H SAND AFD BIG JACK SMALL BY J. W. GALLY. CHICAGO : BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 1880. COPYRIGHTED. BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., 1880. PRINTED AND BOUND BY DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, Library CONTENTS Page. CHAPTER I. ... 9 CHAPTER II. - - ,; 31 CHAPTER III. ... 72 CHAPTER IV. .... 116 CHAPTER V. - - - - - 148 CHAPTER VI. .... 174 BIG JACK SMALL, - - . . 199 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. '"THREE CHEERS FOR THE BOSS PASSENGER," Frontispiece. " GIMME A FDST RATE SEEGAR," - - 64 JUDITH HOLTEN AND NORMAN MATDOLE, JR., 112 NORMAN AND "CussiN JACK," - 128 BIG JACK SMALL, - - 199 5 *' Sand" was first published in the new Pacific slope maga- zine, "JThe Californian," and, as a serial, received very flattering criticisms from the press of the whole country. SAND. " Who so shall telle a tale after a man, He moste reherse, as neighe as ever he can, Everich word, if it be in his charge, All speke he never so rudely and so large; Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe Or feinen thinegs, or finden wordes newe." Chaucer. SAND. CHAPTER I. MOUNTAIN BROW, CAL., June 3, 187-. MY DEAR OLD FRIEND : I canuot, at this moment, recall the date of my latest letter to you, yet I distinctly remember that I did write to you at some period of time not strictly prehistoric ; but whether it was that I penned my epistle in answer to some- thing, or desiring that something should be answered, I know not, and, indeed, do not care; because, as I look upon it, the an. tiquity and proximity of our friendship is equal to a waiver of ceremony. If, lang syne, among the bowlders and paygrit of Squally Flat, I had not learned by heart that you were one of God's own in every depth of good friendship, save the expressing of it, I should think you were turned cavalier, and prone to ride by your old friend on your successful money-getting hobby ; but my head, which is rapidly taking on the gray thatch of declining life, tells me that yours is a nature no more to be spoiled by wealth than daunted by poverty. When I think of you I can not fail to recall poor old Rocky weller (you do not forget him?), or rather his pet speech when he was spreeing on Squally. You can not have forgotten how he used to come to his cabin door on the hill-side, in the early morning, and address the general camp in these words, shouted at the top of his voice: "Whoop la! God hates a coward, sir, and you can't hurt a Christian. Never try to crawl when you're broke, nor to fly when you're flush, sir, and you may be happy yet, sir. Amen, sir!" After which Mo- hammedanized Christian salutation to the morn, he softly closed his cabin door behind him, and carefully walked down the trail to the saloon for his earliest libation. You always seem to me to be an embodiment of Rockyweller's creed. And now they tell me 9 10 SAND. you are the master of millions of dollars. How strangely ro- mantic is real life! To-day we weep upon our mother's breast and take her parting kiss, close behind us is the humble gate of home, and, gazing through unusual tears, bid old familiar scenes farewell ; to-morrow and to-morrow stretch before us on the road, till we travel into manhood and its trials; then the early grave for one, wrecked life for another, quiet success for a third, and so on, up and down, the line of registry runs, till at length one of a thou- sand astonishes himself and everybody else by becoming re- nowned for wealth or wisdom. Strange strange indeed, and the more I dwell upon it, the more strange it seems to me ! I never expected that you, among all the boys who crossed the plains in 1850 in our train, would be famous for anything ; but at the same time, also, people were not looking to Sangamon County, Illinois, for a President of the United States. The wisdom which seeks to forecast the career of a baby is less reliable than the baby is. Prophecy, to use a neat vulgarism, is played out. Nothing is more novel than reality. Success is always surprising. Having said thus much about you, and it is, I assure you, but a slight in- stallment of what I am frequently thinking, I will proceed, with your leave, to talk of myself, and my belongings. I am not at all glorious, or in any way distinguished ; but I may fairly say, that, take my circumstances altogether, I am happy. We that is, the other goodly half and myself we jog along; and to me likewise, as I fully believe, also to her each new day that we are permitted, by the great goodness of Divinity, to continue together is an additional coinage from the mint of solid satisfaction. I have not, as you know, much wealth never was meant to be that way but my children, though rather numer- ous, are greatly satisfying to me. I think, moreover, and really hope, that I am not declining in the esteem of my neighbors. You, with the other " boys" in our claim on Squally Flat, used to think I was a brilliant fellow. That was a mistake. Brilliant people rarely wear well, while, on the contrary, I seem to find that I ripen slowly, but surely, into public favor in my small way. So far as I can observe, none of my children are defective in any way they are all shapely, lithe, supple, quick of foot and SAND. 11 apprehension. Their mother guides them without goad or rein,, and I curb them with a look or shake of the head, and nothing pleases them better than to hear me descant upon " The days of old the days of gold In the days of forty-nine," in which stories you yourself, mine ancient pard, sometimes figure as the hero. My eldest boy, who is now a man, seems to take deep and partic- ular interest in the old times. Query. Can it be that a parent may beget his impressions? Is it a reality that the sour fruit in the mouth of the parent sets the teeth of the unborn upon edge, and vice versa as to sweet fruit ? Well, well ! However this query may be answered, there is another query which I must soon essay to answer. My boy wants to plunge into the tide of life and strike out for himself; and, but for the shadow on his mother's brow and the quiver on her lip, when the matter is spoken of, I could be well satisfied to launch him, and let him go. I cannot guide him forever, you know; and I feel sure that he will pursue quite a& virtuous a course while the earth is under my feet as he will with part of it over my head. And now, that I think of it, I will give you a brief schedule of his accomplishments and traits, so that mayhap and God willing, you may see some place that he will fit into, and let me know of it. He is neither tall nor large, is rery neat in his person, is said to have a handsome face, with earn- est dark brown eyes, like his mother's. He is every way shapely, save and except that his arms are a trifle long, and his hands, though elegantly shaped, are about one or two sizes larger than a strictly aristocratic taste would desire. His voice is soft and very clear, his enunciation distinct and deliberate. He is less of a talker than his father, though he is a better talker when stirred up to it. His manners are grave and quiet for one of his years; he can sit or stand perfectly still in any company, and listen with- out embarrassment; that, you know, has always been one of my tests of gentlemanliness. He has good English and good com- mercial education, with a large fund of miscellaneous information. His penmanship is round, smooth, and characteristic of controlled and controllable nerve force. His morals, I believe, are good* 12 SAND. and I know that his courage is, and ever from infancy was, un- doubted. He is ambitious, and hopes to make his way into some line of business which has a future to it. From my long experi- ence as Clerk of the Court, I had hoped my oldest son would be a lawyer during my lifetime; but he shows, as yet, no taste for law. I, however, have other sons, perhaps, to " comfort my old age." Of course, you well know that I desire you not to embarrass yourself in any way on account of old times, and if my boy does not seem to fit into some place now open, I ask you, as an old friend, to drop the matter right there, and we will say no more about it. Although this is a long letter, I do not feel weary with writing it, and entertain a hope that you will not weary in the reading of it. I could tell you many things about domestic politics, but such things no longer hold a first place in your attention, or in- deed in the attention of strong, active natures all over our great Union, and, I may add, with a seeming slang phrase, "that's what's the matter." But, even if I do not write politics or send you important news, I think we of the old school should still, from time to time, drop each other a letter, because the day is not a long way oft' when we will not be able to reach each other by mail or telegram. Let me hope, however, that when that day comes we will be blissfully near enough to need no artificial com- munication for evermore. My wife and nest of little ones, like the four and twenty black- birds when the pie was opened, are ready to sing before your majesty if you will accept my oft repeated and always standing invitation to come and see us. Give the love of us all to all there is of you and yours, and per- mit me to remain, in the homeliest way, Heartily, your friend, NORMAN MAYDOLE. In answer to the above there carne, in due time, the following brief epistolary dash: . S. F., Cal.,JunelO, 187-. VERY DEAR OLD PARD: I read your letter to my household. We all enjoyed it. Write often. God bless you every one. We 8 A N D. 13 ought to be more personally intimate ; but you're too proud to visit the house of what you call a rich man, and Pin too busy to go anywhere off the treadmill. Send that boy to me right off. Tell his mother we will be good to him. In haste, yours to command, HOLTEN. Mrs. Maydole was a good mother, and, although she had a deal of regular and miscellaneous mother- ing to do, still preserved to herself that quiet way which wise mothers have of appreciating character among her offspring. Norman Maydole, Jr., her eldest, differed enough from Norman Maydole, Sr., and differed in such manner as almost, if not quite, to fill in her heart the vacant margin unfilled by the, to her, shortcomings in the character of Norman Maydole, Sr. She thought she saw in her son the ideal manhood which floated through her love-lit fancy when she was Martha Aiken. She knew that in this boy was a nature stronger than his father's a nature which might, perforce of circumstances, serve faithfully, but which must ere long rule or ruin for itself; she at once trembled inwardly at, and secretly delighted in, the developing, but not to all mani- fest, power of her boy. With loving haste, yet with tears in her eyes and voice, she made him ready for his departure, and grew firmer in purpose as the hour drew nigh to bid him farewell. She did not burthen his parting moments with prayers or advice; but held up to his kiss all the little faces of the house, and finally, after all, she came to embrace him softly and quietly, and kiss him good- bye. 14: SAND. Norman Maydole, Jr., will never be able to say precisely what he thought as he sat with the driver on "the outside," and coached away down the moun- tain road. Yet he did a deal of thinking one way and another; but he could not realize that home for him would stop right there, and never more grow from that point; while, of course, he could not com- prehend his changing future; yet it was this home and this future which were dancing incomprehensible quadrilles through his head. It was a cool, bracing morning in a climate where the seasons are inextricably mixed after sundown, and often not entirely defined in broad daylight. Just such a morning as that in which the average coach- horse nips the nose of his span-fellow, and prances out of town in a manner at once arch and active, which seems to say to the admiring school-boy who "creeps lazily:" "Ha, ha! Little fellow, couldn't we give these passengers a merry fright, if we chose to take into our teeth these palty bridle-bits?" This is the time when the driver arranges and hefts his lines, poises and balances his whip, pushes his brake-lever back and forth with his off foot, looks down at the double-trees, then back over the top of his coach, then heft's his lines again, and says: "Yait!" And away they go in gay style no sprawling. Norman knew this driver; not as many village boys did, by hanging around the stables watching the rubbing down of the stock, and longing to take a SAND. 15 hand at the rubbing, but by having seen him call at the house for or with passengers; arid the driver had, with stage driver's horsey observation, measured the young man, and put him down in his mental note- book as a " high-toned, 'way up young feller;" and this driver, when off duty, had met Norman in the village escorting some of the most beautiful, elegant, well-bred young ladies in the county, and if there is anything that at once awes and wins upon a horsey man, it is his acknowledged superior among the ladies. Indeed, one is prone to judge that no man can be a Methodist minister, or professional stage driver, without possessing a deep and abiding admiration for the fair sex. Nothing but this great motive could reconcile a rational human being to a life so exciting, so nomadic, so ill requited. "Goin' to kulledge, young man?" queried the driver, as the team was slowed down to climb a grade. " Not at present," Norman responded. " Goin 5 down to the bay?" Yes." " Ther's whur you see something," and he was em- phatic on the " see." " I suppose so," said Norman, dryly. "Gals! Ooh-oo-ooh!" and the driver hefted his lines again, crossed his legs, and gave his long whip- lash a twirl of great facetiousness, ending with a light, humorous snap a sort of audible wink. Norman being a young man naturally and habitu- ally scrupulous in the weight of language, and never 16 SAND. having had any experience in such a descriptive phrase as " Ooh-oo-ooh," carefully held his peace. " Goin' to be one o' them spry young fellers what skeets 'round for a broker's office, p'haps?" " I think not." " "Well, excuse me, young feller; I don't want to dig into your private biz; I'm only talkiri' for soci- able." This mark of respectful acutenesswas instinctively accepted and responded to by Norman. " I do not know what I shall do in San Francisco. I'm going to seek my fortune." "What! Row with the old man? Off on your ear?" "No; nothing of that kind." " I might 'a' knowed that, if I wasn't a damn fool. Your father's a gen'lem'n he don't row with no- body." "Thank you," responded Norman, with more in- terest than he had before manifested. " Lord, yes, I've voted for your father, and he's swore me in court. You rec'clect that? time Jim Clem cut Fancy Irvin, what used to drive the dapple grays." Norman did not remember the trial, because trials at law were too numerous in the clerical life of his home to demand special remembrance; while with the driver it was different, as the most distinguished epoch in his career was his appearance as prosecuting witness in the State of California versus James Clem. SAND. 17 The coach was not heavily laden, having only six "insides," and one on top; so the team bowled mer- rily along through leafy canons and over dusty sum- mits, up hill slowly and down hill rapidly, till the growing day, warmed with the cloudless sky and strengthening sun, suggested to Norman to draw off his overcoat, and as he was so doing, the driver, hav- ing observed the action, remarked: " D'ye allers go heeled?" " Very seldom," answered Norman, placing his hand upon his hip, as if making sure that the matter of being " heeled " had not been displaced by the change in his dress. " 1 used to pack one o' them things," said the driver; u but 'tain't no use to pack 'em if ye don't use 'em." " No." said Norman, with a sort of far away look in his dark eyes. " No use, if they are not to be used when needed." " Well, I alwuz noticed it, that unless a feller is right dead on the shoot, he never needs a shootin* iron till he gets wher' ther's mighty little show to draw." Norman nodded his head in silence. " When I come on the old overland line," contin- ued the driver, " I had a fust- rate six-shooter, and as I was gittin' up on the box the fust mornin', sez the agent to me, sez he, ' What're goiri' t'do wi' that?' ; Oh, mi thin,' sez I, and I looked over my shoulder kind o' cute as I tuk up the lines. ' Well.' sez he, 2 18 SAND. 4 1 bet two to one you don't use it.' 4 Oh, no,' sez I, 4 it ain't me what'll use one o' them things it's some other feller.' Well, dern me, if I wasn't overhauled by the road-agents in less'n two hours, an' I didn't use it; and what's more, if ye hear my gentle voice, they tuk it away from me, went through the passen- gers and the express box, and I ain't never carried no tools of that kind sence." " Why did you not use it?" asked Norman, very gently. " Use it! How in hell's a man to use a shooter when he's got both hands full of boss lines?" "I see," said Norman, and then gravely asked: " Did no one try to defend the stage?" "No!" answered the driver, in a tone that was a sort of indignant snarl, which may be written, N-e-a-o-w; "been drivin' fur ten year on this coast, and been gone through three times by road-agents, an' I've heard lots o' talk among passengers about fight, but I never seen none of it. Talk's cheap, but it takes the sand to fight stage robbers." No remarks from the young man. " D'ye reckon you'd stand in if three or four masked men was to come into the road out o' these yer bushes, with cocked double-barreled shot-guns drawed on us, and holler to us to * halt and put up yer hands?' ' " I think I should," said Norman. " Well, ye wouldn't. Ye can bet yer life ye wouldn't. " Perhaps not," said Norman. At this moment the stage was winding slowly up SAND. 19 the graded side-hill road, out of the cafion, toward the open upland country. Up the hill-side the slim red branches of the madronos and the white stems of the buckeyes shone out among the live oak and straggling pines, while below the road and down toward where the gurgling stream meandered among the rocks, the pines arose tall arid serene. It was a quiet place, save for the chirping of small birds, the chatter of blue jays, and the occasional whirr of the quail. The situation and conversation, in some unconscious way, had caused Norman to rest his hand upon his armed hip as he looked quietly about him. At the summit of the grade the woodland terminated, and gave way to a long view of open country, through which the road was to be seen for miles of distance. Arriving at the edge of the woodland, the driver was about o gathering his lines more firmly in hands for a speedier gait, when, as if by magic, there appeared in the road three men, with guns and masked faces; "one of whom shouted: " Halt!" and then added, looking through the holes in his rude mask at Norman: " Hold up your hands." To which Norman re- plied by putting a bullet-hole through the mask im- mediately above the two holes which had eyes behind them. "Drive on," said Norman, quietly, but firmly, as he sent a ball in dangerous nearness to the head of the masked fellow in front of the horses. " Drive on, rapidly," and again he fired upon the 20 fellow in front, while a ioad of buckshot went singing a dangerous falsetto over his head from the fellow on the right. " By !" exclaimed the driver, now thoroughly in for it, and aroused to the merits of the case, as he sent the silk into his leaders and whirled away to the open country, followed by another discharge of buck- shot arid a fusillade of revolver balls. For the next two miles the driver had business of importance on his hands his team was " running away," or at least fully believed they were, and thej^ " meant it," too; but a stage-horse knows the road, and a good driver knows how to let them take it on occasion. Norman quietly watched the receding road to the rear, while the driver kept an eye to the fore, but neither said anything to the other. By and by, as they neared the station and a small village, where a change of horses should take place preparatory to entering upon a more inhabited country, the driver succeeded in slowing his team to a gentle trot up hill. " Are you hurt?" asked Norman, still keeping his eye upon the rearward road. " Damn if I know. Hain't had time to find out, but there's a place on top of my cabesa that burns like the devil. I can't slack up on these yer lines to prospect it." " Let me look," said Norman, taking off the driver's hat, and softly manipulating the cranium it had cov- ered. " There's no blood, and I think there's no new lule in vour head." SAND. This being the first remark savoring of humor or familiarity on Norman's part during the brief but eventful acquaintance, seemed very' facetious to the driver, particularly as the young man had gone "away up" in the driver's estimation and we are all pleased at the familiarity of the hero. Norman next examined the driver's hat, and, hold- ing it before the eyes of that worthy, pointed to op- posite holes across the crown thereof. " I knowed it was a cussed close call," said the driver, clinging to his lines the while, but smiling a very pleased smile as Norman replaced the hat. "That rooster on the right gave me that. Ain't you hurt nowheres?" " Not much," said Norman; " there is a wet place on my shoulder, but it does not feel very painful. Can we not stop now and look after the people in- side?" . " No can't hold 'em," meaning the horses. "Hol- ler over the side to 'em," meaning the passengers. " We'll soon be in town." Norman leaned down the side of the coach, and asked: " Any one hurt inside?" " I believe not," answered a male voice. "No, sir; nobody hurt," said a pleasant female voice, " but oh! so terribly frightened and are you sure it is all over?" " All over," said Norman. f " Well, I'm so glad, for I was sure we would all be killed. Are you gentlemen on top hurt?" 22 SAN D. " Yes, the driver's hat is mortally wounded in two places." " Oh, if that is all, it must have been a miraculous deliverance." Then Norman took his seat again by the driver, and proceeded to reload his pistol. The stage drove up to the porch of the little coun- try inn with foaming, panting horses. The passen- gers got promptly out, seemingly for no particular object other than to make sure that peace was fully assured and danger no longer threatening. Norman got quietly down from his high seat, and entered the inn without speaking to any one. As the driver threw the lines right and left to the hostlers, one of those worthies remarked, as he cast an experienced eye upon the team : "Been poppin' 'em through, Curly." " Yes," said Curly, as he swung down from his seat to the inn porch; " poppin's the word, and I've had about enough o' this." By this time some whisper of the aifray had leaked out, through a thirsty passenger making miscellane- ous remarks at the bar while fortifying his courage, and therefore a small squad impeded the driver's way to the place where the thirsty passenger had preceded him. "What's the matter now, Curly?" dryly asked the hostler. " Why, when I hired to this company to drive stage, I didn't enlist for the war. Look at my hat" SAND. 23 and he took off that article of wear and handed it to the hostler. " That's what's the matter! Look at them holes," he added, softly feeling the top of his uncovered head as he stood among the inquiring crowd, who looked first at the hat and then at the head. " Have yon been rowing with that young feller that was on the box with ye?" asked the hostler. ki No. Where is he?" looking about for him. "No; that young feller's a particular friend of mine, and he's got the sand he hez he's a fighter from Bitter Creek;" by which mention of location the driver only desired to refer to that place on the old overland stage road which became in its time noted as the roughest place this side of orthodox damnation. " You bored them holes with a gimlet," said the incredulous hostler, passing the hat back. Before the driver had time to reply to this insult- ing insinuation, the crowd suddenly rushed to the rear of the coach, where an elderly fat male passenger, with spectacles on nose, was pointing out certain small holes in the boot leathers, as well as in the highly varnished wood-work of the body of the coach. " If you'd a been where this hat was when them holes was made," said the driver, placing the hat on his head, " there'd a been one less leadin' man at the p'formance what they call capittle punishment. I'm goin' to irrigate. Come in, and take something, hossy. You needn't hurry up with the other team. We've got biz to settle before we pull out of here. 24 SAN D. Come, and take a drink, both of ye all hands everybody!" and under the pressure of the excite- ment the crowd, hostlers and all, entered the bar-room of the inn. Here, glass in hand, Curly related his adventure to all save the second hostler, whose duties required him to hastily swallow his drink and go back to the panting team, leaving hostler No. 1 to receive the story for retailing at second-hand in the stable. Curly told his story simply enough, without unu- sual exaggeration as to his own part in it, but with great praise for the courage " sand," he called it of the ;i young feller." According to him, the robber on the left fell dead at the first fire, and he was satis- fied that the robber in front was wounded, and he thought from the way the " hoss kep' shaking his head, and goiri' with it turned up side- ways," that one of the leaders was " plugged " about the butt of the off ear, but the robber on the right, whom the driver cursed most vigorously, was not hurt at all. " Is the young feller hurt any ?" asked the bar- keeper. u He thinks he is, in the shoulder," answered the driver. "But where in thunder's he gone to? I want to see him. I want to sell out to him for life or good behavior. I can't buy him, I know; but I'll sell if he'll buy; an' I'm goin' to do it. Where is he?" and the driver started toward the door, as i-f to look him up. " Gone down town long 'go with the lan'lord," said the barkeeper. S A N D. 2 "Well, Pll wait fur him, if it's a week. You needn't bring out no team till he comes back not fer me to drive fer I don't move nary a first step till the young feller gives his orders. Pie's my boss. He's the boss passenger that ever went over this line." By and by Norman returned, coming up the street with the landlord on one side of him and the village doctor on the other, all conversing pleasantly, and as they stepped upon the inn porch the driver accosted Norman: u Well, boss, shall we roll out?" " As soon as you please. I'm ready," answered Norman. "All right; away we go!" and he started toward the stables; then immediately turned on his heel, and asked: " Oh, I say! Boss, won't you have something to drink?" " No thank you I have no occasion." "All right," and he turned again toward the sta- bles, muttering to himself, "don't care a hoot if he never drinks with me he's got the sand." By this time, through the piecemeal detail of the driver and passengers, it was pretty thoroughly known among the crowd that the " down stage " had been stopped by road-agents iw at the summit, this side of Buckeye Canon," but that the robbers had been re- pulsed by Norman, and distanced by the driver; that Dr. Minnis had extracted a ball from Norman's shoul- der; that the stage showed marks of the bullets; that 26 SAND. the driver's hat had had a ball through it, which had singed a furrow through his curly hair, and that the " nigh leader " had a ball hole in the lower part of his off ear; and the conclusion was arrived at that all this scare and damage must have been done by u Cocho Pizan " and his pals, because somebody had seen Cocho lately in the neighborhood. As the horses were being brought and buckled each in his proper place in front of the stage, there was a sort of public reception on the inn porch. Dr. Minnis, being an old-time acquaintance of Norman's father, was acting as voluntary grand marshal of the occasion, and pleasantly introducing Norman to his fellow passengers, male and female, and such of the citizens as had, like the stage passengers, expressed a desire to be made acquainted with, as they termed him, " the gallant young fellow." So Norman was introduced to everybody, and they all congratulated him on his u ~gallant conduct." All of which he took quietly, pleasantly, and with modest, almost bashful, demeanor. When it is said that he was introduced to everybody, that does not include the driver, because it was somehow, yet for no fair cause, taken for granted that he already knew him. Per- ceiving the oversight, Curly, who knew the doctor slightly, approached that person and said, confiden- tially, " Doc, I know the young feller I'll never for- git him but he don't know me only as ' the driver;' now I want you to introduce me on the square up an' up, ye know." SAND. m " Certainly," replied the doctor, stepping over to where Norman stood near the coach, talking to the crowd. ' Mr. Maydole, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Talman Reese." Curly lifted his hat and bowed after the manner of "salute partners." and grasped Norman's hand, re- marking as he did so: " You do me proud, Mr. May- dole." Then turning away to his business without another word, he mounted the box, and shouting u all aboard," gathered up his lines, released his break-lever and put his foot on it; then, as Norman sat down by his side, the landlord closing the coach door upon the insiders with a snap, saying "all right," at which words the horses began to dance up on the bits, he remarked over his shoulder as follows to the crowd: " This town isn't worth a whoop in hell if ye don't give us three cheers for the boss passenger." The cheers were given with a will. Curly "let 'em go" meaning the horses; Norman waved his hat to the crowd, and the excited fresh team bowled the stage away on its route out of sight and out of sound. Upon the road once more, and away from all excite- ment save the exhilaration of the ride, Norrnan fell into silent reflection upon the events of the morning, which state of silence the driver respected, if he was not himself in the same state, and neither spoke to the other for some miles. At length Norman re- marked : " Do you really think I killed that highwayman I first fired upon?" '$ SAND. "I'll bet my pile on it. Didn't you see him fall." " Yes. I saw him fall; but men sometimes get up again. Do they not?" "Yes, they do, sometimes; but not when they fall like he did." " I do not like to think he is dead." "Well, I do, damn him." " But you didn't shoot him." " No, I didn't, but I wish I had a shot him. I hain't got no conscience about me for him or any of his kind. An' if you'll take rny little advice, you'll just consider yourself in big luck for gittin' the drop on him instid o' him gittin' it on you! " " Well, well," said Norman, hastily, and the subject dropped for a while. " Was that a bad job in your shoulder gittin' out that ball?" " Painful, but not dangerous it was soon done." " Glad of it." Then there was another long silence, broken in time by Norman: "Mr. Reese!" " Sir! to you." " If we go on reporting this matter down the road, will we not raise an excitement and cause people to gather together and turn out for a hunt after these robbers? " " Well, that'll be a bully good thing." "But, then, if they find a dead body, we are all liable to be detained as witnesses before the coroner." SAND. 29 " I'm agreeable to that! " "Yes, I know. Your position as driver makes it not inconvenient or troublesome to you, but with a passenger, bound upon his own urgent business, it is different." "It is some different; but the business ort to be attended to ortn't it?" " Yes, certainly. But we all could give no better evidence than you can. There is only the fact that the robbery was threatened by unknown parties, and the shooting took place. You can swear as to that; and the ball-holes in the coach, and in your hat, and in the horse, will corroborate you. All the rest is guess-work. We can not identify any of the men. I wish to see the law enforced in this and in all cases, but do not desire to be detained from my own affairs for no attainable end." " Well, if you say it, mum's the word from now on, as far as I'm in it." "But the other passengers?" " Oh, they'll cotton to it, soon's they find it's into their hands to lay low." " Will you mention it to them at the earliest op- portunity?" " I will that. But if the fellow you plugged is Cocho Pizan, and I reckon he is, you needn't hev no worry about no kerrener a settin' on his body ; there's greasers enough in the foot-hills say in' nuthin of other cut-throats to keep his carkus away from any inquess." SAND. "Thank you," rejoined Norman; and thereafter the ride proceeded to its end with the usual ordinary line of incident, the relation of which is not vital to this narrative. CHAPTER II. The home of Colonel Holten was his own. He was its author. There had been a time in the manhood of his life when the price of any article in this home would have been a vital financial matter to him; but now, thanks to his own efforts, care, courage, and capabilities, he was able easily to have about him what- ever money could buy. Yet his home was in no way a heterogeneous array of imitative purchases or gilded trashiness. It was costly, and it conformed in all its details to his ideas of a home, as near as well rewarded skill and personal supervision could make it. Yet, withal, he was no slave in his merchantable surround- ings, nor would he advise or permit those who shared his affections and fortunes so to be. The downs of life had taught him that its ups are only valuable as they promote contentment with the reasonable attain- ment of one's object. The acquisition of the power of wealth was his game. He loved to play that game. But he loved even better the seasons of relaxation, under the roof- tree he had reared from a foundation of empty hands. His wife was a soothing, sensible, domestic person, supposed by himself and others, but not by. her, to be above him in blood and lineage whatever that may mean in the United States of North America. Some recent ancestors of hers had been members of the 31 32 SAND. Legislature of her native State, or of some other State; and one ancestor in particular had been a judge in his time, and also a member of Congress. But Holten's ancestors had been simply furrowers of the soil, or traders, for numberless generations. And though now, in the matter of weight in the State and on the market, he was able to buy and sell, had such been for sale, the influence of all his wife's relations from the remotest point in the family history, still he ever, and at all times, held and gave forth the idea that his wife and her family were, as compared with himself and his family or with anybody else's family, in fact superior persons. He not only held this idea, but he religiously believed it, from the fact that when he first felt his heart warm toward the good girl of his choice, she seemed so far and away above his social position and culture, that the impression then made remained, in true love evergreen, with him through life. He, by his actions, more than by his words, perhaps, sought to convey this idea to his children; and he generally succeeded in doing so, but not in every case. He had no son. This was one of his re- grets. But he had three fair daughters, the eldest of whom was his son in all ways, except that she was in no way masculine. She was himself again as near as she could be, aside from what she regarded as her misfor- tune of sex. She was a strong woman not strong as a man is strong but strong as a brave man would have her to be. She knew when he was hurt. The least abrasion on the firm-fronted armor which he pre- SAND. 33 sen ted to the str.iving world was not hidden to her eyes. She gloried in his strength, rejoiced in hi& successes, and was vexed at any impediments in his way. She realized as by intuition that the fortunes- of a man are himself, that opportunity in itself is- dead matter, until vitalized by a vigorous manhood; and yet she was not a forward nor an obtrusive woman. Toward this child the father leaned in his wearied-out or disgusted hours; and she promptly met him with as much motherly kinkness as may be in a young woman of years not yet counting one score. In form and feature she resembled her father and her father's people. Tall she was, but not over tall, full and firm of chest, strong of limb and lithe of action, with an imposing, grand, arid graceful way of her own. She was not pretty of face, yet it was easier to look in her face a second time than to avoid doing so. It was a sweet, powerful face, and the head which gave to that face an appearance of prominence of mouth and chin was a grand head. It was of the domestic-heroic type, poised a little backward by the weight of a vital brain, and yet full enough forward for all practical purposes. Her hair was light brown, her eyes gray, her skin fair, her teeth good, her cheeks and chin dimpled, and her neck and throat white, smooth, and with but the faintest suggestion of an angle. Still she was not pretty did not think she was. But she was, and she early knew it, pleasing to her own sex, and interesting to the other. Her sisters, being younger and prettier, were as yet ordinary persons, 3 34 SAN D. not requiring special notice at this time. But she had a visiting friend, a few years older than herself, from the country of ancient culture which lies to the eastward. This friend was another sort of girl slender, high of forehead, and light behind the ears. Her head poised the reverse way to that of our hero- ine, for whereas the head of our girl tilted backward, giving to the face a slightly upward poise, the face of the other poised forward, drawing the chin back, and throwing the brow to the front ; hence, our girl looked at you with a full, open expression, while the other glanced from under her higher forehead. Girls who have heads and faces gotten up in these styles have usually bodies and rninds to correspond. Thinking observers know that; so there is no need just here to further describe Judith Holten and her young Eastern friend, Alice Winans. Into this family Norman Maydole, Jr., was ushered by its head. Mrs. Holten, taking his reserve of man- ner for bashful timidity, strove, with cheery mother- liness, to make his introduction easy. The younger girls stood with their arms about each other, and looked innocently at the new young man. Miss Alice Win- ans inspected him according to Robert Burns' for- mula: " Keek thro' ev'ry ither man Wi' sharpen'd slee inspection." Judith shook hands with him earnestly and fairly, looking at him with level eyes from an open, honest expression, bade him a brief, hearty welcome (after SAND 35 her father's style), then paid no further particular attention to him. But Miss Alice kept a mental reg- istry of his looks, and ere the evening was half ended had noted that Norman's eyes were, though very quiet and self-possessed, prone to wander after the form and movements of Judith Holten. Norman made no boyish effort to add weight to his own impressiveness had no thought of so doing. His mind was upon other matters, relating to the changing condition of his affairs; and, - perhaps, in any case he would have acted as he did then simply as a quiet young gentleman. As the evening visit progressed into the late hours, Mrs. Holten remarked easily to Norman, as she took a seat near, in her changes from place to place about the room: " Mr. Maydole, you are to remain with us enfamille for the present, and you must try to feel at home." " Thank you, madam ; but is it not more fit that I should remain at my hotel?" "No, indeed! Mr. Holten would not think of it; and we have all voted that you remain with us." " It is with entire pleasure that I accept your kind- ness. Indeed, as to its effect upon myself, I have not, have not had, any hesitation in its acceptance; but I am here to serve, not to be served." Mrs. Holten laughed a little laugh, remarking: u The service is to be mutual, Mr. Maydole." Then excused herself to hasten away to some other matter. "Mr. Maydole," said Colonel Holten, coming into the room from which he had been absent for some 36 'SAND. time, "my wife lias told you that you are to abide with us; and having had a long and weary ride, you must be tired. If it is your wish to retire to rest, I will show you to your apartments." Norman thanked him, bade the family good-night, and followed his host from the room ; whereupon the family circle dispersed to its several dormitories. In the rooms of Miss Judith there was an imme- diate discussion of the new young man. " Well, what do you think of father's protege?" asked Miss Judith of Miss Alice. "What think you of him?" " I have not thought much about him. He has nice feet, a soft voice, and his clothes fit him. Father has so many i old pards,' as they call themselves, coming and going, that my curiosity is not very keen." "This one is no old pard," said Miss Alice, laugh- ing. "Well, it's all the same his father is." "I think this is a gentleman." "Well, that's a blessing; because some of father's old friends are good men, but they are very loud, riot to say sometimes coarse." "This one is not coarse. You need have no idea that he is. He is a little new not raw; but he will v :-. assert himself without noise or over-exertion." "You are a student of character, Alice. Oh, I wish you could see some of the characters father brings home. 'The old-time boys,' they call themselves. From Nevada, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Asia, SAND. 37 Africa, America, and the islands of the sea. Father enjoys them when he is not over- worked. Soine of them are very poor alas, poor boys! but many of them are 'well fixed,' as they call it, arid are liberal to profusion; and they almost invariably make me the recipient of their bounty, because, they say, I'm 'so much like the old man.' I have a perfect museum of the most astonishing Iric-a-lrac presented to me by elderly men, who wanted to drive me in the highest style to the theoyter, or anywhere, or everywhere. They all wanted to do something handsome and the right thing by their 'old pard's little gal.' They are not so numerous now as they were when I was a child. Po.or fellows! dead, perhaps," said Judith, with a sigh. "This man will not come to you with presents." "Why not, pray?" "Because you will go after him." "Wh-a-w-t?" "That man is just as sure to interest Judith Holten as I am alive to say so." "Good ness! He? A little, long-armed, amiable soul like him?" "Amiable? Why, Judith, the man is a young mountain lion. Look at his quiet, leopard-like eyes, his long, cruel hands. Oh, those hands! They give me a fit of semi-suffocation to look at them." "Dear me, I did not see anything remarkable about his hands except that they seemed large and very well formed." 38 SAND. "Cruel, cruel ! Hands that may fall gently as a roseleaf at one moment, but with the crushing grip of a giant in the next." "Why, why, Alice! I shall keep my eyes open if I am to see the wonders which are revealed to you." "It is no effort for him to breathe. He does not know that he is breathing. The tigers, the cats, and all the feline race, breathe as he does, in utter still- ness, and they pounce and tear." "If he is so terrible as all that, I must warn my father to send him away at once," said Judith, laugh- ing. "He's only a half-grown kitten yet nice, smooth little kitten; but he is the making of a terrible tom- cat. I hate cats; still I think he is a gentleman." "He may be one of those men father talks of, who have reserved force whatever that means." "That's just what he is." "If that proves to be the case, I must IOOK after him, for that sort of man is father's special admira- tion." "No doubt you will look after him. Kismet I have said it." "Do you call him handsome?" "I do." "That's something to his credit." "His face is boyish yet, because he is well preserved, morally and physically, but when age and trial shall have developed the latent lion in his face, he will have an admirably impressive presence." SAND. 39 "Alice Winans, what has come over you? "What kind of a merry humor have you fallen into? Have you set your wits to woo my heart for the new man? 'Handsome,' 'well preserved, morally and physically,' 'an undeveloped lion among men,' quoth she. Why, that is the blessed fellow of my dreams." "Well do I know it, Judith, dear. And thou hast him, and he'll have you. Good-night," and Miss Alice departed for her own couch. Judith retired, and fell asleep more interested in the humor of her friend than in the character or con- duct of the new man but still not without consider- ing him, as far as her observation warranted. When Colonel Holten had ehown Norman to his room, in the good, old-fashioned way, and was about to bid him good-night, he said: "If you are an early riser, Mr. Maydole, and find no one but the servants stirring when you get up, come to my den. It is in the southeast corner of the build- ing, right-hand side along this hall. I am usually up betimes in the morning. I shall be busily occupied, but I will find you something to do." When Colonel Holten left him for the night, Nor- man undressed, paid some attention to his wounded shoulder, and then lay down to sleep. But there were too many new arrangements among his ideas to allow of his sleeping for several hours. He went over in his mind his leaving home, and all that happened to him, and by him, on his way down to the city, and then tried to forecast his position in Colonel Holten's 40 SAND. family; but that being a too complex prospect he gave it up, turning at length drowsily upon his pillow, to fall into a half-dream, in which he saw Judith Hoi- ten's grand muscular grace moving about the house, and heard her strong, contagious laugh ringing him at last into a sound, dreamless sleep. This laugh of Judith's, by the way, was an inter- esting performance, which broke first on her face in a smile of deepened dimples and gleaming teeth, and then shook her into a contagious grace of contortion, which she could not resist, nor anybody else. As one of Colonel Holten's "old-time pards," when he re- turned to his bachelor home in the mines, describing Judith Holten, said, "A feller could aiford to make a d d fool of himself, any time, if she'd laugh at him." In the morning Norman was up and about at an early hour, but he had heard heavy, slipper-footed steps along the hall before he was out of bed ; and as the sound of these steps went in the direction of "the den," he followed the sound, and, knocking at a door in the side of the hall, was bidden to "Come in," and then passing into a room which had the appearance of the office of a hard-worked counselor at law, with its desks, its library, its pigeon-holes, and its papers, he was heartily accosted with: "Ah, Mr. Maydole! G-ood-morning, sir. Pleased to see you. Hope you rested well. I'm very busy." Then without waiting for an answer he added, point- ing to a desk in the middle of the room, "Amuse SAND. 41 yourself looking through those accounts said to be tangled see what you can find out." Then taking out his watch he smoothed his thumb across its crys- tal, and further added, "We will work till half-past eight o'clock, then breakfast, then I go down town, then you work at those account books as long as you feel like it, and afterward follow your own fancy. If you think you find a point that is crooked, report it to me." Without another word he sat down to his desk, and immediately relapsed into the spiritual trance of business absorption. Norman took his seat without remark, and straight- way went to work. The books proved to be those of a mining company, containing what purported to be the business records of the working of the mine through several years. For all he could make out at a brief examination, the books seemed mechanically well arranged, and kept with artistic neatness as to penmanship, etc.; but Norman, as occasional assistant to his father in the county clerk's office, had seen fancy papers make a very poor showing of facts, and was, therefore, in no wise dazzled by the matter of style. He had also in his time, even from childhood, sat by his father's side in court, watching the proceedings in lengthy litigation of commercial cases, and had marked the shrewd attorney examining books of account and book-keepers; and these early impressions, coupled with his late course of commercial education, had brought him forward not so ill prepared for the task in hand. As no particular point had been given him 42 SAND. to find out, he wisely concluded to prepare himself with "a case in court," and be ready for examination at all points, let the same come in what shape soever. He saw large, numerous, and oft charges, for wages, for timbers, lumber, powder, steel, tools, etc., and he concluded to extract and make schedules of these expenditures, in an effort to compare the proportion which each bore to the other, so as, if possible, to trace an excess of expenditure, or waste, in any one direc- tion, as proportioned with any other. For his first item he selected the matter of mining timbers; and, by breakfast time, he thought he found that in one year the amount of timbers charged as used by and placed in the main shaft of the mine, would have so filled the shaft witli timber that the twelve by six-foot opening would be reduced to a six by three. He was working to verify this matter, when Colonel Holten suddenly awoke from his trance, and said, looking again at his watch: "Ah, breakfast! Well, Mr. Maydole, how are the books? too soon to ask that question, eh?" " Rather, sir. But still," said Norman, laying down his pencil, "there seems to be a little queerness in the charges for timbers." "How's that?" " It seems to me, at a cursory glance, that if the amount of timber charged as used was used in the place to which it is allotted, there would be little room for anything else in that place but timber." " Very good, very good. Mr. Maydole! Let us go SAND. 43 to breakfast." Then he suddenly paused at the door, out of which he was about to lead, and, going back to his desk, opened a drawer, saying, " Here. It may happen that you shall wish to go in to the town without passing along the halls of the house. This key will let you out of that door," pointing to it, "into the side street. Be careful to lock it after you. Now we will go straight to breakfast." At the breakfast table Norman was pleasantly greeted by the assembled family. Mrs. Holten, still under the idea that his quiet ways meant bashfulness, sought to draw him into conversation, and asked: " Does it snow where you have lived I mean, does it fall heavily?" Now, snow-storms were among Norman's admira- tions of the fine things in nature. " No, madam, riot where my father resides that is, not heavily." " Isn't that a pity! I think the first heavy snow- fall of the season is one of the most delightful things in the world." i% O-o-o-o," shivered Miss Alice Winans, as she drew up her shoulders into the imaginary wrappings of a heavy shawl. " La! when I was a girl," continued the madam, " we girls then used to wear our hair parted in the middle, and combed down smoothly over our ears, and done up with a comb in the back " "A very sensible, becoming, and womanly way to wear it." dryly exclaimed Colonel Holten. 44 SAND. " Old-fashioned, though," interrupted Judith. " There is a great deal of good sense in that which is old-fashioned, my daughter." " And much that is old-fashioned which is as full of folly as a powdered wig," rejoined Judith. Holten smiled in his beard, and his wife continued: " And we used to put on our shawls and go out bare-headed to romp through the falling snow. It was just delightful to see the steady falling, falling, falling of the soft, feathery flakes, and to hear our voices echo such a little way off in the muffled still- ness. I like the snow." " Oh, rne! I hate it," said Miss Alice, with a shrug. " The fall is heavier higher up the mountain than where you live?" Col. Holten half asserted, half asked, nodding at Norman. "Yes, sir. I spent one winter hunting on Nor- wegian snow-shoes on the high Sierra." " And what did you hunt?" asked Mrs. Holten. " Bears, wild-cats, mountain lions, deer, and small game." "Why! I thought the bears crawled into their caves or holes in the winter season. That's what the Natural History says," remarked one of the younger Misses Holten. " Then we crawl after them," said Norman. " Dear me, Mr. Maydole," continued the young miss, " would you crawl into a dark cave after a wild bear?" SAND. 45 " Yes; if I were hunting him." The young miss, looking at him with rounded eyes, simply said, " Mr. Maydole!" " Did you ever try it?" asked Col. Hoi ten, with a somewhat incredulous lifting of his brows. " Yes, sir." Miss Alice looked from under her forehead at Miss Judith, as much as to say: '' What did I tell you?" " Did you get him ?" asked the Colonel. " We did." "To whom do you refer as we?" " Judge Clayton, Canutesen the Norwegian, and myself." " Ah, that is like Clayton. He was the prehistoric man of the cave epoch, heavily veneered with modern learning and the true chivalry of civilization. I knew him well. He was the only man I ever saw who loved danger truly loved it." u He was my best friend," said Norman ; " and from him I learned the use of arms, offensive and defensive." "Did he convey to you his unerring aim with a pistol?" " He has often said that he did." " And his love of fisticuffs, with his address in the manly art?" " To some degree." Colonel Holten looked at Norman's hands, and seemed to catch an idea for reflection, for he said no more during the breakfast. 46 SAND. "How deep is the snow upon the mountains, usu- ally, in winter?" asked Miss Judith. " From nothing to six, eight, ten, or twenty feet, until it is drifted by the winds, and then it is any depth, almost, you would ask." Here Norman was led into a brief description of a snow-shoeing, up and down over the deep snow on the silent, white-clad mountains, until Miss Winaiis, in the month of June, said she was freezing, and wanted to know if the company did not hear the sleigh-bells jingling through the streets of San Fran- cisco. " I think I do," said Colonel Holten, as, waking from his mood of reflection and rising from the table, lie buttoned up his coat, pulled the collar up about his neck, looked for his hat, and said to his wife: " My dear, put on your wraps and we will go for a merry ride under the robes of ' an Id lang syne.' ' Mrs. Holten looked at him with a smile lit by the light of other days, in which there was to him a quiet significance that sent him out of the house smiling as if he remembered something pleasant. The family dispersed, and Norman went back again to the contemplation of his new work. He had not sat long when it occurred to him that the present was as good a time as any to follow the directions on a card, given him by Dr. Minnis, to the address thereon; not that his shoulder was paining him to any extent, but because he thought it his prudent duty to have his wound looked after; consequently, he let himself SAND. 4:7 out of the side door, and proceeded to find the medi- cal man. When he sent in the card given him by Dr. Minnis, he had but a few moments to wait ere that distin- guished disciple of Galen came, himself, to meet him and greet him, saying: " I am pleased to meet you. Any patient of Dr. Minnis' is a personal friend to me when bringing the proper credentials. In what way can I serve you?" " My shoulder " Norman was beginning to say. " Just so. Step into my private office." Norman entered, laid bare his shoulders, and the doctor, as he proceeded in removing the slight dress- ing of his wound, uttered, half under his breath, yet still audible to his patient, a rapid series of exclama- tions. " Well, well, well!" " Do you find it in a bad condition? I suppose I should have had it attended to more promptly." " No, no. The wound is doing nicely, and amounts to nothing to speak of." " I thought by your exclamation it had passed into some new condition." " No, no!" said the doctor, laughing. " I was sur- prised at your heavy development of chest and mus- cle, so greatly in contrast with your facial indications. You are a very big little man, sir not so little, either I should more properly say you are a bigger man than you look. Like the Dutchman's horse, you are big when you are lying down." Norman smiled. 48 SAND. "How did you get this wound? It is almost a wound in the back," continued the doctor, as he worked busily at his art and mystery. " I was on the top of a stage, and we were fired upon by footmen in the road." " The direction of the ball-hole indicates as much. The wound also shows it to have been a nearly spent ball." " Perhaps it was. I cannot tell much about how I got it; we were very busy at the time the driver and I and the balls were numerous and lively." "Stage robbers?" " Yes, sir." "When?" "On Monday." "Where?" " " Summit of Buckeye Canon grade." " I know the place have hunted quail there with Minnis. Anybody killed?" " I do not know not any of the passengers." " Why, you don't say you fought them ?" " We did." By this time the doctor was through with all that was to be done, and assisted Norman to dress. " Doctor, what is your charge?" " Nothing, sir. A young man who fights stage- robbers, and is a friend of Dr. Minnis, is welcome to any service I can do him." 1L " Thank } T OU, doctor," said Norman, moving quietly toward the door. " Good-day, sir." SAND. 49 44 1 will be happy to see you at any time. Let me see," referring to the card, "why, bless me! Maydolel I know your father. Come and see me. Good-day." Norman returned to his work on the books. He worked deliberately, diligently, like Champollion deciphering, by scientific classification, the hidden meaning of a " dead " thing. Day after day, his life wore on in agreeable- monot- ony. Day after day, Colonel Holten, with his quick, all-seeing glances, watched him, and silently warmed toward him. Day after day, he met the family of his employer and friend, and sought ways to serve them. Mrs. Holten called him a good boy not to his face, however. Miss Judith Holten and Miss Alice Winans drew him into talks about the mountains, and listened attentively when he threw the blood of life into hunting stories and mountain adventures; while the two younger girls said that his talk was ''just splendid." Miss Alice Winans was rather puzzled with him. Jn her philosophical intellect he was always some- thing between a latent monster and a good young gentleman, while in her heart he began to be a photo- graphic " negative," which only grew more distinct against the dark shadow of him which lurked in her intellect. Over the shadow she talked, analyzed and philosophized; over the "negative" she sighed and kept silent. Queer it is, at times, that our heads go one way and our hearts the other. There is no science in love' and mighty little judgment. Blessed 4 50 SAN D. m be the man who first invented true love he didn't put much brains into it. If he had, he would have spoiled it, and poor, ordinary male devils could never marry the grandly sensible women that they some- times do marry. If the wise were to wed only the wise, there would be a monopoly of wisdom. Nature abhors a monopoly no less than she does a vacuum. The inventor of true love seems to have been famil- iar with these great facts; hence, we have the dirty water poured from the window upon the wise pate of Socrates by his wedded wife, who had no taste for a full head with a lean larder. Norman was discussed by the two young ladies from time to time. " Father is taking a strong fancy for Mr. Maydole," said Judith in one of the discussions of the young man. " I do not see why he should not." " Nor I, either. But I am suspicious of Father's weakness that way." " I do not call it weakness." " Perhaps it is not, in this case at least, I hope not. But Father has always had a romantic notion of finding some kind of an ideal young man. He is always, as the miners call it ' prospecting ' for such a person. An honest, heroic young fellow, who is not spoiled by billiards and foolishness." " Does your father object to billiards, and permit billiard tables in his own house?" " No, not to billiards in moderation. But he dis- SAND. 51 likes I may say abhors all futile absorption. You will hear him, some time, talk about it about the young men of this age throwing their immortal souls into billiard balls, and lounging their energies away in the smoke of fancy brands of cigars, and so forth." "Had he no youthful follies?" "I do not know, of course; but as near as I can find out, father has always been a worker and a driver. Something of a hero, perhaps." 'On 'Change?" "More than that, I think. The men who were young along with him, years ago, have told me that in the early days of the gold diggings. Father used to lead the fights against the Indians and wrong-doers. I have also heard him speak of such things." " Judith, you have a great admiration for your father." " I should say I had," said Judith, with a round, full, and assuring emphasis. " My father is the jewel of all our tribe. Yet he is so modest that he does not know it. He always puts mother's people above himself. They are good people, it is true, but Father is worth all of them put together; and I say it, not to disparage them, but to do him justice." " Do you think Mr. Maydole has characteristics resembling those of your father?" " I do not know. Sometimes I think he has. But we cannot tell about that till he is more tried. See what my father has corne through in his younger life: leaving home almost a boy; looking out for 52 SAND himself; then plunging into the wildest days of the gold excitement, with no hand to softly it could not have been done any other way hold him back from the riot and fascinations of those times. Yet here he is to-day, so far as I can learn, a strong, clean, domestic gentleman. Out of the midst of much bad- ness he has grown to be better than good." Miss Alice made no immediate reply; perhaps she paused to hold the " negative " against the shadow. Then she said: " Judith, you are like your father." " Doubtless I look like him, but I'm not like him." " Why not?" " Because he is self-poised and perpendicular, while I cling, like a great squash vine, to whatever is higher than I." " That is because you are a woman." " There are plenty of women who cling to nothing." " Trial may deprive you of your tendrils then you, too, will be self-poised and perpendicular." " Never. I have a mother, also, as well as a father. "When my father strikes his tent, my mother mounts the camel of obedience, and rides in the family cara- van, without asking i whither.' I fear I have inher- ited the amiable weakness." " That is because she has learned to follow a strong man." " Well I shall not follow a weak one," replied Judith, in what seemed flat contradiction of herself; then she added: " I, at least, must think he is strong, SAND. 53 or I never will put myself in a way to follow him." This conversation, so far, does not seem to be much of a discussion of Mr. Maydole, and yet, to the astute brain of Miss Alice Winans, it said much that she wished to find out about Mr. Maydole's prospective position in the Hoi ten family, and caused her to wish that the " negative " would fade from off her heart. In the days through which this little story runs the news did not travel as it does to-day. It had to be carried partly by stage, then some distance by rail; but even in that case it would have come direct enough if the news-gatherer had then the alert energy which is manifest to-day. The news of the attempted stage-robbery went backward to the prin- cipal mining town nearest to which it occurred, and thence, being published in the daily town paper in full, found its way, as a brief " State Item," into the city journals. No whisper of Norman's war with the robbers had yet found its way into the Hoi ten house; but, during the late evening conversation last above related as occurring between Miss Judith and Miss Alice, Col- onel Holten came in with his country mail, as it was his custom to keep himself posted on matters through- out the State, and sat down to take his comfort in a quiet glance at the general outlook. He read away quietly enough, opening paper after paper, ripping off the wrappers with his thumb, till at length he began a series of exclamations, such as, " Well I do declare!" "Well done!" "Good boy!" "Served 54: SAND. 'em right!" and so on, until his wife, catching the excitement, asked: ""What is the matter, my dear? Is there a break in stocks?" " No, my dear. Listen." Then he read it care- fully, in good style, for he was thoroughly waked up to its merits, while his wife, in her turn, applauded with astonished exclamations. "I must take it right straight to the girls," said Mrs. Hoi ten, grasping the paper, and passing to the door. "Tell them not to lose that paper," the Colonel called after her as she passed out. Mrs. Hoi ten carried the paper to her daughter's apartments, and finding the young ladies not yet gone to bed, handed it in at the door, saying: " Here's news for you, girls," and straightway re- turned to her husband. " Read it, Alice," requested Miss Judith, giving it to her friend, who sat half-buried in a softly-cushioned chair; and Miss Alice read as follows: "THE ROBBEK FOILED!" " THE VILLAINOUS * COCHO PIZAN' PROBABLY KILLED BY YOUNG MAYDOLE." Having read the display lines at the head of the article, she laid the band which held the paper down in her lap, and looked at her companion. " Read on," said Judith, "and let us know if this Cocho is a pig or a person." SAND. 55 " I imagine he is a corpse. Didn't you hear him, at the breakfast table, admit that he was a crack shot, as they call it?" " I don't remember read on." Miss Alice looked at her friend again, and then read: " The down stage from this place was waylaid on Monday fore- noon, at Buckeye Cafion, by three masked men, heavily armed with double-barreled shot-guns and revolvers. * Curly Reese, the driver, says that the robbers leaped into the road, stopped the team, and commanded* Norman Maydole, Jr. (son of our worthy County Clerk), the only outside passenger, to throw up his hands. May- dole did not throw up his hands worth a cent ; but, on the con- trary, drew his pistol and dropped the captain of the gang at the first fire, then continued to fire upon the other two, while he> 1 Curly,' plied the lash to his horses and drove out of range. He further states that the whole thing did not last a minute, and that one of the robbers presumably the notorious ' Cocho Pizan' is dead ; and he thinks also one of the other robbers is as good as dead. This statement is confirmed by other reports from down the road. " * Curly' exhibits his hat perforated by a ball ; also, the ball, holes in his coach, and states that young Maydole is wounded in one of his shoulders, but not seriously. " Norman Maydole, Jr., is a most worthy young man ; pupil, friend and protege of the late lamented and admirable Judge Clay- ton. If he has killed the famous and infamous ' Cocho,' he has done the State a service, and set our people an example, which, if followed up, would soon make of stage-robbing a lost art. The stage and express companies should make to the young man, and also to the driver, some fitting testimonials of esteem and admira- tion for their gallant conduct." '.'LATER. 'Cocho Pizan' is undoubtedly dead; which fact proves the wisdom of the colored janitor of the Court-house, at this place, who said, wheu the rumor was first heard : ' Yo' bet 56 SAND. yo' life, ef Nawman pinted a loaded pistel at a man, and fired hit off, dat man's dead er mighty sick.' '' Then Miss Alice laid her hands and the newspaper in her lap, and, leaning back in the luxurious chair, looked at Miss Judith, whose eyes were brilliant and steady. " I think his conduct is as modest and heroic as any I ever heard of these several days he is in this house talking about his home and the mountains, and yet never to mention one word about an action so gallant and so very recent. It almost seems that he has kept it back for dramatic effect." "Oh, no! I think not," said Miss Alice, in a weary sort of manner, still leaning back in her chair; "I suppose if we had known enough to lead the conver- sation in that direction, he would have talked of it." " Would not you have spoken of it among your earliest words, if you had been in his place?" " The question is not to be .asked me the condi- tions are impossible. He does not think of it as we do. To him it is but the firing off of a gun, to which he is accustomed as to the snapping of one's fingers; a little noise and racket that's all it is to him." " But you forget that he is wounded, and has been wounded while we were talking to him all these days. It does not seem real. It doesn't seem possible that such a man could be so near, and yet look so little and so unlike what he is." " He is larger than Napoleon Bonaparte, than Gen- eral Phil. Sheridan, or than many other men who have cast long shadows across the world." SAND. 57 "Alice, it don't seem to me we have been as con- siderate of him as he deserves. I begin to feel a growing sense of unworthiness in his presence." "His conduct has been very direct, honest, simple, and modest.'' "Well," said Judith, " my mind is made up. I am going to regard him hereafter as a superior per- son, and treat him as such." " Yes, yes," said Alice, suppressing a yawn. "Ju- dith, dear, it is late let us go to bed." Norman was abed and in the land of dreams, utterly unconscious that he was to awaken in the morning to find himself famous throughout the house. "When he went into "the den" in the morning, Colonel Holten greeted him in his rapid way: " Ha! Mr. Maydole! Glad to see you looking finely. Letters from home for you," pointing to them on the desk. " I have also received the papers from up your way. They speak very highly of your conduct in the fight with the highwaymen. You should have told us about your wound. We expect you to act in this house as though you were at home your father would never forgive me if you were to suffer from neglect in a matter of that kind. You should have told us." " The wound does not signify. I have had it care- fully looked after according to Dr. Minnis' directions. It has given me little or no trouble." " Very good, very good," and he sat down to his absorbing labors. Norman read his letters. There was a joint letter 58 SAND. from the younger children, full of the true inward- ness of home, with brief, veracious histories of every- thing, from the new kittens up to the school holiday owing to a headache of the teacher ; also, a letter from a young man friend, telling him the social news, etc.; and, more than all, a letter from his mother, in which she worried herself about his wound, which she was glad, however, to hear. was not of a serious nature, as far as reported, and therefore commanded him to tell her all the particulars about it, and not on any account to neglect relating in detail all the circumstances. Then she wrote: " Your father is much pleased with the praise of your conduct, which he receives from all quarters, regarding how you behaved in the attack on the stage, and I am very proud of you ; but, O Norman! be careful not to permit yourself to look upon the tak- ing of a human life as a light thing. I put great faith in you, and I know that you are a prudent boy, but it is so easy to fall into the habit of regarding man-shooting as a common matter, that I wish you to be very much on your guard against such a line of thought. I imagine, when one is so intimately, as I may say, familiar with fire-arms as you are, the tendency is to use them on every annoying or aggravating occasion. Life is easily quenched, but impossible ever to relight. So many generous and bravely impulsive young men, in this and other States, but particularly in California, have been made miserable for life by a too ready use of the pistol, that I dread its influence. Do not understand me but then I know you will not to be saying one word against a proper and spirited defense of one's self, or of the public good. In short, all I ask of you is to, as the miners say it, ' go slow.' " Norman finished reading his letters, and was about to go to work, when Colonel Hoi ten suddenly pushed back the papers on his own desk, and asked: SAND. 5 " What headway have you made with the books, Mr. Maydole?" u I think," replied Norman, " about all that I can make without some suggestion or new light." "What's the conclusion?" " It is, that these books have been admirably kept, but that the business to which they refer has been singularly conducted. Here," continued he, passing across, with his papers in his hand, to Colonel Hoi- ten, " is a transcript of what I may call the facts in the case. My conclusion, which I was just about to write out, may as well be expressed in the one word, 4 fraud,' " and he passed the papers into the Colonel's hands. Colonel Holten took the papers, swung around to his desk, adjusted his eye-glasses; Norman went back to his own place, and, save an occasional crackle of a turning leaf of manuscript, a profound silence reigned in the room. At the end of half an hour, Colonel Holten uttered his usual " very good, very good," laid his eye-glasses on the desk, on top of Norman's man- uscript, wheeled his pivoted seat half around, and said: " Do you think you could get more light on this subject if you were upon the ground or, perhaps I should say, under the ground at the mine?" " I am unable to say, or to think, what I could do in such a position. I can try it." " They are a rough set up there. They might handle you very roughly if you sought to antagonize their rules and regulations, 'Miners' Union,' etc." 60 SAND. " I should seek no antagonism outside the proper line of my duty." " That is just the trouble. We I mean some heavy owners want a new deal; but certain fellows in the mine, and of the mine, seem determined that we shall have nothing of the kind. We ought to have a man. or men, there I have no time to go anywhere and my partners are in the same fix. We were drawn in- to the investment by an old-timer a very good man, now dead who, had he lived, could most likely have avoided this entanglement, and saved us from numer- ous assessments, if he could not have given us an occasional dividend. We have sent expert book- keepers there, and they, as you see, have kept the books in admirable disorder. We want a man there who will mark the word! will see what is done, when it is done, how it is done, by whom it is done, and keep an honest record of the same. We do not care how he keeps his record, whether by single-entry, double-entry, or with a poking-stick in the ashes, so long as he gives us all the facts. Such a man will be delayed, prevented, interfered with, annoyed, aggra- vated, and bamboozled, if it be possible so to treat him. Now, I have told all, save that we are willing to pay a high salary to such a man, and back him up to the best of our power. What do you think of the situation?" "I will take it." "Done! You shall have it. Let us go to break- fast." And as they passed out into the hall, he added, SAND. 61 u We will see you fixed for this situation in a few days." At the morning meal Norman found himself treated with a change of attentions, and he did not like the change. The concentration of the family talk upon his stage ride began to pall upon his taste, and the more distant deference was less pleasant to him than the unstudied former familiarity. But he braved the fire of compliment, and was rather glad when he could retreat in good order to " the den ;" yet he took note of the fact that Miss Judith seemed, in some unac- countable way, nearer to him than she had formerly been. One other person at the table took note of the same fact. During a few ensuing days Norman had no occupa- tion, other than the writing of letters to his home, and the occasional copying of important papers for his busy patron; therefore, he amused himself with studies of the city ways and sights, varied now and again by acting as escort to the ladies of the house, sometimes on foot, but more often on wheels, behind the spirited family teams. In one of the leisurely rambles through the streets with the young ladies, he met with a provocation that waked him up. They were laughing and talking pleasantly, with no thought of offense to any one, when they attracted the attention of that very peculiar dis- grace which haunts the streets of San Francisco the hoodlum. From a crowd of jauntily dressed young men, who 62 SAND. stood in front of a cigar shop, with hands far down in breeches pockets, feet wide apart, cigars set at an elevated acute angle, and hats propped on one ear, Norman heard remarks like these: "Aw, damme! Gentleman from Snohomish, escawt- ing the Nobhillitay." Norman's ears not being dulled and dead to street noises, he involuntarily turned his eyes upon the crowd, to be greeted with : "Aw! High-toned Chinook buck from Webfoot, prancing out with his squaws," exclaimed in execrable tones of the burlesque fashionable. Norman and the ladies had not altered their pace, but he, with his eyes upon the hoodlum crowd, lost the thread of conversation, while he mentally marked down the location of the tobacco store, the name on the signs, and the attitude of the traditional graven image; and by the time that was all done, he had fully passed the crowd, which now stood in echelon across the walk some distance behind him, gibing at him with their untranslatable jargon of exclamations. The young ladies, accustomed to pay no attention to noises in the streets, if they noted the rudeness at all, let it go as it came. Norman made no audible remark upon the subject, and to all outward appearance had let it pass, and gone forward with the walk and conver- sation. When Norman and his friends passed away, there entered the cigar store a tall, nimble-stepping, elderly- young man, wearing a nobby gray plaid suit, high- SAND. 63 heeled, stub-toed boots, a new broad-brimmed soft black hat, a fancy colored shirt-front, adorned with large gold stud-buttons, a ceruleous necktie, and a heavy silver vest chain, to which was attached a pen- dant bright gold model of a horseshoe. His broad- brimmed hat sat far enough to one side to show his close-cropped, curly hair, and give a striking profile view of his sun-tanned face and wide-awake expres- sion. " Gimme," said he, shoving his hat to the back of his head, and running his hand down into his breeches pocket, as he stepped up to the counter, addressing the disciple of Nicote, u a fust-rate seegar. I don't want no loud old perfumery weed, if ye hear me." When the salesman "set 'em up" to him with vari- ous explanations as to brands, etc., he selected such and as many as he wan ted, paid for them, pocketed all his purchase but one, the finished end of which he bit oft* with his even teeth, procured a light, and, lean- ing in an easy attitude against the counter, proceeded to smoke, while he twiddled the golden horseshoe between his thumb and forefinger. " You ain't the same feller 'at kep' this place three yer ago?" " No, I pought him ouat apout dwendy monts ago." " Wher' is he now?" " I couldn' told you he vent avay somvere." " I reckon he did, ef he ain't yer no more," responded the smoker, blowing a fancy fleece of smoke past the corner of his off eye up toward the ceiling. 64: SAND. The hoodlum crowd still hung about the door of the shop, conversing in their slangy drawl, and mak- ing chaffy observations on the appearance and char- acter of the passing persons in the street, and upon this crowd the man with the horseshoe seemed to be keeping a half attentive, half careless eye, when his attention in that direction was aroused to that decree O that he suddenly threw away his cigar, pulled his hat down to his eyes, and began turning up his sleeve- cuffs as he advanced softly toward the door, which he reached in time to hear Norman Maydole, Jr., who had just stepped into the crowd, ask: "Am I mistaken in supposing that I was favored with a few remarks, a short time since, by some per- son in this crowd?" "N-aw! Yer not mistaken. WhatV ye givin* us, any way," and the speaker swaggered up to Nor- man with upturned cheek and protruding under jaw. "Are you the person who made those remarks?" " Yaws. I am the Norman clutched him by the throat, pushed him away to the length of his long left arm and was mak- ing a dismal ruin of his impudent face with the knuckles of the other hand, when the crowd of city coyotes piled in on him. " STAY with 'em, Mr. Maydole; I'll take ; some of it in mine!" Norrnan released his now harmless first opponent, and proceeded to do some extra fast and promiscuous heavy "sparring," in which he was ably seconded by SAND. 65 the man with the horseshoe, so that by the time the policeman came up on the double-quick there was a comparative cessation of hostilities, caused by a failure of reinforcements on the hoodlum side. Nor- man's forces, " firm, though few," were, as the night was falling, ready to sleep on the battle-field, if need be; but the inexorable arm of the law led them away, along with a small portion of the opposing party, toward the place where charges are preferred. As they walked along, Norman, having had a moment to breathe, extended his hand to the horseshoe man, say- ing: " Mr. Reese, I am obliged to you, and very glad to see you." " Well, ef you think I ain't glad to see you," said "Curly," grasping the hand, "you're a little off. Whooh!" he added, throwing his arms out in front of him, and then proceeding to turn down his sleeve- cuffs. " We made it purty damned hot fer that crowd, ef ye hear me." Arrived at the police office, the proper officer list- ened to the charge as made by the policeman, against Norman Maydole and Talman Reese, of that form of misdemeanor called " battery." "What's 'battery?' " asked "Curly," to whose ear a fist-fight by that name seemed a new sort of offense. " Fighting. Thumping. Breaking the peace." " I didn't break any peace. I was tryin' to keep it from being broke," said " Curly." " You looked mighty like a man making war, when 5 66 SAN D. I sighted you," remarked a policeman, with a smile. "Curly" chuckled an instant, and then said: "All right; everything goes; but if a feller ain't keepin' the peace when he tries to keep live or six huskies from pilin' into one man, I'd like to know what you call it?" " Gentlemen," said the officer, "the charge of bat- tery is filed against you. You may be admitted to bail, pending your appearance, or go into custody." Norman made no remark in the office to any one. He knew the offense was bailable. He intended to give bail, but he was considering in his own mind as to whom, among his very few acquaintances in the city, he would send for, and had about concluded to dis- patch a messenger direct to Colonel Hoi ten, when "Curly" blundered into a ready solution of the whole matter. "Can't a feller put up the scads for bail?" " Yes," briefly answered the officer. " How much for both of us? we wasn't huntin' no light now recollec'." " Twenty-five dollars each." "Hell, that's nothin'!" said "Curly," placing three golden twenties upon the desk. " There's the c'lat- teral. Give us a receipt for two, and ten dollars change on the side," said he, in the regular restaurant tone. The tender was so quickly made that Norman had barely time to utter his remonstrance against the lib- erality of his friend, when the officer, as he handed the change to "Curly," remarked: SAND. 67 "All right, gentlemen. To-morrow at 9 A. M." When Norman and "Curly" passed out of the police office into the street, Norman said: " Let me again express the deep obligation I am under to you, Mr. Reese." " Well," said " Curly," "ef you like to express it, that's all right; but you needn't lose no sleep over it on my account. I wouldn't a missed that little dis- cussion fer a summer's wages. That's the best thing ever I tumbled to." " You handle your hands very well, Mr. Reese." " I hain't no science to amount to nothin', but I'm hell on main strength an' okerdness. One o' them cusses had his gun out on the sly, and was praricin' round the outside, tryin' to get a pop at you I got a show at him where I had plenty of elbow room, and I give him a Joe Glinter under the lug; he went one way an' his pop-gun the other, an' they both lit on the ground somewheres I didn't stop to see wher';" and this performance seemed so extremely playful and facetious to him, that "Curly" laughed till he half strangled, and went into a mild fit of coughing. " When did you leave the road ?" " Oh, I ain't left the road. The agent give me two weeks on full pay to take a little pasear, on account of us gettin' away from ' Cocho.' I thought 'at I'd come down to the Bay ; so I got a free pass down and back, drord my reserve fun's, and I've been yer two or three days." " I hope you are having a nice time." 68 SAND. "Bully! The express agent ga' me a letter to the head office, an' told me ef I got strapped, or cinched any way, to go ther'. I was never better fixed in my life." " The agent has done right," said Norman. " He went up to your house at home, and was taik- ing to your father about the company givin' you a present of a gold watch, or some thin'; but the old man jist r'ar'd back on his paster' jints, and said, 'he hoped no son of his wouldn't consent to receive any materel reward for doing the duty of a gentleman.' Oh, I tell ye, the old man tuck high Southern ground with him. He did that." "About the duties of a gentleman, my father is sometimes a little Quixotic." "A little what?" asked Curly." " Quixotic," said Norrnan, pronouncing in the English style. " Damfi know what that is." " It is merely an illustration drawn from the story of the Knight of La Mancha, who used to fight wind- mills." " O-h-h, yes, I know. Old Donkey Hoty. The high-toned old rooster who went around gittin' heads put on him. He had the sand, but he didn't pick his fights wuth a damn. Old Sanches used to wake me up in the middle of the night laughin' at him, an' that swamper o' his'n 'at rid round after him on the burro" "What Sanches?" SAND. 69 " Oh, an old cabin pard o' mine 'at used to sleep all day, arid play monte and read all night." " How did it happen that you fell into this diffi- culty of mine this evening?" " Well, I've been kind o' rather more'n half lookin' fer you, in a keerless way, ever sence I come down, and I dropped on you this afternoon when you was walkin' with the ladies. I knowed I couldn't chip in then so I sort o' santered along, beiri' it was as cheap fer me to go one way as another having nothing else to do thinkin' I might git a show to speak to you when you'd git through with what you was at; not knowin' wher' you put up. Then I seed them fancy ducks chuckin' chin at you, and I got Jnigh enough to hear part of them remarks about squaws. 'Hell!' says I to myself; ' I won't have no trouble seem' him now;' fer I know'd mighty well you'd come back." Norman laughed. ." Yes, I did that! So I went in ther', bought some seegars, and was joshin' the Jew, when you riz that pint o' order 'at brot on the debate." Norman laughed again, for the reaction of his feel- ings gave him an unusual sympathy with u Curly V breezy buoyancy. After the laugh he asked " Curly " to look into his face and tell him if he could discover any bruise or discoloration. u Not a speck," said that person, after a brief exam- ination. " I have received some thumps about the head, and one blow on this side of my face. I propose that we go to a barber's and get washed and brushed." 70 SAN D. "That's my idea to a ha'r," responded "Curly;" "and after that I propose that we go to a high-tone res'trant and take some grub. Isn't there a Poodle Dog, er a Bull Pup, er some other place wher' they put on style about knee deep?" " I have not yet been to any such place," answered Norman, smiling, "and I regret that I can not go now, because I left important business unfinished to come back to the row we have just had." "All right," said " Curly," a little crest-fallen, for he had set his heart on having one of those " good times " which are at once the pleasure and the danger of fresh men; "you're able to paddle yer own canoe." After awash and general outward adjustment Nor- man said to "Curly:" "Mr. Reese, if you will be good enough to come with me I will pay back to you the cash you are out on this fracas. The other debt I never can pay, but I shall always be ready to do so." " Oh, damn the pay! Let her rip till to-morrow at 9 A. M." " But perhaps I shall not be in attendance at the court to-morrow." " Well, but we've got to be ther." " I think not," said Norman. Now " Curly" had a secret notion that an account of his arraignment along with Norman before the police court, when published in the city papers, would be a good card among his horsey friends in the moun- tains but Norman had other views of the matter. SAND. 71 u Curly" consented, after solicitation, to go along and get his money; but when he became aware that the whole sum was being returned to him, he got indignant, and asked Norman what he took him for was it supposed that he was a " quitter, a bump on a log, a wild hog in the tule?" and no reasoning could induce him to accept more than half the sum. Norman finally planned some other way to repay him in future, bade him a kindly good-evening, arid hastened away about other matters more important to himself, and not in any way directly concerning Mr. Talman Reese. If moralizing, in fiction as well as in reality, were not relegated to the lumber loft of use- less, old fashioned things, it might be well to note here that Norman made a fortunate escape, not from the hoodlum fight, but from Talman Reese and his own feelings; because, when a man is young and finds a gallant friend who has just stood by him in a hard- fought battle, resulting in some degree of victory, the invitation to cut loose and enjoy the fine things of a jolly good fellowship is a terrible temptation. Nor- man was neither a niggard nor a cold-blooded ascetic, but he was, by nature and education, inclined to mind his own business. That is what saved him. The man who cannot be saved in the same way is beyond salvation in this world and is a case of quien sdbe f for the next. CHAPTER III. When Norman Maydole left Mr. Talman Reese the latter gentleman went his way, while Norman turned his steps and his attention toward the residence of Colonel Holten. He found the young ladies safely at home, whither they had been accompanied by the neighboring gen- tleman in whose charge he had left them when he was about to seek some settlement of honors with the coy- otes of the streets. The ladies had more of a sus- picion of the true cause of his absence than they had yet confessed, or even alluded to; but when the din- ner was dispatched, with the accompaniment of good humor and pleasant conversation in which Norman took a modest part there was a move made by the young ladies to repair to the music parlor, a sort of unique apartment devised and fitted out after plans by the Colonel under the advisory supervision of his eldest daughter and his wife. This apartment was a sitting-room a parlor a music hall a children's romping room all in one. A comfortable place for every one in the household. Judith called it u Lib- erty Hall." To this room Norman followed the young ladies, but just at the door Miss Alice had excuse to consult Mrs. Holten about some matter, and upon her going to attend to it, Norman found him- self alone with Miss Judith. 72 s A N r>. 73 " Take a seat, Mr. Maydole," said Judith, prepar- ing herself to be seated. He was about to sit down in the heavy roller-chair next to where he stood, when she said: " Take this chair," laying her hand upon it. "The furniture of this room must be studied to get the comfort of it. Our gentlemen all favor this chair." Then when he was seated she sat down opposite to him on what ought to have been a sofa, but the fur- niture man called it by a finer name. The chair in which Norman sat was upholstered in such colors upon its heavy arms and high back, and in such man- ner, as to contrast with his black clothes and make him look proportionately larger then when standing up. The general tone and coloring of the room were in his favor, so that, notwithstanding his late tousling he looked about as well as he could hope to look at that date in his existence. " Do they like music at your home, Mr. Maydole?" " Yes, everybody in our house plays a little on the piano, sings a little except " pausing, he smiled, and added, "The baby; and it makes music which I cannot call singing, exactly." " That is very pleasant." "Which the baby?" very seriously. "No-o-o-o!" said Judith, laughing, "I say it is very pleasant where a whole family join in the same diversion " Very pleasant but noisy at times. We are very noisy people at our house when we are in the sitting- room, and all get going big and little." 74 SAND. " Do you all sing together?" " Well, that depends on what you call singing we can make a noise all together." "A satisfactory noise?" assuming a reflex of his serious demeanor. " Yes. The noise seems satisfactory to the parties performing. I cannot answer as to the satisfaction of outside persons." " Music hath charms," quoted she. " Always," he replied, " for amateurs who are making it." " I fear you are cynically inclined this evening, Mr. Maydole." " 1 hope not." u Yes; I apprehend something must have happened while we were out walking to-day, which does not add to the comfort of your digestion." " Not at all." answered Norman, lightly. " If you mean it, Mr. Maydole, I must believe you; but it would be a great aid to my credulity if you would tell me why you left us to-day." " I left you to try to punish a man who insulted me," he answered, frankly and deliberately. ' Thank you, Mr. Maydole. I was apprehensive you had gone to punish some one for insults offered to others.' 1 Norman paused a few moments to look steadily into the face of the young woman before him, and then said: * " When non-combatants are insulted or sought to SAND. i a be insulted in my immediate Dresence I am in- sulted/' You did not go back to tight with those men who were making remarks on the street to-day?" * 4 1 did," said Norman, meekly. u Did you fight them?" " I did," more meekly. " Did you whip them?" " Not all of them," he replied, in abject humilia- tion. u Were you arrested ?" " I was," with great self-abasement. "And taken to the police station?" " Even so." Then she looked at him as he sat in the arm-chair,, silent and immobile as the Sphinx, and burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, which, like a contagion, extended to Xorman, and he, too, throwing his head back against the heavy upholstery of the chair he sat in, enjoyed himself with the glee of childhood. " Excuse me, Mr. Maydole," said Miss Judith, wiping her eyes, ki my risibles are not under perfect control." "Entirely excusable," he replied, with the placid gravity of a tombstone; " but I fail to see the felici- tous humor in this conversation." " That's where the humor of it is," she said, laugh- ing again. " I do not think it a very kindly thing to laugh at a * fellow from the country.' " 76 SAND. " Now let us be serious," she said. " Do you ex- pect to fight every person in this city who makes * aside' remarks which can be construed into inten- tional insult?" " Well, then, Miss Holten, to be serious if, indeed, I can be any more serious than I have all along been I will fight any masculine of the genus homo, any- where, ' till the last armed foe expires,' who inten- tionally calls me a ' Chinook buck,' or intimates that the ladies in my company are squaws." She answered by another burst of laughter, and then asked: "Do you think you can whip this town?" " I can whip some of it," he replied. "They will worry the life out of you; you must get used to it as we all are. We pay no attention to them." " In the meantime, there is an opportunity for a choice few of them to get used to me," said Norman, looking as if he meant business. "Why, you might as well try to fight the dogs of Constantinople?" " Well," he almost sadly replied, " with the firman of the Sultan, the blessing of the Prophet, and a good American revolving pistol, perhaps I could discour- age the dogs a little." She laughed again, and, during her laughter, Miss Alice entered the room, remarking as she did so: u Whence this hilarity? May I not know?" and she sat down upon the sofa beside Judith. SAND. 77 " You shall know, Miss Winans; and I will appeal to your sense of justice. This young lady is laugh- ing herself into Elysium over the too froward valor of a young man from the rural precincts. And I am that unfortunate young man." "Alice, let me tell you before you respond to his appeal. He has entered the field as the Knight of Rugby, to do doughty deeds in defense of forlorn damosels; and I am laughing for joy." " Ah! beautiful, splendid!" said Miss Alice, with well-assumed admiration. " Are we to assist when he caparisons his horse, dons his armor, clasps his sword and buckles on his spurs?" 44 Oh, no! He is not of that order of knights. He belongs to the chivalry of the shoulder," said Miss Judith. (And if this writing did not ante-date the Pinafore furore, she would have added, with calis- thenic illustration, " arid this is his customary at-ti- tude.") " Now, by'r Lady, it is a noble court whereof thou speakest. Beshrew me, but they are valorous knights. Mine eyes have beheld them in the lists, where they did mock the doughty deeds of war in histrionic pic- tures of the ring. And I have been affrighted e'en with the padded buffeting that sent the palpitated pugilist to grass." In response to this heroic mockery, Norman sim- ply clapped his long hands enthusiastically, and otherwise sat perfectly still. Though no ladies' man, he had seen enough of girl- 78 SAN D. hood humors to believe that he was being "joshed" without any adequate reason; but he also knew jthat this teasing was, in some sort, an admission that he was worth it people seldom tease sticks. " Mr. Maydole," said Judith, " I forgot to ask you if the cruel war is over is it?" " So far as I am inclined, it is. I shall never again have the nerve to put up rny hands, offensive or defen- sive." "Ah, Mr. Maydole, you should read Cervantes," said Miss Alice. " I have read him enough to know that the Dul- cinea del Toboso is too practically proud to look kindly on the hero of her honor/' "Oh, Sir Knight, that remark is unworthy of you. I am sure you will find no ; ladie faire' of this day who will look unkindly upon a heroic action." " The assurance is very comforting," he said. Other members of the family coming in, the even- ing gradually resolved itself into a family concert, during a portion of which Miss Alice beguiled Nor- man into a tete-d-tete relation of his row in the street and his consequent arrest, whereupon she quoted to him the fighting advice of Polonius to his son, to which he responded: " Thank you; I have been there please excuse the slang." "Ah," said she, "a little a very little slang, aptly put, is the life of the lexicographer. Language, like jealousy, grows by what it feeds on." SAND. . " I tliink it could be done," said Norman, firmly. "No doubt. But San Francisco is an indulgent mother to her erring children/' "Well, then," said Norman, "your assurance as to the matter in the Police Court to-day leaves me noth- ing more to attend to, except," and here he drew twenty-five dollars from his pocket, u that when you go, or send, to the Police Court, you would have this given to the proper officer, to be by him handed to Mr. Reese, in lieu of what that gentleman has left on deposit as bail money. I desire this done, let the will of the court be what it may, because Mr. Reese is a gallant fellow or, as lie expresses it, he has the * sand' and is no way at fault for my indiscretion." " I'll attend to him," said Colonel Holten, laugh- ing; " put your money in your pocket." "Thank you; but pardon me when I suggest that he will not take any money iinless he thinks there is a full acquittal." " There shall be no acquittal about it. There shall be a discharge a general quash. If there is a mag- istrate in this State who will hold a man for pugiliz- ing hoodlums who insult innocent women, I would like to see him," said the Colonel, with a touch of indignation in his tone. Colonel Holten then looked O at his watch, rose to his feet, and added: "I must look alive to be down town in time to explain these things in arrest of further proceedings at the Police Office; and as it is now near the breakfast hour, I will go to hurry things up a little. If you think of SAND. anything that you need to have, or to know, which I can assist you to, inform me of it," and he passed out into the hall. Among other things said at breakfast, Mrs. Hoi ten remarked : " I am informed that yon are going to be a miner, Mr. Maydole." Yes, madam.'* ; Do yon think yon will like it?" 44 I will try to like it." " You are riot going down into the mine to work?" said Judith. i% If need be, Miss llolten." k4 Surely," said Alice, ki a knight will go where duty calls." " Y r es," said Colonel llolten, " there is a chivalry in doing well the work which comes nearest to us in this life not thoroughly appreciated, I fear, by the rising generation." ' Now, Colonel llolten,'' replied Alice, " that is a sarcastic remark." Xot so intended," said the Colonel. " Thank you. On reflection, I can say conscien- tiously, for my unit of interest in the rising genera- tion, that I have an honest detestation of persons fairly endowed by nature who are helpless through habit. I am ill of that gush in our literature which brings the young husband home from a financial crash to a lovely wife, who goes into a state of tearful dilapidation. My motto is ' Get up and do.' v 96 SAND. " ' Git up and git ' is the vernacular formula," said Colonel Holten, smiling. u Yes, 'Git up and git,' " echoed Alice. " I have read the Declaration of Independence to a Fourth of July audience in my native town, and, in preparing to read effectively, I studied the part, and I arn sure that the unalienable rights, ' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' do not include the right to be artificially helpless." " JSTor thriftless, in New England," added the Col- on el. " Nor thriftless thank you. Our ancestors, whom we idolize, taught us how to make the magic elixir of thrift, and we hand the secret down from father to son from mother to daughter " a t World without end. Amen,' " said Ilolten. " Amen," repeated Alice. Everybody laughed till the Colonel said: u Those are very sensible remarks, Miss "VVinans. I commend them to the careful consideration of all persons present." " When it comes my turn to do for thrift, I expect to be promptly present at roll-call," said Miss Judith, quietly, "but there is too much asked of the rising generation. I know that I can work if need be dear knows I have worked, preparing for festivals and the like as industriously as any one can; but it is not fair to ask people to be absorbed in receiving, entertaining, preparing for, and visiting other people, and at the same time expecting them to be laboring SAND. 97 for a livelihood. Society is pleasant and important, I suppose, but it means work, and hard work." "That is very true," said Mrs. Holten. " Yery good very good! I want no one to work unless they see the need of it but it is better to look out for the need before it becomes imperative," said Colonel Holten. " To behold it like the home-coming of a prodigal," said Alice. " How's that?" asked Colonel Holten. " ' But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,' " Alice quoted from St. Luke. Norman had held his peace through the meal-tirne, the which Colonel Holten, noticing, asked him: - *. " What are the ideas of work in your part of the State?" "We are all working people up our way. We think, in our house, that work is the chief end of man particularly when he is not old. I would not like to live without exertion nor to exert myself without an object." " I don't like to work," said the youngest daughter in a careless drawl, "and I'm not going to, either." " Ah, Mary," said Colonel Holten, shaking his head with a sort of good-humored solemnity at his latest offspring, " I'm afraid you're a black sheep." "Well, I'd rawther be a sheep than an ox sheep don't work, do they?" drawled the infant. u No, but they get sheared, and turned out in the cold and rain," said Judith. 7 98 SAND. " Well, then, I'll be something else, if I can't be myself," said the drawler. " Yes, yes, child, it is very easy to get to the place where we are something else;" then shoving back his chair from the table, he added: "Excuse me, I have business. I must go to work." u After Colonel Hoi ten retired there was a lengthy sitting at the table, through which Norman found his approaching change of location discussed in various moods and tones, all ending in expressions of hope for his health, happiness and welfare; for which he expressed himself very thankful, and then at last, as they were about to rise from the table, Mrs. Hoi ten gave him a huge crumb of comfort by remarking: " Mr. Maydole, I want to thank you for your con- duct yesterday, and to say to you that I shall always feel grateful to you." " Not at all, madam," said Norman, fairly caught blushing as he cast a brief look upon the smiling young ladies. " We are all under obligations to you, Mr. May^ dole," said Judith, u and you must never think we do not appreciate what you have done." Alice said nothing with her mouth as they arose from the table and went their ways. Upon Colonel Holten's arrival at the Police Court, he found no great difficulty in satisfying the author- ities that the public good stood in no need of further proceedings in the cases of Norman Maydole, Jr., and Talman Reese; and therefore turned his attention to the return of the bail monev to Mr. Reese. SAND. 99 Never having seen that gentleman, he looked about among the various ill-assorted persons lounging in attendance on the court, and, following the verbal description he had received of Mr Reese's style and appearance, he approached an individual bearing a strong resemblance to that description. This indi- vidual was sitting on the iron railing surrounding a sunken area, with his heels hooked in the iron sup- ports, and he was carefully whittling a very small, short stick with a big pocket-knife, while he con- versed in low undertones with a smaller man, a dif- ferently bound second edition of himself, though no way related by blood, who sat beside him on the rail- ing. Colonel Holten approached the whittler, and .said: u This is Mr. Reese, I presume." " Curly " jumped down off the railing, threw away the remains of his little stick, snapped his big knife shut with one hand, while he brushed off the little chips with the other, and answered: u Yes, sir. That's my name as fer as heered from." " Is there any doubt about it?" " Reckon not. The returns is all in an' everything swore to." u Well, come with me, if you please," said Colonel Ilolten, suppressing his impulse to laugh. u Hoi' on a minnit, Bill," "Curly" remarked, as he followed the Colonel, and, as they walked along toward the clerk's office, the Colonel said: 100 SAND. ' " You deposited some money last evening for your appearance here to-day." " Yes, sir.". " I want to see it returned to you." " "What fer?" " Because it belongs to you, and there is no charge against you." " Well, but I know ther' is, Jedge, for I see the feller put it on the book." " It is quashed." " "Who squashed it?" "The proper authorities are satisfied with your conduct in the matter, and there is no more about it." "Ner about Mr. Maydole?" "Nor about Mr. Maydole all fixed." "Well, them proper 'thorities has more sense 'n I thought they had," said " Curly," as they appeared before the clerk. That officer, in the presence of Col- onel Plolten, gravely handed to Mr. Reese the sum of twenty five dollars. "This don't let me off on t'other one, too, does it?" asked " Curly " of the clerk. " No, sir; the other one holds." "What other one?" asked Colonel Holten. " Another battery," answered the clerk. " How is this?" asked the Colonel, as he and "Curly" stepped away from the desk. "What did you do to get yourself on the book again?" " Well, you see, Jedge, yisteday er last night when I left Mr. Maydole, I tuk the street keers fer to SAND. 101 go out on Mission to see Bill that's him out there cm the paliri's an' as I was settin' in the keer, an ole lady come in ther' ole enough to be my mother an' I got up to give her a seat, an' afore I could git her to see it, a fancy duck 'at was standin' ther' a holdin' onto the brake-line, he mashed himself right down into that seat, an' I pasted him one over the blinkers fer his p'liteness. That's what I done, Jedge." u They arrested you for that alone?" " Yes, Jedge, that's all I done; on'y the fancy fel- ler rn'yaowed an' yauled an' pranced 'round so 'at he. raised a rumpus an' set me a cussin', an' they 'rested fer that, I reckon, much's anything." " Have you made any arrangements for your de- fense r " Oh, Bill, he's fixed it! He sabes, you bet you! Been ther' himself." " Ah! Then you are all right. "But I should think it would be better for you to avoid these scrapes." "How kin I avoid 'em? I ain't going to be tromped on, ef it is in San Francisco!" "Well, but you had no need to use profanity." u I hadn't? Now, look yer, Jedge, I hain't never been converted yit." " Perhaps you had better try conversion." " Oh, I'm all right, Jedge! I comedown yer to hev a little fun with the boys, an' I'm hevin' it bully. When I git through, I'm goin' to jine the dapple- gray Young Men's Christian 'Sociation, and quit 102 SAND. cussin'. Bill says a feller can hev almost any kind of fun in this town as long's lie don't cuss or say bad words." "Good-day, Mr. Reese." " Good-day, Jedge." When the Colonel had gone, " Curly " returned to his friend Bill, whereupon that friend asked: " D'ye know who you been talkin' to?" "The Jedge, I reckon." "The Judge!" exclaimed Bill, grinning; why, you're greerier'n mouldy brass on a mounted harness. That man don't look no more like old Louder than 1 look like Broderick's monument." " Well, he made the clerk gimme back my scads." "No he didn't, neither." "Well, what in he " "See yer," Bill suddenly interrupted, "didn't I tell you to stop that cussin'?" " did he do?" said "Curly," finishing his broken sentence. " Why, he used his in/?0i0eiice, that's all, an' he's got lots of it." " Well, who is he?" "Who is he? Why, he's one of the nobs. He's Colonel Hoi ten, that's who he is; and if you had his little pile of equivalence, you'd be the biggest fool since Coal Oil Tommy." " Well, I be " " No you won't neither." " Well, then, you may." SAND. 103 " I tell ye, you've got to stop it. But Pd like to know what nobs has got to do with you?" " I don't know. Maydole I reckon's workin' t'other eend of the line, an' the nob's one o' his big-up 'soci- ates. I tell ye, Bill, that's the whitest boy on the coast 'taint no use talkin', he's mighty heavy papers. Ef ye hear me." At this point, a seedy legal looking person ap- proached Bill, and made a few remarks to that worthy, which caused him to say: 'Come on, 'Curly,' an' get your brake-blocks leathered, and learn to go slow down a new grade." With these somewhat relevant and original obser- vations the trio entered the court room to await the calling of the battery case against Talman Reese. But as this form of investigation is familiar to the readers of the daily and weekly newspapers, no de- scription of it is necessary here, and no more notice of it need be taken in this case further than to give some of Mr. Reese's remarks when called upon to make a brief statement of his position before the court. When asked to explain his actions in the street-car, he arose, with his hat in his hand, and placed that hand on his hip, so that the hat hung down by his side, suspended by the edge of the wide brim between his fingers, and with the other hand stroking his chin-whiskers, he remarked as follows: " Well, yer honor," he said having picked up that form of address when he was witness in the case entitled " The State of California vs. James Clem " 104: SAND. " the way of it was this: I'd paid ten cents for a seat in that keer, an' I was goin' to give my seat to an ole lady, but that fancy gent over ther', 'at ? s been a witnessin' agin me, he tuck the seat afore I could git the ole lady down into it; an' I tuck him, jist as he says, a friendly tap on the eye-brow, to call his attention to the fac' 'at he wasn't keepin' to the right, as the law directs." " Perhaps he thought you were about to depart, when you arose," said the Judge. " No, I reckon not, yer honor, becoz he see me reachin' for the ole lady afore I got up, an' the keer wasn't stoppin' nowher'." " Well, sir, is it your rule to take the law into your own hands and knock people into obedience?" " Now, see yur, yer honor," said " Curly," after some pause; during which he derived inspiration from the golden horse-shoe on his watch-chain, " that ther' needs a little explainin'. I'm a silk-popper, you know." " I know nothing of the kind. What is a silk- popper?" "A man 'at pops the silk over a stage-team it's a tetchnickel term the same as mule-skinner for a mule-teamster, or as bull-puncher fer a man 'at steers oxen." "Ah, yes! Well, go on, sir, and avoid a free use of technical terms henceforth." " Well, as I was goin' to say, when I'm out on the road, an' takin' up way-passengers, it's my business SAND. 105 to see 'em all seated accordiii' as they come, in reg'lar order, unless some's a mind to swap seats to make it comfortable all round; but once in awhile I get hold of a gill-marten 'at wants to play wild hog on us, as that fancy witness wanted to play it on me an' the ole lady in the keer, an' that kind of a feller I generally set down so 'at he stays sot where I put him; an' I reckon I must a forgot myself an' thought I was boss o' the job. But I'd a punched him all the same, yer honor, ef he'd been my own brother." The court smiled and asked: " Is that all?" u Yes, yer honor, I s'pose that's about all the light I can throw upon this yer case, only I'd like a time- keard of the rules of the road, an' I'd like the keard to pint out my duty when a feller takes my seat," and he sat down. " The evidence shows that you have committed a battery your own statement admits it; but there are mitigating circumstances in the case under which I find it my duty to impose upon you the lightest pen- alty of the law; hereafter, in a like state of affairs, you will appeal to the conductor or other person in charge of the street-car you may at the time be rid- ing in. u All right, yer honor," said " Curly," half rising to his feet and sitting down again as he spoke. u Curly" paid his fine, settled with the seedy legal light, and then he and Bill good-naturedly left the building in search of more "fun with the boys;" but one is left to doubt if " Curly 's " brake-blocks had 106 HAND. received a leathering sufficient to alter his t pace down a new grade. During the day, Norman Maydoie, Jr., occupied his time in making careful and minute preparation for his change of place and occupation. Like most long-handed people, he was methodical, though not finical, in all his affairs, so that by late dinner-time he had fixed his small belongings in such thorough order, that, had his departure been into eternity in- stead of into " the mines," the administrator on his aifairs would have found no trouble in rendering a final account. At the dinner-table he found Miss Winans and the family all present, save Miss Judith, who was absent in attendance at some neighborly festivities. He announced his readiness to depart early on the morrow. "So suddenly?" said Mrs. Ilolten, lifting her brows. "Why not remain till after the Fourth?" asked Miss Winans. "Oh, yes, Mr. Maydole, do!" exclaimed the elder of the younger girls. " There is going to be a grand parade and speeches and readings and songs, and ever so many bands of music, and and everything." u It is only a few days until the national holiday, Mr. Maydole perhaps you had better stay," said Colonel Holten, in his quietest way, looking at Nor- man as he spoke. u No," said Norman, " I am not much of a holiday person at best, and just now 'my heart is in the high- lands.' " SAND. 107 " There are only two holidays in the republic worth keeping, and they should be kept religiously," said Miss Alice. " Which are they?" asked Colonel Holten, with the quizzical fatherliness he often assumed when address- ing Miss Winans. "Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July." " Of course," said the Colonel, "and Yankeedoodle- dum comes first." "The order is strictly chronological, sir. Thanks- giving came first in our history, and then the Fourth of July. The first ma} r be called our feast of fat things, and the latter our festival of roses." "And Washington's birth-day you overlook alto- gether," said the Colonel. " It is not properly American to celebrate the birth of any one man. To do so, even with Washington's grand serenity to sanctify it, is to retrograde from 'the course of human events' toward anthropomorph- ism." " Oh, Miss Alice, what a big word!" exclaimed the youngest Holten. "I think Christmas is our nicest and kindest holi- day," said Mrs. Holten. "Christmas is the holiday of motherhood; but it does not belong to this era. This is the age of l prove it,' and Christmas pertains to the epoch of miracle and much belief. It is full of sweetness and child- hood; but, alas! it is itself in its second childhood." "And New Year's Day?" asked Norman. 108 SAND. "A barbarous and drunken holiday, borrowed of the sun-worshipers. When the sun approached the shortest day in the year, our ancestors, who always reveled in the baltn of the open air, used to think he might die out altogether, so when, by what is now our new year, it was perceptible that the sun was coming back, there was great rejoicing. New Year's Day is a sort of hallelujah of that ignorance which preceded the circumnavigation of the earth and New- ton's discovery of the laws of gravitation, and the moral of it all is that you stay and celebrate the day which deifies the moral courage of our intelli- gent ancestors. You should, indeed, Mr. Maydole. It is the worthiest day in the calendar of saints." " I should like very much to stay and see a great city rejoicing; but the flags, wherever I may go on our vast domain, will keep the old memories illumin- ated." "Ah! what a wonderful blaze of glory that flag does send across this wide continent on the great day, to be sure!" said the Colonel. "Isn't it most splendid? Everywhere, up and down and across all the wide lands and waters of this vast republic, like the bloom of the orchards, there springs into the bright sunshine one all-pervasive blossoming of red, white, and blue. There is no pic- ture like it or equal to it, in poem, prose, or pigment. Caesar's royal purpling of the Roman hills was but a daub on Time's canvas in comparison " Here she broke off from the theme, and asked: SAND. 109 "At what hour do you start, Mr. May dole?" " I am to be at the ferry-boat at four A. M." " Then I shall not see you again before you depart, as I am on the card for a night out; but I hope you may wrest fame arid fortune from the rock-ribbed hills, and return to your friends a victorious veteran in the battle of life." " Thank you, Miss Winans. There is nerve and power in earnest well-wishing." "In a woman's well wishing," said Colonel Holten. l 'Of course," said Alice, "who else is there to do the well-wishing? Men take an interest in each other, but women wish well where they have no interest." "Also ill, sometimes," said the Colonel, in a teazing manner. "Ill or well, a woman's wish is a vital matter, and so recognized by the traditions of all peoples, from Eden to " ' " Milpitas," ejaculated the Colonel. "Where is Milpitas?" asked Alice. "Where is Eden?" asked the Coloneu " Eden is the place where Investigation found Knowledge; where Knowledge begot Doubt; where Doubt married Inquiry, from whom are the great families of Industry and Thrift the nobility of civil- ization. Now, where's Milpitas?" . " Well. I think after that, Milpitas is nowhere," said the Colonel, laughing. k * It is a nice little village in Santa Clara County," g:ii the mine, or in ,inv v/av 132 SAND. seemed to manifest any undue curiosity as to what might be going on below the earth's surface. Thus months passed away. He began to be looked upon as a very neat, cleanly, orderly, harmless young fel- low, and polite, good clerk. The men looked pleas- antly upon him on the pay-days in the office, and saluted him cheerily whenever he met them; even Blethers seemed to abate some of his loftiness in his presence. One day, shortly after the latest pay-day, when the weight of the preceding month's business was well off his hands, he locked his office doors and strolled leisurely up to the mine, where he found "Cussin* Jack" out of doors, engaged in hewing heavy tim- bers. He sat down upon the newly hewn surface of the log, and fell into conversation with the hewer: u Be yo' getten' to feel whoam-loike up 'ere i' tk* moiiies?" " Yes. I like it first-rate." " Well! T' boys be comin' to loike yo' a bit." " Well, I like the boys." " Yo'dew?" " Yes." "Why dost tha nivver coam out an' tak' a dram wi' 'em; or smoaka poipe?" " I do not drink." "Nor smoak?" asked Jack, as he still hewed to the black line he had struck upon the log. %t I can smoke, but I do not fancy tobacco." " Tha'rt a rare nn. T' boys thinks tha'rt a big stiff an' 'igh-tony i' thy ways." SAND. 133 " I do not mean to be stiff and high-tony. I work for rny wages the same as they do we are all in the same boat." " Well zaid, lad, well zaiJ," and he stopped hew- ing, put the point of his broad axe on the log, and, crossing his arms, leaned upon the end of the handle, while he put one foot upon the timber, and asked: " D' yo' waant to know 'ow to put feither i' thy cap wi' t' boys i' this 'ere camp?" "Yes," said Norman,"! would like to help the boys?" " 4 Aye, I believe tha;" then he looked all about him, dropped his axe on the timber, lifted his black leather belt with one hand, and with the other hand fished out of his fob-pocket his last month's check, handed it to Norman, and, resuming his axe, went on hewing. " This check is all right, is it not?" said Norman, when he had it unfolded. "There's nowt amiss wi't' check. There be'ent no better check az I knows on." " What is the matter, then?" "Well, if yo'd loike to gi' yo'rsen a lift wi' t'boys, stop pay in' checks an' gi' us t' cash." " Is not the check as good as cash?" " Naw, it be'erit; not 'ere. T' store-keeiaper shaives it, ivverabody shaives it; but t' store- keeaiper wuss than aw. Gi' us t' cash, lad, gi' us t' cash. I be'ent a gossip talker. Go thy ways; but doant forgetten as I've telled tha to put a feither i' thy cap." 134 SAND. " I will remember it," said Norman, handing his check back to him. "Go thy ways. An' tha gettest i' trouble i' the cash bissens, moind I tell tha, tha hast friends i' the house o' Pharaoh." Norman bade the hewer good-day, strolled about the mine-mouth and ore-house a short time, and then went back to his office, where he wrote a letter to his patron, from which the following is an extract: " I think I am beginning to grasp the situation. I have delayed any examination of the mine. Have not yet made any demand for it, because I have wished to see iny way in broad daylight first, before trying the darkness. The men still complain that their checks are shaved unmercifully by all to whom they present them, but most severely by the store, which the men call the ' com- pany store.' They also complain that they are called upon, when working by contract, to receipt for more money than they receive, etc., etc. These latter matters (which I will report more at large by an by) cannot now be affected by my present power ; but if you will enable me to pay the men in cash coin or gold-notes alto, gether in cash, or half cash and half checks, it will distribute the wages of the men into more hands, make the men feel more inde- pendent, and therefore slightly weaken the hold which the present management has upon the people." The letter had its effect. When the men came in to sign the pay-rolls of the succeeding month, they took their half cash with pleasant chaff and merry good humor. The outside store-keeper and other dealers did a better paying business than they had done for a long time. Even the gamblers and visit- ing priests and preachers were better off. All the outgo was no longer re-absorbed by the mine man- agement and the pet barnacles attached thereto. The SAND. 135 men's checks were not now shaved to the bone. Grad- ually the wink passed from man to man, as they privately gave the new clerk credit for the improved financial condition. The new clerk attended to all his business promptly and pleasantly. He treated the lofty Blethers with perfect respect. He also attended thoroughly to any reasonable demands made upon him by Blethers' pets the store keeper, the keeper of the boarding-house, the saloon man, the lodging-house person, and in fact all the pets who love to cluster about the manage- ment of a working mine. Notwithstanding his fair- ness, his civility, his attention to these persons, they were not happy; they did not like him, yet they could find no stable ground on which to assault his position. Before the next pay-day drew nigh he wrote, in his regular monthly letter to Colonel Holten, as follows: 14 The half-cash idea works well. The men are pleased with it. If you can make it all cash it will be still better. I am aware of the expense and risk in sending large sums of money, but I fully believe that it is better to do so, even if we should be robbed twice per year. As affairs now stand you virtually lose the money any- way. But I do not admit that we shall be robbed. If you express the money (after notifying me in the manner I have pointed out) as far as the express box comes, I think I can see it safe the re- mainder of the way." This letter was also effectual. On pay-day the men were entirely satisfied. The trade was distributed throughout the camp, and that satisfied a majority of the people but the Blethers crowd were not con- tented. 136 SAND. On a pleasant winter sunny Sunday, after pay-day, Norman carefully locked up his office and betook himself to the road for a little exercise afoot. In his rambles lie met many of the men, who now accosted him with very kindly cheer! ness as they passed to or from their work for there is neither night nor day, Sunday nor holiday, on a working mine. As he walked on, outside the village, he heard heavy steps at some distance behind him and gaining on his gait, till at last he was overtaken by two workmen, both large, but one taller than the other, the shorter of whom, as he overtook Norman, said: " Gi' us thy haarid, lad. Tha'st getten it done, an' the feither is i' thy cap," and he shook hands heartily with Norman. "This is my pardner, Charley Fitz- kibbin. 'E's a mu'n as it's wuth thy whiles to know, lad, tho'ff I zay it to 'is faice." Norman shook hands with Fitzgibbon, and they three went forward in the road together. " Why don't you come down into the mine and take a look around?" asked Charley. " I have not yet been invited," said Norman. "The damned hog!" "What!" exclaimed Norman, sharply. " I don't mean you." " 'Ee is a 'og is Blethers." "The boys down in the mine will be glad to see you. You come down and see us some time. We'll show you around, and let you see some things you ought to know." SAND. 137 " You are very good," said Norman, "and I will be glad to be down in the mine as soon as business is so arranged that I can. In the meantime, if I have any friends down there, give them my best respects." " You bet your ribs you've got friends down there," said Charley, with an emphatic twist of his head. " 'Ee 'ave that; an' top o' t'ground loikewoise." "How is the mine looking?" asked Norman. "It looks well enough for the way it is treated; you'll see how it is when you come down." " I be'ent no woise shy o' tellin' wot I thinks o' t' moine to them as 'ave business wi' it. Blethers be 'oggin' on it for a freeze-hout. That's wot t' fact is. I knows a moine as well's 'ee do. This 'ere be a good little moine in honest 'ands." " Well, gentlemen, I want very much to know all about the mine, and to thoroughly understand it; and I shall feel under obligation to you and to all who assist me to understand not that I can hope to do more than to express the obligation. I have only my wages, as you all have." "We understand that," said Charley; "arid we know that things is happenin' around here." "Aye!" added Jack, " things do 'appen 'raand 'ere." And then both the men turned away into a branch road, laughing and shaking their broad shoulders as they went; leaving Norman to pursue his walk and return to his starting point, where the noise of the mill furnished him with music, while it reminded him constantly of the unfinished task he had in hand. He 138 SAND. oegan to feel that he was not alone in his struggle for "a square deal." As he sat on that Sunday evening in the office, reading one of the few choice books he had brought with him, he could hear the men in the saloons across the way, singing and laughing over their beer, but he could not hear the conversation at one of the tables in the saloon, where he was, in part at least, the subject under discussion. "This new clerk is making himself damned fresh around here." " I dunnot see but ? ee keeps hissen to hissen weel's yo' do." "Oh, well, Jack, we won't fight about that; only old Blethers' just bilin'." "Let un bile. 'Twean't hurt un to bile. It daan't spile bad heggs to cook un." "But when he biles over he'll just kick the stuffin' all out o' that fancy young duck from 'Frisco." " Don't you fool yerself about that fancy young duck from 'Frisco. Ben Blethers jist better let that job out by contract." This latter remark was made by a Johnny come lately to the camp. " Dost tha' know t' lad?" " No, I hain't no acquaintance with him, but I know who he is." "'Oois'ee?" " He's the rooster that killed * Cocho Pizan,' and cleaned out the stage-robbers." "Egosh!" exclaimed "Cussin' Jack," striking the SAND. 139 underside of his heavy fist upon the table. " I smells a raat. Gi' us anoother beer aw round. Egosh ! I thowt 'ee was no common chap fnst toirne I zeed un. When woz it 'ee plugged t' staige- robber?" " Last spring, some time May or June, I think." '* Egosh! I read un in nooze paiper. 'Ee's t' b'v, is 'ee?" Here the beer being served all around the table. Jack grasped his glass mug by the handle, rapped on the board, then raising the foam-capped, brown liquor toward his lips, said: " 'Ere's to the lad as pays t' cash to a workin' man !" then, having swallowed his draught, he set down his half-emptied mug and said: " Summuns getten sense at the 'ead o' this moinin" company." " That's all right, Jack," said the speaker who had opened this dialogue; "but that won't save the boy from taking a devil of a whalin' when Blethers gets desperate. He may be a good man of his size, but Blethers is too heavy for him." " It be'ent big uns as wins aw the fights. Them as sent un 'ere knows un. 'Ee be'ent combd up 'ere for nowt. Yo' talk o' kickin' stuffin' out o' un I tell tha wot, them as kicks stuffin' out o' yon lad has get- ten it to kick out o' moar than 'im. Stuffin' will be cheap i' this camp. Them's th' soothin' remarks o' owd John Cadwal." Thus and thuswise the men spent their Sunday evening, and many another evening, while the great 140 SAND. stamps in the mill thundered and roared, and the clerk, mostly alone in his office, day and night, remained quietly at his post, the least obtrusive man in the camp.' But the storm was gathering about him. The day drew near when he must either bow to others or have them bow to him. During one day of the week following the drink- ing bout, as adove related, Blethers came across from the store to the office with a few papers in his hand, and, walking into the office, where Norman sat behind the counter at his desk, he tossed the papers over to the desk, saying: " Contracts. I want them looked over, and I want you to draw checks for the amount due on them, arid ask the men to indorse the checks, and then you hold them till I call for them. Understamme?" " Yes, I understand you," said Norman, gently, as he took up the papers. Blethers turned on his heel and went out of the office. "While Norman was carefully looking over the con- tracts, the second-cook of the boarding-house one Ah Quong came softly in with a bucket of water, a scrubbing-brush, a hatchet, etc., and proceeded to take out the sash and clean the windows, as he had been previously directed to do by Norman. After reading the contracts, the clerk put them in the drawer of his desk, then said: u Quong." "What!" " Sabe < Long Johnson'?" " Yes too muchee." SAND. " Go tell him corne see me." "All ligh'," and Quong came down off his step- ladder and went out. Presently the Asiatic returned, followed by a lengthy, lathy Missourian. "Mr. Johnson," said the clerk, ''you are one of the parties to this contract, are you not?" Johnson, standing outside the counter, took the paper, looked it over hastily, and said: 44 Yes,Woolsey and me done that work," and passed the paper back to the clerk. "How do you want your pay cash or checks?" "Well, I don't keer; I 'spose I inout's well hev the caish ef you've got it." "Suit yourself." " Caish it is, then." "All right; go and bring Waolsey here, and we'll settle up." The Missourian left the room, the Chinaman washed at the window, the stamps in the mill rose and fell and thundered, the Clerk sat at his desk and wrote, when Blethers re-entered, and, walking up to the clerk's counter, asked: "Johnson been here?" "Yes, sir." "What'nhell'd^want?" " Wants to settle up arid get his money on his con- tracts." "What'dyou tell him?" "Told him to bring Wool sey, and I would settle with them and pay them their money." SAND. .1" ' They've got their money, by - " Not from the company, I think." " I tell ye, they've got their money. Understamme?" " Yes, I understand you quite well." "JWell, then, see't ye do what I ordered. Under- stamme?" Norman made no reply to this last inquiry about *' understamme," but went on figuring at his books. Blethers leaned against the counter, as if waiting for a reply, but he got none. ''Are you going to get me them checks?" asked Blethers, rather fiercely. " No, sir," and Norman got down from his stool at the desk, and, coming up to the inside of the counter opposite to Blethers, he added: " This is a very simple matter of business, Mr. Blethers. Get a written order from the contractors, or, failing in that, serve me with a writ of attachment otherwise I shall pay the men their money. I am not here to act as general collector of other people's debts, nor am I a constable." " You're - sneakin' ---- . Understamme?" roared Blethers. li You are a bully, and I think you are a coward," said Norman, folding his arms and looking in the flushed face of the now furious Blethers. He did not have long to look. Blethers reached across the counter fiercely, aiming to catch Norman by the throat. In his eager wrath he reached a little too far, and before he could recover his overreach, he had cause to im- ngine that the stamps in the mill next door were SAND. 143 thundering upon his jaws and ears. In the next minute, the Chinaman, glancing down from his step- ladder, beheld him prostrate on the office floor, which that amiable Asiatic no sooner saw than, clattering down his ladder, he grasped his hatchet and was about to finish him. " Stop, Quong!" shouted Norman. " Me likee you no likee him," and again he made at the prostrate man with the hatchet. By this time Norman was by his side, and, taking him by the queue held him back, saying: u Let him alone. Quong." " All ligli'! Me likee you no likee him. Bi-m-bi him fiend killee you me sabe," said the Asiatic, as lie replaced his hatchet on the window-sill and re- climbed his ladder to resume his work. Johnson had been gone a very short time, yet now, when he returned accompanied by Woolsey, it was evident that a revolution had taken place since he had last been in the room. Pie paused just inside the door; AVoolsey paused in the doorway behind him, and rather to one side of him; both men looked at Blethers, who by this time was sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him, propping himself with one hand, while with the other he felt about his eyes and face for some confused clue to his surroundings, while Norman leaned with his back and elbows against the office counter surveying the field. Presently, Blethers, in the dim return of con- sciousness, with the instinct of habit, took his hand 144 SAND. from his face, and half feebly fumbled around the region of his pistol-pocket, but the shining occupant of that pocket lay on the floor behind him, where it had fallen when the owner fell. Johnson said nothing; Woolsey made no remark; Norman looked silently on; the Chinaman washed away at his window as if he had never seen, heard, or dreamed of anything unusual, and the great stamps in the mill thundered and crushed without ceasing. 41 Please take him to his room," said Norman, point- ing to his foe, who was now numbly gathering him- self to his feet; " then come back, and I will pay you what is due you," and there was a cold, metallic ring to his usually soft voice. The two men, without a word spoken between them, took the defeated man by his arms and were moving out of the office, when Norman stepped for- ward, and, picking up the pistol, said: " Here, take this with you. It belongs to him." Then, when the men had gone away with Blethers, Norman entered his own room, washed his hands, adjusted his outer man, and came back to his desk. Johnson and Woolsey did not return immediately nor at all, that day. They were in demand after they took Blethers to his own place. They were called upon to recount what they had seen in the office, and every time they told it they were asked by- some listener: " Who done it?" ' Can't prove it by me," they each invariably an- swered. SAND. 145 " Ye don't s'pose that little feller put a head on big Ben Blethers, do you?" u I tell ye, ye can't prove nothin' by me," said Johnson. " And there wasn't nobody there but Blethers an* him an' the Chinaman?" " Them's all I seed thar." "I didn't see no one else ther," said the reticent Wooisey. u Then it must a' been the little feller done it." u Oh, no! It wasn't him," said the bar-keeper, who was ambitions of being a wag; u it was the Chinaman." " Mebbe old Blethers had a fit." " Damn close fit, too," said the bar-keeper as he stood polishing his tumblers. '* Hez he got much of a head on him ?" "Yes," said the bar-keeper, "he's got double- mumps, ink-bottle eyes, and a Hurnboldt spud be- tween 'em." u Wellibedam," said each listener, reflectively. The news of Blethers' defeat flew up and down the cafion, from rnouth to mouth, from cabin to cabin into the mill, where it was shouted from lips to ears through the din of the roaring stamps from team to team, as the drivers met in the road and down into the mine, where, by low, deep voices, it was retailed in the glare of the dim lights, which burned with breathless silence. Men desiring to see the battle-field made excuse to call at the office and inquire for Blethers. 10 146 SAND. " Not in at present," was the clerk's polite and brief reply to each, inquirer, while he sat at his desk apparently absorbed in his duties. The men, after the fashion of the mountains (and perhaps the fash- ion is not confined to the mountains), would have liked Norman to come among them, to talk with them about the affair, and be patted on the back while he drank with them; but he was not that kind of a fighter. He had not sailed around the world. When the Chinaman came out, bucket in hand, ladder on shoulder, after finishing his task, the idlers in camp interrogated him. " John 'd you see that fight?" " No see fightee." "The hell you didn't!" " No see 'to nodding no sabe fightee." " Well, what's the matter with Blethers, then?" " Think so him velle sick no com' ta suppa." " Ther'll be war in this camp when Blethers gets on his pins again," said one workman to another, whom he met on the street. " Who'll make the war?" asked the party addressed. " Blethers and his friends." " H' ain't got no friends but his pets, and they ain't got sand enough to stand up to a red-eyed gander." a Weli, they talk war." " Let 'em talk it's cheap but they'd better hunt a change of climate. This air is too thin for 'em that's what the boys say." "All right! It suits your Uncle Reuben. I like the little clerk fust-rate." SAND. 147 " So do I; and he ain't so little, either, when you stand up to him." During this general and scattering discussion, Nor- man Maydole, Jr., was attending to his duties and reflecting. As he came across the street to supper, with his left hand wrapped up in a handkerchief, the men, of whom there is always at least one gang ("shift" they call it) off duty in a mining camp, looked at him, saluted him politely, but asked him no questions. When he went back to his office, after supper, he wrote to Colonel Holten, in part, as follows: " Herewith I send you statements in detail of last month's bus- iness. I hope you will not fail to note a slight improvement an increase in yield, a decrease of cost, and I think no increase of wear and tear, or neglect of supplies. This improvement is not directly, but perhaps is indirectly, attributable to my presence here. Since they find that they are to be fairly treated, the men do more and better work. The management has, for certain reasons, been more careful and less lavish of expenditure. If you think best, you may tell the stockholders generally that they shall, from this time forward, have every cent that the mine can be made to earn as long as I remain here. I can never be able to explain to you how I arrived at so confident a conclusion. I cannot explain it to myself, but well, in fact I have grasped the situation, and shall hold it. I had a personal encounter to-day with Mr. Bleth- ers, the foreman, because he used vile language to me and at- tempted to assault me. I am satisfied with the result, and I hope that he is. Next month, if nothing disastrous happens, I expect to report a general improvement." This portion of the letter was thoroughly under- stood and appreciated at the home office in San Fran- cisco. CHAPTER V. " Now, lads, 'ere be a chance for them as 'ave sense to show it a bit," said " Cussin' Jack," in the saloon, as he sat over his moderate beer, on the evening of the battle between May dole and Blethers. "How d'ye mean, Jack?" asked the man sitting opposite. " It daan't taike no gret sense to coom at my mean- in'. 'Ere's a bit row a feight a bust-oop among bosses. Wot's to come on it? Wot's to come on it? Shall t' raoine stop? Shall aw on us tak' blankets and go stnmpin' down t' canon road?" And Jack sipped his beer. " No, we'll wait here for a new deal. The company a'n't goin' to give it up so," said another workman. " Not if they know theirselves," confidently asserted another. "Gosh! I daan't think company's had much to do with this bizens sin' ivver I cora'd 'ere. It's aw been Blethers an' t' store, more loike." " Well, how're we goin' to show sense, Jack, s'posin' we got any?" " I'll tell yo'," said Jack, taking out his short pipe and tobacco-pouch preparatory to filling one from the other. " I'll tell yo' 'ow we can show a bit o' sense i' these days. Let ivvery rnon work forthright ayead, same as thoft nowt was misplaised. Let t' dark and 148 SAND. 149 Blethers feight it out wi' fair play on both sides, an* best mon t' win," and he put his now filled pipe to his mouth, struck a match, and proceeded to add his quota of smoke to the hazy upper atmosphere of the room. "Your head's level, Jack." "But I saay!" exclaimed Jack, as if calling special attention to his next remark, " theer is to be no corn- in' between by folk o' t' store. 'Ands hoff, aw round. That's wot I saay." " Hands off, goes," said several of the men. " No chap can tell wot's t' next moove o' Blethers. Certain I be t' clark means fair aw round, and moar certain I be that ee. is our boss fro' this day forrid; but ee wearit say so wi'out paipers to show for it." "Are you runnin' the clerk now, Jack?" "No. 'Adn't yo' better try t' run un?" responded Jack, in the sarcastic tone of the other's question. " I'm no way in his confeydance. Ee nivver tell'd me a word o' 's bizens; but I be'ent bloind. I can see a owse i' broad daylight." "A boarding-house? " mischievously muttered by some one. "Ay! A boardin'-owse." "Era brury?" "Ay, lad, or a breewery. I daan't go back o' a good bite or a fu' glass i' moderation." " Does anybody know what Blethers is doing, about now?" " Yes he's to his room at the store, in bed." 150 SAND. ""What's V matter wi' un? Ee be'ent cut or shot, bee ee?" " No, but the little devil nearly broke his neck. So Woolsey says." " Ee be'ent daingerous 'urt, be ee?" " No. Woolsey says he can't hardly move his head. Says he holds it to one side's if a mule kicked him under the ear." "Is his face bunged up much?" " No, there ain't nothin' much the matter with his face. That little feller ain't fool enough to spile his long hands on no face when he's got a better show." " "Well, Tony Maguire says he has got a face on him like a sick sea-lion." Here the men laughed all round not at the remark, but at the man who made it. The idea of giving Tony Maguire, the bar-keeper, as authority for the truth of anything, was a joke that had not been per- petrated for years anywhere in the mountains. Thus the men discussed, in their own rough way, the situation of affairs, and with their sagacity, rather than with the reasoning power, came to their own con- clusions which are apt, all things considered, to be about right. "Well, lads, I be goin' whoarri to go to bed, an' the word is: Fair play an' no interfeyrence," and, knock- ing the bowl of his pipe upon his thumb-nail, he left the saloon. On the morrow every department of the business SAND. 151 went forward with, if anything, more than usual quiet, regularity, and promptness. There was no arrest, no filing of complaints or charges. The quarrel at least* before the public was a strictly private matter. But Norman Maydole, Jr., knew well enough that his position was not made easier by his late combat. He also knew or, if he did not know, he felt that, having set the ball in motion, he must follow it up, or give it up. There- fore, after breakfast, he put some papers into his pocket, left his office, and walked carefully and leis- urely down to the store. " I wish to see Mr. Blethers," he said to the pro- prietor of the store. " Mr. Blethers will see you soon enough," said the store-keeper. " I want to see him now," said Norman, not choos- ing to notice the covert threat. Several of the men, having noticed Norman going to the store, now came in. " You cannot see Mr. Blethers until he is ready to see you." " I wish to see him upon business as important -to him as it is to me; you will be good enough," said Norman, taking a card from his pocket and rapidly penciling upon it, " to permit this message to be taken to him, while I wait his answer." " I am not carrying messages at present." " I did not ask you to carry it. I asked you to per- mit it to be taken to him;" then, turning to the little 152 SAND. crowd of men who were watching the proceedings, he said: " Gentlemen, might I ask one of you to carry this message to Mr. Blethers?" Instantly a trio of brawny right hands was extended, into one of which Norman politely placed his missive. This hand happened to be that of Long Johnson. " Bring the answer to the office, please, Mr. John- son." " Ef I git one," said Johnson, departing on his errand. As this errand took Mr. Johnson through the length of the store-room, it seemed for a bare instant that he would be denied a passage; but the presence of an increasing crowd of witnesses, perhaps, silently cleared his way. Johnson was but a minute gone when he returned and followed Norman. Overtaking him before he reached his office, he brought him back with him and escorted him through the store, despite the lowering face of the keeper. It was some time nearly an hour before Norman appeared again. The men standing around the store-door began to grow uneasy, and to mutter among themselves. " I think it's all right, boys," said Fitzgibbon, who happened, he best knew why, to be one of the com- pany. " I don't think there is anything about this store that can get away with the clerk and Long Johnson, in ary spot or place." By and by, Norman came out, bowed to the men as he passed through the crowd, and hurried away to his office alone. SAND. 153 " Gone fer his gun," whispered one to the other. " He never goes that far for his gun," said the other. Here, Long Johnson appeared, coming from the store into the crowd, with an unusually wide-awake expression on his face. " What's up, Jonse?" asked one, as they all closed around him, and, with one common impulse, moved up street toward the saloon. "I dunno what's up; T never see sich a thing in iny life. You see, I went in ther' with the keard, an' Blethers was layin' down on the outside of his bed, with his wearin' clothes an' dressin'-wo'mus on, and his right hand under his stiff neck. I give him the keard, an' he tuk it in his left hand an' looked at it, then sez to me: ' Where is May dole? 1 Sez I: 'He's out in front.' Sez he: 'Bring him in yer.' Well, then, you know, I cum out and brung Maydole in. 4 Maydole, have you anything agin me mor'n what passed yesterday?' l No, sir, not personally,' sez the clerk. ' Are you satisfied with our game as far as we've got?' sez Blethers. b I regret the whole thing ? but I have nothing to take back yes, I am satisfied,' sez the clerk. ' So am I,' sez Blethers, taking his hand from under his neck an' offering it to Maydole; and, dang my skin, boys, if the tears didn't come into the clerk's eyes when he tuk that 'man's hand. 1 never see nuthin' like it never." " Well, what did they do then?" " Maydole hill on to his hand, an' nary one of 'em 154 SAND. said a word fer about two minutes. Then sez Bleth- ers: 'Why didn't you make it known before?' ' You didn't give me no chance,' sez the clerk. Then I see it was all smooth sail in' between 'ein, an' I stepped out back; but I didn't go fur away, 'kaze I thought ole Blethers mought be playin' 'possum." u Both of 'em found out they b'long to the i Union,' I reckon." " Dern if I know what they found out; all I know is, that Maydole tuk a seat 'longside o' Blethers, and they talked for about half an hour straight as a string. I think they wuz talkin' about the mine, but I dunno. Ther' wuz papers between 'em." " "Well, now, old Blethers ain't sich a bull-head, after all," said one of the men, as the crowd passed into the saloon. " He's come to his senses. He had the big-head bad, an' a poultice o' bones cured him." " Blethers is not sich a bad feller. Ther' is other fellers behind him in this biz that's wuss'n he is. Old Nosegrinder, down ther' at the store, is a meaner man than Blethers dare be, only Nosegrinder is a damn old coward, and Ben Blethers isn't. He picked the wrong man when he bounced the clerk; but it's no use talkin', Ben'll tight." " All right, boys, peace beats war. Lets all take a drink," said Charley Fitzgibbon. " Set 'ern up, Tony!" "What shall it be, gentlemen?" said the affable Tony, as he kimboed his white-shirted arms on the counter, and looked into the faces before him. SAND. 155 " Tony, you get purtier every day that top-knot o' your'n is a reg'lar Conklirr." " Them brass-mounted dog-collars on his arms sets him off bigger'n a Piute belle." Tony winked and grimaced in response to the gen- eral chaffing, but kept down to his business until lie was able to say, with a flourish of his napkin: " All set, gentlemen." "Toast, boys," said Fitzgibbon, elevating his glass: " 'Yer's to peace an' quiet an' right; To the man that knows when not to fight; To the gentleman born with a quiet jaw- Bones in his hands, and sand in bis craw.' " The sentiment was unanimously imbibed; and, as each man placed his empty glass upon the counter, each man also wiped his mouth with the ball of his thumb, and emphatically remarked: u You bet your boots." " Gentlemen, you should not use such expressions as " You bet your boots,' " remarked the affable Tony, as he gayly cleared away the line of glasses. " What ought we to say?" " You should have said, in response to the gentle- man's toast you should have said: " Heaw! heaw!' or* Hip! hip!'" "'Hip! hip!'" said the other speaker, scornfully; " ther' ain't no sense in that mor'n ther' is in kioty barkin'." " I'll leave it to Barton ; .he's a college-bred rooster." " How is it, Burton?" asked Tony, of a tall, slender 156 SAND. person who had just joined in the drinking, and sat down by the stove. " Ah, well!" said the man addressed, in that softer accent found among the educated English, " both forms are proper enough, I dare say. One is as much slang as the other. ' You bet your boots!' is very em- phatic, clean English, I fancy, and has a much healthier origin than such exclamations as ; IIip! hip!' which is a feudal idiocy got by mispronouncing the old crusaders' cry of ' Hep! hep!' which is bor- rowed from the initials of Hierosolyma TZst Yerdita Jerusalem is lost!'" u Thar, Tony! that lays over you. That thar's the difference a-tween larnin' and gas," exclaimed a vol- unteer by the stove. u There is certainly more sense in saying ' You bet your boots,' as endorsement to a social sentiment, than there is in shouting ' Jerusalem is lost!' " said Bur- ton. " Of course ther' is. Whoonhell cares whether Jerusalem is lost or not?" " I hain't lost no Jerusalem," said a sententious listener, as he heaved his feet up on the railing round the stove. "I fancy," continued Burton, "that Jerusalem is a bit of a humbug. I was there once myself. The country is very much such a place as this is. Rugged mountains, bits of green valleys, where there is any water, and after that grease- wood deserts, alkali flats, etc. The city itself is a nawsty old camp very dirty sa N D. 15T and uncomfortable. I d Aare say the old i shebang,' you boys would call it, has cost more blood twice over than its memories are worth. It is stoped out there is nothing in it. But to put up one's boot as so2ial ' collateral,' there is something in that. It means business, and it is strictly American. There- fore," added Burton, assuming a severely forensic aspect, "the judicial mind is clearly on the side of the boots. Henceforth let the unlearned not cry 'Slang!' until they cease to borrow pet exclamations from the frantic fury of the shouting rabble who cut Hebrew throats with pious knives, ground on Chris- tian grindstones, in the twelfth and fourteenth cen- turies." " Dony, sed 'em ub again. Shentlemens, auf you blease, drink mit me." So said, so done; and, as the gentleman of Jewish descent paid for the imbibations, the party again sat down around the stove. " Well, it gets me" said Fitzgibbon, as they were sitting down. " What's that get's you, Charley?" " Old Blethers' new dodge. Somehow I can't just take it. I didn't think he'd cave so easy. Must be something," said Fitzgibbon; " something behind all this." What further discussion would have ensued may not be known; for just at that moment Norman Maydole, Jr., opened the street door and called: "Mr. Fitzgibbon." " Allrightsir," with the curious rapid utterance, 158 SAND. up-and-down inflection, and independent manner of a mountain miner. " Step this way, sir," said Norman, still holding to the outside knob of the door. Fitzgibbon passed out; and, as Norman closed the door behind them, he said: " I am going to the mine. Would you object to a walk that far?" " Not much," and they walked away together in the dirty melting trail through the snow. " Winter's settin' in pretty sharp," remarked Fitz- gibbon, as they walked along. " You do not have much winter here, do you?" " It's mightily mixed. It's hard to tell, sometimes, if a man summers here all winter, or winters here all summer. A man'll get his nose peeled with the sun, and his toes froze in the same day." " Well!" exclaimed Norman, with rather incredu- lous emphasis. " It's a fact. The nearest ever I was to being dead with cold, in broad daylight, was on the 4th of May, 1867. And I could show you the mountain where it happened, if we were up out of the canon." "Was it so cold as that?" u No; I didn't think it was so very cold. I've seen lots colder weather in York State, and I've camped out colder in war time, in old Virginia; but somehow this high atmosphere thins a feller's blood." "How high are we?" " Upward of seven thousand feet above the Pacific SAND. 159 Ocean; so Lieutenant Wheeler said, when he was sur- veying round here for the Government." " Many of the silver mines are high in the altitudes, are they not?" " Yes, sir. You can't get too high for them, be- cause the country rocks you find silver mines in are as high rocks as there is. Granite, quartz, porphyry, black-slate, and the old limes makes about the highest bumps on earth." "How low?" " Never saw a silver mine worth a damn below four thousand feet." "Do you think none are lower than that? I have read of silver at Lake Superior and in New England and elsewhere, and it seems to me the altitudes were lower." " Well, then, they was not mines they might have found some silver; but I'll take the chances on there being no good mines in them lower places." Thus conversing, they arrived at the mine-mouth, where Mr. Maydole presented a written paper to the man at the engine, and, after some delay and change of clothing, etc., they disappeared into the bowels of the earth in that noiseless, sinking way that always seems to the casual observer like a quiet " farewell forever." "Now," said Fitzgibbon, as they stepped off the cage, "if we are going to know all about this mine weVe got to look out." "I do not see much opportunity for looking out," 160 SAND. said Norman, gazing about him upon the glittering edges and lowering corners of the hundreds of feet of solid darkness between him and daylight. "'No, not that kind of look out," responded Fitz- gibbon, with a chuckle; "but there is plenty to look out for down here mighty sharp look out, too, at that as we will find when we get to crawling through the old stopes and sliding down old winzes." " The men don't seem to mind it," said Norman, as he trudged, with hollowing, echoing tread, behind his companion. " Well, they know just where they are going they go there every day; but it takes more sand to explore old works than it does to open out new ones. A min- ing expert, if he's a good one, has to take lots of chances in crawling around in mines." "I suppose so," said Norman; "but I want to see all there is of this mine. I think I can crawl or climb anywhere that you can." " Do you?" said Fitzgibbon, holding his light aloft to scan the upper timbering. " Come ahead, then. We'll see the men at work first; arid then we will look through the reserves arid wastes." Thus they tramped through the more modern and scientific working; then crawled and climbed and slid through the older parts, where the workings were rudimentary and dangerously primitive; until, tired and sore, they returned to the upper earth and day- light by the way they came. At the surface the ex- plorers re-adjusted themselves in the habiliments of SAND. 161 ordinary citizenship, and proceeded down the cafion, conversing by the way. " I shall want to go through the mine again, some day, soon, and make such survey and measurements as will enable me to map out the whole workings." "All right," said Fitzgibbon, "I'll go with you when you please, if you want me." " Do you know anything about surveying under ground?" "No; but Cussin' Jack does. He can map out a mine better than anybody with instruments or with- out them." With this -high compliment to Jack, Fitzgibbon turned off to the saloon, while Norman pursued his way to his office, where he rested himself awhile and reflected, then proceeded to write to Colonel Holten a long letter, of which the following is a portion: " You will remember that I wrote you in my last of trouble with Mi. Blethers. There is reason to believe that trouble over and passed away. I think Mr. Blethers has been ' more sinned against than sinning.' He has carried a load for other people. That is what he gives me to understand, and I believe him. I do not wish to say he has not been a willing spoke in the wheel of misfortune as to this business I know that he has but the hub of the wheel is in your own city. He is no longer at enmity with me. Like ' Uncle Damas' in the Lady of Lyons, he ' likes a man after he has fought with him.' He tells me that he will offer his resignation in a few clays. You may, therefore, expect to appoint his successor. But I would caution you to consider whether it is necessary to fill his place with so high a salary at least, so long as I am here. There are many experienced, careful, practical miners who could do all that he actually does. There are men here now, at miners' wages, who know the character and capacity 11 162 SAND. of this mine as well as he does, or, in fact, as well as it can be known. All that is needed here is a practical under-ground boss, at least until the mine yields more heavily, or ceases to yield. The general business and moral force I will assume to wield with- out present increase of salary, if it suits the owners of the mine to have me do so. Please call the attention of your co-owners to the slightly improved yield of this month over last; also to the shrinkage in expenditure, and the schedule of supplies on hand to date. I have made a careful and minute preliminary survey of the mine. I can not promise any 'bonanza,' but, unless we strike some unlocked for barrenness, I think I may intimate a gradual improvement. If there is anything in which I may suspect the sincerity of Mr. Blethers' repentance it is in his willingness to quit; but if it should be that he thinks I may follow out his methods, and so come to grief by going blindly in the wrong direction, where he went purposely, I hope he is mistaken." Having finished this letter, and having gone to and returned from his supper, he wrote the following to another person: " MY DEAR MADAM : It was very kind of you to ask me, some months ago, to write you a letter a sort of family letter, I think you said from this part of the world. If I only could write real intelligence of the common things which throng about me every day that is, if I could materialize constant eventuations so that you could truly see the life that is in them I might make you something interesting; but, failing in that, I have my reward in the pleasure of the duty, and my gratification in the daring of the endeavor. "There is none of what would be called society here, and if there were, it would be presumption on my part to become its historiographer; but there is here an interesting people. They are of all lands under the sun, and they are not the 'home-staying youths who have ever homely wits' of the lands they hail from. They are all or nearly all males, more or less mature. Each has his own peculiar individuality, but they have one common char- acteristic, and that is quickness of comprehension. This charac- teristic seems to be climatic owing mayhap to altitude- and is SAND. 163 consonant with the clearness, dryness, and purity of the atmos- phere. They are not good people in the Sunday-school view, but there is a spirit of charity and a Saxon sense of fair play about them which is a substitute for goody-goodness, worthy respect from the righteous. So far as I can observe, sanctified hypocrisy is nearly unknown up here. Whatever of vice there is, is open to the sun there are no screens, no green and leaf-like lattice- work to stimulate scrutiny. Everything is open, or, as the inhabitants express it, ' Everything goes.' And yet, when one considers the absence of all the gentle and softening influences of home-life, it is wonderful how little we have of the petty crimes and lower immoralities. Our crimes here are mostly homicides and high- way robberies ; which, if there is ever any virtue in crime, may be classed among the manliest in the books. While we have here our criminal element, as every place has, I would be willing to stake my life on it, that a woman, a child, or a disabled person is safer here, day or night, than upon any street in San Francisco. A deliberate or gross insult by a man to a woman or child par- ticularly a female child is a bid for instant death, and the general verdict on the remains of the insulter is, ' Served him right.' Still, among themselves, in their customary haunts, these people are not sparing of each other. Every man who makes a claim to self-sufficiency is called upon at the gaming tables, in drinking bouts, and in business to make his claim good. Ko man here is any other able-bodied person's guardian. Who- ever wishes to go to the dogs, goes to the dogs. There is no restraint, or, as they express it here, * There is nobody holding you.' "Of course it is all what may be called mining life. But it is not the California mining life which I have seen and known somewhat all my days; nor yet is it all like the coal and iron- mining of tlie Eastern States, which we read about. It is not like any other life, because it is the result of climate, soil, topography, and environment in every way different from other mining regions. Here is no class of men in high top-boots and broad felt-hats, with piratical whiskers and ponderous pistols. There is here a curi- ous, broadly humorous, or quaint burlesque use of the King's English; also, a cropping out of dialects, with a grotesque com- mingling of idioms; but there is little, or rather none at all, of 164 SAND. s a - 5 3 that uncouth, sprawling awkwardness and dullness of apprehen- sion, which we may call gawkery, so commonly depicted in our Pacific-slope literature as miners' characteristics. The ' frontiers- man' is here, but the 'backwoodsman,' if he ever was present, has been elminated. The miner here is a modestly sometimes ele- gantly well-dressed, cleanly male person of polite address, who changes his clothing at least twice in twenty-four hours once as he goes down into the mine, and once again, eight hours afterward, as he comes up out of the mine. He is, in fact, a sort of under- ground aristocrat, if I may express it; and, like a physician, or priest, or other exclusively professional person, he almost scorns the humiliations of ordinary employments as beneath his dignity. His occupation being to all appearance a dangerous one cer- tainly one demanding strength of muscle and steadiness of nerve makes of him a responsible person. Not only is he responsible to the superintending power, but also to the fellow-workmen who follow him in the chambers of the darkness. The life of one miner may be said to hang on the thoroughness and honesty of another miner's work; where an ill-adjusted prop, a defective timber, a neglected precaution, may bring down tons of solid cal- amity, oceans of water, or a deluge of dead air, it behooves the workman to know what he is doing, and to do it well. " These conditions bring the miners into a rather ' close com- munion,' which they call the * Miners' Union' an institution of which I know nothing, save by report, but which makes of the miners a separate guild. " No matter where born or how bred, each man, upon coming among his people, be he old or young, seems to fall into the ways and adopt the tone of the country. Therefore, there is a peculiar flavor to the humor, an oddity to the wit, and a general character of not unpleasant surprise in the individualism that abounds here. This character of surprise this unusual quality of the unexpected in the rendering of common things is what, as I think, gives the charm, the irrepressible charm, to the writings of Mark Twain. It is a sort of climatic, desperate buoyancy; or perhaps it might be called the fanny devil-may-careisin of hard common sense. " Considering the wild excitement of business risk which often prevails here, the expansion and contraction of hope, the eleva- SAND. 165 tion and depression of great expectations, one would look to find the people addicted to suicide, but I do not find it so. There are men working here as day-laborers who have gained and lost life- competencies, which were, save in the modern millionaire sense, quite large fortunes; yet these men, and all men here, seem en- dowed with an undismayed spirit of humorous buoyancy. " Altogether, they are a great and peculiar people, and I must beg you to excuse my feeble and tedious effort to depict them. "Herewith I send some brilliant specimens of how Nature paints and arrays her glittering chambers in the solid depths. They are not valuable, but they are curious, if not beautiful. 44 Tell Miss Ellen and little Miss Mary that I have a pet. It is a lizard a funny little fellow. He is a kind of sentimental com- ique. His dress consists of an ashen-black coat of delicate mail, which changes to a bluish gray as it comes around from his back, until it connects in a cream-colored blending on his breast and abdomen. Then he has white lips and a biue blending into black nose; but, most grand of all, he has a vermilion stripe, about as wide as the edge of a half-dollar, which starts at each corner of his mouth, and continues along his neck and down the inside of his arms (or fore-legs) till it ends in each thumb on his hands for he has hands. He has a very long tail, as long as he is, which is about four inches. He has gentle little eyes, which are nearly human in expression, and he can wink them in the cunningest way that ever was seen. " Every day, when the room is warm, and while I am writing he comes in at a hole in the floor, and climbs nimbly up the leg of ray desk to perch himself in front of me, on the top rail of the book-rack ; and there he watches me by turning his head cutely, first to one side and then to the other. If I stop writing to look at him, he immediately begins pumping himself up and down on his fore-legs, as though he were saluting me in the most profound manner known to reptilian etiquette. When he salutes me in that manner, I always think of the little rhyme about the old man clothed in leather : " 'He began to compliment, I began to grin, With a how-d'ye-do, And a how d'ye-do, And a how-d'ye-do again/ 166 SAND. " If a stranger enters the office room, my pet darts away, down the corner and leg of the desk, in a most sudden and surprising manner, and disappears through the hole in the floor. When the weather was warmer, there were flies abroad in the air, and then I put some damp sugar on a piece of paper and placed it where my pet usually stationed himself. Did he eat the sugar ? Bless us, no! But the flies came to eat the sugar, and my pet devoured the flies. He has nice little creamy-blue hands with vermilion- lined thumbs, but he does not use his hands to catch flies. He has a machine made on purpose for that business. I guess it is his tongue, but I do not know. Anyway, he darts it out of his mouth so quickly that you can scarcely see it while you are look- ing, but you see a fly disappear. Then the lizard snaps his eyes, and pumps up and down once or twice on his arms akimbo, as if he thought it a good joke on the fly. " A bad man threw some tobacco dust in my pet's eye one day, and my pet scampered away, and did not come into the office again for several days (the man has not been in since), and when he did come back to his accustomed place, he looked at me and wiped his eye with the back of his little hand, as much as to say: ' Please don't do that again, it hurts.' " The roaring and jarring of the stamps in the mill near by do not disturb my pet in the least. He seems to enjoy it. " Please tell the girls they must not think it too strange or eccentric in me to make a pet of such a creature. It is not my fault. He was here when I came ; though I failed to take any particular notice of him for several days after I arrived. He is a very cleanly, well-behaved and highly respectable, harmless char- acter, and a member of one of the most ancient families in the land. . His ancestors are renowned among the names which adorn our. scientific annals. If it were not too cruel an act I would secure him and send him into captivity to amuse my gentle young friends; but I have not the heart to remove him from his sterile haunts. " 'Whose rude winds But bind him to his native hills the more.' " My health is very good, but, then, as it was never otherwise, that is no news; although for some days after my arrival here I SAND. 167 had difficulty in getting sufficient breath. There is plenty of breath here, but I could not inhale enough of it at first. Now, however, I take in vast supplies of it. It is the pure ether of the altitudes. ' Please make rny kindest remembrances to the young ladies of the household, and tell them that the ' cruel war is over,' and now, like Dominie Sampson, I am a man of peace. '* My letters from home inform me that my parents and all our family are well and contented, which I hope, dear madam, may ever be the case with yourself and with all in whom you are interested. " Your very respectful servant, " NORMAN MAYDOLE, JR." Having written these two letters he immediately mailed the first one, but though he carefully folded and enveloped the second, he did not mail it that day, nor the next day, nor yet for several days. He was fearful that this latter letter was not what should be expected of him. He wanted to say more on one topic and less upon others, yet he did not wish to appear as pressing, in the letter, the point most dwelt upon in his mind. Several times he thought of re- writing the letter, but at last, as much hesitation was never in his disposition, he sealed it and sent it. During these days in which he carried the letter in his pocket, he was no inactive dreamer on the con- trary, he was more thoroughly engaged than he had ever before been in his life. Blethers had left the camp, his friends saying that he had gone down to San Francisco on important business. But the ab- sence of Blethers had worked no perceptible injury to the general business. 168 SAN D. The men arid all parties directly concerned found an acting head to affairs, also a prompt paymaster, and they did not much trouble themselves as to the rank and title of that head. They also found that the clerk was everywhere, always respectful, constantly civil, but always driving. With " Cussin'Jack" and Fitzgibbon he ransacked, measured, and mapped every accessible inch of the mine, and wrote out, from notes taken among the men, the history of all portions which, from various well-known causes, were no longer accessible. Late into the night the shifting men, going to and coming from the mine, saw, through the office window, the clerk's head under his lamp- shade, and they said to each other: " He's a worker." The batteries in the mill still kept up their roar by day and night; the engine in the mill whistled the hours on and off; the other engine at the mine further up the canon piped the calls back again in shriller tones, and the music of industry knew no cessation amid the surrounding solitude of the hills. The men still made merry or quarreled, or philoso- phized in their odd ways at the saloons. " Well, lads," said u Cussin' Jack," over his beer, u Blethers be gone, an' t' world still goes round." " 1 hain't felt no yethquake, nor seed no shower of stars," remarked a gentleman, who, with others, was playing a careful social card-game near by. " Oh, play yer ace, and never mind about the stars! If you don't stop trying to make friends with Ram- sey's dog, you'll see stars enough." SAND. 169 " If I was Riimsey and had as purty a daughter as he has in this camp of old stags, I'd hire a mountain lion arid go to hatching rattle-snakes." " You tellers needn't mind about me and Rumsey's dog, for Shakspeare sez: 4 Love me love my dog.' It's my pitch." " I tell yo' wot it's a 'nndred thousan' dollars i' company's powkit, getten rid o' Blethers." "Blethers never made no big thing out of this mine." "Damn it,playj stop yerchinnin'! Git it printed git it printed!" " I dunnot say ee did make a big thing out o' this moine. It's that as ee didn't get, an' wot's forth- coming as I allewds to. Ee 'adn't the yead for this bizens. So long as t' moine was a prospec', ee did well enow. That's all ee's good for; but this clerk chap is 'igher up i' the figgers." " Oh, yes, a new broom sweeps clean." " Theer was need o' a bit o' clean sweepin' 'ere- abonts; an' it's bread an' meat an' money in ivvera moil's powkit that we be now but getten it done." " I don't w T ant any bread and meat in my pocket. Play, Jim." And though these random sayings came in cramp, careless expression from various persons in Jack's immediate neighborhood, the general assembly was nearly of one mind in endorsing the approah to truth in his remarks. The apparent half-hostility to his speeches arose from the fact that while he took no 170 SAND. interest in cards and a deep interest in conversation, his auditors were just the other way; and when they were playing, or watching the play, they had but lit- tle mind for anything else. Which should lead a moralist to remark that no external action dries up the spontaneity of the human intellect like a frequent recurrence to social card-playing. The professional gambler, who works at the card-table in cold blood, calculating for a livelihood, has an alert, active brain; but the social devotee becomes like a hen sitting on an addled nest, good for nothing but to squawk out and peck at all who disturb the useless incuba- tion. u Well, lads," said Jack, good humoredly, when he had finished his beer, "go on wi' paiste-board thurnpin'. I be goin' whoam to bed." " Remember me in your prayers, Jack." " An' chuck in an extry 'jackelation fer me." " All right, lads. There's been a deal better prayin' done for most on yo' than I ivver can do, by them as loved yo' nex' hand to God Almoighty," and Jack passed out of the saloon. There was nothing more said among the card-play- ers at the tables, near where Jack had sat, for some time after his departure, till, at length, one of the players, as he shuffled the cards, looking around the circle, remarked: " That was a heavy shot the old boy got off as he went out." " Oh, he's right dead on it! Pie's a faithful foi- SAND 171 lower of the Meek and Lowly, and he means it. Didn't you never hear him preach?" "No." " He's a purty good coarse-handed preacher." " An' he don't preach much hell, nuther. Mostly muscy an' squar' deal in' and good behavior." " Jeverhear him preach a funeral?" " No, never did." " Well, ye jist ort to. He's a damn big feelin' man, ye know, and he cries like a son of a gun when he gits down to his Scriptur' alongside of a coffin. Why, he made Tony Maguire cry, time we buried Jim Peters. Didn't he, Tony?" u Och! wher' 'er ye drivin to? Ask leave to print the rest of it, and go on with your game," responded Tony from behind the bar, where, in a lull of alcoholic amusement, he was absorbing the contents of a San Francisco newspaper. It may be remarked here that exemplary piety and moderate alcoholic potations are not considered incom- patible in clerical life on the west coast of England particularly in the mining regions of that coast. Also, that professional goodness goes for nothing abso- lutely for nothing among the silver-miners. Silver- tongued oratory is too plentiful in that region to be esteemed much beyond its actual worth. What has he done what can he do? is the only test question in that region. Unless a man assumes to be rich and the immediate question then is: " What's he gotf" And whatever it is that he has, if he don't look sharp, he will not have it long. 172 SAND. While the change in the administration of the mine was going forward, and was being discussed in the camp, the quiet young man, whose head and brain were at the bottom of this change, was a very busy as well as a very wary person. For, though the chief impediment was out of his way, there was still a remnant of discontent. And this discontented rem- nant was busy, with tongue and pen, ingeniously striving to show a reason for expected failure, while hoping for some accident, either to the mine itself, or to the accompanying works. But, inasmuch as " For- tune favors the brave," and success is synonymous with " sand," no such accident occurred. The busi- ness ran smoothly and successfully under the man- agement of the young man, until one snowy evening, when the cry of " Stage! stage!" which always echoes in an outlying mining camp upon the arrival of that important vehicle, heralded the coming of another young man, who, upon his arrival in the office of the company, handed to Norman May dole, Jr., a brief epistle, the contents of which were substantially as follows : " This will introduce you to Mr. Martin Rossine, a competent book-keeper " " How do you do, Mr. Rossine pleased to meet you," said Norman, glancing from the letter and ex- tending his hand "have a seat," then he read on: <4 Make such arrangement with him about the books and business, immediately after pay-day, as may be necessary to carry him along until the following pay-day. Then, after doing among the men whatever you may judge best to regulate the working in your SAND 173 absence, gather together your maps, papers, vouchers, etc., and come to the city, prepared to give a strong account o.f your stew- ardship. Make haste slowly, but do not delay. There is no- cause of alarm. All well at home. "Yours, HOLTEN." CHAPTER VI. " My dear," said Mrs. Holten, coming into Colonel Holten's "den," where her liege lord was writing at his desk, " I have a very interesting letter from young Mr. Maydole." " TJmh! So have I. Maydole writes letters of in- terest to several people." u Why, is his correspondence so large?" u Perhaps not. It is not the largeness of it, but there is money in it money in it, my lady, more power to him. I have hardly time to talk about it now, though, if you please." " Oh! Your old letters refer to business, but mine is such an easy, cheerful, sensible, family kind of a letter that I want you to read it right now." " Well," said Colonel Holten, pushing aside his papers, " let me see the document." " For so young a man," said Mrs. Holten, as she passed the letter over, u he writes a very considerate, home-like letter, and not a bit of mannerism in it. It is simply original or or oh, what do you call it ? spontaneous." "Ah, well! That's nothing he inherits it. His father is a famous private correspondent," he said, bending his brow to Norman's chirography. " Read aloud," said she, and she sat down in a chair at the end of the desk. 174 SAND. 175 Colonel Holten read the letter, smiling anon with that lifting and lowering of the brows common to men who sit in judgment on another's manuscript. " Rather a long epistle," he said, as he handed it back to her. " I wish it were twice as long," she said. "But don't you think it is a nice letter? a gentle letter?" u Oh > he is a very gentle, not to say lamb-like, per- son that young Mr. Maydole," and here Colonel Holten laughed aloud, as a man often does, at the far- reaching sagacity of his humor. " There are some discriminating observations contained therein. They are true, too, I believe; and the picture of the lizard is artistically juvenile." "Is that all you have to say?" said Mrs. Holten, good-naturedly, as she arose to go. "' Wait one moment," said her husband, selecting a sheet of fold-marked manuscript from off his desk; " I want to read you from Mr. Maydole's most inter- esting style." Then lie read: " ' Please call the attention of your co-owners to the slightly improved yield of this month over last; also, the shrinkage in expenditure.' Now one more extract which I call deeply absorbing to the general reader, to wit: " ' I have made a careful and minute preliminary survey of the mine. I can not promise any sudden "bonanza," but unless we strike some unlooked-for barrenness, I think I may intimate a gradual improvement.' That," added Colonel Holten, "has something in it. The style is good, and the stuff is better." 176 SAND. " It is not near so good a letter as mine," said Mrs. Hol.ten, going. "Adioa!" he said, laughing. Then he quickly added, as she reached the door, " I opine we shall see the young man ere long." " Shall we? I am pleased to hear it." " Yes; we want him to report in person to a Com- mittee of the Whole on Mines and Mining. He has- fought a good fight, anyway, and deserves a short season of recreation." Mrs. Hoi ten being gone, the Colonel bent himself to his constant task, and silence reigned about him until a. rap at his door, followed by his usual loud " Come in," introduced a boy in half-uniform, having in one hand a characteristic cap, and in his other a book and pencil. This youth, as he approached Col- onel Holten, wedged the cap close under his arm, and presented the open book and a sealed letter envelope to the Colonel, bowed, smiled, looked bright, and said nothing. Colonel Holten took the envelope, looked at the address, signed his name in the boy's book:, then, tearing the envelope open, he glanced over it and said as he did so, " No answer, my son ;" where- upon the youth put the book up under his arm as a substitute for the cap, which latter he now held in his hand as he bowed, smiled, looked bright, said nothing, and went his way, softly closing the door after him. " U'-hum!" exclaimed the Colonel in that decisive sort of nasal grunt which no dialectician can properly SAND. 177 spell on paper. "He starts to-day, eh! Le's see! That ought to bring him here by day after to-rnorrow, or by the day following, at farthest that is, if he is not delayed by the snow or other accident." Then he sat for some moments at his desk, idly beating the air with his lead-pencil, as though marking time to some semi-unconscious tune in his memory, which tune must have made him famous for its eccentricities, if the atmosphere could have photographed the score as he rendered it. At last, giving his pencil one grand, half- circular, waving flourish, he arose actively to his feet, filliped the pencil upon the desk, put his eye-glasses into his vest pocket, donned his hat, and said, as he pushed some papers into a pigeon-hole, 44 I'll give the boy a chance. It will do him good." Then he went out by the side-street door. He had but just gone, when his eldest daughter first knocked at the hall-side door, then pushed it softly open for fear of disturbing her father, but finding that he had gone out, and knowing of the visit of the telegraph messenger, she stood at the open door with the knob in her hand, looked about her in a disappointed kind of way, and then softly approaching his desk she saw the open telegram lying upon it, and picked it up. This little piece of paper, with its few words, had an effect upon her in no way consistent with the dry matter of business language it contained. She bright- ened up, losing at once the disappointed look which was upon her face. She read the paper very carefully, turned it over in her hand and looked at the back of 12 SAND. it, laid it down upon the desk, and then taking up the envelope in which it had probably come, she read what was on that, compressed it apart, looked into it and laid it down on the desk, then quietly walked from the room. At dinner, that same day, Colonel Holten announced to his family assemblage that young Mr. Maydole might be expected "any day after to-morrow." "Oh, goody-good-good!" drawled the youngest member, with unusual animation for her. " He'll tell us some more about the funny little lizards." " I shall be very glad to see him, indeed," said madam. " I am sorry Alice is not here to entertain him when he comes," said Judith, very quietly. " I hope," said Colonel Holten, with a dry smile which was not at all lost in his beard, " I hope w r e can make out to entertain one young man without assist- ance from abroad." "Oh, yes, we can," said Judith, carelessly; "but Mr. Maydole only talks of one subject at a time. He is not a society talker; he can not skip and catch and go on without any connection to his ideas. He is a perfect listener, though, and Alice used to lecture to him nicely. But I can not lecture have no power at monologue; and you have talked to mother so much and for so long that she is a professional audi- ence." " Well, my child," and the old dry smile was again in his beard, "you will have to worry through it some- how." 6AND. 179 Wise old father! Prudent daughter! Who shall say how far their ideas were apart? The young think the old do not see because they fail to say; the old sayings of the young are most transparent. Matters moved on in and about the Holten house, from day to day, in their usual routine, varied now and again by participation in the winter gayeties for the weeping time of Nature was now upon the land. The rains roared upon the house-roofs, drove through the streets of cities and along the rural lanes, gurgled from spoutings and pooled in the street, made grass- mottled ponds in far-away pastures, dripped from tangle-boughed woods, drifted slantingly across open plains, and at last, far up in the solitudes, turned to the steady silent fall of woodland snow as it reached and rested its main forces upon the summits of the Sierra Nevada sending only reconnoitering parties down the other side horsed on the wild winds of the Sage-brush Land. It is hard, without the experience, to realize the contrast of scenery and climate to be found in twenty-four hours of rail ride from San Francisco eastward in winter season. It is a transfer from flower gardens of the temperate climes, in full bloom, to fields of ice crystals, in full glitter. Young Mr. Maydole, dropping down from the stage-coach top, muffled and buttoned from chin to toe in that blanket-built recent ancestor of the now awful ulster commonly known as the " Washoe duster" with a stout brown blanket on his arm, entered the railroad station in the desert to await the ISO SAN D. coming train. Teams from seldom viewed, almost undiscoverable nooks in the distant surrounding mountains come tracking from afar across the white waste of the snow-covered land. Horses with noses bristling with a wealth of delicate ice-lace, and tails alive with electric thrills, looked wildly askance at lounging ragged Indians. Masterful men, with keen, quick eves and icy beards, tramped the platform of the station, spat long tobacco stains upon the clean white snow, knocked the dirty ice-knobs from their nail-clad boot-heels, and swore at the weather as if it were a personal power, capable of being insulted and brought to combat. In this chilly scene Mr. May- dole had not long to wait. The train came gliding up to the station like a frantic lost spirit of civiliza- tion, scared into a tremor by the ghostly white silence of the winter-clad desert. " All aboard!" There is a perceptible bustle. The brakemen dance upon the platforms of the cars, the breath of the engine-man floats white away from his lips, while his iron horse coughs beneath him in a metallic epizootic kind of way, and the whole train glides out of sight and beyond hearing like the materialized spirit of the mirage. Along the bare plain the ringing rhythm of iron upon steel keeps up the glib clip-clap-clatter, clip- clap-clatter of its constant tune, until the night comes down dark and threatening as the train arranges, among glancing lights, to climb the Sierra. In the snow, that deepens under the night that darkens, the SAND. 181 climb begins. Not one iron horse now, but two sometimes more than two. There is here no desert. The dark pines loom loftily and dimly above the white snow, as if listening to the talk of the engines. " Whoooooo oop! Are you ready?" says the fore to the aft engine. " Who-o-op! All ready," says the aft. " Away we go, then." " Go it is." Thus, all night long the iron monsters talk to each other on the icy altitudes among the listening pines. " Whoop her up a little," says the fore engine. " All right," says the aft. " Yip-yip-yip-yip, ye-e-e-e-e-eep ! . Hed light ahead down brakes!" "Aye, aye!" " Come ahead again gently!" *' All right, I hear you." " Snow-shed!" " Just so." " Whoop her up again." " Correct!" Thus the dialogue of iron industry goes on the whole night long. The comfortable passenger in the elegant sleeping apartment hears it in his dreams; the emigrant, curled up and cramped in his car-seat, hears it through the dry chill that has permeated his bones, and ever and anon he flattens his nose against the window glass in a vain endeavor to look out, only to find his eye gazing into a reflection of the car he 182 SAND. occupies. But by and by, just ere the first dawn of day, the passengers, both emigrant arid first class, feel a change. The chill is passing out of them. The car-wheels are less noisy. The dialogue between the engines has now very long pauses. The passen- ger, abed in the sleeping-car, punches the pillow under the side of his head, snuggles down to his bus- iness, and goes sound asleep. The emigrant, in the plain car-seat, uncoils himself, stretches his feet out into any open space he can find, turns his face to the ceiling of the car, and lets the traveling world know that he has a good nose for music. His tired and far-traveled wife, if he has one, leans over against his Sleeping shoulder and pipes a feeble alto to his power- ful bass, until, long after sunrise, the brakemen, shout- ing through the cars, announce: " Twenty minutes for breakfast." " Law me," says emigrant madam, after accom- panying her husband on the nose-organ for at least two hours and a half, " I was jist a-goin' to go to sleep." Then glancing out of the window of the car she suddenly grips the shoulder beside her, and says, " John ! John ! Do look, the snow is gone, the grass is green, and, well! I'll declare if them ain't frogs a-hollerinV " Well, I tole ye they didn't hev no winter in Cal- iforny," says John, as he rubs his eyes and gathers in his legs. The effect of this change of climate upon Mr. Maydole, Jr., was exceedingly pleasant. His power- SAND. 183 ful lungs, expanded by the thin air of the altitudes, reveled in the softening atmosphere. The wiry elec- tric metalism of the upper regions passed out of him, leaving his powers luxuriously relaxed from their recent high-strung pitch, and he proceeded on his way to tide-water in a comfortable mood. At the old ferry landing his long blanket over-coat, which he had not yet taken the thought to throw off, brought about him the whole horrible troop of barking wolves from hotel, hack, etc.; but as he had that look in his eyes which the impudence of the " runner " and bummer knows well enough not to trifle long with, they soon let him pass in his own way. The evening brought him to the door of that house which had become to him the most important of all earthly mansions. When he was ushered into the presence of the family he was warmly welcomed. " How brown arid strong you do look," said madam. " You are thinner rather than when you left us," said Judith. "The high altitudes have a desiccating effect," he said, with respectful gayety. " And you have been exercising violently, I im- agine," added madam. "Oh, yes," he said; "but I do not feel that I have had much more than my usual average of muscular exertion. I have always been a worker of some kind." After the family had had their general say of him, he was led away by Colonel Holten. 1 8'4r SAN D. " Now, Mr. May dole," said the Colonel, when the two were seated in his business room, "this is urgent business. Can you make a speech?" "To a public audience?" inquired Norman. " Yes public, in so far as a meeting of stock- holders may be so called." " I do not know. I have seen and heard a vast amount of speech-making in court and on the politi- cal stump, but I have never tried to talk in public to an audience; yet, if it must be done, I can try." " Very good, very good! I have had a meeting of the stockholders called, and I think a full verbal re- port, backed by a written statement, will be more effective than anything else." ; 'Then, it is about the mine what I know about the business? It is upon that subject you wish me to make a speech?" " Precisely." "Oh, well, as to that," said Norman, laughing, "I think I could make a speech on that subject instantly if waked out of a sound sleep. I will not promise any oratory." " Don't want any oratory." " All right; I will try it. Have you any sugges- tions to make as to matter or manner?" " No. Tell the truth. Speak slowly and distinctly. Once on the floor never mind about your audience; your hearers will come to you when you come to the merits of your case. They always do to any speaker who modestly and earnestly tells the honest truth." S A N I). 185 " How many days can I have to get ready?" u Four." u Very gooa, sir. I will go about the preparation at once." During the ensuing four days Norman enlarged and colored his maps of the mine, so that the lines on them could be plainly seen across a large room. Then he planned an accurate histoVy of the mine, from the time the original prospector uncovered its ancient head among the outcroppings in the sage- brush, to which he added a tabulated statement of all the workings, yieldings and expenditures. And when this task was finished, he tried to picture in his imagination how he should look and act before an audience, all of whom he believed to be critical in such matters, and some of whom he knew to be hos- tile to himself and his friends; but this attempt at imagination he gave up as beyond his powers, and concluded to stay mainly with the hard facts and let his manner take care of itself. The day of meeting of stockholders arrived, and, as the hour of its session approached, our hero tried to recollect and bring before his mind in one instant all that he knew about the subject at issue, and was somewhat alarmed to find that his intellect failed to make any such re- sponse, and that all he had planned and intended to say amounted only to these words: 14 Gentlemen: As I have never been placed in a position such as I now occupy, you will bear with me and pardon me if in the presentation of facts I fail ty 186 SAND. put them in a manner at once pleasing and plausible." To this paragraph he clung with the desperation of one who believes he is about to drown. He kept it in constant repetition through his mind, but when lie was called up to make his report he was astounded to find that this paragraph also had faded out of memory, until nothing was left of it but the one word, '* Gentlemen." He took up his maps and papers, when called upon, and went to his place before the astute audience, feeling a greater need of a large sup- ply of sand than ever before had occurred to him. He unrolled his papers on the desk in unconscious imitation of the lawyers he had seen in the country- court rooms where his father reigned as clerk. Lift- ing up his eyes he managed to say, " Gentlemen " but the severe eyes of the astute world's-men, which were collectively upon him, almost appalled him. But, seeing among the gray and bald heads, one younger head, the face of which seemed to enjoy his embar- rassment, he immediately became internally hostile, and started off on his report as follows: " The property with which I am now connected as clerk has a history, and I propose first to give you the history as a whole, and then the important figures in detail. Let me have your attention, if you please, while I relate to you the history of the mine from the beginning, so that, when I shall point out facts now vital to its proper management, we may mutu- ally understand how arid why these facts came to be facts." SAND. 187 By the time he had uttered these words his blood began to flow where it was most needed, and the nat- ural stimulus quickened his brain and brought back to his mind all that he had lost of his carefully pre- pared report. The honest working of his own mind, as it intelligently handled the (to him) familiar mat- ters with which he was dealing, soon drew the minds of his hearers into the same channel. The attention became riveted upon him as he threw the light of honest, thorough investigation into the dark places of the business management. He was no longer the young man making a speech he was the careful, conscientious man of business (no matter about his youth now) crushing with the hard logic of well ascer- tained facts the ingeniously constructed plausibility of palpable falsehood. When he had finished his report and submitted his figures, he said: " I shall now answer any question regarding the mine or my connection with it." " Didn't you contrive to get up a quarrel in the camp with Mr. Blethers, the superintendent?" " No, sir." "Did you not have a fight with him in the office?" " Yes sir." " I thought so," said the questioner, with a tri- umphant, sarcastic smile. "What did you fight about?" asked another stock- holder. " Mr. Blethers made indecent allusion to my extrac- tion and to rny ancestors, whereupon I told him he 188 SAND. was a bully, and I thought he was a coward; at which he sought to collar me, and well, we had a litile fight. That's the amount of it." " Would you be good enough to tell us what, in your opinion, caused the foreman to use this language to you? Or do you know?" " I know very well. He wanted me to act, through my position as clerk of the mine, so that his outside friends could use me as a standing voluntary garnishee in the forcible collection of their debts. I refused to do it." "And you did quite right, my boy!" emphatically ejaculated a gray-haired sire of the stock market. When he had been questioned by various parties upon almost every point of his connection with the business, he offered his written -report and left the stand, and, somewhat to his embarrassment, found himself shaking hands w r ith men whom he did not personally know, who offered him congratulatory speeches. As he recovered from his absorbing atten- tion to the business in hand, he looked about for the face of his patron, and, not finding it in the room, he then remembered that he had not seen that face in the house since he took his place in front of his audience. "We have heard the report," said the chairman; "what shall we do with it?" " I move that it be received, and that the mine man- agers be requested to appoint Mr. Maydole superin- tendent, with full power to manage the mine to the best of his judgment for the interest of all parties SAND. 189 concerned," said a heavy stockholder. The motion was seconded. Then it was that Norman noticed Colonel Holten on the floor, and was not a little puz- zled to hear him say: " Before that motion is put, I desire to say it may not be convenient for Mr. Maydole to accept the position, as I am informed, though I have not been present during the offering of his report, that he has here to-day shown himself worth a better place. I would therefore amend the motion by striking out all suggestion to the managers, leaving it to read simply as an acceptance of the report." The maker of the motion accepting the Colonel's amendment, the motion was put and carried, and the meeting adjourned. "Where is Mr. Maydole?" asked Mrs. Holten of her husband, as they sat down to dinner at home. "After his speech, to-day, the most stubborn stock- holder in the opposition carried him off to dinner." "Why, did he make a speech?" asked madam. "He did so; and a good one, too." ''Well, I'm glad to hear it. The poor boy has to do all sorts of difficult things." Colonel Holten laughed aloud. " I do believe you take delight in getting that poor boy into trouble." " Perhaps so," said the Colonel, still laughing; "but I take more delight in getting him out again; though, fortunately for me, he does not need much assistance. He is one whom the Lord helps because he helps lumself." 190 SAND. "Did Mr. Maydole ever before make a speqqh!" asked Judith. " He says not," answered the father. "What did lie say?" asked Judith. " I do not know, save from report. I did not hear the speech, but he said enough to fully answer the purpose and that is true oratory. Its effect must have been amusing to several of those who witnessed it. Our greatest trouble," continued the Colonel, as he went on, paying marked attention to the contents of his dinner plate, "our greatest trouble in this busi- ness has been a heavy stockholder an old man, who in early times was a popular saloon-keeper and a prize- fighting umpire or referee. This person has been always on the side of the man called Blethers, partly because of Blethers' presumed prowess in personal combat. The career of Blethers has been checked rather peremtorily by Maydole over yonder at the mine. This old stockholder has been himself a fight- ing man, though a person of under size. He is a man of strong will and of pretty good judgment, but he can not express his ideas is a man of few words, in fact. Maydole's compact physical power attracted this old man from the beginning, and when he saw a young fellow who could talk forcibly and fight fairly he was captured, and with him came his whole fol- lowing; and that settles the business for which the meeting was called." Miss Judith listened to this brief description of Norman's success without making any audible mani- SAND. 191 festation of approval or disapproval, but her face and eyes showed that she had weighed every word of it. " Is he to return to the mines?" she asked, at length. "Certainly, if he wishes it. But what he ought to do is to study law. His father was right when lie said he wanted to make a lawyer of him." u Is he not too open and honest to make a success- ful lawyer?" asked madam. " No. A lawyer can not be too honest. There is no field in which honesty is more powerful than in that of law. I do not consider Mr. Maydole an 'open' person at all, in the common acceptation of that word. Honest he is to the last limit, no doubt, but he has inherited, not from his father, a wise reticence that 'still keeps something to himseP he'll scarcely tell to ony.' " Is it fair to surmise that the shrewd, successful, wealthy business father knew which member of his family at the dinner-table was listening most atten- tively to his remarks? If it is not fair to do so, we will not do it. For a fortnight after his speech to the stockholders, Norman Maydole, Jr., had an easy arid interesting season. Little by little he gained access to, or, rather, was invited into, the social circle in which the Hoi- tens revolved; and, by way of exciting contrast, made a large acquaintance with the men who surrounded the u stubborn stockholder" of saloon keeping antece- dents. It was interesting to note that the stubborn stockholder, though himself addicted to alcoholic 192 SAND. amusements, was all the more interested in him on account of his invariably polite declination to accept any of the many invitations to join in these amuse- ments. In fact, the old man gathered all he could of Norman's brief history, and, as was the case with most people, the more he knew of the young man the better he liked him, and he finally summed it all up in these words: " That young Mr. Medule," said he, for so he would always pronounce the name, " is the biggest little man and the best boy on the Coast." But though this making of acquaintance, this see- ing of the city, and these little triumphs in business, were interesting and very important to our hero, he had still another, a nearer, a dearer, and more delicate enterprise closer to his heart. The face and figure of a full-formed, graceful young woman traveled before his mind's eye. wherever he went. The vision of laughing health and womanly tenderness led the pro- cession of fairies over the carpet of roseleaves in his dreams. He did not consider if he wanted to be a married man a poor man married to a presumably rich woman but he did feel, and feel constantly, that there was a gap in his hopes, a vacancy in his ambi- tions, which only that young woman, and none other, could fill. Whether to go back to the mountains, or anywhere else, or even to stay where he was, without seeking to know how it misrht be between himself O O and this young woman, was to him the weightiest of questions. Oftentimes, day and night, he debated SAND. 193 this great question with himself, and as often he found it surrounded by difficulties. Had the question in- volved a physical risk, or a direct combat of any sort, his hesitation would have vanished in instant resolu- tion. Had it involved only patient toil, or length and strength of endurance, he could have met it with- out much debate. Perhaps, if in his estimation the young woman could have been duplicated which he did not at all believe he could have seen his way out by learning from the loss of one how to possess him- self of the other. To him, though he well believed the world to be full of young women, the case resolved itself into life or death on a single shot. In this dilemma it came into his memory that he had an old letter from his dear, dead friend, Judge Clayton, which had some advice on a subject kindred to the one now haunting his mind. He opened the old letter, and the familiar handwriting of the dead Mentor told him this : 41 At any time when you are in doubt about how you shall act where your honor, or the honor of your friend, is concerned, con- sider the facts involved as thoroughly as may be, then arm your- self with the truth, jump into the middle of things, and take the chances. Never play Hamlet off the stage." He folded the old letter, replaced it in its time- seasoned package, and immediately repaired to the room where the fortunes of his manhood had begun. " Well, Mr. Maydole," said the Colonel, as Nor- man entered, " are you getting weary with city ways and social excitement?" " No, sir. Do I look tired?" he asked with a sad 13 194 8 AND. smile, as he stood, hat in hand, before his patron. " Well, I have thought you do not brighten up quite as you used to do. This climate does not suit you, perhaps, after the dry air over yonder. Take a seat, sir." " No, sir. Thanking you kindly for the invitation, I will not sit down." " Why, why! What's the matter?" said the Colonel, rising to his feet. " Has any one in this house offended you, sir?" " No, indeed ! Far from it very far from any- thing of the sort. But if you have time now to listen to me, I will tell you; if you have not time now, please appoint a time." " From your action I infer it must be a vital mat- ter. What is it?" and his last three words were em- phatic. U I am in your house. I enjoy its hospitality, and I think as between man and man I am bound to tell you without delay that I love your daughter Miss Judith Holten. If this statement should displease you, sir, I shall never sit down in this house again until you invite me to sit." At the mention of his daughter's name, the Colonel wheeled upon his heel instantly, and walked hastily to the window, where he stood in silence, seeming to look out, for some minutes. u Isn't it somewhat sudden not to say very abrupt, sir?" he by and by asked. "Yes, sir. It is abrupt perhaps it is rude but I SAND. 195 have not been able to say what I have just uttered .without going at it in this manner." Colonel Holten, with his face close to the window, was shaken with emotion, but no mortal has yet been able to say what the nature of that emotion was. " Does Judith know of this interview?" "No, sir! No, sir!" " If I ask you to sit what then?" " Then I shall take the earliest opportunity to tell Miss Holten just what I have told you." "But if 1 do not invite you to sit?" he asked, still looking out at the window. " Then I shall leave this house, and not be tempted by my own feeling to abuse your hospitality, and and I shall wait." Instantly the Colonel wheeled about, walked to where Maydole was standing, and extending his hand, said : " Take a seat, Mr. Maydole." Norman sat down. Colonel Holten took his usual seat at his desk> and placing his spectacles over his eyes went quietly to work or at least seemed to go to work. Norman waited in palpitating silence. Finally, without rais- ing his head, the Colonel said, in a very gentle man- ner: " Mr. Maydole, if you have anything special to do, you had better, perhaps, go and attend to it." At this intimation Norman arose and left the room. When the young man was gone Colonel Holten laid 196 SAND. bj his appearance of work, and placing his elbows on his desk put a hand each side of his face, and sat thus in silence for some time. What his thoughts were may not be known until he sees fit to reveal them; but, probably, he retrospected his life, and lingered at that epoch in it when the child now most occupy- ing his thoughts had come to him from the mysteries of Nature as a bright stimulus to his married man- hood; and from that epoch his thought may have fol- lowed the footsteps of the child along life's path down to the hour which was then ugon him. Whatever may have keen the subject of his reverie, he finished it by exclaiming: "Ah, me! Growing old growing old," and so say- ing, arose from his desk and left the room. Gorman Maydole, Jr., after leaving the presence of Colonel Holten, also left the house and walked out over the hills which overlook the Bay of San Fran- cisco, and continued to walk until he had relaxed in some degree, by physical exertion, the tension upon his nerves; then he returned to the house of the woman he loved. Now that he had asked the right, and been per- mitted in some degree to express what he had to say, it did not seem to him that any opportunity would ever occur when he could properly and easily say it. He was not skilled, nor by nature fitted, to prepare his own way very far ahead of him in such matters. In a matter of resistance or hostility, his way would have been plain before him but this was not that SAND. 197 kind of an affair. True it was that he often saw Miss Holteii in fact, so often that life between them seemed in danger of settling down into a brotherly and sisterly existence, a state not peculiarly adapted to the development of the stronger passions. Your true love, like the kingdom of heaven, " suifereth vio- lence, and the violent take it by storm" but it is a peculiar kind of violence. How he sped with his love-making is not for the present historian to record. Of course, many of us, graybeards and others, know that true love-making calls for courage, but not for that kind of courage which comes properly under such title as " sand." It may, however, be here re- corded that, having "found once a pliant hour," Mr. May dole, Jr., said close to the ear of the woman he loved: "Judith, will you be rny wife some day?" And she answered, " Some day." With a happy heart, brighter prospects, and an increase of both salary and responsibility, Norman Maydole, Jr., made haste away and away, across the boisterous bay, up the long slope, and down the brief descent of the mountains away and away among the weird houseless hills and mirage-haunted deserts, to the industrious carton, where the familiar roar of the thundering stamps greeted him, as of old, with a mighty welcome. There let us leave him to work out the next volume of his life-story among the hardy, hard-handed men, who, whatever may be their faults and failings, have always a high respect for a clean man who has the SAND. BIG JACK SMALL. BIG JACK SMALL. You do not know Big Jack Small? That is a bad omen; because if you did know Big Jack Small, you would know many things which, as I think, you do not now know for Jack would be sure to talk to you, if you met him, and in his talk he would be quite as sure to tell you something about teaming with six or eight or ten yokes of oxen, and two or three or four great red wagons, over the hills, across the valleys, and through the bare rock-walled canons of the State of Nevada. That is his profession ox-teamster; or, as he calls it, " bull-puncher." Not one of your common farmer boys, who can drive one yoke, or two or even four yokes, of oxen, with a long limber fishing-pole stock, and a lash that hangs down like a dead garter-snake speared through the eyes; but a regular graduate of the science of ox a bovine persuader with a bil- liard-cue whip-stock, and a lash on it like a young boa-constrictor, and a little steel spike in the lash-end of the stock about as big as a carpet-tack when it stands on its head on the point of a walking-cane. With the yellow leather lash wound round the stock, the great square braids shining like scales, as of the brazen serpent Moses set up, and the glittering steel tongue, sparkling in the sunlight, out of the serpent's 199 200 BIG JACK SMALL. head with this awful wand in his hand, and elevated diagonally above his head, Big Jack Small will stand in the highway of the desert, the chief of the ox- magi; while his meek-eyed and clicking-footed com- pany draw slowly round him, at the proper distance and with regular step, straining the great red creak- ing wains after them in a true circle. " Come row-a-d, boys! You Turk!" sharply to the near-side wheel-ox, because an ox-teamster always turns on a haw-pull unless compelled to do otherwise u Come row-a-d, boys! Steady, now like a Freemason funeral!" and he elevates or depresses the glittering tongue of the serpent above his head. The oxen know what that means, and the whole long procession winds about him with mathematical precision. That is the way Big Jack Small does it. He is an artist. Why does not some brother artist go forth and canvas him? He is worth preserving, as the pic- ture of a true American, void of European or classic taint a strong American, cairn and humorous in the hardest struggles, through the very thrill and tickle of abundant life and pure mountain air. Tall? no; he is not so very tall. About six feet, or half an inch less than that. Head well set upon his shoulders, with an inclination to one side, as if to give room for the big whip on the other shoulder; while his soft slouched hat inclines just in the opposite direction, as if to equalize things and maintain a perpendicular outline. No coat on. Woolen shirt in winter three of them, one inside the other; heavy vest buttoned BIG JACK SMALL. 201 to the chin, or to somewhere hidden under the long flow of the lion-colored beard. Legs clad externally in thick white ducking or buckskin, terminating in coarse boots drawn over the trousers bottoms. Hands cased in rough buckskin gloves. So dressed, Big Jack Small may not be a very large man, but he looks large. When he walks from you, you are impressed with a broadness of shoulders and strength of neck and loin. When he walks toward you, you, are made conscious of the coming of great thigh muscles, and fists, and a lion-like front; and you would not have any rash impulse to rush upon him for the fun of a little combat. Then he has a curious long springing stride a sort of dropping and rising upon his thigh muscles with every step that suggests power; though I suppose it is mere force of habit, caught in walking across plowed ground in early life, and maintained by striding over the sage-brush and loose rocks in Nevada. Big Jack Small has a head under his slouched hat, and a face that shows between his hat-brim and his beard. If you are not in the habit of looking at heads and faces for the purpose of forming your own estimate of men, it would not be worth while to look at Jack. You might as well pass on. He is of no interest to you. But if you want to look into a face where the good-natured shrewdness of Abraham Lincoln shines out, smoothed of its rough-carved homeliness, you can accost Jack when you meet him walking beside his winding train down the rough 202 BIG JACK SMALL. cafion or across the dusty valley, and ask him how the road is over which he has come. This interroga- tion requiring some length of answer, he will shout, " Whoa-ooa-ah, ba-a-ck!" then drawing down the great iron handle or lever of the brake on his first wagon, his team will gradually stop. Now he steps out into the eage-brush in front of you, sets the point of his whip- stock carefully in the fork of a bush, builds his arms one on the top of the other upon the butt of the stock, shoves his hat to the back of his head, and says: " W.e-e-11, the road's nuther good nur bad. Hit's about tollable to middlin'. Seen wuss an' seen better." " How's the alkali flat?" " Well, yer know thar's two alkali flats 'tween yer'n Austin. The first one's a little waxy, an' t'other'n 's a little waxy, too." " Will our horses sink down in the flats so as to impede that is, so that we can not get out?" "O h 1, no. Only hard pullin'an' slow, hot work sockiri' through the stiff mud. I hed to uncouple an' drop all my trail-wagons, an' pull an' holler an* punch round at both o' them flats fer two days, till my cattle looks like the devil; but you kin go right along, only slow, though very slow. The rest o' the road's all right no trouble." " Thank you." " You're welcome. But I say, tell me I'm out now about two weeks what's the news? Hev they caught them stage-robbers?" BIG JACK SMALL. ''No; they were not caught when we left Hamil- ton." ** D n 'em! Hev ye any newspapers? I'd like to hev somethin' to read when I'm carnpin' out on the road a feller gits mons'ons lonesome." By this time you have hunted out of your traps all the newspapers and parts of newspapers, and passed them over to him. " 4 Thank ye. Git up, Brigham! Gee, Beecher!" The loosened lever of the brake clanks back in its ratchet, the oxen slowly strain to the yokes, the great wagons groan to the tightening chains. " Good-by." So-'long." And the slow dust-cloud moves onward, musical with the strong voice encouraging " Beecher " and "Brigham," on the lead, to stiffen their necks under the yoke, as a bright example to the entire train. You, passing on your way, say to yourself, or com- panion: "What a fine face and head that rough fel- low has; with what a relish that full, wide forehead must take in a good story, or survey a good dinner; what a love for the sublime and the ridiculous there must be in the broad high crown of that skull which is so full at the base ! "Why, the fellow has a head like Shakspeare, and a front like Jove! What a pity to waste so grand a man in ignorance among rocks and oxen!" All of which may be a good and true regret; but you must not forget that nature knows how to summer-fallow for her own rare products. 204 *iiIG JACK SMALL. You will please to understand that Mr. Small is his own master, as well as master and owner of that long string of wagons and oxen; and that train, which slowly passes you, is laden with perhaps every conceivable variety of valuable articles, worth in the aggregate thousands of dollars, for the safe convey- ance whereof, over a road hundreds of miles long, the owners have no security but a receipt signed "John Small." It is safe to say that nothing but the " act of God or the public enemy" will prevent the sure delivery of the entire cargo a little slowly, but very surely. I do not think you will get a just idea of Big Jack Small and the men of his profession, who are very numerous in Nevada, without I tell you that the sage- brush ox-teamster seldom sleeps in a house does not often sleep near a house but under his great wagon, wherever it may halt, near the valley spring or the mountain stream,. His team is simply unyoked, and left to feed itself, until gathered up again to move on, the average journey being at the rate of eight miles per day some days more than that, some less. Twice a day the teamster cooks for himself, and eats by himself, in the shadow cast by the box of his wagon. Each evening he climbs the side of his high wagon very high it sometimes is heaves his roll of dusty bedding to the earth, tumbles it under the wagon, unbinds it, unrolls it, crawls around over it on his hands and knees to find the uneven places and punch them a little with his knuckles or boot-heel, BIG JACK SMALL. 205 and and well, his room is ready and his bed is aired. If it is not yet dark when all this is done, he gets an old newspaper or ancient magazine, and, light- ing his pipe, lies upon his back, with feet np, and laboriously absorbs its meaning. Perhaps he may have one or more teams in company. In that case, the leisure time is spent smoking around the fire and talking ox, or in playing with greasy cards a game for fun. But generally the ox-teamster is alone, or accompanied by a Shoshonee Indian, whose business it is tp pull sage-brush for a fire where pine- wood is scarce, and drive up the cattle to be yoked. In Jack Small's train there is usually an Indian, though you may not always see him, as sometimes, when the team is in motion, he is off hunting rats, or away up on top of the wagon asleep; but at meal- time he is visible, sitting about the fire, or standing with his legs crossed, leaning against a wagon-wheel. The early training of Mr. John Small, having been received while following the fortunes of his father in that truly western quest the search after cheap rich land, had been carried forward under various com- monwealths, as his parent moved from State to State of our Union out of Ohio, and into and out of the intermediate States of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa until lie dragged into the grave, and ended his pilgrimage in Nebraska, while waiting for the locomotive of that great railway which was to make him rich. A train- ing so obtained has made Mr. Small something of a politician, with a keen ear for distinguishing the 206 BIG JACK SMALL. points in the reading of a State statute, and a high appreciation of the importance of State lines; while the attempts at teaching and the example of his worn- out pious mother have turned his attention to the con- sistencies and inconsistencies of religious forms; so that Mr. Small's heaviest and highest thought dwells upon the present State where he resides, and the future state where he is promised a residence. His greatest intellectual joy he finds in talking to a poli- tician or a preacher. Of course, he has smaller joys of the intellect in talking ox with the other teamsters, or in "joshing" over a game of cards; but he does not find solid comfort until he strikes a master in politics or a teacher in religion. " "What I'd like to be shore of," said he, one day, "is this yere: Kin a American citizen die, when his time comes, satisfied that he leaves a republic behind what'll continue as it was laid out to; an' that he's goin' to sech a country as his mother thought she was goin' to. Now, them's two o 5 the biggest pints in Ameriky. And dern my skin ef I haint got doubts about 'em both! Now, yere's a letter from my sister in Iowa, an' she says she's sick an' goin' to die; but that she's happy because she's goin' where mother's gone, to be happy ferivver and iver. An' yere's her husband he's a lawyer, an' he's rejoicin', in his part o' this letter, over Grant's election, because, he says, that puts the Republikin party onto a sure foundation, an' secures the support o' Republikin principles fer iver and iver in Ameriky. Now, you see I've knocked BIG JACK SMALL. 207 round a heap yes, sir, knocked round a heap, an* seen a good deal, an' seems to me some people knows a mighty sight for certain, on powerful slim proof. An' yere, my sister wants me to be a good Christian, an' my brother-in-law wants ine to be a good Republikin, when, ef 3-011 pan me all out, I'm only a bull-puncher, an' haint more'n half learned the science o' that!" It will be surmised from this hint of Mr. Small's character, taste, and disposition, that he was highly satisfied when the Rev. L. F. Signal requested the privilege of a trip with the ox-team for the purpose of roughing it against the dyspepsia. Mr. Signal said he had been recommended to come to Mr. Small as a humane and intelligent person, and having heard that Mr. Small's wagons were loaded for a long trip to the south-eastward, he would very much like to accompany him as an assistant, being willing to rough it as much as his constitution would stand. U A11 right!" said Jack. " Heave yer beddin' right up thar on top o' the wagon, an' come ahead. But, I say, did y'ever play billiards?" I have yes, occasionally, at the house of a friend ; never in any public place. Yes, sir." u Did y'ever play bull-billiards, I mean with this kind of a cue, with a brad into it? Make a run on the nigh-wheeler and carom on the off-leader, yer know?" "Ah! you mean, have I ever driven oxen? Well, no, sir, not in that way though I was brought up on 208 BIG JACK SMALL. a farm in Pennsylvania, and have drawn logs with one yoke." "All right. I'll teach yer how to punch bulls, an* you kin convert me an' the Injin. I've been wantin' that Injin converted ever since I hed him. He's beerd a little about Christ, in a left-handed way, but we'll go fer him, on this trip!" Mr. Small, while making these remarks, was strid- ing, with long strong strides, up and down the road on either side of his wagons, with whip on shoulder, mak- ing all ready for a start; looping up a heavy chain here, taking up a link there, and inspecting shortening or lengthening the draw of brakes, etc.; while his long team, strung out and hitched in the order of march, were standing and some lying down under the yoke, on the hard shard-rock road beneath the hot summer sun. His Indian, ycleped Gov. Nye, was standing with his legs crossed near the ankle, stoically watching the preparations, well satisfied for the present in the comfort of a full stomach and the gorgeous outfit of a battered black-silk "plug" hat, a corporal's military coat with chevrons on the sleeves and buttoned to the chin,* a pair of red drawers for pantaloons, a red blanket hanging, gracefully from his arm, and a pair of dilapidated boots on his feet. Gazing bashfully upon this scene, and striving to catch a word with Mr. Small, the Rev. Mr. Signal turned his hands each uneasily over the other, and said : " Mr. Small, I can not heave my bedding up there." BIG JACK SMALL. 209 "Can't! Well, give it yere to rne; I'll h it fer yon." u But I have not brought it yet. It is just here, almost at hand, where I lodge." 'Well, well, rustle round an' fetch it! Biz is biz with me now. I must git up an' dust. Yere, Gov., you go him all same me he talk. Take this Injin with ycr he'll help yer carry what you've got." u Thank you. You are very kind, indeed," said the reverend, as he marched oft', followed by the gorgeous red man, down the steep street of the mining- town. While he was gone, Mr. Small, having all things in readiness, proceeded to straighten his team so as to tighten the chains and couplings whereby the great wagons are made to follow each other, in order that he might be sure that everything should draw even, strong, and true. Presently, Mr. Sighal and Gov. came panting and trotting round the corner, out of the street into the road, each having hold of the end of a roll of bedding; the reverend carrying a black overcoat and purple scarf on his right arm, and Gov. having his royal red blanket on his left arm. Mr. Small, taking the roll poised on end on his right palm, steadied it with his left, and shot it to the top of the high wagon-box as if it had been a bag of feathers. "Thar, Gov., heap jump np heap fix 'em little rope no fall off. You sabe?" "Yasb me heap sabe!" said Gov, tossing his precious blanket to the wagon-top, and slowly climb- ing up after it, over the wheel and side. 14 210 BIG JACK SMALL. "All ready, Parson?" said Mr. Small, interroga- tively, as lie picked up his 'baton of command. "Yes," timidly, "I I believe I am." Rapidly Mr. Small strode forward, drawling out in the indiscribable rhetoric of his profession, " You Eo-w-dy! Turk! Dave! Gee, Brigham!" then sud- denly, " Who-o-o-ah ba-a-ack!" u See yere, Parson! Got anything to eat aboard?" " No, sir. I have presumed I could buy provisions at the houses where we stop." " Houses, h 1! O, excuse me, Parson. Thar liaint no houses to speak of, an 1 ef thar was, bull-teams don't hov nothin' to do with houses, 'thont they're whisky-mills." Then shoving up his hat, and scratch- ing his head with a vigorous rake or two of his hard finger-nails, he pulled the hat down on his nose, and leaning back, looked at the Rev. Mr. Sighal, and said, "S'yere, Parson, I'll grub ye, but my grub's lightnin' beans, bread, bacon, coffee, an' can-truck. You go into camp, an' buy le'me see well, buy a small sack o' oatmeal, two papers o' pinoly, a pound o' black tea, an' half a dozen cans o' condensed milk. That'll put ye through. Yer kin easy ketch up to the team. Gee, Brigham! Git up, Dave! You Roany! Bally! Haw thar! Roll out! Roll out!" And the slow line moves over the rocky road at a snail's pace, the wheels grinding, almost imperceptibly, to the top of the not large stones, and then dropping off at the other side with a sudden fall and a jar. which, though the fall be but an inch or two, makes the load talk in BIG JACK SMALL. various voices as it settles more firmly to its place. Up, slowly ah, so slowly, so dustily! up and up the mountain, by the canon road, pausing at intervals to breathe the panting herd, Mr. Small grinds and crushes out a solid shining line, with his many wheels, in the porphyry and granite dust. The dry mountain* summits rise on either hand, capped with the un- daunted rocks, which have defied the artillery of heaven before man in any color stood to witness the shock the rays of the sun converging upon the head of Big Jack Small, as he marches stoutly up the side of his team, to pause for its clicking step, and then up another march, and then pausing again, lifting the serpent-coiled baton above his head, shouting anon the name of some throbbing toiler of the yoke. Thus lie gains the summit, and halts to draw the rearward brakes. u Ah, Parson! H'ist them things up thar to Gov. Gov, you fix 'em. Now we're off. Plenty time, though, Parson, to look at the scenery. You see that round peak yonder way off? That's jest eighty-two miles from yere. Can't see that-a-way in Pennsylva- nia, kin ye? Gee, Brigham! Git a-a-up!" More rapidly, and with much clinking and clank-, ing of yoke-rings, hooks, and chains, and the loud braying and howling of the friction of wheel-tire and brake block, the team winds down the canon of the opposite side of the mountain, the big wains rocking, reeling, and groaning, as they crowd each other round the curves of the declivity; and above all, the driver's 212 BIG JACK SMALL. voice echoing along the canon the drawling words of command and encouragement. Mr. Sighal is behind, out of sight; pausing may- hap upon "some hold outcrop of earth's foundation- stone, to gaze far around and across the uplifts of the grand furrows where the forgotten forces have plowed the field that now lies fallen in the wisdom of a plan wise beyond all that is yet written or revealed. O servant of the faith, look well! It is the aristocracy of nature upon which you gaze. Sublime it is in the reposeful grandeur of its indifference to commerce, agriculture, or the petty avenues of human thrift. Locked in the coffers of the rocks are the wages of its early days of labor. Stern and forbidding is the giant land, sad and unsocial; but rich in the abund- ance of that which renders even man unsocial, stern, and forbidding. At the foot of the mountain the team halts where the water sinks and the dry valley begins. It is but short work for Big Jack Small to draw out the bow- pins, release his cattle, and drop his eight yokes in a line, with the bright heavv chains linking them to- O > O gether in the gravel and dust. Meantime. Mr. Sighal arrives in camp with each, hand full of fragments of vari-colored stone, he hav- ing tried hi* wits at prospecting for silver. " Hullo, Parson! Hev you struck it rich?" inter- rogated Big Jack, as he let down the grub-box and cooking utensils from the wagon-top to Gov Nye " That's a bad beginning, Parson!" " Why so, Mr. Small!" BIG JACK SMALL. 213 "'Cause," said Jack, jumping down from the wagon and coming up to take a look at the rocks in the par- son's hands "'cause ef you ever git quartz on the brain, you're a goner! That ar meetin'-house in Pennsylvany '11 put crape on the door-knob shore! an' 'dvertiz fer a new parson. But ye'll not git quartz on the brain not much s'long's yer don't find no better stones than these yere," said he, after examin- ing the collection. "Ah! I was merely guessing at the stones to amuse myself. Are they not quartz fragments?" "No sir ee," said Jack, as, driving his axe into a pine log, he made the wood fly in splits and splinters "'not much. Them's iron-stained porphyry, green- stone, black trap, an' white carb'nates of lime. Hold on till we git across the valley an' git a-goin' up the next mountain, 'n I'll show yer some good quartz. Some bully float-rock over thar, but nobody haint found nomineyit never will, I reckon; I've hunted fer the derned thing twenty times. Yere, Gov, git a bucket o' water. Parson, d'ye feel wolfish?" added Mr. Small, after he had his fire lighted and was pro- ceeding culinarily. "Wolfish!" exclaimed Mr. Signal, with some sur- prise. "Yes hungry," explained Jack, as he sawed with a dull knife at the tough rind of a side of bacon, cut- ting down one fat slice after the other upon the lid of the grub-box near the fire. "Not unusuallv so." 214: BIG JACK SMALL. "Hain't et nothin' sence morn in', hev ye?" " No; not since early morning." "Must do better'n that!" said Jack, putting the frying-pan upon the fir " I usually eat but little, for fear of eating too much." u Well, s'pose yer heave away them rocks, an' run this fryin'-pan jest fer appertite. Notluii' like fac- in j an inemy, et' yer want to git over bein' afraid of him!" Mr. Sighal immediately complied, and, squatting by the lire, poised the frying-pan upon the uneven heap of burning sticks, in his tirst lesson at camp-life. " I don't alloiv yer kin eat much this evenin', as we've only traveled half a day, but to-morrer we've got to cross the valley through the alkali-dust, an* make a long drive. Git a lot o' that alkali into ye, an' you'll hanker after fat bacon!" "All?" said Mr. Sighal, carefully balancing the pan on the lire. " Yes, sir" with great emphasis on the sir. "Al- kali an' fat bacon goes together like a matched vokc O O t/ o' leaders. Does thar seem to be any coals a-makiii* in that lire, Parson?" " The wood seems to burn; I infer there will be coals." " Inferrin' won't do, Parson! We've got to hev J em, 'cause I must bake this bread after supper, fer to-morrer. Allus keep onebakin' ahead," ejaculated Mr. Small, as he finished kneading bread in the pan, BIO JACK SMALL. 215 and quickly grasped the axe, proceeding to break up some more wood. "Yer see, Parson, a bull -puncher; lies to he up to a little of every sort o' work, in the mountains. Gov, you look out fer that coffee-pot, while I. put this wood on the fire. Drink coffee, Par- son? No? Well, then, make yer some tea in an empty oyster-can hain't got only one pot fer tea an 1 coffee." " No, Mr. Small, do not make any trouble for me, in that way. I drink water at the evening meal." "All right, then; this hash is ready fer bizness!" The Reverend Mr. Sighal, sitting cross-legged on the ground, received the tin plate and rusty steel knife and fork into his lap from the hand of Mr. Small, and then Mr. Small sat down cross-legged opposite him, with the hard loaf of yellow yeast- powder bread, and the sizzling frying-pan, between them, surrounded by small cotton sacks, containing respectively salt, pepper, and sugar. "Now, Parson," said Mr. Small, "pitch in!" "One moment, Mr. Small," said the parson, "w.ill you not permit me to ask the blessing of God upon this frugal repast?" "Certainly!" assented Mr. Small, snatching off his hat, and slapping it on the ground beside him. Then happening to note quickly the Indian sitting listlessly on the other side of the fire, he said: " Yere, you Injin, take off yer hat; quick." " Yash heap take 'em off," said the obeying Indian. "Now, Parson, roll on!" 216 IJIG JACK SMALL. The reverend, turning his eves skyward, where the wide red glory of the setting sun was returning the eternal thanks, offered the usual mild and measured form of thanksgiving and prayer for the Most High's blessing upon the creature-comforts, at the end of which he replaced his hat; but Mr. Small, being too busy with his supper and with cogitation upon ihe new style of etiquette, and being careless about his head-covering in camp, neglected, or omitted, the replacement of his hat; which state of the case both- ered the " untutored savage" as to his own proper behavior, whereupon, lifting his cherished "plug" from the earth lie held it in his hand, brim up, and grunted interrogatively: " Uh, Jack, put um hat on? No put urn hat onl- ine no sabe!" " Yes; put um hat on." "Uh! yash, me heap put nm hat on. All right all same inodisum (medicine) White-a-man. Heap sabe!" and relapsed into silent observation. The parson did not enjoy his supper. II is day had been one of tiresome nervous preparation for a new kind of lite; but Mr. Small was in hearty sympathy with all nature, which includes a good appetite (if it is not founded upon a good appetite), and lie ate with a rapid action and a keen relish, talking as he ate, in a way to provoke appetite, or if not to provoke, at least raise a sigh of regret for its absence. "Thar!" said Mr. Small, 'with sighing emphasis, "that lets me out on creature-comforts, in the grub BIG JACK SMALL. 217 line, till to-morrer. Yer don't waltz in very hearty on this grub. Parson. All right; I'll bake yer an oatmeal cake soon's I git done with rny bread, an' mix yer a canteen o' milk for to-morrer's lunch." "Thank you, indeed, Mr. Small." " Yere, Gov," said Mr. Small, as he piled the greased frying-pan full of broken bread, and poured out a tin- cup of coffee, "yere's yer hash!" to which Gov responded silently by carrying the pan and cup to the fire, and then sitting down between them on the ground, to eat and drink in his own fashion. u These yere Injins is curious," said Mr. Small, in his running commentary on things in general, as he actively passed from one point in his culinary duties to another; u they wun't eat bacon, but they'll eat bacon-grease an' bread, or beef an' bacon-grease; an' they wun't eat cheese, but they'll eat dead hoss. I b'lieve the way to conquer Injins would be to load cannons with Limburg cheese an' blaze away at 'em!" 4i As the Chinese shoot their enemies in war with pots of abominable smells." u Yes; I've heerd before o' the Chinee way o' mak- in' war, but reckon 'taint the smell Injins keer fer it's mighty hard to knock an Injin with a smell! In- jins, ieastway this yere tribe, hain't got no nose fer posies. They got some kind o' superstition about milk an' cheese, though I reckon they must hev drinked milk when they's little." And Mr. Small chuckled at the delicacy of his own allusion to the font of aboriginal maternity. "Don't ver smoke. Parson?" 218 BIG JACK SMALL. "Not of late years," replied Mr. Sighal; and paced up and down meditatively past the tire, gazing at the darkening sky. u I formerly .enjoyed a cigar, occa- sionally, but my dyspepsia has cut .me off from that vice." " Well, I've got this bread bak in', an' reckon I'll take a smoke. Yere, Gov, done yere supper? Scoot lip thar, an' throw down them beds, so we kin hev a seat." The silent and ready compliance of the Indian enabled Mr. Small, as he tossed the rolls of bedding over by the fire, to remark: "Yere, Parson, take a seat. This yere's high style front settin'-room, fust floor. You'll want yer legs to-morrer, though yer kin ride ef yer want to; but it's powerful tejus, rid in' a bull-wagon." And he sat down on his roll of bed- ding to cut his plug tobacco, fill his short pipe, and watch the process of bread-baking while he enjoyed his smoke. The reverend also sat down on his bed. The Indian sat on the ground, at the opposite side of the fire, humming the low, buzzing, dismal ditty of his remote ancestors. The stars came quietly out in the clear sky, and the dry still air seemed to listen to the coming on of the innumerable host. So still O, so crystalline still is the summer night in Nevada! " Yer see, Parson," began Mr. Small, after a short, quiet consultation with his pipe, "they say 'at bull-punchin's plow business, but they don't know. People kin tell what they don't know powerful slick- BIG JACK SMALL. like. Let some o' them talk in' fellers what knows all about this business in three squints from a stage- coach winder let 'em try it on. Let 'em stand in once, an' chop wood, build a lire, cut bacon, make bread an' coffee, an' so on, all in the same minute air do it faster'n they kin write it down in a letter, an' they wun't talk so much with their mouth!'' u Yes; I was just, in the moment you began to speak, reflecting on the multiplicity of your duties and the rapid execution of them. Does not your life wear upon you terribly f u No, sir. Hit's head-work does it. Seems to me when a feller lies a big idee in his head, an' is jest a-boomin' with the futur, an' lookin' forward, that work doesn't hurt him a denied bit. Hit's hanging back on the yoke 'at wears a feller out an' a ox, too. When I used to toller a plow, by the day's work fer wages, an' havin' no pint ahead to steer to no place to unload at I wasn't no more account than a cripple in a county poor house!" "What is your great aim at this time? if I may be so impolite as to make such an inquiry on so short acquaintance," queried Mr. Signal, in a soft voice and balmy manner. u O, no; nothin' imperlite about it. Open out on me, Parson, when you feel like it. I hain't got no secrets. My great aim is to play my game up to the handle. Every feller's got a game. Some's politics, some's religion, same's big money, some's land, some's keards, some's wimniin an' good clo'es, some's good. 220 BIG JACK SMALL. some's bad," said Mr. Small, rapidly/ and punctua- ting hit remarks with puffs of tobacco smoke; -an' my game is to hev the best eight-yoke o' cattle, an' the best wagons, an' pull the biggest load to yoke, in these yere mountains; an' then," he added, laughing and stroking his long bronze beard, "I kinder think there's a solid sqnare-bnilt gal some'rs what I ain't jest seen yit, that's a-waitin' in her daddy's front porch fer a teller like me an' the old man he's gittin' too old, an' hain't got no other children, an' he's jest a-walkin' up an' down under the shade-trees, expectin' n feller about my size an' build, what kin sling ink in the Bank o' Californy for about ten thousan' cash, honest money. How's that fer high, Parson?" And Mr. Small roared with his loudest laugh, until the parson and Gov joined sympathetically. "A very laudable endeavor, Mr. Small; and let me say that I heartily wish you God-speed." "Amen, Parson! I don't know ef I kin make it. But that's my game; an' ef I can't make it well, liit's better to hev a game an' lose it than never to play at all. Hain't it, Parson?" " It surely is. No good endeavor is ever entirely lost. God, in His great providence, gives germinat- ing power to the minute seed of the plant which grew and died last year, though the seed may have blown miles away." " Do you b'lieve," said Mr. Small, after a long pause, in which he raised the hake-kettle lid with the point of a stick, and piled more hot coals upon the BIG JACK SMALL. 221 top "do you b'lieve, fer certain dead sure that God looks after all these little things?" "Surely, Mr. Small. Have we not the blessed promises in the good book?" " I don't jest reck'lect what we've got in the good book. But do you, as yere mammy's son not as a parson do you b'lieve it?" " If I at all know my own thoughts and convic- tions, Mr. Small, I do." After a long pause and strict attention to the bak- ing bread: u Parson, gittiri' sleepy?" "Not at all, Mr. Small." "Thinkin' 'bout somethin , p'r'aps?" "I was reflecting whether I had done rny whole duty, and had answered your question as fully as it should be answered." il Well, whenever you feel sleepy, jest spread your lay-out where you choose, an' turn in. Needn't mind me. I'll fuss round yere an' smoke a good while yit. Thar hain't no ceremony at this ho-tel- the rooms is all fust-class 'partmerits." ''Thank you, Mr. Small," said Mr. Sighal; and then, after some pause, resuming audibly the thread of his own thought, he asked: u Mr. Small, do not you believe in the overruling providence of God?" "Which God?" "There is but one God." U I don't see it, Parson. On this yere Pacific Coast, gods is numerous Chinee gods, Mormon gods, Injin gods, Christian gods, an' the Bank o' Californy." 222 BIG JACK SMALL. "Perhaps so, Mr. Small it is written there bo gods many; but there is one only true God, Jesus Christ the righteous." "Don't see it, Parson." The Reverend Mr. Sighal rose quickly to his feet, and pulled down his vest at the waistband, like a war- rior unconsciously feeling for the girding of his armor. " Do you deny the truth of the sacred Scriptures, Mr. Small?" "I don't deny nothin', 'cept what kin come before me to be reconized. What I say is, I don't see it." "You don't see it?" "No, sir!" emphasis on the sir. "Perhaps not, with the natural eye-sight; but with the eye of faith, Mr. Small, you can see it, if you humbly and honestly make the effort." k ' I hain't got but two eyes no extra eye fer Sun- day use. What I can't see, nor year, nor taste, nor smell, nor feel, nor make up out o' reck'lection an' hitch together, hain't nothin' to me. That's my meanin' when I say, 4 I don't see it." : " I am deeply grieved to hear you speak so, Mr. Small." "Now, look yere, Parson," replied Mr. Small, as he got up to bustle about his work, "fellers like me, livin' out o' doors, has got a God what couldn't git into one of your meetin'-houses." "Mr. Small pardon me there is a glimmer of what seems to be meaning in your remark, but really I fail to comprehend you." BIG JACK SMALL. 223 "That's hit" it will be observed as a peculiarity in Mr. Small's language (a peculiarity common to unlettered western-born Americans) that he sounds the emphatic form of the pronoun it with an aspirate // "that's hit! That's the high-larnt way to say, ' I don't see it.' Now we're even. Parson only you've got a million o' rncetin'-house bells to do the 'plaudiu' fer you, an' I hain't got nary one. But these yere mountains, an' them bright stars, an' yonder moon pullin' bright over the summit, would 'plaud me ef I knovved how to talk fer what made 'em. Hush listen!" said Small, suddenly pausing, arid pointing under the moonlight across the dim valley. "That's a coyote; I wonder which of us he's laughin' at." "Yash; kiotee. He heap talk. Mebbe so tabbit ketch um," said the Indian, rising arid gathering up his blanket to retire. "Me heap shneep" (sleep). "Throw down another stick o' wood off the wagor Oov, before yer go to bed." "Yash; me heap shneepy," replied the Indian, stretching and yawning with uplifted hands, from one of which his red blanket draped down for a moment over his shoulder, gorgeous in the dancing camp-fire light. While the Indian climbed the wagon-side for the stick of wood, Mr. Signal remarked: "Mr. Small, before we retire, may I not ask the privilege of a few words of audible prayer to God for His preservation through the night hours?" "Yes, sir. Yere, Gov, come yere. I want that 224 BIG JACK SMALL. Injin to year one prayer, ef lie never years another. I've paid money when I was a boy to liev Injins prayed fer, an' now I'm goiri' to see some of it done. Come yere, Gov." The Indian came to the fire-side. "Yere, Gov you sabe? This a- way; all same me" and Mr. Small dropped upon his own knees at the side of his roll of bedding. "All-a-same Injin all-a-same little stand-up?" asked Gov, dropping his blanket, and placing his hands upon his knees. i% Yes! Little stand-up all same me!" " Yash!" assented Gov, on the opposite side of the roll, settling gradually upon his knees. It happened that the parson kneeled facing the In- dian, so that the Indian had him in full view with the fire-light shining on the parson's face, and not being accustomed to family worship, nor having had the matter fully explained to him, he conceived the idea of doing as others did; so that when the parson turned his face to the stars and shut his eyes, the In- dian did so, too, and began repeating in very bad Eng- lish, word for word, the parson's prayer which piece of volunteer assistance not comporting with Mr. Small's impression of domestic decorum, caused that stout gentleman to place his two hands upon the In- dian's shoulders and jerk him face down, upon the bedding, with the fiercely whispered ejaculation, "Dry- up!" The Rev. Mr. Sighal prayed for the persons pres- ent, in their various conditions, and their safety BIG JACK SMALL. 225 through the night; acknowledging that he knew God's hand was in these vast solitudes, guiding as of old the swoop of the raven's wing and marking the death- bed of the sparrow. There was much in the prayer that was fervent and fitting, but nothing that could be fairly called original. "When the -party arose to their feet, Mr. Sighal sat down, burying his face in his hands supported by his. knees; Mr. Small changed an unbaked for a baked loaf with the bake-kettle; and the Indian, taking up his 4< plug" hat and red blanket, merely remarked, 'Me heap shneep!" arid retired behind a sage-brush. 44 Parson!" said Mr. Small, after re filling his pipe and resuming his seat, and as the Rev. Mr. Sighal sat gazing reflectively into the fire. 4k Sir," responded Mr. Sighal, with a slight start from his reverie. 44 I'm a-thinkin' over your prayer." " Well, Mr. Small, I hope God will make r.:y hum- ble effort of some slight use in opening to you the door of His great mercy." 44 I wasn't thinkirt' about it jest that-a-way. I was tryin' the sense of it on." 4; I wish, Mr. Small, that God had vouchsafed to me the power of making its meaning plain." 44 O, you made it plain enough accordin' to to well, ef my motherd been yere, she'd ha' thought that it was a No. 1 prayer, an' she'd ha' hollered 'Amen!' every time yer went fer me an' the Injin; but what I was a-thinkin' about was your callin'on Jesus Christ 15 226 BIG JACK SMALL. as the Giver of all good, the Creator of all things. Now you excuse me, Parson! right thar is jest whar' I can't quite go with ye." " It is written, 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and by it were all things made which are made.' " "Yes, I've read it. I know hit's written, an' hit's printed. But written things haint no deader'n some things what haint been wrote yit." " Deader! deader!" repeated Mr. Sighal. "Yes; dead sure certiner." "Ah! I understand it now." " An' as fer printed things," continued Mr. Small, " they crawl " then, observing the look of perplex- ity in the parson's face "yes! they crawl wun't stay put. Allers changin' with new translatin' an' new lights." Here Mr. Small had occasion to look after his bak- ing. Ifesurning his seat he said: " Parson, ever been to Yosemite?" " I have not." " Ever see the Grand Canon o' the Colorado Kiv- er?" " I have not." "Well, Parson, I've seen both them places. I resked my skelp, me an' two other fellers bully fel- lers them was, too! a-packin' my blankets fer three weeks in an' out an' aroun' the Canon o' the Colorado, jest to see it. I b'lieve I could stay there feriver an' climb an' look!" BIG JACK SMALL. 227 44 1 have read of the great works of God made man- ifest in the desert places." "Parson, that remark don't touch the spot! ^f ever yer see that canon, yer'll jest think any printed book yer ever opened, or any words yer ever heerd, haint got no power in 'em." " I have no doubt it is magnificently grand." u Parson, " slowly queried Mr. Small, u do yer think Jesus Christ made the Canon o' the Colorado, an' the world hit runs through, an' the sky hit opens under, an' the ocean 'at takes hits waters?" I do. " " "Well, I don't know! Seems to me thar was never jiothin' born in Judear that hed hands that kin lay over Ameriky an' nothin' was never born in Arneriky that hed hands that kin build a ten-cent side-show fer that ar canon ! Parson, them's things that can't be wiped out, nor wrong-printed in no book! nor no new light can't make 'em more'n they jest are! Whatever made sech things as them, an' these yere mountains, that's my God. But He haint got no hands in the image o' these yere!" extending his horny blackened palms, and adding as a climax, " ye kin bet yer sweet life on that. " "O, Mr. Small!" cried Mr. Signal, rising to his feet. ** My dear sir, do you wish to deny, and throw away as naught, all that the good Lord Jesus, our Divine Saviour, has taught, and fall back into heath- enism?" 228 BIG JACK SMALL. " I don't want to deny riotliin' nor fall back nowhar. Ef Jesus Christ teaches men to do honest an' fair, one to another, that's all right, an' I'm with Him, in my style, sech as it is; but when you, or anybody else, asks me to jump from that p'int into the idea that He made an' rolls creatiow that lets me out! . . . Thar now, Parson! I kinder understood you, because you was a parson, but you wasn't likely to understand me, because I'm a bull-puncher. Now we understand each other. I've heel my say, an' I'll listen to any- thing you've got to say on the whole trip, as well as I know how." " Well, Mr. Small," said the Reverend Mr. Sighal, taking Big Jack's extended hand, u whatever may be my regrets, I can but respect the opinions of a man who respectfully states them. And I shall only pray to God to give you a clearer light." u That's all right, Parson! An' now, as I've got your oatmeal cake baked an' everything done up brown, what do yer say ef we roll out the blankets, go ter sleep, an' forgit it all till mornin'?" " I shall be pleased to retire at any time." " Well, hit's a fine night," said Jack, proceeding to untie the roll of his bedding, u an' we needn't go under the wagons, but jest spread down in theevenest places we kin find." The Reverend Mr. Sighal made his first bed in the wilderness, arid, as the mountain phrase goes, " crawled in." "Parson," said Mr. Small, as he sat in his bed BIG JACK SMALL. 229 straightening the blankets about his feet,