they are ; 
 but I should like to know how they came to 
 be so effectual for the purpose. They cer 
 tainly brought that young man where he 
 got, not what he came for, evidently, but 
 what he richly deserved. Whoever sent it, 
 the message acted like a charm. How do 
 you explain that ? " 
 
THE LETTER. 139 
 
 " I am not bound to explain it ; I am not 
 responsible for his coming." 
 
 " Well, I should like to know who this 
 Mountain Lily is that meets young men 
 in our woods, alone, at dark hours of the 
 night." 
 
 " Father, I will tell you all I know," said 
 Faith, trembling and deathly white, for now 
 she could not doubt with what merciless con 
 structions she had to deal. 
 
 "He did call me by that name once, 
 father. It was when we abused his hospi 
 tality, and I was left on his hands alone 
 yes, in the dark hours of the night. It was 
 then, when my father had failed me, when 
 he was father and friend and brother to me, 
 that his heart went out to me : his pity made 
 him tender toward me, and he said those 
 words. How they got abroad, to be turned 
 to this wicked and shameful use, I cannot 
 teU you, and I do not care. But if they had 
 been the means of bringing him to his death, 
 he would have been the last man yes, as 
 he is the first to say such words to me." 
 
 " And do you think that you know the 
 character of this man ? " 
 
140 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 " How should I know his character ? Do 
 I know my own ? I know what my father 
 professes to think I am, and to whom he 
 goes for his information. A stranger could 
 hardly expect to fare better than a daughter. 
 If I am what you say I am, I need not 
 be surprised that he should turn out to be a 
 
 "Be careful, Faith. I have given you, 
 in my own mind, the benefit of a last doubt, 
 awaiting your acknowledgment of this man s 
 true character. But if you insist on siding 
 with him well, you must expect to be 
 judged with him. Here are the proofs of 
 what he is, in his own words." 
 
 Mr. Bingham produced a letter in a long, 
 blue envelope, unsealed, and without an ad 
 dress. He offered it to Faith. 
 
 " I will not touch it ! " she cried. " For 
 shame, father ! Can you stoop to read a 
 private letter picked out of the pockets of 
 your guest by your own servants ? " 
 
 "My guest! A pretty sort of guest! 
 My guest is a spy, and he is my prisoner, " 
 shouted Mr. Bingham. " I have the right 
 
THE LETTER. 141 
 
 of search, and I have proved his trade on 
 him by the papers he carries. Abby was 
 right to inform our boys of this meeting, 
 and they were right to be there, prepared to 
 take him alive or dead. The time demands 
 it. A spy expects the treatment of a spy ; 
 he knows what that is when he agrees to 
 take the job. Now hear what he says for 
 himself. This is a letter addressed to Sir 
 Peter Plympton, the president of our com 
 pany, as you know. The date is June 30, 
 the day of that occasion you refer to in a 
 manner so respectful to your father, when 
 we first met this Mr. Darcie Hamilton, alias 
 Jack Darcie. His father is Archibald Ham 
 ilton, one of our directors, so it s not for 
 the wages he has taken up the trade ; it s 
 pure love of the business. I will not stop 
 to read each specific charge that he brings 
 against me ; you can read the letter your 
 self, if you like. Perhaps you have read it." 
 
 Faith rejected the letter with a passionate 
 gesture. 
 
 " Then you will have to take my word for 
 the contents. It s the old list of charges 
 
142 CfEUE D ALENE. 
 
 that is always put up when there is a kick 
 against one man on the misrepresentations 
 of a lot of other men who have something 
 to gain by his downfall. I m a liar and 
 a thief, and I m generally incompetent ; 
 there s nothing wrong that I have n t done, 
 and there s nothing right that I have. If 
 you won t read it, you can take for granted 
 there s nothing left out But here is his 
 summing up : 
 
 " 4 1 would unhesitatingly recommend that 
 work be suspended, and the mine shut down, 
 pending a complete reorganization of the 
 force. The morale of the men is what 
 might be looked for as the result of ineffi 
 ciency, wasteful extravagance, and corrup 
 tion in the officers. I should recommend 
 the discharge of every man on the pay-rolls, 
 beginning with the manager and excepting 
 the doctor. At present the mine is run in 
 the interests of the manager and of the 
 Miners Union. The force includes some 
 of the most unscrupulous of the Idaho c Mol 
 lies, and in the existing state of feeling be 
 tween the Mine-owners Association and the 
 
THE LETTER. 143 
 
 unions the mine is regarded as a danger and 
 a menace to the peace of the community ; 
 and in the event of these troubles coming 
 to a crisis, demanding the presence of the 
 troops, I think it not unlikely that the mine 
 would be shut down by order of the district 
 commander. 
 
 "All this he submits respectfully, and 
 signs himself John Darcie Hamilton. 
 
 "Now, whether the charges against me 
 are true or false has nothing to do with the 
 question. Is this Darcie Hamilton entitled 
 to be called my guest, to enjoy the shelter 
 of my house, and the privilege of my daugh 
 ter s society ? Is she doing right by herself 
 and by me in making him her friend not 
 to speak of anything more? " 
 
 " Let me look at the letter," said Faith. 
 
 She held it in her trembling hands, trying 
 to fix her mind upon the last few sentences, 
 and to compare the written words with those 
 she had heard her father pronounce; she 
 turned to the date, and then she went back 
 again to the signature. 
 
 " Take it, please," she said, handing it to 
 
144 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 her father. " I think there is not much to 
 choose among us." 
 
 " I don t know what you may mean by 
 that. Include yourself if you think you 
 must do so, but stop there, if you please." 
 
 "I admit," said Faith, "that he is not 
 what I thought him. I don t understand. 
 We seem to have all gone back to barbarism. 
 As to the rest whether I sent the message, 
 or whether it was sent him falsely in my 
 name, it does not matter to me at 
 least. Believe what you like ; we shall 
 never know each other any more. As your 
 daughter I have only one last thing to ask 
 of you money enough to take me back to 
 my mother s people." 
 
 " You shall have all the money you want, 
 as you always have had; but as to going 
 back r you are crazy ! You can t go any 
 where now, unless you are expecting a regi 
 ment of troops to escort you." 
 
 At bedtime Faith was coming down the 
 long second-story passage when she met 
 Darcie, walking toward her listlessly, with 
 a tired, wandering step. He knew that she 
 
THE LETTEE. 145 
 
 had been with her father, and as he searched 
 her pale, downcast face he saw that some 
 new trouble was upon her, and his eyes were 
 full of love and beseeching sympathy. He 
 thought that she must have gone through 
 with enough since he had seen her last to 
 account for the change in her sensitive ex 
 pression. The question of the moment with 
 him was how he best could help her. He 
 held out his left hand, and waited for her 
 to speak. His look was utterance enough ; 
 but she would not meet his eyes. She 
 swerved slightly away from him, avoiding 
 his touch, and, as he called her by name in 
 the tone that he used for no name but hers, 
 she uttered just two words, " Oh, don t ! " 
 There was no mistaking the accent of repul 
 sion, almost of horror, with which they were 
 spoken. 
 
 " What is this ? " he asked, straightening 
 himself involuntarily under the shock. 
 
 " Your letter ! " she gasped. " Was it a 
 letter signed John Darcie Hamilton ? Was 
 that the letter you asked me to fetch that 
 you were meaning to send from this house ? " 
 
146 C(EUR &ALENE. 
 
 "Faith! Great Heavens! have you 
 opened my letter ? " 
 
 She looked at him dazedly, not denying 
 or attempting to reply; she was thinking 
 only of what he had done. 
 
 "It is not possible ! " he persisted, in 
 a heart-broken voice. "Faith, dear, you 
 could not have read my letter! I will 
 never believe you could do a thing like 
 that." 
 
 Then it came to her distinctly what it 
 was that he meant, and why he looked at 
 her in that strange manner. Alas! what 
 could it matter now ? " My faith for your 
 faith," she cried wildly, and ran past him, 
 and shut herself into her room. 
 
 Darcie stood awhile stone-still where she 
 had left him; then he dragged himself to 
 his own room, and sat upon the side of his 
 bed, trying to realize this impossible thing. 
 Yes, she had doubted him, and had taken 
 that way to satisfy herself. What she 
 thought of him, now that she had read the 
 letter, was a small thing compared with the 
 loss he had suffered in losing his image of 
 
THE LETTER. 147 
 
 her. He grew very cold, sitting there alone 
 in the dark, and his wound was aching 
 heavily. 
 
 At length Wan came in with a package 
 of medicine and a note from the doctor, who 
 could not see his patient again that night, as 
 he had expected. 
 
 The note said : - 
 
 " There is a row in town to-night ; most 
 of our boys are in it, but they will go back 
 to the mine (with considerable liquor aboard) 
 about midnight. I think, all things consid 
 ered, you had better be conspicuous by your 
 absence. Wan will take you over to my 
 place, where a friend will show you to your 
 new lodgings : they will be on the ground 
 floor. Wan is fly. I send you some 
 thing to make you sleep." 
 
 " Oh, yes," groaned Darcie ; " I shall 
 sleep to-night ! " 
 
 And Faith, on her knees at her bedside, 
 was whispering brokenly : " Lover and 
 friend hast thou put far from me, and mine 
 acquaintance into darkness . . . thou hast 
 made me an abomination unto them ! ; 
 
IX. 
 
 THE SPAKE BEDROOM AT THE DOCTOR S. 
 
 THE doctor s house was one of the earli 
 est dwellings erected at the mine. It had 
 been occupied at different times by various 
 officials of the Big Horn, including the man 
 ager himself, before his own six thousand 
 dollar colonial residence was built ; as min 
 ing-camp tenements go, it was considered a 
 snug little box for a single man. 
 
 In front were the doctor s office and dis 
 pensary, both opening upon a gallery the 
 long posts of which found a footing part 
 way down the gulch. There was barely 
 room at the back of the house for a team 
 to pass over a platform of heavy planking 
 that bridged the shallow chasm between the 
 kitchen door and the door of a fire-proof 
 cellar tunneled into the hill. 
 
 It was to this rear entrance, facing the 
 cellar, that Wan conducted Darcie on the 
 
THE SPARE BEDROOM. 149 
 
 evening of the 10th, the front, or office, 
 door being locked, and the rooms within 
 empty and dark. The house was shutter^ 
 less, but Wan did not omit the precaution of 
 drawing down the green linen shades before 
 lighting a lamp. 
 
 Darcie, listlessly accepting the doctor s 
 view of the situation, together with any so 
 lution of it that might have occurred to his 
 friendly ingenuity, asked no questions of his 
 guide; he cared as little what was to be 
 come of him as, at that moment, he cared 
 for his life; and after the customary ac 
 knowledgment of his services, Wan said 
 good-night, and left him alone in the doc 
 tor s kitchen. 
 
 The cat rose up from her bed, and patted 
 softly across the floor to inquire concerning 
 a stranger s presence, humping her sleepy 
 back and purring interrogatively. Darcie 
 stroked her with his left hand, but declined 
 her next confiding proposition, to leap upon 
 his knees. She continued to lavish feline 
 blandishments upon him, undiscouraged by 
 his indifference, passing and repassing his 
 
150 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 chair to rub her sides against his leg, clutch 
 ing the floor with one spread paw and then 
 the other, and breaking out into loud purr 
 ing at a casual look, or a touch of his hand. 
 After a time she gave him up as an instru 
 ment of creature comfort, and went back to 
 her carpet behind the stove. 
 
 The wind, sweeping down the gulch, 
 brought with it the deep diapason of the 
 forest, mingled with the fitful blare of a 
 stove-pipe funnel, which discoursed dismally 
 from the roof. Long, taut iron wires braced 
 the kitchen stove-pipe, and these also had a 
 voice the jar and tremor of rude harp- 
 strings, when the pent gusts smote them. 
 
 Darcie had sunk into a dream so deep 
 that he did not hear at first, and then 
 started on hearing, the cautious step of a 
 heavy man endeavoring to tread lightly on 
 the sounding platform outside, and the touch 
 of a groping hand on the door. 
 
 " Is this," he queried with himself, " the 
 6 friend who is to show me to my night s 
 lodging? He does not come like one who 
 is sure of his welcome." Then his face 
 
THE SPARE BEDROOM. 151 
 
 broke into a smile at the sound of Mike s 
 well-known whistle, a trifle more guarded 
 than usual, with a rising note of inquiry, as 
 if to ask, "Are you there, Darcie dear?" 
 
 Mike detected no change in the manner 
 of his partner, nor, at first, in his counte 
 nance, more than his hurt and subsequent 
 confinement might have accounted for, and 
 they began to chaff and berate each other 
 in the language in which men, surprised | 
 into strong feeling, seek to conceal the same. 
 
 " Was ye expectin me ? " asked Mike, 
 sinking his voice into the depths of his rich 
 est brogue. " Did the docther tell ye where 
 I was hid ? I 11 be bound ye niver axed 
 him ; for why would n t he tell ye, unless 
 the little gurl was by? I bet she was in it 
 the heft o the time, and ye niver gev me a 
 thought. But we betther be h istin out av 
 this. Sure, I m livin like Robi son Crusho 
 in a cave o me own as handy as a" pocket in 
 a shirt. There s grub for two, an the doc 
 ther was tellin me he d sind me a boarder. 
 He never mintioned your name, but I 
 whistled on the chanst. The docther is an 
 
152 CGEUR &ALENE. 
 
 honest man, entirely ; he s threated me 
 white. He had me loife in his hand the 
 night I borrowed a lodgin unbeknownst to 
 him, whin thim blagyards was chasin me 
 t rough the woods : an he just chucked me 
 the wink. Lay low, Mike, says he ; 
 4 there s betther men underground than 
 some that s on top. 
 
 " An now follow me into me diggin s ; 
 it s a pair o gophers we 11 be. I been 
 spreadin me toes a bit underground, feelin 
 for daylight by the back way. Up yon," 
 he added, pointing generally up the gulch- 
 side among the underbrush, "is the back 
 door av me gopher-hole. Hearts is thrumps, 
 but spades is our long shuit, me lad." 
 
 Without more elucidation of the facts con 
 veyed in these mixed metaphors, Mike un 
 did the hasp of the cellar door, and Darcie, 
 stooping, followed him into a place where 
 an odor of pine kindling-wood mingled with 
 that of freshly dug earth. 
 
 " I put out me light beca se I m not 
 keepin a public," Mike explained. " Stan 
 still in your thracks till I fasten the door, 
 
THE SPARE BEDROOM. 153 
 
 an thin we 11 see the color o night under 
 ground. 
 
 "This was the ould man s wine-cellar," 
 he babbled on, while making hospitable 
 arrangements for his boarder s comfort; 
 jabbing a miner s pronged iron candlestick, 
 in which he had placed a lighted candle, 
 into a beam of the cellar timbering, and 
 dragging forth a soap-box for a seat. 
 
 " T is a pity he did n t miss a two or t ree 
 dozen av beer whilst he was cleaiiiii up, or 
 a gallon av good whiskey. The docther, 
 honest man, he s good for free lodgin s and 
 grub and baccy, but he s niver said beer to 
 me wance since in it I come, and I don t 
 think it s maneness, but a touch o precau 
 tion, seein how some folks exceed themselves 
 that s oulder nor what I am. 
 
 " It s a dhry supper we 11 have, for it s 
 mostly canned stuff I m livin on, not havin 
 the means o conshumin me own shmoke 
 when I m cookin ." 
 
 It was after eleven o clock, and all was 
 yet silent outside, so far as the. deaf and 
 dumb walls of the cellar reported the sounds 
 
154 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 of the night. Darcie was lying on the 
 pallet of boards and blankets that Mike 
 had prepared for him, broad awake, and 
 staring in the darkness. His arm was ach 
 ing steadily, and he was thinking, thinking, 
 the black thoughts of grief at night, trying 
 the depths of his pain, and finding it very 
 deep indeed. He had forgotten all about 
 the doctor s poppy and mandragora. He 
 stretched forth his hand and felt for Mike s 
 shoulder, and shook the honest sleeper beside 
 him. 
 
 "Make a light, will you? I can t lie 
 here in the dark," he complained in an in 
 jured voice, as if Mike had several times 
 and persistently refused him the small boon 
 of a candle. 
 
 "What s the matter that ye cannot 
 sleep?" Mike inquired. "Is your arm 
 hurtin ye bad?" 
 
 " Everything is hurting me," Darcie spe 
 cified. " My arm weighs a ton, and every 
 pound is pulling on the small of my back, 
 and there s a sickish lump in my chest that 
 stifles me. Is it likely I can sleep ? " 
 
THE SPARE BEDROOM. 155 
 
 " That s a quare mess av symptoms ye 
 have. I snags, I dunno what to make av 
 it. Whisper, Darcie ! " - Mike coaxed, low 
 ering his tumultuous voice to a sentimen 
 tal aside that might have been heard, 
 barring the intervention of the cellar-walls, 
 across the gulch. " Have ye got it all fixed 
 wid your gurl ? Are ye in it ? " 
 
 " Don t talk to me ! " Darcie groaned, 
 turning his face away from the candle. 
 
 "Sure, twas yourself that was talkin . 
 What was / sayin ? Div l a word beyond 
 what s civil," Mike protested rather sulkily. 
 He lay silent, watching Darcie s face till 
 he could bear its changed expression no 
 longer. 
 
 " Oh, bad luck to thim ! What was ye 
 doin , anyhow, that they fired ye out, an 
 you no betther nor a sick choild ? " 
 
 " Shut up ! " shouted Darcie. " I fired 
 myself out." 
 
 " Musha, ye need n t be mad wid me ! 
 There s not a thing I won t take from ye, 
 the way ye are ; so pile it on. But what I 
 want to know is, and I m bound to know 
 
156 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 it, for I ve me plans to lay, will she be 
 comiii wid us whin we re ready to put out 
 o this?" 
 
 " She will not," said Darcie through his 
 set teeth. 
 
 " I dunno what she s made of, thin," 
 said Mike indignantly. He felt himself 
 belittled in the person of his partner, who 
 had been foolish enough surely, and had 
 risked enough for this particular girl to 
 have met with all possible success. " Thim 
 Ammerrykin girls is harrd as nails : I iiiver 
 seen wan o that small-waisted breed that 
 had as much blood in her as ye c u d squeeze 
 out av a turnip. They sits readin books 
 and huggin the stove the whole livin day. 
 There s no health nor iiayture in thim. 
 G way wid her ; I would n t break me pipe 
 for her ! Let her shtay wid the ould man, 
 that s a dishgrace to the mother that bore 
 him. Do ye mind how she piped up the 
 night I lep acrost the road ? 4 1 h ard ye, 
 Mike, says she, and I thought by the sob 
 o laughter in her voice, and the thrimble o 
 tears, that she had a woman s feelin s " 
 
THE SPAEE BEDROOM. 157 
 
 " Heaven save us, Mike, I wish you could 
 be quiet! I suppose you can t, though; 
 your tongue is hung in the middle." Dar- 
 cie wound the blanket around his sound 
 arm, and dragged it over his head. 
 
 Mike looked at him ruefully, and tried 
 hard not to talk, and for a time he succeeded ; 
 but he was broad awake now, and the excess 
 of his sympathy was too great a burden for 
 silence to bear. He was persuaded that 
 Darcie needed only another chance, and 
 some good advice how to use it, in order to 
 be happy. 
 
 " I think the trouble was ye talked too 
 much, Darcie," he resumed as gently as he 
 could articulate. " I think I hear ye at it 
 -talk an talk, and arg and arg ! Ye sat 
 there in the house, and ye had nothing else 
 to do. I d niver give them the chanst to 
 argy ; they can bate the divil at that. And 
 what had yez to talk about, that s barely 
 acquaint wid wan another s Christian 
 names ? No ; talkin s not in it." 
 
 Darcie flung off the blanket from his 
 face, and turned his eyes beseechingly on 
 
158 C(EUR D ALENE. 
 
 Mike. "Can t you leave off?" he im 
 plored. His lips quivered, his face was 
 deathly white in the yellow candlelight, and 
 points of fine perspiration stood out upon 
 his forehead. Mike felt like swearing great 
 oaths as he looked at his "little Darcie," 
 who was worth, in his opinion, all the girls 
 that ever " twisted braid." But what he 
 said was : " I m fair ashamed av ye ! Ye 
 look, this minute, like a whipped bantam 
 that s crawled away undher the curran - 
 bushes wid his head draggin in the sand. 
 Ah, quit your nonsinse ! A little chip av a 
 gurl ye had niver seen this day six weeks ! 
 Hould up your undher lip ; we 11 make it 
 yet," he bragged, with a cheerfulness that 
 fell on Darcie s spirits as a pelting spring 
 rain on that same whipped and discouraged 
 fowl to which Mike had compared him. 
 "We ll fetch her out o this. It s only 
 purtendin she was. Sure, she s no such 
 world s wondher herself that she can afford 
 to be so ch icy ! We 11 fetch her out wid 
 us, and there ll be a weddin in Spokane, 
 and I ll fling me ould brogans afther the 
 car ge. I 11 go barefut, but I 11 do it ! " 
 
X. 
 
 IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 
 
 WHAT occurred at Gem on the morning 
 of the llth of July is part of the history 
 of the labor troubles of the year 1892. 
 The hesitating disapproval that divided the 
 sentiment rather than the judgment of the 
 " order classes " toward the Pittsburgh 
 strikes had a misleading effect in the Coeur 
 d Alene. The demagogues who there rep 
 resented the power of the Miners Unions 
 were not comparative thinkers ; they did not 
 allow for the difference in the two situa 
 tions. They beheld merely the fact of this 
 doubtful verdict of the classes that are sel 
 dom in doubt which side to take in strug 
 gles of this nature, and they were enor 
 mously uplifted by it. Many of these men, 
 to judge them by their acts, should be called 
 anarchists rather than union men. If not 
 self-devoted to the principle of destruction, 
 
160 C(EUR D ALENE. 
 
 they devoted their fellow-laborer to be the 
 victim of that principle whenever his prole- 
 tarianism differed from their own ; and they 
 took action accordingly. 
 
 The car loaded with dynamite, which the 
 strikers had sent down the tramway for the 
 demolishment of the Frisco mill, had hung 
 fire, somehow, and disappointed their expec 
 tations ; but their next scheme was more 
 successful. 
 
 The water-power for the Frisco crusher 
 was introduced from a flume by means of a 
 long, up-slanting iron pipe called a " pen 
 stock," the upper end of which was accessi 
 ble from the hill above the mill and beyond 
 the mine s defenses. The strikers had 
 turned off the water the night before, and 
 now they proceeded to load up the mill with 
 combustibles from the company s magazine, 
 shoving the powder, wrapped in gunny- 
 sacks, down the penstock till they judged 
 the charge was sufficient. They set it off 
 about four o clock on the morning of the 
 llth, and the mill was blown into ruins, 
 its red boards scattered by that wind of 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 161 
 
 strife all over the startled country-side, and 
 a not unsatisfactory number of " scabs " 
 and their guards, who were in or near the 
 mill at the time, were killed or injured. 
 There was no pretense of sparing life ; the 
 object was to take it, that good service 
 might be rendered to the cause of uncondi 
 tional allegiance to the union by this awful 
 reminder of its power. The doctor re 
 marked, when he carried the news to the 
 refugees in his cellar, that it was like the 
 fable of the eagle wounded with a shaft 
 feathered from her own wing to "blow 
 up the bosses " with the powder they them 
 selves had paid for. 
 
 In the fight that ensued the non-union 
 men were overpowered by the numbers of 
 their assailants, and the owners, having no 
 defenses and no defenders left, surrendered 
 their property and the persons of their em 
 ployees to the leaders of the strike. The 
 non-union miners were disarmed, and 
 marched as prisoners to the miners hall, 
 there to be guarded until the sentence of 
 eviction from the country where they had 
 
162 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 1 presumed to earn a living independent of 
 labor organizations should be executed. 
 The agreement which the managers were 
 coerced into signing admitted the right of 
 the union to dictate what persons they should 
 solely employ and at what prices. This was 
 the famous " union ultimatum," and these 
 the means taken to enforce it in the Coeur 
 d Alene. 
 
 That friend of the workingman, Mr. Bing- 
 ham, was so impressed with the nature of 
 the crisis that he allowed himself to be in 
 fluenced into telegraphing to the military 
 authorities, adjuring them to hold back the 
 troops lest their presence in the inflamed 
 districts might precipitate threatened acts of 
 violence. This, practically, was a demand 
 from the union bosses, signed by the man 
 ager of an important mine, to be " let alone," 
 with the implied threat that, if not let alone, 
 trouble would ensue bridges be blown up, 
 and mines held down by dynamite would be 
 exploded, and the lives of innocent persons, 
 perhaps of Mr. Bingham, would be placed 
 in jeopardy. It is not probable that the 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 163 
 
 telegram had the slightest effect in delaying 
 the troops, but it was scarcely a true expres 
 sion of the sentiment of the greater portion 
 of the community, who were willing to take 
 the private risks and to bear the private 
 losses for the sake of public peace and se 
 curity. 
 
 The doctor had received, early on the 
 morning of that black Monday, a little note 
 from Faith questioning him timidly in these 
 words : 
 
 " Do you know where Mr. Darcie is ? He 
 left the house last evening without a word 
 to any one. As our guest, and a wounded 
 man, it is on my conscience that he may be 
 in danger. Any help that you could give 
 him in this awful time would be, I am sure, 
 only due him from us, at the mine where he 
 received his injuries." 
 
 The doctor replied briskly, but evasively, 
 and was careful to see that his note went 
 straight to its destination ; for, from the 
 appearance of Miss Bingham s missive, he 
 judged that it had been tampered with. 
 
164 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 MY DEAR Miss BINGHAM, I am much 
 more concerned for yourself than for any 
 young man guest, injured, or otherwise. 
 Darcie has got one good arm and a pretty 
 cool head ; he 11 get through. But you must 
 be aware that your father cannot protect 
 you in the present state of affairs, even if he 
 knew the way. He is completely terrorized 
 by the strike. I must be plain with you. 
 He knocked under, practically, months ago. 
 I would insist on your coming over here if I 
 were not liable to be called a dozen ways at 
 once, or if I were anybody but the " little 
 doctor." If the troops ever get in, things 
 will be different. In the mean time I have 
 a plan, and I don t know what moment I 
 may spring it on you ; so be ready in march 
 ing trim stout boots and a woolen frock 
 to start when you get the word. Some one 
 else who is going has got the route. Make 
 up your mind that I know, not what is best, 
 
 ;but what is the only way left. Your father, 
 Miss Faith, I regret to say it, is the 
 late Mr. Bingham.* This is cruel, but you 
 must see yourself that it is not safe nor 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 165 
 
 proper that you stay in that house any 
 longer. You must throw away all your pre 
 vious notions, however nice and ladylike. 
 The Coeur d Alene at present is not a sum 
 mer resort. 
 
 The doctor could not know how rapidly 
 the manager s household had been going to 
 pieces in the last four and twenty hours. 
 He had anticipated a hard time with Faith, 
 and he was speculating what other " pull " 
 he could bring to bear upon her. Suspect 
 ing much, but knowing nothing, of her rela 
 tions with Darcie, he dared not mention that 
 name to her ; but he mentioned her name 
 quite frankly to Darcie, that afternoon when 
 he paid a visit to his lodgers in the cellar, 
 and was struck by its obvious and painful 
 effect. 
 
 "He hasn t made it, I m afraid," the 
 doctor concluded, reverting in thought to 
 the "heart solo" that he had charged upon 
 Darcie. " No ; he has n t made it, and it s 
 taking every chip he s got to pay. The 
 poor boy s busted, I do believe ; and now 
 what becomes of my little plan ! " 
 
166 CCSUR D ALENE. 
 
 Nevertheless he broached his plan, for the 
 case of Faith, it seemed to him, was des 
 perate. 
 
 "Boys," said he in his cheeriest voice, 
 " we are going to have a regular monkey 
 and parrot time of it here till the troops get 
 in. The militia s all very well, and we 
 shall be powerful glad to see them, but how 
 do we know if they can stand up to these 
 Molly Maguires ? And I m not sure the 
 idiots won t blow up the bridges, or blow 
 up anything else. There is all Montana to 
 the back of em, and Butte is run by the 
 Miners Union. 
 
 " And Darcie, do you know, they have 
 found that missing letter of yours? The 
 gentle Abby helped herself to it, out of your 
 clothes, I guess ; that s the kind of house it 
 is at present. She has shared the contents 
 of it pretty generally among her friends 
 used it against you every way she can, to 
 justify their treatment of you, doubtless. 
 They did n t know exactly what they had 
 against you before, but now they know. 
 You must have hit them pretty hard in that 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 167 
 
 letter. I found this out about ten minutes 
 ago, and it struck me as a very nasty com 
 plication. I m in a hurry to get you gone. 
 They have marched on Wardner to deal 
 with the Bunker Hill and Sullivan as they 
 dealt with the Frisco; but if some one 
 should happen to ask, 4 Where is that British 
 spy ? or Where is big Mike, the bloody 
 scab? they could spare fifty men or so, 
 easy, on special duty, in a case like this ; 
 and if they should come up here by daylight, 
 your exit up the gulch would n t be so pri 
 vate as one could wish. 
 
 " Now, I propose you start not later than 
 to-night. I will have my horse up there in 
 the corral by the mouth of your winze, and 
 when you hear my usual clinkum-clankum 
 on the coal-hod outside the kitchen door, 
 take that for a signal the coast is clear. 
 Pack up a little grub, and remember the 
 trail is a bad one at night, and don t press 
 the pony ; where he hesitates, you had bet 
 ter get down and crawl. Mike knows how 
 amusing it is on the old trail, going round 
 Sunset Peak. You want to strike for Bea- 
 
168 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 ver Canon by the way of Carbon, and come 
 out at Charley Mead s place, the old placer- 
 camp on the river. And there, if you can 
 get a boat, you had better leave the road, 
 and take to the river. You will avoid 
 Kingston, which may be in the hands of the 
 strikers, and I don t think you could make 
 it by the road, anyhow, below the big jam, 
 such a road as it is, with a horse and a 
 wounded man and a girl." 
 
 " A gurl ! " echoed Mike, in blunt amaze 
 ment; then, catching the doctor s eye, he 
 held his peace, and went off to the far end 
 of the cellar, where he busied himself 
 noisily hauling boxes around, and taking 
 stock of provisions, in case they might need 
 to put in a fresh requisition for the journey. 
 " Miss Bingham must go with you," the 
 doctor was saying to Darcie in a cool, per 
 emptory tone. "I take the responsibility 
 of that myself." 
 
 Darcie was turning red and white, and 
 his knees were shaking under him. " Has 
 she said that she will go ? " he asked, avoid 
 ing the doctor s eye. 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 169 
 
 " I have n t asked her, and I don t pro 
 pose to. What does she know ? Of course 
 she d say she could n t go. It is time, now, 
 for the men to do something, if there are 
 any men left in this dastardly mine. Do 
 you know what the old man has done ? " and 
 the fiery little doctor exploded again over 
 the " cowardly telegram," which he said 
 was " a disgrace to the mine and to every 
 man connected with it." The doctor re 
 fused to set down that action of Mr. Bing- 
 ham s to the score of humanity, or concern 
 for the company s property, which shows 
 how loss of reputation in several ways may 
 destroy a man s credit in the few ways re 
 maining, and rob him of the last charitable 
 doubt. 
 
 " Did you ever read a story called Bet- 
 , ter Dead ? I don t know the name of the 
 crank who wrote it," the doctor added mod 
 estly, he was not literary in his tastes, 
 " but he hit on a good phrase right there. 
 I ve used it to my own satisfaction quite 
 frequently since I read the thing. There s 
 a friend of ours, not far from this, who were 
 
170 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 better dead. He is dead. The vital 
 spark has been out of him so long it s in 
 decent to have him around, and we may as 
 well be frank about it. I ve lived long 
 enough in the West not to have many pre 
 judices, but there are one or two things I 
 cannot stand. I can t stand a coward, and 
 I can t stand a man who does n t know how 
 to take care of his women-folks. To see a 
 girl like Miss Bingham mixed up with such 
 an outfit as that ! Now, if she can t be 
 taken out of this place any other way, I will 
 elope with her myself, and that might make 
 trouble in the family. But there s no need 
 of me when here are you two fellows, who 
 stood by her once before when the old man 
 went back on her. And she went under 
 fire for you, just as if she d been brought 
 up to it. Her conduct that night shows 
 what she can do if required. It s no slouch 
 of a trip I ve laid out for you, and I m 
 sorry, Darcie, you had the bad taste to get 
 shot, just as two arms would have been so 
 mortally convenient. I m afraid the jour 
 ney will be rough on you." 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 171 
 
 "It is no use, doctor," said Darcie qui 
 etly, in the bitterness of a despair that was 
 beyond word ; " she will never go in the 
 world not with me. They have shown 
 her that letter, and she thinks I have lied to 
 her ; moreover, I accused her to her face of 
 opening it, and reading it herself." 
 
 " That was pleasant," said the doctor 
 dryly. " Any other little endearments pass 
 between you ? Is this your international 
 style of courtship ? I ve wondered how you 
 Englishmen manage to get on so fast with 
 our girls ! 
 
 " Well, she is thinking about your safety, 
 now, purely on account of the reparation we 
 owe you at the mine. It is on her con 
 science that she wishes she knew where you 
 are. I have n t told her yet ; it s just as 
 well to let you stay on her conscience awhile 
 longer ; you 11 never be in a safer place, 
 and she has got to have something there. 
 But don t presume upon it. Has it occurred 
 by this time to your investigating mind that 
 there might be ways for a lady to come by 
 the contents of a letter, besides helping her- 
 
172 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 self to it ? Do you know that the old man 
 - 1 won t call him her father confronted 
 her with that information you have been col 
 lecting, and accused her of helping you to 
 get it, and of being your wile accomplish 
 generally ? on the word of Abby ! " 
 
 "Don t make it any worse, doctor!" 
 pleaded Darcie humbly. " I know she can 
 never forgive that shadow of a thought in 
 me. Yet it seemed, as she put it, a simple 
 statement of the fact." 
 
 "Of what fact?" 
 
 " That she had read my letter. I m not 
 defending myself " 
 
 "I should hope not," the doctor coin 
 cided, while Darcie was realizing that he 
 had purchased a great relief at the expense 
 of a deeper despair. " Suppose she had 
 read it? She was the judge whether she 
 could read it or not ; women seem to be able 
 to do things that men can t do, and vice 
 versa, if you ve noticed. Anyhow, when a 
 fact about a girl you believe in is im 
 possible on the face of it, I would n t 
 meddle with it ; especially if she furnished 
 
IN TIME OF WAR AND TUMULTS. 173 
 
 the fact herself. Women and facts are the 
 queerest things when they get thoroughly 
 mixed ; you have simply to choose between 
 your woman and your facts. In your case, 
 Darcie, I need n t say I d take the woman 
 every time." 
 
 " You would if it wasn t too late," said 
 Darcie. " It all comes to the same thing ; 
 she will never go with me. But if she 
 must go, perhaps she will go with Mike. 
 Tell her, doctor, that I m not going. I am 
 not going. I m going to stay and finish 
 my work. I came here to do it and I shuf 
 fled out of it for a selfish reason ; now I in 
 tend to see it through. I was a spy ; she 
 believes that I am one still. If needful I 
 will meet the fate of a spy ; it seems to be 
 meant for me." 
 
 " Oh, come off the roof, and do as you are 
 
 told ! The orders are, Women and wounded 
 
 to the rear. You will meet all the fate 
 you want between here and the Old Mission 
 to-morrow night. Now you need n t stand 
 there looking as pale as Mike s new pipe, 
 disputing what a girl will do or what she 
 
 , 
 
 
174 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 won t do. I 11 answer for the girl ; she 
 will be on hand, mind you, to start when 
 you start. You are to deliver her to my 
 wife, Mrs. William Simpson, at Spokane, 
 and telegraph me directly you arrive. I 11 
 be in to shake hands by and by. 
 
 "Mike, see that you cover up all that 
 fresh earth in the corner with ashes : it s 
 less conspicuous in case they get on to your 
 trail while it is hot." 
 
XI. 
 
 OUT OF THE GULCH. 
 
 IT is safe to say that if every ransomed 
 Christian in the Coeur d Alene had lived, ac 
 cording to the word that we preach to the 
 heathen, as simply, as fearfully, as Wan pur 
 sued his timorous way by the glimmer of 
 his perfumed joss-sticks, there would have 
 been no call for martial law. Yet Wan was 
 destined to be one of the chosen victims of 
 the labor question, his part in which, as a 
 proletarian, was little more considered than 
 that of the pony in the doctor s corral. 
 
 It fell out as the doctor had predicted. 
 The case of Mike and Darcie had been post 
 poned ; it was not forgotten. There came a 
 moment, in that hour of insane victory, 
 when it did occur to some of the Big Horn 
 men that there was a little job unfinished at 
 the mine. One or two of them who had 
 been concerned in the shooting on Tuesday 
 
176 COEUR D ALENE. 
 
 night were burning to avenge that silly fail 
 ure. 
 
 The trains were still running on the nar 
 row-gauge track between Gem and the mines 
 of Big Horn Gulch, but they were in the 
 hands of the strikers, and carried chiefly 
 armed men and munitions of murder. They 
 brought the posse of fifty men who had de 
 tailed themselves for special duty at the 
 mine. 
 
 Faith witnessed this ill-omened arrival 
 from the second-story gallery, where she was 
 walking alone in the starlight, herself being 
 unseen in the shadow of the roof. She 
 watched the movement of the men with anx 
 iety, and saw them in threatening consul 
 tation with Abby. Even as she listened to 
 the sound of their bodeful voices, her own 
 name was under discussion, and the men 
 were proposing to put her to the question 
 concerning the whereabouts of the spy. 
 
 " Don t bother with her ; it s time wasted 
 for nothing," Abby advised. " She was ask 
 ing Wan about him herself this morning, 
 and Wan was sulky and scared, and pre- 
 
OUT OF THE GULCH. 177 
 
 tended he didn t know. But I saw you 
 going away somewhere with him, says she. 
 That s what she said ; I heard her myself. 
 You bet he knows all there is to know! 
 You go find Wan." 
 
 The doctor also had witnessed the ominous 
 arrival, and was that moment in the cellar, 
 warning the refugees to be ready, and to 
 have out their light in case it should be seen 
 when the cellar door opened to admit the 
 unhappy girl who was going with them. 
 
 Darcie s heart was in his mouth with fear 
 and joy, and Mike s blood was bounding at 
 the thought of the wild night s flight in the 
 free, open darkness, and the deeds of daring 
 he might have occasion to display ; for Mike 
 had a warm Irish imagination, and he was 
 as vain of his valor as he was sure of it. 
 The doctor had omitted to mention, as a de 
 tail of his plan, that he had not as yet pre 
 sented the same to Faith. He was deliber 
 ately conspiring with the cruel circumstances 
 that beset the girl to capture all her scruples 
 at once ; there was no other way but to 
 harden his heart against doubts and com- 
 
178 C(EUE WALENE. 
 
 punctions, and to put confidence in the men 
 he had chosen in the place of her natural 
 protectors. The doctor was no bungling 
 judge of male character, and, in his opinion, 
 a man may be a young girl s natural protec 
 tor in other than the established way ; but 
 the doctor was not yet a father. 
 
 As he left the cellar, his ear was shocked 
 by a sound of pitiable screams and hoarse 
 brutal cries, and, looking across the gulch, 
 he saw, as in a vision of the " Inferno," a 
 wretched, struggling figure haled along at 
 the end of a rope, towed by a mass of men, 
 as fast as they could go over the rough 
 ground, in the direction of the secret tam 
 aracks. The person of the victim was 
 scarcely distinguishable, but the doctor knew 
 it coidd be only the miserable Chinaman ; 
 and a strange familiarity with the fact 
 crossed him, as if he had beheld the shame 
 ful scene before in some moment of prophetic 
 consciousness, and had always known that 
 such would be the end of Wan. 
 
 In that horror-stricken moment Faith had 
 flown to her father, forgetful of the breach 
 
OUT OF THE GULCH. 179 
 
 between them, and confident of his protection 
 for the wretched Wan. She could not yet 
 count him as naught, or quite believe, for 
 all the doctor s unrelenting summing up 
 of facts that were sadly in evidence, what 
 " a king of shreds and patches " was the 
 manager of the Big Horn. 
 
 At this after-dinner hour he was usually 
 clothed on with his evening liquor, and in 
 communicable to the pitch of surliness. It 
 was thus that she found him. He had risen 
 from his chair, and was moving with circum 
 spection from the table to the sideboard, when 
 his daughter s excited entrance startled him. 
 He let fall the key which he held that 
 very precious duplicate key of the sideboard 
 closet where his liquors and brandies were 
 kept, the possession of which he had thus 
 far been able to conceal from the vigilant 
 Abby. As it slipped from his fat, smooth, 
 shaking fingers, all that was left of his in 
 telligence groveled after it upon the floor. 
 
 " Father, father ! " cried Faith, rushing 
 upon him. " Come, come with me ! Oh, 
 rouse up, do ! Come out, and stop this fear 
 ful thing ! " 
 
180 CCKUE D ALENE. 
 
 Seeing no hope of comprehension in his 
 glassy, floating eye, which tried to fix hers 
 with a reprehensive frown, she seized him 
 and shook him passionately, trying to awaken 
 in that dead heart some spark of warmth 
 from the indignation that burned in her 
 own. 
 
 " Will you listen to that poor thing beg 
 ging for his life ! Do you want to have 
 your people murdered ! " 
 
 But the late Mr. Bingham simply stared, 
 working his empty fingers, feeling for the 
 lost key ; his mind was concentrated solely 
 on that interrupted journey to the sideboard. 
 
 " Keep way don talk sho lou ; where 
 sh it ? Only key I got. Abby fin she 
 I wha sh ll I do? " he whimpered. 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " shuddered the girl. 
 
 Mr. Bingham groped for the chair he had 
 imprudently forsaken, and seated himself 
 majestically upon the arm. The heavy 
 chair tipped with his weight. Faith helped 
 him to regain his seat. She stooped to 
 search for his key, dashing the tears from 
 her eyes. 
 
OUT OF THE GULCH. 181 
 
 " Here it is, poor father," she said, put 
 ting the key back into his hand. " There ; 
 have you got it ? Let me put it into your 
 pocket. See, you will lose it again." 
 
 It was all that he cared for ; so let him 
 have it, and find his way to the sideboard, 
 and so out of the world, where he was no 
 longer of any use. Faith could not have 
 reasoned in this cold-blooded fashion; she 
 acted on the impulse, simply, to do one 
 little thing for him that he wanted done be 
 fore she left him. If not that night, yet 
 she must leave him soon ; she could not 
 afford to be harsh with what was already a 
 memory, a grave. 
 
 There was yet one man in his senses, in 
 that distracted place, whose courage and 
 humanity could be counted on ; the doctor, 
 Faith knew, had returned to the mine. But 
 as she flew to seek him at his office he was 
 on his way to her, and thus they missed each 
 other by contrary paths in the dark. 
 
 The office was locked. Faith beat upon 
 the door with her bare hands, but got no 
 answer. Then she ran around to the kitchen 
 
182 CfEUM &ALENE. 
 
 door, which stood open, showing a light 
 burning in an empty house. 
 
 The doctor could not be far away, she 
 thought, and, stepping outside, she stood on 
 the platform and shrieked, "Oh, doctor, 
 doctor!" in a voice of anguish, which 
 brought, not the doctor, but Darcie Hamil 
 ton out of the cellar where her piercing cry 
 had reached him. He sprang to her side, 
 and put his good arm around her as the 
 simplest way of answering that there he was 
 if she needed him. 
 
 " What do you want of the doctor ? What 
 has happened? Dear, what is this horror 
 in your face ? " 
 
 "I thought you were gone," she said, 
 "days ago!" She had forgotten that it 
 was only the night before that he had left 
 her father s house : it seemed as if it might 
 have been years. 
 
 " We are going to-night," he answered. 
 " Have you not seen the doctor ? " 
 
 " No, no ; I cannot find him. They are 
 doing something dreadful to Wan, to make 
 him tell where you are and they are 
 
OUT OF THE GULCH. 183 
 
 not done with him. I must find the doc 
 tor !" 
 
 " They are done with him," said Darcie, 
 listening. "Hark! it s all quiet up the 
 gulch." 
 
 " What do you mean ? He is dead ? " 
 " He has told." 
 " What ! Does he know ? " 
 " Why, it was he who brought me here. 
 He 11 tell, you know, if that will save him," 
 Darcie explained. 
 
 The shock of this discovery, and its self- 
 evident consequences, left the poor girl no 
 strength wherewith to "counterfeit" any 
 longer, for pride s sake. It was the sim 
 ple truth that Darcie read in her face as 
 their sad eyes met, in the sincerity of a mo 
 ment that might be their last on earth to 
 gether. 
 
 " Go this instant ! Why do you stay 
 here ? Oh, mercy ! where can he go ? " 
 
 She tried to push him from her, while he 
 held her in a dream, hardly daring to be 
 lieve what her pale face told him. 
 
 " We were waiting for you, Faith dear. 
 
184 CCEUR VALENE. 
 
 The doctor said you were to go with us ; 
 but I said you would never go with me. 
 But would you go ? " he implored. 
 
 Here Mike s double bass interrupted, la 
 menting in a suppressed roar, " Musha, 
 musha ! the docther has not towld her a 
 word ! " 
 
 "If it s about my going don t say an 
 other word," pleaded Faith. " I would n t 
 go for all the world. I should only keep 
 you back. You d have no chance at all 
 with me along." 
 
 " And do you think that I am going if 
 you stay here?" said Darcie, half beside 
 himself with joy. 
 
 " But there s no danger here for me." 
 
 " It would be parting soul and body," he 
 said. 
 
 "Ye 11 not keep soul an body long to 
 gether av ye stay," said Mike. 
 
 " You break my heart," Faith cried dis 
 tractedly. " Those men will have no pity 
 and you have none to refuse me this 
 one chance for your life. Once more, will 
 you go? " 
 
OUT OF THE GULCH. 185 
 
 " Arrah, here comes the docther ! He s 
 the man we want," said Mike. 
 
 It was the doctor, in a panting hurry, half 
 choked for breath. 
 
 " Well, young woman ! So here you are, 
 and I Ve been all over the country looking- 
 for you. Well, boys, have you got this 
 thing all fixed?" 
 
 " It s bechune her an him," said Mike, 
 in despair. " She 11 not go for fear she d 
 delay us, an he 11 not go an 1 ave her, an 
 I 11 not shtir widout him ; an there ye have 
 it a caucus av fools if iver there was 
 one ! " 
 
 " Tut, tut ! what a waste of time ! If she 
 won t go, she won t, and there s an end of 
 that. Your legs are your best friends now, 
 boys. Get in there ; all ashore that s go 
 ing. 
 
 " Come, Darcie, don t make this kick 
 now, and ruin everything. I know it s 
 hard," the doctor whispered, with his hand 
 on Darcie s shoulder, " but, Lord ! man, 
 you re not the only friend she s got ! 
 Trust me, we 11 get her safe out of this ; 
 
186 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 they don t exterminate the girls. I 11 bet 
 you fifty dollars you cross the lake with her 
 to-morrow night. How s that ? Do you 
 want any better chance than that to plead 
 for your sins? Give her a kiss now, and 
 get along with you ! They are headed down 
 the gulch," said the doctor to Mike. " In 
 about five minutes you can break cover. 
 I 11 delay them all I can." 
 
XII. 
 
 THE EXPULSION. 
 
 ME. BINGHAM was very weary of his 
 paternal joys. If a selfish motive had been 
 at the bottom of his sudden late demand for 
 his daughter s society in the West; if he 
 had fancied that it would impart a trifling 
 zest to his jaded existence to have youth 
 and beauty near him, and increase his popu 
 larity with his brother mine-owners at a 
 critical time, he had been properly disap 
 pointed in the sequel. The cloud of sus 
 picion that rested on the mine had never 
 lifted ; the time had not been suited to an 
 exchange of hospitalities, even with a beau 
 tiful young daughter to be introduced to the 
 society of the camps ; and all the brightness 
 Faith had brought with her to the Big Horn, 
 and that promise of adaptability that her fa 
 ther had welcomed in her, had been extin 
 guished under the burden of himself and his 
 
188 C(EUE D ALENE. 
 
 elderly failings which she had taken upon 
 her virgin conscience. It was simply keep 
 ing a recording angel in the house for his 
 sole and personal benefit ; one who wept, 
 perhaps, but never " dropped a tear " upon 
 the page where her father s slips were un 
 falteringly set down. The grief of his angel 
 had never interfered with the strictness of 
 her record. It was preposterous ! He smiled 
 with sardonic enjoyment of the joke that he 
 was to be reformed, at his time of life, ac 
 cording to the "maiden aunt" school of 
 training. But it was also a beastly annoy 
 ance; it sent him, often, to the society of 
 those familiars which he kept under lock 
 and key in his sideboard closet. With his 
 daughter presiding, conscience-wise, over 
 personal habits, and with Darcie Hamilton 
 investigating his business management, it 
 was no wonder that a frail - minded old 
 gentleman, with a rather darkling record, 
 should have gone off somewhat in his tem 
 per. Heaven and earth ! was he to be 
 baited by children ? 
 
 He had said to Faith that she could not 
 
THE EXPULSION. 189 
 
 go, without extraordinary precautions for 
 her safety, in the excited state of feeling 
 at the mines ; but this had been merely for 
 the purpose of reminding her that she was 
 not quite mistress of the situation free to 
 repudiate her father, and depart from him 
 whenever he should have paid for her ticket 
 eastward. As a fact, she was not half so 
 anxious to go as was he to have her ; he did 
 not desire her presence in his house, either 
 as monitor or witness, any longer. She had 
 seen too much already, considering her gen 
 eral intelligence and her uncompromising 
 way of looking at things. She must go back 
 to the East, where in a short time such 
 frank incidents as the ordeal of Wan and 
 the ambushing of Darcie Hamilton in the 
 tamaracks would appear to her as incredible 
 as the nightmare visions of a fever. And 
 that she might not unwisely recall her 
 visions in speech, he had, in that last pain 
 ful interview in the library, taken measures 
 to make her very tired of the subject of 
 Darcie Hamilton. On this point at least 
 he was easy. 
 
190 CGEUR D ALENE. 
 
 As to Darcie, that young gentleman had 
 been vastly busy at the manager s expense : 
 he had formulated some dangerous discov 
 eries ; incidentally he had made rapid love 
 to his daughter. Between business and 
 pleasure he had been going very much at 
 large. But he had been careless, as the too 
 sure-footed are apt to be. If the Big Horn 
 directors chose to send their younger sons, 
 masquerading as honest miners, into the 
 Creur d Alene, they must post them better 
 upon the local institutions. "Monkeying 
 with the buzz-saw" was pastime for chil 
 dren compared with a conflict of opinions 
 with the Miners Union in the summer of 
 1892. Mr. Bingham proposed to shift his 
 personal responsibilities frankly upon the 
 union. If Darcie should never reach Lon 
 don with his verbal report (the documents 
 were in Mr. Bingham s hands), and an 
 international correspondence, transcending 
 questions of business, should ensue, the 
 manager was prepared to wash his own 
 hands, and to point to the guns in the hands 
 of his irrepressible allies of the union. The 
 
THE EXPULSION. 191 
 
 trade-unions have thus suffered always, and 
 ever will suffer most, at the hands of their 
 so-called friends. 
 
 And now we come to the last scene be 
 fore the close of the war, the deportation 
 of the " scabs," including a few non-com 
 batants, among whom was Faith. Record 
 ing angels, recorders of the truth of any 
 sort, were not in demand at that time in the 
 Coeur d Alene ; the victors proposed to re 
 cord matters to suit themselves. 
 
 On the twelfth day of July there were 
 gathered at the Mission some sixty or 
 seventy non-union miners, prisoners from 
 the surrendered mines, awaiting transpor 
 tation across the lake, and out of the Coeur 
 d Alene. The fast little lake-boat Georgia 
 Oakes was unaccountably many hours be 
 hind her usual time, and there were no 
 officials at the landing, in her service, who 
 could be interviewed on the subject of this 
 delay. Rumors passed from mouth to 
 mouth, and it was whispered, " She is held 
 back under military orders ; she will bring 
 the troops ! " But so many contradictory 
 
192 CCEUE &ALENE. 
 
 telegrams had been flying across the wires, 
 which were now controlled by the union, 
 that the hope was barely breathed so 
 many were the counter-doubts and fears. 
 
 The old Mission is one of the most dream 
 like spots ever chosen by travel as the tryst- 
 ing -place of a steamboat and a railroad. 
 The Northern Pacific lake-steamer and the 
 narrow-guage railroad, a noisy adventurer 
 from the mountain camps and roaring 
 canons of the Coeur d Alene, here transact 
 their daily meetings with the utmost pub 
 licity ; yet, to land upon the wharf -boat and 
 to step aboard the train is to stroll (by steam 
 upon a steel pathway) between the " fields 
 of sleep," beside the " waters of forgetful- 
 ness." The charming place, in its deep, 
 sweet, sunshiny seclusion, seems to have 
 been half reluctantly yielded by nature long 
 ago to the temporary occupation of man, 
 and then fondly reclaimed into her own wild 
 tendance. The Mission meadows are as 
 rich as those upland pastures where the 
 milk-white hulder maidens of the northern 
 legend fed their fairy herds. The wild flow- 
 
THE EXPULSION. 193 
 
 ers in their beauty unite the influences of 
 the West and the North, with the breath of 
 the soft chinook to atone for the neighbor 
 hood of snow-slides. The river slips in si 
 lence past bowers of blossoming shrubs and 
 leaning birches, and sombre pines lift their 
 dark spires out of the tender mass of de 
 ciduous green. 
 
 In it all there is an effect of abiding peace 
 strangely in contrast with some of the scenes 
 which the historic Mission has been called 
 to witness. Needless to say, it is the ideal 
 resort of the summer excursionist, whether 
 he come for fishing or flirtation, or to search 
 the poetic past, or merely from the common 
 gregarious instinct of a people that loves to 
 do everything in crowds. But it was no 
 holiday company gathered this day at the 
 Mission. The greater number were men 
 who carried their worldly goods in their 
 hands : they wore their best clothes, and their 
 latest-earned wages were in their pockets : 
 but the thought was not wanting that safety, 
 and life itself, had been risked for those few 
 dollars which they were taking with them, 
 
194 C(EUR &ALENE. 
 
 and that they were passing out of the country 
 under a shameful ban. There was no Trav 
 eler from Altruria to ask: Who are these 
 decent poor men? Why have they come 
 here, and why do they go, by a common, sad 
 impulse, as if through c ear and force ? And 
 if so, who compels t em? And what is 
 their offense that they should be looked at 
 askance and herded apart, like tainted cat 
 tle ? A deeper question, this would be, than 
 most of us are prepared to answer. Even 
 the facts can hardly be trusted to answer; 
 for facts are cruel, and they frequently lie,, 
 in the larger sense of truth. Hence it is 
 with extreme reluctance that one approaches 
 the story of what was done at the Mission 
 on the night of July 12, during the labor 
 troubles of 1892. The inferences must 
 speak for themselves ; no one would dare to 
 be responsible for the logic of these cruel 
 facts, which seem to accuse generally, yet 
 really accuse only a few the blind guides 
 and faithless shepherds who were condemned 
 in the communities where they are best 
 known, and were brought to an inadequate 
 
THE EXPULSION. 195 
 
 punishment, but were afterward set free, 
 through a technicality of the law, which in 
 effect pronounced them guiltless. These are 
 not " laboring-men ; " but they are clothed 
 and fed by laboring-men, who in turn are 
 betrayed by their injurious counsels. 
 
 The rank and file of the non-union prison 
 ers were of the ordinary class of Western 
 miners who " pack " their blankets from 
 camp to camp ; but among the number were 
 several men of better condition, and of more 
 than average ability and intelligence, who 
 had held responsible positions at the mines ; 
 and these, as if conscious of unfriendly ob 
 servation, both aboard of the train, where 
 union men, armed with Winchesters, sat in 
 the same car with them, and at the Mission, 
 after the guards had left them and returned, 
 - kept apart by themselves, and were quiet 
 and wary. 
 
 Michael Casson, ex-foreman of the Cal 
 trop, one of the upper-country mines, had 
 his wife and children with him on the train. 
 The wife, a comely, high-spirited woman, 
 with well-seasoned nerves, but a soft heart in 
 
196 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 trouble, kept a motherly watch upon Faith, 
 coming down in the same car with her from 
 Wallace. Faith was known to be Manager 
 Bingham s daughter, leaving the country 
 under the special protection and guarantee 
 of the union leaders ; but the signs of recent 
 trouble in her tear-flushed face aroused Mrs. 
 Casson s sympathies, and that neighborly 
 woman soon discovered that the manager s 
 daughter, notwithstanding her fashionable 
 dress, prosperous connections, and look of 
 delicate pride, was very much alone, and 
 very warmly disposed toward the ostracized 
 portion of the laboring community to which 
 Mrs. Casson and her "man" belonged. 
 Hence a sudden and, on Faith s part, rather 
 hysterical intimacy. The voice of the kind 
 woman, speaking with the rich, sympathetic, 
 Irish intonation, touched the chord that 
 vibrates in sobs or laughter. Sometimes 
 Faith s eyes filled, sometimes she laughed, 
 at Mrs. Casson s delicious, hearty talk. 
 The train rumbled on between the river and 
 the mountains, thundering over its bridges, 
 and the green, fair vista of the Mission 
 
THE EXPULSION. 197 
 
 opened. The outbound passengers disem 
 barked and gathered in groups, or scattered 
 till the moment of departure. 
 
 At the Mission Mrs. Casson s children 
 had to be fed. Faith was not enticed by the 
 sort of meal that the Mission set forth that 
 day to its seventy visitors : anything at all, 
 at a good round price, was right for the 
 scabs ; the Mission did what it could to re 
 tain a little of that apostate money in the 
 land of the faithful. But Nature offered 
 them her own refreshment flowers, and 
 deep, soft grass to lie upon and shed the 
 light of her jocund sunshine upon their re 
 cent troubles, and upon the anxious future 
 before them ; and the habit of making the 
 best of a bad outlook was the habit of them 
 all. 
 
 Faith had idly extended her acquaintance 
 to a chatty little lad, one of the rising hopes 
 of the Mission, who, having his time much 
 at his own disposal, was pleased to bestow it 
 largely upon her. He was a wise child in 
 the happiest sort of knowledge that of 
 the "footpath way." He took her across 
 
198 CGEUE D ALENE. 
 
 the meadows, where the blue camass flower 
 was just falling from over-bloom. They 
 crept under the boughs along the river, and 
 loaded themselves with wild roses, pale and 
 red, and every shade of pink between. He 
 told her the names of the new flowers, as he 
 knew them, and she likened them to other 
 flowers at home. She noted the strange 
 character of the river, which here at the 
 Mission is not like a mountain stream, but 
 cuts into the rich bottom-land, deep and 
 still, like a Southern bayou, and has no 
 beaches, but only banks, which drop off 
 suddenly into thirty feet of water, or put 
 forth a toe of tree-roots overlaid with dried 
 mud where driftwood gathers, or great 
 logs, traveling down-stream, halt as at a 
 landing-place. Lovely reflections line the 
 ! (shores, binding the land and water together 
 in an inverted borderage of green, with a 
 clear sky pattern down the middle stream, 
 dashed out of sight by the breeze, or return 
 ing again like a smile. 
 
 They crossed to the knoll, where stands 
 the old church of the Mission, built in the 
 
THE EXPULSION. 199 
 
 days of intrepid zeal, where, in the deep 
 forest wilderness, want of skill or want of 
 tools was no determent, and men wrought 
 with faith and their bare hands in the sin 
 cerity of wood and imperishable stone. The 
 priest s house, adjoining the church, and a 
 shabby modern foil to its ancient dignity, 
 was closed, and Faith was forced to aban 
 don her desire to enter the church of the 
 fathers; but they sat upon the steps, the 
 odd young pair, and talked of the past. 
 The little boy was not much of an histo 
 rian : Faith did not put implicit confidence 
 in his tales of Father de Smet, who was 
 dead, that at least was true, and of 
 Father Josette, who was still of the living. 
 She knew, perhaps, quite as much about the 
 history of the " old church " as he did, born 
 in its shadow. But there were other sub 
 jects of contemporaneous and imperative in 
 terest on which he could offer her a few 
 surprises. He had gathered that he was 
 talking with no less a personage than the 
 young lady of the Big Horn, and, for 
 reasons which we know, the name of her 
 
200 C(EUR D ALENE. 
 
 father s mine inspired this wise child of the 
 union with the fullest faith in her as a par 
 tisan, notwithstanding that he had seen her 
 consorting with scabs. So he poured forth 
 his tale without hesitation to behold her 
 stare at him in incredulous horror ! 
 
 What was this he was saying? she 
 demanded; but the child drew back, and 
 would not repeat his words. He had made 
 a very great mistake ; he now became con 
 fused, distrustful, and unhappy; they were 
 no longer company for each other. 
 
 Faith sought an opportunity, later, when 
 they were out of hearing of the other pris 
 oners, to repeat the child s astounding con 
 fidence to Mr. Casson. 
 
 "Do you think such a thing could pos 
 sibly be true?" she cried excitedly. 
 
 "Why, you may say, after what we ve 
 seen, that anything is possible," Mr. Cas 
 son began guardedly. "There s bad men 
 everywhere, and in a time like this they 
 naturally get bold, like thieves at a fire; 
 but it s a thing the union leaders would 
 try to prevent, I m sure, if they got wind 
 
THE EXPULSION. 201 
 
 of it. They have the whole thing in their 
 hands now, and whatever happens, the 
 blame of it lays at their door. They have 
 done the preachin , and they ll get the 
 credit for whatever sort of practice it ll 
 lead to. They can t afford to let such a 
 thing happen. No, miss ; it s more likely 
 some mean talk the child has heard, and is 
 givin it away for earnest ; else he was just 
 tryin it on for fun, to see if he could 
 frighten you." 
 
 " Oh, no ; he did n t think I would be 
 frightened," said Faith. "He thought I 
 would be pleased. That was the dreadful 
 part of it. It was I that frightened him. 
 I could n t make him say it over again after 
 he d seen how I took it. I suppose he 
 thought that no one belonging to the Big 
 Horn could have a spark of sympathy for a 
 non-union man." 
 
 " Call them scabs, miss ; don t spare 
 the word on my account. It s a name I 
 bear in honest company. If any of them 
 dynamite divils should fall upon us to-night, 
 and we without a weapon on us, leavin 
 
202 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 the country peaceable under promise of our 
 safety, why it makes no matter to me 
 what name they choose to kill me by. The 
 law has a name for them that s as old as 
 the commandments ; and maybe the law 
 will be heard from again, some day, in the 
 Cor de Lane." 
 
 " Then you will not make light of it, Mr. 
 Casson, even if you can t believe it ? " 
 
 " I will not make light of it, miss ; 
 neither will I spread it, to make a panic. 
 And I ll ask you, if you please, not to 
 breathe a word of it to Mrs. Casson ; she s 
 easy excited, and no wonder, after what 
 she s been through. I would n t mention 
 it to any one, for fear it would get about." 
 
 " I shall see no one to repeat it to," said 
 Faith. "I shall stay here until the boat 
 gets in." 
 
 They were walking under the trees that 
 interspersed the wild, park-like common, 
 between Mission station and the landing, 
 where the river makes a sharp bend. To 
 the right, between the railroad track and 
 the dark-blue shadows of Fourth of July 
 
THE EXPULSION. 203 
 
 Canon, stretch the beautiful Mission 
 meadows, bathed in sunlight, where the 
 deep summer grass, ripe for mowing, was 
 lazily rolling in the breeze. 
 
 " And what would you be stay in here 
 for, miss, if I might make so bold ? " Casson 
 inquired. 
 
 "I am looking for two friends of mine 
 who are coming down the river, hoping to 
 get here in time for the boat," said Faith. 
 " I can see them from here as soon as they 
 pass the bend." 
 
 " And would n t they be stopping above 
 by the station ? " 
 
 "No," said Faith; "they must not be 
 seen. I must tell this to tliem^ Mr. Casson, 
 for they are hunted men ; they have not 
 even the safeguard of disarmed prisoners." 
 
 " Do ye mean that they are fixed to 
 fight?" 
 
 "I do ; and they would fight if they saw 
 these poor men attacked. How could they 
 help it, even if they threw their lives away ! 
 They must not be seen, and they must not 
 see. But they must know all that there is 
 to tell. I must tell them." 
 
204 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 "That s right," said Casson gravely; 
 " but there s others can tell them. What 
 might be their business in the Cor de 
 Lane?" 
 
 " Mining. That is, one is a miner. The 
 other is a sort of miner an amateur." 
 
 " I would n t advise any man to be minin 
 in the Cor de Lane this year, unless miiiin 
 is his business ; there s neither love nor 
 money in it for fancy miners, and it s not 
 healthy for them that s sure ! " said Mr. 
 Casson. 
 
 " Yes," Faith assented. " He fell under 
 suspicion of the union from the first, and 
 they warned him to leave, but he would not 
 go. And then they took means to get rid 
 of him quietly, but they did not succeed the 
 first time. Do they ever give such a thing 
 up?" 
 
 " T would be safer for them to finish the 
 job," said Casson. 
 
 " What should you advise them, Mr. 
 Casson, supposing anything even that 
 this story cannot be true? What should 
 you say they had better do?" 
 
THE EXPULSION. 205 
 
 " I would advise them to stay with their 
 boat, and not set foot on shore till the 
 steamer s at the landin ." 
 
 "Mr. Casson?" Faith implored, study 
 ing his face. He was as inscrutable as if 
 he were talking to a child. Still, she was 
 sure that she could trust him. 
 
 "Ye need not be questionin me, miss. 
 I know the men," he answered to her look. 
 " But it s just as well not to be namin 
 names. The very leaves of the trees will 
 whisper it." 
 
 "I call them my friends," Faith need 
 lessly explained, "because they were very 
 good to me once I would do anything in 
 the world ! " 
 
 " Surely ye would," Mr. Casson inter 
 rupted easily ; " and if they were not your 
 friends, a life is a life, though it s only 
 the life of a scab or a 4 spy. Faith 
 colored hotly at the word. " Ye need not 
 fear me, Miss Bingham. I ve had a taste 
 of their language myself. I m a thrai- 
 tor, a wage-slave, I m 4 bought an sold 
 for the bread that goes into me children s 
 
206 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 mouths. I m an excreslience on a healthy 
 laborin community, to be sloughed off like 
 the foulness of disease. I m as fond of the 
 Miners Union that s bossin this country 
 as Mike McGowaii is, and they 11 make as 
 much out of me, just, if they come askin 
 me questions. Now ye leave me to watch 
 out for the boys, and I 11 tell them anything 
 at all ye want." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Casson ; I trust you 
 perfectly, but I cannot let you do it. They 
 stood by me, and I will stay by them. It 
 may be the one thing I am here to do ; and 
 you have your wife and children." 
 
 "They re not meddlin with women and 
 children. Ye had better leave the men to 
 me." 
 
 " I could n t, Mr. Casson," said the girl, 
 with sad persistence. She was distressed 
 by his questioning regard, and blushed for 
 her own disingenuousness. " We have had 
 a fearful time at the mine," she went on, 
 leading him away from the tenderer subject. 
 " Did you hear about our poor Chinaman ? " 
 
 " I did, miss ; and a wonder they left the 
 
THE EXPULSION. 207 
 
 life in him so long. Sole an lone he was, 
 the only Chinyman in the Cor de Lane, 
 so I hear; and only for Abby Steers not 
 wantin to do her own work he d have been 
 fired, they say, the same as all the rest, be 
 fore he d barely set foot in it ; for what that 
 woman says is law with the union boys." 
 
 " Oh, she s a terror ! " exclaimed Faith. 
 " The times have brought her out. But we 
 have some very bad men at the mine, and 
 they are the ones who seem to have all to 
 say. I suppose it would not be safe to dis 
 charge them, now. My father simply has 
 to endure the things they do, until he can 
 get support for his own authority." Out 
 wardly, Faith was still on the defensive in 
 regard to her father s position. " Did you 
 hear about the shooting?" she asked in a 
 low voice. 
 
 "I did," said Casson shortly. He did 
 not admit her plea for the martyred author 
 ity of Manager Bingham ; he conceived him 
 quite as did the rest of the mining commu 
 nity, in his mixed character of the bat in 
 the fable, posing between bird and beast till 
 
208 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 the outcome of battle should decide to which 
 kingdom it was safest to belong. A bat he 
 was, and nothing but a bat, and neither 
 birds nor beasts would own him. 
 
 " One of the men I am watching for is he 
 the one who was wounded," said Faith, 
 averting her face. " I don t know what 
 state he may be in, after such a journey. 
 It would be hard upon a well man, last 
 night, through the timber, across those wild 
 divides, and around Sunset Peak before it 
 was light ; and to-day, in the hot sun, com 
 ing down Beaver Canon ; and then in some 
 sort of boat on the river ! Do you think 
 that Mike McGowan can row ? " 
 
 "They d be polin , not rowin , in a 
 dugout, whilst the river is shallow ; and be 
 low they 11 come fast enough with the cur 
 rent, just keepin her head down-stream. 
 Ye would n t maybe like to have Mrs. Cas- 
 son bide here with ye ? She d be as good 
 as a doctor for him and I m loath to leave 
 ye wanderin here by yourself." 
 
 In reply to this fatherly suggestion Faith 
 only blushed miserably, and shook her head. 
 
THE EXPULSION. 209 
 
 " I hope we shall all be together, crossing 
 the lake to-night," she said u all of us 
 whom the Coeur d Alene has no use for." 
 But she did not move from her post. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Casson, who saw that 
 she was bent on having her own way with 
 her friends, " I wish them safe out of this, 
 and all of us the same. But don t you let 
 that child s prattle be runnin in your head. 
 It s not a thing any one could believe 
 not even of them." 
 
 " Not of the men who blew up the Frisco 
 Mill ? " asked Faith, with a woman s parti 
 san relentlessness. 
 
 Mr. Casson would not admit the thought, 
 or pretended that he would not. " Think 
 of it ! " said he. " Think how a massacree 
 would sound in print ! We re not quite bad 
 enough for that, union or non-union ; men 
 has their feelin s. They d draw the line at 
 promiscuous shootin at unarmed men." 
 
 " I think dynamite and giant powder 
 are 1 tolerably promiscuous," bitterly argued 
 Faith. But she was comforted, neverthe 
 less, by Mr. Casson s pretense of unbelief. 
 
210 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 He walked away toward the landing to 
 watch for a sight of the boat. Once he 
 looked back at her and seemed to hesitate, 
 but then he walked on. "They d never 
 touch a woman," he said to himself. 
 
 Faith continued to pace the short grass 
 under the trees, watching for her friends. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE MASSACKE. 
 
 THE shadows, at this hour, had gained a 
 portentous length ; they laid long fingers 
 across the fields, pointing darkly toward the 
 canon. " About sunset," the child had 
 said. 
 
 Up at Wallace and at Gem the rumor 
 was flying that the negro troops from Mis- 
 soula had marched around the burned 
 bridges, and were coming in by way of Mul- 
 lan, to gather the non-union men, and 
 to bring them back and protect them in 
 their places ; and the union had sworn that 
 the thing should not be. Therefore there 
 should be bloodshed that night at the Mis 
 sion ; not a " scab " should be left for the 
 " niggers " to bring back. For " scabs " to 
 be forced upon them by " niggers " was an 
 aggravation of injury by insult which the 
 pride of these valiant Irish leaders could 
 not brook. 
 
212 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 This was the story of the confiding little 
 boy at the Mission, told in the simple faith 
 of one who believes that his friends can do 
 no wrong ; all the bad men were on the other 
 side. Not a shadow or a stain of its cruel 
 meaning seemed to have touched his child 
 ish apprehension. 
 
 Faith was unhappy and fearful in her 
 mind ; yet she tried to comfort herself - 
 the thing was, as Mr. Casson had said, too 
 monstrous, too suicidal, a disgrace for the 
 union leaders to permit to touch their or 
 ganization, still less to invite as a means 
 of discipline. The sun was getting low. 
 Faith rebuked her impatience by turning 
 her back on the up-stream view, and, taking 
 a longer stroll toward the landing, resolved 
 not to look around again till the sounds 
 she yearned to hear announced her friends ; 
 but no new sound broke the quiet stir of 
 the leaves and the softly moving water. 
 She grew sick with suspense. They would 
 not come in time to get her warning ; else 
 they would not come at all and what 
 could have happened ! This was a day 
 when one might not talk of a morrow. 
 
THE MAS SAC BE. 213 
 
 Suddenly, close inshore, making for the 
 next bend across a loop of the river, a long, 
 sharp canoe, or dugout, shot by, loaded 
 with disaster ; for Mike stood balanced, 
 alone, guiding the slim craft, and along the 
 bottom, stretched upon his back, lay a man, 
 helpless, motionless, a shape with the face 
 hidden. What did the coat conceal that 
 covered the face? Was it death? There 
 was enough of Darcie there for Faith to 
 recognize. He was coming to meet her at 
 the Mission, and this was the fate he had 
 encountered on the way. 
 
 "Oh, Mike oh, stop!" she groaned, 
 upon her knees on the bank, stretching her 
 arms out above the water. The breeze 
 shook the bushes ; the dismal load shot by. 
 Mike had not heard her choking cry or seen 
 her gesture of anguish. Gathering herself 
 up, she stumbled through the grass, past 
 the trees, that delayed her like idle, curious 
 persons crowding upon one in a moment of 
 extreme distress ; but by the time she had 
 rounded the loop by land, Mike had crossed 
 it by water as the bow-string measures 
 
214 CCEUE IPALENE. 
 
 the bow, had landed his freight under the 
 bushes in the shade, and was already out of 
 sight beyond the lower bend. 
 
 A wind was rising, spreading the rapid 
 coolness that precedes a summer gale. The 
 bushes were beating wildly, leaves and dust 
 and blossom petals were flying, and dark 
 wind-tracks streaked the meadows ; but the 
 waveless river only shuddered, and crept by 
 in silence. 
 
 Darcie was lying on his back, staring at 
 the green boughs overhead ; the coat lay 
 over his chest, and its folds perceptibly rose 
 and fell. This was Faith s first assurance 
 that he breathed. In the shock of so sud 
 den, so complete a release from so great a 
 fear, for the moment she forgot her warning. 
 He looked at her stupidly at first, then a 
 little wildly, and then with an eager smile 
 he flung his hand out toward her upon the 
 grass. Yet something in his manner she 
 I missed something that she had looked to 
 see on their meeting again ; missed it, and 
 drew back from her instinctive first ad 
 vances. 
 
THE MASSACRE. 215 
 
 He knew her, but had placed her at the 
 beginning of their brief, intense acquain 
 tance ; all between was oblivion. His love 
 spoke, and his need of love, in his dumb 
 eyes ; but he was silent, troubled, and took 
 nothing for granted. It was useless to 
 question him as to how he had arrived at 
 this phase of his condition. Investigating, 
 as his nurse, Faith discovered that there 
 had been a fresh hemorrhage from his 
 wound; the sleeve and breast of his shirt 
 beneath the coat were soaked with blood. 
 Weakness, thirst, and delirium had fol 
 lowed, but not fever, so far as she could 
 judge. He was bareheaded, and she looked 
 in vain for his hat to fetch him water in 
 the brim of it, as she had seen the hunters 
 do, but was forced to use her handkerchief, 
 feeding him with drops dripped between 
 his lips. His face and hands and all his 
 clothing down in front were grimed and 
 scratched and earth - stained, as though 
 Beaver Canon had been literally wiped up 
 with him ; when he spoke his voice was 
 a rapid muttering devoid of expression. 
 
216 CCEUE D ALENE. 
 
 There was no hope that they could come to 
 any understanding now on those delicate 
 points that remained to be settled between 
 them. This was a piteous complication, that 
 at this last hour before the boat came in 
 the hour that must decide how they 
 should leave the boat and meet the world 
 of strangers on the other side of the lake, 
 when the one word must be said, and he 
 alone could say it he should be out of his 
 senses, calling her Miss Faith, and babbling 
 flat courtesies, saying nothing but with his 
 eyes! She could not give him even the 
 love he dumbly craved. 
 
 No; it was strangely cruel. They were 
 meant for each other; this she believed as 
 a new, inexplicable fact not to be reasoned 
 about, yet she was powerless to act upon it. 
 Coidd any girl follow a sick and crazy 
 youth, a conspicuously adorable young man, 
 whom any stranger would be good to, once 
 he was out of this terrorized land ; appear 
 at his side, and assume the right to care for 
 
 O 
 
 him on the strength of some wild love-pas 
 sages in impossible places, under circum- 
 
THE MASSACEE. 217 
 
 stances the least binding and most excep 
 tional that could be imagined ? 
 
 She had made up, poor child, a number 
 of perfectly sane and commendable answers 
 and arguments, which she had thought she 
 should have need of, crossing the lake that 
 night. He was to have clone some very 
 pretty pleading; he was to have prevailed 
 in the end even in her best arguments 
 she had provided for that. But where now 
 were the strong, delicious pleadings, the 
 weak extenuations, the explanations which 
 pride insists on, the conditions which femi 
 nine prudence declares for, ere it be too 
 late ? No ; she was helpless, in the face of 
 this pitiful estrangement ; here it must end, 
 their sad little crazy romance of the Cosur 
 d Alene. His world would be seeking him, 
 would presently call him back; but the 
 ocean could not part them farther than 
 they were parted now. " Good-by, my love, 
 good-by ! " she whispered. But the warn 
 ing ! . For him it was useless ; she must 
 instantly find "poor good Mike," as she 
 called the great fellow in her thoughts. 
 
218 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 She was so weak-hearted that she felt like 
 distributing epithets and words of useless 
 affection, as one who is taking leave of life. 
 
 She met Mike coming up the shore ; and 
 seeing her a long way off, he broke into a 
 hilarious trot. 
 
 " Arrah, by the Blessin ! an have ye 
 seen him ? An was n t he the pictur of 
 peace, lyin on the barren stones ! " 
 
 This was an irrepressible figure of speech, 
 for Darcie was very softly bedded on the 
 grass, as Mike had left him. " Sure it s 
 the big luck for us that the boat s behind 
 her time ! Musha, darlin ! what has hurted 
 ye, to put up your lip like that ? " he ca- 
 denced, seeing that the girl s eyes were fill 
 ing with tears. 
 
 " Oh, Mike, he does n t know me ! " 
 
 " Av coorse he does n t, the craythur ; his 
 mind is takin a bit av a rest. He s bet- 
 ther widout any sinse, the way he was goin 
 on. An see how happy he is ! He does n t 
 care for a blessed thing ! " 
 
 "No," said Faith; "he doesn t. But 
 how came he to be so ? " 
 
THE MASSACRE. 219 
 
 " T was along av a nasty fall he got 
 comin around Sunset Pake, which the 
 thrail is the widt av your hand. He 
 would n t have me come anigh him for 
 fear I d jostle him, he was that nervous. 
 4 Wan at onct, says he, and don t, for 
 God s sake, blow your breath on me ! He 
 catched holt av a juniper whin he felt the 
 ground was 1 avin him; but the bloody 
 bush let go be the roots, an he wint down. 
 Ah, don t faint away, miss ! T was a 
 child s tumble, only for the jar it gev his 
 arrum ; it shtarted the wound bleedin on 
 him, an that tuk his stren t ; and I think 
 it was bad for him goin widout a hat. Yis, 
 the fool wind tuk it aff his head, an he 
 but the wan hand to grab for it, an kape 
 his grip o the rock; an it s hung up in 
 the top av a big pine-tree. I was for 
 makin him wear me own hat, for the sun 
 it was powerful bad on his head ; but he d 
 cast it in me face wheniver I d try to put 
 it on him he was that silly. He was 
 singin like a canary in the boat, comin 
 down, till I put the coat over him, an that 
 
220 CCEUR &ALENE. 
 
 quinched him. Was he qui t, miss, when 
 ye left him?" 
 
 Faith could not speak to answer him. 
 
 " Saints above ! now what are ye cryin 
 about ? D ye think the lad 11 not make it ? 
 Sure, here we are, an the boat comin in, 
 an Spokane, the city of refuge, will see us 
 in the mornin . He has wore out the can 
 dle ; he can 4 bide the inch ! " 
 
 u O Mike, but it s the last inch of the 
 candle that will cost," cried Faith ; and 
 forth from her convulsed lips came the 
 child s story, too long delayed, of the dark 
 deed that threatened the prisoners at the 
 Mission that night. 
 
 Mike leaped as if he had been hit by a 
 bullet. 
 
 " Why was n t this the first word ye said 
 to me ? " he roared. " Go back and bide 
 beside him whilst I go for the boat. Please 
 God no wan has helped himself to it, an 
 me danderin here ! " 
 
 "Do you believe it?" Faith exclaimed 
 in a voice of awe. 
 
 " Do I believe there s divils in hell ? I 11 
 
THE MASSACRE. 221 
 
 pack him out av this, if I have to shwim 
 wid him on me back." 
 
 Darcie was asleep. He rested, after pain, 
 and excitement, and thirst, and weary jour- 
 neyings. Faith watched beside him, and 
 listened to his mutterings, and held her 
 own breath in the pauses of his inconstant 
 breathing. Sometimes he panted "like a 
 dog that hunts in dreams," his features 
 twitched, he plucked with his hands; then 
 his troubled spirit would exhale in a long 
 sigh, and gradually, in climbing intensity, 
 the travail of delirium would resume its 
 sway. His eyes glittered between half- 
 parted lids; the yellow-green light under 
 the trees, mingling with the reflection from 
 fche river, made his ashen color ghastly. 
 Faith hung upon his breathing, hurried and 
 fast or deep and slow, as the one sure con 
 tradiction of his death-like aspect. 
 
 The strange wind, which brought no rain, 
 kept blowing and blowing, as if it would 
 blow out all the last red sparks of sunlight. 
 Her hopes went out with them. The dull 
 sunset embers began to glow. She could 
 
222 CGEUR &ALENE. 
 
 hear no sounds but of wind striving with 
 the trees, or water heavily flapping as it 
 coursed along the bank. She wished for 
 utter stillness that she might project, by 
 ear, her knowledge of what was coming, 
 beyond her powers of sight; but nothing 
 could be heard above the crisp, gallant roar 
 and rustle of the summer gale. All na 
 ture seemed to call to her, to be up and 
 ready ! to fly, fly ! But those that can nei 
 ther fight nor fly must hide, must hush, as 
 she was hushing her sleeper by the darkling 
 stream. 
 
 She sat in silence, and her thoughts 
 drifted in trite phrases, and in fragments 
 of old songs, as unguided wheels slip into 
 old ruts of the way that the crazed or grief- 
 blind driver goes. 
 
 "Oh, hush thee, my baby, the hour may come 
 When thy sleep shall be broken by trumpet and drum," 
 
 she found herself crooning over and over 
 senselessly to herself ; but where were the 
 trumpets and drums, that call to arms in 
 the name of peace the law-and-order mu 
 sic ? Far from the old Mission that night, 
 
THE MASSACRE. 223 
 
 and its dark, empty sanctuary, and its help 
 less prisoners of labor, waiting, as uncon 
 scious as sheep that have been fed and 
 folded at dusk, to be harried at midnight 
 by a pack of masterless dogs ! 
 
 At about half after seven o clock, as the 
 story of this evening goes, a hand-car, black 
 with men, came down the track, and stopped 
 within half a mile of Mission station. The 
 number of men on the car is not known. It 
 is supposed that they were assisted by others 
 who were expecting them at the Mission ; 
 and these men, so it is said, were armed 
 with Winchesters sent down on the pris 
 oners train. But all were armed, in one 
 way or another, with weapons furnished by 
 the Miners Union of the Coeur d Alene, or 
 by their brothers of Butte. 
 
 The hand-car brigade ran down the track 
 on both sides, and opened fire upon the sur 
 prised groups at the station. One or two 
 of them went through the cars that stood 
 upon the track, shouting to the " scabs " 
 within, " Git out of here, you " There 
 
224 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 was never a word too bad for a " scab." 
 They were likewise driven forth from the 
 shelter of the hotel by the prudent landlord, 
 whose windows were being smashed by bul 
 lets. The hounds were loud in the mouth, 
 but the sheep were silent and ran. Some 
 of them ran across the track, and jumped 
 into the river; some struggled desperately 
 through the long grass of the Mission 
 meadows. The cool-headed ones hid in the 
 grass, or crept into the bushes, or made 
 their way along the shore in the shelter of 
 the river bank. Of the fate of those who 
 fled up into the wild defile called Fourth of 
 July Canon much has been asserted and 
 denied on both sides, but little will ever be 
 known ; the canon and the river have been 
 deeply questioned, but they bear no witness, 
 and they tell no tales. 
 
 Faith sat beside her unconscious sleeper, 
 listening to the sounds which reported all 
 that she ever knew of those incredible scenes 
 that have gone down on the annals of this 
 region as " the massacre of Fourth of July 
 Canon." Her senses were blunted, her 
 
THE MASSACRE. % 225 
 
 mind refused to act ; her heart crushed the 
 life out of her with its beating. 
 
 Now was the time to say good-by not 
 the potential good-by she had bidden him 
 an hour ago, but the actual parting, at the 
 brink of the river of death. Many were 
 crossing the dark waters to the city of refuge 
 who would never return. She bent over her 
 sleeper, and kissed him softly, but the sob 
 that forced her heart against his aroused 
 him, and he spoke to her suddenly in his 
 natural voice : 
 
 " God bless me ! " he murmured, while 
 she held her breath in horror of his coming 
 to himself at this fatal moment. " I thought 
 that you kissed me ! I must be dreaming. 
 Oh, let it be true! Faith, dear, make it 
 true before I lose you again." 
 
 " It is true," said the girl hoarsely, " and 
 nothing else is true nothing. I will never 
 doubt you ; I never did doubt you. Now go 
 to sleep ! Good-night, dear ; good-night ! " 
 
 He held his breath, and looked at her 
 keenly. "Your lips are cold; your hands 
 are cold. Why are we saying good-night ? " 
 
226 CCETJR D ALENE. 
 
 " The boat is late," said Faith in a hollow 
 voice. " We cannot go till the boat comes. 
 You are sick : rest now do rest ; this is 
 your only chance ! " 
 
 She put her hands upon him, with soft, 
 shuddering touches, trying with all the 
 strength of her love to master her fear, that 
 she might have power to lull him into obliv- 
 iousness of the awful sounds of the night. 
 Under the trees it was quite dusk ; he could 
 see nothing, but she felt that he was listen 
 ing. 
 
 " What is that firing ? " 
 
 " Only some men," gasped Faith. 
 
 " But what are they shooting at ? " 
 
 " Shooting? Oh, at a mark." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! in the dark ! " laughed Dar- 
 cie softly. He was drifting off again, as 
 his speech betrayed. "Are they drunk? 
 What are they shouting about? " 
 
 " It s the other men who are shouting," 
 Faith lied to him, feebly. 
 
 " What other men ? Is this a stag pic 
 nic ? O Lord ! O Faith dear ! " 
 
 Faith hardly knew what he was saying, 
 
THE MASSACRE. 227 
 
 but she welcomed any wildness, profanity 
 anything but his own low, steady tones. 
 
 " Be quiet, Darcie dear ! " she whispered. 
 
 " Darcie dear ! " he repeated foolishly. 
 "God bless me, but this is nice what a 
 sweet girl you are ! Heavens ! what a brute 
 I was ! Are you ever going to be friends 
 with me again?" 
 
 He nestled his sick head close to her lap, 
 contentedly, and gave himself up to the ex 
 quisite sense of her cold, soft touch moving 
 over his hand in the dark. 
 
 " Mother of Grace, the pass is diffi 
 cult ! " whispered the tortured girl. It 
 was the mother instinct, which can look on 
 death, that taught her calmness at this mo 
 ment, and gave her strength to exert her 
 love, else one of nature s miracles was 
 wrought; for out of the anguish of her 
 deadly fear came supreme rest to him she 
 loved, and Darcie slept. His hand slipped 
 from hers, lower and lower, and touched the 
 sand; softly she saved the contact from 
 disturbing him. He sighed, and breathed 
 more deeply ; he was gone, even beyond his 
 consciousness of her. 
 
228 C(EUR &ALENE. 
 
 She moved a trifle, cautiously ; drew away 
 her dress, and noiselessly raised herself upon 
 her knees. AU along the shore she seemed 
 to hear stealthy footsteps and furtive, leafy 
 rustlings, as of a hunter stalking big game. 
 The rapid firing had ceased, but scattering 
 shots came infrequently, one at a time, from 
 a distance. Step by step, she moved a little 
 way past the bushes, and looked out. Over 
 head the clouds were blown in wild masses ; 
 the stars in the dark blue lakes of sky be 
 tween winked peacefully, while the torn 
 and flying cloud-signals altered from moment 
 to moment. So did the peace of heaven 
 ;| abide this senseless, passing hour, tha,t 
 proved nothing, changed nothing, simply 
 added its score to the wrong side, the side 
 of human passion, which must miss the 
 mark a thousand times before one tr,ue aim 
 shall raise the record a little higher as 
 the centuries pass. 
 
 Faith was quieted ; she had reached the 
 limit of emotional fear, and now a species 
 of insensibility crept over her the reaction 
 after the shock. She wondered why she 
 
THE MASSACRE. 229 
 
 could not feel as she ought the peril of all 
 those other men who were strangers to her 
 affection. Where was Mike always rash 
 with himself? Was he safe? And how 
 was it with the honest Cassons the wife 
 waiting with her little sleepy brood about 
 her, to learn perhaps that they were father 
 less? 
 
 She started back from her relaxed out 
 look and hid herself as a man came running, 
 like one pursued, out from a group of black 
 birch-trees that stood together shivering in 
 an open windy space. He ran uncertainly, 
 this way and that, as if crazed with fear. 
 His dog-hearted pursuer covered him with 
 deliberate aim. It was pitiful to see him 
 waver between the chances of the river and 
 of the broken plain below. He was ex 
 hausted with running ; his chest labored in 
 hard painful gasps; his legs were giving 
 under him. The next moment he stumbled 
 and fell. The " scab " hunter came up and 
 turned him over with his foot, keeping the 
 muzzle of his rifle close to his chest. He said 
 something brief, which Faith did not hear. 
 
230 COSUE D ALENE. 
 
 The man never spoke, but threw out his 
 hands expressively on the sod. The other 
 searched his clothes, and took all that he 
 had in money or small valuables, and, stir 
 ring him with his foot, said : 
 
 "Git git out from here! I ll give 
 you till I count sixty." 
 
 The hunted man sprang up and ran. 
 Once he turned his head over his shoulder, 
 and saw his pursuer following him with cool 
 aim. He plunged into the bushes, cleared 
 the bank, and splashed into the river. 
 
 The man with the rifle stood on the bank 
 and waited. Faith could have .touched him 
 where he stood. He watched till the swim 
 mer s head showed plainly beyond the shore 
 ward shadow, a black spot parting the cur 
 rent in mid - stream ; then a bullet went 
 clipping through the wild-rose thicket. The 
 black spot turned toward the light ; it was 
 the man s face ; he was taking his last look 
 at the sky ; his hands went up ; he sank 
 and a coil of ripples unwound in widening 
 circles toward the shore. 
 
 The hunter of " scabs " stood still a mo- 
 
THE MASSACEE. 231 
 
 ment while the smoke of his rifle drifted 
 away among the trees. Then he set his 
 feet upon the bank, slid down, and stooped 
 at the river s brink. He laid his face to 
 the water and drank ; and the river did not 
 refuse to quench his thirst. 
 
 Faith crept back to her place ; her sleeper 
 still slept. The man by the river turned 
 her way, and set his feet again upon the 
 bank. She slipped the mantle from her 
 shoulders, and laid it, as soft as the rose of 
 silence, upon Darcie s face. The silk-lined 
 folds settled into place; he did not move. 
 So he had looked when she had thought him 
 dead. She clasped her hands upon her 
 knees, and bent her head upon them. Steps 
 came up the bank, and paused close be 
 side her ; she merely breathed. There was 
 silence ; then a voice said : - 
 
 " Who is your man, my dear? " 
 
 She did not answer. Dan Kafferty stud 
 ied the two figures attentively a moment. 
 
 " Is this you, Miss Bingham ? and our 
 folks lookin for you high an low ! And 
 who s this party you are hidin out with? " 
 
232 C(EUR &ALENE. 
 
 Faith raised her head, but she did not 
 speak. 
 
 " Show me his face ! What s the matter 
 with him ? " Rafferty made a step forward. 
 
 " Keep your hands off the dead ! " said 
 Faith. 
 
 " Dead, is he ? I don t think you can 
 play that on me. If he s dead, it 11 not 
 harm him to show me his face." 
 
 " There is a dead man whose face you will 
 see in the day you go to meet your God ! " 
 Faith pointed to the river. She had risen, 
 and placed herself between Rafferty and her 
 sleeper; she was aware that Darcie was 
 stirring, and her flesh rose in horror ; she 
 had no hope, only to postpone the moment 
 of discovery. 
 
 " I know you, Rafferty," said the des 
 perate girl. "I will bear witness against 
 you, if you dare to come one step nearer. 
 Coward ! you took his money, and then 
 you took his life ! " 
 
 " Come, now, that s no way for a lady to 
 talk ! I want to see who s your best feller. 
 Pull that thing off his face ! I bet I know 
 
THE MASSACRE. 233 
 
 who it is. Don t I know them English 
 shoes? Well, if you won t, then stand 
 aside. See here, now ; I don t want to put 
 me hands on you." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Faith, simply shuddering 
 at him. 
 
 Rafferty gave a coarse laugh. " Come off 
 the nest now, me little chicken ! It s your 
 own doin s if I have to hurt you." 
 
 Suddenly Faith felt that she was free. 
 Rafferty had loosed her, and stood listening. 
 
 " Quit that ! " came Mike s great battle- 
 roar. " Put up your bloody hands ! I have 
 the drop on ye." 
 
 Rafferty had not been the last to perceive 
 that this was true. It settled the situation 
 between him and Mike once more, and for 
 the last time. Mike walked slowly forward, 
 hurling taunts at his old enemy : 
 
 " Chuck me your weppins, Raffy, me boy. 
 You 11 not want them where you 11 be goin 
 shortly; you ll not be huntin scabs in 
 Boise City." 
 
 At the mention of Boise, which is the 
 city of approximate justice and of occa- 
 
234 C(EUE WALENE. 
 
 sional punishment, Kafferty gave Mike a 
 bitter look ; but he offered no retort. 
 
 " I hope the climate will agree with ye," 
 Mike proceeded. " I hear it s a nobby 
 buildin , the Pen, an the boys is doin a 
 little gard nin . Ye 11 make a fine gar ner, 
 Rafferty ; I doubt ye 11 turn out a pious 
 fraction of a man." 
 
 As he came opposite to the spot where 
 his prisoner stood, Mike raised his rifle and 
 lowered his head, and suddenly he opened 
 cry, like one mad school boy defying an 
 other : 
 
 " Run, Rafferty, me bould boy ! " he 
 yelled. " The scabs is after ye ! Get a 
 move on you ! Shake it up, man ! Hit 
 the road ! " and as Rafferty ran, Mike, 
 roaring with laughter, leaped upon the top 
 of the bank, and sent his big voice after the 
 fugitive : 
 
 "The boat is in, Rafferty! And the 
 throops is on board ! That s right, I m 
 tellin ye ! The throops is on board ! 
 They re flyin light, two comp nies from 
 Sherman, an Gin ral Carlin in command. 
 
THE MASSACRE. 235 
 
 Will ye try the river, or will ye try the 
 canon ? Tell our boys if ye meet em that 
 martial law is out in the Cor de 
 Lane!" 
 
 Long after Bafferty was clean out of 
 hearing Mike continued to disperse his soul 
 in barbaric hoots and howls, till Darcie, 
 rising on his elbow to listen for another 
 sound, bade him hold his infernal riot. 
 
 A quarter of a mile away the troops 
 were disembarking. The orders demanded 
 a quiet landing, but Mike had heard the 
 roll-call on board the boat before she 
 touched the shore. And now the tramp of 
 feet could plainly be distinguished treading 
 the deck of the wharf -boat ; now they were 
 mustering on the ground. Two by two, in 
 column of twos, the companies were march 
 ing as one man. Steady, through the night, 
 on came the solid, cadenced tread. As 
 sharp as pistol-shots rang the words of com 
 mand. The white stripes, the steel points, 
 gleamed through the trees. Silence ; and 
 " piercing sweet," O voice of rescue, in the 
 dark distance the bugles sounded : 
 
236 C(EUE 
 
 " Attention ! " 
 
 It sent the blood to the hearts of all who 
 heard that midnight call. Darcie thrilled, 
 and was himself again in that moment of 
 strong excitement. Faith broke down like 
 i a child, and wept. A word at last had 
 been spoken to which even anarchy, red- 
 handed, paused to listen. That brief order 
 would carry through the night ; it would fly 
 from camp to camp through the mountain 
 gorges, and every man who caught but the 
 echo of that word would understand. Those 
 who will not heed the voice of law, or soften 
 to the stiller voice of kindness, must pause 
 at last when the bugle sounds : - 
 
 " Attention ! " 
 
 There was no " weddin in Spokane," as 
 Mike had generously predicted ; but there 
 was a doctor in Spokane, which was more 
 to the immediate purpose. 
 
 The wedding was some months later, 
 when the war was over, and the trials were 
 , , over, and the technicalities of the law had 
 done much to retract the ringing lesson 
 
THE MASSACRE. 237 
 
 which the clear-voiced bugles taught. The 
 mines had resumed; Mr. Frederick Bing- 
 ham had " resigned," and was investigating 
 the Keeley cure ; and Darcie Hamilton was 
 sent over as manager of the Big Horn. 
 This time he did stop in New York long 
 enough to protect his claim to the virgin 
 lode he had located, under trying circum 
 stances, the previous summer in the Coeur 
 d Alene. (The name of it was not the 
 Black Dwarf.) But the complications be 
 tween that early, rash location and the 
 subsequent patent under law would make 
 another story, with a very different scene- 
 setting. The family discussions, in Darcie s 
 opinion, were far worse than any miners 
 war. He never knew on which side his 
 best friend would turn up. His mother, 
 for instance, was inflexibly against him, 
 while his father, the most positive of men, 
 was inclined especially after seeing Faith s 
 picture to look upon the young man s 
 adventures in the Coeur d Alene as very 
 much what might have been expected, so 
 why make a row about a thing that was a 
 
238 CCEUR D ALENE. 
 
 mistake all around? Darcie by no means 
 considered that any of it was a mistake ; 
 but if his father chose to call it so, and to 
 give his consent to his wishes on that un 
 derstanding, he was willing to yield the 
 point, in name. But Faith declined to go 
 to England, into a family that gave her so 
 cold a welcome. Therefore Darcie came to 
 America as manager of the Big Horn, and 
 the intrepid young pair went westward on 
 their conquering way, and left age and op 
 position behind them. And if they have 
 disappointed each other s high expectations 
 of happiness, the fact has not as yet trans 
 pired to the knowledge of their relatives. 
 
 Faith celebrates in her letters the won 
 derful wild flowers of the Coeur d Alene, 
 the grandeur of its mountains, the softness 
 of its sudden spring. Other persons main 
 tain that the spring has been very late in 
 the Coeur d Alene this year. Her aunts 
 wonder if the climate has changed. Some 
 thing has changed : the girl has found her 
 heart of youth again, and with it the cour 
 age to be glad. The premature, crushing 
 
THE MASSACRE. 239 
 
 experiences of the year before, its shocks 
 and shameful surprises, have taken their 
 due place in relation to larger experiences 
 and more vital discoveries. She has parted 
 with one sacred illusion, but she is fortified 
 against that irreparable loss by a deeper 
 knowledge of life and its inevitable short 
 comings. Greater joy than hers no woman, 
 she believes, has ever known. She cannot 
 look to have all the joys, and all the 
 strengths, of a woman s perilous life of the 
 affections. 
 
 Her mother she lost before she ever knew 
 her. A father she never had ; he died the 
 spiritual death before his child was born. 
 The body of Frederick Bingham still walks 
 the earth, but his soul will never be cured 
 by the Keeley or any other mundane cure ; 
 it expired too long ago. When the will is 
 dead, the man is dead. His children can 
 only mourn him, and pay what respect they 
 may to the dreary remains. 
 
 Darcie has his enemies in the Coeur 
 d Alene, but he has also his stanch friends. 
 Mike is foreman of the Big Horn in place 
 
240 C(EUR WALENE. 
 
 of Peter Banning, deposed ; and Kitty Ty 
 ler, now Kitty McGowan, makes the surly 
 Big Horn kitchen a realm of perpetual sun 
 shine. She is spoiling her young mistress 
 for whosoever her successor may be when 
 she and Mike go to housekeeping in the 
 fall 
 
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 Drift from Two Shores. iSmo, $1.00. 
 The Twins of Table Mountain. iSmo, $1.00. 
 Flip, and Found at Blazing Star. iSmo, $1.00. 
 In the Carquinez Woods. i8mo, $1.00. 
 On the Frontier. Stories. i8mo, $1.00. 
 By Shore and Sedge. iSmo, $1.00. 
 Maruja. i8mo, $1.00. 
 Snow-Bound at Eagle s. iSmo, $1.00. 
 AjMillionaire of Rough-and-Ready, and Devil s Ford. 
 
 i8mo, $1.00. 
 A Phyllis of the Sierras, and Drift from Redwood 
 
 Camp. i8mo, $1.00. 
 
 The Argonauts of North Liberty. iSmo, $1.00. 
 A Waif of the Plains. iSmo, $1.00. 
 Novels and Tales. 15 vols. iSmo, $15.00. 
 Cressy. i6mo, $1.25. 
 The Crusade of the Excelsior. Illustrated. i6mo, 
 
 $1.25 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh, etc. i6mo, $1.25. 
 A Ward of the Golden Gate. i6mo, $1.25 ; paper, 50 
 
 cents. 
 A Sappho of Green Springs, and other Stories. i6mo, 
 
 $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 A First Family of Tasajara. i6mo, $1.25. 
 Colonel Starbottle s Client, and Some Other People. 
 
 i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 Susy. A Story of the Plains. i6mo, $1.25. 
 A Protegee of Jack Hamlin s, and other Tales. i6mo, 
 
 $1.25. 
 
 Margaret Deland. 
 
 John Ward, Preacher. 161110, $1.25 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 Sidney. i6mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The Story of a Child. i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 Mr. Tommy Dove, and Other Stories. iomo, $1.00. 
 
 Mary Catherine Lee. 
 
 A Quaker Girl of Nantucket. i6mo, $1.25. 
 In the Cheering-Up Business. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
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