lij trie ArmAr4 - ' ^" ^J HENRY J. ROGERS UK i.vA) Tin: w .\^ .1 I'lr.^t l-iDiiily jf TdMijara "ARGONAUT EDITION" OF THE WORKS OF BRET HARTE A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE BY BRET HARTE ILLUSTRATED P. F. COLLIER C3' SON NEW YORK Published undc tj.ecu an-athifinfut ailk the Uuiiohon illfflni Onnpany Copyright 1891 By BRET IIARTE Copyright i8?6 By HOUGIITOX, ^IIFFLIX & CO.MPAXY All rights reserved DOlNA A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. CHAPTER I. " It blows," said Joe Wingate. As if to accent the words of the speaker a heavy gi;st of wind at that moment shook the Ioiijt: liii'ht wooden structure which served as the general store of Sidon settlement, in Contra Costa. Even after it had passed a prolonged whistle came through the keyhole, sides, antl openings of the closed glass front doors, that served equally for windows, and filled the canvas ceiling which hid the roof above like a bellying sail. A wave of en- thusiastic emotion seemed to be communi- cated to a line of straw hats and sou-westers suspended from a cross-beam, and swung them with every appearance of festive rejoi- cing, while a few dusters, overcoats, and "hickory" shirts hanging on the side walls exhibited such marked though idiotic ani- mation that it had the effect of a satirical A Bret Harte v. 22 Z A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. comment on the lazy, purposeless figures of the four living inmates of the store. Ned Billing's momentarily raised his head and shoulders depressed in the back of his wooden armchair, glanced wearily around, said, " You bet, it 's no slouch of a storm," and then lapsed again with further extended legs and an added sense of comfort. Here the third figure, which had been leaning listlessly against the shelves, putting aside the arm of a swaying overcoat that seemed to be emptily embracing him, walked slowly from behind the counter to the door, examined its fastenings, and gazed at the prospect. He was the owner of the store, and the view was a familiar one, a long stretch of treeless waste before him meeting an equal stretch of dreary sky above, and night hover- ing somewhere between the two. Tliis was indicated by splashes of darker shadow as if washed in with india ink, and a lighter low- lying streak that might have been the liori- zon, but was not. To the right, on a line with tlie front door of the store, were several scattcired, widely dispersed objects, that, al- though vague in outline, were ligid enougli in angles to suggest sheds or barns, but cer- tainly not trees. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. 3 " There 's a heap more wet to come afore the wind goes down," he said, glancing at the sky. " Hark to that, now ! " They listened lazily. There was a faint murmur from the shingles above ; then sud- denly the whole window was filmed and blurred as if the entire prospect had been wiped out with a damp sponge. The man turned listlessly away. " That 's the kind that soaks in ; thar won't be much teamin' over Tasajara for the next two weeks, I reckon," said the fourth lounger, who, seated on a high barrel, was nibbling albeit critically and fastidiously biscuits and dried apples alternately from open boxes on the counter. " It 's lucky you 've got in your winter stock, Harkutt." The shrewd eyes of Mr. Harkutt, pro- prietor, glanced at the occupation of the speaker as if even his foresight might have its possible drawbacks, but he said nothing. " There '11 be no show for Sidon until you 've got a wagon road from here to the creek," said Billings languidly, from the depths of his chair. " But what 's the use o* talkin' ? Thar ain't energy enough in all Tasajara to build it. A God-forsaken place, that two mouths of the year can only be 4 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. reached by a mail-rider once a week, don't look ez if it was goin' to break its back haulin' in goods and settlers. I tell ye what, gentlemen, it makes me sick I " And ap- parently it had enfeebled him to the extent of interfering with his aim in that expectora- tion of disgust against the stove with which he concluded his sentence. " Why don't you build it ? " asked Win- gate, carelessly. " I would n't on principle," said Billings. " It 's gov'ment work. What did wo whoop up things here last spring to elect Kennedy to the legislation for ? What did I rig up my shed and a thousand feet of lumber for benches at the barbecue for ? Why, to get Kennedy elected and make him get a bill passed for the road I That 's my share of building it, if it comes to that. And I only wish some folks, that blow enough about what oughter be done to bulge out that ceil- ing, would only do as much as /have done for Sidon." As this remark seemed to have a per- sonal as well as local application, the store- keeper diplomatically turned it. " There 's a good many as dont believe that a road from here to the creek is going to do any A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 5 good to Sidon. It 's veiy well to say tlie creek is au emljarcadero, but callin' it so don't put anougli water into it to float a steam- boat from the bay, nor clear out the reeds and tides in it. Even if the State builds you roads, it ain't got no call to make Tasa- jara Creek navigable for ye ; and as that will cost as much as the road, I don't see where the money 's comin' from for both." " There 's water enough in front of 'Lige Curtis's shanty, and his location is only a mile along the bank," returned Billings. " AYater enough for him to laze away his time fishin' when he 's sober, and deep enough to drown him when he 's drunk," said Wingate. " If you call that an embarcadero, you kin buy it any day from 'Lige, title, possession, and shanty thrown in, for a demijohn o' whiskey." The fourth man here distastefully threw back a half-nibbled biscuit into the box, and languidly slipped from the barrel to the floor, fastidiously flicking tlie crumbs from his clothes as he did so. "' I reckon somebody '11 get it for nothing, if "Lige don't pull up mighty soon. He "11 either go off his head with jim-jams or jump into the creek. He 's about as near desp"rit as they make 'em, 6 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. and havin' no partner to look after him, and liini alone in tlie tules, ther' 's no tellin' what he may do." Billings, stretched at full length in his chair, here gurgled derisively. " Desp'rit ! ketch him ! Why, that 's his little game ! He 's jist playin' off his desp'rit condition to frighten Sidou. Whenever any one asks him why he don't go to work, whenever he 's hard up for a drink, whenever he 's had too much or too little, he 's workin' that desp'rit dodge, and even talkin' o' killin' himself ! Why, look here," he continued, momentarily raising himself to a sitting posture in his disgust, " it was only last week he was over at Kawlett's trying to raise provisions and whiskey outer his water rights on the creek ! Fact, sir, had it all written down lawyer- like on paper. Kawlett did n't exactly see it in that light, and told him so. Then he up with the desp'rit dodge and began to work that. Said if he had to starve in a swamp like a dog he might as well kill himself at once, and would too if he could afford the we])pins. Johnson said it was not a Lad idea, and offered to lend him his revolver ; Bilson handed u}) his shot-gun, and left it alongside of him, and turned his head away considerate- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 7 like and thoughtful while Kawlett handed him a box of rat pizon over the counter, in case he preferred suthin' more quiet. Well, what did l^ige do ? Nothiu' ! Smiled kinder sickly, looked sorter wild, and shut up. lie did n't suicide much. No, sir ! He did n't kill himself, not he. Why, old Bixby and he 's a deacon in good standin' allowed, in 'Lige's hearin' and for 'Lige's benefit, that self-destruction was better nor bad examj)le, and proved it by Scripture too. And yet 'Lige did notliin' ! Desp'rit ! He 's only desp'rit to laze around and fish all day off a log in the tulcs^ and soak up with whiskey, until, betwixt fever an' ague and the jumps, he kinder shakes hisself free o' responsibility."' A long silence followed ; it was somehow felt that the subject was incongi'uously ex- citing ; Billings allowed himself to lapse again behind tlie l)ack of his chair. ]Mean- time it had grown so dark that the dull glow of the stove was beginning to outline a faint halo on the ceiling even while it ])lungcd the further Ihies of shelves behind the counter into greater obscurity. "Time to liglit u]), llarkutt, ain't it?" said Wingate, tentatively. 8 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. " Well, I was reckoning ez it 's such a wild night there would n't be any use keep- in' open, and when you fellows left I 'd just shut np for good and make things fast," said llarkutt, dubiously. Before his guests had time to fully weigh this delicate hint, another gust of wind shook the tenement, and even forced the nnbolted upper part of the door to yield far enough to admit an eager current of humid air that seemed to justify the wisdom of Ilarkutt's suggestion. Billings slowly and with a sigh assumed a sitting posture in the chair. The biscuit- nibbler selected a fresh dainty from the counter, and Wingate abstractedly walked to the window and rubbed the glass. Sky and water had already disappeared behind a curtain of darkness that was illuminated by a single point of light the lamp in the window of some invisible but nearer house which threw its rays across the glistening shallows in the road. " Well," said Win- gate, buttoning up his coat in slow dejection, " I reckon I oughter be travelin' to help the old woman do the chores before supper." He had just recognized the light in his own dining-room, and knew by that sign that his long-waiting helpmeet had finally done the chores herself. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAIiA. 9 " Some folks have it mighty easy," said Billings, with loug-tlrawn discontent, as ho struggled to his feet. " You 've only a step to go, and yer 's me and Peters there " indicating the biscuit-nibbler, who was be- ginning to show alarming signs of returning to the barrel again " hev got to trapse five times that distance." " More 'n half a mile, if it comes to that," said Peters, gloomily. lie paused in putting on his overcoat as if thinking better of it, while even the more fortunate and contigu- ous AVingate languidly lapsed against the counter again. The moment was a critical one. Billings was evidently also regretfully eying the chair he had just quitted. Harkutt re- solved on a heroic effort. " Come, boys," he said, with brisk conviv- iality, "take a parting drink with me be- fore you go." Producing a bhiek bottle from some obscurity boneatli the counter that smelt strongly of india-rubber boots, he })laced it with four glasses before his guests. Each made a feint of holding his jiiass against the opaque window while filling it, although nothing could be seen. A sudden tumult of wind and rain airaiu shook the 10 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. building, but even after it had passed the glass door still rattled violently. " Just see what 's loose, Peters," said Bil- lings ; "you 're nearest it." Peters, still holding the undrained glass in his hand, walked slowly towards it. " It 's suthin' or somebody outside," he said, hesitatingly. The three others came eagerly to his side. Through tlie glass, clouded from within by their breath, and filmed from without by the rain, some vague object was moving, and what seemed to be a mop of tangled hair was apparently brushing against the ])ane. Tiie door shook again, but less strongly. Billings pressed his face against the glass. ''IIol' on," he said in a quick whisper, " it's 'Lige I " But it was too late. Ilar- kutt bad already drawn the lower bolt, and a man stumbled from the outer obscurity into the darker room. The inmates drew awa)^ as he leaned back for a moment against the door that closed bebind him. Then dimly, but instinctively, discerning the glass of licpior which Win- gate still mcclianically held in his hand, ho reached forward eagei-ly, took it from Win- gate's surprised and unresisting fingers, and A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. H ilraliied it at a gulp. The four men laughed vaguely, but not as cheerfully as they might. " I was just shutting up," began llarkutt, dubiously. " I won't keep you a minit," said the in- truder, nervously fumbling in the breast pocket of his hickory shirt. " It 's a matter of business llarkutt I " But he was obliged to stop here to wipe his face and forehead with the ends of a loose handker- chief tied round his throat. From the ac- tion, and what could be seen of his pale, exhausted face, it was evident that the moist- ure upon it was beads of perspiration, and not the rain which some abnormal heat of his body was converting into vapor from his sodden garments as he stood there. " I 've got a document here,*' he began again, producing a roll of paper tremblingly from his pocket, '' that I 'd like you to glance over, and perhaps you 'd " His voice, which had been feverishly exalted, here broke and rattled with a cougli. Billings, Wingate, and Peters fell apart and looked out of the window. " It 's too dark to read anything now, 'Lige," said Har- kutt, with evasive good humor, " and 1 ain't lightin" up to-night.*' 12 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " But I can tell you the substance of it," said the man, with a faintness that however had all the distinctness of a whisper, " if you '11 just step inside a minute. It 's a matter of importance and a bargain " " I reckon we must be goinV' said Bil- lings to the others, with marked emphasis. " We 're keepin' Ilarkutt from shuttin' up."' " Good - night ! " " Good - night ! " added Peters and Wingate, ostentatiously following Billings hurriedly through the door. " So long ! " The door closed behind them, leaving Ilarkutt alone with his importunate intruder. Possibly his resentment at his customers' selfish al)andonment of him at this moment develojjcd a vague spirit of op])osition to them and mitigated his feeling towards 'Lige. lie groped his way to the counter, struck a match, and lit a candle. Its feeble rays faintly illuminated the pale, drawn face of tlie applicant, set in a tangle of wet, un- kempt, party-colored hair. It was not tlie face of an ordinary drunkard ; altliough tremulous and sensitive from some artificial excitement, there was no eyn/orgcment or congestion in the features or complexion. ;d- beit they were morbid and unhealthy. Tlie A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. 13 expression was of a suffering that was as much mental as physical, and yet in some vague way appeared unmeaning and un- heroic. " 1 want to see you about selling my place on the creek. I want you to take it off my hands for a bargain. I want to get quit of it, at once, for just enough to take me out o' this. I don't want any profit; only money enough to get away." His utterance, which had a certain kind of cultivation, here grew thick and harsh again, and he looked eagerly at the bottle which stood on the counter. " Look here, 'Lige," said Harkutt, not unkindly. " It 's too late to do anythin' to- night. You come in to-morrow." lie would have added " when you 're sober," but for a trader's sense of politeness to a possible customer, and probably some doubt of the man's actual condition. " God knows where or what I may be to- morrow ! It would kill me to go back and spend another night as the last, if I don't kill myself on the way to do it." llarkutt's face darkened grimly. It was indeed as Billings liad said. The pitiable weakness of the man's manner not only 14 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. made his desperation inadequate and inef- fective, but even lent it all the cheapness of acting. And, as if to accent his simulation of a part, his fingers, feebly groping in his shirt bosom, slipped aimlessly and helplessly from the shining handle of a pistol in his pocket to wander hesitatingly towards the bottle on the counter. Harkutt took the bottle, poured out a glass of the liquor, and pushed it before his companion, who drank it eagerly. Whether it gave him more confidence, or his attention was no longer diverted, he went on more collectedly and cheerfully, and with no trace of his previous desperation in his manner. " Come, llarkutt, buy my place. It \s a bargain, I tell you. I "11 sell it cheap. I only want enough to get away with. Give me twenty-five dollars and it 's yours. See, there 's the papers the quitclaim all drawn up and signed." lie drew the roll of paper from his pocket again, apparently forgetful of the adjacent weapon. " Look here, "Lige," said llarkutt, with a business-like straightening of his lips, " I ain't buyin' any land in Tasajara, least of all yours on the creek. I 've got more in- vested here already than I '11 ever get back A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAJiA. 15 again. But 1 tell you what I '11 do. You say you cant go back to your shanty. AVell, seein' how rough it is outside, and that the waters of the creek are probably all over the trail l)y this time, I reckon you 're about right. Now, there 's five dollars ! " He laid down a coin sharply on the counter. ' Take that and go over to Kawlett's and get a bed and some supper. In the mornin' you may be able to strike up a trade with somebody else or change your mind. How did you get here? On your boss? " -Yes." "lie ain't starved yet?" " No ; he can eat gTass. I can't." Either the liquor or Ilarkutt's practical unsentimental treatment of the situation seemed to give him confidence, lie met Ilarkutt's eye more steadily as the latter went on. '"You kin turn your boss for the night into my stock corral next to Kaw- lett's. It '11 save you payiu' for fodder and stablin'." The man took up the coin with a cer- tain slow gravity which was almost like dig- nity. " Thank ycni," he said, laying the paper on the counter. " I "11 leave that as security." 16 A FIIiST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " Don't want it, 'Lige," said Ilarkutt, pushing it back. " I Vl rather leave it." " But suppose you have a chance to sell it to somebody at Rawlett's ? " continued Harkutt, with a precaution that seemed ironical. " I don't think there 's much chance of that." Pie remained quiet, looking at Ilarkutt with an odd expression as he rubbed the edge of the coin that he held between his fingers abstractedly on the counter. Some- thing in his gaze rather perhaps the apparent absence of anytliing in it approxi- mate to tlie present occasion was begin- ning^ to affect Ilarkutt with a va^^ue uneasi- ness. Providentially a resumed onslaught of wind and rain against the panes effected a diversion. " Come," he said, with brisk practicality, " you 'd better hurry on to Kawlett's l^efore it gets worse. Have your clothes dried by his fire, take suthin' to eat, and you '11 be all right." He rubbed his hands cheerfully, as if summarily disposing of the situation, and incidentally of all 'Lige's troubles, and v/alkcd with him to the door. Nevertheless, as the man's look re- A FIRST FA.'iTILY OF TASA.1AUA. 17 mained uuelianged, lie hesitated a moment with his hand on the handle, in the liope that he would say something, even if only to lepeat his appeal, but he did not. Then Ilai'kntt opened the door ; the man moved mechanically out, and at the distance of a few feet seemed to melt into the rain and darkness. Ilarkutt remained for a moment with his face pressed against the glass. After an interval he thought he heard the faint splash of hoofs in the shallows of the road ; he opened the door softly and looked out. The light liad disappeared from the near- est house ; only an uncertain bulk of shape- less shadows remained. Other remoter and more vague outlines near the horizon seemed to have a fuuei'eal suggestion of tombs and grave mounds, and one a low shed near the road looked not unlike a halted bioi". lie hurriedly put up the shutters in a mo- mentary lulling of the wind, and reentering the store began to fasten them from within. AVhile thus engaged an inner door behind the counter opened softly and cautiously, projecting a l)rigliter light into tlie deserted apartment from some sacred domestic inte- rior with the warm and wholesome incense 18 A FJJi.'-rr FAMILY OF TASAJARA. of cooking. It served to introduce also the equally agreeable presence of a young girl, who, after assuring herself of the absence of every one but the proprietor, idly slippe;! into the store, and placing her rounded el- bows, from which her sleeves were uprolled, upon the counter, leaned lazily upon them, with both hands supporting lier dimpled chin, and gazed indolently at him ; so in- dolently that, with her pretty face once fixed in this comfortable attitude, she was con- strained to follow his movements with her eyes alone, and often at an uncon^fortable angle. It was evident that she offered the fhial but charming illustration of the enfee- bling listlessness of Sidon. " 80 those loafers have gone at last," she said, meditatively. ' They '11 take root here some day. pop. The idea of three strong men like that lazing round for two mortal hours doin' nothin'. AVell ! " As if to emphasize her disgust she threw her whole weight upon the counter by swinging her f(;et from the floor to touch the shelves be- hind her. ^Ir. Ilarkutt only replied by a slight grunt as he continued to screw on the shut- ters. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 19 " Want me to help you, dad ? " she said, without moving. Mr. Plarkutt muttered something* unintel- ligible, which, however, seemed to imply a negative, and her attention here feebly wan- dered to the roll o paper, and she began slowly and lazily to read it aloud. " ' For value received, I hereby sell, as- sign, and transfer to Daniel D. Ilarkutt all my right, title, and interest in, and to the undivided half of, Quarter Section 4, Range 5, Tasajara Township ' hum hum," she murmured, running liei- eyes to the bottom of the page. " Why, Lord ! It 's that "Lige Curtis!" she laughed. "The idea of him having propei-ty ! Why, dad, you ain't been that silly ! " "Put down that paper, miss,"" he said, ag- grievedly ; " bring the candle here, and help me to find one of these infernal screws that 's dropped." The girl indolently disengaged herself from the counter and Elijah Curtis's trans- fer, and brought the candle to her father. The screw was presently found and the last fastening secured. " Supper gcttin' cold, dad,"' she said, with a slight yawn. Her father sympathetically responded by stretch- 20 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. ing himself from his stooping position, and the two passed through the private door into inner domesticity, leaving the already for- gotten paper lying with other articles of barter on the counter. CHAPTER n. With the closing of the little door be- hind them they seemed to have shut out the turmoil and vibration of the storm. The reason became apparent when, after a few paces, they descended half a dozen steps to a lower landing-. This disclosed the fact that the dwelling part of the Sidon General Store was quite below the level of the shop and the road, and on the slope of the solitary undulation of the Tasajara plain, a little ravine that fell away to a brawling stream below. The only arboreous growth of Tasa- jara clothed its banks in the shape of wil- lows and alders that set compactly around the quaint, irregular dwelling which strag- gled down the ravine and looked upon a slo])c of bracken and foliage on either side. The transition from the black, treeless, storm- swept plain to this sheltered declivity was striking and suggestive. From the opposite bank one miglit fancy that the youthful ami original dwelling had ambitiously mounted 22 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS A J ABA. the crest, but, appalled at the dreary pros- pect be^^ond, had gone no further; while from the road it seemed as if the fastidious proi)rietor had tried to draw a line between the vulgar trading-post, with which he was obliged to face the coarser civilization of the place, and the privacy of his domestic life. The real fact, however, was that the ravine furnished wood and water ; and as Nature also provided one wall of the house, as in the well-known example of abori- ginal cave dwellings, its peculiar construc- tion commended itself to Sidon on the ground of involving little labor. Howbeit, from the two open windows of the sitting-room which they had entered only the faint pattering of dripping boughs and a slight murmur from the swollen brook indi- cated the storm that shook the upper i)lain, and the cool breath of laurel, syringa, and alder was wafted through the neat a])art- ment. Passing through that })leasant I'ural atmosphere they entered the kitchen, a much larger room, which appeared to serve occa- sionally as a dining-room, and where supper was already laid out. A stout, comfortable- looking woman who liad. liowevcr, a singu- larly permanent expression of pained sympa- A FIRST FAMllA' OF TASAJAUA. 23 tliy iipon her face welcomed tbeiu in tones of gentle commiseration. " Ah, there you be, you two ! Now sit ye right down, dears ; do. You nuist bo tired out : and you, Phemie, love, draw up by your poor father. There that *s right. You '11 be better soon." There was certainly no visible sign of suffering or exliaustion on tlie part of either father or daughter, nor the slightest apparent earthly reason why they should be expected to exhibit any. ])ut, as already intimated, it was part of Mrs. llarkutt's generous idiosyn- crasy to look upon all humanity as suffering and toiling : to be petted, humored, condoled with, and fed. It had, in the course of years, imparted a singidarly caressing sadness to her voice, and given her the habit of ending her sentences with a melancholy cooing and an unintelligible murmur of agreement. It was undoubtedly sincere and sympathetic, but at times inappropriat(> and distressing. It had lost her the friendship of the one humorist of Tasajara, whose best jokes she had received with such heartfelt commiseration and such paini^l appreciation of the evident labor involved as to reduce him to silence. Accustomed as Mr. llarkutt was to his 24 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. wife's peciiliarity, lie was not above assuming a certain slightly fatigued attitude befitting it. " Yes," he said, with a vague sigh, " where 's Clemmie ? " " Lyin' down since dinner ; she reckoned she would n't get up to supper," she returned soothingly. " Phemie 's goin' to take her up some sass and tea. The poor dear child wants a change." " She wants to go to 'Frisco, and so do I, pop," said Phemie, leaning her elbow half over her father's plate. " Come, pop, say do, just for a week." " Only for a week," murmured the com- miserating Mrs. Harkutt. " Perhaps," responded Harkutt, with gloomy sarcasm, " ye would n't mind telliu' me how you 're goin' to get there, and where the money 's coniin' from to take you ? There 's no teamin' over Tasajara till the rain stops, and no money comin' in till the ranchmen can move their stuff. There ain't a hundred dollars in all Tasajara ; at least there ain't been the first red cent of it paid across my counter for a fortnit ! Perhaps if you do go you would n't mind takin' me and the store along with ye, and leavin' us there." A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 25 " Yes, deal*," said Mrs. Ilarkutt, with sympathetic but shameless tergiversation. " Don't bother your poor father, Phemie, love; don't you see he's just tired out? And you 're not eatin' anything, dad." As Mr. Ilarkutt was uneasily conscious that he had been eating heartily in spite of his financial difficulties, he turned the sub- ject abruptly. " ^^'llere 's John Milton ? " Mrs. Ilarkutt shaded her eyes with her hand, and gazed meditatively on the floor be- fore the fire and in the chimney corner for her only son, baptized under that historic title. " He was here a minit ago," she said doubtfully. " I really can't think where he 's gone. But," assuringly, " it ain't far." " He 's skipped with one o' those story- ])ooks he 's borrowed," said Phemie. " He 's always doin' it. Like as not he 's reading with a candle in the wood-shed. We "11 all be burnt up some night." " But he "s got through his chores," inter- posed ]\lrs. Harkutt deprecatingly. *' Yes," continued Harkutt, aggrievedly, " but instead of goin' to bed, or addin' up bills, or takiu' count o' stock, or even doiu' sums or suthin' useful, he 's ruiniu' his eyes and wastiu' his time over trash." He rose 26 A FIJiST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. and walked slowly into the sitting-room, followed by his daughter and a murmur of commiseration from his wife. But Mrs. llarkutt's ministration for the present did not pass beyond her domain, the kitchen. " I reckon ye ain't expectin' anybody to- night, Phemie ? " said Mr. llarkutt, sinking into a chair, and placing his slippered feet against the wall. " No," said Phemie, " unless something possesses that sappy little Parndee to make one of his visitations. John Milton says that out on the road it blows so you can't stand up. It 's just like that idiot Parmlee to be blown in here, and not have strength of mind enough to get away again." Mr. llarkutt smiled. It was that arch yet approving, severe yet satisfied smile with which the deceived male parent usually re- ceives any depreciation of the ordinary young man by his daughters. Euphemia was no giddy thing to be carried away by young men's attentions, not she ! Sitting back comfortably in his rocking-chair, he said, " Play something." The young girl went to the closet and took from the toj) .shelf an excessively ornamented accordion, the o])ulent gift of a reckless A FlliST FAMILY OF TASAJAUA. 27 admirer. It was so inordinately decorated, so gorgeous in the blaze of papier inache, niotlier-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell on keys and keyboard, and so ostentatiously radiant in the pink silk of its bellows that it seemed to overawe the plainly furnished room with its splendors. " You ought to keep it on the table in a glass vase, Phemie," said her father admiringly. " And have him think I worshiped it ! Not me, indeed ! He 's conceited enough already," she returned, saucily. Mr. llarkutt again smiled his approbation, then deliberately closed his ej^es and threw his head back in comfortable anticipation of the coming strains. It is to be regretted that in brilliancy, finish, and oven cheerfulness of quality they were not u}) to the suggestions of the keys and keyboard. The most discreet and cau- tious eifort on the part of the young per- former seemed only to produce startlingly imexpected, but instantly su})})ressed com- })laints from the instrument. accom})anied by impatient interjections of "No, no," from the girl herself. Nevertheless, with her pretty eyebrows knitted in some charming distress of memory, her little mouth lialf open be- 28 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. tween an apologetic smile and the exertion of working the bellows, with her white, rounded arms partly lifted up and waving before her, she was j^leasantly distracting to the eye. Gradually, as the scattered strains were mar- shaled into something like an air, she began to sing also, glossing over the instrumental weaknesses, filling in certain dropj^ed notes and omissions, and otherwise assisting the ineffectual accordion with a youthful but not unmusical voice. The song was a lugubrious religious chant ; under its influence the house seemed to sink into greater quiet, permitting in the intervals the murmur of the swollen creek to appear more distinct, and even the far moaning of the wind on the plain to be- come faintly audible. At last, having fairly mastered the instrument, Pliemie got into the full swing of the chant. Unconstrained by any criticism, carried away by the sound of her own voice, and perhaps a youthful love for mere uproar, or possibly desirous to drown her father's voice, which had unex- pectedly joined in with a discomposing bass, the conjoined utterances seemed to threaten the frail structure of their dwelling, even as the gale had distended the store behind tliem. "When they ceased at last it was in an A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. 29 accession of dii})ping from the apparently stirred leaves outside. And then a voice, evidently from the moist depths of the abyss below, called out, " Hullo, there ! " Phemie put down the accordion, said, " ^Vho 's that now ? " went to the window, lazily leaned her elbows on the sill, and peered into the darkness. Nothing was to be seen ; the open space of dimly outlined landscape had that blank, uncommunicative impenetrability with which Nature always confronts and surprises us at such moments. It seemed to Phemie that she was the only human being present. Yet after the feeling had passed she fancied she heard the w^ash of the current against some object in the stream, half stationary and half resisting. '' Is any one down there ? Is that you, Mr. Parmlee ? " she called. There was a pause. Some invisible au- ditor said to another, " It 's a young lady." Then the first voice rose again in a more deferential tone : " Are we anywhere near Sidon?'' '* This is Sidon," answered Ilarkutt, who had risen, and was now quite obliterating his daughter's outline at the window. 30 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " Tliauk you," said the voice. " Can we land anywhere here, on this bank ? " " Run down, pop ; they 're strangers," said the girl, with excited, almost childish eager- ness. " Hold on," called out Harkutt, " I '11 be thar in a moment ! " He hastily thrust his feet into a pair of huge boots, clapped on an oilskin hat and waterproof, and disappeared through a door that led to a lower staircase. Phemie, still at the window, albeit with a newly added sense of self -consciousness, hung out breathlessly. Presently a beam of light from the lower depths of the house shot out into the darkness. It was her father with a bull's-eye lantern. As he held it up and clambered cautiously down the bank, its rays fell upon the turbid rushing stream, and what appeared to be a rough raft of logs held with diflieulty against the bank by two men witli long poles. In its centre was a roll of blankets, a valise and saddle-bags, and the shining brasses of some odd-looking instruments. As Mr. Harkutt, supporting himself by a willo^v brancli that overliung the current, held up the lantern, the two men rapidly transferred their freifrht from the raft to the A F/KST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 31 bank, and leaped ashore. The action gave an impulse to tlie raft, which, no longer held in position by the poles, swung broadside to the current and was instantly swept into the darkness. Not a word had been spoken, but now the voices of the men rose freely together. Piieniie listened with intense ex})ectation. The explanation was simple. They were surveyors who had been caught by the over- flow on Tasajara plain, had abandoned their horses on the bank of Tasajara Creek, and with a hastily constructed raft had intrusted themselves and their instruments to the cur- rent. "But," said Ilarkutt quickly, "there is no connection between Tasajara Creek and this stream."' The two men laughed. " There is nov',"" said one of tliem. " But Tasajara Creek is a part of the bay," said the astonislied Ilarkutt. "and this stream rises inland and only runs into the bay four miles lower down. And I don't see how " " You "re almost twelve feet lower here than Tasajara Creek." said the first man, with a certain professional authority, " and that 's ?/'////. There *s mon; water than Ta- sajara Creek can carry, and it 's seeking the 32 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. bay this way. Look," he continued, taking the lantern from Harkutt's hand and casting- its rays on the stream, " that 's salt drift from the upper bay, and part of Tasajara Creek 's running by your house now ! Don't be alarmed," he added reassuringly, glancing at the staring storekeeper. " You 're all right here ; this is only the overflow and will find its level soon." But Mr. Ilarkutt remained gazing ab- stractedly at the smiling speaker. From the window above the impatient Phemie was wondering why he kept the strangers waiting in the rain while he talked about things that were perfectly plain. It was so like a man ! " Then there 's a waterway straight to Ta- sajara Creek ? " he said slowly. " There is, as long as this flood lasts," re- turned the first speaker promptly ; " and a cuttinij through the bank of two or three hundred yards would make it permanent. Well, what "s the matter with that ? " " Xothiu'," said Ilarkutt hurriedly. " I am only consideriu' ! But come in, dry yourselves, and take suthin'." The light over the rushing water was with- drawn, and the whole prospect sank back into profound darkness. Mr. Ilarkutt had A FIRZT FAMILY OF TASAJAIiA. 33 disappeared with his guests. Tlien there was the familiar shuffle of his feet on the staircase, followed by other more cautious footsteps that grew delicately and even cour- teously deliherate as they approached. At which the young girl, in some new sense of decorum, drew in her pretty head, glanced around the room quickly, reset the tidy on her father's chair, placed the resplendent ac- cordion like an ornament in the exact centre of the table, and then vanished into the hall as Mr. Ilarkutt entered with the strangers. Tliey were both of the same age and ap- pearance, but the principal speaker was evi- dently the superior of his companion, and although their attitude to each other was equal and familiar, it could be easily seen that he was the leader, lie had a smooth, beardless face, with a critical expression of eye and mouth that might have been fas- tidious and supercilious but for the kindly, humorous perception that tempered it. Ilis quick eye swept the apartniout and then fixed itself upon tlie accordion, but a smile lit up his face as he said quietly, " I hope we have n't frightened the musi- cian away. It was bad enough to have in- terrupted the young ladv." B Bret Harte " v. 22 DONATED GOO;^ r4ir JTI { CORPS ARA 3-4 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " No, no," said Mr. Harkutt, who seemed to have lost his abstraction in the nervousness of hospitality. " I reckon she 's only lookin' after her sick sister. But come into the kitchen, both of you, straight off, and while you 're dry in' your clothes, mother '11 fix you suthin' hot." " We only need to change our boots and stockings ; we 've some dry ones in our pack downstairs," said the first sjwaker hesitat- ingly. " I '11 fetch 'em up and you can change in the kitchen. The old woman won't mind," said Ilarkutt reassuringly. " Come along." lie led the way to the kitchen ; the two strangers exchanged a glance of humorous perplexity and followed. The quiet of the little room was once more unbroken. A far-off connniserating murmur indicated that Mrs. Ilarkutt was receiving her guests. The cool breath of the wet leaves witliout slightly stirred the white dim- ity cnrtains, and somewhere from the dark- ened eaves there was a still, somnolent drip. Presently a hurried whisper and a lialf -laugh appeared to be su])pressed in the outer pas- sage or hall. Tliere was another moment of hesitati(jn and the door opened suddenly and A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 35 ostentatiously, disclosing Pliemie, with a tailor and slighter young woman, her elder sister, at her side. Perceiving that the room was empty, they both said " Oh ! " yet with a certain artificiality of manner that was evidently a Imgering trace of some previous formal attitude they had assumed. Then without further speech they each selected a chair and a position, having first shaken out their dresses, and gazed silently at each other. It may be said briefly that sitting thus in spite of their unnatural attitude, or per- haps rather because of its suggestion of a photographic pose they made a striking picture, and strongly accented their separate peculiarities. They were both pretty, but the taller girl, apparently the elder, had an iileal refinement and regularity of feature which was not only unlike Pliemie, but gratuitously unlike the rest of her family, and as hopelessly and even wantonly incon- sistent with her surroundings as was the elaborately ornamented accordion on the centre-table. She was one of those occa- sional ci'i^atures, e])is()(lical in the South and West, who might liave been stamped with some vague ante-natal impression of a mother 36 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. given to over-sentimental contemplation of books of beauty and albums ratlier than the family features ; offspring of tyjjical men and women, and yet themselves incongruous to any known local or even general type. The long swan - like neck, tendriled hair, swimming eyes, and small patrician head, had never lived or moved before in Tasajara or the AVest, nor perhaps even existed except as a personified " Constancy," '' Meditation," or the "Baron's Bride," in mezzotint or copperplate. Even the girl's common pink print dress with its high sleeves and shoulders could not conventionalize these original out- lines ; and the hand that rested stifdy on the back of her chair, albeit neither over- white nor well kept, looked as if it had never held anything but a lyre, a rose, or a good book. Even the few sprays of wild jessamine which she had placed in the coils of her waving hair, although a local fasliion, became her as a special ornament. The two girls kept tlieir constrained and artificially elaborated attitude for a few mo- ments, accompanied by the murn^au' of voices in the kit(;hen, the monotonous drip of the eaves before the window. :ind the far-off sough of the wind. Then Phemie suddenly A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 37 broke into a constrained giggle, wliicli she however quickly smothered as she had the accordion, and with the same look of mis- chievous distress. " I 'm astonished at you, Phemie," said Clementina in a deep contralto voice, which seemed even deeper from its restraint. " You don't seem to have any sense. Anybody 'd think you never had seen a stranger be- fore." " Saw him before you did," retorted Phemie pertly. But here a pushing of chairs and shuffling of feet in the kitchen checked her. Clementina fixed an abstracted gaze on the ceiling; Phemie regarded a leaf on the window sill with photographic rigidity as the door opened to the strangers and her father. The look of undisguised satisfaction which lit tlie young men's faces relieved Mr. Ilarkutt's awkward introduction of any em- barrassment, and almost before Pliemie was fully aware of it, she found herself talking rapidly and in a high key with Mr. Lawrence Grant, the surveyor, while her sister was equally, altliough more sedately, occupied with ]Mr. Stephen liice, his assistant. But the enthusiasm of the strangers, and the desire 88 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS A JAR A. to please and be pleased was so genuine and contagious that presently the accordion was brought into requisition, and Mr. Grant exhibited a surprising faculty of accompani- ment to Mr. Rice's tenor, in which both the girls joined. Then a game of cards with partners fol- lowed, into which the rival parties introduced such delightful and shameless obviousness of cheating, and displayed such fascinating and exaggerated partisanship that the game resolved itself into a hilarious melee, to which peace v/as restored only by an exhibition of tricks of legerdemain with the cards by the young surveyor. All of which ]Mr. Ilarkutt supervised patronizingly, with occasional fits of abstraction, from his rocking-chair ; and later Mrs. Ilarkutt from her kitchen thresh- old, wiping her arms on her apron and com- miseratingly observing that she " declared, the young folks looked better already." r)ut it was here a more dangerous element of mystery and suggestion was added by Mr. Lawrence Grant in the telling of Miss Eu])lu!mia"s fortune from the cards before him, and that young lady, pink with excite- ment, fluttered lior liUle liands not unlike timid birds over the cards to be drawn, taking A FIRST FAMILY OF TAHAJARA. 39 them from him with an audible twitter of anxiety and great doubts whether a certain " fair-haired gentleman " was in hearts or diamonds. " Here are two strangers," said Mr. Grant, with extraordinary gravity laying down the cards, " and here is a ' journey ; ' this is ' un- expected news,' and this ten of diamonds means ' great wealth ' to you, which you see follows the advent of the two strangers and is some way connected with them." *' Oil, indeed," said the young lady with great pertness and a toss of her head. " I su])])osc they 've got the money with them." '' No, though it reaches you through them," he answered with unflinching solemnity. " Wait a bit, I have it I 1 see, I 've made a mistake with tliis card. It signifies a journey or a road. Queer ! is n't it, Steve ? It 's the roady ' It is queer," said Rice with equal grav- ity ; ' but it 's so. The road, sure ! " Xever- tholess lie looked up into the large eyes of Clementina with a certain confidential air of truthfulness. ' You see, ladies," continued the surveyor, appealing to them with unabashed rigidity of feature, ' the cards don"t lie ! Luckily we 40 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. are in a position to corroborate them. The road in question is a secret kno^yn only to us and some capitalists in San Francisco. In fact even they don't know that it is feasible until lue report to them. But I don't mind telling you now, as a slight return for your charming hospitality, that the road is a rail- road from Oakland to Tasajara Creek of which we 've just made the preliminary sur- vey. So you see what the cards mean is this : You 're not far from Tasajara Creek ; in fact with a very little expense your father could connect this stream with the creek, and have a icateru'cty straight to the railroad terminus. That 's the wealth the cards promise ; and if your father knows how to take a hint he can make his fortune ! " It was impossible to say which was the most dominant in the face of the speaker, the expression of assumed gravity or the twinkling of humor in his eyes. The two girls with superior feminine perception di- vined that there was much truth in what he said, albeit they did n't entirely understand it, and what they did understand except the man's gocd-humored motive was not particularly interesting. In fact they were slightly disappointed. What had promised A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 41 to be an audaciously flirtatious declaration, and even a mischievous suggestion of mar- riage, had resolved itself into something absurdly practical and business-like. Not so Mr. Ilarkutt. lie quickly rose from his chair, and, leaning over the table, vith his eyes fixed on the card as if it really signified the railroad, repeated quickly : '" Kailroad, eh ! What 's that ? A railroad to Tasajara Creek ? Ye don't mean it ! That is it ain't a stive thing ? " " Perfectly sure. The money is ready in San Francisco now, and by this time next year " " A railroad to Tasajara Creek ! " con- tinued Ilarkutt hurriedly. " What part of it ? Where ? " " At the cmharcadero naturally," re- sponded Grant. '' Tliere is n't but the one- place for the terminus. There "s an old shanty there now belongs to somebody." " Why, pop I " said Phemie with sudden recollection, ' ain't it 'Lige Curtis's house ? The land he offered"" " Hush ! " said liei- father. " You know, the one written in that bit of paper," contir.ui'd tlu' iuiKircnt Piiemie. "Hush! will you? God A'mighty ' are 42 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. you goin' to mind me ? Are you goin' to keep up your jabber when I 'm speakin' to the gentlemen ? Is that your manners ? ^Vhat next, I wonder ! " The sudden and unexpected passion of the speaker, the incomprehensible change in his voice, and the utterly disproportionate ex- aggeration of his attitude towards his daugh- ters, enforced an instantaneous silence. The rain began to drip audibly at the window, the rush of the river sounded distinctly from without, even the shaking of the front jjart of tlie dwelling by the distant gale became perceptible. An angry flash sprang for an instant to the young assistant's eye, but it met the cautious glance of his friend, and together both discreetly sought the table. The two girls alone remained white and col- lected. " Will you go on with my fortune, Mr. Grant?" said Phemie quietly. A certain respect, perhaps not before ob- servable, was suggested in the surveyor's tone as he smilingly replied, " Certainly, I was only waiting for you to show your con- fidence in me," and took up the cards. Mr. llarkutt coughed. "It looks as if that blamed wind liad blown suthin' loose in the store," he said affectedly. " 1 reckon .1 r/R>ST FA.U/Ly OF TASAJARA. 4^3 I '11 go and see." He hesitated a luonicut and then disappeared in the passage. Yet even here he stood irresolute, looking at tlie closed door behind him, and passing his hand over his still flushed face. Presently he slowly and abstractedly ascended the flight of steps, entered the smaller passage that led to the back door of the shop and opened it. lie was at first a little startled at the halo of light from the still glowing stov^e, whicli the greater obscurity of t!:e long room liad heightened rather than diuiinishcd. Then he })assod behind the counter, but here the box of biscuits which occupied the centre and cast a shadow over it compelled him to grope vaguely for what he sought. Then he sto]i])ed suddenly, the paper he had just found (lro])ping from his fingers, and said sharj)ly, ^' Who's there'?" "Me, pop." '-John :\Iilton?" " Yes, sir." " AVhat the devil arc you doin' there, sir ? " '' Itcadin'." It was true. The boy was half rccliuing 44 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA.TARA. in a most distorted posture on two chairs, his figure in deep shadow, but his book was raised above his head so as to catch the red glow of the stove on the printed page. Even then his father's angry interruption scarcely diverted his preoccupation ; he raised himself in his chair mechanically, with his eyes still fixed on his book. Seeing which his father quickly regained the paper, but continued his objurgation. " How dare you ? Clear off to bed, will 3"0u ! Do you hear me ? Pretty goin's on," he added as if to justify his indignation. " Sneakin' in here and and lyin' 'round at this time o' night ! ^Vhy, if I had n't come in hero to " " What ? " asked the boy mechanically, catching vaguely at the unfinished sentence and staring automatically at the paper in his father's hand. "Nothin', sir! Go to bed, I tell you! Will 3"ou ? Wliat are you standin' gawpin' at ? " continued Ilarkutt furiously. Tlio boy regained his feet slowly and passed his father, biit not without noticing with the same listless yet ineffaceable per- ception of cliildliood that lie was hurriedly concealing the paper in his pocket. With A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 45 the same youthful incousequence, wondering at this more than at the interruption, which was no novel event, he went slowly out of the room. llarkutt listened to the retreating tread of liis bare feet in the passage and then carefully locked the door. Taking the paper from his pocket, and borrowing the idea he had just objurgated in his son, he turned it towards the dull glow of the stove and at- tempted to read it. But perhaps lacking the patience as well as the keener sight of youtli, he was forced to relight the candle which he had left on the coimter, and repe- rused the pajier. Yes I there was certainly no mistake I Here was the actual description of tlie ])voperty which the surveyor had just indicated as the future terminus of the new railroad, and here it was conveyed to him Daniel llarkutt! What wa,s that? Some- body knocking ? What did this continual interruption mean? An odd superstitious fear now mingled with his irritation. The sound ap])cared to come from the front shutters. It suddenly occurred to iiim tliat tlie light miglit be visible tlirough the crevices. He hurriedly extinguished it, and went to the door. 46 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. "Who's there?" " Me, Peters. Want to speak to you." Mr. Harkutt with evident reluctance drew the bolts. The wind, still boisterous and besieging, did the rest, and precipitately pro- pelled Peters through the carefully guarded opening. But his surprise at finding him- self in the darkness seemed to forestall any explanation of his visit. " Well," he said with an odd mingling of reproach and suspicion. " I declare I saw a light here just this minit ! That "s queer." " Yes, I put it out just now. I was goin' away," replied Harkutt, with ill-disguised impatience. " What I been here ever since ? " " Xo," said Harkutt curtly. " Well, I want to speak to ye about 'Lige. Seein' the candle shinin' through the chinks I thought he might be still with ye. If ho ain't, it looks bad. Light up, can't ye ! 1 want to show you something." There was a peremptoriness in his tone that struck Harkutt disagreeably, but observ- ing that he was carrying something in his hand, he somewdiat nervously re-lit the can- dle and faced him. Peters had a hat in his hand. It was 'Lige's 1 A FIIi.ST FAMILY OF TASAJAIiA. 41 " "Bout an hour after we fellers left liere," said Peters, " 1 heard the rattliii' of hoofs on the road, and then it seemed to stop just by my house. I went out with a lantern, and, darn my skin ! if there war n't 'Lige's hoss, the saddle empty, and Lige nowhere ! I looked round and called him but no- thing were to be seen. Thinkin' he miglit have slipped off tho' ez a general rule drunken men don't, and he is a good rider I followed down the road, lookin' for him. 1 kept on follerin' it down to your run, half a mile below." ''But," began Ilarkutt, with a cpiiek ner- vous laugh, ** you don't reckon that because of that he "' "Hold on!" said Peters, grimly pi^oduc- ing a revolver from his side-pocket with the stock and barrel clogged and streaked with mud. ' 1 found titat too, and look ! one barrel discharged ! And," he added hur- riedly, as approaching a climax, " look ye, what I nat'rally took for wet from the rain inside that hat was blood ! " '"Nonsense!" said Ilarkutt, putting the hat aside with a new fastidiousness. " You don't thiidv" "' 1 think,'" said Peters, lowering his voice. 48 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. "I think, by God! he 's hin and done it!'' "No!" " Sure ! Oil, it 's all very well for Bil- lings and the rest of that conceited crowd to sneer and sling their ideas of 'Lige gen'rally as they did jess now here, but I 'd like 'em to see ihatr It was difficult to tell if Mr. Peters' triumphant delight in confuting his late companions' theories had not even usurped in his mind the importance of the news he brought, as it had of any human sympathy with it. " Look here," returned Ilarkutt earnestly, yet with a singularly cleared brow and a more natural manner. " You ought to take them things over to Squire Kerby's, right off, and show 'em to him. You kin tell him how you left 'Lige here, and say that I can prove by my daughter that he went away about ten minutes after, at least, not more than fifteen." Like all unprofessional hu- manity, Mr. Ilarkutt had an exaggerated conception of the majesty of unimportant detail in the eye of the law. " I 'd go with you myself," he added quickly, "but I've got company strangers here." " IIow did lie look wlien he left, kinder wild*^" suggested Peters. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAIiA. 49 Ilarkutt had begun to feel the prudence of present reticence. " Well," he said, cau- tiously, '^you saw how he looked." " You was n't rough with him ? that might have sent him oft", you know," said Peters. " No," said Harkutt, forgetting himself in a quick indignation, " no, I not only treated him to another drink, but gave him " he stopped siuldenly and awkwardly. "Eh?" said Peters. "Some good advice, you know," said Ilarkutt, hastily. " But come, you 'd bet- ter hurry over to the squire's. You know you 've made the discovery ; yoiir evidence is important, and there 's a law that obliges you to give information at once." The excitement of discovery and the tri- umph over his disputants being spent, Peters, after the Sidon fashion, evidently did not relish activity as a duty. " You know," he said dubiously, " he might n't be dead, after aU." Ilarkutt became a trifle distant. " You know your own opinion of the thing,'" he replied after a pause. " You 've circumstan- tial evidence enough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and," he added 50 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. significantly, " you 've done your share then, and can wipe your hands of it, eh? " " That 's so," said Peters, eagerly. " I '11 just run over to the squire." " And on account of the women folks, you know, and the strangers here, 1 11 say nothin' about it to-night," added Harkutt. Peters nodded his head, and taking up the hat of the unfortunate Elijah with a certain hesitation, as if he feared it had already lost its dramatic intensity as a witness, disap- peared into the storm and darkness again. A lurking gust of wind lying in ambush somewhere seemed to swoop down on him as if to prevent further indecision and whirl him away in the direction of the justice's house ; and Mr. Ilarkutt shut tlie door, bolted it, and walked aimlessly back to the counter. From a slow, deliberate and cautious man, he seemed to have changed within an hour to an irresolute and capricious one. He took the paper from his pocket, and, unlocking the money drawer of his counter, folded into a small compass that which now seemed to be the last testament of Elijah Curtis, and ])laeed it in a recess. Then he went to the back door and paused, then returned, re- opened the mou'jy diawer, took out the A FIIL-^r FA.\f!Ly OF TASA.IARA. 51 paper and again buttoned it in Lis liip pocket, standing by the stove and staring abstractedly at the dull glow of the fire. lie even went through the mechanical pro- cess of raking down the ashes, solely to gain time and as an excuse for delaying some other necessary action. lie was thinking what he should do. Had the cpiestion of his right to retain and malvc use of that paper been squarely offer('d to him an hour ago, he would without doubt have decided that he ought not to keep it. Even now, looking at it as an abstract prin- ciple, he did not deceive himself in the least. But Nature has the reprehensible ha])it of not })resenting these questions to us squarely and fairly, and it is remarkable that in most (-)f our offending the abstract principle is never the direct issue. islv. liarlcutt w\as conscious of having been unwillingly led step by step into a difficult, not to say dishonest, situation, and against his own seeking. He had never asked Elijah to sell him the property ; he had distinctly declined it : it had even been forced upon him as se- curity for the })itta]U'c he so freely gave him. This })rovcd (to himself) that he himself was honest ; it was only the circumstances 62 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. tliLit were queer. Of course if Eli j all had lived, he, Harkutt, might have tried to drive some bargain with him before the news of the railroad survey came out for that was only business. But now that Elijah was dead, who would be a penny the worse or better but himself if he chose to consider the whole thing as a lucky speculation, and his gift of fiv^e dollars as the price he paid for it? Nobody coidd think that he had calcu- lated upon 'Lige's suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable. In fact if it crane to that, if "Lige had really contemplated killing himself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Ilarkutt's money as a loan, it was a swindle on his Ilarkutt's good-nature. He worked himself into a rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of cold principle over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to the /.7?/;, he 'd stand by law and not sentiment. He'd just let them by which he vaguely liieaut the world, Tasajara, and possibh; his own corisciencc see tliat he Vwi;-; n't a senti- mcntfd fool, and lie M freeze on to that pa})er and lliat property ! (^nly he ought lo have spolccn out before. IIo oiiglit to have told the surveyor at once A FlJiST FAMILY OF TASA.IARA. 53 that lie <)^\^lO(l the land. lie ought to have said: " Why, that 's my laiul. I bought it of tli:it drunken 'Ligc Curtis for a song and out of charity." Yes, that was the only real trouble, and that came from his own good- ness, his own extravagant sense of justice and right, his own cursed good-nature. Yet, on second thoughts, he did n't know why he was obliged to tell the surveyor. Time enough when the company wanted to buy the land. As soon as it was setthnl that "Lige was dead he "d openly claim tlic pro}^- crty. But what if he Vvas n't dead ? or they could n't find his body ? or he had orJy dis- appeared ? Ilis plain, matter-of-fact face contracted and darkened. Of course he could n't ask the company to wait for him to settle that point. lie had the jiower to dis- pose of the property under that paper, and he should do it. If "Lige turned uj), tliat v/as another matter, and he and Lige could ari'angc it between tlicm. lie was quite arm here, and oddly enough quite relieved in getting rid of what a])peared only a simple ([uestion of detail. He never suspected that lie was contemplating the one irretrievable ste]), and summarily dismissing the whole ethical question. 54 A FIRST FAMILY OF TA,SAJAIiA. He turned away from tlie stove, oj^ened the back door, and walked with a more de- teriinned step through the passage to the sitting-room. But here he halted again on the threshold with a quick return of his old habits of caution. The door was slightly open ; apparently his angry outbreak of an hour ago had not affected the spirits of his daughters, for he could hear their hilarious voices mincrlinff with those of the stranlain liad disappeared ; he was alone on a bend of the tossing bay of San Francisco ! A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAUA. Gl His first and only sense cleared by fast- ing and quickened by reaction was one of infinite relief. lie was not only free from the vague terrors of the preceding days and nights, but his whole past seemed to be lost and sunk forever in this illimitable expanse. .he low plain of Tasajara, with its steadfast monotony of light and shadow, had sunk b(!- neath another level, but one that glistened, sparkled, was instinct with varying life, and moved and even danced below him. The low palisades of regularly recurring tulcs that had fenced in, impedetl, but never relieved tlie blankness of his horizon, were forever swallowed up behind him. All trail of past degradation, all record of pain and suffering, all foot})rints of his wandering and misguided feet were smoothly wiped out in that ol)lit- erating sea. lie was physically hel})lcss, and he felt it ; he was in danger, and he knew it, but he was free ! Hap])ily there was but little wind and the sea was slight. The raft was still intact so far as he could judge, but even in his igno- rance he knew it would scarcely stand the surges of tlie lower bay. Like most Cali- foruians who liad passed the straits of Carquinez at night in a steamer, he did not 62 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. recognize the locality, nor even the distant peak of Tamalpais. There were a few dotting sails that seemed as remote, as uncertain, and as unfriendly as sea birds. The raft was motionless, almost as motion- less as he was in his cramped limbs and sun- dried, stiffened clothes. Too weak to keep an upright position, without mast, stick, or oar to lift a signal above tliat vast ex- panse, it seemed impossible for him to attract attention. Even his pistol was gone. Suddenly, in an attempt to raise himself, he was struck by a flasli so l)linding that it seemed to pierce his aching eyes and brain and turned him sick. It appeared to come from a crevice between the logs at the fur- tlier end of the raft. Creeping painfully towards it he saw that it was a triangular sli]i of highly polished metal that he liad hitherto overlooked. He did not know that it was a "flashing" mirror used in topogra- pliical observation, which had slipped from t]i(! surveyors' instruments when they aban- doned the raft, l)ut liIs excited faculties in- stinctively detected its value to him. He llficd It. and, lacing the sun. raised it at different anules v>itli his feclde arms. But A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. G3 the effort was too much for him ; the raft presently seemed to be whirling with his movement, and he again fell. " Ahoy there ! " The voice was close upon in his very ears. lie opened his eyes. The sea still stretched emptily before him ; the dotting sails still unchanged and distant. Yet a strange shadow lay upon the raft. He turned his head with difficulty. On the op- posite side so close upon him as to be al- most over his head the great white sails of a schooner hovered above him like the wings of some enormous sea bird. Then a heavy boom swung across the raft, so low that it would have swept him away had he been in an upright position ; the sides of the vessel grazed the raft and she fell slowly off. A terrible fear of abandonment took possession of him ; he tried to speak, but could not. The vessel moved further away, but the raft followed ! He could see now it was being held by a boat-hook, could see the odd, eager curiosity on two faces that were raised above the taffrail, and witli tliat sense of relief his eyes again closed in un- consciousness. G-i A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. A feeling o chilliness, followed by a grate- ful sensation of drawing closer under some warm covering, a stinging taste in his mouth of fiery liquor and the aromatic steam of hot coffee, were his first returning sensations. His head and neck were swathed in coarse bandages, and his skin stiffened and smart- ing with soap. He was lying in a rude berth under a half -deck from which he could see the sky and the bellying sail, and pres- ently a bearded face filled with rough and practical concern that peered down upon him. " IIulloo ! comin' round, eh? Hold on ! " The next moment the stranger had leaped down beside Elijah, He seemed to be an odd minfrling' of the sailor and rancliero with the shrev/dness of a seaport trader. "IIulloo, boss! What was it? A free fight, or a wash-out ? " " A wash-out ! " ^ Elijah grasped the idea as an inspiration. Yes, his cabin had been inundated, he had taken to a raft, had becai knocked off twice or thrice, and had lost everytliing even his revolver ! The man looked relieved. " Then it ain't ^ A niinin/(jur hoy, I 'd be playin' hookey instead of goiu' to school, jest as your boy is doin' now," interrupted John Milton, with a literal recollection of his quarrel and pur- suit of the youth in rpiestion that morning. An undignified silence on the part of the adults followed, the usual sequel to those ])assages ; Sidon generally declining to ex- pose itself t() tlie youthful Ilarkutt's terrible accuracy of statement. 84 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. The men resumed their previous lazy gos- sip about Elijah Curtis's disappearance, with occasional mysterious allusions in a lower tone, which the boy instinctively knew re- ferred to his father, but which either from indolence or caution, the two great conserva- tors of Sidon, were never formulated dis- tinctly enough for his relentless interfer- ence. The morning sunshine was slowly thickening again in an indolent mist that seemed to rise from the saturated plain. A stray lounger shuffled over from the black- smith's shop to the store to take the place of another idler who had joined an equally lethargic circle around the slumbering forge. A dull intermittent sound of liammering came occasionally from the wheelwright's shed at sufficiently protracted intervals to indi- cate the enfeebled progress of Sidon's vehi- cular repair. A yellow dog left his patch of sunlight on the opposite side of the way and walked deliberately over to what aj)- peared to be more luxurious quarters on the veranda ; was manifestly disajipointed but not equal to the exertion of returning, and sank down witli blinking eyes and a re- gretful sigh without going further. A pro- cession of six ducks got well into a line A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 85 for a laborious " march jiast " the store, but fell out at the first mud i)udcUe and gave it up. A highly nervous but respectable hen, who had ventured upon the veranda evi- dently against her better instincts, walked painfully on tiptoe to the door, apparently was met by language which no mother of a family could listen to, and retired in strong hysterics. A little later the sun became again obscured, the wind arose, rain fell, and the opportunity for going indoors and doing nothing was once more availed of by all Sidon. It was afternoon when Mr. Harkutt re- turned, lie did not go into the store, but entered the dwelling from the little picket- gate and steep path. There he called a family council in the sitting-room as being the most reserved and secure. jMrs. Har- kutt, sympathizing and cheerfully ready for any affliction, still holding a dust-cloth in her hand, took her seat by the window, with Phemic breathless and sparkling at one side of her, while Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the other. To Mrs. II ar- kutt's motherly concei'u at John jVlilton's absence, it was pointed out that he was wanted at the store, was a mere boy any- 86 .1 FIRUT FAMILY OF TASAJARA. how, and could not be trusted. Mr. Har- kutt, a little ruddier from weather, excite- ment, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, a little more rugged in the lines of his face, and with an odd ring of defiant self-assertion in his voice, stood before them in the centre of the room. lie wanted them to listen to him care- fully, to remember what he said, for it was important ; it might be a matter of " law- ing " hereafter, and he could n't be always repeating it to them, he would have enough to do. There was a heap of it that, as women-folks, they could n't understand, and were n't expected to. But he 'd got it all clear now, and what he was saying was gospel. He 'd always known to himself that the only good that could ever come to Sidon would come by railroad. When those fools talked wagon road he had said nothing, but he had his own ideas ; he had worked for that idea without saying anything to anybody ; that idea was to get possession of all the land along the emharcadero^ which nobody cared for, and 'I.-igc Curtis was ready to sell for a song. Well, now, considering what had ha])pened, he did n't mind telling them that he had been gradually getting A FHiST FA.)nLY OF TASA.IAHA. 87 |)OSScssion of It, little by little, paying 'liige Curtis in adv^ances and Installments, until it was his own ! They had heard what those surveyors said ; how that it was the only fit terminus for the railroad. Well, that land, and that water-front, and the terminus were his/ And all from his own foresight and prudence. It is needless to say that this was not the truth. ]3ut it is necessary to point out that this fabrication was the result of his last night's cogitations and his morning's experi- ence, lie had resolved upon a bold course. lie had reflected that his neighbors would be more ready to believe in and to respect a hard, mercenary, and speculative foresight in his taking advantage of 'Lige's necessities than if he had as was the case merely benefited by them through an accident of circumstance and good humor. In the lat- ter case he would be envied and hated ; in the foi'mer he would be envied and feared. By logic of circunistance tlic greater wrong seemed to be less obviously offensive than the minor fault. It was true that it involved tlie doing of something lie had not contem- plated, and tlio certainty of exposure if 'Lifje ever returned, but he was nevertheless 88 A F/IiST FAMILY OF T AS A J ABA. resolved. The step from passive to active wrong-doing is not only easy, it is often a relief ; it is that return to sincerity which we all require. Howbeit, it gave that ring of assertion to Daniel Harkutt's voice al- ready noted, which most women like, and only men are prone to suspect or challenge. The incompleteness of his statement was, for the same reason, overlooked by his feminine auditors. "And what is it worth, dad?" asked Phemie eagerly. " Grant says I oughter get at least ten thousand dollars for the site of the terminus from the oomiisinj, but of course I shall hold on to the rest of the land. The moment they get the terminus there, and the dei:)ot and wharf built, I can get my own price and buyers for the rest. Before the year is out Orant thinks it ought to go up ten per cent on the value of the terminus, and that a hundred thousand." " Oh, dad I " gasped Phemie, frantically clas})ing her knees with both hands as if to perfectly assure herself of this good fortune. Mrs. Ilarkutt audibly murmured "Poor dear Dan'l," and stood, as it were, sympa- thetically by, ready to commiserate the pains A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 89 and anxieties of wealth as she had those of poverty. Clementina alone remained silent, clear-eyed, and unchanged. '' And to think it all came through them/ " continued Phemie. " I always had an idea that Mr. Grant was smart, dad. And it was real kind of him to tell you." " I reckon father could have found it out without them. I don't know why we should be beholden to them particularly. I hope he is n't expected to let them think that he is bound to consider them our intimate friends just because they happened to drop in here at a time when his plans have suc- ceeded." The voice was Clementina's, unexpected but quiet, imemotional and convincing. " It seemed," as Mrs. Harkutt afterwards said, " as if the child had already touched that hundred thousand." Phemie reddened with a sense of convicted youthful extravagance. " You need n't fear for me," said llarkutt, responding to Clementina's voice as if it were an echo of his own, and instinctively recognizing an unexpected ally. "I 've got my own ideas of tliis thing, and what 's to come of it. 1 've got my own ideas of openiu' up that pro})erty and showin' its re- 90 A FIIiST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. sources. I 'm goiii' to run it my own way. I 'm goin' to have a town along the enibar- cudero that '11 lay over any town in Contra Costa. I 'm goin' to have the court-house and county seat there, and a couple of hotels as good as any in the Bay. I 'm goin' to build that wagon road through here that those lazy louts slipped up on, and carry it clear over to Five Mile Corner, and open up the whole Tasajara Plain ! " They had never seen him look so strong, so resolute, so intelligent and handsome. A dimly prophetic vision of him in a black broadcloth suit and gold watch-chain ad- dressing a vague multitude, as she remem- bered to have seen the Hon. Stanley Kiggs of Alasco at the ''Great Barbecue," rose be- fore Phemie's blue enraptured eyes. With the exception of Mi-s. Harkutt, equal to any possibilities on the part of her husband, they had honestly never expected it of him. They were pleased with their father's attitude in prosperity, and felt that perhaps he was not unworthy of being proud of them hereafter. '' But we 're goin' to leave Sidon," said Phemie, "ain"t we, paw?" " As soon as I can run up a new house at A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA.fAHA. 91 the emhdrcadero,'" said Ilarkntt pccvislily, " and that 's got to bo done mighty quick if I want to make a show to the company and be in possession." " And that 's easier for you to do, dear, now that Lige 's disappeared," said Mrs. 1 larkutt consolingly. " What do ye mean by that ? What the devil are ye talkin' aljout ? " demanded Ilar- kutt suddeidy witli unexpected exasperation. ' I mean that that drunken 'Ligo would be mighty poor company for tlie girls if he was our only neighbor,"' returned Mrs. Ilar- kntt submissively. Ilarkntt, after a fixed survey of his wife, appeared mollified. The two girls, who were mindful of hi.-; previous outburst the evening before, exchanged glances which implied that his manners needed correction for prosperity. " You "11 want a heap o' money to build there, Dan"l,'" said Mrs. Ilarkutt in plain- tive diffidence. " Yes ! Yes ! " said Ilarkutt impatiently. " I 've kalkilated all that, and I 'm goiu' to 'Frisco to-morrow to raise it and put this bill of sale on record."" lie half drew Elijali Curtis's pa]ier from his pocket, but paused and put it back again. 92 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " Then that was the pai)er, dad," said Pheraie triumphantly. " Yes," said her father, regarding her fix- edly, " and you know now why I did n't want anything said about it last night nor even now." " And 'Lige had just given it to you ! Wasn't it lucky?" " lie had nt just given it to me ! " said her father with another unexpected out- burst. " God Amighty ! ain't I tellin' you all the time it was an old matter I But you jabber, jabber all the time and don't listen ! Where 's John Milton? " It had occurred to him that the boy might have read the paper as his sister had while it lay unheeded on the counter. " In the store, you know. You said he was n't to hear anything of this, but I '11 call him," said IMrs. Ilarkutt, rising eagerly. " Never mind," returned her husband, stopping her reflectively, " best leave it as it is ; if it 's necessary I '11 tell him. But don't any of you say anything, do you hear ? " Nevertheless a few hours later, when the store was momentarily free of loungers, and Ilarkutt liad relieved his son of his mono- tonous charge, he made a pretense, while A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 93 abstractedly listening to an account of the boy's stewardship, to look through a drawer as if in search of some missing article. " You did n't see anything of a paper I left somewhere about here yesterday ? " he asked carelessly. " The one you picked up when you came in last night ? " said the boy with discompos- ing directness. Harkutt flushed slightly and drew his breath between his set teeth. Not only could he place no reliance upon ordinary youthful inattention, but he must be on his guard against his own son as from a spy ! But he restrained himself. " I don't remember," he said with affected deliberation, " what it was I picked up. Do you ? Did you read it ? " The meaning of his father's attitude in- stinctively flashed upon the boy. He had read the pa])er, but he answered, as he had already deti.'rmined, '" No." An inspiration seized Mr. Ilarkutt. lie drew Lige Curtiss bill of sale from his })0cket, and opening it before John Milton said. " Was it that ? "' " I don't know."' said the boy. " I could n't tell.'' He walked away with 94 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. affected carelessness, already with a sense of playing some part like his father, and pre- tended to whistle for the dog across the street. Harkutt coughed ostentatiously, put the paper back in his pocket, set one or two boxes straight on the counter, locked the drawer, and disappeared into the back pas- sage. John iSIilton remained standing in the doorway looking vacantly out. But ho did not see the dull familiar prospect beyond. lie only saw the paper his father had opened and unfolded before him. It was the same paper he had read last night. But there were three words written there that vere ?ioi there before ! After the words " Value re- ceived " there had been a blank. He remem- bered that distinctly. This was filled in by the words, '" Five hundred dollars." The handwriting did not seem like his father's, nor yet entirely like 'Lige Curtis's. AVhat it meant he did not knov/, he would not try to think. He should forget it, as he had tried to forget what had happened before, and he should never tell it to any one ! Tliere was a feverish gayety in his sisters' manner tliat afternoon that he did not under- stand : short colloquies that were suspended with ill concealed impatience when he came A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAKA. 95 near them, and resumed when he was sent, on C(|ually palpable excuses, out of the room. He had been accustomed to this exclusion when there were strangers present, but it seemed odd to him now, when the conversa- tion did not even turn upon the two superior visitors who had been there, and of whom he confidently expected they would talk. Such fragments as he overheard were always in the future tense, and referred to what they intended to do. His mother, whose affection for liim had always been shown in excessive and depressing commisei'ation of him in even his lightest moments, that afternoon seemed to add a prophetic and Cassandra-like sym- patliy for some vague future of his that would require all her ministration. " You won't need them new boots, ]\Iilty deai', in the changes that may be eomin' to ye ; so don't be botliering your poor father in his worriments over his new plans."' ' AVhat new plans, monnner ? " asked the boy abruptly. " Are we goiu' away from here?" 'Hush, dear, and don't ask questions tliat 's enough for gi'own folks to worry over, let alone a boy like you. Now be good," a quality in Mrs. Harkutts mind synony- 96 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. mous with ceasing from troubling, " and after supper, while I 'm in the parlor with your father and sisters, you kin sit up here by the fire with your book." " But," persisted the boy in a flash of in- spiration, " is poi)per goin' to join in busi- ness with those surveyors, a survey in' ? " "^o, child, what an ideal Run away there, and mind I don't bother your father." Nevertheless John Milton's inspiration had taken a new and characteristic shape. All this, he reflected, had happened since the surveyors came since they had weakly displayed such a shameless and unnumly interest in his sisters ! It could have but one meaning. lie hung around the sit- ting-room and passages until lie eventually encountered Clementina, taller than ever, evidently wearing a guilty satisfaction in her face, engrafted upon that habitual bear- ing of hers which he had always recognized as belonging to a vague but objectionable race whose mem))ers were individually known to liim as '' a proudy." AVhich of those two surveyor fellows is it, Clemmy ? " he said witli an engaging smile, yet halting at a strategic distance. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAIiA. 97 "Is what?" " Wot you 're goin' to marry." " Idiot : " " That ain't tellin' which," responded the boy darkly. Clementina swept by him into the sitting- room, where he heard her declare that " really that boy was getting too low and vulgar for anything." Yet it struck him, that being pressed for further explanation, she did not specify why. This was " girls' meanness ! " Ilowbeit he lingered late in the road that evening, hearing his father discuss with the search-party that had followed the banks of the creek, vainly looking for further traces of the missing 'Lige, the possibility of his being living or dead, of the body having been carried away by the (,'urrent to the bay or turning up later in some distant marsh when the spring came with low water. One who had been to his ca])in beside the emhar- caderi) reported that it was, as had been long suspected, barely habitable, and con- tained neither books, papers, nor records which would indicate his family or friends. It was a God-forsaken, dreary, worthless place ; lie wondered how a wliite man could ever expect to make a living there. If D l]i-cl Ilarte v. 22 98 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. Elijah never turned up again it certainly would be a long time before any squatter would think of taking possession of it. John Milton knew instinctively, without looking up, that his father's eyes were fixed upon him, and he felt himself constrained to appear to be abstracted in gazing down the darkening road. Then he heard his father say, with what he felt was an equal assumj:>tion of care- lessness : " Yes, I reckon I 've got somewhere a bill of sale of that land that I had to take from 'Lige for an old bill, but I kalkilate that 's all I '11 ever see of it." Rain fell again as the darkness gathered, but he still loitered on the road and the sloping path of the garden, filled with a h;df resentful sense of wrong, and hugging with gloomy pride an increasing sense of loneli- ness and of getting dangerously wet. The swollen creek still whispered, murmured and swirled beside the bank. At another time he might have had wild ideas of emulating the surveyors on some extempore raft and so escaping his })resent dreary home existence ; but since the disappearance of 'Lige, who had always excited an odd boyish anti2)athy in his lieart, altliough ho had never seen him, he shunned the stream contaminated with the A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 99 missing- man's unheroic fate. Presently the light from the open window of tlie sitting- room glittered on the wet leaves and sprays where he stood, and the voices of the family conclave came fitfully to his ear. They did n't want him there. They had neve^" thought of ask'ing him to come in. Well ! who cared ? ^Vnd he was n't going to be bought off with a candle and a seat by the kitchen fire. No ! Nevertheless he was getting wet to no purpose. There was the tool-house and carpenter's shed near the bank ; its floor was thickly covered with sawdust and pine-wood shavings, and ther(i was a mouldy buffalo skin which he had once transported thither from the old wagon-bed. There, too, was his Fecret cache of a candle in a bottle, buried with other piratical treasures in the presence of tlio youthful Peters, who con- sented to bo sacrificed on the spot in bucca- neering fashion to complete the unhallowed rites. lie unearthed the candle, lit it, and clearing away a ])art of the shavings stood it up on the floor. He tlicn brought a prized, battei'od. and coverlcss volume froma hiddsMi recess in the rafters, and lying down with the buffalo robe over hiui. and his cap in liis 100 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAJiA. hand ready to extinguish the light at the first footstep of a trespasser, gave himself up as he had given himself up, I fear, many other times to the enchantment of the page before him. The current whispered, murmured, and sang, unheeded at his side. The voices of his mother and sisters, raised at times in eagerness or expectation of the future, fell upon his unlistening ears. For with the spell that had come upon him, the mean walls of his hiding-place melted away ; the vulvar stream beside him miffht have been that dim, subterraneous river down which Sindbad and his bale of riches were swept out of the Cave of Death to the sunlight of life and fortune, so surely and so sim2)ly had it transported liim beyond the cramped and darkened limits of his present life. He was in the better world of boyish romance, of gallant deeds and high emprises ; of miraculous atonement and devoted sacrifice ; of brave men, and tliose rarer, impossible women, the immaculate conception of a boy's virgin heart, ^^'llat mattered it that lifcliind that glittering wiiidow his mother and sisters grew feverish and excited over the vulgar details of their real but baser for- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 101 tune ? From the dark tool - shed by the muddy current, John Milton, with a bat- tered dogs'-eared chronicle, soared on the wings of fancy far beyond their wildest ken I CHAPTER V. PROSrERiTY had settled upon the plains of Tasajara. Not only had the enibarcadero emerged from the tides of Tasajara Creek as a thriving town of steamboat wharves, warehouses, and outlying mills and facto- ries, but in five years the transforming rail- road had penetrated the great jilain itself and revealed its undeveloped fertility. Tlie low-lying lands that had been yearly over- flowed by the creek, now drained and culti- vated, yielded treasures of wheat and barley that were apparently inexhaustible. Even tlie he]})less indolence of Sidon had been surprised into activity and change. Tlicre w;is nothing left of the straggling settlement to I'ccall its former aspect. Tlie site of Ihnl-cutt's old store and dwelling was lost and forgotten in the new mill and granary that rose along the banks of tlie creek. De- cay leaves ruin and traces for the memory to liiiger over ; })!'()s|)L'rity is uni\'lcnting in its complete and smiling obliteration of the past. A F/IiST FAMILY OF TASAJAKA. 103 But Tasajara Clt}'-, as the cmhdrcadero was now eallDcl, had no previous record, and even the former existence of an actual set- tler like tlie forgotten Elijah. Curtis was un- known to the present inhabitants. It was Daniel Ilarkutt's idea carried out in Daniel Harkutt's iajid, with Daniel Ilarkutt's capi- tal and energy. But Daniel Ilarkutt had become Daniel Ilarcourt, and llarcourt Ave- nue, Harcourt Square, and Ilarcourt House, ostentatiously proclaimed the new spelling of his patronymic. When the change v/as made and for what reason, who suggested it and under what authority, were not easy to determine, as the sign on his former store had borne nothing but the legend. Goods and Provisions^ and his name did not ap- pear on written record until after the occupa- tion of Tasajara ; but it is presumed that it was at the instigation of his daughters, and there was no one to oppose it. Ilarcourt was a pretty name for a street, a square, or a hotel ; even the few in Sidon who had called it Ilarkutt admitted that it was an improvement qiute consistent with the change from the fever-haunted tides and sedges of the creek to tlio broad, level, and handsome squares of Tasajara City. 104 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. This might have been the opinion of a vis- itor at the Ilarcourt House, who arrived one summer afternoon from the Stockton boat, but whose shrewd, half-critical, half-profes- sional eyes and quiet questionings betrayed some previous knowledge of the locality. Seated on the broad veranda of the Harcourt House, and gazing out on the well-kept green and young eucalyptus trees of the Ilarcourt Square or Plaza, he had elicited a counter question from a prosperous-look- ing citizen who had been lounging at his side. " I reckon you look ez if you might have been here before, stranger." " Yes," said the stranger quietly, " I have been. But it was when the tules grew in the square opposite, and the tide of the creek washed them." " AVell," said the Tasajaran, looking curi- ously at the stranger, " I call myself a pio- neer of Tasajara. My name 's Peters, of Peters and Co., and those warehouses along the wharf, where you landed just now, are mine ; but I was the first settler on Har- court's land, and built the next cabin after him. I helped to clear out them Uilcs and dredged the channels yonder. I took the contract with Ilarcourt to build the last fif- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 105 teen miles o' railroad, and put up that depot for the company. Perhaps you were here before that ? " " I was," returned the stranger quietly. " I say," said Peters, hitching his chair a little nearer to his companion, " you never knew a kind of broken-down feller, called Curtis 'Lige Curtis who once squatted here and sold his right to Ilarkutt? He disappeared ; it was allowed he killed his- self, but they never found his body, and, be- tween you and me, I never took stock in that story. You know Ilarcourt holds under him, and all Tasajara rests on that title." " I 've heard so," assented the stranger carelessly, " but I never knew the original settler. Then Ilarcourt has been lucky ? " " You bet. lie 's got three millions right about Jicre^ or within this quarter section, to say nothing of his outside speculations." '" And lives here? " " Xot for two years. That \s his old house across the plaza, but his women-folks live mostly in "Frisco and New York, where he "s got houses too. They say they sorter got sick of Tasajara after his youngest daughter ran off witli a fellei-.'" " Hallo I " said the stranger with undis- lOG A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. guise d interest. " I never heard of that ! You don't mean that she eloped " he hesi- tated. " Oh, it was a squai'e enough marriage. I reckon too square to suit some folks ; but the fellow had n't nothiu', and was n't worth shucks, a sort of land surveyor, doin' odd jobs, you know ; and the old man and old woman were agin it, and the tother daughter worse of all. It was allowed here you know how women-folks talk ! that the sur- veyor had been sweet on Clementina, but had got tired of being played by her, and took up with Pliemie out o' spite. Any- how they got married, and liarcourt gave them to understand they coiddn't expect anything from him. P'raps that 's why it did n't last long, for only about two months ago she got a divorce from Kice and came back to her family again." " liice ? "' queried the stranger. " Was that her husband's name, Stephen llice?" " J reckon I You knew him ? " " Yes, when the tide came tip to the tules, yonder,"' answered the stranger mus- ingly. " And the other daughter, I sup- pose she has made a good match, being a beauty and the sole heiress? " A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAllA. 107 The Tasiijaran made a <(riinaee. " Not niuoli ! 1 reckon slie 's waitin' for the Angel Gabriel, tliere ain't another good cnougli to suit her here. They say she "s had most of the big men in California waitin' in a lino with their offers, like that cue the fel- lows used to make at the 'Frisco post-otiice steamer days and she with naiy a letter or fuiswer for any of tliem." '" Then Ilarcourt does n't seem to have been as fortunate in his family affairs as in his speculations? " Peters uttered a grim laugh. "Well, I reckon you know all about his son's stam- peding with that girl last spring ? "' " His son ? *' interruptid the stranger. " Do you mean the boy they called John IMilton ? Why, he was a mere child I " "He was old enougji to run away with a young woman that helped in his mother's house, and marry her afoi'O a justice of the peace. The old man just snorted with rage, and swore he "d have tlie marriage put aside, for the boy was under a^e. He said it was a put-up job of the gli'l's : tli.'it she was oldei" by two years, and oidy wanted to get wliat money might be conun' some day, but tliat they 'd iiovex' see a red cent of it. Then, they 108 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. say, John Milton up and sassed the old man to his face, and allowed that he would n't take his dirty money if he starved first, and that if the old man broke the marriage he 'd marry her again next year ; that true love and honorable poverty were better nor riches, and a lot more o' that stuff he picked out o' them ten-cent novels he was alius reading. My women-folks say that he actually liked the girl, because she was the only one in the house that Mas ever kind to him ; they say the girls were just ragin' mad at the idea o' havin' a hired gal who had waited on 'em as a sister-in-law, and they even got old iMammy Harcourt's back up by sayin' that John's wife would want to rule the house, and run her out of her own kitchen. Some say he shook the?)!, talked back to 'em mighty sharp, and held his head a heap higher nor them. Anyhow, he 's liviu' with his wife somewhere in 'Frisco, in a shanty on a sand lot, and workin' odd jobs for the newspapers. No ! takin' it by and large it don't look as if llarcourt had run his family to the same advantage that he has his land." " Perhaps he does n't understand them as well," said the stranger smiling. " Mor 'u likely the material ain't thar, or A FIRST FA.\fILY OF TASAJARA. 109 ain't as vallyble for a new country," said Peters grimly. " I reckon the trouble is that he lets them two daughters run him, and the man who lets any woman or women do that, lets himself in for all their meannesses, and all he gets in return is a woman's result, show I " Here the stranger, who was slowly rising from his chair with the polite suggestion of reluctantly tearing himself from the speaker's spell, said : " And Ilarcourt spends most of his time in San Francisco, I suppose ? " " Yes 1 but to-tlay ho 's here to attend a directors" meeting and the opening of the Free Library and Tasajara Hall. I saw the windows open, and the blinds up in his house across the plaza as I passed just now." The stranger had by this time quite effected his courteous withdrawal. " Good - after- noon, Mr. Peters,"' he said, smilingly lifting his hat, and turned away. Peters, who was obliged to take his leers off the chair, and half rise to the stranfrer's politeness, here reflected that he did not know his interIocutor"s name and business, and that he had really got nothing in return for his information. This must be remedied. As 110 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA.JAKA. the stranger passed through tlic hall into the street, followed by the linwouted civilities of the spruce hotel clerk and the obsequious at- tentions of the negro porter, Peters stepped to the window of the office. " Who was that man who just passed out?" he asked. The clerk stared in undisguised astonish- ment. " You don't mean to say you did n't know who he was all the while you were talking to him?" " No," returned Peters, impatiently. " Why, that was Professor Lawrence Grant! ^//c Lawrence Grant don't you know ? the biggest scientific man and rec- ognized expert on the Pacific slope. Why, that 's the man whose single word is ciiough to make or break the biggest mine or claim going ! That man ! why, that 's the man whose opinion 's worth thousands, for it carries millions with it and can't be bought. That 's him who knocked the bot- tom outer El Dorado last year, and next day sent Eureka up booming ! Ye remember that, sure? " " Of course but "' stammered Peters. " And to tliiuk you did n't know him ! "" repeated the hotel clerk wonderingly. " And here / was reckoning you were getting A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAJLl. HI j>oiuts from liim all the time ! Why, some iiicu would have given a thousand dollars for your chance of talking to him yes ! ^ of eyen being see?i talking to him. Why, old Wingate once got a tip on his Prairie Flower lead worth five thousand dollars while just changing seats with him in the cars and pass- ing the time of day, sociable like. AVhy, what did you talk about ? " Peters, with a miserable conviction that he had thrown away a valuable opportunity in more idle gossip, nevertheless endeavored to look mysterious as he replied, " Oh, business giu'rally." Then in the faint hope of yet retrieving his blunder he inquired, " How long will he be here ? " " Don't know. I reckon he and Ilar- court 's got something on hand. He just asked if he was likely to be at home or at his office. 1 told him I reckoned at the house, for some of the family 1 did n't get to see who they were drove up in a carriage from the 3.40 train while you were sitting there." Meanwhile the subject of this discussion, quite unconscious of the sensation he had created, or perha[)s like most heroes philo- sophically careless of it, was sauntering in- 112 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. differently towards Harcourt's house. BuJ he had no business with his former host, his only object was to pass an idle hour be- fore his train left. He was, of course, net unaware that he himself was largely re- sponsible for Harcourt's success ; that it was his hint which had induced the petty trader of Sidon to venture his all in Tasajara; his knowledge of the topography and geology of the plain that had stimulated Harcourt's agricultural speculations ; his hydrographic survey of the creek that had made Harcourt's plan of widening the channel to commerce practicable and profitable. This he could not help but know. But that it was chiefly owing to his own clear, cool, far-seeing, but never visionary, scientific observation, his own accurate analysis, unprejudiced by even a savant's enthusiasm, and uninfluenced by any personal desire or greed of gain, that Tasajara City had risen from the stagnant tules^ was a speculation that had never occurred to him. There was a much more uneasy consciousness of what ho had done in Mr. Harcourt's face a few moments later, when his visitor's name was announced, and it is to be feared that if that name had been less widely honored and respected than it A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 113 was, no merely grateful recollection of it would have procured Grant an audience. As it was, it was with a frown and a touch of his old impatient asperity that he stepped to the threshold of an adjoining room and called, " Clemmy ! " Clementina appeared at the door. " There 's that man Grant in the parlor. What brings him here, I wonder ? Who does he come to see ? " "Who did he ask for?" " Me, but that don't mean anything." " Perhaps he wants to see you on some business." " No. That is n't his high-toned style. lie makes other people go to him for that," he said bitterly. " Anyhow don't you think it 's mighty queer his coming here after his friend for it was he who introduced liico to us had behaved so to your sister, and caused all this divorce and scandal?" " Perhaps he may know nothing about it ; he and Rice separated long ago, even before Grant became so famous. We never saw much of hiui, you know, after we came here. Suppose you leave him to mc. I '11 see him." iMr. Harcourt reflected. " Did n't he used to be rather attentive to Phemie ? " 114 A FIRST FAMILY OF TAiSAJAHA. Clementina shrugged her shoulders care- lessly. " I dare say but I don't think that 710W " " Who said anything about now ? " re- torted her father, with a return of his old abruptness. After a pause he said : " I '11 go down and see him first, and then send for you. You can keep him for the opening and dinner, if you like." Meantime Lawrence Grant, serenely un- suspicious of these domestic confidences, had been shown into the parlor a large room furnished in the same style as the drawing-room of the hottl he had just quitted. lie had ample time to note that it was that wonderful Second Empire furni- ture which he remembered that the early San Francisco pioneers in the first flush of their wealth had imported directly from= France, and which for years after gave an unexpected foreign flavor to the western domesticity and a tawdry gilt equality to saloons and drawing-rooms, puliiic and pri- vate. But he was observant of a correspond- ing change in liarcourt, when a moment later ho entered the room. That individ- uull;:y whieli ixad kei)t the former shoj)- kueper of Sidon distinct from, although per- A F/RST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 115 haps not superior to, his customers was strongly niarketl. He was perhaps now more nervously alert than then ; he was cer- tainly more impatient than before, but that was pardonable in a man of largo af- fairs and action. Grant could not deny tliat he seemed improved, rather perhaps that the setting of fine clothes, cleanliness, and the absence of petty worries, made his characteristics respectable. That wliich is ill breeding in homespun, is apt to become mere eccentricity in purple and fine linen , Grant felt tluit llarcoart jarred on him less than he did before, and was grateful vvitliont superciliousness. Harcourt, relieved to find that Grant was neither critic.d nor aggres- sively reminiscent, and above all not in- clined to claim the credit of creating him and Tasajara, became more conndent, more at his ease, and, I fear, in proportion more unpleasant. It is the repose and not the struggle of the parvenu that confounds us. '' And i/ou^ Grant, you have made your- self famoTis, and, I hear, liave got pretty much your own piices for your opiniojis ever since it was known that you yoii er were connected with the growth of Tasajara." 116 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. Grant smiled ; lie was not quite prepared for this ; but it was amusing and would pass the time. He murmured a sentence of half ironical deprecation, and Mr. Harcourt con- tinued : " I have n't got my San Francisco house here to receive you in, but I hope some day, sir, to see you there. We are only here for the day and night, but if you care to attend the opening ceremonies at the new hall, we can manage to give you dinner afterwards. You can escort my daughter Clementina, she 's here with me." The smile of apologetic declination which had begun to form on Grant's lips was sud- denly arrested. " Then your daughter is here ? " he asked, with unaffected interest. " Yes, she is in fact a patroness of the library and sewing-circle, and takes the greatest interest in it. The Reverend Doc- tor Pilsbury relies upon her for everything. She runs the society, even to the training of the young ladies, sir. You shall see their exercises." This was certainly a new phase of Clem- entina's cliaraeter, Yet why should she not assume the rule of Lady Bountiful with tlie other functions of her new condition. " I A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAKA. 117 slioulil liave thought Miss Ilarcourt wouhl luive found this rather difficult with lier other social duties," he said, "and would have left it to her married sister." He thought it better not to appear as if avoid- ing- leference to Euphemia, although quietly ignoring her late experiences. Mr. Har- court was less easy in his response. " Now that Euphemia is again with her own family," he said ponderously, with an affectation of social discrimination that was in weak contrast to his usual direct business astuteness, " I suppose she may take her part in these things, but jiist now she re- quires rest. You may have heard some rumor that she is going abroad for a time ? The fact is she has n't the least intention of doing so, nor do we consider there is the slightest reason for her going." lie paused as if to give great emphasis to a statement that seemed otherwise unimportant. " But here "s Clementina coming, and I must get you to excuse mc. I 've to meet the trus- tees of the church in ten minutes, but I hope she "11 persuade you to stay, and I '11 sec you later at the hall." As Clementina entered the room her father vanished and, I fear, as completely 118 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAKA. dropped out of Mr. Grant's mind. For the daughter's improvement was greater than her father's, yet so much more refined as to be at first only delicately perceptible. Grant had been prepared for the vulgar enhancement of fine clothes and personal adornment, for the specious setting of luxu- rious circumstances and suri'oundings, for the aplomb that came from flattery and con- scious power. But he found none of these ; her calm individuality was intensified rather than subdued ; she was dressed simply, with an economy of ornament, rich material, and jewelry, but an accuracy of taste that was always dominant. Her plain gray merino dress, beautifully fitting her figure, sug- gested, with its pale blue facings, some uni- form, as of the charitaljle society she patron- ized. She came towards him with a graceful movement of greeting, yet her face showed no consciousness of the interval th.it had elapsed since they met ; he almost fancied himself t7'ansported back to the sitting-room at Sidou with the monotonous patter of the leaves outside, and the cool moist breath of the bay and alder coming in at the window. " Father says that you are only passing through Tasajara to-day, as you did through .1 /V7iVS7' KAMI LI' OF TASAJAIiA. 119 Sidon fivo years ago," she said with a smil- ing earnestness that he fancied however was the one new phase of her character. '' But I won't believe it ! At least we will not ac- cept another visit quite as accidental as that, even though you brought us twice the good fortune you did then. You see, we have not forgotten it if you have, Mr. Grant. And unless you ^^ant us to believe that your fairy gifts will turn some day to leaves and ashes, you will promise to stay with us to- night, and let me show you some of the good we have done with them. Perhaps you dont know, or don't want to knovv% that it was J who got up tliis 'Library and Home Circle of the Sisters of Tasajara ' which we are to open to-day. And can you imagine why ? You rtimember or have you forgot- ten that you once affected to be concerned at the social condition of the young ladies on the plains of Sidon? Weil, Mr. Grant, tliis is gotten up in order th;it the future Mr. (rrants who wander may fuid future Miss ])illingses who are worthy to converse with them and entertain them, and wlio no longer wear men's hats and live on tlie jiublic road." it was such a long s^JLccii for one so taci- turn as he remembered C'lementina to have 120 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. been ; so unexpeeted in tone considering her father's attitude towards him, and so un- looked for in its reference to a slight inci- dent of the jiast, that Grant's critical con- templation of her gave way to a quiet and grateful glance of admiration. How could he have been so mistaken in her character ? He had always preferred tlie outspoken EujDhemia, and yet why should he not have been equally mistaken in her ? Without having any personal knowledge of Rice's matrimonial troubles for their intimate comj)anionshi]) had not continued after the survey he had been inclined to blame him ; now he seemed to find excuses for ]iim. He wondered if she really had liked him as Peters had hinted ; he wondered if she knew that he, Grant, was no longer in- timate with him and knew nothing of her affairs. All this while he was accepting her proffered hospitality and sending to the ho- tel for his luggage. Tlien he drifted into a conversation, which he had expected would be brief, pointless, and confined to a stupid resume of their mutual and social progress since tlu^y had left Sidon. I^ut liere he was again mistaken ; she was talking familiarly of present social topics, of things that she A FJIiST FAMILY OF TASAJAHA. 121 knew clearly and well, without effoi"t or atti- tude. She had been to New York and Bos- ton for two winters ; she had spent the pre- vious summer at Newport ; it might have been her whole youth for the fluency, accu- racy, and familiarity of her detail, and the absence of provincial enthusiasm. She was going abroad, probably in the spring. She had thought of going to winter in Italy, but she would wait now until her sister was ready to go with her. Mr. Grant of course knew that Euphemia was separated from Mr. Rice no ! not until her father told him ? Well the marriage had been a wild and foolish thing for both. But Euphemia was back again with them in the San Francisco house ; she had talked of coming to Tasa- jara to-day, perhaps she might be there to- night. And, good heavens ! it was actually three o'clock already, and they must start at once for the Hall. She would go and get her hat and return instantly. It was true ; he had been talking with her an hour pleasantly, intelligently, and yet w^itli a consciousness of an indefinite satis- faction beyond all this. It must have been surprise at her transformation, or his pre- vious misconception of her character. lie 122 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. had been watching her features and won- dering why he had ever thought them ex- pressionless. There was also the pleasant suggestion common to humanity in such instances that he himself was in some way responsible for the change ; that it was some awakened sympathy to his own nature that had breathed into this cold and faultless statue the warmth of life. In an odd flash of recollection he remembered how, five years ago, when Kice had suggested to her that she was " hard to please," she had replied that she " did n't know, but that she was waiting to see." It did not occur to him to wonder why she had not awakened then, or if this a'.vakening had anything to do with her own volition. It was not probable th:it they would meet again after to-day, or if they did, that slie would not relapse into her former self and fail to impress him as she had now. But here she was a })aragon of feminine ])rom])titude already standing in the door- way, accurately gloved and booted, and wear- ing a demure gray hat that modestly crowned her decorously elegant figure. They crossed the plaza side by side, in the still garish sr.nlight that seemed to mock the scant shade of the youthful eucalyptus A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA.lARA. 123 trees, and presently fell in with the stream of people going in their direction. The for- mer daughters of Sidon, the Billingses, the Peterscs, and ^\"ingates, were there bourgeon- ing and expanding in the glare of their new prosperity, with silk and gold ; there were newer faces still, and pretty ones, for Tusajara as a *' Cow County " had attracted settlers with large families, and there were already the contrasting types of East and West. Many turned to look after the tall figure of the daughter of the Founder of Tasajara, a spectacle lately rare to the town ; a few ghmced at her companion, equally noticeable as a stranger. Thanks, however, to some judicious preliminary ad- vertising from the hotel clerk, Peters, and Daniol llarcourt himself, by the time Grant and ]\Iiss llarcourt liad reached the Hall his name and fame were already known, and speculation li;\(l already begun whether this new stroke of ilarcourt's shrewdness might not unite Clementina to a renowned and profitable partner. The Hall v.as in one of the further and newly ojienod suburbs, and its side and roar windows cave iur.ncdiately npon the outly- ing and illimitable i)lain of Tasajara. It 124 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. was a tasteful and fair-seeming structure of wood, surprisingly and surpassingly new. In fact that was its one dominant feature ; nowhere else had youth and freshness ever shown itself as unconquerable and all-con- quering. The spice of virgin woods and trackless forests still rose from its pine floors, and breathed from its outer shell of cedar that still oozed its sap, and redwood that still dropped its life-blood. Nowhere else were the plastered walls and ceilings as white and dazzling in their unstained purity, or as redolent of the outlying quarry in their clear cool breath of lime and stone. Even the turpentine of fresh and spotless paint added to this sense of wholesome germi- nation, and as the clear and brilliant Cali- fornian sunshine swept through the open windows west and east, suffusing the whole palpitating structure with its searching and resistless radiance, the very air seemed filled with the aroma of creation. The fresli colors of tlie young Republic, the bright blazonry of the newest State, the coat-of-arms of the infant County of Tasa- jara (a vignette of sunset-^///e,s cloven by tlie steam of an advancing train) hanging from the walls, were all a part of this inviu- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 125 cible juvenescence. Even the newest silks, ribbons and prints of the latest holiday fash- ions made their first virgin appearance in the new building as if to consecrate it, until it was stirred by the rustle of youth, as with the sound and movement of budding spring. A strain from the new organ whose heart, however, had prematurely learned its own bitterness and a thin, clear, but some- what shrill chanting from a choir of young ladies were followed by a prayer from the Reverend Mr. Pilsbury. Then there was a pause of expectancy, and Grant's fair com- panion, who up to that moment had been quietly acting as guide and cicerone to her father's guest, excused herself with a little grimace of mock concern and was led away by one of the committee. Grant's usually keen eyes were wandering somewhat ab- stractedly over the agitated and rustling field of ribbons, flowers and feathers before him, past the blazonry of banner on the walls, and through the open windows to the long sunlit levels beyond, wlien he noticed a stir upon the raised dais or ])latform at the end of the room, where the notables of Ta/ .sajaru were formally assembled. The mass of black coats suddenly parted and drew 126 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. back against the wall to allow the coming forward of a single graceful figure. A thrill of nervousness us unexpected as unaccount- able passed over hiin as he recognized Clem- entina. In the midst of a sudden silence she read the report of the committee from a paper in her hand, in a clear, untroubled voice the old voice oi Sidon and for- mally declared the building opened. The sunlight, nearly level, streamed through the western window across the front of the plat- form where she stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that liad fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tran(]uil, ideal presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of decoration, the yet unsullied record of the wliito Vv'alls, or even the frank, animated and pretty faces that looked upon it. Perliaps it was some such instinct that caused the applause whicli hesitatingly and tardily fol- lowed h(M' from the })latform to api)ear })ol!te and half restrained rather than s])on- taueous. Kevertheless Grant was honestly and sin- A FIKST FAMILY OF TASA.IAIiA. 127 ccrcly piofiise in liis congratulations. -' You wore far cooler and far more self-contained than /should have been in your place," he 'said, ''than in fact I actually ?6'a6', only as your auditor. But I suppose you have done it before? " She turned her beautiful eyes on his wonderingly. " No, this is the first time I ever appeared in public, not even at school, for even there I was always a pri- vate pupil."' "You astonish mo," said Grant; "you seemed like an old hand at it." '" Perhaps I did. or ratlier as if I did n't think anything of it myself, and that no doubt is why the audience did n't think any- thing of it either." So she fidd noticed her cold reception, and yet there was not the slightest trace of disappolutment, regret, or wounded vanity in her tone or manner. '* You must take me to the refreshment room now," she said pleasantly, " and Iielp me to look after the yoimg ]adi(v; v/ho are my guests. 1 "m afraid there are still more speeclies to come, and father and ^Iv. Pilsbury are looking as if tliey contulently expected something more would be 'expected" of them." 128 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. Grant at once threw himself into the task assigned to liini, with his natural gallantry and a certain captivating playfulness which he still retained. Perliaps he was the more anxious to jslease in order that his compan- ion might share some of his popularity, for it w\as undeniable that Miss Ilarcourt still seemed to excite only a constrained polite- ness among those with whom she courteously mingled. And this was still more distinctly marked by the contrast of a later incident. For some moments the sound of laughter and greeting had risen near the door of the refreshment room that oiJened upon the cen- tral hall, and there was a perceptible move- ment of the crowd particularly of youthful male Tasajara in that direction. It was evident tliat it announced the unexpected arrival of some popular resident. Attracted like the others, Grant turned and saw the company making way for the smiling, easy, half-saucy, half-complacent entry of a hand- somely dressed young girl. As she turned from time to time to recognize with rallying familiarity or charming impertinence some of her admirers, there was that in her tone and gesture which instantly recalled to him the past. It was unmistakably Euphemial A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 129 His eyes instinctively sought Clementina's. She was gazing at him with such a grave, penetrating look, half doubting, half wist- ful, a look so unlike her usual unruffled calm that he felt strangely stirred. But the next moment, when she rejoined him, the look had entirely gone. " You have not seen my sister since you were at Sidon, I believe ? " she said quietly. " She would be sorry to miss you." But Euphemia and her train were already passing them on the opposite side of the long table. She had evidently recognized Grant, yet the two sis- ters were looking intently into each other's eyes when he raised his own. Then Euphe- mia met his bow with a momentary acces- sion of color, a coquettish wave of her hand across the table, a slight exaggeration of her usual fascinating recklessness, and smil- ingly moved away. He turned to Clemen- tina, but here an ominous tapping at the farther end of the long table revealed the fact that Mr. Harcourt was standing on a chair with oratorical possibilities in his face and attitude. There was another forward movement in the crowd and silence. In that solid, black-broadi'h^thed, respectable figure, that massive watchchain, that white E Bret Harte v. 22 130 A FIJiST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. waistcoat, that diamond pin glistening in the satin cravat, Euphemia might have seen the realization of her prophetic vision at Sidon five years before. He spoke for ten minutes with a fluency and comprehensive business-like directness that surprised Grant. He was not there, he said, to glorify what had been done by him- self, his family, or his friends in Tasajara. Others who were to follow him might do that, or at least might be better able to ex- plain and expatiate upon the advantages of the institution they had just opened, and its social, moral, and religious effect upon the community. He was there as a business man to demonstrate to them as he had al- ways done and always hoped to do the money value of improvement ; the profit if they might choose to call it of well-reg- ulated and properly calculated speculation. The plot of land upon which they stood, of which the building occupied only one eighth, was bought two years before for ten thousand dollars. When the pluns of the building were completed a month afterwards, the value of the remaining seven eighths had risen enough to defray the cost of the entire construction. He was in a position to tell A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 131 them that only that morning the adjacent property, subdivided and laid out in streets and building-plots, had been admitted into the corporate limits of the city; and that on the next anniversary of the building they would approach it through an avenue of finished dwellings ! An outburst of ap- plause followed the speaker's practical climax ; the fresh young faces of his audi- tors glowed with invincible enthusiasm ; the afternoon trade-winds, freshening over the limitless plain beyond, tossed the bright banners at the windows as with sympathetic rejoicing, and a few odorous pine shavings, overlooked in a corner in the hurry of pre- paration, touched by an eddying zephyr, crept out and rolled in yellow ringlets across the floor. The Reverend Doctor Pilsbury arose in a more decorous silence. lie had listened approvingly, admiringly, he might say even reverently, to the preceding speaker. But although his distinguished friend had, with his usual modesty, made light of his own services and those of his charming family, he, the speaker, had not risen to sing his prai'Jes. No ; it was not in this Hall, pro- jected by his foresight and raised by his 132 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. liberality ; in this town, called into existence by his energy and stamped by his attributes ; in this county, developed by his genius and sustained by his capital ; ay, in this very State whose grandeur was made possible by such giants as he, it was not in any of these places that it was necessary to praise Daniel Harcourt, or that a panegyric of him would be more than idle repetition. Nor would he, as that distinguished man had suggested, enlarge upon the social, moral, and religious benefits of the improv'ement they were now celebrating. It was written on the happy, innocent faces, in the festive garb, in the decorous demeanor, in the intel- ligent eyes that sparkled around him, in the presence of those of his parishioners whom he could meet as freely here to-day as in his own church on Sunday. What then could he say ? What then was there to say ? Perhaps he should say nothing if it were not for the presence of the young before him. He stopped and fixed his eyes pater- nally on the youthful Johnny Billings, who with a half dozen other Sunday-school scholars had been marshaled before the rev- erend speaker. And whnt was to bo the lesson they were to ieuiu fioui it? Tliey A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. 133 had heard what had been achieved by labor, enterprise, and diligence. Perhaps they would believe, and naturally too, that what labor, enterprise, and diligence had done could be done again. But was that all ? Was there nothing behind these qualities which, after all, were within the reach of every one here ? Had tliey ever thought that back of every pioneer, every explorer, every pathfinder, every founder and creator, there was still another ? There was no terra incognita so rare as to be unknown to one ; no wilderness so remote as to be beyond a greater ken than theirs ; no waste so track- less but that one had already passed that way I Did they ever reflect that when the dull sea ebbed and flowed in the tides over the very spot where they were now stand- ing, who it was that also foresaw, con- ceived, and ordained the mighty change that would take place ; who even guided and di- rected the feeble means employed to work it ; whose spirit moved, as in still older days of which they had i-ead, over the face of the stagnant waters ? Perhaps they had. Who then was the real pioneer of Tasajara, back of the I larcourts, tlie Peterses, the Bil- lingses, and AVingates ? The reverend gen- 134 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. tleman gently paused for a reply. It was given in the clear but startled accents of the half frightened, half-fascinated Johnny Bil- lings, in three words : " 'Lige Curtis, sir I " CHAPTER VI. The trade wind, that, blowing directly from the Golden Gate, seemed to concen- trate its full force upon the western slope of Russian Plill, might have dismayed any climber less hopeful and sanguine than that most imaginative of newspaper reporters and most youthful of husbands, John Milton Harcourt. But for all that it was an honest wind, and its dry, practical energy and salt- pervading breath only seemed to sting him to greater and more enthusiastic exertions, until, quite at the summit of the hill and last of a straggling line of little cottages half sul)merged in drifting sand, he stood upon his own humble porch. " I was thinking, coming up the hill, Loo," he said, bursting into the sitting- room, pantingly, "of writing something about the future of the hill ! How it will look fifty years from now, all terraced with houses and gardens I and right up here a kind of Acropolis, don't you know. I 136 A FIEST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. had quite a picture of it in my mind just now." A plainly-dressed young woman with a pretty face, that, however, looked as if it had been prematurely sapped of color and vital- ity, here laid aside some white sewing she had in her lap, and said : " But you did that once before, Milty, and you know the " Herald " would n't take it because they said it was a free notice of Mr. Boorem's building lots, and he did n't adver- tise in the " Herald." I always told you that you ought to have seen Boorem first." The young fellow blinked his eyes with a momentary arrest of that buoyant hopeful- ness which was their peculiar characteristic, but nevertheless replied with undaunted cheerfulness, "I forgot. Anyhow, it 's all the same, for I worked it into that ' Sun- day Walk.' And it 's just as easy to write it the other way, you see, looking back, duivn the Jnll^ you know. Something about the old Padres toiling through the sand just before the Augelus : or as far back as Sir Francis Drake's time, and have a runaway boat's crew, coming ashore to look for gold that the Mexicans had talked of. Lord ! that 's easy enough I 1 tell you what, Loo, A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 137 it 's worth living up here just for the inspira- tion." Even while boyishly exhaling this enthusiasm he was also divesting himself of certain bundles whose contents seemed to imply that he had brought his dinner with him, the youthful Mrs. Harcourt setting the table in a perfunctorj', listless way that contrasted oddly with her husband's cheer- ful energy. " You have n't heard of any regular situa- tion yet ? " she asked abstractedly. " No, not exactly," he replied. " But [buoyantly] it 's a great deal better for me not to take anything in a hurry and tie my- self to any particular line. Now, I 'm quite free." " And I suppose you have n't seen that Mr. Fletcher again ? " she continued. " No. lie only wanted to know something about me. That 's the way with them all, Loo. Whenever 1 apply for work anywhere it 's always : ' So you 're Dan'l Ilarcourt's son, eh ? Quarreled with the old man ? Bad job ; better make it up I You '11 make more stickin' to him. He 's worth millions I ' Everybody seems to think everything of Am, as if / had no individuality beyond that. 1 've a good mind to cliaiige my name," 138 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. " And pray what would mine be tlien ? " There was so much irritation in her voice that he drew nearer her and gently put his arm around her waist. " Why, whatever mine was, darling," he said with a tender smile. " You did n't fall in love with any particular name, did you, Loo ? " " No, but I married a particular one," she said quickly. His eyelids quivered again, as if he was avoiding some unpleasantly staring sugges- tion, and she stopped. " You know what I mean, dear," she said, with a quick little laugh. " Just because your father 's an old crosspatch, you have n't lost your rights to his name and property. And those people who say you ought to make it up perhaps know what 's for the best." " But you remember what he said of you. Loo ? " said the young man with a flashing eye. " Do you think I can ever forget that?" " But you do forget it, dear ; you forget it when you go in town among fresh faces and people ; when you are looking for work. You forget it when you 're at work writing your copy, for I 've seen you smile as you A FIRUT FAMILY OF TASAJARA 139 wrote. You forget it climbing up the dread- ful sand, for you were thinking just now of what happened years ago, or is to happen years to come. And I want to forget it too, Milty. I don't want to sit here all day, thinking of it, with the wind driving the sand against the window, and nothing to look at but those white tombs in Lone Mountain Cemetery, and those white caps that might be gravestones too, and not a soiil to talk to or even see pass by until I feel as if I were dead and buried also. If you were me you you you could n't help crying too ! " Indeed he was very near it now. For as he caught her in his arms, suddenly seeing with a lover's sympathy and the poet's swifter imagination all that she had seen and even more, he was aghast at the vision con- jured. In her delicate health and loneliness how dreadful must have been these mono- tonous days, and this glittering, cruel sea I A\'hat a selfish brute ho was I Yet as he stood there holding her, silently and rhyth- mically marking his tenderness and remorse- ful feelings by rocking her from side to side like a languid metronome, she quietly disen gaged her wet lashes from his shoulder and said in quite another tone : 140 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " So tliey were all at Tasajara last week ? " "Who, dear?" " Your father and sisters." " Yes," said John Milton, hesitatingly. " jVnd they 've taken back your sister after her divorce? " The staring obtrusiveness of this fact ap- parently made her husband's bright sympa- thetic eye blinlv as before. " And if you were to divorce me, you would be taken back too," she added quickly, suddenly withdrawing herself with a pettish movement and walking to the window. But he followed. " Don't talk in that way, Loo ! Don't look in that way, dear I " he said, taking her hand gently, yet not with- out a sense of some inconsistency in her con- duet that jarred upon his own simple direct- ness. " You know that nothing can part us now. I was wrong to let my little girl worry herself ,' -1 alone here, but I I thought it was all so so bright and free out on this hill, k'oking far awry beyond the Golden Gate, as far as Cathay, 3'ou know, and such a change from those dismal Hats of Ta- sajara and that awful stretch of t}dcs. But it 's all right now. And now that I know how you feel, v/e '11 go elsewhere." A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 141 Slie did not reply. Perhaps she found it difficult to keep up her injured attitude in the face of her husband's gentleness. Per- haps her attention had been attracted by the unusual spectacle of a stranger, who had just mounted the hill and was now slowly passing along the line of cottages with a hesitating air of inquiry. " He may be looking for this house, for you," she said in an entirely new tone of interest. " Kun out and see. It may be some one who wants " " An article," said Milton cheerfully. " By Jove ! he is coming here." The stranger was indeed approaching the little cottage, and with apparently some con- fidence, lie was a well-dressed, well-made man, whose age looked uncertain from the contrast between his heavy brown mous- tache and his hair, that, curling under the brim of his hat, was almost white in color. The young man started, and said, hurriedly : " I really believe it is Fletcher, they say his hair turned white from the Panama fever." It was indeed Mr. Fletcher who entered and introduced himself, a gentle reserved man, with something of that colorlessncss of 142 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. premature age in his speech which was ob- servable in his hair. He had heard of Mr. Harcourt from a friend who had recom- mended him highly. As Mr. Harcourt had probably been told, he, the speaker, was about to embark some capital in a first-class newspaper in San Francisco, and should select the staff himself. He wanted to secure only first-rate talent, but above all, youth- fulness, directness, and originality. The " Clarion," for that was to be its name, was to have nothing "old fogy " about it. No. It was distinctly to be the organ of Young California ! This and much more from the grave lips of the elderly young man, whose speech seemed to be divided between the pretty, but equally faded, young wife, and the one personification of invincible youth present, her husband. " But I fear I have interrupted your house- hold duties," he said pleasantly. " You were preparing dinner. Pray go on. And let me help you, I 'm not a bad cook, and you can give me my reward by letting me share it with you, for the climb up here has sharp- ened my appetite. We can talk as we go on." It was in vain to protest ; there was some- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 143 thin^ paternal as well as practical in the camaraderie of this actual capitalist and possible Maecenas and patron as he quietly hung up his hat and overcoat, and helped to set the table with a practiced hand. Nor, as he suggested, did the conversation falter, and before they had taken their seats at the frugal board he had already engaged John Milton Harcourt as assistant editor of the " Clarion " at a salary that seemed princely to this son of a millionaire I The young wife meantime had taken active part in the discus- sion ; whether it was vaguely understood that the possession of poetical and imaginative faculties precluded any capacity for business, or whether it was owing to the apparent superior maturity of Mrs. Harcourt and the stranger, it was certain that tliey arranged the practical details of the engagement, and that the youthful husband sat silent, merely offering his always hopeful and sanguine con- sent. " You '11 take a house nearer to town, I suppose?" continued Mr. Fletcher to the lady, " though you 've a charming view here. I suppose it was quite a change from Tasajara and your father-in-law's house? I daresay he had as fine a place there on his own homestead as he has here ? " 144 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. Young Harcourt dropped his sensitive eyelids again. It seemed hard that he could never get away from these allusions to his father ! Perhaps it was only to that relation- ship that ho was indebted for his visitor's kindness. In his simple honesty he could not bear the thought of such a misapprehen- sion. " Perhaps, Mr. Fletcher, you do not know," he said, "that my father is not on terms with me, and that we neither expect anything nor could we ever take anything from him. Could we, Loo ? " He added the useless question partly because he saw that his wife's face betrayed little sympathy with him, and partly that Fletcher was look- ing at her curiously, as if for confirmation. But this was another of John Milton's trials as an imaginative reporter ; nobody ever seemed to care for his practical opinions or facts ! " Mr. Fletcher is not interested in our little family differences, Milty," she said, looking at Mr. Fletcher, however, instead of him. " You 're Daniel Ilarcourt's son what- ever happens." The cloud that had passed over the young man's face and eyes did not, however, es- cape Mr. Fletcher's attention, for he smiled, A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. 145 and added gayly, " And I hope my valued lieutenant in any case." Nevertheless John Milton was quite ready to avail himself of an inspiration to fetch some cigars for his guest from the bar of the Sea- View House on the slope of the hill beyond, and thereby avoid a fateful subject. Once in the fresh air again ho promptly recovered his boyish sj^irits. The light flying scud had already effaced the first rising stars ; the lower creeping sea-fog had already blotted out the western shore and sea ; but below him to the east the glitter- ing lights of the city seemed to start up with a new, mysterious, and dazzling brilliancy. It was the valley of diamonds that Sindbad saw lying almost at his feet ! Perhaps some- where there the light of his own fame and fortune was already beginning to twinkle ! He returned to his humblQ roof joyous and inspired. As he entered the hall he heard his wife's voice and his ovm name mentioned, followed by that awkward, meaningless 3ilence on his entrance which so plainly indi- cated either that he had been the subject of conversation or that it was not for his ears. It was a dismal reminder of his boyhood at Sidon and Tasajara. But he. was too full of hope and ambition to heed it to-night, and 146 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. later, when Mr. Fletcher had taken his de- parture, his pent-up enthusiasm burst out before his youthful partner. Had she rea- lized that their struggles were over now, that their future was secure? They need no longer fear ever being forced to take bounty from the family ; they were independent of them all ! He would make a name for him- self that should be distinct from his father's as he should make a fortune that would be theirs alone. The young wife smiled. " But all that need not prevent you, dear, from claiming your rights when the time comes." " But if I scorn to make the claim or take a penny of his, Loo ? " "You say you scorn to take the money you think your father got by a mere trick, at the best, and did n't earn. And now you will be able to show you can live with- out it, and earn your own fortune. Well, dear, for that very reason why should you let your father and others enjoy and waste what is fairly your share ? For it is yo7i.r share whether it came to your father fairly or not ; and if not, it is still your duty, be- lieving as you do, to claim it from him, that at least yon may do with it what you choose. You might want to restore it to to aomebody." A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 147 The young man laughed. " But, my dear Loo ! suppose that I were weak enough to claim it, do you tliink my father would give it up ? He has the right, and no law could force him to yield to me more than he chooses." " Not the law, but you could." " I don't understand you," he said quickly. " You could force him by simpiy telling him what you once told me." John Milton drew back, and his hand dropped loosely from his wife's. The color left his fresh young face ; the light quivered for a moment and then became fixed and set in his eyes. For that moment he looked teti years her senior. " I was wrong ever to tell even you that. Loo," he said in a low voice. " You are wrong to ever remind me of it. Forget it from this moment, as you value our love and want it to live and be remem- bered. And forget. Loo, as I do, and ever shall, that you ever suggested to me to use my secret in the way you did just now." But here Mrs. Ilarcourt burst into tears, more touched by the alteration in her hus- band's manner, I fear, than by any contri- tion for wrongdoing. Of course if he wished to withdraw his confidences from her, just 148 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. as he had ahnost confessed he ^vished to withdraw his name, she could n't help it, but it was hard that when she sat there all day long trying to think what was best for them, she should be blamed ! At which the quiet and forgiving John Milton smiled re- morsefully and tried to comfort her. Nev- ertheless an occasional odd, indefinable chill seemed to creep across the feverish enthusi- asm with which he was celebrating this day of fortune. And yet he neither knew nor suspected until long after that his foolish wife had that night half betrayed his secret to the stranger I The next day he presented a note of in- troduction from Mr. Fletcher to the busi- ness manager of the " Clarion," and the fol- lowing morning was duly installed in office. He did not see his benefactor again ; that single visit was left in the mystery and iso- lation of an angelic episode. It later ap- peared that other and larger Interests in the San Jose valley claimed his patron's resi- dence and attendance ; only the capital and general purpose of the paper to develop into a party organ in the interest of his pos- sible senatorial aspirations in due season was fuvnislied by him. Grateful as John A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA.IARA. 149 Milton felt towards him, he was relieved ; it seemed probable that Mr. Fleteher hricl selected him on his individual merits, and not as the sou of a millionaire. lie threw himself into his work with his old hopeful enthusiasm, and perhaps an ori- ginality of method that was pai*t of his singular independence. Without the stu- dent's training or restraint, for his two years' schooling at Tasajara during his par- ents' prosperity came too late to act as a dis- cipline, he was unfettered by any rules, and guided only by ?n unerring instinctive taste that became near being genius. He was a brilliant and original, if not always a profound and accurate, reporter. By de- grees he became an accustomed Interest to the readers of the " Clarion ; " then an influ- ence. Actors themselves in many a fierce drama, living lives of devotion, emotion, and picturesque incident, they had satisfied themselves with only the briefest and most practical daily record of their adventure, and even at first were dazed and startled to find that many of them had been heroes and some poets. The stealthy boyish reader of romantic chronicle at Sidon had learned by heart the chivalrous story of the emigration. 150 A FIRST FuiMILY OF TASAJARA. The second column of tlie "Clarion " became famous even while the figure of its youthful writer, unknown and unrecognized, was still nightly climbing the sands of Russian Hill, and even looking down as before on the lights of the growing city, without a thought that he had added to that glittering constel- lation. Cheerful and contented with the exercise of work, he would have been happy but for the gradual haunting of another dread which presently began to drag him at earlier hours up the steep path to his little home ; to halt him before the door with the quick- ened breath of an anxiety he would scarcely confess to himself, and sometimes hold him aimlessly a whole day beneath his roof. For the pretty but delicate Mrs. Har- court, like others of her class, had added a weak and ineffective maternity to their other conjugal trials, and one early dawn a baby was born that lingered with them scarcely longer than the morning mist and exhaled with the rising sun. The young wife regained her strength slowly, so slowly that the youthful husband brought his work at times to the house to keep her company. And a singular change had come over her. A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 151 She no longer talked of the past, nor of liis family. As if the little life that had passed with that morning mist had represented some ascending expiatory sacrifice, it seemed to have brought them into closer commun- ion. Yet her weak condition made him conceal another trouble that had come upon him. It was in the third month of his em})loy- ment on the " Clarion " that one afternoon, while correcting some proofs on his chief's desk, he came upon the following editorial paragraph : " The played-out cant of ' pioneer genius ' and ' pioneer discovery ' appears to have reached its climax in the attempt of some of our contemporaries to apply it to Dan Ilar- court's new Tasajara Job before the legisla- ture. It is perfectly well known in liar- court's own district that, far from being a pioneer and settler himself] he simply suc- ceeded after a fashion to the genuine work of one Elijah Curtis, an actual pioneer and discoverer, years before, while Ilarcourt, we bi'lieve, was keeping a frontier doggery in Sidon, and dispensing ' tanglefoot ' and salt junk to the hayfooted Pike Countians of his precinct. This would make him as much of 152 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. the ' pioneer discoverer ' as the rattlesnake who first takes up board and lodgings and then possession in a prairie dog's burrow. And if the traveler's tale is tnie that the rattlesnake sometimes makes a meal of his landlord, the story told at Sidon may be equally credible that the original pioneer mysteriously disappeared about the time that Dan Ilarcourt came into the property. From which it would seem that Ilarcourt is not in a position for his friends to invite very deep scrutiny into his ' pioneer ' achieve- ments." Stupefaction, a vague terror, and rising anger, rapidly succeeded each other in the young man's mind as he stood mechanically holding the paper in his hand. It was the writing of his chief editor, whose easy bru- tality he had sometimes even boyishly ad- mired. Without stopping to consider their relative positions he sought him indignantly and laid the proof before him. The editor laughed. " But what 's that to you P Yon 're not on terms with the old man." " But he is my father ! " said John Mil- ton hotly. "Look hero," said the editor good-na- turedly, " I 'd like to oblige you, but it is n't A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. 153 business, you know, and this is, you un- derstand, ^ pi-oprietors business too! Of course I see it might stand in the way of your making up to tlie old man afterwards and coming in for a million. Well ! you can tell him it 's 7ne. Say I would put it in. Say I 'm nasty and I m / " " Then it must go in ? " said John Mil- ton with a white face. " You bet." " Then / must go out ! " And writing out his resignation, he laid it before his chief and left. But he could not bear to tell this to his wife when he climbed the hill that night, and he invented some excuse for brine:infj his work home. The invalid never noticed any change in his usual buoyancy, and indeed I fear, when he was fairly installed with his writing materials at the foot of her bed, he had quite forgotten the episode. He was recalled to it by a faint sigh. " What is it, dear? '' he said looking up. " I like to see you writing, Milty. You always look so happy." " Always so hap]\v, dear?" '' "i t's. You are lia])}n', are 3'ou not ? " '* Always." He got up and kissed her. 154 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. NevertKeless, when he sat down to his work again, his face was turned a little more to the window. Another serious incident to be also kept from the invalid shortly followed. The article in the " Clarion " had borne its fruit. The third day after his resignation a rival paper sharply retorted. " The cow- ardly insinuations against the record of a justly honored capitalist," said the " Pio- neer," " although quite in keeping with the brazen ' Clarion,' might attract the atten- tions of the slandered party, if it were not known to his friends as well as himself that it may be traced almost directly to a cast-off member of his own family, who, it seems, is reduced to haunting the back doors of cer- tain blatant journals to dispose of his cheap wares. The slanderer is secure from public exposure in the superior decency of his rehi- tions, who refrain from airing their family linen upon editorial lines." This was the journal to which John Mil- ton had hopefully turned for work. AVlicn he read it there seemed but one thing for him to do and he did it. Gentle and optimis- tic as was his nature, he had been brought up in a community where sincere directness .1 FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 155 of personal offense was followed by equally- sincere directness of personal redress, and he challenged the editor. The bearer of his cartel was one Jack Hamlin, I grieve to say a gambler by profession, but between whom and John Milton had sprung up an odd friendship of which the best that can be said is that it was to each equally and unselfishly un2:)rofitable. The challenge was accepted, the preliminaries arranged. " I suppose," said Jack carelessly, " as the old man ought to do something for your wife in case of accident, you 've made some sort of a will?" " I 've thought of that," said Jolin Mil- ton, dubiously, *' but I 'm afraid it 's no use. You see" he hesitated "I'm not of age." " May I ask how old you are, sonny ? " said Jack with great gi-avity. " I 'm almost twenty," said John Milton, coloring. "It isn't exactly vingt-et-tin, but I'd stand on it ; if I were you I would n't draw to such a hand," said Jack, coolly. The young husband had arranged to be absent from his home that night, and early morning found him, with Jack, grave, but 156 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. courageous, in a little hollow behind the Mis- sion Hills. To them presently approached his antagonist, jauntily accompanied by Colo- nel Starbottle, his second. They halted, but after the formal salutation were instantly joined by Jack Hamlin. For a few mo- ments John Milton remained awkwardly alone pending a conversation which even at that supreme moment he felt as being like the general attitude of his friends to- wards him, in its complete ignoring of him- self. The next moment the three men stepped towards him. " We have come, sir," said Colonel Starbottle in his precisest speech but his jauntiest manner, "to offer you a full and ample apology a personal apology which only supplements that full public apology that my principal, sir, this gentleman," indicating the editor of the " Pioneer," "has this mo?'ning made in the columns of his paper, as you will observe," producing a newspaper. " We have, sir," continued the colonel loftily, " only within the last twelve hours become aware of the er real circumstances of the case. We would regret that the affair had gone so far already, if it had not given us, sir, the oppor- tunity of testifying to your gallantry. Yv"e A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. 157 do SO gladly ; and if er er Vifew years later, Mr. llarcoui't, you should ever need a friend in any matter of this kind, 1 am, sir, at your service." John Milton gazed half inquiringly, half uneasily at Jack. ' It 's all right, Milt," he said sotto voce. " Shake hands all round and let 's go to breakfast. And I rather think that editor wants to employ you himself.''^ It was true, for when that night he climbed eagerly the steep homeward hill he carried with him the written offer of an engagement on the "Pioneer." As he entered the door his wife's nurse and companion met him with a serious face. There had been a stranjje and unexpected change in the patient's con- dition, and the doctor had already been there twice. As ho put aside his coat and liat and entered her room, it seemed to him that he had forever put aside all else of essay and ambition beyond tliose four walls. And with the thought a great peace came upon him. It seemed good to him to live for her alone. It was not for long. As each monotonous day brouglit the morning mist and evening fog regularly to the little hilltop where his whole being was now centred, she seemed 158 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJAEA. to grow daily weaker, and the little circle of her life narrowed day by day. One morn- ing when the usual mist appeared to have been withheld and the sun had risen with a strange and cruel brightness ; when the waves danced and sparkled on the bay below and light glanced from dazzling sails, and even the white tombs on Lone Mountain glittered keenly ; when cheery voices hailing each other on the hillside came to him clearly but without sense or meaning; when earth, sky, and sea seemed quivering with life and motion, he opened the door of that one lit^- tle house on which the only shadow seemed to have fallen, and went forth again into the world alone. CHAPTER VII. Mr. Daniel Harcourt's town mansion was also on an eminence, but it was that gen- tler acclivity o fashion known as Rincon Hill, and sunned itself on a southern slope of luxury. It had been described as " princely " and " fairy-like," by a grateful reporter ; tourists and travelers had sung its praises in letters to their friends and in private rem- iniscences, for it had dispensed hospitality to most of the celebrities who had visited the coast. Nevertheless its charm was mainly due to the ruling taste of ]\[iss Clementina Harcourt, who had astonished her father by her marvelous intuition of the nice require- ments and elegant responsibilities of their position ; and had thrown her mother into the pained perplexity of a matronly hen, who, among tlie ducks' eggs intrusted to her fostering care, had unwittingly hatched a graceful but discomposing cygnet. Indeed, after holding out feebly against the siege of wealth at Tasajara and San 160 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. Francisco, Mrs. Harcourt had abandoned herself hopelessly to the horrors of its inva- sion ; had allowed herself to be dragged from her kitchen by her exultant daughters and set up in black silk in a certain conventional respectability in the drawing-room. Strange to say, her commiserating hospitality, or hos})ital-like ministration, not only gave her popularity, but a certain kind of distinction. An exaltation so sorrowfully deprecated by its possessor was felt to be a sign of supe- riority. She was spoken of as " motherly," even by those who vaguely knew that there was somewhere a discarded son struggling in poverty with a helpless wife, and that she had sided with her husband in disinheriting a daughter who had married unwisely. She was sentimentally spoken of as a " true wife," while never opposing a single mean- ness of her husband, suggesting a single active virtue, nor questioning her right to sacrifice herself and her family for his sake. AVith nothing she cared to affect, she was quite free from affectation, and even the critical Lawrence Grant was struck with tlie dignity whicli her narrow simplicity, that had seemed small even in Sidon, attained in her palatial hall in San Francisco. It ap- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJaRA. 161 pcarcd to be a perfectly logical conclusion that when such unaffectedness and siiin)licity were forced to assume a hostile attitude to anybody, the latter must be to blame. Since the festival of Tasajara Mr. Grant had been a frequent visitor at Harcourt's, and was a guest on the eve of his departure from San Francisco. The distinguished po- sition of each made their relations appear quite natural without inciting gossip as to any attraction in Harcourt's daughters. It was late one afternoon as he was passing the door of Harcourt's study that his host called him in. He found him sitting at his desk with some papers before him and a folded copy of the " Clarion." With his back to the fading light of the window his face was partly in shadow. '' By the way, Grant," he began, with an assumption of carelessness somewhat incon- sistent with the fact that he had just cal^d him in, " it may be necessary for me to pull up those fellows who are blackguarding me in the " Clarion." " Why, they have n't been saying any- thing new?" asked Grant, laughingly, as he glanced towards the paper. " No that is only a rehash of what F Bret Harte v. 22 162 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. they said before," returned Harcourt with- out opening the paper. " Well," said Grant playfully, " you don't mind their saying that you 're ?iot the ori- ginal pioneer of Tasajara, for it 's true ; nor that that fellow Lige Curtis disappeared sud- denly, for he did, if I remember rightly. But there 's nothing in that to invalidate your rights to Tasajara, to say nothing of your five years' undisputed possession." " Of course there 's no le(/al question," said Harcourt almost sharply. " But as a matter of absurd report, I may want to con- tradict their insinuations. And you remem- ber all the circumstances, don't you ? " " I should think so ! Why, my dear fel- low, I 've told it everywhere ! here, in New York, Newport, and in London ; by Jove, it 's one of my best stories ! How a company sent me out with a surveyor to look up a railroad and agricultural possibili- ties in the wilderness ; how just as I found them and a rather big thing they made, too I was set afloat by a flood and a raft, and drifted ashore on join bank, and prac- tically demonstrated to you what you did n't know and did n't dare to hope for that there could be a waterway straight to Sidon A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 163 from the emharcadero. I 've told what a charming- evening we had with you and your dauuhters in the old house, and how 1 re- turned your hospitality by giving you a tip about the railroad ; and how you slipped out while we were playing cards, to clinch the bargain for the land with that drunken fellow, 'Lige Curtis " " What 's that ? " interrupted Harcourt, quickly. It was well that the shadow hid from Grant the expression of Ilareourt's face, or his reply might have been sharper. As it was, he answered a little stiffly : " I beg your pardon " Harcourt recovered himself. " You 're all wrong ! " he said, " that bargain was made long hefore ; I never saw 'Lige Cur- tis after you came to the house. It was before that, in the afternoon," he went on hurriedly, " that he was last in my store. I can ])rove it." Nevertheless he was so shocked and indignant at being confronted in his own suppressions and falsehoods by an even greater and more astounding mis- eoiicoption of fact, that for a moment he felt helpless. What, he reflected, if it were al- leg(id that "Li<2e had returned ajrain after 164 A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS AJAR A. the loafers had gone, or had neveir left the store as had been said ? Nonsense ! There was John Milton, who had been there read- ing all the time, and who could disprove it. Yes, but John Milton was his discarded son, his enemy, perhaps even his very slanderer ! " But," said Grant quietly, " don't you remember that your daughter Euphemia said something that evening about the land Lige had offered you, and you snapped up the young lady rather sharply for letting out secrets, and then you went out? At least that 's my impression." It was, however, more than an impres- sion ; with Grant's scientific memory for characteristic details he had noticed that particular circumstance as part of the social phenomena. " I don't know what Phomie saicl,''^ re- turned Harcourt, impatiently. " I hjiov) there was no offer pending ; the land had been sold to me before I ever saw you. Why you must have thouglit me up to pretty sharp practice with Curtis eh ? " he added, with a forced laugh. Grant smiled ; he had been accustomed to hear of such sharp practice among his busi- A FIRST FAMILY OF T AS A JAR A. 165 ness acquaintance, although he himself by- nature and profession was incapable of it, but he had not deemed Harcourt nore scru- ])ulous than others. " Perhaps so,*' he said lightly, "but for Heaven's sake don't ask me to spoil my reputation as a raconteur for the sake of a mere fact or two. I assure you it 's a mighty taking story as / tell it and it don't hurt you in a business way. You 're the hero of it hang it all ! " " Yes," said Harcourt, without noticing Grant's half cynical superiority, but you '11 oblige me if you won't tell it again in that way. There are men here mean enough to make the worst of it. It 's nothing to me, of course, but my family the girls, you know are rather sensitive." "' I had no idea they even knew it, much less cared for it," said Grant, with sudden seriousness. " I dare say if those fellows in the " Clarion " knew that they were annoy- ing the ladies they 'd drop it. Who 's the editor ? Look here leave it to me ; I '11 look into it. Better tliat you should n't ap- pear in the matter at all." " You understand that if it was a really serious matter, Grant," said Harcourt with a slight attitude, " I should n't allow any one to take my place." 166 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. " My dear fellow, there '11 be nobody ' called out ' and no ' shooting at sight,' whatever is the result of my interference," returned Grant, lightly. " It '11 be all right." He was quite aware of the power of his own independent position and the fact that he had been often appealed to before in delicate arbitration. Harcourt was equally conscious of this, but by a strange inconsistency now felt re- lieved at the coolness with which Grant had accepted the misconception which had at first seemed so dangerous. If he were ready to condone what he thought was sharp 2))'actice, he could not be less lenient with the real facts that might come out, of course al- ways excepting tha,t interpolated considera- tion in the bill of sale, which, however, no one but the missing Curtis could ever dis- cover. The fact that a man of Grant's se- cure position had interested himself in this matter would secure him from the working of that personal vulgar jealousy wliich his humbler antecedents had provoked. And if, as he fancied. Grant really cared for Clementina " As you like," ho said, with half-affected lightness, "and now let us talk of some- A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. 167 thiiiG: else. Clementiuii lias been tliinkin