; - ill UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. AP OIKT OK* Accessions JAN 1895 ./*9 . Class No. ** SHORT STORIES BY AUTHORS PORTBAIT OF A CALIFOBNIA GlKL . . . Ella Sterling Cummins QUABTZ v . J. W. Gaily MEA CULPA W. 8. Green Liz Mary Willis Glascock MIRANDA HIGGINS I William AtweU Cheney THE MARQUIS OF AGUAYO H. B. McDowell A SENSATION IN THE ORANGE GB< VES Ben. C. Truman NATHAN, THE JEW Harr Wagner. SAN FBANCISCO : GOLIfEN ERA, 29 KEAKNY STREET, I 1885- Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by HARR WAGNER, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D; C. O p .. % '& . ;ffi f^^^^ -. - ' :;?;> PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. A jagged horizon of frowning cliffs against the blue sky, ! Moun- tains to the east and west ! Mountains to the north and south, a mammoth herd of mountains all crowned fantastically ! Through the midst of this native wilderness ran a narrow canon, the only outlet to the great world beyond, and here in this wild spot had been chosen a place for a habitation. From the stage window, Judge Harville glanced out at the bevy of children that gathered round , and could not help but wonder at the refined mother of the group, and ask himself what fortuitous for- tune had- cast so beautiful and delicate a woman so far above the level of civilization. And then his eye had been caught by a strange young creature by his side, who resembled her as the fawn does the deer-mother. It looked like a child that was masquerading as a woman, dressed in matronly style, with trained skirts and ample crinoline, but showing in her childish face and undeveloped form the marks of extreme youth, and yet in the self-reliant pose of the head and utter unconsciousness of the gazing eyes bent upon her, was ver$ different from the preconceived idea of the child who stands where brook and river meet. She was dressed for traveling, and as she kissed them all farewell, her trunk was being strapped on behind the. stage with tremendous energy. ' ' Is she coming in here ?' ' asked one of the passengers with enthu- siasm . "No, she's booked outside with Dennis, the driver," was the re- ply. '-She's one of the belles of Esmeralda. You wouldn't think it, would you. She's only fourteen, but she's had several proposals already. Women are mighty scarce in this part of the country, you know, and we don't let 'em waste much time." <& U 4>i - ;.;''./;;'. -< : '. \ Sfc . ' v - ,. ." 2 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. "Good bye, Lorena, good bye !" cried the chorus of brothers and sisters as she mounted up the wheel and into the high teat by the driver, and they were off, the six hoises prancing gaily down the canon . Judge Harville had listened amused to this little colloquy and at the Half-way House where they stopped for dinner he took a clo?er look at the girl. She wore a string of pearl beads around her hair, a sailor collar turned down in the neck with a picturesque knot at the throat, very full gathered skirts over a large crinoline, and a saucy little brown felt hat like a boy's. Certainly she was all out in her clothes. In the city, he knew the ladies affected very high chokers, and their skirts were rather slimpsey, crinoline having been dethroned for some time. Still there was a certain sweetness and dignity in the fresh young face that was very attractive. He saw her eyes glisten as he took up his magnificent fur-liked coat, and knew she bad never seen any- thing like it before. He handed her into the coach, for it was now growing cold, and found her the easiest place, and watched her fall into a baby-like slumber. The night was bitter in its frostiness, and the shawl around her seemed scarcely heavy enough. Very lightly he drew off his otter-lined garment, and put it around her, then wrapping himself in a blanket, he too had gone to sleep, maintaining meantime, however, a strong grip on the straps those kindly-provided contrivances to keep passengers from mounting roofward at odd moments. In tfce grey light of the morning he saw her looking at him with an amused yet grateful pair of eyes, and patting the soft lining with evident en- joyment. After breakfast they fell into a little chat, and he remarked the change in the landscape around them, for it was much more level and open on the road to Carson. "It is very different," she replied; "yesterday it was like home all the way, nearly, for they were my own mountains, my very own, but I don't know my way here, at all. Which way are my moun- tains?" and her (yes betokened the liveliest interest. They were pointed out in the dim distance directly upon one side, for they had come in a sort of semi-circle. Air, light and shade V- - PORTBAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 3 commingling to invest them with a royal magnificence of color from the delicate pearl tints to rose and purple, and behind them the cloud? lay piled like another succession of heavenly peaks till the eye could scarcely tell where earth left off and the portals of the sky began. "Are those my mountains?" she said in surprise "Why, they are more beautifully purple than any of them and I have always been envying the far away mountains for being so lovely and hazy, and there all the time my own mountains were just as purple as any of them. Doesn't that "seem funny?" He was much amused by her naive remarks, for she was not afraid to talk- upon any theme from politics to poetry, having an uu- usual fund of information upon these subjects, and showing that she had grown up among people much older than herself. And yet the childish idea would make its appeaiance every now and then, giving a most unique turn to the conversation. The stage jolted violently over the rough road, and they fell into silence again. She rosy cheeks of the girl seemed to whiten out as a faintly perceptible odor began to steal on the air. It was an ill- defined} suspicious odor, that seemed to creep upon the senses iusid- uously, and yet not give the slightest clue to its origin. Being a man, perhaps it made less impression upon Judge Harville, but he saw the girl evince signs of the greatest discomfort. When they reached the place for changing horses, and the men got our, and stretched their limbs, he saw the girl bend forward eag- erly, and with her teeth, bite the string that fasteaed a great demijohn of whieky to the side of the stage, put it under her shawl, and, at an unobserved moment, pitch it out the window. ' He smiled to himself, at her resolution, and wondered how she would make it straight with the owner, getting back into the stage with renewed interest in the "child-woman,'" as he mentally dubbed her. >She eat smiling, wickedly happy, now; the color had come back to her round cheek, and she had a sparkle in her eye that told of her triumph. Presently the owner of the odorous treasure began to look for his demijohn. In a few moments he had accused the man next to him. which was resented on the instant. Words followed and a row Deemed imminent, when, all at once, the girl laughed. They looked at her with indignation. "I took it," she said, a little shame-facedly. 4 POBTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. "You?" said the man, astonished, yet doubtful. "Yes, the horrid thiog was making me sick with its awful breath, and so I pitched it out;'' her whole manner breathed of defiance Then realizing faintly the difficulty she had gotten into, she said, apologetically, "Besides it was good of me to keep you from drink- ing it. 'Tisn't good for you, you know it isn't. Whisky makes people ugly, and if you hadn't been drinking it all the morning, you would laugh and call it a joke. Now, wouldn't he?" She appealed to the other passengers. "Of course he would!" they laughed back. * 'Better give in gracefully, old fel," said one, "you're beat this time." "Got to stand the drinks next place," said another. "Oh, bah!" said Lorena, her eyes flashing, "we don't want any more drinking. That's what I pitched that old thing out for. Can't you brighten up and be nice for the rest of the trip? Tell me, haven't you some nice little children?" she asked interestedly of the owner of the lost treasure. " 'Yes," said the man, rather sullenly. 'How many?" her voice was eager. 'Three," was the reply, less sullen. 'Oh! have you? Boys or girls?" 'Two boys and a girl," replied the man, looking at her curiously. 'We have three of each at our house, and I have just the sweetest baby sister in the world," said the girl, joyously. .Judge Harville looked upon her with a new interest; she was cer- tainly an odd little child-woman, with so much maternal aftection in her nature. In a few moments she had found out the names of all the children belonging to the fathers there, and made a remark on each; then turning to him, she asked, artlessly, "What are your children's names?" Judge Harville was taken by surprise. He was not over thirty years of age, was brown haired and brown bearded, and felt himself a very young man for the honors he had received. That be should impress any one as the father of a family struck him incongruously. "I'm alinoft afraid to tell you" he hesitated, yet in spite of him self, he smiled. PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 5 "Why?" she asked, emphatically. "Because I hayen't any." Everybody laughed, even Lorena herself, and good nature was immediately restored. The rest of the stage ride was pleasant enough, and T u dge Harville found himself more than once on the point of asking the bright little Lorena where she was going to stop in San Francisco, which she had inadvertently referred to as her destination. But there was a certain dignity underneath all that childish presumption and chattiiiess that made him hesitate. And when they arrived at Carson, he arrayed himself in his luxurious coat, and gathered together all his belongings and bade her good-bye, saying simply, "Farewell, Miss Lorena. I hope we shall meet again." And she looked him in the eyes like a child , and said cheerfully, "I hope so, too." "You won't forget me, will you ?" said he with a little touch of vanity. She seemed too unimpressed by the notice he had taken of her. "I'm sure I'll never forget your beautiful fur-lined coat," she said, mischievously, and he went off amid a shout of laughter from the other passengers. Four weeks passed by. He had almost forgotten the little girl in the stage, when one day, near Christmas time, with the rain pour- ing in torrents, he suddenly met her face to face on Kearny street in San Francisco. He stopped and looked at her with a very pleased expression. She was clad in city fashion, short trim skirts, ermine-bordered velvet jacket, and Tyrolean hat to match, with a scarlet wing setting it off jauntily, really a very charming picture of youth and freshness. He held out bis hand. She hesitated. "Why Miss Lorena, you haven't forgotten me surely ?" "No," she said, rather unwillingly, "but you see I've never been introduced to you." "Well, I'll be blanked," said he to himself. "Well? what difference does that make. We're acquainted all the same." "I know," said the girl, "but at home up in the mountains we don't think it nice to continue an acquaintance without an intro* 6 PORTRAIT OF A, CALIFORNIA GIRL. V - duction. If I'm worth being acquainted with, I'm worth being intro- duced to. Besides, I don't know who in the world you are, yon know." And she laughed. Finished man of the world as he was, Judge Harville was speech- less. He looked down in wonder on this curious little woman with the artlessnses of a child, this child with the worldly wisdom of a woman * "With whom are you staying ?" he asked in a low voice. "With my uncle, W. B. Lawrence of the firm of Lawrence and Chester," she replied with dignity. "Good morning," and she was a her way. The spirit displayed by this comical little mountain belle, aroused his deepest respect. "If she is worth being acquainted with, she is worth getting an introduction to," he repeated. "The little girl is right, and I'll take the trouble to get a first-class introduction that will be without a flaw." And then he fell to laughing at the absurdity of the situation, he a man of high position and eagerly sought after by the finest circles to grace their receptions, going to the trouble of getting an intro- duction to a comical little girl from the mountains in order that he might set himself straight, and prove that he was not a gambler or other suspicious character. "I dont know who in the world you are, you know." It would make a funny story to tell some time, he thought. Nevertheless his pique was aroused and he sought the house of a mutual friend, who during the call, casually, mentioned that the Law- rence family were to dine with them on Christmas day. "But I suppose it is of no use to invite you, Judge Harville, you are always engaged months beforehand," paid the lady with a sigh, thinking of her own marriageable daughter. "Well," said he, stroking his handsome mustache, "I will tell you what I will do. I will come late." He resolved to dumbfound the nonchalant little Lorena, and teach her a lesson. He would rather enjoy a harmless little revenge on such a spirited young creature. In spite of his pride and high posi- tion, underneath all there was to be found a petty vanity in the breast of the otherwise admirable Judge Harville. The dinner was over, and the several little families were gathered PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 7 in congenial little knots, some singing at the piano, some looking at the new gifts; but in the bay window, solitary and alone, sat little Lorena. She had discovered already, in her short experience of city life, that she was no longer a young lady, but only a little girl, and was trying to adapt herself to the new position of being seen but not be-ud. The door suddenly opened and the hostess came in smiling, leading^ Judge Harville as if he were a prize ox that had received the first premium at a county fair. She introduced him to the few who did not already know him, personally, while Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence beamed upon him, renewing the slight acquaintance that already ex- isted between taem, and the others gathered around to show him deference and respect* All listened to his words of bright address, and responded with animation all but little Lorena, who shrank back behind the cur- tains and wondered at this remarkable coincidence. Judge Harville saw her sitting there all solitary and alone, aid after he thought he bad punished her sufficiently, he said, "By the way, Lawrence, I believe I came down in the same stage with your niece a very bright little girl is she here ? I should like to be introduced." And Mr. Lawrence had gone to the window and had said, "Lorena, Judge Harville wishes to be introduced to you." "Does he ?" she said, quietly. "Yes. It seems he came down in r,he same stage with you from the mountains," and he waited for her to come out from behind the curtains. "Well, why doesn't he come and be introduced then ?" and she turned to look out the window again. Uncle Lawrence was somewhat startled, and then he smiled to himself, remembering the trains to her dresses only a few weeks before, which had to be cut off in order to make her presentable. "She wasn't so much of a child as they had imagined." In a moment the curtain was separated more widely than usual, and Judge Harville stood there, with a quizzical smile in his hand- some eyes, repeating gravely, "Miss Lawrence," after the ceremony of introduction. But the little girl, in her pretty short suit, with, however, the PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. pearl bead fillet still around her head, did not seem dumbfounded in the least. She inclined her head with dignity, and then there came a bright sparkle of merriment into her eyes. "You are lately from the mountains, I believe, Miss Law- tence." v "Yes," returned she, 'Hike yourself." "Did you have a pleasant trip down?" "Delightful," returned 'Lorena, "especially when I pitched out that old demijohn ! Didn't you?" "Are there any more formalities to be got through with ?" he asked, "if so, please mention them, and I'll try to secure them all." "I can't help it," said Lorena, answering implied sarcasm of his words. "1 have been taught that it is the only proper way." "Do you know who I am yet?" His eyes looked mischiev- ous. "No," said she frankly, "I do not." 4 'Yet you talk to me." "Ah !" paid the girl, "but my uncle has assumed the responsi- bility, and I trust him." Judge Harville stroked his moustache a moment reflectively. There wasn't much satisfaction for his vanity yet. "This is a great contrast to the country we left behind us four weeks ago, isn't it," pointing as he spoke, to the garden in front, which revealed great, white calla lilies, bright-red geraniums, and graceful, drooping fn- cbgia blossoms of purple and red. "I suppose you would be very will- ing to make the change." "I ?" said Lorena, with a flash of her eyes, "no, indeed! The city stifles me; I love my own wild mountains best." He looked down at this small young person with a half smile on his face "Ah, but if those brothers and sisters of yours lived here, it would be different, and you would soon forget all about the dreary desolation up there. " "No, I shouldn't," she persisted; "my dear old Mount Chalcedony is worth a dozen of these hills here. And besides, I have all the wild flowers to myself, and name them whatever I please. And then, too, we meet some of the raost talented men in the country, up there. Why, I know Governor Nye, and J. Ross Browne, the traveler when he was writing up Bodie and Mono Lake, for Harper's he vis- PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 9 ted our house and there's Mr. Gough, the nephew of the celebrated lecturer, who is almost as eloquent as his uncle; and there's Mr. Clageret, and Mr. Kendall and several other Congressmen, and O, judges ! why, I know ever so many judgres ! There's Judge Boring, who often lectures for us; and Judge Sewell. who is considered really very fine; and Judge Chase a real brilliant judge, who used to be a student of Longfellow's, himself, and I guess that's more than you can say, isn't it?" Judge Harville's vanity was wounded in more ways than one. He had no desire to be considered in competition with "those old fogies," as he mentally dubbed them. 1 'You must think me a regular old grandfather/' he said, pass- ing over this extensive list of notables, his pride hurt more than he, would have confessed at her childish refusal to consider him of any particular value, and also at the implied sarcasm which intimated that lie evidently felt he was condescending to talk with her. "Oh! it's nice to be old," said she, reassuringly, "that's what makes you so pleasant and agreeable," and then with a sigh of self- importance, C 'I don't like young men." Judge Harville took a long breath. He bad thought to subdue little Lorena, but, instead, he was himself subdued. When he had recovered bis breath, he looked at her curiously, "I'd like to come across you about five years from now. I'd like to see what sort of a woman you would make." He was about to ask some questions about her mother, when voices from behind appealed to him to settle some vexed question of trivial impoitance, and he was drawn away, the little girl with her pearl bead fillet looking: out upon them from behind the curtains with an ill-concealed smile of amusement at the way the young ladies hung upon his words, and looked up into his eyes. It made him feel ridic- ulous rather than triumphant, bis vanitv had received a blow. The rain was falling in torrents when the gathering broke up, and be could only say a conventional good bye to to the well-equi- poised, little Lorena, who gave him a bright little nod in reply. The next day he sent her an exquisite bouquet and a magnifi- cent box of confectionery, mingling the gifts suitable to a child and a young lady, but when he called a week or so later, little Lorena had tiown back to her beloved mountains, and so passed out of his life 10 POKTBAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. and thoughts, leaving only a dim little memory of a strange child who played at being a young lady. A number of experiences fell to Judge Harville's share in the years which followed, but fortune and fame continued to smile upon him, and the young ladies and their mammas. Still his heart re- mained his owr, that touch of vanity made him well satisfied to re- main as he was the honored and welcome guest of a large circle of refined acquaintancep. ***** Eight years had passed. He was still handsome with only a few silver hairs clustering in his brown locks. An intricate question of law had taken him up through the wild Sonora route into Mono county. Oil setting out in the morning, some one had said, "Jedge, I'm 'fraid there's goin* to be be a snow storm. Ye'd better stay over till tomorrer." He only laughed at the would-be weather-prophet, and thought no more about it, urging his horse along at a pleasant canter till he came into the rough mountain road, and gave himself up to the re- flections thit naturally co,me to a solitary horseman who knows he is likely to travel for twenty or thirty miles without meeting a human being. The road wound around the hills, and then took a line through the only natural egress or ingress a long,c!ark canyon, two gloomy walls of solid rock, that once fitted evenly together in a solid mass, but in eome great convulsion of nature, had separated, leaving this narrow space between barely room enough for two teams to pass with a little stream of water running alongside. Stones of waterspouts, very frequent in this locality, came to his mind, and he wondered if one should strike this canon, whether the unfortunate caught between these walls could possibly escape drowning. After a while, the wails lowered gradually, and he saw a wild horizon of jagged fantastic angles encircling him round. On the in- staut a picture came back to his mind of a house situated in the fore- ground of a wild mountain, and a group of children, and then a suc- cession of pictures with a bright little girl figuring arching in the center. PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA. GIRL. 11 " It must be the peculiar horizon that brings back such a faint little memory as that of Lorena," said he, musingly. " It was no wonder she didn't grow up like other children, with such a horizon as that around her. What's that ? Snowflakes falling? The old man was a prophet, after all. 1 wonder if I can't make the quartz mill before it gets too heavy." And spurring up his horse, he hast- ened along. The weather had changed, the bracing air had givtn way to that strange, heavy atmosphere that precedes the snow- storm, to imperceptibly that he had not noticed it. On leaving this uncanny place, the road verged about several small slopes, but the snow increased so . suddenly and eo violently, with a sudden gust of wind blowing down the canyon, tbat he be- came confused. Once he thought he had struck the trail because of the fresh horses' tracks before him io the snow, but he soon found that, in his confusion, he had been merely following in a circle upon his own trail. To add to his distress, his horse stepped into a sudden gully aud fell beneath him with a broken leg. Darkness now seemed to encompass the earth, and Judge Harville stood gazing into space ut- terly bewildered. The violent efforts of his horse in attempting to rise called him back to himself, and after a moment's hesitancy, he drew out his re- volver and put the beast out of his misery, performing this ac'ion of cruel kindness promptly and effectively. He felt sure that the quanz-mill way not far away, and that he could make it within an hour. He lighted a match, and looked at his watch. It was six. He felt the need of food and shelter, and resolved to press forward. The night was coming on fast, and it was bitter cold. He could not think of staying in this desolate ppot when a place of refuge was eo near. But he soon found himself at the mercy of the pitiless elements. The snow still fell n:adly, the wind was beginning to throw up little drifts. Still he struggled on. Once he plunged into the creek through the shallow ice, and although wet through, aud his clothes immediately stiffened, he exclaimed, " Thank God ! " for it showed that the road was not far away. Bit by bit, step by step, he makes , . . -% 12 PORT BAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. his wijy. In three hours hp has made a mile directly forward, though five or eix has been lost in re trace mer^t. He is no longer the elegant and dignified Judge Harville. He is only a man righting for life a pitable object of humanity. His clothes are torn by contact with the rocks, or stiffened with frozen water, his hands are bleeding, his feet badly frozen. Shall he give up and lie down to sweet, coaxing sleep sleep that knows no wak- ing, or shall he struggle on ? A sound breaking on the freezing air attracts his wandering senses. "Help !" he cries. The sound comes again, repeated thrice. If he was desperate be- fore, now he was like one transfixed. It was the bark of a coyote a sharp, insolent bark. What an answer to a freezing man's call for help ! " What ! lie down to die, and be devoured by those cowardly brutes ? " And in answer he plunged along again with renewed efforts, nerved with strength born of desperation. The barks in- creased around him; there was a pair of them; he could see their dark shadows on the snow, waiting at a respectful distance. His hands were so cold and numb that he could not get his revolver out, and even then the water had frozen it stiff. " Great Heaven ! " he cried, u was I born for this ? " His ears now told him the voices were three, he wasted no time looking for the shadowy forms on the soow. " 1 will keep them out of their feast as long as I can," he thought, his natural stubbornness coming to his aid. And he did, but his powers were nearly exhaust- ed, his endurance overtried. Gradually the stiffness was creeping on him, he felt no more arms or legn, he was only a human clump straggling onward. Still the snow fell. " Heh ! heh ! heh !" barbed the cowardly choius. Each moment seemed a year as they gained upon him. One crept close to him; in an agony of despair he made one great effort and struck at it, the cowardly thing slunk back. It feared even the semblance of a nun as long as there was a spark of life in it. Suddenly upon his ear almost dulled in its sense of hearing, came another sound, he roused himself to listen. Could he be losing his mind already, or was it a mocking human voice imitating the coyotes? PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 13 "Heb, heh, heh !" called the chorus around feim. "Heh, heb, heb." called out a clear mocking voice from a distance. " God !" said the man, and with soul swelling within him, forget- ting his poor cumbersome, solid body he strove once more, with hope ' inspiring him. That mocking human voice was the sweetest sound he bad ever heard. But his feet failed him, they would no longer do their master's bidding. Accepting this new distress, he fell upon hands and knees and crept painfully along in the direction of rhe voice, which seemed to take delight iu mocking the voices of the night. " If it should cease!" thought the man in despair. One more little turn of a bend, and there he saw, very near, a light; with one loud cry born of agony and despair, he cried, "Help, help !" and at that moment felt the breath of the coyotes upon his eheek. He struggled to show there was still life in him, and in the breath- ing spell thus obtained, the door flung wide open and the figure of a woman rushed out, a lamp in her band. " Where! where are you?" she cried. "Heh, heh/' cried the chorus. '"Here, here," cried the man with his last strength. "Mer- ciful Heavens !" with this ejaculation, not pausing a moment she ran directly towards them, the coyotes shrinking back out of sight at the appearance of so much life and vitality. She found a clump of frozen humanity in the snow, speechless but with grateful eyes that looked up in her face and told of life. Hurrying to the house, she brought out a flask of liquor, and by the light of her lamp made him drink. "There is no time to waste,'* she said in a quick way, "I shall have to depend on you to help roe. My husband is at the mill, I can't wait to go for him." Putting a rope around bis waist, she gave him instructions what to do. " Now wben I pull, lift a little of your weight." Foot by foot they struggled along the fire obtained from the wnisky as well as the light so near him, and the encouraging voice, gave him new energy. Who can tel| where the strength comes from that enables a woman to grapple with burdens beyond her powers ? No one could ever tell how she got the helpless man into the cosy domicile where warmth and com- fort awaited him. There was not much to remind one of the elegant scrupulously attired Judge Harville, in the poor piece of humanity 14 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. before her eyes. Cold water was used to take the first agony, out of the frozen limbs, and then warm drinks to comfort the inner man. Then with a sigh of relief she said, "I guess you will do till morn- ing, and then we'll have the doctor." Judge Harville's eyes had been resting upon her questioningly through all this tedious process. " It seems tome that I've seen you somewhere before;" he said slowiy. "Very likely," was the response; "Fve traveled all over California and Nevada since I was a child." "No, but it seems as if I had known you " " If you will tell me your name," she said hesitatingly. A faint smile crept over his face with recognition, * 'You are the little Lo- rena who wouldn't epeak to me without an introduction. Will the old one do, or must I get a new one ?" " Judge Harville !" she exclaimed, "can it be possible? I never expected to see you again, much less under these circumstances." " How is it you are here, all alone?" he asked. "Oh, my husband, Aleck Westbrook, is night engineer at the Silver King mill, a quarter of a mile away. I've lived here over a year. I never think o such a thing as being afraid. "I often mock the coyotes just to amuse myself, they are a sort of compapy; but ^our cry, tonight, quite horrified me. They must have been starved to be as bold as they were tonight, but we wont talk of that anymore. You had better get some sleep before the doctor comes." "What time is it?" "It is two o'clock, Aleck always gets a light lunch about twelve, and that accounts for my being up at such an hour and very fortunate it was," Judge Harville accepted all these statements as the most natural in the world, dining at twelve o'clock at night, aud mocking coyotes to amuse one's self, why, of course, he wondered why he had never done these things himself, and in the sleep which crept drowsily on, dreamed he had turned in- to a coyote, and was tracking something to death. Aleck Westbrook proved to be a tall, manly fellow, a little re- served, though cordial in congratulation to the stranger he found housed upon his return, and very prompt in bringing the doctor vho pronounced the quick and efficient care the night before as likely to PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRJL. 15 bring him through without an amputation, but his recovery from the shock and all would be slow. Seeing that it was to be a long siege. Judge Harville sent for choice groceries to the city, as his contribution toward the house- hold expenses, for provisions in the town where supplies were bought were incredibly high. He also sent for music and books. Lorena Westbrook, as a woman, was the same arch, bright crea- ture, with a strange dignity and fearlessness all her own, that Lore- na Lawrence had been, and with the self-reliance that comes from frontier life. Judge Harville from his place upon the bed-lounge watched her curiously in all her little duties, as she sewed, or tidied up the room, or in caring for the year-old child which clung to her skirts. He was lost in admiration of her. To his weary, sated eyes, in her freshness and vivacity she was a revelation. Day after day crept by, and his admiration grew till it passed the limits of admiration. He allowed himself to break the tenth commandment. He coveted. "Do you never wish that fate had placed you in a beautiful home in the midst of civilization ?" he asked Lorena, one day. "O, I don't know. I'm very happy here. I have my piano, and baby and husband. 1 don't know of anything else I want very much. I love this wild place better than the trammels of society." "But you would find congenial society, and an opportunity for those accomplishments which make a woman so charming and de- lightful/ 5 said Judge Harville, insidiously. Lorena gave a little sigh. "It is nice to be accomplished," she said. Many were the visitors that came in of an evening. Mrs. West- brook's simple little parlor seemed an earthly paradise to those rough diamonds who had left civilization far behind them with all its com- forts to battle with the wilderness. Some of them were fluent talk- ers, some were geniuses, some were bores, yet each was respectful and kind in his admiration of the engineer's wife. Occasionally a lady from the town, four miles distant, favored her with a call, or a family who lived a mile away, but these were exceptions, and men almost exclusively formed the society that gathered around her. This curious state of affairs was not altogether new to Judge Har- ville, but it had never affected him as unpleasantly as now. "A bright, intelligent creature like Lorena to be wasted on the desert air," he 16 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. thought to himeelf, impatiently and even a species of jealousy took possession of him, to see how freely and frankly she met them, and how sweetly she talked to them all. "Say, Westbrook," said he, one day, after they had been discus- sing one of the habitual bores, "aren't you afraid you'll have to straighten out some of these fellows some day. First thing you know some of them will be in love with your wife." "Oh, no," laughed back Westbrook, "Lorena straightens them out as she goes along. ' I'll never have any duels to fight for her." The fierceness of the winter was over, and spring began to assert her sway, sending down great freshets ladeued with boulders from the mountains, and touching into life the sparse vegetation. "Here is the harbinger of spring," said Lorena, one day, bringing in a branch of willow, which had commenced to sprout in tiny buds of wool. "And in California the roses are blooming, the lilies shining white, and the whole earth covered with green/' said Harville. She turned upon him fiercely, "Why are you always trying to fill me with discontent? I never thought of such a thing till you came." Harville smiled to himself. "Because I cannot bear to see you satisfied with such a life." Lorena looked at him in bewilderment. But he said no more, and she had nothing to say being puzzled to catch his meaning. The roads were now in good condition, and Judge Harville's crutch almost unnecessary, everything pnnted to there being no further ex- cuse for his remaining in such a wild, desolate spot. But Aleck told him to be in 110 haste, he was glad to have such good company for his wife, and had enjoyed the time spent together. They did live delightfully in that strange place, with music (Harville was an accomplished musician), with reading (he was a fine reader), with communions with Nature and the charming little suppers at twelve every night, and sleeping in the morning, turning day into night, and night into day, with no bustle of the outside world, no weary seeking^ after pleasure, no mingling with great crowds of people, utterly indifferent to each other, but each new human being a study and a revelation. One day, together, they went to the Indian Camp, quite near, and watched the dark-faced creatures prepare their meals, and try the PORTBAIIT OP A CALIFORNIA GIBL 17 steps of the Indian dance, preparatory to the grand pow-wow on Walker's river. "1 wish we both were savages like these," said Harville, in a low tone. "Why?" she responded, "what idea have you in that?" "So that we should not be bound by these laws civilization puts upon us." "I am glad that your wish cannot come true, for I love law and order " she laughed back in reply. But something in his tone alarmed her. The next day, with her baby, she went out seeking new flowers that she knew where to find, and stayed beyond her time. Mean- while Aleck, who had waked before his usual hour in the day, was out of temper for no particular cause, as a man can easily be some- times, and stepping into the kitchen, saw the bread, forgotten in its capabilities for expansion, a great frothy roll over the sides of the pan, and even dripping on the floor. At this moment Lorena and the baby came in the back door, both trimmed with wild flowers, a pretty bloom on their faces, and a smiling look in their eyes. "You had a d n sight better stay home and tend to this bread," said Aleck, crossly, yet touched by the pretty picture of his wife and child, and regretting his temper on the instant. Without a word, but the bloom blanched in a moment, Lorena walked past him into her room. Judge Harville observed this little scene and wondered what she would do, but in a moment she came out and got supper quietly, after Aleck's departure taking up her sewing. Harville sat and watched her. Since he had allowed himself to covet that which was his neighbor's, he had, with many dallyings with conscience, proved to himself that his ultimate object was a good one, a real kindness, cruel perhaps like the shooting of his horse to put him out of his misery but a kindness, a good deed, after all; such tricks does pure, unadulterated reason, untouched with con- science, play with a man's judgment ! He was no worse, no better, than many men we know and believe to be honorable. He would not sully by a word Lorena r s purity of soul; he loved her too deeply 'for that; he wanted her for his wife. He was a law- 18 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIEL. yer, and a crafty one, and knew well the nieshes of the law and how he could disentangle her from her present position and make her his own. And he had convinced himself that it would be a kindness to her in the end. "To think of such a rare creature condemned to these dismal things of life, such a barren, miserable outlook ! I'll place her in a sphere more fitted to her charms and graces, for where will not Judge Harville's wife be welcome?" And so he sat there, thinking all these things, how lovely she would look in a beautiful home, and what a joy to free her from all this toil and hard work, this lovely creature who had saved his life what would he not surround her with to soften life for her?" "Lorena," be said, softly. "Well," she responded, as if nothing strange were suggested by his familiar method of address. "Do you never tire of this dreary life ?" She looked at him a second, as if measuring him. "Oh, no," she responded, carelessly. "Lorena," he said again, and his voice was thrillmg?y low, "listen to me." "I'm listening," she repeated, carelessly again. "Lorena, don't you see the love shining out of my eyes ? Don't you see that I adore you?'' "That's nothing new," she laugbed back; "I've always been adored. I can't remember when I wasn't adored." "But I want you for my own," he whispered, yet not coming any closer he knew he dared not. "That's nothing new, either," she laughed, again, "there's always been somebody who wanted me for their own; in fact, if that's in- tended for a pleasant remark, I'm dreadfully tired of it." "But seriously, Mrs. VVestbrook," said he, in a different tone, "how can you be happy in such a place as this, and with a man who swears at you ?" The pretty chin quivered, still she kept up her play of speech, and said, most innocently, "One would suppose that you had never heard anybody swear before," and then, rising, "I must see to Aleck's supper; poor fellow, he'll be very hungry when he returns." PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 19 And soon she was busied with the fire, and preparing a* oyster stew for him. His step was soon heard, and after a bright little talk around the table, he went back again to his work. Loreua, hurrying away the dishes, and clearing up, retired to her own room and Blocked the door. Judge Harville soon sought his own couch, but not to sleep. He was restless, irritated, but more determined than ever. In her room, Lorena acted very strangely; she seemed suffocating; she kissed the sleeping babe, then, drawing a shawl over her head, cautiously opened the window and crept out, and dropping to the ground noiselessly, she walked up the narrow road in the waning light of the old moon. ' Oh, I could kill him, I could kill him !" she cried to herself, passionately, "but I shall have to deny myself that pleasure." For an hour she walked up familiar pathways over the rocks, looking down upon rocky gorges and black, abysmal shadows between the mountains, and sat down to rest a moment. She heard a faint rustle, a chasing movement, and in its terror, a white rabbit that had not yet changed its winter coat for grey, crouched close to her foot, and from behind the rock below came a shadow a coyote. Quickly she threw a handful of stones, which made the ugly beast skulk away. Loreua stooped to stroke the trembling, terrified little creature at her feet, but in an instant it had leaped away and was gone. "OGod!" exclaimed the lonely little human creature on the rock, as a similar picture to the scene just enacted before her, came to her vision. " Can I come close to your foot for protection, as this rabbit has done to me? You are so far away, God i If you had left me mother she would have helped me. I am so lonely, and the Bad is so near/' This solitary, little human-being on tbe bleak and craggy Sierra, without knowing it, expressed, in her deep despair and anguish, the true Persian theory of belief that Good and Evil (Ormuzd and Ahriman) are contending for the mastery, and the human being is free to choose one or the other; and 110 worshiper, at the old-time altar of incense, could have prayed more earnestly nor passionately 20 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. to be delivered, than this untaught mountain child of the wilderness, trusting to her intuitions alone. The wise and cynical may smile or sneer, but to the end of time, the despair of prophets and philosophers can never carry them be- yond the Persian theory of belief, nor the despair of hunted souls find greater consolation than that strange instinct which bids them creep close to His foot. Suddenly her tears ceased, she laughed hysterically, "If I haven't mother, I have my baby," and her tears flowed again, but they were sobs of joy. Those tears washed out all blur or spot that, like mould or rust, was beginning to faintly touch that pure, young soul. She arose, and with impatient step made her way down from the frowning mountain, with its abysmal shadows and deep gorges, and running down the road to the little cabin home in the canyon, hast- ened in, and with the key which she had taken with her, unlocked the door and seized her treasure. Wrapping it warm in shawls with motherly instinct, she carried it out into the night, and kissed it again and again. What an experience for a babe ! But it was used to its mother's eccentricities, and was always ready to accompany her to the deepest gorge, the highest peak. It was sent to be her comforter, audits trust in her was infinite. The darkest night it looked up in her ' face and emiled, not knowing whither it was going, and caring not whither so that it was with her. Harville could not sleep, and the sound of her coming in and going out attracted his attention. Looking from the small-paned window, he saw her hurrying away. In an instant he had flung on his clothes and was following. What rash thing was she about to do three ojclock in the morning straying through that bleak wilderness ? He Would follow and protect her from a distance . What a picture of strangeness and unreality ! The waning moon shone with a sickly glare, and looking down saw amid the rocks and fantastically-heaped mountains, a little open gulch, through which passed a small woman with a large baby in her arms, hurrying along, small but brave, and at a distance a man following, anxious and full of dread. But the moon faintly smiled as she saw the red light beaming from the mill, and the mother and child seek entrance. But the man frowned, and hastening, saw, unobserved, a picture PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 21 of domestic blisrf Aleck with his arms enfolding the two, Lorena, whose head was pillowed on his shoulder, and the babe which crowed its joy in the strange accents of the baby language, that tongue which doubtless contains cognate sounds with the first and original language of the human race. The protective feeling first aroused in his breast gave way to jeal- ous hatred and ugliness of feeling, and he swore an oath to himself an ugly oath that he would destroy this happiness, or " Human nature is so strange ! From love comes hate, from pro- tection, destruction, in only a moment. From the kindly, loving friend of five minutes before, wishing to avert danger from Lorena's path, he became transformed into a subtle enemy determined to de- stroy her happiness. Love is an awful thing. It ccoes like a dove, it coils like a serpent. Not daring to trust himself at the window farther, he returned to the house, his iron will bent relentlessly on subjugation. " Lorena," said Aleck, "you don't know how badly I felt today and you took it so quietly, and did the work so cheerfully. You have a hard time, little woman," he said with feeling. "And I've been thinking it all over. I'm going to make a dead set to get out of this business, and let you see something of the world. And we'll go to San Francisco, and go to all the operas and concerts how we'll enjoy the music and baby there'shall grow up a civilized child in- stead of a savage. How did you know I was wanting you so ?" " O, Aleck," cried Lorena, full of happiness, "I wanted you." What truer answer could be born of love ? They sat there in the flickering light of the lamps, the ponderous fly-wheel whirling around, the shining steel machinery sliding back- ward and forward with its subtle intricacies of mechanism, and pleasant noise, so strangely out of proportion with the clamp, clamp of the stamps and the hissing of the pans in the body of the mill. The engine-room was retirement in comparison. Aleck made a little nest in the corner with his coat and a blanket, and the baby was allowed to finish its nap, going to sleep as obedi- ently as it had wakened . " I never realized until to-night, Lorena, how you would shine in society, you have such good taste and are so bright and clever. And I thought if I didn't tell you of it, somebody else might get in 22 PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. ahead of me, sometime. And the first thing I'd know, my little Lorena might be running away with some other fellow;" and Aleck laughed . "Oh, Aleck," said Lorena, reproachfully. " Well, we'll fix that all right, I'm going to run away with you myself; I'm going to be that other fellow." Then they both laughed. Was it a childish happiness that made the rafters of that mill re-echo with merry laughter ! <{ >ay, Aleck," said Lorena, "how much happier we are alone. I wish Judge Harville would go. If he speaks of it again, don't urge him to stay, will you ?" < f Why, no !" said Aleck, looking surprised, "but I thought he made it pleasant for you. Why? has be commenced to talk silly? If he has forgotten himself" what a threat of vengeance was con- veyed in that tone ! "Oh, no," laughed Lorena, "only he bores me, a little of hi* style goes a great way, you know. It is six o'clock, isn't it? How fast the time flies in this dear old engine-room. Come, baby, it is time to go." And together the three wended their way home in the grey and chilly dawn. Certainly her husband's love was a charm that encompassed Lorena round, yet if he had not been so kindly, she would possibly have fought her good fight against Ahrimau, though not so well armed for the fray. She had resolved to meet him in open fight, disarm and overcome him if she could. There must be no scene, no trouble, no scandal, it must be subtly, silently done. Judge Harville was courtesy itself all day. Aleck almost forgot Lorena's instructions on the matter, and certainly his faintest sus- picion. But when evening came and Aleck was gone, he turned to her with supplication in his eyes that was almost irresistible. He com- menced to tell the story of his life, garnished with brilliant bits of philosophy, it had even an element of pathos in it. Lorena's fancy was kindled unconsciously. Her work lay neglected in her lap, the baby, after sleeping all day, refused to sleep any more and amused itself tumbling blocks around upon the floor. He went on, the deep love he felt for her coloring everything he touched upon, the impression she had made upon him as a little girl, till finally he reached the snow and her strange appearance with the PORTRAIT OF A CALIFORNIA GIRL. 23 light. "Oh, Lorena, Fate has ordained this from the beginning of the world, that we should meet and mingle our lives. You cannot escape from fate." "Well," said she laughing, though it sounded strangely hollow, "I shall spoil fate for once I'm just stubborn enough to defy it where my will is concerned." "It seems wrong to you now/' said the voice of the tempter, "but a year from now in a high and noble position, Mrs. Judge Harville shall find that she has escaped from a galling slavery and bondage . In her beautiful and lovely home with congenial friends and time for culture and improvement, she will wonder at the tame and profitless existence she led in the years forever past, and rejoice that she bad had the ambition, the wisdom to grasp the opportunity which had lifted her from that condition which presented happiness as the hap- piness of a sheep, dull, quiet, aimless; enough to eat, but nothing else." Harville was nothing if not subtle. "Is this what I saved you from the coyotes for?" asked Lorena quietly, yet a little dazzled by the picture he so brilliantly painted her. "I know I stand in a bad light at present," he said rapidly, "but you are too lovely and dainty a blossom to blush unseen, and should see something of the world." "That's what Aleck said, to-day," said she artlessly. "I am the instrument of fate sent to interfere in your behalf, and in the years to come you will thank me for the interference. You have saved my life. It belongs to you rightfully; take it then and do what you will with it." Lorena looked into his eyes hopelessly. Where were her subter- fuges, her little arts to cover her feelings, where were the subtleties with which she wa ahead out there ennyways soon?" "We can't just say about that. The Professor here will be able to tell, mebbe, as we come back." "When do you 'low to be back again?" "Well, if the Professor can see as much in the same place, and in the same time, as we can, we may be back here in three days." "What are you goin' to do about hoss feed and grub while yer there ?" "Oh, Sam's out there. Didn't he stop here as he went by with a team four horses, high load, doors and windows at the side and hay bales on top about two weeks ago?" "No; he didn't stop yere. I seed him goin' past, but he never stopped." Here Reins smiled over his cup of black coffee, and said: "Sam's a little curious about some things." Dinner over, bill paid, the "high-stepping" stock is buckled to, the party are seated. Frowzy passes up the reins, and says: "Well, I hope you've got a good thing out there; I'm half a mind to come out and see you." "All right, old man; I'll introduce you to Sam." Then turning toward the door where Madam Frowzy stands, with hands on hips and arms akimbo: "Bye, bye, madam; keep .'.sharp lookout for prospectors. Why, hello, eonny; what are you looking up at me so for? I'm not a pinto circus horse." Boy (near the wheel) "You're the fellow 'at went past yer about a month ago, and called ma'am an old gal that's what you are !" "Well, but I'll take it all back, and I wouldn't have said it if I had known you were around." Away rolls the light wagon, as back into the house goes FrOwzy, to smoke and stew over the fire, while he considers the chance of making something for himself out of the new discovery. "I say, Symanthy, I'm a good mind to go over to that new place." "Well," snaps Symanthy, "if yer goin', you'd better go airly. QtAKTZ. v Fer if them fellers really hez struck ennything big' over ther r , ther'K be plenty a-goin' in on the chances mighty soon. I woulnn't wonder ef you'd see some of the sharps a-follerin' them fellows up afore -mornin' " "Well, I reckon I'd best strike out in the mornin'. I fergot to ax 'em how far it was, but I kin foller in their tracks." In the morning, early, Frowzy is off with saddle-horse and pack- mules, for, although Frowzy is the very picture of uncombed and smoke-dried indolence, and as a general thing, goes about on foot with the dragging sprawl of a work-ox, yet when it comes to exer- tion in the saddle, or endurance in the hope of sudden gain, he is as tough as a lariat. The day is bright and warm as only some odd days in Silverado can be, the very essence of beautiful weather and pure air, for the climate in the State is like the human fortune in the State either lovely and serene, with an "elevated goose," or else detestably bad and flat broke. The day is splendid, and though the season is winter, the dust whirls in spiral, electric columns along the highway and rises in a cloud about Bub and his dog as they romp in the road in front of Frowzy' s ranche house. "Mam !" shouts Bub, "that 'ere buggy's a-comin' again I and there's 'nuther dust acrost the valley, and I'll bet that's Pap." "Well, it's a-inost night, and yore wood ain't in yet! Ef enny- body's a-comin' , they'll cum 'thout your starin'." Nevertheless, as to the staring, madam conies out into the road to stand with Bub and the dog for a prolonged stare into the valley. The light wagon halts this time only long enough to refresh man and horse, and then away toward the town; for the eye of science has seen what the man of science is in haste to lay before the men of money and speculation. Time, time is now the prime object, and horse-flesh is a second consideration; so, drive, driver send 'em! the love of gain grows into a fever. Away goes the vehicle from view, and the dust cloud of its rolling settles down as Frowzy dismounts at his own door, where his sage- brush cherub and his dog vie with each other in jumping around for purposes of undefmable joy. Madam begins to feel some thrill of anxiety about the new state QUARTZ. 33 of affair.s, and so, without waiting, she appears at the door to ask, "Well, how is it over ther ?" Frowzy, big with the throes of a new hope, and ; the consciousness of new knowledge, answers not, but continues to unpack and strip his animals in silence, save when he says to the dog, "There, that'll do now. Git down!" But once the animals are out to graze, and one saddle flung on one side of the door and the other on the other side things begin , thereby, to be made neat and comfortable he says, "Well!" some Western people always say "well" to start with, "well, that's a mighty big thing over ther. Things'll be a bilin' yer in a mighty short time, ef ye hear my gentle voice. I'm hungry." "I'll giv ye yore supper in a minet it's all ready. Did you see every show fur a ranche '?" "You bet I did! I located the purtiest place fur a ranche and station you ever seed not more'n three miles from where the town's got to be. That Purfesser feller -says there ain't no better silver mines in the world." "Was they all located?" "No. That feller as was a talkiii here as they went down, he showed me wher' I could take chances on an extension." "Didn't ye take it ?" asked madam, eagerly. "Well, he said before he'd show it to me that I must locate, and record it as the Old Gal, or he wouldn't show it to me." "Durn his imperdent picter!" "So v l located it, and it's the 'Old Gal;' and that Purfesser says it's as good as eony of 'em, when it's opened once." "Don't it crop out nowheres along ?" "No; but it's right on the line o'theni best leads that's wher' the 'Old Gal' is. I can't make out what that feller wanted me to call it the 'Old Gal' for." "I know!" exclaimed Johnny, dumping on armload of fire-wood into a corner of the cabin, "it's 'cause mam wouldn't bake bread fur him when he was flat broke !" "You, Johnny! you jist keep yore mouth shet an' speak when yore spoke to, will ye! You don't know what yo're talkin' about." " Enny how," says Mr. Frowzy, "the feller seemed mighty tickled about some durned thing or other ! But you can't make him 34 -j , QUARTZ. out very easy. He's smart he is. He knows more in a minit about them mines nor what that Purfesser knows in a day; but be pertends to leave it all to the Purfesser. I see him a-winkin' at that Sara, when Old Spectacles and Big Words was a settin' it in steep on the lingo. He knows what he's after ! that feller does." With which piece of wisdom Frowzy finished his supper and com- menced cutting "plug" to fill his pipe; after filling and lighting which, he proceeded to puff awhile in that odorous smudge of si- lence which the European man has borrowed from his red brother. But he soon broke forth again with ' c Symanthy ! " That vigorous female being in the kitchen said, " Well ? " 44 I've an idee I'd better take the tram an' go back ther' and put up a cabin. And you'd better send over to Reese river for yore brother and his wife to help you run the house while I'm gone." " Oh, Bub an' me kin run the house ! 'Taint worth while to be bringin' people till ye need 'em. They'd only growl ef ye didn't di- vide the new lay-out with 'em. You go ahead; I'll run the house." By this time it had grown dusk outside, as the shortening winter day dropped behind the dark silhouette of mountains, and the family conversation was broken by a strange voice : " Hillo ! Haeow is it about here?" To which Frowzy shouts- back, " Aye, aye ! Comin' in a minit ! " And he peers about by the firelight for Cl that everlastin', durned, old hat" tbat he never can lay his hands on, save when his head is in it, while Mrs. Frow- zy ventures to whisper, " That's a Yank you bet he's a-smellin' after them mines." Before Frowzy can find that much-maligned head-gear the new ar- rival, or one of them, has entered the door, with tbat terrible im- patience and fussy attention to details peculiar to some of those citi- zens who say the word, " haeow." " I waant to staybil teow hawsis with yeow." '* All right," returns Mr. Frowzy, by this time under " that hat." " Symanthy, gimme the lantern." While the horses are being cared for, Enoch rattles around as if he were helping to do the work, though really he knows nothing about it, having been brought up to oxen and a good stick in the State he calls Neow Hawinsheer. But he keeps his tongue and wits at work with numerous questions, such as: " Who were the party QUARTZ . 35 we met back a piece?" "Prospectors ah! Rich, I s'posa?" " Clus about here? Ah no. Never du strike anything near hand, any one. Sing'lar, ain't it ? Quite so." Frowzy, busy with the team, answers as clearly as 'he deems best; but, as he closes the stable door and starts, lantern in hand, for the house, lazily asks, " Which way might you be travelin' if it's a fair question ? " "Wai, we've got a little bizniz acount Nowth. I fergit wich way yaeon eed the neaw mines were." "Like as not I didn't say. I'm not clear which way they are som'ers out south-east tho,' I think they said. Do you want supper?" "Wai, no; we've got foud an' bsddin 5 , thank ye. There's my friend strikin* a fire naeow. When we've eatin* A bite we'll cum over an' chat a bit, ef its agreeab'l." "All right," absents Mr. F., as he blows out his light and enters his domicile; while Mr. Enoch Southchurch repairs to his wagon, his friend and his supper at which locality he says in a low voice to his companion: "Aeour old naybor sez thet the neaw mines are saeouth- easterly from here." "No odds what he says," remarks the other in a gruff voice. "I cain follow that wagon track wherever it may go. If I cain'ty I'll go straight back and die in Texas." "Jes so, Kernil, I depend onyeou for that." What further was said out of doors at the fire, or in the house at the other fire is not important to us, except that Frowzy hurriedly told Synuntby that "them fellers is after the new diggins, hot-foot." To which SAmantha responded, "I know'd it." "Yes," says F., "they've mighty smooth ephs; but they don't pump me; not much." Morning dawns once more upon the wide fields of Artemisia, cold, calm and clear; the blue smoke of the camp-fire by the roadside curls up among the early rays of the sun, and everything about the hithertofore drowsy rancho is made awake. The prospector has made bis track in the wilderness, and the keen and silent noses of Mam- mon's blood-hounds are down upon the trail. Frowzy is away before the dawn; up to the mountain- slope of th* foothilh, to sesure his team horses ere they cease to bask in the 36 QUARTZ. fringes of the morning sun, warming away the chill of night from their shaggy, winter coats. The bacon in the fry-pan at the camp-fire of Enoch Southchurch sputters to the tune of "Haste thee, eon of Plymouth Rock! God helps those who helps themselves." The "high-stepping team of "liberty-stable stock" has rolled the glittering wheels all night through the glancing moonbeams along the road, toward the mining town, passing "old Dan Simmins" with a slight halt, long enough to shout "how-de-do!" and bring "old Dan'* to the door, in unpresentable haste, for a brief chat and then away again, with his last, "Be good to yourselves! Make my regrets to the Young Men's Christian Associution, on account of my absence last Sunday, and tell Gage to send me two gallons of whisky. I'm about out. S' long, boys!" Away, again and away till down the mountain road, heralded by the golden glow that tips the topmost peaks with new born morn- ing's flush, into the busy mountain town, along whose plank side- walks the heavy boots of the earliest risers thump, thump, thump, the light wagon rolls and ceases to roll. The party leap out as the horses snort that grateful recognition of home wherewith the faithful servant expresses his satisfaction. And now, as Frowzy says it, things begin "to bile." The assayer's fire glows a white-fever-heat as it leaps and licks the precious ore in presence of the anxious eyes that watch the boiling-pot. Deftly the assayer handles his tongs, coyly he toys with the blistering glow, and then carefully pours, pounds, batters, rolls and weighs the "button." Eureka ! millions of earth's treasures loom up before the eye of speculation. The news flies; men gather 011 street corners, in stores, in saloons, everywhere, to inspect samples of rock and hear the story of the new discovery; while the prosp ctor, his pocket lined with "eagles," slouches with a newly, well-dressed, easy grace along the polished board that bears the glasses iu front of the pretty young man whose back hair shines in the big mirror in all the glory of ton- sorial art, and slapping his "heavy sorrel"* on the counter, says, "tlomfi up, boys, come up." *Twenty dollar gold pieces. CHAPTER TWO. SPIRITS. The discovery and location of new silver-miuing centers in the wild semi-desert regions of North America will soon be a matter of the past; but it was once a very exciting business. First there was the desert valley and the wild, rocky, rugged mountains; then acroes the valley came the earliest* 'prospector," making his devious way among the "sage-brush;" guided by no previous track in the dry gravelly soil; steered solely by the contour of the surrounding mountains; riding on his mule or wiry, wild broncho and driving before him, or leading behind him, 'the grunting animal upon whose back aie girted and corded the needed bedding, food and implements for preliminary mining purposes. It is a serious and a silent procession under the hot sun of a summer-day, or the cool star-light of night when the shadows of the pointed mountains fall dark and ong across the arid waste, or in the wind-driven snows of altitudinous winter. Jf the search is successful and the winner crowned with reward, then the single track of the prospector becomes a beaten trail, like an ashen- colored thread stretching from civilization toward the unknown; the trail in time gives way to the wagon-road on which the slow-moving ox bends his unwilling, calloused neck to the inspiring needs of spec- ulative industry; soon to be followed by the more aristocratic mule marching in silent, solemn, long-eared processions of dust-covered pageantry; and the mule at length to be followed by the swifter whirling stage-coach team with its cloud of dust and its crowded passengers. People mostly, if not entirely, bearded boisterous adventurers take to the new road and flock into the new mining camp which is hidden away on the slope of a canon, or at the water giving head of a ravine. Heavy loads of lumber for house-building underlying an imposed stratum of merchandiEe unload under the direction of the "gentleman from Judea;" while the manager and dispenser of alco- holic amusements erects his tent and, behind a rough board, begins the grave exercise of polishing a tumbler with a napkin; the board- 38 QUARTZ. ing house, the lodging house, the needed mechanical houses and all other hocuses arise in so short a time that the aspect of the scene changes, as if by magic, from all that make the irksorneness of soli- tude to the moving, shifting, humming, habitable picture of energetic industry. Thus has been initiated, under varying aspects, that great aggregation of representative commonwealths commonly called the United States of North America. Later in the years comes the ready school-master to his appointed task; still later the church build- ing, with its echoing bell in pointed spire with weather-vane a-top to show how blow the winds of Heaven and which way waft the clouds. It might be a useful, certainly a curious, study to find out how much alcohol in its various drinkable forms mostly whieky, how- ever has had to do with the advancement of civilization and the establishment of good government; for it seems to be a fact, that the drinker of the more fiery potations, however much they may have damaged themselves, have always been the staunchest creators and supporters of good government. The maxim about "the sober second thought" implies that the previous thought was not sober and, therefore, drunk. Is the strong-drinker's liking for good and free government the re- morseful expression over the ruin of his hearth-store felicity ? Let that pass; it is an open question; but there is no question that in a new silver-mining camp the political and social center is the alcoholic saloon; neither is there any question that in the camp whereof this vivacious history treats one Alexander Crowder kept the "Head Quarters." It has often been remarked, by the uninitiated, that it looks singular to see so many of the largest and most able-bodied of our fellow citizens engaged in the light-handed avocation of filling fluids into bottles and glasses; but such persons should be informed that the saloon-keeper is liable to have heavier vastly heavier work upon bis strong hands. He may not often need the heft of his heavy shoulders, but when he does need it he needs it very much. Yet there are retail alcoholic dispersers on the Pacific slope life-long veterans at the bar who have never laid a hand harehly on any mortal. These be the few men of high administrative ability stranded statesmen wasted by the wayside; probably the lineal de- scendants of the c 'publicans and sinners" with whom Christ the QUAKTZ. 89 Saviour used to talk, or, at least so it reads, was accused of it by the righteous Pharisees; and of such was Alexander Crowder, formerly of various other localities, but now a resident of the new and thriving camp yclept Mountain Brow. At the Head Quarters was held the first meeting to raise a fund to institute a school and prepare the way toward establishing that insti- tution in a permanent school-house; because, by the school laws passed by the keen legislators of the State of Silverado no public money for school purposes could be obtained by any camp until the "said camp shall institute and support a school, of not less than ten pupils of the proper age (exclusion of Indians not twenty), for a period of time not less than three months," etc. At the Head Quar- ters were taken the initial steps towards providing the camp the new town or city in mining parlance is always "the camp" with a supply of good water and for the creation of a volunteer fire company, of which latter, by the way , Alexander Orowder was unanimously elected foreman. At the Head Quarters the Central Committee of both our great political parties met each committee on a different day in the week, however to plant the seeds of national dispute and presidential fervor along the advancing highway of "our glorious institution^." Here the night-flying orator was wont to point out the dangerous rocks of national navigation in tones of unmistakable alarm supple- mented by the soothing scintillations of patriotic promise and political hope. Whoop la ! The stars and stripes shall wave over a country that must be saved. The little springs of far-off mountain-bowed po- litical power shall borrow the white-souled purity of the shining snows, and in the glad dance of the sparkling fluid follow the music of the mountain stream down and away to where the great river of our political power bears upon its bosom the commerce of a world and the hopes of all mankind. (Cheers, but no note taken of the miner who mutters, "'cept the dam Chinaman.") At the Head Quarters which gradually come to be known as "Crowders" was preached the first sermon from any Protestant preacher at Mountainbrow; though the Catholic Padre bad been around first as be usually is in such places to look after his flock and get the Church's dutiful "divvy" on theyoung'prosperity. The reason the Protestant preferred to preach at Crowder's was 40 QUARTZ. partly owing to the fact that the Head Quarters was the building in camp best adapted to congregational purposes; but mostly, it was surmised, because Crowdev, out of the abundance o. his mountain experience, was too wise to permit the smaller games of gambling to be carried on under his roof. He rather contented himself with private poker and faro rooms at the back end, with billiards in all styles, in the bar-room and social cribbage in the corners. So, when Brother Magath dropped into the Head Quarters on a wintry Sunday forenoon, the house was full, the billiard balls clicked their way through the pool-pine, the game-keepers cried the score, the glasses clinked at the bar from time to time as the hearty "here's to us" preceded the usual imbibation: and the string band of three, with the cornet player, behind the piano and the heavy German pianist (male, of course) discoursed musical gems from the composers of all lands. The musicians were pres- ent out of regard (financial) to the day of the week. Sunday is a fine large day all over Silverado. Upon this scene entered Brother Magatb, and modestly waiting for an opportune moment to catch Mr. Crowder's ear approached the highly polished bar-board in front of that worthy fluidical dis- penser who instinctively looked the preacher interrogatively in the eye and "set up" a glass tumbler. "Ah, no-ah ! Not anything to drink; thank you." Growler put out the cigar- box. "Thank you; but I'm not a smoker. Excuse me; but I merely wished to talk to you in private a moment." "Want to strike me for a piece?" and Crowder opened his money drawer. "Broke, I 'spose ! How much ?" "No, sir, I want no money." "Well, what do ye want ? Spit it out." "I want permission to preach a sermon in this room this after- noon at 2 o'clock sharp. That's all I want." "Want to preach h'yer?" "Yes, sir!" "Well. That'll depend on what the boys say. I've no objec- tion, myself." "Would you be good enough to announce it to them, and let us hear what they say about it ?" QUARTZ. 41 "Well, I'm not much on the announce but Til try it a whack," he walked to the outer end of bis long bar and in a big voice said "See yer, boys. I want ye to lissen." The games and the noise consequent upon them gradually sub- sided. Pool-players dropped the butts of their cues to the floor and stood at rest the music of the band lapsed into silence. "This gent wants to preach and pays us the compliment by sayin' its the most respectable place in camps for his business; an' I've told him I'd leave it to you fellers." "When d's he want to preach? Bight away, now?" said a tall cue-holder. "No; this afternoon at 2 o'clock. What d'ye all say? Preach or no preach ?" "Preach of course. D'ye 'spose we're dam heathens ?" gaid one. "Preach ! why cert'nly," said another. "Of course," assented another. Brother Magath whispered to Crowder. "But he wants ye all to attend. Will ye do it?" "You bet we will," said the tall man turning to take the shot he had omitted, and added, "give him a drink and charge it to me." When Brother Magath appeared in the Head Quarters, promptly at 2 o'clock, P. M., he found the billiard tables draped in their white night-clothes, the bar and its bottle-holding shelves clothed in similar attire, the musicians dispersed and the audience silently, though a little uneasily, waiting for him. He took his stand behind the piano using that musical furniture as a sacred desk, and thereon, as a "sport" phrased it, "spread his tricks to buck against the devil" which "tricks" consisted of a Bible, a hymn-book and a white linen pocket-handkerchief. Then first, as was his custom, he read a hymn, but before, the reading he remarked: "Gentlemen, among my misfortunes, one of the greatest is that I have no ear for melody and no talent for singing; I shall therefore, be compelled to call upon any person who can sing to raise the tune for the lines I am about to read. "Am la soldier of the Cross, * A follower of the Lamb ? QUABTZ, And shall I fear to own his cause, Or blush to speak his name ? Are there no foes for me to face; Must I not stem the flood V Is this vile world a friend to grace To help me on to God ?j Sure I must fight if I would reign ; Increase my courage Lord; I'll bear the toil, endure the pain , Supported by the word." "Part of the seven-hundredth hymn; common metre; please sing/' There was a deep and depressing silence that followed the spirited reading of these martial lines broken at first by no sound save the low whisper in which one miner conveyed his idea into the ear of an- other, thus: "I think the parson's dead game there's a heap o' sand in the hymn." "Cannot some one raise the tune ? Surely there are several per- sons in this room whose early training and musical talent fits them to sing these sacred lines." "What is the tune?" "Unfortunately I cannot remember that either, but it is a very common one," and still he stood with his book in his hand open be- fore him as if supplicating some one to come forward and take it away; but the tune did not arise. "Where's them doggonned musicians gone to ? They'd ort to be able to h'ist 'er up," said a new voice. "What duz a dura Dutch musical cuss know about hymn-singiu'?" exclaimed another. Here the front door of the saloon was thrown open, wafting into the room a sharp breath of the winter air: "Hello ! There comes Wash White an' he's a reg'lar camp-meet- in' psalmist. Yer Wash, come in an' h'ist the tune." Wash took a hasty stare about the ro^ni as he closed the door be- hind him and aslfed: QLAETZ. 43 "What the hell's up?", "H-u-u-s-sh. This's meetin'." '^'Miner's meeting ?" "No; prar meetin*. Church. Religion. Ye dam fool, don't ye know nuthiu' pious !" "I-o-h. Whew !" responded Wash as he eyed the preacher and took in the invitation, "Yes, my friend," said Parson Magatb still holding the open book in his hand, "we desire to sing a few lines pieparatory to a continu- ance of Divine worship and we are waiting for some one to voice the music. "What is the hymn \" asked Wash. "Am I a soldier of the cross," began the preacher to read, but was interrupted by Wash continuing "A follower of the Lamb ? And shall I fear to own his cause Or blush to speak his name ? o' course I can sing them lines like a licensed exhorter. I was brought up on that music. My ole dad used to fold his arms of a Sunday morning an* walk up and down singing them lines till hell howled an' Satan shook in his irons. But if I start the tune I want all hands to chip in an' jine the uproar an' I don't want no squ^akm' nor no half-mouthed mumblin'. Go ahead, parson; line 'er out." Brother Magath once again read the initial stanza Wash, with a voice trained from infancy to "revival" airs, launched boldly out upon the melodious stream, and at first, was assisted in a wavering way; but at length the crowd, seeing and hearing that he was fully equal to the occasion, joined in with a will and boomed the lines, couplet at a time, as Brother Magath, smiling blandly, delivered them. For up and down the hills the echoes sped bearing with them the true spirit of the Soldiers of the Cross. It was an able-bodied noise not devoid of a rude spirit of harmony. After the singing Brother Magath nodded his thanks to Mr. White and proceeded with the subsequent spirituality, the general tenor of which was that, whatever might be a man or woman's place in this life it was a duty, and ought to be a pride and a pleasure, for such person to do that duty boldly, cheerfully, respectfully and firmlj 7 for 44 QUAETZ. righteousness sake; "nor God, nor man, nor devil loves the coward or the quitter." "Them's my sentiments/' said Mr. Crowder, and Brother Magath wound up the exercises with a fervent short prayer. "Three cheers for the parson, Hip, hip, Hurray !" and the cheers were given with a will, while Crowder disrobed the bar, the bottles and glasses. "Come down," exclaimed a short active man. "Come down handsome in the contribution box/ 1 and he went about through the crowd extending his hat to everybody. "'Taint no real genoowine church 'thout a kerleckshun. Parsons kaint live on chin enny niore'n other folks. Come down !" and while the hat grew heavy with silver, the imbibations went on all around, and in the midst Brother Magath was receiving hand-shaken congratulations, also refusing numerous invitations to participate. "There she is, parson" said the volunteer collector "salt 'er down/' and he placed his heavy hat on the nearest billiard table. "Gentlemen, this is, indeed, very kind of you and I hope God will bless this gift in my hands to his own great uses; and I pray that you may gather again, tenfold, this bread thrown upon the waters," all the while as he talked, loading his light pockets with heavy coin. Then at last, he politely returned the hat to its owner, bid bis unique congregation an effusive farewell and went out upon his way rejoicing. Again the games went forward, the instrumental music resumed ita sway and, sorry to say it, Wash White, proud of his opportune assistance was fast approaching the meandering edge of inebriation. And so ended the first lesson. Were these seeds of salvation, sown by the wayside, lost all lost? Who shall say? Is the vim of good in the evil of Nazareth worked out ? Qmen sabe ? CHAPTER THREE. AT CROWDERS. I was sitting in the saloon to-day reading the papers when a man about fifty years old a heavy man, stout, stooped and hard-handed, came in with a kind of weaving, slouchy gait, having hie hat in one hand and an empty smoke-pipe in the other. He stopped in the middle of the floor, gave a sort of goggle-eyed gaze around the room, swung his body with the sweep of a weak old willow in the wind, slapped his hat on his head pretty well over his eyes, put the stem end of the empty, short pipe into his mouth and pushing his hands down into his breeches pockets, took a weaving step forward and said: "H're ye, Crowder, old b-hoy! 5 ' Crowder stood behind his bar with a napkin polishing that perpet- ual tumbler, but made no reply. T The man took another nearing step forward toward the bar, paus- ed and said: "1 say, h're ye, Orowder? Can you s peek t feller? A^hVr putt-in' on dog wi' me for?" "How are you, Daniel!" said Crowder. "you look sleepy, you'd better go and take a big sleep." "A'r right. I'm go'n to whe'r ge'r ready, no t b'fore." "Better take a spin around the square, then," suggested Crowd- er, still polishing the tumbler. "No z-sir," and proceeding to pull up a chair by my side, he added: "I'm goner talk sense to the old boss here." "That's a man of family, Dan. If you want to talk some one to death, go hunt up a single man. What'll his wife say when she sees his corpse?" Dan saw the old joke even through the fumes in his brain, and, looking at me, smiled one of those twisted smiles which are not to be described. Then he sat down on the chair, threw his hat on the floor at his feet, commenced in a fumbling way to fill his pipe, and said: "Crowder's g-ome! Knows been on a bu9t! A as all right. Crowder 's 'noil friend use't wore 'gether in 'noil TVollomme." -V 1 -/.--' ' 46 v jf . > QUARTZ. While Daniel was fishing up from the depths of his vest pocket tobacco fine-cut, pinch by pinch, between his work -calloused thumb and finger, and boozily crowding it down into his pipe-bowl, nothing was said; but Crowder looked at me then at Daniel, as much as to inquire if I was being badly annoyed. Seeming to see that as yet 1 was not, he continued to gaze out in the sunny street, as he ntood erect with that ever-active tumbler and napkin in hand. Daniel, after finally filling his pipe, hunted throughout all his pockets twice over, and then said to me: "Boss, got'r match?'' I gave him a lucifer match. "Boss, you're a gem-man! Don't put on dog." Then fixing the match perpendicularly between his thumb and finger, he raised his right thigh at an angle of forty -five degrees, and rapidly drew the match from the hip forward toward the knee over the woolen pantaloons, until it snapped and blazed into a light, as he brought it around with a single motion immediately over the tobacco in the pipe that was in his mouth. Silently puffing away until his dim senses were satisfied with the result, he proceeded to address me upon the subject that was uppermost in his mind. Why he should have desired to tell me what he did, seeing that I was a stranger to him, I know not. Who, indeed, can know the uncon- Hciouy impulse that intoxication starts in the brain? Disrobed of its inebriate blur here is what be said to me: "Yes, Crowder knows Old Dan ! We used to work together and cabin together in California. The last place we were at was in Tu- olumne. From there we came over in the Washoe excitement to Yirginia City, in Nevada Territory, and that's where Crowder left, me and went to selling whisky. Crowder can sell whisky, he can; but I can't. What do you suppose is the reason I can't sell whisky, eh, boss?" "Well, really, I can hardly say." "Did you ever read Shakespeare, boss?" "Yes, in a scattering way." "Look here," said he, in a mock dramatic style, pointing first at himself, then at Crowder, "upon this picture and this ! That's the reason I can't sell whisky." "I think I see it." "All right, boss ! I left Virginia City and went north to Montana; and kepi going north until I could nearly see the top of the north QUARTZ. 47 pole. Then I roamed around again and got away down into Arizona, and New Mexico; and from there went to New Granada in South America, where there is more trees and roots and vines and bushes and brambles and snakes and bats and spiders and bugs and things than you ever saw to the acre in any country and rains; je-e- whillikens ! Why, it rains there down and up and cross-legged. Then from there, I worked away further down into South America and back again, like a walking bag o' bones, into California. But California wasn't like home any more, so I weaved my way back to Washoe to hunt up my old paid . I was flat broke, and wanted to strike him for a stake. Crowder always opens out when I strike him for a piece. Eh, Crowder, ain't that so?" "Yes, Daniel, such is the fact so long as I've got a cent." "But my old pard was gone. I wasn't able to work a lick; so I rustled aronnd among the ole-time boys, and they came out, and kept a-coming out to me, until I got onto my working pins again; got a job saved up, paid 'em all back and put out again . And ncrw I've worked round through Colorado, part of Arizona, and all of eastern Nevada, and here I am, flat broke." "What was the point in all this traveling ?" "Gold, sir, gold. Placer diggings, with gold in 'em. Ah, God! give me once more the old days of placer diggings ! I don't care if I find it on the middle line of the equator, where the sun will cook eggs on the top of a fellow's hat or I don't care where it is. That's all I ask just once more." "How does it come that' you didn't get a better advantage of it when you had it?" "Boss, that's what my lawyer called a leading question. Ain't it the scripture says 'every soul knowethits own sorrow?' " "I think is is in the scriptures, or ought to be," said I. By this time, he began to speak much more plainly, and to the point. He put bis pipe into his pocket, and throwing his legs over the arm of the chair that was next to mine, he asked me : "Did you ever look into the face of twelve mea for three days in- side of a court-house, while a lot of lawyers were pulling and hauling over a case, and your own life was the interesting subject of discus- eion ?" "No; I can't say that I have." 48 QUARTZ. "Did you ever marry a girl in the old States, and coine to Cali- fornia, and work in the water, underground, and every way, like a wild working machine, to make money for her and one little gal baby; then be tried on a d m false charge of murder, and get clear by spending half you'd made; and go home with the other half to her, only to find out that she had thro wed off on you, and that the law back there wouldn't give you your own child ?" There was a fierceness in his expression that drove away entirely the drunken look, as he paused in his link of interrogation. "No, my friend, I'm thankful to say that I have never passed through such a trial as that," I replied. "Well, you may be thankful. Fve gone through all of that. Ain't that so, Crowder?" The saloon-keeper, as business was dull during the sunny summer afternoon, leaning on his white-shirted elbows over the counter, pa- tiently watching Dan in his increasing earnestness, went back to his tumblers, simply saying, "Such are the facts, Daniel." "Now, boss, there is nothing underhand about me. I'm up and up, on the square, all the time. I never cheated any man, or woman, or child, or Indian not even a Chinaman. I never went forward to hunt a fight, nor backward to get out of one; and I don't think that I ever thro wed off on a pard , or left a debt behind me in all my travels that I didn't pay. How's those statements, Crowder, are they true ?" "The man who says they are not true is no friend of mine, Daniel." "There, now, boss! I'm drunk, you see, but he ain't; and he'll tell you if I strike the wrong lead, or go off on a spur. Now, what I want to know, and want you to tell me if you know, is, why it is, when a man wants to do the square thing, and does about do it, that he has such infernal luck?" "Indeed it is hard to say. Perhaps you, being strong yourself, were severe upon others who were weak-spirited, and sternly de- manded of them to stand up against all odds when they were not able, and sneered at them for weaklings, when they failed in courage and endurance, thereby raising up against you numerous weak but silent and busy enemies. Such things have been, and such may be your case." "No; I think you must out there boss, that's too preachery. I QUARTZ. 49 never meddled with other people. I went about my own business." " Very true, no doubt; and you, perhaps, left all other people, save a very few, to think they might go to hell for all you cared. Whereupon, these small people hunted for the weak place in the strong man's arme, and found it; because there always is a weak place." He threw his legs off the arm of the chair and stretched them out to full length, with his boot heels resting on the floor, reached down for his hat, put the hat on his head over his eyes, put his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and plowing his heels along the floor slipped as far down into his chair as its form would permit, and in that posture remained silent for some moments, while Crowder, with oae elbow on the end of the bar-board, partly pursued a newspaper, but mostly eyed his friend. I was about to resume my reading, when he threw one of his legs over the other, with a heavy thump of his heel on the floor; then, thrusting his hand into his breast coat-pocket, he drew forth a letter, handed it to me without moving his hat off his eyes or further chang- ing position, and said: "Read that out loud to Crowder and me." Baltimore, Md., July 10, 1864. MY DEAR PAPA: Oh, my dear papa, mother is dead, and I am living with uncle John ! Mother died about a year ago, as I wrote to you about, but never got any answer, and her husband has gone away in the war, and uncle John says he thinks he is dead, too, for he saw it in a newspaper that a man by the same name was killed in Luray Valley. Fni working along with Mrs. Ellicott and her daughter Mary, making soldier clothes at the factory. Uncle John was thrown out of work at Harper's Ferry when the arsenals were burnt down, and he has been working wherever he could get work, mostly in the car factory for the Baltimore and Ohio, but he is going now to Pittsburg to work on government wagons, because the rail- road is all torn up by the war, and, oh, dear papa, Uncle John is poor now and I will have to go with him, or else stay here with strangers. Do let me come and live with you. I have got fifty dollars saved up to come to you and, oh! dear good papa, do let me come. It is so lonesome here except for Uncle John, and now he is going away; and we do not know what minute Baltimore may be 50 QUARTZ. burnt to ashes, and there are so many soldiers here coming and go- ing all the time, and marching and dramming that it is not a bit like the nice, old place you took me to see when you came home here once before the trial, and when mother took me away. Do let me come, papa. I'm a big girl now, and can work and help you if you haven't got much money, and I do want to see my own, dear father, and be with him all the time. I read in the papers all, every single word I can find, about California and Nevada Territory, and sometimes I am so afraid that you will get killed in the mines, and T will never eee my dear papa any more. Do let me come to you. Oh, please do. Uncle John gays it is not a fit place for me out there, because it is so rough, but I do not care; 1 can stay wherever my papa can and 1 will, too, if you will let me. I wrote to you a long, long letter all about mother's death, and about how the money you left for me in Alexandria is lost, because Mr. Smith has gone to Richmond with the Confederates. Uncle John eays may be it is not lost, because Mr. Smith is an honest man and your best friend; but I hear that everything at Richmond will be lost and I think it must be, because the Federal soldiers are just swarming into Virginia. Uncle John says our nice home in Alexandria is a total ruin. Mr. Smith was very good to me and sent me to school and told me to learn everything, because you liked yonr people to be ed ucated , and I did try to learn as well as I could when I was at school, and Mrs. Ellicott says I am the best needle-woman and know more ab^ut a eewing machine than any girl in the factory. Papa, if you will let me come and live with you, I will be the best girl I can, and never give you any trouble if I can help it, because my poor, dear papa has had trouble enough. Now, papa, do answer this letter soon, and let your poor, only, lonesome daughter know how you are and if you are well, and if I may come and be with you . God bless you, my dear papa! No more at this time, from your affectionate daughter, CALIFORNIA CALVERT. Without saying a word, I handed the letter back to Dan, who was mopping his eyes under his hat, never having altered his position during the reading; while Crowder, with one foot on the lower round of Dan's chain, had stood listening with a sad face. QUARTZ. 51 Dan took back the letter, replaced it in his breast coat pocket, and springing to his feet, dashed out of the saloon, exclaiming in a husky, choking voice : "I'm the damnedest old fool in the world!" He was gone, and Crowder said, partly to me and partly to him- self: "That's what's the matter with him!" "Singular character, your friend seems to be," I remarked. "Well, no; he's not so singular only a little odd just now. As a general thing he's one of the levelest-headed men in the mountains; but he's been on his gin for two or three days an unusually long drunk for him and I could see something bothering him ever since he came to this camp, now about three months." "1 should eay his home affairs are working on him." "Yes, sir," said Crowder, giving his bar-counter an extra flourish in the way of polishing it off. "That daughter a good girl she is, too, I reckon has been winding close round his tenderness, and bringing a heap of trouble on the old man's mind. That's just what he never could stand up under. Fight him buck against him, and he's all iron and steel-pointed, come under, and cotton to him, and you've got him got him, dead as a fish." "Why is ic that a letter written so long ago should just now affect him so keenly?" "Why he never got the letter, I think, till he came here to me, about three months ago. That same letter, if I ain't mistaken, has been in my trunk since it was sent to my care, while he was away in South America working for Harry Meiggs, and the devil only knows who else." "Did he not tell you of it after you had given it to him?" "No, sir; that's not his gait. I gave him a whole lot of letters when he first come, and he went away, I reckon to read them. Then in about an hour he came back, looking as solemn as an owl, and says, 'Alec, have you any money?' I said I had. 'How much?' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'a few hundred.' 'Then,' says he, 'for Jesus Christ's sake, lend me two or three hundred dollars, if you can spare it !' I gave him the money in a minute, and he never said a word to me what the matter was with him. But I know now that letter tells the tale." "-Queer idea in him to show it to me, was it not?" 52 QUARTZ. i "Well, now, do you know, I think he's been trying to get that out of himself , for my information, for two days; and after he sat down there alongside of you it just popped into his boozy old head that he could get the yarn off through you." "What is his business miner?" "Miner ! not much. He's the best general mechanic that ever gripped a hammer. There is nothing in machinery that he don't know or can't do. Did you ever notice his big, square head, and the heavy bumps right over his great wide eyebrows ? If I knew as much as there is behind them bumps, I'd shut up this gin-mill so quick people would think there was a funeral on hand . He's a poor talker with his mouth don't run much to jawbone; but he can make wood and metal say his say, like a poet and a philosopher. Humph ! no wonder his girl can get away with all the points on a sewing machine." "He seems to be a man of big feelings and a bitter sense of wrong. ' ' "Yes, sir. Inside of him he's the biggest- feeling man you ever eaw. It cuts him to the raw to have a man deceive him, and it cuts him deeper to have any one suspect him of trying to go back on any- thing; and when you cut him lift don't heal up by licking his wounds with his tongue. He can't talk away his trouble, as some can." "I have noticed the same trait in other mechanics, particularly those who have to do with steam-boilers. Steam is an exacting master, who will^not be put off with a lick and a promise. Such work must be honestly done, in the smallest details, or the results are disasters which ought to be called crimes." "Well, that's Dan! Anything that's not done to a hair correct worries him like a ghost; but when he puts his finish on a matter, and gays 'that's all right/ then it's off his mind. What's worrying him now is that girl, after he'd fixed for her, being thrown out by the war." "Ah! he has found out that when a government gets into trouble, even private affairs will not stay fixed." "I suppose so," said Crowder, whose instincts as a publican prompted him to avoid drifting into matters political. CHAPTER FOUR. STRICKEN. Daniel Calvert hottest old Dan is dead. Urowder still dishes tip the drinks for the convivial parties who come and go in front of him; but the effort he puts up lo wear a smiling face only make us, who know of the shrouded sorrow that lies prostrata across th e threshold of his heart, all the more sensitive to his bereavement. We are a rude set of fellows little schooled in the pretty ce.mbin- ations of crape, and rose-wood grief and we don't know how to speak glibly the sadly-rounded sentences of symbolic sorrow for our depart- ed brother whom "It has pleased an all-wise God to take from our midst; 3 ' but if you think we do not sympathize with Crowder, for he was Crowder's pard, you ought to have been present when Dan died, and when, without preacher or prayer-book, we buried him we, a little squad of men only on a lonely knoll among the sage- brush at noon-tide, when the sun was painting shadows of the trees upon the crags. You see, the way of it was, something got the matter with the patent pump on the big mine of the Silver Cup Com- pany, and they sent for Dan to come there and see- if be couldn't find what ailed it and fix it. So Dan went out, and the next thing we heard was that he was fatally hurt. Crowder got one of the boys to look after the saloon, and taking Dr. Duugleson and myself with him, hurried to Dan's bedside. On our arrival in the wild little camp up among the rocks and crags of a steep canyon, we found a few log and rough stone cabins clustering around the boarded-up frame of the hoisting-works and the company boarding-house; and in one of these little log cabins, with a mud roof and a dirt floor, lay old Dan, mashed up but still alive, upon a bunk made of peeled cedar-poles, He had his senses; and when he saw Crowder before him, his eyes locked the welcome which his paralyzed hands Gould not extend, and the tears came big and fast down upon the coarse pillow. Strange, strong men were there, going in and out, and the big nails 54 QUARTZ. in their heavy boots made queer pictures in the dust of the dirt-floor; but there was no noise, no useless fussy moving about only quiet, patient attention. They had kept constant guard over him for two nights, with that aching suspense that waits, not knowing what better to do, and watches wounded life, and listens for the Doctor's wheels among the echoing aisles of mountain crags. As the Doctor went forward and bent over Dan's prostrate body, the men formed unconsciously a new circle behind him their beads only a few inches from the low roof and looked and listened, each chest heaving with silent, suppressed breathing, until the Doctor said; "There is not enough air in this place/' Then, instantly and quietly, each man left the little room to stand outside and whisper, or gaze reflectively down the bank upon the willows in the canyon, until the Doctor came out. No one asked any questions, but, as the Doctor looked in the face of each and then shook his bead in the face of all, they knew for certain that which they nearly knew before. Crowder did not come out; but I, as in some degrees his backer in this case, went immediately in and found Dan's old pard sitting by his bedside, upon one of those clumsy wood- en stools so common in mining camps. We were silent for some moments, when Dan, poor fellow, as stoutly and cheerily as he could, lid, "Boys, my driving power is a total wreck. I'll never get up steam again." Nobody responded. Nobody knew any true word suitable for re- sponse, and death will not accept a flattery. f 'Crowder, old pard, you needn't introduce me to this gentleman. I couldn't offer him my hand, but I know him I saw him once be- fore and I'm glad to see him again; but if he'll excuse me a little while, I've something to say to you." * 'Certainly, certainly, Mr. Calvert ! I'm glad to see you again that is, I would be glad if I wasn't so sorry," said I in a confused way, as I left the cabin ; while Dan replied : "Thank you, sir. It's a mixed case." I don't yet know what took place between Dan and his old pard. Perhaps I never will know. But I left them there, and after stand- ing outside among the boys for awhile, talking about how the staging or scaffolding gave way and dropped Dan to the bottom of the QUABTZ, 55 shaft, I said, through the doorway, to Crowder, that I would be back presently, and went by their invitation up to the mine, to be showed how it all happened, and to be told that no one would have supposed that such a thing could happen so singularly surprising is often the last summons, and yet that it did happen. After it had all been explained to me, I met the Doctor at the mouth of the mine, and asked, as much for the relief there is in say- ing something, as for any other purpose. "Doctor, is there the least show for your patient?" "Not the slightest, sir. He may linger till morning. Let me see" and taking out his watch, he added, "it is now twenty minutes past four he may linger till morning. The reaction has set in, but there is nothing to react on. His light will soon burn out. But he may linger till morning linger, linger till morning, sir." And the doctor walked away, kicking the broken particles of rock in front of him, as studious men sometimes do when they have run against a disagreeable moral certainty. I went down the trail repeating to myself, "linger till morning, sir linger till morning" and sat down on the rough wash-bench which is found always outside a miner's cabin, beside the door. I could hear the low mutter of indistinguishable words from within, as I sat gazing upon the ragged, gnarled, and cheerless mahogany trees that maintained an arid foothold in the jagged seams of the opposite side of the canyon, while the white wandering fleece-clouds came and went across the dry blue opening of the sky, between the mountains, overhead; but there still kept throbbing in my mind the dull, sad chorus of death "linger till morning, sir, linger till morning." At length Crowder came to me where I sat by the door, and said, in a low voice and subdued manner: "Go in and stay with him; he won't last long. Beginning to wander in his mind. I must go up to the mine and see the superin- tendent." "Certainly," I replied, and stepped inside the cabin. Dan, being so crushed by his fall that he could move neither hand nor foot, made no demonstration further than to show by his expressive face that he recognized me. I sat beside him on the stool and gave him such at- tention as his sad case would permit. Presently he said: "That time I was tight in the saloon you remember you read a 56 QUARTZ. letter for me. I have not tasted a drop since; I was getting along first rate. I've had two letters from my little girl since." There he paused a long pause and, not having the use of his hands, I had cause to assist him with a handkerchief about his eyes. "I had hopes of going to see her this coming winter, but but " He paused again; I laid my hand upon his forehead, and found it hot and throbbing. Talking more to himself than to me he continued: "Poor girl ! poor girl ! no, not little now. That's good that's good not little. A woman my daughter; my daughter a woman. Good woman, too; writes like a good woman no humbug no frills head level. Give me some water, Cally. Throat dry and hot as Death Valley. Yes, yes, Death Valley but I didn't mean that, Cally. No, no. If I'm going of course I'm going I'll not whine. I'm ready, ready, don't cry, Cally no use. Got to be, you know got to be ." Then he remained silent again, but soon resumed in a wilder key: "Hot! Johnson, there'll bean earthquake. Everything is hot and close and still be an earthquake, sure. Look out ! There she goes! Didn't I tell you! We'd better get out of this this shop will comtt down. All right, Johnson, old boy; we're a heap better out of that. Here she goes again ! That was a bumper ! Look I look, the Spanish running into that stone cathedral ! Why, d n 'em, that's no place in an earthquake; it'll come down, sure ! Now she goes again whoop ! it makes me sweat like a horse. How do you stand it, old boy?" Evidently he was away in South America, going again through scenes of terror with that queer compound of courage and curious ob- servation go common to our countrymen . After another pause the scene changed with him. "Johnson, there's a storm upon us a terrible storm. Let's put the blankets over the hut and fasten them down, for it's coming coming fast. Hark ! don't you hear the thunder over the tree-tops? It's going to be a hell of a night. If we're alive in the morning we'll bid New Granada good-bye. Now she comes ! Don't you hear that panther howl ? Listen ! yell, old fellow, you'll get a drenching . Whew ! how it pours ! Tie the blanket down, Johnson let's keep dry if we can it'll be cold here before morning getting cold now." Thus he continued from scene to scene of his varied life, until QUARTZ. 57 Crowder came and desired me to go to supper. Leaving Dan still muttering, but weaker and weaker each moment, I went; and when I returned again he was silent not dead, but collapsed and surely dy- ing. The boys of the day shift, being off work, came and went; and, among the rest, Dan's spirit went but came not, for before midnight he was cold and dead. The saw and plane and hammer of the carpenter of the mine gnawed, squeaked and rang bueily for hours in the night; then all was still as the man who lay roughly clad in the new-made coffin, gave the regularly recurrent spells of coughing of the engine, as with a rapid che-ch-ch-ch she raised the car of rock from the depths be- low. A short sleep for all except the watchers by the narrow-box, and morning dawned bright, clear, warm, and dry. Quietly and stead- ily we arranged for the funeral, without ceremony or officious man- nerism. Not a hammer clinked upon the head of any drill not an explosion of blasting powder to reverberate into a roar amidst the naked, rocky peaks all silent or that silence disturbed only by the low, slow throb of the pumping engine of the mine. When the sun was up full and round, we brought forth the un- painted, unvarnished, undraped, and unplated, heavy box, and by the aid of a hundred willing and able hands, passed it down the nar- row trail over the rocks to the wag on -road, that winds with the fee- ble stream of willow -fringed water out of the canon, into the dry waste of the valley below. Voluntarily, without command, we moved onward and downward; not toward the grave-jard, but toward the grave, wherever that might be, among the sage-brush of the foot-hill, where never before had a grave been made. Six at a time, strong men relieved each other for a distance of two mile?, and the regular tread of iron-shod heels crunched, crunched the gravel underfoot the only music of the march. Then we rested a moment to drink where the road leave? the stream as it winds directly out upon the hills. Heretofore this had been a cheerless, sombre funeral; no hit of color brighter than black, brown, and gray; no gaudy female head- gear; no glitter of coach- varnish; nothing but the subdued (strength of brawny men, clad in the useful colors of respectable labor, march- 58 QUARTZ. % ing silently between the everlasting rocky walls of the canon, to the echo of their own firm feet and the tinkling treble of the stream. But now, as we took up the load to move forward for another and last mile, the six Cornish miners who carried the corpse were accompan- ied by a seventh with a book in his hand; this seventh, placing him- self in front of the coffin as we started, opened his book as he walked, and read aloud two lines of the burial hymn of his home people. Reading these lines aloft with a clear, ringing voice, he chanted as he marched, and was joined in the chant by as many of his country- men as were in the procession. Thus reading and singing, we marched our way slowly out of the canon, leaving the echoes flying and dy- ing behind us. Arrived at the grave the grave alone in the desert (and many, in many deserts, such there are) we found the native Indians, drawn by emotionless curiosity, gathered in a picturesque and tattered group of men, women, children, ponies and dogs, at a short distance from the two miners who awaited our coming, leaning on their shovels by the fresh -turned earth. Slowly and steadily we lowered the coffin and settled it firmly in its place; and there being no ministers, no ceremony, no near rela- tions to cast the last tearful look into the open earth, the shovels were grasped by skillful hands and in the briefest space the final work would have been over, had not one of our number, doffing his hat, said "Gentlemen." Instantly the shovels stopped in the gravel, and all heads were bared to the sun and sky. "Gentlemen: In the absence of all customary funeral services, it may not be amiss in this case if I say a few words words not of balm to wounded hearts words not of religious comfort; but words to indicate that however far we may be from the cradles of civiliza- tion, we still bear in our hearts the elements of that civilization which distinguishes our people from the wild man who now holds us under the observation of his untutored eye. "There is another land, known to some of us, which, though kindred to this? where we now stand and shadowed by the same bright flag, is not, as this is, a waste of wilderness. In that land, where the great forests of many trees and the wide prairies of gras* and flowers are nourished by generous and mighty rivers, this our QtARTZ. 59 dead, now in the open grave was born; and there he learned, at his mother's knee, not only the common prayers, too easily forgotten, but the humanity and kindliness of man to man, which endures through life, and is best represented in sickness, death and burial. nie years ago this friend of mine never mind his name was a bright, intellectual young man, who had just reached his majority. Buoyant with energy, health and a firm self-reliance, it seemed to him and his friends that life must be a success. But never mind sen- timent; a tramp's camp is not exactly the place for that, anyhow. He left Lake City, Nevada county, one autumn afternoon, on foot for Nevada. It was after the first rains, and the roads were a little muddy and the streams somewhat swollen. Near the top of the hill f 68 >1EA CULPA. just before he began to descend to the South Yuba, a deer ran across the road. He took out his revolver and fired at it, but it bounded on. He walked on down the grade, building many a castle in the air, until within less than a quarter of a mile of the river he suddenly came across a man lying in the road, dead. He took hold of him, and found that while there was no pulse, the body was still warm. If you ever traveled on that road you will remember that there is a water trough in a little ravine that crosses the road about a quarter of a mile from the river. It was not over fifty miles from this that the man lay. My friend went back to get a cup of water. He took the man's head in bis lap and bathed his temples, but no sign of life appeared. In doing this his pistol fell from his belt and dropped into a pool of blood, and his clothes became more or less bloody. He started on, inter ding to give the alarm at the bridge. He had not gone far when he heard the voices of men coming up the hill. For the first time he became frightened. His clothes were bloody, and he would be found alone with the murdered man. "Those men have not seen me," he said to himself, "and I will dodge out of the road and avoid observation." He had not a momei t for reflection, but climbed out of the road on the upper side, and from behind a clump of bushes saw four men pass by, and then come to a halt at the dead man. They examined him critically. Then one of them eaid: "We can do this man no good: besides this knock on the head, the ball has evidently pierced his heart. Let us capture the mur- derer. As we came up the hill I got a glimpse of a man leaving the road." My friend did not hear this then, but he heard it afterwards. They were all armed, and two of them carried Henry rifles. While he was debating with himself the propriety of going down and making an explanation, he saw the men preparing to move towards him. Two of them tied their horses and started up the bank on foot, while the other two rode down the hill where they could get out of the road on horseback. My friend then thought there was nothing else to do but keep out of the way, and he fled. For nearly half an hour he eluded their vigilance, but at last one of them got sight of him, and then a ball from a Henry rifle came whizzing past him; but he sped on down, MEA CULPA. 69 down the hill, toward the canyon below the crossing. Another ball struck the calf of his leg and crippled him, He was then captured, put upon one of the hordes and carried back toward the scene of the murder. When they arrived there the body was gone. "This fellow was not alone in the murder," said one. "He has had some accomplice who has boldly carried the body to prevent iden- tification and an inquest." They found where a man had gone down the grade towards the river, and one of them remarked that, heavy as the dead man was, he had been carried off by a single man, as but one track could be found. "It is hardly possible." said one, "that a man could carry such a weight all the way to the river, and we shall find where he has laid the corpse down to rest." As the road and river are nearly parallel at this point, it was not over a couple of hundred yards from the road to the river. It was now getting late, and twilight was coming on, but the men were re- warded by finding a pool of blood on the ground, and from there down the steep incline to the river they found where the body had been dragged and thrown over a perpendicular bank, some fifty feet high, into the rapid current below. The lateness of the hour compelled them to give up any furthe r search for what they supposed to be an accomplice of my friend, and they carried him over to Nevada and lodged him in jail. At the ex- amination before a Justice it was shown that some men working near by heard one shot at the spot of the murder; one chamber of my friend's pistol had been recently discharged. The dead man had a mark on his head apparently made with the butt of a pistol; the butt ot my friend's pistol was covered with blood. All four men identified the body as that of well, no matter about the name who had left the bridge a short time before with several hundred dollars in his pocket. My friend told his story; but no one except his mother believed it, and he was committed without bonds. As the Justice announced his judgment, my friend's mother gare one piercing shriek and fell, dead. It was a broken blood-vessel, or heart disease or something of the kind; but ehe was dead, and the prisoner was hurried to jail, 70 MEA CtLPA. and not allowed to attend his mother's funeral. She was a widow; he her only son. He languished in jail a couple of months awaiting the assembling of the grand jury, but found a chance to break jail. He skedaddled, and wandered around the country in disguise. The family of the dead man was rich and offered a large reward. I could have gotten it if I had peached on my friend, even when he was dying. During the recital of the story, the Major had been much affected, and during the latter part of it Fiske had noticed it. When he had ceased speaking, the Major sprang to his feet, strode up to Fiske and exclaimed : "Are you sure that Allen Campbell is dead? By the eternal, come what may, justice shall be done." "You are one of those sneaking, mercenary sharks in disguise, hunting for a reward, are you ? But you can take that !" The report of a pistol rang out on the evening air, the Major staggered and fell, and Jim Fiske left the camp in the direction of the river. CHAPTER II. In an elegantly furnished bed chamber a lady is sitting alone in front of a grate, in which is burning a bright wood fire; the thumb and forefinger of the right hand press either temple; a solitaire dia- mond ring, held on the middle finger by a simple band of gold, re- flects the light of the fire and adds brilliancy to the scene . Her left hand lies^ in her lap clasping a roll of manuscript, which is more or less soiled. The lady is dressed in plain black, and the rings we have mentioned are the only ornaments worn. The rain is falling in torrents, and a stormy south wind is driving it hard against the win- dow near her right side; but she hears it not, neither does she hear or see the servant when she enters and places a lighted lamp on the ta- ble on which her right elbow rests. The clock on the mantle strikes five; the pendulum swings back and forth, marking the flight of time with a monotonous tick, and once more the clear tones of the little bell announces that another hour has been added to the dead past. This woman, almost as motionless as a statue, is thinking, thinking, thinking. Several years of her life's history have passed in review, in her mental vision; a question of some moment to her has been debated, and, as the tone of the clock's stroke dies away, her fingers nervously grasp the manuscript, and she eays audibly, "I will read/' And she reads : THE MANUSCRIPT. Dead, yet living ! Dead to alia man may hold sacred on this earth; dead to family, to friends; dead to ambition, dead to hopes. Living for bitter memories, for an aimless purpose; living, in fact, because God wills the intensity of the punishment and holds back the dagger that might end it all in sweet oblivion. One may court death, aye, long for it, yet tremble at the idea of self-murder. While one may have forfeited every claim on God's goodness and mercy, and be void of all hopes for the world to c )me, yet it seems an awful thing to go before the great Judge with one's own blood on our hands. Oh, that I could be certain that death was a blotting-out of one's life; that that which we call the soul of man could end, like the body, at the grave ! How many, many times have I been tempted to follow th 72 MEA CULPA. advice of Job's wife, curee God and die; but I am here, and I suppose I must listlessly and aimlessly follow the thread to the end. Why have I commenced to write ? What purpose can it serve ? Would the pleasure or the pain predominate in writing down, just for my own eye, some of the reminiscences of the past? Pleasure ! How dare I talk of pleasure. That's a good joke. Pleasure! Dare I even hope for pleasure? For ten long years I have throttled every offort of memory to dwell on the past; but to-day, in the solitude of this wilderness,! feel an ungovernable desire to call up visions of the past. Yes, I will try the experiment. I will write me down something of the pant and destroy the paper before the eye of man can see it. Who knows? There may be a bonanza of pleasnre in it after all. Let me see. Who am I? From \vhence came I? I remember myself fir^t as an orphan boy working for $5 a month during the sum- mer, and going to the old-field school during the winter. Tho ? e were lonely days. In fact my life has been a desert, with not a single bright oasis in aU its dreary length. As a boy, I was subjected con. tinually to oppression and wrong. One year, when I was about 15, I worked for Judge Underbill. The Sundays and holidays of the autumn were spent gathering nuts, which I intended to sell during the winter to increase my little stock, so I could afford a Sunday suit of clothes. I was going to where I had them stored in an out-house, one day, when I found the Judge's wife busy removing them to her own store-room. I came by on tbe outside of the house in time to hear her little daughter say, "Oh, mamma, those belong to John." "Never mind," said the mother, "he is working for us and his time is ours." "But," persisted the little angel, "he gathered them on Sunday; then his time was his own/' Without noticing the last speech of the little one, the mother and her elder daughter walked off loaded with my property. Tbe little one God bless her ! God bless her ! tarried for a minute or so, and sobbed as though her little heart would break, and then walked off to another pirt of the elegant grounds, and began to play with the Newfoundland dog. I never told that sweet little angel what I had seen and heard, but it gave me something to live for. I worked hard; I studied bard, and the day I was twenty-one I grasped my license to practice law, signed by Judge Buckner, the closest examiner in MEA CULPA. 73 the State. For some reason I became popular. The year after I reached my majority Judge Underbill was nominated for the Assembly by the Democratic party. The county was Democratic. The Whig convention was composed principally of young men, and they put me on the ticket against the Judge. I began a canvass without any hopes of an election. I made some happy speeches. The young men of all parties began to flock around me. The old men of my party saw a chance to get even on their ancient enemy, and the can- vast? became intensely exciting. All the years since I had worked for the Judge I had been thrown more or less in companionship with his little daughter Inez I would constantly hear those noble words, "Those belong to John," and see the image of the little one weeping over my wrongs. I loved her as a superior being. Aye, I worshiped her as never Indian devotee wor- shiped his idol. I had never thought of making her my wife. In fact, while she was growing up and budding out into womanhood, I looked upon her still as my little angel. One evening, when the canvass was beginning to get very warm, I met Inez at a party. We danced together, and then somehow found ourselves out on the veranda alone. "Do you know, John," she said, as she hung confidently on my arm, "that this political contest is very unfortunate. My father thinks- that you are going to beat him, and he is furious. He looks upon it as an indignity to put a mere boy against him and then defeat him. I wish, John,, for my pake, you were out of it." "I would die for your sake, Inez," I said vehemently. "I know you would, John Henderson," she replied caressingly. "There has not been a time since I was 12 years old you would not have done that." "And how did my idol know that I bad been worshiping it all these years T "Know it! You great, big, awkward booby! You did not think I was blind, did you? Haven't I seen what was spurring you on to such extraordinary exertion ? I have seen you look happy so often when I have given you a word of encouragement or a smile of ap- proval." "And can it be possible, Inez Underbill," I said excitedly, with 74 MEA CULPA. my heart almost choking me, "that you love me, the orphan boy, without fortune or family connection?" " Why, of course I do. You did not expect I loved somebody's fortune or family connection, did you? Oh, I have been awful proud of my big, gawky, talented lover when I could see that he had set me up as his queen, high above all the world. Don't you know your first political speech, when you took the town by storm, was made entirely to me ? You were not caring a fig what anybody else thought of it. I knew by experience that I could bring you out by looks of encouragement, and I took that particular seat I there occu- pied to be able to do it. No man ever looked more searchingly back under the shadows of a sun-bonnet for tokens of encouragement, and as each smile of approval brought forth new bursts of eloquence from the boy-speaker that shook the house from center to circumference with applause, I concluded that no one ever got more encourage, ment from under a bonnet! You have your idol, John Henderson, as I have mine. People who bow to idols must expect to offer sacri- fices . Let us see which will be the truest in his worship!" u not told me all this before ?" he said. "Becuise, Joha, in the first place, I wanted yoa to get perfectly stroag before subjecting your feelings to the strain of such a discov- ery; and in the second place, Christmas, the anniversary of our dear Lord, was so nsar that I thought it fitting to give you a happy Christmas. There are others in the house besides ourselves who will acknowledge this day as the merriest and happiest Christmas of their lives u "Others, Inez? What others? Oh, yes, we have a child. O, wife, tell me if that child is still alive.'* "1 will show you in a minute." And Mrs. Henderson went to the dx>r of another room and said: "Jennie, you can come in now. This," she continued, as the young lady appeared, "is our daughter." She had hirdly finished the sentence before he had gathered her m his arms. -~*^. 4 "Aid this is another accusing angel, "' he exclaimed, "cjme to bear wrtnee* to ray want of uunhood; oae whose young* life has been 98 MEA OULPA. robbed of its happy childhood, and whose young heart has been op- pressed wiih sadness and all through ay fault; my mo*t grievcue iault." "Why not allow me, dear papa, to be a messenger of light, if I am to be clothed with celestial attributes ?" "Ah, heve is my little Inez over again. Whatever I once made of myself was owing to the inspiration received from a little girl who looked just like you, and the great mistake of my life was in getting too far away frcm her influence. "But," he continued, putting one arm around his wife's and another around his daughter's waist, "I am yet comparatively a young man and with God's help I will wipe out all the past and will devote every moment of my life to making up to my wife and child the years of happiness of which I have robbed them/' After a little more conversation between the three, the wife re- marked that some company awaited them in the parlor, "and remem- ber," she added," "this is your house and you are the host to-day and must act accordingly." "My house, Inez! Impossible! It cannot be! I am a beggar, a tramp, a vagabond on the face of the earth ! Do not, oh, do not, say that anything is mine until I shall have an opportunity ci earning it," She putfber hand acrcss his mouth to stop further utterance, and said: "This is our merry Christmas; we must have no more such talk as that. There are further explanations to be made to-day that will satisfy you on every point." A B Henderson walked into the parlor with hie wife and daughter on either arm, a middle-aged gentleman arose to meet them. "I be- lieve, Mr. Henderson," she paid, "that you have met Mr. Stephen Bates ?" "My old client, my dear friend; the man who once raised me from the depths of despair to think something of myself. Who would have made something of me, even after I bad lost my grip, had not other unfortunate circumstances intervened. From the bottom t-f my heart, I can wish you a merry Christmas !" "You do not know yet how good a friend he has been to you,' said his wife. "But here is another gentleman waiting for an intro- MBA CITLPA. 99 Auction. Mr. Henderson, let me introduce you to Mr. Thomas Allen Campbell." "My God !" exclaimed Henderson; "can this be true? Have I, indeed , the good fortune of meeting under such auspicious circum- stances the nephew, the almost son, of the dearest and best friend I ever had?" He threw his arms around his neck and wept like a child. "Can you forgive me, Mr. Henderson, for that shot I gave you, while in the character of Jim Fiske ?" "Forgive ! "Don't anybody ask me to forgive anything ! All the hardships, all the mistakes, all this unhappiness has been brought about through my fault. It is ever with me the same refrain Mea Culpa I But let us drive dull care away, and make the merriest Christmas California ever saw !" "But here is yet another," said the wife. "Let me introduce Mr. James Burns, for several years the business agent on this farm." "Oh, Miles ! You rascal ! How will T ever get even with you for toting me several hundred miles, to get me into such a scrape as this ! M '*! am thinking that if you had known as much about the place I was a-bringing you to as you do now, I should not have had such hard work of it. You were the hardest person to get anything out of I ever tried. When I told you the story of John Henderson's mur- der, and Allen Campbell's hard times, I watched you closely all the time and got but slight reward for it; but that one swallowing down of a lump in your throat gave me encouragement. I was going to follow up the Fiske story with one that would have pressed you for an in- troduction next day, had it not been for that little episode which fol- owed." "Did you know that Jim Fiske and Allen Campbell were on* and the same person ?' ' "Not until aftef the story was told and the shot was tired. Then I knew that the two men I wanted to bring together had met, and that I had not been quick enough to avoid a disastrous consequence." "I see, Miles, that you have left your brogue out in the camp with the other accouterments of the tramp. Bat there is one other person to whom I want to be introduced. Where is the old lady who nursed me so kindly ?" 100 MEA OULPA. "1 am afraid you would waut to kiss her/ 5 said the wife, "and I would be jealous. But if you will wait until lean go and pad up, and get on a wig and some paint, I will try and represent her/' "Well, I'll kiesher any way," said be, suiting the action to the word. ''Well, now/' said Jennie, "don't you want to be introduced to[the little girl who was sitting by your side when you came to yourself one day, and who you wanted to claim as your little Inez?" After a while the conversation turned upon Thomas Allen, when Allen Campbell said: "Don't you know, Mr.* Hendeson, that the fact of a monument having been erected over my uncle's grave after your reputed death puzzled me no little. I could not imagine you living yet, as with my own eyes I had eeen you dead; but I could not imagine who did it/' "Yes, I hewed that granite out with my own hands, but did not put it up for fear of discovery ; I had energy enough to hire that done." "And I," said Mr. Bates, "thought that monument an evidence that Allen Campbell was still around, and caused me to redouble my my efforts toward capturing him. All of which, I now believe, has led to gcod results." "It may be more satisfactory, both to my husband and Mr. Camp- bell/' said Mrs. Henderson, "if I should enter in to a little explanation just here. Soon after the supposed murder of my husband, Mr. Bates sent me the rest of the fee he had agreed to pay, and hence Mr. Henderson can see that he has quite an interest in the property hereabouts. In addition to this, he proposed we should jointly offer a reward of tive thousand dollars for the capture of Allen Campbell, the supposed murderer. This reward was offered by the Sheriff, Mr. Bates not being known in it, which gave him a better chance of work- 1 ing to the same end himself. Some five years ago, one Thomap C. Allen discovered and located a rich quartz claim. A company was formed and the mine was opened. Mr. Bates was interested in mining property, and became a large owner in this mine. Although the heavy beard of the man had taken the place of the smooth face of the stripling, Mr. Bates began to think that Thomas C. Allen and Thomas Allfn Campbell were one and the same person. He communicated this to another gentleman interested in the mine, but it happened that HTEA CtTLPA. 101 this gentleman was a friend o Mr. Allen'?, and intimated to him that he was suspected, and that detectives would probably be on his track* Allen left the mine, and Bates concluded that he left because suspect- ed, and set a guard on all the avenues of escape from the State. Allen, in the guise of a tramp, fell in with my husband, and what followed they both knew. After that sad event I sent for Mr. Bates and explained to him the identity of each. We knew that Allen Campbell would not be taken alive, and we wanted to avoid a collis- ion with the officers. He went to see Allen's friend, whom he was satisfied could find him. That friend came to see me, and to satisfy him that there was no trick about, I had to show him my husband, show him the manuscript he had written, and bring Burns in to tell all that he had done, before I could get this cautious friend to agree to anything, and then he only said may be so. In a couple of days Allen called on me, and satisfied himself about the truth of the mat- ter, and has since walked in the light of day, feeling lighter and hap- pier than he has felt for years. It is through the activity of Mr. Bates that we are all here together on this happy, happy Christmas Day !" "He caine near being too active for me," said Allen, "but I honor and respect him for his straightforwardness to the memory of a Friend whom he supposed dead." "And now," said Mr. Bates, "I have the strangest part of this Rtorytotell: A few days ago one Chas. Guthrie died, and on his death-bed confessed that he had instigated the murder of John Har- rison, for which I came so near suffering through a mistaken identity. He said that his man bad mistaken Harrison for John Henderson, both being known by the said name of 'Kentuckg' The object he said of getting Henderson out of the way was that he might get his wife. He then, he said, proposed a divorce to her, which she stout- ly refused, and after stealing letters from his wife to Henderson and vice versa, he concluded to have the killing job perfected, and the at- tack for which Allen Campbell was arrested was the result ?" "Mea Culpa!" exclaimed Mw. Henderson, 'it is through my fault this time. This man came to my father's house, and I treated him as a prince, the same as I have James Burcs and Mrs. Bates: but the poor man lost his mind. Let ue hopa and pray that God will not hold him responsible for his acts." 102 ME A OULPA.. The recital of this last episode threw a gloom for a few moments over the assemblage, but they all felt in a happy humor, and soon laughter, and music, ai d song reverberated through the house. This was kept up until dinner was announced , and when they had ar- ranged themselves around the table, and before they were seated, John Henderson said: "This is the first time I have ever been called upon to preside at my own family table, and as we are brought to. gether under circumstances in which the finger of God is plainly vis- ible, let us return thanks." Then with this tall form erect, and with eyes and hands uplifted, be said, "Oh, God! Thou who holdeth myriads of worlds in place by the power of Thy will, and yet who marketh the fall of the spar- row, look down upon this family and the friends assembled, on this the natal day of the Savior of the world, around this board spread with Thy bounteous gifts, and incline each heart to return thanks to Thee; and may each be so impressed with Thy Divine goodness that he may go hence strong in his faith in Thee, and an earnest soldier of the Cross/" John Henderson was master of elocution, and this simple prayer brought an earnest "amen!" from each one present. At every Christmas since the above, the anniversary of this jovial reunion has been commemorated by the Hendersons, and the same guests have met around the festive board. The name of one of them however, has longed since been changed. High chairs have to be - placed at the table for the grand children, and Mrs. Allen Campbell has a seat by her husband. John Henderson holds that, as one can- not enjoy a good meal who has never felt hunger, so one cannot fully appreciate genuine happiness who has not seen the reverse; and he and his are reaping the benefit thus arising, by comparison, of those bitter days when in anguish of spirit he cried out: "Mea Culpa"- through my fault. f I Liz," It was midsummer in the heart of the Sierras. All the air was fall of quivering heat, which beat against the mountain side, wither- ing the petals of the wild-flower and forcing the ferns to bend their heads and drink from the clear streams that trickled down the slopes. The birds, overcome by the heat, were too indolent to fling; and only occasionally could one pee the bright wing of a blue-bird or the red breast of a robin, as it darted through the air, half eagerly, to snap at a fly asleep in the purple and white wanothies thicket . The miners put down their picks and shovels to wipe the perspira- tion from their brows, then lay down to doze under the pine shade, for it was too hot for work. They looked longingly up at Sugarloaf , whose summit, almost touching the clouds, seemed so inviting and cool. It stood, like a rock, boldly out in relief from the undulating sea of foothills covered with dry grass, and the sight was as tantalizing as the mirage of the desert to a worn traveler. The dust in the roads was yellow and thick, and when the stage made its daily entrance and exit into and from Nevada City, their leaders were obscured in a fine, penetrating mist of dust. It covered their flanks until they looked as if they were emulating the poetical bee, who "powders his wings with gold.*' It settled over the pas- penger^, until the most renowned physiognomist could not well have discovered a line of distinctive character in their dirt-grimed faces . Nevada City lies in a gorge in the mountains, a town born of the mines, and of mushroom. Men in the old days of California chiv- alry had little time to waste in architectural design, acd the cabins and houses scattered here and there were without regard to any reg- ular plan. The town was built by men who had come to work, to wreet from the earth by muscle power, their fortunes men of indomitable will and courage, who bad little time to spend on thft mere comforts of living. 104 xiz. 5 ' <, ** r All the heat was concentrated in that spot, and poured down in full vigor upon the rude cabins, scorching the leave.* of a few pre- viously guarded rosebuehes in the gardens, even exhausting the en- ergy of the hardy pioneers, who were content to sit indoors idly; while the chickens drooped about the yards, and the ducks reveled in the waters of the ravine, which were very low and muddy, for the nun had drained it almost dry, and only a shallow stream flowed over the yellow clay. While the men dozed, a young girl worked steadily, panning out dirt in the upper part of the stream, with her head bare, in the scorching sunlight. She was tall and brown. Her eyes were dark and expressive, and her rich auburn hair fell down her shoulders in unkempt profusion. Her shoulders were broad, but her face was young the face of a child, who had lived more in the years of her existence than was well for her. She looked as Joan D'Are might have looked when she knitted in the cottage of Lorraine, while France lay bleeding, and the nameless ambition was stirring in her breast. Her feet were encased in an old pair of men's shoes. There was something pitiful about the expression of those shoes, supporting her slender, bare, brown ankles, which looked too slight to bear such a weight. They were aristocratic-appearing shoes, but their original color was lost, for they were torn, patched, run down at the heel, the soles ragged; still, they had an air of gentility, as if they had seen better days. They turned up at the toes, as if they shrunk in disdain f roia their surroundings. They rolled over at the ankle, as if they shuddered at contact with bare flesh, and had been accustomed to silken hose. The tracery of arabesque patterns on their instep stood out clearly, and reminded one of Mrs. Skewton's frippery and artificial roses, after the decay of youth. Liz did not mind the shoes as she worked, although they were go large they impeded her progress, and gave her a sort of shuffling gait. She loosened the handkerchief around her throat, twisted her mass of hair carelessly on top of her head, tucked her ragged, calico dress further up from the water, and shook her rusty pan to and fro, her eyes bent eagerly in their search for particles of gold. She glanced IAZ. 105 occasionally from her work at a figure sleeping under a tree near by, which filled the air with a chorus of enores that reverberated through the mountains like distant growlings of thunder. "Well, Liz, what luck to-day ? I see the old dad is quietly snoozing. It's a burning shame you are working out in this eun. It is hotter than Hades?." She blushed, as the speaker came in view from behind a clump of manzinita bushes, but answered : "I'm sort of used to it. I can't get much blacker and poor dad's head ain't just right, you know, Dick." Dick whistled significantly, but his countenance did not express much sympathy for the aforesaid head, for he thought rightly, whis- ky and laziness were the things that were not ''just right." Dick Beech was one of the numerous crowd of young men who had drifted along with the tide in the the early days, landed in Califor- nia, and patiently sat down, waiting for fortune to come to him in- stead of troubling himself to search for her. He counted on stum- bling on a big thing some day, so despised the humble panning for gold dust, but somehow or other he always managed to obtain a share of the world's goods. A man down in Grass Valley had found a nugget as big as his fist, one day, without any eftbrt on bis part, and Dick Beech reasoned *that if the man from Grass Valley found a nugget as big as his fist, there was no reason why Dick Beech shouldn't pick up one as big as his head.' He therefore quieted his conscience by this questionable logic, and spent most of his time in waiting for the above mentioned result. He possessed a smattering of a college education, and was conse- quently looked up to as an oracle of learning by the simple-hearted miners. He had befriended "Drunken Harry,'* as Liz's father was dubbed by his associates, and so had earned her eternal gratitude. She was not accustomed to being noticed, and did not court it, for the few women in town drew back their skirts in pharisaical dismay when she pa?sed near them . The daughter of a drunkard, a giil who could shoot a deer, ride a bronco like a man, and work in the digging, was a ihing never dreamed of in their philosophy . Liz was a waif, motherless and alone, she bad nourished like a 106 LIZ. weed in rich soil, and had grown into a tall, handsome maiden, de- fiant of the laws of society and the creeds of man, "free as the moun- tain wind*," a true child of the Sierra. The mountains and her dissolute father were her sole companions. His faults were only forces of circumstance to her and she idolized him. She had been taught by an old man named Hugo who lived a her- mit's life in an old cabin, so she was not entirely ignorant. Dick Beech was a revelation to her. He belonged to a class she only saw in her dreams and while she often treated him scornfully as she did the rest, she reserved a higher place in her heart for him be- cause he had helped her father. "I'm used to the heat," she said: "I like work only there's noth- ing to pay for it to-day." "Come Liz! Your dad's asleep. Come sit in the shade. I want to talk to you. She shook her head determinedly. "I shall stay here all night, until I get something when I make up my mind to do a thing I intend to do it if it kills me." "Dear me! Heroism in calico. A new Judith a coming Portia of the Sierra!" "I'm just Liz Byrnes. No fooling, Dick Beech," she said stop- ping her work, her dark eyes sparkling, as if he had intended an in- suit. "Well," he laughed, "don't show fight. It's honorable company I placed you in." Then he stretched himgelf out full length on the dry grass idly stirring the water with a stick; and regarding Liz curiously. The sunshine brought out every tint clearly on the hillside the blue green of the pine tassels the purple brown brinks, the rich red of the manzinita wood, the gloss of the madrona leaves mingled with the emerald of the live oak foliage and the surrounding mountains reveal- ed dark against a eky of intense cloudless blue. The granite bowlders sparkled like monster diamonds in the strong sunlight which beat down upon Liz's head causing each hair to shine Mke a thread of gold. She would have well served for a model of the vestal Taccia as she LIZ. 10T raised the pan over her head to relieve her arms from their cramped constant motion. Dick Beech lay there listlessly watching, anathematizing her drowsy father but never imagining that he might relieve her for awhile. "You will have a sunstroke," he said. "I insist upon you covering your head, or I shall borrow that inverted basket from that China- man down there." "Liz, do you know that you are very pretty ?" She opened her eyes wonderingly. "You are as bad as the boys who call me names. I never looked at myself." "I wish I could paint you just as you are. Unfortunately I have never learned how. " "These duds would be pretty things in a picture," she replied touching them. Why don't you go 'long and talk to Nancy Brown? I'm busy." "Because you interest me, and she don't like you Liz, just as 1 prefer a wild flower to a cultivated one. I'ts a matter of taste. I think we were intended for each other and I love you Liz " He moved a little farther into the shade as he looked at her stead- iiy. She laughed though her heart beat fast with happiness. "I could work and you be a gentleman. I would like a man like old Hugo used to read of a knight who would fight for me, go through everything for me, die if need be and kill bears," she said merrily. "Dick, I heard about your hunt the other day. If I had had your chancel would have shot him instead of climbing a tree. I will love you on one condition: that you bring me a young grizzly for a pet." "I don't care about sharing affections, and I'm afraid the bear would be the strongest party Liz," he said suddenly. "OaeofHaiii Jones' girls is going to be married to-night. Going to the wed- ding?" It was intended as a Koland for her Oliver, she looked at him. her eyes snapping with anger. "How dare you ask me? I'm not good enongh for them. Any- way weddings are curious things. I see them dancing and kissing; in a year they fight like wildcats, then two to one they leave one an- 108 LIZ. other. It's like dad's game. Head or tails. I don't believe in weddings ." "But Liz, suppose two people love one another?" "Well Dick, what is love ?" '"That's a stunner. Oh! I don't know exactly. A sort of a a kind of a feeling when two people care for each other, and one can't live without the other. There was Abelard and Heloie, Romeo and Juliet." Liz tossed her h*ad scornfully. "I can tell you. It's always sorrow and trouble for one of them. There was the baker's Lize. She was in love and stepped round as if she was walking on eggs; but Tim married another woman and in- stead of eggs. I reckon she thought it was pretty heavy and now she is a half-witted creature. That is what love does. Don't talk to me of that nonsense. Weddings and funerals are mighty like. Some- times the first is a living death, the other a restful one." A slight breeze blew down from the summit of Sugar-loaf, stirring the pines into motion, fanning the air and creating a purer atmos- phere. The shadows of the pines were lengthening and the color of the mountain crests changing to a golden purple in the setting sun. Liz pulled down her sleeves, called to the figure underneath the tree, which grunted in reply, and, grasping a black bottle, started to its feet. The rags, unfolded, developed themselves into a resem- blance to clothes, and a man rose, blinking in the light with blood- shot eyes, and waited until Liz shouldered the pick, shovel and pan; then lazily joined her. She whispered to Dick: "Go ! Dad can't bide you. He gets in such temper sometimes, he might hurt you." Dick obediently slipped back through the thicket from which he had come. "Got anything to-day Lazybones?" he growliugly asked. "Not much, dad," Liz answered, gently; for her voice was al- ways soft to him. They walked together up the lonely pa*h to their board shanty, which stood across the ravine opposite the town, in a grove of ma- drona trees. No miner ever possessed .such a rickety, desolate old cabin as "Drunken Harry,*' and like its owner, it looked as if it wag LI*. 109 intoxicated and ou its last legs. The planks were nailed on the frame unevenly, at a tipsy looking angle; the nails were half out, as if bound for a spree, and the shingle roof was patched ia uneven heaps with cloth, hrush, odd bits of lumber and old petroleum ans, until it appeared as if it were suffering from a mild form of delirium tremens. Handsome Liz looked as much out of her place in the hovel as a queen in a stable-yard, or a yellow primrose growing out of the bar- ren rock cliffs by the sea. "Dad," said she, leading him in, "don't take any more of your medicine to-night, it makes you so cross." "Shut up ! tend to your pertatoes. This is jest the stuff that puts life into a fellow. When I feel sick or down sperited, I jest take a sip from this bottle/' patting it affectionately, "then I feel straight, and says to myself, 'Harry, you're a gentleman.' " Liz left him while he continued talking to himself in a maudlin way. She suspected the quality of the medicine but said nothing, because he was her father, the only person in the world, near to her, the only one who had spoken kindly to her during the lonesome nine- teen years she had lived in the world . The women in the town were cruel to her and avoided her as they would a crotalua on the mountain rocks, so ehe lived a strange life alone, with nature and a drunken father. She had learned the les- son of silence, and however hard she worked, however heavy her burdens, she never complained. "Dad, supper is ready," she called.