mt. m A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS BRET HARTE'S WORKS. Library Edition, complete in Six Vols. crown 8vo. cloth extra, 6s. each. BRET HARTE'S COLLECTED WORKS. LIBRARY EDITION. Arranged and Revised by the Author. Vol. I. COMPLETE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS. With Steel Portrait, and Introduction by Author. Vol. II. EARLIER PAPERS LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, and other Sketches BOHEMIAN PAPERS SPANISH AND AMERICAN LEGENDS. Vol. III. TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS EASTERN SKETCHES. Vol. IV. GABRIEL CONROY. Vol. V. STORIES CONDENSED NOVELS, &c. Vol. VI. TALES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. THE SELECT WORKS OF BRET HARTE, in Prose and Poetry. With Introductory Essay by J. M. BELLEW, Portrait of the Author, and 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, js. 6d. BRET HARTE'S COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS. Author's Copyright Edition. Printed on Hand-made Paper, and bound in buckram. Crown 8vo. 4$. 6d. THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE. With 28 Original Drawings by KATE GREEN AW AY, reproduced in Colours by EDMUND EVANS. Small 410. boards 55. Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 3$. 6ahead, occasionally dropping a word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing at her face. When they reached the buggy he lifted her into it carefully, and perpendicularly it struck her afterwards, very much as if she had been a transplanted sapling with bared and sensitive roots and then gravely took his place beside her. ' Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am,' he said, gathering up the reins, ' I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around. My name is Bowers, of Mendocino ; I reckon there ain't much that grows in the way o' stannin' timber on the Pacific Slope that I don't know and can't locate, though I do say it. I've got ez big a mill, and ez big a run in my district, as there is anywhere. Ef you're ever up my way, you ask for Bowers Jim Bowers and that's me' There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation between strangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 59 other's foibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superior woman, naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped would reassure her that she was not compromising herself in accepting his civility, and so satisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On the other hand, the woman regained her self- possession by this exhibition of Mr. Bowers' s vanity, and, revived by the refreshing breeze caused by the rapid motion of the buggy along the road, thanked him graciously. ' I suppose there are many strangers at the Green Springs Hotel,' she said, after a pause. ' I didn't get to see 'em, as I only put up my hoss there,' he replied. * But I know the stage took some away this mornin' : it seemed pretty well loaded up when I passed it.' The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as a possible return of her former nervous weakness. Her attention must at once be distracted at any cost even con- versation. ' Perhaps,' he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, ' I'm a-talkin' to Mrs. McFadden ? ' 60 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS ' No,' said the woman, abstractedly. ' Then it must be Mrs. Delatour ? There are only two township lots on that cross-road.' ' My name is Delatcur,' she said, somewhat wearily. Mr, Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at all anxious to know her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggest that there was nothing more to say. He would, of course, have preferred to ask her if she had read the poetry about the Underbrush, and if she knew the poetess, and what she thought of it ; but the fact that she appeared to be an ' eddicated ' woman made him sensitive of dis- playing technical ignorance in his manner of talking about it. She might ask him if it was ' subjective ' or * objective ' two words he had heard used at the Debating Society at Men- docino on the question, ' Is poetry morally beneficial ? ' For a few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiative in conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as if appreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some relief in monotonous expression, talked mechanically, A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 61 deliberately but unostentatiously about herself. So colourless was her intonation that at times it did not seem as if she was talking to him, but repeating some conversation she had held with another. She had lived there ever since she had been in California. Her husband had bought the Spanish title to the property when they first married. The property at his death was found to be greatly involved ; she had been obliged to part with much of it to support her children four girls and a boy. She had been compelled to withdraw the girls from the convent at Santa Clara to help about the house ; the boy was too young she feared, too shiftless to do anything. The farm did not pay ; the land was poor ; she knew nothing about farming ; she had been brought up in New Orleans, where her father had been a judge, and she didn't understand country life. Of course she had been married too young as all girls were. Lately she had thought of selling off and moving to San Francisco, where she would open a boarding-house or a school for young ladies. He could advise her, per- .62 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS haps, of some good opportunity. Her own girls were far enough advanced to assist her in teaching ; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spoke French and Spanish fluently. As Mr. Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in the feminine American indict- ment of life generally, he was not perhaps greatly moved. But in the last sentence he thought he saw an opening to return to his main object, and, looking up cautiously, said ' And mebbe write po'try now and then ? ' To his great discomfiture, the only effect of this suggestion was to check his companion's speech for some moments and apparently throw her back into her former abstraction. Yet, after a long pause, as they were turning into the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject 1 I only hope that, whatever my daughters may do, they won't marry young.' The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presently came in view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the prevailing A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 63 inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp to shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber. Thejr places were taken on the verandah by two negro servants, two girls respectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, who remained silently staring. As Mr. Bowers had accepted the widow's polite invitation to enter, she was compelled, albeit in an equally dazed and helpless way, to issue some preliminary orders : * Now, Chloe I mean Aunt Dinah do take Eunice I mean Victorine and Una away, and you know tidy them ; and you, Sarah it's Sarah, isn't it ? lay some refresh- ment in the parlour for this gentleman. And, Bob, tell your sister Cynthia to come here with Eunice.' As Bob still remained staring at Mr. Bowers, she added, in weary explanation, ' Mr. Bowers brought me over from the Summit woods in his buggy it was so hot. There shake hands and thank him, and run away do ! ' They crossed a broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere the same look of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, and prema- 64 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS ture decay; most of the furniture was mis- matched and misplaced ; many of the rooms had changed their original functions or doubled them ; a smell of cooking came from the library, on whose shelves, mingled with books, were dresses and household linen, and through the door of a room into which Mrs. Delatour retired to remove her duster Mr. Bowers caught a glimpse of a bed, and of a table covered with books and papers, at which a tall, fair girl was writing. In a few moments Mrs. Delatour returned, accompanied by this girl, and Eunice, her short-lipped sister. Bob, who joined the party seated around Mr. Bowers and a table set with cake, a decanter, and glasses, com- pleted the group. Emboldened by the presence of the tall Cynthia and his glimpse of her previous literary attitude, Mr. Bowers resolved to make one more attempt. I I suppose these yer young ladies sometimes go to the wood, too ? ' As his eye rested on Cynthia, she replied ' Oh, yes.' I 1 reckon on account of the purty shadows down in the brush, and the soft light, eh ? and A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 65 all that ? ' he continued, with a playful manner but a serious accession of colour 'Why, the woods belong to us. It's mar's property ! ' broke in Eunice with a flash of teeth. ' Well, Lordy, I wanter know ! ' said Mr. Bowers, in some astonishment. ' Why, that's right in my line, too ! I've been sightin' timber all along here, and that's how I dropped in on yer mar.' Then, seeing a look of eagerness light up the faces of Bob and Eunice, he was encouraged to make the most of his oppor- tunity. ' Why, ma'am,' he went on, cheerfully, 1 1 reckon you're holdin' that wood at a pretty stiff figger, now.' * Why ? ' asked Mrs. Delatour, simply. Mr. Bowers delivered a wink at Bob and Eunice, who were still watching him with anxiety. ' Well, not on account of the actool timber, for the best of it ain't sound,' he said, ' but on account of its bein' famous ! Every- body that reads that pow'ful pretty poem about it in the ' Excelsior Magazine ' wants to see it. Why, it would pay the Green Springs hotel- keeper to buy it up for his customers. But I F 65 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS s'pose you reckon to keep it along with the poetess in your famerly ? ' Although Mr. Bowers long considered this speech as the happiest and most brilliant effort of his life, its immediate effect was not, perhaps, all that could be desired. The widow turned upon him a restrained and darkening face. Cynthia half rose with an appealing ' Oh, mar ! ' and Bob and Eunice, having apparently pinched each other to the last stage of endurance, retired precipitately from the room in a pro- longed giggle. ' I have not yet thought of disposing of the Summit woods, Mr. Bowers,' said Mrs. Dela* tour, coldly, ' but if I should do so, I will con- sult you. You must excuse the children, who see so little company they are quite unmanage- able when strangers are present. Cynthia, will you see if the servants have looked after Mr. Bowers's horse ? You know Bob is not to be trusted.' There was clearly nothing else for Mr. Bowers to do but to take his leave, which he did respectfully, if not altogether hopefully. But when he had reached the lane his horse A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 67 shied from the unwonted spectacle of Bob, swinging his hat, and apparently awaiting him, from the fork of a wayside sapling. ' HoF up, mister. Look here ! ' Mr. Bowers pulled up. Bob dropped into the road, and, after a backward glance over his shoulder, said ' Drive 'longside the fence in the shadder.' As Mr. Bowers obeyed, Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, half mysterious. * You wanter buy them Summit woods, mister ? ' ' Well, per'aps, sonny. Why ? ' smiled Mr. Bowers. ' Coz I'll tell ye suthin'. Don't you be fooled into allowin' that Cynthia wrote that po'try. She didn't no more'n Eunice nor me. Mar kinder let ye think it, 'cos she don't want folks to think she did it. But mar wrote that po'try herself ; wrote it out o' them thar woods all by herself. Thar's a heap more po'try thar, you bet, and jist as good. And she's the one that kin write it you hear me ? That's my mar, every time ! You buy that thar wood and get mar to run it for po'try, and you'll make F 2 68 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS your pile, sure! I ain't lyin'. You'd better look spry : thar's another feller snoopin' 'round yere only he barked up the wrong tree, and thought it was Cynthia, jist as you did.' * Another feller ? ' repeated the astonished Bowers. ' Yes ; a rig'lar sport. He was orful keen on that po'try, too, you bet. So you'd better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in. Mar got a hundred dollars for that pome, from that editor feller and his pardner. I reckon that's the rig'lar price, eh ? ' he added, with a sudden suspicious caution. ' I reckon so,' replied Mr. Bowers, blankly. ' But look here, Bob ! Do you mean to say it was your mother your mother, Bob, who wrote that poem ? Are you sure ? ' 1 D'ye think I'm lyin' ? ' said Bob, scornfully. 4 Don't / know ? Don't I copy 'em out plain for her, so as folks won't know her handwrite ? Go 'way ! you're loony ! ' Then, possibly doubting if this latter expression were strictly diplomatic with the business in hand, he added, in half-reproach, half-apology, ' Don't ye see I don't want ye to be fooled into losin' yer chance A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRIhGS 6g o' buying up that Summit wood ? It's the cold truth I'm tellin' ye.' Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disap- pointed as he undoubtedly was at first and even self-deceived he recognised in a flash the grim fact that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition of the sad-faced woman in the wood her distressed manner, that to his inex- perienced mind now took upon itself the agi- tated trembling of disturbed mystic inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse succeeded his first shock of disappointment. * Well, are ye going to buy the woods ? ' said Bob, eyeing him grimly. ' Ye'd better say.' Mr. Bowers started. ' I shouldn't wonder, Bob,' he said, with a smile, gathering up his reins. 'Anyhow, I'm comin' back to see your mother this afternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the first chance for me.' He drove away, leaving the youthful diplo- matist standing with his bare feet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentleman amused himself by a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then a smile of scornful superiority 70 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS mingled perhaps with a sense of previous slights and unappreciation, drew back his little upper lip and brightened his mottled cheek. ( I'd like ter know,' he said, darkly, ' what this yer God-forsaken famerly would do without me \ ' A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS CHAPTER V IT is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually kept to their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the poetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldom alluded to by either. Yet in that period White Violet had sent two other contributions, and on each occasion Mr. Hamlin had insisted upon increasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift. In vain the editor pointed out the danger of this form of munificence ; Mr. Hamlin retorted by saying that if he refused he would appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object to taking the credit of this liberality. ' As to the risks/ concluded Jack, sententiously, * I'll take them; and as far as you're concerned, you certainly get the worth of your money.' Indeed, if popularity was an indication, this 72 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS had become suddenly true. For the poetess's third contribution, without changing its strong local colour and individuality, had been an un- expected outburst of human passion a love- song, that touched those to whom the subtler meditative graces of the poetess had been un- known. Many people had listened to this impassioned but despairing cry from some remote and charmed solitude, who had never read poetry before, who translated it into their own limited vocabulary and more limited experience, and were inexpressibly affected to find that they, too, understood it ; it was caught up and echoed by the feverish, adventurous, and unsatisfied life that filled that day and time. Even the editor was surprised and frightened. Like most cultivated men, he distrusted popu- larity : like all men who believe in their own individual judgment, he doubted collective wisdom. Yet now that his protdgde had been accepted by others he questioned that judgment and became her critic. It struck him that her sudden outburst was strained ; it seemed to him that in this mere contortion of passion the sibyl's robe had become rudely disarranged. A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 73 He spoke to H ami in, and even approached the tabooed subject. ' Did you see anything that suggested this sort of business in in that woman I mean in your pilgrimage, Jack ? ' * No/ responded Jack, gravely. ' But it's easy to see she's got hold of some hay-footed fellow up there in the mountains, with straws in his hair, and is playing him for all he's worth. You won't get much more poetry out of her, I reckon.' It was not long after this conversation that one afternoon, when the editor was alone, Mr. James Bowers entered the editorial room with much of the hesitation and irresolution of his previous visit. As the editor had not only forgotten him, but even dissociated him with the poetess, Mr. Bowers was fain to meet his unresponsive eye and manner with some expla- nation. * Ye disremember my comin' here, Mr. Editor, to ask you the name o' the lady who called herself " White Violet," and how you allowed you couldn't give it, but would write and ask for it ? ' 74 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS Mr. Editor, leaning back in his chair, now remembered the occurrence, but was distressed to add that the situation remained unchanged, and that he had received no such permission. * Never mind that, my lad,' said Mr. Bowers, gravely, waving his hand. ' I under- stand all that ; but, ez I've known the lady ever since, and am now visiting her at her house on the Summit, I reckon it don't make much matter.' It was quite characteristic of Mr. Bowers's smileless earnestness that he made no ostenta- tion of this dramatic retort, nor of the undis- guised stupefaction of the editor. 1 Do you mean to say that you have met " White Violet," the author of these poems ? ' repeated the editor. ' Which her name is Delatour, the widder Delatour, ez she has herself give me permis- sion to tell to you,' continued Mr. Bowers, with a certain abstracted and automatic precision that dissipated any suggestion of malice in the reversed situation. 1 Delatour ! a widow ! ' repeated the editor. ' With five children,' continued Mr. Bowers. A SAPPHO^ OF GREEN SPRINGS 75 Then, with unalterable gravity, he briefly gave an outline of her condition and the circum- stances of his acquaintance with her. ' But I reckoned you might have known suthin' o' this ; though she never let on you did,' he concluded, eyeing the editor with troubled curiosity. The editor did not think it necessary to implicate Mr. Hamlin. He said, briefly, * I ? Oh, no!' ' Of course you might not have seen her ? ' said Mr. Bowers, keeping the same grave troubled gaze on the editor. ' Of course not,' said the editor, somewhat impatient under the singular scrutiny of Mr. Bowers; 'and I'm very anxious to know how she looks. Tell me, what is she like ? ' ' She is a fine, pow'ful, eddicated woman,' said Mr. Bowers, with slow deliberation. 'Yes, sir, a pow'ful woman, havin' grand ideas of her own, and holdin' to 'em.' He had with- drawn his eyes from the editor, and apparently addressed the ceiling in confidence. 1 But what does she look like, Mr. Bowers? said the editor, smiling. 76 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 'Well, sir, she looks like it ! Yes/- with deliberate caution, ( I should say, just like it.' After a pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialise this ravishing description, he said, gently. ' Are you busy just now ? ' ' Not very. What can I do for you ? ' ' Well, not much for me, I reckon,' he returned, with a deeper respiration, that was his nearest approach to a sigh, ' but suthin' perhaps for yourself and another. Are you married ? ' ( No,' said the editor, promptly. ' Nor engaged to any young lady ? ' with great politeness. ' No.' 'Well, mebbe you think it a queer thing for me to say, mebbe you reckon you know it ez well ez anybody, but it's my opinion that White Violet is in love with you.' ' With me ? ' ejaculated the editor, in a hopeless astonishment that at last gave way to an incredulous and irresistible laugh. A slight touch of pain passed over Mr. Bowers's dejected face, but left the deep out- A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 77 lines set with a rude dignity. * It's so t ' he said, slowly, ' though, as a young man and a gay feller, ye may think it's funny.' ' No, not funny, but a terrible blunder, Mr, Bowers, for I give you my word I know nothing of the lady and have never set eyes upon her.' 1 No, but she has on you. I can't say,' continued Mr. Bowers, with sublime naivety ' that I'd ever recognise you from her descrip- tion, but a woman o' that kind don't see with her eyes like you and me, but with all her senses to onct, and a heap more that ain't senses as we know 'em. The same eyes that seed down through the brush and ferns in the Summit woods, the same ears that heerd the music of the wind trailin' through the pines, don't see you with my eyes or hear you with my ears. And when she paints you, it's nat'ril for a woman with that pow'ful mind and grand idees to dip her brush into her heart's blood for warmth and colour. Yer smilin', young man. Well, go on and smile at me, my lad, but not at her. For you don't know her. When you know her story as I do, when you know she 78 A SAPPHO OF GREEA 7 SPRJNGS was made a wife afore she ever knew what it was to be a young woman, when you know that the man she married never understood the kind o' critter he was tied to no more than ef he'd been a steer yoked to a Morgan colt, when ye know she had children growin' up around her afore she had given over bein a sort of child herself, when ye know she worked and slaved for that man and those children about the house her heart, her soul,- and all her pow'ful mind bein' all the time in the woods along with the flickerin' leaves and the shadders, when ye mind she couldn't get the small ways o' the ranch because she had the big ways o' Natur' that made it, then you'll understand her.' Impressed by the sincerity of his visitor's manner, touched by the unexpected poetry of his appeal, and yet keenly alive to the absurdity of an incomprehensible blunder somewhere committed, the editor gasped almost hysteri- cally, ' But why should all this make her in love with me?' ( Because ye are both gifted/ returned Mr. A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 79 Bowers, with sad but unconquerable convic- tion ; ' because ye're both, so to speak, in a line o' idees and business that draws ye together, to lean on each other and trust each other ez pardners. Not that ye are ezakly her ekal,' lie went on, with a return to his previous exas- perating nawetd, ' though I've heerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're still young, but in matters o' this kind there is allers one ez hez to be looked up to by the other, and gin'rally the wrong one. She looks up to you, Mr. Editor, it's part of her po'try, ez she looks down inter the brush and sees more than is plain to you and me. Not,' he continued, with a courteously deprecating wave of the hand, ( ez you hain't bin kind to her mebbe too kind. For thar's the purty letter you writ her, thar's the perlite, easy, captivatin' way you had with her gals and that boy, hold on ; ' as the editor made a gesture of despairing renuncia- tion, * I ain't sayin' you ain't right in keepin' it to yourself, and thar's the extry money you sent her every time. Stop ! she knows it was extry, for she made a p'int o' gettin' me to find out the market price o' po'try in papers and So A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS magazines, and she reckons you've bin payin* her four hundred per cent, above them figgers hold on ! I ain't sayin' it. ain't free and liberal in you, and I'd have done the same thing ; yet she thinks ' But the editor had risen hastily to his feet with flushing cheeks. ' One moment, Mr. Bowers,' he said, hurriedly. ' This is the most dreadful blunder of all. The gift is not mine. It was the spontaneous offering of another who really admired our friend's work, a gentleman who ' He stopped suddenly. The sound of a familiar voice, lightly hum- ming, was borne along the passage ; the light tread of a familiar foot was approaching. The editor turned quickly towards the open door, so quickly that Mr. Bowers was fain to turn also. For a charming instant the figure of Jack Hamlin, handsome, careless, and confident, was framed in the door- way. His dark eyes, with their habitual scorn of his average fellow- man, swept superciliously over Mr. Bowers and rested for an instant with caressing familiarity on the editor. A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 81 ' Well, sonny, any news from the old girl at the Summit ? ' ' No-o ' hastily stammered the editor, with a half-hysterical laugh. ' No, Jack. Excuse me a moment.' ' All right ; busy, I see. Hasta manana! The picture vanished, the frame was empty. ' You see,' continued the editor, turning to Mr. Bowers, ' there has been a mistake. I ' but he stopped suddenly at the ashen face of Mr. Bowers, still fixed in the direction of the vanished figure. ' Are you ill ? ' Mr. Bowers did not reply, but slowly with- drew his eyes and turned them heavily on the editor. Then, drawing a longer, deeper breath, he picked up his soft felt hat, and, moulding it into shape in his hands as if preparing to put it on, he moistened his dry, grayish lips, and said, gently ' Friend o' yours ? ' ' Yes,' said the editor f Jack Hamlin. Of course, you know him ? ' ' Yes.' Mr. Bowers here put his hat on his head, G 82 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS and, after a pause, turned round slowly once or twice, as if he had forgotten it and was still seeking it. Finally he succeeded in finding the editor's hand, and shook it, albeit his own trembled slightly. Then he said * I reckon you're right. There's bin a mistake. I see it now. Good-bye. If you're ever up my way, drop in and see me.' He then walked to the doorway, passed out, and seemed to melt into the afternoon shadows of the hall. He never again entered the office of the ' Excelsior Magazine,' neither was any further contribution ever received from White Violet. To a polite entreaty from the editor, addressed first to ' White Violet' and then to Mrs. Delatour, there was no response. The thought of Mr. Hamlin's cynical prophecy disturbed him, but that gentleman, preoccupied in filling some professional engagements in Sacramento, gave him no chance to acquire further explana- tions as to the past or the future. The youth- ful editor was at first in despair and filled with a vague remorse of some unfulfilled duty. But, to his surprise, the readers of the magazine seemed to survive their talented contributor, A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 83 and the feverish life that had been thrilled by her song in two months had apparently for- gotten her. Nor was her voice lifted, from any alien quarter ; the domestic and foreign press that had echoed her lays seemed to respond no longer to her utterance. It is possible that some readers of these pages may remember a previous chronicle by the same historian wherein it was recorded that the volatile spirit of Mr. Jack Hamlin, slightly assisted by circumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of the Blessed Fisherman, some two years later. As the editor stood beside the body of his friend on the morning of the funeral, he noticed among the flowers . laid upon his bier by loving hands a wreath of white violets. Touched and disturbed by a memory long since forgotten, he was further embarrassed, as the -cortege dispersed in the Mission graveyard, by the apparition of the tall figure of Mr. James Bowers from behind a monumental column. The editor turned to him quickly. ' I am glad to see you here/ he .said, awkwardly, and he knew not why; then, -after G 2 84 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS a pause, * I trust you can give me some news of Mrs. Delatour. I wrote to her nearly two years ago, but had no response.' ' Thar's bin no Mrs. Delatour for two years/ said Mr. Bowers, contemplatively stroking his beard ; ' and mebbe that's why. She's bin for two years Mrs. Bowers.' * I congratulate you,' said the editor ; * but I hope there still remains a White Violet, and that, for the sake of literature, she has not given up ' 1 Mrs. Bowers,' interrupted Mr. Bowers, with singular deliberation, ' found that makin' po'try and tendin' to the cares of a growin'-up famerly was irritatin' to the narves. They didn't jibe, so to speak. What Mrs. Bowers wanted and what, po'try or no po'try, I've bin tryin' to give her was Rest! She's bin havin' it comfor'bly up at my ranch at Mendocino, with her children and me. Yes, sir ' his eye wandered accidentally to the new-made grave ' you'll excuse my sayin' it to a man in your profession, but it's what most folks will find is a heap better than readin' or writin' or actin' po'try and that's Resjt ! ' THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE CHAPTER I IT had grown dark on Burnt Ridge. Seen from below, the whole serrated crest that had glit- tered in the sunset as if its interstices were eaten by consuming fires, now closed up its ranks of blackened shafts and became again harsh and sombre chevaux de frise against the sky. A faint glow still lingered over the red valley road as if it were its own reflection, rather than any light from beyond the darkened ridge. Night was already creeping up out of remote canons and along the furrowed flanks of the mountain, or settling on the nearer woods with the sound of home-coming and innumerable wings. At a point where the road began to encroach upon the mountain-side in its slow winding '.-/ 86 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE .. i ascent the darkness had become so real that a young girl cantering along the rising terrace found difficulty in guiding her horse, with eyes still dazzled by the sunset fires. In spite of her precautions, the animal sud- denly shied at some object in - the obscured roadway, and nearly unseated her. The acci- dent disclosed not only the fact that she was riding in a man's saddle, but also a foot and ankle that her ordinary walking-dress was too short to hide. It was evident that her equestrian exercise was extempore, and that at that hour and on that road she had not expected to meet company. But she was apparently a good horsewoman, for the mischance that might have thrown a less practical or more timid rider, seemed of little moment to her. With a strong hand and determined gesture she wheeled her frightened horse back into the track, and rode him directly at the object. But here she herself slightly recoiled for it was the body of a man lying in the road. As she leaned forward over her horse's shoulder she could see by the dim light that he was a miner, and that, though motionless, he THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 87 was breathing stertorously. Drunk, no doubt ! an accident of the locality alarming only to her horse. But although she cantered im- patiently forward, she had not proceeded a hundred yards before she stopped reflectively, and trotted back again. He had not moved. She could now see that his head and shoulders were covered with broken clods of earth and gravel, and smaller fragments lay at his side. A dozen feet above him on the hillside there was a foot trail which ran parallel with the bridle-road, and occasionally overhung it. It seemed possible that he might have fallen from the trail and been stunned. Dismounting, she succeeded in dragging him to a safer position by the bank. The act discovered his face, which was young, and un- known to her. Wiping it with the silk hand- kerchief which was loosely slung around his neck after the fashion of his class, she gave a quick feminine glance around her, and then approached her own and rather handsome face near his lips. There was no odour of alcohol in the thick and heavy respiration. Mounting again, she rode forward at an accelerated pace, 88 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE and in twenty minutes had reached a higher table land of the mountain, a cleared opening in the forest that showed signs of careful culti- vation, and a large, rambling, yet picturesque- looking dwelling, whose unpainted red-wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open a swinging gate, she entered the enclosure as a brown-faced man, dressed as a vaquerO) came towards her as if to assist her to alight. But she had already leaped to the ground and thrown him the reins. 4 Miguel,' she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyish contralto voice, ' put Glory in the covered waggon, and drive down the road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the right bank, drunk, or sick, maybe, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to know who he is and where to take him.' The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in de- precation, half in disappointed expectation of some other command. ' And your brother, senora, he has not himself arrived.' A light shadow of impatience crossed her THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 89 face. ' No,' she said, bluntly. ' Come, be quick.' She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already a gaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was await- ing her with his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and his lips moving querulously. ' Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tend to your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own flesh and blood,' he said aggrievedly. ' That's all you care ! ' ' There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel to look after him,' re- turned the girl, with a certain contemptuous resignation. ' O, yes ! ' struck in another voice which seemed to belong to the female of the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in age and temper, ' and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a squirrel on the fence, and either of 'em was more important to you than your own brother.' ' Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message,' continued the young girl 90 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE with the same coldly resigned manner. ' No one had any news of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't expect any.' 4 Why don't you say right out you didn't want any ? ' said the old man sneeringly. ' Much you inquired ! No ; I orter hev gone myself, and I would if I was master here, in- stead of me and your mother bein' the dust of the yearth beneath your feet.' The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing an old woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her resentment and a large Bible which she held- clasped against her shawled bosom at the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up her large hat and slightly shook the red dust from her skirts as she continued her explanation, in the same deep voice, with a certain monotony of logic and possibly of purpose and practice also. ' You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is no more to be depended upon than the wind that blows. It's three years since he set foot here ; it's three years since he has been promising to come, and even getting money to come, and yet he has never showed his THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 91 face, though he has been a dozen times within five miles of this house. He doesn't come, be- cause he doesn't want to come. As to your going over to the stage-office, I went there myself at the last moment to save you the mortification of asking questions of strangers that they know have been a dozen times answered already.' There was such a ring of absolute truthful- ness, albeit worn by repetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for one instant her two more emotional relatives quailed, before it ; but only for a moment. ' That's right ! ' shrilled the old woman. * Go on and abuse your own brother. It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortune yet and shame you before the father and mother you despise.' The young girl remained standing by the window motionless and apparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usual punishment. But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and some incoherent snuffling, at which the younger went away. Whether she recognised in her mother's tears the ordinary deliquescence of emotion, or whether, as a woman herself, she 92 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE knew that this mere feminine conventionality could not possibly be directed at her, and that the actual conflict between them had ceased, she passed slowly on to an inner hall, leaving the male victim, her unfortunate father, to succumb, as he always did sooner or later, to their in- fluence. Crossing the hall, which was decorated with a few elk horns, Indian trophies, and moun- tain pelts, she entered another room, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief. The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singular combination of masculine business occupations and feminine taste and adornment. A desk covered with papers, a shelf displaying a ledger and account-books, another containing works of reference, a table with a vase of flowers and a lady's riding-whip upon it, a map of California flanked on either side by an embroidered silken workbag and an oval mirror decked with grasses, a calendar and interest-table hanging below two schoolgirl crayons of classic heads, with the legend, 'Josephine Forsyth fecit' were part of its incongruous accessories. The young girl went to her desk, but presently moved and turned THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 93 towards the window thoughtfully. The last gleam had died from the steel-blue sky ; a few lights like star points began to prick out the lower valley. The expression of monotonous restraint and endurance had not yet faded from her face. Yet she had been accustomed to scenes like the one she had just passed through since her girlhood. Five years ago Alexander Forsyth, her uncle, had brought her to this spot then a mere log cabin on the hillside as a refuge from the impoverished and shiftless home of his elder brother Thomas and his ill-tempered wife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason of his more dominant character and business capacity, had prospered until he became a rich and influential ranche owner. Notwithstanding her father's jealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture that followed between the brothers, Josephine retained her position in the heart and home of her uncle without espousing the cause of either ; and her father was too prudent not to recognise the near and prospective advantages of such a mediator. Accustomed to her parents' extravagant de- 94 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE nunciations, and her uncle's more repressed but practical contempt of them, the unfortunate girl early developed a cynical disbelief in the virtues of kinship in the abstract, and a philo- sophical resignation to its effects upon her personally. Believing that her father and uncle fairly represented the fraternal principle, she was quite prepared for the early defection and distrust of her vagabond and dissipated brother Stephen, and accepted it calmly. True to an odd standard of justice, which she had erected from the crumbling ruins of her own domestic life, she was tolerant of everything but human perfection. This quality, however fatal to her higher growth, had given her a peculiar capacity for business which endeared her to her uncle. Familiar with the strong passions- and prejudices of men she had none of those feminine meannesses, a wholesome distrust of which had kept her uncle a bachelor. It was not strange, therefore, that when he died two years ago it was found that he had left her his entire property, real and personal, limited only by a single condition. She was to undertake the vocation of a ' sole trader,' and THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT'RIDGE 95 carry on the business under the name of ( J. Forsyth.' If she married, the estate and property was to be held distinct from her husband's, inalienable under the ' Married Woman's Property Act,' and subject during her life only to her own control and personal responsibilities as a trader. The intense disgust and discomfiture of her parents, who had expected to more actively participate in their brother's fortune, may be imagined. But it was not equal to their fury when Josephine, instead of providing for them a separate maintenance out of her abundance, simply offered to transfer them and her brother to her own house on a domestic but not a business equality. There being no alternative but their former precarious shiftless life in their 1 played-out ' claim in the valley, they wisely consented, reserving the sacred right of daily protest and objurgation. In the economy of Burnt Ridge Ranche they alone took it upon themselves to represent the shattered domestic altar and its outraged Lares and Penates. So conscientiously did they perform their task as to even occasionally impede the business visitor 96 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE to the ranche, and to cause some of the more practical neighbours to seriously doubt the young girl's commercial wisdom. But she was firm. Whether she thought her parents a necessity of respectable domesticity, or whether she regarded their presence in the light of a penitential atonement for some previous dis- regard of them, no one knew. Public opinion inclined to the latter. The black line of ridge faded out with her abstraction, and she turned from the window and lit the lamp on her desk. The yellow light illuminated her face and figure. In their womanly graces there was no trace of what some people believed to be a masculine cha- racter, except a singularly frank look of critical inquiry and patient attention in her dark eyes. Her long brown hair was somewhat rigidly twisted into a knot on the top of her head, as if more for security than ornament. Brown was also the prevailing tint of her eyebrows, thickly-set eyelashes, and eyes, and was even suggested in the slight sallowness of her com- plexion. But her lips were well-cut and fresh- coloured, and her hands and feet small and THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 97 finely formed. She would have passed for a pretty girl had she not suggested something more. She sat clown, and began to examine a pile of papers before her with that concentration and attention to detail which was characteristic of her eyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her penholder between her lips, in the sem- blance of a pout that was pleasant enough to see. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels struck her with a sense of something forgotten, and she put down her work quickly and stood up listening. The sound of rough voices and her father's querulous accents was broken upon by a cultivated and more familiar utterance ' All right ; I'll speak to her at once. Wait there,' and the door opened to the well-known physician of Burnt Ridge, Dr. Duchesne. ' Look here,' he said, with an abruptness that was only saved from being brusque by a softer intonation and a reassuring smile, ' I met Miguel helping an accident into your buggy. Your orders, eh ? ' 1 O, yes,' said Josephine quietly. ' A man I saw on the road/ H 98 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 1 Well, it's a bad case, and wants prompt attention. And as your house is the nearest, I came with him here.' ' Certainly,' she said gravely. ' Take him to the second room beyond Steve's room it's ready,' she explained to two dusky shadows in the hall behind the doctor. ' And look here,' said the doctor, partly closing the door behind him and regarding her with critical eyes ' you always said you'd like to see some of my queer cases. Well, this is one a serious one, too ; in fact, it's just touch and go with him. There's a piece of the bone pressing on the brain no bigger than that, but as much as if all Burnt Ridge was atop of him ! I'm going to lift it. I want somebody here to stand by, some one who can lend a hand with a sponge, eh ? some one who isn't going to faint or scream, or even shake a hair's breadth, eh ? ' The colour rose quickly to the girl's, cheek, and her eyes kindled. 'I'll come,' she said thoughtfully. ' Who is he ? ' The doctor stared slightly at the unessential query. * Don't know ; one of the river miners, I reckon. It's an urgent case. I'll go and get THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 99 everything ready. You'd better,' he added, with an ominous glance at her gray frock, * put something over your dress.' The suggestion made her grave, but did not alter her colour. A moment later she entered the room. It was the one that had always been set apart for her brother : the very bed on which the uncon- scious man lay had been arranged that morning with her own hands. Something of this passed through her mind as she saw that the doctor had wheeled it beneath the strong light in the centre of the room ; stripped its outer coverings with professional thoughtfulness, and rearranged the mattresses. But it did not seem like the same room. There was a pungent odour in the air from some freshly-opened phial ; an almost feminine neatness and luxury in an open morocco case like a jewel box on the table, shining with spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of her own servants, the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with the mingled curi- osity and blasd experience of one accustomed to smashed and lacerated digits. At first she did not look at the central unconscious figure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have. H 2 loo THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE been vicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces that looked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled before the bared white neck and shoulders dis- played above the quilt, until, forcing herself to look upon the face half concealed by bandages, and the head from which the dark tangles of hair had been ruthlessly sheared, she began to share the doctor's unconcern in his personality. What mattered who or what he was ? It was a case ! The operation began. With the same ear- nest intelligence she had previously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the doctor's whispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was conscious of a singular curiosity that, far from being mean or ignoble, seemed to lift her not only above the ordinary weaknesses of her own sex, but made her superior to the men around her. Almost before she knew it, the operation was over, and she regarded with equal curiosity the ostentatious solicitude with which the doctor seemed to be wiping his fate- ful instrument that bore an odd resemblance to a silver-handled centre bit. The stertorous THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 101 breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainter but more natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. The doctor's hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of the sufferer. A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish face had cleared, life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dull eyes participated in the glow. Dr. Duchesne with a sudden gesture waved aside his companions, but not before Josephine had bent her head eagerly forward. ' He is coming to,' she said. At the sound of that deep clear voice the first to break the hush of the room the dull eyes leaped up, and the head turned in its direction. The lips moved and uttered a single rapid sentence. The girl recoiled. 4 You're all right now,' said the doctor cheerfully, intent only upon the form before him. The lips moved again, but this time feebly and vacantly ; the eyes were staring vaguely around. ' What's matter ? What's all about ? ' said the man thickly. 102 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE ' You've had a fall. Think a moment. Where do you live ? ' Again the lips moved, but this time only to emit a confused incoherent murmur. Dr. Duchesne looked grave, but recovered himself quickly. ' That will do. Leave him alone now,' he said brusquely to the others. But Josephine lingered. ' He spoke well enough just now,' she said eagerly. ' Did you hear what he said ? ' ' Not exactly,' said the doctor abstractedly, gazing at the man. ' He said : " You'll have to kill me first," said Josephine slowly. * Humph,' said the doctor abstractedly, passing his hand backwards and forwards before the man's eyes to note any change in the staring pupils. * Yes/ continued Josephine gravely. ' I suppose/ she added cautiously, 'he was thinking of the operation of what you had just done to him?' ' What / had done to him ? O, yes ! ' THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 103 CHAPTER II BEFORE noon the next day it was known throughout Burnt Ridge Valley that Dr. Du- chesne had performed a difficult operation upon an unknown man, who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and carried to Burnt Ridge Ranche. But although the unfortunate man's life was saved by the operation, he had only momentarily recovered consciousness relapsing into a semi-idiotic state, which effec- tively stopped the discovery of any clue to his friends or his identity. As it was evidently an accident, which, in that rude community and even in some more civilised ones conveyed a vague impression of some contributory incapa- city on the part of the victim, or some Provi- dential interference of a retributive character, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It is unnecessary to say that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves and Josephine much 104 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied from the first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted to have a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranche, they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy between Josephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, as he had already in the spare bedroom. ' Didn't all that yer happen the very night she pretended to go for Stephen eh?' said Mrs. Forsyth. 'Tell me that ! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggy to bring him here, as^that sneaking doctor himself let out eh ? Looks mighty curious, don't it ?' she muttered darkly to the old man. But although that gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely have submitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price of insuring comfortable de- pendency, he had no doubt others were base enough to do it ; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions. Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further. Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disap- THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 105 pointment at the incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's life, but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for the diagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favourable progress. It was a most interesting case. He would watch it carefully, and as soon as the patient could be removed would take him to the county hospital, where, under his own eyes, the poor fellow would have the benefit of the latest science and the highest specialists. Physically he was doing remarkably well ; indeed, he must have been a fine young chap, free from blood taint or vicious complication, whose flesh had healed like an infant's. It should be recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs. Forsyth first learnt that" a silver plate let into the artful stranger's skull was an adjunct of the healing process ! Convinced that this infamous extra- vagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and was only the beginning of other assimila- tions of the Forsyths' metallic substance ; that the plate was probably polished and burnished with a fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into the possession and adornment 106 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE of a perfect stranger, her rage knew no bounds, He or his friends ought to be made to pay for it or work it out! In vain it was declared that a few dollars were all that was found in the man's pocket, and that no memoranda gave any indication of his name, friends, or history beyond the suggestion that he came from a distance. This was clearly a part of the con- spiracy ! Even Josephine's practical good sense was obliged to take note of this singular absence of all record regarding him, and the apparent obliteration of everything that might be responsible for his ultimate fate. Homeless, friendless, helpless, and even nameless, the unfortunate man of twenty-five was thus left to the tender mercies of the mistress of Burnt Ridge Ranche as if he had been a new-born foundling laid at her door. But this mere claim of weakness was not all ; it was supplemented by a singular personal appeal to Josephine's nature. From the time that he turned his head towards her voice on that fateful night his eyes had always followed her around the room with a wondering, yearn- ing, canine half-intelligence. Without being THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 107 able to convince herself that he understood her better than his regular attendant furnished by the doctor, she could not fail to see that he obeyed her implicitly, and that whenever any difficulty arose between him and his nurse she was always appealed to. Her pride in this proof of her practical sovereignty was flattered ; and when Doctor Duchesne finally admitted that although the patient was now physically able to be removed to the hospital, yet he would lose in the change that very strong factor which Josephine had become in his mental recovery, the young girl as frankly suggested that he should stay as long as there was any hope of restoring his reason. Doctor Duchesne was delighted. With all his enthusiasm for science, he had a professional distrust of some of its disciples, and perhaps was not sorry to keep this most interesting case in his own hands. To him her suggestion was only a womanly kindness, tempered with womanly curiosity. But the astonishment and stupefaction of her parents at this evident corroboration of suspicions they had >as^ yet only half-believed, * was tinged* with -/super- io8 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE stitious dread. Had she fallen in love with this helpless stranger ? or, more awful to contemplate, was he really no stranger, but a surreptitious lover thus strategically brought under her roof ? For once they refrained from open criticism. The very magnitude of their suspicion left them dumb. It was thus that the virgin Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge Ranche was left to gaze un- trammelled upon her pale and handsome guest, whose silken bearded lips and sad childlike eyes might have suggested a more Exalted Sufferer in their absence of any suggestion of a grosser material manhood. But even this imaginative appeal did not enter into her feelings. She felt for her good- looking, helpless patient, a profound and honest pity. I do not know whether she had ever heard that ( pity was akin to love.' She would probably have resented that utterly untenable and atrocious common-place. There was no suggestion, real or illusive, of any previous masterful quality in the man which might have made his present dependent condition picturesque by contrast. He had come to her THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 109 handicapped by an unromantic accident and a practical want of energy and intellect. He would have to touch her interest anew if, indeed, he would ever succeed in dispelling the old impression. His beauty, in a commu- nity of picturesquely handsome men, had little weight with her, except to accent the contrast with their fuller manhood. Her life had given her no illusions in regard to the other sex. She had found them, however, more congenial and safer companions than women, and more accessible to her own sense of justice and honour. In return they had respected and admired rather than loved her, in spite of her womanly graces. If she had at times contemplated eventual marriage, it was only as a possible practical partnership in her business ; but as she lived in a country where men thought it dishonourable and a proot of incompetency to rise by their wives' superior fortune, she had been free from that kind of mercenary persecution, even from men who might have worshipped her in hopeless and silent honour. For this reason there was nothing in the i io THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE situation that suggested a single compromising speculation in the minds of the neighbours, or disturbed her own tranquillity. There seemed to be nothing in the future except a possible relief to her curiosity. Some day the unfortunate man's reason would be restored, and he would tell his simple history. Perhaps he might explain what was in his mind when he turned to her the first evening with that singular sentence which had often recurred strangely to her, she knew not why. It did not strike her until later that it was because it had been the solitary indication of an energy and capacity that seemed unlike him. Never- theless, after that explanation, she would have been quite willing to have shaken hands with him and parted. And yet for there was an unexpressed remainder in her thought she was never entirely free or uninfluenced in his presence. The flickering vacancy of his sad eyes some- times became fixed with a resolute immobility under the gentle questioning with which she had sought to draw out his faculties, that both piqued and exasperated her. He could THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE in say ' yes ' and ' no,' as she thought, intelligently, but he could not utter a coherent sentence nor write a word, except like a child in imitation of his copy. She taught him to repeat after her the names of the inanimate objects in the room, then the names of the doctor, his attendant, the servant, and, finally, her own under her Christian prenomen, with frontier familiarity ; but when she pointed to himself he waited for her to name him ! In vain she tried him with all the masculine names she knew ; his was not one of them, or he would not or could not speak it. For at times she rejected the professional dictum of the doctor that the faculty of memory was wholly para-, lysed or held in abeyance, even to the half- automatic recollection of his letters, yet she inconsistently began to teach him the alphabet with the same method, and in her sublime unconsciousness of his manhood with, the same discipline as if he were a very child. When he had recovered sufficiently to leave his room, she would lead him to the porch before her window, and make him contented and happy by allowing him to watch her at 112 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE work at her desk, occasionally answering his wondering eyes with a word, or stirring his faculties with a question. I grieve to say that her parents had taken advantage of this pub- licity and his supposed helpless condition to show their disgust of his assumption, to the extreme of making faces at him an act which he resented with such a furious glare that they retreated hurriedly to their own verandah. A fresh though somewhat inconsistent grievance was added to their previous indictment of him ; 'If we ain't found dead in our bed with our throats cut by that woman's crazy husband ' (they had settled by this time that there had been a clandestine marriage), 'we'll be lucky/ groaned Mrs. Forsyth. Meantime the mountain summer waxed to its fulness of fire and fruition. There were days when the crowded forest seemed choked and. impeded with its own foliage, and pungent and stifling with its own rank maturity : when the long hillside ranks of wild oats, thickset and impassable, filled the air with the heated dust of germination. In this quickening irrita- tion of life it would be strange if the unfor- THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 113 tunate man's torpid intellect was not helped in its awakening, and he was allowed to ramble at will over the ranche ; but with the instinct of a domestic animal he always returned to the house, and sat in the porch, where Josephine usually found him awaiting her when she herself returned from a visit to the mill. Coming thence one day she espied him on the mountain-side leaning against a projecting ledge in an attitude so rapt and immovable that she felt compelled to approach him. He appeared to be dumbly absorbed in the prospect, which might have intoxicated a saner mind. Half veiled by the heat that rose quiver- ingly from the fiery canon below, the domain of Burnt Ridge stretched away before him, until, lifted in successive terraces hearsed and plumed with pines, it was at last lost in the ghostly snow-peaks. But the practical Jose- phine seized the opportunity to try once more to awaken the slumbering memory of her pupil. Following his gaze with signs and questions, she sought to draw from him some indication of familiar recollection of certain points of the i H4 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE map thus unrolled behind him. But in vain. She even pointed out the fateful shadow of the overhanging ledge on the road where she had picked him up there was no response in his abstracted eyes. She bit her lips ; she w r as becoming irritated again. Then it occurred to her that, instead of appealing to his hopeless memory, she had better trust to some unreflec- tive automatic instinct independent of it, and she put the question a little forward : ' When you leave us, where will you go from here ? ' He stirred slightly, and turned towards her. She repeated her query slowly and patiently with signs and gestures recognised between them. A faint glow of intelligence struggled into his eyes ; he lifted his arm slowly and pointed. ' Ah ! those white peaks the Sierras ? ' she asked eagerly. No reply. ' Beyond them ? ' ' Yes.' ' The States ? ' No reply. ' Further still ? ' He remained so patiently quiet and still pointing that she leaned forward, and, following with her eyes the direction of his hand, saw that he was pointing to the sky ! THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 115 Then a great quiet fell upon them. The whole mountain-side seemed to her to be hushed as if to allow her to grasp and realise for the first time the pathos of the ruined life at her side, which it had known so long, but which she had never felt till now. The tears came to her eyes ; in her swift revulsion of feeling she caught the thin uplifted hand between her own. It seemed to her that he was about to raise them to his lips, but she withdrew them hastily, and moved away. She had a strange fear that if he had kissed them it might seem as if some dumb animal had touched them or it might not. The next day she felt a consciousness of this in his presence, and a wish that he was well-cured and away. She determined to consult Dr. Duchesne on the subject when he next called. But the doctor, secure in the welfare of his patient, had not visited him lately, and she found herself presently absorbed in the business of the ranche, which at this season was par- ticularly trying, There had also been a quarrel between Dick Shipley, her mill foreman, and Miguel, her ablest and most trusted vaquero, and in her strict sense of impartial justice she I 2 n6 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE was obliged to side on the merits of the case with Shipley against her oldest retainer. This troubled her, as she knew that with the Mexican nature, fidelity and loyalty were not unmixed with quick and unreasoning jealousy. For this reason she was somewhat watchful of the two men when work was over and there was a chance of their being thrown together. Once or twice she had remained up late to meet Miguel returning from the Posada -at San Ramon, filled with aguardiente and a recollection of his wrongs, and to see him safely bestowed before she herself retired. It was on one of those occasions, however, that she learned that Dick Shipley, hearing that Miguel had disparaged him freely at the Posada, had broken the discipline of the ranche and absented himself the same night that Miguel ' had leave ' with a view of facing his antagonist on his own ground. To prevent this the fearless girl at once secretly set out alone to overtake and bring back the delinquent. For two or three hours the house was thus left to the sole occupancy of Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth and the invalid a fact only dimly THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 117 suspected by the latter, who had become vaguely conscious of Josephine's anxiety, and had noticed the absence of light and movement in her room. It was therefore, that, having risen again and mechanically taken his seat in the porch to await her return, he was startled by hearing her voice in the shadow of the lower porch, accompanied by a hurried tapping against the door of the old couple. The half- reasoning man arose and would have moved towards it, but suddenly he stopped rigidly, with white and parted lips and vacantly dis- tended eyeballs. Meantime the voice and muffled tapping had brought the tremulous fingers of old Forsyth to the door-latch. He opened the door partly ; a slight figure that had been lurking in the shadow of the porch pushed rapidly through the opening. There was a faint outcry quickly hushed, and the door closed again. The rays of a single candle showed the two old people hysterically clasping in their arms the figure that had entered a slight but vicious-looking young fellow of five- and-twenty. n8 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 1 There, d n it ! ' he said impatiently, in a voice whose rich depth was like Josephine's, but whose querulous action was that of the two old people before him, ' let me go, and quit that. I didn't come here to be strangled ! I want some money money, you hear ! Devilish quick, too, for I've got to be off again before daylight. So look sharp, will you ? ' ( But, Stevy dear, when you didn't come that time three months ago, but wrote from Los Angelos, you said you'd made a strike at last, and ' ' What are you talking about ? ' he inter- rupted violently. ' That was just my lyin' to keep you from worryin' me. Three months ago three months ago ! Why, you must have been crazy to have swallowed it ; I hadn't a cent.' ' Nor have we/ said the old woman shrilly. ' That hellish sister of yours still keeps us like beggars. Our only hope was you, our own boy. And now you only come to to go again.' ' But she has money ; shes doing well, and she shall give it to me,' he went on angrily. ' She can't bully me with her business airs and THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 119 morality. Who else has got a right to share, if it is not her own brother ? ' Alas for the fatuousness of human malevo- lence ! Had the unhappy couple related only the simple facts they knew about the new guest of Burnt Ridge Ranche, and the manner of his introduction, they might have spared what followed. But the old woman broke into a vindictive cry : ' Who else, Steve who else ? Why, the slut has brought a man here a sneaking, de- ceitful, underhanded, crazy lover ! ' 1 Oh, has she ? ' said the young man fiercely, yet secretly pleased at this promising evidence of his sister's human weakness. ' Where is she ? I'll go to her. She's in her room, I suppose/ and before they could restrain him, he had thrown off their impeding embraces and darted across the hall. The two old people stared doubtfully at each other. For even this powerful ally, whose strength, however, they were by no means sure of, might succumb before the deter- mined Josephine ! Prudence demanded a middle course. ' Ain't they brother and sister ?' 120 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE said the old man, with an air of virtuous tolera- tion. ' Let 'em fight it out.' The young man impatiently entered the room he remembered to have been his sister's. By the light of the moon that streamed upon the window he could see she was not there. He passed hurriedly to the door of her bedroom ; it was open ; the room was empty, the bed un- turned. She was not in the house she had gone to the mill. Ah ! What was that they had said ? An infamous thought passed through the scoundrel's mind. Then, in what he half believed was an access of virtuous fury, he began by the dim light to rummage in the drawers of the desk for such loose coin or valuables as, in the perfect security of the ranche, were often left unguarded. Suddenly he heard a heavy footstep on the threshold, and turned. An awful vision a recollection, so unex- pected, so ghostlike in that weird light that he thought he was losing his senses stood before him. It moved forwards with staring eyeballs and white and open lips from which a horrible inarticulate sound issued that was the speech of no living man ! With a single desperate, THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 121 almost superhuman effort Stephen Forsyth bounded aside, leaped from the window, and ran like a madman from the house. Then the apparition trembled, collapsed, and sank in an undistinguishable heap to the ground. When Josephine Forsyth returned an hour later with her mill foreman, she was startled to find her helpless patient in a fit on the floor of her room. With the assistance of her now converted and penitent employe, she had the unfortunate man conveyed to his room but not until she had thoughtfully rearranged the disorder of her desk and closed the open drawers without attracting Dick Shipley's at- tention. In the morning, hearing that the patient was still in the semi-conscious exhaustion of his late attack, but without seeing him, she sent for Dr. Duchesne. The doctor arrived while she was absent at the mill, where, after a careful examination of his patient, he sought her with some little excitement. * Well ? ' she said with eager gravity. ' Well, it looks as if your wish would be gratified. Your friend has had an epileptic fit, but the physical shock has started his mental 122 THE' CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE machinery again. He has recovered his facul- ties ; his memory is returning : he thinks and speaks coherently ; he is as sane as you and I.' * And ' said Josephine, questioning the doctor's knitted eyebrows. ' I am not yet sure whether it was the result of some shock he doesn't remember ; or an irri- tation of the brain, which would indicate that the operation had not been successful and that there was still some physical pressure or obstruction there in which case he would be subject to these attacks all his life.' 4 Do you think his reason came before the fit or after ? ' asked the girl anxiously. * I couldn't say. Had any thing happened ? ' * I was away, and found him on the floor on my return,' she answered half uneasily. After a pause she said, ' Then he has told you his name and all about himself ? ' ' Yes, it's nothing at all ! He was a stranger just arrived from the States, going to the mines the old story ; had no near relations, of course ; wasn't missed or asked after ; re- members walking along the ridge and falling over; name, John Baxter of Maine.' He THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 123 paused, and relaxing into a slight smile, added, 1 I haven't spoiled your romance, have I ? ' 1 No/ she said with an answering smile. Then as the doctor walked briskly away she slightly knitted her pretty brows, hung her head, patted the ground with her little foot beyond the hem of her gown, and said to herself, ' The man was lying to him.' 124 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE CHAPTER III her return to the house Josephine appa- rently contented herself with receiving the bul- letin of the stranger's condition from the servant, for she did not enter his room. She had ob- tained no theory of last night's incident from her parents, who, beyond a querulous agitation that was quickened by the news of his return to reason, refrained from even that insidious com- ment which she half feared would follow. When another day passed without her seeing him, she nevertheless was conscious of a little embarrass- ment when his attendant brought her the request that she would give him a moment's speech in the porch, whither he had been re- moved. She found him physically weaker ; indeed, so much so that she was fain, even in her em- barrassment, to assist him back to the bench from which he had ceremoniously risen. But THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 125 she was so struck with the change in his face and manner, a change so virile and masterful, in spite of its gentle sadness of manner, that she recoiled with a slight timidity as if he had been a stranger, although she was also conscious that he seemed to be more at his ease than she was. He began in a low exhausted voice, but before he had finished his first sentence, she felt her- self in the presence of a superior. ' My thanks come very late, Miss Forsyth,' he said, with a faint smile, ' but no one knows better than yourself the reason why, or can better understand that they mean that the burden you have so generously taken on yourself is about to be lifted. I know all, Miss Forsyth. Since yesterday I have learned how much I owe you, even my life I believe, though I am afraid I must tell you in the same breath that that is of little worth to anyone. You have kindly helped and interested yourself in a poor stranger who turns out to be a nobody, without friends, without romance, and without even mystery. You found me lying in the road down yonder, after a stupid accident that might have happened to any other careless tramp, 126 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE and which scarcely gave me a claim to a bed in the county hospital, much less under this kindly roof. It was not my fault, as you know, that all this did not come out sooner ; but while it doesn't lessen your generosity, it doesn't lessen my debt, and although I cannot hope to ever repay you, I can at least keep the score from running on. Pardon my speaking so bluntly, but my excuse for speaking at all was to say 11 Good-bye" and "God bless you." Dr, Duchesne has promised to give me a lift on my way in his buggy when he goes.' There was a slight touch of consciousness in his voice in spite of its sadness, which struck the young girl as a weak and even ungentle- manly note in his otherwise self-abnegating and undemonstrative attitude. If he was a common tramp, he wouldn't talk in that way, and if he wasn't, why did he lie ? Her prac- tical good sense here asserted itself. ' But you are far from strong yet ; in fact, the doctor says you might have a relapse at any moment, and you have that is, you seem to have no money,' she said gravely. * That's true,' he said quickly. * I remember THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 127 I was quite played out when I entered the settlement, and I think I had parted from even some little trifles I carried with me. I am afraid I was a poor find to those who picked me up, and you ought to have taken warning. But the doctor has offered to lend me enough to take me to San Francisco, if only to give a fair trial to the machine he has set once more a-going.' ' Then you have friends in San Francisco ? ' said the young girl quickly. ' Those who know you ? Why not write to them first, and tell them you are here ? ' ' I don't think your postmaster here would be pre-occupied with letters for John Baxter if I did,' he said quietly. * But here is the doctor waiting. Good-bye*' He stood looking at her in a peculiar, yet half-resigned way, and held out his hand. For a moment she hesitated. Had he been less independent and strong she would have refused to let him gohave offered him some slight employment at the ranche ; for oddly enough, in spite of the suspicion that he was conceal- ing something, she felt that she would have 128 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE trusted him, and he would have been a help to her. But he was not only determined, but she was all the time conscious that he was a totally different man from the one she had taken care of, and merely ordinary prudence demanded that she should know something more of him first. She gave him her hand constrainedly ; he pressed it warmly. Dr. Duchesne drove up, helped him into the buggy, smiled a good-natured but half- perfunctory assurance that he would look after 1 her patient,' and drove away. The whole thing was over, but so un- expectedly, so suddenly, so unromantically, so unsatisfactorily, that, although her common sense told her that it was perfectly natural, proper, businesslike, and reasonable, and, above all, final and complete, she did not know whether to laugh or be angry. Yet this was her parting from the man who had but a few days ago moved her to tears with a single hopeless gesture. Well, this would teach her what to expect. Well, what had she expected ? Nothing ! Yet for the rest of the day she was un- THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 129 reasonably irritable, and, if the conjointure be not paradoxical, severely practical and inhumanly just. Falling foul of some presumption of Miguel's, based upon his prescriptive rights through long service on the estate, with the recollection of her severity towards his an- tagonist in her mind, she rated that trusted retainer with such pitiless equity and unfeminine logic that his hot Latin blood chilled in his veins, and he stood livid on the road. Then, informing Dick Shipley with equally relentless calm that she might feel it necessary to change all her foremen unless they could agree in harmony, she sought the dignified seclusion of her castle. But her respected parents, whose triumphant relief at the stranger's departure had emboldened them to await her return in the porch with bended bows of invective and lifted javelins of aggression, recoiled before the resistless helm of this cold-browed Minerva, who galloped con- temptuously past them. Nevertheless, she sat late that night at her desk. The cold moon looked down upon her window and lit up the empty porch where K 130 THE CHATELAINE OF nURNT RIDGE her silent guest had mutely watched her. For a moment she regretted that he had recovered his reason, excusing herself on the practical ground that he would never have known his dependence, and he would have been better cared for by her. She felt restless and uneasy. This slight divergence from the practical groove in which her life had been set had disturbed her in many other things, and given her the first views of the narrowness of it. Suddenly she heard a step in the porch. The lateness of the hour, perhaps some other reason, seemed to startle her, and she half rose. The next moment the figure of Miguel appeared at the doorway, and with a quick hurried look around him and at the open window he approached her. He was evidently under great excitement, his hollow shaven cheek looked like a waxen effigy in the mission church ; his yellow tobacco-stained eye glittered like phosphorescent amber, his lank grey hair was damp and perspiring; but more striking than this was the evident restraint he had put upon himself, pressing his broad-brimmed THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 131 sombrero with both of his trembling yellow hands against his breast. The young girl cast a hurried glance at the open window and at the gun which stood in the corner, and then con- fronted him with clear and steady eyes, but a paler cheek. Ah, he began in Spanish, which he himself had taught her as a child, it was a strange thing, his coming there to-night ; but then, mother of God ! it was a strange, a terrible thing that she had done to him old Miguel, her uncle's servant : he that had known her as Qmucbacha; he that had lived all his life at the ranche ay, and whose fathers before him had lived there all their lives and driven the cattle over the very spot where she now stood, before the thieving Americans came here ! But he would be calm ; yes, the senora should find him calm, even as she was when she told him to go. He would not speak. No, he Miguel would contain himself ; yes, he had mastered himself, but could he restrain others ? Ah, yes, others that was it. Could he keep Manuel and Pepe and Dominguez from talking to the millman that leaking sieve, that gabbling K 2 132 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE brute of a Shipley, for whose sake she had cast off her old servant that very day. She looked at him with cold astonishment, but without fear. Was he drunk with aguar- diente, or had his jealousy turned his brain ? He continued gasping, but still pressing his hat against his breast. Ah, he saw it all ! Yes, it was to-day, the day he left. Yes, she had thought it safe to cast Miguel off now now that he was gone! Without in the least understanding him, the colour had leaped to her cheek, and the consciousness of it made her furious. ' How dare you?' she said passionately. ' What has that stranger to do with my affairs or your insolence ? ' He stopped and gazed at her with a certain admiring loyalty. 'Ah'! so/ he said, with a deep breath, ' the senora is the niece of her uncle. She does well not to fear him a dog ' with a slight shrug 'who is more than repaid by the sefiora's condescension. He dare not speak ! ' * Who dare not speak ? Are you mad ? ' She stopped with a sudden terrible instinct of THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 133 apprehension. ' Miguel/ she said in her deepest voice, * answer me, I command you ! Do you know anything of this man ? ' ' It was Miguel's turn to recoil from his mistress. * Ah ! my God, is it possible the seiiora has not suspect ? ' ' Suspect ! ' said Josephine haughtily, albeit her proud heart was beating quickly. * I suspect nothing. I command you to tell me what you know' Miguel turned with a rapid gesture and closed the door. Then, drawing her away from the window, he said in a hurried whisper, ' I know that that man has not the name of Baxter! I know that he has the name of Randolph, a young gambler, who have won a large sum at Sacramento, and, fearing to be robbed by those he won of, have walk to himself through the road in disguise of a miner. I know that your brother Esteban have decoyed him here, and have fallen on him.' * Stop ! ' said the young girl, her eyes, which had been fixed with the agony of conviction, suddenly flashing with the energy of despair. 134 THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 1 And you call yourself the servant of my uncle, and dare say this of his nephew ? ' ' Yes, senora,' broke out the old man pas- sionately. * It is because I am the servant of your uncle that I, and / alone, dare say it to you! It is because I perjured my soul, and have perjured my soul to deny it elsewhere, that I now dare to say it! It is because I, your servant, knew it from one of my countrymen who was of the gang because I, Miguel, knew that your brother was not far away that night, and because I, whom you would dismiss, have picked up this pocket-book of Randolph's and your brother's ring which he have dropped and I have found beneath the body of the man you sent me to fetch.' He drew a packet from his bosom, and tossed it on the desk before her. ' And why have you not told me this before?' said Josephine passionately. Miguel shrugged his shoulders. ' What good ? Possibly this dog Randolph would die. Possibly he would live as a lunatic. Possibly would happen what has happened ! The senora is beautiful. The THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE 135 American has eyes. If the Dona Josephine's beauty shall finish what the silly Don Esteban's arm have begun .what matter ? ' ' Stop ! 'cried Josephine, pressing her hands across her shuddering eyelids. Then uncover- ing her white and set face, she said rapidly, * Saddle my horse and your own at once. Then take your choice ! Gome with me and repeat all that you have said in the presence of that man, .or leave this ranche for ever. For if I live I shall go to him to-night, and tell the whole story.' The old man cast a single glance at his mistress, shrugged his shoulders, and, without a word,, left the room. But in ten minutes they were on their way to the county town. Day was breaking over the distant Burnt Ridge a faint sombre level, like a funeral pall, in the dim horizon as they drew up before the gaunt white-painted pile of the hospital building. Josephine uttered a cry ; Dr. Duchesne's buggy was before the door. On its very threshold they met the doctor, dark and irritated 'Then you heard the news?' he said quickly. 13 > THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE Josephine turned her white face to the doctor's. ' What news ? ' she asked, in a voice that seemed strangely deep and resonant. * The poor fellow had another attack last night, and died of exhaustion about an hour ago. I was too late to save him.' ' Did he say anything? Was he conscious?' asked the girl hoarsely. * No ; incoherent ! Now I think of it, he harped on the same string as he did the night of the operation. What was it he said ? you remember.' * " You'll have to kill me first," ' repeated Josephine in a choking voice. ' Yes ; something about his dying before he'd tell. Well, he came back to it before he went off they often do. You seem a little hoarse with your morning ride. You should take care of that voice of yours. By the way, it's a good deal like your brother's.' . . . The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge never married. THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT CHAPTER I IT was an enormous wheat field in the Santa Clara valley, stretching to the horizon line un- broken. The meridian sun shone upon it without glint or shadow ; but at times, when a stronger gust of the trade winds passed over it, there was a quick slanting impression of the whole surface that was, however, as unlike a billow as itself was unlike a sea. Even when a lighter zephyr played down its long level the agitation was superficial, and seemed only to momentarily lift a veil of greenish mist that hung above its immovable depths. Occasional puffs of dust alternately rose and fell along an imaginary line across the field, as if a current of air were passing through it, but were otherwise inexplicable. 133 THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT Suddenly a faint shout, apparently some- where in the vicinity of the line, brought out a perfectly clear response, followed by the audible murmur of voices which it was impossible to localise. Yet the whole field was so devoid of any suggestion of human life or motion that it seemed rather as if the vast expanse itself had become suddenly articulate and intelligible. ' Wot say ? ' ' Wheel off.'