H 
 
 Three Parine 
 
 HARJZ 
 
 ill! 
 
REESE LIBRARY 
 IRSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 laesswns NoJ/fy-fyQ . Class No. 
 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
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 FLIP I MARUJA. I A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, in St. Martin's Lane, W.C. 
 
She leaned upon his guests arm, chatting confidentially. [p. 95. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 OR 
 
 THE BIG STRIKE ON HEAVY TREE HILL 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET J-IARTE 
 
 WITH EIGHT ILLUS TRATIO NS BY J. GULICH 
 
 LONDON 
 CHAT TO & W INDUS 
 
 1897 
 
7/4* fo 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SP0TT1SW00DE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 LONDON 
 
Jvj, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SHE LEANED UPON HIS GUEST'S ARM, CHAT- 
 TING confidentially .... Frontispiece 
 
 WHISKEY DICK, LIFTING HIS TIN CUP WITH A 
 
 DANGEROUSLY UNSTEADY HAND . . to face p. 1 8 
 
 HE TOOK FROM A FOLD OF HIS SCARLET SASH 
 
 A SMALL PARCET „ 55 
 
 ' where's the mo^ey?' he said . . . „ no 
 
 THE ROOM REELED AROUND HER . . . ,, 135 
 
 THEY WERE ALL STARTLED AT THE APPARI- 
 TION OF MRS. BARKER . . . . „ 208 
 
 THEY SAT, LOOKING DOWN UPON THE ROAD . „ 23 1 
 
 THEY EMERGED, HOLDING EACH OTHER'S HAND „ 250 
 
 114- *\0 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 The sun was going down on the Black Spur 
 Range. The red light it had kindled there was 
 still eating its way along the serried crest, show- 
 ing through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching 
 out the interstices of broken boughs, fading away 
 and then flashing suddenly out again like sparks 
 in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept 
 down the whole mountain side, and began its 
 usual struggle with the shadows upclimbing from 
 the valley, only to lose itself in the end and be 
 absorbed in the all-conquering darkness. Yet 
 for some time the pines on the long slope of 
 Heavy Tree Hill murmured and protested with 
 swaying arms ; but as the shadows stole upwards, 
 and cabin after cabin and tunnel after tunnel were 
 swallowed up, a complete silence followed. Only 
 the sky remained visible— a vast concave mirror 
 
2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 of dull steel, in which the stars did not seem to 
 be set, but only reflected. 
 
 A single cabin door on the crest of Heavy 
 Tree Hill had remained open to the wind and 
 darkness. Then it was slowly shut by an in- 
 visible figure, afterwards revealed by the embers 
 of the fire it was stirring. At first only this 
 figure brooding over the hearth was shown, but 
 as the flames leaped up, two other figures could 
 be seen sitting motionless before it. When the 
 door was shut, they acknowledged that interrup- 
 tion by slightly changing their position ; the one 
 who had risen to shut the door sank back into 
 an invisible seat, but the attitude of each man 
 was one of profound reflection or reserve, and 
 apparently upon some common subject which 
 made them respect each other's silence. How- 
 ever, this was at last broken by a laugh. It was 
 a boyish laugh, and came from the youngest of 
 the party. The two others turned their profiles 
 and glanced inquiringly towards him, but did not 
 speak. 
 
 ' I was thinking,' he began in apologetic 
 explanation, ' how mighty queer it w r as that while 
 we w r ere working like niggers on grub wages, 
 without the ghost of a chance of making a strike, 
 how w r e used to sit here, night after night, and 
 flapdoodle and speculate about what we'd do if 
 
THREE PARTNERS 3 
 
 we ever did make one ; and now, Great Scott ! 
 that we have made it, and are just wallowing in 
 gold, here we are sitting as glum and silent as if 
 we'd had a wash out ! Why, Lord ! I remember 
 one night — not so long ago, either — that you two 
 quarrelled over the swell hotel you were going 
 to stop at in 'Frisco, and w T hether you wouldn't 
 strike straight out for London and Rome and 
 Paris, or go away to Japan and China and round 
 by India and the Red Sea.' 
 
 * No, we didn't quarrel over it,' said one of 
 the figures gently ; ' there was only a little 
 discussion.' 
 
 *. Yes, but you did, though,' returned the 
 young fellow mischievously, ' and you told Stacy, 
 there, that we'd better learn something of the 
 world before we tried to buy it or even hire it, 
 and that it was just as well to get the hayseed 
 out of our hair and the slumgullion off our boots 
 before we mixed in polite society.' 
 
 4 Well, I don't see what's the matter With 
 that sentiment now,' returned the second speaker 
 good-humouredly, ' only,' he added gravely, ' we 
 didn't quarrel — God forbid 1' 
 
 There was something in the speaker's tone 
 which seemed to touch a common chord in their 
 natures, and this was voiced by Barker with 
 sudden and almost pathetic earnestness. ' I tell 
 
 b 2 
 
4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 i you what, boys, we ought to swear hereto-night 
 to always stand by each other — i n luck and out of 
 it ! We ought to hold ourselves always at each 
 others call. We ought to have a kind of j>as£- 
 wordor signal, you know, by which we could 
 summon each other at any time from any quarter 
 of the globe ! ' 
 
 ' Come off the roof, Barker,' murmured Stacy, 
 
 without lifting his eyes from the fire. But 
 
 Demorest 'smiled and glanced tolerantly at the 
 
 younger man. 
 
 [ ' Yes, but look here, Stacy,' continued Barker, 
 
 I ' comrades like us, in the old days, used to do 
 that in times of trouble and adventures. Why 
 ^shouldn't we do it in our luck ? ' 
 
 ' There's a good deal in that, Barker boy,' 
 said Demorest, ' though, as a general thing, pass- 
 words butter no parsnips, and the ordinary, every- 
 day, single yelp from a wolf brings the whole 
 pack together for business about as quick as a 
 password. But you cling to that sentiment, and 
 put it away with your gold dust in your belt.' 
 
 ' What I like about Barker is his com- 
 modiousness,' said Stacy. ' Here he is, the only 
 man among us that has his future fixed and his 
 pre-emption lines laid out and registered. He's 
 already got a girl that he's going to marry and 
 settle down with on the strength of his luck. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 5 
 
 And I'd like to know what Kitty Carter, when 
 she's Mrs. Barker, would say to her husband 
 being signalled for from Asia or Africa. I don't 
 seem to see her tumbling to any password. And 
 when he and she go into a new partnership I 
 reckon she'll let the old one slide.' 
 
 ' That's just where you're wrong ! ' said 
 Barker, with quickly rising colour, ' She's the 
 sweetest girl in the world, and she'd be sure to 
 understand our feelings. Why, she thinks every- 
 thing of you two ; she was just eager for you to 
 get this claim, which has put us where we are, 
 when I held back, and if it hadn't been for her, by 
 Jove ! we wouldn't have had it.' 
 
 1 That was only because she cared for you, 1 
 returned Stacy, with a half-yawn, ' and now that 
 you've got your share she isn't going to take a 
 breathless interest in us. And, by the way, I'd 
 rather you'd remind us that we owe our luck to 
 her than that she should ever remind you of it.' 
 
 1 What do you mean ? ' said Barker quickly. 
 But Demorest here rose lazily, and, throwing a 
 gigantic shadow on the wall, stood between the 
 two with his back to the fire. ' He means,' he 
 said slowly, ' that you're talking rot, and so is he. 
 However, as yours comes from the heart and his 
 from the head, I prefer yours. But you're both 
 making me tired. Let's have a fresh deal' 
 
6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Nobody ever dreamed of contradicting De- 
 morest. Nevertheless, Barker persisted eagerly : 
 * But isn't it better for us to look at this cheerfully 
 and happily all round ? There's nothing criminal 
 in our having made a strike! It seems to me, 
 boys, that of all ways of making money it's the 
 squarest and most level ; nobody is the poorer for 
 it ; our luck brings no misfortune to others. The 
 gold was put there ages ago for anybody to find ; 
 we found it. It hasn't been tarnished by man's 
 touch before. I don't know how it strikes you, 
 boys, but it seems to me that of all gifts that are 
 going it is the straightest. For whether we 
 deserve it or not, it comes to us first-hand — from 
 God!' 
 
 The two men glanced quickly at the speaker, 
 whose face flushed and then smiled embarrassedly 
 as if ashamed of the enthusiasm into which he 
 had been betrayed. But Demorest did not smile, 
 and Stacy's eyes shone in the firelight as he said 
 languidly, \ I never heard that prospecting was 
 a religious occupation before. But I shouldn't 
 wonder if you're right, Barker boy. So let's 
 liquor up.' 
 
 Nevertheless he did not move, nor did the 
 others. The fire leaped higher, bringing out the 
 rude rafters and sternly economic details of the 
 rough cabin, and making the occupants in their 
 seats before the fire look gigantic by contrast. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 7 
 
 * Who shut the door ? ' said Demorest after a 
 pause. 
 
 \ I did,' said Barker. \ I reckoned it was 
 getting cold.' 
 
 1 Better open it again, now that the fire's 
 blazing. It will light the way if any of the men 
 from below want to drop in this evening.' 
 
 Stacy stared at his companion. ' I thought that 
 it was understood that we were giving them that 
 dinner at Boomville to-morrow night, so that we 
 might have the last evening here by ourselves in 
 peace and quietness.' 
 
 ' Yes, but if anyone did want to come it 
 would seem churlish to shut him out,' said 
 Demorest. 
 
 * I reckon you're feeling very much as I am,' 
 said Stacy, ' that this good-fortune is rather 
 crowding to us three alone. For myself, I know,' 
 he continued, with a backward glance towards a 
 blanketed, covered pile in the corner of the cabin, 
 1 that I feel rather oppressed by — by — its specific 
 gravity, I calculate — and sort of crampy and 
 twitchy in the legs, as if I ought to " lite " out and 
 do something, and yet it holds me here. All the 
 same, I doubt if anybody will come up — except 
 from curiosity. Our luck has made them rather 
 sore down the hill, for all they're coming to the 
 dinner to-morrow.' 
 
 1 That's only human nature/ said Demorest. 
 
8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' But,' said Barker eagerly, ' what does it 
 mean ? Why, only this afternoon, when I was 
 passing the M Old Kentuck " tunnel, where those 
 Marshalls have been grubbing along for four 
 years without making a single strike, I felt 
 ashamed to look at them, and as they barely 
 nodded to me I slinked by as if I had done them 
 an injury. I don't understand it.' 
 
 • It somehow does not seem to square with 
 this "Gift o' God" idea o' yours, does it?' said 
 Stacy. ■ But we'll open the door and give them a 
 show.' 
 
 As he did so it seemed as if the night were 
 their only guest, and had been waiting on the 
 threshold to now enter bodily and pervade all 
 things with its presence. With that cool, fragrant 
 inflow of air they breathed freely. The red edge 
 had gone from Black Spur, but it was even more 
 clearly defined against the sky in its towering 
 blackness. The sky itself had grown lighter, 
 although the stars still seemed mere reflections 
 of the solitary pin-points of light scattered along 
 the concave valley below. Mingling with the 
 cooler, restful air of the summit, yet penetratingly 
 distinct from it, arose the stimulating breath of 
 the pines below, still hot and panting from 
 the daylong sun. The silence was intense. The 
 far-off barking of a dog on the invisible river-bar 
 
THREE PARTNERS 9 
 
 nearly a mile beneath them came to them like 
 a sound in a dream. They had risen, and, stand- 
 ing in the doorway, by common consent turned 
 their faces to the east. It was the frequent^ 
 attitude of the home-remembering miner, and it 
 gave him the crowning glory of the view. For, 
 beyond the pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen 
 except against the evening sky, lay a thin, white 
 cloud like a dropped portion of the milky way. 
 Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet 
 distinct enough to assert itself above and beyond 
 all surrounding objects, it was always there. It 
 was the snow-line of the Sierras. 
 
 They turned away and silently reseated 
 themselves, the same thought in the minds of 
 each. Here was something they could not take 
 away — something to be left for ever and irre- 
 trievably behind — left with the healthy life they 
 had been leading, the cheerful endeavour, the 
 undying hopefulness which it had fostered and 
 blessed. Was what they were taking away worth 
 it ? And oddly enough, frank and outspoken as 
 they had always been to each other, that common 
 thought; remained unuttered. Even Barker was 
 silent ; perhaps he was also thinking of Kitty. 
 
 Suddenly two figures 'appeared in the very 
 doorway of the cabin. The effect was startling 
 upon the partners, who had only just reseated 
 
10 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 themselves, and for a moment they had forgotten 
 that the narrow band of light which shot forth 
 from the open door rendered the darkness on 
 either side of it more impenetrable, and that out 
 of this darkness, although themselves guided by 
 the light, the figures had just emerged. Yet one 
 was familiar enough. It was the Hill drunkard, 
 Dick Hall, or, as he was called, ■ Whiskey Dick,' 
 or indicated still more succinctly by the Hill 
 humourists, ' Alkey Hall.' 
 
 Everybody had seen that sodden, puffy, but 
 good-humoured face ; everybody had felt the fiery 
 exhalations of that enormous red beard, which 
 always seemed to be kept in a state of moist, un- 
 kempt luxuriance by liquor ; everybody knew the 
 absurd dignity of manner and attempted precision 
 of statement with which he was wont to disguise 
 his frequent excesses. Very few, however, knew* 
 or cared to know, the pathetic weariness and 
 chilling horror that sometimes looked out of those 
 bloodshot eyes. 
 
 He was evidently equally unprepared for the 
 three silent seated figures before the door, and for 
 a moment looked at them blankly with the doubts 
 of a frequently deceived perception. Was he 
 sure that they were quite real ? He had not dared 
 to look at his companion for verification, but 
 smiled vaguely. 
 
THREE PARTNERS n 
 
 * Good-evening,' said Demorest pleasantly. 
 
 Whiskey Dick's face brightened. ' Good- 
 evenin', good-evenin' yourselves boys — and see 
 how you like it ! Lemme interdrush my ole frien' 
 William J. Steptoe, of Red Gulch. Stepsho — 
 
 Steptoe — is shtay — ish stay " He stopped, 
 
 hicupped, waved his hand gravely, and with an air 
 of reproachful dignity concluded, ' sojourning for 
 the present on the Bar. We wish to offer our 
 
 congrashulashen and felish — felish ' he paused 
 
 again and, leaning against the door-post, added 
 severely, ■ itations.' 
 
 II is companion, however, laughed coarsely, 
 and, pushing past Dick, entered the cabin. He 
 was a short, powerful man, with a closely cropped 
 crust of beard and hair that seemed to adhere to 
 his round head like moss or lichen. He cast a 
 glance — furtive rather than curious — around the 
 cabin, and said, with a familiarity that had not 
 even good-humour to excuse it, ' So you're the gay 
 galoots who've made the big strike ? Thought 
 I'd meander up the Hill with this old bloat Alky, 
 and drop in to see the show. And here you are, 
 feeling your oats, eh ? and not caring any particu- 
 lar G — d d — n if school keeps or not.' 
 
 * Show Mr. Steptoe — the whiskey/ said 
 Demorest to Stacy. Then quietly addressing 
 Dick, but ignoring Steptoe as completely as 
 
12 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Steptoe had ignored his unfortunate companion, 
 he said, ' You quite startled us at first. We did 
 not see you come up the trail.' 
 
 1 No. We came up the back trail to please 
 Steptoe, who wanted to see round the cabin,' said 
 Dick, glancing nervously yet with a forced indif- 
 ference towards the whiskey which Stacy was 
 offering to the stranger. 
 
 ' What yer gettin' off there ? ' said Steptoe, 
 facing Dick almost brutally. ' You know your 
 tangled legs wouldn't take you straight up the 
 trail, and you had to make a circumbendibus. 
 Gosh ! if you hadn't scented this licker at the top 
 you'ld have never found it.' 
 
 1 No matter ! I'm glad you did find it, Dick/ 
 said Demorest, ' and I hope you'll find the liquor 
 good enough to pay you for the trouble.' Barker 
 stared at Demorest. This extraordinary toler- 
 ance of the drunkard was something new in his 
 partner. But at a glance from Demorest he led 
 Dick to the demijohn and tin cup which stood on 
 a table in the corner. And in another moment 
 Dick had forgotten his companion's rudeness. 
 
 Demorest remained by the door looking out 
 into the darkness. 
 
 'Well,' said Steptoe, putting down his emptied 
 cup, ' trot out your strike. I reckon our eyes are 
 strong enough to bear it now.' Stacy drew the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 13 
 
 blanket from the vague pile that stood in the corner, 
 and discovered a deep tin prospecting pan. It was 
 heaped with several large fragments of quartz. 
 At first the marble whiteness of the quartz and 
 the glittering crystals of mica in its veins were the 
 most noticeable, but as they drew closer they could 
 see the dull yellow of gold filling the decomposed 
 and honeycombed portion of the rock as if still 
 liquid and molten. The eyes of the party sparkled 
 like the mica — even those of Barker and Stacy, 
 who were already familiar with the treasure. 
 
 1 Which is the richest chunk ? ' asked Steptoe 
 in a thickening voice. 
 
 Stacy pointed it out. 
 
 1 Why, it's smaller than the others.' 
 
 1 Heft it in your hand,' said Barker with boyish 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The short, thick fingers of Steptoe grasped 
 it with a certain aquiline suggestion ; his whole 
 arm strained over it until his face grew purple, 
 but he could not lift it. 
 
 1 Thar uster to be a little game in the 'Frisco 
 Mint,' said Dick, restored to fluency by his liquor, 
 1 when thar war ladies visiting it, and that was to 
 offer to giv' 'em any of those little boxes of gold 
 coin, that contained five thousand dollars, ef they 
 would kindly lift it from the counter and take it 
 away ! It wasn't no bigger than one of these 
 
14 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 chunks; but, Jimminy ! you oughterhave seed them 
 gals grip and heave on it, and then hev to give it 
 up ! You see they didn't know anything about 
 
 the paci — (hie) the speshif ' He stopped with 
 
 great dignity, and added with painful precision, 
 1 the specific gravity of gold.' 
 
 1 Dry up ! ' said Steptoe roughly. Then turn- 
 ing to Stacy he said abruptly : 'But where's the 
 rest of it ? You've got more than that.' 
 
 1 We sent it to Boomville this morning. You 
 see we've sold out our claim to a company who 
 take it up to-morrow, and put up a mill and 
 stamps. In fact, it's under their charge now. 
 They've got a gang of men on the claim already.' 
 
 1 And what mout ye hev got for it, if it's a fair 
 question ? ' said Steptoe with a forced smile. 
 
 Stacy smiled also. ' I don't know that it's a 
 business question,' he said. 
 
 ' Five hundred thousand dollars/ said De- 
 morest abruptly from the doorway, 'and a treble 
 interest.' 
 
 The eyes of the two men met. There was no 
 mistaking the dull fire of envy in Steptoe's glance, 
 but Demorest received it with a certain cold 
 curiosity, and turned away as the sound of arriving 
 voices came from without. 
 
 * Five hundred thousand's a big figger,' said 
 Stacy with a coarse laugh, 'and I don't wonder 
 
THREE PARTNERS 15 
 
 it makes you feel so d d sassy. But it was 
 
 a fair question.' 
 
 Unfortunately it here occurred to the whiskey- 
 stimulated brain of Dick that the friend he had 
 introduced was being treated with scant courtesy, 
 and he forgot his own treatment by Steptoe. 
 Leaning against the wall he waved a dignified 
 rebuke. ' I'm sashified my ole frien' is akshuated 
 by only businesh principles.' He paused, re- 
 collected himself and added with great precision : 
 i When I say he himself has a valuable claim in 
 Red Gulch and to my shertain knowledge has 
 received offers — I have said enough.' 
 
 The laugh that broke from Stacy and Barker, 
 to whom the infelicitous reputation of Red Gulch 
 was notorious, did not allay Steptoe's irritation. 
 He darted a vindictive glance at the unfortunate 
 Dick, but joined in the laugh. ! And what was 
 ye goin' to do with that?' he said, pointing to 
 the treasure. 
 
 ' Oh, we're taking that with us. There's a 
 chunk for each of us as a memento. We cast 
 lots for the choice and Demorest won. That 
 one which you couldn't lift with one hand, you 
 know,' said Stacy. 
 
 ' Oh, couldn't I ? I reckon you ain't goin' 
 to give me the same chance that they did at the 
 Mint, eh?' 
 
i6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Although the remark was accompanied with 
 his usual coarse, familiar laugh, there was a look 
 in his eye so inconsequent in its significance 
 that Stacy would have made some reply, but at 
 this moment Demorest re-entered the cabin, 
 ushering in a half-dozen miners from the Bar 
 below. They were, although youngish men, 
 some of the older locaters in the vicinity, yet, 
 through years of seclusion and uneventful labours, 
 they had acquired a certain childish simplicity of 
 thought and manner that was alternately amusing 
 and pathetic. They had never intruded upon 
 the reserve of the three partners of Heavy Tree 
 Hill before; nothing but an infantine curiosity, 
 a shy recognition of the partners' courtesy in 
 inviting them with the whole population of 
 1 Heavy Tree ' to the dinner the next day, 
 and the never-to-be-resisted temptation of an 
 evening of ' free liquor ' and forgetfulness of the 
 past, had brought them there now. Among 
 them, and yet not of them, was a young 
 man who, although speaking English without 
 accent, was distinctly of a different nationality 
 and race. This, with a certain neatness of 
 dress and artificial suavity of address, gained 
 him the nickname of ' the Count ' and ' French y,' 
 although he was really of Flemish extrac- 
 tion. He was the Union Ditch Company's 
 
THREE PARTNERS 17 
 
 agent on the Bar, by virtue of his knowledge of 
 languages. 
 
 Barker uttered an exclamation of pleasure 
 when he saw him. Himself the incarnation of 
 naturalness, he had always secretly admired this 
 young foreigner, with his lacquered smoothness, 
 although a vague consciousness that neither 
 Stacy nor Demorest shared his feelings had 
 restricted their acquaintance. Nevertheless, he 
 was proud now to see the bow with which Paul 
 Van Loo entered the cabin as if it were a 
 drawing-room, and perhaps did not reflect upon 
 that want of real feeling in an act which made 
 the others uncomfortable. 
 
 The slight awkwardness their entrance pro- 
 duced, however, was quickly forgotten when the 
 blanket was again lifted from the pan of treasure. 
 Singularly enough, too, the same feverish light 
 came into the eyes of each as they all gathered 
 around this yellow shrine. Even the polite 
 Paul rudely elbowed his way between the others, 
 though his artificial ' Pardon ' seemed to Barker 
 to condone this act of brutal instinct. But it was 
 more instructive to observe the manner in which 
 the older locators received this confirmation of 
 the fickle Fortune that had overlooked their weary 
 labours and years of waiting to lavish her favours 
 on the new and inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they 
 
 c 
 
lS THREE PARTNERS 
 
 turned their dazzled eyes upon the three partners 
 there was no envy or malice in their depths, no 
 reproach on their lips, no insincerity in their 
 wondering satisfaction. Rather there was a touch- 
 ing, almost childlike resumption of hope as they 
 gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's 
 bounty. The gold had been there — they had 
 only missed it ! And if there, more could be 
 found ! Was it not a proof of the richness of 
 Heavy Tree Hill ? So strongly was this reflected 
 on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting 
 them with the thoughful countenances of the real 
 owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. 
 It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled 
 Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused 
 Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick alone re- 
 mained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt 
 to pull himself once more together. Eventually he 
 succeeded, even to the ambitious achievement of 
 mounting a chair and lifting his tin cup with a 
 dangerously unsteady hand, which did not, how- 
 ever, affect his precision of utterance, and said : 
 1 Order, gentlemen ! We'll drink success to — 
 
 to- 
 
 4 The next strike ! ' said Barker, leaping im- 
 petuously on another chair and beaming upon 
 the old locators, ' and may it come to those who 
 have so long deserved it ! ' 
 
Whiskey Dick, lijting his tin cup with a dangerously unsteady hand. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 19 
 
 His sincere and generous enthusiasm seemed 
 to break the spell of silence that had fallen upon 
 them. Other toasts quickly followed. In the 
 general good feeling Barker attached himself to 
 Van Loo with his usual boyish effusion, and in 
 a burst of confidence imparted the secret of his 
 engagement to Kitty Carter. Van Loo listened 
 with polite eittention, formal congratulations, but 
 inscrutable eyes, that occasionally wandered to 
 Stacy and again to the treasure. A slight chill 
 of disappointment came over Barker's quick 
 sensitiveness. Perhaps his enthusiasm had bored 
 this superior man of the world. Perhaps his 
 confidences were in bad taste ! With a new 
 sense of his inexperience he turned sadly away. 
 Van Loo took that opportunity to approach 
 Stacy. 
 
 1 What's all this I hear of Barker being 
 engaged to Miss Carter ? ' he said, with a faintly 
 superior smile. ' Is it really true ?' 
 
 • 'Yes. Why shouldn't it be?' returned 
 Stacy bluntly. 
 
 Van Loo was instantly deprecating and smil- 
 ing. ■ Why not, of course ? But isn't it sudden ? ' 
 
 1 They have known each other ever since he's 
 been on Heavy Tree Hill,' responded Stacy. 
 
 ' Ah, yes ! True,' said Van Loo. ' But 
 
 now ' 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 < Well— he's got money enough to marry, and 
 he's going to marry.' 
 
 ' Rather young, isn't he ? ' said Van Loo, still 
 deprecatingly. 'And she's got nothing. Used 
 to wait on the table at her father's hotel in 
 Boomville, didn't she ? ' 
 
 4 Yes. What of that ? We all know it.' 
 
 ' Of course. It's an excellent thing for her — 
 and her father. He'll have a rich son-in-law. 
 About two hundred thousand is his share, isn't 
 it ? I suppose old Carter is delighted ? ' 
 
 Stacy had thought this before, but did not 
 dare to have it corroborated by this superfine 
 young foreigner. 'And I don't reckon that 
 Barker is offended if he is,' he said curtly as he 
 turned away. Nevertheless, he felt irritated that 
 one of the three superior partners of Heavy Tree 
 Hill should be thought a dupe. 
 
 Suddenly the conversation dropped, the 
 laughter ceased. Every one turned round, and, 
 by a common instinct, looked towards the door. 
 From the obscurity of the hill slope below came 
 a wonderful tenor voice, modulated by distance 
 and spiritualised by the darkness : 
 
 * When at some future day 
 I shall be far away, 
 Thou wilt be weeping-, 
 Thy lone watch keeping.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 21 
 
 The men looked at one another. ' That's 
 Jack Hamlin,' they said. ' What's he doing 
 here ? ' 
 
 1 The wolves are gathering around fresh 
 meat,' said Steptoe, with his coarse laugh and 
 a glance at the treasure. ' Didn't ye know he 
 came over from Red Dog yesterday ? ' 
 
 'Well, give Jack a fair show and his own 
 game,' said one of the old locators, 'and he'd 
 clean out that pile afore sunrise.' 
 
 1 And lose it next day,' added another. 
 
 1 But never turn a hair or change a muscle 
 in either case,' said a third. ' Lord ! I've heard 
 him sing away just like that when he's been 
 leaving the board with five thousand dollars in 
 his pocket, or going away stripped of his last 
 red cent.' 
 
 Van Loo, who had been listening withapeculiar 
 smile, here said in his most deprecating manner, 
 1 Yes, but did you never consider the influence 
 that such a man has on the hard-working tunnel 
 men, who are ready to gamble their whole week's 
 earnings to him ? Perhaps not. But I know 
 the difficulties of getting the Ditch rates from 
 these men when he has been in camp.' 
 
 He glanced around him with some importance, 
 but only a laugh followed his speech. ' Come 
 Frenchy,' said an old locator, ' you only say that 
 
 ^cciE LI BP. 
 
22 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 because your little brother wanted to play with 
 Jack like a grown man, and when Jack ordered 
 him off the board and he became sassy, Jack 
 scooted him outer the saloon.' 
 
 Van Loo's face reddened with an anger that 
 had the apparent effect of removing every trace 
 of his former polished repose, and leaving only 
 a hard outline beneath. At which Demorest 
 interfered : 
 
 4 1 can't say that I see much difference in 
 gambling by putting money into a hole in the 
 ground and expecting to take more from it, than 
 by putting it on a card for the same purpose.' 
 
 Here the ravishing tenor voice, which had 
 been approaching, ceased, and was succeeded by 
 a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling 
 to finish the bar of the singer's song. And 
 the next moment Jack Hamlin appeared in the 
 doorway. 
 
 Whatever was his present financial condition, 
 in perfect self-possession and charming sang-froid 
 he fully bore out his previous description. He 
 was as clean and refreshing looking as a Madrono 
 tree in the dust-blown forest. An odour of 
 scented soap and freshly ironed linen was wafted 
 from him ; there was scarcely a crease in his white 
 waistcoat, nor a speck upon his varnished shoes. 
 He might have been an auditor of the previous 
 
THREE PARTNERS 23 
 
 conversation, so quickly and completely did he 
 seem to take in the whole situation at a glance. 
 Perhaps there was an extra tilt to his black- 
 ribboned Panama hat, and a certain dancing devilry 
 in his brown eyes — which might also have been 
 an answer to adverse criticism. 
 
 ■ When I, his truth to prove, would trifle with 
 my love,' he warbled in gentle continuance from 
 the doorway. Then dropping cheerfully into 
 speech, he added, ' Well, boys, I am here to wel- 
 come the little stranger, and to trust that the 
 family are doing as well as can be expected. Ah ! 
 there it is ! Bless it ! ' he went on, walking 
 leisurely to the treasure. ' Triplets, too ! — and 
 plump at that. Have you had 'em weighed ? ' 
 
 Frankness was an essential quality of Heavy 
 Tree Hill. 'We were just saying, Jack,' said an 
 old locator, ' that, giving you a fair show and your 
 own game, you could manage to get away with 
 that pile before daybreak.' 
 
 'And I'm just thinking,' said Jack cheerfully, 
 ' that there were some of you here that could do 
 that without any such useless preliminary.' His 
 brown eyes rested for a moment on Steptoe, but 
 turning quite abruptly to Van Loo, he held out 
 his hand. Startled and embarrassed before the 
 others, the young man at last advanced his, when 
 Jack coolly put his own, as if forgetfully, in his 
 
24 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 pocket. ' I thought you might like to know what 
 that little brother of yours is doing,' he said to Van 
 Loo, yet looking at Steptoe. ' I found him wan- 
 dering about the Hill here quite drunk.' 
 
 1 I have repeatedly warned him ' began 
 
 Van Loo reddening. 
 
 1 Against bad company — I know,' suggested 
 Jack gaily ; ' yet, in spite of all that, I think he 
 owes some of his liquor to Steptoe yonder.' 
 
 1 I never supposed the fool would get drunk 
 over a glass of whiskey offered in fun,' said 
 Steptoe harshly, yet evidently quite as much dis- 
 concerted as angry. 
 
 * The trouble with Steptoe,' said Hamlin, 
 thoughtfully spanning his slim waist with both 
 hands as he looked down at his polished shoes, 
 1 is that he has such a soft-hearted liking for all 
 weaknesses. Always wanting to protect chaps 
 that can't look after themselves, whether it's 
 Whiskey Dick there when he has a pull on, or 
 some nigger when he's made a little strike, or 
 that straying lamb of Van Loo's when he's 
 puppy drunk. But you're wrong about me, 
 boys. You can't draw me in any game to-night. 
 This is one of my nights off, which I devote 
 exclusively to contemplation and song. But,' 
 he added, suddenly turning to his three hosts 
 with a bewildering and fascinating change of 
 
THREE PARTNERS 25 
 
 expression, ' I couldn't resist coming up here to 
 see you and your pile, even if I never saw the 
 one or the other before, and am not likely to 
 see either again. I believe in luck! And it 
 comes a mighty sight oftener than a fellow 
 thinks it does. But it doesn't come to stay. 
 So I'd advise you to keep your eyes skinned and 
 hang on to it while it's with you, like grim death. 
 So-long ! ' 
 
 Resisting all attempts of his hosts— who had 
 apparently fallen as suddenly and unaccountably 
 under the magic of his manner — to detain him 
 longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice pre- 
 sently rising again in melody as he descended the 
 hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the 
 others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable 
 magnetism, were impelled to follow him, naturally 
 joining their voices with his, leaving Steptoe 
 and Van Loo so markedly behind them alone that 
 they were compelled at last in sheer embarrass- 
 ment to close up the rear of the procession. In 
 another moment the cabin and the three partners 
 again relapsed into the peace and quiet of the 
 night. With the dying away of the last voices on 
 the hillside the old solitude reasserted itself. 
 
 But since the irruption of the strangers they 
 had lost their former sluggish contemplation, and 
 now busied themselves in preparation for their 
 
2G THREE PARTNERS 
 
 early departure from the cabin the next morning. 
 They had arranged to spend the following day 
 and night at Boomville and Carter's Hotel, where 
 they were to give their farewell dinner to Heavy 
 Tree Hill. They talked but little together; 
 since the rebuff his enthusiastic confidences had 
 received from Van Loo, Barker had been grave 
 and thoughtful, and Stacy, with the irritating 
 recollection of Van Loo's criticisms in his mind, 
 had refrained from his usual rallying of Barker. 
 Oddly enough, they spoke chiefly of Jack Ham- 
 lin — till then personally a stranger to them, on 
 account of his infelix reputation — and even the 
 critical Demorest expressed a wish they had 
 known him before. ' But you never know the 
 real value of anything until you're quittin' it or 
 it's quittin you,' he added sententiously. 
 
 Barker and Stacy both stared at their com- 
 panion, It was unlike Demorest to regret any- 
 thing—particularly a mere social diversion. 
 
 ' They say,' remarked Stacy, 'that if you had 
 known Jack Hamlin earlier and professionally, 
 a great deal of real value would have quitted 
 you before he did.' 
 
 1 Don't repeat that rot flung out by men 
 who have played Jack's game and lost,' returned 
 Demorest derisively. ' I'd rather trust him than 
 ' He stopped, glanced at the meditative 
 
THREE PARTNERS 27 
 
 Barker, and then concluded abruptly, ' the whole 
 caboodle of his critics.' 
 
 They were silent for a few moments, and then 
 seemed to have fallen into their former dreamy 
 mood as they relapsed into their old seats again. 
 At last Stacy drew a long breath. ' I wish we had 
 sent those nuggets off with the others this morning.' 
 
 ? Why ? ' said Demorest suddenly. 
 
 'Why? Well, d m it all! they kind o' 
 
 oppress me, don't you see. I seem to feel 'em 
 here, on my chest — all the three,' returned Stacy 
 
 only half-jocularly. \ It's their d -d specific 
 
 gravity, I suppose. I don't like the idea of sleep- 
 ing in the same room with 'em. They're alto- 
 gether too much for us three men to be left alone 
 with.' 
 
 4 You don't mean that you think that anybody 
 would attempt- ' said Demorest. 
 
 Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. 
 'No; I don't think that—\ rather wish" I did. 
 It's the blessed chunks of solid gold that seem to 
 have got ?is fast, don't you know, and are going 
 to stick to us for good or ill. A sort of Franken- 
 stein monster that we've picked out of a hole 
 from below.' 
 
 1 1 know just what Stacy means,' said Barker 
 breathlessly, rounding his grey eyes. • I've felt 
 it, too. Couldn't we make a sort of cache of it 
 
28 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 — bury it just outside the cabin for to-night? It 
 would be sort of putting it back into its old place, 
 you know, for the time being. It might like it.' 
 
 The two others laughed. ' Rather rough on 
 Providence, Barker boy,' said Stacy, ' handing- 
 back the Heaven-sent gift so soon ! Besides, 
 what's to keep any prospector from coming along 
 and making a strike of it ? You know that's 
 mining law — if you haven't pre-empted the spot 
 as a claim.' 
 
 But Barker was too staggered by this material 
 statement to make any reply, and Demorest 
 arose. ■ And I feel that you'ld both better be 
 turning in, as we've got to get up early.' He 
 went to the corner of the cabin and threw the 
 blanket back over the pan and its treasure. 
 1 There ! that'll keep the chunks from getting up 
 to ride astride of you like a nightmare.' He 
 shut the door and gave a momentary glance at its 
 cheap hinges and the absence of bolt or bar. 
 Stacy caught his eye. ' We'll miss this security 
 in San Francisco — perhaps even in Boomville,'he 
 sighed. 
 
 It was scarcely ten o'clock, but Stacy and 
 Barker had begun to undress themselves, with 
 intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker 
 continuing an amusing story with one stocking off 
 and his trousers hanging on his arm, until at last 
 
THREE PARTNERS 29 
 
 both men were snugly curled up in their respective 
 bunks. Presently Stacy's voice came from under 
 the blankets : 
 
 1 Hallo ! aren't you going to turn in, too ? ' 
 
 * Not yet,' said Demorest from his chair before 
 the fire. ' You see, it's the last night in the old 
 shanty, and I reckon I'll see the rest of it out.' 
 
 ' That's so,' said the impulsive Barker, 
 struggling violently with his blanket. ' I tell 
 you what, boys. We just ought to make a 
 Watch Night of it — a regular vigil, you know — 
 until twelve at least. Hold on ! I'll get up, too ! ' 
 But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful 
 partner's bare foot which went searching painfully 
 for the ground in one hand, tucked it back under 
 the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, 
 patted the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air. 
 
 1 You'll just say your prayers and go to sleep, 
 sonny. You'll want to be fresh as a daisy to 
 appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, and ,. 
 you can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, r 1 
 after dinner, in the back drawing-room, I said 
 " Good-night," and I mean it!' 
 
 Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a 
 nestling shiver and a sudden silence. Demorest 
 walked back to his chair ; a prolonged snore came 
 from Stacy's bunk. Then everything w as quiet ; 
 Demorest stirred up the fire, cast a huge root 
 
3 o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 upon it, and leaning back in his chair, sat with 
 half-closed eyes and dreamed. 
 
 It was an old dream that for the past three 
 years had come to him daily, sometimes even 
 overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye in 
 his noontide rest on his claim— a dream that had 
 never yet failed to wait for him at night by the 
 fireside when his partners were at rest. A dream 
 of the past, but so real that it always made the 
 present seem the dream through which he was 
 moving towards some sure awakening. 
 
 It was not strange that it should come to him 
 to-night, as it had often come before, slowly- 
 shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision 
 of a fair young girl seated in one of the empty- 
 chairs before him. Always the same pretty, 
 childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened, half- 
 wondering trouble; always the same slender, 
 graceful figure, but always glimmering in diamonds 
 and satin, or spiritual in lace and pearls, against 
 his own rude and sordid surroundings. Always 
 silent with parted lips, until the night wind smote 
 some chord of recollection, and then mingled a 
 remembered voice with his own. For at those 
 times he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed 
 lips, and an utterance inaudible to all but 
 her. 
 
 ' Well ? ! he said sadly. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 3 t 
 
 ' Weil ? ' the voice repeated, like a gentle 
 echo blending with his own. 
 
 'You know it all now,' he went on. 'You 
 know that it has come at last — all that I had 
 worked for, prayed for. All that would have 
 made us happy here ; all that would have saved 
 you to me has come at last, and all too late ! ' 
 
 ! Too late ! ' echoed the voice with his. 
 
 'You remember,' he went on, 'the last day 
 we were together. You remember your friends 
 and family would have you give me up — a penni- 
 less man. You remember when they reproached 
 you with my poverty, and told you that it was only 
 your wealth that I was seeking, that I then 
 determined to go away and never to return to 
 claim you until that reproach could be removed. 
 You remember, dearest, how you clung to me 
 and bade me stay with you, even fly with you, 
 but not to leave you alone with them. You wore 
 the same dress that day, darling ; your eyes had 
 the same wondering childlike fear and trouble in 
 them ; your jewels glittered on you as you 
 trembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather 
 in my weakness and cowardice, I refused. I came 
 away and broke my heart among these rocks and 
 ledges, yet grew strong ; and you, my love, you 
 sheltered and guarded by those you loved, 
 you ! He stopped and buried his face in his 
 
32 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 hands. The night wind breathed down the 
 chimney and from the stirred ashes on the hearth 
 came the soft whisper : ' I died.' 
 
 * And then,' he went on, ' I cared for nothing. 
 Sometimes my heart awoke for this young partner 
 of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl 
 that even in her humble station was far beyond 
 his hopes, and I pitied myself in him. Home, 
 fortune, friends, I no longer cared for — all were 
 forgotten. And now they are returning to me — 
 only that I may see the hollowness and vanity of 
 them, and taste the bitterness for which I have 
 sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of 
 my exile, I am confronted with only the jealousy, 
 the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to 
 come. Too late ! Too late ! ' 
 
 The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked 
 into his here appeared to clear and brighten with 
 a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in 
 the chimney that seemed to whisper to him : ' Too 
 late, beloved, for me, but not for you ? / died, 
 but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in 
 your happiness I too may live again.' 
 
 He started. In the flickering firelight the 
 chair was empty. The wind that had swept 
 down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a 
 sound like the passage of a rustling skirt. There 
 was a chill in the air and a smell like that of 
 
THREE PARTNERS 33 
 
 opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. 
 Then he sat upright. There was no mistake ; it 
 was no superstitious fancy, but a faint, damp 
 current of air was actually flowing across his feet 
 towards the fireplace. He was about to rise when 
 he stopped suddenly and became motionless. 
 
 He was actively conscious now of a strange 
 sound which had affected him even in the pre- 
 occupation of his vision. It was a gentle brush- 
 ing of some yielding substance like that made by 
 a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of a gown. 
 But to his mountain ears, attuned to every wood- 
 land sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher 
 or squirrel, the scratching of wild cat, nor the 
 hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human ; the 
 long, deep respirations of his sleeping companions 
 were distinct from that monotonous sound. He 
 could not even tell if it were in the cabin or 
 without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in 
 the corner. The blanket that covered the treasure 
 was actually moving ! 
 
 He rose quickly, but silently — alert, self- 
 contained, and menacing. For this dreamer, this 
 bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches 
 had disappeared with that midnight trespass upon 
 the sacred treasure. The movement of the 
 blanket ceased ; the soft, swishing sound recom- 
 menced. He drew a glittering bowie-knife from his 
 
 D 
 
34 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 boot-leg, and in three noiseless strides was beside 
 the pile. There he saw what he fully expected to 
 see — a narrow, horizontal gap between the log 
 walls of the cabin and the adobe floor, slowly widen- 
 ing and deepening by the burrowing of unseen 
 hands from without. The cold outer air which he 
 had felt before was now plainly flowing into the 
 heated cabin through the opening. The swishing 
 sound recommenced and stopped. Then the four 
 fingers of a hand, palm downwards, were cautiously 
 introduced between the bottom log and the 
 denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the 
 bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a flash of 
 lightning. There was no outcry. Even in that 
 supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admira- 
 tion for the stoicism of the unseen trespasser — 
 but the maimed hand was quickly withdrawn, 
 and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and 
 dashed into the outer darkness. 
 
 For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by 
 the sudden change. But the next moment he saw 
 a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and 
 threw himself upon it. In the shock both men 
 fell, but even in that contact Demorest felt the 
 tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey 
 Dick, and felt also that the hands which were 
 thrown up against his breast, the palms turned 
 outward with the instinctive movement of a timid, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 33 
 
 defenceless man, were unstained with soil or blood. 
 With an oath he threw the drunkard from him 
 and dashed to the rear of the cabin. But too 
 late ! There, indeed, was the scattered earth, 
 there the widened burrow as it had been ex- 
 cavated apparently by that mutilated hand — but 
 nothing else ! 
 
 He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the 
 miserable man, although still retaining a look of 
 dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet in 
 a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of 
 injury. What did Demorest mean by attacking 
 'innoshent' gentlemen on the trail outside his 
 cabin ? Yes ! outside his cabin, he would swear 
 it! 
 
 'What were you doing here at midnight?' 
 demanded Demorest. 
 
 What was he doing ? What was any gentle- 
 man doing? He wasn't any mollycoddle to go 
 to bed at - ten o'clock ! What was he doing ? 
 Well — he'd been with men who didn't shut their 
 doors and turn the boys out just in the shank of 
 the evening. He wasn't any Barker to be wet- 
 nursed by Demorest. 
 
 • Some one else was here ! ' said Demorest 
 sternly, with his eyes fixed on Whiskey Dick, 
 The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer 
 world from the drunkard's pupils shifted suddenly 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 with such a look of direct horror that Demorest 
 was fain to turn away his own. But the veil 
 mercifully returned, and with it Dick's worked- 
 up sense of injury. Nobody was there — not ' a 
 shole.' Did Demorest think if there had been 
 any of his friends there they would have stood by 
 like ' dogsh ' and seen him insulted ? 
 
 Demorest turned away and re-entered the 
 cabin as Dick lurched heavily forward, still 
 muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, 
 a sickening repugnance to the whole incident 
 took the place of Demorest's resentment and 
 indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt 
 to rob them of their miserable treasure. He had 
 met it and frustrated it in almost as brutal a 
 fashion ; the gold was already tarnished with 
 blood. To his surprise, yet relief, he found his 
 partners unconscious of the outrage, still sleeping 
 with the physical immobility of over-excited and 
 tired men. Should he awaken them ? No ! 
 He should have to awaken also their suspicions 
 and desire for revenge. There was no danger of 
 a further attack ; there was no fear that the 
 culprit would disclose himself, and to-morrow 
 they would be far away. Let oblivion rest upon 
 that night's stain on the honour of Heavy Tree 
 Hill. 
 
 He rolled a small barrel before the opening, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 37 
 
 smoothed the dislodged earth, replaced the pan 
 with its treasure, and trusted that in the bustle of 
 the early morning departure his partners might 
 not notice any change. Stopping before the 
 bunk of Stacy he glanced at the sleeping man. 
 He was lying on his back, but breathing heavily, 
 and his hands were moving towards his chest as 
 if, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden incubus 
 were being realised. Demorest would have 
 wakened him, but presently, with a sigh of relief, 
 the sleeper turned over on his side. It was 
 pleasanter to look at Barker, whose damp curls 
 were matted over his smooth, boyish forehead, 
 and whose lips were parted in a smile under the 
 silken wings of his brown moustache. He, too, 
 seemed to be trying to speak, and remembering 
 some previous revelations which had amused 
 them, Demorest leaned over him fraternally with 
 an answering smile, waiting for the beloved one's 
 name to pass the young man's lips. But he 
 only murmured, ■ Three — hundred — thousand 
 dollars ! ' The elder man turned away with a 
 grave face. The influence of the treasure was 
 paramount. 
 
 When he had placed one of the chairs 
 against the unprotected door at an angle which 
 would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, 
 Demorest threw himself without undressing on 
 
3 8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 his bunk and turned his face towards the single 
 window of the cabin that looked towards the east. 
 He did not apprehend another covert attempt 
 against the gold. He did not fear a robbery with 
 force and arms, although he was satisfied that 
 there was more than one concerned in it, but 
 this he attributed only to the encumbering weight 
 of their expected booty. He simply waited for 
 the dawn. It was some time before his eyes 
 were greeted with the vague opaline brightness 
 of the firmament which meant the vanishing of the 
 pallid snow-line before the coming day. A bird 
 twittered on the roof. The air was chill ; he 
 drew his blanket around him. Then he closed 
 his eyes, he fancied only for a moment, but when 
 he opened them the door was standing open in 
 the strong daylight. He sprang to his feet, but 
 the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who 
 had passed out, and was returning fully dressed 
 bringing water from the spring to fill the kettle. 
 But Stacy's face was so grave that, recalling his 
 disturbed sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if 
 he had been haunted by the treasure. But to his 
 surprise Stacy put down the kettle and with a 
 hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, said in 
 a low voice : 
 
 1 1 want you to do something for me without 
 asking why. Later I will tell you.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 39 
 
 Demorest looked at him fixedly. ( What is it ?' 
 he said. 
 
 ' The pack mules will be here in a few 
 moments. Don't wait to close up or put away 
 anything here, but clap that gold in the saddle 
 bags and take Barker with you and lite out for 
 Boomville at once. I will overtake you later.' 
 
 1 Is there no time to discuss this ? ' asked 
 Demorest. 
 
 1 No,' said Stacy bluntly. ■ Call me a crank ! 
 Say I'm in a blue funk' — his compressed lips and 
 sharp black eyes did not lend themselves much 
 to that hypothesis — ' only get out of this with 
 that stuff and take Barker with you ! I'm not 
 responsible for myself while it's here.' 
 
 Demorest knew Stacy to be combative but 
 practical. If he had not been assured of his 
 partner's last night slumbers he might have 
 thought he knew of the attempt. Or if he had 
 discovered the turned-up ground in the rear of 
 the cabin his curiosity would have demanded an 
 explanation. Demorest paused only for a 
 moment, and said, \ Very well, I will go.' 
 
 'Good ! I'll rouse out Barker, but not a word 
 to him — except that he must go.' 
 
 The routing out of Barker consisted of Stacy's 
 lifting that young gentleman bodily from his bunk 
 and standing him upright in the open doorway. 
 
40 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 But Barker was accustomed to this Spartan 
 process, and after a moment's balancing with 
 closed lids like an unwrapped mummy, he sat 
 down in the doorway and began to dress. He 
 at first demurred to their departure except all 
 together ; it was so unfraternal ; but eventually 
 he allowed himself to be persuaded out of it and 
 into his clothes. For Barker had also had his 
 visions in the night, one of which was that they 
 should build a beautiful villa on the site of the 
 old cabin and solemnly agree to come every year 
 and pass a week in it toget her. * I thought at 
 first,' he said, sliding along the floor in search of 
 different articles of his dress, or stopping gravely 
 to catch them as they were thrown to him by 
 his partners, ' that we'd have it at Boomville, as 
 being handier to get there ; but I've concluded 
 we'd better have it here, a little higher up the 
 hill, where it could be seen over the whole Black 
 Spur Range. When we weren't here we could 
 use it as a Hut of Refuge for broken-down or 
 washed-out miners or weary travellers, like those 
 hospices in the Alps, you know, and have some- 
 body to keep it for us. You see I've thought 
 even of that, and Van Loo is the very man to 
 take charge of it for us. You see he's got such 
 good manners and speaks two languages. Lord ! 
 if a German or Frenchman came along, poor and 
 
THfc 
 
 THREE PARTNERS 41 
 
 distressed, Van Loo would just chip in his own 
 language. See ? You've got to think of all 
 these details, you see, boys. And we might call 
 it " The Rest of the Three Partners," or " Three 
 Partners' Rest." ' 
 
 ' And you might begin by giving us one,' said 
 Stacy. ' Dry up and drink your coffee.' 
 
 1 I'll draw out the plans. I've got it all in my 
 head,' continued the enthusiastic Barker, unheed- 
 ing the interruption. ' I'll just run out and take 
 a look at the site, it's only right back of the 
 cabin.' But here Stacy caught him by his 
 dangling belt as he was flying out of the door 
 with one boot on, and thrust him down in a chair 
 with a tin cup of coffee in his hand. 
 
 * Keep the plans in your head, Barker boy,' 
 said Demorest, * for here are the pack mules and 
 packer.' This was quite enough to divert the 
 impressionable young man, who speedily finished 
 his dressing, as a mule bearing a large pack-saddle 
 and two enormous saddle-bags or pouches drove 
 up before the door, led by a muleteer on a small 
 horse. The transfer of the treasure to the 
 saddle-bags was quickly made by their united 
 efforts, as the first rays of the sun were beginning 
 to paint the hill-side. Shading his keen eyes with 
 his hand, Stacy stood in the doorway and handed 
 Demorest the two rifles. Demorest hesitated. 
 
42 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' Hadn't J4?tt better keep one?' he said, looking in his 
 partner's eyes with his first challenge of curiosity. 
 The sun seemed to put a humorous twinkle into 
 Stacy's glance as he returned, ' Not much ! And 
 you'd better take my revolver with you, too. I'm 
 feeling a little better now,' he said, looking at the 
 saddle-bags, 'but I'm not fit to be trusted yet with 
 carnal weapons. When the other mule comes 
 and is packed I'll overtake you on the horse.' 
 
 A little more satisfied, although still wondering 
 and perplexed, Demorest shouldered one rifle, 
 and with Barker, who was carrying the other, 
 followed the muleteer and his equipage down the 
 trail. For a while he was a little ashamed of 
 his part in this unusual spectacle of two armed 
 men convoying a laden mule in broad daylight, 
 but, luckily, it was too early for the Bar miners to 
 be going to work, and as the tunnel men were 
 now at breakfast the trail was free of wayfarers. 
 At the point where it crossed the main road 
 Demorest, however, saw Steptoe and Whiskey 
 Dick emerge from the thicket, apparently in 
 earnest conversation. Demorest felt his re- 
 pugnance and half-restrained suspicions suddenly 
 return. Yet he did not wish to betray them 
 before Barker, nor was he willing, in case of an 
 emergency, to allow the young man to be entirely 
 unprepared. Calling him to follow, he ran quickly 
 
THREE PARTNERS 43 
 
 ahead of the laden mule, and was relieved to find 
 that, looking back, his companion had brought 
 his rifle to a ' ready,' through some instinctive 
 feeling of defence. As Steptoe and Whiskey 
 Dick, a moment later discovering them, were 
 evidently surprised, there seemed, however, to be 
 no reason for fearing an outbreak. Suddenly, at 
 a whisper from Steptoe, he and Whiskey Dick 
 both threw up their hands, and stood still on the 
 trail a few yards from them in a burlesque of the 
 usual recognised attitude of helplessness, while a 
 hoarse laugh broke from Steptoe. 
 
 * D d if we didn't think you were road 
 
 agents ! But we see you're only guarding your 
 treasure. Rather fancy style for Heavy Tree Hill, 
 ain't it ? Things must begettin' rough up thar to 
 hev to take out your guns like that ! ' 
 
 Demorest had looked keenly at the four hands 
 thus exhibited, and was more concerned that 
 they bore no trace of wounds or mutilation than 
 at the insult of the speech — particularly as he 
 had a distinct impression that the action was 
 intended to show him the futility of his suspicions. 
 
 1 I am glad to see that if you haven't any 
 arms in your hands you're not incapable of 
 handling them,' said Demorest coolly, as he 
 passed by them and again fell into the rear 
 of the muleteer. But Barker had thought the 
 
44 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 incident very funny, and laughed effusively at 
 Whiskey Dick. ' I didn't know that Steptoe 
 was up to that kind o' fun,' he said, 'and I 
 suppose we did look rather rough with these guns 
 as we ran on ahead of the mule. But then you 
 know that when you called to me I really thought 
 you were in for a shindy. All the same, Whiskey 
 Dick did that u hands up " to perfection ; how 
 he managed it I don't know, but his knees 
 seemed to knock together as if he was in a real 
 funk.' 
 
 Demorest had thought so too, but he made 
 no reply. How far that miserable drunkard was 
 a forced or willing accomplice of the events of last 
 night, was part of a question that had become more 
 and more repugnant to him as he was leaving 
 the scene of it for ever. It had come upon him, 
 desecrating the dream he had dreamt that last 
 night, and turning its hopeful climax to bitterness. 
 Small wonder that Barker, walking by his side, 
 had his quick sympathies aroused, and as he saw 
 that shadow, which they were all familiar with, 
 but had never sought to penetrate, fall upon his 
 companion's handsome face, even his youthful 
 spirits yielded to it. They were both relieved 
 when the clatter of hoofs behind them, as they 
 reached the valley, announced the approach oi 
 Stacy. ' I started with the second mule and the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 45 
 
 last load soon after you left,' he explained, ' and 
 have just passed them. I thought it better to join 
 you and let the other load follow. Nobody will 
 interfere with that! 
 
 * Then you are satisfied ? ' said Demorest, re- 
 garding him steadfastly. 
 
 ' You bet ! Look ! ' 
 
 He turned in his saddle and pointed to the 
 crest of the hill they had just descended. Above 
 the pines circling the lower slope, above the bare 
 ledges of rock and outcrop, a column of thick 
 black smoke was rising straight as a spire in the 
 windless air. 
 
 * That's the old shanty passing away,' said 
 Stacy complacently. ' I reckon there won't be 
 much left of it before we get to Boomville.' 
 
 Demorest and Barker stared. ' You fired 
 it ? ' said Barker, trembling with excitement. 
 
 1 Yes,' said Stacy. ' I couldn't bear to leave 
 the old rookery for coyotes and wild cats to 
 gather in, so I touched her off before I left' 
 
 < But ' said Barker. 
 
 1 But,' repeated Stacy composedly. * Hallo ! 
 what's the matter with that new plan of " The 
 Rest " that you're going to build, eh ? You don't 
 want them both! 
 
 1 And you did this rather than leave the dear 
 old cabin to strangers ? ' said Barker with kindling 
 
4 6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 eyes. ' Stacy, I didn't think you had that poetry 
 
 in you ! ' 
 
 1 There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you 
 don't know, and I don't exactly sabe myself.' 
 
 1 Only,' continued the young fellow eagerly, 
 ' we ought to have all been there ! We ought to 
 have made a solemn rite of it, you know— a kind 
 of sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of 
 libation on the ground ! ' 
 
 1 I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I 
 think,' returned Stacy, 'just to help things along. 
 But if you want to see her flaming, Barker, you 
 just run back to that last corner on the road 
 beyond the big red wood. That's the spot for a 
 
 view.' 
 
 As Barker — always devoted to a spectacle — 
 swiftly disappeared the two men faced each other. 
 * Well, what does it all mean ? ' said Demorest 
 gravely. 
 
 'It means, old man,' said Stacy suddenly, 
 1 that if we hadn't had nigger luck, the same blind 
 luck that sent us that strike, you and I and that 
 Barker over there would have been swirling in 
 that smoke up to the sky about two hours ago ! ' 
 He stopped and added in a lower, but earnest 
 voice, ' Look here, Phil ! When I went out to 
 fetch water this morning I smelt something queer. 
 I went round to the back of the cabin and found 
 
THREE PARTNERS 47 
 
 a hole dug under the floor, and piled against the 
 corner wall a lot of brushwood and a can of kero- 
 sene. Some of the kerosene had been already 
 poured on the brush. Everything was ready to 
 light, and only my coming out an hour earlier had 
 frightened the devils away. The idea was to set 
 the place on fire, suffocate us in the smoke of the 
 kerosene poured into the hole, and then to rush 
 in and grab the treasure. It was a systematic 
 plan ! ' 
 
 ' No ! ' said Demorest quietly. 
 
 ' No ? ' repeated Stacy. ' I told you I saw 
 the whole thing and took away the kerosene, 
 which I hid, and after you had gone used it to 
 fire the cabin with, to see if the ones I suspected 
 would gather to watch their work.' 
 
 ■ It was no part of their first plan,' said 
 Demorest, ' which was only robbery. Listen ! ' 
 He hurriedly recounted his experience of the 
 preceding night to the astonished Stacy. ' No, 
 the fire was an afterthought and revenge,' he 
 added sternly. 
 
 1 But you say you cut the robber in the hand ; 
 there would be no difficulty in identifying him by 
 that.' 
 
 * I wounded only a handy said Demorest. 
 ' But there was a head in that attempt that I 
 never saw.' He then revealed his own half 
 
4 8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 suspicions, but how they were apparently refuted 
 by the bravado of Steptoe and Whiskey Dick. 
 
 1 Then that was the reason they didn't gather 
 at the fire/ said Stacy quickly. 
 
 * Ah ! ' said Demorest, ' then you too sus- 
 pected them ? ' 
 
 Stacy hesitated, and then said abruptly, 
 'Yes.' 
 
 Demorest was silent for a moment. ' Why 
 didn't you tell me this this morning ? ' he said 
 gently. 
 
 Stacy pointed to the distant Barker. ' I 
 didn't want you to tell him. I thought it better 
 for one partner to keep a secret from two than for 
 the two to keep it from one. Why didn't you tell 
 me of your experience last night ? ' 
 
 ' I am afraid it was for the same reason,' said 
 Demorest with a faint smile. ' And it sometimes 
 seems to me, Jim, that we ought to imitate 
 Barker's frankness. In our dread of tainting him 
 with our own knowledge of evil we are sending 
 him out into the world very poorly equipped, for 
 all his three hundred thousand dollars.' 
 
 1 I reckon you're right,' said Stacy briefly, 
 extending his hand. ■ Shake on that ! ' 
 
 The two men grasped each other's hands. 
 
 * And he's no fool either,' continued Demorest ; 
 'when we met Steptoe on the road, without a 
 
THREE PARTNERS 49 
 
 Word from me, he closed up alongside, with his 
 hand on the lock of his rifle. And I hadn't the 
 heart to praise him or laugh it off.' 
 
 Nevertheless they were both silent as the 
 object of their criticism bounded down the trail 
 towards them. He had seen the funeral pyre. 
 It was awfully sad, it was awfully lovely, but 
 there was something grand in it ! Who could 
 have thought Stacy could be so poetic ? But he 
 wanted to tell them something else that was 
 mighty pretty. 
 
 ' What was it ? ' said Demorest. 
 
 'Well,' said Barker, 'don't laugh! But you 
 know that Jack Hamlin ? Well, boys, he's been 
 hovering around us on his mustang, keeping us 
 and that pack mule in sight ever since we left. 
 Sometimes he's on a side trail off the right, some- 
 times off to the left, but always at the same dis- 
 tance. I didn't like to tell you, boys, for I thought 
 you'd laugh at me ; but I think, you know, he's 
 taken a sort of shine to us since he dropped in 
 last night. And I fancy, you see, he's sort of 
 hanging round to see that we get along all right. 
 I'd have pointed him out before only I reckoned 
 you and Stacy would say he was making up to us 
 for our money.' 
 
 'And we'd have been wrong, Barker boy,' 
 said Stacy, with a heartiness that surprised 
 
 E 
 
5 o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Demorest, ' for I reckon your instinct's the right 
 
 on> 
 
 ' There he is now,' said the gratified Barker, 
 1 just abreast of us on the cut-off. He started 
 just after we did, and he's got a horse that could 
 have brought him into Boomville hours ago. It's 
 just his kindness.' 
 
 He pointed to a distant fringe of buckeye 
 from which Jack Hamlin had just emerged. 
 Although evidently holding in a powerful 
 mustang, nothing could be more unconscious and 
 utterly indifferent than his attitude. He did not 
 seem to know of the proximity of any other 
 traveller, and to care less. His handsome head 
 was slightly thrown back, as if he was carolling 
 after his usual fashion, but the distance was too 
 great to make his melody audible to them, or to 
 allow Barker's shout of invitation to reach him. 
 Suddenly he lowered his tightened rein, the 
 mustang sprang forward, and with a flash of 
 silver spurs and bridle fripperies he had dis- 
 appeared. But as the trail he was pursuing 
 crossed theirs a mile beyond, it seemed quite 
 possible that they should again meet him. 
 
 They were now fairly into the Boomville 
 valley, and were entering a narrow arroyo 
 bordered with dusky willows which effectually 
 excluded the view on either side. It was the bed 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 5i 
 
 of a mountain torrent that in winter descended 
 the hill-side over the trail by which they had just 
 come, but was now sunk into the thirsty plain 
 between banks that varied from two to five feet 
 in height. The muleteer had advanced into the 
 narrow channel when he suddenly cast a hurried 
 glance behind him, uttered a ' Madre de Dios ! ' 
 and backed his mule and his precious freight 
 against the bank. The sound of hoofs on the 
 trail in their rear had caught his quicker ear, and 
 as the three partners turned they beheld three 
 horsemen thundering down the hill towards them. 
 They were apparently Mexican vaqneros of the 
 usual common, swarthy type, their faces made 
 still darker by the black silk handkerchief tied 
 round their heads under their stiff sombreros. 
 Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain 
 their horses in their headlong speed and a collision 
 in that narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly 
 before reaching its entrance they diverged with a 
 volley of oaths, and dashing along the left bank 
 of the- a?vvyo, disappeared in the intervening 
 willows. Divided between relief at their escape 
 and indignation at what seemed to be a drunken 
 feast-day freak of these roystering vaqueros, the 
 little party re-formed, when a cry from Barker 
 arrested them. He had just perceived a horse- 
 man motionless in the arroyo who, although un- 
 
 e 2 
 
;| THREE PARTNERS 
 
 noticed by them, had evidently been seen by the 
 Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it 
 from the bank, and had halted as if to witness 
 this singular incident. As the clatter of the 
 vaqueros hoofs died away he lightly leaped the 
 bank again and disappeared. But in that single 
 glimpse of him they recognised Jack Hamlin. 
 When they reached the spot where he had 
 halted, they could see that he must have 
 approached it from the trail where they had 
 previously seen him, but which they now found 
 crossed it at right angles. Barker was right. 
 He had really kept them at easy distance the 
 whole length of the journey. 
 
 But they were now reaching its end. When 
 they issued at last from the arroyo they came 
 upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great 
 stage road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer 
 coach were just panting along the last half-mile 
 of the steep up grade as they approached. They 
 halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed 
 and creaked by them. In their ordinary working 
 dress, sunburnt with exposure, covered with dust, 
 and carrying their rifles still in their hands, they, 
 perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristic 
 appearance to draw a few faces — some of them 
 pretty and intelligent — to the windows of the 
 coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was 
 
THREE PARTNERS 53 
 
 quickest to feel that resentment with which 
 the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism 
 of the Eastern tourist or 'greenhorn,' and 
 reddened under the bold scrutiny of a pair of 
 black inquisitive eyes behind an eye-glass. 
 That annoyance was communicated, though in 
 a lesser degree, even to the bearded Demorest 
 and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with 
 that great world in which they were so soon to 
 enter. They felt ashamed of their appearance, 
 and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a 
 secret satisfaction when Barker said, ' They'd 
 open their eyes wider if they knew what was in 
 that pack-saddle,' and yet they corrected him for 
 what they were pleased to call ' his snobbishness.' 
 They hurried a little faster as the road became 
 more frequented, as if eager to shorten their 
 distance to clean clothes and civilisation. 
 
 Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. 
 This contact with the stage coach had again 
 brought him face to face with his buried past. 
 He felt his old dream revive, and occasionally 
 turned to look back upon the dark outlines of 
 Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned 
 so often, and wondered if he had left it there for 
 ever, and it were now slowly exhaling with the 
 thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin. 
 
 His companions, knowing his silent moods, 
 
54 
 
 } RTNER$ 
 
 had preceded him at some distance when he 
 heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the 
 thick dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack 
 Hamlin's gauntlet on his shoulder. The mustang- 
 Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat, 
 but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as 
 ever. With a delightful affectation of embarrass- 
 ment and timidity he began flicking the side 
 buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers with the 
 thong of his riala. ' I reckoned to sling a word 
 along with you before you went,' he said, looking 
 down, 'but I'm so shy that I couldn't do it in 
 company. So I thought I'd get it off on you 
 while you were alone.' 
 
 'We've seen you once or twice before this 
 morning,' said Demorest pleasantly, 'and we were 
 sorry you didn't join us.' 
 
 ' I reckon I might have,' said Jack gaily, 'if 
 my horse had only made up his mind whether he 
 was a bird or a squirrel, and hadn't been so various 
 and promiscuous about whether he wanted to 
 climb a tree or fly. He's not a bad horse for a 
 Mexican plug, only when he thinks there is any 
 devilment around he wants to wade in and take 
 a hand. However, I reckoned to see the last of 
 you and your pile into Boomville. And I did. 
 When I meet three fellows like you that are clean 
 white all through I sort of cotton to 'em, even if 
 
"S 
 
THREE PARTNERS 55 
 
 /';;/ a little of a brunette myself. And I've got 
 something to give you.' 
 
 He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small 
 parcel neatly folded in white paper as fresh and 
 spotless as himself. Holding it in his fingers, he 
 went on : ■ I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill 
 early this morning before sun up. In. the darkness 
 I struck your cabin, and I reckon — I struck some- 
 body else ! At first I thought it was one of you 
 chaps down on your knees praying at the rear of 
 the cabin, but the way the fellow lit out when he 
 smelt me coming made me think it wasn't entirely 
 fasting and prayer. However, I went to the rear 
 of the cabin, and then I reckoned some kind 
 friend had been bringing you kindlings and fire- 
 wood for your early breakfast. But that didn't 
 satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had knelt, and 
 then I saw — well, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw 
 just iv hat you have seen I But even then I wasn't 
 quite satisfied, for that man had been grubbing 
 round as if searching for something. So I 
 searched too — and I found it. I've got it here. 
 I'm going to give it to you, for it may some day 
 come in handy, and you won't find anything like 
 it among the folks where you're going. It's 
 something unique, as those fine art collecting 
 sharps in 'Frisco say — something quite matchless, 
 unless you try to match it one day yourself! 
 
5 6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Don't open the paper until I run on and say " So 
 long " to your partners. Good-bye.' 
 
 He grasped Demorest's hand and then dropped 
 the little packet into his palm, and ambled away 
 towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet 
 in his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, 
 Demorest watched the gambler give Stacy's hand 
 a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap 
 on the back to the delighted Barker, and then 
 vanish in a flash of red sash and silver buttons. 
 At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his 
 partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly 
 still. It contained the dried and bloodless second 
 finger of a human hand, cut off at the first joint ! 
 
 For an instant he held it at arm's length, as 
 if about to cast it away. Then he grimly re- 
 placed it in the paper, put it carefully in his 
 pocket, and silently walked after his companions. 
 
 END OF PROLOGUE 
 
THREE PARTNERS 57 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AFTER THREE YEARS 
 
 A strong south-wester was beating against the 
 windows and doors of * Stacy's Bank ' in San 
 Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between 
 the regular splendours of its mahogany counters 
 and sprucely dressed clerks and the usual passing 
 pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking house had 
 long since received the epithet of ' palatial ' from an 
 enthusiastic local press fresh from the ' opening ' 
 luncheon in its richly decorated directors' rooms, 
 and it was said that once a homely would-be 
 depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed 
 by its magnificence that his heart failed him at 
 the last moment, and mumbling an apology to 
 the elegant receiving teller, fled with his greasy 
 chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his 
 treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. 
 Perhaps there was something of this feeling, 
 mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, 
 in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class 
 
 ^esE us/OS* 
 
53 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 who entered the bank that rainy morning and 
 finally tendered his card to the important negro 
 messenger. 
 
 The card preceded him through noiselessly 
 swinging doors and across heavily carpeted 
 passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. 
 James Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully 
 laid before him. He was not alone. At his side, 
 in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, 
 stood a correct- looking young man, for whom 
 Mr. Stacy was evidently writing a memorandum. 
 The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a 
 curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested 
 good-breeding ; but Stacy did not look at it until 
 he had finished his memorandum. 
 
 * There,' he said, with business decision, ' you 
 can tell your people that if we carry their new 
 debentures over our limit we will expect a larger 
 margin. Ditches are not what they were three 
 years ago when miners were willing to waste 
 their money over your rates. They don't gamble 
 thai way any more, and your company ought to 
 know it, and not gamble themselves over that 
 prospect.' He handed the paper to the stranger, 
 who bowed over it with studied politeness, and 
 backed towards the door. Stacy took up the 
 waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, 
 4 Show him in,' and in the same breath turned to 
 
THREE PARTNERS 59 
 
 his guest : ' I say, Van Loo, it's George Barker ! 
 You know him.' 
 
 \ Yes,' said Van Loo with a polite hesitation 
 as he halted at the door. ■ He was — I think — er 
 ■ — in your employ at Heavy Tree Hill.' 
 
 'Nonsense! He was my/^r/^r. And you 
 must have known him since at Boomville. 
 Come ! He got forty shares of Ditch stock 
 —through you — at no, which were worth about 
 80 ! Somebody must have made money enough 
 by it to remember him.' 
 
 1 I was only speaking of him socially,' said 
 Van Loo, with a deprecating smile. ' You 
 know he married a young woman — the hotel- 
 keeper's daughter, who used to wait at the table 
 — and after my mother and sister came out to 
 keep house for me at Boomville it was quite 
 impossible for me to see much of him, for he 
 seldom went out without his wife, you know.' 
 
 4 Yes,' said Stacy drily, 'I think you didn't 
 like his marriage. But I'm glad your disinclina- 
 tion to see him isn't on account of that deal in 
 stocks.' 
 
 % Oh, no,' said Van Loo. 'Good-bye.' 
 
 But, unfortunately, in the next passage he 
 came upon Barker, who with a cry of unfeigned 
 pleasure, none the less sincere that he was feel- 
 ing a little alien in these impressive surroundings, 
 
60 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 recognised him. Nothing could exceed Van 
 Loo's protest of delight at the meeting ; nothing 
 his equal desolation at the fact that he was has- 
 tening to another engagement. ' But your old 
 partner,' he added with a smile, ' is waiting for 
 you ; he has just received your card, and I 
 should be only keeping you from him. So glad 
 to see you ; you're looking so well. Good-bye ! 
 Good-bye ! ' 
 
 Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but 
 dashed with his old impetuousness into his former 
 partner's room. Stacy, already deeply absorbed 
 in other business, was sitting with his back towards 
 him, and Barker's arms were actually encircling 
 his neck before the astonished and half-angry man 
 looked up. But when his eyes met the laughing 
 grey ones of Barker above him he gently disen- 
 gaged himself with a quick return of the caress, 
 rose, shut the door of an inner office, and return- 
 ing pushed Barker into an arm-chair in quite the 
 old suppressive fashion of former days. Yes ; 
 it was the same Stacy that Barker looked at, 
 albeit his brown beard was now closely cropped 
 around his determined mouth and jaw in a kind 
 of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs already 
 attuned to the rigour of clothes of fashionable 
 cut and still more rigorous sombreness of colour. 
 
 1 Barker boy,' he began, with the familiar 
 
THREE PARTNERS 61 
 
 twinkle in his keen eyes which the younger 
 partner remembered, ' I don't encourage stag 
 dancing among my young men during bank hours, 
 and you'll please to remember that we are not on 
 Heavy Tree Hill.' 
 
 1 Where,' broke in Barker enthusiastically, 
 * we were only overlooked by the Black Spur 
 Range and the sierran snow-line ; where the 
 nearest voice that came to you was quarter of a 
 mile away as the crow flies and nearly a mile by 
 the trail.' 
 
 1 And was generally an oath ! ' said Stacy. 
 ' But you're in San Francisco now. Where are 
 you stopping ?' He took up a pencil and held it 
 over a memorandum pad awaitingly. 
 
 1 At the Brook House. It's ' 
 
 1 Hold on! Brook House/ he repeated as he 
 jotted it down. ■ And for how long ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty ' 
 
 Stacy checked him with a movement of his 
 pencil in the air, and then wrote down, ' Day or 
 two. Wife with you ? ' 
 
 1 Yes ; and oh, Stacy, our boy ! Ah ! ' he 
 went on with a laugh, knocking aside the re- 
 monstrating pencil, 'you must listen! He's just 
 the sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do 
 you know what we're going to christen him ? 
 Well, he'll be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good 
 
6 2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 names, aren't they ? And then it perpetuates the 
 clear old friendship.' 
 
 Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote 
 1 Wife and child S. D. B.,' and leaned back in 
 his chair. ' Now, Barker,' he said briefly, ' I'm 
 coming to dine with you to-night at 7.30 sharp. 
 Then we'll talk Heavy Tree Hill, wife, baby, and 
 S. D. B. But here I'm all for business. Have 
 you any with me ? ' 
 
 Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted 
 a certain entertainment out of Stacy's memo- 
 randum, but he straightened himself with a look 
 of eager confidence and said, ' Certainly ; that's 
 just what it is— business. Lord ! Stacy, I'm all 
 business now. I'm in everything. And I bank 
 with you, though perhaps you don't know it ; it's 
 in your branch at Marysville. I didn't want to 
 say anything about it to you before. But Lord ! 
 you don't suppose that I'd bank anywhere else 
 while you are in the business— cheques, dividends, 
 and all that ; but in this matter I felt you knew, 
 old chap. I didn't want to talk to a banker nor 
 to a bank, but to Jim Stacy, my old partner.' 
 
 4 Barker,' said Stacy curtly, ( how much money 
 are you short of ? ' 
 
 At this direct question Barker's always quick 
 colour rose, but, with an equally quick smile, 
 he said, ' I don't know yet that I'm short at all.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS ( ?} 
 
 'But/do!' 
 
 1 Look here, Jim, why I'm just overloaded 
 with shares and stocks,' said Barker smiling. 
 
 1 Not one of which you could realise on with- 
 out sacrifice. Barker, three years ago you had 
 three hundred thousand dollars put to your 
 account at San Francisco.' 
 
 1 Yes,' said Barker with a quiet reminiscent 
 laugh. ' I remember I wanted to draw it out in 
 one cheque to see how it would look.' 
 
 ' And you've drawn out all in three years, and 
 it looks d d bad.' 
 
 'How did you know it?' asked Barker, his 
 face beaming only with admiration of his com- 
 panion's omniscience. 
 
 * How did I know it?' retorted Stacy. 'I 
 know you, and I know the kind of people who 
 have unloaded to you.' 
 
 'Come, Stacy,' said Barker, 'I've only in- 
 vested in shares and stocks like everybody else, 
 and then only on the best advice I could get. 
 Like Van Loo's, for instance— that man who was 
 here just now, the new manager of the Empire 
 Ditch Company. And Carter, my own Kitty's 
 father. And when I was offered fifty thousand 
 West Extensions, and was hesitating over it, he 
 told me you were in it too — and that was enough 
 for me to buy it.' 
 
64 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 i Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures.' 
 1 No,' said Barker with an eager smile, ' but 
 you sold at his figures, for I knew that when I 
 found that yon, my old partner, was in it ; don't 
 you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, 
 and did at no. Of course, you wouldn't have 
 sold it at that figure if it wasn't worth it then, 
 and neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped 
 the next week to 60, don't you see ? ' 
 
 Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he 
 looked keenly into his former partner's bright 
 grey ones, but there was no trace of irony in 
 Barker's. On the contrary, a slight shade of 
 sadness came over them. ' No,' he said re- 
 flectively, 'I don't think I've ever been foolish 
 or followed out my own ideas, except once, and 
 that was extravagant, I admit. That was my 
 idea of building a kind of refuge, you know, on 
 the site of our old cabin, where poor miners and 
 played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could 
 stay without paying anything. Well, I sunk 
 twenty thousand dollars in that, and might have 
 lost more, only Carter — Kitty's father — persuaded 
 me — he's an awful clever old fellow — into turning 
 it into a kind of branch hotel of Boomville, while 
 using it as an hotel to take poor chaps who 
 couldn't pay at half prices, or quarter prices, 
 privately, don't you see, so as to spare their pride ; 
 
THREE PARTNERS 65 
 
 awfully pretty, wasn't it ? and make the hotel 
 profit by it.' 
 
 ' Well ? ' said Stacy as Barker paused. 
 
 'They didn't come,' said Barker. 'But,' he 
 added eagerly, ' it shows that things were better 
 than I had imagined. Only the others did not 
 come either.' 
 
 4 And you lost your twenty thousand dollars/ 
 said Stacy curtly. 
 
 1 Fifty thousand,' said Barker, 'for, of course, 
 it had to be a larger hotel than the other. And 
 I think that Carter wouldn't have gone into it 
 except to save me from losing money.' 
 
 * And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead 
 of twenty. For I don't suppose he advanced 
 anything.' 
 
 4 He gave his time and experience,' said 
 Barker simply. 
 
 ' I dcn't think it worth thirty thousand 
 dollars,' said Stacy drily. ' But all this doesn't 
 tell me what your business is with me to-day.' 
 
 1 No,' said Barker brightening up, ' but it is \ 
 business, you know. Something in the old style 
 - — as between partner and partner — and that's why 
 I came to you, and not to the "banker." And it 
 all comes out of something that Demorest once 
 told us ; so you see it's all us three again ! Well, 
 you know, of course, that the Excelsior Ditch 
 
 F 
 
66 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Company have abandoned the Bar and Heavy 
 Tree Hill. It didn't pay.' 
 
 1 Yes ; nor does the company pay any 
 dividends now. You ought to know, with fifty 
 thousand of their stock on your hands.' 
 
 Barker laughed. \ But listen. I found that I 
 could buy up their whole plant and all the ditching 
 along the Black Spur Range for ten thousand 
 dollars.' 
 
 1 And, Great Scott ! you don't think of taking 
 up their business ?' said Stacy aghast. 
 
 Barker laughed more heartily. \ No. Not 
 their business. But I remember that once 
 Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it 
 cost nearly as much to make a water ditch as a 
 railroad, in the way of surveying and engineering 
 and levels, you know. And here's the plant for a 
 railroad. Don't you see ? ' 
 
 ' But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy 
 Tree Hill— what's the good of that ? ' 
 
 \ Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the 
 new " Divide " Railway they're trying to get a 
 Bill for in the Legislation.' 
 
 1 An infamous piece of wild-cat jobbing that 
 will never pass,' said Stacy decisively. 
 
 ■ They said becatise it was that it would pass,' 
 said Barker simply. ' They say that Watson's 
 Bank is in it, and was bound to get it through. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 67 
 
 And as that is a rival bank of yours, don't you 
 see, I thought that if ive could get something 
 real good or valuable out of it- — something that 
 would do the Black Spur good — it would be all 
 right.' 
 
 ' And was your business to consult me about 
 it ? ' said Stacy bluntly. 
 
 \ No/ said Barker, \ it's too late to consult you 
 now, though I wish I had. I've given my word 
 to take it, and I can't back out. But I haven't 
 the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you.' 
 
 Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair 
 and put both hands in his pockets. ' Not a cent, 
 Barker; not a cent' 
 
 ' I'm not asking it of the bank,' said Barker, 
 with a smile, ' for I could have gone to the bank 
 for it. But as this was something between us, I 
 am asking you, Stacy, as my old partner.' 
 
 ■ And I am answering you, Barker, as your 
 old partner, but also as the partner of a hundred 
 other men, who have even a greater right to ask 
 me. And my answer is— not a cent ! ' 
 
 Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished 
 face and slightly parted lips. Stacy rose, thrust 
 his hands deeper in his pockets and standing 
 before him went on. 
 
 ' Now look here ! It's time you should under- 
 stand me and yourself. Three years ago, when 
 
 f 2 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 our partnership was dissolved by accident, Or 
 mutual consent, we will say, we started afresh, 
 each on our own hook. Through foolishness 
 and bad advice you have in those three years 
 hopelessly involved yourself as you never would 
 have done had we been partners, and yet in your 
 difficulty you ask me and my new partners to help 
 you out of a difficulty in which they have no 
 concern.' 
 
 1 Your new partners ? ' stammered Barker. 
 
 1 Yes. My new partners ; for every man who 
 has a share, or a deposit, or an interest, or a 
 dollar in this bank is my partite >r — even you, with 
 your securities at the Branch are one ; and you 
 may say that in this I am protecting you against 
 yourself.' 
 
 1 But you have money — you have private 
 means.' 
 
 * None to speculate with as you wish me to — 
 on account of my position ; none to give away 
 foolishly as you expect me to — on account of 
 precedent and example. I am a soulless machine 
 taking care of capital entrusted to me and my 
 brains, but decidedly n oi to, my he art nor my 
 sgmiment. So my ans wer is, nnt- a_ronf j ' 
 
 BarCer T s~face had changed ; his colour had 
 come back, but with an older expression. 
 Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 69 
 
 with the additional suggestion of an affectionate 
 toleration which puzzled Stacy. 
 
 1 1 believe you're right, old chap,' he said, ex- 
 tending his hand to the banker, ■ and I wish I had 
 talked to you before. But it's too late now and 
 I've given my word.' 
 
 1 Your word, 1 said Stacy. ' Have you no 
 written agreement ? ' 
 
 ' No. My word was accepted.' He blushed 
 slightly as if conscious of a great weakness. 
 
 1 But that isn't legal nor business. And you 
 couldn't even hold the Ditch Company to it if they 
 chose to back out.' 
 
 \ But I don't think they will,' said Barker 
 simply. 4 And you see my word wasn't given 
 entirely to them. I bought the thing through 
 my wife's cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he 
 makes something by it, from the company on 
 commission. And I can't go back on him. 
 What did you say ? ' 
 
 Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. 
 1 Nothing,' he said briefly, 'except that I'm coming, 
 as I said before, to dine with you to-night ; but 
 no more business. I've enough of that with 
 others, and there are some waiting for me in the 
 outer office now.' 
 
 Barker rose at once, but with the same 
 affectionate smile and tender gravity of counte- 
 
7 o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 nance, and laid his hand caressingly on Stacy's 
 shoulder. ' It's like you to give up so much of 
 your time to me and my foolishness and be so 
 frank with me. And I know it's mighty rough 
 on you to have to be a mere machine instead of 
 Jim Stacy. Don't you bother about me. I'll sell 
 some of my Wide West Extension and pull the 
 thing through myself. It's all right, but I'm 
 sorry for you, old chap.' He glanced around the 
 I , room at the walls and rich panelling, and added, 
 * I suppose that's what you have to pay for all this 
 sort of thing ? ' 
 
 Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor 
 was announced for the second time, and Barker 
 with another hand-shake and a reassuring smile 
 to his old partner passed into the hall, as if the 
 onus of any infelicity in the interview was upon 
 himself alone. But Stacy did not seem to be in 
 a particularly accessible mood to the new caller, 
 who in his turn appeared to be slightly irritated 
 by having been kept waiting over some irksome 
 business. ' You don't seem to follow me,' he said 
 to Stacy after reciting his business perplexity. 
 1 Can't you suggest something ? ! 
 
 1 Well, why don't you get hold of one of your 
 Board of Directors?' said Stacy abstractedly. 
 c There's Captain Drummond ; you and he are 
 old friends. You were comrades in the Mexican 
 War, weren't you ? ' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 71 
 
 1 That be d d ! ' said his visitor bitterly-. 
 
 * All his interests are the other way, and in a 
 trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, tha t a man 
 would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose 
 that he'd let up on a sure thing that he's got just 
 because he and I fought side by side at Cerro 
 Gordo f m Come ! what are you giving us ? You're 
 the last man I ever expected to hear that kind of 
 flapdoodle from. If it's because your bank has 
 got some other interest and you can't advise me, 
 why don't you say so ? ' Nevertheless, in spite 
 of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few minutes 
 later, half-convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness 
 was due to some adverse influence. Other 
 callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and 
 at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again 
 alone. 
 
 But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. 
 After a few moments of purely mechanical memo- 
 randa making, he rose abruptly and opened a 
 small drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a 
 letter still in its envelope. It bore a foreign post- 
 mark. Glancing over it hastily, his eyes at last 
 became fixed on a concluding paragraph. ' I 
 hope,' wrote his correspondent, ' that even in the 
 rush of your big business you will sometimes look 
 after Barker. Not that I think the dear old chap 
 will ever go wrong — indeed, I often wish I was 
 as certain of myself as of him and his insight ; but 
 
72 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 I am afraid we were more inclined to be merely 
 amused and tolerant of his wonderful trust and 
 simplicity than to really understand it for his own 
 good and ours. I know you did not like his 
 marriage, and were inclined to believe he was the 
 victim of a rather unscrupulous father and a foolish, 
 unequal girl, but are you satisfied that he would 
 have been the happier without it or lived his 
 perfect life under other and what you may think 
 wiser conditions ? If he wrote the poetry that he 
 lives everybody would think him wonderful ; for 
 being what he is we never give him sufficient 
 credit.' Stacy smiled grimly and pencilled on 
 his memorandum, ■ He wants it to the amount 
 of ten thousand dollars.' 'Anyhow,' continued 
 the writer, 'look after him, Jim, for his sake, 
 your sake, and the sake of — Phil Demorest.' 
 
 Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and 
 tossing it grimly aside went on with his calculations. 
 Presently he stopped, restored the letter to his 
 cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. ' Send Mr. 
 North here,' he said to the negro messenger. In 
 a few moments his chief book-keeper appeared in 
 the doorway. 
 
 1 Turn to the Branch ledger and bring me a 
 statement of Mr. George Barker's account' 
 
 ' He was here a moment ago,' said North, 
 essaying a confidential look towards his chief. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 1 I know it,' said Stacy coolly, without looking 
 up. 
 
 • He's been running a good deed on wild cat 
 lately,' suggested North. 
 
 ' I asked for his account, and not your opinion 
 of it,' said Stacy shortly. 
 
 The subordinate withdrew somewhat abashed 
 but still curious, and returned presently with a 
 ledger which he laid before his chief. Stacy ran 
 his eyes over the list of Barker's securities ; it 
 seemed to him that all the wildest schemes of the 
 past year stared him in the face. His finger, 
 however, stopped on the Wide West Extension. 
 - Mr. Barker will be wanting to sell some of this 
 stock. What is it quoted at now ? ' 
 
 ' Sixty.' 
 
 4 But I would prefer that Mr. Barker should 
 not offer in the open market at present. Give 
 him seventy for it — private sale ; that will be ten 
 thousand dollars paid to his credit. Advise the 
 Branch of this at once, and to keep the transac- 
 tion quiet.' 
 
 1 Yes, sir,' responded the clerk as he moved 
 towards the door. But he hesitated, and with 
 another essay at confidence said insinuatingly, 
 ' I always thought, sir, that Wide West would 
 recover.' 
 
 Stacy, perhaps not displeased to find what 
 
74. THREE PARTNERS 
 
 had evidently passed in his subordinate's mind, 
 looked at him and said drily, ' Then I would 
 advise you also to keep that opinion to yourself.' 
 But, clever as he was, he had not anticipated the 
 result. Mr. North, though a trusted employ^ 
 was human. On arriving in the outer office he 
 beckoned to one of the lounging brokers, and in 
 a low voice said, ' I'll take two shares of Wide 
 West, if you can get it cheap.' 
 
 The broker's face became alert and eager. 
 { Yes, but I say, is anything up ? ' 
 
 1 I'm not here to give the business of the bank 
 away,' retorted North severely ; ' take the order 
 or leave it.' 
 
 The man hurried away. Having thus vindi- 
 cated his humanity by also passing the snub he 
 had received from Stacy to an inferior, he turned 
 away to carry out his master's instructions, yet 
 secure in the belief that he had profited by his 
 superior discernment of the real reason of that 
 master's singular conduct. But when he returned 
 to the private room, in hopes of further revelations, 
 Mr. Stacy was closeted with another financial 
 magnate, and had apparently divested his mind of 
 the whole affair. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 75 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 When George Barker returned to the outer 
 ward of the financial stronghold he had pene- 
 trated, with its curving sweep of counters, brass 
 railings, and wire work screens defended by the 
 spruce clerks behind them, he was again impressed 
 with the position of the man he had just quitted, 
 and for a moment hesitated, with an inclination to 
 go back. It was with no idea of making a further 
 appeal to his old comrade, but — what would have 
 been odd in any other nature but his — he was 
 affected by a sense that he might have been un- 
 fair and selfish in his manner to the man panoplied 
 by these defences, and who was in a measure 
 forced to be a part of them. He would like to 
 have returned and condoled with him. The 
 clerks, who were heartlessly familiar with the 
 anxious bearing of the men who sought inter- 
 views with their chief, both before and after, 
 smiled with the whispered conviction that the 
 fresh and ingenious young stranger had been 
 1 chucked ' like others until they met his kindly, 
 
76 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 tolerant, and even superior eyes, and were 
 puzzled. Meanwhile Barker, who had that 
 sublime, natural quality of abstraction over small 
 impertinences which is more exasperating than 
 studied indifference, after his brief hesitation 
 passed out unconcernedly through the swinging 
 mahogany doors into the blowy street. Here 
 the wind and rain revived him ; the bank and its 
 curt refusal was forgotten ; he walked onward 
 with only a smiling memory of his partner as in 
 the old days. He remembered how Stacy had 
 burned down their old cabin rather than it should 
 fall into sordid or unworthy hands — this Stacy 
 who was now condemned to sink his impulses 
 and become a mere machine. He had never 
 known Stacy's real motive for that act ; both 
 Demorest and Stacy had kept their knowledge of 
 the attempted robbery from their younger partner ; 
 it always seemed to him to be a precious revela- 
 tion of Stacy's inner nature. Facing the wind 
 and rain, he recalled how Stacy, though never so 
 enthusiastic about his marriage as Demorest, had 
 taken up Van Loo sharply for some foolish sneer 
 about his own youthfulness. II e was affectionately 
 tolerant of even Stacy's dislike to his wife's rela- 
 tions, for Stacy did not know them as he did. 
 Indeed, Barker, whose own father and mother 
 had died in his infancy, had accepted his wife's 
 
THREE PARTNERS yy 
 
 relations with a loving trust and confidence that 
 was supreme, from the fact that he had never 
 known any other. 
 
 At last he reached his hotel. It was a new 
 one, the latest creation of a feverish progress in 
 hotel building which had covered five years and 
 as many squares with large sh^a^-ei^cjUon^s, 
 utterly beyond the needs of the community, yet 
 each superior in size and adornment to its pre- 
 decessor. It struck him as being the one 
 evidence of an abiding faith in the future of the 
 metropolis that he had seen in nothing else. As 
 he entered its frescoed hall that afternoon he was 
 suddenly reminded, by its challenging opulency, 
 of the bank he had just quitted, without knowing 
 that the bank had really furnished its capital and 
 its original design. The gilded bar-rooms, flash- 
 ing with mirrors and cut glass ; the saloons, with 
 their desert expanse of Turkey carpet and oasis 
 of clustered divans and gilded tables ; the great 
 dining-room, with porphyry columns, and walls 
 and ceilings shining with allegory — all these 
 things which had attracted his youthful wonder 
 without distracting his correct simplicity of taste 
 he now began to comprehend. It was the bank's 
 money ' at work.' In the clatter of dishes in the 
 dining-room he even seemed to hear again the 
 chinking of coin. 
 
7 8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 It was a short cut to his apartments to pass 
 through a smaller public sitting-room popularly 
 known as ' Flirtation Camp,' where eight or ten 
 couples generally found refuge on chairs and 
 settees by the windows, half concealed by heavy 
 curtains. But the occupants were by no means 
 youthful spinsters or bachelors ; they were 
 generally married women, guests of the hotel, 
 receiving other people's husbands whose wives 
 were ! in the States,' or responsible middle-aged 
 leaders of the town. In the elaborate toilettes of 
 the women, as compared w T ith the less formal 
 business suits of the men, there was an odd 
 mingling of the social attitude with perhaps more 
 mysterious confidences. The idle gossip about 
 them had never affected Barker ; rather he had 
 that innate respect for the secrets of others which 
 is as inseparable from simplicity as it is from high 
 breeding, and he scarcely glanced. at the different 
 couples in his progress through the room.- He 
 did not .even, notice a rather striking and hand- 
 some woman who, surrounded by two or three 
 admirers, yet looked up at Barker as he passed 
 with self-conscious lids, as if seeking a return of 
 her glance. But he moved on abstractedly, and 
 only stopped when he suddenly saw the familiar 
 skirt of his wife at a further window and halted 
 before it. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 79 
 
 1 Oh, it's you' said Mrs. Barker, with a half- 
 nervous, half-impatient laugh. * Why, I thought 
 you'ld certainly stay half the afternoon with your 
 old partner, considering that you haven't met for 
 three years.' 
 
 There was no doubt she had thought so ; 
 there was equally no doubt that the conversation 
 she was carrying on with her companion — a good- 
 looking, portly business man — was effectually in- 
 terrupted. But Barker did not notice it. * Cap- 
 tain Heath, my husband,' she went on, carelessly 
 rising and smoothing her skirts. The Captain, 
 who had risen too, bowed vaguely at the intro- 
 duction, but Barker extended his hand frankly. 
 ! I found Stacy busy,' he said in answer to his 
 wife, ' but he is coming to dine with us to-night.' 
 
 1 If you mean Jim Stacy, the banker,' said 
 Captain Heath, brightening into greater ease, 
 .-he's the busiest man in California. I've seen 
 men standing in a queue outside his door as in 
 the old days at the Post Office. And he only 
 gives you five minutes and no extension. So you 
 and he were partners once ? ' he said, looking 
 curiously at the still youthful Barker. 
 
 But it was Mrs. Barker who answered, ' Oh, 
 yes ! and always such good friends. I was 
 awfully jealous of him.' Nevertheless, she did 
 not respond to the affectionate protest in Barker's 
 
80 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 eyes nor to the laugh of Captain Heath, but 
 glanced indifferently around the room as if to 
 leave further conversation to the two men. It 
 was possible that she was beginning to feel that 
 Captain Heath was as de trop now as her husband 
 had been a moment before. Standing there, 
 however, between them both, idly tracing a 
 pattern on the carpet with the toe of her slipper, 
 she looked prettier than she had ever looked as 
 Kitty Carter. Her slight figure was more fully 
 developed. That artificial severity covering a 
 natural virgin coyness with which she used to 
 wait at table in her father's hotel at Boomville 
 had gone, and was replaced by a satisfied con- 
 sciousness of her power to please. Her glance 
 was freer, but not as frank as in those days. 
 Her dress was undoubtedly richer and more 
 stylish ; yet Barker's loyal heart often reverted 
 fondly to the chintz gown, coquettishly frilled 
 apron, and spotless cuffs and collar in which she 
 had handed him his coffee with a faint colour 
 that left his own face crimson. 
 
 Captain Heath's tact being equal to her in- 
 difference, he had excused himself, although he 
 was becoming interested in this youthful husband. 
 But Mrs. Barker, after having asserted her hus- 
 band's distinction as the equal friend of the 
 millionaire, was by no means willing that the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 81 
 
 Captain should be further interested in Barker 
 for himself alone, and did not urge him to stay. 
 As he departed she turned to her husband and, 
 indicating the group he had passed the moment 
 before, said : 
 
 1 That horrid woman has been staring at us 
 all the time. I don't see what you see in her to 
 admire.' 
 
 Poor Barker's admiration had been limited to 
 a few words of civility in the enforced contact of 
 that huge caravansery and in his quiet, youthful 
 recognition of her striking personality. But he 
 was just then too preoccupied with his interview 
 with Stacy to reply, and perhaps he did not quite 
 understand his wife. It was odd how many 
 things he did not quite understand now about 
 Kitty, but that he knew must be his fault. But 
 Mrs. Barker apparently did not require, after the 
 fashion of her sex, a reply. For the next moment, 
 as they moved towards their rooms, she said im- 
 patiently : ' Well, you don't tell what Stacy said. 
 Did you get the money ? ' 
 
 I grieve to say that this soul of truth and 
 frankness lied, only to his wife. Perhaps he con- 
 sidered it only lying to himself, a thing of which 
 he was at times miserably conscious. ' It wasn't 
 necessary, dear,' he said ; ' he advised me to sell 
 
 G 
 
82 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 my securities in the bank ; and if you only knew 
 how dreadfully busy he is.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker curled her pretty lip. ' It don't 
 take very long to lend ten thousand dollars ! ' she 
 said. ' But that's what I always tell you. You 
 have about made me sick by singing the praises 
 of those wonderful partners of yours, and here 
 you ask a favour of one of them and he tells you 
 to sell your securities ! And you know, and he 
 knows, they're worth next to nothing.' 
 
 1 You don't understand, dear ' began 
 
 Barker. 
 
 4 1 understand that you've given your word to 
 poor Harry,' said Mrs. Barker in pretty indigna- 
 tion, ' who's responsible for the Ditch purchase.' 
 
 'And I shall keep it. I always do,' said 
 Barker very quietly, but with that same singular 
 expression of face that had puzzled Stacy. But 
 Mrs. Barker, who, perhaps, knew her husband 
 better, said in an altered voice : 
 
 1 But hozv can you, dear ? ' 
 
 1 If I'm short a thousand or two I'll ask your 
 father.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker was silent. ' Father's so very 
 much harried now, George. Why don't you 
 simply throw the whole thing up ? ' 
 
 * But I've given my word to your cousin 
 Henry.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 83 
 
 ' Yes, but only your word. There was no 
 written agreement. And you couldn't even hold 
 him to it.' 
 
 Barker opened his frank eyes in astonishment. 
 Her own cousin, too ! And they were Stacy's 
 very words. 
 
 1 Besides,' added Mrs. Barker audaciously, 
 1 he could get rid of it elsewhere. He had an- 
 other offer, but he thought yours the best. So 
 don't be silly.' 
 
 By this time they had reached their rooms. 
 Barker, apparently dismissing the subject from 
 his mind with characteristic buoyancy, turned 
 into the bedroom and walked smilingly towards 
 a small crib which stood in the corner. * Why, 
 he's gone ! ' he said in some dismay. 
 
 'Well,' said Mrs. Barker a little impatiently, 
 * you didn't expect me to take him into the public 
 parlour, where I was seeing visitors, did vou ? 
 I sent him out with the nurse into the lower ball 
 to play with the other children.' 
 
 A shade momentarily passed over Barker's 
 face. He always looked forward to meeting the 
 child when he came back. He had a belief, based 
 on no grounds whatever, that the little creature 
 understood him. And he had a father's doubt of 
 the wholesomeness of other people's children who 
 were born into the world indiscriminately and not 
 
 G 2 
 
8 4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 under the exceptional conditions of his own. ' I'll 
 go and fetch him,' he said. 
 
 1 You haven't told me anything about your 
 interview ; what you did and what your good 
 friend Stacy said,' said Mrs. Barker, dropping 
 languidly into a chair. ' And really if you are 
 simply running away again after that child, I 
 might just as well have asked Captain Heath to 
 stay longer.' 
 
 < Oh, as to Stacy,' said Barker dropping beside 
 her and taking her hand, 'well, dear, he was 
 awfully busy you know, and shut up in the inner- 
 most office like the agate in one of the Japanese 
 nests of boxes. But,' he continued brightening 
 up, 'just the same dear old Jim Stacy of Heavy 
 Tree Hill, when I first knew you. Lord! dear, 
 how it all came back to me ! That day I pro- 
 posed to you in the belief that I was unexpectedly 
 rich and even bought a claim for the boys on the 
 strength of it, and how I came back to them to 
 find that they had made a big strike on the 
 very claim. Lord! I remember how I was so 
 afraid to tell them about you — and how they 
 guessed it — that dear old Stacy one of the 
 first' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Barker, ' and I hope your 
 friend Stacy remembered that but for me, when 
 you found out that you were not rich, you'ld have 
 
THREE PARTNERS 85 
 
 given up the claim, but that I really deceived my 
 own father to make you keep it. I've often 
 worried over that, George,' she said pensively, 
 turning a diamond bracelet around her pretty 
 wrist, ' although I never said anything about it.' 
 
 ' But Kitty, darling,' said Barker, grasping his 
 wife's hand, ' I gave my note for it ; you know you 
 said that was bargain enough, and I had better 
 wait until the note was due, and until I found I 
 couldn't pay, before I gave up the claim. It was 
 very clever of you, and the boys all said so, too. 
 But you never deceived your father, dear,' he said, 
 looking at her gravely, 'for I should have told 
 him everything.' 
 
 ' Of course, if you look at it in that way,' said 
 his wife languidly, ' it's nothing, only I think it 
 ought to be remembered when people go about 
 saying papa ruined you with his hotel schemes.' 
 
 ' Who dares say that ? ' said Barker in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 4 Well, if they don't say it they look it,' said 
 Mrs. Barker, with a toss of her pretty head, 
 'and I believe that's at the bottom of Stacy's 
 refusal,' 
 
 1 But he never said a word, Kitty,' said 
 Barker flushing. 
 
 'There, don't excite yourself, George,' said 
 Mrs. Barker resignedly, ' but go for the baby. I 
 
S6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 know you're dying to go, and I suppose it's time 
 Norah brought it upstairs.' 
 
 At any other time Barker would have lingered 
 with explanations, but just then a deeper sense 
 than usual of some misunderstanding made him 
 anxious to shorten this domestic colloquy. He 
 rose, pressed his wife's hand, and went out. But 
 yet he was not entirely satisfied with himself for 
 leaving her. ' I suppose it isn't right my going off 
 as soon as I come in,' he murmured reproachfully 
 to himself, ' but I think she wants the baby back 
 as much as I ; only, woman-like, she didn't care 
 to let me know it.' 
 
 He reached the lower hall, which he knew 
 was a favourite promenade for the nurses who 
 were gathered at the farther end, where a large 
 window looked upon Montgomery Street. But 
 Norah, the Irish nurse, was not among them ; he 
 passed through several corridors in his search, but 
 in vain. At last, worried and a little anxious, he 
 turned to regain his rooms through the long 
 saloon where he had found his wife previously. 
 It was deserted now ; the last caller had left — 
 even frivolity had its prescribed limits. He was 
 consequently startled by a gentle murmur from 
 one of the heavily curtained window recesses. It 
 was a woman's voice — low, sweet, caressing, and 
 filled with an almost pathetic tenderness. And 
 
THREE PARTNERS 87 
 
 it was followed by a distinct gurgling, satisfied 
 crow. 
 
 Barker turned instantly in that direction. A 
 step brought him to the curtain, where a singular 
 spectacle presented itself. 
 
 Seated on a lounge, completely absorbed and 
 possessed by her treasure, was the ' horrid 
 woman ' whom his wife had indicated only a little 
 while ago, holding a baby — Kitty's sacred baby — 
 in her wanton lap ! The child was feebly grasp- 
 ing the end of the slender jewelled necklace 
 which the woman held temptingly dangling from 
 a thin, white, jewelled finger above it. But its 
 eyes were beaming with an intense delight, as if 
 trying to respond to the deep, concentrated love 
 in the handsome face that was bent above it. 
 
 At the sudden intrusion of Barker she looked 
 up. There was a faint rise in her colour, but no 
 loss of self-possession. 
 
 ' Please don't scold the nurse,' she said, 'nor 
 say anything to Mrs. Barker. It is all my fault. 
 I thought that both the nurse and child looked 
 dreadfully bored with each other, and I borrowed 
 the little fellow for a while to try and amuse him. 
 At least I haven't made him cry, have I, dear ? ' 
 The last epithet, it is needless to say, was 
 addressed to the little creature in her lap, but 
 in its tender modulation it touched the father's 
 
83 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 quick sympathies as if he had shared it with the 
 child. ' You see,' she said softly, disengaging 
 the baby fingers from her necklace, ' that our sex 
 is not the only one tempted by jewellery and 
 glitter.' 
 
 Barker hesitated ; the madonna-like devotion 
 of a moment ago was gone ; it was only the 
 woman of the world who laughingly looked up 
 at him. Nevertheless he was touched. ' Have 
 you — ever — had a child, Mrs. Horncastle?' he 
 asked gently and hesitatingly. He had a vague 
 recollection that she passed for a widow, and in 
 his simple eyes all women w r ere virgins or married 
 saints. 
 
 4 No,' she said abruptly. Then she added 
 with a laugh, \ Or perhaps I should not admire 
 them so much. I suppose it's the same feeling 
 bachelors have for other people's wives. But I 
 know you're dying to take that boy from me. 
 Take him, then, and don't be ashamed to carry 
 him yourself just because I'm here ; you know you 
 would delight to do it if I weren't' 
 
 Barker bent over the silken lap in which the 
 child was comfortably nestling, and in that attitude 
 had a faint consciousness that Mrs. Horncastle 
 was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent 
 laugh. Barker lifted his first-born with proud 
 skilfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently 
 
THREE PARTNERS 89 
 
 knew when he was comfortable, and in a 
 paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls 
 with one fist while with the other he grasped 
 Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their 
 heads into contact. Upon which humorous situa- 
 tion Norah, the nurse, entered. 
 
 ' It's all right, Norah,' said Mrs. Horncastle 
 laughing, as she disengaged herself from the link- 
 ing child. ' Mr. Barker has claimed the baby, 
 and has agreed to forgive you and me and say 
 nothing to Mrs. Barker.' Norah, with the in- 
 scrutable criticism of her sex on her sex, thought 
 it extremely probable, and halted with exasper- 
 ating discretion. * There,' continued Mrs. Horn- 
 castle, playfully evading the child's further 
 advances, ' go with papa, that's a dear. Mr. 
 Barker prefers to carry him back, Norah.' 
 
 1 But,' said the ingenuous and persistent 
 Barker, still lingering in hopes of recalling the 
 woman's previous expression, ' you do love 
 children, and you think him a bright little chap 
 for his age ? ' 
 
 1 Yes,' said Mrs. Horncastle, putting back her 
 loosened braid, ' so round and fat and soft. And 
 such a discriminating eye for jewellery. Really 
 you ought to get a necklace like mine for Mrs. 
 Barker — it would please both, you know.' She 
 moved slowly away, the united efforts of Norah 
 
 rise ubr2 
 
9 o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 and Barker scarcely sufficing to restrain the 
 struggling child from leaping after her as she 
 turned at the door and blew him a kiss. 
 
 When Barker regained his room he found 
 that Mrs. Barker had dismissed Stacy from her 
 mind, except so far as to invoke Norah's aid in 
 laying out her smartest gown for dinner. ' But 
 why take all this trouble, dear ? ' said her simple- 
 minded husband ; ' we are going to dine in a 
 private room so that we can talk over old times 
 all by ourselves, and any dress would suit him. 
 And, Lord, dear ! ' he added, with a ' quick 
 brightening at the fancy, ' if you could only just 
 rig yourself up in that pretty lilac gown you used 
 to wear at Boomville — it would be too killing, 
 and just like old times. I put it away myself 
 in one of our trunks — I couldn't bear to leave 
 
 it behind — I know just where it is. Ill ' 
 
 But Mrs. Barker's restraining scorn withheld 
 him. 
 
 1 George Barker, if you think I am going to 
 let you throw away and utterly waste Mr. Stacy 
 on us, alone, in a private room with closed doors 
 — and I dare say you'd like to sit in your dressing- 
 gown and slippers — you are entirely mistaken. I 
 know what is due, not to your old partner, but to 
 the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know 
 what is due from him to us ! No ! We dine in 
 
THREE PARTNERS 91 
 
 the great dining-room, publicly, and, if possible, 
 at the very next table to those stuck-up Peter- 
 burys and their Eastern friends, including that 
 horrid woman, which, I'm sure, ought to satisfy 
 you. Then you can talk as much as you like, 
 and as loud as you like about old times — and the 
 louder and the more the better — but I don't think 
 he'f/\\ke it.' 
 
 ' But the baby ! ' expostulated Barker. ' Stacy's 
 just wild to see him — and we can't bring him 
 down to the table — though we might J he added, 
 momentarily brightening. 
 
 ' After dinner,' said Mrs. Barker severely, 'we 
 will walk through the big drawing-rooms, and 
 then Mr. Stacy may come upstairs and see him 
 in his crib. But not before. And now, George, 
 I do wish that to-night, for once, you would not 
 wear a turn-down collar, and that you would go 
 to the barber's and have him cut your hair and 
 smooth out the curls. And, for Heaven's sake! 
 let him put some wax or gum or something on 
 your moustache and twist it up on your cheek 
 like Captain Heath's, for it positively droops over 
 your mouth like a girl's ringlet. It's quite enough 
 for me to hear people talk of your inexperience, 
 but really I don't want you to look as if I had run 
 away with a pretty schoolboy. And, considering 
 the size of that child, it's positively disgraceful. 
 
92 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 And one thing more, George. When I'm talk- 
 ing to anybody, please don't sit opposite to me, 
 beaming with delight and your mouth open. 
 And don't roar if by chance I say something 
 funny. And — whatever you do — don't make 
 eyes at me in company whenever I happen to 
 allude to you, as I did before Captain Heath. It 
 is positively too ridiculous.' 
 
 Nothing could exceed the laughing good- 
 humour with which her husband received these 
 cautions, nor the evident sincerity with which he 
 promised amendment. Equally sincere was he, 
 though a little more thoughtful, in his severe self- 
 examination of his deficiencies, when, later, he 
 seated himself at the window with one hand 
 softly encompassing his child's chubby fist in the 
 crib beside him, and, in the instinctive fashion of 
 all loneliness, looked out of the window. The 
 Southern Trades were whipping the waves of 
 the distant bay and harbour into yeasty crests. 
 Sheets of rain swept the side walks with the 
 regularity of a fusilade, against which a few 
 pedestrians struggled with flapping waterproofs 
 and slanting umbrellas. He could look along the 
 deserted length of Montgomery Street to the 
 heights of Telegraph Hill and its long-disused 
 semaphore. It seemed lonelier to him than the 
 mile-long sweep of Heavy Tree Hill, writhing 
 
THREE PARTNERS 93 
 
 against the mountain wind and its yEolian song. 
 He ha d never felt so lonely there.^ Ax\ his rigid 
 selF-examination he thought Kitty right in pro- 
 testing against the effect of his youthfulness and 
 optimism. Yet he was also right in being him- 
 self. There is an egoism in the highest simplicity ; 
 and Barker, while willing to believe in others' 
 methods, never abandoned his own aims. He 
 was right in loving Kitty as he did ; he knew 
 that she was better and more lovable than she 
 could believe herself to be ; but he was willing 
 to believe it pained and discomposed her if he 
 showed it before company. He would not have 
 her change even this peculiarity — it was part of 
 herself — no more than he would have changed 
 himself. And behind what he had conceived was 
 her clear, practical common sense, all this time 
 had been her belief that she had deceived her 
 father! Poor dear, dear Kitty! And she had 
 suffered because stupid people had conceived 
 that her father had led him away in selfish 
 speculations. As <if he — Barker — would not have 
 first discovered it, and as if anybody — even dear 
 Kitty herself — was responsible for his convictions 
 and actions but himself. Nevertheless, this 
 gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when 
 the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start 
 and vacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, 
 
94 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 he felt lonelier than before. It was with a slight 
 sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its 
 hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had never 
 mven it the love that he had seen even in the 
 frivolous Mrs. Horncastle's eyes. Later, when 
 his wife came in looking very pretty in her 
 elaborate dinner toilette, he had the same con- 
 flicting emotions. He knew that they had 
 already passed that phase of their married life 
 when she no longer dressed to please him, and 
 that the dictates of fashion or the rivalry of an- 
 other woman she held superior to his tastes ; yet 
 he did not blame her. But he was a little sur- 
 prised to see that her dress was copied from one 
 of Mrs. Horncastle's most striking ones, and 
 that it did not suit her. That which adorned 
 the maturer woman did not agree with the 
 demure and slightly austere prettiness of the 
 young wife. 
 
 But Barker forgot all this when Stacy — 
 reserved and somewhat severe looking in evening 
 dress — arrived with business punctuality. He 
 fancied that his old partner received the announce- 
 ment that they would dine in the public room 
 with something of surprise, and he saw him 
 glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he 
 had suspected it was her choice, and understood 
 her motives. Indeed, the young husband had 
 
THREE PARTNERS 95 
 
 found himself somewhat nervous in regard to 
 Stacy's estimate of Kitty ; he was conscious that 
 she was not looking and acting like the old Kitty 
 that Stacy had known ; it did not enter his 
 honest heart that Stacy had, perhaps, not appre- 
 ciated her then, and that her present quality 
 might accord more with his worldly tastes and 
 experience. It was, therefore, with a kind of 
 timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter 
 into her mood, and with a still more timorous 
 amusement to notice that he seemed to sympathy 
 not only with her, but with her half-rallying, half- 
 serious attitude towards his (Barker's) in experience • 
 and simplicity. He was glad that she had made 
 a friend of Stacy, even in this way. Stacy would 
 understand, as he did, her pretty wilfulness at 
 last ; she would understand what a true friend 
 Stacy was to him. It was with unfeigned satis- 
 faction that he followed them in to dinner as she 
 leaned upon his guest's arm chatting confidentially. 
 He was only uneasy because her manner had a 
 slight ostentation. 
 
 The entrance of the little party produced a 
 quick sensation throughout the dining-room. 
 Whispers passed from table to table ; all heads 
 were turned towards the great financier as 
 towards a magnet ; a few guests even shamelessly 
 faced round in their chairs as he passed. Mrs. 
 
96 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Barker was pink, pretty, and voluble with ex- 
 citement ; Stacy had a slight mask of reserve ; 
 Barker was the only one natural and unconscious. 
 
 As the dinner progressed Barker found that 
 there was little chance for him to invoke his old 
 partner's memories of the past. He found, how- 
 ever, that Stacy had received a letter from 
 Demorest, and that he was coming home from 
 Europe. His letters were still sad ; they both 
 agreed upon that. And then for the first time 
 that day Stacy looked intently at Barker with 
 the look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree 
 Hill. 
 
 ' Then you think it is the same old trouble 
 that worries him ? ' said Barker in an awed and 
 sympathetic voice. 
 
 1 1 believe it is,' said Stacy with an equal feel- 
 ing. Mrs. Barker pricked up her pretty ears ; 
 her husband's ready sympathy was familiar 
 enough ; but that this cold practical Stacy should 
 be moved at anything, piqued her curiosity. 
 
 ' And you believe that he has never got over 
 it ? ' continued Barker. 
 
 1 He had one chance, but he threw it away,' 
 said Stacy energetically. ' If, instead of going 
 off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he 
 had joined me in business, he'd have been another 
 man.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 97 
 
 ' But not Demorest,' said Barker quickly. 
 
 * What dreadful secret is this about 
 Demorest ? ' said Mrs. Barker petulantly. ' Is 
 he ill ? ' 
 
 Both men were silent by their old common 
 instinct. But it was Stacy who said 'No' in a 
 way that put any further questioning at an end, 
 and Barker was grateful and for the moment dis- 
 loyal to his Kitty. 
 
 It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had 
 seen that the attention of the next table was 
 directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle 
 had glanced from time to time at Stacy. But 
 she was not prepared for the evident equal effect 
 that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy. 
 His cold face warmed, his critical eye softened ; 
 he asked her name. Mrs. Barker was voluble, 
 prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed. 
 
 ' 1 know it all,' said Stacy with didactic 
 emphasis. ' Her husband was as bad as they 
 make them. When her life had become in- 
 tolerable with him, he tried to make it shameful 
 without him by abandoning her. She could get 
 a divorce a dozen times over, but she won't.' 
 
 ' I suppose that's what makes her so very 
 attractive to gentlemen,' said Mrs. Barker 
 ironically. 
 
 11 
 
98 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 1 I have never seen her before,' continued 
 Stacy with business precision, 'although I and 
 two other men are guardians of her property 
 and have saved it from the clutches of her hus- 
 band. They told me she was handsome — and so 
 she is.' 
 
 Pleased with the sudden human weakness of 
 Stacy, Barker glanced at his wife for sympathy. 
 But she was looking studiously another way, and 
 the young husband's eyes, still full of his grati- 
 fication, fell upon Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked 
 away with a bright colour. Whereupon the 
 sanguine Barker — perfectly convinced that she 
 returned Stacy's admiration — was seized with one 
 of his old boyish dreams of the future, and saw 
 Stacy happily united to her, and was only re- 
 called to the dinner before him by its end. Then 
 Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with 
 Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in their 
 apartments, and took an easy leave. But he 
 grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his 
 old fashion, and said : ' Come to lunch with me 
 at the bank any day, and we'll talk of Phil 
 Demorest,' and left Barker as happy as if the 
 appointment were to confer the favour he had that 
 morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, who had 
 overheard, was more dubious. 
 
 1 You don't suppose he asks you to talk with 
 
THREE PARTNERS 99 
 
 you about Demorest and his stupid secret, do 
 you ? ' she said scornfully. 
 
 ' Perhaps not only about that,' said Barker, 
 glad that she had not demanded the secret. 
 
 'Well,' returned Mrs. Barker as she turned 
 away, ' he might just as well lunch here and talk 
 about her — and see her, too.' 
 
 Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, 
 only a few squares distant. His appearance 
 created the same interest that it had produced at 
 the hotel, but with less reserve among his fellow- 
 members. 
 
 1 Have you heard the news ? ' said a dozen 
 voices. Stacy had not ; he had been dining out. 
 
 'That infernal swindle of a "Divide" Rail- 
 road has passed the Legislature.' 
 
 Stacy instantly remembered Barker's absurd 
 belief in it and his reasons. He smiled and 
 said carelessly, 'Are you quite sure it's a 
 swindle ? ' 
 
 There was a dead silence at the coolness of 
 the man who had been most outspoken against 
 it. 
 
 ' But,' said a voice hesitatingly, ' you know it 
 
 goes nowhere and to no purpose.' 
 
 - ' But that does not prevent it, now that it's a 
 
 fact, from going anywhere and to some purpose,' 
 
 said Stacy, turning away. He passed into the 
 
ioo THREE PARTNERS 
 
 reading-room quietly, but in an instant turned and 
 quickly descended by another staircase into the 
 hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and slipping 
 out was a moment later re-entering the hotel. 
 Here he hastily summoned Barker, who came 
 down flushed and excited. Laying his hand 
 on Barker's arm in his old dominant way, he 
 said : 
 
 1 Don't delay a single hour, but get a written 
 agreement for that Ditch property.' 
 
 Barker smiled. ' But I have. Got it this 
 afternoon.' 
 
 1 Then you know?' ejaculated Stacy in sur- 
 prise. 
 
 ' I only know,' said Barker colouring, ' that 
 you said I could back out of it if it wasn't signed, 
 and that's what Kitty said, too. And I thought 
 it looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to 
 that kind of a bargain. And so — you won't be 
 mad, old fellow, will you ? — I thought I'd put it 
 beyond any question of my own good faith by 
 having it in black and white.' He stopped, 
 laughing and blushing, but still earnest and 
 sincere. ' You don't think me a fool, do you ? ' 
 he said pathetically. 
 
 Stacy smiled grimly. ' I think, Barker boy, 
 that if you go to the Branch you'll have no diffi- 
 
THREE PARTNERS lot 
 
 culty in paying for the Ditch property. Good- 
 night. ' 
 
 In a few moments he was back at the club 
 again before anyone knew he had even left the 
 building. As he again re-entered the smoking- 
 room he found the members still in eager dis- 
 cussion about the new railway. One was saying, 
 1 If they could get an extension and carry the road 
 through Heavy Tree Hill to Boomville they'd be 
 all right.' 
 
 1 1 quite agree with you,' said Stacy. 
 
io2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The swaying, creaking Boomville coach had at 
 last reached the level ridge, and sank forward upon 
 its springs with a sigh of relief and the slow 
 precipitation of the red dust which had hung in 
 clouds around it. The whole coach, inside and 
 out, was covered with this impalpable powder ; it 
 had poured into the windows that gaped widely 
 in the insufferable heat ; it lay thick upon the 
 novel read by the passenger who had for the third 
 or fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of 
 the half-opened book and blown the dust away in 
 a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay 
 in folds and creases over the yellow silk duster of 
 the handsome woman on the back seat, and when 
 she endeavoured to shake it off enveloped her in 
 a reddish nimbus. It grimed the handkerchiefs 
 of others, and left sanguinary streaks on their 
 mopped foreheads. But as the coach had slowly 
 climbed the summit the sun was also sinking 
 behind the Black Spur Range, and with its 
 
THREE PARTNERS 103 
 
 ultimate disappearance a delicious coolness spread 
 itself like a wave across the ridge. The passen- 
 gers drew a long breath, the reader closed his 
 book, the lady lifted the edge of the veil and 
 delicately wiped her forehead, over which a few 
 damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a 
 distinguished-looking man who had sat as impene- 
 trable and remote as a statue in one of the front 
 seats moved and turned his abstracted face to the 
 window. His deeply tanned cheek and clearly 
 cut features harmonised with the red dust that lay 
 in the curves of his brown linen dust-cloak, and 
 completed his resemblance to a bronze figure. 
 Yet it was Demorest, changed only in colouring. 
 Now, as five years ago, his abstraction had a 
 certain quality which the most familiar stranger 
 shrank from disturbing. But in the general 
 relaxation of relief the novel-reader addressed him. 
 
 'Well, we ain't far from Boomville now, and 
 it's all down grade the rest of the way. I reckon 
 you'll be as glad to get a "wash up" and a 
 " shake " as the rest of us. ! 
 
 ' 1 am afraid I won't have so early an oppor- 
 tunity,' said Demorest with a faint, grave smile, 
 ! for I get off at the cross-road to Heavy Tree 
 Hill,- 
 
 'Heavy Tree Hill!' repeated the other in 
 surprise. 'You ain't goin' to Heavy Tree Hill? 
 
104 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Why, you might have gone there direct by railroad, 
 and have been there four hours ago. You know 
 there's a branch from the " Divide " Railroad goes 
 there straight to the hotel at Hymettus.' 
 
 ' Where ? ' said Demorest with a puzzled smile. 
 
 1 Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've 
 given to the watering-place on the slope. But I 
 reckon you're a stranger here ? ' 
 
 1 For five years,' said Demorest. ' I fancy I've 
 heard of the railroad, although I prefer to go to 
 Heavy Tree this way. But I never heard of a 
 watering-place there before.' 
 
 1 Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks 
 that are tired of the fogs of 'Frisco and the heat 
 of Sacramento all go there. It's four thousand 
 feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing, and a 
 band plays every night. And it all sprang out of 
 the " Divide " Railway and a crank named George 
 Barker, who bought up some old Ditch property 
 and ran a branch line along its levels, and made 
 a junction with the " Divide." You can come all 
 the way from 'Frisco or Sacramento by rail. It's 
 a mighty big thing ! ' 
 
 1 Yet,' said Demorest, with some animation, 
 ' you call the man who originated this success a 
 crank. I should say he was a genius.' 
 
 The other passenger shook his head. 'All 
 sheer nigger luck. He bought the Ditch plant 
 
THREE PARTNERS 105 
 
 afore there was the o-host of a chance for the 
 "Divide" Railroad, just out o' pure d — — d 
 foolishness. He expected so little from it that he 
 hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', 
 and hadn't paid for it, when the " Divide " Railroad 
 passed the Legislature, as it never oughter done ! 
 For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about 
 the whole affair was that this "straw" road of a 
 "Divide," all pure "wild cat," was only gotten 
 up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into 
 buying it up. And the road that nobody ever 
 calculated would ever have a rail of it laid was 
 pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch 
 plant had been bought up, for they thought there 
 was a big thing behind it. Even the hotel was, 
 at first, simply a kind of genteel almshouse that 
 this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners ! ' 
 
 1 Nevertheless,' continued Demorest smiling, 
 1 you admit that it is a great success.' 
 
 1 Yes,' said the other, a little irritated by some 
 complacency in Demorest's smile, ' but the success 
 isn't his 71. Fools has ideas, and wise men profit 
 by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank 
 behind it, and is even a kind of country branch of 
 the Brook House in 'Frisco. Barker's out of it, 
 I reckon. Anyhow, he couldn't run a hotel, for 
 all that his wife — she that's one of the big 'Frisco 
 swells now — used to help serve in her father's. 
 
106 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first taste 
 and leavin the rest to others.' 
 
 1 I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck/ 
 returned Demorest, with persistent gravity ; ' and 
 I suppose he's satisfied with it.' But so heterodox 
 an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, 
 especially as he noticed that the handsome woman 
 in the back seat appeared to be interested in the 
 conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest. 
 The man was in the main a good-natured fellow 
 and loyal to his friends ; but this did not preclude 
 any virulent criticism of others, and for a moment 
 he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even 
 saw blemishes in the handsome woman's beauty. 
 ' That may be your idea of an Eastern man,' he 
 said bluntly, ' but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't 
 run on those lines. No, sir.' Nevertheless, his 
 curiosity got the better of his ill-humour, and as 
 the coach at last pulled up at the cross-road for 
 Demorest to descend he smiled affably at his 
 departing companion. 
 
 'You allowed just now that you'ld bin five 
 years away. Whar mout ye have bin ? ' 
 
 ' In Europe,' said Demorest pleasantly. 
 
 ' 1 reckoned ez much,' returned his inter- 
 rogator, smiling significantly at the other passen- 
 gers. ' But in what place ? ' 
 
 4 Oh, many,' said Demorest, smiling also. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' But what place war ye last livin' at ? ! 
 
 ' Well,' said Demorest, descending the steps, 
 but lingering for a moment with his hand on the 
 door of the coach, ' oddly enough, now you remind 
 me of it — at Hymettus ! ' 
 
 He closed the door and the coach rolled on. 
 The passenger reddened, glanced indignantly 
 after the departing figure of Demorest and 
 suspiciously at the others. The lady was look- 
 ing from the window with a faint smile on her 
 face. 
 
 1 He might hev given me a civil answer/ 
 muttered the passenger and resumed his novel. 
 
 When the coach drew up before Carter's 
 Hotel the lady got down, and the curiosity of her 
 susceptible companions was gratified to the extent 
 of learning from the register that her name was 
 Horncastle. 
 
 She was shown to a private sitting-room, 
 which chanced to be the one which had belonged 
 to Mrs. Barker in the days of her maidenhood, 
 and was the secret, impenetrable bower to which 
 she retired when her daily duties of waiting upon 
 her father's guests were over. But the breath of 
 custom had passed through it since then, and but 
 little remained of its former maiden glories, ex- 
 cept a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on the wall 
 and an unrecognisable portrait of herself in oil, 
 
io8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 done by a wandering artist and still preserved as 
 a receipt for his unpaid bill. Of these facts Mrs. 
 Horncastle knew nothing ; she was evidently 
 preoccupied, and after she had removed her outer 
 duster and entered the room, she glanced at the 
 clock on the mantelshelf and threw herself with 
 an air of resigned abstraction in an arm-chair in 
 the corner. Her travelling dress, although un- 
 ostentatious, was tasteful and well-fitting ; a slight 
 pallor from her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, 
 from some absorbing thought, made her beauty 
 still more striking. She gave even an air of 
 elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the 
 room, which it is to be feared it never possessed 
 in Miss Kitty's occupancy. Again she glanced 
 at the clock. There was a tap at the door. 
 
 1 Come in.' 
 
 The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing 
 a piece of torn paper with a name written on it in 
 lieu of a card. 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name 
 and handed the paper back. 
 
 'There must be some mistake,' she said. ' I 
 do not know Mr. Steptoe.' 
 
 ■ No, but you know me all the same,' said a 
 voice from the doorway as a man entered, coolly 
 took the Chinese servant by the elbows and 
 thrust him into the passage, closing the door 
 
THREE PARTNERS 109 
 
 upon him. ' Steptoe and Horncastle are the 
 same man, only I prefer to call myself Steptoe 
 here. And I see you' re down on the register as 
 " Horncastle." Well, it's plucky of you, and it's 
 not a bad name to keep ; you might be thankful 
 that I have always left it to you. And if I call 
 myself Steptoe here it's a good blind against any 
 of your swell friends knowing you met your hus- 
 band here.' 
 
 In the half-scornful, half-resigned look she 
 had given him when he entered there was no 
 doubt that she recognised him as the man she 
 had come to see. He had changed little in the 
 five years that had elapsed since he entered the 
 three partners' cabin at Heavy Tree Hill. His 
 short hair and beard still clung to his head like 
 curled moss or the crisp flocculence of Astrakhan. 
 He was dressed more pretentiously, but still gave 
 the same idea of vulgar strength. She listened 
 to him without emotion, but said, with even a 
 deepening of scorn in her manner : 
 
 1 What new shame is this ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing new,' he replied. ' Only five years 
 ago I was livin' over on the bar at Heavy Tree 
 Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here 
 might recognise me. I was here when your 
 particular friend, Jim Stacy — who only knew me 
 as Steptoe, and doesn't know me as Horncastle, 
 
no THREE PARTNERS 
 
 your husband — for all he's bound up my property 
 for you — made his big strike with his two partners. 
 I was in his cabin that very night, and drank his 
 whiskey. Oh, I'm all right there ! I left every- 
 thing all right behind me — only it's just as well as 
 he doesn't know I'm Horncastle. And as the boy 
 
 happened to be there with me ' He stopped 
 
 and looked at her significantly. 
 
 The expression of her face changed. Eager- 
 ness, anxiety, and even fear came into it in turn, 
 but always mingling with some scorn that 
 dominated her. ' The boy ! ' she said in a voice 
 that had changed too, ' well, what about him ? 
 You promised to tell me all. All ! ' 
 
 ' Where's the money?' he said. ' Husband 
 and wife are one, I know,' he went on with a 
 coarse laugh, ' but I don't trust myself in these 
 matters.' 
 
 She took from a travelling reticule that lay 
 beside her a roll of notes and a chamois leather 
 bag of coin and laid them on the table before 
 him. He examined both carefully. 
 
 1 All right,' he said. ' I see you've got the 
 checks made out "to bearear." Your head's 
 level, Conny. Pity you and me can't agree.' 
 
 * I went to the bank across the way as soon as 
 I arrived,' she said with contemptuous directness. 
 
Where's the money ? ' he said. 
 
^ OF THK J 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 ^l 
 
 iH CALIFOR^L 
 
THREE PARTNERS in 
 
 * I told them I was going over to Hymettus and 
 might want money.' 
 
 He dropped into a chair before her with his 
 broad, heavy hands upon his knees, and looked at 
 her with an equal, though baser, contempt. For 
 his was mingled with a certain pride of mastery 
 and possession. 
 
 1 And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut 
 a splurge as you always do. The beautiful Mrs. 
 Horncastle ! The helpless victim of a wretched, 
 dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So 
 dreadfully sad, you know, and so interesting ! 
 Could get a divorce from the brute if she wanted, 
 but won't, on account of her religious scruples. 
 And so while the brute is gambling, swindling, 
 disgracing himself, and dodging a shot here and a 
 lynch committee there, two or three hundred miles 
 away, you're splurging round in first-class hotels 
 and watering-places, doing the injured and abused, 
 and run after by a lot of men who are ready to 
 take my place, and, maybe, some of my reputation 
 along with it.' 
 
 ' Stop ! ' she said suddenly, in a voice that 
 made the glass chandelier ring. He had risen too, 
 with a quick, uneasy glance towards the door. 
 But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and sinking 
 back into her chair, she said, with her previous 
 
112 
 
 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 scornful resignation, ' Never mind. Go on. You 
 know you're lying ! ' 
 
 He sat down again and looked at her critically. 
 1 Yes, as far as you're concerned I was lying ! 
 I know your style. But as you know, too, that 
 I'd kill you and the first man I suspected, and 
 there ain't a judge or a jury in all Californy that 
 wouldn't let me go free for it, and even consider, 
 too, that it had wiped off the whole slate agin me 
 — it's to my credit ! ' 
 
 1 I know what you men call chivalry,' she said 
 coldly, ' but I did not come here to buy a know- 
 ledge of that. So now about the child ? ' she 
 ended abruptly, leaning forward again with the 
 same look of eager solicitude in her eyes. 
 
 1 Well, about the child — our child — though, 
 perhaps, I prefer to say my child? he began, with 
 a certain brutal frankness. ' I'll tell you. But 
 first, I don't want you to talk about buying your 
 information of me. If I haven't told you anything 
 before, it's because I didn't think you oughter 
 know. If I didn't trust the child to you, it's 
 because I didn't think you could go shashsaying 
 about with a child that was three years old when 
 I' — he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back 
 of his hand — ' made an honest woman of you — I 
 think that's what they call it.' 
 
 1 But,' she said eagerly, ignoring the insult, ' I 
 
THREE PARTNERS 113 
 
 could have hidden it where no one but myself 
 would have known it. I could have sent it to 
 school and visited it as a relation.' 
 
 1 Yes,' he said curtly, ' like all women, and then 
 blurted it out some day and made it worse.' 
 
 'But,' she said desperately, 'even then, sup- 
 pose I had been willing to take the shame of it ! 
 I have taken more ! ' 
 
 ' But I didn't intend that you should,' he said 
 roughly. 
 
 4 You are very careful of my reputation,' she 
 returned scornfully. 
 
 1 Not by a d d sight,' he burst out ; ' but I 
 
 care for his\ I'm not goin' to let any man call 
 him a bastard ! ' 
 
 Callous as she had become even under this last 
 cruel blow, she could not but see something in his 
 coarse eyes she had never seen before ; could not 
 but hear something in his brutal voice she had 
 never heard before ! Was it possible that some- 
 where in the depths of his sordid nature he had 
 his own contemptible sense of honour ? A hysteri- 
 cal feeling came over her hitherto passive disgust 
 and scorn, but it disappeared with his next sen- 
 tence in a haze of anxiety. ' No ! ' he said 
 hoarsely, ' he had enough wrong done him 
 already.' 
 
 • What do you mean ? ' she said imploringly. 
 
 I 
 
H4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 i Or are you again lying ? You said, four years 
 ago, that he had " got into trouble " ; that was your 
 excuse for keeping him from me. Or was that a 
 lie, too ? ' 
 
 His manner changed and softened, but not for 
 any pity for his companion, but rather from some 
 change in his own feelings. ' Oh, that,' he said 
 with a rough laugh, ' that was only a kind o' 
 trouble any sassy kid like him was likely to get 
 into. You ain't got no call to hear that, nor,' he 
 added, with a momentary return to his previous 
 manner, ' the wrong that was done him is my look 
 out! You want to know what I did with him, 
 how he's been looked arter, and where he is ? 
 You want the worth of your money. That's 
 square enough. But first I want you to know, 
 though you mayn't believe it, that every red cent 
 you've given me to-night goes to him. And don't 
 you forget it.' 
 
 For all his vulgar frankness she knew he had 
 lied to her many times before — maliciously, 
 wantonly, complacently, but never evasively ; yet 
 there was again that something in his manner 
 which told her he was now telling the truth. 
 
 1 Well,' he began, settling himself back in his 
 chair, ' I told you I brought him to Heavy Tree 
 Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust 
 him to no school ; he knew enough for me ; but 
 
THREE PARTNERS 115 
 
 when I left those parts where nobody knew you, 
 and got a little nearer 'Frisco, where people might 
 have known us both, I thought it better not to 
 travel round with a kid o' that size as his father. 
 So I got a young fellow here to pass him off as 
 his little brother, and look after him and board 
 him ; and I paid him a big price for it, too, you 
 bet ! You wouldn't think it was a man who's 
 now swelling round here, the top o' the pile, that 
 ever took money from a brute like me, and for 
 such schoolmaster work, too ; but he did, and his 
 name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch 
 Company.' 
 
 1 Van Loo ! ' said the woman, with a move- 
 ment of disgust — ' that man ! ' 
 
 * What's the matter with Van Loo ? ' he said 
 with a coarse laugh, enjoying his wife's dis- 
 comfiture. * He speaks French and Spanish, 
 and you oughter hear the kid roll off the lingo 
 he's got from him. He's got style, and knows 
 how to dress, and you ought to see the kid bow 
 and scrape, and how he carried himself. Now, 
 Van Loo wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I 
 don't hanker after him much, but he served my 
 purpose.' 
 
 'And this man knows ■ she said with a 
 
 shudder. 
 
 ! He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't 
 
 1 2 
 
n6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 know Horncastle nor you. Don't you be skeert. 
 He's the last man in the world who would hanker 
 to see me or the kid again, or would dare to say 
 that he ever had! Lord! I'd like to see his 
 fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon 
 him and his high-toned mother and sister some 
 arternoon.' He threw himself back and laughed 
 a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was 
 so far from being genial that it even seemed to 
 indicate a lively appreciation of pain in others 
 rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often 
 laughed at her in the same way. 
 
 1 And where is he now ? ' she said with a 
 compressed lip. 
 
 'At school. Where, I don't tell you. You 
 know why. But he's looked after by me, and 
 d d well looked after, too.' 
 
 She hesitated, composed her face with an 
 effort, parted her lips, and looked out of the 
 window into the gathering darkness. Then after 
 a moment she said slowly, yet with a certain 
 precision : 
 
 1 And his mother ? Do you ever talk to him 
 of her ? Does — does he ever speak of me ? ' 
 
 1 What do you think ? ' he said comfortably, 
 changing his position in the chair, and trying to 
 read her face in the shadow. ' Come, now. You 
 don't know, eh ? Well — no ! No ! You under- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 117 
 
 stand. No! He's my friend — mine] He's 
 stood by me through thick and thin. Run at 
 my heels when everybody else fled me. Dodged 
 vigilance committees with me, laid out in the 
 
 o ■ 
 
 brush with me with his hand in mine when the 
 Sheriff's deputies were huntin' me ; shut his jaw 
 close when, if he squealed, he'd have been called 
 another victim of the brute Horncastle, and been 
 as petted and canoodled as you.' 
 
 It would have been difficult for any one but 
 the woman who knew the man before her to have 
 separated his brutish delight in paining her from 
 another feeling she had never dreamt him capable 
 of — an intense and fierce pride in his affection 
 for his child. And it was the more hopeless to 
 her that it was not the mere sentiment of re- 
 ciprocation, but the material instinct of paternity 
 in its most animal form. And it seemed horrible 
 to her that the only outcome of what had been 
 her own wild, youthful passion for this brute was 
 this love for the flesh of her flesh, for she was 
 more and more conscious as he spoke that her 
 yearning for the boy was the yearning of an 
 equally dumb and unreasoning maternity. They 
 had met again as animals — in fear, contempt, and 
 anger of each other ; but the animal had triumphed 
 in both. 
 
 When she spoke again it was as the woman 
 
n8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 of the world — the woman who had laughed two 
 years ago at the irrepressible Barker. * It's a 
 new thing,' she said, languidly turning her rings 
 on her fingers, ■ to see you in the role of a doting 
 father. And may I ask how long you have had 
 this amiable weakness, and how long it is to 
 last?' 
 
 To her surprise and the keen retaliating 
 delight of her sex, a conscious flush covered his 
 face to the crisp edges of his black and matted 
 beard. For a moment she hoped that he had 
 lied. But, to her greater surprise, he stammered 
 in equal frankness : ' It's growed upon me for the 
 last five years — ever since I was alone with him.' 
 He stopped, cleared his throat, and then, standing 
 up before her, said in his former voice, but with 
 a more settled and intense deliberation : ' You 
 wanter know how long it will last, do ye ? 
 Well, you know your special friend, Jim Stacy — 
 the big millionaire — the great Jim of the Stock 
 Exchange — the man that pinches the money 
 market of Californy between his finger and 
 thumb and makes it squeal in New York — the 
 man who shakes the stock market when he 
 sneezes ? Well, it will go on until that man is a 
 beggar ; until he has to borrow a dime for his 
 breakfast and slump out of his lunch with a cent's 
 worth of rat poison, or a bullet in his head ! It'll 
 
THREE PARTNERS 119 
 
 go on until his old partner — that softy George 
 
 Barker — comes to the bottom of his d d fool 
 
 luck and is a penny-a-liner for the papers and a 
 hanger round at free lunches, and his scatter- 
 brained wife runs away with another man! It'll 
 go on until the high-toned Demorest, the last of 
 those three little tin gods of Heavy Tree Hill, 
 will have to climb down, and will know what / 
 feel and what he's made me feel, and will wish 
 himself in Hell before he ever made the big 
 strike on Heavy Tree ! That's me ! You hear 
 me! I'm shoutin'! It'll last till then! It may 
 be next week, next month, next year. But it'll 
 come. And when it does come you'll see me 
 and Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief 
 seats in the synagogue ! And you'll have a free 
 pass to the show ! ' 
 
 Either he was too intoxicated with his vengeful 
 vision, or the shadows of the room had deepened, 
 but he did not see the quick flush that had risen 
 to his wife's face with this allusion to Barker, nor 
 the after-settling of her handsome features into 
 a dogged determination equal to his own. His 
 blind fury against the three partners did not 
 touch her curiosity ; she was only struck with the 
 evident depth of his emotion. He had never 
 been a braggart ; his hostility had always been 
 lazy and cynical. Remembering this, she had a 
 
no THREE PARTNERS 
 
 faint stirring of respect for the undoubted courage 
 and consciousness of strength shown in this wild, 
 but single-handed crusade against wealth and 
 power ; rather, perhaps, it seemed to her to 
 condone her own weakness in her youthful and 
 inexplicable passion for him. No wonder she 
 had submitted. 
 
 ' Then you have nothing more to tell me ? ' 
 she said after a pause, rising and going towards 
 the mantel. 
 
 'You needn't light up for me,' he returned, 
 rising also. ' I am going. Unless,' he added, 
 with his coarse laugh, ' you think it wouldn't look 
 well for Mrs. Horncastle to have been sitting in 
 the dark with — a stranger ! ' He paused as she 
 contemptuously put down the candlestick and 
 threw the unlit match into the grate. ' No, I've 
 nothing more to tell. He's a fancy-looking pup. 
 You'd take him for twenty-one, though he's only 
 sixteen — clean-limbed and perfect — but for one 
 thing — — ' He stopped, He met her quick 
 look of interrogation, however, with a lowering 
 silence that, nevertheless, changed again as he 
 surveyed her erect figure by the faint light of the 
 window with a sardonic smile. ' He favours you, 
 I think, and in all but one thing, too.' 
 
 ' And that ? ' she queried coldly, as he seemed 
 to hesitate. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 121 
 
 1 He ain't ashamed of me? he returned with a 
 laugh. 
 
 The door closed behind him ; she heard his 
 heavy step descend the creaking stairs ; he was 
 gone. She went to the window and threw it 
 open, as if to get rid of the atmosphere charged 
 with his presence — a presence still so potent that 
 she now knew that for the last five minutes she 
 had been, to her horror, struggling against its 
 magnetism. She even recoiled now at the 
 thought of her child, as if, in these new confidences 
 over it, it had revived the old intimacy in this 
 link of their common flesh. She looked down 
 from her window on the square shoulders, thick 
 throat, and crisp matted hair of her husband as 
 he vanished in the darkness, and drew a breath 
 of freedom — a freedom not so much from him as 
 from her own weakness that he was bearing away 
 with him into the exonerating night. 
 
 She shut the window and sank down in her 
 chair again, but in the encompassing and com- 
 passionate obscurity of the room. And this was 
 the man she had loved and for whom she had 
 wrecked her young life ! Or was it love ? and, 
 if not, how was she better than he ? Worse ; for 
 he was more loyal to that passion that had 
 brought them together and its responsibilities 
 than she was. She had suffered the perils and 
 
122 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 pangs of maternity, and yet had only the mere 
 animal yearning for her offspring, while he had 
 taken over the toil and duty, and even the de- 
 votion, of parentage himself. But then she 
 remembered also how he had fascinated her — a 
 simple school-girl — by his sheer domineering 
 strength, and how the objections of her parents 
 to this coarse and common man had forced her 
 into a clandestine intimacy that ended in her 
 complete subjection to him. She remembered 
 the birth of an infant whose concealment from 
 her parents and friends was compassed by his low 
 cunning ; she remembered the late atonement of 
 marriage preferred by the man she had already 
 begun to loathe and fear, and whom she now 
 believed was eager only for her inheritance. She 
 remembered her abject compliance through the 
 greater fear of the world, of the stormy scenes 
 that followed their ill-omened union, of her final 
 abandonment of her husband, and the efforts of 
 her friends and family who had rescued the last 
 of her property from him. She was glad she 
 remembered it ; she dwelt upon it, upon his 
 cruelty, his coarseness and vulgarity, until she 
 saw, as she honestly believed, the hidden springs 
 of his affection for their child. It was his child 
 in nature, however it might have favoured her in 
 looks ; it was his own brutal selfhz was worship- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 123 
 
 ping ill his brutal progeny. How else could it 
 have ignored her — its own mother ? She never 
 doubted the truth of what he had told her — she 
 had seen it in his own triumphant eyes. And 
 yet she would have made a kind mother ; she 
 remembered with a smile and a slight rising of 
 colour the affection of Barker's baby for her ; 
 she remembered with a deepening of that colour 
 the thrill of satisfaction she had felt in her hus- 
 band's fulmination against Mrs. Barker, and, more 
 than all, she felt in his blind and foolish hatred of 
 Barker himself a delicious condonation of the 
 strange feeling that had sprung up in her heart 
 for Barker's simple, straightforward nature. How 
 could he understand ; how could they understand 
 (by the plural she meant Mrs. Barker and Horn- 
 castle) a character so innately noble? In her 
 strange attraction towards him she had felt a 
 charming sense of what she believed was 
 a superior and even matronly protection ; in the 
 utter isolation of her life now— and with her 
 husband's foolish abuse of him ring-ino- i n her 
 ears — it seemed a sacred duty. She had lost a 
 son. Providence had sent her an ideal friend to 
 replace it. And this was quite consistent, too, 
 with a faint smile that began to play about her 
 mouth as she recalled some instances of Barker's 
 delightful and irresistible youthfulness. 
 
124 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 There was a clatter of hoofs and the sound of 
 many voices from the street. Mrs. Barker knew 
 it was the ' down coach ' changing horses ; it 
 would be off again in a few moments, and, no 
 doubt, bearing her husband away with it. A 
 new feeling of relief came over her as she at last 
 heard the warning ' All aboard ! ' and the great 
 vehicle clattered and rolled into the darkness, 
 trailing its burning lights across her walls and 
 ceiling. But now she heard steps on the stair- 
 case, a pause before her room, a whisper of voices, 
 the opening of the door, the rustle of a skirt, and 
 a little feminine cry of protest as a man apparently 
 tried to follow the figure into the room. ' No, 
 no ! I tell you no ! ' remonstrated the woman's 
 voice in a hurried whisper. ' It won't do. Every- 
 body knows me here. You must not come in 
 now. You must wait to be announced by the 
 servant. Hush ! Go ! ' 
 
 There was a slight struggle, the sound of a 
 kiss, and the woman succeeded in finally shutting 
 the door. Then she walked slowly, but with a 
 certain familiarity towards the mantel, struck 
 a match and lit the candle. The light shone 
 upon the bright eyes and slightly flushed face of 
 Mrs. Barker. But the motionless woman in the 
 chair had recognised her voice and the voice of 
 her companion at once. And then their eyes met, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 125 
 
 Mrs. Barker drew back, but did not utter a 
 cry. Mrs. Horncastle, with eyes even brighter 
 than her companion's, smiled. The red suddenly 
 returned to Mrs. Barker's cheek. 
 
 ' This is my room ! ' she said indignantly, 
 with a sweeping gesture around the walls. 
 
 ' I should judge so,' said Mrs. Horncastle 
 following the gesture, ' but,' she added quietly, 
 'they put me into it. It appears, however, they 
 did not expect you.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker saw her mistake. ' No, no,' she 
 said apologetically, ' of course not.' Then she 
 added, with nervous volubility, sitting down and 
 tugging at her gloves, ' You see, I just ran down 
 from Marysville to take a look at my father's old 
 house on my way to Hymettus. I hope I 
 haven't disturbed you. Perhaps,' she said with 
 sudden eagerness, ' you w 7 ere asleep when I came 
 in!' 
 
 I No,' said Mrs. Horncastle, ' I was not 
 sleeping nor dreaming. I heard you come in.' 
 
 'Some of these men are such idiots,' said 
 Mrs. Barker with a half hysterical laugh. ' They 
 seem to think if a woman accepts the least 
 courtesy from them they've a right to be familiar. 
 But I fancy that fellow was a little astonished 
 when I shut the door in his face.' 
 
 I I fancy he was J returned Mrs. Horncastle 
 
T26 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 drily. ' But I shouldn't call Mr. Van Loo an 
 idiot. He has the reputation of being a cautious 
 business man.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker bit her lip. Her companion had 
 been recognised. She rose with a slight flirt of 
 her skirt. ' I suppose I must go and get a room ; 
 there was nobody in the office when I came. 
 Everything is badly managed here since my 
 father took away the best servants to Hymettus.' 
 She moved with affected carelessness towards the 
 door, when Mrs. Horncastle, without rising from 
 her seat, said : 
 
 ' Why not stay here ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Barker brightened for a moment. 'Oh,' 
 she said with polite deprecation, ' I couldn't think 
 of turning you out.' 
 
 ' I don't intend you shall,' said Mrs. Horn- 
 castle. ' We will stay here together until you go 
 with me to Hymettus, or until Mr. Van Loo 
 leaves the hotel. He. will hardly attempt to come 
 in here again if I remain.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker, with a half-laugh, sat down 
 irresolutely. Mrs. Horncastle gazed at her 
 curiously ; she was evidently a novice in this 
 sort of thing. But, strange to say — and I leave 
 the ethics of this for the sex to settle — the fact 
 did not soften Mrs. Horncas tie's heart, nor in the 
 least qualify her attitude towards the younger 
 
THREE PARTNERS 127 
 
 woman. After an awkward pause Mrs. Barker 
 rose again. ' Well, it's very good of you, and — 
 and — I'll just run out and wash my hands and 
 get the dust off me and come back.' 
 
 1 No, Mrs. Barker,' said Mrs. Horncastle, 
 rising and approaching her, ' you will first wash 
 your hands of this Mr. Van Loo, and get some of 
 the dust of the rendezvous off you before you do 
 anything else. You can do it by simply telling him, 
 should you meet him in the hall, that I was sitting 
 here when he came in, and heard everything^. 
 Depend upon it he won't trouble you again.' 
 
 But Mrs. Barker, though inexperienced in 
 love, was a good fighter. The best of the sex 
 are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and 
 began rocking backwards and forwards while still 
 tugging at her gloves, and said, in a gradually 
 warming voice, ■ I certainly shall not magnify 
 Mr. Van Loo's silliness to that importance. And 
 I have yet to learn what you mean by talking 
 about a rendezvousX And I want to know,' she 
 continued, suddenly stopping her rocking and 
 tilting the rockers impertinently behind her, as, 
 with her elbows squared on the chair arms, she 
 tilted her own face defiantly up into Mrs. Horn- 
 castle's, ' how a woman in your position — who 
 don't live with her husband — dares to talk to me\ ' 
 
 There was a lull before the storm. Mrs. 
 
i 2 8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Horncastle approached nearer, and, laying her 
 hand on the back of the chair, leaned over her, 
 and, with a white face and a metallic ring in 
 her voice, said : ' It Is just because I am a 
 woman in my position that I do ! It is because 
 I don't live with my husband that I can tell you 
 what it will be when you no longer live with 
 yours — which will be the inevitable result of what 
 you are now doing. It is because I was in this 
 position that the very man who is pursuing you 
 because he thinks you are discontented with your 
 husband once thought he could pursue me because 
 I had left mine. You are here with him alone, 
 without the knowledge of your husband ; call it 
 folly, caprice, vanity, or what you like, it can 
 have but one end — to put you in my place at last, 
 to be considered the fair game afterwards for any 
 man who may succeed him. You can test him 
 and the truth of what I say by telling him now 
 that I heard all.' 
 
 4 Suppose he doesn't care what you have heard! ' 
 said Mrs. Barker sharply. ' Suppose he says 
 nobody would believe you, if ''telling" is your 
 game ! Suppose he is a friend of my husband 
 and he thinks him a much better guardian of my 
 reputation than a woman like you ! Suppose he 
 should be the first one to tell my husband of the 
 foul slander invented by you ! ' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 129 
 
 For an instant Mrs. Horncastle was taken 
 aback by the audacity of the woman before her. 
 She knew the simple confidence and boyish trust 
 of Barker in his wife in spite of their sometimes 
 strained relations, and she knew how difficult it 
 would be to shake it. And she had no idea of 
 betraying Mrs. Barker's secret to him, though 
 she had made this scene in his interest. She 
 had wished to save Mrs. Barker from a com- 
 promising situation, even if there was a certain 
 vindictiveness in her exposing her to herself. 
 Yet she knew it was quite possible now, if Mrs. 
 Barker had immediate access to her husband, 
 that she would convince him of her perfect 
 innocence. Nevertheless, she had still great con- 
 fidence in Van Loo's fear of scandal and his utter 
 unmanliness. She knew he was not in love with 
 Mrs. Barker, and this puzzled her when she con- 
 sidered the evident risk he was running now. 
 Her face, however, betrayed nothing. She drew 
 back from Mrs. Barker, and with an indifferent 
 and graceful gesture towards the door, said, as 
 she leaned against the mantel, ' Go, then, and see 
 this much-abused gentleman, and then go together 
 with him and make peace with your husband — 
 even on those terms. If I have saved you from 
 the consequences of your folly I shall be willing 
 to bear even his blame/ 
 
 K 
 
i 3 o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 1 Whatever I do,' said Mrs. Barker, rising 
 hotly, ■ I shall not stay here any longer to be 
 insulted.' She flounced out of the room and 
 swept down the staircase into the office. Here 
 she found an overworked clerk, and with crimson 
 cheeks and flashing eyes wanted to know why in 
 her own fathers hotel she had found her own 
 sitting-room engaged, and had been obliged to 
 wait half an hour before she could be shown into 
 a decent apartment to remove her hat and cloak 
 in ; and how it was that even the gentleman who 
 had kindly escorted her had evidently been un- 
 able to procure her any assistance ? She said this 
 in a somewhat high voice, which might have 
 reached the ears of that gentleman had he been 
 in the vicinity. But he was not, and she was 
 forced to meet the somewhat dazed apologies of 
 the clerk alone, and to accompany the chamber- 
 maid to. -a room only a few paces distant from the 
 one she had quitted. - Here -she- hastily removed 
 her outer duster and hat, and washed her hands 
 and consulted her excited face in the mirror, with 
 the door ajar and an ear sensitively attuned to 
 any step in the corridor. But all this was effected 
 so. rapidly, that she was at last obliged to sit down 
 in a chair near the half-opened door and wait. 
 She waited five minutes — ten — but still no foot- 
 step. Then she went out into the corridor and 
 
THREE PARTNERS 131 
 
 listened, and then, smoothing her face, she slipped 
 downstairs, past the door of that hateful room, and 
 reappeared before the clerk with a smiling but 
 somewhat pale and languid face. She had found 
 the room very comfortable, but it was doubtful 
 whether she would stay over night or go on to 
 Hymettus. Had anybody been inquiring for her ? 
 She expected to meet friends. No ! And her 
 escort — the gentleman who came with her — was 
 possibly in the billiard-room or the bar ? 
 
 * Oh, no ! He was gone,' said the clerk. 
 
 1 Gone ! ' echoed Mrs. Barker. ' Impossible ! 
 He was — he was here only a moment ago.' 
 
 The clerk rang a bell sharply. The stableman 
 appeared. 
 
 1 That tall, smooth-faced man, in a high hat, 
 who came with the lady,' said the clerk severely 
 and concisely, 'didn't you tell me he was gone ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' said the stableman. 
 
 'Are you sure ?' interrupted Mrs. Barker with 
 a dazzling smile that, however, masked a sudden 
 tightening round her heart. 
 
 * Quite sure, miss,' said the stableman, 'for he 
 was in the yard when Steptoe came after missing 
 the coach. He wanted a buggy to take him over 
 to the Divide. We hadn't one, so he went over 
 to the other stables, and he didn't come back, 
 
 k 2 
 
132 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 so I reckon he's gone. I remember it because 
 Steptoe came by a minute after he'd gone, in an- 
 other buggy, and as he was going to the Divide, 
 too, I wondered why the gentleman hadn't gone 
 with him.' 
 
 ' And he left no message for me ? He said 
 nothing ? ' asked Mrs. Barker quite breathless, 
 but still smiling. 
 
 ' He said nothin' to me but " Isn't that Steptoe 
 over there ? " when Steptoe came in. And I 
 remember he said it kinder suddent — as if he was 
 reminded o' suthin' he'd forgot ; and then he 
 asked for a buggy. Ye see, miss,' added the 
 man, with a certain rough consideration for her 
 disappointment, ' that's mebbee why he clean 
 forgot to leave a message.' 
 
 Mrs. Barker turned away and ascended the 
 stairs. Selfishness is quick to recognise selfish- 
 ness, and she saw in a flash the reason of Van 
 Loo's abandonment of her. Some fear of dis- 
 covery had alarmed him ; perhaps Steptoe knew her 
 husband ; perhaps he had heard of Mrs. Horn- 
 castle's possession of the sitting-room ; perhaps 
 — for she had not seen him since their playful 
 struggle at the door — he had recognised the 
 woman who was there, and the selfish coward had 
 run away. Yes ; Mrs. Horncastle was right ; she 
 had been only a miserable dupe. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 133 
 
 Her cheeks blazed as she entered the room 
 she had just quitted and threw herself in a chair 
 by the window. She bit her lip as she remembered 
 how for the last three months she had been slowly- 
 yielding to Van Loo's cautious but insinuating 
 solicitation, from a flirtation in the San Francisco 
 hotel to a clandestine meeting in the street ; from 
 a ride in the suburbs to a supper in a fast restaurant 
 after the theatre. Other women did it who were 
 fashionable and rich, as Van Loo had pointed out 
 to her. Other fashionable women also gambled 
 in stocks, and had their private broker in a 
 'Charley' or a 'Jack.' Why should not Mrs. 
 Barker have business with a ' Paul ' Van Loo, 
 particularly as this fast craze permitted secret 
 meetings ? — for business of this kind could not be 
 conducted in public, and permitted the fair gambler 
 to call at private offices without fear and without 
 reproach. Mrs. Barker's vanity, Mrs. Barker's 
 love of ceremony and form, Mrs. Barker's snob- 
 bishness were flattered by the attentions of this 
 polished gentleman with a foreign name, which 
 even had the flavour of nobility, who never picked 
 up her fan and handed it to her without bowing, 
 and always rose when she entered the room. 
 Mrs. Barker's scant school-girl knowledge was 
 touched by this gentleman, who spoke French 
 fluently, and delicately explained to her the librette 
 
134 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 of a risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally 
 yielded to a meeting out of San Francisco — and 
 an ostensible visit — still as a speculator — to one 
 or two mining districts — with her broker. This 
 was the boldest of her steps — an original idea of 
 the fashionable Van Loo — which, no doubt, in 
 time would become a craze, too. But it was a 
 long step — and there was a streak of rustic 
 decorum in Mrs. Barker's nature — the instinct 
 that made Kitty Carter keep a perfectly secluded 
 and distinct sitting-room in the days when she 
 served her father's guests — that now had impelled 
 her to make it a proviso that the first step of her 
 journey should be from her old home in her father's 
 hotel. It was this instinct of the proprieties that 
 had revived in her suddenly at the door of the old 
 sitting-room. 
 
 Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon 
 her. It was hard for her vanity to accept Van 
 Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if 
 that hateful woman had lured him away by some 
 trick or artfully designed message ? She was 
 capable of such meanness to insure the fulfilment 
 of her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, 
 what if she had some hold on his affections — she 
 had said that he had pursued her — or, more 
 infamous still, there was some secret understanding 
 between them, and that she — Mrs. Barker — were 
 
The room reeled arouna her. 
 
THREE PAR1WERS i\ 
 
 33 
 
 the dupe of them both ! What was she doing in 
 the hotel at such a moment ? What was her story 
 of going to Hymettus but a lie as transparent as 
 her own ? The tortures of jealousy, which is as 
 often the incentive as it is the result of passion, 
 began to rack her. She had probably yet known 
 no real passion for this man ; but with the thought 
 of his abandoning her, and the conception of his 
 faithlessness, came the wish to hold and keep him 
 that was dangerously near it. What if he was 
 even then in that room, the room where she had 
 said she would not stay to be insulted, and they, 
 thus secured against her intrusion, were laughing 
 at her now ? She half rose at the thought, but a 
 sound of horses' hoofs in the stable yard arrested 
 her. She ran to the window which gave upon it, 
 and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly. 
 The clatter of hoofs ceased ; the stableman was 
 talking to some one ; suddenly she heard the 
 stableman say, ' Mrs. Barker is here.' Her heart 
 leaped, Van Loo had returned. 
 
 But here the voice of the other man which she 
 had not yet heard arose for the first time clear and 
 distinct. ' Are you quite sure ? I didn't know 
 she left San Francisco.' 
 
 The room reeled around her. The voice was 
 George Barker's, her husband ! * Very well,' he 
 continued. ' You needn't put up my horse for the 
 
1 36 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 night. I may take her back a little later in the 
 buggy.' 
 
 In another moment she had swept down the 
 passage and burst into the other room. Mrs. 
 Horncastle was sitting by the table with a book in 
 her hand. She started as the half-maddened 
 woman closed the door, locked it behind her, and 
 cast herself on her knees at her feet. 
 
 'My husband is here,' she gasped. 'What 
 shall I do ? In Heaven's name help me ! ' 
 
 ' Is Van Loo still here ? ' said Mrs. Horncastle 
 quickly. 
 
 ' No ; gone. He went when I came.' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked 
 intently into her frightened face. ' Then what 
 have you to fear from your husband ? ' she said 
 abruptly. 
 
 1 You don't understand. He didn't know I 
 was here. He thought me in San Francisco.' 
 
 ' Does he know it now ? ' 
 
 1 Yes. I heard the stableman tell him. 
 Couldn't you say I came here with you ; that we 
 were here together ; that it was just a little freak 
 of ours ? Oh, do ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment. 'Yes,' 
 she said, 'we'll see him here together.' 
 
 1 Oh, no ! no ! ' said Mrs. Barker suddenly, 
 clinging to her dress and looking fearfully towards 
 
THREE PARTNERS 137 
 
 the door. ' I couldn't, couldrit see him now. 
 Say I'm sick, tired out, gone to my room.' 
 
 ' But you'll have to see him later,' said Mrs. 
 Horncastle wonderingly. 
 
 1 Yes, but he may go first. I heard him tell 
 them not to put up his horse.' 
 
 ' Good ! ' said Mrs. Horncastle suddenly. l Go 
 to your room and lock the door and I'll come to 
 you later. Stop! Would Mr. Barker be likely 
 to disturb you if I told him you would like to be 
 alone ! ' 
 
 ' No, he never does. I often tell him that.' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle smiled faintly, ' Come, quick, 
 then,' she said, 'for he may come here first' 
 
 Opening the door she passed into the half-dark 
 and empty hall. ' Now run ! ' She heard the 
 quick rustle of Mrs. Barker's skirt die away in the 
 distance, the opening and shutting of a door, 
 silence, and then turned back into her own 
 room. 
 
 She was none too soon. Presently she heard 
 Barker's voice saying, ' Thank you, I can find the 
 way,' his still buoyant step on the staircase, and 
 then saw his brown curls rising above the railing. 
 The light streaming through the open door of the 
 sitting-room into the half-lit hall had partially 
 dazzled him, and, already bewildered, he was still 
 more dazzled at the unexpected apparition of the 
 
t& THREE PARTNERS 
 
 smiling face and bright eyes of Mrs. Horncastle 
 standing in the doorway. 
 
 ' You have fairly caught us,' she said, with 
 charming composure ; ' but I had half a mind to 
 let you wander round the hotel a little longer. 
 Come in.' Barker followed her in mechanically, 
 and she closed the door. 'Now sit down,' she 
 said gaily, 'and tell me how you knew we were 
 here, and what you mean by surprising us at this 
 hour.' 
 
 Barker's ready colour always rose on meeting 
 Mrs. Horncastle, for whom he entertained a re- 
 spectful admiration, not without some fear of her 
 worldly superiority. He flushed, bowed, and 
 stared somewhat blankly around the room, at the 
 familiar walls, at the chair from which Mrs. Horn- 
 castle had just risen, and finally at his wife's glove, 
 which Mrs. Horncastle had a moment before 
 ostentatiously thrown on the table. Seeing which 
 she pounced upon it with assumed archness, and 
 pretended to conceal it. 
 
 1 1 had no idea my wife was here,' he said at 
 last, ' and I was quite surprised when the man 
 told me, for she had not written to me about it.' 
 As his face was brightening, she for the first time 
 noticed that his frank grey eyes had an abstracted 
 look, and there was a faint line of contraction on 
 his youthful forehead. 'Still less,' he added, 'did 
 
THREE PARTNERS 1 39 
 
 I look for the pleasure of meeting you. For I 
 only came here to inquire about my old partner, 
 Demorest, who arrived from Europe a few days 
 ago, and who should have reached Hymettus early 
 this afternoon. But now I hear he came all the 
 way by coach instead of by rail, and got off at the 
 cross road, and we must have passed each other 
 on the different trails. So my journey would have 
 gone for nothing, only that I now shall have the 
 pleasure of going back with you and Kitty. It 
 will be a lovely drive by moonlight.' 
 
 Relieved by this revelation, it was easy work 
 for Mrs. Horncastle to launch out into a playful, 
 tantalising, witty — but, I grieve to say, entirely 
 imaginative — account of her escapade with Mrs. 
 Barker. How, left alone at the San Francisco 
 hotel while their gentlemen friends were enjoying 
 themselves at Hymettus, they resolved upon a 
 little trip, partly for the purpose of looking into 
 some small investments of their own and partly 
 for the fun of the thing. What funny experiences 
 they had ! How, in particular, one horrid inquisi- 
 tive, vulgar wretch had been boring a European 
 fellow-passenger who was going to Hymettus, 
 finally asking him where he had come from last, 
 and when he answered ' Hymettus,' thought the 
 man was insulting him ■ 
 
 ■ But,' interrupted the laughing Barker, 'that 
 
i4o THREE PARTNERS 
 
 passenger may have been Demorest, who has just 
 come from Greece, and surely Kitty would have 
 recognised him.' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle instantly saw her blunder, 
 and not only retrieved it, but turned it to account. 
 Ah, yes ! but by that time poor Kitty, unused to 
 long journeys and the heat, was utterly fagged 
 out, was asleep, and perfectly unrecognisable in 
 veils and dusters on the back seat of the coach. 
 And this brought her to the point — which was, 
 that she was sorry to say, on arriving, the poor 
 child was nearly wild with a headache from fatigue 
 and had gone to bed, and she had promised not to 
 disturb her. 
 
 The undisguised amusement, mingled with 
 relief, that had overspread Barkers face during 
 this lively recital might have pricked the con- 
 science of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason 
 I fear it didn't. But it emboldened her to go on. 
 1 I said I promised her that I would see she wasn't 
 disturbed ; but, of course, now that you, her hus- 
 band, have come, if ' 
 
 1 Not for worlds,' interrupted Barker earnestly. 
 ' I know poor Kitty's headaches, and I never 
 disturb her, poor child, except when I'm thought- 
 less.' And here one of the most thoughtful men 
 in the world in his sensitive consideration of 
 others beamed at her with such frank and won- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 141 
 
 derful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him 
 with difficulty suppressed a hysterical desire to 
 laugh, and felt the conscious blood flush her to the 
 roots of her hair. ' You know,' he went on, with 
 a sigh, half of relief and half of reminiscence, ' that 
 I often think I'm a great bother to a clear-headed, 
 sensible girl like Kitty. She knows people so 
 much better than I do. She's wonderfully 
 equipped for the world, and, you see, I'm only 
 " lucky," as everybody says, and I dare say part 
 of my luck was to have got her. I'm very glad 
 she's a friend of yours, you know, for somehow I 
 fancied always that you were not interested in 
 her, or that you didn't understand each other 
 until now. It's odd that nice women don't always 
 like nice women, isn't it ? I'm glad she was with 
 you, for I was quite startled to hear she was here, 
 and couldn't make it out. I thought at first she 
 might have got anxious about our little " Sta," 
 who is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But 
 I'm glad it was only a lark. I shouldn't wonder,' 
 he added with a laugh, 'although she always 
 declares she isn't one of those " doting idiotic 
 mothers," that she found it a little dull without 
 the boy, for all she thought it was better for me 
 to take him somewhere for a change of air.' 
 
 The situation was becoming more difficult for 
 Mrs. Horncastle than she had conceived. There 
 
i 4 2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 had been a certain excitement in its first direct 
 appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she 
 believed, an unselfish desire to save the relations 
 between husband and wife if she could. But she 
 had not calculated upon his unconscious revela- 
 tions, nor upon their effect upon herself. She 
 had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a 
 moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained 
 escapade, but it now might be possible that it had 
 been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent her 
 husband and child away three weeks before. 
 Had she told the whole truth ? How long had 
 this been going on ? And if the soulless Van Loo 
 had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the 
 miserable ending of an intrigue rather than its 
 beginning ? Had she been as great a dupe of 
 this woman as the husband before her ? A new 
 and double consciousness came over her that for 
 a moment prevented her from meeting his 
 honest eyes. She felt the shame of being an 
 accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at the idea 
 of a climax that might separate him from his wife 
 for ever. 
 
 Luckily he did not notice it, but with a con- 
 tinued sense of relief threw himself back in his 
 chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls 
 broke into his youthful laugh. ■ Lord ! how I 
 remember this room in the old days. It was 
 
THREE PARTNERS 143 
 
 Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and 
 I used to think it looked just as fresh and pretty 
 as she. I used to think her crayon drawing 
 wonderful, and still more wonderful that she 
 should have that unnecessary talent when it was 
 quite enough for her to be just " Kitty." You 
 know, don't you, how you feel at those times 
 
 when you're quite happy in being inferior ' 
 
 He stopped a moment with a sudden recollec- 
 tion that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been 
 notoriously unhappy. ' I mean,' he went on with 
 a shy little laugh and an innocent attempt at 
 gallantry which the very directness of his simple 
 nature made atrociously obvious, ' I mean what 
 you've made lots of young fellows feel. There 
 used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the 
 mantelpiece, in full uniform, and signed by him- 
 self " For Kitty " ; and Lord! how jealous I was 
 of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentle- 
 men, and nobody even. was allowed in here, though 
 she helped her father all over the hotel. She was 
 awfully strict in those days/. he interpolated, w r ith 
 a thoughtful look and a half sigh, 'but then she 
 wasn't married. I proposed to her in this very 
 room ! Lord ! I remember how frightened I 
 was.' He stopped for an instant, and then said 
 with a certain timidity, [ Do you mind my telling 
 you something about it ? ! 
 
144 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear 
 these ingenuous domestic details, but she smiled 
 vaguely, although she could not suppress a some- 
 what impatient movement with her hands. Even 
 Barker noticed it, but to her surprise moved a 
 little nearer to her, and in a half entreating way 
 said, ' I hope I don't bore you, but it's something 
 confidential. Do you know that she first refused 
 me?' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a 
 slight toss of her head. ' I believe they all do 
 when they are sure of a man.' 
 
 1 No ! ' said Barker eagerly, ' you don't under- 
 stand. I proposed to her because I thought I 
 was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had 
 discovered that some old stocks I had had ac- 
 quired a fabulous value. She believed it, too, but 
 because she thought I was now a rich man and 
 she only a poor girl — a mere servant to her 
 father's guests — she refused me. Refused me 
 because she thought I might regret it in the 
 future, because she would not have it said that 
 she had taken advantage of my proposal only 
 when I was rich enough to make it.' 
 
 ' Well ? ' said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, 
 gazing straight before her, * and then ? ' 
 
 1 In about an hour I discovered my error, that 
 my stocks were worthless, that I was still a poor 
 
THREE PARTNERS 145 
 
 man. I thought it only honest to return to her 
 and tell her, even though I had no hope. And 
 then she pitied me, and cried, and accepted me. 
 I tell it to you as her friend.' He drew a little 
 nearer and quite fraternally laid his hand upon 
 her own. ' I know you won't betray me, though 
 you may think it wrong for me to have told it ; 
 but I wanted you to know how good she was and 
 true.' 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed 
 and discomfited, although she saw, with the in- 
 scrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency 
 between the Kitty of those days and the Kitty 
 now shamefully hiding from her husband in the 
 same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good 
 reason for her chivalrous act. But she could see 
 the unmistakable effect of that act upon the more 
 logically reasoning husband, and that it might 
 lead him to be more merciful to the later wrong. 
 And there was a keener irony that his first 
 movement of unconscious kindliness towards her 
 was the outcome of his affection for his undeserving 
 wife. 
 
 1 You said just now she was more practical 
 than you,' she said drily. ' Apart from this 
 evidence of it, what other reasons have you for 
 thinking so ? Do you refer to her independence 
 
 L 
 
I4 5 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 or her dealings in the stock market ? ' she added 
 with a laugh. 
 
 1 No,' said Barker seriously, ' for I do not 
 think her quite practical there — indeed, I'm afraid 
 she is about as bad as I am. But I'm glad you 
 have spoken, for I can now talk confidentially 
 with you, and as you and she are both in the same 
 ventures, perhaps she will feel less compunction 
 in hearing from you— as your own opinion— what 
 I have to tell you than if I spoke to her myself. 
 I am afraid she trusts implicitly to Van Loo's 
 judgment as her broker. I believe he is strictly 
 honourable, but the general opinion of his 
 business insight is not high. They— perhaps 
 I ought to say he— have been at least so un- 
 lucky that they might have learned prudence. 
 The loss of twenty thousand dollars in three 
 
 months ' 
 
 < Twenty thousand ! ' echoed Mrs. Horn- 
 castle. 
 
 ' Yes. Why you knew that ; it was in the 
 mine you and she visited ; or, perhaps,' he added 
 hastily, as he flushed at his indiscretion, 'she 
 didn't tell you that.' 
 
 But Mrs. Horncastle as hastily said, 'Yes — 
 yes — of course, only I had forgotten the amount,' 
 and he continued : 
 
 1 That loss would have frightened any man ; 
 
THREE PARTNERS 147 
 
 but you women are more daring. Only Van Loo 
 ought to have withdrawn. Don't you think so ? 
 Of course I couldn't say anything to him without 
 seeming to condemn my own wife ; I couldn't 
 say anything to her because it's her own money.' 
 
 1 I didn't know that Mrs. Barker had any 
 money of her own,' said Mrs. Horncastle. 
 
 'Well, I gave it to her,' said Barker, with 
 sublime simplicity, ' and that would make it all the 
 worse for me to speak about it.' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle was silent. A new theory 
 flashed upon her which seemed to reconcile all 
 the previous inconsistencies of the situation. Van 
 Loo, under the guise of a lover, was really pos- 
 sessing himself of Mrs. Barker's money. This 
 accounted for the risks he was running in this 
 escapade, which were so incongruous to the 
 rascal's nature. He was calculating that the 
 scandal of an intrigue would relieve him of 
 the perils of criminal defalcation. It was com- 
 patible with Kitty's innocence, though it did not 
 relieve her vanity of the part it played in this 
 despicable comedy of passion. All that Mrs. 
 Horncastle thought of now was the effect of its 
 eventual revelation upon the man before her. 
 Of course, he would overlook his wife's trustful- 
 ness and business ignorance — it would seem so 
 like his own unselfish faith ! That was the fault 
 
 L 2 
 
I 4 8 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 of all unselfish goodness ; it even took the colour 
 of adjacent evil, without altering the nature of 
 either. Mrs. Horncastle set her teeth tightly 
 together, but her beautiful mouth smiled upon 
 Barker though her eyes were bent upon the table- 
 cloth before her. 
 
 1 1 shall do all I can to impress your views 
 upon her,' she said at last, ' though I fear they will 
 have little weight if given as my own. And you 
 overrate my general influence with her.' 
 
 Her handsome head drooped in such a 
 thoughtful humility that Barker instinctively drew 
 nearer to her. Besides, she had not lifted her dark 
 lashes for some moments, and he had the still 
 youthful habit of looking frankly into the eyes of 
 those he addressed. 
 
 1 No,' he said eagerly ; 4 how could I ? She 
 could not help but love you and do as you would 
 wish. I can't tell you how glad and relieved I 
 am to find that you and she have become such 
 friends. You know I always thought you beauti- 
 ful, I always thought you so clever — I was even 
 a little frightened of you ; but I never until now 
 knew you were so good. No, stop! Yes, I did 
 know it. Do you remember once in San 
 Francisco, when I found you with "Sta" in your 
 lap in the drawing-room ? I knew it then. You 
 tried to make me think it was a whim — the fancy 
 
THREE PARTNERS 149 
 
 of a bored and worried woman. But I knew better. 
 And I knew what you were thinking then. Shall 
 I tell you ? ' 
 
 As her eyes were still cast down, although 
 her mouth was still smiling, in his endeavour 
 to look into them his face was quite near hers. 
 He fancied that it bore the look she had worn 
 once before. 
 
 1 You were thinking,' he said in a voice which 
 had grown suddenly quite hesitating and tremulous 
 — he did not know why — ' that the poor little 
 baby was quite friendless and alone. You were 
 pitying it — you know you were — because there 
 was no one to give it the loving care that was its 
 due, and because it was entrusted to that hired 
 nurse in that great hotel. You were thinking 
 how you would love it if it were yours, and how 
 cruel it was that Love was sent without an object 
 to waste itself upon. You were ; I saw it in your 
 face.' 
 
 She suddenly lifted her eyes and looked full 
 into his with a look that held and possessed him. 
 For a moment his whole soul seemed to tremble 
 on the verge of their lustrous depths, and he drew 
 back dizzy and frightened. What he saw there 
 he never clearly knew ; but, whatever it was, it 
 seemed to suddenly change his relations to her, 
 to the room, to his wife, to the world without. It 
 
150 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 was a glimpse of a world of which he knew nothing. 
 He had looked frankly and admiringly into the 
 eyes of other pretty women ; he had even gazed 
 into her own before, but never with this feeling. A 
 sudden sense that what he had seen there he had 
 himself evoked, that it was an answer to some 
 question he had scarcely yet formulated, and that 
 they were both now linked by an understanding 
 and consciousness that was irretrievable, came 
 over him. He rose awkwardly and went to the 
 window. She rose also, but more leisurely and 
 easily, moved one of the books on the table, 
 smoothed out her skirts, and changed her seat to 
 a little sofa. It is the woman who always comes 
 out of these crucial moments unruffled. 
 
 \ I suppose you will be glad to see your friend 
 Mr. Demorest when you go back/ she said plea- 
 santly. 'For, of course, he will be at Hymettus 
 awaiting you.' 
 
 He turned eagerly, as he always did at the 
 name. But even then he felt that Demorest was 
 no longer of such importance to him. He felt, 
 too, that he was not yet quite sure of his voice or 
 even what to say. As he hesitated she went on 
 half playfully: 'It seems hard that you had to 
 come all the way here on such a bootless errand. 
 You haven't even seen your wife yet.' 
 
 The mention of his wife recalled him to him- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 151 
 
 self, oddly enough, when Demorest's name had 
 failed. But very differently. Out of his whirling 
 consciousness came the instinctive feeling that he 
 could not see her now. He turned, crossed the 
 room, sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Horncastle, 
 and — without, however, looking at her — said, with 
 his eyes on the floor, ■ No ; and I've been thinking 
 that it's hardly worth while to disturb her so early 
 to-morrow as I should have to go. So I think it's 
 a good deal better to let her have a good night's 
 rest, remain here quietly with you to-morrow until 
 the stage leaves, and that both of you come over 
 together. My horse is still saddled, and I will be 
 back at Hymettus before Demorest has gone to 
 bed.' 
 
 He was obliged to look up at her as he rose. 
 Mrs. Horncastle was sitting erect, beautiful and 
 dazzling as even he had never seen her before. 
 For his resolution had suddenly lifted a great 
 weight from her shoulders — the dangerous meeting 
 of husband and wife the next morning and its 
 results, whatever they might be, had been quietly 
 averted. She felt, too, a half-frightened joy even 
 in the constrained manner in which he had im- 
 parted his determination. That frankness which 
 even she had sometimes found so crushing was 
 
 2fone. 
 
 * I really think you are quite right,' she said, 
 
152 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 rising also, ' and, besides, you see, it will give me 
 a chance to talk to her as you wished.' 
 
 \ To talk to her as I wished,' echoed Barker 
 abstractedly. 
 
 1 Yes — about Van Loo, you know,' said Mrs. 
 Horncastle smiling. 
 
 S Oh, certainly, about Van Loo, of course,' he 
 returned hurriedly. 
 
 'And then,' said Mrs. Horncastle brightly, 
 'I'll tell her. Stay!' she interrupted herself 
 hurriedly. ! Why need I say anything about 
 your having been here at a//? It might only 
 annoy her, as you yourself suggest.' She stopped 
 breathlessly with parted lips. 
 
 ' Why indeed ? ' said Barker vaguely. Yet all 
 this was so unlike his usual truthfulness that he 
 slightly hesitated. 
 
 1 Besides,' continued Mrs. Horncastle, noticing 
 it, ! you know you can always tell her later, if 
 necessary.' And she added with a charming 
 mischievousness, ' As she didn't tell you she was 
 coming, I really don't see why you are bound to 
 tell her that you were here.' 
 
 The sophistry pleased Barker, even though it 
 put him into a certain retaliating attitude towards 
 his wife which he was not aware of feeling. But, 
 as Mrs. Horncastle put it, it was only a playful 
 attitude. 
 
THREE PARTNERS .153 
 
 'Certainly,' he said. 'Don't say anything 
 about it.' 
 
 He moved to the door with his soft, broad- 
 brimmed hat swinging between his fingers. She 
 noticed for the first time that he looked taller in 
 his long black serape and riding-boots, and oddly 
 enough, much more like the hero of an amorous 
 tryst than Van Loo. ' I know,' she said brightly, 
 1 you are eager to get back to your old friend, and 
 it would be selfish for me to try to keep you 
 longer. You have had a stupid evening, but you 
 have made it pleasant to me by telling me what 
 you thought of me. And before you go I want 
 you to believe that I shall try to keep that good 
 opinion.' She spoke frankly in contrast to the 
 slight w r orldly constraint of Barker's manner ; it 
 seemed as if they had changed characters. And 
 then she extended her hand. 
 
 With a low bow, and without looking up, he 
 took it. Again their pulses seemed to leap to- 
 gether with one accord and the same mysterious 
 understanding. He could not tell if he had uncon- 
 sciously pressed her hand or if she had returned 
 the pressure. But when their hands unclasped it 
 seemed as if it were the division of one flesh and 
 spirit. 
 
 She remained standing by the open door until 
 his footsteps passed down the staircase. Then 
 
i 5 4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 she suddenly closed and locked the door with an 
 instinct that Mrs. Barker might at once return now 
 that he was gone, and she wished to be a moment 
 alone to recover herself. But she presently 
 opened it again and listened. There was a noise 
 in the courtyard, but it sounded like the rattle of 
 wheels more than the clatter of a horseman. 
 Then she was overcome — a sudden sense of pity 
 for the unfortunate woman still hiding from her 
 husband, and felt a momentary chivalrous exalta- 
 tion of spirit. Certainly she had done 'good' to 
 that wretched 'Kitty ' ; perhaps she had earned 
 the epithet that Barker had applied to her. 
 Perhaps that was the meaning of all this happiness 
 to her, and the result was to be only the happiness 
 and reconciliation of the wife and husband. This 
 was to be her reward. I grieve to say that the 
 tears had come into her beautiful eyes at this 
 satisfactory conclusion, but she dashed them away 
 and ran out into the hall. It was quite dark, but 
 there was a faint glimmer on the opposite wall as 
 if the door of Mrs. Barker's bedroom were ajar to 
 an eager listener. She flew towards the glimmer 
 and pushed the door open ; the room was empty. 
 Empty of Mrs. Barker, empty of her dressing-box, 
 her reticule and shawl. She was gone. 
 
 Still, Mrs. Horncastle lingered ; the woman 
 might have got frightened and retreated to some 
 
THREE PARTNERS J 5 5 
 
 further room at the opening of the door and the 
 coming out of her husband. She walked along the 
 passage, calling her name softly. She even pene- 
 trated the dreary, half-lit public parlour expecting 
 to find her crouching there. Then a sudden wild 
 idea took possession of her ; the miserable wife 
 had repented of her act and of her concealment, 
 and had crept downstairs to await her husband in 
 the office. She had told him some new lie, had 
 begged him to take her with him, and Barker, of 
 course, had assented. Yes ! she now knew why 
 she had heard the rattling wheels instead of the 
 clattering hoofs she had listened for. They had 
 gone together, as he first proposed, in the buggy. 
 
 She ran swiftly down the stairs and entered 
 the office. The overworked clerk was busy and 
 querulously curt. These women were always 
 asking such idiotic questions. Yes, Mr. Barker 
 had just gone. 
 
 1 With Mrs. Barker in the buggy ?' asked Mrs. 
 Horncastle. 
 
 1 No, as he came — on horseback. Mrs. Bar- 
 ker left half an hour ago! 
 
 1 Alone ? ' 
 
 This was apparently too much for the long- 
 suffering clerk. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, 
 and then, with painful precision, and accenting 
 every word with his pencil on the desk before 
 
156 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 him, said deliberately, ' Mrs. George Barker — left 
 — here — with her — escort — the — man she — was 
 — always — asking — for — in — the — buggy — at 
 exactly — 9*3 5/ And he plunged into his work 
 again. 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle turned, ran up the staircase, 
 re entered the sitting-room, and slamming the door 
 behind her, halted in the centre of the room, 
 panting, erect, beautiful, and menacing. And she 
 was alone in this empty room — this deserted hotel. 
 From this very room her husband had left her 
 with a brutality on his lips. From this room the 
 fool and liar she had tried to warn had gone to 
 her ruin with a swindling hypocrite. And from 
 this room the only man in the world she ever cared 
 for had goneforth bewildered, wronged, and abused, 
 and she knew now she could have kept and com- 
 forted him. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 157 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 When Philip Demorest left the stage coach at the 
 cross roads he turned into the only wayside 
 house, the blacksmith's shop, and, declaring his 
 intention of walking over to Hymettus, asked 
 permission to leave his handbag and wraps until 
 they could be sent after him. The blacksmith 
 was surprised that this ' likely-mannered,' distin- 
 guished-looking ' city man ' should walk eight 
 miles when he could ride, and tried to dissuade 
 him, offering his own buggy. But he was still 
 more surprised when Demorest, laying aside his 
 duster, took off his coat and, slinging it on his arm, 
 prepared to set forth with the good-humoured 
 assurance that he would do the distance in a 
 couple of hours and get in in time for supper. 
 1 1 wouldn't be too sure of that,' said the blacksmith 
 grimly, ' or even of getting a room. They're a 
 stuck-up lot over there, and they ain't goin' to 
 hump themselves over a chap who comes trapesin' 
 along the road like any tramp, with nary baggage.' 
 But Demorest laughingly accepted the risk, and 
 
158 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 taking his stout stick in one hand, pressed a gold 
 coin into the blacksmith's palm, which was, how- 
 ever, declined with such reddening promptness 
 that Demorest as promptly reddened and apolo- 
 gised. The habits of European travel had been 
 still strong on him, and he felt a slight patriotic 
 thrill as he said, with a grave smile, ■ Thank you, 
 then ; and thank you still more for reminding me 
 that I am among my own " people,'" and stepped 
 lightly out into the road. 
 
 The air was still deliciously cool, but warmer 
 currents from the heated pines began to alternate 
 with the wind from the summit. He found him- 
 self sometimes walking through a stratum of hot 
 air which seemed to exhale from the wood itself, 
 while his head and breast were swept by the 
 mountain breeze. He felt the old intoxication of 
 the balmy scented air again, and the five years of 
 care and hopelessness laid upon his shoulders 
 since he had last breathed its fragrance slipped 
 from them like a burden. There had been but 
 little change here ; perhaps the road was wider 
 and the dust lay thicker, but the great pines still 
 mounted in serried ranks on the slopes as before, 
 with no gaps in their unending files. Here was 
 the spot where the stage coach had passed them 
 that eventful morning when they were coming out 
 of their camp life into the world of civilisation ; a 
 
THREE PARTNERS 159 
 
 little further back the spot where Jack Hamlin 
 had forced upon him that grim memento of the 
 attempted robbery of their cabin, which he had 
 kept ever since. He half smiled again at the 
 superstitious interest that had made him keep it, 
 with the intention of some day returning to bury 
 it, with all recollections of the deed, under the site 
 of the old cabin. As he went on in the vivifying 
 influence of the air and scene, new life seemed to 
 course through his veins ; his step seemed to grow 
 as elastic as in the old days of their bitter but 
 hopeful struggle for fortune, when he had gaily 
 returned from his weekly tramp to Boomville 
 laden with the scant provision procured by their 
 scant earnings and dying credit. Those were the 
 days when her living image still inspired his heart 
 with faith and hope ; when everything was yet 
 possible to youth and love, and before the irony of 
 fate had given him fortune with one hand only to 
 withdraw her with the other. It was strange and 
 cruel that coming back from his quest of rest and 
 forgetfulness he should find only these youthful 
 and sanguine dreams revive with his reviving 
 vigour. He walked on more hurriedly as if to 
 escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one 
 or two passing carryalls and char a bancs filled 
 with gaily dressed pleasure parties — evidently 
 visitors to Hymettus — which passed him on the 
 
160 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 road. Here were the first signs of change. He 
 recalled the train of packed mules of the old days, 
 the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the 
 squaw with the papoose strapped to her shoulder, 
 or the wandering and footsore prospector who 
 were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He 
 contrasted their halts and friendly greetings with 
 the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt of 
 the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the 
 warning of the blacksmith. But this did not long 
 divert him ; he found himself again returning to 
 his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young 
 girl in one of the carriages had quite startled him 
 with its resemblance to an old memory of his lost 
 love, as he saw her — her frail, pale elegance 
 encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her 
 drive through Fifth Avenue, with eyes that lit up 
 and became transfigured only as he passed. He 
 tried to think of his useless quest in search of her 
 last resting-place abroad ; how he had been baffled 
 by the opposition of her surviving relations, already 
 incensed by the thought that her decline had been 
 the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to re- 
 call the few frigid lines that reconveyed to him the 
 last letter he had sent her, with the announcement 
 of her death and the hope that ' his persecutions ' 
 would now cease. A wild idea had sometimes 
 come to him out of the very insufficiency of his 
 
THREE PARTNERS 161 
 
 knowledge of this climax, but he had always put 
 it aside as a precursor of that madness which 
 might end his ceaseless thought. And now it was 
 returning to him, here, thousands of miles away 
 from where she was peacefully sleeping, and even 
 filling him with the vigour of youthful hope. 
 
 The brief mountain twilight was giving way 
 now to the radiance of the rising moon. He 
 endeavoured to fix his thoughts upon his partners 
 who were to meet him at Hymettus after these 
 long years of separation. 
 
 Hymettus ! He recalled now the odd coinci- 
 dence that he had mischievously used as a gag to 
 his questioning fellow-traveller ; but now he had 
 really come from a villa near Athens to find his 
 old house thus classically rechristened after it, 
 and thought of it with a gravity he had not felt 
 before. He wondered who had named it. There 
 was no suggestion of the soft, sensuous elegance 
 of the land he had left in those great heroics of 
 nature before him. Those enormous trees were 
 no woods for fauns or dryads ; they had their own 
 godlike majesty of bulk and height, and as he at last 
 climbed the summit and saw the dark-helmeted 
 head of Black Spur before him, and beyond it the 
 pallid, spiritual cloud of the Sierras, he did not 
 think of Olympus. Yet for a moment he was 
 startled as he turned to the right by the Doric- 
 
 M 
 
i62 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 columned facade of a temple painted by the 
 moonbeams and framed in an opening of the dark 
 woods before him. It was not until he had 
 reached it that he saw that it was the new wooden 
 post-office of Heavy Tree Hill. 
 
 And now the buildings of the new settlement 
 began to faintly appear. But the obscurity of the 
 shadow and the equally disturbing unreality of the 
 moonlight confused him in his attempts to recog- 
 nise the old landmarks. A broad and well-kept 
 winding road had taken the place of the old steep, 
 but direct, trail to his cabin. He had walked for 
 some moments in uncertainty, when a sudden 
 sweep of the road brought the full crest of the 
 hill above and before him, crowned with a tiara 
 of lights, overtopping a long base of flashing 
 windows. That was all that was left of Heavy 
 Tree Hill. The old foreground of ' buckeye ' and 
 odorous ceanothus was gone. Even the great 
 grove of pines behind it had vanished. 
 
 There was already a stir of life in the road, 
 and he could see figures moving slowly along a 
 kind of sterile, formal terrace spread with a few 
 dreary marble vases and plaster statues which had 
 replaced the natural slope and the great quartz 
 buttresses of outcrop that supported it. Presently 
 he entered a gate and soon found himself in the 
 carriage drive leading to the hotel verandah. A 
 
THREE PARTNERS 163 
 
 number of fair promenaders were facing the keen 
 mountain night wind in wraps and furs. Demo- 
 rest had replaced his coat, but his boots were red 
 with dust, and as he ascended the steps he could 
 see that he was eyed with some superciliousness 
 by the guests and considerable suspicion by the 
 servants.' One of the latter was approaching- him 
 with an insolent smile when a figure darted from 
 the vestibule and, brushing the waiter aside, 
 seized Demorest's two hands in his and held him 
 at arm's length. 
 
 \ Demorest, old man ! ' 
 
 1 Stacy, old chap ! ' 
 
 * But where's your team? I've had all the 
 spare ostlers and hall boys listening for you at the 
 gate. And where's Barker? When he found 
 you'd given the dead cut to the railroad — his 
 railroad, you know — he loped over to Boomville 
 after you.' 
 
 Demorest briefly explained that he had walked 
 by the old road and probably missed him. But by 
 this time the waiters, crushed by the spectacle of 
 this travel-worn stranger's affectionate reception 
 by the great financial magnate, were wildly 
 applying their brushes and handkerchiefs to his 
 trousers and boots until Stacy again swept them 
 away. 
 
 1 Get off, all of you ! Now, Phil, you come 
 
164 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 with me. The house is full, but I've made the 
 manager give you a lady's drawing-room suite. 
 When you telegraphed you'd meet us here there 
 was no chance to get anything else. It's really 
 Mrs. Van Loo's family suite ; but they were sent 
 for to go to Marysville yesterday, and so we'll run 
 you in for the night.' 
 
 ■ But ' protested Demorest. 
 
 1 Nonsense ! ' said Stacy, dragging him away. 
 1 We'll pay for it ; and I reckon the old lady won't 
 object to taking her share of the damage either, 
 or she isn't Van Loo's mother. Come!' 
 
 Demorest felt himself hurried forward by the 
 energetic Stacy, preceded by the obsequious 
 manager, through a corridor to a handsomely 
 furnished suite, into whose bathroom Stacy incon- 
 tinently thrust him. 
 
 1 There ! Wash up ; and by the time you're 
 ready Barker ought to be back, and we'll have sup- 
 per. It's waiting for us in the other room.' 
 
 ' But how about Barker, the dear boy ? ' per- 
 sisted Demorest, holding open the door. ' Tell 
 me, is he well and happy ? ' 
 
 ' About as well as we all are,' said Stacy 
 quickly, yet with a certain dry significance. 
 / Never mind now ; wait until you see him.' 
 
 The door closed. W T hen Demorest had fin- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 165 
 
 ished washing, and wiped away the last red stain 
 of the mountain road, he found Stacy seated by 
 the window of the larger sitting-room. In the 
 centre a table was spread for supper. A bright 
 fire of hickory logs burnt in a marble hearth 
 between two large windows that gave upon the 
 distant outline of Black Spur. As Stacy turned 
 towards him, by the light of the shaded lamp and 
 Hickering fire, Demorest had a good look at the 
 face of his old friend and partner. It was as keen 
 and energetic as ever, with perhaps an even more 
 hawk-like activity visible in the eye and nostril ; 
 but it was more thoughful and reticent in the lines 
 of the mouth under the closely clipped beard and 
 moustache, and when he looked up at first there 
 were two deep lines or furrows across his low broad 
 forehead. He fancied, too, that there was a little 
 of the old fighting look in his eye, but it softened 
 quickly as Demorest approached, and he burst out 
 with his curt but honest single-syllabled laugh. 
 ' Ha ! You look a little less like a roving Apache 
 than you did when you came. I really thought 
 the waiters were going to chuck you. And you 
 are tanned ! Darned if you don't look like the 
 profile stamped on a Continental penny! But 
 here's luck and a welcome back, old man ! ' 
 
 Demorest passed his arm around the neck of 
 
166 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 his seated partner, and grasping his upraised hand 
 said, looking down with a smile, 'And now about 
 Barker.' 
 
 \ Oh, Barker, d m him ! He's the same un- 
 shakable, unchangeable, ungrow-up-able Barker! 
 With the devil's own luck, too! Waltzing into 
 risks and waltzing out of em. With fads enough 
 to put him in the insane asylum if people did not 
 prefer to keep him out of it to help 'em. Always 
 believing in everybody, until they actually believe 
 in themselves, and — shake him ! And he's got 
 a wife that's making a fool of herself, and I 
 shouldn't wonder in time — of him ! ' 
 
 Demorest pressed his hand over his partner's 
 mouth. 'Come, Jim! You know you never 
 really liked that marriage, simply because you 
 thought that old man Carter made a good thing 
 of it. And you never seem to have taken into 
 consideration the happiness Barker got out of it. 
 For he did love the girl. And he still is happy, 
 is he not ? ' he added quickly, as Stacy uttered a 
 grunt. 
 
 1 As happy as a man can be who has his child 
 here with a nurse while his wife is gallivanting in 
 San Francisco, and throwing her money — and 
 Lord knows what else — away at the bidding of a 
 smooth-tongued, shady operator/ 
 
 1 Does he complain of it ? ' asked Demorest 
 
THREE PARTNERS 167 
 
 * Not he ; the fool trusts her!' said Stacy 
 curtly. 
 
 Demorest laughed. * That is happiness ! 
 Come, Jim ! don't let us begrudge him that. But 
 I've heard that his affairs have again prospered.' 
 
 ' He built this railroad and this hotel. The 
 bank owns both now. He didn't care keeping- 
 money in them after they were a success ; said he 
 wasn't an engineer nor a hotelkeeper, and drew it 
 out to find something new. But here he comes,' 
 he added, as a horseman dashed into the drive 
 before the hotel. * Question him yourself. You 
 know you and he always get along best without 
 me.' 
 
 In another moment Barker had burst into the 
 room, and in his first tempestuous greeting of 
 Demorest the latter saw little change in his 
 younger partner as he held him at arm's length 
 to look at him. 'Why, Barker boy, you haven't 
 got a bit older since the day when — you remember 
 — you went over to Boomville to cash your bonds, 
 and then came back and burst upon us like this 
 to tell us you were a beggar. 1 
 
 • * Yes/ laughed Barker, f and all the -while you 
 fellows were holding four aces up your sldfeve in 
 the shape of the big strike.' 
 
 j And you, Georgy, old boy/ returned 
 Demorest, swinging Barker's two hands back- 
 
168 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 wards and forwards, ' were holding a royal flush 
 up yours in the shape of your engagement to 
 Kitty.' 
 
 The fresh colour died out of Barker's cheek 
 even while the frank laugh was still on his mouth. 
 He turned his face for a moment towards the 
 window, and a swift and almost involuntary 
 glance passed between the others. But he almost 
 as quickly turned his glistening eyes back to 
 Demorest again and said eagerly, ' Yes, dear 
 Kitty! You shall see her and the baby to- 
 morrow.' 
 
 Then they fell upon the supper with the 
 appetites of the Past, and for some moments they 
 all talked eagerly and even noisily together, all at 
 the same time, with even the spirits of the Past. 
 They recalled every detail of their old life ; 
 eagerly and impetuously recounted the old 
 struggles, hopes, and disappointments, gave the 
 strange importance of schoolboys to unimportant 
 events, and a mystic meaning to a shibboleth of 
 their own ; roared over old jokes with a delight 
 they had never since given to new ; reawakened 
 idiotic nicknames and by-words with intense 
 enjoyment ; grew grave, anxious, and agonised 
 over forgotten names, trifling dates, useless dis- 
 tances, ineffective records, and feeble chronicles 
 of their domestic economy. It was the thought- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 169 
 
 ful and melancholy Demorest who remembered 
 the exact colour and price paid for a certain shirt 
 bought from a Greaser pedlar amidst the envy of 
 his companions ; it was the financial magnate, 
 Stacy, who could inform them what were the 
 exact days they had salaratus bread and when 
 flapjacks ; it was the thoughtless and mercurial 
 Barker who recalled with unheard-of accuracy, 
 amidst the applause of the others, the full name 
 of the Indian squaw who assisted at their wash- 
 ing. Even then they were almost feverishly 
 loth to leave the subject, as if the Past, at least, 
 was secure to them still, and they were even 
 doubtful of their own free and full accord in the 
 Present. Then they slipped rather reluctantly 
 into their later experiences, but with scarcely the 
 same freedom or spontaneity ; and it was notice- 
 able that these records were elicited from Barker 
 by Stacy or from Stacy by Barker for the infor- 
 mation of Demorest, often with chaffing and only 
 under good-humoured protest. ' Tell Demorest 
 how you broke the " Copper Ring," ' from the 
 admiring Barker, or ■ Tell Demorest how your 
 
 d d foolishness in buying up the right and 
 
 plant of the Ditch Company got you control of 
 the railroad,' from the mischievous Stacy were 
 challenges in point. Presently they left the 
 table, and, to the astonishment of the waiters 
 
170 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 who removed the cloth, common briarwood pipes, 
 thoughtfully provided by Barker in commemora- 
 tion of the Past, were lit, and they ranged them- 
 selves in arm-chairs before the fire quite uncon- 
 sciously in their old attitudes. The two windows 
 on either side of the hearth gave them the same 
 view that the open door of the old cabin had 
 made familiar to them, the league-long valley 
 below the shadowy bulk of the Black Spur rising 
 in the distance, and, still more remote, the pallid 
 snow-line that soared even beyond its crest. 
 
 As in the old time, they were for many 
 moments silent ; and then, as in the old time, 
 it was the irrepressible Barker who broke the 
 silence. \ But Stacy does not tell you anything 
 about his friend, the beautiful Mrs. Horncastle. 
 You know he's the guardian of one of the finest 
 women in California — a woman as noble and 
 generous as she is handsome. And think of it ! 
 lie's protecting her from her brute of a husband, 
 and looking after her property. Isn't it good and 
 chivalrous of him ? ' 
 
 The irrepressible laughter of the two men 
 brought only wonder and reproachful indignation 
 into the widely opened eyes of Barker. He was 
 perfectly sincere. He had been thinking of 
 Stacy's admiration for Mrs. Horncastle in his 
 ride from Boomville, and, strange to say, yet 
 
THREE PARTNERS 171 
 
 characteristic of his nature, it was equally the 
 natural outcome of his interview with her and the 
 singular effect she had upon him. That he 
 (Barker) thoroughly sympathised with her only 
 convinced him that Stacy must feel the same for 
 her, and that, no doubt, she must respond to him 
 equally. And how noble it was in his old partner, 
 with his advantages of position in the world and 
 his protecting relations to her, not to avail himself 
 of this influence upon her generous nature. If he 
 himself — a married man and the husband of Kitty 
 — was so conscious of her charm, how much 
 greater it must be to the free and inexperienced 
 Stacy. 
 
 The italics were in Barker's thought ; for in 
 those matters he felt that Stacy and even 
 Demorest, occupied in other things, had not. his 
 knowledge. There was no idea of consciousness 
 or heroically sacrificing himself or Mrs. Horn- 
 castle in this. I am afraid there was not even an 
 idea of a superior morality in himself in giving up 
 the possibility of loving her. Ever since Stacy 
 had first seen her he had fancied that Stacy 
 liked her — indeed, Kitty fancied it too — and it 
 seemed almost providential now that he should 
 know how to assist his old partner to happiness. 
 For it was inconceivable that Stacy should not be 
 able to rescue this woman from her shameful 
 
i/2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 bonds, or that she should not consent to it 
 through his (Barker's) arguments and entreaties. 
 To a ' champion of dames ' this seemed only 
 right and proper. In his unfailing optimism he 
 translated Stacy's laugh as embarrassment and 
 Demorest's as only ignorance of the real question. 
 But Demorest had noticed, if he had not, that 
 Stacy's laugh was a little nervously prolonged for 
 a man of his temperament, and that he had cast 
 a very keen glance at Barker. A messenger 
 arriving with a telegram brought from Boomville 
 called Stacy momentarily away, and Barker was 
 not slow to take advantage of his absence. 
 
 1 1 wish, Phil,' he said, hitching his chair 
 closer to Demorest, ' that you would think 
 seriously of this matter, and try to persuade 
 Stacy — who, I believe, is more interested in Mrs. 
 Horncastle than he cares to show — to put a little 
 of that determination in love that he has shown 
 in business. She's an awfully fine woman, and 
 in every way suited to him, and he is letting an 
 absurd sense of pride and honour keep him from 
 influencing her to get rid of her impossible 
 husband. There's no reason,' continued Barker 
 in a burst of enthusiastic simplicity, ' that because 
 she has found some one she likes better, and who 
 would treat her better, that she should continue 
 to stick to that beast whom all California would 
 
THREE PARTNERS 173 
 
 gladly see her divorced from. I never could 
 understand that kind of argument, could you ? ' 
 Demorest looked at his companion's glowing 
 cheek and kindling eye with a smile. 
 
 1 A good deal depends upon the side from which 
 you argue. But, frankly, Barker boy, though I 
 think I know you in all your phases, I am not 
 prepared yet to accept you as a matchmaker ! 
 However, I'll think it over, and find out some- 
 thing more of this from your goddess, who seems 
 to have bewitched you both. But what does 
 Mistress Kitty say to your admiration?' 
 
 Barker's face clouded but instantly brightened. 
 * Oh, they're the best of friends ; they're quite 
 like us, you know, even to larks they have 
 together.' He stopped and coloured at his slip. 
 But Demorest, who had noticed his change of 
 expression, was more concerned at the look of 
 half incredulity and half suspicion with which 
 Stacy, who had re-entered the room in time to hear 
 Barker's speech, was regarding his unconscious 
 younger partner. 
 
 1 I didn't know that Mrs. Horncastle and 
 Mrs. Barker were such friends,' he said drily as 
 he sat down again. But his face presently 
 became so abstracted that Demorest said gaily: 
 
 'Well, Jim, I'm glad I'm not a Napoleon of 
 Finance ! I couldn't stand it to have my privacy 
 
174 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 or my relaxation broken in upon at any moment, 
 as yours was just now. What confounded somer- 
 sault in stocks has put that face on you ? ' 
 
 Stacy looked up quickly with his brief laugh. 
 1 I'm afraid you'll be none the wiser if I told you. 
 That was a pony express messenger from New 
 York. You remember how Barker, that night of 
 the strike when we were sitting here, or very 
 near here, together, proposed that we ought to 
 have a password or a symbol to call us together in 
 case of emergency for each other's help. Well, let 
 us say I have two partners, one in Europe and 
 one in New York. That was my password.' 
 
 1 And, I hope, no more serious than ours,* 
 added Demorest. 
 
 Stacy laughed his short laugh. Nevertheless, 
 the conversation dragged again. The feverish 
 gaiety of the early part of the evening was gone, 
 and they seemed to be suffering from the reaction. 
 They fell into their old attitudes, looking from 
 the firelight to the distant bulk of Black Spur 
 without a word. The occasional sound of the 
 voices of promenaders on the verandah at last 
 ceased ; there was the noise of the shutting of 
 heavy doors below, and Barker rose. 
 
 i You'll excuse me, boys ; but I must go and 
 say " Good-night" to little " Sta," and see he's 
 all right. I haven't seen him since I got back, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 175 
 
 But ' — to Demorest — ' you'll see him to-morrow, 
 when Kitty comes. It is as much as my life is 
 worth to show him before she certifies him as 
 being presentable.' He paused, and then added : 
 * Don't wait up, you fellows, for me ; sometimes 
 the little chap won't let me go. It's as if he 
 thought, now Kitty's away, I was all he had. 
 But I'll be up early in the morning and see you. 
 I dare say you and Stacy have a heap to say to 
 each other on business, and you won't miss me. 
 So I'll say " Good-night." He laughed lightly, 
 pressed the hands of his partners in his usual 
 hearty fashion, and went out of the room, leaving 
 the gloom a little deeper than before. It was so 
 unusual for Barker to be the first to leave any- 
 body or anything in trouble that they both noticed 
 it. ' But for that,' said Demorest, turning to 
 Stacy as the door closed, ' I should say the dear 
 fellow was absolutely unchanged. But he seemed 
 a little anxious to-night.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't wonder. He's got two women 
 on his mind, as if one was not enough.' 
 
 1 I don't understand. You say his wife is 
 foolish, and this other ' 
 
 ' Never mind that now,' interrupted Stacy, 
 getting up and putting down his pipe. ' Let's 
 talk a little business. That other stuff will keep.' 
 
 * By all means,' said Demorest with a smile, 
 
i;6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 settling down into his chair a little wearily, how- 
 ever. ' I forgot business. And I forgot, my 
 dear Jim, to congratulate you. I've heard all 
 about you even in New York. You're the man 
 who, according to everybody, now holds the 
 finances of the Pacific Slope in his hands. And,' 
 he added, leaning affectionately towards his old 
 partner, ' I don't know anyone better equipped in 
 honesty, straightforwardness and courage for such 
 a responsibility than you.' 
 
 ' I only wish,' said Stacy, looking thought- 
 fully at Demorest, ' that I didn't hold nearly a 
 million of your money included in the finances of 
 the Pacific Slope.' 
 
 ' Why ? ' said the smiling Demorest, ' as long 
 as I am satisfied ? ' 
 
 1 Because / am not. If you're satisfied, I'm a 
 wretched idiot and not fit for my position. Now, 
 look here, Phil. When you wrote me to sell 
 out your shares in the Wheat Trust I was a 
 little staggered. I knew your gait, my boy, and 
 I knew, too, that, while you didn't know enough 
 to trust your own opinions or feeling, you knew 
 too much to trust anyone's opinion that wasn't 
 first-class. So I reckoned you had the straight 
 tip ; but / didn't see it. Now, I ought not to 
 have been staggered if I was fit for your con- 
 fidence, or, if I was staggered, I ought to have 
 
Three partners i 77 
 
 had enough confidence in myself not to mind you. 
 See?' 
 
 ( I admit your logic, old man,' said Demorest, 
 with an amused face, ■ but I don't see your 
 premises. When did I tell you to sell out ? ' 
 
 1 Two days ago. You wrote just after you 
 arrived.' 
 
 ' I have never written to you since I arrived 
 I only telegraphed to you to know where we 
 should meet, and received your message to come 
 here.' 
 
 ' You never wrote me from San Francisco ? ' 
 
 1 Never.' 
 
 Stacy looked concernedly at his friend. Was 
 he in his right mind? He had heard of cases 
 where melancholy brooding on a fixed idea had 
 affected the memory. He took from his pocket 
 a letter case, and selecting a letter handed it to 
 Demorest without speaking. 
 
 He glanced at it, turned it over, read its con- 
 tents, and in a grave voice said, ' There is some- 
 thing wrong here. It is like my handwriting, but 
 I never wrote the letter, nor has it been in my 
 hand before.' 
 
 Stacy sprang to his side. 'Then it's a 
 forgery ! ' 
 
 1 Wait a moment' Demorest, who although 
 Very grave was the most collected of the two, 
 
 N 
 
i 7 3 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 went to the writing desk, selected a sheet of 
 paper and took up a pen. ' Now/ he said, 'dic- 
 tate that letter to me.' 
 
 Stacy began, Demorest's pen rapidly following 
 him : 
 
 * " Dear Jim, — 
 
 1 " On receipt of this get rid of my Wheat 
 Trust shares at whatever figure you can. From 
 the way things pointed in New York '" 
 
 'Stop!' interrupted Demprest, ._..-, , 
 
 ' Well ? ' said Stacy impatiently. 
 
 ' Now, my dear Jim,' said Demorest plain- 
 tively, ' when did you ever know me to write such 
 a sentence as " the way things pointed " ? ' 
 
 ' Let me finish reading,' said Stacy. This 
 literary sensitiveness at such a moment seemed 
 little short of puerility to the man of business. 
 
 ' " From the way things pointed in New 
 York,"' continued Stacy, \ " and from private 
 advices received, this seems to be the only 
 prudent course before the feathers begin to fly. 
 Longing to see you again and the dear old 
 stamping ground at Heavy Tree. Love to 
 Barker. Has the dear old boy been at any fresh 
 crank lately ? — Yours, 
 
 ' " Phil Demorest,'" 
 
 The dictation and copy finished together. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 179 
 
 Demorest laid the freshly written sheet beside 
 the letter Stacy had produced. They were very 
 much alike and yet quite distinct from each other. 
 Only the signature seemed identical. 
 
 ' That's the invariable mistake with the forger, 
 said Demorest ; ' he always forgets that signatures 
 ou^ht to be identical with the text rather than 
 with each other.' 
 
 But Stacy did not seem to hear this or require 
 further proof. His face was quite grey and his 
 lips compressed until lost in his closely set beard 
 as he gazed fixedly out of the window. For the 
 first time, really concerned and touched, Demorest 
 laid his hand gently on his shoulder. 
 
 * Tell me, Jim, how much does this mean to 
 you— apart from me ? Don't think of me.' 
 
 4 I don't know yet,' said Stacy slowly. ' That's 
 the trouble. And I won't know until I know 
 who's at the bottom of it. Does anybody know 
 of your affairs with me ? ' 
 
 1 No one.' 
 
 * No confidential friend, eh ? ' 
 < None.' 
 
 f No one who has access to your secrets ? 
 No — no — woman? Excuse me, Phil,' he said, 
 as a peculiar look passed over Demorest's face, 
 ' but this is business.' 
 
 ■N2 
 
186 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 { No,' he returned, with that gentleness that 
 used to frighten them in the old days, ' it's 
 ignorance. You fellows always say " Cherchez la 
 femme " when you can't say anything else. Come 
 now,' he went on more brightly, ' look at the 
 letter. Here's a man, commercially educated, for 
 he has used the usual business formulas, " on 
 receipt of this," and "advices received," which I 
 won't merely say / don't use, but which few but 
 commercial men use. Next, here's a man who 
 uses slang, not only ineptly, but artificially, to 
 give the letter the easy, familiar turn it hasn't 
 from beginning to end. I need only say, my dear 
 Stacy, that I don't write slang to you, but that 
 nobody who understands slang ever writes it in 
 that way. And then the knowledge of my 
 opinion of Barker is such as might be gained from 
 the reading of my letters by a person who couldn't 
 comprehend my feelings. Now, let me play 
 inquisitor for a few moments. Has anybody 
 access to my letters to you ? ' 
 
 * No one. I keep them locked up in a 
 cabinet. I only make memorandums of your 
 instructions, which I give to my clerks, but never 
 your letters.' 
 
 4 But your clerks sometimes see you make 
 memorandums from them.' 
 
 4 Yes, but none of them have the ability to do 
 
THREE PARTNERS 1S1 
 
 this sort of thing, nor the opportunity of profiting 
 by it.' 
 
 4 Has any woman — now this is not retaliation, 
 my dear Jim, for I fancy I detect a woman's 
 cleverness and a woman's stupidity in this forgery 
 — any access to your secrets or my letters ? A 
 woman's villainy is always effective for the 
 moment, but always defective when probed.' 
 
 The look of scorn which passed over Stacy's 
 face was quite as distinct as Demorest's previous 
 protest as he said contemptuously, ' I'm not such 
 a fool as to mix up petticoats with my business, 
 whatever I do.' 
 
 ; Well, one thing more. I have told you that 
 in my opinion the forger has a commercial educa- 
 tion or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker 
 and don't understand slang. Now, I have to add 
 what must have occurred to you, Jim, that the 
 forger is either a coward or his object is not 
 altogether mercenary, for the same ability dis- 
 played in this letter would on the signature alone 
 — had it been on a cheque or draft — drawn from 
 your bank twenty times the amount concerned. 
 Now, what is the actual loss by this forgery ? ' 
 
 4 Very little ; for you've got a good price for 
 your stocks, considering the depreciation in 
 realising suddenly on so large an amount. I told 
 my broker to sell slowly and in small quantities 
 
i8'a THREE PARTNERS 
 
 to avoid a panic. But the real loss is the control 
 of the stock.' 
 
 1 But the amount I had was not enough to 
 affect that,' said Demorest. 
 
 ' No, but I was carrying myself a large amount 
 and together we controlled the market, and now 
 I have unloaded, too.' 
 
 ' You sold out ! and with your doubts ? ' said 
 Demorest. 
 
 ' That's just it,' said Stacy, looking steadily at 
 his companion's face, • because I had doubts, and 
 it won't do for me to have them. I ought either 
 to have disobeyed your letter and kept your stock 
 and my own, or have done just what I did. I 
 might have hedged on my own stock, but I don't 
 believe in hedging. There is no middle course 
 to a man in my business if he wants to keep at the 
 top. No great success, no great power was ever 
 created by it.' 
 
 Demorest smiled. ' Yet you accept the alter- 
 native also, which is ruin ? ' 
 
 ' Precisely,' said Stacy. ' When you returned 
 the other day you were bound to find me what I 
 was or a beggar. But nothing between. How- 
 ever,' he added, 'this has nothing to do with the 
 forgery, or,' he smiled grimly, 'everything to do 
 with it. Hush ! Barker is coming.' 
 
 There was a quick step along the corridor 
 
THREE PARTNERS 153 
 
 approaching the room. The next moment the 
 door flew open to the bounding step and laughing 
 face of Barker. Whatever of thoughtfulness or 
 despondency he had carried from the room with 
 him was completely gone. With his amazing 
 buoyancy and power of reaction he was there 
 again in his usual frank, cheerful simplicity. 
 
 *I thought I'd come in and say " Good- 
 night," ' he began with a laugh. 'I got "Sta" 
 asleep after some high jinks we had together, and 
 then I reckoned it wasn't the square thing to 
 leave just you two together the first night you 
 came. And I remembered I had some business 
 to talk over, too, so I thought I'd chip in again 
 and take a hand. It's only the shank of the 
 evening yet,' he continued gaily, 'and we ought 
 to sit up at least long enough to see the old 
 snowline vanish, as we did in old times. But I 
 say,' he added suddenly, as he glanced from the 
 one to the other, ' you've been having it pretty 
 strong already* Why, you both look as you did 
 that night the back-water of the South Fork came 
 into our cabin. What's up ? ' 
 
 1 Nothing,' said Demorest hastily, as he caught 
 a glance of Stacy's impatient face. ■ Only all 
 business is serious, Barker boy, though you don't 
 seem to feel it so.' 
 
 1 I reckon vou're ri^ht there,' said Barker with 
 
 Y* or trk 
 
184 THREE PARTNERS, 
 
 a chuckle. ' People always laugh, of course, when 
 I talk business, so it might make it a little live- 
 lier for you and more of a change if I chipped in 
 now. Only I don't know which you'll do. Hand 
 me a pipe. Well,' he continued, filling the pipe 
 Demorest shoved towards him, ■ you see, I was in 
 Sacramento yesterday, and I went into Van Loo's 
 branch office, as I heard he was there, and I 
 wanted to find out something about Kitty's invest- 
 ments, which I don't think he's managing exactly 
 right. He wasn't there, however, but as I was 
 waiting I heard his clerks talk about a drop in the 
 Wheat Trust, and that there was a lot of it put 
 upon the market. They seemed to think that 
 something had happened, and it was going down 
 still further. Now I knew it was your pet 
 scheme, and that Phil had a lot of shares in it, 
 too, so I just slipped out and went to a broker's 
 and told him to buy all he could of it. And, by 
 Jove ! I was a little taken aback when I found 
 what I was in for, for everybody seemed to have 
 unloaded, and I found I hadn't money enough to 
 pay margins, but I knew that Demorest was here, 
 and I reckoned on his seeing me through.' He 
 stopped and coloured, but added hopefully, ' I 
 reckon I'm safe, anyway, for just as the thing was 
 over those same clerks of Van Loo's came 
 bounding into the office to buy up everything. 
 
THREE PARTNERS %£$ 
 
 And offered to take it off my hands and pay the 
 margins.' 
 
 ' And you ? ' said both men eagerly, and in a 
 breath. 
 
 Barker stared at them and reddened and paled 
 by turns. ' I held on,' he stammered. ' You see, 
 boys ' 
 
 Both men had caught him by the arms. ' How 
 much have you got ? ' they said, shaking him, as 
 if to precipitate the answer. 
 
 'It's a heap!' said Barker. 'It's a ghastly 
 lot now I think of it. I'm afraid I'm in for fifty 
 thousand, if a cent.' 
 
 To his infinite astonishment and delight he 
 was alternately hugged and tossed backwards and 
 forwards between the two men quite in the fashion 
 of the old days. Breathless but laughing, he at 
 length gasped out, ' What does it all mean ? ' 
 
 4 Tell him everything, Jim — everything} said 
 Demorest quickly. 
 
 Stacy briefly related the story of the forgery, 
 and then laid the letter and its copy before him. 
 But Barker only read the forgery. 
 
 1 How could you, Stacy — one of the three 
 partners of Heavy Tree — be deceived ? Don't 
 you see it's Phils handwriting — but it isn't Pkil\ ' 
 
 ' But have you any idea who it is ? ' said Stacy. 
 
 f Not me,' said Barker with widely-opened 
 
186 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 eyes. ' You see it must be somebody whom 
 we are familiar with. I can't imagine such a 
 scoundrel.' 
 
 1 How did you know that Demorest had stock ? ' 
 asked Stacy. 
 
 ' He told me in one of his letters and advised 
 me to go into it. But just then Kitty wanted 
 money, I think, and I didn't go in.' 
 
 ' I remember it,' struck in Demorest. * But 
 surely it was no secret. My name would be on 
 the transfer books for any one to see.' 
 
 1 Not so,' said Stacy quickly. * You were one 
 of the original shareholders ; there was no transfer, 
 and the books as w r ell as the shares of the company 
 were in my hands.' 
 
 ' And your clerks ? ' added Demorest. 
 
 Stacy was silent. After a pause he asked, 
 * Did anybody ever see that letter, Barker ? ' 
 
 ' No one but myself and Kitty.' 
 
 * And would she be likely to talk of it?' con- 
 tinued Stacv. 
 
 - Of course not. Why should she ? Whom 
 could she talk to ? ' Yet he stopped suddenly, 
 and then with his characteristic reaction added 
 with a laugh, ' Why, no, certainly not.' 
 
 1 Of course, everybody knew that you had 
 bought the shares at Sacramento ? ' 
 
 1 Yes. Why, you know I told you the Van 
 
THREE PARTNERS 1S7 
 
 Loo clerks came to me and wanted to take it off 
 my hands.' 
 
 1 Yes, I remember ; the Van Loo clerks ; they 
 knew it, of course,' said Stacy with a grim smile. 
 ' Well, boys,' he said, w 7 ith sudden alacrity, ' I'm 
 going to turn in, for by sun-up to-morrow I must 
 be on my way to catch the first train at • ■ The Divide " 
 for 'Frisco. We'll hunt this thing down together, 
 for I reckon we're all concerned in it,' he added, 
 looking at the others, 'and once more we're 
 partners as in the old times. Let us even say 
 that I've given Barker's signal or " password," ' 
 he added, with a laugh, ■ and we'll stick together. 
 Barker boy,' he went on, grasping his younger 
 partner's hand, 'your instinct has saved us this 
 
 time ; d d if I don't sometimes think it better 
 
 than any other man's sabe ; only,' he dropped his 
 voice slightly, ' I wish you had it in other things 
 than finance. Phil, I've a word to say to you 
 alone before I go. I may want you to follow 
 me.' 
 
 1 But what can I do ? ' said Barker eagerly. 
 ' You're not going to leave me out.' 
 
 1 You've done quite enough for us, old man/ 
 said Stacy, laying his hands on Barker's shoulder. 
 ( And it may be for us to do something for you. 
 Trot off to bed now, like a good boy. I'll keep 
 you posted when the time comes.' 
 
1 88. THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Shoving the protesting and leave-taking Barker 
 with paternal familiarity from the room, he closed 
 the door and faced Demorest. 
 
 1 He's the best fellow in the world,' said Stacy 
 quietly, ' and has saved the situation, but we 
 mustn't trust too much to him for the present. 
 Not even seem to.' 
 
 1 Nonsense, man ! ' said Demorest impatiently. 
 ' You're letting your prejudices go too far. Do 
 you mean to say that you suspect his wife.' 
 
 < D his wife ! ' said Stacy almost savagely. 
 
 1 Leave her out of this. It's Van Loo that I 
 suspect. It was Van Loo whom I knew was 
 behind it, who expected to profit by it, and now 
 we have lost him.' 
 
 * But how ? ' said Demorest astonished. 
 
 'How?' repeated Stacy impatiently. 'You 
 know what Barker said ? Van Loo, either 
 through stupidity, fright, or the wish to get the 
 lowest prices, was too late to buy up the market. 
 If he had, we might have openly declared the 
 forgery, and if it was known that he or his friends 
 had profited by it, even if we could not have 
 proven his actual complicity, we could at least 
 have made it too hot for him in California. But,' 
 said Stacy, looking intently at his friend, ■ do you 
 know how the case stands now ? ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Demorest, a little uneasily under 
 
THREE PARTNERS 189 
 
 his friends keen eyes, ' we've lost that chance, 
 but we've kept control of the stock.' 
 
 1 You think so ? Well, let me tell you how 
 the case stands and the price we pay for it,' said 
 Stacy deliberately as he folded his arms and gazed 
 at Demorest. ■ You and I, well known as old 
 friends and for mer partners, for no appa"renf 
 reason— for we cannot prove the forgery now — 
 have thrown upon the market all our stock, with 
 the usual effect of depreciating it. Another old 
 friend and former partner has bought it in and 
 sent up the price. A common trick, a vulgar 
 trick, but not a trick worthy of James Stacy or 
 Stacy's Bank ! ' 
 
 ' But why not simply declare the forgery 
 without making any specific charge against Van 
 Loo?' 
 
 ' Do you imagine, Phil, that any man would 
 believe it, and the story of a providentially ap- 
 pointed friend like Barker who saved us from 
 loss ? Why all California, from Cape Mendicino 
 to Los Angelos, would roar with laughter over 
 it ! No ! We must swallow it and the reputation 
 of " jockeying " with the Wheat Trust, too. That 
 Trust's as good as done for, for the present ! 
 Now you know why I didn't want poor Barker to 
 know it, nor have much to do with our search for 
 the forger.' 
 
1 90 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' It would break the dear fellow's heart if he 
 knew it,' said Demorest. 
 
 'Well, it's to save hitn from having his heart 
 broken further that I intend to find out this forger,' 
 said Stacy grimly. ' Good-night, Phil ! I'll 
 telegraph to you when I want you, and then 
 come ! ' 
 
 With another grip of the hand he left Demorest 
 to his thoughts. I n the first excitement of meeting 
 his old partners, and in the later discovery of the 
 forgery, Demorest had been diverted from his 
 old sorrow, and for the time had forgotten it in 
 sympathetic interest w T ith the present. But, to 
 his horror, when alone again, he found that 
 interest growing as remote and vapid as the stories 
 they had laughed over at the table, and even the 
 excitement of the forged letter and its conse- 
 quences began to be as unreal, as impotent, as 
 shadowy as the memory of the attempted robbery 
 in the old cabin on that very spot. He was 
 ashamed of that selfishness w r hich still made him 
 cling to this past, so much his own, that he knew 
 it debarred him from the human sympathy of his 
 comrades. And even Barker, in whose courtship 
 and marriage he had tried to resuscitate his 
 youthful emotions and condone his selfish errors, 
 even the suggestion of his unhappiness only 
 touched him vaguely. He would no longer be a 
 
THREE PARTNERS i 9 r 
 
 slave to the Past, or the memory that had deluded 
 him a few hours acm. He walked to the window ; 
 alas ! there was the same prospect that had looked 
 upon his dreams, had lent itself to his old visions. 
 There was the eternal outline of the hills ; there 
 rose the steadfast pines ; there was no change in 
 them* It was this surrounding constancy of 
 Nature that had affected him. He turned away 
 and entered the bedroom. Here he suddenly re- 
 membered that the mother of this vague enemy, 
 Van Loo — for his feeling towards him was still 
 vague, as few men really hate the personality they 
 don't know — had only momentarily vacated it, 
 and to his distaste of his own intrusion was now 
 added the profound irony of his sleeping in the 
 same bed lately occupied by the mother of the 
 man who was suspected of having forged his 
 name. He smiled faintly and looked around the 
 apartment. It was handsomely furnished, and 
 although it. still had much of the characterlessness 
 of the hotel room, it was distinctly flavoured by 
 its last occupant, and still brightened by that 
 mysterious instinct of the sex which is inevitable. 
 Where a man would have simply left his forgotten 
 slippers or collars there was a glass of still unfaded 
 flowers ; the cold marble top of the dressing-table 
 was littered by a few linen and silk toilet covers ; 
 and on the mantel-shelf was a sheaf of photo- 
 
i92 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 graphs. He walked towards them mechanically, 
 glanced at them abstractedly, and then stopped 
 suddenly with a beating heart. Before him was 
 the picture of his past, the photograph of the one 
 woman who had filled his life ! 
 
 He cast a hurried glance around the room as 
 if he half expected to see the original start up 
 before him, and then eagerly seized it and hurried 
 with it to the light. Yes! Yes! It was she — 
 she as she had lived in his actual memory ; she 
 as she had lived in his dream. He saw her sweet 
 eyes, but the frightened, innocent trouble had 
 passed from them ; there was the sensitive 
 elegance of her graceful figure in evening dress ; 
 but the figure was fuller and maturer. Could he 
 be mistaken by some wonderful resemblance 
 acting upon his too-willing brain ? He turned 
 the photograph over. No ; there on the other 
 side, written in her own childlike hand, endeared 
 and familiar to his recollection, was her own name, 
 and the date ! It was surely she ! 
 
 How did it come there ? Did the Van Loos 
 know her? It was taken in Venice; there was 
 the address of the photographers. The Van 
 Loos were foreigners, he remembered ; they had 
 travelled; perhaps had met her there in 1858; 
 that was the date in her handwriting ; that was 
 the date on the photographer's address — 1858. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 193 
 
 Suddenly he laid the photograph down, took with 
 trembling fingers a letter-case from his pocket, 
 opened it, and laid his last letter to her, endorsed 
 with the cruel announcement of her death, before 
 him on the table. He passed his hand across 
 his forehead and opened the letter. It was dated 
 1856! The photograph must have been taken 
 two years after her alleged death ! 
 
 He examined it again eagerly, fixedly, 
 tremblingly. A wild impulse to summon Barker 
 or Stacy on the spot was restrained with difficulty 
 and only when he remembered that they could 
 not help him. Then he began to oscillate 
 between a joy and a new fear, which now, for the 
 first time, began to dawn upon him. If the news 
 of her death had been a fiendish trick of her rela- 
 tions, why had she never sought him ? It was 
 not ill-health, restraint, nor fear; there was no- 
 thing but happiness and the strength of youth and 
 beauty in that face and figure. He had not dis- 
 appeared from the world ; he was known of men ; 
 more, his memorable good fortune must have 
 reached her ears. Had he wasted all these 
 miserable years to find himself abandoned, for- 
 gotten, perhaps even a dupe ? For the first time 
 the sting of jealousy entered his soul. Perhaps, 
 unconsciously to himself, his strange and varying 
 feelings that afternoon had been the gathering 
 
 o 
 
194 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 climax of his mental condition ; at all events, in 
 the sudden revulsion there was a shaking off of 
 his apathetic thought ; there was activity, even if 
 it was the activity of pain. Here was a mystery 
 to be solved, a secret to be discovered, a past 
 wrong to be exposed, an enemy or, perhaps, even 
 a faithless love to be punished. Perhaps he had 
 even saved his reason at the expense of his love. 
 He quickly replaced the photograph on the 
 mantel-shelf, returned the letter carefully to his 
 pocket-book — no longer a souvenir of the past, 
 but a proof of treachery — and began to mechani- 
 cally undress himself. He was quite calm now, 
 and went to bed with a strange sense of relief, 
 and slept as he had not slept since he was a boy. 
 The whole hotel had sunk to rest by this time, 
 and then began the usual slow, nightly invasion 
 and investment of it by Nature. For all its 
 broad verandahs and glaring terraces, its long 
 ranges of windows and glittering crest of cupola 
 and tower, it gradually succumbed to the more 
 potent influences around it, and became their sport 
 and playground. The mountain breezes from the 
 distant summit swept down upon its flimsy struc- 
 ture, shook the great glass windows as with a 
 strong hand, and sent the balm of bay and spruce 
 through every chink and cranny. In the great 
 hall and corridors the carpets billowed with the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 195 
 
 intruding blast along the floors ; there was the 
 murmur of the pines in the passages, and the 
 damp odour of leaves in the dining-room. There 
 was the cry of night birds in the creaking cupola, 
 and the swift rush of dark wings past bedroom 
 windows. Lissome shapes crept along the terraces 
 between the stolid wooden statues, or, bolder, 
 scampered the whole length of the great verandah. 
 In the lulling of the wind the breath of the woods 
 was everywhere ; even the aroma of swelling sap 
 — as if the ghastly stumps on the deforested slope 
 behind the hotel were bleeding afresh in the dew- 
 less nio-ht — stung the eves and nostrils of the 
 sleepers. 
 
 It was, perhaps, from such cause as this that 
 Barker was awakened suddenly by the voice of 
 the boy from the crib beside him, crying 
 1 Mamma ! Mamma ! ' Taking the child in his 
 arms, he comforted him, saying she would come 
 that morning, and showed him the faint dawn 
 already veiling with colour the ghostly pallor of 
 the Sierras. As they looked at it a great star 
 shot forth from its brethren and fell. It did not 
 fall perpendicularly, but seemed for some seconds 
 to slip along the slopes of Black Spur, gleaming 
 through the trees like a chariot of fire. It pleased 
 the child to say that it w T as the light of Mamma's 
 buggy that was fetching her home, and it pleased 
 
 03 
 
196 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 the father to encourage the boy's fancy. And 
 talking thus in confidential whispers they fell 
 asleep once more, the father— himself a child in so 
 many things — holding the smaller and frailer hand 
 in his. 
 
 They did not know that on the other side of 
 1 The Divide ' the wife and mother, scared, doubt- 
 ing, and desperate, by the side of her scared, 
 doubting, and desperate accomplice, was flying 
 down the slope on her night-long road to ruin. 
 Still less did they know that, with the early sing- 
 ing birds a careless horseman, emerging from the 
 trail as the dust- stained buggy dashed past 
 him, glanced at it with a puzzled air, uttered a 
 quiet whistle of surprise, and then, wheeling his 
 horse, gaily cantered after it. 
 
THREE PARTNERS w 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 In the exercise of his arduous profession, Jack 
 Hamlin had sat up all night in the magnolia 
 saloon of ' The Divide,' and as it was rather 
 early to go to bed, he had, after his usual habit, 
 shaken off the sedentary attitude and prepared 
 himself for sleep by a fierce preliminary gallop in 
 the woods. Besides, he had been a large winner, 
 and on those occasions he generally isolated him- 
 self from his companions to avoid foolish alterca- 
 tions with inexperienced players. Even in fight- 
 ing Jack was fastidious, and did not like to have 
 his stomach for a real difficulty distended and 
 vitiated by small preliminary indulgences. 
 
 He was just emerging from the wood into the 
 high road when a buggy dashed past him contain- 
 ing a man and a woman. The woman wore a 
 thick veil ; the man was almost undistinguishable 
 from dust. The glimpse was momentary, but 
 dislike has a keen eye, and in that glimpse Mr. 
 Hamlin recognised Van Loo. The situation was 
 equally clear. The bent heads and averted faces, 
 the dust collected in the heedlessness of haste, 
 
iy3 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 the early hour — indicating a night-long flight — all 
 made it plain to him that Van Loo was running 
 away with some woman. Mr. Hamlin had no 
 moral scruples, but he had the ethics of a sports- 
 man, which he knew Mr. Van Loo was not. 
 Whether the woman was an innocent schoolgirl 
 or an actress, he was satisfied that Van Loo was 
 doing a mean thing meanly. Mr. Hamlin also 
 had a taste for mischief, and whether the woman 
 was or was not fair game, he knew that for his 
 purposes Van Loo was. With the greatest 
 cheerfulness in the world he wheeled his horse 
 and cantered after them. 
 
 They were evidently making for ' The Divide , 
 and a fresh horse, or to take the coach due an 
 hour later. It was Mr. Hamlin's present object 
 to circumvent this, and, therefore, it was quite in 
 his way to return. Incidentally, however, the 
 superior speed of his horse gave him the oppor- 
 tunity of frequently lunging towards them at a 
 furious pace, which had the effect of frantically 
 increasing their own speed, when he would pull 
 up with a silent laugh before he was fairly dis- 
 covered, and allow the sound of his rapid horse's 
 hoofs to die out. In this way he amused himself 
 until the straggling town of ' The Divide ' came in 
 sight, when, putting his spurs to his horse again, 
 he managed, under pretence of the animal be- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 199 
 
 coming ungovernable, to twice ' cross the bows ' 
 of the fugitives, compelling them to slacken speed. 
 At the second of these passages Van Loo ap- 
 parently lost prudence, and slashing out with his 
 whip, the lash caught slightly on the counter of 
 Hamlin's horse. Mr. Hamlin instantly acknow- 
 ledged it by lifting his hat gravely, and speeded 
 on to the hotel, arriving at the steps and throwing 
 himself from the saddle exactly as the buggy drove 
 up. With characteristic audacity, he actually as- 
 sisted the frightened and eager woman to alight 
 and run into the hotel. But in this action her 
 veil was accidentally lifted. Mr. Hamlin instantly 
 recognised the pretty woman who had been pointed 
 out to him in San Francisco as Mrs. Barker, the 
 wife of one of the partners whose fortunes had 
 interested him five years ago. It struck him that 
 this was an additional reason for his interference 
 on Barker's account, although personally he could 
 not conceive why a man should ever try to prevent 
 a woman from running away from him. But then 
 Mr. Hamlin's personal experiences had been quite 
 the other way. 
 
 It was enough, however, to cause him to lay 
 his hand lightly on Van Loo's arm as the latter, 
 leaping down, was about to follow Mrs. Barker 
 into the hotel. • You'll have time enough now,' 
 said Hamlin. 
 
2oo THREE PARTNERS 
 
 1 Time for what ? ' said Van Loo savagely. 
 
 ' Time to apologise for having cut my horse 
 with your whip,' said Jack sweetly. 'We don't 
 want to quarrel before a woman.' 
 
 'I've no time for fooling!' said Van Loo, 
 endeavouring to pass. 
 
 But Jack's hand had slipped to Van Loo's 
 wrist, although he still smiled cheerfully. ' Ah ! 
 Then you did mean it, and you propose to give 
 me satisfaction.' 
 
 Van Loo paled slightly ; he knew Jack's 
 reputation as a duellist. But he was desperate. 
 4 You see my position,' he said hurriedly. ' I'm 
 in a hurry ; I have a lady with me. No man of 
 honour ' 
 
 • You do me wrong,' interrupted Jack with a 
 pained expression. * You do, indeed. You are 
 in a hurry ; well, I have plenty of time. If you 
 cannot attend to me now, why I will be glad to 
 accompany you and the lady to the next station. 
 Of course,' he added with a smile, 'at a proper 
 distance, and without interfering with the lady, 
 whom I am pleased to recognise as the wife of an 
 old friend. It would be more sociable, perhaps, 
 if we had some general conversation on the road ; 
 it would prevent her being alarmed. I might 
 even be of some use to you. If we are overtaken 
 by her husband on the road, for instance, I should 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 certainly claim the right to have the first shot at 
 you. Boy! ' he called to the ostler, 'just sponge 
 out Pancho's mouth, will you, to be ready when 
 the buggy goes?' And, loosening his grip of 
 Van Loo's wrist, he turned away as the other 
 quickly entered the hotel. 
 
 But Mr. Van Loo did not immediately seek 
 Mrs. Barker. He had already some experience 
 of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, 
 and had begun to see his error in taking so 
 dangerous an impediment to his flight from the 
 country. And another idea had come to him. 
 He had already effected his purpose of com- 
 promising her with him in that flight, but it was 
 still known only to few. If he left her behind 
 for the foolish, doting husband, would not that 
 devoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, 
 and even forbear to pursue him for his financial 
 irregularities ? What were twenty thousand 
 dollars of Mrs. Barker's money to the scandal of 
 Mrs. Barker's elopement ? Again, the failure to 
 realise the forgery had left him safe, and Barker 
 was sufficiently potent with the bank and Demorest 
 to hush up that also. Hamlin was now the only 
 obstacle to his flight ; but even he would scarcely 
 pursue him if Mrs. Barker were left behind. And 
 it would be easier to elude him if he did. 
 
 In his preoccupation Van Loo did not see that 
 
2U2 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 he had entered the bar-room, but, finding himself 
 there, he moved towards the bar ; a glass of 
 spirits would revive him. As he drank it he saw 
 that the room was full of rough men, apparently 
 miners or packers — some of them Mexican, with 
 here and there a Kanaka or Australian. Two 
 men more ostentatiously clad, though apparently 
 on equal terms with the others, were standing 
 ill the corner with their backs towards him. 
 From the general silence as he entered he 
 imagined that he had been the subject of con- 
 versation, and that his altercation with Hamlin 
 had been overheard. Suddenly one of the two 
 men turned and approached him. To his con- 
 sternation he recognised Steptoe — Steptoe, whom 
 he had not seen for five years until last night, 
 when he had avoided him in the courtyard of 
 the Boomville Hotel. His first instinct was to 
 retreat, but it was too late. And the spirits had 
 warmed him into temporary recklessness. 
 
 \ You ain't goin to be backed down by a 
 short-card gambler, are yer ? ' said Steptoe, with 
 coarse familiarity. 
 
 ' I have a lady with me, and am pressed for 
 time,' said Van Loo quickly. ' He knows it, 
 otherwise he would not have dared ' 
 
 4 Well, look here,' said Steptoe roughly, ' I 
 ain't particularly sweet on you, as you know, but 
 
THREE PARTNERS 20,5 
 
 I and these gentlemen,' he added, glancing around 
 the room, 'ain't particularly sweet on Mr. Jack 
 Hamlin neither, and we kalkilate to stand by you 
 if you say so. Nov/, I reckon you want to get 
 away with the woman, and the quicker the better, 
 as you're afraid there'll be somebody after you 
 afore long. That's the way it pans out, don't it ? 
 Well, when you're ready to go, and you just tip 
 us the wink, we'll get in a circle round Jack and 
 cover him, and if he starts after you we'll send 
 him on a little longer journey ! Eh, boys ? ! 
 
 The men muttered their approval, and one or 
 two drew their revolvers from their belts. Van 
 Loo's heart, which had leaped at first at this pro- 
 posal of help, sank at this failure of his little plan 
 of abandoning Mrs. Barker. He hesitated and 
 then stammered, ' Thank you ! Haste is every- 
 thing with us now ; but I shouldn't mind leaving 
 the lady among chivalrous gentlemen like your- 
 selves for a few hours only, until I could com- 
 municate with my friends and return to properly 
 chastise this scoundrel.' 
 
 Steptoe drew in his breath with a slight 
 whistle and gazed at Van Loo. He instantly 
 understood him. But the plea did not suit 
 Steptoe, who, for purposes of his own, wished to 
 put Mrs. Barker beyond her husbands possible 
 reach. He smiled grimly. ' I think you'd better 
 
204 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 take the woman with you,' he said. ' I don't 
 think,' he added in a lower voice, ' that the boys 
 would like your leaving her. They're very high- 
 toned, they are ! ' he concluded ironically. 
 
 1 Then,' said Van Loo with another desperate 
 idea, ' could you not let us have saddle horses 
 instead of the buggy ? We could travel faster, 
 and in the event of pursuit and anything happen- 
 ing to me,' he added loftily, l she at least could 
 escape her pursuer's vengeance.' 
 
 This suited Steptoe equally well, as long as 
 the guilty couple fled together, and in the presence 
 of witnesses. But he was not deceived by Van 
 Loo's heroic suggestion of self-sacrifice. ' Quite 
 right,' he said sarcastically, ' it shall be done, and 
 I've no doubt one of you will escape. I'll send 
 the horses round to the back door and keep the 
 buggy in front. That will keep Jack there, too, 
 — with the boys handy.' 
 
 But Mr. Hamlin had quite as accurate an idea 
 of Mr. Van Loo's methods and of his own stand- 
 ing with Steptoe's gang of roughs as Mr. Steptoe 
 himself. More than that, he also had a hold on 
 a smaller but more devoted and loyal following 
 than Steptoe's. The employe's and ostlers of the 
 hotel worshipped him. A single word of inquiry 
 revealed to him the fact that the buggy was not 
 going on, but that Mr. Van Loo and Mrs. Barker 
 
THREE PARTNERS 205 
 
 were — on two horses, a temporary side-saddle 
 having been constructed out of a mule's pack- 
 tree. At which Mr. Hamlin, with his usual 
 audacity, walked into the bar-room, and going to 
 the bar leaned carelessly against it. Then turn- 
 ing to the lowering faces around him, he said with 
 a flash of his white teeth, 'Well, boys, I'm cal- 
 culating to leave " The Divide" in a few minutes 
 to follow some friends in the buggy, and it seems 
 to me only the square thing to stand the liquor for 
 the crowd, without prejudice to any feeling or 
 roughness there may be agin' me. Everybody 
 who knows me knows that I'm generally there 
 when the band plays, and I'm pretty sure to turn 
 up for that sort of thing. So you'll just consider 
 that I've had a good game on " The Divide," and 
 I'm reckoning it's only fair to leave a little of it 
 behind me here, to " sweeten the pot " until I call 
 again. I only ask you, gentlemen, to drink 
 success to my friends in the buggy as early and 
 as often as you can.' He flung two gold pieces 
 on the counter and paused smilingly. 
 
 He was right in his conjecture. Even the 
 men who would have willingly ' held him up ' a 
 moment after, at the bidding of Steptoe, saw no 
 reason for declining a free drink ' without pre- 
 judice.' And it was a part of the irony of the 
 situation that Steptoe and Van Loo were also 
 
2o6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 obliged to participate to keep in with their 
 partisans. It was, however, an opportune diver- 
 sion to Van Loo, who managed to get nearer the 
 door leading to the back entrance of the hotel, and 
 to Mr. Jack Hamlin, who was watching him, as 
 the men closed up to the bar. 
 
 The toast was drunk with acclamation, 
 followed by another and yet another. Step toe 
 and Van Loo, who had kept their heads cool, 
 were both wondering if Hamlin's intention were 
 to intoxicate and incapacitate the crowd at the 
 crucial moment, and Steptoe smiled grimly over 
 his superior knowledge of their alcoholic capacity. 
 But suddenly there was the greater diversion of a 
 shout from the road, the oncoming of a cloud of 
 red dust, and the halt of another vehicle before 
 the door. This time it was no jaded single horse 
 and dust-stained buggy, but a double team of four 
 spirited trotters, whose coats were scarcely turned 
 with foam, before a light station waggon contain- 
 ing- a single man. But that man was instantly 
 recognised by every one of the outside loungers 
 and stable-boys as well as the staring crowd within 
 the saloon. It was James Stacy, the millionaire 
 and banker. No one but himself knew that he 
 had covered half the distance of a night-long ride 
 from Boomville in two hours. But before they 
 could voice their astonishment Stacy had thrown 
 
THREE PARTNERS 207 
 
 a letter to the obsequious landlord, and then 
 gathering up the reins had sped away to the rail- 
 way station half a mile distant. 
 
 i Looks as if the Boss of Creation was in a 
 hurry,' said one of the eager gazers in the door- 
 way. ' Somebody goin' to get smashed, sure.' 
 
 1 More like as if he was just humpin' himself 
 to keep from getting smashed,' said Steptoe. 
 ' The bank hasn't got over the effect of their 
 smart deal in the Wheat Trust. Everything 
 they had in their hands tumbled yesterday in 
 Sacramento. Men like me and you ain't goin' 
 to trust their money to be "jockeyed" with in 
 that style. Nobody but a man with a swelled 
 head like Stacy would have even dared to try 
 it on. And now, by G — d ! he's got to pay for it.' 
 
 The harsh, exultant tone of the speaker 
 showed that he had quite forgotten Van Loo and 
 Hamlin in his superior hatred of the millionaire, 
 and both men noticed it. Van Loo edged still 
 nearer to the door, as Steptoe continued, ' Ever 
 since he made that big strike on Heavy Tree five 
 years ago, the country hasn't been big enough 
 to hold him. But mark my words, gentlemen, 
 the time ain't far off when he'll find a two-foot 
 ditch again and a pick and grub wages room 
 enough and to spare for him and his kind of 
 cattle.' 
 
208 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 i You're not drinking,' said Jack Hamlin 
 cheerfully. 
 
 Steptoe turned towards the bar, and then 
 started. ' Where's Van Loo ? ' he demanded of 
 Jack sharply. 
 
 Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 
 ' Gone to hurry up his girl, I reckon. I calculate 
 he ain't got much time to fool away here.' 
 
 . Steptoe glanced suspiciously at Jack. But at 
 the same moment they were all startled — even 
 Jack himself — at the apparition of Mrs. Barker 
 passing hurriedly along the verandah before the 
 windows in the direction of the still-waiting buggy. 
 
 • D n it ! ' said Steptoe in a fierce whisper to 
 
 the man next him. ' Tell her not there — at the 
 back door ! ' But before the messenger reached 
 the door there was a sudden rattle of wheels, and 
 with one accord all except Hamlin rushed to the 
 verandah only to see Mrs. Barker driving 
 rapidly away alone. Steptoe turned back into 
 the room, but Jack also had disappeared. 
 
 For in the confusion created at the sight of 
 Mrs. Barker, he had slipped to the back door and 
 found, as he suspected, only one horse, and that 
 with a side-saddle on. His intuitions were right. 
 Van Loo, when he disappeared from the saloon, 
 had instantly fled, taking the other horse and 
 abandoning the woman to her fate. Jack as 
 
w*. 
 
 
 \ 
 
 . 
 
 «f^^ mm- 
 
 .JBflL 
 
THREE PARTNERS 209 
 
 instantly leaped upon the remaining saddle and 
 dashed after him. Presently he caught a glimpse 
 of the fugitive in the distance, heard the half- 
 angry, half-ironical shouts of the crowd at the 
 back door, and as he reached the hill-top saw, 
 with a mingling of satisfaction and perplexity, 
 Mrs. Barker on the other road, still driving 
 frantically in the direction of the railway station. 
 At which Mr. Hamlin halted, threw away his 
 encumbering saddle and, good rider that he was, 
 remounted the horse, barebacked but for his 
 blanket-pad, and thrusting his knees in the loose 
 girths, again dashed forwards. With such 
 good results that, as Van Loo galloped up to 
 the stage-coach office at the next station, and 
 was about to enter the waiting coach for Marys- 
 ville, the soft hand of Mr. Hamlin was laid on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 1 1 told you,' said Jack blandly, * that I had 
 plenty of time. I would have been here before 
 and even overtaken you, only you had the better 
 horse and the only saddle.' 
 
 Van Loo recoiled. But he was now desperate 
 and reckless. Beckoning Jack out of earshot of 
 the other passengers, he said with tightened lips, 
 1 Why do you follow me ? What is your purpose 
 in coming here ? ' 
 
 1 I thought,' said Hamlin drily, ' that I was to 
 
 p 
 
210 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 have the pleasure of getting satisfaction from you 
 for the insult you gave me.' 
 
 * Well, and if I apologise for it, what then ? ' 
 he said quickly. 
 
 Hamlin looked at him quietly. ' Well, I think 
 I also said something about the lady being the 
 wife of a friend of mine.' 
 
 1 And I have left her behind. Her husband 
 can take her back without disgrace, for no one 
 knows of her flight but you and I. Do you think 
 your shooting me will save her? It will spread 
 the scandal far and wide. For I warn you, that 
 as I have apologised for what you choose to call 
 my personal insult, unless you murder me in cold 
 blood without witness, I shall let them know the 
 reason of your quarrel. And I can tell you more ; 
 if you only succeed in stopping me here, and make 
 me lose my chance of getting away, the scandal 
 to your friend will be greater still.' 
 
 Mr. Hamlin looked at Van Loo curiously. 
 There was a certain amount of conviction in what 
 he said. He had never met this kind of creature 
 before. He had surpassed even Hamlin's first 
 intuition of his character. He amused and inter- 
 ested him. But Mr. Hamlin was also a man of the 
 world, and knew that Van Loo's reasoning might 
 be good. He put his hands in his pockets 
 and said gravely, ' What is your little game ? ' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 211 
 
 Van Loo had been seized with another inspi- 
 ration of desperation. Steptoe had been partly 
 responsible for this situation. He knew that Jack 
 and he were not friends. He had certain secrets 
 of Steptoe's that might be of importance to Jack. 
 Why should he not try to make friends with this 
 powerful free-lance and half-outlaw ? 
 
 ' It's a game,' he said significantly, ' that might 
 be of interest to your friends to hear.' 
 
 Hamlin took his hands out of his pockets, 
 turned on his heel and said, ' Come with me.' 
 
 1 But I must go by that coach now,' said Van 
 Loo desperately, 'or — I've told you what would 
 happen.' 
 
 'Come with me,' said Jack coolly. * If I'm 
 satisfied with what you tell me, I'll put you down 
 at the next station an hour before that coach gets 
 there.' 
 
 ' You swear it ? ' said Van Loo hesitatingly. 
 
 'I've said it,' returned Jack. 'Come!' and 
 Van Loo followed Mr. Hamlin into the station 
 hotel. 
 
212 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and 
 the strange lady and gentleman visitor was 
 scarcely noticed by the other guests of ' The Divide 
 House/ and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his 
 friends, who were a distinct party and strangers 
 to the town, there was no excitement. Indeed, 
 the hotel proprietor might have confounded them 
 together, and, perhaps, Van Loo was not far 
 wrong in his belief that their identity had not 
 been suspected. Nor were Steptoe's followers 
 very much concerned in an episode in which they 
 had taken part only at the suggestion of their 
 leader, and which had terminated so tamely. 
 That they would have liked a ' row,' in which Jack 
 Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to 
 disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but 
 that their interference was asked solely to gratify 
 some personal spite of Steptoe's against Van Loo 
 was equally plain to them. There was some 
 grumbling and outspoken criticism of his methods. 
 This was later made more obvious by the arrival 
 
THREE PARTNERS 213 
 
 of another guest for whom Steptoe and his party 
 were evidently waiting. He was a short, stout 
 man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little 
 more carefully than when he was first known to 
 Steptoe as 'Alky Hall,' the drunkard of Heavy 
 Tree Hill. His dress, too, exhibited a marked 
 improvement in quality and style, although still 
 characterised in the waist and chest by the 
 unbuttoned freedom of portly and slovenly middle 
 age. Civilisation had restricted his potations or 
 limited them to certain festivals known as ' sprees,' 
 and his face was less puffy and sodden. But with 
 the accession of sobriety he had lost his good- 
 humour, and had the irritability and intolerance of 
 virtuous restraint. 
 
 1 Ye needn't ladle out any of your forty-rod 
 whiskey to me,' he said querulously to Steptoe, as 
 he filed out with the rest of the party through 
 the bar-room into the adjacent apartment. ' I 
 want to keep my head level till our business is 
 over, and I reckon it wouldn't hurt you and your 
 gang to do the same. They're less likely to blab ; 
 and there are few doors that whiskey won't unlock,' 
 he added, as Steptoe turned the key in the door 
 after the party had entered. 
 
 The room had evidently been used for meet- 
 ings of directors or political caucuses, and was 
 roughly furnished with notched and whittled arm- 
 
214 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 chairs and a single long deal tabic, on which were 
 ink and pens. The men sat down around it with 
 a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of 
 formality, their bent brows and isolated looks 
 showing little community of sentiment and scarcely 
 an attempt to veil that individual selfishness that 
 •was prominent. Still less was there any essay of 
 companionship or sympathy in the manner of 
 Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table with 
 his knuckles. ' Gentlemen,' he said with a certain 
 deliberation of utterance, as if he enjoyed his own 
 coarse directness, ' I reckon you all have a sort of 
 general idea what you were picked up for, or you 
 wouldn't be here. But you may or may not know 
 that for the present you are honest, hard-working 
 miners — the backbone of the State of Californy — 
 and that you have formed yourselves into a com- 
 pany called the " Blue Jay," and you've settled 
 yourselves on the Bar below Heavy Tree Hill, on 
 a deserted claim of the Marshall Brothers, not 
 half a mile from where the big strike was made five 
 years ago. That's what you are, gentlemen ; 
 that's what you'll continue to be until the job's 
 finished ; and,' he added with a sudden domi- 
 nance that they all felt, ' the man who forgets it 
 will have to reckon with me. Now,' he continued, 
 resuming his former ironical manner, ' now, what 
 are the cold facts of the case ? The Marshalls 
 
THREE PARTNERS 215 
 
 worked this claim ever since '49, and never got 
 anything out of it ; then they dropped off or died 
 out, leaving only one brother, Tom Marshall, to 
 work what was left of it. Well, a few days ago 
 he found " indications" of a big lead in the rock, 
 and instead of rushin' out and yellin' like an honest 
 man, and callin' in the boys to drink, he sneaks 
 off to 'Frisco, and goes to the bank to get 'em to 
 take a hand in it. Well, you know, when Jim 
 Stacy takes a hand in anything, its both hands, 
 and the bank wouldn't see it until he promised to 
 guarantee possession of the whole abandoned 
 claim — "dips, spurs, and angles" — and let them 
 
 work the whole thing, which the d d fool did, 
 
 and the bank agreed to send an expert down there 
 to-morrow to report. But while he was away 
 some one on our side, who was an expert also, got 
 wind of it and made an examination all by him- 
 self, and found it was a vein sure enough and a 
 big thing, and some one else on our side found out, 
 too, all that Marshall had promised the bank and 
 what the bank had promised him. Now, gentle- 
 men, when the bank sends down that expert to- 
 morrow I expect that he will find you in possession 
 of every part of the deserted claim except the spot 
 where Tom is still working.' 
 
 ' And what good is that to us ? ' asked one of 
 the men contemptuously. 
 
2i6 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' Good ? ' repeated Steptoe harshly. ' Well, 
 
 if you're not as d d a fool as Marshall you'll 
 
 see that if he has struck a " lead " or vein it's bound 
 to run across our claims, and what's to keep us 
 from "sinking" for it as long as Marshall hasn't 
 worked the other claims for years nor pre-empted 
 them for this lead ? ' 
 
 ' What'll keep him from pre-empting now ? ' 
 
 1 Our possession.' 
 
 1 But if he can prove that the brothers left their 
 claims to him to keep, he'll just send the sheriff and 
 his posse down upon us,' persisted the first speaker. 
 
 1 It will take him three months to do that by 
 law, and the sheriff and his posse can't do it 
 before as long as we're in peaceable possession of 
 it. And by the time that expert and Marshall 
 return they'll find us in peaceful possession. Un- 
 less we're such blasted fools as to stay talking 
 about it here ! ' 
 
 1 But what's to prevent Marshall from getting 
 a gang of his own to drive us off ? ' 
 
 1 Now your talkin' and not yelpin',' said Step- 
 toe, with slow insolence. ( D d if I didn't 
 
 begin to think you kalkilated I was goin' to employ 
 you as lawyers ! Nothing is to prevent him from 
 gettin' up his gang, and we hope he'll do it, for you 
 see it puts us both on the same level before the 
 law, for we're both breakiri it. And we kalkilate 
 
THREE PARTNERS 2l? 
 
 that we're as good as any roughs they can pick up 
 at Heavy Tree.' 
 
 1 I reckon ! ' ' Ye can count us in ! ' said half 
 a dozen voices eagerly. 
 
 1 But what's the job goin' to pay us ? p persisted 
 a Sydney man. ' An' arter we've beat off this 
 other gang, are we going to scrub along on grub 
 wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers 
 three months later? If that's the ticket I'm not 
 in it. I arn't no b y quartz miner.' 
 
 1 We ain't going to do no more mining there 
 than the bank,' said Steptoe fiercely. ' And the 
 bank ain't going to wait no three months for the 
 end of the law suit. They'll float the stock of 
 that mine for a couple of millions, and get out of 
 it with a million before a month. And they'll 
 have to buy us off to do that. What they'll pay 
 will depend upon the lead ; but we don't move off 
 those claims for less than five thousand dollars, 
 which will be two hundred and fifty dollars to 
 each man. But,' said Steptoe, in a lower but 
 perfectly distinct voice, ' if there should be a row 
 — and they begin it — and in the scuffle Tom 
 Marshall, their only witness, should happen to 
 get in the way of a revolver or have his head 
 caved in, there might be some difficulty in their 
 holdin' any of the mine against honest, hard- 
 working miners in possession. You hear me ? ' _ 
 
 V* OF THF 
 
 UNIVEBSTH 
 
2i 3 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 There was a breathless silence for the moment, 
 and a slight movement of the men in their chairs. 
 But never in fear or protest. Everyone had heard 
 the speaker distinctly, and every man distinctly 
 understood him. Some of them were criminals, 
 one or two had already the stain of blood on 
 their hands ; but even the most timid, who at 
 other times might have shrunk from suggested 
 assassination, saw in the speakers words only 
 the fair removal of a natural enemy. 
 
 'All right, boys! I'm ready to wade in at 
 once. Why ain't we on the road now ? We 
 might have been but for foolin' our time away on 
 that man Van Loo.' 
 
 'Van Loo !' repeated Mall eagerly. 4 Van Loo ! 
 Was he here ? ' 
 
 1 Yes,' said Steptoe shortly, administering a 
 kick under the table to. Hall, as he had no wish to 
 revive the previous irritability of his comrades. 
 ' He's gone, but,' turning to the others, ' you'd have 
 had to wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. And 
 now you've got your order you can start. Go in 
 two parties by different roads, and meet on the 
 other side of the hotel at Hymettus. I'll be there 
 before you. Pick up some shovels and drills as 
 you go ; remember you're honest miners, but don't 
 forget your shootin'-irons for all that. Now 
 scatter.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 219 
 
 It was well that they did, vacating the room 
 more cheerfully and sympathetically than they had 
 entered it, or Hall's manifest disturbance over 
 Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When 
 the last man had disappeared Hall turned quickly 
 to Steptoe. 'Weil, what did he say? Where 
 has he gone ? ! 
 
 4 Don't know,' said Steptoe with uneasy curt- 
 ness. ' He was running away with a woman — 
 well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know,' he added 
 with rising anger, ' the wife of one of those cursed 
 partners. Jack Hamlin was here, and was jockey- 
 ing to stop him, and interfered. But what the 
 devil has that job to do with our job ?' He was 
 losing his temper ; everything seemed to turn 
 upon this infernal Van Loo ! 
 
 1 He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker,' 
 gasped Hall. ' It was with her money \ and the 
 fear of being connected with the Wheat ' Trust 
 swindle which he organised, and with our money 
 which I lent him for the same purpose. And he 
 knows all about that job, for I wanted to get him 
 to go into it with us. Your name and mine ain't any 
 too sweet -smelling for the bank, and we ought to 
 have a middle-man who knows business to arrange 
 with them. The bank darn't object to him, for 
 they've employed him in even shadier transactions 
 than this when they didn't wish to appear. / 
 
220 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 knew he was in difficulties along with Mrs. 
 Barker's speculations, but I never thought him 
 up to this. And,' he added, with sudden despera- 
 tion, ' you trusted him, too.' 
 
 In an instant Steptoe caught the frightened 
 man by the shoulders and was bearing him down 
 on the table. ' Are you a traitor, a liar, or a 
 besotted fool ? ' he said hoarsely. ' Speak. When 
 and where did I trust him ? ' 
 
 1 You said in your note — I was — to — help 
 him,' gasped Hall. 
 
 1 My note,' repeated Steptoe, releasing Hall 
 with astonished eyes. 
 
 'Yes,' said Hall, tremblingly searching in his 
 vest pocket. ' I brought it with me. It isn't 
 much of a note, but there's your signature plain 
 enough.' 
 
 He handed Steptoe a torn piece of paper 
 folded in a three-cornered shape. Steptoe opened 
 it. He instantly recognised the paper on which 
 he had written his name and sent up to his wife 
 at the Boomville Hotel. But, added to it, in 
 apparently the same hand, in smaller characters, 
 were the words, ' Help Van Loo all you can.' 
 
 The blood rushed into his face. But he quickly 
 collected himself, and said hurriedly, ' All right, 
 
 I had forgotten it. Let the d d sneak go. 
 
 We've got what's a thousand times better in this 
 
THREE PARTNERS 221 
 
 claim at Marshall's, and it's well that he isn't in it to 
 scoop the lion's share. Only we must not waste 
 time getting there now. You go there first, and 
 at once, and set those rascals to work. I'll follow 
 you before Marshall comes up. Get! I'll settle 
 up here.' 
 
 His face darkened once more as Hall hurried 
 away, leaving him alone. He drew out the piece 
 of paper from his pocket and stared at it again. 
 Yes ; it was the one he had sent to his wife. How 
 did Van Loo get hold of it ? Was he at the 
 hotel that night ? Had he picked it up in the 
 hall or passage when the servant dropped it ? 
 When Hall handed him the paper and he first 
 recognised it a fiendish thought, followed by a 
 spasm of more fiendish rage, had sent the blood 
 to his face. But his crude common sense quickly 
 dismissed that suggestion of his wife's complicity 
 with Van Loo. But had she seen him passing- 
 through the hotel that night, and had sought to 
 draw from him some knowledge of his early 
 intercourse with the child, and confessed every- 
 thing, and even produced the paper with his 
 signature as a proof of identity ? Women had 
 been known to do such desperate things. Perhaps 
 she disbelieved her son's aversion to her, and was 
 trying to sound Van Loo. As for the forged 
 words by Van Loo, and the use he had put them 
 
222 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 to, he cared little. He believed the man was 
 capable of forgery ; indeed, he suddenly re- 
 membered that in the old days his son had spoken 
 innocently, but admiringly, of Van Loo's wonderful 
 chirographical powers and his faculty of imitating 
 the writings of others, and how he had even 
 offered to teach him. A new and exasperating 
 thought came into his feverish consciousness. 
 What if Van Loo, in teaching the boy, had even 
 made use of him as an innocent accomplice to 
 cover up his own tricks ! The suggestion was no 
 question of moral ethics to Steptoe, nor of his 
 son's possible contamination, although since the 
 night of the big strike he had held different 
 views ; it was simply a fierce, selfish jealousy that 
 another might have profited by the lad's helpless- 
 ness and inexperience. He had been tormented 
 by this jealousy before in his son's liking for 
 Van Loo. He had at first encouraged his 
 admiration and imitative regard for this smooth 
 Swindler's graces and accomplishments, which, 
 though he scorned them himself, he was, after 
 the common parental infatuation, willing that the 
 boy should profit by. Unable, through his own 
 consciousness, of distinguishing between Van 
 Loo's superficial polish and the true breeding of 
 a gentleman, he had only looked upon it as art 
 equipment for his son which might be serviceable 
 
THREE PARTNERS 223 
 
 to himself. He had told his wife the truth when 
 he informed her of Van Loo's fears of being 
 reminded of their former intimacy ; but he had 
 not told her how its discontinuance after they had 
 left Heavy Tree Hill had affected her son, and 
 how he still cherished his old admiration for that 
 specious rascal. Nor had he told her how this 
 had stung him, through his own selfish greed of 
 the boy's affection. Yet now that it was possible 
 that she had met Van Loo that evening, she 
 might have become aware of Van Loo's power 
 over her child. How she would exult, for all her 
 pretended hatred of Van Loo ! How, perhaps, 
 they had plotted together ! How Van Loo might 
 have become aware of the place where his son 
 was kept, and had been bribed by the mother to 
 tell her! He stopped in a whirl of giddy fancies. 
 His strong common sense in all other things had 
 been hitherto proof against such idle dreams or 
 suggestions ; but the very strength of his parental 
 love and jealousy had awakened in him at last the 
 terrors of imagination. 
 
 His first impulse had been to seek his wife, 
 regardless of discovery or consequences, at 
 Hymettus, where she had said she was going. 
 It was on his way to the rendezvous at Marshall's 
 claim. But this he as instantly set aside ; it was 
 his son he must find ; she might not confess, or 
 
224 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 might deceive him ; the boy would not, and, if 
 his fears were correct, she could be arraigned 
 afterwards. It was possible for him to reach the 
 little mission church and school, secluded in a 
 remote valley by the old Franciscan fathers, 
 where he had placed the boy for the last few years 
 unknown to his wife. It would be a long ride, 
 but he could still reach Heavy Tree Hill after- 
 wards before Marshall and the expert arrived. 
 And he had a feeling he had never felt before 
 on the eve of a desperate adventure — that he 
 must see the boy first. He remembered how the 
 child had often accompanied him in his flight, and 
 how he had gained strength and, it seemed to 
 him, a kind of luck, from the touch of that small 
 hand in his. Surely it was necessary now that at 
 least his mind should be at rest regarding him on 
 the eve of an affair of this moment. Perhaps he 
 might never see him again. At any other time, 
 and under the influence of any other emotion, he 
 would have scorned such a sentimentalism — he 
 who had never troubled himself either with 
 preparation for the future or consideration for the 
 past. But at that moment he felt both. He drew 
 a long breath. He could catch the next train to 
 4 The Three Boulders ' and ride thence to San 
 Felipe. He hurriedly left the room, settled with 
 the landlord, and galloped to the station. By the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 225 
 
 irony of circumstances, the only horse available 
 for that purpose was Mr. Hamlin's own. 
 
 By two o'clock he was at ' The Three 
 Boulders/ where he got a fast horse and galloped 
 into San Felipe by four. As he descended the 
 last slope through the fastnesses of pines towards 
 the little valley overlooked in its remoteness and 
 purely pastoral simplicity by the gold-seeking 
 immigrants — its seclusion as one of the furthest 
 Northern Californian missions still preserved 
 through its insignificance and the efforts of the 
 remaining Brotherhood, who used it as an in- 
 firmary and a school for the few remaining Spanish 
 families — he remembered how he once blundered 
 upon it with the boy while hotly pursued by a hue 
 and cry from one of the larger towns, and how he 
 found sanctuary there. He remembered how, 
 when the pursuit was over, he had placed the 
 boy there under the padre 's charge. He had lied 
 to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her son, 
 but he had spoken truly regarding his free ex- 
 penditure for the boy's maintenance, and the good 
 fathers had accepted, equally for the child's sake 
 as for the Church's sake, the generous ' restitution ' 
 which this coarse, powerful, ruffianly-looking 
 father was apparently seeking to make. He was 
 quite aware of it at the time, and had equally 
 accepted it with grim cynicism ; but it now came 
 
 Q 
 
226 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 back to him with a new and smarting significance. 
 Might they, too, not succeed in weaning the boy's 
 affection from him, or if the mother had interfered, 
 would they not side with her in claiming an equal 
 right ? He had sometimes laughed to himself 
 over the security of this hiding-place, so unknown 
 and so unlikely to be discovered by her, yet 
 within easy reach of her friends and his enemies ; 
 he now ground his teeth over the mistake which 
 his doting desire to keep his son accessible to him 
 had caused him to make. He put spurs to his 
 horse, dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved 
 street, through the deserted plaza, and pulled up 
 in a cloud of dust before the only remaining 
 tower, with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined 
 mission church. A new dormitory and school 
 building had been extended from its walls, but in 
 a subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike 
 the usual glaring ' white-pine ' glories of provincial 
 towns. Steptoe laughed to himself bitterly. 
 Some of his money had gone in it. 
 
 He seized the horse-hair rope dangling from a 
 bell by the wall and rang it sharply. A soft-footed 
 priest appeared — Father Dominico. ' Eddy Horn- 
 castle. Ah ! yes. Eddy, dear child, was gone.' 
 
 'Gone!' shouted Steptoe in a voice that 
 startled the padre. ' Where ? When ? With 
 whom ? ' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 227 
 
 1 Pardon, sefior, but for a time — only a pasear 
 to the next village. It is his saint's day — he has 
 half holiday. He is a good boy. It is a little 
 pleasure for him and for us.' 
 
 'Oh!' said Steptoe, softened into a rough 
 apology. * I forgot. All right. Has he had any 
 visitors lately — lady, for instance ? ' 
 
 Father Dominico cast a look half of fright 
 half of reproval upon his guest. 
 
 ■ A lady here ! ' 
 
 In his relief Steptoe burst into a coarse laugh. 
 ' Of course ; you see I forgot that, too. I was 
 thinking of one of his woman folks — you know, 
 relatives — aunts. Was there any other visitor?' 
 
 ' Only one. Ah ! we know the sefior's rules 
 regarding his son.' 
 
 ' One ? ' repeated Steptoe. ' Who was it ? ' 
 
 ■ Oh, quite a hidalgo — an old friend of the 
 child's — most polite, most accomplished, fluent in 
 Spanish, perfect in deportment. The Seiior 
 Horncastle surely could find nothing to object to. 
 Father Pedro was charmed with him. A man of 
 affairs, and yet a good Catholic, too. It was a 
 Sefior Van Loo — Don Paul the boy called him, 
 and they talked of the boy's studies in the old 
 days as if— indeed, but for the stranger being a 
 caballero and man of the world— as if he had 
 been his teacher.' 
 
 Q 3 
 
228 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 It was a proof of the intensity of the fathers 
 feelings that they had passed beyond the power 
 of his usual coarse, brutal expression, and he 
 only stared at the priest with a dull red face in 
 which the blood seemed to have stagnated. 
 Presently he said thickly, ' When did he come ? ' 
 
 1 A few days ago.' 
 
 ' Which way did Eddy go ? ' 
 
 ' To Brown's Mills, scarcely a league away. 
 He will be here — even now — on the instant. 
 But the seiior will come into the refectory and 
 take some of the old mission wine from the 
 Catalan grape, planted one hundred and fifty years 
 ago, until the dear child returns. He will be so 
 happy.' 
 
 ' No ! I'm in a hurry. I will go on and meet 
 him.' He took off his hat, mopped his crisp, wet 
 hair with his handkerchief, and in a thick, slow, 
 impeded voice, more suggestive than the out- 
 burst he restrained, said, ' And as long as my son 
 remains here that man, Van Loo, must not pass 
 this gate, speak to him, or even see him. You 
 hear me ? See to it, you and all the others. See 
 
 to it, I say, or ' He stopped abruptly, 
 
 clapped his hat on the swollen veins of his fore- 
 head, turned quickly, passed out without another 
 word through the archway into the road, and 
 before the good priest could cross himself or re- 
 
THREE PARTNERS 229 
 
 cover from his astonishment the thud of his 
 horse's hoofs came from the dusty road. 
 
 It was ten minutes before his face resumed its 
 usual colour. But in that ten minutes, as if some 
 of the struggle of his rider had passed into him, 
 his horse was sweating with exhaustion and fear. 
 For in that ten minutes, in this new imagination 
 with which he was cursed, he had killed both Van 
 Loo and his son, and burned the refectory over 
 the heads of the treacherous priests. Then, quite 
 himself again, a voice came to him from the 
 rocky trail above the road with the hail of 
 ' Father! ' He started quickly as a lad of fifteen 
 or sixteen came bounding down the hillside and 
 ran towards him. 
 
 ' You passed me and I called to you, but you 
 did not seem to hear,' said the boy breathlessly. 
 ' Then I ran after you. Have you been to the 
 mission ? ' 
 
 Steptoe looked at him quite as breathlessly, 
 but from a deeper emotion. He was, even at 
 first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with youth 
 and the excitement of his run, and, as the father 
 looked at him, he could see the likeness to his 
 mother in his clear-cut features, and even a 
 resemblance to himself in his square, compact 
 chest and shoulders, and crisp, black curls. A 
 thrill of purely animal paternity passed over him, 
 
230 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 the fierce joy of his flesh over his own flesh! 
 His own son, by God! They could not take 
 that from him ; they might plot, swindle, fawn, 
 cheat, lie, and steal away his affections, but there he 
 was, plain to all eyes, his own son, his very son! 
 
 ' Come here,' he said in a singular, half- 
 weary and half-protesting voice, which the boy 
 instantly recognised as his father's accents of 
 affection. 
 
 The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of 
 the road and pointed with mingled mischief and 
 fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable red 
 dust that lay between him and the horseman. 
 Steptoe saw r that he was very smartly attired in 
 holiday guise, with white-duck trousers and patent 
 leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore 
 black kid gloves. He certainly was a bit of a 
 dandy, as he had said. The father's whole face 
 changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, 
 who lifted up his arms expectantly. They had 
 often ridden together on the same horse. 
 
 1 No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy,' he 
 said in the same voice. * But I'll get down and 
 we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and have 
 some talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying 
 me, and I can't waste time.' 
 
 * Not one of your old jobs, father ? I thought 
 you had quite given that up ? ' 
 
They sa/, looking down upon the road. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 231 
 
 The boy spoke more carelessly than reproach- 
 fully, or even wonderingly, yet, as he dismounted 
 and tethered his horse, Steptoe answered 
 evasively, ' It's a big thing, sonny ; maybe we'll 
 make our eternal fortune, and then we'll light out 
 from this hole and have a gay time elsewhere. 
 Come along.' 
 
 He took the boy's gloved right hand in his 
 own powerful grasp, and together they clambered 
 up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on which a 
 fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself 
 in twain, and then left its withered crown to hang- 
 half down the slope, while the other half rested 
 on the ledge. On this they sat, looking down 
 upon the road and the tethered horse. A gentle 
 breeze moved the treetops above their heads, and 
 the westering sun played hide and seek with the 
 shifting shadows. The boy's face was quick 
 and alert with all that moved round him, but 
 without thought ; the father's face was heavy, 
 except for the eyes that were fixed upon his son. 
 
 1 Van Loo came to the mission,' he said 
 suddenly. 
 
 The boy's eyes glittered quickly, like a steel 
 that pierced the father's heart. ' Oh,' he said 
 simply, 'then it was the padre told you?' 
 
 'How did he know you were here?' asked 
 Steptoe. 
 
232 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' I don't know,' said the boy quietly. ' I think 
 he said something, but I've forgotten it. But it 
 was mighty good of him to come, for I thought, 
 you know, that he did not care to see me after 
 Heavy Tree, and that he'd gone back on us.' 
 
 ' What did he tell you ? ' continued Steptoe. 
 ' Did he talk of me or of your mother ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said the boy, but without any show of 
 interest or sympathy, ' we talked mostly about old 
 times.' 
 
 1 Tell me about those old times, Eddy. You 
 never told me anything about them.' 
 
 The boy, momentarily arrested more by some- 
 thing in the tone of his father's voice — a weakness 
 he had never noticed before — than by any sugges- 
 tion of his words, said with a laugh, ' Oh, only 
 about what we used to do when I was very little 
 and used to call myself his "little brother," don't 
 you remember, long before the big strike on 
 Heavy Tree ? They were gay times we had 
 then.' 
 
 'And how he used to teach you to imitate 
 other people's handwriting ? ' said Steptoe. 
 
 'What made you think of that, Pop?' said 
 the boy, with a slight wonder in his eyes. 
 ' Why, that's the very thing we did talk about.' 
 
 ' But you didn't do it again ; you ain't done it 
 since ?' said Steptoe quickly. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' Lord ! no,' said the boy contemptuously. 
 • There ain't no chance now, and there wouldn't 
 be any fun in it. It isn't like the old times when 
 him and me were all alone, and we used to write 
 letters as coming from other people to all the boys 
 round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes 
 as far as Boomville, to get them to do things, and 
 they'd think the letters were real, and they'd do 
 'em. And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, 
 and nobody ever knew who did it.' 
 
 Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh 
 half in relief, half in frightened admiration. 
 Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees 
 and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, 
 the boy's handsome face became illuminated with 
 an impish devilry which the father had never seen 
 before. With dancing eyes he went on. ' It 
 was one of those very games we played so long 
 ago that he wanted to see me about and wanted 
 me to keep mum about, for some of the folks that 
 he played it on were around here now. It was a 
 game we got off on one of the big strike partners 
 long before the strike. I'll tell you, dad, for you 
 know what happened afterwards, and you'll be 
 glad. Well, that partner — Demorest — was a kind 
 of silly, you remember — a sort of Miss Nancyish 
 fellow — always gloomy and lovesick after his girl 
 in the States. Well, we'd written lots of letters 
 
234 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 to girls from their chaps before, and got lots of 
 fun out of it, but we had even a better show for a 
 game here, for it happened that Van Loo knew 
 all about the girl — things that even the man's 
 own partners didn't, for Van Loo's mother was a 
 sort of a friend of the girl's family, and travelled 
 about with her, and knew that the girl was spoony 
 over this Demorest, and that they corresponded. 
 So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at 
 Heavy Tree, she wrote to him to find out all 
 about Demorest and how to stop their foolish 
 nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her to 
 marry a broken-down miner like him. So we 
 thought we'd do it our own way, and write a 
 letter to her as if it was from him, don't you see ? 
 I wanted to make him call her awful names, and 
 say that he hated her, that he was a murderer and 
 a horse thief, and that he had killed a policeman, 
 and that he was thinking of becoming a digger 
 Injin, and having a digger squaw for a wife, 
 which he liked better than her. Lord ! dad, you 
 ought to have seen what stuff I made up.' The 
 boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine laugh, and 
 Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in 
 his own coarse, brutal fashion. 
 
 For some moments they sat there looking in 
 each other's faces, shaking with sympathetic 
 emotion, the father forgetting the purpose of his 
 
THREE PARTNERS 235 
 
 coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and 
 even the rendezvous to which his horse in the 
 road below was waiting to bring him ; the son 
 forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hill and 
 his shameful vagabond wanderings with that father 
 in the years that followed. The sinking sun 
 stared blankly in their faces ; the protecting pines 
 above them moved by a stronger gust shook 
 a few cones upon them ; an enormous crow 
 mockingly repeated the father s coarse laugh, and 
 a squirrel scampered away from the strangely 
 assorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and 
 forehead with his pocket-handkerchief, said : 
 1 And did you send it ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said 
 that those sort of love-sick fools made more fuss 
 over little things than they did over big things, 
 and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up him- 
 self. But it told. For there were never any 
 more letters in the post office in her handwriting, 
 and there wasn't any posted to her in his.' 
 
 They both laughed again, and then Steptoe 
 rose. ' I must be getting along,' he said, looking 
 curiously at the boy. ' I've got to catch a train 
 at Three Boulders Station.' 
 
 'Three Boulders?' repeated the boy. 'I'm 
 going there, too, on Friday, to meet Father 
 Cipriano/ 
 
236 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' I reckon my work will be all done by Friday/ 
 said Steptoe musingly. Standing thus, holding 
 his boy's hand, he was thinking that the real 
 fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, 
 for it might take a day or two for Marshall to 
 gather forces. But he only pressed his son's hand 
 gently. 
 
 1 1 wish you would sometimes take me with 
 you as you used to,' said the boy curiously. ' I'm 
 bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way.' 
 
 Steptoe looked at the boy w T ith a choking 
 sense of satisfaction and pride. But he said, 
 ' No,' and then suddenly, with stimulated 
 humour, ' don't you be taken in by any letters 
 from me, such as you and Van Loo used to write. 
 You hear ? ' 
 
 The boy laughed. 
 
 1 And,' continued Steptoe, 'if anybody says I 
 sent for you, don't you believe them.' 
 
 1 No,' said the boy smiling. 
 
 1 And don't you even believe I'm dead till 
 you see me so. You understand. By the 
 way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept 
 for you. Now, hurry back to school and say you 
 met me, but that I was in a great hurry. I 
 reckon I may have been rather rough to the 
 priests.' 
 
 They had reached the lower road again, and 
 
THREE PARTNERS 237 
 
 Steptoe silently unhitched his horse. ' Good-bye,' 
 he said, as he laid his hand on the boy's arm. 
 
 1 Good-bye, dad.' 
 
 He mounted his horse slowly. 'Well,' he 
 said smilingly, looking down the road, ' you ain't 
 got anything more to say to me, have you ?' 
 
 ' No, dad.' 
 
 1 Nothin' you want ? ' 
 
 1 Nothin', dad.' 
 
 ' All right. Good-bye.' 
 
 He put spurs to his horse and cantered down 
 the road without looking back. The boy watched 
 him until out of sight with idle curiosity, and then 
 went on his way whistling and striking off the 
 heads of the wayside weeds with his walking- 
 stick. 
 
=33 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the 
 morning after the meeting of the three partners 
 that it was small wonder that Barker's impres- 
 sionable nature quickly responded to it, and, 
 without awakening the still sleeping child, he 
 dressed hurriedly, and was the first to greet it in 
 the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To 
 his pantheistic spirit it had always seemed as 
 natural for him to early welcome his returning 
 brothers of the woods and hills as to say ' Good- 
 morning ' to his fellow mortals. And, in the joy 
 of seeing Black Spur rising again to his level in 
 the distance before him, he doffed his hat to it 
 with a return of his old boyish habit, laid his arm 
 caressingly around the great girth of the nearest 
 pine, clapped his hands to the scampering squirrels 
 in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays. In 
 this way he quite forgot the more serious affairs 
 of the preceding night, or, rather, saw them only 
 in the gilding of the morning, until, looking up, 
 he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approach- 
 
THREE PARTNERS S39 
 
 ing him ; and then it struck him with his first 
 glance at his old partner's face that his usual suave, 
 gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a critical 
 cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of 
 accent. Barker's loyal heart smote him for his 
 own selfishness ; Demorest had been hard hit by 
 the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern 
 in it, and had doubtless passed a restless night, 
 while he (Barker) had forgotten all about it. ' I 
 thought of knocking at your door as I passed,' he 
 said, with sympathetic apology, ' but I was afraid 
 I might disturb you. Isn't it glorious here? 
 Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard, he 
 hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you 
 remember the one who used to steal our sugar and 
 then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the 
 bowl until he looked like an ornamental handle 
 to it ? ' he continued, rebounding again into spirits. 
 
 ' Barker,' said Demorest abruptly, ' what sort 
 of woman is this Mrs. Van Loo, whose rooms I 
 occupy ? ' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Barker, with optimistic innocence, 
 'a most proper woman, old chap. White-haired, 
 well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and a 
 still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't sup- 
 pose we'd •' 
 
 1 But what is she like ? ' said Demorest im- 
 patiently. 
 
240 1 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 'Well,' said Barker thoughtfully, 'she's the 
 kind of woman who might be Van Loo's mother, 
 I suppose.' 
 
 ' You mean the mother of a forger and a 
 swindler ? ' asked Demorest sharply. 
 
 1 There are no mothers of swindlers and for- 
 gers,' said Barker gravely, ' in the way you mean. 
 It's only those poor devils,' he said, pointing, 
 nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling 
 sparrow-hawk above him, ' who have inherited 
 instincts. What I mean is that she might be Van 
 Loo's mother, because he didn't select her.' 
 
 ' Where did she come from ? and how loner 
 has she been here ? ' asked Demorest. 
 
 1 She came from abroad I believe. And she 
 came here just after you left. Van Loo, after he 
 became Secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for 
 her and her daughters to keep house for him. 
 But you'll see her to-day or to-morrow probably, 
 when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll be 
 rather glad to meet some one from abroad, and 
 all the more if he happens to be rich and distin- 
 guished, and eligible for her daughters.' He 
 stopped suddenly in his smile, remembering De- 
 morest's life-long secret. But to his surprise his 
 companion's face, instead of darkening as it was 
 wont to do at any such allusion, brightened sud- 
 denly with a singular excitement as he answered 
 drily, ' Ah well, if the girls are pretty, who knows ! ' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 241 
 
 Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned 
 with strange vivacity as they walked back to the 
 hotel, and he asked many other questions regard- 
 ing Mrs. Van Loo and her daughters, and parti- 
 cularly if the daughters had also been abroad. 
 When they reached the verandah they found a 
 few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento 
 papers, which had just arrived, or, in little knots, 
 discussing the news. Indeed, they would probably 
 have stopped Barker and his companion had not 
 Barker, anxious to relieve his friend's curiosity, 
 hurried with him at once to the manager's 
 office. 
 
 * Can you tell me exactly when you expect 
 Mrs. Van Loo to return?' asked Barker quickly. 
 
 The manager with difficulty detached himself 
 from the newspaper which he, too, was anxiously 
 perusing, and said with a peculiar smile, ' Well no ! 
 she was to return to-day, but if you're wanting to 
 keep her rooms, I should say there wouldn't be 
 any trouble about it, as she'll hardly be coming 
 back here now. She's rather high and mighty in 
 style, I know, and a determined sort of critter, but 
 I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't care much 
 to be waltzing round in public after what has 
 happened.' 
 
 ' 1 don't understand you,' said Demorest im- 
 patiently. ' What has happened ? ' 
 
2.p THREE PARTNERS 
 
 'Haven't you heard the news?' said the 
 manager in surprise. ' It's in all the Sacramento 
 papers. Van Loo is a defaulter — has hypothecated 
 everything he had and skedaddled.' 
 
 Barker started. He was not thinking of the 
 loss of his wife's money — only of her disappoint- 
 ment and mortification over it. Poor girl ! 
 Perhaps she was also worrying over his resent- 
 ment, as if she did not know him ! He would 
 go to her at once at Boomville. Then he 
 remembered that she was coming with Mrs. 
 Horncastle, and might be already on her way 
 here by rail or coach, and he would miss her. 
 Demorest in the meantime had seized a paper, 
 and was intently reading it. 
 
 ' There's bad news, too, for your friend, your 
 old partner,' said the manager half sympathetically, 
 half interrogatively. ■ There has been a drop out 
 in everything the bank is carrying, and every- 
 body is unloading. Two firms failed in "Frisco 
 yesterday that were carrying things for the bank, 
 and have thrown everything back on it. There 
 was an awful panic last night, and they say none 
 of the big speculators know where they stand. 
 Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed 
 off to the Bay this morning, but Stacy himself 
 started before daylight, and got the through night 
 express to stop for him on " The Divide " on signal. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 243 
 
 Shall I send any telegrams that may come to 
 your room ? ' 
 
 Demorest knew that the manager suspected 
 him of being interested in the bank, and under- 
 stood the purport of the question. He answered, 
 with calm surprise, that he was expecting no tele- 
 grams, and added, ' But if Mrs. Van Loo returns 
 I beg you to at once let me know,' and taking 
 Barker's arm he went in to breakfast. Seated by 
 themselves, Demorest looked at his companion. 
 * I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is 
 more serious to Jim than we expected last 
 night, or than he cared to tell us. And you, 
 old man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's 
 flight. He had some money of your wife's, hadn't 
 he? 
 
 Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's 
 
 fortune was in Stacy's hands, was touched at this 
 
 proof of his unselfish thought, and answered with 
 
 equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by 
 
 the fear of Mrs. Barker's disappointment. -• Why, 
 
 Lord ! Phil, whether she's lost or saved her 
 
 money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do 
 
 what she liked with it, but I'm afraid she'll be 
 
 worrying over what / think of it, as if she did 
 
 not know me! And I'm half a mind, if it were 
 
 not for missing her, to go over to Boomville, 
 
 where she's stopping.' 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' I thought you said she was in San Francisco,' 
 said Demorest abstractedly, 
 
 Barker coloured. * Yes,' he answered quickly. 
 1 But I've heard since that she stopped at Boom- 
 ville on the way.' 
 
 ' Then don't let me keep you here,' returned 
 Demorest. ' For if Jim telegraphs to me I shall 
 start for San Francisco at once, and I rather think 
 he will. I did not like to say so before those 
 panic-mongers outside who are stampeding every- 
 thing ; so run along, Barker boy, and ease your 
 mind about the wife. We may have other 
 things to think about soon.' 
 
 Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half- 
 finished breakfast and slipped away. Yet he was 
 not quite certain what to do ; his wife must have 
 heard the news at Boomville as quickly as he had, 
 and, if so, would be on her way with Mrs. Horn- 
 castle ; or she might be waiting for him, knowing, 
 too, that he had heard the news, in fear and 
 trembling. For it was Barker's custom to endow 
 all those he cared for with his own sensitiveness, 
 and it was not like him to reflect that the 
 woman who had so recklessly speculated against 
 his opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches 
 in her defeat. In the fulness of his heart he 
 telegraphed to her in case she had not yet 
 left Boomville : ■ All right. Have heard news. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 245 
 
 Understand perfectly. Don't worry. Come to 
 me.' Then he left the hotel by the stable 
 entrance in order to evade the guests who had 
 congregated on the verandah, and made his way 
 to a little wooded crest which he knew com- 
 manded a view of the two roads from Boom- 
 ville. Here he determined to wait and inter- 
 cept her before she reached the hotel. He knew 
 that many of the guests were aware of his wife's 
 speculations with Van Loo, and that he was her 
 broker. He wished to spare her running the 
 gauntlet of their curious stares and comments as 
 she drove up alone. As he was climbing the 
 slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past 
 him on the road below, but he knew that it had 
 changed horses at Boomville at four o'clock, and 
 that his tired wife would not have availed herself 
 of it at that hour, particularly as she could not 
 have yet received the fateful news. He threw 
 himself under a large pine, and watched the stage 
 coach disappear as it swept round into the court- 
 yard of the hotel. 
 
 He sat there for some moments with his eyes 
 bent upon the two forks of the red road that 
 diverged below him, but which appeared to become 
 whiter and more dazzling as he searched their 
 distance. There was nothing to be seen except an 
 occasional puff of dust which eventually revealed a 
 
246 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a 
 solitary mule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, 
 would momentarily emerge and be lost again. 
 Then he suddenly heard his name called, and, 
 looking up, saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had halted 
 a few paces from him between two "columns of 
 the long-drawn aisle of pines. 
 
 In that mysterious half-light she seemed such 
 a beautiful and goddess-like figure that his 
 consciousness at first was unable to grasp any- 
 thing else. She was always wonderfully well 
 dressed, but the warmth and seclusion of this 
 mountain morning had enabled her to wear a 
 licrht £own of some delicate fabric which set off 
 the grace of her figure, and even pardoned the 
 rural coquetry of a silken sash around her still 
 slender waist. An open white parasol thrown 
 over her shoulder made a nimbus for her charm- 
 ing head and the thick coils of hair under her 
 lace-edged hat. He had never seen her look so 
 beautiful before. And that thought was so 
 plainly in his frank face and eyes as he sprang to 
 his feet that it brought a slight rise of colour to 
 her own cheek. 
 
 i I saw you climbing up here as I passed in 
 the coach a few minutes ago,' she said with a 
 smile, ' and as soon as I had shaken the dust off 
 I followed you.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 247 
 
 i Where's Kitty?' he stammered. 
 
 The colour faded from her face as it had 
 come, and a shade of something like reproach 
 crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it had 
 been her purpose to say, or however carefully she 
 might have prepared herself for this interview, 
 she was evidently taken aback by the sudden 
 directness of the inquiry. Barker saw this as 
 quickly, and as quickly referred it to his own 
 rudeness. His whole soul rushed in apology to 
 his face as he said, ' Oh, forgive me ! I was 
 anxious about Kitty ; indeed, I had thought 
 of coming again to Boomville, for you've 
 heard the news, of course ? Van Loo is a 
 defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's 
 money.' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the 
 hotel. She paused a moment to collect herself, 
 and then said slowly and tentatively, with a 
 watchful intensity in her eyes, * Mrs. Barker 
 went, I think, to " The Divide " ' 
 
 But she was instantly interrupted by the eager 
 Barker. *■ I see. I thought of that at once. 
 She went directly to the company's offices to see 
 if she could save anything from the wreck before 
 she saw me. It was like her, poor girl! And 
 you — you,' he went on eagerly, his whole face 
 beaming with gratitude, ' you, out of your goodness, 
 
24$ THREE PARTNERS 
 
 came here to tell me.' He held out both hands 
 and took hers in his. 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless 
 and vacillating. She had often noticed before 
 that it was part of the irony of the creation of 
 such a simple nature as Barker's that he was 
 not only open to deceit, but absolutely seemed 
 to invite it. Instead of making others franker, 
 people were inclined to rebuke his credulity by 
 restraint and equivocation on their own part. 
 But the evasion thus offered to her, although 
 only temporary, was a temptation she could 
 not resist. And it prolonged an interview that 
 a ruthless revelation of the truth might have 
 shortened. 
 
 ' She did not tell me she was going there/ 
 she replied still evasively, ' and, indeed,' she 
 added, with a burst of candour still more 
 dangerous, ■ I only learned it from the hotel 
 clerk after she was gone. But I want to talk 
 to you about her relations to Van Loo,' she said, 
 with a return of her former intensity of gaze, 
 ' and I thought we would be less subject to 
 interruption here than at the hotel. Only I 
 suppose everybody knows this place, and any of 
 those flirting couples are likely to come here. 
 Besides,' she added, with a little half-hysterical 
 laugh and a slight shiver, as she looked up at the 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 249 
 
 high interlacing of the boughs above her head, 
 1 it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really 
 one feels as if one was " speaking out " in meeting. 
 Isn't there some other spot a little more secluded, 
 where we could sit down,' she went on, as she 
 poked her parasol into the usual black gunpowdery 
 deposit of earth which mingled with the carpet of 
 pine needles beneath her feet, ' and not get all 
 sticky and dirty ? ' 
 
 Barker's eyes sparkled. ' I know every foot 
 of this hill, Mrs. Horncastle,' he said, 'and if you 
 will follow me I'll take you to one of the loveliest 
 nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian 
 spring now forgotten, and I think known only to 
 me and the birds. It's not more than ten 
 minutes from here ; only ' — he hesitated as he 
 caught sight of the smart French-bronze buckled 
 shoe and silken ankle which Mrs. Horncastle's 
 gathering up of her dainty skirts around her had 
 disclosed — ' it may be a little rough and dusty- 
 going to your feet.' 
 
 But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had 
 already irretrievably ruined her shoes and stock- 
 ings in climbing up to him — although Barker 
 could really distinguish no diminution of their 
 freshness — and that she might as well go on. 
 Whereat they both passed down the long aisle of 
 slope to a little hollow of manzanito, which again 
 
 V 4 OF It, 
 
250 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 opened to a view of Black Spur, but left the 
 hotel hidden. 
 
 • What time did Kitty go ? ' began Barker 
 eagerly, when they were half down the slope. 
 
 But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon 
 the glassy pine needles, and not only stopped an 
 answer, but obliged Barker to give all his attention 
 to keep his companion from falling again until 
 they reached the open. Then came the plunge 
 through the manzanito thicket, then a cool wade 
 through waist-deep ferns, and then they emerged, 
 holding each other's hand, breathless and panting 
 before the spring. 
 
 It did not belie his enthusiastic description. 
 A triangular hollow, niched in a shelf of the 
 mountain-side, narrowed to a point from which 
 the overflow of the spring percolated through 
 a fringe of alder, to fall in what seemed from 
 the valley to be a green furrow down the 
 whole length of the mountain side. Overhung 
 by pines above, which met and mingled with 
 the willows that everywhere fringed it, it made 
 the one cooling shade in the whole basking 
 expanse of the mountain, and yet was pene- 
 trated throughout by the intoxicating spice of 
 the heated pines. Flowering reeds and long 
 lush grasses drew a magic circle round an open 
 bowl-like pool in the centre, that was always 
 
They emerged, holding each other's hand. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 051 
 
 replenished to the slow murmur of an unseen 
 rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavern in 
 the mountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. 
 Shadows of timid wings crossed it, quick rustlings 
 disturbed the reeds, but nothing more. It was 
 silent, but breathing ; it was hidden to everything 
 but the sky and the illimitable distance. 
 
 They threaded their way around it on the 
 spongy carpet, covered by delicate lace-like 
 vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel 
 their moving feet, until they reached an open 
 space before the pool. It was cushioned and 
 matted with disintegrated pine bark, and here 
 they sat down. Mrs. Horncastle furled her 
 parasol and laid it aside ; raised both hands to 
 the back of her head and took two hairpins out, 
 which she placed in her smiling mouth, removed 
 her hat, stuck the hairpins in it, and handed it to 
 Barker, who gently placed it on the top of a tall 
 reed, where during the rest of that momentous 
 meeting it swung and drooped like a flower, 
 removed her gloves slowly, drank still smilingly 
 and gratefully nearly a wineglass full of the water 
 which Barker brought her in the green twisted 
 chalice of a lily leaf, looked the picture of 
 happiness, and then burst into tears. 
 
 Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror- 
 stricken. Mrs. Horncastle crying! Mrs. I lorn-. 
 
252 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 castle, the imperious, the collected, the coldly 
 critical, the cynical smiling woman of the world, 
 actually crying ! Other women might cry — Kitty 
 had cried often — but Mrs. Horncastle ! Yet, 
 there she was, sobbing ; actually sobbing like 
 a school-girl, her beautiful shoulders rising and 
 falling with her grief; crying unmistakably 
 through her long white fingers, through a lace 
 pocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly 
 produced and shaken from behind her like a 
 conjurer's trick ; crying through her beautiful 
 eyes, a thousand times more lustrous for the 
 sparkling beads that brimmed her lashes and 
 welled over like the pool before her. 
 
 1 Don't mind me,' she murmured behind her 
 handkerchief. ■ It's very foolish, I know. I 
 was nervous — worried, I suppose ; I'll be better 
 in a moment. Don't notice me, please.' 
 
 But Barker had drawn beside her and was 
 trying, after the fashion of his sex, to take her 
 handkerchief away, in apparently the firm belief 
 that this action would stop her tears. ' But tell 
 me what it is. Do, Mrs. Horncastle, please,' he 
 pleaded in his boyish fashion. ' Is it anything I 
 can do ? Only say the word ; only tell me some- 
 thing ! ' 
 
 But he had succeeded in partially removing 
 the handkerchief, and so caught a glimpse of 
 
THREE PARTNERS 253 
 
 her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled 
 out like sunshine through rain. But they clouded 
 again, although she didn't cry, and her breath 
 came and went with the action of a sob, and her 
 hands still remained against her flushed face. 
 
 1 I was only going to talk to you of Kitty ' 
 — (sob) — 'but I suppose I'm weak' — (sob) — 'and 
 such a fool ' — (sob) — ' and I got to thinking of 
 myself and my own sorrows when I ought to be 
 thinking only of you and Kitty.' 
 
 * Never mind Kitty,' said Barker impulsively. 
 1 Tell me about yourself — your own sorrows. I 
 am a brute to have bothered you about her at 
 such a moment ; and now/ until you have told 
 me what is paining you so I shall not let you 
 speak of her.' He was perfectly sincere. What 
 were Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss 
 of her money to the unknown agony that could 
 wrench a sob from a woman like this ? ' Dear 
 Mrs. Horncastle,' he went on as breathlessly, 
 1 think of me now not as Kitty's husband, but as 
 your true friend. Yes, as your best and truest 
 friend, and speak to me as you would speak to 
 him.' 
 
 1 You will be my friend ? ' she said suddenly 
 and passionately, grasping his hand, ' my best and 
 truest friend ? and if I tell you all — everything, 
 you will not cast me from you and hate me ? ' 
 
2_;4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Barker felt the same thrill from her warm 
 hand slowly possess his whole being as it had 
 the evening before, but this time he was prepared 
 and answered the grasp and her eyes together as 
 he said breathlessly, ' I will be — I am your friend.' 
 
 She withdrew her hand and passed it over her 
 eyes. After a moment she caught his hand again, 
 and, holding it tightly as if she feared he might 
 fly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without 
 looking at him, said, ' I lied to you about myself 
 and Kitty that night; I did not come with her. 
 I came alone and secretly to Boomville to see — to 
 see the man who is my husband.' 
 
 ' Your husband ! ' said Barker in surprise. 
 He had believed, with the rest of the world, that 
 there had been no communication between them 
 for years. Yet so intense was his interest in her 
 that he did not notice that this revelation was 
 leaving now no excuse for his wife's presence at 
 Boomville. Mrs. Horn castle went : on' ■with dogged 
 bitterness, ' Yes, my husband. I went to him to 
 beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, 
 my child,' she said frantically, tightening her hold 
 upon his hand, ' for I lied to you when I once 
 told you I had none. I had a child, and, more 
 than that, a child who at his birth I did not dare 
 to openly claim.' 
 
 She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face 
 
THREE PARTNERS 255 
 
 with her former intensity, as if she would pluck the 
 thought that followed from his brain. But he 
 only moved closer to her, passed his arm over her 
 shoulders with a movement so natural and protec- 
 ting that it had a certain dignity in it, and looking 
 down upon her bent head with eyes brimming 
 with sympathy, whispered, ' Poor, poor child ! 
 
 Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into 
 tears. And then, with her head half-drawn to- 
 wards his shoulder, she told him all — all that had 
 passed between her husband — even all that they 
 had then but hinted at. It was as if she felt she 
 could now, for the first time, voice all these terrible 
 memories of the past which had come back to her 
 last night when her husband had left her. She 
 concealed nothing, she veiled nothing ; there were 
 intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a 
 cruel hardness and return of her old imperiousness 
 of voice and manner took their place, as if she 
 was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satis- 
 faction in laying bare her whole soul to him. ' I 
 never had a friend,' she whispered ; 'there were 
 women who persecuted me with their jealous 
 sneers ; there were men who persecuted me 
 with their selfish affections. When I first saw 
 you, you seemed something so apart and different 
 from all other men that, although I scarcely knew 
 you, I wanted to tell you, even then, all that I 
 
256 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 have told you now. I wanted you to be my 
 friend ; something told me that you could — that 
 you could separate me from my past ; that you 
 could tell me what to do ; that you could make 
 me. think as you thought, see life as you saw it, 
 and trust always to some goodness in people as you 
 did. And in this faith I thought that you would 
 understand me now, and even forgive me all.' 
 
 She made a slight movement as if to disengage 
 her arm, and, possibly, to look into his eyes, which 
 she knew instinctively were bent upon her down- 
 cast head. But he only held her the more tightly 
 until her cheek was close against his breast. 
 1 What could I do ? ' she murmured. ' A man in 
 sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sym- 
 pathy and support and the world will not gainsay 
 or misunderstand him. But a woman — weaker, 
 more helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving 
 for light — must not in her agony go to a man for 
 succour and sympathy.' 
 
 1 Why should she not ? ' burst out Barker 
 passionately, releasing her in his attempt to gaze 
 into her face. ' What man dare refuse her ? ' 
 
 ' Not that,' she said slowly, but with still averted 
 eyes, ' but because the world would say she loved 
 him.' 
 
 ' And what should she care for the opinion of 
 a world that stands aside and lets her suffer? 
 
THREE PARTNERS 257 
 
 Why should she heed its wretched babble?' he 
 went on in flashing indignation. 
 
 4 Because,' she said faintly, lifting her moist 
 eyes and moist and parted lips towards him, 
 1 because it would be true ! ' 
 
 There was a silence so profound that even the 
 spring seemed to withhold its song, as their 
 eyes and lips met. When the spring recommenced 
 its murmur, and they could hear the droning of a 
 bee above them and the rustling of the reed, she 
 was murmuring, too, with her face against his 
 breast : ' You did not think it strange that I should 
 follow you — that I should risk everything to tell 
 you what I have told you before I told you any- 
 thing else ? You will never hate me for it, 
 George ? ' 
 
 There was another silence still more prolonged, 
 and when he looked again into the flushed face and 
 glistening eyes he was saying, ' I have always loved 
 you. I know now I loved you from the first, 
 from the day when I leaned over you to take little 
 11 Sta " from your lap and saw your tenderness for 
 him in your eyes. I could have kissed you then, 
 dearest, as I do now.' 
 
 'And,' she said, when she had gained her 
 smiling breath again, ' you will always remember, 
 George, that you told me this before I told you 
 anything of her/ 
 
258 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' Her ? Of whom, dearest ? ' he asked, lean- 
 ing over her tenderly. 
 
 ' Of Kitty, of your wife,' she said impatiently, 
 as she drew back shyly with her former intense 
 gaze. 
 
 He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but 
 said gravely, ' Let us not talk of her now. Later 
 we shall have much to say of her. For,' he added 
 quietly, 'you know I must tell her all' 
 
 The colour faded from her cheek. ■ Tell her 
 all ! ' she repeated vacantly ; then suddenly she 
 turned upon him eagerly and said, ' But what if 
 she is gone ? ' 
 
 * Gone ? ' he repeated. 
 
 ' Yes ; gone. What if she has run away with 
 Van Loo ? What if she has disgraced you and 
 her child ? ' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' he said, seizing both 
 her hands and gazing at her fixedly. 
 
 ' 1 mean,' she said with a half-frightened 
 eagerness, ' that she has already gone with Van 
 Loo. George! George!' she burst out suddenly 
 and passionately, falling upon her knees before him, 
 'do you think that I would have followed you 
 here and told you what I did if I thought that she 
 had now the slightest claim upon your love or 
 honour ? Don't you understand me ? I came to 
 tell you of her flight to Boomville with that man ; 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 259 
 
 how I accidentally intercepted them there ; how I 
 tried to save her from him, and even lied to you 
 to try to save her from your indignation ; but 
 how she deceived me as she has you, and even 
 escaped and joined her lover while you were with 
 me. I came to tell you that and nothing more, 
 George, I swear it. But when you were kind to 
 me and pitied me, I was mad — wild! I wanted 
 to win you first out of your own love. I wanted 
 you to respond to mine before you knew your wife 
 was faithless. Yet I would have saved her if I 
 could. Listen, George ! A moment more before 
 you speak ! ' 
 
 Then she hurriedly told him all ; the whole 
 story of his wife's dishonour, from her entrance 
 into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later 
 appeal for concealment from her husband's unex- 
 pected presence, to the use she made of that con- 
 cealment to fly with her lover. She spared no 
 detail, and even repeated the insult Mrs. Barker 
 had cast upon her with the triumphant reproach 
 that her husband would not believe her. ' Per- 
 haps,' she added bitterly, i you may not believe me 
 now. I could even stand that from you, George, 
 if it could make you happier ; but you would still 
 have to believe it from others. The people at the 
 Boomville Hotel saw them leave it together.' 
 
 1 I do believe you,' he said slowly but with 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 downcast eyes, ' and if I did not love you before 
 you told me this I could love you now for the 
 part you have taken ; but ' He stopped. 
 
 ' You love her still/ she burst out, ' and I 
 might have known it. Perhaps,' she went on, 
 distractedly, ' you love her the more that you 
 have lost her. It is the way of men — and women.' 
 
 ' If I had loved her truly,' said Barker, lifting 
 his frank eyes to hers, ' I could not have touched 
 your lips. I could not even have wished to — 
 as I did three years ago — as I did last night. 
 Then I feared it was my weakness, now I know 
 it was my love. I have thought of it ever since, 
 - even while waiting my wife's return here, knowing 
 that I did not and never could have loved her. 
 But for that very reason I must try to save her 
 for her own sake, if I cannot save her for mine ; 
 and if I fail, dearest, it shall not be said that we 
 climbed to happiness over her back bent with the 
 burden of her shame. If I loved you and told 
 you so, thinking her still guiltless and innocent, 
 how could I profit now by her fault ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. 
 * Then you would take her back ? ' she said 
 frenziedly. 
 
 ' To my home — which is hers — yes. To my 
 heart — no. She never was there.' 
 
 'And /,' said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering 
 
THREE PARTNERS 261 
 
 lip, 'where do I go when you have settled this? 
 Back to my past again ? Back to my husbandless, 
 childless life ? ' 
 
 She was turning away, but Barker caught her 
 in his arms again. ' No,' he said, his whole face 
 suddenly radiating w T ith hope and youthful en- 
 thusiasm. ' No ! Kitty will help us ; we will 
 tell her all. You do not know her, dearest, as I 
 do — how good and kind she is, in spite of all. 
 We will appeal to her ; she will devise some 
 means by which, without the scandal of a divorce, 
 she and I may be separated. She will take dear 
 little " Sta " with her — it is only right, poor girl ; 
 but she will let me come and see him. She will 
 be a sister to us, dearest. Courage ! All will 
 come right yet. Trust to me.' 
 
 A hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's 
 lips and then stopped. For as she looked up at 
 him in his supreme hopefulness, his divine con- 
 fidence in himself and others — at his handsome face 
 beaming with love and happiness, and his clear 
 grey eyes, glittering with an almost spiritual 
 prescience — she, woman of the world and bitter 
 experience, and perfectly cognisant of her own 
 and Kitty's possibilities, was, nevertheless, com- 
 pletely carried away by her lover's optimism. For 
 of all optimism that of love is the most con- 
 vincing. Dear boy ! — for he was but a boy in 
 
262 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 experience — only his love for her could work this 
 magic. So she gave him kiss for kiss, largely- 
 believing, largely hoping that Mrs. Barker was in 
 love with Van Loo and would not return. And 
 in this hope an invincible belief in the folly of her 
 own sex soothed and sustained her. 
 
 'We must go now, dearest,' said Barker, 
 pointing to the sun already near the meridian. 
 Three hours had fled, they knew not how. ' I 
 will bring you back to the hill again, but there we 
 had better separate, you taking your way alone 
 to the hotel as you came, and I will go a little 
 way on the road to " The Divide " and return later. 
 Keep your own counsel about Kitty for her sake 
 and ours ; perhaps no one else may know the 
 truth yet.' With a farewell kiss they plunged 
 again hand in hand through the cool bracken and 
 again through the hot manzanito bushes, and 
 so parted on the hill-top, as they had never parted 
 before, leaving their whole world behind them. 
 
 Barker walked slowly along the road under 
 the flickering shade of wayside sycamore, his 
 sensitive face also alternating with his thought 
 in lights and shadows. Presently there crept 
 towards him out of the distance a halting, 
 vacillating, deviating buggy, trailing a cloud of 
 dust after it like a broken wing. As it came 
 nearer he could see that the horse was spent and 
 
THREE PARTNERS 263 
 
 exhausted, and that the buggy's sole occupant — a 
 woman — was equally exhausted in her monotonous 
 attempt to urge it forward with whip and reins 
 that rose and fell at intervals with feeble reiteration. 
 Then he stepped out of the shadow and stood in 
 the middle of the sunlit road to await it. For he 
 recognised his wife. 
 
 The buggy came nearer. And then the most 
 exquisite pang he had ever felt before at his wife's 
 hands shot through him. For as she recognised 
 him she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash 
 past him, and then as suddenly pulled up in the 
 ditch. 
 
 He went up to her. She was dirty, she was 
 dishevelled, she was haggard, she was plain. 
 There were rings of dust round her tear-sw r ept 
 eyes and smudges of dust-dried perspiration over 
 her fair cheek. He thought of the beauty, fresh- 
 ness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, 
 and an infinite pity swept the soul of this weak- 
 minded gentleman. He ran towards her, and 
 tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments 
 from the buggy, said hurriedly, ' I know it all, 
 poor Kitty ! You heard the news of Van Loo's 
 flight, and you ran over to M The Divide " to try 
 and save some of your money. Why didn't you 
 wait ? Why didn't you tell me ? ' 
 
 There was no mistaking the reality of his 
 
264 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 words, the genuine pity and tenderness of his 
 action ; but the woman saw before her only 
 the familiar dupe of her life, and felt an infinite 
 relief mingled with a certain contempt for his 
 weakness, and anger at her previous fears of him. 
 
 ' You might have driven over, then, yourself,' 
 she said in a high, querulous voice, ' if you knew 
 it so well, and have spared me this horrid, dirty, 
 filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not saved 
 anything — there ! And I have had all this dis- 
 gusting bother ! ' 
 
 For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift 
 his eyes to her face, but he checked himself; then 
 he gently took her dust coat from her shoulders 
 and shook it out, wiped the dust from her face 
 and eyes with his own handkerchief, held her hat 
 and blew the dust from it with a vivid memory of 
 performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle 
 only an hour before, while she arranged her hair ; 
 and then, lifting her again into the buggy, said 
 quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped 
 the reins : 
 
 1 1 will drive you to the hotel by way of the 
 stables, and you can go at once to your room 
 and change your clothes. You are tired, you 
 are nervous and worried, and want rest. Don't 
 tell me anything now until you feel quite yourself 
 again.' 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 He whipped up the horse, who, recognising 
 another hand at the reins, lunged forward in a 
 final effort, and in a few minutes they were at the 
 hotel. 
 
 As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the 
 great dining-room, a little pale and abstracted, 
 she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently into the 
 room, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing 
 toilette. With a swift glance of conscious power 
 towards the other guests she walked towards Mrs. 
 Horncastle. 'Ah, here you are, dear,' she said 
 in a voice that could easily reach all ears, 'and 
 you've arrived only a little before me, after all ! 
 And I've had such an awful drive to "The 
 Divide ! " And only think ! poor George tele- 
 graphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and 
 his despatch has only just come back here.' 
 
 And with a glance of complacency she laid 
 Barker's gentle and forgiving despatch before the 
 astonished Mrs. Horncastle. 
 
266 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 As the day advanced the excitement over the 
 financial crisis increased at Hymettus until, in 
 spite of its remote and peaceful isolation, it seemed 
 to throb through all its verandahs and corridors 
 with some pulsation from the outer world. 
 Besides the letters and despatches brought by 
 hurried messengers and by coach from ' The 
 Divide,' there was a crowd of guests and 
 servants around the branch telegraph at the new 
 Heavy Tree post office which was constantly 
 augmenting. Added to the natural anxiety of the 
 deeply interested was the stimulated fever of the 
 few who wished to be ' in the fashion.' It was 
 early rumoured that a heavy operator, a guest of 
 the hotel, who was also a director in the Tele- 
 graph Company, had bought up the wires for his 
 sole use, that the despatches were doctored in his 
 interests as a bear, and there was wild talk of 
 ' lynching ' by the indignant mob. Passengers 
 from Sacramento, San Francisco, and Marysville 
 brought incredible news and the wildest sensations. 
 
THREE PARTNERS 267 
 
 Firm after firm had failed in the great cities. 
 Old-established houses that dated back to the 
 'spring of 49/ and had weathered the fires and 
 inundations of their perilous Californian infancy, 
 collapsed before this mysterious, invisible, im- 
 palpable breath of panic. Companies rooted in 
 respectability and sneered at for old-fashioned 
 ways were discovered to have shamelessly specu- 
 lated with Trusts ! An eminent deacon and 
 pillar of the Church was found dead in his room 
 with a bullet in his heart and a damning con- 
 fession on the desk before him ! Foreign bankers 
 were sending their gold out of the country ; 
 Government would be appealed to to open the 
 vaults of the Mint ; there would be an embargo 
 on all bullion shipment ! Nothing was too wild 
 or preposterous to be repeated or credited. 
 
 And with this fever of sordid passion the 
 snmmer temperature had increased. For the last 
 two weeks the thermometer had stood abnormally 
 high during the day-long sunshine ; and the 
 metallic dust in the roads over mineral ranges 
 pricked the skin like red-hot needles. In the 
 deepest woods the aromatic sap stood in beads 
 on felled logs and splintered tree-shafts ; even 
 the mountain night breeze failed to cool these 
 baked and heated fastnesses. There were ominous 
 clouds of smoke by day that were pillars of fire by 
 
268 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 night along the distant valleys. Some of the 
 nearer crests were etched against the midnight 
 sky by dull red creeping lines like a dying fire- 
 work. The great hotel itself creaked and 
 crackled and warped through all its painted, 
 blistered, and veneered expanse, and was filled 
 with the stifling breath of desiccation. The 
 stucco cracked and crumbled away from the 
 cornices ; there were yawning gaps in the boarded 
 floors beneath the Turkey carpets. Plate-glass 
 windows became hopelessly fixed in their warped 
 and twisted sashes, and added to the heat ; there 
 was a warm incense of pine sap in the dining-room 
 that flavoured all the cuisine. And yet the babble 
 of stocks and shares went on, and people pricked 
 their ears over their soup to catch the gossip of 
 the last arrival. 
 
 Demorest, loathing it all in his new-found 
 bitterness, was nevertheless impatient in his in- 
 action, and was eagerly awaiting a telegram from 
 Stacy ; Barker had disappeared since luncheon. 
 Suddenly there was a commotion on the verandah 
 as a carriage drove up with a handsome, grey- 
 haired woman. In the buzzing of voices around 
 him Demorest heard the name of Mrs. Van Loo. 
 In further comments, made in more smothered 
 accents, he heard that Van Loo had been stopped 
 at Canon Station, but that no warrant had yet 
 
THREE PARTNERS 269 
 
 been issued against him ; that it was generally- 
 believed that the bank dared not hold him ; that 
 others openly averred that he had been used as a 
 scapegoat to avert suspicion from higher guilt. 
 And certainly Mrs. Van Loo's calm, confident air 
 seemed to corroborate these assertions. 
 
 He was still wondering if the strange coinci- 
 dence which had brought both mother and son 
 into his own life was not merely a fancy, as far as 
 she was concerned, when a waiter brought a 
 message from Mrs. Van Loo that she would be 
 glad to see him for a few moments in her room. 
 Last night he could scarcely have restrained his 
 eagerness to meet her and elucidate the mystery 
 of the photograph ; now he was conscious of an 
 equally strong revulsion of feeling, and a dull pre- 
 monition of evil. However, it was no doubt 
 possible that the man had told her of his previous 
 inquiries, and she had merely acknowledged them 
 by that message. 
 
 Demorest found Mrs. Van Loo in the private 
 sitting-room where he and his old partner had 
 supped on the preceding night. She received 
 him with unmistakable courtesy and even a 
 certain dignity that might or might not have been 
 assumed. He had no difficulty in recognising the 
 son's mechanical politeness in the first, but he was 
 puzzled at the second. 
 
270 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 ' The manager of this hotel,' she began, with 
 a foreigner's precision of English, ' has just told 
 me that you were at present occupying my rooms 
 at his invitation, but that you wished to see me at 
 once on my return, and I believe that I was not 
 wrong in apprehending that you preferred to 
 hear my wishes from my own lips rather than 
 from an innkeeper. I had intended to keep these 
 rooms for some weeks, but, unfortunately for me, 
 though fortunately for you, the present terrible 
 financial crisis, which has most unjustly brought 
 my son into such scandalous prominence, will 
 oblige me to return to San Francisco until his 
 reputation is fully cleared of these foul asper- 
 sions. I shall only ask you to allow me the 
 undisturbed possession of these rooms for a 
 couple of hours until I can pack my trunks and 
 gather up a few souvenirs that I almost always 
 keep with me.' 
 
 ' Pray consider that your wishes are my own 
 in respect to that, my dear madam,' returned 
 Demorest gravely, * and that, indeed, I protested 
 against even this temporary intrusion upon your 
 apartments ; but I confess that now that you 
 have spoken of your souvenirs I have the greatest 
 curiosity about one of them, and that even my 
 object in seeking this interview was to gratify 
 it. It is in regard to a photograph which I saw 
 
THREE PARTNERS 271 
 
 on the chimney-piece in your bedroom, which I 
 think I recognised as that of someone whom I 
 formerly knew.' 
 
 There was a sudden look of sharp suspicion 
 and even hard aggressiveness that quite changed 
 the lady's face as he mentioned the word 
 1 souvenir,' but it quickly changed to a smile as 
 she put up her fan with a gesture of arch deprecia- 
 tion, and said : 
 
 ' Ah ! I see. Of course, a lady's photograph.' 
 
 The reply irritated Demorest. More than 
 that, he felt a sudden sense of the absolute 
 sentimentality of his request, and the conscious- 
 ness that he was about to invite the familiar 
 confidence of this strange woman — whose son 
 had forged his name — in regard to her ! 
 
 ' It was a Venetian picture,' he began, and 
 stopped, a singular disgust keeping him from 
 voicing the name. 
 
 But Mrs. Van Loo was less reticent. 'Oh, 
 you mean my dearest friend — a lovely picture, 
 and you know her ? Why, yes, surely. You are 
 
 the Mr. Demorest who Of course, that 
 
 old love affair. Well, you are a marvel ! Five 
 years ago, at least, and you have not forgotten ! 
 I really must write and tell her.' 
 
 * Write and tell her ! ' Then it was all a lie 
 about her death ! He felt not only his faith, his 
 
272 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 hope, his future leaving him, but even his self- 
 control. With an effort he said : 
 
 1 1 think you have already satisfied my 
 curiosity. I was told five years ago that she was 
 dead. It was because of the date of the photo- 
 graph — two years later — that I ventured to 
 intrude upon you. I was anxious only to know 
 the truth.' 
 
 ' She certainly was very much living and of 
 the world when I saw her last, two years ago,' 
 said Mrs. Van Loo with an easy smile. ■ I dare 
 say that was a ruse of her relatives — a very 
 stupid one — to break off the affair, for I think 
 they had other plans. But, dear me ! now I 
 remember, was there not some little quarrel 
 between you before ? Some letter from you that 
 was not very kind ? My impression is that there 
 was something of the sort, and that the young 
 lady was indignant. But only for a time, you 
 know. She very soon forgot it. I dare say if 
 you wrote something very charming to her it 
 might not be too late. We women are very 
 forgiving, Mr. Demorest, and although she is 
 very much sought after, as are all young American 
 girls whose fathers can give them a comfortable 
 dot, her parents might be persuaded to throw 
 over a poor Prince for a rich countryman in the end. 
 Of course, you know, to you Republicans there 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 273 
 
 is always something fascinating in titles and 
 blood, and our dear friend is like other girls. 
 Still, it is worth the risk. And five years of 
 waiting and devotion really ought to tell. It's 
 quite a romance ! Shall I write to her and tell 
 her I have seen you, looking well and prosperous ? 
 Nothing more. Do let me! I should be 
 delighted.' 
 
 ' I think it hardly worth while for you to give 
 yourself that trouble,' said Demorest quietly, 
 looking in Mrs. Van Loo's smiling eyes, ' now 
 that I know the story of the young lady's death 
 was a forgery. And I will not intrude further on 
 your time. Pray give yourself no needless hurry 
 over your packing. I may go to San Francisco 
 this afternoon, and not even require the rooms 
 to-night.' 
 
 1 At least, let me make you a present of the 
 souvenir as an acknowledgment of your courtesy,' 
 said Mrs. Van Loo, passing into her bedroom 
 and returning with the photograph. ' I feel that 
 with your five years of constancy it is more yours 
 than mine.' As a gentleman Demorest knew 
 he could not refuse, and taking the photograph 
 from her with a low bow, with another final 
 salutation he withdrew. 
 
 Alone by himself in a corner of the verandah, 
 he was surprised that the interview had made 
 
 T 
 
274 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 so little impression on him, and had so little 
 altered his conviction. His discovery that the 
 announcement of his betrothed's death was a 
 fiction did not affect the fact that though living 
 she was yet dead to him, and apparently by 
 her own consent. The contrast between her 
 life and his during those five years had been 
 covertly accented by Mrs. Van Loo, whether 
 intentionally or not, and he saw again as last 
 night the full extent of his sentimental folly. 
 He could not even condole with himself that he 
 was the victim of miserable falsehoods that others 
 had invented. She had accepted them, and had 
 even excused her desertion of him by that last 
 deceit of the letter. 
 
 He drew >out her photograph and again 
 examined it, but not as a lover. Had she really 
 grown stouter and more self-complacent ? Was 
 the spirituality and delicacy he had worshipped 
 in her purely his own idiotic fancy ? Had she 
 always been like this ? Yes. There was the 
 girl who could weakly strive, weakly revenge 
 herself, and weakly forget. There was the figure 
 that he had expected to find carved upon the 
 tomb that] he had long sought that he might 
 weep over. He laughed aloud. 
 
 It was very hot, and he was stifling with 
 inaction. What was Barker doing, and why had 
 
THREE PARTNERS 275 
 
 not Stacy telegraphed to him ? And what were 
 those people in the courtyard doing ? Were 
 they discussing news of further disaster and ruin ? 
 Perhaps he was even now a beggar. Well, his 
 fortune might go with his faith. 
 
 But the crowd was simply looking at the roof 
 of the hotel, and he now saw that a black smoke 
 was drifting across the courtyard, and was conscious 
 of a smell of soot and burning. He stepped 
 down from the verandah among the mingled 
 guests and servants, and saw that the smoke was 
 only pouring from a chimney. He heard, too, 
 that the chimney had been on fire, and that it was 
 Mrs. Van Loo's bedroom chimney, and that when 
 the startled servants had knocked at the locked 
 door she told them that she was only burning some 
 old letters and newspapers, the refuse of her trunks. 
 There was naturally some indignation that the 
 hotel had been so foolishly endangered, in such 
 scorching weather, and the manager had had a 
 scene with her which resulted in her leaving the 
 hotel indignantly with her half-packed boxes. But 
 even after the smoke had died away and the fire 
 been extinguished in the chimney and hearth, 
 there was an acrid smell of smouldering pine 
 penetrating the upper floors of the hotel all that 
 afternoon. 
 
 When Mrs. Van Loo drove away the manager 
 
 t 2 
 
276 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 returned with Demorest to the rooms. The 
 marble hearth was smoked and discoloured and 
 still littered with charred ashes of burnt paper. 
 1 My belief is,' said the manager darkly, ' that the 
 old hag came here just to burn up a lot of in- 
 criminating papers that her son had entrusted to 
 her keeping. It looks mighty suspicious. You 
 see she got up an awful lot of side when I told 
 her I didn't reckon to run a smelting furnace in 
 a wooden hotel with the thermometer at one 
 hundred in the office, and I reckon it was just an 
 excuse for getting off in a hurry.' 
 
 But the continued delay in Stacy's promised 
 telegram had begun to work upon Demorest's 
 usual equanimity, and he scarcely listened in his 
 anxiety for his old partner. He knew that Stacy 
 should have arrived in San Francisco by noon. 
 He had almost determined to take the next 
 train from ' The Divide ' when two horsemen 
 dashed into the courtyard. There was the usual 
 stir on the verandah and rush for news, but the 
 two new arrivals turned out to be Barker, on 
 a horse covered with foam, and a dashing, 
 elegantly dressed stranger on a mustang as 
 carefully groomed and as spotless as himself. 
 Demorest instantly recognised Jack Hamlin. 
 
 He had not seen him since that day, four years 
 before, when he had accompanied the three 
 
THREE PARTNERS 277 
 
 partners with their treasure to Boomville, and 
 when he had handed him the mysterious packet. 
 As he and Barker dismounted hurriedly and 
 moved towards him, he felt a premonition of 
 something as fateful and important as then. In 
 obedience to a sign from Barker he led them to a 
 more secluded angle of the verandah. He could 
 not help noticing that his younger partner's face 
 was mobile as ever, but more thoughtful and 
 older ; yet his voice rang with the old freemasonry 
 of the camp, as he said, with a laugh, ' The 
 signal has been given, and it's boot and saddle 
 and away.' 
 
 'But I have had no despatch from Stacy,' 
 said Demorest in surprise. ' He was to tele- 
 graph to me from San Francisco in any 
 emergency.' 
 
 ' He never got there at all,' said Barker. 
 1 Jack ran slap into Van Loo at " The Divide," and 
 sent a despatch to Jim, which stopped him half- 
 way, until Jack could reach him, which he nearly 
 broke his neck to do ; and then Jack finished up 
 by bringing a message from Stacy to us that we 
 should all meet together on the slope of Heavy 
 Tree, near the Bar. I met Jack just as I was 
 riding into " The Divide," and came back with 
 him. He will tell you the rest, and you can 
 swear by what Jack says, for he's white all 
 
278 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 through,' he added, laying his hand affectionately 
 on Hamlin's shoulder. 
 
 Hamlin winced slightly. For he had not 
 told Barker that his wife was with Van Loo, nor 
 his first reason for interfering. But he related 
 how he had finally overtaken Van Loo at Canon 
 Station, and how the fugitive had disclosed 
 Steptoe and Hall's conspiracy against the bank 
 and Marshall as the price of his own release. 
 On this news, remembering that Stacy had 
 passed \ The Divide ' on his way to the station, he 
 had first sent a despatch to him, and then met 
 him at the first station on the road. ' I reckon, 
 gentlemen,' said Hamlin, with an unusual earnest- 
 ness in his voice, ' that he'd not only got my 
 telegram, but all the news that had been flying 
 around this morning, for he looked like a man to 
 whom it was just a " toss up " whether he took his 
 own life then and there or was willing to have 
 somebody else take it for him, for he said, M I'll 
 go myself," and telegraphed to have the surveyor 
 stopped from coming. Then he told me to tell 
 you fellows, and ask you to come too.' Jack 
 paused, and added half mischievously, ' He sort 
 of asked me what I would take to stand by him 
 in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd 
 take — whiskey ! You see, boys, it's a kind of off- 
 night with me, and I wouldn't mind for the sake 
 
THREE PARTNERS 279 
 
 of old times to finish the game with old Steptoe 
 that I began a matter of five years ago.' 
 
 * All right,' said Demorest with a kindling 
 eye ; ' I suppose we'd better start at once. One 
 moment,' he added. ' Barker boy, will you excuse 
 me if I speak a word to Hamlin ? ' As Barker 
 nodded and walked to the rails of the verandah, 
 Demorest took Hamlin aside. ' You and I,' he 
 said hurriedly, ' are single men ; Barker has a 
 wife and child. This is likely to be no child's 
 play.' 
 
 But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from 
 certain leading questions which Barker had 
 already put, but which he had skilfully evaded, 
 he surmised that Barker knew something of his 
 wife's escapade. He answered a little more 
 seriously than his wont, ' I don't think as regards 
 his wife that would make much difference to him 
 or her how stiff the v/ork was.' 
 
 Demorest turned away with his last pang of 
 bitterness. It needed only this confirmation of 
 all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had 
 seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since 
 his return, to shake his last remaining faith . 
 1 We'll all go together, then,' he said with a laugh > 
 * as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that 
 we have no woman in our confidence.' 
 
 An hour later the three men passed quietly ou t 
 
280 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 of the hotel, scarcely noticed by the other guests, 
 who were also oblivious of their absence during 
 the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered 
 from her fatiguing ride, was in high spirits and 
 the most beautiful and spotless of summer gowns, 
 and was considered quite a heroine by the other 
 ladies as she dwelt upon the terrible heat of her 
 return journey. ' Only I knew Mr. Barker 
 would be worried — and the poor man actually 
 walked a mile down " The Divide " road to meet 
 me — I believe I should have stayed there all day.' 
 She glanced round the other groups for Mrs. 
 Horncastle, but that lady had early retired. 
 Possibly she alone had noticed the absence of the 
 two partners. 
 
 They sat up until quite late, for the heat 
 appeared to grow still more oppressive, and the 
 strange smell of burning wood revived the gossip 
 about Mrs. Van Loo and her stupidity in setting 
 fire to her chimney. Some averred that it would 
 be days before the smell could be got out of the 
 house ; others referred it to the fires in the woods 
 which were now dangerously near. One spoke of 
 the isolated position of the hotel as affording the 
 greatest security, but was met by the assertion of 
 a famous mountaineer that the forest fires were 
 wont to leap from crest to crest mysteriously with- 
 out any apparent continuous contact. This led 
 
THREE PARTNERS 281 
 
 to more or less light-hearted conjecture of pre- 
 sent danger and some amusing stories of hotel 
 fires and their ludicrous revelations. There were 
 also some entertaining speculations as to what they 
 would do and what they would try to save in such 
 an emergency. 
 
 1 For myself,' said Mrs. Barker audaciously, ' I 
 should certainly let Mr. Barker look after " Sta ' 
 and confine myself entirely to getting away with 
 my diamonds. I know the wretch would never 
 think of them.' 
 
 It was still later when, exhausted by the heat 
 and some reaction from the excitement of the day, 
 they at last deserted the verandah for their 
 rooms, and for a while the shadowy bulk of the 
 whole building was picked out with regularly 
 spaced lights from its open windows, until now 
 these finally faded and went out one by one. An 
 hour later the whole building had sunk to rest. 
 It was said that it was only four in the morning 
 when a yawning porter, having put out the light 
 in a dark, upper corridor, was amazed by a dull 
 glow from the top of the wall, and awoke to the 
 fact that a red fire, as yet smokeless and flameless, 
 was creeping along the cornice. He ran to the 
 office and gave the alarm ; but on returning with 
 assistance, was stopped in the corridor by an 
 impenetrable wall of smoke veined with murky 
 
282 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 flashes. The alarm was given in all the lower 
 floors, and the occupants rushed from their beds 
 half-dressed to the courtyard, only to see, as they 
 afterwards averred, the flames burst like cannon 
 discharges from the upper windows and unite 
 above the crackling roof. So sudden and complete 
 was the catastrophe, although slowly prepared by 
 a leak in the overheated chimney between the 
 floors, that even the excitement of fear and exertion 
 were spared the survivors. There was bewilder- 
 ment and stupor, but neither uproar nor confusion. 
 People found themselves wandering in the woods, 
 half-awake and half-dressed, from the balconies 
 they had descended and the windows they had 
 leaped they knew not how. Others on the upper 
 floor neither awoke nor moved from their beds, 
 but were suffocated without a cry. From the first 
 an instinctive idea of the hopelessness of combating 
 the conflagration possessed them all ; to a blind, 
 automatic feeling to flee the building was added 
 the slow mechanism of the somnambulist ; deli- 
 cate women walked speechlessly, but securely, 
 along ledges and roofs from which they would 
 have fallen by the mere light of reason and of day. 
 There was no crowding or impeding haste in 
 their dumb exodus. It was only when Mrs. 
 Barker awoke dishevelled in the courtyard, and 
 with a hysterical outcry rushed back into the hotel, 
 
THREE PARTNERS 283 
 
 that there was any sign of panic. For Mrs. Horn- 
 castle, who was standing near her, fully dressed as 
 from some night-long vigil, quickly followed her. 
 The half-frantic woman was making directly for 
 her own apartments again, whose windows those 
 in the courtyard could see were already belching 
 smoke. Suddenly Mrs. Horncastle stopped with 
 a bitter cry and clasped her forehead. It had 
 just flashed upon her that Mrs. Barker had told 
 her only a few hours before that ■ Sta ' had been 
 removed with the nurse to the upper floor \ It 
 was not the forgotten child that Mrs. Barker was 
 returning for, but her diamonds ! Mrs. Horncastle 
 called her ; she did not reply. The smoke was 
 already pouring down the staircase. Mrs. Horn- 
 castle hesitated for a moment only, and then, 
 drawing a long breath, dashed up the stairs. On 
 the first landing she stumbled over something — 
 the prostrate figure of the nurse. But this saved 
 her, for she found that near the floor she could 
 breathe more freely. Before her appeared to be 
 an open door. She crept along towards it on her 
 hands and knees. The frightened cry of a child, 
 awakened from its sleep in the dark, gave her 
 nerve to rise, enter the room and dash open 
 the window. By the flashing light she could see 
 a little figure rising from a bed. It was 'Sta.' 
 There was not a moment to be lost, for the open 
 
2«4 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 window was beginning to draw the smoke from the 
 passage. Luckily, the boy, by some childish 
 instinct, threw his arms round her neck and left 
 her hands free. Whispering him to hold tight, 
 she clambered out of the window. A narrow ledge 
 of cornice scarcely wide enough for her feet ran 
 along the house to a distant balcony. With her 
 back to the house she zigzagged her feet along 
 the cornice to get away from the smoke, which 
 now poured directly from the window. Then she 
 grew dizzy ; the weight of the child on her bosom 
 seemed to be toppling her forward towards the abyss 
 below. She closed her eyes, frantically grasp- 
 ing the child with crossed arms on her breast 
 as she stood on the ledge until, as seen from 
 below through the twisting smoke, she might have 
 seemed a figure of the Madonna and Child niched 
 in the wall Then a voice from above called to 
 her, ' Courage ! ' and she felt the flap of a twisted 
 sheet lowered from an upper window against her 
 face. She grasped it eagerly ; it held firmly. 
 Then she heard a cry from below, saw them 
 carrying a ladder, and at last was lifted with her 
 burden from the ledge by powerful hands. Then 
 only did she raise her eyes to the upper window 
 whence had come her help. Smoke and flame 
 were pouring from it. The unknown hero who 
 
THREE PARTNERS 2S5 
 
 had sacrificed his only chance of escape to her 
 remained for ever unknown. 
 
 Only four miles away that night a group of 
 men were waiting for the dawn in the shadow of 
 a pine near Heavy Tree Bar. As the sky glowed 
 redly over the crest between them and Hymettus, 
 Hamlin said : 
 
 ' Another one of those forest fires. It's this 
 side of Black Spur, and a big one, I reckon.' 
 
 ' Do you know,' said Barker thoughtfully, ■ I 
 was thinking of the time the old cabin burnt 
 up on Heavy Tree. It looks to be about in the 
 same place.' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' said Stacy sharply. 
 
286 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 An abandoned tunnel — an irregular orifice in the 
 mountain flank which looked like a dried-up sewer 
 that had disgorged through its opening the refuge 
 of the mountain in red slime, gravel, and a pecu- 
 liar clay known as ' cement ' in a foul streak down 
 its side— a narrow ledge on either side, broken up 
 by heaps of quartz, tailings, and rock, and half 
 hidden in scrub, oak, and myrtle ; a decaying 
 cabin of logs, bark and cobble stones — these 
 made up the exterior of the Marshall claim. To 
 this defacement of the mountain, the rude clearing 
 of thicket and underbrush by fire or blasting, the 
 lopping of tree-boughs and the decapitation of 
 saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of 
 half-civilised occupancy. The ground before the 
 cabin was covered with broken boxes, tin cans, 
 the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the 
 cast-off rags of blankets and clothing. The whole 
 claim in its unsavoury, unpicturesque details, and 
 its vulgar story of sordid, reckless and selfish 
 
THREE PARTNERS 287 
 
 occupancy and abandonment, was a foul blot on 
 the landscape, which the first rosy dawn only 
 made the more offending. Surely the last spot 
 in the world that men should quarrel and fight for ! 
 So thought George Barker, as with his com- 
 panions they moved in single file slowly towards 
 it. The little party consisted only of himself, 
 Demorest, and Stacy ; Marshall and Hamlin — 
 according to a pre-arranged plan — were still in 
 ambush to join them at the first appearance of 
 Steptoe and his gang. The claim was yet un- 
 occupied ; they had secured their first success. 
 Steptoe's followers, unaware that his design had 
 been discovered, and confident that they could 
 easily reach the claim before Marshall and the 
 surveyor, had lingered. Some of them had held 
 a drunken carouse at their rendezvous at Heavy 
 Tree. Others were still engaged in procuring 
 shovels and picks and pans for their mock equip- 
 ment as miners, and this, again, gave Marshall's 
 adherents the advantage. They knew that their 
 opponents would probably first approach the 
 empty claim encumbered only with their peaceful 
 implements, while they themselves had brought 
 their rifles with th em 
 
 Stacy, who, by tacit consent, led the party, on 
 reaching the claim at once posted Demorest and 
 Barker each behind a separate heap of quartz 
 
288 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 tailings on the ledge, which afforded them a 
 capital breastwork, and stationed himself at the 
 mouth of the tunnel which was nearest the trail. 
 It had already been arranged what each man was 
 to do. They were in possession. For the rest 
 they must wait. What they thought at that 
 moment no one knew. Their characteristic ap- 
 pearance had slightly changed. The melancholy 
 and philosophic Demorest was alert and bitter. 
 Barker's changeful face had become fixed and 
 steadfast. Stacy alone wore his ' fighting look,' 
 which the others had remembered. 
 
 They had not long to wait. The sounds of 
 rude laughter, coarse skylarking, and voices more 
 or less still confused with half-spent liquor came 
 from the rocky trail. And then Steptoe appeared 
 with part of his straggling followers, who were 
 celebrating their easy invasion by clattering their 
 picks and shovels and beating loudly upon their 
 tins and prospecting pans. The three partners 
 quickly recognised the stamp of the strangers, in 
 spite of their peaceful implements. They were 
 the waifs and strays of San Francisco wharves, of 
 Sacramento dens, of dissolute mountain towns ; 
 and there was not, probably, a single actual miner 
 among them. A raging scorn and contempt took 
 possession of Barker and Demorest, but Stacy 
 knew their exact value. As Steptoe passed before 
 
THREE PARTNERS 2 8 9 
 
 the opening of the tunnel he heard the cry of 
 ■ Halt ! ' 
 
 He looked up. He saw Stacy not thirty yards 
 before him with his rifle at half-cock. He saw 
 Barker and Demorest, fully armed, rise from 
 behind their breastworks of rock along the ledge 
 and thus fully occupy the claim. But he saw 
 more. He saw that his plot was known. Out- 
 law and desperado as he was, he saw that he 
 had lost his moral power in this actual possession, 
 and that from that moment he must be the ag- 
 gressor. He saw he was fighting no irresponsible 
 hirelings like his own, but men of position and im- 
 portance, whose loss would make a stir. Against 
 their rifles the few revolvers that his men chanced 
 to have slung to them were of little avail. But 
 he was not cowed, although his few followers 
 stumbled together at this momentary check, half 
 angrily, half timorously, like wolves without a 
 leader. ' Bring up the other men and their 
 guns,' he whispered fiercely to the nearest. Then 
 he faced Stacy. 
 
 ' Who are you to stop peaceful miners going 
 to work on their own claim ? ' he said coarsely. 
 • I'll tell you wAo, boys,' he added, suddenly turn- 
 ing to his men with a hoarse laugh. ' It ain't even 
 the bank! It's only Jim Stacy that the bank 
 kicked out yesterday to save itself — Jim Stacy 
 
 u 
 
290 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 and his broken-down pals. And what's the thief 
 doing here — in Marshall's tunnel — the only spot 
 that Marshall can claim ? We ain't no particular 
 friends o' Marshall's, though we're neighbours 
 on the same claim ; but we ain't going to see 
 Marshall ousted by tramps. Are we, boys ? ' 
 
 1 No, by G — d ! ' said his followers, dropping 
 the pans and seizing their picks and revolvers. 
 They understood the appeal to arms if not to 
 their reason. For an instant the fight seemed im- 
 minent. Then a voice from behind them said : 
 
 ' You needn't trouble yourselves about that ! 
 Fm Marshall! I sent these gentlemen to occupy 
 the claim until I came here with the surveyor,' 
 and two men stepped from a thicket of myrtle in 
 the rear of Steptoe and his followers. The 
 speaker, Marshall, was a thin, slight, overworked, 
 over-aged man ; his companion, the surveyor, 
 was equally slight, but red bearded, spectacled 
 and professional-looking, with a long travelling- 
 duster that made him appear even clerical. They 
 were scarcely a physical addition to Stacy's party, 
 whatever might have been their moral and legal 
 support. 
 
 But it was just this support that Steptoe 
 strangely clung to in his designs for the future, 
 and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was 
 really the only disinterested witness between 
 
THREE PARTNERS 
 
 291 
 
 the two parties. If Steptoe could confuse his 
 mind before the actual fighting — from which he 
 would, of course, escape as a non-combatant — it 
 would go far afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe's 
 party. ' Very well, then,' he said to Marshall, ' I 
 shall call this gentleman to witness that we have 
 been attacked here in peaceable possession of our 
 part of the claim by these armed strangers, and 
 whether they are acting on your order or not, 
 their blood will be on your head.' 
 
 ' Then I reckon,' said the surveyor, as he tore 
 away his beard, wig, spectacles, and moustache, 
 and revealed the figure of Jack Hamlin, 'that I'm 
 about the last witness that Mr. Steptoe- Horncastle 
 ought to call, and about the last witness that he 
 ever will call ! ' 
 
 But he had not calculated upon the desperation 
 of Steptoe over the failure of this last hope. For 
 there sprang up in the outlaw's brain the same 
 hideous idea that he voiced to his companions at 
 1 The Divide.' With a hoarse cry to his followers, 
 he crashed his pickaxe into the brain of Marshall, 
 who stood near him, and sprang forward. Three 
 or four shots were exchanged. Two of his men 
 fell, a bullet from Stacy's rifle pierced his leg, and 
 he dropped forward on one knee. He heard the 
 steps of his reinforcements with their weapons 
 coming close behind him, and rolled aside on the 
 
292 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 sloping ledge to let them pass. But he rolled 
 too far. He felt himself slipping down the 
 mountain-side in the slimy shoot of the tunnel. 
 He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, 
 but the treacherous drift of the loose ddbris rolled 
 with him, as if he were part of its refuse, and, 
 carrying him down, left him unconscious, but 
 otherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second 
 ledge five hundred feet below. 
 
 When he recovered his senses the shouts and 
 outcries above him had ceased. He knew he was 
 safe. The ledge could only be reached by a 
 circuitous route three miles away. He knew, too, 
 that if he could only reach a point of outcrop a 
 hundred yards away he could easily descend to 
 the stage road, down the gentle slope of the 
 mountain hidden in a growth of hazelbrush. He 
 bound up his wounded leg and dragged himself 
 on his hands and knees laboriously to the outcrop. 
 He did not look up ; since his pick had crashed 
 into Marshall's brain he had but one blind thought 
 before him — to escape at once ! That his revenge 
 and compensation would come later he never 
 doubted. He limped and crept, rolled and fell, 
 from bush to bush through the sloping thickets 
 until he saw the red road a few feet below him. 
 
 If he only had a horse he could put miles 
 between him and any present pursuit ! Why 
 
THREE PARTNERS 293 
 
 should he not have one ? The road was frequented 
 by solitary horsemen — miners and Mexicans. 
 He had his revolver with him ; what mattered the 
 life of another man if he escaped from the conse- 
 quences of the one he had just taken ? He heard 
 the clatter of hoofs ; two priests on mules rode 
 slowly by ; he ground his teeth with disappoint- 
 ment. But they had scarcely passed before 
 another and more rapid clatter came from their 
 rear. It was a lad on horseback. He started. 
 It was his own son ! 
 
 He remembered in a flash how the boy had 
 said he was coming to meet the padre at the 
 station on that day. His first impulse was to 
 hide himself, his wound, and his defeat from the 
 lad, but the blind idea of escape was still para- 
 mount. He leaned over the bank and called to 
 him. The astonished lad cantered eagerly to his 
 side. 
 
 1 Give me your horse, Eddy,' said the father ; 
 1 I'm in bad luck, and must get.' 
 
 The boy glanced at his father's face, at his 
 tattered garments and bandaged leg, and read 
 the whole story. It was a familiar page to him. 
 He paled first and then flushed, and then, with 
 an odd glitter in his- eyes, said, ' Take me with 
 you, father. Do! You always did before. I'll 
 bring you luck.' 
 
294 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 Desperation is superstitious. Why not take 
 him ! They had been lucky before, and the two 
 together might confound any description of their 
 identity to the pursuers. ' Help me up, Eddy, 
 and then get up before me.' 
 
 'Behind, you mean,' said the boy with a 
 laugh, as he helped his father into the saddle. 
 
 'No,' said Steptoe harshly, 'Before me, do 
 you hear ? And if anything happens behind you, 
 don't look! If I drop off, don't stop ! Don't get 
 down, but go on and leave me. Do you under- 
 stand ? ' he repeated almost savagely. 
 
 * Yes,' said the boy tremulously. 
 
 'All right,' said the father with a softer voice 
 as he passed his one arm round the boy's body 
 and lifted the reins. ' Hold tight when we come 
 to the cross roads, for we'll take the first turn, for 
 old luck's sake, to the Mission.' 
 
 They were the last words exchanged between 
 them, for as they wheeled rapidly to the left at 
 the cross roads, Jack Hamlin and Demorest 
 swung as quickly out of another road to the right 
 immediately behind them. Jack's challenge to 
 'Halt!' was only answered by Steptoe's horse 
 springing forward under the sharp lash of the riata. 
 
 ' Hold up ! ' said Jack suddenly, laying his 
 hand upon the rifle which Demorest had lifted 
 to his shoulder. ' He's carrying someone. A 
 
THREE PARTNERS 295 
 
 wounded comrade, I reckon. We don't want 
 him. Swing out and go for the horse ; well 
 forward, in the neck or shoulder.' 
 
 Demorest swung far out to the right of the road 
 and raised his rifle. As it cracked, Steptoe's horse 
 seemed to have suddenly struck some obstacle 
 ahead of him rather than to have been hit himself, 
 for his head went down with his fore feet under 
 him, and he turned a half-summersault on the 
 road, flinging his two riders a dozen feet away. 
 
 Steptoe scrambled to his knees, revolver in 
 hand, but the other figure never moved. ' Hands 
 up ! ' said Jack, sighting his own weapon. The 
 reports seemed simultaneous, but Jack's bullet 
 had pierced Steptoe's brain even before the out- 
 law's pistol exploded harmlessly in the air. 
 
 The two men dismounted, but by a common 
 instinct they both ran to the prostrate figure that 
 had never moved. 
 
 ' By God ! it's a boy ! ' said Jack, leaning over 
 the body and lifting the shoulders from which the 
 head hung loosely. 'Neck broken and dead as 
 his pal.' Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's 
 astonishment, began hurriedly pulling off the glove 
 from the boy's limp right hand. 
 
 ' What are you doing ? ' demanded Demorest 
 in creeping horror. 
 
 ' Look ! ' said Jack, as he laid bare the small 
 
296 THREE PARTNERS 
 
 white hand. The two first fingers were merely- 
 unsightly stumps that had been hidden in the 
 padded glove. 
 
 1 Good God ! Van Loo's brother ! ' said 
 Demorest recoiling. 
 
 ' No ! ' said Jack, with a grim face, ' it's what 
 I have long suspected — it's Steptoe's son ! ' 
 
 ' His son ?' repeated Demorest. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Jack ; and he added, after looking 
 at the two bodies with a long drawn whistle of 
 concern, 'and I wouldn't, if I were you, say 
 anything of this to Barker.' 
 
 1 Why ? ' said Demorest. 
 
 ' Well,' returned Jack ; * when our scrimmage 
 was over down there, and they brought the news 
 to Barker that his wife and her diamonds were 
 burnt up at the hotel, you remember that they 
 said that Mrs. Horncastle had saved his boy.' 
 
 1 Yes,' said Demorest ; ' but what has that to 
 do with it ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, I reckon,' said Jack, with a slight 
 shrug of his shoulders, ' only Mrs. Horncastle 
 was the mother of the boy that's lying there.' 
 
 Two years later as Demorest and Stacy sat 
 before the fire in the old cabin on Marshall's 
 claim — now legally their own — they looked from 
 the door beyond the great bulk of Black Spur to 
 
THREE PARTNERS 297 
 
 the pallid snow line of the Sierras, still as 
 remote and unchanged to them as when they had 
 gazed upon it from Heavy Tree Hill. And, for 
 the matter of that, they themselves seemed to 
 have been left so unchanged that, even now, as 
 in the old days, it was Barker's voice as he greeted 
 them from the darkening trail that alone broke 
 their reverie. 
 
 ' Well,' said Demorest cheerfully, ' your usual 
 luck, Barker boy ! ' for they already saw in his face 
 the happy light they had once seen there on an 
 eventful night seven years ago. 
 
 ( I'm to be married to Mrs. Horncastle next 
 month,' he said breathlessly, 'and little " Sta " 
 loves her already as if she was his own mother. 
 Wish me joy.' 
 
 A slight shadow passed over Stacy's face. 
 But his hand was the first to grasp Barker's and 
 his voice the first to say ■ Amen ! ' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Spotthwoodc & Co. Printers, New-street Square, London. 
 
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 Martyrdom of Madeline 
 
 Love Me for Ever. 
 
 Annan Water. 
 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 
 ROB. BUCHANAN & HY. MURRAY 
 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 By J. MITCHELL CHAPPLE. 
 The Minor Chord. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 The Shadow of a Crime. I The Deemster. 
 A Son of Hagar. 
 
 By ANNE COATES. 
 Rie's Diary. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 
 The Red Sultnn. | The Burden of Isabel. 
 
 By WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 Armadale. T AfterDark. 
 No Name. | Antonina 
 Basil. I Hide and Seek. 
 The Dea:d Secret. 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 My Miscellanies. 
 The Woman in White. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Miss Finch. 
 Miss or Mrs. ? 
 TSe New Magdalen. 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 
 The Two Destinies. 
 The Law and the Lady. 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 The Fallen L saves. 
 Jezebel's Daughter. 
 The Black Robe. 
 Heart and Science. 
 • I Say No." 
 Little Novels. 
 The Evil Genius. 
 The Legacy of Cain. 
 A Rogue's Life. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 From Midnight to Mid- 
 night. 
 You Play me FalS8. 
 COOPER. 
 
 Transmigration, 
 Blacksmith & Scholar. 
 The Village Comedy. 
 
 By E. H 
 
 Geoffory Hamilton. 
 
 By V. CECIL COTES. 
 
 Two Girls on a Barge. 
 
 By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 
 His Vanished Star. 
 
 By H. N. CRELLIN. 
 
 Romances of tho Old Seraglio. 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 
 The Adventures of a Fair Rebel. 
 
 By S. R. CROCKETT and others 
 
 Tales of Our Coast. 
 
 By B. M. CROKER. 
 
 The Real Lady Hilda. 
 Married or Single ? 
 Two Masters. 
 IntheKingdom of Kerry 
 Interference. 
 A Third Person, 
 
 Diana Barrington. 
 Proper Pride. 
 A Family Likeness. 
 Pretty Miss Neville. 
 A Bird of Passage. 
 'To Let.' I Mr. Jervls. 
 Village Tales & Jungle 
 Tragedies. 
 
 By WILLIAM CYPLES. 
 Hearts of Gold. 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 The Evangelist j or, Tort Salvation. 
 
 By H. COLEMAN DAVIDSON. 
 
 Mr. Sadler's Daughters. 
 
 By ERASMUS DAWSON. 
 
 The Fountain of Youth. 
 
 By JAMES DE MILLE. 
 
 A Castle in Spain. 
 
 By. J. LEITH DERWENT. 
 
 Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN. 
 Tracked to Doom. I The Mystery of Jamaica 
 
 Man from Manchester. | Terrace. 
 The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch. 
 
 By RICHARD DOWLING. 
 Old Corcoran's Money. 
 
 By A. CONAN DOYLE. 
 The Firm of Gird'estone. 
 
 By S. JEANNETTE DUNCAN. 
 A Daughter of Today. | Vernon s Aunt. 
 By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 The New Mistress. I The Tiger Lily. 
 
 Witness to the Deed. | The White Virgin. 
 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD. 
 Fatal Zero. 
 
 By R. E. FRANCILLON. 
 One by One. j Ropes of Sand. 
 
 A Dog and his Shadow. Jack Doyle s Daughter. 
 A Real Queen. 
 
 Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE. 
 Panduiang Hari. 
 
 BY EDWARD GARRETT. 
 The Capel Girls. 
 
 By PAUL GAULOT. 
 The Red Shirts. 
 
 By CHARLES GIBBON. 
 Robin Gray. I Of High Degree. 
 
 Loving a Dream. | The Golden Shaft. 
 
 By E. GLANVILLE. 
 The Lost Heiress. I The Golden Rock. 
 
 A Fair Colonist. Tales from the Veld* 
 
 The Fossicker. I 
 
 By E. J. GOODMAN. 
 The Fate of Herbert Wayne. 
 
 By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. 
 Red Spider. | Eve. 
 
 By CECIL GRIFFITH. 
 
 Corinthla Marazion, 
 
38 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels— continued. 
 
 By SYDNEY GRUNDY. 
 The Days of his Vanity. 
 
 By OWEN HALL. 
 
 The Track of a Storm. | Jetsam. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By BRET HARTE. 
 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 A Ward of the Golden 
 Gate. [Springs. 
 
 A Sappho of Green 
 Col. Starbottle's Client 
 Susy. I Sally Dows 
 Bell Ringer of Angel's, 
 
 A Protegee of Jack 
 
 Hamlin s. 
 Clarence. 
 Barker's Luck. 
 Devil's Ford, [cels'or. 1 
 The Crusade of the ' Ex- 
 Three Partners. 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Beatrix Randolph. 
 
 David Poindexters Dis- 
 appearance. 
 
 The Spectre of the 
 Camera. 
 
 Garth 
 
 Ellice Quentin. 
 
 Sebastian Stroma 
 
 Dust. 
 
 Fortune's Fool. 
 
 By Sir A. HELPS. 
 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 By I. HENDERSON. 
 Agatha Page. 
 
 By G. A. HENTY. 
 Rujub the Juggler. I The Queen's Cup. 
 
 Dorothy's Double. 
 
 By JOHN HILL. 
 The Common Ancestor. 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 
 I.ady Verner's Flight. | Nora Creina. 
 The Red House Mystery An Anxious Moment. 
 The Three Graces. | April s Lady. 
 
 Professor s Experiment. I Peter's Wife. 
 A Point of Conscience. I 
 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 The Leaden Casket. I Self Condemned. 
 That Other Person. | Mrs. Juliet. 
 
 By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. 
 Honour of Thieves. 
 
 By R. ASHE KING. 
 A Drawn Game. 
 
 By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 
 Madame Sans Gi ne. 
 
 By HARRY LINDSAY. 
 Rhoda Roberts. 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY. 
 Gideon Flevce 
 
 By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
 Patricia Kemball. 
 Under which Lord ? 
 ' Mv Love I ' I lone. 
 Paston Carew. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 
 The Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 The World Well Lost. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dulcie Everton. 
 
 By justin McCarthy. 
 
 A Fair Saxon. 
 
 Linley Rochford. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 
 Camiola. 
 
 Waterdale Neighbours. 
 
 My Enemy's Daughter. 
 
 Miss Misanthrope. 
 
 Donna Quixote. 
 
 Maid of Athens. 
 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 
 The Dictator. 
 
 Red Diamonds. 
 
 The Riddle Ring. 
 
 The Three Disgraces. 
 
 By JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY. 
 
 A London Legend. | The Royal Christopher. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 Heather and Snow. | Phantaste3. 
 
 By L. T. MEADE. 
 A Soldier of Fortune. I The Voice of the 
 In an Iron Grip | Charmer. 
 
 By L. T. MEADE and CLIFFORD 
 HALIFAX, M.D. 
 Dr. Ramsey's Patient. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 This Stage of Fools. | Cynthia. 
 
 By BERTRAM M1TFORD. 
 The Gun Runner. | The King's Assegai. 
 
 The Luck of Gerard Renahaw Fanning 's 
 Ridgeley. I Quest. 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK. 
 Maid Marian and Robin Hood. 
 Basile the Jester. 1 Young Lochin var. 
 
 By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 A Life's Atonement. 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 Coals of Fire. 
 Old Blazer's Hero. 
 Val Strange. | Hearts. 
 A Model Father. 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 A Bit of Human Nature. 
 First Person Singular. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 The Way of the World. 
 BobMartin s Little GirL 
 Time's Revenues. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 Mount Despair. 
 A Capful o Nails. 
 Tales and Poems. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 
 The Bishops' Bible. I Paul Jones's Alias. 
 
 One Traveller Returns. | 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 ' Bail Up ! ' 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Ann's. | Billy Belle w. 
 
 By G. OHNET. 
 A Weird Gift. 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPMANT. 
 The Sorceiess. 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 
 Held in Bondage. 
 
 Strathmore. 
 
 Chandos. 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 
 Idalia. [Gage. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine 1 
 
 Tricotrin. | Puck. 
 
 Folle Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanden. 
 
 Pascarel. | Signa. 
 
 Princess Napraxine. 
 
 Ariadne. 
 
 Two Little Wooden 
 
 In & Winter City. Bhoei 
 
 Friendship. 
 
 Moths. I Ruffino. 
 
 Pipistrello. 
 
 A Village Commune. 
 
 Bimbi. I Wandj.. 
 
 Frescoes. | Othmar. 
 
 In Maremma. 
 
 8yrlin. | Gulldoroy. 
 
 Santa Barbara. 
 
 Two Offenders. 
 
 By MARGARET A. PAUL. 
 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 Bv JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Lost Sir Massingberd. 
 Less Black than We're 
 
 Painted. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 In Peril and Privation. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 Bv Proxy. [bridge. 
 
 The Canon's Ward. 
 Walter's Word. 
 
 High Spirits. 
 Under One ROof. 
 Glow worm Tales. 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 For Cash Only. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 The Word and the WilL 
 Sunny Stories. 
 A Trying Patient. 
 
 By WILL PAYNE. - 
 
 Jerry the Dreamer. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 
 Outlaw and Lawmaker. I Mrs. Tregaskiss. 
 Christina Chard. 
 
 By E. C. PRICE. 
 
 Valentina. | Foreigners. | Mrs. Lancaster s Rival 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 
 Miss Maxwell's Affections. 
 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 
 Peg Wofflngton ; and 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 
 Hard Cash. 
 
 Cloister & the Hearth. 
 
 Never Too Late to Mend 
 
 The Course of True 
 Love Never Did Run 
 Smooth ; and Single- 
 heart andDoubleface. 
 
 Autobiography of a 
 Thief; Jack of all 
 Tiades; A Hero and 
 a Martyr ; and The 
 Wandering Heir. 
 
 Griffith Gaunt. 
 
 Love Me Little, Love 
 Me Long. 
 
 The Double Marriage. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 Put Yourself in His 
 Place. 
 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 A Woman Hater. 
 
 The Jilt & others- ories; 
 & Good Stories of Man 
 and other Animate. 
 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 
 Readiana ; and Bibla 
 Characters. 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 
 Weird Stories. 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. 
 
 Barbara Dering. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 
 The Hands of Justice. | Woman in the Dirk. 
 By DORA RUSSELL. 
 
 ▲ Country Sweetheart. | The Drift of fate. 
 
CHATTO & WINDUS, m St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 29 
 
 The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels— continued. 
 By VV. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 Alone onWideWide Sea. 
 The Phantom Heath. 
 Is He the Man ? 
 Good Ship 'Mohock.' 
 The Convict Ship. 
 Heart of Oak. 
 The Tale of the Ten. 
 The Last Entry. 
 5T. JOHN. 
 
 Round the Galley-Fire. 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head. 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 Book for the Hammock. 
 Mysteryof 'Ocean Star' 
 The Romance of Jenny 
 
 Harlowe. 
 An Ocean Tragedy. 
 
 By BAYLE 
 A Levantine Family. 
 
 By JOHN SAUNDERS. 
 Guy Waterman. I The Two Dreamers. 
 
 Bound to the Wheel. | The Lion in the Path. 
 . By KATHARINE SAUNDERS. 
 Margaretand Elizabeth I Heart Salvage. 
 Gideon's Rock. Sebastian. 
 
 The Hi?h Mills. 
 
 ^ By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 Dr. Endicott s Experiment. 
 m By HAWLEY SMART. 
 
 Without Love or Licence. | The Outsider. 
 The Master of Rathkelly. Beatrice & Benedick 
 Long Odds. | A Racing Rubber. 
 
 By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 A Secret of the Sea. 
 The Grey Monk. 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 
 In Face of the World. 
 
 I The Master of Trenance. 
 I A Minion of the Moon. 
 
 Orchard Damerel. 
 
 The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 
 A Fellow of Trinity 
 The Junior Dean. 
 Master of St. Benedict's, 
 To his Own Master. 
 
 By JOHN STAFFORD. 
 Doris and I. 
 
 By RICCARDO STEPHENS. 
 The Cruciform Mark. 
 m By R. A. STERNDALE. 
 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 i By R. L0UI5 STEVENSON. 
 Tne Suicide Club. 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 Proud Maisie. | Th<j Violin Player. 
 
 n.u J 5 * ANTHOrJV TROLLOPE. 
 The Way we Live Now. 1 GcarLoroagh's Family, 
 Frau Frob.Kg.an. |The Land Leaguers. 
 
 , By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE. 
 
 Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness. 
 
 Sea. I Mabel's Progress. 
 
 m By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c. 
 Stones from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 
 Choice 
 
 Tom Sawyer, Detective 
 Pudd'nhead Wilson. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Prince and the Pauper. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Adventures of 
 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
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 Stolen White Elephant. 
 £1,000,0C0 Banknote. 
 
 Mark Twains 
 
 Works 
 Mark Twain's Library 
 
 of Humour. 
 The Innocents Abroad. 
 Roughing It ; and The 
 
 Innocents at Home. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 The American Claimant. 
 AdventuresTomSawyer 
 Tom Sawyer Abroad. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. 
 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 Lady Bell. | The Macdonald Lass. 
 
 Buried Diamonds. The Witch- Wife. 
 
 The Blackball &\->sts. | 
 
 By ALXEN UPWARD. 
 
 The Queen against Owen I The Prince of Balkistan, 
 By E. A. VIZETELLY. 
 
 The Scorpion : A Romance of Spain. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 
 Sons of Belial. 
 
 By ATHA WESTBURY. 
 
 The Shadow of Hilton Fernbrook. 
 
 By C. J. WILLS. 
 An Easy-going Fellow. 
 
 By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life and Regimental Legends. 
 A Soldier's Children. 
 
 By MARGARET WYNMAN. 
 My Flirtations. 
 
 By E. 
 
 The Downfall. 
 The Dream. 
 Dr. Pascal. 
 
 Money. | Lourdes. 
 By 
 
 A Nineteenth Century Miracle. 
 
 ZOLA. 
 
 The Fat and the Thin. 
 His Excellency. 
 The Dram-Shop. 
 Rome. I Paris. 
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 Carr of Carrlyon. | Confidences. 
 
 By MARY ALBERT. 
 Brooke Finchley's Daughter. 
 
 By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 
 Maid, Wife or Widow'/ | Valerie's Fate. 
 Blind Fate. 
 
 By GRANT ALLEN. 
 
 Philistia 
 
 Strange Stories. 
 
 Babvlon. 
 
 For Maimie'i Sike. 
 
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 Phrathe Phoenician. 
 
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 Dumaresq's Daughter. 
 Duchess (if Powysland. 
 Blood Royal. [piece 
 Ivan Greet's Master 
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 Tui 5 Mortal Coil. 
 At Market Value. 
 
 Fettered for Life. 
 Little Lady Linton. 
 Between Life <t Death. 
 The Sin of Olga Zassou 
 
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 Folly Morrison. 
 Lieut. Barnabas. 
 Honest Davie. 
 
 A Prodigal's Prosress. 
 Found Guilty. 
 A Recoiling Vengeance. 
 For Love and Honour. 
 John Ford; and Hi3 
 
 Helpmate. 
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 Bracelets. 
 
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 Grantley Grange. 
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 Chaplain of the Fleet. 
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 All Sorts and Condi 
 
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 All in a Garden Fair. 
 Dorothy Forster. 
 Uncle Jack. 
 The World Went Very 
 
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 Children of Gibeon. 
 Herr Paulus. 
 For Faith and Freedom. 
 
 To Call Her Mine. 
 The Bell of St. Paul's. 
 The Holy Rose. 
 Armorel of Lyonesse. 
 S.Katherine's by Tower. 
 Verbena Cameilia Ste- 
 
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 The Ivoi-y Gate. 
 The Rebel Queen. 
 Bey or d the Dreams of 
 
 Avarice. 
 
 By AMBROSE B1ERCE. 
 
 In the Midst of Life. 
 
 By FREDERICK BOYLE. 
 Camp Notes. | Chronicles of No man's 
 
 Savage Life. | Land. 
 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 Californian Stories. 
 
 Gabriel Conroy. 
 
 The Luck of Roaring 
 
 Camp. 
 An Heiress of Red Dog. 
 
 Flip. I Maruja. 
 
 A Phyllis of the Sierraj. 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 A Ward of the Golden 
 Gate. 
 
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 Uncle Sam at Home. 
 
 By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 
 Shadow of the Sword. The Martyrdom of Ma- 
 
 A Child of Nature. 
 
 God and the Man. 
 
 Lcve Me for Ever. 
 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 
 The Master of the Mine 
 
 Annan Water. 
 
 By BUCHANAN and MURRAY. 
 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 The Shadow of a Crime. I The Deemster. 
 A Son of Hagar. 
 
 By Commander CAMERON. 
 The Cruise of the 'Black Prince.' 
 
 By Mrs. LOVETT CAMERON. 
 Deceivers Ever. | Juliet's Guardian. 
 
 By HAYDEN CARRUTH. 
 The Adventures of Jones. 
 
 By AUSTIN CLARE. 
 For the Love of a Lass. 
 
 By Mrs. ARCHER CLIVE. 
 
 Paul Ferroll. 
 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 The Cure of Souls. | The Red Sultan. 
 
 By C. ALLSTON COLLINS. 
 The Bar Sinister. 
 By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS. 
 
 Sweet Anne Page 
 Transmigration. 
 From Midnight to Mid 
 
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 A Fight with Fortune. I Frances. 
 
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 Sweet and Twenty. 
 The Village Comedy. 
 You Play me Falsa. 
 Blacksmith and Scholar 
 
 My Miscellanies. 
 The Woman in White. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Miss Finch. 
 The Fallen Leaves. 
 Jezebel's Daughter. 
 The Black Robe. 
 Heart and Science. 
 ' I Say No ! ' 
 The Evil Genius. 
 Little Novels. 
 Legacy of Cain. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 Armidale. | AfterDark. 
 
 No Name. 
 
 Antonina. 
 
 Basil. 
 
 Hide and Seek. 
 
 The Dead Secret. 
 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 
 Miss or Mrs. ? 
 
 The New Magdalen. 
 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 
 The Law and the Lady 
 
 The Two Destinies. 
 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 
 A Rogue's Life. 
 
 By M. J. COLQUHOUN. 
 Et»ry Inch a Soldier. 
 
 By DUTTON COOK. 
 Leo. I Paul Foster's Daughter. 
 
 By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 The Adventures of a Fair Rebel. 
 
 By B. M. CROKER. 
 Pretty Miss Neville. A Family Likeness. 
 
 Diana Barring ton. Village Tales and Jungle 
 
 •To Let.' Tragedies. 
 
 A Bird of Passage. Two Masters. 
 
 Proper Pride. | Mr. Jervi3. 
 
 By W. CYPLES. 
 Hearts of Gold. 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 The Evangelist: or, Port Salvation. 
 
 By ERASMUS DAWSON. 
 
 The Fountain of Youth. 
 
 By JAMES DE MILLE. 
 A Castle in Spain. 
 
 By J. LEITH DERVVENT. 
 
 Oar Lady of Tears. I Circe's Lov«rs. 
 By CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 rk.tches by Boz. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN. 
 
 In the Grip of the Law. 
 From Lnlormation Re- 
 ceived. 
 Tracked to Doom. 
 Link by Link 
 Suspicion Aroused. 
 DarkT)eeds. 
 Riddles Read. 
 
 The Man-Hunter. 
 Tracked and Taken. 
 Caught at Last 1 
 Wanted I 
 Who Poisoned Hetty 
 
 Duncan ? 
 Man from Manchester. 
 A Detective's Triumphs 
 The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace 
 
 By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES. 
 A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell. 
 
 By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. 
 Felicia. | Kitty. 
 
 By EDWARD EGGLESTON. 
 Ror.y. 
 
 By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 The New Mistress. I The Tiger Lily. 
 
 Witness to the Deed. | The White Virgin. 
 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD. 
 Bella Donna. Second Mrs. Tillotson. 
 
 Never Forgotten. Seventy - five Brooke 
 
 Polly. Street. 
 
 Fatal Zero. The Lady of Brantome 
 
 By P. FITZGERALD and others. 
 Strange Secrets. 
 
 By ALBANY DE FONBLANQUE. 
 Filthy Lucre. 
 
 FRANCILLON. 
 King or Knave? 
 
 By R. E. 
 
 Olympia. 
 One by One. 
 A Real Queen. 
 Queen Cophetua. 
 
 Romantes of the Law. 
 
 Ropes of Sand. 
 
 A Dog and hi3 Shadow. 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 
 Seth's Brother's Wife. | The Lawton Girl. 
 Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE. 
 Pandurang Hari. 
 
 By HAIN FRISWELL. 
 One of Two. 
 
 By EDWARD GARRETT. 
 The Capel Girls. 
 
 By GILBERT GAUL. 
 A Strange Manuscript. 
 
 By CHARLES GIBBON. 
 
 In Honour Bound. 
 Flower of the Forest 
 The Braes of Yarrow. 
 The GoJden Shaft. 
 Of High Degree. 
 By Mead and Stream. 
 Loving a Dream. 
 A Hard Knot. 
 Heart's Delight. 
 Blood-Money. 
 
 Robin Gray. 
 
 Fancy Free. 
 
 For Lack of Gold. 
 
 What will World Say 
 
 In Love and War. 
 
 For the King. 
 
 In Pastures Green. 
 
 Queen of the Meadow. 
 
 A Heart's Problem. 
 
 The Dead Heart. 
 
 By WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 Dr. Austin's Guests. 1 The Wizard of 
 James Duke. | Mountain. 
 
 By ERNEST GLANVILLE. 
 
 The Lost Heiress. I The Fossicker. 
 
 A Fair Colonist. 
 
 By Rev. S. BARING GOULD 
 
 Red Spider. | Eve. 
 
 By HENRY GREVILLE. 
 
 A Noble Woman. | Nikanor. 
 
 By CECIL GRIFFITH. 
 Corinthia Marazion. 
 
 By SYDNEY GRUNDY. 
 The Days of his Vanity. 
 
 By JOHN HABBERTON. 
 Brueton s Bayou. | Country Luck. 
 
 By ANDREW HALLIDAY. 
 Every day Papers. 
 
 By Lady DUFFUS HARDY. 
 Paul Wynter's Sacrifice. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By J. BERWICK HARWOOD, 
 The Tenth ilari. 
 
CriAtfo & WTNbUs, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 M 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels— continued. 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Beatrix Randolph. 
 
 Garth. 
 
 Eilice Qtientin. 
 
 Fortune s Foci. 
 
 Miss Cadogna. 
 
 Sebastian Stroma. 
 
 Dust. 
 
 Love— or a Name. 
 David Poindexter's Dis- 
 appearance. 
 The Spectre of the 
 Camera. 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR HELPS. 
 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 By G. A. HENTY. 
 
 Rujub the Juggler. 
 
 By HENRY HERMAN. 
 
 A Leading Lady. 
 
 By HEADON HILL. 
 
 Zambra the Detective. 
 
 By JOHN HILL. 
 
 Treason Felony. 
 
 By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY. 
 
 The Lover's Creed. 
 
 m By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER. 
 
 The House of Raby. 
 
 By TIGHE HOPKINS. 
 
 Twixt Love and Duty. 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 
 
 A Maiden all Forlorn. I Lady Verner's Flight 
 In Durance Vile. | The Red House Mystei y 
 
 Marvel. I The Three Graces 
 
 A Mental Struggle. Unsatisfactory Lover, 
 
 A Modern Circe. | Lady Patty. 
 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 Thornicroft's Model. 1 Self Condemned. 
 That Other Person. | The Leaden Casket. 
 
 By JEAN INGELOVV. 
 
 Fated to be Free. 
 
 By VVM. JAMESON. 
 
 My Dead Self. 
 
 ^ By HARRIETT JAY. 
 
 The Dark Colleen. | Queen of Connaught. 
 
 By MARK KERSHAW. 
 Colonial Facts and Fictions. 
 
 By R. ASHE KING. 
 
 A Drawn Game. | Pasiion s Slave. 
 
 •The Weaiing of the Bell Earry. 
 Green.' . 
 
 By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 
 
 Madame Sans Gene. 
 
 By JOHN LEYS. 
 
 The Lindsays. 
 
 By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
 Patricia Kemball. 
 The World Well Lost. 
 Under which Lord ? 
 Paston Carew. 
 ' My Love I ' 
 lone. 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY.' 
 Gideon Fieyce. 
 
 The Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 Rebel of the Family. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 The One Too Many. 
 
 By justin McCarthy. 
 
 Camiola. 
 Donna Quixote. 
 Maid of Athens. 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 The Dictator. 
 Red Diamonds. 
 MACCOLL. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 Waterdale Neishbours 
 My Enemy's Daughter 
 A Fair Saxon. 
 Linley Rochford. 
 Miss Misanthrope. 
 
 By HUGH 
 
 Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 Heather and Snow. 
 
 By AGNES MACDONELL. 
 Quaker Cousins. 
 
 By KATHARINE S. MACQUOID 
 The Evil Eye. | Lost liose. 
 
 By W. H. MALLOCK. 
 A Romance of the Nine- I The New R*uublic. 
 teenth Century. 1 
 
 By FLORENCE MARRYAT. 
 
 Open I Sesame ! I A Harvest of Wild Oats. 
 
 Fighting the Air. | Written in Fire. 
 
 By J. MASTERMAN. 
 
 Half-a-dozen Daughters. 
 
 By BRANDER MATTHEWS. 
 
 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
 By L. T. MEADE. 
 
 A Soldier of Fortune. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 
 The Man who was Good. 
 
 By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. 
 
 Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorillion. 
 
 By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 
 
 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK. 
 
 Stories Weird and Won- I From the Bosom of the 
 
 deriul. Deep. 
 
 The Dead Man's Secret. | 
 
 By_D, CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 A Model Father. 
 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 
 Coals of Fire. 
 
 Val Strange. | Hearts. 
 
 Old Blazer s Hero. 
 
 The Way of the World. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 A Bit of Human Nature. 
 First Person Singular. 
 Bob Martin's Little Girl 
 Time's Revenges. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 I Mount Despair. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERA1AN. 
 
 One Traveller Returns. I The Bishops' Bible. 
 Paul Jones's Alias. | 
 
 By HENRY MURRAY. 
 
 A Game of Bluff. | A Song of Sixpence. 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 ' Bail Up I " | Dr.Bernard St. Vincent. 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Anns. 
 
 By ALICE O'HANLON. 
 The Unforeseen. | Chance ? or Fate T 
 
 By GEORGES OHNET. 
 Dr. Rameau. I A Weird Gift. 
 
 A Last Love. 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 Whiteladies. | The Greatest Heiress in 
 
 Tne Primrose Path. | England. 
 
 By Mrs. ROBERT O'REILLY. 
 Phoebe s Fortunes. 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 
 Held in Bondage. 
 
 Strathmore. 
 
 Chandos. 
 
 Idalia. 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine sGage 
 
 Tricotrin. 
 
 Puck. 
 
 Folle Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 
 Pascarel. 
 
 Signa. 
 
 Princess Napraxine. 
 
 In a Winter City. 
 
 Ariadne. 
 
 Friendship. 
 
 Two Lit. Wooden Shoes. 
 
 Moths. 
 
 Bimbi. 
 
 Pipistrello. 
 
 A Village Commune. 
 
 Wanda. 
 
 Othmar 
 
 Frescoes. 
 
 In Maremma. 
 
 Guilderoy. 
 
 Ruffino. 
 
 Syrlin. 
 
 Santa Barbara. 
 
 Two Offenders. 
 
 Ouida's Wisdom, Wit 
 and Pathos. 
 By MARGARET AGNES PAUL. 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 By C. L. PIRKIS. 
 Lady Lovelace. 
 
 _ By EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 The Mystery of Marie Roget. 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 The Romance of a Station. 
 The Soul of Countess Adrian. 
 Out 1 aw and Lawmaker. 
 Christina Chard. 
 
 By E. C. PRICE. 
 Valentina. i Mrs. Lancaster's Rival. 
 
 The Foreigners. (Gerald. ■»«•»■ 
 
 By RICHARD PRYC8. 
 Viss Maxwell's Affections. ^ 
 
33 
 
 CHATTO & WiNDUS, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W-.C. 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels— continued. 
 By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Bentinck'a Tutor. 
 
 Murphy's Master. 
 
 A County Family. 
 
 At Her Mercy. 
 
 Cecil's Tryst. 
 
 The Clyffards of C'yffe. 
 
 The Foster Brothers. 
 
 Found Dead. 
 
 The Best of Husbands. 
 
 Walter's Word 
 
 Halves. 
 
 Fallen Fortunes. 
 
 Humorous Stories. 
 
 £200 Reward. 
 
 A Marine Residence. 
 
 Mirk Abbey 
 
 By Proxy. 
 
 Under One Roof. 
 
 High Spirits. 
 
 Carlyon's Year. 
 
 From Exile. 
 
 For Cash Only. 
 
 Kit. 
 
 The Canon's Ward. 
 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 A Perfect Treasure. 
 What He Cost Her. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 Glow-worm Tales. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 Sunny Stories. 
 Lost Sir Massingberd. 
 A Woman's Vengeance. 
 The Family Scapegrace. 
 Gwendoline s Harvest. 
 Like Father. Like Son. 
 Married Beneath Him. 
 Not Wooed, but Won. 
 Less Black than We're 
 
 Painted. 
 Some Private Views. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 
 bridge. 
 The Word and the Will. 
 A Prince of the Blood. 
 A Trying Patient. 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 It is Never Too Late to A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 The Wandering Heir. 
 
 Hard Cash. 
 
 Singleheart and Double- 
 face. 
 
 Good Stories of Man and 
 .other Animals. 
 
 Peg Woffington. 
 
 Griffith Gaunt. 
 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 Readiana. 
 
 A Woman-Hater. 
 
 Mend 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Put Yourself in His 
 
 Place 
 Love Me Little, Love 
 
 Me Long. 
 The Cloister and the 
 
 Hearth. 
 The Course of True 
 
 Love. 
 The Jilt. 
 The Autobiography of ; 
 
 a Thief. I 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 Weird Stories. The Uninhabited House. 
 
 Fairy Water. The Mystery in Palace 
 
 Her Mother's Darling. Gardens. 
 
 The Prince of Wales s The Nun s Curse. 
 
 Garden Party. Idle Talcs. 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. 
 Barbara Dering. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 Women are Strange. | The Hands of Justice. 
 
 By JAMES RUNC1MAN. 
 Skippers and Shellbacks. | Schools and Scholars. 
 Grace Balmaign s Sweetheart. 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 Round the Galley Fire. ' 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head 
 
 The Romance of Jenny 
 Hariowe. 
 
 An Ocean Tragedy. 
 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 
 Alone onWideWide Sea. 
 
 The Good Ship 'Mo- 
 hock.' 
 
 The Phantom Death. 
 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 A Book for the Ham- 
 mock. 
 The Mystery of the 
 ' Ocean Star.' 
 
 By DORA RUSSELL. 
 A Country Sweetheart. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 Gaslight and Daylight. 
 
 By JOHN SAUNDERS. 
 Guy Waterman. I The Lion in the Path. 
 
 The Two Dreamers. | 
 
 By KATHARINE SAUNDERS. 
 Joan Merrvweather. I Sebastian. 
 The High Mills. Margaret and Eliza- 
 
 Heart Salvage. beth. 
 
 By GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 The Ring o Bells. My Two Wives. 
 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs. Zeph. 
 Mary Jane Married. Memoirs of a Landlady. 
 
 Tales of To day. Scenes from the Show. 
 
 Dramas of Life. The 10 Commandments. 
 
 Tinkletop's Crime. Dagonet Abroad. 
 
 By ARTHUR SKETCHLEY. 
 A Match in the Dark. 
 
 By HAWLEY SA1ART. 
 
 Without Love or Licence. 
 
 The Plunger. 
 
 Beatrice and Benedick. 
 
 By T. \V. SPEIGHT. 
 
 The Mysteries of Heron i Back to Life. 
 
 Dyke. I The LoudwaterTragedy. 
 
 The Golden Hoop. Burgo s Romance. 
 
 Hoodwinked. Quittance in Full. 
 
 By Devious Ways. ' A Husband from the Sea 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 A Fellow of Trinity. I To His Own Master. 
 The Junior Dean. Orchard Damerel. 
 
 Master of St.Beuedlct's i In the Face of the Wo rid. 
 
 By R. A. STERNDALE. 
 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 Cressida. I The Violin- Player. 
 
 Proud Maisie. 
 
 By WALTER THORNBURY. 
 Tales for the Marines. | Old Stories Retold. 
 
 By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 
 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
 Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness. 
 Sea. I Mabel's Progress. 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE 
 
 The Land-Leaguers. 
 The American Senator. 
 Mr. Scarborough's 
 
 Family. 
 GoldenLion of Granpera 
 
 Frau Frohmann 
 Marion Fay. % 
 Kept in the Dark. 
 John Caldigate. 
 The Way We Live Now 
 
 By J. T. TROWBRIDGE. 
 Farnells Folly. 
 
 By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c 
 Stories from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 
 A Pleasure Trip on the 
 
 Continent. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 MavkTwaih s Sketches. 
 Tom Sawyer. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 Stolen White Elephant. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER 
 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Prince and the 
 
 Pauper. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur. 
 The £1,000,000 Bank- 
 
 Note. 
 
 The Huguenot Family. 
 The Blackhall Ghosts. 
 What SheCameThrough 
 Beauty and the Beast, 
 Citoyenne Jaqueline. 
 
 The Bride s Pass 
 Buried Diamonds 
 St. Munso's City. 
 Lady Bell. 
 Noblesse Oblige. 
 Disappeared. 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 The Queen against Owen. | Prince of Balkistan. 
 'God Save the Queen !' 
 By AARON WATSON and LILLIAS 
 
 WASSERMANN. 
 The Marquis of Carabas. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 Trust-Money. 
 
 By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. 
 A Child Widow. 
 
 By J. S. WINTER. 
 Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legends., 
 
 By H. F. WOOD. 
 The Passenger from Scotland Yard. 
 The Englishman of the Rue Cain. 
 By Lady WOOD. 
 Sabina. 
 
 By CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY:. 
 Rachel Armstrong ; or, I.ove ami Theology. 
 
 By EDMUND YATES. 
 The Forlorn Hope. I Castaway. 
 
 Land at Last. 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL. 
 Ghetto Tragedies. 
 
 OGDEN, SMALE AN] 
 
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