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A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS 
 AND A DRIFT FROM RED- 
 WOOD CAMP 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (Cfce ttftmtffce $rt&, <amfcri&0e 
 
 1888 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
Copyright, 1887, 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS 5 
 
 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP . 173 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEERAS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHERE the great highway of the Sierras 
 nears the summit, and the pines begin to 
 show sterile reaches of rock and waste in 
 their drawn-up files, there are signs of occa- 
 sional departures from the main road, as if 
 the weary traveller had at times succumbed 
 to the long ascent, and turned aside for rest 
 and breath again. The tired eyes of many 
 a dusty passenger on the old overland coach 
 have gazed wistfully on those sylvan open- 
 ings, and imagined recesses of primeval 
 shade and virgin wilderness in their dim 
 perspectives. Had he descended, however, 
 and followed one of these diverging paths, 
 he would have come upon some rude wagon 
 track, or "log-slide," leading from a clear- 
 
6 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 ing on the slope, or the ominous saw-mill, 
 half hidden in the forest it was slowly deci- 
 mating. The woodland hush might have 
 been broken by the sound of water passing 
 over some unseen dam in the hollow, or the 
 hiss of escaping steam and throb of an invis- 
 ible engine in the covert. 
 
 Such, at least, was the experience of a 
 young fellow of five-and-twenty, who, knap- 
 sack on back and stick in hand, had turned 
 aside from the highway and entered the 
 woods one pleasant afternoon in July. But 
 he was evidently a deliberate pedestrian, 
 and not a recent deposit of the proceeding 
 stage-coach ; and although his stout walking- 
 shoes were covered with dust, he had neither 
 the habitual slouch and slovenliness of the 
 tramp, nor the hurried fatigue and growing 
 negligence of an involuntary wayfarer. His 
 clothes, which were strong and serviceable, 
 were better fitted for their present usage 
 than the ordinary garments of the Califor- 
 nian travellers, which were too apt to be 
 either above or below their requirements. 
 But perhaps the stranger's greatest claim to 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 7 
 
 originality was the absence of any weapon 
 in his equipment. He carried neither rifle 
 nor gun in his hand, and his narrow leathern 
 belt was empty of either knife or revolver. 
 
 A half-mile from the main road, which 
 seemed to him to have dropped out of sight 
 the moment he had left it, he came upon 
 a half-cleared area, where the hastily-cut 
 stumps of pines, of irregular height, bore 
 an odd resemblance to the broken columns 
 of some vast and ruined temple. A few 
 fallen shafts, denuded of their bark and 
 tessellated branches, sawn into symmetrical 
 cylinders, lay beside the stumps, and lent 
 themselves to the illusion. But the freshly- 
 cut chips, so damp that they still clung in 
 layers to each other as they had fallen from 
 the axe, and the stumps themselves, still wet 
 and viscous from their drained life-blood, were 
 redolent of an odor of youth and freshness. 
 
 The young man seated himself on one of 
 the logs and deeply inhaled the sharp bal- 
 samic fragrance albeit with a slight cough 
 and a later hurried respiration. This, and 
 a certain drawn look about his upper lip, 
 
8 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 seemed to indicate, in spite of his strength 
 and color, some pulmonary weakness. He, 
 however, rose after a moment's rest with 
 undiminished energy and cheerfulness, read- 
 justed his knapsack, and began to lightly 
 pick his way across the fallen timber. A 
 few paces on, the muffled whir of machin- 
 ery became more audible, with the lazy, 
 monotonous command of "Gee thar," from 
 some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, 
 deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen 
 emerged from the bushes, followed by the 
 clanking chain of the " skids " of sawn 
 planks, which they were ponderously drag- 
 ging with that ostentatious submissiveness 
 peculiar to their species. They had nearly 
 passed him when there was a sudden hitch 
 in the procession. From where he stood he 
 could see that a projecting plank had struck 
 a pile of chips and become partly imbedded 
 in it. To run to the obstruction and, with a 
 few dexterous strokes and the leverage of 
 his stout stick, dislodge the plank was the 
 work not only of the moment but of an 
 evidently energetic hand. The teamster 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 9 
 
 looked back and merely nodded his appre- 
 ciation, and with a " Gee up ! Out of that, 
 now ! " the skids moved on. 
 
 " Much obliged, there ! " said a hearty 
 voice, as if supplementing the teamster's 
 imperfect acknowledgment. 
 
 The stranger looked up. The voice came 
 from the open, sashless, shutterless window 
 of a rude building a mere shell of boards 
 and beams half hidden in the still leafy cov- 
 ert before him. He had completely over- 
 looked it in his approach, even as he had 
 ignored the nearer throbbing of the machin- 
 ery, which was so violent as to impart a 
 decided tremor to the slight edifice, and to 
 shake the speaker so strongly that he was 
 obliged while speaking to steady himself by 
 the sashless frame of the window at which 
 he stood. He had a face of good-natured 
 and alert intelligence, a master's independ- 
 ence and authority of manner, in spite of 
 his blue jean overalls and flannel shirt. 
 
 " Don't mention it," said the stranger, 
 smiling with equal but more deliberate good- 
 humor. Then, seeing that his interlocutor 
 
10 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEHBAS. 
 
 still lingered a hospitable moment in spite 
 of his quick eyes and the jarring impatience 
 of the machinery, he added hesitatingly, " I 
 fancy I've wandered off the track a bit. Do 
 you know a Mr. Bradley somewhere here ? " 
 
 The stranger's hesitation seemed to be 
 more from some habitual conscientiousness 
 of statement than awkwardness. The man 
 in the window replied, " I 'm Bradley." 
 
 " Ah ! Thank you : I Ve a letter for you 
 somewhere. Here it is." He produced a 
 note from his breast-pocket. Bradley stooped 
 to a sitting posture in the window. " Pitch 
 it up." It was thrown and caught cleverly. 
 Bradley opened it, read it hastily, smiled 
 and nodded, glanced behind him as if to 
 implore further delay from the impatient 
 machinery, leaned perilously from the win- 
 dow, and said, 
 
 " Look here ! Do you see that silver-fir 
 straight ahead?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " A little to the left there 's a trail. Fol- 
 low it and skirt along the edge of the can- 
 yon until you see my house. Ask for my 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 11 
 
 wife that 's Mrs. Bradley and give her 
 your letter. Stop ! " He drew a carpenter's 
 pencil from his pocket, scrawled two or 
 three words across the open sheet and tossed 
 it back to the stranger. "See you at tea ! 
 Excuse me Mr. Mainwaring we 're 
 short-handed and the engine " But 
 here he disappeared suddenly. 
 
 Without glancing at the note again, the 
 stranger quietly replaced it in his pocket, 
 and struck out across the fallen trunks 
 towards the silver-fir. He quickly found the 
 trail indicated by Bradley, although it was 
 faint and apparently worn by a single pair 
 of feet as a shorter and private cut from 
 some more travelled path. It was well for 
 the stranger that he had a keen eye or he 
 would have lost it ; it was equally fortunate 
 that he had a mountaineering instinct, for a 
 sudden profound deepening of the blue mist 
 seen dimly through the leaves before him 
 caused him to slacken his steps. The trail 
 bent abruptly to the right ; a gulf fully two 
 thousand feet deep was at his feet ! It was 
 the Great Canyon. 
 
12 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 At the first glance it seemed so narrow 
 that a rifle-shot could have crossed its tran- 
 quil depths ; but a second look at the com- 
 parative size of the trees on the opposite 
 mountain convinced him of his error. A 
 nearer survey of the abyss also showed him 
 that instead of its walls being perpendicular 
 they were made of successive ledges or ter- 
 races to the valley below. Yet the air was 
 so still, and the outlines so clearly cut, that 
 they might have been only the reflections of 
 the mountains around him cast upon the 
 placid mirror of a lake. The spectacle ar- 
 rested him, as it arrested all men, by some 
 occult power beyond the mere attraction of 
 beauty or magnitude; even the teamster 
 never passed it without the tribute of a stone 
 or broken twig tossed into its immeasurable 
 profundity. 
 
 Reluctantly leaving the spot, the stranger 
 turned with the trail that now began to skirt 
 its edge. This was no easy matter, as the 
 undergrowth was very thick, and the foliage 
 dense to the perilous brink of the precipice. 
 He walked on, however, wondering why 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 13 
 
 Bradley had chosen so circuitous and dan- 
 gerous a route to his house, which naturally 
 would be some distance back from the can- 
 yon. At the end of ten minutes' struggling 
 through the " brush," the trail became vague, 
 and, to all appearances, ended. Had he ar- 
 rived ? The thicket was as dense as before ; 
 through the interstices of leaf and spray he 
 could see the blue void of the canyon at his 
 side, and he even fancied that the foliage 
 ahead of him was more symmetrical and less 
 irregular, and was touched here and there 
 with faint bits of color. To complete his 
 utter mystification, a woman's voice, very 
 fresh, very youthful, and by no means un- 
 musical, rose apparently from the circum- 
 ambient air. He looked hurriedly to the 
 right and left, and even hopelessly into the 
 trees above him. 
 
 "Yes," said the voice, as if renewing a 
 suspended conversation, "it was too funny 
 for anything. There were the two Missouri 
 girls from Skinner's, with their auburn hair 
 ringletted, my dear, like the old ' Books of 
 Beauty ' in white frocks and sashes of an 
 
14 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 unripe greenish yellow, that puckered up 
 your mouth like persimmons. One of them 
 was speechless from good behavior, and the 
 other well ! the other was so energetic she 
 called out the figures before the fiddler did, 
 and shrieked to my vis-a-vis to dance up to 
 the entire stranger meaning me, if you 
 please." 
 
 The voice appeared to come from the foli- 
 age that overhung the canon, and the stran- 
 ger even fancied he could detect through 
 the shimmering leafy veil something that 
 moved monotonously to and fro. Mystified 
 and impatient, he made a hurried stride for- 
 ward, his foot struck a wooden step, and the 
 next moment the mystery was made clear. 
 He had almost stumbled upon the end of a 
 long veranda that projected over the abyss 
 before a low, modern dwelling, till then in- 
 visible, nestling on its very brink. The 
 symmetrically-trimmed foliage he had no- 
 ticed were the luxuriant Madeira vines that 
 hid the rude pillars of the veranda ; the 
 moving object was a rocking-chair, with its 
 back towards the intruder, that disclosed 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 15 
 
 only the brown hair above, and the white 
 skirts and small slippered feet below, of a 
 seated female figure. In the mean time, a 
 second voice from the interior of the house 
 had replied to the figure in the chair, who 
 was evidently the first speaker : 
 
 " It must have been very funny ; but as 
 long as Jim is always bringing somebody 
 over from the mill, I don't see how / can go 
 to those places. You were lucky, my dear, 
 to escape from the new Division Superin- 
 tendent last night ; he was insufferable to 
 Jim with his talk of his friend the San Fran- 
 cisco millionaire, and to me with his cheap 
 society airs. I do hate a provincial fine 
 gentleman." 
 
 The situation was becoming embarrassing 
 to the intruder. At the apparition of the 
 woman, the unaffected and simple directness 
 he had previously shown in his equally ab- 
 rupt contact with Bradley had fled utterly ; 
 confused by the awkwardness of his arrival, 
 and shocked at the idea of overhearing a 
 private conversation, he stepped hurriedly on 
 the veranda. 
 
16 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " Well ? go on ! " said the second voice 
 impatiently. " Well, who else was there ? 
 What did you say? I don't hear you. 
 What 's the matter ? " 
 
 The seated figure had risen from her chair, 
 and turned a young and pretty face some- 
 what superciliously towards the stranger, as 
 she said in a low tone to her unseen auditor, 
 "Hush! there is somebody here." 
 
 The young man came forward with an 
 awkwardness that was more boyish than rus- 
 tic. His embarrassment was not lessened 
 by the simultaneous entrance from the open 
 door of a second woman, apparently as 
 young as and prettier than the first. 
 
 "I trust you'll excuse me for for 
 being so wretchedly stupid," he stammered, 
 " but I really thought, you know, that 
 that I was following the trail to to 
 the front of the house, when I stumbled in 
 in here." 
 
 Long before he had finished, both women, 
 by some simple feminine intuition, were re- 
 lieved and even prepossessed by his voice 
 and manner. They smiled graciously. The 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 17 
 
 later-comer pointed to the empty chair. But 
 with his habit of pertinacious conscientious- 
 ness the stranger continued, " It was regu- 
 larly stupid, was n't it ? and I ought to 
 have known better. I should have turned 
 back and gone away when I found out what 
 an ass I was likely to be, but I was afraid 
 you know, of alarming you by the noise." 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " said the second 
 lady, pleasantly. 
 
 " Oh, thanks ! I've a letter here I " 
 he transferred his stick and hat to his left 
 hand as he felt in his breast-pocket with his 
 right. But the action was so awkward that 
 the stick dropped on the veranda. Both 
 women made a movement to restore it to its 
 embarrassed owner, who, however, quickly 
 anticipated them. " Pray don't mind it," he 
 continued, with accelerated breath and 
 heightened color. " Ah, here 's the letter ! " 
 He produced the note Bradley had returned 
 to him. " It 's mine, in fact that is, I 
 brought it to Mr. Bradley. He said I was 
 to give it to to to Mrs. Bradley." 
 He paused, glancing embarrassedly from 
 the one to the other. 
 
18 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " I 'm Mrs. Bradley," said the prettiest 
 one, with a laugh. He handed her the letter. 
 It ran as follows : 
 
 44 DEAR BRADLEY, Put Mr. Main waring 
 through as far as he wants to go, or hang 
 him up at The Lookout, just as he likes. 
 The Bank 's behind him, and his hat 's 
 chalked all over the Road ; but he don't 
 care much about being on velvet. That 
 ain't his style and you '11 like him. He 's 
 somebody's son in England. B." 
 
 Mrs. Bradley glanced simply at the first 
 sentence. " Pray sit down, Mr. Mainwar- 
 ing," she said gently ; " or, rather, let me 
 first introduce my cousin Miss Macy." 
 
 " Thanks," said Main waring, with a bow 
 to Miss Macy, "but I I I think," 
 he added conscientiously, " you did not no- 
 tice that your husband had written some- 
 thing across the paper." 
 
 Mrs. Bradley smiled, and glanced at her 
 husband's indorsement " All right. Wade 
 in." " It 's nothing but Jim's slang," she 
 said, with a laugh and a slightly heightened 
 color. " He ought not to have sent you by 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 19 
 
 that short cut ; it 's a bother, and even dan- 
 gerous for a stranger. If you had come di- 
 rectly to us by the road, without making 
 your first call at the mill," she added, with 
 a touch of coquetry, " you would have had 
 a pleasanter walk, and seen us sooner. I 
 suppose, however, you got off the stage at 
 the mill?" 
 
 u I was not on the coach," said Main war- 
 ing, unfastening the strap of his knapsack. 
 " I walked over from Lone Pine Flat." 
 
 " Walked ! " echoed both women in sim- 
 ultaneous astonishment. 
 
 " Yes," returned Main waring simply, lay- 
 ing aside his burden and taking the proffered 
 seat. " It 's a very fine bit of country." 
 
 " Why, it's fifteen miles," said Mrs. Brad- 
 ley, glancing horror-stricken at her cousin. 
 " How dreadful ! And to think Jim could 
 have sent you a horse to Lone Pine. Why, 
 you must be dead ! " 
 
 " Thanks, I 'm all right ! I rather en- 
 joyed it, you know." 
 
 " But," said Miss Macy, glancing wonder- 
 ingly at his knapsack, " you must want some- 
 
20 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 thing, a change or some refreshment 
 after fifteen miles." 
 
 " Pray don't disturb yourself," said Main- 
 waring, rising hastily, but not quickly enough 
 to prevent the young girl from slipping past 
 him into the house, whence she rapidly re- 
 turned with a decanter and glasses. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Mainwaring would prefer 
 to go into Jim's room and wash his hands 
 and put on a pair of slippers ? " said Mrs. 
 Bradley, with gentle concern. 
 
 " Thanks, no. I really am not tired. I 
 sent some luggage yesterday by the coach to 
 the Summit Hotel," he said, observing the 
 women's eyes still fixed upon his knapsack. 
 " I dare say I can get them if I want them. 
 I've got a change here," he continued, lift- 
 ing the knapsack as if with a sudden sense 
 of its incongruity with its surroundings, and 
 depositing it on the end of the veranda. 
 
 " Do let it remain where it is," said Mrs. 
 Bradley, greatly amused, " and pray sit still 
 and take some refreshment. You'll make 
 yourself ill after your exertions," she added, 
 with a charming assumption of matronly 
 solicitude. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 21 
 
 "But I'm not at all deserving of your 
 sympathy," said Main waring, with a laugh. 
 " I 'm awfully fond of walking, and my usual 
 constitutional is n't much under this." 
 
 " Perhaps you were stronger than you are 
 now," said Mrs. Bradley, gazing at him with 
 a frank curiosity that, however, brought a 
 faint deepening of color to his cheek. 
 
 " I dare say you 're right," he said sud- 
 denly, with an apologetic smile. " I quite 
 forgot that I 'm a sort of an invalid, you 
 know, travelling for my health. I 'm not 
 very strong here," he added, lightly tapping 
 his chest, that now, relieved of the bands of 
 his knapsack, appeared somewhat thin and 
 hollow in spite of his broad shoulders. His 
 voice, too, had become less clear and distinct. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley, who was still watching him, 
 here rose potentially. " You ought to take 
 more care of yourself," she said. " You 
 should begin by eating this biscuit, drinking 
 that glass of whiskey, and making yourself 
 more comfortable in Jim's room until we can 
 get the spare room fixed a little." 
 
 " But I am not to be sent to bed am 
 
22 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 I?" asked Mainwaring, in half -real, half- 
 amused consternation. 
 
 "I 'm not so sure of that," said Mrs. Brad- 
 ley, with playful precision. " But for the 
 present we '11 let you off with a good wash 
 and a nap afterwards in that rocking-chair, 
 while my cousin and I make some little do- 
 mestic preparations. You see," she added 
 with a certain proud humility, " we 've got 
 only one servant a Chinaman, and there 
 are many things we can't leave to him." 
 
 The color again rose in Mainwaring's 
 cheek, but he had tact enough to reflect that 
 any protest or hesitation on his part at that 
 moment would only increase the difficulties 
 of his gentle entertainers. He allowed him- 
 self to be ushered into the house by Mrs. 
 Bradley, and shown to her husband's room, 
 without perceiving that Miss Macy had 
 availed herself of his absence to run to the 
 end of the veranda, mischievously try to 
 lift the discarded knapsack to her own pretty 
 shoulder, but, failing, heroically stagger with 
 it into the passage and softly deposit it at 
 his door. This done, she pantingly rejoined 
 her cousin in the kitchen. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 23 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Bradley, emphatically. 
 " Did you ever ? Walking fifteen miles for 
 pleasure and with such lungs ! " 
 
 " And that knapsack ! " added Louise 
 Macy, pointing to the mark in her little palm 
 where the strap had imbedded itself in the 
 soft flesh. 
 
 " He 's nice, though ; is n't he ? " said 
 Mrs. Bradley, tentatively. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Macy, " he is n't, cer- 
 tainly, one of those provincial fine gentlemen 
 you object to. But did you see his shoes ? 
 I suppose they make the miles go quickly, 
 or seem to measure less by comparison." 
 
 " They 're probably more serviceable than 
 those high-heeled things that Captain Grey- 
 son hops about in." 
 
 " But the Captain always rides and rides 
 very well you know," said Louise, reflec- 
 tively. There was a moment's pause. 
 
 " I suppose Jim will tell us all about him," 
 said Mrs. Bradley, dismissing the subject, 
 as she turned her sleeves back over her 
 white arms, preparatory to grappling certain 
 culinary difficulties. 
 
24 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " Jim," observed Miss Macy, shortly, " in 
 my opinion, knows nothing more than his 
 note says. That 's like Jim." 
 
 " There 's nothing more to know, really," 
 said Mrs. Bradley, with a superior air. 
 " He 's undoubtedly the son of some Eng- 
 lishman of fortune, sent out here for his 
 health." 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 Miss Macy had heard a step in the pas- 
 sage. It halted at last, half irresolutely, 
 before the open door of the kitchen, and the 
 stranger appeared with an embarrassed air. 
 But in his brief absence he seemed to have 
 completely groomed himself, and stood there, 
 the impersonation of close-cropped, clean, 
 and wholesome English young manhood. 
 The two women appreciated it with cat-like 
 fastidiousness. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; but really you 're 
 going to let a fellow do something for you," 
 he said, " just to keep him from looking like 
 a fool. I really can do no end of things, 
 you know, if you '11 try me. I 've done some 
 camping-out, and can cook as well as the 
 next man." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE 8 1 ERE AS. 25 
 
 The two women made a movement of 
 smiling remonstrance, half coquettish, and 
 half superior, until Mrs. Bradley, becoming 
 conscious of her bare arms and the stran- 
 ger's wandering eyes, colored faintly, and 
 said with more decision : 
 
 " Certainly not. You 'd only be in the 
 way. Besides, you need rest more than we 
 do. Put yourself in the rocking-chair in 
 the veranda, and go to sleep until Mr. 
 Bradley comes." 
 
 Mainwaring saw that she was serious, and 
 withdrew, a little ashamed at the familiarity 
 into which his boyishness had betrayed him. 
 But he had scarcely seated himself in the 
 rocking-chair before Miss Macy appeared, 
 carrying with both hands a large tin basin 
 of unshelled peas. 
 
 " There," she said pantingly, placing her 
 burden in his lap, " if you really want to 
 help, there 's something to do that is n't very 
 fatiguing. You may shell these peas." 
 
 " Shell them I beg pardon, but how ? " 
 he asked, with smiling earnestness. 
 
 " How ? Why, I '11 show you look." 
 
26 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 She frankly stepped beside him, so close 
 that her full-skirted dress half encompassed 
 him and the basin in a delicious confusion, 
 and, leaning over his lap, with her left hand 
 picked up a pea-cod, which, with a single 
 movement of her charming little right 
 thumb, she broke at the end, and stripped 
 the green shallow of its tiny treasures. 
 
 He watched her with smiling eyes ; her 
 own, looking down on him, were very bright 
 and luminous. " There ; that 's easy enough," 
 she said, and turned away. 
 
 "But one moment, Miss Miss ?" 
 
 " Macy," said Louise. 
 
 " Where am I to put the shells ? " 
 
 "Oh! throw them down there there's 
 room enough." 
 
 She was pointing to the canyon below. 
 The veranda actually projected over its 
 brink, and seemed to hang in mid air above 
 it. Mainwaring almost mechanically threw 
 his arm out to catch the incautious girl, who 
 had stepped heedlessly to its extreme edge. 
 
 " How odd ! Don't you find it rather 
 dangerous here ? " he could not help saying. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 27 
 
 "I mean you might have had a railing 
 that would n't intercept the view and yet be 
 safe ? " 
 
 " It 's a fancy of Mr. Bradley's," returned 
 the young girl carelessly. " It 's all like this. 
 The house was built on a ledge against the 
 side of the precipice, and the road suddenly 
 drops down to it." 
 
 " It 's tremendously pretty, all the same, 
 you know," said the young man thought- 
 fully, gazing, however, at the girl's rounded 
 chin above him. 
 
 " Yes," she replied curtly. " But this 
 isn't working. I must go back to Jenny. 
 You can shell the peas until Mr. Bradley 
 comes home. He won't be long." 
 
 She turned away, and reentered the 
 house. Without knowing why, he thought 
 her withdrawal abrupt, and he was again 
 feeling his ready color rise with the sus- 
 picion of either having been betrayed by the 
 young girl's innocent fearlessness into some 
 unpardonable familiarity, which she had 
 quietly resented, or of feeling an ease and 
 freedom in the company of these two women 
 
28 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 that were inconsistent with respect, and 
 should be restrained. 
 
 He, however, began to apply himself to 
 the task given to him with his usual con- 
 scientiousness of duty, and presently ac- 
 quired a certain manual dexterity in the 
 operation. It was " good fun " to throw 
 the cast-off husks into the mighty unfathom- 
 able void before him, and watch them linger 
 with suspended gravity in mid air for a 
 moment apparently motionless until 
 they either lost themselves, a mere vanishing 
 black spot in the thin ether, or slid suddenly 
 at a sharp angle into unknown shadow. 
 How deuced odd for him to be sitting here 
 in this fashion ! It would be something to 
 talk of hereafter, and yet, he stopped 
 it was not at all in the line of that charac- 
 teristic adventure, uncivilized novelty, and 
 barbarous freedom which for the last month 
 he had sought and experienced. It was not 
 at all like his meeting with the grizzly last 
 week while wandering in a lonely canyon; 
 not a bit in the line of his chance acquaint- 
 ance with that notorious ruffian, Spanish 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 29 
 
 Jack, or his witnessing with his own eyes 
 that actual lynching affair at Angels. No ! 
 Nor was it at all characteristic, according to 
 his previous ideas of frontier rural seclusion 
 as for instance the Pike County cabin of 
 the family where he stayed one night, and 
 where the handsome daughter asked him 
 what his Christian name was. No ! These 
 two young women were very unlike her; 
 they seemed really quite the equals of his 
 family and friends in England, perhaps 
 more attractive, and yet, yes, it was this 
 very attractiveness that alarmed his inbred 
 social conservatism regarding women. With 
 a man it was very different ; that alert, ac- 
 tive, intelligent husband, instinct with the 
 throbbing life of his saw-mill, creator and 
 worker in one, challenged his unqualified 
 trust and admiration. 
 
 He had become conscious for the last 
 minute or two of thinking rapidly and be- 
 coming feverishly excited ; of breathing 
 with greater difficulty, and a renewed ten- 
 dency to cough. The tendency increased 
 until he instinctively put aside the pan from 
 
30 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 his lap and half rose. But even that slight 
 exertion brought on an accession of cough- 
 ing. He put his handkerchief to his lips, 
 partly to keep the sound from disturbing 
 the women in the kitchen, partly because 
 of a certain significant taste in his mouth 
 which he unpleasantly remembered. When 
 he removed the handkerchief it was, as he 
 expected, spotted with blood. He turned 
 quickly and reentered the house softly, re- 
 gaining the bedroom without attracting at- 
 tention. An increasing faintness here 
 obliged him to lie down on the bed until it 
 should pass. 
 
 Everything was quiet. He hoped they 
 would not discover his absence from the ve- 
 randa until he was better ; it was deucedly 
 awkward that he should have had this at- 
 tack just now and after he had made so 
 light of his previous exertions. They would 
 think him an effeminate fraud, these two 
 bright, active women and that alert, ener- 
 getic man. A faint color came into his cheek 
 at the idea, and an uneasy sense that he 
 had been in some way foolishly imprudent 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 31 
 
 about his health. Again, they might be 
 alarmed at missing him from the veranda ; 
 perhaps he had better have remained there ; 
 perhaps he ought to tell them that he had 
 concluded to take their advice and lie down. 
 He tried to rise, but the deep blue chasm 
 before the window seemed to be swelling 
 up to meet him, the bed slowly sinking into 
 its oblivious profundity. He knew no more. 
 
 He came to with the smell and taste of 
 some powerful volatile spirit, and the vague 
 vision of Mr. Bradley still standing at the 
 window of the mill and vibrating with the 
 machinery; this changed presently to a 
 pleasant lassitude and lazy curiosity as he 
 perceived Mr. Bradley smile and apparently 
 slip from the window of the mill to his bed- 
 side. 
 
 " You 're all right now," said Bradley, 
 cheerfully. 
 
 He was feeling Mainwaring's pulse. Had 
 he really been ill and was Bradley a doctor ? 
 
 Bradley evidently saw what was passing 
 in his mind. " Don't be alarmed," he said 
 gayly. "I 'm not a doctor, but I practise a 
 
32 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 little medicine and surgery on account of 
 the men at the mill, and accidents, you 
 know. You 're all right now ; you 've lost 
 a little blood : but in a couple of weeks in 
 this air we '11 have that tubercle healed, and 
 you '11 be as right as a trivet." 
 
 " In a couple of weeks ! " echoed Main- 
 waring, in faint astonishment. " Why, I 
 leave here to-morrow." 
 
 " You '11 do nothing of the kind," said 
 Mrs. Bradley, with smiling peremptoriness, 
 suddenly slipping out from behind her hus- 
 band. " Everything is all perfectly arranged. 
 Jim has sent off messengers to your friends, 
 so that if you can't come to them, they can 
 come to you. You see you can't help your- 
 self ! If you will walk fifteen miles with 
 such lungs, and then frighten people to 
 death, you must abide by the consequences." 
 
 "You see the old lady has fixed you," 
 said Bradley, smiling ; " and she 's the mas- 
 ter here. Come, Mainwaring, you can send 
 any other message you like, and have who 
 and what you want here ; but here you must 
 stop for a while." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEREAS. 33 
 
 " But did I frighten you really ? " stam- 
 mered Mainwaring, faintly, to Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 " Frighten us ! " said Mrs. Bradley. 
 " Well, look there ! " 
 
 She pointed to the window, which com- 
 manded a view of the veranda. Miss Macy 
 had dropped into the vacant chair, with her 
 little feet stretched out before her, her 
 cheeks burning with heat and fire, her eyes 
 partly closed, her straw hat hanging by a 
 ribbon round her neck, her brown hair cling- 
 ing to her ears and forehead in damp ten- 
 drils, and an enormous palm-leaf fan in each 
 hand violently playing upon this charming 
 picture of exhaustion and abandonment. 
 
 " She came tearing down to the mill, bare- 
 backed on our half-broken mustang, about 
 half an hour ago, to call me 4 to help you,' " 
 explained Bradley. "Heaven knows how 
 she managed to do it ! " 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE medication of the woods was not 
 overestimated by Bradley. There was sure- 
 ly some occult healing property in that 
 vast reservoir of balmy and resinous odors 
 over which The Lookout beetled and clung, 
 and from which at times the pure exhala- 
 tions of the terraced valley seemed to rise. 
 Under its remedial influence and a conscien- 
 tious adherence to the rules of absolute rest 
 and repose laid down for him, Main waring 
 had no return of the hemorrhage. The 
 nearest professional medical authority, hastily 
 summoned, saw no reason for changing or for 
 supplementing Bradley's intelligent and sim- 
 ple treatment, although astounded that the 
 patient had been under no more radical or 
 systematic cure than travel and exercise. 
 The women especially were amazed that 
 Mainwaring had taken " nothing for it," in 
 their habitual experience of an unfettered 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 35 
 
 pill-and-elixir consuming democracy. In 
 their knowledge of the thousand " panaceas " 
 that filled the shelves of the general store, 
 this singular abstention of their guest 
 seemed to indicate a national peculiarity. 
 
 His bed was moved beside the low win- 
 dow, from which he could not only view the 
 veranda but converse at times with its oc- 
 cupants, and even listen to the book which 
 Miss Macy, seated without, read aloud to 
 him. In the evening Bradley would linger 
 by his couch until late, beguiling the tedium 
 of his convalescence with characteristic 
 stories and information which he thought 
 might please the invalid. For Main waring, 
 who had been early struck with Bradley's 
 ready and cultivated intelligence, ended by 
 shyly avoiding the discussion of more serious 
 topics, partly because Bradley impressed 
 him with a suspicion of his own inferiority, 
 and partly because Mainwaring questioned 
 the taste of Bradley's apparent exhibition 
 of his manifest superiority. He learned 
 accidentally that this mill-owner and back- 
 woodsman was a college-bred man ; but the 
 
36 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 practical application of that education to 
 the ordinary affairs of life was new to the 
 young Englishman's traditions, and grated 
 a little harshly on his feelings. He would 
 have been quite content if Bradley had, 
 like himself and fellows he knew, under- 
 valued his training, and kept his gifts con- 
 servatively impractical. The knowledge also 
 that his host's education naturally came 
 from some provincial institution unlike Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge may have unconsciously 
 affected his general estimate. I say uncon- 
 sciously, for his strict conscientiousness 
 would have rejected any such formal propo- 
 sition. 
 
 Another trifle annoyed him. He could 
 not help noticing also that although Brad- 
 ley's manner and sympathy were confiden- 
 tial and almost brotherly, he never made 
 any allusion to Mainwaring's own family or 
 connections, and, in fact, gave no indication 
 of what he believed was the national curios- 
 ity in regard to strangers. Somewhat em- 
 barrassed by this indifference, Main waring 
 made the occasion of writing some letters 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 37 
 
 home an opportunity for laughingly alluding 
 to the fact that he had made his mother and 
 his sisters fully aware of the great debt they 
 owed the household of The Lookout. 
 
 " They '11 probably all send you a round 
 robin of thanks, except, perhaps, my next 
 brother, Bob." Bradley contented himself 
 with a gesture of general deprecation, and 
 did not ask why Mainwaring's young broth- 
 er should contemplate his death with satis- 
 faction. Nevertheless, some time after- 
 wards Miss Macy remarked that it seemed 
 hard that the happiness of one member of 
 a family should depend upon a calamity to 
 another. " As for instance ? " asked Main- 
 waring, who had already forgotten the cir- 
 cumstance. " Why, if you had died and 
 your younger brother succeeded to the bar- 
 onetcy, and become Sir Eobert Mainwar- 
 ing," responded Miss Macy, with precision. 
 This was the first and only allusion to his 
 family and prospective rank. On the other 
 hand, he had through naive and boyish 
 inquiries, which seemed to amuse his enter- 
 tainers acquired, as he believed, a full 
 
38 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 knowledge of the history and antecedents 
 of the Bradley household. He knew how 
 Bradley had brought his young wife and her 
 cousin to California and abandoned a lucra- 
 tive law practice in San Francisco to take 
 possession of this mountain mill and wood- 
 land, which he had acquired through some 
 professional service. 
 
 44 Then you are a barrister really ? " said 
 Mainwaring, gravely. 
 
 Bradley laughed. " I 'm afraid I 've had 
 more practice though not as lucrative a 
 one as surgeon or doctor." 
 
 " But you 're regularly on the rolls, you 
 know ; you 're entered as Counsel, and all 
 that sort of thing ? " continued Mainwaring, 
 with great seriousness. 
 
 " Well, yes," replied Bradley, much 
 amused. " I 'm afraid I must plead guilty 
 to that." 
 
 44 It 's not a bad sort of thing," said Main- 
 waring, naively, ignoring Bradley's amuse- 
 ment. " I 've got a cousin who 's gone in 
 for the law. Got out of the army to do it 
 too. He 's a sharp fellow." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 39 
 
 " Then you do allow a man to try many 
 trades over there," said Miss Macy, de- 
 murely. 
 
 "Yes, sometimes," said Mainwaring, gra- 
 ciously, but by no means certain that the 
 case was at all analogous. 
 
 Nevertheless, as if relieved of certain 
 doubts of the conventional quality of his 
 host's attainments, he now gave himself up 
 to a very hearty and honest admiration of 
 Bradley. " You know it 's awfully kind of 
 him to talk to a fellow like me who just 
 pulled through, and never got any prizes at 
 Oxford, and don't understand the half of 
 these things," he remarked confidentially to 
 Mrs. Bradley. " He knows more about the 
 things we used to go in for at Oxford than 
 lots of our men, and he 's never been there. 
 He 's uncommonly clever." 
 
 " Jim was always very brilliant," returned 
 Mrs. Bradley, indifferently, and with more 
 than even conventionally polite wifely de- 
 precation ; " I wish he were more practical." 
 
 " Practical! Oh, I say, Mrs. Bradley! 
 Why, a fellow that can go in among a lot of 
 
40 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 workmen and tell them just what to do an 
 all-round chap that can be independent of 
 his valet, his doctor, and his banker ! By 
 jove that 's practical ! " 
 
 "I mean," said Mrs. Bradley, coldly, 
 " that there are some things that a gentle- 
 man ought not to be practical about nor in- 
 dependent of. Mr. Bradley would have done 
 better to have used his talents in some more 
 legitimate and established way." 
 
 Mainwaring looked at her in genuine sur- 
 prise. To his inexperienced observation 
 Bradley's intelligent energy and, above all, 
 his originality, ought to have been priceless 
 in the eyes of his wife the American 
 female of his species. He felt that slight 
 shock which most loyal or logical men feel 
 when first brought face to face with the easy 
 disloyalty and incomprehensible logic of the 
 feminine affections. Here was a fellow, by 
 Jove, that any woman ought to be proud of, 
 and and he stopped blankly. He won- 
 dered if Miss Macy sympathized with her 
 cousin. 
 
 Howbeit, this did not affect the charm of 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 41 
 
 their idyllic life at The Lookout. The pre- 
 cipice over which they hung was as charm- 
 ing as ever in its poetic illusions of space 
 and depth and color ; the isolation of their 
 comfortable existence in the tasteful yet au- 
 dacious habitation, the pleasant routine of 
 daily tasks and amusements, all tended to 
 make the enforced quiet and inaction of his 
 convalescence a lazy recreation. He was 
 really improving ; more than that, he was 
 conscious of a certain satisfaction in this 
 passive observation of novelty that was 
 healthier and perhaps truer than his previous 
 passion for adventure and that febrile desire 
 for change and excitement which he now 
 felt was a part of his disease. Nor were in- 
 cident and variety entirely absent from this 
 tranquil experience. He was one day aston- 
 ished at being presented by Bradley with 
 copies of the latest English newspapers, pro- 
 cured from Sacramento, and he equally as- 
 tonished his host, after profusely thanking 
 him, by only listlessly glancing at their col- 
 umns. He estopped a proposed visit from 
 one of his influential countrymen ; in the 
 
42 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 absence of his fair entertainers at their do- 
 mestic duties, he extracted infinite satisfac- 
 tion from Foo-Yup, the Chinese servant, who 
 was particularly detached for his service. 
 From his invalid coign of vantage at the 
 window he was observant of all that passed 
 upon the veranda, that al-fresco audience- 
 room of The Lookout, and he was good-hu- 
 moredly conscious that a great many eccen- 
 tric and peculiar visitors were invariably 
 dragged thither by Miss Macy, and goaded 
 into characteristic exhibition within sight 
 and hearing of her guest, with a too evident 
 view, under the ostentatious excuse of ex- 
 tending his knowledge of national character, 
 of mischievously shocking him. "When 
 you are strong enough to stand Captain 
 Gashweiler's opinions of the Established 
 Church and Chinamen," said Miss Macy, 
 after one of those revelations, " I '11 get Jim 
 to bring him here, for really he swears so 
 outrageously that even in the broadest in- 
 terests of international understanding and 
 good-will neither Mrs. Bradley nor myself 
 could be present." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 43 
 
 On another occasion she provokingly lin- 
 gered before his window for a moment with 
 a rifle slung jauntily over her shoulder. " If 
 you hear a shot or two don't excite yourself, 
 and believe we 're having a lynching case in 
 the woods. It will be only me. There 's 
 some creature confess, you expected me to 
 say 4 critter ' hanging round the barn. 
 It may be a bear. Good-by." She missed 
 the creature, which happened to be really 
 a bear, much to Main waring' s illogical sat- 
 isfaction. " I wonder why," he reflected, 
 with vague uneasiness, "she doesn't leave 
 all that sort of thing to girls like that tow- 
 headed girl at the blacksmith's." 
 
 It chanced, however, that this blacksmith's 
 tow-headed daughter, who, it may be inci- 
 dentally remarked, had the additional ec- 
 centricities of large black eyes and large 
 white teeth, came to the fore in quite another 
 fashion. Shortly after this, Main waring 
 being able to leave his room and join the 
 family board, Mrs. Bradley found it neces- 
 sary to enlarge her domestic service, and 
 arranged with her nearest neighbor, the 
 
44 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 blacksmith, to allow his daughter to come to 
 The Lookout for a few days to "do the 
 chores" and assist in the housekeeping, as 
 she had on previous occasions. The day of 
 her advent Bradley entered Mainwaring's 
 room, and, closing the door mysteriously, 
 fixed his blue eyes, kindling with mischief, 
 on the young Englishman. 
 
 " You are aware, my dear boy," he began 
 with affected gravity, "that you are now 
 living in a land of liberty, where mere arti- 
 ficial distinctions are not known, and where 
 Freedom from her mountain heights gener- 
 ally levels all social positions. I think you 
 have graciously admitted that fact." 
 
 " I know I Ve been taking a tremendous 
 lot of freedom with you and yours, old man, 
 and it 's a deuced shame," interrupted Main- 
 waring, with a faint smile. 
 
 " And that nowhere," continued Bradley, 
 with immovable features, " does equality exist 
 as perfectly as above yonder unfathomable 
 abyss, where you have also, doubtless, ob- 
 served the American eagle proudly soars and 
 screams defiance." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 45 
 
 " Then that was the fellow that kept me 
 awake this morning, and made me wonder 
 if I was strong enough to hold a gun again." 
 
 " That would n't have settled the matter," 
 continued Bradley, imperturbably. " The 
 case is simply this : Miss Minty Sharpe, 
 that blacksmith's daughter, has once or 
 twice consented, for a slight emolument, to 
 assist in our domestic service for a day or 
 two, and she comes back again to - day. 
 Now, under the aegis of that noble bird whom 
 your national instincts tempt you to destroy, 
 she has on all previous occasions taken her 
 meals with us, at the same table, on terms 
 of perfect equality. She will naturally ex- 
 pect to do the same now. Mrs. Bradley 
 thought it proper, therefore, to warn you, 
 that, in case your health was not quite equal 
 to this democratic simplicity, you could still 
 dine in your room." 
 
 " It would be great fun if Miss Sharpe 
 won't object to my presence." 
 
 " But it must not be ' great fun,' " re- 
 turned Bradley, more seriously ; " for Miss 
 Minty's perception of humor is probably as 
 
46 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 keen as yours, and she would be quick to 
 notice it. And, so far from having any ob- 
 jection to you, I am inclined to think that 
 we owe her consent to come to her desire of 
 making your acquaintance." 
 
 " She will find my conduct most exem- 
 plary," said Mainwaring, earnestly. 
 
 " Let us hope so," concluded Bradley, 
 with unabated gravity. "And, now that 
 you have consented, let me add from my 
 own experience that Miss Minty's lemon- 
 pies alone are worthy of any concession." 
 
 The dinner-hour came. Mainwaring, a 
 little pale and interesting, leaning on the 
 arm of Bradley, crossed the hall, and for 
 the first time entered the dining-room of the 
 house where he had lodged for three weeks. 
 It was a bright, cheerful apartment, giving 
 upon the laurels of the rocky hillside, and 
 permeated, like the rest of the house, with 
 the wholesome spice of the valley an 
 odor that, in its pure desiccating property, 
 seemed to obliterate all flavor of alien hu- 
 man habitation, and even to dominate and 
 etherealize the appetizing smell of the viands 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 47 
 
 before them. The bare, shining, planed, 
 boarded walls appeared to resent any deco- 
 ration that might have savored of dust, de- 
 cay, or moisture. The four large windows 
 and long, open door, set in scanty strips of 
 the plainest spotless muslin, framed in them- 
 selves pictures of woods and rock and sky 
 of limitless depth, color, and distance, that 
 made all other adornment impertinent. Na- 
 ture, invading the room at every opening, 
 had banished Art from those neutral walls. 
 
 "It's like a picnic, with comfort," said 
 Main waring, glancing round him with boy- 
 ish appreciation. Miss Minty was not yet 
 there ; the Chinaman was alone in attend- 
 ance. Mainwaring could not help whisper- 
 ing, half mischievously, to Louise, " You 
 draw the line at Chinamen, I suppose ? " 
 
 " We don't, but he does," answered the 
 young girl. " He considers us his social in- 
 feriors. But hush ! " 
 
 Minty Sharpe had just entered the room, 
 and was advancing with smiling confidence 
 towards the table. Mainwaring was a little 
 startled ; he had seen Minty in a holland 
 
48 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 sun-bonnet and turned up skirt crossing the 
 veranda, only a moment before ; in the 
 brief instant between the dishing-up of din- 
 ner and its actual announcement she had 
 managed to change her dress, put on a clean 
 collar, cuffs, and a large jet brooch, and 
 apply some odorous unguent to her rebel- 
 lious hair. Her face, guiltless of powder or 
 cold cream, was still shining with the healthy 
 perspiration of her last labors as she 
 promptly took the vacant chair beside Main- 
 waring. 
 
 " Don't mind me, folks," she said cheer- 
 fully, resting her plump elbow on the table, 
 and addressing the company generally, but 
 gazing with frank curiosity into the face of 
 the young man at her side. " It was a keen 
 jump, I tell yer, to get out of my old duds 
 inter these, and look decent inside o' five 
 minutes. But I reckon I ain't kept yer 
 waitin' long least of all this yer sick 
 stranger. But you're looking pearter than 
 you did. You 're wonderin' like ez not 
 where I ever saw ye before ? " she contin- 
 ued, laughing. " Well, I '11 tell you. Last 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 49 
 
 week ! I 'd kem over yer on a chance of 
 seein' Jenny Bradley, and while I was 
 meanderin' down the veranda I saw you 
 lyin' back in your chair by the window 
 drowned in sleep, like a baby. Lordy ! I 
 mout hev won a pair o' gloves, but I reck- 
 oned you were Loo's game, and not mine." 
 
 The slightly constrained laugh which 
 went round the table after Miss Minty's 
 speech was due quite as much to the faint 
 flush that had accented Main waring' s own 
 smile as to the embarrassing remark itself. 
 Mrs. Bradley and Miss Macy exchanged 
 rapid glances. Bradley, who alone retained 
 his composure, with a slight flicker of amuse- 
 ment in the corner of his eye and nostril, 
 said quickly : " You see, Main waring, how 
 nature stands ready to help your convales- 
 cence at every turn. If Miss Minty had 
 only followed up her healing opportunity, 
 your cure would have been complete." 
 
 " Ye mout hev left some o' that pretty 
 talk for him to say," said Minty, taking up 
 her knife and fork with a slight shrug, 
 " and you need n't call me Miss Minty 
 
50 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 either, jest because there 's kempeny pres- 
 ent." 
 
 " I hope you won't look upon me as com- 
 pany, Minty, or I shall be obliged to call 
 you ' Miss ' too," said Mainwaring, unex- 
 pectedly regaining his usual frankness. 
 
 Bradley's face brightened ; Miss Minty 
 raised her black eyes from her plate with 
 still broader appreciation. 
 
 "There's nothin' mean about that," she 
 said, showing her white teeth. " Well, 
 what 's your first name? " 
 
 " Not as pretty as yours, I'm afraid. It's 
 Frank." 
 
 " No it ain't, it 's Francis ! You reckon 
 to be Sir Francis some day," she said 
 gravely. "You can't play any Frank off 
 on me. You would n't do it on her," she 
 added, indicating Louise with her elbow. 
 
 A momentous silence followed. The par- 
 ticular form that Minty's vulgarity had 
 taken had not been anticipated by the two 
 other women. They had, not unreasonably, 
 expected some original audacity or gaucherie 
 from the blacksmith's daughter, which might 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 51 
 
 astonish yet amuse their guest, and condone 
 for the situation forced upon them. But 
 they were not prepared for a playfulness 
 that involved themselves in a ridiculous in- 
 discretion. Mrs. Bradley 's eyes sought her 
 husband's meaningly ; Louise's pretty mouth 
 hardened. Luckily the cheerful cause of it 
 suddenly jumped up from the table, and 
 saying that the stranger was starving, in- 
 sisted upon bringing a dish from the other 
 side and helping him herself plentifully. 
 Main waring rose gallantly to take the dish 
 from her hand, a slight scuffle ensued which 
 ended in the young man being forced down 
 in his chair by the pressure of Minty's strong 
 plump hand on his shoulder. " There," she 
 said, "ye kin mind your dinner now, and I 
 reckon we '11 give the others a chance to chip 
 into the conversation," and at once applied 
 herself to the plate before her. 
 
 The conversation presently became gen- 
 eral, with the exception that Minty, more or 
 less engrossed by professional anxiety in the 
 quality of the dinner and occasional hurried 
 visits to the kitchen, briefly answered the 
 
52 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 few polite remarks which Mainwaring felt 
 called upon to address to her. Neverthe- 
 less, he was conscious, malgr6 her rallying 
 allusions to Miss Macy, that he felt none of 
 the vague yet half pleasant anxiety with 
 which Louise was beginning to inspire him. 
 He felt at ease in Minty's presence, and be- 
 lieved, rightly or wrongly, that she under- 
 stood him as well as he understood her. 
 And there were certainly points in common 
 between his two hostesses and their humbler 
 though proud dependant. The social evolu- 
 tion of Mrs. Bradley and Louise Macy from 
 some previous Minty was neither remote nor 
 complete ; the self-sufficient independence, 
 ease, and quiet self-assertion were alike in 
 each. The superior position was still too 
 recent and accidental for either to resent or 
 criticise qualities that were common to both. 
 At least, this was what he thought when not 
 abandoning himself to the gratification of 
 a convalescent appetite ; to the presence of 
 two pretty women, the sympathy of a genial 
 friend, the healthy intoxication of the white 
 sunlight that glanced upon the pine walls, 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 53 
 
 the views that mirrored themselves in the 
 open windows, and the pure atmosphere in 
 which The Lookout seemed to swim. Wan- 
 dering breezes of balm and spice lightly 
 stirred the flowers on the table, and seemed 
 to fan his hair and forehead with softly 
 healing breath. Looking up in an interval 
 of silence, he caught Bradley's gray eyes 
 fixed upon him with a subdued light of 
 amusement and affection, as of an elder 
 brother regarding a schoolboy's boisterous 
 appetite at some feast. Mainwaring laid 
 down his knife and fork with a laughing 
 color, touched equally by Bradley's fraternal 
 kindliness and the consciousness of his gas- 
 tronomical powers. 
 
 " Hang it, Bradley ; look here ! I know 
 my appetite's disgraceful, but what can a 
 fellow do? In such air, with such viands 
 and such company ! It 's like the bees get- 
 ting drunk on Hybla and Hymettus, you 
 know. I 'm not responsible ! " 
 
 "It's the first square meal I believe 
 you 've really eaten in six months," said 
 Bradley, gravely. " I can't understand why 
 
54 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 your doctor allowed you to run down so 
 dreadfully." 
 
 " I reckon you ain't as keerful of yourself, 
 you Britishers, ez us," said Minty. "Lordy! 
 Why there 's Pop invests in more patent 
 medicines in one day than you have in two 
 weeks, and he 'd make two of you. Mebbe 
 your folks don't look after you enough." 
 
 " I 'm a splendid advertisement of what 
 your care and your medicines have done," 
 said Mainwaring, gratefully, to Mrs. Brad- 
 ley ; " and if you ever want to set up a 
 ' Cure ' here, I 'm ready with a ten-page tes- 
 timonial." 
 
 " Have a care, Mainwaring," said Brad- 
 ley, laughing, " that the ladies don't take 
 you at your word. Louise and Jenny have 
 been doing their best for the last year to get 
 me to accept a flattering offer from a Sac- 
 ramento firm to put up a hotel for tourists 
 on the site of The Lookout. Why, I be- 
 lieve that they have already secretly in their 
 hearts concocted a flaming prospectus of 
 4 Unrivalled Scenery ' and ' Health - giving 
 Air,' and are looking forward to Saturday 
 night hops on the piazza." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 55 
 
 " Have you really, though ? " said Main- 
 waring, gazing from the one to the other. 
 
 " We should certainly see more company 
 than we do now, and feel a little less out of 
 the world," said Louise, candidly. " There 
 are no neighbors here I mean the people 
 at the Summit are not," she added, with a 
 slight glance towards Minty. 
 
 " And Mr. Bradley would find it more 
 profitable not to say more suitable to a 
 man of his position than this wretched 
 saw-mill and timber business," said Mrs. 
 Bradley, decidedly. 
 
 Main waring was astounded ; was it possi- 
 ble they considered it more dignified for a 
 lawyer to keep a hotel than a saw -mill? 
 Bradley, as if answering what was passing 
 in his mind, said mischievously, "I'm not 
 sure, exactly, what my position is, my dear, 
 and I 'm afraid I 've declined the hotel on 
 business principles. But, by-the-way, Main- 
 waring, I found a letter at the mill this 
 morning from Mr. Richardson. He is about 
 to pay us the distinguished honor of visiting 
 The Lookout, solely on your account, my 
 dear fellow." 
 
56 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " But I wrote him that I was much better, 
 and it was n't necessary for him to come," 
 said Mainwaring. 
 
 " He makes an excuse of some law busi- 
 ness with me. I suppose he considers the 
 mere fact of his taking the trouble to come 
 here, all the way from San Francisco, a suf- 
 ficient honor to justify any absence of formal 
 invitation," said Bradley, smiling. 
 
 " But he 's only I mean he 's my father's 
 banker," said Mainwaring, correcting him- 
 self, " and you don't keep a hotel." 
 
 " Not yet," returned Bradley, with a mis- 
 chievous glance at the two women, " but The 
 Lookout is elastic, and I dare say we can 
 manage to put him up." 
 
 A silence ensued. It seemed as if some 
 shadow, or momentary darkening of the bril- 
 liant atmosphere ; some film across the mir- 
 ror-like expanse of the open windows, or 
 misty dimming of their wholesome light, had 
 arisen to their elevation. Mainwaring felt 
 that he was looking forward with unreason- 
 ing indignation and uneasiness to this im- 
 pending interruption of their idyllic life; 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 57 
 
 Mrs. Bradley and Louise, who had become 
 a little more constrained and formal under 
 Minty's freedom, were less sympathetic ; 
 even the irrepressible Minty appeared ab- 
 sorbed in the responsibilities of the dinner. 
 
 Bradley alone preserved his usual patient 
 good-humor. " We 11 take our coffee on the 
 veranda, and the ladies will join us by and 
 by, Mainwaring ; besides, I don't know that 
 I can allow you, as an invalid, to go entirely 
 through Minty's bountiful menu at present. 
 You shall have the sweets another time." 
 
 When they were alone on the veranda, 
 he said, between the puffs of his black brier- 
 wood pipe, a pet aversion of Mrs. Brad- 
 ley, "I wonder how Richardson will ac- 
 cept Minty ! " 
 
 " If / can, I think he must" returned 
 Mainwaring, dryly. " By Jove, it will be 
 great fun to see him ; but " he stopped 
 and hesitated "I don't know about the 
 ladies. I don't think, you know, that they '11 
 stand Minty again before another stranger." 
 
 Bradley glanced quickly at the young 
 man ; their eyes met, and they both joined 
 
58 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 in a superior and, I fear, disloyal smile. 
 After a pause Bradley, as if in a spirit of 
 further confidence, took his pipe from his 
 mouth and pointed to the blue abyss before 
 them. 
 
 " Look at that profundity, Mainwaring, 
 and think of it ever being bullied and over- 
 awed by a long veranda -load of gaping, 
 patronizing tourists, and the idiotic flirting 
 females of their species. Think of a lot of 
 over-dressed creatures flouting those severe 
 outlines and deep-toned distances with frip- 
 pery and garishness. You know how you 
 have been lulled to sleep by that delicious, 
 indefinite, far-off murmur of the canyon at 
 night think of it being broken by a crazy 
 waltz or a monotonous German by the 
 clatter of waiters and the pop of champagne 
 corks. And yet, by thunder, those women 
 are capable of liking both and finding no 
 discord in them ! " 
 
 " Dancing ain't half bad, you know," said 
 Mainwaring, conscientiously, "if a chap 's 
 got the wind to do it ; and all Americans, 
 especially the women, dance better than we 
 
A PHYLLIS OF TEE SIERRAS. 59 
 
 do. But I say, Bradley, to hear you talk, 
 a fellow would n't suspect you were as big a 
 Vandal as anybody, with a beastly, howling 
 saw-mill in the heart of the primeval forest. 
 By Jove, you quite bowled me over that first 
 day we met, when you popped your head out 
 of that delirium tremens shaking mill, like 
 the very genius of destructive improvement." 
 
 " But that *f& fighting Nature, not patron- 
 izing her ; and it 's a business that pays. 
 That reminds me that I must go back to it," 
 said Bradley, rising and knocking the ashes 
 from his pipe. 
 
 " Not after dinner, surely ! " said Main- 
 waring, in surprise. " Come now, that 's too 
 much like the bolting Yankee of the trav- 
 ellers' books." 
 
 " There 's a heavy run to get through to- 
 night. We 're working against time," re- 
 turned Bradley. Even while speaking he 
 had vanished within the house, returned 
 quickly having replaced his dark suit by 
 jean trousers tucked in heavy boots, and a 
 red flannel shirt over his starched white one 
 and, nodding gayly to Main waring, stepped 
 
60 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 from the lower end of the veranda. " The 
 beggar actually looks pleased to go," said 
 Main war ing to himself in wonderment. 
 
 " Oh ! Jim," said Mrs. Bradley, appearing 
 at the door. 
 
 "Yes," said Bradley, faintly, from the 
 bushes. 
 
 "Minty's ready. You might take her 
 home." 
 
 " All right. I '11 wait." 
 
 " I hope I have n't frightened Miss Sharpe 
 away," said Main waring. " She isn't going, 
 surely ? " 
 
 " Only to get some better clothes, on ac- 
 count of company. I 'm afraid you are giv- 
 ing her a good deal of trouble, Mr. Main- 
 waring," said Mrs. Bradley, laughing. 
 
 " She wished me to say good-by to you for 
 her, as she could n't come on the veranda 
 in her old shawl and sun -bonnet," added 
 Louise, who had joined them. " What do 
 you really think of her, Mr. Main waring ? 
 I call her quite pretty, at times. Don't you? " 
 
 Mainwaring knew not what to say. He 
 could not understand why they could have 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 61 
 
 any special interest in the girl, or care to 
 know what he, a perfect stranger, thought of 
 her. He avoided a direct reply, however, by 
 playfully wondering how Mrs. Bradley could 
 subject her husband to Miss Minty's undi- 
 vided fascinations. 
 
 " Oh, Jim always takes her home if it 's 
 in the evening. He gets along with these 
 people better than we do," returned Mrs. 
 Bradley, dryly. "But," she added, with a 
 return of her piquant Quaker-like coquettish- 
 ness, " Jim says we are to devote ourselves 
 to you to-night in retaliation, I suppose. 
 We are to amuse you, and not let you get 
 excited ; and you are to be sent to bed early." 
 
 It is to be feared that these latter wise 
 precautions invaluable for all defenceless 
 and enfeebled humanity were not carried 
 out : and it was late when Mainwaring event- 
 ually retired, with brightened eyes and a 
 somewhat accelerated pulse. For the ladies, 
 who had quite regained that kindly equa- 
 nimity which Minty had rudely interrupted, 
 had also added a delicate and confidential 
 sympathy in their relations with Mainwar- 
 
62 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 ing, as of people who had suffered in com- 
 mon, and he experienced these tender at- 
 tentions at their hands which any two women 
 are emboldened by each other's saving pres- 
 ence to show any single member of our sex. 
 Indeed, he hardly knew if his satisfaction 
 was the more complete when Mrs. Bradley, 
 withdrawing for a few moments, left him 
 alone on the veranda with Louise and the 
 vast, omnipotent night. 
 
 For a while they sat silent, in the midst of 
 the profound and measureless calm. Look- 
 ing down upon the dim moonlit abyss at 
 their feet, they themselves seemed a part of 
 this night that arched above it; the half- 
 risen moon appeared to linger long enough 
 at their side to enwrap and suffuse them 
 with its glory; a few bright stars quietly 
 ringed themselves around them, and looked 
 wonderingly into the level of their own 
 shining eyes. For some vague yearning to 
 humanity seemed to draw this dark and 
 passionless void towards them. The vast 
 protecting maternity of Nature leant hushed 
 and breathless over the solitude. Warm 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 63 
 
 currents of air rose occasionally from the val- 
 ley, which one might have believed were 
 sighs from its full and overflowing breast, or 
 a grateful coolness swept their cheeks and 
 hair when the tranquil heights around them 
 were moved to slowly respond. Odors 
 from invisible bay and laurel sometimes 
 filled the air ; the incense of some rare and 
 remoter cultivated meadow beyond their ken, 
 or the strong germinating breath of leagues 
 of wild oats, that had yellowed the upland 
 by day. In the silence and shadow, their 
 voices took upon themselves, almost without 
 their volition, a far-off confidential murmur, 
 with intervals of meaning silence rather 
 as if their thoughts had spoken for them- 
 selves, and they had stopped wonderingly to 
 listen. They talked at first vaguely to this 
 discreet audience of space and darkness, and 
 then, growing bolder, spoke to each other 
 and of themselves. Invested by the infinite 
 gravity of nature, they had no fear of human 
 ridicule to restrain their youthful conceit or 
 the extravagance of their unimportant con- 
 fessions. They talked of their tastes, of 
 
64 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 their habits, of their friends and acquaint- 
 ances. They settled some points of doctrine, 
 duty, and etiquette, with the sweet serious- 
 ness of youth and its all-powerful convic- 
 tions. The listening vines would have recog- 
 nized no flirtation or love-making in their 
 animated but important confidences ; yet 
 when Mrs. Bradley reappeared to warn the 
 invalid that it was time to seek his couch, 
 they both coughed slightly in the nervous 
 consciousness of some unaccustomed quality 
 in their voices, and a sense of interruption 
 far beyond their own or the innocent intru- 
 der's ken. 
 
 44 Well ? " said Mrs. Bradley, in the sit- 
 ting-room as Main waring' s steps retreated 
 down the passage to his room. 
 
 44 Well," said Louise with a slight yawn, 
 leaning her pretty shoulders languidly 
 against the door-post, as she shaded her 
 moonlight-accustomed eyes from the vulgar 
 brilliancy of Mrs. Bradley's bedroom candle. 
 44 Well oh, he talked a great deal about 
 4 his people ' as he called them, and I talked 
 about us. He 's very nice. You know in 
 some things he 's really like a boy." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 65 
 
 " He looks much better." 
 " Yes ; but lie is far from strong yet." 
 Meantime, Mainwaring had no other con- 
 fidant of his impressions than his own 
 thoughts. Mingled with his exaltation, 
 which was the more seductive that it had no 
 well-defined foundation for existing, and im- 
 plied no future responsibility, was a recur- 
 rence of his uneasiness at the impending 
 visit of Eichardson the next day. Strangely 
 enough, it had increased under the stimulus 
 of the evening. Just as he was really get- 
 ting on with the family, he felt sure that 
 this visitor would import some foreign ele- 
 ment into their familiarity, as Minty had 
 done. It was very possible they would not 
 like him : now he remembered there was 
 really something ostentatiously British and 
 insular about this Richardson something 
 they would likely resent. Why could n't this 
 fellow have come later or even before? 
 Before what ? But here he fell asleep, and 
 almost instantly slipped from this veranda in 
 the Sierras, six thousand miles away, to an 
 ancient terrace, overgrown with moss and 
 
66 A PHYLLIS OF TEE SIERRAS. 
 
 tradition, that overlooked the sedate glory of 
 an English park. Here he found himself, re- 
 stricted painfully by his inconsistent night- 
 clothes, endeavoring to impress his mother 
 and sisters with the singular virtues and ex- 
 cellences of his American host and hostesses 
 virtues and excellences that he himself 
 was beginning to feel conscious had become 
 more or less apocryphal in that atmosphere. 
 He heard his mother's voice saying severely, 
 "When you learn, Francis, to respect the 
 opinions and prejudices of your family 
 enough to prevent your appearing before 
 them in this uncivilized aboriginal costume, 
 we will listen to what you have to say of 
 the friends whose habits you seem to have 
 adopted ; " and he was frantically indignant 
 that his efforts to convince them that his 
 negligence was a personal oversight, and not 
 a Californian custom, were utterly futile. 
 But even then this vision was brushed away 
 by the bewildering sweep of Louise's pretty 
 skirt across the dreamy picture, and her del- 
 icate features and softly-fringed eyes re- 
 mained the last to slip from his fading con- 
 sciousness. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 67 
 
 The moon rose higher and higher above 
 the sleeping house and softly breathing can- 
 yon. There was nothing to mar the idyllic 
 repose of the landscape ; only the growing 
 light of the last two hours had brought out 
 in the far eastern horizon a dim white peak, 
 that gleamed faintly among the stars, like a 
 bridal couch spread between the hills ringed 
 with fading nuptial torches. No one would 
 have believed that behind that impenetrable 
 shadow to the west, in the heart of the for- 
 est, the throbbing saw-mill of James Bradley 
 was even at that moment eating its destruc- 
 tive way through the conserved growth of 
 Nature and centuries, and that the refined 
 proprietor of house and greenwood, with the 
 glow of his furnace fires on his red shirt, and 
 his alert, intelligent eyes, was the genie of 
 that devastation, and the toiling leader of 
 the shadowy, toiling figures around him. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 AMID the beauty of the most uncultivated 
 and untrodden wilderness there are certain 
 localities where the meaner and more com- 
 mon processes of Nature take upon them- 
 selves a degrading likeness to the slovenly, 
 wasteful, and improvident processes of man. 
 The unrecorded landslip disintegrating a 
 whole hillside will not only lay bare the 
 delicate framework of strata and deposit to 
 the vulgar eye, but hurl into the valley a 
 debris so monstrous and unlovely as to 
 shame even the hideous ruins left by dyna- 
 mite, hydraulic, or pick and shovel ; an 
 overflown and forgotten woodland torrent 
 will leave in some remote hollow a disturbed 
 and ungraceful chaos of inextricable logs, 
 branches, rock, and soil that will rival the 
 unsavory details of some wrecked or aban- 
 doned settlement. Of lesser magnitude and 
 importance, there are certain natural dust- 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 69 
 
 \ 
 
 heaps, sinks, and cesspools, where the ele- 
 ments have collected the cast-off, broken, 
 and frayed disjecta of wood and field the 
 sweepings of the sylvan household. It was 
 remarkable that Nature, so kindly consider- 
 ate of mere human ruins, made no attempt 
 to cover up or disguise these monuments of 
 her own mortality : no grass grew over the 
 unsightly landslides, no moss or ivy clothed 
 the stripped and bleached skeletons of over- 
 thrown branch and tree ; the dead leaves 
 and withered husks rotted in their open 
 grave uncrossed by vine and creeper. Even 
 the animals, except the lower organizations, 
 shunned those haunts of decay and ruin. 
 
 It was scarcely a hundred yards from one 
 of those dreary receptacles that Mr. Bradley 
 had taken leave of Miss Minty Sharpe. 
 The cabin occupied by her father, herself, 
 and a younger brother, stood, in fact, on the 
 very edge of the little hollow, which was 
 partly filled with decayed wood, leaves, and 
 displacements of the crumbling bank, with 
 the coal dust and ashes which Mr. Sharpe 
 had added from his forge, that stood a few 
 
70 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 paces distant at the corner of a cross-road. 
 The occupants of the cabin had also contrib- 
 uted to the hollow the refuse of their house- 
 hold in broken boxes, earthenware, tin cans, 
 and cast-off clothing ; and it is not improb- 
 able that the site of the cabin was chosen 
 with reference to this convenient disposal of 
 useless and encumbering impedimenta. It 
 was true that the locality offered little 
 choice in the way of beauty. An outcrop of 
 brown granite a portent of higher alti- 
 tudes extended a quarter of a mile from 
 the nearest fringe of dwarf laurel and 
 " brush " in one direction ; in the other an 
 advanced file of Bradley 's woods had suf- 
 fered from some long-forgotten fire, and 
 still raised its blackened masts and broken 
 stumps over the scorched and arid soil, 
 swept of older underbrush and verdure. On 
 the other side of the road a dark ravine, 
 tangled with briers and haunted at night by 
 owls and wild cats, struggled wearily on, 
 until blundering at last upon the edge of the 
 Great Canyon, it slipped and lost itself for- 
 ever in a single furrow of those mighty 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIJEKRAS. 71 
 
 flanks. When Bradley had once asked 
 Sharpe why he had not built his house in 
 the ravine, the blacksmith had replied : 
 "That until the Lord had appointed his 
 time, he reckoned to keep his head above 
 ground and the foundations thereof." How- 
 beit, the ravine, or the " run " as it was 
 locally known, was Minty's only Saturday- 
 afternoon resort for recreation or berries. 
 "It was," she had explained, " pow'ful 
 soothin', and solitary." 
 
 She entered the house a rude, square 
 building of unpainted boards containing 
 a sitting-room, a kitchen, and two bed- 
 rooms. A glance at these rooms, which 
 were plainly furnished, and whose canvas- 
 colored walls were adorned with gorgeous 
 agricultural implement circulars, patent 
 medicine calendars, with polytinted chromos 
 and cheaply-illuminated Scriptural texts, 
 showed her that a certain neatness and or- 
 der had been preserved during her absence ; 
 and, finding the house empty, she crossed 
 the barren and blackened intervening space 
 between the back-door and her father's forge, 
 
72 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 and entered the open shed. The light was 
 fading from the sky; but the glow of the 
 forge lit up the dusty road before it, and 
 accented the blackness of the rocky ledge 
 beyond. A small curly-headed boy, bearing 
 a singular likeness to a smudged and black- 
 ened crayon drawing of Minty, was mechan- 
 ically blowing the bellows and obviously in- 
 tent upon something else ; while her father 
 a powerfully-built man, with a quaintly 
 dissatisfied expression of countenance was 
 with equal want of interest mechanically 
 hammering at a horse-shoe. Without no- 
 ticing Minty's advent, he lazily broke into 
 a querulous drawling chant of some vague 
 religious character : 
 
 tur-ren, sinner ; tur-ren. 
 For the Lord bids you turn ah ! 
 O tur-ren, sinner ; tur-ren. 
 Why will you die ? 
 
 The musical accent adapted itself to the 
 monotonous fall of the sledge-hammer ; and 
 at every repetition of the word " turn " he 
 suited the action to the word by turning the 
 horse-shoe with the iron in his left hand. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 73 
 
 A slight grunt at the end of every stroke, 
 and the simultaneous repetition of " turn " 
 seemed to offer him amusement and relief. 
 Minty, without speaking, crossed the shop, 
 and administered a sound box on her broth- 
 er's ear. " Take that, and let me ketch you 
 agen layin' low when my back 's turned, to 
 put on your store pants." 
 
 " The others had fetched away in the 
 laig," said the boy, opposing a knee and 
 elbow at acute angle to further attack. 
 
 " You jest get and change 'em," said 
 Minty. 
 
 The sudden collapse of the bellows broke 
 in upon the soothing refrain of Mr. Sharpe, 
 and caused him to turn also. 
 
 " It 's Minty," he said, replacing the 
 horse-shoe on the coals, and setting his pow- 
 erful arms and the sledge on the anvil with 
 an exaggerated expression of weariness. 
 
 " Yes ; it 's me," said Minty, " and Crea- 
 tion knows it 's time I did come, to keep 
 that boy from ruin in' us with his airs and 
 conceits." 
 
 "Did ye bring over any o' that fever 
 mixter?" 
 
74 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " No. Bradley sez you 're loading yerself 
 up with so much o' that bitter bark kui- 
 nine they call it over there that you '11 
 lift the ruff off your head next. He allows 
 ye ain't got no ague ; it 's jest wind and dys- 
 pepsy. He sez yer 's strong ez a hoss." 
 
 "Bradley," said Sharpe, laying aside his 
 sledge with an aggrieved manner which was, 
 however, as complacent as his fatigue and 
 discontent, " ez one of them nat'ral born 
 finikin skunks ez I despise. I reckon he 
 began to give p'ints to his parents when he 
 was about knee-high to Richelieu there. 
 He 's on them confidential terms with hisself 
 and the Almighty that he reckons he ken 
 run a saw-mill and a man's insides at the 
 same time with one hand tied behind him. 
 And his finikin is up to his conceit : he 
 wanted to tell me that that yer handy brush 
 dump outside our shanty was unhealthy. 
 Give a man with frills like that his own way 
 and he 'd be a sprinkling odor cologne and 
 peppermint all over the country." 
 
 " He set your shoulder as well as any 
 doctor," said Minty. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 75 
 
 " That 's bone-settin', and a nat'ral gift," 
 returned Sharpe, as triumphantly as his 
 habitual depression would admit ; " it ain't 
 conceit and finikin got out o' books ! Well," 
 he added, after a pause, " wot 's happened ? " 
 
 Minty's face slightly changed. " Nothin' ; 
 I kem back to get some things," she said 
 shortly, moving away. 
 
 " And ye saw him ? " 
 
 "Ye-e-s," drawled Minty, carelessly, still 
 retreating. 
 
 " Bixby was along here about noon. He 
 says the stranger was suthin' high and 
 mighty in his own country, and them 'Frisco 
 millionaires are quite sweet on him. Where 
 are ye goin' ? " 
 
 " In the house." 
 
 " Well, look yer, Minty. Now that you 're 
 here, ye might get up a batch o' hot biscuit 
 for supper. Dinner was that promiscous 
 and experimental to-day, along o' Richelieu's 
 nat'ral foolin', that I think I could git out- 
 side of a little suthin' now, if only to prop 
 up a kind of innard sinkin' that takes me. 
 Ye ken tell me the news at supper." 
 
76 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEKRAS. 
 
 Later, however, when Mr. Sharpe had 
 quitted his forge for the night and, seated at 
 his domestic board, was, with a dismal pre- 
 sentiment of future indigestion, voraciously 
 absorbing his favorite meal of hot saleratus 
 biscuits swimming in butter, he had appar- 
 ently forgotten his curiosity concerning 
 Mainwaring and settled himself to a com- 
 plaining chronicle of the day's mishaps. 
 " Naturally, havin' an extra lot o' work on 
 hand and no time for fooliii', what does that 
 ornery Richelieu get up and do this morn- 
 in' ? Ye know them ridiklus specimens that 
 he 5 s been chippin' outer that ledge that the 
 yearth slipped from down the run, and lit- 
 terin' up the whole shanty with 'em. Well, 
 darn my skin ! if he did n't run a heap of 
 'em, mixed up with coal, unbeknownd to me, 
 in the forge, to make what he called a c fire 
 essay' of 'em. Nat'rally, I couldn't get a 
 blessed iron hot, and did n't know what had 
 gone of the fire, or the coal either, for two 
 hours, till I stopped work and raked out the 
 coal. That comes from his hangin* round 
 that saw-mill in the woods, and listenin' to 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 77 
 
 Bradley's high-falutin' talk about rocks and 
 strata and sich." 
 
 " But Bradley don't go a cent on minin', 
 Pop," said Minty. " He sez the woods is 
 good enough for him ; and there 's millions 
 to be made when the railroad comes along, 
 and timber 's wanted." 
 
 " But until then he 's got to keep hisself , 
 to pay wages, and keep the mill runnin'. 
 Onless it 's, ez Bixby says, that he hopes to 
 get that Englishman to rope in sonie o' them 
 'Frisco friends of his to take a hand. Ye 
 didn't have any o' that kind o' talk, did 
 ye?" 
 
 " No ; not that kind o' talk," said Minty. 
 
 " Not that kind o' talk ! " repeated her 
 father with aggrieved curiosity. " Wot 
 kind, then?" 
 
 "Well," said Minty, lifting her black 
 eyes to her father's ; " I ain't no account, 
 and you ain't no account either. You ain't 
 got no college education, ain't got no friends 
 in 'Frisco, and ain't got no high-toned style ; 
 I can't play the pianner, jabber French, nor 
 get French dresses. We ain't got no fancy 
 
78 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 4 Shallet,' as they call it, with a first-class 
 view of nothing ; but only a shanty on dry 
 rock. But, afore / 'd take advantage of a 
 lazy, gawky boy- for it ain't anything else, 
 though he 's good meanin' enough that 
 happened to fall sick in my house, and coax 
 and cosset him, and wrap him in white cot- 
 ton, and mother him, and sister him, and 
 Aunt Sukey him, and almost dry-nuss him 
 gin 'rally, jist to get him sweet on me and on 
 mine, and take the inside track of others 
 I 'd be an Injin ! And if you 'd allow it, 
 Pop, you 'd be wuss nor a nigger ! " 
 
 44 Sho ! " said her father, kindling with 
 that intense gratification with which the 
 male receives any intimation of alien femin- 
 ine weakness. " It ain't that, Minty, I wan- 
 ter know ! " 
 
 44 It 's jist that, Pop ; and I ez good ez let 
 'em know I seed it. I ain't a fool, if some 
 folks do drop their eyes and pertend to wipe 
 the laugh out of their noses with a handker- 
 chief when I let out to speak. I may n't be 
 good enough kempany " 
 
 44 Look yer, Minty," interrupted the black- 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 79 
 
 smith, sternly, half rising from his seat with 
 every trace of his former weakness vanished 
 from his hardset face ; "do you mean to say 
 that they put on airs to ye to my dar- 
 ter?" 
 
 " No," said Minty quickly ; " the men 
 did n't ; and don't you, a man, mix yourself 
 up with women's meannesses. I ken manage 
 'em, Pop, with one hand." 
 
 Mr. Sharpe looked at his daughter's flash- 
 ing black eyes. Perhaps an uneasy recollec- 
 tion of the late Mrs. Sharpe's remarkable 
 capacity in that respect checked his further 
 rage. 
 
 " No. Wot I was sayin'," resumed Minty, 
 " ez that I may n't be thought by others good 
 enough to keep kempany with baronetts ez is 
 to be though baronetts might n't object 
 but I ain't mean enough to try to steal away 
 some ole woman's darling boy in England, 
 or snatch some likely young English girl's 
 big brother outer the family without sayin' 
 by your leave. How 'd you like it if Riche- 
 lieu was growed up, and went to sea, and 
 it would be like his peartness, and he fell 
 
80 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 sick in some foreign land, and some princess 
 or other skyulged him underhand away from 
 us?" 
 
 Probably owing to the affair of the speci- 
 mens, the elder Sharpe did not seem to re- 
 gard the possible mesalliance of Richelieu 
 with extraordinary disfavor. " That boy is 
 conceited enough with hair ile and fine 
 clothes for anything," he said plaintively. 
 " But did n't that Louise Macy hev a feller 
 already that Captain Greyson ? Wot 's 
 gone o' him ? " 
 
 " That 's it," said Minty : " he kin go out 
 in the woods and whistle now. But all 
 the same, she could hitch him in again at 
 any time if the other stranger kicked over 
 the traces. That 's the style over there at 
 The Lookout. There ain't ez much heart in 
 them two women put together ez would make 
 a green gal flush up playin' forfeits. It 's 
 all in their breed, Pop. Love ain't going to 
 spile their appetites and complexions, give 
 'em nose-bleed, nor put a drop o' water into 
 their eyes in all their natural born days. 
 That 's wot makes me mad. Ef I thought 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 81 
 
 that Loo cared a bit for that child I 
 would n't mind ; I 'd just advise her to make 
 him get up and get pack his duds out o' 
 camp, and go home and not come back until 
 he had a written permit from his mother, or 
 the other baronet in office." 
 
 " Looks sorter ef some one orter interfere," 
 said the blacksmith, reflectively. " 'T ain't 
 exakly a case for a vigilance committee, tho' 
 it 's agin public morals, this sorter kidnap- 
 pin' o' strangers. Looks ez if it might bring 
 the country into discredit in England." 
 
 " Well, don't you go and interfere and 
 havin' folks say ez my nose was put out 
 o' jint over there," said Minty, curtly. 
 " There 's another Englishman comin' up 
 from 'Frisco to see him to-morrow. Ef he 
 ain't scooped up by Jenny Bradley he '11 
 guess there 's a nigger in the fence some- 
 where. But there, Pop, let it drop. It 's a 
 bad aig, anyway," she concluded, rising from 
 the table, and passing her hands down her 
 frock and her shapely hips, as if to wipe 
 off further contamination of the subject. 
 " Where 's Richelieu agin ? " 
 
82 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " Said he did n't want supper, and like ez 
 not he 's gone over to see that fammerly at 
 the Summit. There 's a little girl thar he 's 
 sparkin', about his own age." 
 
 " His own age ! " said Minty, indignantly. 
 " Why, she 's double that, if she 's a day. 
 Well if he ain't the triflinest, conceited- 
 nest little limb that ever grew ! I 'd like 
 to know where he got it from it was n't 
 mar's style." 
 
 Mr. Sharpe smiled darkly. Richelieu's 
 precocious gallantry evidently was not con- 
 sidered as gratuitous as his experimental 
 metallurgy. But as his eyes followed his 
 daughter's wholesome, Phyllis-like figure, a 
 new idea took possession of him : needless 
 to say, however, it was in the line of another 
 personal aggrievement, albeit it took the 
 form of religious reflection. 
 
 " It 's curous, Minty, wot 's fore-ordained, 
 and wot ain't. Now, yer 's one of them high 
 and mighty fellows, after the Lord, ez comes 
 meanderin' around here, and drops off ez 
 fur ez I kin hear in a kind o' faint at the 
 first house he kerns to, and is taken in and 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 83 
 
 lodged and sumptuously fed ; and, nat'rally, 
 they gets their reward for it. Now wot 's 
 to hev kept that young feller from coming 
 here and droppin' down in my forge, or in 
 this very room, and you a tendin' him, and 
 jist layin' over them folks at The Look- 
 out?" 
 
 " Wot 's got hold o' ye, Pop ? Don't I teU 
 ye he had a letter to Jim Bradley ? " said 
 Minty, quickly, with an angry flash of color 
 in her cheek. 
 
 " That ain't it," said Sharpe confidently ; 
 " it 's cos he walked. Nat'rally, you 'd think 
 he 'd ride, being high and mighty, and 
 that 's where, ez the parson will tell ye, 
 wot 's merely fi-nite and human wisdom errs ! 
 Ef that feller had ridden, he 'd have had to 
 come by this yer road, and by this yer forge, 
 and stop a spell like any other. But it was 
 fore-ordained that he should walk, jest cos 
 it was n't generally kalkilated and reckoned 
 on. So, you had no show." 
 
 For a moment, Minty seemed struck with 
 her father's original theory. But with a 
 vigorous shake of her shoulders she threw 
 it off. Her eyes darkened. 
 
84 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " I reckon you ain't thinking, Pop " 
 she began. 
 
 " I was only say in' it was curous," he re- 
 joined quietly. Nevertheless, after a pause, 
 he rose, coughed, and going up to the young 
 girl, as she leaned over the dresser, bent his 
 powerful arm around her, and, drawing her 
 and the plate she was holding against his 
 breast, laid his bearded cheek for an instant 
 softly upon her rebellious head. " It 's all 
 right, Minty," he said ; " ain't it, pet ? " 
 Minty's eyelids closed gently under the fa- 
 miliar pressure. " Wot 's that in your hair, 
 Minty ? " he said tactfully, breaking an em- 
 barrassing pause. 
 
 " Bar's grease, father," murmured Minty, 
 in a child's voice the grown-up woman, 
 under that magic touch, having lapsed again 
 into her father's motherless charge of ten 
 years before. 
 
 " It 's pow'ful soothin', and pretty," said 
 her father. 
 
 " I made it myself do you want some ? " 
 asked Minty. 
 
 " Not now, girl ! " For a moment they 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 85 
 
 slightly rocked each other in that attitude 
 the man dextrously, the woman with infinite 
 tenderness and then they separated. 
 
 Late that night, after Richelieu had re- 
 turned, and her father wrestled in his fitful 
 sleep with the remorse of his guilty indul- 
 gence at supper, Minty remained alone in 
 her room, hard at work, surrounded by the 
 contents of one of her mother's trunks and 
 the fragments of certain ripped-up and 
 newly-turned dresses. For Minty had con- 
 ceived the bold idea of altering one of her 
 mother's gowns to the fashion of a certain 
 fascinating frock worn by Louise Macy. It 
 was late when her self-imposed task was 
 completed. With a nervous trepidation 
 that was novel to her, Minty began to dis- 
 robe herself preparatory to trying on her 
 new creation. The light of a tallow candle 
 and a large swinging lantern, borrowed from 
 her father's forge, fell shyly on her milky 
 neck and shoulders, and shone in her spar- 
 kling eyes, as she stood before her largest 
 mirror the long glazed door of a kitchen 
 clock which she had placed upon her chest 
 
86 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 of drawers. Had poor Minty been content 
 with the full, free, and goddess-like outlines 
 that it reflected, she would have been spared 
 her impending disappointment. For, alas ! 
 the dress of her model had been framed 
 upon a symmetrically attenuated French 
 corset, and the unfortunate Minty 's fuller 
 and ampler curves had under her simple 
 country stays known no more restraining 
 cincture than knew the Venus of Milo. 
 The alteration was a hideous failure, it was 
 neither Minty 's statuesque outline nor Lou- 
 ise Macy's graceful contour. Minty was 
 no fool, and the revelation of this slow edu- 
 cation of the figure and training of outline 
 whether fair or false in art struck her 
 quick intelligence with all its full and hope- 
 less significance. A bitter light sprang to 
 her eyes ; she tore the wretched sham from 
 her shoulders, and then wrapping a shawl 
 around her, threw herself heavily and sul- 
 lenly on the bed. But inaction was not a 
 characteristic of Minty 's emotion ; she pres- 
 ently rose again, and, taking an old work- 
 box from her trunk, began to rummage in 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERKAS. 87 
 
 its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted 
 affair, and the apparent receptacle of such 
 cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she pos- 
 sessed ; a hideous cameo ring, the property 
 of the late Mrs. Sharpe, was missing. She 
 again rapidly explored the contents of the 
 box, and then an inspiration seized her, and 
 she darted into her brother's bedroom. 
 
 That precocious and gallant Lovelace of 
 ten, despite all sentiment, had basely suc- 
 cumbed to the gross materialism of youthful 
 slumber. On a cot in the corner, half hidden 
 under the wreck of his own careless and 
 hurried disrobing, with one arm hanging out 
 of the coverlid, Richelieu lay supremely un- 
 conscious. On the forefinger of his small 
 but dirty hand the missing cameo was still 
 glittering guiltily. With a swift movement 
 of indignation Minty rushed with uplifted 
 palm towards the tempting expanse of youth- 
 ful cheek that lay invitingly exposed upon 
 the pillow. Then she stopped suddenly. 
 
 She had seen him lying thus a hundred 
 times before. On the pillow near him an 
 indistinguishable mass of golden fur the 
 
88 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 helpless bulk of a squirrel chained to the leg 
 of his cot ; at his feet a wall-eyed cat, who 
 had followed his tyrannous caprices with the 
 long-suffering devotion of her sex ; on the 
 shelf above him a loathsome collection of 
 flies and tarantulas in dull green bottles : a 
 slab of ginger-bread for light nocturnal re- 
 fection, and her own pot of bear's grease. 
 Perhaps it was the piteous defencelessness 
 of youthful sleep, perhaps it was some linger- 
 ing memory of her father's caress; but as 
 she gazed at him with troubled eyes, the ju- 
 venile reprobate slipped back into the baby- 
 boy that she had carried in her own childish 
 arms such a short time ago, when the ma- 
 ternal responsibility had descended with the 
 dead mother's ill-fitting dresses upon her 
 lank girlish figure and scant virgin breast 
 and her hand fell listlessly at her side. 
 
 The sleeper stirred slightly and awoke. 
 At the same moment, by some mysterious 
 sympathy, a pair of beady bright eyes ap- 
 peared in the bulk of fur near his curls, the 
 cat stretched herself, and even a vague agi- 
 tation was heard in the bottles on the shelf. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 89 
 
 Richelieu's blinking eyes wandered from the 
 candle to his sister, and then the guilty hand 
 was suddenly withdrawn under the bed- 
 clothes. 
 
 " No matter, dear," said Minty ; " it 's 
 mar's, and you kin wear it when you like, if 
 you '11 only ask for it." 
 
 Richelieu wondered if he was dreaming ! 
 This unexpected mildness this inexpli- 
 cable tremor in his sister's voice : it must 
 be some occult influence of the night season 
 on the sisterly mind, possible akin to a fear 
 of ghosts ! He made a mental note of it in 
 view of future favors, yet for the moment 
 he felt embarrassedly gratified. " Ye ain't 
 wan tin' anything, Minty," he said affection- 
 ately ; "a pail o' cold water from the far 
 spring no nothin'?" He made an os- 
 tentatious movement as if to rise, yet suffi- 
 ciently protracted to prevent any hasty ac- 
 ceptance of his prodigal offer. 
 
 "No, dear," she said, still gazing at him 
 with an absorbed look in her dark eyes. 
 
 Richelieu felt a slight creepy sensation 
 under that lonely far-off gaze. " Your eyes 
 
90 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 look awful big at night, Minty," he said. 
 He would have added " and pretty," but she 
 was his sister, and he had the lofty fraternal 
 conviction of his duty in repressing the in- 
 ordinate vanity of the sex. " Ye 're sure ye 
 ain't wantin' nothin' ? " 
 
 "Not now, dear." She paused a mo- 
 ment, and then said deliberately : " But you 
 would n't mind turnin' out after sun-up and 
 runnin' an errand for me over to The 
 Lookout ? " 
 
 Richelieu's eyes sparkled so suddenly that 
 even in her absorption Minty noticed the 
 change. " But ye 're not goin' to tarry over 
 there, ner gossip you hear ? Yer to take 
 this yer message. Yer to say ' that it will 
 be onpossible for me to come back there, on 
 account on account of ? " 
 
 "Important business," suggested Riche- 
 lieu ; " that 's the perlite style." 
 
 " Ef you like." She leaned over the bed 
 and put her lips to his forehead, still damp 
 with the dews of sleep, and then to his long- 
 lashed lids. " Mind Nip ! " the squirrel 
 he practically suggested. For an instant 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 91 
 
 their blonde curls mingled on the pillow. 
 " Now go to sleep," she said curtly. 
 
 But Richelieu had taken her white neck 
 in the short strangulatory hug of the small 
 boy, and held her fast. " Ye 11 let me put 
 on my best pants ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And wear that ring? " 
 
 " Yes " a little sadly. 
 
 " Then yer kin count me in, Minty ; and 
 see here " his voice sank to a confidential 
 whisper " mebbee some day ye 11 be be- 
 holden to me for a lot o' real jewelry." 
 
 She returned slowly to her room, and, open- 
 ing the window, looked out upon the night. 
 The same moon that had lent such superer- 
 ogatory grace to the natural beauty of The 
 Lookout, here seemed to have failed, as 
 Minty had, in disguising the relentless limi- 
 tations of Nature or the cruel bonds of cus- 
 tom. The black plain of granite, under its 
 rays, appeared only to extend its poverty to 
 some remoter barrier ; the blackened stumps 
 of the burnt forest stood bleaker against the 
 sky, like broken and twisted pillars of iron. 
 
92 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 The cavity of the broken ledge where Rich- 
 elieu had prospected was a hideous chasm of 
 bluish blackness, over which a purple vapor 
 seemed to hover ; the " brush dump " beside 
 the house showed a cavern of writhing and 
 distorted objects stiffened into dark rigidity. 
 She had often looked upon the prospect : it 
 had never seemed so hard and changeless ; 
 yet she accepted it, as she had accepted it 
 before. 
 
 She turned away, undressed herself me- 
 chanically, and went to bed. She had an 
 idea that she had been very foolish ; that 
 her escape from being still more foolish was 
 something miraculous, and in some measure 
 connected with Providence, her father, her 
 little brother, and her dead mother, whose 
 dress she had recklessly spoiled. But that 
 she had even so slightly touched the bitter- 
 ness and glory of renunciation as written 
 of heroines and fine ladies by novelists and 
 poets never entered the foolish head of 
 Minty Sharpe, the blacksmith's daughter. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IT was a little after daybreak next morn- 
 ing that Main waring awoke from the first un- 
 ref reshing night he had passed at The Look- 
 out. He was so feverish and restless that 
 he dressed himself at sunrise, and cautiously 
 stepped out upon the still silent veranda. 
 The chairs which he and Louise Macy had 
 occupied were still, it seemed to him, con- 
 spicuously confidential with each other, and 
 he separated them, but as he looked down 
 into the Great Canyon at his feet he was 
 conscious of some undefinable change in the 
 prospect. A slight mist was rising from the 
 valley, as if it were the last of last night's 
 illusions ; the first level sunbeams were 
 obtrusively searching, and the keen morn- 
 ing air had a dryly practical insistence which 
 irritated him, until a light footstep on the 
 farther end of the veranda caused him to 
 turn sharply. 
 
94 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 It was the singular apparition of a small 
 boy, bearing a surprising resemblance to 
 Minty Sharpe, and dressed in an unique 
 fashion. On a tumbled sea of blonde curls 
 a " chip " sailor hat, with a broad red rib- 
 bon, rode jauntily. But here the nautical 
 suggestion changed, as had the desire of 
 becoming a pirate which induced it. A red 
 shirt, with a white collar, and a yellow plaid 
 ribbon tie, that also recalled Minty Sharpe, 
 lightly turned the suggestion of his costume 
 to mining. Short black velvet trousers, 
 coming to his knee, and ostentatiously new 
 short-legged boots, with visible straps like 
 curling ears, completed the entirely original 
 character of his lower limbs. 
 
 Mainwaring, always easily gentle and 
 familiar with children and his inferiors, 
 looked at him with an encouraging smile. 
 Richelieu for it was he advanced 
 gravely and held out his hand, with the 
 cameo ring apparent. Mainwaring, with 
 equal gravity, shook it warmly, and removed 
 his hat. Kichelieu, keenly observant, did 
 the same. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 95 
 
 " Is Jim Bradley out yet ? " asked Riche- 
 lieu, carelessly. 
 
 " No ; I think not. But I 'in Frank 
 Main waring. Will I do ? " 
 
 Richelieu smiled. The dimples, the white 
 teeth, the dark, laughing eyes, were surely 
 Minty's? 
 
 " I 'm Richelieu," he rejoined with equal 
 candor. 
 
 "Richelieu?" 
 
 " Yes. That Frenchman the Lord 
 Cardinal you know. Mar saw Forrest do 
 him out in St. Louis." 
 
 "Do him?" 
 
 " Yes, in the theayter." 
 
 With a confused misconception of his 
 meaning, Mainwaring tried to recall the his- 
 torical dress of the great Cardinal and fit 
 it to the masquerader if such he were 
 before him. But Richelieu relieved him by 
 adding, 
 
 " Richelieu Sharpe." 
 
 " Oh, that 's your name!" said Mainwar- 
 ing, cheerfully. " Then you 're Miss Minty's 
 brother. I know her. How jolly lucky ! " 
 
96 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 They both shook hands again. Richelieu, 
 eager to get rid of the burden of his sister's 
 message, which he felt was in the way of 
 free-and-easy intercourse with this charming 
 stranger, looked uneasily towards the house. 
 
 " I say," said Main waring, " if you 're in 
 a hurry, you 'd better go in there and knock. 
 I hear some one stirring in the kitchen." 
 
 Richelieu nodded, but first went back to 
 the steps of the veranda, picked up a small 
 blue knotted handkerchief, apparently con- 
 taining some heavy objects, and repassed 
 Mainwaring. 
 
 " What ! have you cut it, Richelieu, with 
 your valuables? What have you got 
 there?" 
 
 "Specimins," said Richelieu, shortly, and 
 vanished. 
 
 He returned presently. " Well, Cardi- 
 nal, did you see anybody?" asked Main- 
 waring. 
 
 " Mrs. Bradley ; but Jim 's over to the 
 mill. I 'm goin' there." 
 
 " Did you see Miss Macy ? " continued 
 Mainwaring, carelessly. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 97 
 
 "Loo?" 
 
 " Loo ! well ; yes." 
 
 " No. She 's philanderin' with Captain 
 Grey son." 
 
 " Philandering with Grey son ? " echoed 
 Mainwaring, in wonder. 
 
 " Yes ; on horseback on the ridge." 
 
 " You mean she 's riding out with Mr. 
 with Captain Grey son ? " 
 
 "Yes; ridin' and philanderin'," persisted 
 Richelieu. 
 
 " And what do you call philandering ? " 
 
 " Well ; I reckon you and she oughter 
 know," returned Richelieu, with a preco- 
 cious air. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mainwaring, with a 
 faint smile. Richelieu really was like 
 Minty. 
 
 There was a long silence. This young 
 Englishman was becoming exceedingly un- 
 interesting. Richelieu felt that he was 
 gaining neither profit nor amusement, and 
 losing time. " I 'm going," he said. 
 
 " Good morning," said Mainwaring, with- 
 out looking up. 
 
98 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 Kichelieu picked up his specimens, thor- 
 oughly convinced of the stranger's glittering 
 deceitfulness, and vanished. 
 
 It was nearly eight o'clock when Mrs. 
 Bradley came from the house. She apolo- 
 gized, with a slightly distrait smile, for the 
 tardiness of the household. " Mr. Bradley 
 stayed at the mill all night, and will not be 
 here until breakfast, when he brings your 
 friend Mr. Richardson with him " Main- 
 waring scarcely repressed a movement of im- 
 patience " who arrives early. It 's unfor- 
 tunate that Miss Sharpe can't come to-day." 
 
 In his abstraction Mainwaring did not 
 notice that Mrs. Bradley slightly accented 
 Minty's formal appellation, and said care- 
 lessly, 
 
 " Oh, that 's why her brother came over 
 here so early ! " 
 
 " Did you see him? " asked Mrs. Bradley, 
 almost abruptly. 
 
 " Yes. He is an amusing little beggar ; 
 but I think he shares his sister's preference 
 for Mr. Bradley. He deserted me here in 
 the veranda for him at the mill." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 99 
 
 " Louise will keep you company as soon 
 as she has changed her dress," continued 
 Mrs. Bradley. " She was out riding early 
 this morning with a friend. She 's very 
 fond of early morning rides." 
 
 " And philandering," repeated Mainwar- 
 ing to himself. It was quite natural for 
 Miss Macy to ride out in the morning, after 
 the fashion of the country, with an escort ; 
 but why had the cub insisted on the " phi- 
 landering"? He had said, " and philander- 
 ing," distinctly. It was a nasty thing for 
 him to say. Any other fellow but he, Main- 
 waring, might misunderstand the whole 
 thing. Perhaps he ought to warn her bufc 
 no ! he could not repeat the gossip of a 
 child, and that child the brother of one of 
 her inferiors. But was Minty an inferior ? 
 Did she and Minty talk together about this 
 fellow Greyson? At all events, it would 
 only revive the awkwardness of the preced- 
 ing day, and he resolved to say nothing. 
 
 He was rewarded by a half -inquiring, half- 
 confiding look in Louise's bright eyes, when 
 she presently greeted him on the veranda. 
 
100 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " She had quite forgotten," she said, " to tell 
 him last night of her morning's engagement ; 
 indeed, she had half forgotten it. It used 
 to be a favorite practice of hers, with Cap- 
 tain Greyson ; but she had lately given it 
 up. She believed she had not ridden since 
 since " 
 
 " Since when?" asked Main waring. 
 
 " Well, since you were ill," she said 
 frankly. 
 
 A quick pleasure shone in Main waring' s 
 cheek and eye ; but Louise's pretty lids did 
 not drop, nor her faint, quiet bloom deepen. 
 Breakfast was already waiting when Mr. 
 Richardson arrived alone. He explained 
 that Mr. Bradley had some important and 
 unexpected business which had delayed him, 
 but which, he added, " Mr. Bradley says may 
 prove interesting enough to you to excuse 
 his absence this morning." Main war ing 
 was not displeased that his critical and ob- 
 servant host was not present at their meet- 
 ing. Louise Macy was, however, as de- 
 murely conscious of the different bearing of 
 the two compatriots. Eichardson's somewhat 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 101 
 
 self-important patronage of the two ladies, 
 and that Californian familiarity he had ac- 
 quired, changed to a certain uneasy defer- 
 ence towards Mainwaring; while the younger 
 Englishman's slightly stiff and deliberate 
 cordiality was, nevertheless, mingled with a 
 mysterious understanding that appeared 
 innate and unconscious. Louise was quick 
 to see that these two men, more widely di- 
 vergent in quality than any two of her own 
 countrymen, were yet more subtly connected 
 by some unknown sympathy than the most 
 equal of Americans. Minty's prophetic be- 
 lief of the effect of the two women upon 
 Richardson was certainly true as regarded 
 Mrs. Bradley. The banker a large mate- 
 rial nature was quickly fascinated by the 
 demure, puritanic graces of that lady, and 
 was inclined to exhibit a somewhat broad 
 and ostentatious gallantry that annoyed 
 Mainwaring. When they were seated alone 
 on the veranda, which the ladies had dis- 
 creetly left to them, Richardson said, 
 
 " Odd I did n't hear of Bradley's wife be- 
 fore. She seems a spicy, pretty, comfortable 
 
102 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 creature. Regularly thrown away with him 
 up here." 
 
 Mainwaring replied coldly that she was 
 " an admirable helpmeet of a very admirable 
 man," not, however, without an uneasy rec- 
 ollection of her previous confidences respect- 
 ing her husband. "They have been most 
 thoroughly good and kind to me ; my own 
 brother and sister could not have done more. 
 And certainly not with better taste or deli- 
 cacy/' he added, markedly. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," said Richardson, 
 hurriedly. "I wrote to Lady Mainwaring 
 that you were taken capital care of by some 
 very honest people ; and that " 
 
 "Lady Mainwaring already knows what 
 I think of them, and what she owes to their 
 kindness," said Mainwaring, dryly. 
 
 " True, true," said Richardson, apologet- 
 ically. " Of course you must have seen a 
 good deal of them. I only know Bradley 
 in a business way. He 's been trying to get 
 the Bank to help him to put up some new 
 mills here ; but we did n't see it. I dare say 
 he is good company rather amusing, eh?" 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 103 
 
 Mainwaring had the gift of his class of 
 snubbing by the polite and forgiving obliv- 
 ion of silence. Eichardson shifted uneasily 
 in his chair, but continued with assumed 
 carelessness : 
 
 " No ; I only knew of this cousin, Miss 
 Macy. I heard of her when she was visit- 
 ing some friends in Menlo Park last year. 
 Kather an attractive girl. They say Colonel 
 Johnson, of Sacramento, took quite a fancy 
 to her it would have been a good match, 
 I dare say, for he is very rich but the thing 
 fell through in some way. Then, they say, 
 she wanted to marry that Spaniard, young 
 Pico, of the Amador Ranche ; but his family 
 would n't hear of it. Somehow, she 's deuced 
 unlucky. I suppose she '11 make a mess of 
 it with that Captain Greyson she was out 
 riding with this morning." 
 
 " Did n't the Bank think Bradley's mills 
 a good investment ? " asked Mainwaring 
 quietly, when Richardson paused. 
 
 " Not with him in it ; he is not a business 
 man, you know." 
 
 " I thought he was. He seems to me an 
 
104 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 energetic man, who knows his work, and is 
 not afraid to look after it himself." 
 
 " That 's just it. He has got absurd ideas 
 of cooperating with his workmen, you know, 
 and doing everything slowly and on a limited 
 scale. The only thing to be done is to buy 
 up all the land on this ridge, run off the set- 
 tlers, freeze out all the other mills, and put 
 it into a big San Francisco company on 
 shares. That 's the only way we would look 
 at it." 
 
 "But you don't consider the investment 
 bad, even from his point of view ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " And you only decline it because it is n't 
 big enough for the Bank? " 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " Kichardson," said Mainwaring, slowly 
 rising, putting his hands in his trouser 
 pockets, and suddenly looking down upon 
 the banker from the easy level of habitual 
 superiority, " I wish you 'd attend to this 
 thing for me. I desire to make some return 
 to Mr. Bradley for his kindness. I wish to 
 give him what help he wants in his own 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEKRAS. 105 
 
 way you understand. I wish it, and I be- 
 lieve my father wishes it, too. If you 'd like 
 him to write to you to that effect " 
 
 " By no means, it 's not at all necessary," 
 said Richardson, dropping with equal sud- 
 denness into his old-world obsequiousness. 
 " I shall certainly do as you wish. It is not 
 a bad investment, Mr. Mainwaring, and as 
 you suggest, a very proper return for their 
 kindness. And, being here, it will come 
 quite naturally for me to take up the affair 
 again." 
 
 " And I say, Richardson." 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 " As these ladies are rather short-handed 
 in their domestic service, you know, perhaps 
 you 'd better not stay to luncheon or dinner, 
 but go on to the Summit House it 's only 
 a mile or two farther and come back here 
 this evening. I shan't want you until then." 
 
 " Certainly ! " stammered Richardson. 
 " I '11 just take leave of the ladies ! " 
 
 " It 's not at all necessary," said Main- 
 waring, quietly ; " you would only disturb 
 them in their household duties. I '11 tell 
 
106 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 them what I 've done with you, if they ask. 
 You '11 find your stick and hat in the pas- 
 sage, and you can leave the veranda by these 
 steps. By the way, you had better manage 
 at the Summit to get some one to bring my 
 traps from here to be forwarded to Sacra- 
 mento to-morrow. I '11 want a conveyance, 
 or a horse of some kind, myself, for I 've 
 given up walking for a while ; but we can 
 settle about that to-night. Come early. 
 Good morning ! " 
 
 He accompanied his thoroughly subjugated 
 countryman who, however, far from at- 
 tempting to reassert himself, actually seemed 
 easier and more cheerful in his submission 
 to the end of the veranda, and watched 
 him depart. As he turned back, he saw the 
 pretty figure of Louise Macy leaning against 
 the doorway. How graceful and refined 
 she looked in that simple morning dress ! 
 What wonder that she was admired by Grey- 
 son, by Johnson," and by that Spaniard ! 
 no, by Jove, it was she that wanted to marry 
 him ! 
 
 " What have you sent away Mr. Richard- 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 107 
 
 son for ? " asked the young girl, with a half- 
 reproachful, half-mischievous look in her 
 bright eyes. 
 
 " I packed him off because I thought it 
 was a little too hard on you and Mrs. Brad- 
 ley to entertain him without help." 
 
 " But as he was our guest, you might 
 have left that to us," said Miss Macy. 
 
 44 By Jove ! I never thought of that," said 
 Mainwaring, coloring in consternation. 
 " Pray forgive me, Miss Macy but you 
 see I knew the man, and could say it, and 
 you could n't." 
 
 " Well, I forgive you, for you look really 
 so cut up," said Louise, laughing. " But I 
 don't know what Jenny will say of your dis- 
 posing of her conquest so summarily." She 
 stopped and regarded him more attentively. 
 44 Has he brought you any bad news ? if so, 
 it 's a pity you did n't send him away before. 
 He 's quite spoiling our cure." 
 
 Mainwaring thought bitterly that he had. 
 44 But it 's a cure for all that, Miss Macy," 
 he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, 
 44 and being a cure, you see, there 's no 
 
108 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 longer an excuse for my staying here. I 
 have been making arrangements for leaving 
 here to-morrow." 
 
 "So soon?" 
 
 " Do you think it soon, Miss Macy ? " 
 asked Mainwaring, turning pale in spite of 
 himself. 
 
 " I quite forgot that you were here as 
 an invalid only, and that we owe our pleas- 
 ure to the accident of your pain." 
 
 She spoke a little artificially, he thought, 
 yet her cheeks had not lost their pink bloom, 
 nor her eyes their tranquillity. Had he 
 heard Minty's criticism he might have be- 
 lieved that the organic omission noticed by 
 her was a fact. 
 
 " And now that your good work as Sister 
 of Charity is completed, you '11 be able to 
 enter the world of gayety again with a clear 
 conscience," said Mainwaring, with a smile 
 that he inwardly felt was a miserable failure. 
 "You'll be able to resume your morning 
 rides, you know, which the wretched invalid 
 interrupted." 
 
 Louise raised her clear eyes to his, without 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 109 
 
 reproach, indignation, or even wonder. He 
 felt as if he had attempted an insult and 
 failed. 
 
 " Does my cousin know you are going so 
 soon?" she asked finally. 
 
 " No, I did not know myself until to-day. 
 You see," he added hastily, while his honest 
 blood blazoned the lie in his cheek. " I 've 
 heard of some miserable business affairs that 
 will bring me back to England sooner than 
 I expected." 
 
 " I think you should consider your health 
 more important than any mere business," 
 said Louise. " I don't mean that you 
 should remain here," she added with a hasty 
 laugh, " but it would be a pity, now that you 
 have reaped the benefit of rest and taking 
 care of yourself, that you should not make 
 it your only business to seek it elsewhere." 
 
 Mainwaring longed to say that within the 
 last half hour, living or dying had become 
 of little moment to him ; but he doubted 
 the truth or efficacy of this time-worn heroic 
 of passion. He felt, too, that anything he 
 said was a mere subterfuge *for the real rea- 
 
110 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 son of his sudden departure. And how 
 was he to question her as to that reason? 
 In escaping from these subterfuges he 
 was compelled to lie again. With an as- 
 sumption of changing the subject, he said 
 calmly, " Richardson thought he had met 
 you before in Menlo Park, I think." 
 
 Amazed at the evident irrelevance of the 
 remark, Louise said coldly, that she did not 
 remember having seen him before. 
 
 " I think it was at a Mr. Johnson's or 
 with a Mr. Johnson or perhaps at one of 
 those Spanish ranches I think he men- 
 tioned some name like Pico ! " 
 
 Louise looked at him wonderingly for an 
 instant, and then gave way to a frank, irre- 
 pressible laugh, which lent her delicate but 
 rather set little face all the color he had 
 missed. Partially relieved by her uncon- 
 cern, and yet mortified that he had only pro- 
 voked her sense of the ludicrous, he tried to 
 laugh also. 
 
 " Then, to be quite plain," said Louise, 
 wiping her now humid eyes, " you want me 
 to understand that you really didn't pay 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. Ill 
 
 sufficient attention to hear correctly ! Thank 
 you ; that 's a pretty English compliment, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " I dare say you would n't call it 4 philan- 
 dering'?" 
 
 " I certainly should n't, for I don't know 
 what * philandering ' means." 
 
 Main waring could not reply, with Riche- 
 lieu, " You ought to know " ; nor did he 
 dare explain what he thought it meant, and 
 how he knew it. Louise, however, inno- 
 cently solved the difficulty. 
 
 "There 's a country song I 've heard 
 Minty sing," she said. " It runs 
 
 Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin' , 
 Every one for his true love a-sarchin' 
 Choose your true love now or never. . . . 
 
 Have you been listening to her also ? " 
 
 " No," said Main waring, with a sudden 
 incomprehensible, but utterly irrepressible, 
 resolution ; " but I 'm 'a - marchin',' you 
 know, and perhaps I must ' choose my true 
 love now or never.' Will you help me, Miss 
 Macy?" 
 
 He drew gently near her. He had become 
 
112 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 quite white, but also very manly, and it 
 struck her, more deeply, thoroughly, and 
 conscientiously sincere than any man who 
 had before addressed her. She moved 
 slightly away, as if to rest herself by laying 
 both hands upon the back of the chair. 
 
 "Where do you expect to begin your 
 4 sarchin' ' ? " she said, leaning on the chair 
 and tilting it before her ; " or are you as 
 vague as usual as to locality ? Is it at some 
 6 Mr. Johnson ' or ' Mr. Pico,' or " 
 
 " Here/' he interrupted boldly. 
 
 " I really think you ought to first tell my 
 cousin that you are going away to-morrow," 
 she said, with a faint smile. " It 's such 
 short notice. She 's just in there." She 
 nodded her pretty head, without raising her 
 eyes, towards the hall. 
 
 " But it may not be so soon," said Main- 
 waring. 
 
 " Oh, then the ' sarchin' ' is not so impor- 
 tant ? " said Louise, raising her head, and 
 looking towards the hall with some uneasy 
 but indefinable feminine instinct. 
 
 She was right ; the sitting - room door 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 113 
 
 opened, and Mrs. Bradley made her smiling 
 appearance. 
 
 "Mr. Main waring was just looking for 
 you," said Louise, for the first time raising 
 her eyes to him. " He 's not only sent off 
 Mr. Richardson, but he 's going away him-, 
 self to-morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Bradley looked from the one to the 
 other in mute wonder. Mainwaring cast an 
 imploring glance at Louise, which had the 
 desired effect. Much more seriously, and in 
 a quaint, business-like way, the young girl 
 took it upon herself to explain to Mrs. Brad- 
 ley that Richardson had brought the invalid 
 some important news that would, unfortu- 
 nately, not only shorten his stay in America, 
 but even compel him to leave The Lookout 
 sooner than he expected, perhaps to-morrow. 
 Mainwaring thanked her with his eyes, and 
 then turned to Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 " Whether I go to-morrow or next day," 
 he said with simple and earnest directness, 
 " I intend, you know, to see you soon again, 
 either here or in my own home in England. 
 I do not know," he added with marked 
 
114 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 gravity, " that I have succeeded in convin- 
 cing you that I have made your family al- 
 ready well known to my people, and that " 
 he fixed his eyes with a meaning look on 
 Louise " no matter when, or in what way, 
 you come to them, your place is made ready 
 for you. You may not like them, you know : 
 the governor is getting to be an old man 
 perhaps too old for young Americans but 
 they will like you, and you must put up with 
 that. My mother and sisters know Miss 
 Macy as well as I do, and will make her one 
 of the family." 
 
 The conscientious earnestness with which 
 these apparent conventionalities were ut- 
 tered, and some occult quality of quiet con- 
 viction in the young man's manner, brought 
 a pleasant sparkle to the eyes of Mrs. Brad- 
 ley and Louise. 
 
 " But," said Mrs. Bradley, gayly, " our 
 going to England is quite beyond our pres- 
 ent wildest dreams ; nothing but a windfall, 
 an unexpected rise in timber, or even the 
 tabooed hotel speculation, could make it 
 possible." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 115 
 
 " But / shall take the liberty of trying to 
 present it to Mr. Bradley to-night in some 
 practical way that may convince even his 
 critical judgment," said Main waring, still 
 seriously. " It will be," he added more 
 lightly, " the famous testimonial of my cure 
 which I promised you." 
 
 " And you will find Mr. Bradley so scep- 
 tical that you will be obliged to defer your 
 going," said Mrs. Bradley, triumphantly. 
 " Come, Louise, we must not forget that we 
 have still Mr. Mainwaring's present com- 
 fort to look after; that Minty has basely 
 deserted us, and that we ourselves must see 
 that the last days of our guest beneath our 
 roof are not remembered for their priva- 
 tion." 
 
 She led Louise away with a half-mis- 
 chievous suggestion of maternal propriety, 
 and left Mainwaring once more alone on the 
 veranda. 
 
 He had done it ! Certainly she must have 
 understood his meaning, and there was 
 nothing left for him to do but to acquaint 
 Bradley with his intentions to-night, and 
 
116 A PHYLLIS OF TEE SIERRAS. 
 
 press her for a final answer in the morning. 
 There would be no indelicacy then in asking 
 her for an interview more free from inter- 
 ruption than this public veranda. With- 
 out conceit, he did not doubt what the an- 
 swer would be. His indecision, his sudden 
 resolution to leave her, had been all based 
 upon the uncertainty of his own feelings, 
 the propriety of his declaration, the possi- 
 bility of some previous experience of hers 
 that might compromise him. Convinced by 
 her unembarrassed manner of her innocence, 
 or rather satisfied of her indifference to 
 Richardson's gossip, he had been hurried by 
 his feelings into an unexpected avowal. 
 Brought up in the perfect security of his 
 own social position, and familiarly conscious 
 without vanity of its importance and 
 power in such a situation, he believed, with- 
 out undervaluing Louise's charms or inde- 
 pendence, that he had no one else than him- 
 self to consult. Even the slight uneasiness 
 that still pursued him was more due to his 
 habitual conscientiousness of his own inten- 
 tion than to any fear that she would not fully 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 117 
 
 respond to it. Indeed, with his conserva- 
 tive ideas of proper feminine self-restraint, 
 Louise's calm passivity and undemonstrative 
 attitude were a proof of her superiority; 
 had she blushed over-much, cried or thrown 
 herself into his arms, he would have doubted 
 the wisdom of so easy a selection. It was 
 true he had known her scarcely three weeks ; 
 if he chose to be content with that, his own 
 accessible record of three centuries should 
 be sufficient for her, and condone any irreg- 
 ularity. 
 
 Nevertheless, as an hour slipped away and 
 Louise did not make her appearance 
 either on the veranda or in the little sit- 
 ting-room off the hall, Mainwaring became 
 more uneasy as to the incompleteness of 
 their interview. Perhaps a faint suspicion 
 of the inadequacy of her response began to 
 trouble him ; but he still fatuously regarded 
 it rather as owing to his own hurried and 
 unfinished declaration. It was true that he 
 had n't said half what he intended to say ; 
 it was true that she might have misunder- 
 stood it as the conventional gallantry of the 
 
118 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 situation, as terrible thought ! the light 
 banter of the habitual love-making Ameri- 
 can, to which she had been accustomed ; 
 perhaps even now she relegated him to the 
 level of Greyson, and this accounted for her 
 singular impassiveness an impassiveness 
 that certainly was singular now he reflected 
 upon it that might have been even con- 
 tempt. The last thought pricked his deep 
 conscientiousness; he walked hurriedly up 
 and down the veranda, and then suddenly 
 reentering his room, took up a sheet of note- 
 paper, and began to write to her : 
 
 " Can you grant me a few moments' inter- 
 view alone ? I cannot bear you should think 
 that what I was trying to tell you when we 
 were interrupted was prompted by anything 
 but the deepest sincerity and conviction, or 
 that I am willing it should be passed over 
 lightly by you or be forgotten. Pray give 
 me a chance of proving it, by saying you 
 will see me. F. M." 
 
 But how should he convey this to her? 
 His delicacy revolted against handing it to 
 her behind Mrs. Bradley's back, or the pres- 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 119 
 
 tidigitation of slipping it into her lap or 
 under her plate before them at luncheon ; 
 he thought for an instant of the Chinaman, 
 but gentlemen except in that " mirror of 
 nature " the stage usually hesitate to sub- 
 orn other people's servants, or entrust a wo- 
 man's secret to her inferiors. He remem- 
 bered that Louise's room was at the farther 
 end of the house, and its low window gave 
 upon the veranda, and was guarded at night 
 by a film of white and blue curtains that 
 were parted during the day, to allow a tri- 
 angular revelation of a pale blue and white 
 draped interior. Mainwaring reflected that 
 the low inside window ledge was easily ac- 
 cessible from the veranda, would afford a 
 capital lodgment for the note, and be quickly 
 seen by the fair occupant of the room on en- 
 tering. He sauntered slowly past the win- 
 dow; the room was empty, the moment 
 propitious. A slight breeze was stirring the 
 blue ribbons of the curtain ; it would be 
 necessary to secure the note with something ; 
 he returned along the veranda to the steps, 
 where he had noticed a small irregular stone 
 
120 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS 
 
 lying, which had evidently escaped from 
 Richelieu's bag of treasure specimens, and 
 had been overlooked by that ingenuous child. 
 It was of a pretty peacock-blue color, and, 
 besides securing a paper, would be sure to 
 attract her attention. He placed his note 
 on the inside ledge, and the blue stone atop, 
 and went away with a sense of relief. 
 
 Another half hour passed without inci- 
 dent. He could hear the voices of the two 
 women in the kitchen and dining-room. 
 After a while they appeared to cease, and 
 he heard the sound of an opening door. It 
 then occurred to him that the veranda was 
 still too exposed for a confidential interview, 
 and he resolved to descend the steps, pass 
 before the windows of the kitchen where 
 Louise might see him, and penetrate the 
 shrubbery, where she might be induced to 
 follow him. They would not be interrupted 
 nor overheard there. 
 
 But he had barely left the veranda before 
 the figure of Richelieu, who had been pa- 
 tiently waiting for Mainwaring's disappear- 
 ance, emerged stealthily from the shrubbery. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 121 
 
 He had discovered his loss on handing his 
 " fire assays " to the good-humored Bradley 
 for later examination, and he had retraced 
 his way, step by step, looking everywhere 
 for his missing stone with the unbounded 
 hopefulness, lazy persistency, and lofty dis- 
 regard for time and occupation known only 
 to the genuine boy. He remembered to 
 have placed his knotted bag upon the ve- 
 randa, and, slipping off his stiff boots slowly 
 and softly, slid along against the wall of the 
 house, looking carefully on the floor, and 
 yet preserving a studied negligence of de- 
 meanor, with one hand in his pocket, and his 
 small mouth contracted into a singularly 
 soothing and almost voiceless whistle 
 Richelieu's own peculiar accomplishment. 
 But no stone appeared. Like most of his 
 genus he was superstitious, and repeated to 
 himself the cabalistic formula : " Losin 's 
 seekin's, findin's keepin's " presumed to 
 be of great efficacy in such cases with re- 
 ligious fervor. He had laboriously reached 
 the end of the veranda when he noticed the 
 open window of Louise's room, and stopped 
 
122 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEJtRAS. 
 
 as a prefunctory duty to look in. And then 
 Richelieu Sharpe stood for an instant utterly 
 confounded and aghast at this crowning 
 proof of the absolute infamy and sickening 
 enormity of Man. 
 
 There was his stone Ms, Richelieu X 
 own specimen, carefully gathered by him- 
 self and none other and now stolen, ab- 
 stracted, " skyugled," " smouged," " hooked " 
 by this " rotten, skunkified, long-legged, 
 splay-footed, hoss-laughin ', nigger-toothed, 
 or'nary despot ! " And, worse than all, ac- 
 tually made to do infamous duty as a love 
 token ! a " candy-gift ! " a "philanderin' 
 box ! " to his, Richelieu's, girl for Louise 
 belonged to that innocent and vague outside 
 seraglio of Richelieu's boyish dreams and 
 put atop of a letter to her ! and Providence 
 permitted such an outrage ! " Wot was he, 
 Richelieu, sent to school for, and organized 
 wickedness in the shape of gorilla Injins 
 like this allowed to ride high horses rampant 
 over Calif orney ! " He looked at the heav- 
 ens in mute appeal. And then Provi- 
 dence not immediately interfering he 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEKRAS. 123 
 
 thrust his own small arm into the window, 
 regained his priceless treasure, and fled 
 swiftly. 
 
 A fateful silence ensued. The wind 
 slightly moved the curtain outward, as if in 
 a playful attempt to follow him, and then 
 subsided. A moment later, apparently re- 
 enforced by other winds, or sympathizing 
 with Richelieu, it lightly lifted the unlucky 
 missive and cast it softly from the window. 
 But here another wind, lying in wait, caught 
 it cleverly, and tossed it, in a long curve, 
 into the abyss. For an instant it seemed to 
 float lazily, as on the mirrored surface of a 
 lake, until, turning upon its side, it suddenly 
 darted into utter oblivion. 
 
 When Mainwaring returned from the 
 shrubbery, he went softly to the window. 
 The disappearance of the letter and stone 
 satisfied him of the success of his stratagem, 
 and for the space of three hours relieved 
 his anxiety. But at the end of that time, 
 finding no response from Louise, his former 
 uneasiness returned. Was she offended, or 
 the first doubt of her acceptance of him 
 
124 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 crossed his mind ! A sudden and inexpli- 
 cable sense of shame came upon him. At 
 the same moment, he heard his name called 
 from the steps, turned and beheld Minty. 
 
 Her dark eyes were shining with a pleas- 
 ant light, and her lips parted on her white 
 teeth with a frank, happy smile. She ad- 
 vanced and held out her hand. He took it 
 with a mingling of disappointment and em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 " You 're wondering why I kem on here, 
 arter I sent word this morning that I kel- 
 kilated not to come. Well, 'twixt then and 
 now suthin' 's happened. We 've had fine 
 doin's over at our house, you bet! Pop 
 don't know which end he 's standin' on ; and 
 I reckon that for about ten minutes I did n't 
 know my own name. But ez soon ez I got 
 fairly hold o' the hull thing, and had it put 
 straight in my mind, I sez to myself, Minty 
 Sharpe, sez I, the first thing for you to do 
 now, is to put on yer bonnet and shawl, and 
 trapse over to Jim Bradley's and help them 
 two womenfolks get dinner for themselves 
 and that sick stranger. And," continued 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 125 
 
 Minty, throwing herself into a chair and 
 fanning her glowing face with her apron, 
 " yer I am ! " 
 
 " But you have not told me what has hap- 
 pened," said Mainwaring, with a constrained 
 smile, and an uneasy glance towards the 
 house. 
 
 " That 's so," said Minty, with a brilliant 
 laugh. " I clean forgot the hull gist of the 
 thing. Well, we 're rich folks now over 
 thar' on Barren Ledge ! That onery brother 
 of mine, Richelieu, hez taken some of his 
 specimens over to Jirn Bradley to be tested. 
 And Bradley, just to please that child, takes 
 'em; and not an hour ago Bradley comes 
 running, likety switch, over to Pop to tell 
 him to put up his notices, for the hull of 
 that ledge where the forge stands is a mine 
 o' silver and copper. Afore ye knew it, 
 Lordy ! half the folks outer the Summit 
 and the mill was scattered down thar all over 
 it. Richardson that stranger ez knows you 
 kem thar too with Jim, and he allows, ef 
 Bradley 's essay is right, it 's worth more than 
 a hundred thousand dollars ez it stands ! " 
 
126 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " I suppose I must congratulate you, Miss 
 Sharpe," said Mainwaring with an attempt 
 at interest, but his attention still preoccu- 
 pied with the open doorway. 
 
 " Oh, they know all about it ! " said Minty, 
 following the direction of his abstracted eyes 
 with a slight darkening of her own, ".I jest 
 kem out o' the kitchen the other way, and 
 Jim sent 'em a note ; but I allowed I 'd tell 
 you myself. Specially ez you was going 
 away to-morrow." 
 
 " Who said I was going away to-mor- 
 row ? " asked Mainwaring, uneasily. 
 
 " Loo Macy ! " 
 
 " Ah she did ? But I may change my 
 mind, you know ! " he continued, with a 
 faint smile. 
 
 Minty shook her curls decisively. " I 
 reckon she knows," she said dryly, "she's 
 got law and gospel for wot she says. But 
 yer she comes. Ask her ! Look yer, Loo," 
 she added, as the two women appeared at 
 the doorway, with a certain exaggeration of 
 congratulatory manner that struck Main- 
 waring as being as artificial and disturbed 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 127 
 
 as his own, " did n't Sir Francis yer say he 
 was going to-morrow ? " 
 
 "That's what I understood!" returned 
 Louise, with cold astonishment, letting her 
 clear indifferent eyes fall upon Mainwaring. 
 " I do not know that he has changed his 
 mind." 
 
 "Unless, as Miss Sharpe is a great capi- 
 talist now, she is willing to use her powers 
 of persuasion," added Mrs. Bradley, with a 
 slight acidulous pointing of her usual prim 
 playfulness. 
 
 " I reckon Minty Sharpe 's the same ez she 
 allus wos, unless more so," returned Minty, 
 with an honest egotism that carried so much 
 conviction to the hearer as to condone its 
 vanity. " But I kem yer to do a day's work, 
 gals, and I allow to pitch in and do it, and 
 not sit yer swoppin' compliments and keep- 
 ing him from packin' his duds. Onless," she 
 stopped, and looked around at the uneasy, 
 unsympathetic circle with a faint tremulous- 
 ness of lip that belied the brave black eyes 
 above it, " onless I 'm in yer way." 
 
 The two women sprang forward with a 
 
128 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 feminine bewildering excess of protestation ; 
 and Mainwaring, suddenly pierced through 
 his outer selfish embarrassment to his more 
 honest depths, stammered quickly 
 
 " Look here, Miss Sharpe, if you think of 
 running away again, after having come all 
 the way here to make us share the knowl- 
 edge of your good fortune and your better 
 heart, by Jove ! I '11 go back with you." 
 
 But here the two women effusively hur- 
 ried her away from the dangerous proximity 
 of such sympathetic honesty, and a moment 
 later Mainwaring heard her laughing voice, 
 as of old, ringing in the kitchen. And then, 
 as if unconsciously responding to the signifi- 
 cant common sense that lay in her last allu- 
 sion to him, he went to his room and grimly 
 began his packing. 
 
 He did not again see Louise alone. At 
 their informal luncheon the conversation 
 turned upon the more absorbing topic of the 
 Sharpes' discovery, its extent, and its prob- 
 able effect upon the fortunes of the locality. 
 He noticed, abstractedly, that both Mrs. 
 Bradley and her cousin showed a real or as- 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 129 
 
 sumed scepticism of its value. This did not 
 disturb him greatly, except for its intended 
 check upon Minty's enthusiasm. He was 
 more conscious, perhaps, with a faint 
 touch of mortified vanity, that his own 
 contemplated departure was of lesser impor- 
 tance than this local excitement. Yet in 
 his growing conviction that all was over 
 if, indeed, it had ever begun between him- 
 self and Louise, he was grateful to this nat- 
 ural diversion of incident which spared them 
 both an interval of embarrassing common- 
 places. And, with the suspicion of some 
 indefinable insincerity either of his own 
 or Louise's haunting him, Minty's frank 
 heartiness and outspoken loyalty gave him 
 a strange relief. It seemed to him as if the 
 clear cool breath of the forest had entered 
 with her homely garments, and the steadfast 
 truths of Nature were incarnate in her shin- 
 ing eyes. How far this poetic fancy would 
 have been consistent or even coexistent with 
 any gleam of tenderness or self-forgetfulness 
 in Louise's equally pretty orbs, I leave the 
 satirical feminine reader to determine. 
 
130 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 It was late when Bradley at last returned, 
 bringing further and more complete corrob- 
 oration of the truth of Sharpe's good for- 
 tune. Two experts had arrived, one from 
 Pine Flat and another from the Summit, and 
 upon this statement Richardson had offered 
 to purchase an interest in the discovery that 
 would at once enable the blacksmith to 
 develop his mine. "I should n't wonder, 
 Mainwaring," he added cheerfully, "if he 'd 
 put you into it, too, and make your eternal 
 fortune." 
 
 " With larks falling from the skies all 
 round you, it 's a pity you could n't get put 
 into something," said Mrs. Bradley, straight- 
 ening her pretty brows. 
 
 " I 'm not a gold-miner, my dear," said 
 Bradley, pleasantly. 
 
 "Nor a gold-finder," returned his wife, 
 with a cruel little depression of her pink 
 nostrils, " but you can work all night in that 
 stupid mill and then," she added in a low 
 voice, to escape Minty's attention, " spend 
 the whole of the next day examining and 
 following up a boy's discovery that his own 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 131 
 
 relations had been too lazy and too ignorant 
 to understand and profit by. I suppose that 
 next you will be hunting up a site on the 
 other side of the Canyon, where somebody 
 else can put up a hotel and ruin your own 
 prospects." 
 
 A sensitive shadow of pain quickly dimmed 
 Bradley's glance not the first or last time 
 evidently, for it was gradually bringing out 
 a background of sadness in his intelligent 
 eyes. But the next moment he turned 
 kindly to Mainwaring, and began to deplore 
 the necessity of his early departure, which 
 Richardson had already made known to him 
 with practical and satisfying reasons. 
 
 " I hope you won't forget, my dear fellow, 
 that your most really urgent business is to 
 look after your health ; and if, hereafter, 
 you '11 only remember the old Lookout 
 enough to impress that fact upon you, I 
 shall feel that any poor service I have ren- 
 dered you has been amply repaid." 
 
 Mainwaring, notwithstanding that he 
 winced slightly at this fateful echo of 
 Louise's advice, returned the grasp of his 
 
132 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEltfiAS. 
 
 friend's hand with an honest pressure equal 
 to his own. He longed now only for the 
 coming of Richardson, to complete his 
 scheme of grateful benefaction to his host. 
 
 The banker came fortunately as the con- 
 versation began to flag ; and Mrs. Bradley's 
 half-coquettish ill-humor of a pretty woman, 
 and Louise's abstracted indifference, were 
 becoming so noticeable as to even impress 
 Minty into a thoughtful taciturnity. The 
 graciousness of his reception by Mrs. Brad- 
 ley somewhat restored his former ostentatious 
 gallantry, and his self-satisfied, domineering 
 manner had enough masculine power in it to 
 favorably affect the three women, who, it must 
 be confessed, were a little bored by the finer 
 abstractions of Bradley and Mainwaring. 
 After a few moments, Mainwaring rose and, 
 with a significant glance at Richardson to 
 remind him of his proposed conference with 
 Bradley, turned to leave the room. He was 
 obliged to pass Louise, who was sitting by 
 the table. His attention was suddenly ar- 
 rested by something in her hand with which 
 she was listlessly playing. It was the stone 
 which he had put on his letter to her. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 138 
 
 As he had not been present when Brad- 
 ley arrived, he did not know that this fate- 
 ful object had been brought home by his 
 host, who, after receiving it from Richelieu, 
 had put it in his pocket to illustrate his 
 story of the discovery. On the contrary, it 
 seemed that Louise's careless exposure of his 
 foolish stratagem was gratuitously and pur- 
 posely cruel. Nevertheless, he stopped and 
 looked at her. 
 
 " That 's a queer stone you have there," 
 he said, in a tone which she recognized as 
 coldly and ostentatiously civil. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, without looking up ; 
 " it 's the outcrop of that mine." She 
 handed it to him as if to obviate any fur- 
 ther remark. " I thought you had seen it 
 before." 
 
 "The outcrop," he repeated dryly. "That 
 is it it it is the indication or sign 
 of something important that 's below it 
 is n't it?" 
 
 Louise shrugged her shoulders sceptically. 
 " It don't follow. It 's just as likely to 
 cover rubbish, after you 've taken the trouble 
 to look." 
 
134 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " Thanks," he said, with measured gen- 
 tleness, and passed quietly out of the room. 
 
 The moon had already risen when Brad- 
 ley, with his brierwood pipe, preceded Rich- 
 ardson upon the veranda. The latter threw 
 his large frame into Louise's rocking-chair 
 near the edge of the abyss ; Bradley, with 
 his own chair tilted against the side of the 
 house after the national fashion, waited for 
 him to speak. The absence of Mainwaring 
 and the stimulus of Mrs. Bradley 's gracious- 
 ness had given the banker a certain conde- 
 scending familiarity, which Bradley received 
 with amused and ironical tolerance that his 
 twinkling eyes made partly visible in the 
 darkness. 
 
 " One of the things I wanted to talk to 
 you about, Bradley, was that old affair of 
 the advance you asked for from the Bank. 
 We did not quite see our way to it then, 
 and, speaking as a business man, it is n't 
 really a matter of business now ; but it has 
 lately been put to me in a light that would 
 make the doing of it possible you under- 
 stand ? The fact of the matter is this : Sir 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 135 
 
 Robert Main waring, the father of the young 
 fellow you 've got in your house, is one of 
 our directors and largest shareholders, and I 
 can tell you if you don't suspect it already 
 you 've been lucky, Bradley deucedly 
 lucky to have had him in your house and 
 to have rendered him a service. He 's the 
 heir to one of the largest landed estates in 
 his county, one of the oldest county fami- 
 lies, and will step into the title some day. 
 But, ahem ! " he coughed patronizingly, 
 "you knew all that! No? Well, that 
 charming wife of yours, at least, does ; for 
 she 's been talking about it. Gad, Bradley, 
 it takes those women to find out anything of 
 that kind, eh ? " 
 
 The light in Bradley's eyes and his pipe 
 went slowly out together. 
 
 " Then we '11 say that affair of the ad- 
 vance is as good as settled. It 's Sir Rob- 
 ert's wish, you understand, and this young 
 fellow's wish, and if you '11 come down to 
 the Bank next week we '11 arrange it for 
 you ; I think you '11 admit they 're doing the 
 handsome to you and yours. And there- 
 
136 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 fore," he lowered his voice confidentially, 
 " you '11 see, Bradley, that it will only be 
 the honorable thing in you, you know, to 
 look upon the affair as finished, and, in fact, 
 to do all you can " he drew his chair 
 closer " to to to drop this other 
 foolishness." 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand you ! " 
 said Bradley, slowly. 
 
 " But your wife does, if you don't," re- 
 turned Richardson, bluntly ; " I mean this 
 foolish flirtation between Louise Macy and 
 Mainwaring, which is utterly preposterous. 
 Why, man, it can't possibly come to any- 
 thing, and it could n't be allowed for a mo- 
 ment. Look at his position and hers. I 
 should think, as a practical man, it would 
 strike you " 
 
 " Only one thing strikes me, Richardson," 
 interrupted Bradley, in a singularly distinct 
 whisper, rising, and moving nearer the 
 speaker ; " it is that you 're sitting perilously 
 near the edge of this veranda. For, by the 
 living God, if you don't take yourself out of 
 that chair and out of this house, I won't be 
 answerable for the consequences ! " 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 137 
 
 " Hold on there a minute, will you ? " said 
 Mainwaring's voice from the window. 
 
 Both men turned towards it. A long leg 
 was protruding from Mainwaring's window ; 
 it was quickly followed by the other leg and 
 body of the occupant, and the next moment 
 Mainwaring came towards the two men, with 
 his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "Not so loud," he said, looking towards 
 the house. 
 
 " Let that man go," said Bradley, in a re- 
 pressed voice. " You and I, Mainwaring, 
 can speak together afterwards." 
 
 " That man must stay until he hears what 
 I have got to say," said Mainwaring, step- 
 ping between them. He was very white and 
 grave in the moonlight, but very quiet ; and 
 he did not take his hands from his pockets. 
 " I 've listened to what he said because he 
 came here on my business, which was simply 
 to offer to do you a service. That was all, 
 Bradley, that / told him to do. This rot 
 about what he expects of you in return is his 
 own impertinence. If you 'd punched his 
 head when he began it, it would have been 
 
138 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 all right. But since he has begun it, before 
 he goes I think he ought to hear me tell you 
 that I have already offered myself to Miss 
 Macy, and she has refused me ! If she had 
 given me the least encouragement, I should 
 have told you before. Further, I want to 
 say that, in spite of that man's insinuations, 
 I firmly believe that no one is aware of the 
 circumstance except Miss Macy and myself." 
 
 " I had no idea of intimating that any- 
 thing had happened that was not highly hon- 
 orable and creditable to you and the young 
 lady," began Richardson, hurriedly. 
 
 " I don't know that it was necessary for 
 you to have any ideas on the subject at all," 
 said Main waring, sternly ; " nor that, hav- 
 ing been shown how you have insulted this 
 gentleman and myself, you need trouble us 
 an instant longer with your company. You 
 need not come back. I will manage my 
 other affairs myself." 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Main waring but you 
 may be sure that I shall certainly take the 
 first opportunity to explain myself to Sir 
 Robert," returned Richardson as, with an 
 attempt at dignity, he strode away. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 139 
 
 There was an interval of silence. 
 
 " Don't be too hard upon a fellow, Brad- 
 ley," said Mainwaring, as Bradley remained 
 dark and motionless in the shadow. "It is 
 a poor return I 'm making you for your kind- 
 ness, but I swear I never thought of any- 
 thing like like this." 
 
 " Nor did I," said Bradley, bitterly. 
 
 " I know it, and that 's what makes it so 
 infernally bad for me. Forgive me, won't 
 you? Think of me, old fellow, as the 
 wretchedest ass you ever met, but not such 
 a cad as this would make me ! " As Main- 
 waring stepped out from the moonlight to- 
 wards him with extended hand, Bradley 
 grasped it warmly. 
 
 " Thanks there thanks, old fellow ! 
 And, Bradley I say don't say anything 
 to your wife, for I don't think she knows it. 
 And, Bradley look here I did n't like 
 to be anything but plain before that fellow ; 
 but I don't mind telling you, now that it 's 
 all over, that I really think Louise Miss 
 Macy did n't altogether understand me 
 either." 
 
140 A PHYLLIS OP THE SIERRAS. 
 
 With another shake of the hand they sep- 
 arated for the night. For a long time after 
 Mainwaring had gone, Bradley remained 
 gazing thoughtfully into the Great Canyon. 
 He thought of the time when he had first 
 come there, full of life and enthusiasm, mak- 
 ing an ideal world of his pure and wholesome 
 eyrie on the ledge. What else he thought 
 will, probably, never be known until the mis- 
 understanding of honorable and chivalrous 
 men by a charming and illogical sex shall 
 incite the audacious pen of some more dar- 
 ing romancer. 
 
 When he returned to the house, he said 
 kindly to his wife, " I have been thinking 
 to-day about your hotel scheme, and I shall 
 write to Sacramento to-night to accept that 
 capitalist's offer." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE sun was just rising. In two years 
 of mutation and change it had seen the little 
 cottage clinging like a swallow's nest to the 
 rocky caves of a great Sierran canyon give 
 way to a straggling, many-galleried hotel, 
 and a dozen blackened chimneys rise above 
 the barren tableland where once had stood 
 the lonely forge. To that conservative orb 
 of light and heat there must have been a 
 peculiar satisfaction in looking down a few 
 hours earlier upon the battlements and ga- 
 bles of Oldenhurst, whose base was deeply 
 embedded in the matured foundations and 
 settled traditions of an English county. For 
 the rising sun had for ten centuries found 
 Oldenhurst in its place, from the heavy 
 stone terrace that covered the dead-and-for- 
 gotten wall, where a Roman sentinel had 
 once paced, to the little grating in the clois- 
 tered quadrangle, where it had seen a Cister- 
 
142 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 cian brother place the morning dole. It had 
 daily welcomed the growth of this vast and 
 picturesque excrescence of the times ; it had 
 smiled every morning upon this formidable 
 yet quaint incrustation of power and custom, 
 ignoring, as Oldenhurst itself had ignored, 
 the generations who possessed it, the men 
 who built it, the men who carried it with 
 fire and sword, the men who had lied and 
 cringed for it, the King who had given it to 
 a favorite, the few brave hearts who had 
 died for it in exile, and the one or two who 
 had bought and paid for it. For Oldenhurst 
 had absorbed all these and more until it 
 had become a story of the past, incarnate 
 in stone, greenwood, and flower ; it had even 
 drained the life-blood from adjacent hamlets, 
 repaying them with tumuli growths like its 
 own, in the shape of purposeless lodges', 
 quaintly incompetent hospitals and schools, 
 and churches where the inestimable blessing 
 and knowledge of its gospel were taught and 
 fostered. Nor had it dealt more kindly with 
 the gentry within its walls, sending some to 
 the scaffold, pillorying others in infamous 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 143 
 
 office, reducing a few to poverty, and halting 
 its later guests with gout and paralysis. It 
 had given them in exchange the dubious im- 
 mortality of a portrait gallery, from which 
 they stared with stony and equal resignation ; 
 it had preserved their useless armor and ac- 
 coutrements ; it had set up their marble 
 effigies in churches or laid them in cross- 
 legged attitudes to trip up the unwary, until 
 in death, as in life, they got between the 
 congregation and the Truth that was taught 
 there. It had allowed an Oldenhurst cru- 
 sader, with a broken nose like a pugilist, on 
 the strength of his having been twice to the 
 Holy Land, to hide the beautifully illumin- 
 ated Word from the lowlier worshipper on 
 the humbler benches ; it had sent an icono- 
 clastic Bishop of the Reformation to a nearer 
 minster to ostentatiously occupy the place of 
 the consecrated image he had overthrown. 
 Small wonder that crowding the Oldenhurst 
 retainers gradually into smaller space, with 
 occasional Sabbath glimpses of the living 
 rulers of Oldenhurst already in railed-off ex- 
 altation, it had forced them to accept Olden- 
 
144 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 hurst as a synonym of eternity, and left the 
 knowledge of a higher Power to what time 
 they should be turned out to their longer 
 sleep under the tender grass of the beautiful 
 outer churchyard. 
 
 And even so, while every stone of the pile 
 of Oldenhurst and every tree in its leafy 
 park might have been eloquent with the 
 story of vanity, selfishness, and unequal jus- 
 tice, it had been left to the infinite mercy of 
 Nature to seal their lips with a spell of 
 beauty that left mankind equally dumb ; 
 earth, air, and moisture had entered into a 
 gentle conspiracy to soften, mellow, and 
 clothe its external blemishes of breach and 
 accident, its irregular design, its additions, 
 accretions, ruins, and lapses with a harmo- 
 nious charm of outline and color ; poets, ro- 
 mancers, and historians had equally con- 
 spired to illuminate the dark passages and 
 uglier inconsistencies of its interior life with 
 the glamour of their own fancy. The frag- 
 ment of menacing keep, with its choked 
 oubliettes, became a bower of tender ivy; 
 the grim story of its crimes, properly edited 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 145 
 
 by a contemporary bard of the family, 
 passed into a charming ballad. Even the 
 superstitious darkness of its religious house 
 had escaped through fallen roof and shat- 
 tered wall, leaving only the foliated and 
 sun-pierced screen of front, with its rose- 
 window and pinnacle of cross behind. Pil- 
 grims from all lands had come to see it ; fierce 
 Republicans had crossed the seas to gaze at 
 its mediaeval outlines, and copy them in 
 wood and stucco on their younger soil. Pol- 
 iticians had equally pointed to it as a con- 
 vincing evidence of their own principles and 
 in refutation of each other ; and it had sur- 
 vived both. For it was this belief in its own 
 perpetuity that was its strength and weak- 
 ness. And that belief was never stronger 
 than on this bright August morning, when it 
 was on the verge of dissolution. A telegram 
 brought to Sir Robert Mainwaring had even 
 then as completely shattered and disinte- 
 grated Oldenhurst, in all it was and all it 
 meant, as if the brown-paper envelope had 
 been itself charged with the electric fluid. 
 Sir Robert Mainwaring, whose family had 
 
146 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS* 
 
 for three centuries possessed Oldenhursfc, 
 had received the news of his financial ruin ; 
 and the vast pile which had survived the 
 repeated invasion of superstition, force, in- 
 trigue, and even progress, had succumbed 
 to a foe its founders and proprietors had 
 loftily ignored and left to Jews and traders. 
 The acquisition of money, except by despoil- 
 ment, gift, royal favor, or inheritance, had 
 been unknown at Oldenhurst. The present 
 degenerate custodian of its fortunes, stag- 
 gering under the weight of its sentimental 
 mortmain already alluded to, had speculated 
 in order to keep up its material strength, 
 that was gradually shrinking through im- 
 poverished land and the ruined trade it had 
 despised. He had invested largely in Cali- 
 fornia mines, and was the chief shareholder 
 in a San Francisco Bank. But the mines 
 had proved worthless, the Bank had that 
 morning suspended payment, owing to the 
 failure of a large land and timber company 
 on the Sierras which it had imprudently 
 "carried." The spark which had demol- 
 ished Oldenhurst had been fired from the 
 
A PHYLLIS OF TEE SIERRAS. 147 
 
 new telegraph-station in the hotel above the 
 great Sierran canyon. 
 
 There was a large house-party at Olden- 
 hurst that morning. But it had been a part 
 of the history of the Mainwarings to accept 
 defeat gallantly and as became their blood. 
 Sir Percival, the second gentleman on the 
 left as you entered the library, unhorsed, 
 dying on a distant moor, with a handful of 
 followers, abandoned by a charming Prince 
 and a miserable cause, was scarcely a greater 
 hero than this ruined but undaunted gentle- 
 man of eighty, entering the breakfast-room 
 a few hours later as jauntily as his gout 
 would permit, and conscientiously dispens- 
 ing the hospitalities of his crumbling house. 
 When he had arranged a few pleasure par- 
 ties for the day and himself thoughtfully 
 anticipated the different tastes of his guests, 
 he turned to Lady Mainwaring. 
 
 " Don't forget that somebody ought to go 
 to the station to meet the Bradleys. Frank 
 writes from St. Moritz that they are due 
 here to-day." 
 
 Lady Main waring glanced quickly at her 
 
148 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 husband, and said sotto voce, " Do you think 
 they 11 care to come now ? They probably 
 have heard all about it." 
 
 "Not how it affects me," returned Sir 
 Robert, in the same tone ; " and as they 
 might think that because Frank was with 
 them on that California mountain we would 
 believe it had something to do with Rich- 
 ardson involving the Bank in that wretched 
 company, we must really insist upon their 
 coming." 
 
 " Bradley ! " echoed the Hon. Captain 
 FitzHarry, overhearing the name during a 
 late forage on the sideboard, " Bradley ! 
 there was an awfully pretty American at 
 Biarritz, travelling with a cousin, I think 
 a Miss Mason or Macy. Those sort of peo- 
 ple, you know, who have a companion as 
 pretty as themselves ; bring you down with 
 the other barrel if one misses eh ? Very 
 clever, both of them, and hardly any ac- 
 cent." 
 
 " Mr. Bradley was a very dear friend of 
 Frank's, and most kind to him," said Lady 
 Mainwaring, gravely. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 149 
 
 " Did n't know there was a Mr. Bradley, 
 really. He did n't come to the fore then," 
 said the unabashed Captain. " Deuced hard 
 to follow up those American husbands ! " 
 
 " And their wives would n't thank you, if 
 you did," said Lady Griselda Armiger, with 
 a sweet smile. 
 
 " If it is the Mrs. Bradley I mean," said 
 Lady Canterbridge from the lower end of 
 the table, looking up from her letter, " who 
 looks a little like Mrs. Summertree, and has 
 a pretty cousin with her who has very good 
 frocks, I 'm afraid you won't be able to get 
 her down here. She 's booked with engage- 
 ments for the next six weeks. She and her 
 cousin made all the running at Grigsby 
 Eoyal, and she has quite deposed that other 
 American beauty in Northforeland's good 
 graces. She regularly afficlied him, and it 
 is piteous to see him follow her about. No, 
 my dear ; I don't believe they '11 come to 
 any one of less rank than a Marquis. If 
 they did, I 'm sure Canterbridge would have 
 had them at Buckenthorpe already." 
 
 " I wonder if there was ever anything in 
 
150 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 Frank's admiration of this Miss Macy ? " 
 said Lady Main waring a few moments later, 
 lingering beside her husband in his study. 
 
 "I really don't know," said Sir Kobert, 
 abstractedly : " his letters were filled with 
 her praises, and Richardson thought " 
 
 " Pray don't mention that man's name 
 again," said Lady Mainwaring, with the 
 first indication of feeling she had shown. 
 " I should n't trust him." 
 
 "But why do you ask?" returned her 
 husband. 
 
 Lady Mainwaring was silent for a mo- 
 ment. " She is very rich, I believe," she 
 said slowly. " At least, Frank writes that 
 some neighbors of theirs whom he met in 
 the Engadine told him they had sold the site 
 of that absurd cottage where he was ill for 
 some extravagant sum." 
 
 " My dear Geraldine," said the old man, 
 affectionately, taking his wife's hand in his 
 own, that now for the first time trembled, 
 " if you have any hope based upon what you 
 are thinking of now, let it be the last and 
 least. You forget that Paget told us that 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 151 
 
 with the best care he could scarcely ensure 
 Frank's return to perfect health. Even if 
 God in his mercy spared him long enough 
 to take my place, what girl would be willing 
 to tie herself to a man doomed to sickness 
 and poverty? Hardly the one you speak of, 
 my dear." 
 
 Lady Canterbridge proved a true prophet. 
 Mrs. Bradley and Miss Macy did not come, 
 regretfully alleging a previous engagement 
 made on the continent with the Duke of 
 Northforeland and the Marquis of Dunge- 
 ness ; but the unexpected and apocryphal 
 husband did arrive. " I myself have not 
 seen my wife and cousin since I returned 
 from my visit to your son in Switzerland. I 
 am glad they were able to amuse themselves 
 without waiting for me at a London hotel, 
 though I should have preferred to have met 
 them here." Sir Robert and Lady Main- 
 waring were courteous but slightly embar- 
 rassed. Lady Canterbridge, who had come 
 to the station in bored curiosity, raised her 
 clear blue eyes to his. He did not look like 
 a fool, a complaisant or fashionably-cynical 
 
152 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 husband this well-dressed, well-mannered, 
 but quietly and sympathetically observant 
 man. Did he really care for his selfish 
 wife? was it perfect trust or some absurd 
 Transatlantic custom ? She did not under- 
 stand him. It wearied her and she turned 
 her eyes indifferently away. Bradley, a lit- 
 tle irritated, he knew not why, at the scru- 
 tiny of this tall, handsome, gentlemanly-look- 
 ing woman, who, however, in spite of her 
 broad shoulders and narrow hips possessed 
 a refined muliebrity superior to mere wo- 
 manliness of outline, turned slightly towards 
 Sir Robert. " Lady Canterbridge, Frank's 
 cousin," explained Sir Robert, hesitatingly, 
 as if conscious of some vague awkwardness. 
 Bradley and Lady Canterbridge both bowed, 
 possibly the latter's salutation was the 
 most masculine, and Bradley, eventually 
 forgetting her presence, plunged into an ear- 
 nest, sympathetic, and intelligent account of 
 the condition in which he had found the in- 
 valid at St. Moritz. The old man at first 
 listened with an almost perfunctory courtesy 
 and a hesitating reserve ; but as Bradley was 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 153 
 
 lapsing into equal reserve and they drove up 
 to the gates of the quadrangle, he unexpect- 
 edly warmed with a word or two of serious 
 welcome. Looking up with a half -uncon- 
 scious smile, Bradley met Lady Canter- 
 bridge's examining eyes. 
 
 The next morning, finding an opportunity 
 to be alone with him, Bradley, with a tact- 
 ful mingling of sympathy and directness, in- 
 formed his host that he was cognizant of the 
 disaster that had overtaken the Bank, and 
 delicately begged him to accept of any ser- 
 vice he could render him. " Pardon me," 
 he said, " if I speak as plainly to you as I 
 would to your son : my friendship for him 
 justifies an equal frankness to any one he 
 loves ; but I should not intrude upon your 
 confidence if I did not believe that my 
 knowledge and assistance might be of benefit 
 to you. Although I did not sell my lands to 
 Richardson or approve of his methods," he 
 continued, " I fear it was some suggestion of 
 mine that eventually induced him to form 
 the larger and more disastrous scheme that 
 ruined the Bank. So you see," he added 
 
154 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 lightly, " I claim a right to offer you my ser- 
 vices." Touched by Bradley 's sincerity and 
 discreet intelligence, Sir Robert was equally 
 frank. During the recital of his Calif ornian 
 investments a chronicle of almost fatuous 
 speculation and imbecile enterprise Brad- 
 ley was profoundly moved at the naive igno- 
 rance of business and hopeless ingenuousness 
 of this old habitue of a cynical world and an 
 intriguing and insincere society, to whom no 
 scheme had been too wild for acceptance. 
 As Bradley listened with a half -saddened 
 smile to the grave visions of this aged en- 
 thusiast, he remembered the son's unsophis- 
 ticated simplicity: what he had considered 
 as the " boyishness " of immaturity was the 
 taint of the utterly unpractical Main waring 
 blood. It was upon this blood, and others 
 like it, that Oldenhurst had for centuries 
 waxed and fattened. 
 
 Bradley was true to his promise of assist- 
 ance, and with the aid of two or three of his 
 brother-millionaires, whose knowledge of the 
 resources of the locality was no less power- 
 ful and convincing than the security of their 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 155 
 
 actual wealth, managed to stay the immedi- 
 ate action of the catastrophe until the affairs 
 of the Sierran Land and Timber Company 
 could be examined and some plan of recon- 
 struction arranged. During this interval of 
 five months, in which the credit of Sir Rob- 
 ert Mainwaring was preserved with the se- 
 cret of his disaster, Bradley was a frequent 
 and welcome visitor to Oldenhurst. Apart 
 from his strange and chivalrous friendship 
 for the Mainwarings which was as incom- 
 prehensible to Sir Robert as Sir Robert's 
 equally eccentric and Quixotic speculations 
 had been to Bradley he began to feel a 
 singular and weird fascination for the place. 
 A patient martyr in the vast London house 
 he had taken for his wife and cousin's 
 amusement, he loved to escape the loneliness 
 of its autumn solitude or the occasional 
 greater loneliness of his wife's social tri- 
 umphs. The handsome, thoughtful man who 
 sometimes appeared at the foot of his wife's 
 table or melted away like a well-bred ghost 
 in the hollow emptiness of her brilliant recep- 
 tions, piqued the languid curiosity of a few. 
 
156 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 A distinguished personage, known for his 
 tactful observance of convenances that others 
 forgot, had made a point of challenging this 
 gentlemanly apparition, and had followed it 
 up with courteous civilities, which led to ex- 
 change of much respect but 110 increase of 
 acquaintance. He had even spent a week 
 at Buckenthorpe, with Canterbridge in the 
 coverts and Lady Canterbridge in the music- 
 room and library. He had returned more 
 thoughtful, and for some time after was more 
 frequent in his appearances at home, and 
 more earnest in his renewed efforts to induce 
 his wife to return to America with him. 
 
 " You '11 never be happy anywhere but in 
 California, among those common people," 
 she replied ; " and while I was willing to 
 share your poverty there" she added dryly, 
 " I prefer to share your wealth among civ- 
 ilized ladies and gentlemen. Besides," she 
 continued, " we must consider Louise. She 
 is as good as engaged to Lord Dunshunner, 
 and I do not intend that you shall make a 
 mess of her affairs here as you did in Cali- 
 fornia." 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERKAS. 157 
 
 It was the first time he had heard of Lord 
 Dunshunner's proposals ; it was the first 
 allusion she had ever made to Louise and 
 Mainwaring. 
 
 Meantime, the autumn leaves had fallen 
 silently over the broad terraces of Olden- 
 hurst with little changes to the fortunes of 
 the great house itself. The Christmas house- 
 party included Lady Canterbridge, whose 
 husband was still detained at Homburg in 
 company with Dunshunner; and Bradley, 
 whose wife and cousin lingered on the conti- 
 nent. He was slightly embarrassed when 
 Lady Canterbridge turned to him one after- 
 noon as they were returning from the lake 
 and congratulated him abruptly upon Lou- 
 ise's engagement. 
 
 " Perhaps you don't care to be congratu- 
 lated," she said, as he did not immediately 
 respond, " and you had as little to do with it 
 as with that other? It is a woman's func- 
 tion." 
 
 " What other ? " echoed Bradley. 
 
 Lady Canterbridge slightly turned her 
 handsome head towards him as she walked 
 
158 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 unbendingly at his side. " Tell me how you 
 manage to keep your absolute simplicity so 
 fresh. Do you suppose it was n't known at 
 Oldenhurst that Frank had quite compro- 
 mised himself with Miss Macy over there ? " 
 
 " It certainly was not known 6 over 
 there,' " said Bradley, curtly. 
 
 " Don't be angry with me." 
 
 Such an appeal from the tall, indifferent 
 woman at his side, so confidently superior to 
 criticism, and uttered in a lower tone, made 
 him smile, albeit uneasily. 
 
 " I only meant to congratulate you," she 
 continued carelessly. " Dunshunner is not 
 a bad sort of fellow, and will come into a 
 good property some day. And then, society 
 is so made up of caprice, just now, that it is 
 well for your wife's cousin to make the most 
 of her opportunities while they last. She is 
 very popular now ; but next season " 
 Seeing that Bradley remained silent, she did 
 not finish her sentence, but said with her 
 usual abruptness, " Do you know a Miss 
 Araminta Eulalie Sharpe ? " 
 
 Bradley started. Could any one recognize 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 159 
 
 honest Minty in the hopeless vulgarity 
 which this fine lady had managed to care- 
 lessly import into her name ? His eye 
 kindled. 
 
 " She is an old friend of mine, Lady Can- 
 terbridge." 
 
 " How fortunate ! Then I can please you 
 by giving you good news of her. She is the 
 coming sensation. They say she is very 
 rich, but quite one of the people, you know: 
 in fact, she makes no scruples of telling you 
 her father was a blacksmith, I think, and 
 takes the dear old man with her everywhere. 
 FitzHarry raves about her, and says her 
 naivete* is something too delicious. She is 
 regularly in with some of the best people al- 
 ready. Lady Dungeness has taken her up, 
 and Northforeland is only waiting for your 
 cousin's engagement to be able to go over 
 decently. Shall I ask her to Buckenthorpe ? 
 come, now, as an apology for my rudeness 
 to your cousin?" She was very womanly 
 now in spite of her high collar, her straight 
 back, and her tightly-fitting jacket, as she 
 stood there smiling. Suddenly, her smile 
 faded ; she drew her breath in quickly. 
 
160 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 She had caught a glimpse of his usually 
 thoughtful face and eyes, now illuminated 
 with some pleasant memory. 
 
 " Thank you," he said smilingly, yet with 
 a certain hesitation, as he thought of The 
 Lookout and Araminta Eulalie Sharpe, and 
 tried to reconcile them with the lady before 
 him. " I should like it very much." 
 
 "Then you have known Miss Sharpe a 
 long time ? " continued Lady Canterbridge 
 as they walked on. 
 
 " While we were at The Lookout she was 
 our nearest neighbor." 
 
 " And I suppose your wife will consider 
 it quite proper for you to see her again at 
 my house ? " said Lady Canterbridge, with a 
 return of conventional levity. 
 
 " Oh ! quite," said Bradley. 
 
 They had reached the low Norman-arched 
 side-entrance to the quadrangle. As Brad- 
 ley swung open the bolt-studded oaken door 
 to let her pass, she said carelessly, 
 
 " Then you are not coming in now ? " 
 
 " No ; I shall walk a little longer." 
 
 " And I am quite forgiven ? " 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 161 
 
 " I am thanking you very much," he said, 
 smiling directly into her blue eyes. She 
 lowered them, and vanished into the dark- 
 ness of the passage. 
 
 The news of Minty's success was further 
 corroborated by Sir Robert, who later that 
 evening called Bradley into the study. 
 " Frank has been writing from Nice that he 
 has renewed his acquaintance with some old 
 Californian friends of yours a Mr. and 
 Miss Sharpy. Lady Canterbridge says that 
 they are well known in London to some of 
 our friends, but I would like to ask you 
 something about them. Lady Mainwaring 
 was on the point of inviting them here when 
 I received a letter from Mr. Sharpe asking 
 for a business interview. Pray who is this 
 Sharpe?" 
 
 u You say he writes for a business inter- 
 view ? " asked Bradley. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Bradley hesitated for a moment and then 
 said quietly, " Perhaps, then, I am justified 
 in a breach of confidence to him, in order to 
 answer your question. He is the man who 
 
162 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 has assumed all the liabilities of the Sierran 
 Land and Timber Company to enable the 
 Bank to resume payment. But he did it on 
 the condition that you were never to know 
 it. For the rest, he was a blacksmith who 
 made a fortune, as Lady Canterbridge will 
 tell you." 
 
 " How very odd how kind, I mean ! I 
 should like to have been civil to him on 
 Frank's account alone." 
 
 "I should see him on business and be 
 civil to him afterwards." Sir Robert re- 
 ceived the American's levity with his usual 
 seriousness. 
 
 " No, they must come here for Christmas. 
 His daughter is ? " 
 
 "Araminta Eulalie Sharpe," said Brad- 
 ley, in defiant memory of Lady Canter- 
 bridge. 
 
 Sir Robert winced audibly. "I shall 
 rely on you, my dear boy, to help me make 
 it pleasant for them," he said. 
 
 Christmas came, but not Minty. It drew 
 a large contingent from Oldenhurst to the 
 quaint old church, who came to view the 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE S1EK8AS. 163 
 
 green-wreathed monuments, and walls spot- 
 ted with crimson berries, as if with the blood 
 of former Oldenhurst warriors, and to im- 
 press the wondering villagers with the inef- 
 fable goodness and bounty of the Creator 
 towards the Lords of Oldenhurst and their 
 friends. Sir Robert, a little gouty, kept the 
 house, and Bradley, somewhat uneasy at the 
 Sharpes' absence, but more distrait with 
 other thoughts, wandered listlessly in the 
 long library. At the lower angle it was em- 
 bayed into the octagon space of a former 
 tower, which was furnished as a quaint re- 
 cess for writing or study, pierced through its 
 enormous walls with a lance-shaped window, 
 hidden by heavy curtains. He was gazing 
 abstractedly at the melancholy eyes of Sir 
 Percival, looking down from the dark panel 
 opposite, when he heard the crisp rustle of 
 a skirt. Lady Canterbridge, tightly and 
 stiffly buttoned in black from her long nar- 
 row boots to her slim, white-collared neck, 
 stood beside him with a prayer-book in her 
 ungloved hand. Bradley colored quickly ; 
 the penetrating incense of the Christmas 
 
164 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 boughs and branches that decked the walls 
 and ceilings, mingled with some indefinable 
 intoxicating aura from the woman at his side, 
 confused his senses. He seemed to be losing 
 himself in some forgotten past coeval with 
 the long, quaintly-lighted room, the rich 
 hangings, and the painted ancestor of this 
 handsome woman. He recovered himself 
 with an effort, and said, " You are going to 
 church? " 
 
 " I may meet them coming home ; it 's all 
 the same. You like him?" she said ab- 
 ruptly, pointing to the portrait. " I thought 
 you did not care for that sort of man over 
 there." 
 
 " A man like that must have felt the im- 
 potence of his sacrifice before he died, and 
 that condoned everything," said Bradley, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Then you don't think him a fool ? Bob 
 says it was a fair bargain for a title and an 
 office, and that by dying he escaped trial 
 and the confiscation of what he had." 
 
 Bradley did not reply. 
 
 " I am disturbing your illusions again. 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 165 
 
 Yet I rather like them. I think you are 
 quite capable of a sacrifice perhaps you 
 know what it is already." 
 
 He felt that she was looking at him ; he 
 felt equally that he could not respond with 
 a commonplace. He was silent. 
 
 " I have offended you again, Mr. Brad- 
 ley," she said. "Please be Christian, and 
 pardon me. You know this is a season of 
 peace and goodwill." She raised her blue 
 eyes at the same moment to the Christmas 
 decorations on the ceiling. They were 
 standing before the parted drapery of the 
 lance window. Midway between the arched 
 curtains hung a spray of mistletoe the 
 conceit of a mischievous housemaid. Their 
 eyes met it simultaneously. 
 
 Bradley had Lady Canterbridge's slim, 
 white hand in his own. The next moment 
 voices were heard in the passage, and the 
 door nearly opposite to them opened delib- 
 erately. The idea of their apparent seclu- 
 sion and half compromising attitude flashed 
 through the minds of both at the same time. 
 Lady Canterbridge stepped quickly back- 
 
166 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIEKRAS. 
 
 ward, drawing Bradley with her, into the 
 embrasure of the window ; the folds of the 
 curtain swung together and concealed them 
 from view. 
 
 The door had been opened by the foot- 
 man, ushering in a broad-shouldered man, 
 who was carrying a travelling-bag and an 
 umbrella in his hand. Dropping into an 
 arm-chair before the curtain, he waved away 
 the footman, who, even now, mechanically 
 repeated a previously vain attempt to relieve 
 the stranger of his luggage. 
 
 "You leave that 'ere grip sack where it 
 is, young man, and tell Sir Robert Mainwar- 
 ing that Mr. Demander Sharpe, of Cali- 
 f orny, wishes to see him on business on 
 business, do ye' hear? You hang outer 
 that sentence on business 1 it 's about ez 
 much ez you kin carry, I reckon, and leave 
 that grip sack alone." 
 
 From behind the curtain Bradley made a 
 sudden movement to go forward ; but Lady 
 Canterbridge now quite pale but collected 
 restrained him with a warning movement 
 of her hand. Sir Robert's stick and halting 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERBAS. 167 
 
 step were next heard along the passage, and 
 he entered the room. His simple and cour- 
 teous greeting of the stranger was instantly 
 followed by a renewed attack upon the " grip 
 sack," and a renewed defence of it by the 
 stranger. 
 
 "No, Sir Robert," said the voice argu- 
 mentatively, " this yer 's a business inter- 
 view, and until it 's over if you please 
 we '11 remain ez we air. I 'm Demander 
 Sharpe, of Californy, and I and my darter, 
 Minty, oncet had the pleasure of knowing 
 your boy over thar, and of meeting him agin 
 the other day at Nice." 
 
 " I think," said Sir Robert's voice gently, 
 " that these are not the only claims you have 
 upon me. I have only a day or two ago 
 heard from Mr. Bradley that I owe to your 
 generous hands and your disinterested liber- 
 ality the saving of my California fortune." 
 
 There was the momentary sound of a 
 pushed-back chair, a stamping of feet, and 
 then Mr. Sharpe's voice rose high with the 
 blacksmith's old querulous aggrieved utter- 
 ance : 
 
168 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 " So it 's that finikin', conceited Bradley 
 agin that 's giv' me away ! Ef that man's 
 all-fired belief in his being the Angel Ga- 
 briel and Dan'l Webster rolled inter one 
 don't beat anythinM I suppose that high- 
 flyin' jay-bird kalkilated to put you and me 
 and my gal and yer boy inter harness for his 
 four hoss chariot and he sittin' kam on the 
 box drivin' us ! Why don't he tend to his 
 own business, and look arter his own con- 
 cerns instead o' leaving Jinny Bradley 
 and Loo Macy dependent on Kings and 
 Queens and titled folks gen'rally, and he, 
 Jim Bradley, philanderin' with another 
 man's wife while that thar man is hard at 
 work tryin' to make a honest livin' fer his 
 wife, buckin' agin faro an' the tiger gen'rally 
 at Monaco ! Eh ? And that man a-inter- 
 meddlin' with me ! Ef," continued the voice 
 dropped to a tone of hopeless moral convic- 
 tion, " Ef there 's a man I mor'lly despise 
 it 's that finikin' Jim Bradley." 
 
 " You quite misunderstand me, my dear 
 sir," said Sir Robert's hurried voice; "he 
 told me you had pledged him to secrecy, and 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 169 
 
 he only revealed it to explain why you 
 wished to see me." 
 
 There was a grunt of half -placated wrath 
 from Sharpe, and then the voice resumed, 
 but more deliberately, " Well, to come back 
 to business : you 've got a boy, Francis, and 
 I 've got a darter, Araminty. They 've 
 sorter taken a shine to each other and they 
 want to get married. Mind yer wait a 
 moment ! it was n't allus so. No, sir ; 
 when my gal Araminty first seed your boy 
 in Calif orny she was poor, and she didn't 
 kalkilate to get inter anybody's family un- 
 beknownst or on sufferance. Then she got 
 rich and you got poor ; and then hold on 
 a minit ! she allows, does my girl, that 
 there ain't any nearer chance o' their making 
 a match than they were afore, for she is n't 
 goin' to hev it said that she married your 
 son fur the chance of some day becomin' 
 Lady Main waring." 
 
 "One moment, Mr. Sharpe," said the 
 voice of the Baronet, gravely : " I am both 
 flattered and pained by what I believe to be 
 the kindly object of your visit. Indeed, I 
 
170 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 may say I have gathered a suspicion of what 
 might be the sequel of this most unhappy ac- 
 quaintance of my son and your daughter ; 
 but I cannot believe that he has kept you in 
 ignorance of his unfortunate prospects and 
 his still more unfortunate state of health." 
 
 "When I told ye to hold on a minit," 
 continued the blacksmith's voice, with a 
 touch of querulousness in its accent, " that 
 was jist wot I was comin' to. I knowed 
 part of it from my own pocket, she knowed 
 the rest of it from his lip and the doctors she 
 interviewed. And then she says to me 
 sez my girl Minty 'Pop,' she sez, 'he's 
 got nothing to live for now but his title, and 
 that he never may live to get, so that I think 
 ye kin jist go, Pop, and fairly and squarely, 
 as a honest man, ask his father to let me 
 hev him.' Them 's my darter's own words, 
 Sir Eobert, and when I tell yer that she 's 
 got a million o' dollars to back them, ye 11 
 know she means business every time." 
 
 " Did Francis know that you were coming 
 here?" 
 
 " Bless ye, no ! He don't know that she 
 
A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 171 
 
 would have him. Ef it kem to that, he ain't 
 even asked her ! She would n't let him un- 
 till she was sure of you." 
 
 " Then you mean to say there is no en- 
 gagement ? " 
 
 " In course not. I reckoned to do the 
 square thing first with ye." 
 
 The halting step of the Baronet crossing 
 the room was heard distinctly. He had 
 stopped beside Sharpe. " My dear Mr. 
 Sharpe," he said, in a troubled voice, "I 
 cannot permit this sacrifice. It is too 
 too great ! " 
 
 " Then," said Sharpe's voice querulously, 
 " I 'm afraid we must do without your per- 
 mission. I did n't reckon to find a sort o' 
 British Jim Bradley in you. If you can't 
 permit my darter to sacrifice herself by mar- 
 ry in' your son, I can't permit her to sacrifice 
 her love and him by not marryin' him. So 
 I reckon this yer interview is over." 
 
 " I am afraid we are both old fools, Mr. 
 Sharpe ; but we will talk this over with 
 Lady Main waring. Come " There was 
 evidently a slight struggle near the chair 
 
172 A PHYLLIS OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 over some inanimate object. But the next 
 moment the Baronet's voice rose, persua- 
 sively, " Really, I must insist upon relieving 
 you of your bag and umbrella." 
 
 " Well, if you '11 let me telegraph * yes ' 
 to Minty, I don't care if yer do." 
 
 When the room was quiet again, Lady 
 Canterbridge and James Bradley silently 
 slipped from the curtain, and, without a word, 
 separated at the door. 
 
 There was a merry Christmas at Olden- 
 hurst and at Nice. But whether Minty's 
 loving sacrifice was accepted or not, or 
 whether she ever reigned as Lady Mainwar- 
 ing, or lived an untitled widow, I cannot 
 say. But as Oldenhurst still exists in all 
 its pride and power, it is presumed that 
 the peril that threatened its fortunes was 
 averted, and that if another heroine was not 
 found worthy of a frame in its picture-gal- 
 lery, at least it had been sustained as of old 
 by devotion and renunciation. 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 THEY had all known him as a shiftless, 
 worthless creature. From the time he first 
 entered Redwood Camp, carrying his entire 
 effects in a red handkerchief on the end of 
 a long-handled shovel, until he lazily drifted 
 out of it on a plank in the terrible inunda- 
 tion of '56, they never expected anything 
 better of him. In a community of strong 
 men with sullen virtues and charmingly fas- 
 cinating vices, he was tolerated as possessing 
 neither not even rising by any dominant 
 human weakness or ludicrous quality to the 
 importance of a butt. In the dramatis per- 
 sons of Redwood Camp he was a simple 
 " super " who had only passive, speech- 
 less r61es in those fierce dramas that were 
 sometimes unrolled beneath its green-cur- 
 tained pines. Nameless and penniless, he 
 
174 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 was overlooked by the census and ignored 
 by the tax collector, while in a hotly-con- 
 tested election for sheriff, when even the 
 head-boards of the scant cemetery were con- 
 sulted to fill the poll-lists, it was discovered 
 that neither candidate had thought fit to avail 
 himself of his actual vote. He was debarred 
 the rude heraldry of a nickname of achieve- 
 ment, and in a camp made up of " Euchre 
 Bills," "Poker Dicks," "Profane Pete," 
 and " Snap-shot Harry," was known vaguely 
 as " him," " Skeesicks," or " that coot." It 
 was remembered long after, with a feeling 
 of superstition, that he had never even met 
 with the dignity of an accident, nor received 
 the fleeting honor of a chance shot meant 
 for somebody else in any of the liberal and 
 broadly comprehensive encounters which 
 distinguished the camp. And the inunda- 
 tion that finally carried him out of it was 
 partly anticipated by his passive incompe- 
 tency, for while the others escaped or 
 were drowned in escaping he calmly 
 floated off on his plank without an opposing 
 effort. 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 175 
 
 For all that, Elijah Martin which was 
 his real name was far from being unamia- 
 ble or repellent. That he was cowardly, 
 untruthful, selfish, and lazy, was undoubt- 
 edly the fact ; perhaps it was his peculiar 
 misfortune that, just then, courage, frank- 
 ness, generosity, and activity were the dom- 
 inant factors in the life of Redwood Camp. 
 His submissive gentleness, his unquestioned 
 modesty, his half refinement, and his amia- 
 ble exterior consequently availed him noth- 
 ing against the fact that he was missed 
 during a raid of the Digger Indians, and 
 lied to account for it ; or that he lost his 
 right to a gold discovery by failing to make 
 it good against a bully, and selfishly kept 
 this discovery from the knowledge of the 
 carnp. Yet this weakness awakened no ani- 
 mosity in his companions, and it is probable 
 that the indifference of the camp to his fate 
 in this final catastrophe came purely from 
 a simple forgetfulness of one who at that 
 supreme moment was weakly incapable. 
 
 Such was the reputation and such the an- 
 tecedents of the man who, on the 15th of 
 
176 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 March, 1856, found himself adrift in a 
 swollen tributary of the Minyo. A spring 
 freshet of unusual volume had flooded the 
 adjacent river until, bursting its bounds, it 
 escaped through the narrow, wedge-shaped 
 valley that held Redwood Camp. For a 
 day and a night the surcharged river poured 
 half its waters through the straggling camp. 
 At the end of that time every vestige of the 
 little settlement was swept away ; all that 
 was left was scattered far and wide in the 
 country, caught in the hanging branches of 
 water-side willows and alders, embayed in 
 sluggish pools, dragged over submerged 
 meadows, and one fragment bearing up 
 Elijah Martin pursuing the devious 
 courses of an unknown tributary fifty miles 
 away. Had he been a rash, impatient man, 
 he would have been speedily drowned in 
 some earlier desperate attempt to reach the 
 shore ; had he been an ordinarily bold man, 
 he would have succeeded in transferring 
 himself to the branches of some obstructing 
 tree ; but he was neither, and he clung to 
 his broken raft-like berth with an endurance 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 177 
 
 that was half the paralysis of terror and half 
 the patience of habitual misfortune. Event- 
 ually he was caught in a side current, swept 
 to the bank, and cast ashore on an unex- 
 plored wilderness. 
 
 His first consciousness was one of hunger 
 that usurped any sentiment of gratitude for 
 his escape from drowning. As soon as his 
 cramped limbs permitted, he crawled out of 
 the bushes in search of food. He did not 
 know where he was ; there was no sign of 
 habitation or even occupation any- 
 where. He had been too terrified to notice 
 the direction in which he had drifted 
 even if he had possessed the ordinary knowl- 
 edge of a backwoodsman, which he did not. 
 He was helpless. In his bewildered state, 
 seeing a squirrel cracking a nut on the 
 branch of a hollow tree near him, he made a 
 half-frenzied dart at the frightened animal, 
 which ran away. But the same association 
 of ideas in his torpid and confused brain 
 impelled him to search for the squirrel's 
 hoard in the hollow of the tree. He ate the 
 few hazel-nuts he found there, ravenously. 
 
178 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 The purely animal instinct satisfied, he 
 seemed to have borrowed from it a certain 
 strength and intuition. He limped through 
 the thicket not unlike some awkward, shy 
 quadrumane, stopping here and there to 
 peer out through the openings over the 
 marshes that lay beyond. His sight, hear- 
 ing, and even the sense of smell had become 
 preternaturally acute. It was the latter 
 which suddenly arrested his steps with the 
 odor of dried fish. It had a significance 
 beyond the mere instincts of hunger it 
 indicated the contiguity of some Indian en- 
 campment. And as such it meant danger, 
 torture, and death. 
 
 He stopped, trembled violently, and tried 
 to collect his scattered senses. Redwood 
 Camp had embroiled itself needlessly and 
 brutally with the surrounding Indians, and 
 only held its own against them by reckless 
 courage and unerring marksmanship. The 
 frequent use of a casual wandering Indian 
 as a target for the practising rifles of its 
 members had kept up an undying hatred in 
 the heart of the aborigines and stimulated 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 179 
 
 them to terrible and isolated reprisals. The 
 scalped and skinned dead body of Jack 
 Trainer, tied on his horse and held hideously 
 upright by a cross of wood behind his sad- 
 dle, had passed, one night, a slow and 
 ghastly apparition, into camp ; the corpse of 
 Dick Ryner had been found anchored on 
 the river-bed, disembowelled and filled with 
 stone and gravel. The solitary and unpro- 
 tected member of Redwood Camp who fell 
 into the enemy's hands was doomed. 
 
 Elijah Martin remembered this, but his 
 fears gradually began to subside in a certain 
 apathy of the imagination, which, perhaps, 
 dulled his apprehensions and allowed the in- 
 stinct of hunger to become again uppermost. 
 He knew that the low bark tents, or wig- 
 wams, of the Indians were hung with strips 
 of dried salmon, and his whole being was 
 now centred upon an attempt to stealthily 
 procure a delicious morsel. As yet he had 
 distinguished no other sign of life or habita- 
 tion; a few moments later, however, and 
 grown bolder with an animal-like trustful- 
 ness in his momentary security, he crept out 
 
180 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 of the thicket and found himself near a 
 long, low mound or burrow-like structure of 
 mud and bark on the river-bank. A single 
 narrow opening, not unlike the entrance of 
 an Esquimau hut, gave upon the river. 
 Martin had no difficulty in recognizing the 
 character of the building. It was a " sweat- 
 house," an institution common to nearly all 
 the aboriginal tribes of California. Half a 
 religious temple, it was also half a sanitary 
 asylum, was used as a Russian bath or super- 
 heated vault, from which the braves, swelter- 
 ing and stiffling all night, by smothered fires, 
 at early dawn plunged, perspiring, into the 
 ice-cold river. The heat and smoke were 
 further utilized to dry and cure the long 
 strips of fish hanging from the roof, and it 
 was through the narrow aperture that served 
 as a chimney that the odor escaped which 
 Martin had detected. He knew that, as the 
 bathers only occupied the house from mid- 
 night to early morn, it was now probably 
 empty. He advanced confidently toward it. 
 He was a little surprised to find that the 
 small open space between it and the river 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 181 
 
 was occupied by a rude scaffolding, like that 
 on which certain tribes exposed their dead, 
 but in this instance it only contained the 
 feathered leggings, fringed blanket, and 
 eagle-plumed head-dress of some brave. He 
 did not, however, linger in this plainly visi- 
 ble area, but quickly dropped on all-fours 
 and crept into the interior of the house. 
 Here he completed his feast with the fish, 
 and warmed his chilled limbs on the embers 
 of the still smouldering fires. It was while 
 drying his tattered clothes and shoeless feet 
 that he thought of the dead brave's useless 
 leggings and moccasins, and it occurred to 
 him that he would be less likely to attract 
 the Indians' attention from a distance and 
 provoke a ready arrow, if he were disguised 
 as one of them. Crawling out again, he 
 quickly secured, not only the leggings, but 
 the blanket and head-dress, and putting 
 them on, cast his own clothes into the stream. 
 A bolder, more energetic, or more provident 
 man would have followed the act by quickly 
 making his way back to the thicket to re- 
 connoitre, taking with him a supply of fish 
 
182 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 for future needs. But Elijah Martin suc- 
 cumbed again to the recklessness of inertia ; 
 he yielded once more to the animal instinct 
 of momentary security. He returned to the 
 interior of the hut, curled himself again on 
 the ashes, and weakly resolving to sleep un- 
 til moonrise, and as weakly hesitating, ended 
 by falling into uneasy but helpless stupor. 
 When he awoke, the rising sun, almost 
 level with the low entrance to the sweat- 
 house, was darting its direct rays into the 
 interior, as if searching it with fiery spears. 
 He had slept ten hours. He rose trem- 
 blingly to his knees. Everything was quiet 
 without ; he might yet escape. He crawled 
 to the opening. The open space before it 
 was empty, but the scaffolding was gone. 
 The clear, keen air revived him. As he 
 sprang out, erect, a shout that nearly 
 stunned him. seemed to rise from the earth 
 on all sides. He glanced around him in a 
 helpless agony of fear. A dozen concentric 
 circles of squatting Indians, whose heads 
 were visible above the reeds, encompassed 
 the banks around the sunken base of the 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 183 
 
 sweat-house with successive dusky rings. 
 Every avenue of escape seemed closed. Per- 
 haps for that reason the attitude of his sur- 
 rounding captors was passive rather than 
 aggressive, and the shrewd, half-Hebraic 
 profiles nearest him expressed only stoical 
 waiting. There was a strange similarity of 
 expression in his own immovable apathy of 
 despair. His only sense of averting his fate 
 was a confused idea of explaining his intru- 
 sion. His desperate memory yielded a few 
 common Indian words. He pointed auto- 
 matically to himself and the stream. His 
 white lips moved. 
 
 " I come from the river ! " 
 A guttural cry, as if the whole assembly 
 were clearing their throats, went round the 
 different circles. The nearest rocked them- 
 selves to and fro and bent their feathered 
 heads toward him. A hollow-cheeked, de- 
 crepit old man arose and said, simply : 
 " It is he ! The great chief has come I " 
 
 He was saved. More than that, he was 
 recreated. For, by signs and intimations 
 
184 A DRIFT FROM RED WOOD CAMP. 
 
 he was quickly made aware that since the 
 death of their late chief, their medicine-men 
 had prophesied that his perfect successor 
 should appear miraculously before them, 
 borne noiselessly on the river from the sea, 
 in the plumes and insignia of his predeces- 
 sor. This mere coincidence of appearance 
 and costume might not have been convincing 
 to the braves had not Elijah Martin's actual 
 deficiencies contributed to their unquestioned 
 faith in him. Not only his inert possession 
 of the sweat-house and his apathetic attitude 
 in their presence, but his utter and complete 
 unlikeness to the white frontiersmen of their 
 knowledge and tradition creatures of fire 
 and sword and malevolent activity as well 
 as his manifest dissimilarity to themselves, 
 settled their conviction of his supernatural 
 origin. His gentle, submissive voice, his 
 yielding will, his lazy helplessness, the ab- 
 sence of strange weapons and fierce explo- 
 sives in his possession, his unwonted sobriety 
 all proved him an exception to his appar- 
 ent race that was in itself miraculous. For 
 it must be confessed that, in spite of the 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 185 
 
 cherished theories of most romances and all 
 statesmen and commanders, that fear is the 
 great civilizer of the savage barbarian, and 
 that he is supposed to regard the prowess of 
 the white man and his mysterious death- 
 dealing weapons as evidence of his supernat- 
 ural origin and superior creation, the facts 
 have generally pointed to the reverse. Eli- 
 jah Martin was not long in discovering that 
 when the Minyo hunter, with his obsolete 
 bow, dropped dead by a bullet from a view- 
 less and apparently noiseless space, it was 
 not considered the lightnings of an avenging 
 Deity, but was traced directly to the am- 
 bushed rifle of Kansas Joe, swayed by a 
 viciousness quite as human as their own ; 
 the spectacle of Blizzard Dick, verging on 
 delirium tremens, and riding "amuck" into 
 an Indian village with a revolver in each 
 hand, did not impress them as a supernat- 
 ural act, nor excite their respectful awe as 
 much as the less harmful frenzy of one of 
 their own medicine-men ; they were not in- 
 fluenced by implacable white gods, who re- 
 laxed only to drive - hard bargains and 
 
186 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 exchange mildewed flour and shoddy blan- 
 kets for their fish and furs. I am afraid 
 they regarded these raids of Christian civ- 
 ilization as they looked upon grasshopper- 
 plagues, famines, inundations, and epidem- 
 ics ; while an utterly impassive God washed 
 his hands of the means he had employed, 
 and even encouraged the faithful to resist 
 and overcome his emissaries the white 
 devils ! Had Elijah Martin been a student 
 of theology, he would have been struck with 
 the singular resemblance of these theories 
 although the application thereof was re- 
 versed to the Christian faith. But Elijah 
 Martin had neither the imagination of a 
 theologian nor the insight of a politician. 
 He only saw that he, hitherto ignored and 
 despised in a community of half-barbaric 
 men, now translated to a community of 
 men wholly savage, was respected and wor- 
 shipped ! 
 
 It might have turned a stronger head 
 than Elijah's. He was at first frightened, 
 fearful lest his reception concealed some hid- 
 den irony, or that, like the flower-crowned 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 187 
 
 victim of ancient sacrifice, he was exalted 
 and sustained to give importance and maj- 
 esty to some impending martyrdom. Then 
 he began to dread that his innocent deceit 
 if deceit it was should be discovered ; at 
 last, partly from meekness and partly from 
 the animal contentment of present security, 
 he accepted the situation. Fortunately for 
 him it was purely passive. The Great Chief 
 of the Minyo tribe was simply an expression- 
 less idol of flesh and blood. The previous 
 incumbent of that office had been an old 
 man, impotent and senseless of late years 
 through age and disease. The chieftains 
 and braves had consulted in council before 
 him, and perfunctorily submitted their deci- 
 sions, like offerings, to his unresponsive 
 shrine. In the same way, all material events 
 expeditions, trophies, industries were 
 supposed to pass before the dull, impassive 
 eyes of the great chief, for direct acceptance. 
 On the second day of Elijah's accession, two 
 of the braves brought a bleeding human 
 scalp before him. Elijah turned pale, trem- 
 bled, and averted his head, and then, remem- 
 
188 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 bering the danger of giving way to his weak- 
 ness, grew still more ghastly. The warriors 
 watched him with impassioned faces. A 
 grunt but whether of astonishment, dis- 
 sent, or approval, he could not tell went 
 round the circle. But the scalp was taken 
 away and never again appeared in his pres- 
 ence. 
 
 An incident still more alarming quickly 
 followed. Two captives, white men, se- 
 curely bound, were one day brought before 
 him on their way to the stake, followed by a 
 crowd of old and young squaws and chil- 
 dren. The unhappy Elijah recognized in 
 the prisoners two packers from a distant 
 settlement who sometimes passed through 
 Redwood Camp. An agony of terror, shame, 
 and remorse shook the pseudo chief to his 
 crest of high feathers, and blanched his face 
 beneath its paint and yellow ochre. To in- 
 terfere to save them from the torture they 
 were evidently to receive at the hands of 
 those squaws and children, according to cus- 
 tom, would be exposure and death to him 
 as well as themselves ; while to assist by his 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 189 
 
 passive presence at the horrible sacrifice of 
 his countrymen was too much for even his 
 weak selfishness. Scarcely knowing what 
 he did as the lugubrious procession passed 
 before him, he hurriedly hid his face in his 
 blanket and turned his back upon the scene. 
 There was a dead silence. The warriors 
 were evidently unprepared for this extraor- 
 dinary conduct of their chief. What might 
 have been their action it was impossible to 
 conjecture, for at that moment a little squaw, 
 perhaps impatient for the sport and partly 
 emboldened by the fact that she had been 
 selected, only a few days before, as the be- 
 trothed of the new chief, approached him 
 slyly from the other side. The horrified 
 eyes of Elijah, momentarily raised from his 
 blanket, saw and recognized her. The fee- 
 bleness of a weak nature, that dared not 
 measure itself directly with the real cause, 
 vented its rage on a secondary object. He 
 darted a quick glance of indignation and 
 hatred at the young girl. She ran back in 
 startled terror to her companions, a hurried 
 consultation followed, and in another mo- 
 
190 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 ment the whole bevy of girls, old women, 
 and children were on the wing, shrieking 
 and crying, to their wigwams. 
 
 "You see," said one of the prisoners coolly 
 to the other, in English, " I was right. They 
 never intended to do anything to us. It was 
 only a bluff. These Minyos are a different 
 sort from the other tribes. They never kill 
 anybody if they can help it." 
 
 " You're wrong," said the other, excitedly. 
 " It was that big chief there, with his head in 
 a blanket, that sent those dogs to the right 
 about. Hell ! did you see them run at just 
 a look from him ? He 's a high and mighty 
 feller, you bet. Look at his dignity ! " 
 
 " That 's so he ain't no slouch," said 
 the other, gazing at Elijah's muffled head, 
 
 critically. " D d if he ain't a born 
 
 king." 
 
 The sudden conflict and utter revulsion of 
 emotion that those simple words caused in 
 Elijah's breast was almost incredible. He 
 had been at first astounded by the revelation 
 of the peaceful reputation of the unknown 
 tribe he had been called upon to govern; 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 191 
 
 but even this comforting assurance was as 
 nothing compared to the greater revelations 
 implied in the speaker's praise of himself. 
 He, Elijah Martin! the despised, the re- 
 jected, the worthless outcast of Redwood 
 Camp, recognized as a "born king," a 
 leader ; his power felt by the very men who 
 had scorned him ! And he had done noth- 
 ing stop ! had he actually done nothing ? 
 Was it not possible that he was really what 
 they thought him ? His brain reeled under 
 the strong, unaccustomed wine of praise ; 
 acting upon his weak selfishness, it exalted 
 him for a moment to their measure of his 
 strength, even as their former belief in his 
 inefficiency had kept him down. Courage 
 is too often only the memory of past success. 
 This was his first effort ; he forgot he had 
 not earned it, even as he now ignored the 
 danger of earning it. The few words of 
 unconscious praise had fallen like the blade 
 of knighthood on his cowering shoulders; 
 he had risen ennobled from the contact. 
 Though his face was still muffled in his blan- 
 ket, he stood erect and seemed to have 
 gained in stature. 
 
192 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 The braves had remained standing irreso- 
 lute, and yet watchful, a few paces from 
 their captives. Suddenly, Elijah, still keep- 
 ing his back to the prisoners, turned upon 
 the braves, with blazing eyes, violently 
 throwing out his hands with the gesture of 
 breaking bonds. Like all sudden demon- 
 strations of undemonstrative men, it was ex- 
 travagant, weird, and theatrical. But it was 
 more potent than speech the speech that, 
 even if effective, would still have betrayed 
 him to his countrymen. The braves hur- 
 riedly cut the thongs of the prisoners ; 
 another impulsive gesture from Elijah, and 
 they, too, fled. When he lifted his eyes 
 cautiously from his blanket, captors and cap- 
 tives had dispersed in opposite directions, 
 and he was alone and triumphant ! 
 
 From that moment Elijah Martin was 
 another man. He went to bed that night in 
 an intoxicating dream of power ; he arose a 
 man of will, of strength. He read it in the 
 eyes of the braves, albeit at times averted in 
 wonder. He understood, now, that although 
 peace had been their habit and custom, they 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 193 
 
 had nevertheless sought to test his theories 
 of administration with the offering of the 
 scalps and the captives, and in this detection 
 of their common weakness he forgot his own. 
 Most heroes require the contrast of the un- 
 heroic to set them off ; and Elijah actually 
 found himself devising means for strength- 
 ening the defensive and offensive character 
 of the tribe, and was himself strengthened 
 by it. Meanwhile the escaped packers did 
 not fail to heighten the importance of their 
 adventure by elevating the character and 
 achievements of their deliverer ; and it was 
 presently announced throughout the frontier 
 settlements that the hitherto insignificant 
 and peaceful tribe of Minyos, who inhabited 
 a large territory bordering on the Pacific 
 Ocean, had developed into a powerful na- 
 tion, only kept from the war-path by a more 
 powerful but mysterious chief. The Gov- 
 ernment sent an Indian agent to treat with 
 them, in its usual half -paternal, half -aggres- 
 sive, and wholly inconsistent policy. Elijah, 
 who still retained the imitative sense and 
 adaptability to surroundings which belong 
 
194 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 to most lazy, impressible natures, and in 
 striped yellow and vermilion features looked 
 the chief he personated, met the agent with 
 silent and becoming* gravity. The council 
 was carried on by signs. Never before had 
 an Indian treaty been entered into with such 
 perfect knowledge of the intentions and de- 
 signs of the whites by the Indians, and such 
 profound ignorance of the qualities of the 
 Indians by the whites. It need scarcely be 
 said that the treaty was an unquestionable 
 Indian success. They did not give up their 
 arable lands ; what they did sell to the agent 
 they refused to exchange for extravagant- 
 priced shoddy blankets, worthless guns, damp 
 powder, and mouldy meal. They took pay 
 in dollars, and were thus enabled to open 
 more profitable commerce with the traders at 
 the settlements for better goods and better 
 bargains ; they simply declined beads, whis- 
 key, and Bibles at any price. The result 
 was that the traders found it profitable to 
 protect them from their countrymen, and the 
 chances of wantonly shooting down a possi- 
 ble valuable customer stopped the old indis- 
 
A DRIFT FROM RED WOOD CAMP. 195 
 
 criminate rifle-practice. The Indians were 
 allowed to cultivate their fields in peace. 
 Elijah purchased for them a few agricultu- 
 ral implements. The catching, curing, and 
 smoking of salmon became an important 
 branch of trade. They waxed prosperous 
 and rich ; they lost their nomadic habits 
 a centralized settlement bearing the external 
 signs of an Indian village took the place of 
 their old temporary encampments, but the 
 huts were internally an improvement on the 
 old wigwams. The dried fish were banished 
 from the tent-poles to long sheds especially 
 constructed for that purpose. The sweat- 
 house was no longer utilized for worldly pur- 
 poses. The wise and mighty Elijah did not 
 attempt to reform their religion, but to pre- 
 serve it in its integrity. 
 
 That these improvements and changes 
 were due to the influence of one man was 
 undoubtedly true, but that he was necessa- 
 rily a superior man did not follow. Elijah's 
 success was due partly to the fact that he 
 had been enabled to impress certain nega- 
 tive virtues, which were part of his own 
 
196 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 nature, upon a community equally consti- 
 tuted to receive them. Each was strength- 
 ened by the recognition in each other of the 
 unexpected value of those qualities ; each 
 acquired a confidence begotten of their suc- 
 cess. " He-hides-his-face" as Elijah Mar- 
 tin was known to the tribe after the episode 
 of the released captives, was really not so 
 much of an autocrat as many constitutional 
 rulers. 
 
 Two years of tranquil prosperity passed. 
 Elijah Martin, foundling, outcast, without 
 civilized ties or relationship of any kind, 
 forgotten by his countrymen, and lifted into 
 alien power, wealth, security, and respect, 
 became homesick ! 
 
 It was near the close of a summer after- 
 noon. He was sitting at the door of his 
 lodge, which overlooked, on one side, the 
 far-shining levels of the Pacific and, on 
 the other, the slow descent to the cultivated 
 meadows and banks of the Minyo River, 
 that debouched through a waste of salt- 
 marsh, beach-grass, sand-dunes, and foamy 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 197 
 
 estuary into the ocean. The headland, or 
 promontory the only eminence of the 
 Minyo territory had been reserved by 
 him for his lodge, partly on account of its 
 isolation from the village at its base, and 
 partly for the view it commanded of his 
 territory. Yet his wearying and discon- 
 tented eyes were more often found on the 
 ocean, as a possible highway of escape from 
 his irksome position, than on the plain and 
 the distant range of mountains, so closely 
 connected with the nearer past and his for- 
 mer detractors. In his vague longing he 
 had no desire to return to them, even in tri- 
 umph ; in his present security there still 
 lingered a doubt of his ability to cope with 
 the old conditions. It was more like his 
 easy, indolent nature which revived in his 
 prosperity to trust to this least practical 
 and remote solution of his trouble. His 
 homesickness was as vague as his plan for 
 escape from it ; he did not know exactly 
 what he regretted, but it was probably some 
 life he had not enjoyed, some pleasure that 
 had escaped his former incompetency and 
 poverty. 
 
198 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 He had sat thus a hundred times, as aim- 
 lessly blinking at the vast possibilities of the 
 shining sea beyond, turning his back upon 
 the nearer and more practicable mountains, 
 lulled by the far-off beating of monotonous 
 rollers, the lonely cry of the curlew and 
 plover, the drowsy changes of alternate 
 breaths of cool, fragrant reeds and warm, 
 spicy sands that blew across his eyelids, and 
 succumbed to sleep, as he had done a hun- 
 dred times before. The narrow strips of 
 colored cloth, insignia of his dignity, flapped 
 lazily from his tent-poles, and at last seemed 
 to slumber with him ; the shadows of the 
 leaf-tracery thrown by the bay-tree, on the 
 ground at his feet, scarcely changed its pat- 
 tern. Nothing moved but the round, rest- 
 less, berry-like eyes of Wachita, his child- 
 wife, the former heroine of the incident with 
 the captive packers, who sat near her lord, 
 armed with a willow wand, watchful of 
 intruding wasps, sand-flies, and even the 
 more ostentatious advances of a rotund and 
 clerical-looking humble-bee, with his monot- 
 onous homily. Content, dumb, submissive, 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 199 
 
 vacant, at such times, Wachita, debarred 
 her husband's confidences through the native 
 customs and his own indifferent taciturn- 
 ity, satisfied herself by gazing at him with 
 the wondering but ineffectual sympathy of 
 a faithful dog. Unfortunately for Elijah 
 her purely mechanical ministration could 
 not prevent a more dangerous intrusion 
 upon his security. 
 
 He awoke with a light start, and eyes 
 that gradually fixed upon the woman a look 
 of returning consciousness. Wachita pointed 
 timidly to the village below. 
 
 " The Messenger of the Great White 
 Father has come to-day, with his wagons 
 and horses ; he would see the chief of the 
 Minyos, but I would not disturb my lord." 
 
 Elijah's brow contracted. Relieved of 
 its characteristic metaphor, he knew that 
 this meant that the new Indian agent had 
 made his usual official visit, and had exhib- 
 ited the usual anxiety to see the famous 
 chieftain. 
 
 " Good ! " he said. " White Rabbit [his 
 lieutenant] will see the Messenger and ex- 
 change gifts. It is enough." 
 
200 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 " The white messenger has brought his 
 wangee [white] woman with him. They 
 would look upon the face of him. who hides 
 it," continued Wachita, dubiously. " They 
 would that Wachita should bring them 
 nearer to where my lord is, that they might 
 see him when he knew it not." 
 
 Elijah glanced moodily at his wife, with 
 the half suspicion with which he still re- 
 garded her alien character. " Then let 
 Wachita go back to the squaws and old 
 women, and let her hide herself with them 
 until the wangee strangers are gone," he 
 said, curtly. " I have spoken. Go ! " 
 
 Accustomed to these abrupt dismissals, 
 which did not necessarily indicate displeas- 
 ure, Wachita disappeared without a word. 
 Elijah, who had risen, remained for a few 
 moments leaning against the tent-poles, gaz- 
 ing abstractedly toward the sea. The bees 
 droned uninterruptedly in his ears, the far- 
 off roll of the breakers came to him dis- 
 tinctly; but suddenly, with greater distinct- 
 ness, came the murmur of a woman's voice. 
 
 " He don't look savage a bit ! Why, he 's 
 real handsome." 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 201 
 
 " Hush! you " said a second voice, in 
 a frightened whisper. 
 
 " But if he did hear he could n't under- 
 stand," returned the first voice. A sup- 
 pressed giggle followed. 
 
 Luckily, Elijah's natural and acquired 
 habits of repression suited the emergency. 
 He did not move, although he felt the quick 
 blood fly to his face, and the voice of the 
 first speaker had suffused him with a strange 
 and delicious anticipation. He restrained 
 himself, though the words she had naively 
 dropped were filling him with new and trem- 
 ulous suggestion. He was motionless, even 
 while he felt that the vague longing and 
 yearning which had possessed him hitherto 
 was now mysteriously taking some unknown 
 form and action. 
 
 The murmuring ceased. The humble- 
 bee's drone again became ascendant a 
 sudden fear seized him. She was going ; 
 he should never see her ! While he had 
 stood there a dolt and sluggard, she had sat- 
 isfied her curiosity and stolen away. With 
 a sudden yielding to impulse, he darted 
 
202 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 quickly in the direction where he had heard 
 her voice. The thicket moved, parted, 
 crackled, and rustled, and then undulated 
 thirty feet before him in a long wave, as if 
 from the passage of some lithe, invisible 
 figure. But at the same moment a little cry, 
 half of alarm, half of laughter, broke from 
 his very feet, and a bent manzanito-bush, re- 
 laxed by frightened fingers, flew back against 
 his breast. Thrusting it hurriedly aside, 
 his stooping, eager face came almost in con- 
 tact with the pink, flushed cheeks and tan- 
 gled curls of a woman's head. He was so 
 near, her moist and laughing eyes almost 
 drowned his eager glance ; her parted lips 
 and white teeth were so close to his that her 
 quick breath took away his own. 
 
 She had dropped on one knee, as her com- 
 panion fled, expecting he would overlook her 
 as he passed, but his direct onset had ex- 
 tracted the feminine outcry. Yet even then 
 she did not seem greatly frightened. 
 
 " It 's only a joke, sir," she said, coolly 
 lifting herself to her feet by grasping his 
 arm. " I 'm Mrs. Dall, the Indian agent's 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 203 
 
 wife. They said you wouldn't let any- 
 body see you and / determined I would. 
 That 's all ! " She stopped, threw back her 
 tangled curls behind her ears, shook the 
 briers and thorns from her skirt, and added : 
 "Well, I reckon you aren't afraid of a 
 woman, are you? So no harm's done. 
 Good-by ! " 
 
 She drew slightly back as if to retreat, but 
 the elasticity of the manzanito against which 
 she was leaning threw her forward once 
 more. He again inhaled the perfume of 
 her hair ; he saw even the tiny freckles that 
 darkened her upper lip and brought out the 
 moist, red curve below. A sudden recollec- 
 tion of a playmate of his vagabond childhood 
 flashed across his mind ; a wild inspiration 
 of lawlessness, begotten of his past experi- 
 ence, his solitude, his dictatorial power, and 
 the beauty of the woman before him, mounted 
 to his brain. He threw his arms passion- 
 ately around her, pressed his lips to hers, 
 and with a half-hysterical laugh drew back 
 and disappeared in the thicket. 
 
 Mrs. Dall remained for an instant dazed 
 
204 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 and stupefied. Then she lifted her arm me- 
 chanically, and with her sleeve wiped her 
 bruised mouth and the ochre-stain that his 
 paint had left, like blood, upon her cheek. 
 Her laughing face had become instantly 
 grave, but not from fear ; her dark eyes had 
 clouded, but not entirely with indignation. 
 She suddenly brought down her hand sharply 
 against her side with a gesture of discovery. 
 " That 's no Injun ! " she said, with 
 prompt decision. The next minute she 
 plunged back into the trail again, and the 
 dense foliage once more closed around her. 
 But as she did so the broad, vacant face and 
 the mutely wondering eyes of Wachita rose, 
 like a placid moon, between the branches of 
 a tree where they had been hidden, and 
 shone serenely and impassively after her. 
 
 A month elapsed. But it was a month 
 filled with more experience to Elijah than 
 his past two years of exaltation. In the 
 first few days following his meeting with 
 Mrs. Dall, he was possessed by terror, 
 mingled with flashes of desperation, at the 
 
A DRIFT FROM RED WOOD CAMP. 205 
 
 remembrance of his rash imprudence. His 
 recollection of extravagant frontier chivalry 
 to woman-kind, and the swift retribution of 
 the insulted husband or guardian, alternately 
 filled him with abject fear or extravagant 
 recklessness. At times prepared for flight, 
 even to the desperate abandonment of him- 
 self in a canoe to the waters of the Pacific : 
 at times he was on the point of inciting his 
 braves to attack the Indian agency and pre- 
 cipitate the war that he felt would be in- 
 evitable. As the days passed, and there 
 seemed to be no interruption to his friendly 
 relations with the agency, with that relief a 
 new, subtle joy crept into Elijah's heart. 
 The image of the agent's wife framed in the 
 leafy screen behind his lodge, the perfume 
 of her hair and breath mingled with the 
 spicing of the bay, the brief thrill and tanta- 
 lization of the stolen kiss still haunted him. 
 Through his long, shy abstention from 
 society, and his two years of solitary exile, 
 the fresh beauty of this young Western wife, 
 in whom the frank artlessness of girlhood 
 still lingered, appeared to him like a supe- 
 
206 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 rior creation. He forgot his vague longings 
 in the inception of a more tangible but 
 equally unpractical passion. He remembered 
 her unconscious and spontaneous admiration 
 of him ; he dared to connect it with her for- 
 giving silence. If she had withheld her con- 
 fidences from her husband, he could hope 
 he knew not exactly what ! 
 
 One afternoon Wachita put into his hand 
 a folded note. With an instinctive presenti- 
 ment of its contents, Elijah turned red and 
 embarrassed in receiving it from the woman 
 who was recognized as his wife. But the 
 impassive, submissive manner of this house- 
 hold drudge, instead of touching his con- 
 science, seemed to him a vulgar and brutal 
 acceptance of the situation that dulled what- 
 ever compunction he might have had. He 
 opened the note and read hurriedly as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " You took a great freedom with me the 
 other day, and I am justified in taking one 
 with you now. I believe you understand 
 English as well as I do. If you want to ex- 
 plain that, and your conduct to me, I will be 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 207 
 
 at the same place this afternoon. My friend 
 will accompany me, but she need not hear 
 what you have to say." 
 
 Elijah read the letter, which might have 
 been written by an ordinary school-girl, as if 
 it had conveyed the veiled rendezvous of a 
 princess. The reserve, caution, and shyness 
 which had been the safeguard of his weak 
 nature were swamped in a flow of immature 
 passion. He flew to the interview with the 
 eagerness and inexperience of first love. He 
 was completely at her mercy. So utterly 
 was he subjugated by her presence that she 
 did not even run the risk of his passion. 
 Whatever sentiment might have mingled 
 with her curiosity, she was never conscious 
 of a necessity to guard herself against it. 
 At this second meeting she was in full pos- 
 session of his secret. He had told her every- 
 thing ; she had promised nothing in return 
 she had not even accepted anything. 
 Even her actual after-relations to the de- 
 nouement of his passion are still shrouded in 
 mystery. 
 . Nevertheless, Elijah lived two weeks on 
 
208 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 the unsubstantial memory of this meeting. 
 What might have followed could not be 
 known, for at the end of that time an out- 
 rage so atrocious that even the peaceful 
 Minyos were thrilled with savage indigna- 
 tion was committed on the outskirts of the 
 village. An old chief, who had been spe- 
 cially selected to deal with the Indian agent, 
 and who kept a small trading outpost, had 
 been killed and his goods despoiled by a 
 reckless Kedwood packer. The murderer 
 had coolly said that he was only " serving 
 out " the tool of a fraudulent imposture on 
 the Government, and that he dared the arch- 
 impostor himself, the so-called Minyo chief, 
 to help himself. A wave of ungovernable 
 fury surged up to the very tent-poles of Eli- 
 jah's lodge and demanded vengeance. Eli- 
 jah trembled and hesitated. In the thraldom 
 of his selfish passion for Mrs. Dall he dared 
 not contemplate a collision with her country- 
 men. He would have again sought refuge 
 in his passive, non-committal attitude, but 
 he knew the impersonal character of Indian 
 retribution and compensation a sacrifice 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 209 
 
 of equal value, without reference to the cul- 
 pability of the victim and he dreaded some 
 spontaneous outbreak. To prevent the en- 
 forced expiation of the crime by some inno- 
 cent brother packer, he was obliged to give 
 orders for the pursuit and arrest of the crim- 
 inal, secretly hoping for his escape or the in- 
 terposition of some circumstance to avert his 
 punishment. A day of sullen expectancy to 
 the old men and squaws in camp, of gloomy 
 anxiety to Elijah alone in his lodge, followed 
 the departure of the braves on the war-path. 
 It was midnight when they returned. Eli- 
 jah, who from his habitual reserve and the 
 accepted etiquette of his exalted station had 
 remained impassive in his tent, only knew 
 from the guttural rejoicings of the squaws 
 that the expedition had been successful and 
 the captive was in their hands. At any other 
 time ha might have thought it an evidence 
 of some growing scepticism of his infallibil- 
 ity of judgment and a diminution of respect 
 that they did not confront him with their 
 prisoner. But he was too glad to escape 
 from the danger of exposure and possible ar- 
 
210 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 raignment of his past life by the desperate 
 captive, even though it might not have been 
 understood by the spectators. He reflected 
 that the omission might have arisen from 
 their recollection of his previous aversion to 
 a retaliation on other prisoners. Enough 
 that they would wait his signal for the tor- 
 ture and execution at sunrise the next day. 
 
 The night passed slowly. It is more than 
 probable that the selfish and ignoble tor- 
 ments of the sleepless and vacillating judge 
 were greater than those of the prisoner who 
 dozed at the stake between his curses. Yet 
 it was part of Elijah's fatal weakness that 
 his kinder and more human instincts were 
 dominated even at that moment by his law- 
 less passion for the Indian agent's wife, and 
 his indecision as to the fate of his captive 
 was as much due to this preoccupation as to 
 a selfish consideration of her relations to the 
 result. He hated the prisoner for his infe- 
 licitous and untimely crime, yet he could not 
 make up his mind to his death. He paced 
 the ground before his lodge in dishonorable 
 incertitude. The small eyes of the submis- 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 211 
 
 sive Wachita watched him with vague solici- 
 tude. 
 
 Toward morning he was struck by a shame- 
 ful inspiration. He would creep unperceived 
 to the victim's side, unloose his bonds, and 
 bid him fly to the Indian agency. There he 
 was to inform Mrs. Dall that her husband's 
 safety depended upon his absenting himself 
 for a few days, but that she was to remain 
 and communicate with Elijah. She would 
 understand everything, perhaps ; at least she 
 would know that the prisoner's release was 
 to please her, but even if she did not, no 
 harm would be done, a white man's life 
 would be saved, and his real motive would 
 not be suspected. He turned with feverish 
 eagerness to the lodge. Wachita had disap- 
 peared probably to join the other women. 
 It was well ; she would not suspect him. 
 
 The tree to which the doomed man was 
 bound was, by custom, selected nearest the 
 chief's lodge, within its sacred enclosure, 
 with no other protection than that offered by 
 its reserved seclusion and the outer semicir- 
 cle of warriors' tents before it. To escape, 
 
212 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 
 
 the captive would therefore have to pass be- 
 side the chief's lodge to the rear and descend 
 the hill toward the shore. Elijah would 
 show him the way, and make it appear as if 
 he had escaped unaided. As he glided into 
 the shadow of a group of pines, he could 
 dimly discern the outline of the destined vic- 
 tim, secured against one of the larger trees 
 in a sitting posture, with his head fallen for- 
 ward on his breast as if in sleep. But at the 
 same moment another figure glided out from 
 the shadow and approached the fatal tree. 
 It was Wachita ! 
 
 He stopped in amazement. But in another 
 instant a flash of intelligence made it clear. 
 He remembered her vague uneasiness and 
 solicitude at his agitation, her sudden disap- 
 pearance ; she had fathomed his perplexity, 
 as she had once before. Of her own accord 
 she was going to release the prisoner ! The 
 knife to cut his cords glittered in her hand. 
 Brave and faithful animal ! 
 
 He held his breath as he drew nearer. 
 But, to his horror, the knife suddenly flashed 
 in the air and darted down, again and again, 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 213 
 
 upon the body of the helpless man. There 
 was a convulsive struggle, but no outcry, and 
 the next moment the body hung limp and 
 inert in its cords. Elijah would himself 
 have fallen, half-fainting, against a tree, bat, 
 by a revulsion of feeling, came the quick 
 revelation that the desperate girl had rightly 
 solved the problem ! She had done what he 
 ought to have done and his loyalty and 
 manhood were preserved. That conviction 
 and the courage to act upon it to have 
 called the sleeping braves to witness his 
 sacrifice would have saved him, but it was 
 ordered otherwise. 
 
 As the girl rapidly passed him he threw 
 out his hand and seized her wrist. " Who 
 did you do this for ? " he demanded. 
 
 " For you," she said, stupidly. 
 
 " And why ? " 
 
 " Because you no kill him you love his 
 squaw." 
 
 " His squaw ! " He staggered back. A 
 terrible suspicion flashed upon him. He 
 dashed Wachita aside and ran to the tree. 
 It was the body of the Indian agent ! Abo- 
 
214 A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CRMP. 
 
 riginal justice had been satisfied. The war- 
 riors had not caught the murderer, but, true 
 to their idea of vicarious retribution, had 
 determined upon the expiatory sacrifice of a 
 life as valuable and innocent as the one they 
 
 had lost. 
 
 
 
 " So the Gov'rinent hev at last woke up 
 and wiped out them cussed Digger Minyos," 
 said Snap-shot Harry, as he laid down the 
 newspaper, in the brand-new saloon of the 
 brand-new town of Redwood. " I see they 've 
 stampeded both banks of the Minyo River, 
 and sent off a lot to the reservation. I reckon 
 the soldiers at Fort Cass got sick o' senti- 
 ment after those hounds killed the Injun 
 agent, and are beginning to agree with us 
 that the only ' good Injun ' is a dead one." 
 
 "And it turns out that that wonderful 
 chief, that them two packers used to rave 
 about, woz about as big a devil ez any, and 
 tried to run off with the agent's wife, only 
 the warriors killed her. I 'd like to know 
 what become of him. Some says he was 
 killed, others allow that he got away. I 've 
 
A DRIFT FROM REDWOOD CAMP. 215 
 
 heerd tell that he was originally some kind 
 of Methodist preacher ! a kind o' saint 
 that got a sort o' spiritooal holt on the old 
 squaws and children." 
 
 " Why don't you ask old Skeesicks ? I see 
 he's back here ag'in and grubbin' along 
 at a dollar a day on tailin's. He 's been 
 somewhere up north, they say." 
 
 "What, Skeesicks? that shiftless, o'n'ry 
 cuss ! You bet he wus n't anywhere where 
 there was danger or fighting. Why, you 
 might as well hev suspected him of being the 
 big chief himself! There he comes ask 
 him." 
 
 And the laughter was so general that 
 Elijah Martin alias Skeesicks lounging 
 shyly into the bar-room, joined in it weakly. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE 
 RECALL 
 
N9 562241 
 
 Harte, B. 
 
 A Phyllis of 
 the Sierras* 
 
 PS1829 
 
 P4 
 
 1888 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS