DEUERLICH sche 
 
 UCHHANDLUNG 
 in Gottingen. 
 
 f 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 3, \^ 
 
 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE THIRTEENTH OF THE RULES FOR THE 
 LIBRARY AND READING ROOM OF THE BOSTON ATHENJEUM. 
 
 "If any book shall be lost or injured, or if any 
 notes, comments, or other matter shall be written, or 
 in any manner inserted therein, the person to whom it 
 stands charged shall replace it by a new volume, or 
 set, if it belongs to a set."
 
 COLLECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH AUTHORS 
 
 TAUCHNITZ EDITION, 
 VOL. 3110. 
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS AND THE DEVOTION 
 OF ENRIQUEZ. BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME.
 
 TAUCHN1TZ EDITION. 
 
 By the same Author, 
 
 PROSE AND POETRY . . . 2 v. 
 
 Vol. I. : TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS. 
 
 (THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. THE 
 OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. MIGGLES. 
 TENNESSEE S PARTNER. THE IDYL 
 OF RED GULCH. BROWN OS CALAVE- 
 RAS. MLISS. NIGHT AT WINGDAM. 
 HIGH-WATERMARK. THE MAN OF 
 NO ACCOUNT. NOTES BY FLOOD AND 
 FIELD.) SPANISH AND AMERICAN 
 LEGENDS. (THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL 
 DIABLO. THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COM 
 MANDER. THE LEGEND OF THE DEVIL S 
 POINT. THE ADVENTURE OF PADRE 
 V1CENTIO. THE DEVIL AND THE BRO 
 KER. THE OGRESS OF SILVER LAND.) 
 CONDENSED NOVELS. 
 
 Vol. 2. : CONDENSED NOVELS. (Con 
 tinued). CIVIC AND CHARACTER 
 SKETCHES. POEMS. 
 
 IDYLS OF THE FOOTHILLS. IN 
 PROSE AND VERSE . . . i v. 
 
 GABRIEL CONROY . . . . 2 v. 
 
 TWO MEN OF SANDY BAR . I v. 
 
 THANKFUL BLOSSOM, ETC. . I v. 
 
 THE STORY OF A MINE . . I v. 
 
 DRIFT FROMTWO SHORES . i v. 
 
 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 
 AND OTHER SKETCHES . i v. 
 
 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUN 
 TAIN. A GHOST OF THE 
 SIERRAS. VIEWS FROM A 
 GERMAN SPION. PETER 
 SCHROEDER. CADET GREY i v. 
 
 JEFF BRIGGS S LOVE STORY 
 
 AND OTHER TALES . . I v. 
 
 FLIP AND OTHER STORIES . i v. 
 
 ON THE FRONTIER . . . I v. 
 
 BY SHORE AND SEDGE . . i v. 
 
 MARUJA . . . . . . .iv. 
 
 SNOW-BOUND AT EAGLE S 
 AND DEVIL S FORD . . .iv. 
 
 THE CRUSADE OF THE "EX 
 CELSIOR" iv. 
 
 A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH- 
 AND-READY, ETC. . . .iv. 
 
 CAPTAIN JIM S FRIEND, ETC. i v. 
 
 CRESSY iv. 
 
 THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW 
 
 MARSH, ETC I v. 
 
 A WAIF OF THE PLAINS . . I v. 
 
 A WARD OF THE GOLDEN 
 GATE iv. 
 
 A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS 
 AND OTHER TALES . . I v. 
 
 A FIRST FAMILY OF TASA- 
 JARA iv. 
 
 COL. STARBOTTLE S CLIENT i v. 
 
 SUSY iv. 
 
 SALLY DOWS, ETC. . . . i v. 
 A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAM- 
 
 LIN S, ETC iv. 
 
 THE BELL-RINGER OF AN- 
 
 GEL S, ETC iv. 
 
 CLARENCE . . I v.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF 
 THE HILLS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET HARTE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP," ETC. ETC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION. 
 
 ..< $! 
 
 - -*^ i V* 
 
 O j^ u -^ 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 
 BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ 
 1896.
 
 ^w 
 
 ,v
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS ...... 7 
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ 226
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was very dark and the wind was increasing. 
 The last gust had been preceded by an ominous 
 roaring down the whole mountain side, which con 
 tinued for some time after the trees in the little 
 valley had lapsed into silence. The air was filled 
 with a faint, cool, socfden odour as of stirred forest! 
 depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness 
 seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost 
 palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless 
 void now came the tinkle of a spur s rowels, the 
 dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled 
 plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and
 
 8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which, in spite of 
 its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a certain 
 mystery to, said: 
 
 "I can t make out anything! Where the devil 
 have we got to, anyway? It s as black as Tophet, 
 here ahead!" 
 
 "Strike a light and make a flare with something," 
 returned a second voice. "Look where you re shov 
 ing to now keep your horse off, will ye." 
 
 There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the 
 rustle of paper, the quick spurt of a match, and 
 then the uplifting of a flickering flame. But it 
 revealed only the heads and shoulders of three 
 horsemen, framed within a nebulous ring of light, 
 that still left their horses and even their lower figures 
 in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up 
 and died out with a few zig-zagging sparks that 
 were falling to the ground, when a third voice 
 that was low but somewhat pleasant in its cadence 
 said : 
 
 "Be careful where you throw that. You were 
 c areless last time. With this wind and the leaves
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 9 
 
 like tinder, you might send a furnace blast through 
 the woods." 
 
 "Then at least we d see where we were." 
 
 Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose tramp 
 ling hoofs beat out the last fallen spark. Complete 
 darkness and silence again followed. Presently the 
 first speaker continued: 
 
 "I reckon we ll have to wait here till the next 
 squall clears away the scud from the sky. Hello! 
 What s that?" 
 
 Out of the obscurity before them appeared a 
 faint light a dim but perfectly defined square of 
 radiance which, however, did not appear to illumi 
 nate anything around it. Suddenly it disappeared. 
 
 "That s a house it s a light in a window," said 
 the second voice. 
 
 "House be d !" retorted the first speaker. 
 
 "A house with a window on Galloper s Ridge, fifteen 
 miles from anywhere? You re crazy!" 
 
 Nevertheless from the muffled plunging and 
 tinkling that followed, they seemed to be moving in
 
 IO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the direction where the light had appeared. Then 
 there was a pause. 
 
 "There s nothing but a rocky outcrop here, 
 where a house couldn t stand, and we re off the 
 trail again," said the first speaker, impatiently. 
 
 "Stop! there it is again!" 
 
 The same square of light appeared once more, 
 but the horsemen had evidently diverged in the 
 darkness, for it seemed to be in a different direction. 
 But it was more distinct, and as they gazed a sha 
 dow appeared upon its radiant surface the outlined 
 profile of a human face. Then the light suddenly 
 went out, and the face vanished with it. 
 
 "It is a window, and there was someone behind 
 it," said the second speaker, emphatically. 
 
 "It was a woman s face," said the pleasant 
 voice. 
 
 "Whoever it is, just hail them, so that we can 
 get our bearings. Sing out! All together!" 
 
 The three voices rose in a prolonged shout, in 
 which, however, the distinguishing quality of the 
 pleasant voice was sustained. But there was no
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I I 
 
 response from the darkness beyond. The shouting 
 was repeated after an interval with the same result; 
 the silence and obscurity remained unchanged. 
 
 "Let s get out of this," said the first speaker 
 angrily, "house or no house, man or woman, we re 
 not wanted, and we ll make nothing waltzing round 
 here!" 
 
 "Hush!" said the second voice. "S-s-h! Listen." 
 
 The leaves of the nearest trees were trilling 
 audibly. Then came a sudden gust that swept the 
 fronds of the taller ferns into their faces, and laid 
 the thin, lithe whips of alder over their horses flanks 
 sharply. It was followed by the distant sea-like 
 roaring of the mountain side. 
 
 "That s a little more like it!" said the first 
 speaker, joyfully. "Another blow like that and we re 
 all right. And look! There s a lightenin up over 
 the trail we came by." 
 
 There was indeed a faint glow in that direction, 
 like the first suffusion of dawn permitting the huge 
 shoulder of the mountain, along whose flanks they 
 had been journeying, to be distinctly seen. The
 
 12 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 sodden breath of the stirred forest depths was 
 slightly tainted with an acrid fume. 
 
 "That s the match you threw away two hours 
 ago," said the pleasant voice, deliberately. "It s 
 caught the dry brush in the trail round the bend." 
 
 "Anyhow, it s given us our bearings, boys," said 
 the first speaker, with satisfied accents. "We re all 
 right now. And the wind s lifting the sky ahead 
 there. Forward now, all together, and let s get out 
 of this hell-hole while we can!" 
 
 It was so much lighter that the bulk of each 
 horseman could be seen as they moved forward to 
 gether. But there was no thinning of the obscurity 
 on either side of them. Nevertheless the profile of 
 the horseman with the pleasant voice seemed to be 
 occasionally turned backward, and he suddenly 
 checked his horse. 
 
 "There s the window again!" he said. "Look 
 there! it s gone again." 
 
 "Let it go and be d d!" returned the leader. 
 
 "Come on." 
 
 They spurred forward in silence. It was not
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 13 
 
 long before the wayside trees began to dimly show 
 spaces between them, and the ferns to give way to 
 lower, thick-set shrubs, which in turn yielded to a 
 velvety moss, with long quiet intervals of netted and 
 tangled grasses. The regular fall of the horses feet 
 became a mere rhythmic throbbing. Then suddenly 
 a single hoof rang out sharply on stone, and the first 
 speaker reined in slightly. 
 
 "Thank the Lord we re on the ridge now! and 
 the rest is easy. Tell you what, though, boys, now 
 we re all right, I don t mind saying that I didn t 
 take no stock in that blamed corpse light, down 
 there. If there ever was a will-o -the-wisp on a 
 square up mountain that was one. It wasn t no 
 window! Some of ye thought ye saw a face too? 
 Eh?" 
 
 "Yes, and a rather pretty one!" said the pleasant 
 voice meditatively. 
 
 "That s the way they d build that sort of thing, 
 of course. It s lucky ye had to satisfy yourself with 
 looking! Gosh! I feel creepy yet, thinking of it!
 
 14 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 What are ye looking back for now like Lot s wife? 
 Blamed if I don t think that face bewitched ye." 
 
 "I was only thinking about that fire you started," 
 returned the other quietly. "I don t see it, now." 
 
 "Well if you did?" 
 
 "I was wondering whether it could reach that 
 hollow." 
 
 "I reckon that hollow could take care of any 
 casual nat rel fire that came boomin along, and go 
 two better every time! Why, I don t believe there 
 zvas any fire it was all a piece of that infernal 
 ignis fatuus phantasmagoriana that was played upon 
 us down there!" 
 
 With the laugh that followed they started for 
 ward again, relapsing into the silence of tired men 
 at the end of a long journey. Even their few re 
 marks were inter] ectional, or reminiscent of topics 
 whose freshness had been exhausted with the day. 
 The gaining light which seemed to come from the 
 ground about them rather than from the still, over 
 cast sky above, defined their individuality more dis 
 tinctly. The man who had first spoken, and who
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 15 
 
 seemed to be their leader, wore the virgin unshaven 
 beard, moustache and flowing hair of the Californian 
 pioneer, and might have been the eldest; the second 
 speaker was close shaven, thin, and energetic; the 
 third, with the pleasant voice, in height, litheness, 
 and suppleness of figure appeared to be the youngest 
 of the party. The trail had now become a greyish 
 streak along the level tableland they were following, 
 which also had the singular effect of appearing 
 lighter than the surrounding landscape, yet of plung 
 ing into utter darkness on either side of its pre 
 cipitous walls. Nevertheless, at the end of an hour 
 the leader rose in his stirrups with a sigh of satis 
 faction. 
 
 "There s the light in Collinson s Mill! There s 
 nothing gaudy and spectacular about that, boys, eh? 
 No, sir! it s a square, honest beacon that a man can 
 steer by. We ll be there in twenty minutes." He 
 was pointing into the darkness below the already 
 descending trail. Only a pioneer s eye could have 
 detected the few pin-pricks of light in the impene 
 trable distance, and it was a signal proof of his
 
 l6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 leadership that the others accepted it without seeing 
 it. "It s just ten o clock," he continued, holding a 
 huge silver watch to his eye; "we ve wasted an hour 
 on those blamed spooks yonder!" 
 
 "We weren t off the trail more than ten minutes, 
 Uncle Dick," protested the pleasant voice. 
 
 "All right, my son; go down there if you like 
 and fetch out your Witch of Endor, but as for me, 
 I m going to throw myself the other side of Collin- 
 son s lights. They re good enough for me, and a 
 blamed sight more stationary!" 
 
 The grade was very steep, but they took it, 
 California fashion, at a gallop, being genuinely good 
 riders, and using their brains as well as their spurs 
 in the understanding of their horses, and of certain 
 natural laws, which the more artificial riders of 
 civilisation are apt to overlook. Hence there was 
 no hesitation or indecision communicated to the 
 nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over 
 crumbling stones and slippery ledges with a mo 
 mentum that took away half their weight, and made 
 a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. l"J 
 
 actual collision, almost impossible. Closing together 
 they avoided the latter, and holding each other well 
 up, became one irresistible wedge-shaped mass. At 
 times they yelled, not from consciousness nor 
 bravado, but from the purely animal instinct of 
 warning and to combat the breathlessness of their 
 descent, until, reaching the level, they charged 
 across the gravelly bed of a vanished river, and 
 pulled up at Collinson s Mill. The mill itself had 
 long since vanished with the river, but the building 
 that had once stood for it was used as a rude 
 hostelry for travellers, which, however, bore no 
 legend or invitatory sign. Those who wanted it, 
 knew it; those who passed it by, gave it no offence. 
 Collinson himself stood by the door, smoking a 
 contemplative pipe. As they rode up, he dis 
 engaged himself from the doorpost listlessly, walked 
 siowly towards them, said reflectively to the leader: 
 "I ve been thinking with you that a vote for 
 Thompson is a vote thrown away," and prepared 
 to lead the horses towards the water tank. He had 
 parted with them over twelve hours before, but his 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 2
 
 1 8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 air of simply renewing a recently interrupted con 
 versation was too common a circumstance to attract 
 their notice. They knew and he knew that no one 
 else had passed that way since he had last spoken; 
 that the same sun had swung silently above him 
 and the unchanged landscape, and there had been 
 no interruption nor diversion to his monotonous 
 thought. The wilderness annihilates time and space 
 with the grim pathos of patience. 
 
 Nevertheless he smiled. "Ye don t seem to have 
 got through coming down yet," he continued, as a 
 few small boulders, loosened in their rapid descent, 
 came more deliberately rolling and plunging after 
 the travellers along the gravelly bottom. Then he 
 turned away with the horses, and, after they were 
 watered, he re-entered the house. His guests had 
 evidently not waited for his ministration. They had 
 already taken one or two bottles from the shelves 
 behind a wide bar and helped themselves, and, 
 glasses in hand, were now satisfying the more im 
 minent cravings of hunger with biscuits from a barrel 
 and slices of smoked herring from a box. Their
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IQ 
 
 equally singular host, accepting their conduct as not 
 unusual, joined the circle they had comfortably 
 drawn round the fireplace, and meditatively kicking 
 a brand back at the fire, said, without looking at 
 them: 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well!" returned the leader, leaning back in his 
 chair after carefully unloosing the buckle of his belt, 
 but with his eyes also on the fire. "Well! we ve 
 prospected every yard of outcrop along the Divide 
 and there ain t the ghost of a silver indication any 
 where." 
 
 "Not a smell," added the close-shaven guest, 
 without raising his eyes. 
 
 They all remained silent, looking at the fire, as 
 if it were the one thing they had taken into their 
 confidence. Collinson also addressed himself to the 
 blaze as he said presently: "It allus seemed to me 
 that thar was something shiny about that ledge just 
 round the shoulder of the spur, over the long 
 canon." 
 
 The leader ejaculated a short laugh. "Shiny, 
 
 2*
 
 2O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 eh? shiny! Ye think that a sign? Why, you might 
 as well reckon that because Key s head, over thar, 
 is grey and silvery that he s got sabe and experi 
 ence." As he spoke he looked towards the man 
 with a pleasant voice. The fire shining full upon 
 him revealed the singular fact that while his face 
 was still young, and his moustache quite dark, his 
 hair was perfectly grey. The object of this attention, 
 far from being disconcerted by the comparison, 
 added with a smile: 
 
 "Or that he had any silver in his pocket." 
 Another lapse of silence followed. The wind 
 tore round the house and rumbled in the short, 
 adobe chimney. 
 
 "No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, 
 "this sort o thing is played out. I don t take no 
 more stock in that cock-and-bull story about the lost 
 Mexican mine. I don t catch on to that Sunday- 
 school yarn about the pious, scientific Sharp who 
 collected leaves and vegetables all over the Divide, 
 all the while he scientifically knew that the range 
 was solid silver, only he wouldn t soil his fingers
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 21 
 
 with God-forsaken lucre. I ain t saying anything 
 agin that fine-spun theory that Key believes in about 
 volcanic upheavals that set up on end argentiferous 
 rock, but I simply say that / don t see it with the 
 naked eye. And I reckon it s about time, boys, as 
 the game s up, that we handed in our checks, and 
 left the board." 
 
 There was another silence around the fire, an 
 other whirl and turmoil without. There was no 
 attempt to combat the opinions of their leader; pos 
 sibly the same sense of disappointed hopes was felt 
 by all, only they preferred to let the man of greater 
 experience voice it. He went on: 
 
 "We ve had our little game, boys, ever since we 
 left Rawlin s a week ago; we ve had our ups and 
 downs; we ve been starved and parched, snowed up 
 and half-drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse- 
 thieves, kicked by mules and played with by grizz 
 lies. We ve had a heap o fun, boys, for our money, 
 but I reckon the picnic is about over. So we ll 
 shake hands to-morrow all round aud call it square, 
 and go on our ways separately."
 
 22 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "And what do you think you ll do, Uncle Dick?" 
 said his close-shaven companion listlessly. 
 
 "I ll make tracks for a square meal, a bed that 
 a man could comfortably take off his boots and die 
 in, and some violet-scented soap. Civilisation s good 
 enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn t mind 
 the sound of the church-going bell ef there was 
 a theater handy, as there likely would be. But the 
 wilderness is played out." 
 
 "You ll be back to it again in six months, Uncle 
 Dick," retorted the other quickly. 
 
 Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity 
 of the party that in their isolated companionship 
 they had already exhausted discussion and argu 
 ment. A silence followed, in which they all looked 
 at the fire as if it was its turn to make a sugges 
 tion. 
 
 "Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, 
 "who lives in the hollow this side of the Divide, 
 about two miles from the first spur above the big 
 canon?" 
 
 "Nary soul!"
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 23 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "Sartin! Thar ain t no one but me betwixt 
 Bald Top and Skinners twenty-five miles." 
 
 "Of course, you d know if any one had come 
 there lately?" persisted the pleasant voice. 
 
 "I reckon. It ain t a week ago that I tramped 
 the whole distance that you fellers just rode over." 
 
 "There ain t," said the leader deliberately, "any 
 enchanted castle or cabin that goes waltzing round 
 the road with revolving windows and fairy prin 
 cesses looking out of em?" 
 
 But Collinson, recognising this as purely ir 
 relevant humour, with possibly a trap or pitfall in 
 it, moved away from the fireplace without a word, 
 and retired to the adjoining kitchen to prepare 
 supper. Presently he reappeared. 
 
 "The pork bar l s empty, boys, so I ll hev to fix 
 ye up with jerked beef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye 
 see, thar ain t anybody ben over from Skinner s store 
 for a week." 
 
 "All right; only hurry up!" said Uncle Dick 
 cheerfully, settling himself back in his chair; "I
 
 24 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 reckon to turn in as soon as I ve rastled with your 
 hash, for I ve got to turn out agin and be off at 
 sun-up." 
 
 They were all very quiet again, so quiet that 
 they could not help noticing that the sound of Collin- 
 son s preparations for their supper had ceased too. 
 Uncle Dick arose softly and walked to the kitchen 
 door. Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen 
 stove, with a fork in his hand, gazing abstractedly 
 before him. At the sound of his guest s footsteps 
 he started, and the noise of preparation recom 
 menced. Uncle Dick returned to his chair by the 
 fire. Leaning towards the chair of the close-shaven 
 man, he said in a lower voice: 
 
 "He was off agin!" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Thinkin of that wife of his." 
 
 "What about his wife?" asked Key, lowering his 
 voice also. 
 
 The three men s heads were close together. 
 
 "When Collinson fixed up this mill he sent for 
 his wife in the States," said Uncle Dick, in a half
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 25 
 
 whisper, "waited a year for her, hanging round and 
 boarding every emigrant waggon that came through 
 the Pass. She didn t come only the news that she 
 was dead." He paused and nudged his chair still 
 closer the heads were almost touching. "They 
 say over in the Bar" his voice had sunk to a 
 complete whisper "that it was a lie! That she ran 
 away with the man that was fetchin her out; three 
 thousand miles and three weeks with another man 
 upsets some women. But he knows nothing about 
 it, only he sometimes kinder goes off looney-like, 
 thinking of her." He stopped; the heads separated, 
 Collinson had appeared at the doorway, his melancholy 
 patience apparently unchanged. 
 
 "Grub s on, gentlemen; sit by and eat." 
 The humble meal was despatched with zest and 
 silence. A few interjectional remarks about the un 
 certainties of prospecting only accented the other 
 pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by the 
 fireplace with their lit pipes. As there were only 
 three chairs, Collinson stood beside the chimney. 
 "Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual
 
 26 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 pause, taking his pipe from his lips, "as we ve got 
 to get up and get at sun-up, we might as well tell 
 you now that we re dead broke. We ve been living 
 for the last few weeks on Preble Key s loose change 
 and that s gone. You ll have to let this little 
 account and damage stand over." 
 
 Collinson s brow slightly contracted, without, 
 however, altering his general expression of resigned 
 patience. 
 
 "I m sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" 
 diffidently "kinder sorry for myself, too. You 
 see, I reckoned on goin over to Skinner s to-morrow, 
 to fill up the pork bar l and vote for Mesick and 
 the Wagon Road. But Skinner can t let me have 
 anything more until I ve paid suthin on account, as 
 he calls it." 
 
 "D ye mean to say thar s any mountain man as 
 low flung and mean as that?" said Uncle Dick 
 indignantly. 
 
 "But it isn t his fault," said Collinson gently; 
 "you see, they won t send him goods from Sacra-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 27 
 
 mento if he don t pay up, and he can t if I don t. 
 Sabe?" 
 
 "Ah! that s another thing. They are mean in 
 Sacramento," said Uncle Dick, somewhat mollified. 
 
 The other guests murmured an assent to this 
 general proposition. Suddenly Uncle Dick s face 
 brightened. 
 
 "Look here! I know Skinner, and I ll stop 
 there No, blank it all! I can t, for it s off my 
 route! Well, then, we ll fix it this way. Key will 
 go there and tell Skinner that / say that I ll send 
 the money to that Sacramento hound. That ll 
 fix it!" 
 
 Collinson s brow cleared; the solution of the 
 difficulty seemed to satisfy everybody, and the close- 
 shaven man smiled. 
 
 "And I ll secure it," he said, "and give Collinson 
 a sight draft on myself at San Francisco." 
 
 "What s that for?" said Collinson, with a sudden 
 suffusion on each cheek. 
 "In case of accident."
 
 28 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "Wot accident?" persisted Collinson, with a dark 
 look of suspicion on his usually placid face. 
 
 "In case we should forget it," said the close- 
 shaven man, with a laugh. 
 
 "And do you suppose that if you boys went and 
 forgot it that I d have anything to do with your 
 d d paper," said Collinson, a murky cloud coming 
 into his eyes. 
 
 "Why, that s only business, Colly," interposed 
 Uncle Dick quickly, "that s all Jim Parker means; 
 he s a business man, don t you see. Suppose we got 
 killed! You ve that draft to show." 
 
 "Show who?" growled Collinson. 
 
 "Why hang it our friends, our heirs, our 
 relations to get your money," hesitated Uncle Dick. 
 
 "And do you kalkilate," said Collinson, with 
 deeply labouring breath, "that if you got killed, that 
 I d be coming on your folks for the worth of the 
 
 d d truck I giv ye? Go way! Lemme git out 
 
 o this. You re makin me tired." He stalked to 
 the door, lit his pipe, and began to walk up and 
 down the gravelly river bed. Uncle Dick followed
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2Q 
 
 him. From time to time the two other guests heard 
 the sounds of alternate protest and explanation as 
 they passed and repassed the windows. Preble Key 
 smiled, Parker shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "He ll be thinkin you ve begrudged him your 
 grub if you don t that s the way with these busi 
 ness men," said Uncle Dick s voice in one of these 
 intervals. Presently they re-entered the house, Uncle 
 Dick saying casually to Parker, "You can leave that 
 draft on the bar when you re ready to go to-morrow," 
 and the incident was presumed to have ended. But 
 Collinson did not glance in the direction of Parker 
 for the rest of the evening; and, indeed, standing 
 with his back to the chimney, more than once fell 
 into that stolid abstraction which was supposed to 
 be the contemplation of his absent wife. 
 
 From this silence, which became infectious, the 
 three guests were suddenly aroused by a furious 
 clattering down the steep descent of the mountain 
 along the trail they had just ridden! It came near, 
 increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter 
 the fine gravel of the river bed against the sides of
 
 3O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the house, and then passed in a gust of wind that 
 shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With 
 one common impulse the three travellers rose and 
 went to the door. They opened it to a blackness 
 that seemed to stand as another and an iron door 
 before them. But to nothing else. 
 
 "Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, 
 turning to Collinson. "Didn t you hear it?" 
 
 "Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving 
 from the chimney. 
 
 "What in God s name was it, then?" 
 
 "Only some of them boulders you loosed coming 
 down. It s touch and go with them for days after. 
 When I first came here I used to start up and rush 
 out into the road like as you would yellin and 
 screechin after folks that never was there and never 
 went by. Then it got kinder monotonous, and I d 
 lie still and let em slide. Why, one night I d a 
 sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and 
 shook the door. But I sort of allowed to myself 
 that whatever it was, it wasn t wan tin to eat, drink, 
 sleep, or it would come in and I hadn t any call
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 51 
 
 to interfere. And in the mornin I found a rock as 
 big as that box, lying chock-a-block agin the door. 
 Then I knowed I was right." 
 
 Preble Key remained looking from the door. 
 
 "There s a glow in the sky over Big Canon," 
 he said, with a meaning glance at Uncle Dick. 
 
 "Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. "It must 
 be the woods afire just round the bend above the 
 canon. Whoever goes to Skinner s had better give 
 it a wide berth." 
 
 Key turned towards Collinson as if to speak, but 
 apparently changed his mind, and presently joined 
 his companions, who were already rolling themselves 
 in their blankets, in a series of wooden bunks or 
 berths, ranged as in a ship s cabin, around the walls 
 of a resinous, sawdusty apartment that had been the 
 measuring room of the mill. Collinson disappeared 
 no one knew or seemed to care where and, in 
 less than ten minutes from the time that they had 
 returned from the door, the hush of sleep and rest 
 seemed to possess the whole house. There was no 
 light but that of the fire in the front room, which
 
 32 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 threw flickering and gigantic shadows on the walls 
 of the three empty chairs before it An hour later 
 it seemed as if one of the chairs were occupied, and 
 a grotesque profile of Collinson s slumbering or 
 meditating face and figure was projected grimly on 
 the rafters as though it were the hovering guardian- 
 spirit of the house. But even that passed presently 
 and faded out, and the beleaguering darkness that 
 had encompassed the house all the evening began 
 to slowly creep in through every chink and cranny 
 of the rambling ill-jointed structure, until it at last 
 obliterated even the faint embers on the hearth. 
 The cool fragrance of the woodland depths crept in 
 with it until the steep of human warmth, the reek of 
 human clothing, and the lingering odours of stale 
 human victual were swept away in that incorruptible 
 and omnipotent breath. An hour later and the 
 wilderness had repossessed itself of all. 
 
 Key, the lightest sleeper, awoke early, so early 
 that the dawn announced itself only in two dim 
 squares of light that seemed to grow out of the 
 darkness at the end of the room where the windows
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 33 
 
 looked out upon the valley. This reminded him of 
 his woodland vision of the night before, and he lay 
 and watched them until they brightened and began 
 to outline the figures of his still sleeping companions. 
 But there were faint stirrings elsewhere the soft 
 brushing of a squirrel across the shingled roof, the 
 tiny flutter of invisible wings in the rafters, the 
 "peep" and "squeak" of baby life below the floor. 
 And then he fell into a deeper sleep and awoke 
 only when it was broad day. 
 
 The sun was shining upon the empty bunks; his 
 companions were already up and gone. They had 
 separated as they had come together with the light- 
 hearted irresponsibility of animals without regret, 
 and scarcely reminiscence; bearing with cheerful 
 philosophy and the hopefulness of a future unfet 
 tered by their past, the final disappointment of their 
 quest. If they ever met again they would laugh and 
 remember; if they did not,they would forget without 
 a sigh. He hurriedly dressed himself and went out 
 side to dip his face and hands in the bucket that 
 stood beside the door; but the clear air, the dazzling 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 3
 
 34 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 sunshine, and the unexpected prospect half intoxi 
 cated him. 
 
 The abandoned mill stretched beside him in all 
 the pathos of its premature decay. The ribs of the 
 water-wheel appeared amid a tangle of shrubs and 
 drift wood, and were twined with long grasses and 
 straggling vines; mounds of sawdust and heaps of 
 "brush" had taken upon themselves a velvety moss 
 where the trickling slime of the vanished river lost 
 itself in sluggish pools, discoloured with the dyes of 
 redwood. But on the other side of the rocky ledge 
 dropped the whole length of the valley, alternately 
 bathed in sunshine or hidden in drifts of white and 
 clinging smoke. The upper end of the long canon, 
 and the crests of the ridge above him, were lost in 
 this fleecy cloud, which at times seemed to overflow 
 the summits and fall in slow leaps like lazy cataracts 
 down the mountain-side. Only the range before the 
 ledge was clear; there the green pines seemed to 
 swell onward and upward in long mounting billows, 
 until at last they broke against the sky. 
 
 In the keen stimulus of the hour and the air
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 35 
 
 Key felt the mountaineer s longing for action, and 
 scarcely noticed that Collinson had pathetically 
 brought out his pork barrel to scrape together a few 
 remnants for his last meal. It was not until he had 
 finished his coffee and Collinson had brought up his 
 horse that a slight sense of shame at his own and 
 his comrades selfishness embarrassed his parting 
 with his patient host. He himself was going to 
 Skinner s to plead for him; he knew that Parker 
 had left the draft he had seen it lying in the bar, 
 but a new sense of delicacy kept him from alluding 
 to it now. It was better to leave him with his own 
 peculiar ideas of the responsibilities of hospitality 
 unchanged. He shook his hand warmly, and galloped 
 up the rocky slope. But when he had finally reached 
 the higher level and fancied he could even now see 
 the dust raised by his departing comrades on their 
 two diverging paths, although he knew that they had 
 already gone their different ways perhaps never to 
 meet again his thoughts and his eyes reverted only 
 to the ruined mill below him, and its lonely oc 
 cupant.
 
 36 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 He could see him quite distinctly in that clear 
 air, still standing before his door. And then he ap 
 peared to make a parting gesture with his hand, 
 and something like snow fluttered in the air above 
 his head. It was only the torn fragments of Parker s 
 draft, which this homely gentleman of the Sierras, 
 standing beside his empty pork barrel, had scattered 
 to the four winds.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 37 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BUT Key s attention was presently directed to 
 something more important to his present purpose. 
 The keen wind which he had faced in mounting the 
 grade had changed and was now blowing at his 
 back. His experience of forest fires had already 
 taught him that this was too often only the cold air 
 rushing in to fill the vacuum made by the conflagra 
 tion, and it needed not his sensation of an acrid 
 smarting in his eyes, and an unaccountable dryness 
 in the air which he was now facing, to convince him 
 that the fire was approaching him. It had evidently 
 travelled faster than he had expected, or had diverged 
 from its course. He was disappointed, not because 
 it would oblige him to take another route to Skinner s, 
 as Collinson had suggested, but for a very different 
 reason. Ever since his vision of the preceding night, 
 he had resolved to revisit the hollow and discover
 
 38 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the mystery. He had kept his purpose a secret, 
 partly because he wished to avoid the jesting remarks 
 of his companions, but particularly because he wished 
 to go alone, from a very singular impression that 
 although they had witnessed the incident he had 
 really seen more than they did. To this was also 
 added the haunting fear he had felt during the night 
 that this mysterious habitation and its occupants were 
 in the track of the conflagration. He had not dared 
 to dwell upon it openly on account of Uncle Dick s 
 evident responsibility for the origin of the fire, he 
 appeased his conscience with the reflection that the 
 inmates of the dwelling no doubt had ample warning 
 in time to escape. But still, he and his companions 
 ought to have stopped to help them, and then but 
 here he paused, conscious of another reason he could 
 scarcely voice then or even now. Preble Key had 
 not passed the age of romance, but like other roman- 
 cists he thought he had evaded it by treating it 
 practically. 
 
 Meantime he had reached the fork where the 
 trail diverged to the right, and he must take that
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 39 
 
 direction if he wished to make a detour of the burn 
 ing woods to reach Skinner s. His momentary in 
 decision communicated itself to his horse, who halted. 
 Recalled to himself, he looked down mechanically, 
 when his attention was attracted by an unfamiliar 
 object lying in the dust of the trail. It was a small 
 slipper so small that at first he thought it must 
 have belonged to some child. He dismounted and 
 picked it up. It was worn and shaped to the foot. 
 It could not have lain there long, for it was not filled 
 nor discoloured by the wind-blown dust of the trail 
 as all other adjacent objects were. If it had been 
 dropped by a passing traveller, that traveller must 
 have passed Collinson s, going or coming, within the 
 last twelve hours. It was scarcely possible that the 
 shoe could have dropped from the foot without the 
 wearer s knowing it, and it must have been dropped 
 in an urgent flight, or it would have been recovered. 
 Thus practically Key treated his romance. And hav 
 ing done so he instantly wheeled his horse and 
 plunged into the road in the direction of the fire. 
 But he was surprised after twenty minutes riding
 
 4O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 to find that the course of the fire had evidently 
 changed. It was growing clearer before him, the 
 dry heat seemed to come more from the right, in 
 the direction of the detour he should have taken to 
 Skinner s. This seemed almost providential, and in 
 keeping with his practical treatment of his romance, 
 as was also the fact that in all probability the fire 
 had not yet visited the little hollow which he in 
 tended to explore. He knew he was nearing it now; 
 the locality had been strongly impressed upon him 
 even in the darkness of the previous evening. He 
 had passed the rocky ledge; his horse s hoofs no 
 longer rang out clearly; slowly and perceptibly they 
 grew deadened in the springy mosses, and were 
 finally lost in the netted grasses and tangled vines 
 that indicated the vicinity of the densely wooded 
 hollow. Here were already some of the wider spaced 
 vanguards of that wood but here too a peculiar 
 circumstance struck him. He was already descend 
 ing the slight declivity, but the distance, instead of 
 deepening in leafy shadow, was actually growing 
 lighter. Here were the outskirting sentinels of the
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 4! 
 
 wood but the wood itself was gone! He spurred 
 his horse through the tall arch between the opened 
 columns and pulled up in amazement. 
 
 The wood indeed was gone, and the whole hol 
 low filled with the already black and dead stumps 
 of the utterly consumed forest! More than that, from 
 the indications before him, the catastrophe must 
 have almost immediately followed his retreat from 
 the hollow on the preceding night. It was evident 
 that the fire had leaped the intervening shoulder of 
 the spur in one of the unaccountable, but by no 
 means rare, phenomena of this kind of disaster. 
 The circling heights around were yet untouched; 
 only the hollow, and the ledge of rock, against which 
 they had blundered with their horses when they 
 were seeking the mysterious window in last evening s 
 darkness, were calcined and destroyed. He dis 
 mounted and climbed the ledge, still warm from the 
 spent fire. A large mass of greyish outcrop had 
 evidently been the focus of the furnace blast of heat 
 which must have raged for hours in this spot. He 
 was skirting its crumbling debris when he started
 
 42 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 suddenly at a discovery which made everything else 
 fade into utter insignificance. Before him, in a slight 
 depression formed by a fault or lapse in the up 
 heaved strata, lay the charred and incinerated re 
 mains of a dwelling-house levelled to the earth! 
 Originally half-hidden by a natural abattis of grow 
 ing myrtle and ceanothus which covered this coun 
 terscarp of rock towards the trail it must have 
 stood within a hundred feet of them during their 
 halt! 
 
 Even in its utter and complete obliteration by 
 the furious furnace blast that had swept across it, 
 there was still to be seen an unmistakable ground 
 plan and outline of a four-roomed house. While 
 everything that was combustible had succumbed to 
 that intense heat, there was still enough half- fused 
 and warped metal, fractured iron plate, and twisted 
 and broken bars to indicate the kitchen and tool 
 shed. Very little had, evidently, been taken away; 
 the house and its contents were consumed where 
 they stood. With a feeling of horror and despera 
 tion Key at last ventured to disturb two or three of
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 43 
 
 the blackened heaps that lay before him. But they 
 were only vestiges of clothing, bedding, and crockery 
 there was no human trace that he could detect. 
 Nor was there any suggestion of the original con 
 dition and quality of the house, except its size; 
 whether the ordinary unsightly cabin of frontier 
 "partners," or some sylvan cottage there was 
 nothing left but the usual ignoble and unsavoury 
 ruins of burnt-out human habitation. 
 
 And yet its very existence was a mystery. It 
 had been unknown at Collinson s, its nearest neigh 
 bour, and it was presumable that it was equally un 
 known at Skinner s. Neither he nor his companions 
 had detected it in their first journey by day through 
 the hollow, and only the tell-tale window at night 
 had been a hint of what was even then so success 
 fully concealed, that they could not discover it when 
 they had blundered against its rock foundation. For 
 concealed it certainly was, and intentionally so. But 
 for what purpose? 
 
 He gave his romance full play for a few minutes
 
 44 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 with this question. Some recluse, preferring the ab 
 solute simplicity of nature, or perhaps wearied with 
 the artificialities of society, had secluded himself here 
 with the company of his only daughter. Proficient 
 as a pathfinder, he had easily discovered some other 
 way of provisioning his house from the settlements 
 than by the ordinary trails past Collinson s or Skin 
 ner s, which would have betrayed his vicinity. But 
 recluses are not usually accompanied by young 
 daughters, whose relations with the world not being 
 as antagonistic, would make them uncertain com 
 panions. Why not a wife? His presumption of the 
 extreme youth of the face he had seen at the win 
 dow was after all only based upon the slipper he 
 had found. And if wife, whose absolute ac 
 ceptance of such confined seclusion might be equally 
 uncertain, why not somebody else s wife? Here was 
 a reason for concealment, and the end of an episode, 
 not unknown even in the wilderness. And here was 
 the work of the Nemesis who had overtaken them in 
 their guilty contentment! The story, even to its 
 moral, was complete. And yet it did not entirely
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 45 
 
 satisfy him, so superior is the absolutely unknown to 
 the most elaborate theory. 
 
 His attention had been once or twice drawn to 
 wards the crumbling wall of outcrop, which during 
 the conflagration must have felt the full force of the 
 fiery blast that had swept through the hollow and spent 
 its fury upon it. It bore evidence of the intense heat 
 in cracked fissures and the crumbling debris that lay 
 at its feet. Key picked up some of the still warm frag 
 ments and was not surprised that they easily broke in 
 a gritty greyish powder in his hands. In spite of his 
 preoccupation with the human interest, the instincts 
 of the prospector was still strong upon him, and he 
 almost mechanically put some of the pieces in his 
 pockets. Then after another careful survey of the 
 locality for any further record of its vanished tenants, 
 he returned to his horse. Here he took from his 
 saddle-bags, half listlessly, a precious phial encased 
 in wood, and opening it, poured into another thick 
 glass vessel part of a smoking fluid; he then 
 crumbled some of the calcined fragments into the 
 glass, and watched the ebullition that followed with
 
 46 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 mechanical gravity. When it had almost ceased he 
 drained off the contents into another glass, which he 
 set down, and then proceeded to pour some water 
 from his drinking flask into the ordinary tin cup 
 which formed part of his culinary travelling kit. 
 Into this he put three or four pinches of salt from 
 his provision store. Then dipping his fingers into 
 the salt and water he allowed a drop to fall into the 
 glass. A white cloud instantly gathered in the 
 colourless fluid, and then fell in a fine film to the 
 bottom of the glass. Key s eyes concentrated sud 
 denly, the listless look left his face. His fingers 
 trembled lightly as he again let the salt water fall 
 into the solution, with exactly the same result! Again 
 and again he repeated it, until the bottom of the 
 glass was quite grey with the fallen precipitate. And 
 his own face grew as grey. 
 
 His hand trembled no longer as he carefully 
 poured off the solution so as to not disturb the pre 
 cipitate at the bottom. Then he drew out his knife, 
 scooped a little of the grey sediment upon its point, 
 and emptying his tin cup, turned it upside down
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 47 
 
 upon his knee, placed the sediment upon it and 
 began to spread it over the dull surface of its bot 
 tom with his knife. He had intended to rub it 
 briskly with his knife blade. But in the very action 
 of spreading it, the first stroke of his knife left upon 
 the sediment and the cup the luminous streak of 
 burnished silver! 
 
 He stood up and drew a long breath to still the 
 beatings of his heart. Then he rapidly re-climbed 
 the rock and passed over the ruins again, this time 
 plunging hurriedly through, and kicking aside the 
 charred heaps without a thought of what they had 
 contained. Key was not an unfeeling man, he was 
 not an unrefined one: he was a gentleman by in 
 stinct, and had an intuitive sympathy for others, but 
 in that instant his whole mind was concentrated 
 upon the calcined outcrop! And his first impulse 
 was to see if it bore any evidence of previous ex 
 amination, prospecting, or working by its suddenly 
 evicted neighbours and owners. There was none: 
 they had evidently not known it. Nor was there 
 any reason to suppose that they would ever return
 
 48 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 to their hidden home, now devastated and laid bare 
 to the open sunlight and open trail. They were 
 already far away; their guilty personal secret would 
 keep them from revisiting it. An immense feeling 
 of relief came over the soul of this moral romancer; 
 a momentary recognition of the Most High in this 
 perfect poetical retribution. He ran back quickly 
 to his saddle-bags, drew out one or two carefully 
 written, formal notices of pre-emption and claim, 
 which he and his former companions had carried in 
 their brief partnership, erased their signatures and 
 left only his own name, with another grateful sense 
 of Divine interference, as he thought of them speed 
 ing far away in the distance, and returned to the 
 ruins. With unconscious irony he selected a charred 
 post from the embers, stuck it in the ground a few 
 feet from the debris of outcrop and finally affixed 
 his "Notice." Then, with a conscientiousness, born 
 possibly of his new religious convictions, he dis 
 lodged with his pickaxe enough of the brittle out 
 crop to constitute that presumption of "actual 
 work" upon the claim which was legally required
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 49 
 
 for its maintenance, and returned to his horse. In 
 replacing his things in his saddle-bags he came upon 
 the slipper, and for an instant so complete was his 
 preoccupation in his later discovery, that he was 
 about to throw it away as useless impedimenta, until 
 it occurred to him, albeit vaguely, that it might 
 be of service to him in its connection with that dis 
 covery, in the way of refuting possible false claimants. 
 He was not aware of any faithlessness to his mo 
 mentary romance, any more than he was conscious 
 of any disloyalty to his old companions in his grati 
 fication that his good fortune had come to him, 
 alone. This singular selection was a common ex 
 perience of prospecting. And there was something 
 about the magnitude of his discovery that seemed 
 to point to an individual achievement. He had made 
 a rough calculation of the richness of the lode from 
 the quantity of precipitate in his rude experiment; 
 he had estimated its length, breadth and thickness 
 from his slight knowledge of geology and the theories 
 then rife, and the yield would be colossal! Of 
 course he would require capital to work it, he would 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 4
 
 5<D IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 have to "let in" others to his scheme and his pros 
 perity, but the control of it would always be his 
 own. 
 
 Then he suddenly started as he had never in 
 his life before started at the foot of man! For there 
 was a footfall in the charred brush, and not twenty 
 yards from him stood Collinson who had just dis 
 mounted from a mule. The blood rushed to Key s 
 pale face. 
 
 "Prospectin agin?" said the proprietor of the 
 mill, with his weary smile. 
 
 "No," said Key quickly, "only straightening my 
 pack." The blood deepened in his cheek at his in 
 stinctive lie. Had he carefully thought it out before, 
 he would have welcomed Collinson, and told him 
 all. But now a quick, uneasy suspicion flashed upon 
 him. Perhaps his late host had lied, and knew of 
 the existence of the hidden house. Perhaps he 
 had spoken of some "silvery rock" the night before 
 he even knew something of the lode itself. He 
 turned upon him with an aggressive face. But Col- 
 linson s next words dissipated the thought.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 51 
 
 "I m glad I found ye, anyhow," he said. "Ye 
 see, arter you left, I saw ye turn off the trail and 
 make for the burning woods instead o goin round. 
 I sez to myself, that fellow is making straight for 
 Skinner s. He s sorter worried about me and that 
 empty pork bar l I hadn t oughter spoke that away 
 afore you boys any how and he s takin risks to 
 help me. So I reckoned I d throw my leg over 
 Jenny, here, and look arter ye and go over to 
 Skinner s myself and vote." 
 
 "Certainly," said Key with cheerful alacrity, and 
 the one thought of getting Collinson away, "we ll go 
 together, and we ll see that that pork barrel is 
 filled!" He glowed quite honestly with his sudden 
 idea of remembering Collinson through his good 
 fortune. "Let s get on quickly, for we may find the 
 fire between us on the outer trail." He hastily 
 mounted his horse. 
 
 "Then you didn t take this as a short cut," said 
 Collinson with dull perseverance in his idea. "Why 
 not? It looks all clear ahead." 
 
 4*
 
 52 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "Yes," said Key hurriedly, "but it s been only a 
 leap of the fire, it s still raging round the bend. We 
 must go back to the cross trail." His face was still 
 flushing with his very equivocating, and his anxiety 
 to get his companion away. Only a few steps 
 further might bring Collinson before the ruins and 
 the "notice," and that discovery must not be made 
 by him until Key s plans were perfected. A sudden 
 aversion to the man he had a moment before wished 
 to reward began to take possession of him. "Come 
 on!" he added almost roughly. 
 
 But to his surprise, Collinson yielded with his 
 usual grim patience, and even a slight look of sym 
 pathy with his friend s annoyance. "I reckon you re 
 right, and mebbee you re in a hurry to get to 
 Skinner s all along o my business. I oughtn t hev 
 told you boys what I did." As they rode rapidly 
 away he took occasion to add, when Key had reined 
 in slightly with a feeling of relief at being out of 
 the hollow, "I was thinkin too of what you d asked 
 about anyone livin here unbeknownst to me." 
 
 "Well!" said Key, with a new nervousness.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 53 
 
 "Well! I only had an idea o proposin that 
 you and me just took a look around that holler whar 
 you thought you saw suthin !" said Collinson, tenta 
 tively. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Key hurriedly. "We really 
 saw nothing it was all a fancy; and Uncle Dick 
 was joking me because I said I thought I saw a 
 woman s face," he added with a forced laugh. 
 
 Collinson glanced at him, half sadly. "Oh! you 
 were only funnin , then! I oughter guessed that. I 
 oughter have knowed it from Uncle Dick s talk!" 
 They rode for some moments in silence; Key pre 
 occupied and feverish, and eager only to reach 
 Skinner s. Skinner was not only Postmaster but 
 "Registrar" of the District, and the new discoverer 
 did not feel entirely safe until he had put his formal 
 notification and claims "on record." This was no 
 publication of his actual secret, nor any indication 
 of success, but was only a record that would in 
 all probability remain unnoticed and unchallenged 
 amidst the many other hopeful dreams of sanguine
 
 54 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 prospectors. But he was suddenly startled from his 
 preoccupation. 
 
 "Ye said ye war straightenin up yer pack just 
 now," said Collinson slowly. 
 
 "Yes!" said Key almost angrily, "and I was." 
 
 "Ye didn t stop to straighten it up down at the 
 forks of the trail, did ye?" 
 
 "I may have," said Key nervously. "But why?" 
 
 "Ye won t mind my axin ye another question, 
 will ye? Ye ain t carryin round with ye no woman s 
 shoe?" 
 
 Key felt the blood drop from his cheeks. "What 
 do you mean?" he stammered, scarcely daring to 
 lift his conscious eyelids to his companion s glance. 
 But when he did so he was amazed to find that 
 Collinson s face was almost as much disturbed as 
 his own. 
 
 "I know it ain t the square thing to ask ye, but 
 this is how it is," said Collinson hesitatingly. "Ye 
 see just down by the fork of the trail where you 
 came I picked up a woman s shoe. It sorter got 
 me! For I sez to myself thar ain t no one bin by
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 55 
 
 my shanty, comin or goin for weeks, but you boys, 
 and that shoe, from the looks of it ain t bin there 
 as many hours. I knew there wasn t any wimin 
 hereabouts. I reckoned it couldn t hev bin dropped 
 by Uncle Dick, or that other man, for you would 
 have seen it on the road. So I allowed it might 
 have bin you. And yer it is." He slowly drew 
 from his pocket what Key was fully prepared to 
 see the mate of the slipper Key had in his saddle 
 bag! The fair fugitive had evidently lost them both. 
 But Key was better prepared now perhaps this 
 kind of dissimulation is progressive and quickly- 
 alive to the necessity of throwing Collinson off this 
 unexpected scent. And his companion s own sug 
 gestion was right to his hand, and, as it seemed, 
 again quite providential! He laughed, with a quick 
 colour, which, however, appeared to help his lie, as 
 he replied half hysterically, "You re right, old man, 
 
 I own up, it s mine! It s d d silly, I know 
 
 but then, we re all fools where women are concerned 
 and I wouldn t have lost that slipper for a mint 
 of money."
 
 56 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 He held out his hand gaily, but Collinson re 
 tained the slipper while he gravely examined it. 
 
 "You wouldn t mind telling me where you 
 mought hev got that?" he said meditatively. 
 
 "Of course I should mind," said Key with a 
 well-affected mingling of mirth and indignation. 
 "What are you thinking of, you old rascal? What 
 do you take me for?" 
 
 But Collinson did not laugh. "You wouldn t 
 mind givin me the size and shape, and general heft 
 of her as wore that shoe?" 
 
 "Most decidedly I should do nothing of the 
 kind!" said Key half impatiently. "Enough, that it 
 was given to me by a very pretty girl. There! that s 
 all you will know." 
 
 "Given to you?" said Collinson, lifting his eyes. 
 
 "Yes," returned Key sharply. 
 
 Collinson handed him the slipper gravely. "I 
 only asked you," he said slowly, but with a certain 
 quiet dignity which Key had never before seen in 
 his face, "because thar was suthin about the size, 
 and shape, and fillin out o that shoe that kinder
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 57 
 
 reminded me of some un; but that some un her as 
 mout hev stood up in that shoe ain t o that kind 
 as would ever stand in the shoes of her as you know 
 at all." The rebuke, if such were intended, lay 
 quite as much in the utter ignoring of Key s airy 
 gallantry and levity as in any conscious slur upon 
 the fair fame of his invented Dulcinea. Yet Key 
 oddly felt a strong inclination to resent the aspersion 
 as well as Collinson s gratuitous morality, and with 
 a mean recollection of Uncle Dick s last evening s 
 scandalous gossip, he said sarcastically, "And, of 
 course, that some one you were thinking of was your 
 lawful wife." 
 
 "It war!" said Collinson gravely. 
 
 Perhaps it was something in Collinson s manner, 
 or his own preoccupation, but he did not pursue the 
 subject, and the conversation lagged. They were 
 nearing, too, the outer edge of the present con 
 flagration, and the smoke lying low in the unburnt 
 woods or creeping like an actual exhalation of the 
 soil, blinded them so that at times they lost the trail 
 completely. At other times from the intense heat
 
 58 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 it seemed as if they were momentarily impinging 
 upon the burning area, or were being caught in a 
 closing circle. It was remarkable that with his 
 sudden accession of fortune, Key seemed to lose his 
 usual frank and careless fearlessness, and impatiently 
 questioned his companion s woodcraft. There were 
 intervals when he regretted his haste to reach 
 Skinner s by this shorter cut, and began to bitterly 
 attribute it to his desire to serve Collinson. Ah, yes! 
 it would be fine indeed, if just as he were about to 
 clutch the prize he should be sacrificed through the 
 ignorance and stupidity of this heavy-handed 
 moralist at his side ! But it was not until, through that 
 moralist s guidance, they climbed a steep acclivity 
 to a second ridge and were comparatively safe that 
 he began to feel ashamed of his surly silence or 
 surlier interruptions. And Collinson, either through his 
 unconquerable patience, or possibly in a fit of his usual 
 uxorious abstraction, appeared to take no notice of it. 
 A sloping tableland of weather-beaten boulders 
 now effectually separated them from the fire on the 
 lower ridge. They presently began to descend on
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 59 
 
 the further side of the crest and at last dropped upon 
 a waggon-road, and the first track of wheels that Key 
 had seen for a fortnight. Rude as it was it seemed 
 to him the highway to fortune, for he knew that it 
 passed Skinner s and then joined the great stage-road 
 to Marysville now his ultimate destination. A few 
 rods further on they came in view of Skinner s, lying 
 like a dingy forgotten winter snowdrift on the moun 
 tain shelf. 
 
 It contained a post-office, tavern, blacksmith s 
 shop, "general store," and express-office, scarcely a 
 dozen buildings in all, but all differing from Collin- 
 son s Mill in some vague suggestion of vitality, as if 
 the daily regular pulse of civilisation still beat, albeit 
 languidly, in that remote extremity. There was anti 
 cipation and accomplishment twice a day, and as 
 Key and Collinson rode up to the express-office, the 
 express waggon was standing before the door ready 
 to start to meet the stage-coach at the cross roads 
 three miles away. This again seemed a special Pro 
 vidence to Key. He had a brief official communica 
 tion with Skinner as registrar, and duly recorded his
 
 6O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 claim; he had a hasty and confidential aside with 
 Skinner as general storekeeper, and such was the un 
 conscious magnetism developed by this emhyro mill 
 ionaire that Skinner extended the necessary credit to 
 Collinson on Key s word alone. That done he re 
 joined Collinson in high spirits with the news, adding 
 cheerfully, "And I dare say, if you want any further 
 advances Skinner will give them to you on Parker s 
 draft." 
 
 "You mean that bit o paper that chap left," said 
 Collinson gravely. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I tore it up." 
 
 "You tore it up?" ejaculated Key. 
 
 "You hear me? Yes!" said Collinson. 
 
 Key stared at him. Surely it was again provi 
 dential that he had not entrusted his secret to this 
 utterly ignorant and prejudiced man! The slight 
 twinges of conscience that his lie about the slippers 
 had caused him disappeared at once. He could not 
 have trusted him even in that; it would have been 
 like this stupid fanatic to have prevented Key s pre-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 6 I 
 
 emption of that claim, until he, Collinson, had satis 
 fied himself of the whereabouts of the missing pro 
 prietor. Was he quite sure that Collinson would not 
 revisit the spot when he had gone? But he was ready 
 for the emergency. 
 
 He had intended to leave his horse with Skinner 
 as security for Collinson s provisions, but Skinner s 
 liberality had made this unnecessary, and he now 
 offered it to Collinson to use and keep for him until 
 called for. This would enable his companion to 
 "pack" His goods on the mule, and oblige him to re 
 turn to the Mill by the waggon-road and "outside 
 trail}*- as more commodious for the two animals. 
 
 "Ye ain t afeared o the road agents?" suggested 
 
 v 
 
 a bystander; "they just swarm on Galloper s ridge, 
 and they held up the down stage only last week." 
 "They re not so lively since the deputy sheriff s 
 got a new idea about them and has been lying low 
 in the brush near Bald Top," returned Skinner. "Any 
 how, they don t stop teams nor packs unless there s 
 a chance of their getting some fancy horseflesh by it, 
 and I reckon thar ain t much to tempt them thar,"
 
 62 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 he added, with a satirical side glance at his cus 
 tomer s cattle. But Key was already standing in the 
 express waggon, giving a farewell shake to his patient 
 companion s hand, and this ingenuous pleasantry 
 passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, as the express waggon 
 rolled away, his active fancy begun to consider this 
 new danger that might threaten the hidden wealth 
 of his claim. But he reflected that for a time, at 
 least, only the crude ore would be taken out and 
 shipped to Marysville in a shape- that offered no pro 
 fit to the highwaymen. Had it been a gold mine! 
 but here again was the interposition of Providence! 
 A week later Preble Key returned to Skinner s 
 with a foreman and ten men, and an unlimited credit 
 to draw upon at Marysville ! Expeditions of this kind 
 created no surprise at Skinner s. Parties had, before 
 this, entered the wilderness gaily, none knew where 
 or what for; the sedate and silent woods had kept 
 their secret while there; they had evaporated, none 
 knew when or where often, alas! with an unpaid 
 account at Skinner s. Consequently, there was no 
 thing in Key s party to challenge curiosity. In an-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 63 
 
 other week a rambling, one-storeyed shed of pine 
 logs occupied the side of the mysterious ruins, and 
 contained the party; in two weeks excavations had 
 been made, and the whole face of the outcrop was 
 exposed; in three weeks every vestige of former ten 
 ancy which the fire had not consumed was trampled 
 out by the alien feet of these toilers of the "Sylvian 
 Silver Hollow Company." None of Key s former com 
 panions would have recognised the hollow in its 
 blackened levelling and rocky foundation; even Collin- 
 son would not have remembered this stripped and 
 splintered rock, with its heaps of fresh debris, as the 
 place where he had overtaken Key. And Key him 
 self had forgotten, in his triumph, everything but the 
 chance experiment that had led to his success. 
 
 Perhaps it was well, therefore, that one night, 
 when the darkness had mercifully fallen upon this 
 scene of sylvan desolation, and its still more incon 
 gruous and unsavoury human restoration, and the 
 low murmur of the pines occasionally swelled up from 
 the unscathed mountain-side, a loud shout and the 
 trampling of horses feet awoke the dwellers in the
 
 64 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 shanty. Springing to their feet, they hurriedly seized 
 their weapons and rushed out, only to be confronted 
 by a dark, motionless ring of horsemen, two flaming 
 torches of pine knots, and a low, but distinct voice 
 of authority. In their excitement, half-awakened 
 suspicion and confusion, they were affected by its 
 note of calm preparation and conscious power. 
 
 "Drop those guns; hold up your hands we ve 
 got every man of you covered." 
 
 Key was no coward the men, though flustered, 
 were not cravens, but they obeyed. 
 
 "Trot out your leader! Let him stand out there, 
 clear, beside that torch!" 
 
 One of the gleaming pine knots disengaged itself 
 from the dark circle and moved to the centre, as 
 Preble Key, cool and confident, stepped beside it. 
 
 "That will do," said the immutable voice. "Now, 
 we want Jack Riggs, Sydney Jack, French Pete, and 
 One-eyed Charley." 
 
 A vivid reminiscence of the former night scene 
 in the hollow of his own and his companions voices 
 raised in the darkness flashed across Key. With
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 65 
 
 an instinctive premonition that this invasion had 
 something to do with the former tenant, he said 
 calmly : 
 
 " Who wants them?" 
 
 "The State of California," said the voice. 
 
 "The State of California must look further," re 
 turned Key in his old pleasant voice; "there are no 
 such names among my party." 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 "The manager of the Sylvan Silver Hollow Com 
 pany, and these are my workmen." 
 
 There was a hurried movement, and the sound 
 of whispering in the hitherto dark and silent circle, 
 and then the voice rose again: 
 
 "You have the papers to prove that?" 
 
 "Yes; in the cabin. And you?" 
 
 "I ve a warrant to the Sheriff of Sierra." 
 
 There was a pause, and the voice went on less 
 confidently: 
 
 "How long have you been here?" 
 
 "Three weeks. I came here the day of the fire 
 and took up this claim." 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 5
 
 66 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "There was no other house here?" 
 
 "There were ruins you can see them still. It 
 may have been a burnt-up cabin." 
 
 The voice disengaged itself from the vague back 
 ground and came slowly forwards: 
 
 "It was a den of thieves. It was the hiding- 
 place of Jack Riggs and his gang of road agents. 
 I ve been hunting this spot for three weeks. And 
 now the whole thing s up!" 
 
 There was a laugh from Key s men, but it was 
 checked as the owner of the voice slowly ranged up 
 beside the burning torch and they saw his face. It 
 was dark and set with the defeat of a brave man. 
 
 "Won t you come in and take something?" said 
 Key kindly. 
 
 "No. It s enough fool work for me to have 
 routed ye out already. But I suppose it s all in my 
 
 d d day s work! Good night! Forward there. 
 
 Get!" 
 
 The two torches danced forwards, with the trail 
 ing off of vague shadows in dim procession; there 
 was a clatter over the rocks and they were gone.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 67 
 
 Then, as Preble Key gazed after them, he felt that 
 with them had passed the only shadow that lay upon 
 his great fortune, and with the last tenant of the 
 hollow a prescribed outlaw and fugitive, he was 
 henceforth forever safe in his claim and his dis 
 covery. And yet, oddly enough, at that moment, 
 as he turned away, for the first time in three weeks, 
 there passed before his fancy with a stirring of re 
 proach, a vision of the face that he had seen at the 
 window.
 
 68 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF the great discovery in Sylvan Silver Hollow 
 it would seem that Collinson as yet knew nothing. 
 In spite of Key s fears that he might stray there on 
 his return from Skinner s, he did not, nor did he 
 afterwards revisit the locality. Neither the news of 
 the registry of the claim, nor the arrival of Key s 
 workmen ever reached him. The few travellers who 
 passed his mill came from the valley to cross the 
 Divide on their way to Skinner s, and returned by 
 the longer but easier detour of the stage road over 
 Galloper s Ridge. He had no chance to participate 
 in the prosperity that flowed from the opening of 
 the mine which plentifully besprinkled Skinner s 
 settlement; he was too far away to profit even by 
 the chance custom of Key s Sabbath wandering 
 workmen. His isolation from civilisation for those 
 who came to him from the valley were rude Western
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 69 
 
 emigrants like himself remained undisturbed. The 
 return of the prospecting party to his humble hos 
 pitality that night had been an exceptional case; in 
 his characteristic simplicity he did not dream that 
 it was because they had nowhere else to go in their 
 penniless condition. It was an incident to be 
 pleasantly remembered, but whose non-recurrence 
 did not disturb his infinite patience. His pork 
 barrel and flour sack had been replenished for other 
 travellers; his own wants were few. 
 
 It was a day or two after the midnight visit of 
 the sheriff to Silver Hollow, that Key galloped down 
 the steep grade to Collinson s. He was amused 
 albeit, in his new importance, a little aggrieved also 
 to find that Collinson had as usual confounded 
 his descent with that of the generally detached 
 boulder, and that he was obliged to add his voice 
 to the general uproar. This brought Collinson to 
 his door. 
 
 "I ve had your hoss hobbled out among the 
 chickweed and clover in the green pasture back o 
 the mill, and he s picked up that much that he s
 
 7O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 lookin fat and sassy," he said quietly, beginning to 
 mechanically unstrap Key s bridle, even while his 
 guest was in the act of dismounting. "His back s 
 quite healed up." 
 
 Key could not restrain a shrug of impatience. It 
 was three weeks since they had met; three weeks 
 crammed with excitement, energy, achievement, and 
 fortune, to Key, and yet this place and this man 
 were as stupidly unchanged as when he had left 
 them. A momentary fancy that this was the reality 
 that he himself was only awakening from some 
 delusive dream came over him. But Collinson s 
 next words were practical. 
 
 "I reckoned that maybe you ld write from Marys- 
 ville to Skinner to send for the hoss, and forward 
 him to ye, for I never kalkilated you ld come back." 
 
 It was quite plain from this that Collinson had 
 heard nothing. But it was also awkward, as Key 
 would now have to tell the whole story and reveal 
 the fact that he had been really experimenting when 
 Collinson overtook him in the hollow. He evaded 
 this by post-dating his discovery of the richness of
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 7 I 
 
 the ore until he had reached Marysville. But he 
 found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune; 
 he was naturally no boaster, he had no desire to 
 impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the un 
 daunted energy he had displayed in getting up his 
 company and opening the mine, so that he was 
 actually embarrassed by his own understatement, and 
 under the grave, patient eyes of his companion, told 
 his story at best lamely. Collinson s face betrayed 
 neither profound interest nor the slightest resentment. 
 When he had ended his awkward recital, Collinson 
 said slowly: 
 
 "Then Uncle Dick and that other Parker feller 
 ain t got no show in this yer find." 
 
 "No," said Key quickly. "Don t you remember 
 we broke up our partnership that morning and went 
 off our own ways. You don t suppose," he added 
 with a forced half-laugh, "that if Uncle Dick or 
 Parker had struck a lead after they left me, they d 
 have put me in it?" 
 
 "Wouldn t they?" asked Collinson gravely. 
 
 "Of course not." He laughed a little more
 
 72 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 naturally, but presently added, with an uneasy smile, 
 "What makes you think they would?" 
 
 "NuthinM" said Collinson promptly. 
 
 Nevertheless, when they were seated before the 
 fire, with glasses in their hands, Collinson returned 
 patiently to the subject: 
 
 "You wuz saying they went their way, and you 
 went yours. But your way was back on the old way 
 that you d all gone together." 
 
 But Key felt himself on firmer ground here, and 
 answered deliberately and truthfully, "Yes, but I 
 only went back to the hollow to satisfy myself if 
 there really was any house there, and if there was, 
 to warn the occupants of the approaching fire." 
 
 "And there was a house there," said Collinson 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Only the ruins." He stopped and flushed 
 quickly, for he remembered that he had denied its 
 existence at their former meeting. "That is," he 
 went on hurriedly, "I found out from the sheriff, 
 you know, that there had been a house there. But," 
 he added, reverting to his stronger position, "my
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 73 
 
 going back there was an accident, and my picking 
 up the out-crop was an accident and had no more 
 to do with our partnership prospecting than you had. 
 In fact," he added, with a reassuring laugh, "you ld 
 have had a better right to share in my claim, com 
 ing there as you did at that moment, than they. 
 Why, if I d have known what the thing was worth, I 
 might have put you in only it wanted capital and 
 some experience." He was glad that he had pitched 
 upon that excuse, it had only just occurred to him, 
 and glanced affably at Collinson. But that gentle 
 man said soberly: 
 
 "No, you wouldn t, nuther." 
 
 "Why not?" said Key half angrily. 
 
 Collinson paused. After a moment he said, 
 " Cos I wouldn t hev took anything outer thet 
 place." 
 
 Key felt relieved. From what he knew of Col- 
 linson s vagaries he believed him. He was wise in 
 not admitting him to his confidences at the begin 
 ning; he might have thought it his duty to tell 
 others.
 
 74 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "I m not so particular," he returned, laughingly, 
 "but the silver in that hole was never touched, nor 
 I daresay even imagined by mortal man before. 
 However, there is something else about the hollow 
 that I want to tell you. You remember the slipper 
 that you picked up?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I lied to you about that; I never dropped 
 it. On the contrary, I had picked up the mate of 
 it very near where you found yours, and I wanted to 
 know to whom it belonged. For I don t mind telling 
 you now, Collinson, that I believe there was a 
 woman in that house, and the same woman whose 
 face I saw at the window. You remember how the 
 boys joked me about it well, perhaps I didn t care 
 that you should laugh at me too, but I ve had a 
 sore conscience over my lie, for I remembered that 
 you seemed to have some interest in the matter too, 
 and I thought that maybe I might have thrown you 
 off the scent It seemed to me that if you had any 
 idea who it was, we might now talk the matter over 
 and compare notes. I think you said at least, I
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 75 
 
 gathered the idea from a remark of yours," he added 
 hastily, as he remembered that the suggestion was 
 his own, and a satirical one "that it reminded you 
 of your wife s slipper. Of course, as your wife is 
 dead, that would offer no clue, and can only be a 
 chance resemblance, unless " he stopped. 
 
 "Have you got em yet?" 
 
 "Yes, both." He took them from the pocket of 
 his riding-jacket. 
 
 As Collinson received them, his face took upon 
 itself an even graver expression. "It s mighty 
 cur ous," he said reflectively, "but looking at the 
 two- of em the likeness is more fetchin . Ye see, 
 my wife had a straight foot, and never wore reg lar 
 rights and lefts like other women, but kinder changed 
 about; ye see, these shoes is reg lar rights and lefts, 
 but never was worn as sich!" 
 
 "There may be other woman as peculiar," sug 
 gested Key. 
 
 "There must be," said Collinson quietly. 
 
 For an instant Key was touched with the manly 
 security of the reply, for remembering Uncle Dick s
 
 76 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 scandal, it had occurred to him that the unknown 
 tenant of the robbers den might be Collinson s wife. 
 He was glad to be relieved on that point and went 
 on more confidently: 
 
 "So you see, this woman was undoubtedly in 
 that house on the night of the fire. She escaped, 
 and in a mighty hurry too, for she had not time to 
 change her slippers for shoes; she escaped on horse 
 back, for that is how she lost them. Now what was 
 she doing there with those rascals, for the face I saw 
 looked as innocent as a saint s." 
 
 "Seemed to ye sort o contrairy, jist as I 
 reckoned my wife s foot would have looked in a 
 slipper that you said was giv to ye," suggested Col- 
 linson pointedly, but with no implication of reproach 
 in his voice. 
 
 "Yes," said Key impatiently. 
 
 "I ve read yarns afore now about them Eyetalian 
 brigands stealin women," said Collinson reflectively, 
 "but that ain t California road- agent style. Great 
 Scott! if one even so much as spoke to a woman, 
 they d have been wiped outer the State long ago.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 77 
 
 No! the woman as was there, came there to 
 stay ! " 
 
 As Key s face did not seem to express either 
 assent or satisfaction at this last statement, Collin- 
 son, after a glance at it, went on with a some 
 what gentler gravity. "I see wot s troublin you, 
 Mr. Key; you ve bin thinkin that mebbee that poor 
 woman might hev bin the better for a bit o that 
 fortin that you discovered under the very spot where 
 them slippers of hers had often trod. You re thinkin 
 that mebbee it might hev turned her and those men 
 from their evil ways." 
 
 Mr. Key had been thinking nothing of the kind, 
 but for some obscure reason the sceptical jeer that 
 had risen to his lips remained unsaid. He rose im 
 patiently. "Well, there seems to be no chance of 
 discovering anything now; the house is burnt, the 
 gang dispersed, and she has probably gone with 
 them." He paused, and. then laid three or four 
 large gold pieces on the table; "it s for that old bill 
 of our party, Collinson," he said. "I ll settle and 
 collect from each. Some time when you come over
 
 78 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 to the mine, and I hope you ll give us a call, you 
 can bring the horse. Meanwhile you can use him; 
 you ll find he s a little quicker than the mule. How 
 is business?" he added, with a perfunctory glance 
 around the vacant room and dusty bar. 
 
 "Thar ain t much passin this way," said Collin- 
 son with equal carelessness, as he gathered up the 
 money, " cept those boys from the valley and they re 
 most always strapped when they come here." 
 
 Key smiled as he observed that Collinson offered 
 him no receipt, and, moreover, as he remembered 
 that he had only Collinson s word for the destruction 
 of Parker s draft. But he merely glanced at his un 
 conscious host and said nothing. After a pause he 
 returned in a lighter tone. "I suppose you are 
 rather out of the world here. Indeed, I had an idea 
 at first of buying out your mill, Collinson, and putting 
 in steam power to get out timber for our new 
 buildings, but you see you are so far away from the 
 waggon-road, that we couldn t haul the timber away. 
 That was the trouble, or I d have made you a fair 
 offer."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 7Q 
 
 "I don t reckon to ever sell the mill," said Col- 
 linson simply. Then observing the look of suspicion 
 in his companion s face, he added gravely, "You see, 
 I rigged up the whole thing when I expected my 
 wife out from the States, and I calkilate to keep it 
 in memory of her." 
 
 Key slightly lifted his brows. "But you never 
 told us, by the way, how you ever came to put up 
 a mill here with such an uncertain water-supply." 
 
 "It wasn t onsartin when I came here, Mr. Key; 
 it was full fed stream straight from them snow peaks. 
 It was the earthquake did it." 
 
 "The earthquake!" repeated Key. 
 
 "Yes. Ef the earthquake kin heave up that 
 silver-bearing rock that you told us about the first 
 day you kem here, and that you found t other day, 
 it could play roots with a mere mill-stream, I 
 reckon." 
 
 "But the convulsion I spoke of happened ages 
 on ages ago, when this whole mountain range was 
 being fashioned," said Key with a laugh. 
 
 "Well, this yer earthquake was ten years ago,
 
 8O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 just after I came. I reckon I oughter remember it. 
 It was a queer sort o day in the fall, dry and hot 
 as if thar might hev bin a fire in the woods, only 
 thar wasn t no wind. Not a breath of air anywhar. 
 The leaves of them alders hung straight as a plumb- 
 line. Except for that thar stream and that thar wheel, 
 nuthin moved! Thar wasn t a bird on the wing 
 over that canon; thar wasn t a squirrel skirmishin 
 in the hull wood; even the lizards in the rocks 
 stiffened like stone Chinese idols. It kept gettin 
 quieter and quieter ontil I walked out on that ledge 
 and felt as if I d have to give a yell just to hear my 
 own voice. Thar was a thin veil over everything, 
 and betwixt and between everything, and the sun 
 was rooted in the middle of it as if it couldn t move 
 neither. Everythin seemed to be waitin , waitin , 
 waitin . Then all of a suddin suthin seemed to give 
 somewhar! Suthin fetched away with a queer sort 
 of rumblin , as if the peg had slipped outer creation. 
 I looked up and kalkilated to see half-a-dozen of 
 them boulders come, lickity switch, down the grade. 
 But, darn my skin, if one of em stirred, and yet
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 8 I 
 
 while I was looking, the whole face o that bluff 
 bowed over, softly, as if saying Good-bye/ and got 
 clean away somewhar before I knowed it. Why, 
 you see that pile agin the side o the canon! Well, 
 a thousand feet under that there s trees, three hun 
 dred feet high, still upright and standin . You know 
 how them pines over on that far mountain side 
 always seem to be climbin up, up, up, over each 
 other s heads to the very top? Well, Mr. Key, I saw 
 em climbin ! And when I pulled myself together 
 and got back to the mill, everything was quiet; 
 and, by G d, so was the mill wheel, and there 
 wasn t two inches of water in the river!" 
 
 "And what did you think of it?" said Key, in 
 terested in spite of his impatience. 
 
 "I thought, Mr. Key No! I mustn t say I 
 
 thought, for I knowed it. I knowed that suthin had 
 happened to my wife!" 
 
 Key did not smile, but even felt a faint supersti 
 tious thrill as he gazed at him. After a pause Col- 
 linson resumed: "I heard a month after that she had 
 died about that time o yaller fever in Texas with 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 6
 
 82 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the party she was comin with. Her folks wrote that 
 they died like flies, and wuz all buried together, un 
 beknownst and promiscuous, and thar wasn t no 
 remains. She slipped away . from me like that bluff 
 over that canon, and that was the end of it." 
 
 "But she might have escaped," said Key, quickly, 
 forgetting himself in his eagerness. 
 
 But Collinson only shook his head, "Then she d 
 have been here," he said gravely. 
 
 N 
 
 Key moved towards the door still abstractedly, 
 held out his hand, shook that of his companion 
 warmly, and then, saddling his horse, himself, de 
 parted. A sense of disappointment in which a 
 vague dissatisfaction with himself was mingled was 
 all that had come of his interview. He took himself 
 severely to task for following his romantic quest so 
 far. It was unworthy of the President of the Sylvan 
 Silver Hollow Company and he was not quite sure 
 but that his confidences with Collinson might have 
 imperilled even the interests of the company. To 
 atone for this momentary aberration, and correct his 
 dismal fancies, he resolved to attend to some busi,-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 83 
 
 ness at Skinner s before returning, and branched off 
 on a long detour that would intersect the travelled 
 stage road. But here a singular incident overtook 
 him. As he wheeled into the turnpike, he heard the 
 
 ! trampling hoof beats and jingling harness of the 
 oncoming coach behind him. He had barely time 
 to draw up against the bank before the six galloping 
 horses and swinging vehicle swept heavily by. He 
 had a quick impression of the heat and steam of 
 sweating horsehide, the reek of varnish and leather, 
 and the momentary vision of a female face silhouetted 
 against the glass window of the coach! But even 
 in that flash of perception he recognised the profile 
 that he had seen at the window of the mysterious 
 hut! 
 
 He halted for an instant dazed and bewildered 
 in the dust of the departing wheels. Then, as the 
 bulk of the vehicle reappeared, already narrowing 
 in the distance, without a second thought he dashed 
 after it. His disappointment, his self-criticism, his 
 practical resolutions were forgotten. He had but 
 one idea now the vision was providential! The 
 
 
 6*
 
 84 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 clue to the mystery was before him he must 
 follow it! 
 
 Yet he had sense enough to realise that the 
 coach would not stop to take up a passenger be 
 tween stations, and that the next station was the one 
 three miles below Skinner s. It would not be dif 
 ficult to reach this by a cut-off in time, and although 
 the vehicle had appeared to be crowded, he could 
 no doubt obtain a seat on top. 
 
 His eager curiosity, however, led him to put spurs 
 to his horse, and range up alongside of the coach as 
 if passing it, while he examined the stranger more 
 closely. Her face was bent listlessly over a book; 
 there was unmistakably the same profile that he had 
 seen, but the full face was different in outline and 
 expression. A strange sense of disappointment that 
 was almost a revulsion of feeling came over him; he 
 lingered, he glanced again; she was certainly a very 
 pretty woman: there was the beautifully rounded 
 chin, the short straight nose, and delicately curved 
 upper lip that he had seen in the profile and yet 
 yet it was not the same face he had dreamt of. With
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 85 
 
 an odd provoking sense of disillusion, he swept ahead 
 of the coach and again slackened his speed to let it 
 pass. This time the fair unknown raised her long 
 lashes and gazed suddenly at this persistent horse 
 man at her side, and an odd expression, it seemed 
 to him almost a glance of recognition and expecta 
 tion, came into her dark languid eyes. The pupils 
 concentrated upon him with a singular significance 
 that was almost he even thought a reply to his 
 glance and yet it was as utterly unintelligible. A 
 moment later, however, it was explained. He had 
 fallen slightly behind in a new confusion of hesita 
 tion, wonder and embarrassment, when from a wooded 
 trail to the right, another horseman suddenly swept 
 into the road before him. He was a powerfully built 
 man, mounted on a thoroughbred horse of a quality 
 far superior to the ordinary roadster. Without look 
 ing at Key he easily ranged up beside the coach as 
 if to pass it, but Key with a sudden resolution put 
 spurs to his own horse and ranged also abreast of 
 him, in time to see his fair unknown start at the 
 apparition of this second horseman and unmistakably
 
 86 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 convey some signal to him a signal that to Key s 
 fancy now betrayed some warning of himself. He 
 was the more convinced as the stranger, after con 
 tinuing a few paces ahead of the coach, allowed it 
 to pass him at a curve of the road, and slackened 
 his pace to permit Key to do the same. Instinc 
 tively conscious that the stranger s object was to 
 scrutinise or identify him, he determined to take the 
 initiative and fixed his eyes upon him as they ap 
 proached. But the stranger, who wore a loose 
 brown linen duster over clothes that appeared to be 
 superior in fashion and material, also had part of 
 his face and head draped by a white silk hand 
 kerchief worn under his hat, ostensibly to keep the 
 sun and dust from his head and neck and had the 
 advantage of him. He only caught the flash of a 
 pair of steel grey eyes, as the new-comer, apparently 
 having satisfied himself, gave rein to his spirited 
 steed and easily repassed the coach, disappearing in 
 a cloud of dust before it. But Key had by this time 
 reached the "cut-off," which the stranger, if he in 
 tended to follow the coach, either disdained or was
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 87 
 
 ignorant of, and he urged his horse to its utmost 
 speed. Even with the stranger s advantages it would 
 be a close race to the station. 
 
 Nevertheless, as he dashed on, he was by no 
 means insensible to the somewhat quixotic nature of 
 his undertaking. If he was right in his suspicion 
 that a signal had been given by the lady to the 
 stranger, it was exceedingly probable that he had 
 discovered not only the fair inmate of the robbers 
 den, but one of the gang itself, or at least a con 
 federate and ally. Yet far from deterring him, in 
 that ingenious sophistry with which he was apt to 
 treat his romance, he now looked upon his adventure 
 as a practical pursuit in the interests of law and 
 justice. It was true that it was said that the band 
 of road agents had been dispersed; it was a fact 
 that there had been no spoliation of coach or teams 
 for three weeks, but none of the depredators had 
 ever been caught, and their booty, which was con 
 siderable, was known to be still intact. It was to 
 the interest of the mine, his partners and his work 
 men, that this clue to a danger which threatened
 
 88 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the locality should be followed to the end. As to 
 the lady, in spite of the disappointment that still 
 rankled in his breast, he could be magnanimous! 
 She might be the paramour of the strange horse 
 man, she might be only escaping from some hateful 
 companionship by his aid. And yet one thing 
 puzzled him; she was evidently not acquainted with 
 the personality of the active gang, for she had, with 
 out doubt, at first mistaken him for one of them, 
 and after recognising her real accomplice had com 
 municated her mistake to him. 
 
 It was a great relief to him when the rough and 
 tangled "cut-off," at last broadened and lightened 
 into the turnpike road again, and he beheld, scarcely 
 a quarter of a mile before him, the dust cloud that 
 overhung the coach as it drew up at the lonely way 
 side station. He was in time, for he knew that the 
 horses were changed there, but a sudden fear that 
 the fair unknown might alight, or take some other 
 conveyance, made him still spur his jaded steed for 
 ward. As he neared the station he glanced eagerly 
 around for the other horseman, but he was nowhere
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 89 
 
 to be seen. He had evidently either abandoned the 
 chase or ridden ahead. 
 
 It seemed equally a part of what he believed was 
 a providential intercession, that on arriving at the 
 station he found there was a vacant seat inside the 
 coach. It was diagonally opposite that occupied by 
 the lady, and he was thus enabled to study her face 
 as it was bent over her book, whose pages, however, 
 she scarcely turned. After her first casual glance of 
 curiosity at the new passenger, she seemed to take 
 no more notice of him, and Key began to wonder if 
 he had not mistaken her previous interrogating look. 
 Nor was it his only disturbing query; he was con 
 scious of the same disappointment now that he 
 could examine her face more attentively, as in his 
 first cursory glance. She was certainly handsome; 
 if there was no longer the freshness of youth, there 
 was still the indefinable charm of the woman of 
 thirty and with it the delicate curves of matured 
 muliebrity and repose. There were lines, particularly 
 around the mouth and fringed eyelids, that were 
 deepened as by pain, and the chin, even in its
 
 QO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 rounded fulness had the angle of determination. 
 From what was visible, below the brown linen 
 "duster" that she wore, she appeared to be taste 
 fully although not richly dressed. 
 
 As the coach at last drove away from the station 
 a grizzled, farmer-looking man seated beside her 
 uttered a sigh of relief so palpable as to attract the 
 general attention. Turning to his fair neighbour with 
 a smile of uncouth but good-humoured apology, he 
 said in explanation: 
 
 "You ll excuse me, miss! I don t know ezactly 
 how you re feelin for judging from your looks and 
 gin ral gait, you re a stranger in these parts but ez 
 for me, I don t mind sayin that I never feel ezactly 
 safe from these yer road agents and stage robbers 
 ontil arter we pass Skinner s station. All along thet 
 Galloper s Ridge, it s jest tech and go like; the 
 woods is swarmin with em. But once past Skinner s, 
 you re all right. They never dare go below that. 
 So ef you don t mind, miss, for it s bein in your 
 presence, I ll jest pull off my butes and ease my feet 
 for a spell."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. QI 
 
 Neither the inconsequence of this singular request 
 nor the smile it evoked on the faces of the other 
 passengers seemed to disturb the lady s abstraction. 
 Scarcely lifting her eyes from her book she bowed a 
 grave assent. 
 
 "You see, miss," he continued, "and you gents," 
 he added, taking the whole coach into his confidence, 
 "I ve got over forty ounces of clean gold dust in 
 them butes between the upper and lower sole, and 
 it s mighty tight packing for my feet. Ye kin heft 
 it," he said, as he removed one boot and held it up 
 before them. "I put the dust there for safety 
 kalkilatin that while these road gentry allus goes 
 for a man s pockets and his body belt, they never 
 thinks of his butes, or haven t time to go through 
 em." He looked around him with a smile of self- 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The murmur of admiring comment was, however, 
 broken by a burley-bearded miner who sat in the 
 middle seat. "Thet s pretty fair, as far as it goes," 
 he said smilingly, "but I reckon it wouldn t go far 
 ef you started to run. I ve got a simpler game than
 
 Q 2 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 that, gentlemen, and ez we re all friends here, and 
 the danger s over, I don t mind tellin ye. The first 
 thing these yer road agents do, after they ve covered 
 the driver with their shot guns, is to make the 
 passengers get out and hold up their hands. That, 
 ma am" explanatorily to the lady, who betrayed 
 only a languid interest "is to keep em from draw 
 ing their revolvers. A revolver is the last thing a 
 road agent wants, either in a man s hand, or in his 
 holster. So I sez to myself, ef a six-shooter ain t 
 of no account, wot s the use of carryin it!" So I 
 just put my shooting-iron in my valise when I travel, 
 and fill my holster with my gold dust, so! It s a 
 deuced sight heavier than a revolver, but they don t 
 feel its weight and don t keer to come nigh it. And 
 I ve been held up twice on the t other side of the 
 Divide this year, and I passed free every time!" 
 
 The applause that followed this revelation and 
 the exhibition of the holster not only threw the 
 farmer s exploits into the shade, but seemed to 
 excite an emulation among the passengers. Other 
 methods of securing their property were freely dis-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. Q3 
 
 cussed, but the excitement culminated in the leaning 
 forward of a passenger who had, up to that moment, 
 maintained a reserve almost equal to the fair un 
 known. His dress and general appearance were 
 those of a professional man; his voice and manner 
 corroborated the presumption. 
 
 "I don t think, gentlemen," he began with a 
 pleasant smile, "that any man of us here would like 
 to be called a coward, but in fighting with an enemy 
 who never attacks, or even appears, except with a 
 deliberately prepared advantage on his side, it is my 
 opinion that a man is not only justified in avoiding 
 an unequal encounter with him, but in circumvent 
 ing by every means, the object of his attack. You 
 have all been frank in telling your methods. I will 
 be equally so in telling mine even if I have perhaps 
 to confess to a little more than you have. For I 
 have not only availed myself of a well-known rule of 
 the robbers who infest these mountains to exempt 
 all women and children from their spoliation a rule 
 which, of course, they perfectly understand gives 
 them a sentimental consideration with all Californians
 
 94 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 but I have, I confess, also availed myself of the 
 innocent kindness of one of that charming and 
 justly exempted sex." He paused and bowed 
 courteously to the fair unknown. "When I entered 
 this coach I had with me a bulky parcel which was 
 manifestly too large for my pockets, yet as evidently 
 too small and too valuable to be entrusted to the 
 ordinary luggage. Seeing my difficulty, our charm 
 ing companion opposite, out of the very kindness 
 and innocence of her heart, offered to make a place 
 for it in her satchel, which was not full. I ac 
 cepted the offer joyfully. When I state to you, 
 gentlemen, that that package contained valuable 
 government bonds, to a considerable amount, I do 
 so, not to claim your praise for any originality of 
 my own, but to make this public avowal to our fair 
 fellow passenger for securing to me this most per 
 fect security and immunity from the road agent that 
 has been yet recorded." 
 
 With his eyes riveted on the lady s face, Key 
 saw a faint colour rise to her otherwise impassive 
 face, which might have been called out by the en-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. Q5 
 
 thusiastic praise that followed the lawyer s confes 
 sion. But he was painfully conscious of what now 
 seemed to him a monstrous situation! Here was he 
 believed the actual accomplice of the road agents 
 calmly receiving the complacent and puerile confes 
 sions of the men who were seeking to outwit them. 
 Could he, in ordinary justice to them, to himself, or 
 the mission he conceived he was pursuing, refrain 
 from exposing her or warning them privately? 
 But was he certain? Was a vague remembrance of 
 a profile momentarily seen and as he must even 
 now admit inconsistent with the full face he was 
 gazing at sufficient for such an accusation? More 
 than that was the protection she had apparently 
 afforded the lawyer consistent with the function of 
 an accomplice! 
 
 "Then if the danger s over," said the lady gently, 
 reaching down to draw her satchel from under the 
 seat, "I suppose I may return it to you." 
 
 "By no means! Don t trouble yourself! Pray 
 allow me to still remain your debtor at least as far 
 as the next station," said the lawyer gallantly.
 
 Q 6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 The lady uttered a languid sigh, sank back in 
 her seat and calmly settled herself to the perusal of 
 her book. Key felt his cheeks beginning to burn 
 with the embarrassment and shame of his evident 
 misconception. And here he was on his way to 
 Marysville to follow a woman for whom he felt he 
 no longer cared, and for whose pursuit he had no 
 longer the excuse of justice. 
 
 "Then I understand that you have twice seen 
 these road-agents," said the professional man, turn 
 ing to the miner. "Of course you could be able to 
 identify them?" 
 
 "Nary a man! You see they re all masked and 
 only one of em ever speaks." 
 
 "The leader or chief?" 
 
 "No, the orator." 
 
 "The orator?" repeated the professional man in 
 amazement. 
 
 "Well, you see, / call him the orator for he s 
 mighty glib with his tongue and reels off all he has 
 to say like as if he had it by heart. He s mighty 
 rough on you, too, sometimes, for all his high-toned
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. Q7 
 
 style. If he thinks a man is hidin anything he jest 
 scalps him with his tongue, and blamed if I don t 
 think he likes the chance of doin it. He s got a 
 regular set speech, and he s bound to go through it 
 all, even if he makes everything wait, and runs the 
 risk of capture. Yet he ain t the chief and even 
 I ve heard folks say ain t got any responsibility if he 
 is took , for he don t tech anybody or anybody s 
 money and couldn t be prosecuted. I reckon he s 
 some sort of a broken-down lawyer d ye see?" 
 
 "Not much of a lawyer, I imagine," said the 
 professional man, smiling, "for he ll find himself 
 quite mistaken as to his share of responsibility. But 
 it s a rather clever way of concealing the identity of 
 the real leader." 
 
 "It s the smartest gang that was ever started in 
 the Sierras. They fooled the Sheriff of Sierra the 
 other day. They gave him a sort of idea that they 
 had a kind of hidin -place in the woods whar they 
 met and kept their booty, and, by Jinks! he goes 
 down thar with his hull posse just spilin for a 
 fight and only lights upon a gang of innocent 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 7
 
 Q 8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HIL^LS. . 
 
 greenhorns who were boring for silver on the very 
 spot where he allowed the robbers had their den! 
 He ain t held up his head since." 
 
 Key cast a quick glance at the lady to see the 
 effect of this revelation. But her face if the same 
 profile he had seen at the window betrayed neither 
 concern nor curiosity. He let his eyes drop to the 
 smart boot that peeped from below her gown, and 
 the thought of his trying to identify it with the slip 
 per he had picked up seemed to him as ridiculous 
 as his other misconceptions. He sank back gloomily 
 in his seat; by degrees the fatigue and excitement 
 of the day began to mercifully benumb his senses, 
 twilight had fallen and the talk had ceased: the 
 lady had allowed her book to drop in her lap as the 
 darkness gathered and had closed her eyes; he 
 closed his own, and slipped away presently into a 
 dream in which he saw the profile again as he had 
 seen it in the darkness of the hollow, only that this 
 time it changed to a full face unlike the lady s or 
 anyone he had ever seen. Then the window seemed 
 to open with a rattle and he again felt the cool
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. QQ 
 
 odours of the forest, but he awoke to find that the 
 lady had only opened her window for a breath of 
 fresh air. It was nearly eight o clock; it would be 
 an hour yet before the coach stopped at the next 
 station for supper; the passengers were drowsily nod 
 ding; he closed his eyes and fell into a deeper sleep 
 from which he awoke with a start. 
 The coach had stopped! 
 
 7*
 
 IOO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "!T can t be Three Pines yet," said a passenger s 
 voice, in which the laziness of sleep still lingered, 
 "or else we ve snoozed over five mile. I don t see 
 no lights; wot are we stoppin for?" The other 
 passengers struggled to an upright position. One 
 nearest the window opened it; its place was in 
 stantly occupied by the double muzzle of a shot-gun ! 
 No one moved. In the awe-stricken silence the 
 voice of the driver rose in drawling protestation. 
 
 "It t ain t no business o mine, but it sorter strikes 
 me that you chaps a-playin it just a little too fine 
 this time! It ain t three miles from Three Pine 
 Station, and forty men! Of course that s your look 
 out not mine!" 
 
 The audacity of the thing had evidently struck 
 even the usually taciturn and phlegmatic driver into 
 his first expostulation on record. 
 
 "Your thoughtful consideration does you great
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IOI 
 
 credit," said a voice from the darkness, "and shall 
 be properly presented to our manager, but at the 
 same time we wish it understood that we do not 
 hesitate to take any risks in strict attention to our 
 business and our clients. In the meantime you will 
 expedite matters, and give your passengers a chance 
 to get an early tea at Three Pines, by handing down 
 that treasure-box and mail-pouch. Be careful in 
 handling that blunderbuss you keep beside it; the 
 last time it unfortunately went off and I regret to say 
 slightly wounded one of your passengers. Accidents 
 of this kind, interfering, as they do, with the har 
 mony and pleasure of our chance meetings, cannot 
 be too highly deplored." 
 
 "By Gosh!" ejaculated an outside passenger in 
 an audible whisper. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said the voice quietly; "but as 
 I overlooked you, I will trouble you now to descend 
 with the others." 
 
 The voice moved nearer, and by the light of a 
 flaming bullseye cast upon the coach, it could be 
 seen to come from a stout medium-sized man with a
 
 102 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 black mask, which, however, showed half of a smooth 
 beardless face and an affable yet satirical mouth. 
 The speaker cleared his throat with the slight pre 
 paratory cough of the practised orator, and, ap 
 proaching the window, to Key s intense surprise, 
 actually began in the identical professional and rhe 
 torical style previously indicated by the miner. 
 
 "Circumstances over which we have no control, 
 gentlemen, compel us to oblige you to alight, stand 
 in a row on one side and hold up your hands. You 
 will find the attitude not unpleasant after your 
 cramped position in the coach, while the change 
 from its confined air to the wholesome night breeze 
 of the Sierras cannot but prove salutary and refresh 
 ing. It will also enable us to relieve you of such 
 so-called valuables and treasures in the way of gold- 
 dust and coin, which I regret to say too often are 
 misapplied in careless hands, and which the teach 
 ings of the highest morality distinctly denominate as 
 the root of all evil! I need not inform you, gentle 
 men, as business men, that promptitude and celerity 
 of compliance will ensure despatch, and shorten
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 1 03 
 
 an interview which has been sometimes needlessly, 
 and, I regret to say, painfully protracted." 
 
 He drew back deliberately with the same mono 
 tonous precision of habit, and disclosed the muzzles 
 of his confederates weapons still levelled at the 
 passengers. In spite of their astonishment, indigna 
 tion, and discomfiture, his practised effrontery and 
 deliberate display appeared in some way to touch 
 their humorous sense, and one or two smiled hys 
 terically, as they rose and hesitatingly filed out of 
 the vehicle. It is possible, however, that the levelled 
 shot-guns contributed more or less directly to this 
 result. 
 
 Two masks began to search the passengers under 
 the combined focus of the bullseyes, the shining gun- 
 barrels and a running but still carefully prepared 
 commentary from the spokesman: "It is to be re 
 gretted that business men, instead of entrusting their 
 property to the custody of the regularly constituted 
 express agent, still continue to secrete it on their 
 persons; a custom that, without enhancing its security, 
 is not only an injustice to the Express Company
 
 IO4 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 but a great detriment to despatch. We also wish to 
 point out that while we do not as a rule interfere 
 with the possession of articles of ordinary personal 
 use or adornment, such as simple jewellery or 
 watches, we reserve our right to restrict by confisca 
 tion the vulgarity and unmanliness of diamonds and 
 enormous fob chains." 
 
 The act of spoliation was apparently complete, 
 yet it was evident that the orator was restraining 
 himself for a more effective climax. Clearing his 
 throat again and stepping before the impatient but 
 still mystified file of passengers, he reviewed them 
 gravely. Then in a perfectly pitched tone of mingled 
 pain and apology, he said slowly: 
 
 "It would seem that, from no wish of our own, 
 we are obliged on this present occasion to suspend 
 one or two of our usual rules. We are not in the 
 habit of interfering with the wearing apparel of our 
 esteemed clients, but in the interests of ordinary 
 humanity we are obliged to remove the boots of the 
 gentleman on the extreme left, which evidently give 
 him great pain and impede his locomotion. We also
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 1 05 
 
 seldom deviate from our rule of obliging our clients 
 to hold up their hands during this examination, but 
 we gladly make an exception in favour of the gen 
 tleman next to him, and permit him to hand us the 
 altogether too heavily weighted holster which presses 
 upon his hip. Gentlemen!" said the orator slightly 
 raising his voice, with a deprecating gesture, "you 
 need not be alarmed! The indignant movement of 
 our friend, just now, was not to draw his revolver 
 for it isn t there!" He paused while his companions 
 speedily removed the farmer s boots and the miner s 
 holster, and with a still more apologetic air ap 
 proached the coach where only the lady remained 
 erect and rigid in her corner. "And now," he said 
 with simulated hesitation, "we come to the last and 
 to us the most painful suspension of our rules. On 
 these very rare occasions when we have been 
 honoured with the presence of the fair sex, it has 
 been our invariable custom not only to leave them 
 in the undisturbed possession of their property but 
 even of their privacy as well. It is with deep regret 
 that on this occasion we are obliged to make an ex-
 
 1O6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 ception. For in the present instance the lady out of 
 the gentleness of her heart, and the politeness of her 
 sex, has burdened herself not only with the weight, 
 but the responsibility of a package forced upon her 
 by one of the passengers. We feel, and we believe, 
 gentlemen, that most of you will agree with us that 
 so scandalous and unmanly an attempt to evade our 
 rules and violate the sanctity of the lady s immunity 
 will never be permitted. For your own sake, 
 madam, we are compelled to ask you for the satchel 
 under your seat. It will be returned to you when 
 the package is removed." 
 
 "One moment," said the professional man, in 
 dignantly, "there is a man here whom you have 
 spared a man who lately joined us. Is that man," 
 pointing to the astonished Key, "one of your con 
 federates?" 
 
 "That man," returned the spokesman with a 
 laugh, "is the owner of the Sylvan Hollow Mine. 
 We have spared him because we owe him some con 
 sideration for having been turned out of his house 
 at the dead of night while the Sheriff of Sierras was
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 1 07 
 
 seeking us." He stopped, and then in an entirely 
 different voice, and in a totally changed manner, 
 said roughly, "Tumble in there, all of you, quick! 
 And you, sir," to Key "I d advise you to ride 
 outside. Now, driver, raise so much as a rein or a 
 whip lash, until you hear the signal! and by God 
 you ll know what next." He stepped back and 
 seemed to be instantly swallowed up in the darkness, 
 but the light of a solitary bullseye the holder him 
 self invisible still showed the muzzles of the guns 
 covering the driver. There was a momentary stir of 
 voices within the closed coach, but an angry roar of 
 "Silence!" from the darkness hushed it. 
 
 The moments crept slowly by; all now were 
 breathless. Then a clear whistle rang from the dis 
 tance, the light suddenly was extinguished, the 
 levelled muzzles vanished with it, the driver s lash 
 fell simultaneously on the backs of his horses, and 
 the coach leaped forward. 
 
 The jolt nearly threw Key from the top, but a 
 moment later it was still more difficult to keep his 
 seat in the headlong fury of their progress. Again
 
 IO8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and again the lash descended upon the maddened 
 horses, until the whole coach seemed to leap, bound, 
 and swerve with every stroke. Cries of protest and 
 even distress began to come from the interior, but 
 the driver heeded it not. A window was suddenly 
 let down, the voice of the professional man, saying, 
 "What s the matter? We re not followed. You are 
 imperilling our lives by this speed," was answered 
 
 only by, "Will some of ye throttle that d d fool?" 
 
 from the driver, and the renewed fall of the lash. 
 The wayside trees appeared a solid plateau before 
 them, opened, danced at their side, closed up again 
 behind them, but still they sped along. Rushing 
 down grades with the speed of an avalanche they 
 ascended again without drawing rein, and as if by 
 sheer momentum, for the heavy vehicle now seemed 
 to have a diabolical energy of its own. It ground 
 scattered rocks to powder with its crushing wheels, 
 it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering 
 itself with the resistless forward propulsion of the 
 straining teams until the lights of Three Pine Station 
 began to glitter through the trees. Then a succes-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IOQ 
 
 sion of yells broke from the driver, so strong and 
 dominant that they seemed to outstrip even the speed 
 of the unabated cattle. Lesser lights were presently 
 seen, running to and fro, and on the outermost 
 fringe of the settlement, the stage pulled up before 
 a crowd of wondering faces, and the driver spoke. 
 
 "We ve been held up on the open road, by G d, 
 not three miles from whar ye men are sittin here 
 yawpin ! If thar s a man among ye that hasn t got 
 the soul of a skunk, he ll foller and close in upon 
 em afore they have a chance to get into the brush." 
 Having thus relieved himself of his duty as an 
 enforced non-combatant, and allowed all further 
 responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow- 
 employees, he relapsed into his usual taciturnity and 
 drove a trifle less recklessly to the station, where 
 he grimly set down his bruised and discomfited 
 passengers. As Key mingled with them he could 
 not help perceiving that neither the late "orator s" 
 explanation of his exemption from their fate, nor the 
 driver s surly corroboration of his respectability, had 
 pacified them. For a time this amused him, par-
 
 IIO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 ticularly as he could not help remembering that he 
 first appeared to them beside the mysterious horse 
 man whom some one thought had been identified as 
 one of the masks. But he was not a little piqued to 
 find that the fair unknown appeared to participate 
 in their feelings, and his first civility to her met with 
 a chilling response. Even then, in the general dis 
 illusion of his romance regarding her, this would 
 have been only a momentary annoyance; but it 
 strangely revived all his previous suspicions and set 
 him to thinking. Was the singular sagacity dis 
 played by the orator in his search purely intuitive? 
 Could anyone have disclosed to him the secret of 
 the passengers hoards? Was it possible for her while 
 sitting alone in the coach to have communicated with 
 the band! Suddenly the remembrance flashed across 
 him of her opening the window for fresh air! She 
 could have easily then dropped some signal. If this 
 were so, and she really was the culprit, it was quite 
 natural for her own safety that she should encourage 
 the passengers in their absurd suspicion of himself! 
 His dying interest revived; a few moments ago he
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I I I 
 
 had half resolved to abandon his quest and turn 
 back at Three Pines. Now he determined to follow 
 her to the end. But he did not indulge in any 
 further sophistry regarding his duty, yet, in a new 
 sense of honour, he did not dream of retaliating 
 upon her by communicating his suspicions to his 
 fellow-passengers. When the coach started again he 
 took his seat on the top and remained there until 
 they reached Jamestown in the early evening. Here a 
 number of his despoiled companions were obliged to 
 wait to communicate with their friends. Happily the 
 exemption that had made them indignant, enabled 
 him to continue his journey with a full purse. But 
 he was content with a modest surveillance of the 
 lady from the top of the coach. 
 
 On arriving at Stockton this surveillance became 
 less easy. It was the terminus of the stage route 
 and the divergence of others by boat and rail. If he 
 were lucky enough to discover which one the lady 
 took, his presence now would be more marked and 
 might excite her suspicion. But here a circumstance, 
 which he also believed to be providential, determined
 
 112 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 him. As the luggage was being removed from the 
 top of the coach he overheard the agent tell the 
 Expressman to check the "lady s" trunk to San Luis. 
 Key was seized with an idea which seemed to solve 
 the difficulty, although it involved a risk of losing 
 the clue entirely. There were two routes to San 
 Luis, one was by stage and direct, though slower; 
 the other by steamboat and rail, via San Francisco. 
 If he took the boat there was less danger of her 
 discovering him even if she chose the same con 
 veyance; if she took the direct stage and he trusted 
 to a woman s avoidance of the hurry of change and 
 transhipment for that choice he would still arrive 
 at San Luis, via San Francisco, an hour before her. 
 He resolved to take the boat; a careful scrutiny from 
 a stateroom window of the arriving passengers on 
 the gang-plank satisfied him that she had preferred 
 the stage. There was still the chance that in losing 
 sight of her she might escape him, but the risk 
 seemed small. And a trifling circumstance had al 
 most unconsciously influenced him after his romantic 
 and superstitious fashion as to this final step.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 113 
 
 He had been singularly moved when he heard 
 that San Luis was the lady s probable destination. 
 It did not seem to bear any relation to the mountain 
 wilderness and the wild life she had just quitted; it 
 was apparently the most antipathic, incongruous and 
 inconsistent refuge she could have taken. It offered 
 no opportunity for the disposal of booty, or for com 
 munication with the gang. It was less secure than 
 a crowded town. An old Spanish mission and 
 monastery college in a sleepy pastoral plain it had 
 even retained its old-world flavour amidst American 
 improvements and social revolution. He knew it 
 well. From the quaint college cloisters where the 
 only reposeful years of his adventurous youth had 
 been spent, to the long Alameda or double avenues 
 of ancient trees which connected it with the convent 
 of Santa Luisa, and some of his youthful "devotions" 
 it had been the nursery of his romance. He was 
 amused at what seemed to be the irony of fate in 
 now linking it with this folly of his maturer man 
 hood, and yet he was uneasily conscious of being 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc.
 
 114 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 more seriously affected by it. And it was with a 
 greater anxiety than this adventure had ever yet 
 cost him, that he at last arrived at the San Jose 
 hotel, and from a balcony corner awaited the coming 
 of the coach. His heart beat rapidly as it ap 
 proached. She was there! But at her side, as she 
 descended from the coach, was the mysterious horse 
 man of the Sierra road. Key could not mistake the 
 well-built figure, whatever doubt there had been 
 about the features which had been so carefully con 
 cealed. With the astonishment of this re-discovery, 
 there flashed across him again the fatefulness of the 
 inspiration which had decided him not to go in the 
 coach. His presence there would have no doubt 
 warned the stranger, and so estopped this convincing 
 denouement. It was quite possible that her com 
 panion, by relays of horses and the adventage of 
 bridle cut-offs, could have easily followed the Three 
 Pine coach and joined her at Stockton. But for 
 what purpose? The lady s trunk, which had not 
 been disturbed during the first part of the journey 
 and had been forwarded at Stockton untouched be-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I I 5 
 
 fore Key s eyes, could not have contained booty to 
 be disposed of in this forgotten old town. 
 
 The register of the hotel bore simply the name 
 of "Mrs. Barker," of Stockton, but no record of her 
 companion, who seemed to have disappeared as 
 mysteriously as he came. That she occupied a sit 
 ting-room on the same floor as his own in which 
 she was apparently secluded during the rest of the 
 day was all he knew. Nobody else seemed to 
 know her. Key felt an odd hesitation, that might 
 have been the result of some vague fear of implicat 
 ing her prematurely, in making any marked inquiry, 
 or imperilling his secret by the bribed espionage of 
 servants. Once when he was passing her door he 
 heard the sounds of laughter albeit, innocent and 
 heart-free which seemed so inconsistent with the 
 gravity of the situation and his own thoughts, that 
 he was strangely shocked. But he was still more 
 disturbed by a later occurrence. In his watchful 
 ness of the movements of his neighbour he had been 
 equally careful of his own, and had not only re 
 frained from registering his name, but had enjoined 
 
 8*
 
 I 1 6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 secrecy upon the landlord, whom he knew. Yet the 
 next morning after his arrival, the porter not answer 
 ing his bell promptly enough, he so far forgot himself 
 as to walk to the staircase, which was near the lady s 
 room, and call to the employee over the balustrade. 
 As he was still leaning over the railing, the faint 
 creak of a door, and a singular magnetic conscious 
 ness of being overlooked, caused him to turn slowly, 
 but only in time to hear the rustle of a withdrawing 
 skirt as the door was quickly closed. In an instant 
 he felt the full force of his foolish heedlessness 
 but it was too late. Had the mysterious fugitive 
 recognised him? Perhaps not; their eyes had not 
 met and his face had been turned away. 
 
 He varied his espionage by subterfuges which 
 his knowledge of the old town made easy. He 
 watched the door of the hotel, himself unseen, from 
 the windows of a billiard saloon opposite, which he 
 had frequented in former days. Yet he was sur 
 prised the same afternoon to see her, from his coign of 
 vantage, re-entering the hotel, where he was sure he 
 had left her a few moments ago. Had she gone out
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 117 
 
 by some other exit or had she been disguised? 
 But on entering his room that evening he was con 
 founded by an incident that seemed to him as con 
 vincing of her identity as it was audacious. Lying 
 on his pillow were a few dead leaves of an odorous 
 mountain fern known only to the Sierras. They were 
 tied together by a narrow blue ribbon and had evi 
 dently been intended to attract his attention. As he 
 took them in his hand, the distinguishing subtle 
 aroma of the little sylvan hollow in the hills came 
 to him like a memory and a revelation! He sum 
 moned the chambermaid; she knew nothing of them, 
 or indeed of anyone Who had entered his room. He 
 walked cautiously into the hall; the lady s sitting- 
 room door was open the room was empty. The 
 occupant, said the chambermaid, "had left that after 
 noon." He held the proof of her identity in his 
 hand, but she herself had vanished! That she had 
 recognised him there was now no doubt; had she 
 divined the real object of his quest, or had she ac 
 cepted it as a mere sentimental gallantry at the 
 moment when she knew it was hopeless, and she
 
 I 1 8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 herself was perfectly safe from pursuit? In either 
 event he had been duped. He did not know whether 
 to be piqued, angry or relieved of his irresolute 
 quest. 
 
 Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the twilight 
 and the early evening in fruitlessly wandering through 
 the one long thoroughfare of the town until it merged 
 into the bosky Alamada or spacious grove that con 
 nected it with Santa Luisa. By degrees his chagrin 
 and disappointment were forgotten in the memories 
 of the past, evoked by the familiar pathway. The 
 moon was slowly riding overhead and silvering the 
 carriage-way between the straight ebony lines of trees, 
 while the footpaths were diapered with black and 
 white chequers. The faint tinkling of a tram-car 
 bell in the distance apprised him of one of the few 
 innovations of the past. The car was approaching 
 him, overtook him, and was passing, with its faintly 
 illuminated windows, when, glancing carelessly up, 
 he beheld at one of them the profile of the face 
 which he had just thought he had lost forever! 
 
 He stopped for an instant, not in indecision this
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I I Q 
 
 time but in a grim resolution to let no chance 
 escape him now. The car was going slowly; it was 
 easy to board it now, but again the tinkle of the bell 
 indicated that it was stopping at the corner of a road 
 beyond. He checked his pace a lady alighted it 
 was she! She turned into the cross street, darkened 
 with the shadows of some low suburban tenement 
 houses, and he boldly followed. He was fully deter 
 mined to find out her secret, and even, if necessary, 
 to accost her for that purpose. He was perfectly 
 aware what he was doing and all its risks and 
 penalties; he knew the audacity of such an introduc 
 tion, but he felt in his left-hand pocket for the sprig 
 of fern which was an excuse for it; he knew the 
 danger of following a possible confidante of despe 
 radoes, but he felt in his right-hand pocket for the 
 derringer that was equal to it. They were both 
 there; he was ready. 
 
 He was nearing the convent and the oldest and 
 most ruinous part of the town. He did not disguise 
 from himself the gloomy significance of this; even in 
 the old days the crumbling adobe buildings that
 
 I2O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 abutted on the old garden wall of the convent were 
 the haunts of lawless Mexicans and vagabond peons. 
 As the roadway began to be rough and uneven, and 
 the gaunt outlines of the sagging roofs of tiles stood 
 out against the sky above the lurking shadows of 
 ruined doorways, he was prepared for the worst. 
 As the crumbling but still massive walls of the con 
 vent garden loomed ahead the tall, graceful, black- 
 gowned figure he was following presently turned into 
 the shadow of the wall itself. He quickened his 
 pace lest it should again escape him. Suddenly it 
 stopped and remained motionless. He stopped too. 
 At the same moment it vanished! 
 
 He ran quickly forward to where it had stood 
 and found himself before a large iron gate with a 
 smaller one in the centre that had just clanged to 
 on its rusty hinges. He rubbed his eyes! the place, 
 the gate, the wall, were all strangely familiar! Then 
 he stepped back into the roadway, and looked at it 
 again. He was not mistaken. 
 
 He was standing before the porter s lodge of the 
 Convent of the Sacred Heart.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 121 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE day following the great stage-coach robbery, 
 found the patient proprietor of Collinson s mill calm 
 and untroubled in his usual seclusion. The news 
 that had thrilled the length and breadth of Gal 
 loper s Ridge had not touched the leafy banks of 
 the dried-up river; the hue and cry had followed 
 the stage road, and no courier had deemed it worth 
 his while to diverge as far as the rocky ridge which 
 formed the only pathway to the mill. That day 
 Collinson s solitude had been unbroken even by the 
 haggard emigrant from the valley, with his old 
 monotonous story of hardship and privation. The 
 birds had flown nearer to the old mill as if em 
 boldened by the unwonted quiet. That morning 
 there had been the half human imprint of a bear s 
 foot in the ooze beside the mill wheel, and coming 
 home with his scant stock from the woodland pas-
 
 122 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 ture he had found a golden squirrel a beautiful, 
 airy embodiment of the brown woods itself calmly 
 seated on his bar-counter with a biscuit between its 
 baby hands. He was full of his characteristic 
 reveries and abstractions that afternoon; falling into 
 them even at his wood pile, leaning on his axe so 
 still that an emerald-throated lizard who had slid 
 upon the log went to sleep under the forgotten 
 stroke. 
 
 But at nightfall the wind arose at first as a 
 distant murmur along the hillside, that died away 
 before it reached the rocky ledge. Then it rocked 
 the tops of the tall redwoods behind the mill, but 
 left the mill and the dried leaves that lay in the 
 river-bed undisturbed. Then the murmur was pro 
 longed until it became the continuous trouble of 
 some far-off sea, and at last the wind possessed the 
 ledge itself, driving the smoke down the stumpy 
 chimney of the mill, rattling the sun-warped shingles 
 on the roof, stirring the inside rafters with cool 
 breaths, and singing over the rough projections of 
 the outside eaves. At nine o clock he rolled him-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 123 
 
 self up in his blankets before the fire, as was his 
 wont, and fell asleep. 
 
 It was past midnight when he was awakened by 
 the familiar clatter of boulders down the grade, the 
 usual simulation of a wild rush from without that 
 encompassed the whole mill, even to that heavy im 
 pact against the door, which he had heard once 
 before. In this he recognised merely the ordinary 
 phenomena of his experience, and only turned over 
 to sleep again. But this time the door rudely fell 
 in upon him and a figure strode over his prostrate 
 body with a gun levelled at his head. 
 
 He sprang sideways for his own weapon which 
 stood by the hearth. In another second that action 
 would have been his last, and the solitude of Seth 
 Collinson might have remained henceforward un 
 broken by any mortal. But the gun of the first 
 figure was knocked sharply upward by a second 
 man and the one and only shot fired that night 
 sped harmlessly to the roof. With the report he 
 felt his arms gripped tightly behind him; through 
 the smoke he saw dimly that the room was filled
 
 124 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 with masked and armed men, and in another mo 
 ment he was pinioned and thrust into his empty 
 armchair. At a signal three of the men left the 
 room, and he could hear them exploring the other 
 rooms and outhouses. Then the two men who had 
 been standing beside him fell back with a certain 
 disciplined precision as a smooth-chinned man ad 
 vanced from the open door. Going to the bar he 
 poured out a glass of whisky, tossed it off deliberately, 
 and standing in front of Collinson with his shoulder 
 against the chimney and his hand resting lightly on 
 his hip, cleared his throat. Had Collinson been an 
 observant man he would have noticed that the two 
 men dropped their eyes and moved their feet with 
 a half impatient perfunctory air of waiting. Had he 
 witnessed the stage robbery he would have recognised 
 in the smooth-faced man the presence of "the ora 
 tor." But he only gazed at him with his dull, im 
 perturbable patience. 
 
 "We regret exceedingly to have to use force to 
 a gentleman in his own house," began the orator 
 blandly; "but we feel it our duty to prevent a re-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 125 
 
 petition of the unhappy incident which occurred as 
 we entered. We desire that you should answer a 
 few questions, and are deeply grateful that you are 
 still able to do so which seemed extremely im 
 probable a moment or two ago." He paused, 
 coughed and leaned back against the chimney. 
 "How many men have you here besides your 
 self?" 
 
 "Nary one," said Collinson. 
 
 The interrogator glanced at the other men who 
 had re-entered. They nodded significantly. 
 
 "Good!" he resumed. "You have told the truth 
 an excellent habit, and one that expedites busi 
 ness. Now, is there a room in this house with a 
 door that locks? Your front door doesn t." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No cellar nor outhouse?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "We regret that, for it will compel us, much 
 against our wishes, to keep you bound as you are 
 for the present. The matter is simply this: Cir 
 cumstances of a very pressing nature oblige us to
 
 126 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 occupy this house for a few days possibly for an 
 indefinite period. We respect the sacred rites of 
 hospitality too much to turn you out of it; indeed, 
 nothing could be more distasteful to our feelings 
 than to have you, in your own person, spread such 
 a disgraceful report through the chivalrous Sierras. 
 We must therefore keep you a close prisoner open, 
 however, to an offer. It is this: We propose to give 
 you five hundred dollars for this property as it 
 stands, provided that you leave it and accompany a 
 pack-train which will start to-morrow morning for 
 the lower valley as far as Thompson s Pass, binding 
 yourself to quit the State for three months and keep 
 this matter a secret. Three of these gentlemen will 
 go with you. They will point out to you your duty; 
 their shot-guns will apprise you of any dereliction 
 from it. What do you say?" 
 
 "Who yer talking to?" said Collinson in a dull 
 voice. 
 
 "You remind us," said the orator suavely, "that 
 we have not yet the pleasure of knowing." 
 
 "My name s Seth Collinson."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 127 
 
 There was a dead silence in the room and every 
 eye was fixed upon the two men. The orator s 
 smile slightly stiffened. 
 
 "Where from?" he continued blandly. 
 
 "Mizzouri." 
 
 "A very good place to go back to through 
 Thompson s Pass. But you haven t answered our 
 proposal." 
 
 "I reckon I don t intend to sell this house or 
 leave it," said Collinson simply. 
 
 "I trust you will not make us regret the fortunate 
 termination of your little accident, Mr. Collinson," 
 said the orator with a singular smile. "May I ask 
 why you object to selling out. Is it the figure?" 
 
 "The house isn t mine," said Collinson de 
 liberately. "I built this yer house for my wife wot 
 I left in Mizzouri. It s hers. I kalkilate to keep it 
 and live in it ontil she comes fur it! And when I 
 tell ye that she is dead, ye kin reckon just what 
 chance ye have of ever gettin it." 
 
 There was an unmistakable start of sensation in 
 the room followed by a silence so profound that the.
 
 128 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 moaning of the wind on the mountain side was dis 
 tinctly heard. A well-built man with a mask that 
 scarcely concealed his heavy moustachios, who had 
 been standing with his back to the orator in half 
 contemptuous patience, faced around suddenly and 
 made a step forward as if to come between the 
 questioner and questioned. A voice from the corner 
 ejaculated, "By G d!" 
 
 "Silence," said the orator, sharply. Then still 
 more harshly he turned to the others. "Pick him 
 up and stand him outside with a guard. And then 
 clear out, all of you ! " 
 
 The prisoner was lifted up and carried out; the 
 room was instantly cleared; only the orator and the 
 man who had stepped forward remained. Simul 
 taneously they drew the masks from their faces and 
 stood looking at each other. The orator s face was 
 smooth and corrupt; the full, sensual lips wrinkled 
 at the corners with a sardonic humour; the man who 
 confronted him appeared to be physically and even 
 morally his superior albeit gloomy and discontented 
 in expression. He cast a rapid glance around the
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I2Q 
 
 room to assure himself that they were alone, and 
 then, straightening his eyebrows as he backed against 
 the chimney, said: 
 
 "D d if I like this, Chivers! It s your affair; 
 
 but it s mighty low down work for a man!" 
 
 "You might have made it easier if you hadn t 
 knocked up Bryce s gun. That would have settled 
 it, though no one guessed that the cur was her hus 
 band," said Chivers hotly. 
 
 "If you want it settled that way, there s still 
 time," returned the other, with a slight sneer. 
 "You ve only to tell him that you re the man that 
 ran away with his wife and you ll have it out to 
 gether, right on the ledge at twelve paces. The 
 boys will see you through. In fact," he added, his 
 sneer deepening, "I rather think it s what they re ex 
 pecting." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Jack Riggs," said Chivers sar 
 donically. "I dare say it would be more convenient 
 to some people, just before our booty is divided, if I 
 were drilled through by a blundering shot from that 
 hayseed; or it would seem right to your high-toned 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hitts, etc. 9
 
 I3O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 chivalry if a dead shot as I am knocked over a man 
 who may have never fired a revolver before; but I 
 don t exactly see it in that light, either as a man or 
 as your equal partner. I don t think you quite under 
 stand me, my dear Jack. If you don t value the only 
 man who is identified in all California as the leader 
 of this gang the man whose style nnd address has 
 made it popular yes, popular, by G d, to every 
 man, woman, and child who has heard of him; 
 whose sayings and doings are quoted by the news 
 papers; whom people run risks to see; who has got 
 the sympathy of the crowd so that judges hesitate 
 to issue warrants and constables to serve them if 
 you don t see the use of such a man, / do. Why, 
 there s a column and a half in the Sacramento Union 
 about our last job, calling me the Claude Duval of 
 the Sierras, and speaking of my courtesy to a lady! 
 A lady! his wife, by G d! our confederate! My 
 dear Jack, you not only don t know business values, 
 but, pon my soul, you don t seem to understand 
 humour! Ha! ha!" 
 
 For all his cynical levity, for all his affected ex-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 131 
 
 aggeration, there was the ring of an unmistakable 
 and even pitiable vanity in his voice, and a self- 
 consciousness that suffused his broad cheeks and 
 writhed his full mouth, but seemed to deepen the 
 frown on Riggs s face. 
 
 "You know the woman hates it, and would bolt 
 if she could even from you," said Riggs gloomily. 
 "Think what she might do if she knew her husband 
 were here. I tell you she holds our lives in the hol 
 low of her hand." 
 
 "That s your fault, Mr. Jack Riggs; you would 
 bring your sister with her infernal convent innocence 
 and simplicity into our hut in the hollow. She was 
 meek enough before that. But this is sheer non 
 sense. I have no fear of her. The woman don t 
 live who would go back on Godfrey Chivers for a 
 husband! Besides, she went off to see your sister at 
 the convent at Santa Clara as soon as she passed 
 those bonds off on Charley to get rid of! Think of 
 
 her travelling with that d d fool lawyer all the 
 
 way to Stockton, and his bonds which we had put 
 back in her bag alongside of them all the time,
 
 132 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and he telHng her he was going to stop their pay 
 ment, and giving her the letter to mail for him, eh! 
 Well, we ll have time to get rid of her husband be 
 fore she gets back. If he don t go easy well 
 
 "None of that, Chivers, you understand, once for 
 all!" interrupted Riggs peremptorily. "If you can 
 not see that your making away with that woman s 
 husband would damn that boasted reputation you 
 make so much of and set every man s hand against 
 us, / do, and I won t permit it. It s a rotten busi 
 ness enough our coming on him as we have; and if 
 this wasn t the only God-forsaken place where we 
 could divide our stuff without danger and get it 
 away off the high roads, I d pull up stakes at once." 
 
 "Let her stay at the convent, then, and be d d 
 
 to her," said Chivers roughly. "She ll be glad enough 
 to be with your sister again; and there s no fear of 
 her being touched there." 
 
 "But I want to put an end to that, too," returned 
 Riggs sharply. "I do not choose to have my sister 
 any longer implicated with our confederate or your 
 mistress. No more of that you understand me?"
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 133 
 
 The two men had been standing side by side 
 leaning against the chimney. Chivers now faced his 
 companion, his full lips wreathed into an evil smile. 
 
 "I think I understand you, Mr. Jack Riggs, or 
 I beg your pardon Rivers, or whatever your real 
 name may be," he began slowly. "Sadie Collinson, 
 the mistress of Judge Godfrey Chivers, formerly of 
 Kentucky, was good enough company for you the 
 day you dropped down upon us in our little house 
 in the hollow of Galloper s Ridge. We were living 
 quite an idyllic pastoral life there, weren t we? she 
 and me hidden from the censorious eye of society 
 and Collinson; obeying only the voice of Nature 
 and the little birds. It was a happy time," he went 
 on with a grimly affected sigh, disregarding his com 
 panion s impatient gesture. "You were young then, 
 waging your fight against society, and fresh uncom 
 monly fresh, I may say from your first exploit. 
 And a very stupid, clumsy, awkward exploit, too, 
 Mr. Riggs, if you will pardon my freedom. You 
 wanted money and you had an ugly temper, and 
 you had lost both to a gambler; so you stopped
 
 134 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the coach to rob him, and had to kill two men to 
 get back your paltry thousand dollars, after frighten 
 ing a whole coach-load of passengers and letting 
 Wells, Fargo and Co. s treasure-box with fifty thou 
 sand dollars in it slide. It was a stupid, a blunder 
 ing, a cruel act, Mr. Riggs, and I think I told you 
 so at the time. It was a waste of energy and ma 
 terial, and made you, not a hero, but a stupid out 
 cast! I think I proved this to you and showed you 
 how it might have been done." 
 
 "Dry up on that," interrupted Riggs impatiently. 
 "You offered to become my partner, and you did." 
 
 "Pardon me. Observe, my impetuous friend, 
 that my contention is that you, you poisoned our 
 blameless Eden in the hollow, that you were our ser 
 pent, and that this Sadie Collinson, over whom you 
 have become so fastidious, whom you knew as my 
 mistress, was obliged to become our confederate. 
 You did not object to her when we formed our 
 gang, and her house became our hiding-place and 
 refuge. You took advantage of her woman s wit and 
 fine address in disposing of our booty; you availed
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 135 
 
 yourself, with the rest, of the secrets she gathered as 
 my mistress, just as you were willing to profit by the 
 superior address of her paramour your humble ser 
 vant when your own face was known to the sheriff, 
 and your old methods pronounced brutal and vulgar. 
 Excuse me, but I must insist upon this, and that 
 you dropped down upon me and Sadie Collinson, 
 exactly as you have dropped down here upon her 
 husband." 
 
 "Enough of this!" said Riggs angrily. "I admit 
 the woman is part and parcel of the gang and gets 
 her share or you get it for her," he added 
 sneeringly; "but that doesn t permit her to mix 
 herself with my family affairs." 
 
 "Pardon me again," interrupted Chivers softly. 
 "Your memory, my dear Riggs, is absurdly de 
 fective. We knew that you had a young sister in 
 the mountains from whom you discreetly wished to 
 conceal your real position. We respected, and I 
 trust shall always respect, your noble reticence. But 
 do you remember the night you were taking her to 
 school at Santa Clara two nights before the fire
 
 136 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 when you were recognised on the road near Skin 
 ner s and had to fly with her for your life, and 
 brought her to us your two dear old friends, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Barker of Chicago, who had a pastoral 
 home in the forest. You remember how we took 
 her in yes, doubly took her in and kept your 
 secret from her. And do you remember how this 
 woman this mistress of mine, and our confederate, 
 while we were away, saved her from the fire on our 
 only horse, caught the stage coach, and brought her 
 to the convent?" 
 
 Riggs walked towards the window, turned, and 
 coming back, held out his hand. "Yes, she did it, 
 and I thanked her, as I thank you." He stopped 
 and hesitated as the other took his hand. "But 
 blank it all, Chivers, don t you see that Alice is a 
 young girl, and this woman is you know what I 
 mean. Somebody might recognise her, and that 
 would be worse for Alice than even if it were 
 known what Alice s brother was. G d! if these 
 two things were put together, the girl would be 
 ruined for ever."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 137 
 
 "Jack," said Chivers suddenly, "you want this 
 woman out of the way. Well dash it all! she 
 nearly separated us, and I ll be frank with you as 
 between man and man. I ll give her up! There 
 are women enough in the world, and hang it, we re 
 partners, after all!" 
 
 "Then you abandon her?" said Riggs slowly, 
 his eyes fixed on his companion. 
 
 "Yes. She s getting a little too maundering lately. 
 It will be a ticklish job to manage, for she knows 
 too much, but it will be done. There s my hand 
 on it." 
 
 Riggs not only took no notice of the proffered 
 hand, but his former look of discontent came back 
 with an ill-concealed addition of loathing and con 
 tempt. 
 
 "We ll drop that now," he said shortly; "we ve 
 talked here alone long enough already. The men 
 are waiting for us." He turned on his heel into 
 the inner room. Chivers remained standing by the 
 chimney until his stiffened smile gave way under the 
 working of his writhing lips; then he turned to the
 
 138 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 bar, poured out and swallowed another glass of 
 whisky at a single gulp, and followed his partner 
 with half-closed lids that scarcely veiled his ominous 
 eyes. 
 
 The men, with the exception of the sentinels 
 stationed on the rocky ledge and the one who was 
 guarding the unfortunate Collinson, were drinking 
 and gambling away their perspective gains around a 
 small pile of portmanteaus and saddle-bags, heaped 
 in the centre of the room. They contained the re 
 sults of their last successes, but one pair of saddle 
 bags bore the mildewed appearance of having been 
 cached or buried some time before. Most of their 
 treasure was in packages of gold-dust, and from the 
 conversation that ensued, it appeared that owing to 
 the difficulties of disposing of it in the mountain 
 towns, the plan was to convey it by ordinary pack 
 mule to the unfrequented valley and thence by an 
 emigrant waggon on the old emigrant trail to the 
 southern counties, where it could be no longer traced. 
 Since the recent robberies the local express com 
 panies and bankers had refused to receive it except
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 139 
 
 the owners were known and identified. There had 
 been but one box of coin which had already been 
 speedily divided up among the band. Drafts, bills, 
 bonds, and valuable papers had been usually en 
 trusted to one "Charley," who acted as a flying 
 messenger to a corrupt broker in Sacramento, who 
 played the role of the band s "fence." It had been 
 the duty of Chivers to control this delicate business, 
 even as it had been his peculiar function to open 
 all the letters and documents. This he had always 
 lightened by characteristic levity and sarcastic com 
 ments on the private revelations of the contents. 
 The rough, ill-spelt letter of the miner to his wife, 
 enclosing a draft, or the more sentimental effusion of 
 an emigrant swain to his sweetheart with the gift of 
 a "specimen," had always received due attention at 
 the hands of this elegant humorist. But the opera 
 tion was conducted to-night with business severity 
 and silence. The two leaders sat opposite to each 
 other, in what might have appeared to the rest of 
 the band a scarcely veiled surveillance of each 
 other s actions. When the examination was con-
 
 I4O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 eluded and the more valuable enclosures put aside, 
 the despoiled letters were carried to the fire and 
 heaped upon the coals. Presently the chimney added 
 its roar to the moaning of the distant hillside, a 
 few sparks leaped up and died out in the midnight 
 air, as if the pathos and sentiment of the uncon 
 scious correspondents had exhaled with them. 
 
 "That s a d d foolish thing to do," growled 
 
 French Pete over his cards. 
 
 "Why?" demanded Chivers sharply. 
 
 "Why? why, it makes a flare in the sky that 
 any scout can see, and a scent for him to follow." 
 
 "We re four miles from any travelled road," re 
 turned Chivers contemptuously, "and the man who 
 could see that glare and smell that smoke would be 
 on his way here already." 
 
 "That reminds me that that chap you ve tied 
 up that Collinson allows he wants to see you," 
 continued French Pete. 
 
 "To see me!" repeated Chivers. "You mean 
 the Captain?"
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 14! 
 
 "I reckon he means you," returned French Pete; 
 "he said the man who talked so purty." 
 
 The men looked at each other with a smile of 
 anticipation and put down their cards. Chivers 
 walked towards the door; one or two rose to their 
 feet as if to follow, but Riggs stopped them peremp 
 torily. "Sit down," he said roughly; then, as 
 Chivers passed him, he added to him in a lower 
 tone, "Remember." 
 
 Slightly squaring his shoulders and opening his 
 coat to permit a rhetorical freedom, which did not, 
 however, prevent him from keeping touch with the 
 butt of his revolver, Chivers stepped into the open 
 air. Collinson had been moved to the shelter of an 
 overhang of the roof, probably more for the comfort 
 of the guard, who sat cross-legged on the ground 
 near him, than for his own. Dismissing the man 
 with a gesture, Chivers straightened himself before 
 his captive. 
 
 "We deeply regret that your unfortunate deter 
 mination, my dear sir, has been the means of de 
 priving us of the pleasure of your company, and
 
 142 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 you of your absolute freedom, but may we cherish 
 the hope that your desire to see me may indicate 
 some change in your opinion?" 
 
 By the light of the sentry s lantern left upon the 
 ground Chivers could see that Collinson s face wore 
 a slightly troubled and even apologetic expression. 
 
 "I ve bin thinkin , said Collinson, raising his 
 eyes to his captor with a singularly new and shy 
 admiration in them, "mebbee not so much of wot 
 you said, ez hoiv you said it, and it s kinder 
 bothered me, sittin here, that I ain t bin actin to 
 you boys quite on the square. I ve said to myself, 
 Collinson, thar ain t another house betwixt Bald 
 Tow and Skinner s whar them fellows kin get a bite 
 or a drink to help themselves, and you ain t offered 
 em neither. It ain t no matter who they are or 
 how they came; whether they came crawling along 
 the road from the valley, or dropped down upon 
 you like them rocks from the grade, yere they are, 
 and it s your duty, ez long ez you keep this yer 
 house for your wife in trust, so to speak, for 
 wanderers, And I ain t forgettin yer ginerel soft
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 143 
 
 style and easy gait with me when you kem here. 
 It ain t every man as could walk into another man s 
 house arter the owner of it had grabbed a gun, ez 
 soft-speakin , ez ov,erlookin , and ez perlite ez you. 
 I ve acted mighty rough and low down, and I know 
 it. And I sent for you to say that you and your 
 folks kin use this house and all that s in it ez long 
 ez you re in trouble. I ve told you why I couldn t 
 sell the house to ye, and why I couldn t leave it. 
 But ye kin use it, and while ye re here, and when 
 you go, Collinson don t tell nobody. I don t know 
 what ye mean by binding myself to keep your 
 secret; when Collinson says a thing he sticks to it, 
 and when he passes his word with a man or a man 
 passes his word with him it don t need no bit of 
 paper." 
 
 There was no doubt of its truth. In the grave, 
 upraised eyes of his prisoner, Chivers saw the cer 
 tainty that he could trust him, even far more than 
 he could trust any one within the house he had just 
 quitted. But this very certainty, for all its assurance 
 of safety to himself, filled him, not with remorse,
 
 144 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 which might have been an evanescent emotion, but 
 with a sudden alarming and terrible consciousness of 
 being in the presence of a hitherto unknown and 
 immeasurable power! He had no pity for the man 
 who trusted him; he had no sense of shame in tak 
 ing advantage of it; he even felt an intellectual 
 superiority in this want of sagacity in his dupe, but 
 he still felt in some way defeated, insulted, shocked, 
 and frightened. At first, like all scoundrels, he had 
 measured the man by himself; was suspicious, and 
 prepared for rivalry, but the grave truthfulness of 
 Collinson s eyes left him helpless. He was terrified 
 by this unknown factor. The right that contends 
 and fights often stimulates its adversary; the right 
 that yields, leaves the victor vanquished. Chivers 
 could even have killed Collinson in his vague dis 
 comfiture, but he had a terrible consciousness that 
 there was something behind him that he could not 
 make way with. That was why this accomplished 
 rascal felt his flaccid cheeks grow purple and his 
 glib tongue trip before his captive. 
 
 But Collinson, more occupied with his own short-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 145 
 
 comings, took no note of this, and Ghivers quickly 
 recovered his wits, if not his former artificiality. 
 "All right," he said quickly, with a hurried glance 
 at the door behind him. "Now that you think 
 better of it, I ll be frank with you, and tell you I m 
 your friend. You understand your friend. Don t 
 talk much to those men don t give yourself away 
 to them," he laughed this time in absolute natural 
 embarrassment. "Don t talk about your wife, and 
 this house, but just say you ve made the thing up 
 with me with me, you know, and I ll see you 
 through." An idea, as yet vague, that he could 
 turn Collinson s unexpected docility to his own pur 
 poses possessed him even in his embarrassment, and 
 he was still more strangely conscious of his inordi 
 nate vanity gathering a fearful joy from Collinson s 
 evident admiration. It was heightened by his cap 
 tive s next words. 
 
 "Ef I wasn t tied I d shake hands with ye on 
 that. You re the kind o man, Mr. Chivers, that I 
 cottoned to from the first. Ef this house wasn t 
 hers I d a bin tempted to cotton to yer offer, too, 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 1O
 
 146 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and mebbee made yer one myself, for it seems to 
 me your style and mine would sorter jibe together. 
 But I see you sabe what s in my mind and make 
 allowance. We don t want no bit o paper to shake 
 hands on that. Your secret and your folk s secret 
 is mine, and I don t blab that any more than I d 
 blab to them wot you ve just told me." 
 
 Under a sudden impulse, Chivers leaned forward, 
 and, albeit with somewhat unsteady hands and an 
 embarrassed will, untied the cords that held Collin- 
 son in his chair. As the freed man stretched him 
 self to his full height he looked gravely down into 
 the bleared eyes of his captor and held out his 
 strong right hand. Chivers took it. Whether there 
 was some occult power in Collinson s honest grasp I 
 know not, but there sprang up in Chivers agile mind 
 the idea that a good way to get rid of Mrs. Collin- 
 son was to put her in the way of her husband s 
 finding her, and for an instant, in the contemplation 
 of that idea, this supreme rascal absolutely felt an 
 embarrassing glow of virtue.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 147 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE astonishment of Preble Key on recognising 
 the gateway into which the mysterious lady had 
 vanished was so great that he was at first inclined 
 to believe her entry there a mere trick of his fancy. 
 That the confederate of a gang of robbers should be 
 admitted to the austere recesses of the convent, 
 with a celerity that bespoke familiarity, was in 
 credible. He again glanced up and down the length 
 of the shadowed but still visible wall. There was 
 no one there. The wall itself contained no break 
 or recess in which one could hide, and this was the 
 only gateway. The opposite side of the street in 
 the full moonlight stared emptily. No! Unless she 
 were an illusion herself and his whole chase a 
 dream, she must have entered here. 
 
 But the chase was not hopeless. He had at 
 least tracked her to a place where she could be 
 
 identified. It was not a hotel which she could leave 
 
 10*
 
 148 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 at any moment unobserved. Though he could not 
 follow her and penetrate its seclusion now, he could 
 later thanks to his old associations with the padres 
 of the contiguous college gain an introduction to 
 the Lady Superior on some pretext She was safe 
 there that night. He turned away with a feeling of 
 relief. The incongruity of her retreat assumed a 
 more favourable aspect to his hopes. He looked at 
 the hallowed walls and the slumbering peaceful- 
 ness of the gnarled old trees that hid the convent, 
 and a gentle reminiscence of his youth stole over 
 him. It was not the first time that he had gazed 
 wistfully upon that chaste refuge where, perhaps, the 
 bright eyes that he had followed in the quaint school 
 procession under the leafy Alameda in the afternoon, 
 were at last closed in gentle slumber. There was 
 the very grille through which the wicked Conchita 
 or was it Dolores? had shot her parthian glance 
 at the lingering student. And the man of thirty- 
 five, prematurely grey and settled in fortune, smiled 
 as he turned away, and forgot the adventuress of 
 thirty who had brought him there.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 149 
 
 The next morning he was up betimes and at the 
 college of San Jose. Father Cipriano, a trifle more 
 snuffy and aged, remembered with delight his old 
 pupil. Ah! it was true then that he had become a 
 mining president, and that was why his hair was 
 grey; but he trusted that Don Preble had not forgot 
 that this was not all of life, and that fortune brought 
 great responsibilities and cares. But what was this, 
 then? He had thought of bringing out some of his 
 relations from the States, and placing a niece in the 
 convent. That was good and wise. Ah, yes. For 
 education in this new country one must turn to the 
 Church. And he would see the Lady Superior? 
 Ah! that was but the twist of one s finger and the 
 lifting of a latch to a grave superintendent and a 
 grey head like that. Of course he had not forgotten 
 the convent and the young seiloritas, nor the dis 
 cipline and the suspended holidays. Ah! it was a 
 special grace of our lady that he, Father Cipriano, 
 had not been worried into his grave by those foolish 
 muchachos. Yet, when he had extinguished a snuffy 
 chuckle in his red bandanna handkerchief, Key
 
 I5O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 knew that he would accompany him to the convent 
 that noon. 
 
 It was with a slight stirring of shame over his 
 elaborate pretext that he passed the gate of the 
 Sacred Heart with the good father. But it is to be 
 feared that he speedily forgot that in the unexpected 
 information that it elicited. The Lady Superior was 
 gracious and even enthusiastic. Ah, yes, it was a 
 growing custom of the American caballeros who 
 had no homes, nor yet time to create any to bring 
 their sisters, wards and nieces here, and with a 
 dove-like side glance towards Key even the young 
 senoritas they wished to fit for their Christian brides! 
 Unlike the caballero, there were many business men 
 so immersed in their affairs that they could not find 
 time for a personal examination of the convent 
 which was to be regretted but who, trusting to the 
 reputation of the Sacred Heart and its good friends, 
 simply sent the young lady there by some trusted 
 female companion. Notably this was the case of the 
 Senor Rivers did Don Preble ever know him? a 
 great capitalist in the Sierras, whose sweet young
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 15! 
 
 sister, a naive, ingenuous creature, was the pride of 
 the convent. Of course it was better that it was so. 
 Discipline and seclusion had to be maintained. The 
 young girl should look upon this as her home. The 
 rules for visitors were necessarily severe. It. was 
 rare indeed except in a case of urgency, such as 
 happened last night that even a lady, unless the 
 parent of a scholar, was admitted to the hospitality 
 of the convent. And this lady was only the friend 
 of that same sister of the American capitalist, 
 although she was the one who had brought her 
 there. No, she was not a relation. Perhaps Don 
 Preble had heard of a Mrs. Barker the friend of 
 Rivers of the Sierras. It was a queer combination 
 of names. But what will you? The names of 
 Americanos mean nothing. And Don Preble knows 
 them not. Ah! Possibly? good! The lady would 
 be remembered, being tall, dark, and of fine 
 presence, though sad. A few hours earlier and 
 Don Preble could have judged for himself, for, as it 
 were, she might have passed through this visitors 
 room. But she was gone departed by the coach.
 
 152 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 It was from a telegram those heathen contrivances 
 that blurt out things to you, with never an excuse, 
 nor a smile, nor a kiss of the hand! For her part 
 she never let her scholars receive them, but opened 
 them herself, and translated them in a Christian 
 spirit, after due preparation, at her leisure. And it 
 was this telegram that made the Senora Barker go, 
 or, without doubt, she would have of herself told to 
 the Don Preble, her compatriot of the Sierras, how 
 good the convent was for his niece. 
 
 Stung by the thought that this woman had again 
 evaded him, and disconcerted and confused by the 
 scarcely intelligible information he had acquired, 
 Key could with difficulty maintain his composure. 
 "The caballero is tired of his long pasear," said the 
 Lady Superior gently. "We will have a glass of 
 wine in the lodge waiting-room." She led the way 
 from the reception room to the outer door, but 
 stopped at the sound of approaching footsteps and 
 rustling muslin along the gravel walk. "The second 
 class are going out," she said as a gentle procession 
 of white frocks, led by two nuns, filed before the
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 153 
 
 gateway. "We will wait until they have passed. 
 But the sefior can see that my children do not look 
 unhappy." 
 
 They certainly looked very cheerful, although 
 they had halted before the gateway with a little of 
 the demureness of young people who know they are 
 overlooked by authority, and had bumped against 
 each other with affected gravity. Somewhat ashamed 
 of his useless deception, and the guileless simplicity 
 of the good Lady Superior, Key hesitated and began: 
 "I am afraid that I am really giving you too much 
 trouble," and suddenly stopped. 
 
 For as his voice broke the demure silence, one of 
 the nearest a young girl of apparently seventeen 
 turned towards him with a quick and an apparently 
 irresistible impulse and as quickly turned away again. 
 But in that instant Key caught a glimpse of a face 
 that might not only have thrilled him in its beauty, 
 its freshness, but in some vague suggestiveness. Yet 
 it was not that which set his pulses beating, it was 
 the look of joyous recognition set in the parted lips 
 and sparkling eyes; the glow of childlike innocent
 
 154 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 pleasure that mantled the sweet young face; the 
 frank confusion of suddenly realised expectancy and 
 longing. A great truth gripped his throbbing heart 
 and held it still. It was the face that he had seen 
 in the hollow! 
 
 The movement of the young girl was too marked 
 to escape the eye of the Lady Superior, though she 
 had translated it differently. "You must not believe 
 our young ladies are all so rude, Don Preble," she 
 said dryly; "though our dear child has still some of 
 the mountain freedom. And this is the Senor Rivers 
 sister. But possibly who knows?" she said gently, 
 yet with a sudden sharpness in her clear eyes, "per 
 haps she recognised in your voice a companion of 
 her brother." 
 
 Luckily for Key the shock had been so sudden 
 and overpowering that he showed none of the lesser 
 symptoms of agitation or embarrassment. In this 
 revelation of a secret that he now instinctively felt 
 was bound up with his own future happiness, he 
 exhibited none of the signs of a discovered intriguer 
 or unmasked Lothario. He said quietly and coldly:
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 155 
 
 "I am afraid I have not the pleasure of knowing 
 the young lady, and certainly have never before 
 addressed her." Yet he scarcely heard his com 
 panion s voice, and answered mechanically, seeing 
 only before him the vision of the girl s bewitching 
 face in its still more bewitching consciousness of his 
 presence. With all that he now knew, or thought 
 he knew, came a strange delicacy of asking further 
 questions, a vague fear of compromising her, a quick 
 impatience of his present deception; even his whole 
 quest of her seemed now to be a profanation for 
 which he must ask her forgiveness. He longed to 
 be alone to recover himself. Even the temptation 
 to linger on some pretext and wait for her return 
 and another glance from her joyous eyes was not as 
 strong as his conviction of the necessity of cooler 
 thought and action. He had met his fate that 
 morning, for good or ill; that was all he knew. As 
 soon as he could decently retire he thanked the 
 Lady Superior, promised to communicate with her 
 later, and taking leave of Father Cipriano, found 
 himself again in the street.
 
 156 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 Who was she, what was she, and what meant 
 her joyous recognition of him? It is to be feared 
 that it was the last question that affected him most, 
 now that he felt that he must have really loved her 
 from the first. Had she really seen him before, and 
 had been as mysteriously impressed as he was? It was 
 not the reflection of a conceited man, for Key had 
 not that kind of vanity, and he had already touched 
 the humility that is at the base of any genuine 
 passion. But he would not think of that now. He 
 had established the identity of the other woman as 
 being her companion in the house in the hollow on 
 that eventful night; but it was her profile that he 
 had seen at the window. The mysterious brother 
 Rivers might have been one of the robbers perhaps 
 the one who accompanied Mrs. Barker to San Jose. 
 But it was plain that the young girl had no com 
 plicity with the actions of the gang, whatever might 
 have been her companion s confederation. In the 
 prescience of a true lover he knew that she must 
 have been deceived and kept in utter ignorance of 
 it. There was no look of it in her lovely guileless
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 157 
 
 eyes; her very impulsiveness and ingenuousness 
 would have long since betrayed the secret. Was it 
 left for him, at this very outset of his passion, to be 
 the one to tell her. Could he bear to see those 
 frank, beautiful eyes dimmed with shame and sorrow. 
 His own grew moist. Another idea began to haunt 
 him. Would it not be wiser, even more manly, for 
 him a man over twice her years to leave her 
 alone with her secret, and so pass out of her in 
 nocent young life as chancefully as he had entered 
 it? But was it altogether chanceful? Was there not 
 in her innocent happiness in him a recognition of 
 something in him better than he had dared to think 
 himself? It was the last conceit of the humility of 
 love. 
 
 He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, per 
 plexed, yet singularly happy. The clerk handed 
 him, in passing, a business-looking letter, formally 
 addressed. Without opening it, he took it to his 
 room, and throwing himself listlessly on a chair by 
 the window again tried to think. But the atmosphere 
 of his room only recalled to him the mysterious gift
 
 158 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 he had found the day before on his pillow. He 
 felt now with a thrill that it must have been from 
 her. How did she convey it there? She would not 
 have entrusted it to Mrs. Barker. The idea struck 
 him now as distastefully as it seemed improbable. 
 Perhaps she had been here herself with her com 
 panion the convent sometimes made that concession 
 to a relative or well-known friend. He recalled the 
 fact that he had seen Mrs. Barker enter the hotel 
 alone, after the incident of the opening door, while 
 he was leaning over the balustrade. It was she who 
 was alone then, and had recognised his voice; and 
 he had not known it. She was out again to-day 
 with the procession. A sudden idea struck him. He 
 glanced quickly at the letter in his hand and hur 
 riedly opened it. It contained only three lines in 
 a large formal hand, but they sent the swift blood 
 to his cheeks. 
 
 "I heard your voice to-day for the third time. I 
 want to hear it again. I will come at dusk. Do not 
 go out until then." 
 
 He sat stupefied. Was it madness, audacity, or
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 159 
 
 a trick? He summoned the waiter. The letter had 
 been left by a boy from the confectioner s shop in 
 the next block. He remembered it of old a resort 
 for the young ladies of the convent. Nothing was 
 easier than conveying a letter in that way. He re 
 membered with a shock of disillusion and disgust 
 that it was a common device of silly but innocent 
 assignation. Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice 
 of a schoolgirl s extravagant escapade, or the deluded 
 victim of some infamous plot of her infamous com 
 panion? He could not believe either; yet he could 
 not check a certain revulsion of feeling towards her, 
 which only a moment ago he would have believed 
 impossible. 
 
 Yet whatever was her purpose he must prevent 
 her coming there at any hazard. Her visit would 
 be the culmination .of her folly, or the success of 
 any plot. Even while he was fully conscious of the 
 material effect of any scandal and exposure to her, 
 even while he was incensed and disillusionised at 
 her unexpected audacity, he was unusually stirred 
 with the conviction that she was wronging herself,
 
 l6o IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and that more than ever she demanded his help 
 and his consideration. Still she must not come. But 
 how was he to prevent her? It wanted but an hour 
 of dusk. Even if he could again penetrate the con 
 vent on some pretext at that inaccessible hour for 
 visitors twilight how could he communicate with 
 her? He might intercept her on the way and 
 persuade her to return; but she must be kept from 
 entering the hotel. 
 
 He seized his hat and rushed downstairs. But 
 here another difficulty beset him. It was easy 
 enough to take the ordinary road to the convent, 
 but would she follow that public one in what must 
 be a surreptitious escape? And might she not have 
 eluded the procession that morning and even now 
 be concealed somewhere, waiting for the darkness 
 to make her visit. He concluded to patrol the 
 block next to the hotel, yet near enough to intercept 
 her before she reached it, until the hour came. The 
 time passed slowly. He loitered before shop win 
 dows, or entered and made purchases with his eye 
 on the street. The figure of a pretty girl and
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. l6l 
 
 there were many the fluttering ribbons on a distant 
 hat, or the flashing of a cambric skirt around the 
 corner sent a nervous thrill through him. The re 
 flection of his grave, abstracted face against a shop 
 window, or the announcement of the workings of his 
 own mine on a bulletin board, in its incongruity 
 with his present occupation, gave him a hysterical 
 impulse to laugh. The shadows were already gather 
 ing when he saw a slender, graceful figure disappear 
 in the confectioner s shop on the block below. In 
 his elaborate precautions he had overlooked that 
 common trysting spot. He hurried thither and 
 entered. The object of his search was not there, 
 and he was compelled to make a shamefaced, 
 awkward survey of the tables in an inner refresh 
 ment saloon to satisfy himself. Any one of the 
 pretty girls seated there might have been the one 
 who had just entered, but none was the one he 
 sought. He hurried into the street again he had 
 wasted a precious moment and resumed his watch. 
 The sun had sunk, the angelus had rung out of a 
 chapel belfry, and shadows were darkening the vista 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. I 1
 
 I 62 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 of the Alameda. She had not come. Perhaps she 
 had thought better of it; perhaps she had been 
 prevented; perhaps the whole appointment had been 
 only a trick of some day-scholars who were laughing 
 at him behind some window. In proportion as he 
 became convinced that she was not coming, he was 
 conscious of a keen despair growing in his heart, 
 and a sickening remorse that he had ever thought 
 of preventing her. And when he at last reluctantly 
 re-entered the hotel he was as miserable over the 
 conviction that she was not coming as he had been 
 at her expected arrival. 
 
 The porter met him hurriedly in the hall. 
 
 "Sister Seraphina of the Sacred Heart has been 
 here in a hurry to see you on a matter of im 
 portance," he said, eyeing Key somewhat curiously. 
 "She would not wait in the public parlour, as she 
 said her business was confidential, so I have put 
 her in a private sitting-room on your floor." 
 
 Key felt the blood leave his cheeks. The secret 
 was out for all his precaution. The Lady Superior 
 had discovered the girl s flight or her attempt. One
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 163 
 
 of the governing sisterhood was here to arraign him 
 for it, or at least prevent an open scandal. Yet he 
 was resolved, and seizing this last straw, he hurriedly 
 mounted the stairs determined to do battle at any 
 risk for the girl s safety, and to perjure himself to 
 any extent. 
 
 She was standing in the room by the window. 
 The light fell upon the coarse serge dress with its 
 white facings, on the single girdle that scarcely de 
 fined the formless waist, on the huge crucifix that 
 dangled ungracefully almost to her knees, on the 
 hideous white-winged coif that, with the coarse but 
 dense white veil, was itself a renunciation of all 
 human vanity. It was a figure he remembered well 
 as a boy, and even in his excitement and half- 
 resentment, touched him now, as when a boy, with 
 a sense of its pathetic isolation. His head bowed 
 with boyish deference as she approached gently, 
 passed him a slight salutation, and closed the door 
 that he had forgotten to shut behind him. 
 
 Then, with a rapid movement, so quick that he 
 could scarcely follow it, the coif, veil, rosary, and
 
 164 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 crucifix, were swept off, and the young pupil of the 
 convent stood before him. 
 
 For all the sombre suggestiveness of her disguise 
 and its ungraceful contour, there was no mistaking 
 the adorable little head, tumbled all over with silky 
 tendrils of hair from the hasty withdrawal of her 
 coif, or the blue eyes that sparkled with frank de 
 light beneath them. Key thought her more beautiful 
 than ever. Yet the very effect of her frankness and 
 beauty was to recall him to all the danger and in 
 congruity of her position. 
 
 "This is madness," he said quickly. "You may 
 be followed here and discovered in this costume at 
 any moment!" Nevertheless he caught the two little 
 hands that had been extended to him, and held 
 them tightly, and with a frank familiarity that he 
 would have wondered at an instant before. 
 
 "But I won t," she said simply. "You see I m 
 doing a half-retreat ; and I stay with Sister Seraphina 
 in her room; and she always sleeps two hours after 
 the angel us; and I got out without anybody knowing 
 me, in her clothes. I see what it is," she said, sud-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 165 
 
 denly bending a reproachful glance upon him, "you 
 don t like me in them. I know they re just horrid; 
 but it was the only way I could get out." 
 
 "You don t understand me," he said eagerly. "I 
 don t like you to run these dreadful risks and dangers 
 
 for " He would have said "for me," but added 
 
 with sudden humility "for nothing. Had I dreamed 
 that you cared to see me I would have arranged it 
 easily without this indiscretion, which might make 
 others misjudge you. Every instant that you remain 
 here worse, every moment that you are away from 
 the convent in that disguise, is fraught with danger. 
 I know you never thought of it." 
 
 "But I did" she said quietly; "I thought of it, 
 and thought that if Sister Seraphina woke up and 
 they sent for me you would take me away with you 
 to that dear little hollow in the hills where I first 
 heard your voice. You remember it, don t you? 
 You were lost, I think, in the darkness, and I used 
 to say to myself afterwards that / found you. That 
 was the first time. Then the second time I heard 
 you was here in the hall. I was alone in the other
 
 1 66 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 room, for Mrs. Barker had gone out. I did not 
 know you were here, but I knew your voice. And 
 the third time was before the convent gate, and then 
 I knew you knew me. And after that I didn t think 
 of anything but coming to you, for I knew that if I 
 was found out you would take me back with you, 
 and perhaps send word to my brother where we 
 
 were, and then " She stopped suddenly, with 
 
 her eyes fixed on Key s blank face. Her own grew 
 blank, the joy faded out of her clear eyes, she gently 
 withdrew her hand from his, and without a word 
 began to resume her disguise. 
 
 "Listen to me," said Key passionately. "I am 
 thinking only of yon. I want to and will save you 
 from any blame blame you do not understand even 
 now. There is still time. I will go back to the 
 convent with you at once. You shall tell me every 
 thing; / will tell you everything on the way." 
 
 She had already completely resumed her austere 
 garb and drew the veil across her face. With the 
 putting on of her coif she seemed to have extinguished 
 all the joyous youthfulness of her spirit, and moved
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 1 67 
 
 with the deliberateness of renunciation towards the 
 door. They descended the staircase together with 
 out a word. Those who saw them pass made way 
 for them with formal respect. 
 
 When they were in the street she said quietly, 
 "Don t give me your arm Sisters don t take it." 
 When they had reached the street corner she turned 
 it, saying, "This is the shortest way." 
 
 It was Key who was now restrained, awkward, 
 and embarrassed. The fire of his spirit, the passion 
 he had felt a moment before had gone out of him, 
 as if she were really the character she had assumed. 
 He said at last desperately: 
 
 "How long did you live in the hollow?" 
 
 "Only two days. My brother was bringing me 
 here to school, but in the stage coach there was 
 someone with whom he had quarrelled, and he 
 didn t want to meet him with me. So we got out at 
 Skinners and came to the hollow, where his old 
 friends Mr. and Mrs. Barker lived." 
 
 There was no hesitation nor affectation in her 
 voice. Again he felt that he would as soon have
 
 I 68 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 doubted the words of the Sister she represented as 
 her own. 
 
 "And your brother did you live with him?" 
 
 "No. I was at school at Marysville until he 
 took me away. I saw little of him for the past two 
 years for he had business in the mountains very 
 rough business, where he couldn t take me, for it 
 kept him away from the settlements for weeks. I 
 think it had something to do with cattle, for he was 
 always having a new horse. I was all alone before 
 that, too; I had no other relations; I had no friends. 
 We had always been moving about so much, my 
 brother and me. I never saw anyone that I liked, 
 except you, and until yesterday I had only heard 
 you." 
 
 Her perfect naivete alternately thrilled him with 
 pain and doubt. In his awkwardness and uneasiness 
 he was brutal. 
 
 "Yes, but you must have met somebody other 
 men here even, when you were out with your 
 schoolfellows, or perhaps on an adventure like 
 this."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I 69 
 
 Her white coif turned towards him quickly. "I 
 never wanted to know anybody else. I never cared 
 to see anybody else. I never would have gone out 
 in this way but for you," she said hurriedly. After 
 a pause she added in a frightened tone: "That 
 didn t sound like your voice then. It didn t sound 
 like it a moment ago either." 
 
 "But you are sure that you know my voice," he 
 said, with affected gaiety. "There were two others 
 in the hollow with me that night." 
 
 "I know that too. But I know even ivhat you 
 said. You reproved them for throwing a lighted 
 match in the dry grass. You were thinking of us 
 then. I -know it." 
 
 "Of us?" said Key quickly. 
 
 "Of Mrs. Barker and myself. We were alone in 
 the house, for my brother and her husband were 
 both away. What you said seemed to forewarn me, 
 and I told her. So we were prepared when the fire 
 came nearer, and we both escaped on the same 
 horse." 
 
 "And you dropped your shoes in your flight,"
 
 I7O IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 said Key laughingly, "and I picked them up the 
 next day when I came to search for you. I have 
 kept them still." 
 
 "They were her shoes," said the girl quickly. 
 "I couldn t find mine in our hurry, and hers were 
 too large for me,, and dropped off." She stopped, 
 and with a faint return of her old gladness said, 
 "Then you did come back? I kneiv you would." 
 
 "I should have stayed then, but we got no reply 
 when we shouted. Why was that?" he demanded 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Oh, we were warned against speaking to any 
 stranger, or even being seen by anyone while we 
 were alone," returned the girl simply. 
 
 "But why?" persisted Key. 
 
 "Oh, because there were so many highwaymen 
 and horse-stealers in the woods. Why, they had 
 stopped the coach only a few weeks before, and 
 only a day or two ago when Mrs. Barker came 
 down. She saw them!" 
 
 Key with difficulty suppressed a groan. They 
 walked on in silence for some moments, he scarcely
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 17 I 
 
 daring to lift his eyes to the decorous little figure 
 hastening by his side. Alternately touched by mis 
 trust and pain, at last an infinite pity, not un- 
 mingled with a desperate resolution, took possession 
 of him. 
 
 "I must make a confession to you, Miss Rivers," 
 he began with the bashful haste of a very boy, 
 
 "that is " he stammered with a half hysteric 
 
 laugh, "that is a confession as if you were really a 
 sister or a priest, you know a sort of confidence to 
 you to your dress. I have seen you, or thought I 
 saw you before. It was that which brought me 
 here, that which made me follow Mrs. Barker my 
 only clue to you to the door of that convent. That 
 night in the hollow I saw a profile at the lighted 
 window which I thought was yours." 
 
 "I never was near the window," said the young 
 girl quickly. "It must have been Mrs. Barker." 
 
 "I know that now," returned Key. "But re 
 member it was my only clue to you I mean," he 
 added awkwardly, "it was the means of my finding 
 you."
 
 172 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "I don t see how it made you think of me, 
 whom you never saw, to see another woman s pro 
 file," she retorted, with the faintest touch of asperity 
 in her childlike voice. "But," she added, more 
 gently and with a relapse into her adorable naivete, 
 "most people s profiles look alike." 
 
 "It was not that," protested Key, still awkwardly, 
 "it was only that I realised something only a 
 dream, perhaps." 
 
 She did not reply, and they continued on in 
 silence. The grey wall of the convent was already 
 in sight. Key felt he had achieved nothing. Ex 
 cept for information that was hopeless, he had come 
 to no nearer understanding of the beautiful girl be 
 side him, and his future appeared as vague as be 
 fore. And above all, he was conscious of an in 
 feriority of character and purpose to this simple 
 creature who had obeyed him so submissively. Had 
 he acted wisely? Would it not have been better if 
 he had followed her own frankness, and 
 
 "Then it was Mrs. Barker s profile that brought 
 you here?" resumed the voice beneath the coif.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 173 
 
 "You know she has gone back. I suppose you will 
 follow?" 
 
 "You will not understand me," said Key des 
 perately. "But," he added in a lower voice, "I 
 shall remain here until you do." 
 
 He drew a little closer to her side. 
 
 "Then you must not begin by walking so close 
 to me," she said, moving slightly away; "they may 
 see you from the gate. And you must not go with 
 me beyond that corner. If I have been missed 
 already they will suspect you." 
 
 "But how shall I know?" he said, attempting to 
 take her hand. "Let me walk past the gate. I 
 cannot leave you in this uncertainty." 
 
 "You will know soon enough," she said gravely, 
 evading his hand. "You must not go further now. 
 Good-night." 
 
 She had stopped at the corner of the wall. He 
 again held out his hand. Her little fingers slid 
 coldly between his. 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Rivers." 
 
 "Stop!" she said suddenly, withdrawing her veil
 
 174 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and lifting her clear eyes to his in the moonlight. 
 "You must not say that it isn t the truth. I can t 
 bear to hear it from your lips, in your voice. My 
 name is not Rivers!" 
 
 "Not Rivers why?" said Key astounded. 
 
 "Oh, I don t know why," she said, half despair 
 ingly; "only my brother didn t want me to use my 
 name and his here, and I promised. "My name is 
 Riggs there! It s a secret you mustn t tell it; 
 but I could not bear to hear you say a lie." 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Riggs," said Key sadly. 
 
 "No, nor that either," she said softly. "Say Alice." 
 
 "Good-night, Alice." 
 
 She moved on before him. She reached the 
 gate. For a moment her figure, in its austere, form 
 less garments, seemed to him to even stoop and bend 
 forward in the humility of age and self-renunciation, 
 and she vanished within as into a living tomb. 
 
 Forgetting all precaution he pressed eagerly for 
 ward and stopped before the gate. There was no 
 sound from within; there had evidently been no 
 challenge nor interruption. She was safe.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 175 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE reappearance of Chivers in the mill with 
 Collinson, and the brief announcement that the 
 prisoner had consented to a satisfactory compromise, 
 were received at first with a half contemptuous smile 
 by the party; but for the commands of their leaders, 
 and possibly a conviction that Collinson s fatuous 
 cooperation with Chivers would be safer than his 
 wrath, which might not expend itself only on Chivers, 
 but imperil the safety of all, it is probable that they 
 would have informed the unfortunate prisoner of his 
 real relations to his captor. In these circumstances, 
 Chivers half satirical suggestion that Collinson 
 should be added to the sentries outside, and guard 
 his own property, was surlily assented to by Riggs, 
 and complacently accepted by the others. Chivers 
 offered to post him himself not without an inter 
 change of meaning glances with Riggs Collinson s
 
 176 IN A HOLLOW ~OF THE HILLS. 
 
 own gun was returned to him, and the strangely 
 assorted pair left the mill amicably together. 
 
 But however humanly confident Chivers was in 
 his companion s faithfulness, he was not without a 
 rascal s precaution, and determined to select a posi 
 tion for Collinson where he could do the least 
 damage in any aberration of trust. At the top of 
 the grade above the mill was the only trail by which 
 a party in force could approach it. This was to 
 Chivers obviously too strategic a position to entrust 
 his prisoner, and the sentry who guarded its ap 
 proach, five hundred yards away, was left unchanged. 
 But there was another "blind" trail, or cut off, to 
 the left through the thickest undergrowth of the 
 woods, known only to his party. To place Collinson 
 there was to ensure him perfect immunity from the 
 approach of an enemy, as well as from any con 
 fidential advances of his fellow sentry. This done 
 he drew a cigar from his pocket, and handing it to 
 Collinson, lighted another for himself, and leaning 
 back comfortably against a large boulder, glanced 
 complacently at his companion.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 177 
 
 "You may smoke until I go, Mr. Collinson, and 
 even afterwards, if you keep the bowl of your pipe 
 behind a rock, so as to be out of sight of your 
 fellow sentry, whose advances, by the way, if I were 
 you, I should not encourage. Your position here, 
 you see, is a rather peculiar one. You were saying, 
 I think, that a lingering affection for your wife im 
 pelled you to keep this place for her, although you 
 were convinced of her death?" 
 
 Collinson s unaffected delight in Chivers kind 
 liness had made his eyes shine in the moonlight 
 with a doglike wistfulness. "I reckon I did say 
 that, Mr. Chivers," he said apologetically, "though 
 it ain t goin to interfere with you usin the shanty 
 jest now." 
 
 "I wasn t alluding to that, Collinson," returned 
 Chivers, with a large rhetorical wave of the hand, 
 and an equal enjoyment in his companion s evident 
 admiration of him, "but it struck me that your 
 remark, nevertheless, implied some doubt of your 
 wife s death, and I don t know but that your doubts 
 are right." 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. I 2
 
 178 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "Wot s that?" said Collinson, with a dull glow in 
 his face. 
 
 Chivers blew the smoke of his cigar lazily in the 
 still air. "Listen," he said. "Since your miraculous 
 conversion a few moments ago, I have made some 
 friendly inquiries about you, and I find that you 
 lost all trace of your wife in Texas in 52, where a 
 number of her fellow emigrants died of yellow fever. 
 Is that so?" 
 
 "Yes," said Collinson quickly. 
 
 "Well, it so happens that a friend of mine," con 
 tinued Chivers slowly, "was in a train which followed 
 that one, and picked up and brought on some of 
 the survivors." 
 
 "That was the train wot brought the news," said 
 Collinson, relapsing into his old patience. "That s 
 how 1 knowed she hadn t come." 
 
 "Did you ever hear the names of any of its 
 passengers?" said Chivers, with a keen glance at 
 his companion. 
 
 "Nary one! I only got to know it was a small 
 train of only two waggons, and it sorter melted into
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 179 
 
 Californy through a southern pass, and kinder petered 
 out, and no one ever heard of it agin, and that 
 was all." 
 
 "That was not all, Collinson," said Chivers lazily. 
 "I saw the train arrive at South Pass. I was await 
 ing a friend and his wife. There was a lady with 
 them, one of the survivors. I didn t hear her name, 
 but I think my friend s wife called her Sadie. I 
 remember her as a rather pretty woman tall, fair, 
 with a straight nose and a full chin, and small slim 
 feet. I saw her only a moment, for she was on her 
 way to Los Angelos, and was, I believe, going to 
 join her husband somewhere in the Sierras." 
 
 The rascal had been enjoying with intense satis 
 faction the return of the dull glow in Collinson s face 
 that even seemed to animate the whole length of 
 his angular frame as it turned eagerly towards him. 
 So he went on, experiencing a devilish zest in this 
 description of his mistress to her husband, apart 
 from the pleasure of noting the slow awakening of 
 this apathetic giant, with a sensation akin to having 
 
 warmed him into life. Yet his triumph was of short 
 
 12*
 
 l8o IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 duration. The fire dropped suddenly out of Collin- 
 son s eyes; the glow from his face, and the dull look 
 of unwearied patience returned. 
 
 "That s all very kind and purty of yer, Mr. 
 Chivers," he said gravely; "you ve got all my wife s 
 pints thar to a dot, and it seems to fit her jest like 
 a shoe I picked up t other day. But it wasn t my 
 Sadie, for ef she s living or had lived, she d bin just 
 yere! " 
 
 The same fear and recognition of some unknown 
 reserve in this trustful man came over Chivers as 
 before. In his angry resentment of it he would have 
 liked to blurt out the infidelity of the wife before 
 her husband, but he knew Collinson would not 
 believe him, and he had another purpose now. His 
 fuli lips twisted into a suave smile. 
 
 "While I would not give you false hopes, Mr. 
 Collinson," he said, with a bland smile, "my interest 
 in you compels me to say that you may be over 
 confident and wrong. There are a thousand things 
 that may have prevented your wife from coming to 
 you illness, possibly the result of her exposure,
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. l8l 
 
 poverty, misapprehension of your place of meeting, 
 and above all, perhaps some false report of your 
 own death. Has it ever occurred to you that it is 
 as possible for her to have been deceived in that 
 way as for you?" 
 
 "Wot yer say?" said Collinson, with a vague 
 suspicion. 
 
 "What I mean. You think yourself justified in 
 believing your wife dead because she did not seek 
 you here; may she not feel herself equally justified 
 in believing the same of you, because you had not 
 sought her elsewhere?" 
 
 "But it was writ that she was comin yere, and 
 I boarded every train that come in that Fall," 
 said Collinson, with a new irritation unlike his usual 
 calm. 
 
 "Except one my dear Collinson except one," 
 returned Chivers, holding up a fat forefinger, smil 
 ingly. "And that may be the clue. Now, listen! 
 There is still a chance of following it, if you will. 
 The name of my friends were Mr. and Mrs. Barker. 
 I regret," he added, with a perfunctory cough, "that
 
 I 82 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 poor Barker is dead. He was not such an exem 
 plary husband as you are, my dear Collinson, and I 
 fear was not all that Mrs. Barker could have wished; 
 enough that he succumbed from various excesses, 
 and did not leave me Mrs. Barker s present address. 
 But she has a young friend, a ward, living at the 
 Convent of Santa Luisa, whose name is Miss Rivers, 
 who can put you in communication with her. Now, 
 one thing more: I can understand your feelings and 
 that you would wish at once to satisfy your mind. 
 It is not, perhaps, to my interest nor the interest of 
 my party to advise you, but," he continued, glancing 
 around him, "you have an admirably secluded posi 
 tion here, on the edge of the trail, and if you are 
 missing from your post to-morrow morning I shall 
 respect your feelings, trust to your honour to keep 
 this secret, and consider it useless to pursue you!" 
 There was neither shame nor pity in his heart 
 as the deceived man turned towards him with tremu 
 lous eagerness and grasped his hand in silent grati 
 tude. But the old rage and fear returned as Collin 
 son said gravely:
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 183 
 
 "You kinder put a new life inter me, Mr. Chivers, 
 and I wish I had yer gift o speech to tell ye so. 
 But I ve passed my word to the Capting thar and to 
 the rest o you folks that I d stand guard out yere, 
 and I don t go back o my word. I mout, and I 
 moutn t find my Sadie, but she wouldn t think the 
 less o me arter these years o waitin ef I stayed 
 here another night to guard the house I keep in 
 trust for her, and the strangers I ve took in on her 
 account." 
 
 "As you like, then," said Chivers, contracting 
 his lips, "but keep your own counsel to-night. There 
 may be those who would like to deter you from your 
 search. And now I will leave you alone in this 
 delightful moonlight. I quite envy you your un 
 restricted communion with Nature. Adios, amigo, 
 adios !" 
 
 He leaped lightly on a large rock that overhung 
 the edge of the grade and waved his hand. 
 
 "I wouldn t do that, Mr. Chivers," said Collinson, 
 with a concerned face, "them rocks are mighty ticklish,
 
 184 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 and that one in partiklar. A tech sometimes sends 
 em scooting." 
 
 Mr. Chivers leaped quickly to the ground, turned, 
 waved his hand again and disappeared down the grade. 
 
 But Collinson was no longer alone. Hitherto 
 his characteristic reveries had been of the past 
 reminiscences in which there was only recollection, 
 no imagination, and very little hope. Under the 
 spell of Chivers words his fancy seemed to expand; 
 he began to think of his wife as she might be now 
 perhaps ill, despairing, wandering hopelessly, even 
 ragged and foot-sore, or believing him dead 
 relapsing into the resigned patience that had been 
 his own! But always a new Sadie, whom he had 
 never seen or known before. A faint dread, the 
 lightest of misgivings perhaps coming from his 
 very ignorance for the first time touched his stead 
 fast heart and sent a chill through it. He shouldered 
 his weapon and walked briskly towards the edge of 
 the thick-set woods. There were the fragrant essences 
 of the laurel and spruce baked in the long-day 
 sunshine that had encompassed their recesses still
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 185 
 
 coming warm to his face; there were the strange 
 shiftings of temperature thoroughout the open 
 ings that alternately warmed and chilled him 
 as he walked. It seemed so odd that he should 
 now have to seek her instead of her coming to him; 
 it would never be the same meeting to him away 
 from the house that he had built for her! He 
 strolled back and looked down upon it, nestling on 
 the ledge. The white moonlight that lay upon it 
 dulled the glitter of lights in its windows, but the 
 sounds of laughter and singing came to even his 
 unfastidious ears with a sense of vague discord. He 
 walked back again and began to pace before the 
 thick-set wood. Suddenly he stopped and listened. 
 To any other ears but those accustomed to 
 mountain solitude it would have seemed nothing. 
 But, familiar as he was with all the infinite dis 
 turbances of the woodland, and even the simulation 
 of intrusion caused by a falling branch or lapsing 
 pine-cone, he was arrested now by a recurring 
 sound unlike any other. It was an occasional 
 muffled beat interrupted at uncertain intervals, but
 
 I 86 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 always returning in regular rhythm, whenever it was 
 audible. He knew it was made by a cantering 
 horse; that the intervals were due to the patches of 
 dead leaves in its course, and that the varying move 
 ment was the effect of its progress through obstacles 
 and underbrush. It was therefore coming through 
 some "blind" cut off in the thick-set wood. The 
 shifting of the sound also showed that the rider was 
 unfamiliar with the locality and sometimes wandered 
 from the direct course; but the unfailing and ac 
 celerating persistency of the sound, in spite of these 
 difficulties, indicated haste and determination. 
 
 He swung his gun from his shoulder and 
 examined its caps. As the sound came nearer he 
 drew up beside a young spruce at the entrance of 
 the thicket. There was no necessity to alarm the 
 house, or call the other sentry. It was a single horse 
 and rider, and he was equal to that. He waited 
 quietly and with his usual fateful patience. Even 
 then his thoughts still reverted to his wife, and it 
 was with a singular feeling that he, at last, saw the 
 thick underbrush give way before a woman, mounted
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 187 
 
 on a sweating but still spirited horse, who swept out 
 into the open. Nevertheless, he stopped in front of 
 her and called: 
 
 "Hold up thar!" 
 
 The horse recoiled, nearly unseating her. Col- 
 linson caught the reins. She lifted her whip 
 mechanically, yet remained holding it in the air, 
 trembling until she slipped, half struggling, half 
 helplessly, from the saddle to the ground. Here 
 she would have again fallen, but Collinson caught 
 her sharply by the waist. At his touch she started 
 and uttered a frightened "No!" At her voice Col 
 linson started. 
 
 "Sadie!" he gasped. 
 
 "Seth!" she half whispered. 
 
 They stood looking at each other. But Collinson 
 was already himself again. The man of simple 
 directness and no imagination saw only his wife be 
 fore him a little breathless, a little flurried, a little 
 dishevelled from rapid riding, as he had sometimes 
 seen her before, but otherwise unchanged. Nor had 
 he changed; he took her up where he had left her
 
 I 88 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 years ago. His grave face only broadened into a 
 smile as he held both her hands in his. 
 
 "Yes, it s me Lordy! Why, I was comin only 
 to-morrow to find ye, Sade!" 
 
 She glanced hurriedly around her. "To to find 
 me," she said incredulously. 
 
 "Sartain! That ez I was gom to ask about ye 
 goin to ask about ye at the convent." 
 
 "At the convent?" she echoed with a frightened 
 amazement. 
 
 "Yes, why, Lordy, Sade don t you see? You 
 thought / was dead, and I thought you was dead, 
 that s what s the matter. But I never reckoned that 
 you ld think me dead until Chivers allowed that it 
 must be so." 
 
 Her face whitened in the moonlight. "Chivers?" 
 she said blankly. 
 
 "In course, but nat rally you don t know him, 
 honey. He only saw you onc t. But it was along 
 o that, Sade, that he told me he reckoned you 
 wasn t dead, and told me how to find you. He 
 was mighty kind and consarned about it, and he
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I 89 
 
 even allowed I d better slip off to you this very 
 night." 
 
 "Chivers?" she repeated, gazing at her husband 
 with bloodless lips. 
 
 "Yes, an awful purty-spoken man. Ye ll have to 
 get to know him, Sade. "He s here with some of 
 his folks az hez got inter trouble I m forgettin to 
 tell ye. You see 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes!" she interrupted hysterically; 
 "and this is the Mill?" 
 
 "Yes, lovey, the Mill my mill your mill the 
 house I built for you, dear. I d show it to you 
 now, but you see, Sade, I m out here standin 
 guard." 
 
 "Are you one of them?" she said, clutching his 
 hand desperately. 
 
 "No, dear," he said soothingly "no, only, you 
 see, I giv my word to em as I giv my house to 
 night, and I m bound to protect them and see em 
 through. Why, Lordy, Sade, you ld have done the 
 same for Chivers. " 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said, beating her hands together
 
 I QO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 strangely, "of course. He was so kind to bring me 
 back to you. And you might have never found me 
 but for him." 
 
 She burst into an hysterical laugh, which the 
 simple-minded man might have overlooked but for 
 the tears that coursed down her bloodless face. 
 
 "What s gone o ye, Sadie," he said in a sudden 
 fear, grasping her hands, "that laugh ain t your n 
 that voice ain t yourn. You re the old Sadie, ain t 
 ye?" He stopped. For a moment his face blanched 
 as he glanced towards the mill, from which the faint 
 sound of bacchanalian voices came to his quick 
 ear. "Sadie, dear, ye ain t thinkin anything agin 
 me? Ye ain t allowin I m keeping anythin back 
 from ye?" 
 
 Her face stiffened into rigidity; she dashed the 
 tears from her eyes. "No," she said quickly. Then 
 after a moment she added, with a faint laugh, "You 
 see we haven t seen each other for so long it s all 
 so sudden so unexpected." 
 
 "But you kem here, just now, calkilatin to find 
 me?" said Collinson gravely.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IQI 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said quickly, still grasping both 
 his hands, but with her head slightly turned in the 
 direction of the mill. 
 
 "But who told ye where to find the mill?" he 
 said, with gentle patience. 
 
 "A friend," she said hurriedly. "Perhaps," she 
 added, with a singular smile, "a friend of the friend 
 who told you." 
 
 "I see," said Collinson, with a relieved face and 
 a broadening smile, "it s a sort of fairy-story. I ll 
 bet, now, it was that old Barker woman that Chivers 
 knows." 
 
 Her teeth gleamed rigidly together in the moon 
 light, like a death s head. "Yes," she said dryly, 
 "it was that old Barker woman. Say, Seth," she 
 continued, moistening her lips, slowly, "you re guard 
 ing this place alone?" 
 
 "Thar s another feller up the trail a sentry 
 but don t you be afeard, he can t hear us, Sade." 
 
 "On this side of the mill?" 
 
 "Yes! Why, Lord love ye! Sadie, t other side 
 o the mill it drops down straight to the valley;
 
 IQ2 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 nobody comes yer that way, but poor low-down 
 emigrants. And it s miles round to come by the 
 valley from the summit." 
 
 "You didn t hear your friend Chivers say that 
 the Sheriff was out with his posse to-night hunting 
 them?" 
 
 "No. Did you?" 
 
 "I think I heard something of that kind at Skin 
 ner s, but it may have been only a warning to me, 
 travelling alone." 
 
 "Thet s so," said Collinson, with a tender solici 
 tude, "but none o these yer road- agents would have 
 teched a woman. And this yer Chivers ain t the 
 man to insult one, either." 
 
 "No," she said, with a return of her hysteric 
 laugh. But it was overlooked by Collinson, who was 
 taking his gun from beside the tree where he had 
 placed it. "Where are you going?" she said sud 
 denly. 
 
 "I reckon them fellers ought to be warned o 
 what you heard. I ll be back in a minit." 
 
 "And you re going to leave me now when
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IQ3 
 
 when when we ve only just met after these years," 
 she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, which, how 
 ever, did not reach the cold glitter of her eyes. 
 
 "Just for a little, honey. Besides, don t you see, 
 I ve got to get excused, for we ll have to go off to 
 Skinner s or somewhere, Sadie, for we can t stay in 
 thar along o them." 
 
 "So you and your wife are turned out of your 
 home to please Chivers," she said, still smiling. 
 
 "That s whar you slip up, Sadie," said Collinson, 
 with a troubled face, "for he s that kind of a man 
 thet if I jest as much as hinted you was here he d 
 turn em all out o the house for a lady. Thet s 
 why I don t propose to let on anything about you 
 till to-morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow will do," she said, still smiling, but 
 with a singular abstraction in her face. "Pray don t 
 disturb them now. You say there is another sentinel 
 beyond. He is enough to warn them of any ap 
 proach from the trail.. I m tired and ill very ill ! 
 Sit by me here, Seth, and wait! We can wait here 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 13
 
 I 94 1N A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 together we have waited so long, Seth and the 
 end has come now." 
 
 She suddenly lapsed against the tree, and slipped 
 in a sitting posture to the ground. Collinson cast 
 himself at her side, and put his arm round her. 
 
 "Wot s gone o ye, Sade? You re cold and sick. 
 Listen ! Your hoss is just over thar feedin . I ll 
 put you back on him, run in and tell em I m off, 
 and be with ye in a jiffy, and take ye back to 
 Skinner s." 
 
 "Wait," she said softly. "Wait." 
 
 "Or to the Silver Hollow it s not so far." 
 
 She had caught his hands again; her rigid face 
 close to his. "What Hollow? speak!" she said breath 
 lessly. 
 
 "The Hollow whar a friend o mine struck silver. 
 He ll take yur in." 
 
 Her head sank against his shoulder. "Let me 
 stay here," she answered, "and wait." 
 
 He supported .her tenderly, feeling the gentle 
 brushing of her hair against his cheek as in the old 
 days. He was content to wait, holding her thus.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. IQ5 
 
 They were very silent; her eyes half closed, as if in 
 exhaustion, yet with the strange suggestion of listen 
 ing in the vacant pupils. 
 
 "Ye ain t hearin anythin , deary?" he said with 
 a troubled face. 
 
 "No; but everything is so deathly still," she said 
 in a frightened whisper. 
 
 It certainly was very still. A singular hush seemed 
 to have slid over the landscape; there was no longer 
 any sound from the mill; there was an ominous rest 
 in the woodland, so perfect that the tiny rustle of an 
 uneasy wing in the tree above them had made them 
 start; even the moonlight seemed to hang suspended 
 in the air. 
 
 "It s like the lull before the storm," she said 
 with her strange laugh. 
 
 But the non-imaginative Collinson was more prac 
 tical. "It s mighty like that earthquake weather be 
 fore the big shake thet dried up the river and stopped 
 the mill. That was just the time I got the news o 
 your bein dead with yellow fever. Lord! honey, I 
 
 13*
 
 196 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 allus allowed to myself thet suthin was happenin to 
 ye then." 
 
 She did not reply, but he, holding her figure 
 closer to him, felt it trembling with a nervous ex 
 pectation. Suddenly she threw him off and rose to 
 her feet with a cry. "There!" she screamed fran 
 tically, "they ve come! they ve come!" 
 
 A rabbit had run out into the moonlight before 
 them, a grey fox had dashed from the thicket into 
 the wood, but nothing else. 
 
 "Who s come?" said Collinson, staring at her. 
 
 "The Sheriff and his posse/ They re surrounding 
 them now. Don t you hear?" she gasped. 
 
 There was a strange rattling in the direction of 
 the mill, a dull rumble, with wild shouts and out 
 cries, and the trampling of feet on its wooden plat 
 form. Collinson staggered to his feet, but at the 
 same moment he was thrown violently against his 
 wife, and they both clung helplessly to the tree, with 
 their eyes turned toward the ledge. There was a 
 dense cloud of dust and haze hanging over it. 
 
 She uttered another cry, and ran swiftly towards
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 197 
 
 the rocky grade. Collinson ran quickly after her, 
 but as she reached the grade he suddenly shouted, 
 with an awful revelation in his voice, "Come back! 
 Stop, Sadie, for God s sake!" But it was too late. 
 She had already disappeared, and as he reached the 
 lock on which Chivers had leaped he felt it give way 
 beneath him. 
 
 But there was no sound, only a rush of wind 
 from the valley below. Everything lapsed again into 
 its awful stillness. As the cloud lifted from where 
 the mill had stood the moon shone only upon empty 
 space. There was a singular murmuring and whisper 
 ing from the woods beyond that increased in sound, 
 and an hour later the dry bed of the old mill-stream 
 was filled with a rushing river.
 
 198 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PREBLE KEY returned to his hotel from the Con 
 vent, it is to be feared, with very little of that 
 righteous satisfaction which is supposed to follow the 
 performance of a good deed. He was by no means 
 certain that what he had done was best for the 
 young girl. He had only shown himself to her as a 
 worldly monitor of dangers of which her innocence 
 was providentially unconscious. In his feverish haste 
 to avert a scandal he had no chance to explain his 
 real feelings; he had, perhaps, even exposed her 
 thwarted impulses to equally naive but more dangerous 
 expression which he might not have the opportunity 
 to check. He tossed wakefully that night upon his 
 pillow, tormented with alternate visions of her adorable 
 presence at the hotel, and her bowed renunciating 
 figure as she re-entered the Convent gate. He waited 
 expectantly the next day for the message she had 
 promised, and which he believed she would find
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. I 99 
 
 some way to send. But no message was forthcoming. 
 The day passed and he became alarmed. The fear 
 that her escapade had been discovered again seized 
 him. If she were in close restraint she could neither 
 send to him, nor could he convey to her the solicitude 
 and sympathy that filled his heart. In her childish 
 frankness she might have confessed the whole truth, 
 and this would not only shut the doors of the Con 
 vent against him, under his former pretext, but com 
 promise her still more if he boldly called. He way 
 laid the afternoon procession; she was not among 
 them. Utterly despairing, the wildest plans for see 
 ing her passed through his brain plans that recalled 
 his hot-headed youth, and a few moments later made 
 him smile at his extravagance, even while it half- 
 frightened him at the reality of his passion. He 
 reached the hotel heart-sick and desperate. The 
 porter met him on the steps. It was with a thrill 
 that sent the blood leaping to his cheeks that he 
 heard the man say: 
 
 "Sister Scrap hina is waiting for you in the sitting- 
 room."
 
 2OO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 There was no thought of discovery or scandal 
 in Preble Key s mind now; no doubt or hesitation as 
 to what he would do, as he strang up the staircase. 
 He only knew that he had found her again, and was 
 happy! He burst into the room, but this time re 
 membered to shut the door behind him. He looked 
 eagerly towards the window where she had stood 
 the day before, but now she rose quickly from the 
 sofa in the corner where she had been seated, and 
 the missal she had been reading rolled from her 
 lap to the floor. He ran towards her to pick it up. 
 Her name the name she had told him to call her 
 was passionately trembling on his lips, when she 
 slowly put her veil aside, and displayed a pale, 
 kindly, middle-aged face, slightly marked by old 
 scars of small-pox. It was not Alice; it was the real 
 Sister Seraphina who stood before him. 
 
 His first revulsion of bitter disappointment was 
 so quickly followed by a realisation that all had 
 been discovered, and his sacrifice of yesterday had 
 gone for nought, that he stood before her, stammer 
 ing, but without the power to say a word. Luckily
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2OI 
 
 for him his utter embarrassment seemed to re-assure 
 her and to calm that timidity which his brusque man 
 like irruption might well produce in the inexperienced, 
 contemplative mind of the recluse. Her voice was 
 very sweet, albeit sad, as she said gently: 
 
 "I am afraid I have taken you by surprise; but 
 there was no time to arrange for a meeting, and the 
 Lady Superior thought that I, who knew all the facts, 
 had better see you confidentially. Father Cipriano 
 gave us your address." 
 
 Amazed and wondering, Key bowed her to a seat. 
 "You will remember," she went on softly, "that 
 the Lady Superior failed to get any information from 
 you regarding the brother of one of our dear children 
 whom he committed to our charge through a a 
 companion or acquaintance a Mrs. Barker. As she 
 was armed with his authority by letter we accepted 
 the dear child through her, permitted her as his re 
 presentative to have free access to his sister, and 
 even allowed her, as an unattended woman, to pass 
 the night at the Convent. We were therefore sur 
 prised this morning to receive a letter from him,
 
 2O2 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 absolutely forbidding any further intercourse, cor 
 respondence, or association of his sister with this 
 companion, Mrs. Barker. It was necessary to inform 
 the dear child of this at once, as she was on the 
 point of writing to this woman, but we were pained 
 and shocked at her reception of her brother s wishes. 
 I ought to say, in justice to the dear child, that 
 while she is usually docile, intelligent and tractable 
 to discipline, and a devote in her religious feelings, 
 she is singularly impulsive. But we were not pre 
 pared for the rash and sudden step she has taken. 
 At noon to-day she escaped from the Convent!" 
 
 Key, who had been following her with relief, 
 sprang to his feet at this unexpected culmination. 
 
 "Escaped!" he said. "Impossible! I mean," 
 he added, hurriedly recalling himself, "your rules, 
 your discipline, your attendants are so perfect." 
 
 "The poor impulsive creature had added sacrilege 
 to her madness a sacrilege we are willing to believe 
 she did not understand, for she escaped in a religious 
 habit my on>n."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2OJ 
 
 "But this would sufficiently identify her," he said, 
 controlling himself with an effort. 
 
 "Alas, not so! There are many of us who go 
 abroad on our missions in these garments, and they 
 are made all alike, so as to divert rather than attract 
 attention to any individuality. We have sent private 
 messengers in all directions, and sought her every 
 where, but without success. You will understand 
 that we wish to avoid scandal, which a more public 
 inquiry would create." 
 
 "And you come to me," said Key, with a return 
 of his first suspicion, in spite of his eagerness to cut 
 short the interview and be free to act "to me, al 
 most a stranger?" 
 
 "Not a stranger, Mr. Key," returned the religieuse, 
 gently, "but to a well-known man a man of affairs 
 in the country where this unhappy child s brother 
 lives a friend who seems to be sent by Heaven to 
 find out this brother for us and speed this news to 
 him. We come to the old pupil of Father Cipriano, 
 a friend of the Holy Church; to the kindly gentle 
 man who knows what it is to have dear relations of
 
 2O4 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 his own, and who only yesterday was seeking the 
 Convent to " 
 
 "Enough!" interrupted Key, hurriedly, with a 
 slight colour. "I will go at once. I do not know 
 this man, but I will do my best to find him. And 
 this this young girl? you say you have no trace 
 of her? May she not still be here? I should have 
 some clue by which to seek her I mean that I 
 could give to her brother." 
 
 "Alas! we fear she is already far away from 
 here. If she went at once to San Luis, she could 
 have easily taken a train to San Francisco before we 
 discovered her flight. We believe that it was the 
 poor child s intent to join her brother so as to inter 
 cede for her friend or, perhaps, alas! to seek 
 her." 
 
 "And this friend left yesterday morning?" he said 
 quickly, yet concealing a feeling of relief. "Well, 
 you may depend on me! And now, as there is no 
 time to be lost, I will make my arrangements to take 
 the next train." He held out his hand, paused, and
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 205 
 
 said in almost boyish embarrassment: "Bid me God 
 speed, Sister Seraphina!" 
 
 "May the Holy Virgin aid you," she said gently. 
 Yet, as she passed out of the door, with a grateful 
 smile, a characteristic reaction came over Key. His 
 romantic belief in the interposition of Providence was 
 not without a tendency to apply the ordinary rules 
 of human evidence to such phenomena. Sister 
 Seraphina s application to him seemed little short of 
 miraculous interference, but what if it were only a 
 trick to get rid of him; while the girl, whose escapade 
 had been discovered, was either under restraint in 
 the convent, or hiding in Santa Luisa? Yet this did 
 not prevent him from mechanically continuing his 
 arrangements for departure. When they were com 
 pleted and he had barely time to get to the station 
 at San Luis, he again lingered in vague expectation 
 of some determining event. 
 
 The appearance of a servant with a telegraphic 
 message at this moment seemed to be an answer to 
 this instinctive feeling. He tore it open hastily. But 
 it was only a single line from his foreman at the
 
 2O6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 mine, which had been repeated to him from the 
 company s office in San Francisco. It read, "Come 
 at once important." 
 
 Disappointed as it left him, it determined his ac 
 tion, and as the train steamed out of San Luis it for 
 a while diverted his attention from the object of his 
 pursuit. In any event his destination would have 
 been Skinner s or the Hollow, as the point from 
 which to begin his search. He believed with Sister 
 Seraphina that the young girl would make her direct 
 appeal to her brother; but even if she sought Mrs. 
 Barker, it would still be at some of the haunts of 
 the gang. The letter to the Lady Superior had been 
 post-marked from "Bald Top," which Key knew to 
 be an obscure settlement less frequented than Skin 
 ner s. Even then it was hardly possible that the 
 chief of the road agents would present himself at the 
 post office, and it had probably been left by some 
 less known of the gang. A vague idea that was 
 hardly a suspicion, that the girl might have a secret 
 address of her brother s, without understanding the 
 reasons for its secrecy came into his mind. A still
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2O"] 
 
 more vague hope that he might meet her before she 
 found her brother upheld him. It would be an ac 
 cidental meeting on her part, for he no longer dared 
 to hope that she would seek or trust him again. 
 And it was with very little of his old sanguine 
 quality that, travel-worn and weary, he at last alighted 
 at Skinner s. But his half careless inquiry if any 
 lady passengers had lately arrived there, to his em 
 barrassment produced a broad smile on the face of 
 Skinner. 
 
 "You re the second man that asked that ques 
 tion, Mr. Key," he said. 
 
 "The second man?" ejaculated Key, nervously. 
 
 "Yes; the first was the Sheriff of Shasta. He 
 wanted to find a tall good-looking woman, about 
 thirty, with black eyes. I hope that ain t the kind o 
 girl you re looking arter is it? For I reckon she s 
 gin you both the slip." 
 
 Key protested with a forced laugh that it was 
 not, yet suddenly hesitated to describe Alice. For 
 he instantly recognised the portrait of her friend,
 
 2O8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 the assumed Mrs. Barker. Skinner continued in lazy 
 confidence : 
 
 "Ye see they say that the Sheriff had sorter got 
 the dead wood on that gang o road agents, and had 
 hemmed em in somewhar betwixt Bald Top and 
 Collinson s. But that woman was one o their spies 
 and spotted his little game, and managed to give 
 em the tip so they got clean away. Anyhow they 
 ain t been heard from since. But the big shake has 
 made scouting along the ledges rather stiff work for 
 the Sheriff. They say the valley near Long Canon s 
 chock full o rock and slum-gullion that s slipped 
 down." 
 
 "What do you mean by the big shake?" asked 
 Key in surprise. 
 
 "Great Scott! you didn t hear of it? Didn t hear 
 of the arthquake that shook us up all along Gal 
 loper s the other night? Well," he added disgustedly, 
 "that s jist the conceit of them folks in the bay; 
 that can t allow that any thin happens in the moun 
 tains!" 
 
 The urgent telegrams of his foreman now flashed
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2OQ 
 
 across Key s preoccupied mind. Possibly Skinner 
 saw his concern. "I reckon your mine is all right, 
 Mr. Key. One of your men was over yere last night, 
 and didn t say nothin ." 
 
 But this did not satisfy Key, and in a few mi 
 nutes he had mounted his horse and was speeding 
 towards the Hollow, with a remorseful consciousness 
 of having neglected his colleagues interests. For 
 himself, in the utter prepossession of his passion for 
 Alice, he cared nothing. As he dashed down the 
 slope to the Hollow, he thought only of the two 
 momentous days that she had passed there, and the 
 fate that had brought them so nearly together. There 
 was nothing to recall its sylvan beauty in the hideous 
 works that now possessed it, or the substantial 
 dwelling-house that had taken the place of the old 
 cabin. A few hurried questions to the foreman satis 
 fied him of the integrity of the property. There had 
 been some alarm in the shaft, but there was no sub 
 sidence of the "seam," nor any difficulty in the 
 working. "What I telegraphed you for, Mr. Key, 
 was about something that has cropped up way back 
 
 //; a Hallow of the Hills, etc. \ 4
 
 2IO IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 o the earthquake. We were served here the other 
 day with a legal notice of a claim to the mine, on 
 account of previous work done on the ledge by the 
 last occupant." 
 
 "But the cabin was built by a gang of thieves, 
 who used it as a hoard for their booty," returned 
 Key hotly, "and every one of them are outlaws, and 
 have no standing before the law." He stopped with 
 a pang as he thought of Alice. And the blood 
 rushed to his cheeks as the foreman quietly con 
 tinued : 
 
 "But the claim ain t in any o their names. It s 
 allowed to be the gift of their leader to his young 
 sister, afore the outlawry, and it s in her name 
 Alice Riggs or something." 
 
 Of the half-dozen tumultuous thoughts that 
 passed through Key s mind only one remained. It 
 was purely an act of the brother s to secure some 
 possible future benefit for his sister. And of this 
 she was perfectly ignorant! He recovered himsel 
 quickly, and said with a smile: 
 
 "But / discovered the ledge and its auriferous
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 211 
 
 character myself. There was no trace or sign of 
 previous discovery or mining occupation." 
 
 "So I jedged, and so I said, and thet puts ye 
 all right; but I thought I d tell ye. For mining laws 
 is mining laws, and it s the one thing ye can t get 
 over," he added with the peculiar superstitious re 
 verence of the Californian miner for that vested 
 authority. 
 
 But Key scarcely listened. All that he had 
 heard seemed only to link him more fatefully and 
 indissolubly with the young girl. He was already 
 impatient of even this slight delay in his quest. In 
 his perplexity his thoughts had reverted to Collin- 
 son s; the mill was a good point to begin his search 
 from; its good-natured, stupid proprietor might be 
 his guide, his ally, and even his confidant. 
 
 When his horse was baited he was again in the 
 saddle. "If yer going Collinson s way, yer might 
 ask him if he s lost a horse," said the foreman. "The 
 morning after the shake, some of the boys picked 
 up a mustang with a make-up lady s saddle on." 
 
 Key started! While it was impossible that it could 
 
 14*
 
 212 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 have been ridden by Alice, it might have been by 
 the woman who had preceded her. 
 
 "Did you make any search?" he said eagerly; 
 "there may have been an accident" 
 
 "I reckon it wasn t no accident," returned the 
 foreman coolly, "for the riata was loose and trailing 
 as if it had been staked out, and broken away." 
 
 Without another word Key put spurs to his horse 
 and galloped away, leaving his companion staring 
 after him. Here was a clue; the horse could not 
 have strayed far ; the broken tether indicated a 
 camp; the gang had been gathered somewhere in 
 the vicinity where Mrs. Barker had warned them; 
 perhaps in the wood beyond Collinson s. He would 
 penetrate it alone. He knew his danger, but as a 
 single unarmed man he might be admitted to the 
 presence of the leader, and the alleged claim was a 
 sufficient excuse. What he would say or do after 
 wards depended upon chance. It was a wild scheme 
 but he was reckless. Yet he would go to Collin 
 son s first. 
 
 At the end of two hours he reached the thick-
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 2IJ 
 
 set wood that gave upon the shelf at the top of the 
 grade which descended to the mill. As he emerged 
 from the wood into the bursting sunlight of the 
 valley below he sharply reined in his horse and 
 stopped. Another bound would have been his last. 
 For the shelf, the rocky grade itself, the ledge 
 below, and the mill upon it were all gone! The 
 crumbling outer wall of the rocky grade had slipped 
 away into the immeasurable depths below, leaving 
 only the sharp edge of a cliff which incurved to 
 wards the woods that had once stood behind the 
 mill, but which now bristled on the very edge of a 
 precipice. A mist was hanging over its brink and 
 rising from the valley; it was a full-fed stream that 
 was coursing through the former dry bed of the 
 river and falling down the face of the bluff. He 
 rubbed his eyes, dismounted, crept along the edge 
 of the precipice and looked below; whatever had 
 subsided and melted down into its thousand feet of 
 depth there was no trace left upon its smooth face. 
 Scarcely an angle of drift or debris marred the per 
 pendicular; the burial of all ruin was deep and com-
 
 214 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 pact; the erasure had been swift and sure the 
 obliteration complete. It might have been the pre 
 cipitation of ages, and not of a single night. At 
 that remote distance it even seemed as if grass were 
 already growing over this enormous sepulchre, but 
 it was only the tops of the buried pines. The ab 
 solute silence, the utter absence of any mark of 
 convulsive struggle even the lulling whimper of 
 falling waters gave the scene a pastoral repose. 
 
 So profound was the impression upon Key and 
 his human passion, that it at first seemed an ironical 
 and eternal ending of his quest. It was with diffi 
 culty that he reasoned that the catastrophe occurred 
 before Alice s flight, and that even Collinson might 
 have had time to escape. He slowly skirted the 
 edge of the chasm and made his way back through 
 the empty woods behind the old mill site towards 
 the place where he had dismounted. His horse 
 seemed to have strayed into the shadows of this 
 covert, but as he approached him he was amazed 
 to see that it was not his own, and that a woman s 
 scarf was lying over its side-saddle. A wild idea
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 215 
 
 seized him and found expression in an impulsive 
 cry: 
 
 "Alice!" 
 
 The woods echoed it; there was an interval of 
 silence and then a faint response. But it was her 
 voice. He ran eagerly forward in that direction and 
 called again; the response was nearer this time, and 
 then the tall ferns parted and her lithe graceful 
 figure came running, stumbling and limping towards 
 him like a wounded fawn. Her face was pale and 
 agitated, the tendrils of her light hair were straying 
 over her shoulder, and one of the sleeves of her 
 school gown was stained with blood and dust. He 
 caught the white and trembling hands that were 
 thrust out to- him eagerly. 
 
 "It is you!" she gasped. "I prayed for some 
 one to come, but I did not dream it would be you. 
 And then I heard your voice and I thought it 
 could be only a dream until you called a second 
 time." 
 
 "But you are hurt," he said passionately. "You 
 have met with some accident!"
 
 2l6 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 "No! no!" she said eagerly. "Not / but a 
 poor, poor man I found lying on the edge of the 
 cliff. I could not help him much, I did not care to 
 leave him. No one would come ! I have been with 
 him alone, all the morning! Come quick, he may 
 be dying." 
 
 He passed his arms around her waist uncon 
 sciously, she permitted it as unconsciously, as he 
 half supported her figure while they hurried forward. 
 
 "He had been crushed by something, and was 
 just hanging over the ledge and could not move nor 
 speak," she went on quickly. "I dragged him away 
 to a tree it took me hours to move him, he was so 
 heavy and I got him some water from the stream 
 and bathed his face, and blooded all my sleeve." 
 
 "But what were you doing here?" he asked 
 quickly. 
 
 A faint blush crossed the pallor of her delicate 
 cheek. She looked away quickly. "I was going 
 to find my brother at Bald Top," she said, at last 
 hurriedly. "But don t ask me now only come 
 quick, do."
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 217 
 
 "Is the wounded man conscious? Did you speak 
 with him? Does he know who you are?" asked 
 Key uneasily. 
 
 "No! he only moaned a little and opened his 
 eyes when I dragged him. I don t think he even 
 knew what had happened." 
 
 They hurried on again. The wood lightened 
 suddenly. "Here!" she said in a half whisper, and 
 stepped timidly into the open light. Only a few 
 feet from the fatal ledge, against the roots of a 
 buckeye, with her shawl thrown over him, lay the 
 wounded man. 
 
 Key started back. It was Collinson! 
 
 His head and shoulders seemed uninjured, but 
 as Key lifted the shawl, he saw that the long lank 
 figure appeared to melt away below the waist into a 
 mass of shapeless and dirty rags. Key hurriedly 
 replaced the shawl, and, bending over him, listened 
 to his hurried respiration and the beating of his 
 heart. Then he pressed a drinking flask to his lips. 
 The spirit seemed to revive him; he slowly opened 
 his eyes. They fell upon Key with quick recognition.
 
 2l8 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 But the look changed; one could see that he was 
 trying to rise but that no movement of the limbs 
 accompanied that effort of will, and his old patient 
 resigned look returned. Key shuddered. There 
 was some injury to the spine. The man was 
 paralysed. 
 
 "I can t get up, Mr. Key," he said in a faint but 
 untroubled voice, "nor seem to move my arms, but 
 you ll just allow that I ve shook hands with ye all 
 the same." 
 
 "How did this happen?" said Key anxiously. 
 
 "Thet s wot gets me! Sometimes I reckon I 
 know, and sometimes I don t. Lyin thar on thet 
 ledge all last night and only jest able to look down 
 into the old valley, sometimes it seemed to me ez if 
 I fell over and got caught in the rocks trying to 
 save my wife; but then when I kem to think sen 
 sible, and know my wife wasn t there at all, I get 
 mystified. Sometimes I think I got ter thinkin of 
 my wife only when this yer young gal thet s bin like 
 an angel to me, kem here and dragged me off the
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 ledge, for you see she don t belong here and hez 
 dropped onto me like a sperrit." 
 
 "Then you were not in the house when the 
 shock came?" said Key. 
 
 "No. You see the mill was filled with them 
 fellers as the Sheriff was arter, and it went over with 
 em and I " 
 
 "Alice," said Key, with a white face, "would 
 you mind going to my horse, which you will find 
 somewhere near yours, and bringing me a medicine 
 case from my saddle-bags?" 
 
 The innocent girl glanced quickly at her com 
 panion, saw the change in his face, and, attributing 
 it to the imminent danger of the injured man, at 
 once glided away. When she was out of hearing, 
 Key leaned gravely over him: 
 
 "Collinson, I must trust you with a secret. I 
 am afraid that this poor girl who helped you, is the 
 sister of the leader of that gang the Sheriff was in 
 pursuit of. She has been kept in perfect ignorance 
 of her brother s crimes. She must never know them 
 nor even know his fate! If he perished utterly
 
 220 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 in this catastrophe, as it would seem it was God s 
 will to spare her that knowledge. I tell you this to 
 warn you in anything you say before her. She 
 must believe, as I shall try to make her believe 
 that he has gone back to the States where she 
 will perhaps, hereafter, believe that he died. Better 
 that she should know nothing and keep her thought 
 of him unchanged." 
 
 "I see I see I see, Mr. Key," murmured the 
 injured man. "Thet s wot I ve been sayin to myself 
 lyin here all night. Thet s wot I bin sayin o my 
 wife Sadie her that I actoorally got to think kem 
 back to me last night. You see I d heerd from one 
 o those fellars that a woman like unto her had been 
 picked up in Texas and brought on yere, and that 
 mebbee she was somewhar in Californy. I was that 
 foolish and that ontrue to her all the while 
 knowin as I once told you, Mr. Key, that ef she d 
 been alive she d bin yere that I believed it true 
 for a minit! And that was why, afore this happened, 
 I had a dream, right out yer, and dreamed she kem 
 to me, all white and troubled, through the woods.
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 221 
 
 At first I thought it war my Sadie but when I see 
 she warn t like her old self, and her voice was 
 strange and her laugh was strange then I knowed 
 it wasn t her and I was dreamin . You re right, Mr. 
 Key, in wot you got off just now wot was it? Better 
 to know nothin and keep the old thoughts un 
 changed." 
 
 "Have you any pain?" asked Key after a pause. 
 
 "No; I kinder feel easier now." 
 
 Key looked at his changing face. "Tell me," he 
 said gently, "if it does not tax your strength, all 
 that has happened here, all you know. It is for her 
 sake." 
 
 Thus adjured, with his eyes fixed on Key, Col- 
 linson narrated his story from the irruption of the 
 outlaws to the final catastrophe. Even then he 
 palliated their outrage with his characteristic patience, 
 keeping still his strange fascination for Chivers, and 
 his blind belief in his miserable wife. The story 
 was at times broken by lapses of faintness, by a 
 singular return of his old abstraction and forgetful- 
 ness in the midst of a sentence, and at last by a fit
 
 222 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 of coughing that left a few crimson bubbles on the 
 corners of his mouth. Key lifted his eyes anxiously; 
 there was some grave internal injury which the 
 dying man s resolute patience had suppressed. Yet, 
 at the sound of Alice s returning step, Collinson s 
 eyes brightened, apparently as much at her coming 
 as from the effect of the powerful stimulant Key had 
 taken from his medicine case. 
 
 "I thank ye, Mr. Key," he said faintly, "for I ve 
 got an idea I ain t got no great time before me, and 
 I ve got suthin to say to you, afore witnesses" his 
 eyes sought Alice s in half apology "afore witnesses, 
 you understand. Would you mind standin out thar, 
 afore me, in the light so I kin see you both, and 
 you, miss, rememberin , ez a witness, suthin I got to 
 tell to him. You might take his hand, miss, to make 
 it more regular and lawlike." 
 
 The two did as he bade them, standing side by 
 side, painfully humouring what seemed to them to 
 be the wanderings of a dying man. 
 
 "Thar was a young fellow," said Collinson in a 
 Steady voice, "ez kern to my shanty a night ago on
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 223 
 
 his way to the the valley. He was a sprightly 
 young fellow, gay and chipper-like, and he sez to 
 me, confidential-like, Collinson, sez he, I m off to 
 the States this very night on business of importance; 
 mebbee I ll be away a long time for years! You 
 know, sez he, Mr. Key, in the Hollow! Go to 
 him, sez he, and tell him ez how I hadn t time to 
 get to see him; tell him, sez he, that Rivers 
 you ve got the name, Mr. Key? you ve got the 
 name, miss? that Rivers wants him to say this to 
 his little sister from her lovin brother. And tell 
 him, sez he, this yer Rivers, to look arter her, 
 being alone. You remember that, Mr. Key? you 
 remember it, miss? You see, I remembered it, too, 
 being so to speak alone" myself " he paused; and 
 added in a faint whisper "till now." 
 
 Then he was silent. That innocent lie was the 
 first and last upon his honest lips, for as they stood 
 there, hand in hand, they saw his plain, hard face 
 take upon itself, at first, the gray ashen hues of the 
 rocks around him, and then and thereafter, some 
 thing of the infinite tranquillity and peace of that
 
 224 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 
 
 wilderness in which he had lived and died, and of 
 which he was a part. 
 
 Contemporaneous history was less kindly. The 
 Bald Top Sentinel congratulated its readers that the 
 late seismic disturbance was accompanied with very 
 little loss of life, if any. "It is reported that the 
 proprietor of a low shebeen for emigrants in an 
 obscure hollow had succumbed from injuries, but," 
 added the editor with a fine touch of Western 
 humour, "whether this was the result of his being 
 forcibly mixed up with his own tanglefoot whisky or 
 not, we are unable to determine from the evidence 
 before us." For all that a small stone shaft was 
 added later to the rocks near the site of the old 
 mill, inscribed to the memory of this obscure "pro 
 prietor," with the singular legend: "Have ye faith 
 like to him?" And those who knew only of the 
 material catastrophe, looking around upon the scene 
 of desolation it commemorated, thought grimly that 
 it must be faith indeed, and were wiser than they 
 
 knew. 
 
 *****
 
 IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 225 
 
 "You smiled, Don Preble," said the Lady Superior 
 to Key a few weeks later, "when I told to you that 
 many caballeros thought it most discreet to entrust 
 their future brides to the maternal guardianship 
 and training of the Holy Church, yet, of a truth, 
 I meant not you. And yet eh! well, we shall 
 see." 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 1 5
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 IN a previous chronicle which dealt with the ex 
 ploits of "Chu Chu," a Californian mustang, I gave 
 some space to the accomplishments of Enriquez 
 Saltillo, who assisted me in training her, and who 
 was also brother to Consuelo Saltillo, the young lady 
 to whom I had freely given both the mustang and 
 my youthful affections. I consider it a proof of the 
 superiority of masculine friendship that neither the 
 subsequent desertion of the mustang or the young 
 lady ever made the slightest difference to Enriquez 
 or me in our exalted amity. To a wondering doubt 
 as to what I ever could possibly have seen in his 
 sister to admire he joined a tolerant skepticism of 
 the whole sex. This he was wont to express in that
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 22~] 
 
 marvellous combination of Spanish precision and 
 Californian slang for which he was justly famous. 
 "As to thees women and their little game," he 
 would say, "believe me, my friend, your old 
 Oncle Enry is not in it. No; he will ever take 
 a back seat when lofe is around. For why? Regard 
 me here! If she is a horse, you shall say, She will 
 buck-jump, She will ess-shy, She will not arrive, 
 or She will arrive too quick. But if it is thees 
 women, where are you? For when you shall say, 
 She will ess-shy, look you, she will walk straight; 
 or she will remain tranquil when you think she 
 buck -jump; or else she will arrive and, look you, you 
 will not. You shall get left. It is ever so. My 
 father and the brother of my father have both make 
 court to my mother when she was but a senorita. 
 My father think she have lofe his brother more. So 
 he say to her: It is enofe! Tranquilise yourself. I 
 will go. I will efface myself. Adios! Shake hands! 
 Ta-ta! So long! See you again in the fall. And 
 what make my mother? Regard me! She marry 
 my father on the instant! Of thees women, believe
 
 228 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 me, Pancho, you shall know nothing. Not even if 
 they shall make you the son of your father or his 
 nephew." 
 
 I have recalled this characteristic speech to show 
 the general tendency of Enriquez s convictions at the 
 opening of this little story. It is only fair to say, 
 however, that his usual attitude toward the sex he 
 so cheerfully maligned exhibited little apprehension 
 or caution in dealing with them. Among the 
 frivolous and light-minded intermixture of his race 
 he moved with great freedom and popularity. He 
 danced well; when we went to fandangos together 
 his agility and the audacity of his figures always 
 procured him the prettiest partners, his professed 
 sentiments, I presume, shielding him from subsequent 
 jealousies, heartburnings, or envy. I have a vivid 
 recollection of him in the mysteries of the sembicua- 
 cua, a somewhat corybantic dance which left much 
 to the invention of the performers, and very little to 
 the imagination of the spectator. In one of the 
 figures a gaudy handkerchief, waved more or less 
 gracefully by dancer and danseuse before the
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 22 9 
 
 dazzled eyes of each other, acted as love s signal, 
 and was used to express alternate admiration and 
 indifference, shyness and audacity, fear and trans 
 port, coyness and coquetry, as the dance proceeded. 
 I need not say that Enriquez s pantomimic illustra 
 tion of these emotions was peculiarly extravagant; 
 but it was always performed and accepted with a 
 gravity that was an essential feature of the dance. 
 At such times sighs would escape him which were 
 supposed to portray the incipient stages of passion; 
 snorts of jealousy burst from him at the suggestion 
 of a rival; he was overtaken by a sort of St. Vitus s 
 dance that expressed his timidity in making the first 
 advances of affection; the scorn of his lady-love 
 struck him with something like a dumb ague; and 
 a single gesture of invitation from her produced 
 marked delirium. All this was very like Enriquez; 
 but on the particular occasion to which I refer, I 
 think no one was prepared to see him begin the 
 figure with the waving of four handkerchiefs! Yet 
 this he did, pirouetting, capering, brandishing his 
 silken signals like a ballerina s scarf in the languish-
 
 23O THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 ment or fire of passion, until, in a final figure, where 
 the conquered and submitting fair one usually sinks 
 into the arms of her partner, need it be said that 
 the ingenious Enriquez was found in the center of 
 the floor supporting four of the dancers! Yet he 
 was by no means unduly excited either by the 
 plaudits of the crowd or by his evident success with 
 the fair. "Ah, believe me, it is nothing," he said 
 quietly, rolling a fresh cigarette as he leaned against 
 the doorway. "Possibly I shall have to offer the 
 chocolate or the wine to thees girls, or make to 
 them a promenade in the moonlight on the veranda. 
 It is ever so. Unless, my friend," he said, suddenly 
 turning toward me in an excess of chivalrous self- 
 abnegation, "unless you shall yourself take my place. 
 Behold, I gif them to you! I vamos! I vanish! I 
 make track! I skedaddle!" I think he would have 
 carried his extravagance to the point of summoning 
 his four gipsy witches of partners, and committing 
 them to my care, if the crowd had not at that mo 
 ment parted before the remaining dancers, and left 
 one of the on- lookers, a tall, slender girl, calmly sur-
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 23! 
 
 veying them through gold-rimmed eye-glassess in 
 complete critical absorption. I stared in amazement 
 and consternation; for I recognised in the fair stranger 
 Miss Urania Mannersley, the Congregational minister s 
 niece. 
 
 Everybody knew Rainie Mannersley throughout 
 the length and breadth of the Encinal. She was at 
 once the envy and the goad of the daughters of 
 those Southwestern and Eastern immigrants who 
 had settled in the valley. She was correct, she was 
 critical, she was faultless and observant. She was 
 proper, yet independent; she was highly educated; 
 she was suspected of knowing Latin and Greek; she 
 even spelled correctly! She could wither the plainest 
 field nosegay in the hands of other girls by giving 
 the flowers their botanical names. She never said, 
 "Ain t you?" but "Are n t you?" She looked upon 
 "Did I which?" as an incomplete and imperfect form 
 of "What did I do?" She quoted from Browning and 
 Tennyson, and was believed to have read them. She 
 was from Boston. What could she possibly be doing 
 at a free-and-easy fandango?"
 
 ?32 THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 Even if these facts were not already familiar to 
 everyone there, her outward appearance would have 
 attracted attention. Contrasted with the gorgeous 
 red, black, and yellow skirts of the dancers, her 
 plain, tightly fitting gown and hat, all of one deli 
 cate gray, were sufficiently notable in themselves, 
 even had they not seemed, like the girl herself, a 
 kind of quiet protest to the glaring flounces before 
 her. Her small, straight waist and flat back brought 
 into greater relief the corsetless, waistless swaying 
 figures of the Mexican girls; and her long, slim, 
 well-booted feet, peeping from the stiff, white edges 
 of her short skirt, made their broad, low-quartered 
 slippers, held on by the big toe, appear more pre 
 posterous than ever. Suddenly she seemed to realise 
 that she was standing there alone, but without fear 
 or embarrassment. She drew back a little, glanced 
 carelessly behind her as if missing some previous 
 companion, and then her eyes fell upon mine. She 
 smiled an easy recognition; then, a moment later, her 
 glance rested more curiously upon Enriquez, who 
 was still by my side. I disengaged myself and in-
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 233 
 
 stantly joined her, particularly as I noticed that a few 
 of the other bystanders were beginning to stare at 
 her with little reserve. 
 
 "Is n t it the most extraordinary thing you ever 
 saw?" she said quietly. Then, presently noticing the 
 look of embarrassment on my face, she went on, 
 more by way of conversation than of explanation: "I 
 just left uncle making a call on a parishioner next 
 door, and was going home with Jocasta [a peon 
 servant of her uncle s], when I heard the music, and 
 dropped in. I don t know what has become of her," 
 she added glancing round the room again; "she 
 seemed perfectly wild when she saw that creature 
 over there bounding about with his handkerchiefs. 
 You were speaking to him just now. Do tell me 
 is he real?" 
 
 "I should think there was little doubt of that," 
 I said, with a vague laugh. 
 
 "You know what I mean," she said simply. "Is 
 he quite sane? Does he do that because he likes it, 
 or is he paid for it?" 
 
 This was too much. I pointed out somewhat
 
 234 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 hurriedly that he was a scion of one of the oldest 
 Castilian families, that the performance was a 
 national gipsy dance which he had joined in as 
 a patriot and a patron, and that he was my 
 dearest friend. At the same time I was conscious 
 that I wished she hadn t seen his last performance. 
 
 "You don t mean to say that all that he did 
 was in the dance?" she said. "I don t believe it. It 
 was only like him." As I hesitated over this pal 
 pable truth, she went on: "I do wish he d do it 
 again. Don t you think you could make him?" 
 
 "Perhaps he might if you asked him," I said a 
 little maliciously. 
 
 "Of course I shouldn t do that," she returned 
 quietly. "All the same, I do believe he is really 
 going to do it or something else. Do look!" 
 
 I looked, and to my horror saw that Enriquez, 
 possibly incited by the delicate gold eye-glasses of 
 Miss Mannersley, had divested himself of his coat, 
 and was winding the four handkerchiefs, tied to 
 gether, picturesquely around his waist, preparatory
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 235 
 
 to some new performance. I tried furtively to give 
 him a warning look, but in vain. 
 
 "Isn t he really too absurd for anything?" said 
 Miss Mannersley, yet with a certain comfortable 
 anticipation in her voice. "You know, I never saw 
 anything like this before. I wouldn t have believed 
 such a creature could have existed." 
 
 Even had I succeeded in warning him, I doubt 
 if it would have been of any avail. For, seizing a 
 guitar from one of the musicians, he struck a few 
 chords, and suddenly began to zigzag into the center 
 of the floor, swaying his body languishingly from 
 side to side in time with the music and the pitch of 
 a thin Spanish tenor. It was a gipsy love-song. 
 Possibly Miss Mannersley s lingual accomplishments 
 did not include a knowledge of Castilian, but she 
 could not fail to see that the gestures and illustra 
 tive pantomime were addressed to her. Passionately 
 assuring her that she was the most favored daughter 
 of the Virgin, that her eyes were like votive tapers, 
 and yet in the same breath accusing her of being a 
 "brigand" and "assassin" in her attitude toward
 
 236 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 "his heart," he balanced with quivering timidity to 
 ward her, threw an imaginary cloak in front of her 
 neat boots as a carpet for her to tread on, and with 
 a final astonishing pirouette and a languishing twang 
 of his guitar, sank on one knee, and blew, with a 
 rose, a kiss at her feet. 
 
 If I had been seriously angry with him before 
 for his grotesque extravagance, I could have pitied 
 him now for the young girl s absolute unconsiousness 
 of anything but his utter ludicrousness. The ap 
 plause of dancers and bystanders was instantaneous 
 and hearty; her only contribution to it was a slight 
 parting of her thin red lips in a half-incredulous 
 smile. In the silence that followed the applause, as 
 Enriquez walked pantingly away, I heard her saying, 
 half to herself, "Certainly a most extraordinary 
 creature!" In my indignation I could not help 
 turning suddenly upon her and looking straight 
 into her eyes. They were brown, with that peculiar 
 velvet opacity common to the pupils of near-sighted 
 persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny. She 
 only repeated carelessly, "Isn t he?" and added:
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 237 
 
 "Please see if you can find Jocasta. I suppose we 
 ought to be going now; and I dare say he won t be 
 doing it again. Ah! there she is. Good gracious, 
 child! what have you got there?" 
 
 It was Enriquez s rose, which Jocasta had 
 picked up, and was timidly holding out toward her 
 mistress. 
 
 "Heavens! I don t want it. Keep it your 
 self." 
 
 I walked with them to the door, as I did not 
 fancy a certain glitter in the black eyes of the 
 Senoritas Manuela and Pepita, who were watching 
 her curiously. But I think she was as oblivious of 
 this as she was of Enriquez s particular attentions. 
 As we reached the street I felt that I ought to say 
 something more. 
 
 "You know," I began casually, "that although 
 those poor people meet here in this public way, 
 their gathering is really quite a homely pastoral and 
 a national custom; and these girls are all honest, 
 hard-working peons or servants enjoying themselves 
 in quite the old idyllic fashion."
 
 238 tHE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 "Certainly," said the young girl, half abstractedly. 
 "Of course it s a Moorish dance, originally brought 
 over, I suppose, by those old Andalusian immigrants 
 two hundred years ago. It s quite Arabic in its 
 suggestions. I have got something like it in an old 
 cancionero I picked up at a book-stall in Boston. 
 But," she added, with a gasp of reminiscent satis 
 faction, "that s not he. Oh, no! he is decidedly 
 original. Heavens! yes." . 
 
 I turned away in some discomfiture to join 
 Enriquez, who was calmly awaiting me, with a 
 cigarette in his mouth, outside the sal a. Yet he 
 looked so unconscious of any previous absurdity 
 that I hesitated in what I thought was a necessary 
 warning. He, however, quickly precipitated it. 
 Glancing after the retreating figures of the two 
 women, he said, "Thees mees from Boston is return 
 to her house. You do not accompany her? I shall. 
 Behold me I am there." But I linked my arm 
 firmly in his. Then I pointed out, first, that she 
 was already accompanied by a servant; secondly, that 
 if I, who knew her, had hesitated to offer myself as.
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 23Q 
 
 an escort, it was hardly proper for him, a perfect 
 stranger, to take that liberty; that Miss Mannersley 
 was very punctilious of etiquette, which he, as a 
 Castilian gentleman, ought to appreciate. 
 
 "But will she not regard lofe the admiration 
 excessif?" he said, twirling his thin little mustache 
 meditatively. 
 
 "No; she will not," I returned sharply; "and you 
 ought to understand that she is on a different level 
 from your Manuelas and Carmens." 
 
 "Pardon, my friend," he said gravely; "thees 
 women are ever the same. There is a proverb in 
 my language. Listen: Whether the sharp blade of 
 the Toledo pierce the satin or the goatskin, it shall 
 find behind it ever the same heart to wound. I am 
 that Toledo blade or possibly it is you, my friend. 
 Wherefore, let us together pursue this girl of Boston 
 on the instant." 
 
 But I kept my grasp on Enriquez s arm, and 
 succeeded in restraining his mercurial impulses for 
 the moment. He halted, and puffed vigorously at 
 his cigarette; but the next instant he started for-
 
 240 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 ward again. "Let us, however, follow with discre 
 tion in the rear: we shall pass the house; we shall 
 gaze at it; it shall touch her heart." 
 
 Ridiculous as was this following of the young 
 girl we had just parted from in point of fact, I 
 knew that Enriquez was quite capable of attempting 
 it alone, and I thought it better to humor him by 
 consenting to walk with him in that direction; but I 
 felt it necessary to say: 
 
 "I ought to warn you that Miss Mannersley 
 already looks upon your performances at the sala 
 as something outre and peculiar, and if I were you 
 I shouldn t do anything to deepen that impres 
 sion." 
 
 , "You are saying she ees shock?" said Enriquez, 
 gravely. 
 
 I felt I could not conscientiously say that she 
 was shocked, and he saw my hesitation. "Then 
 she have jealousy of the master," he suggested, with 
 insufferable complacency. "You observe! I have 
 already said. It is ever so." 
 
 I could stand it no longer. "Look here, Harry,"
 
 I 
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 24! 
 
 I said, "if you must know it, she looks upon you as 
 an acrobat a paid performer." 
 
 "Ah!" his black eyes sparkled "the torero, 
 the man who fight the bull, he is also an acrobat." 
 
 "Yes; but she thinks you a clown, a gracioso 
 de teatro, there!" 
 
 "Then I have make her laugh?" he said coolly. 
 
 I don t think he had; but I shrugged my 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Bueno!" he said cheerfully. "Lofe, he begin 
 with a laugh, he make feenish with a sigh." 
 
 I turned to look at him in the moonlight. His 
 face presented its habitual Spanish gravity a 
 gravity that was almost ironical. His small black 
 eyes had their characteristic irresponsible audacity 
 the irresponsibility of the vivacious young animal. 
 It could not be possible that he was really touched 
 with the placid frigidities of Miss Mannersley. I re 
 membered his equally elastic gallantries with Miss 
 Pinky Smith, a blonde Western belle, from which 
 both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 1 6
 
 242 THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 slowly I continued more persuasively: "Of course 
 this is only your nonsense; but don t you see, Miss 
 Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your 
 nature?" I hesitated, for it suddenly struck me 
 that it was really his nature. "And hang it all! 
 you don t want her to believe you a common 
 buffoon, or some intoxicated muchacho." 
 
 "Intoxicated?" repeated Enriquez, with exasperat 
 ing languishment. "Yes; that is the word that shall 
 express itself. My friend, you have made a shot in 
 the center you have ring the bell every time! It 
 is intoxication but not of aguardiente. Look! I 
 have long time an ancestor of whom is a pretty 
 story. One day in church he have seen a young 
 girl a mere peasant girl pass to the confessional. 
 He look her in her eye, he stagger," here Enriquez 
 wobbled pantomimically into the road, "he fall!"- 
 he would have suited the action to the word if I 
 had not firmly held him up. "They have take him 
 home, where he have remain without his clothes, 
 and have dance and sing. But it was the drunken 
 ness of lofe. And, look you, thees village girl is -a
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 243 
 
 nothing, not even pretty. The name of my ancestor 
 was" 
 
 "Don Quixote de la Mancha," I suggested mali 
 ciously. "I suspected as much. Come along. That 
 will do." 
 
 "My ancestor s name," continued Enriquez, gravely, 
 "was Antonio Hermenegildo de Salvatierra, which is 
 not the same. Thees Don Quixote of whom you 
 speak exist not at all." 
 
 "Never mind. Only, for heaven s sake, as we 
 are nearing the house, don t make a fool of yourself 
 again." 
 
 It was a wonderful moonlight night. The deep 
 redwood porch of the Mannersley parsonage, under 
 the shadow of a great oak, the largest in the 
 Encinal, was diapered in black and silver. As the 
 women stepped upon the porch their shadows were 
 silhouetted against the door. Miss Mannersley paused 
 for an instant, and turned to give a last look at the 
 beauty of the night as Jocasta entered. Her glance 
 fell upon us as we passed. She nodded carelessly 
 
 and unaffectedly to me, but as she recognised 
 
 16*
 
 244 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 Enriquez she looked a little longer at him with her 
 previous cold and invincible curiosity. To my horror 
 Enriquez began instantly to affect a slight tremulous- 
 ness of gait and a difficulty of breathing; but I 
 gripped his arm savagely, and managed to get him 
 past the house as the door closed finally on the 
 young lady. 
 
 "You do not comprehend, friend Pancho," he 
 said gravely, "but those eye in their glass are as the 
 espejo ustorio, the burning mirror. They burn, they 
 consume me here like paper. Let us affix to our 
 selves thees tree. She will, without doubt, appear 
 at her window. We shall salute her for good 
 night." 
 
 "We will do nothing of the kind," I said sharply. 
 Finding that I was determined, he permitted me to 
 lead him away. I was delighted to notice, however, 
 that he had indicated the window which I knew was 
 the minister s study, and that as the bedrooms were 
 in the rear of the house, this later incident was 
 probably not overseen by the young lady or the 
 servant. But I did not part from Enriquez until I
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 245 
 
 saw him safely back to the sala, where I left him 
 sipping chocolate, his arm alternating around the 
 waists of his two previous partners in a delightful 
 Arcadian and childlike simplicity, and an apparent 
 utter forgetfulness of Miss Mannersley. 
 
 The fandangos were usually held on Saturday 
 night, and the next day, being Sunday, I missed 
 Enriquez; but as he was a devout Catholic I re 
 membered that he was at mass in the morning, and 
 possibly at the bull-fight at San Antonio in the 
 afternoon. But I was somewhat surprised on the 
 Monday morning following, as I was crossing the 
 plaza, to have my arm taken by the Rev. Mr. 
 Mannersley in the nearest approach to familiarity 
 that was consistent with the reserve of this eminent 
 divine. I looked at him inquiringly. Although 
 scrupulously correct in attire, his features always 
 had a singular resemblance to the national caricature 
 known as "Uncle Sam," but with the humorous ex 
 pression left out. Softly, stroking his goatee with 
 three fingers, he began condescendingly: "You are, 
 I think, more or less familiar with the characteristics
 
 246 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 and customs of the Spanish as exhibited by the 
 settlers here." A thrill of apprehension went through 
 me. Had he heard of Enriquez s proceedings? Had 
 Miss Mannersley cruelly betrayed him to her uncle? 
 "I have not given that attention myself to their lan 
 guage and social peculiarities," he continued, with a 
 large wave of the hand, "being much occupied with 
 a study of their religious beliefs and superstitions (it 
 struck me that this was apt to be a common fault 
 of people of the Mannersley type); but I have 
 refrained from a personal discussion of them; on the 
 contrary, I have held somewhat broad views on the 
 subject of their remarkable missionary work, and 
 have suggested a scheme of cooperation with them, 
 quite independent of doctrinal teaching, to my 
 brethren of other Protestant Christian sects. These 
 views I first incorporated in a sermon last Sunday 
 week, which I am told has created considerable 
 attention." He stopped and coughed slightly. "I 
 have not yet heard from any of the Roman clergy, 
 but I am led to believe that my remarks were not 
 ungrateful to Catholics generally."
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 247 
 
 I was relieved, although still in some wonder 
 why he should address me on this topic. I had a 
 vague remembrance of having heard that he had 
 said something on Sunday which had offended some 
 Puritans of his flock, but nothing more. He con 
 tinued: "1 have just said that I was unacquainted 
 with the characteristics of the Spanish- American race. 
 I presume, however, they have the impulsiveness of 
 their Latin origin. They gesticulate eh? They 
 express their gratitude, their joy, their affection, their 
 emotions generally, by spasmodic movements? They 
 naturally dance sing eh?" A horrible suspicion 
 crossed my mind; I could only stare helplessly at 
 him. "I see," he said graciously; "perhaps it is a 
 somewhat general question. I will explain myself. A 
 rather singular occurrence happened to me the other 
 night. I had returned from visiting a parishioner, 
 and was alone in my study, reviewing my sermon 
 for the next day. It must have been quite late 
 before I concluded, for I distinctly remember my 
 niece had returned with her servant fully an hour 
 before. Presently I heard the sounds of a musical
 
 248 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 instrument in the road, with the accents of some 
 one singing or rehearsing some metrical composition 
 in words that, although couched in a language foreign 
 to me, in expression and modulation gave me the 
 impression of being distinctly adulatory. For some 
 little time, in the greater preoccupation of my task, 
 I paid little attention to the performance; but its 
 persistency at length drew me in no mere idle 
 curiosity to the window. From thence, standing in 
 my dressing-gown, and believing myself unperceived, 
 I noticed under the large oak in the roadside the 
 figure of a young man, who, by the imperfect light, 
 appeared to be of Spanish extraction. But I evidently 
 miscalculated my own invisibility; for he moved 
 rapidly forward as I came to the window, and in a 
 series of the most extraordinary pantomimic gestures 
 saluted me. Beyond my experience of a few Greek 
 plays in earlier days, I confess I am not an adept in 
 the understanding of gesticulation; but it struck me 
 that the various phases of gratitude, fervor, reverence, 
 and exaltation were successively portrayed. He 
 placed his hands upon his head, his heart, and even
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 249 
 
 clasped them together in this manner." To my 
 consternation the reverend gentleman here imitated 
 Enriquez s most extravagant pantomime. "I am will 
 ing to confess," he continued, "that I was singularly 
 moved by them, as well as by the highly creditable 
 and Christian interest that evidently produced them. 
 At last I opened the window. Leaning out, I told 
 him that I regretted that the lateness of the hour 
 prevented any further response from me than a 
 grateful though hurried acknowledgment of his 
 praiseworthy emotion, but that I should be glad to 
 see him for a few moments in the vestry before 
 service the next day, or at early candle-light, before 
 the meeting of the Bible class. I told him that 
 as my sole purpose had been the creation of an 
 evangelical brotherhood and the exclusion of merely 
 doctrinal views, nothing could be more gratifying to 
 me than his spontaneous and unsolicited testimony 
 to my motives. He appeared for an instant to be 
 deeply affected, and, indeed, quite overcome with 
 emotion, and then gracefully retired, with some 
 agility and a slight saltatory movement."
 
 250 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 He paused. A sudden and overwhelming idea 
 took possession of me, and I looked impulsively into 
 his face. Was it possible that for once Enriquez s 
 ironical extravagance had been understood, met, and 
 vanquished by a master hand? But the Rev. Mr. 
 Mannersley s self-satisfied face betrayed no ambiguity 
 or lurking humor. He was evidently in earnest; he 
 had complacently accepted for himself the abandoned 
 Enriquez s serenade to his niece. I felt a hysterical 
 desire to laugh, but it was checked by my com 
 panion s next words. 
 
 "I informed my niece of the occurrence in the 
 morning at breakfast. She had not heard anything 
 of the strange performance, but she agreed with me 
 as to its undoubted origin in a grateful recognition 
 of my liberal efforts towards his coreligionists. It 
 was she, in fact, who suggested that your knowledge 
 of these people might corroborate _ my impres 
 sions." 
 
 I was dumfounded. Had Miss Mannersley, who 
 must have recognised Enriquez s hand in this, con 
 cealed the fact in a desire to shield him? But this
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 25! 
 
 was so inconsistent with her utter indifference to 
 him, except as a grotesque study, that she would 
 have been more likely to tell her uncle all about his 
 previous performance. Nor could it be that she 
 wished to conceal her visit to the fandango. She 
 was far too independent for that, and it was even 
 possible that the reverend gentleman, in his desire 
 to know more of Enriquez s compatriots, would not 
 have objected. In my confusion I meekly added 
 my conviction to hers, congratulated him upon his 
 evident success, and slipped away. But I was burn 
 ing with a desire to see Enriquez and know all. 
 He was imaginative, but not untruthful. Un 
 fortunately, I learned that he was just then following 
 one of his erratic impulses, and had gone to a 
 rodeo at his cousin s, in the foothills, where he was 
 alternately exercising his horsemanship in catching 
 and breaking wild cattle, and delighting his relatives 
 with his incomparable grasp of the American lan 
 guage and customs, and of the airs of a young man 
 of fashion. Then my thoughts recurred to Miss 
 Mannersley. Had she really been oblivious that
 
 252 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 night to Enriquez s serenade? I resolved to find 
 out, if I could, without betraying Enriquez. Indeed, 
 it was possible, after all, that it might not have 
 been he. 
 
 Chance favored me. The next evening I was at 
 a party where Miss Mannersley, by reason of her 
 position and quality, was a distinguished I had 
 almost written a popular guest. But, as I have 
 formerly stated, although the youthful fair of the 
 Encinal were flattered by her casual attentions, and 
 secretly admired her superior style and aristocratic 
 calm, they were more or less uneasy under the 
 dominance of her intelligence and education, and 
 were afraid to attempt either confidence or familiarity. 
 They were also singularly jealous of her, for although 
 the average young man was equally afraid of her 
 cleverness and candor, he was not above paying a 
 tremulous and timid court to her for its effect upon 
 her humbler sisters. This evening she was sur 
 rounded by her usual satellites, including, of course, 
 the local notables and special guests of distinction. 
 She had been discussing, I think, the existence of
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 253 
 
 glaciers on Mount Shasta with a spectacled geologist, 
 and had participated with charming frankness in a 
 conversation on anatomy with the local doctor and 
 a learned professor, when she was asked to take a 
 seat at the piano. She played with remarkable skill 
 and wonderful precision, but coldly and brilliantly. 
 As she sat there in her subdued but perfectly fitting 
 evening dress, her regular profile and short but 
 slender neck firmly set upon her high shoulders, 
 exhaling an atmosphere of refined puritanism and 
 provocative intelligence, the utter incongruity of 
 Enriquez s extravagant attentions if ironical, and 
 their equal hopelessness if not, seemed to me plainer 
 than ever. What had this well-poised, coldly ob 
 servant spinster to do with that quaintly ironic ruffler, 
 that romantic cynic, that rowdy Don Quixote, that 
 impossible Enriquez? Presently she ceased playing. 
 Her slim, narrow slipper, revealing her thin ankle, 
 remained upon the pedal; her delicate fingers were 
 resting idly on the keys; her head was slightly thrown 
 back, and her narrow eyebrows prettily knit toward 
 the ceiling in an effort of memory.
 
 254 THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 "Something of Chopin s," suggested the geologist, 
 ardently. 
 
 "That exquisite sonata!" pleaded the doctor. 
 
 "Suthin" of Rubinstein. Heard him once," said 
 a gentleman of Siskiyou. "He just made that pianner 
 get up and howl. Play Rube." 
 
 She shook her head with parted lips and a slight 
 touch of girlish coquetry in her manner. Then her 
 fingers suddenly dropped upon the keys with a glassy 
 tinkle; there were a few quick pizzicato chords, down 
 went the low pedal with a monotonous strumming, 
 and she presently began to hum to herself. I 
 started, as well I might, for I recognised one of 
 Enriquez s favorite and most extravagant guitar solos. 
 It was audacious; it was barbaric; it was, I fear, 
 vulgar. As I remembered it, as he sang it, it 
 recounted the adventures of one Don Francisco, a 
 provincial gallant and roisterer of the most objection 
 able type. It had one hundred and four verses, 
 which Enriquez never spared me. I shuddered as 
 in a pleasant, quiet voice the correct Miss Mannersley 
 warbled in musical praise of the pellejo, or wine-skin,
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 255 
 
 and a eulogy of the dice-box came caressingly from 
 her thin red lips. But the company was far dif 
 ferently affected: the strange, wild air and wilder 
 accompaniment were evidently catching; people 
 moved toward the piano; somebody whistled the air 
 from a distant corner; even the faces of the geologist 
 and doctor brightened. 
 
 "A tarantella, I presume?" blandly suggested 
 the doctor. 
 
 Miss Mannersley stopped, and rose carelessly 
 from the piano. "It is a Moorish gipsy song of the 
 fifteenth century," she said dryly. 
 
 "It seemed sorter familiar, too," hesitated one 
 of the young men, timidly, "like as if don t you 
 know? you had without knowing it, don t you 
 know?" he blushed slightly "sorter picked it up 
 somewhere." 
 
 "I picked it up/ as you call it, in the collection 
 of mediaeval manuscripts of the Harvard Library, 
 and copied it," returned Miss Mannersley, coldly, as 
 she turned away. 
 
 But I was not inclined to let her off so easily. I
 
 256 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 presently made my way to her side. "Your uncle 
 was complimentary enough to consult me as to the 
 meaning of the appearance of a certain exuberant 
 Spanish visitor at his house the other night." I 
 looked into her brown eyes, but my own slipped off 
 her velvety pupils without retaining anything. Then 
 she reinforced her gaze with a pince-nez, and said 
 carelessly : 
 
 "Oh, it s you? How are you? Well, could you 
 give him any information?" 
 
 "Only generally," I returned, still looking into 
 her eyes. "These people are impulsive. The 
 Spanish blood is a mixture of gold and quick 
 silver." 
 
 She smiled slightly. "That reminds me of your 
 volatile friend. He was mercurial enough, certainly. 
 Is he still dancing?" 
 
 "And singing sometimes," I responded pointedly. 
 But she only added casually, "A singular creature," 
 without exhibiting the least consciousness, and drifted 
 away, leaving me none the wiser. I felt that En- 
 riquez alone could enlighten me. I must see him.
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 257 
 
 I did, but not in the way I expected. There 
 was a bull-fight at San Antonio the next Saturday 
 afternoon, the usual Sunday performance being 
 changed in deference to the Sabbatical habits of the 
 Americans. An additional attraction was offered in 
 the shape of a bull and bear fight, also a concession 
 to American taste, which had voted the bull-fight 
 "slow," and had averred that the bull "did not get 
 a fair show." I am glad that I am able to spare 
 the reader the usual realistic horrors, for in the 
 Californian performances there was very little of the 
 brutality that distinguished this function in the 
 mother country. The horses were not miserable, 
 worn-out hacks, but young and alert mustangs; and 
 the display of horsemanship by the picadors was not 
 only wonderful, but secured an almost absolute 
 safety to horse and rider. I never saw a horse 
 gored; although unskilful riders were sometimes 
 thrown in wheeling quickly to avoid the bull s 
 charge, they generally regained their animals without 
 injury. 
 
 The Plaza de Toros was reached through the 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. I 7
 
 258 THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 decayed and tile-strewn outskirts of an old Spanish 
 village. It was a rudely built, oval amphitheater, 
 with crumbling, whitewashed adobe walls, and 
 roofed only over portions of the gallery reserved for 
 the provincial "notables," but now occupied by a 
 few shopkeepers and their wives, with a sprinkling 
 of American travelers and ranchmen. The impalpable 
 adobe-dust of the arena was being whirled into the 
 air by the strong onset of the afternoon trade-winds, 
 which happily, however, helped also to dissipate a 
 reek of garlic, and the acrid fumes of cheap tobacco, 
 rolled in corn-husk cigarettes. I was leaning over 
 the second barrier, waiting for the meager and 
 circus-like procession to enter with the keys of the 
 bull-pen, when my attention was attracted to a 
 movement in the reserved gallery. A lady and 
 gentleman of a quality that was evidently unfamiliar 
 to the rest of the audience were picking their way 
 along the rickety benches to a front seat. I re 
 cognised the geologist with some surprise, and the 
 lady he was leading with still greater astonishment. 
 For it was Miss Mannersley, in her precise, well-
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 259 
 
 fitting walking-costume a monotone of sober color 
 among the party-colored audience. 
 
 However, I was perhaps less surprised than the 
 audience, for I was not only becoming as accus 
 tomed to the young girl s vagaries as I had been to 
 Enriquez s extravagance; but I was also satisfied that 
 her uncle might have given her permission to come, 
 as a recognition of the Sunday concession of the 
 management, as well as to conciliate his supposed 
 Catholic friends. I watched her sitting there until 
 the first bull had entered, and, after a rather brief 
 play with the picadors and banderilleros, was des 
 patched. At the moment when the matador ap 
 proached the bull with his lethal weapon I was not 
 sorry for an excuse to glance at Miss Mannersley. 
 Her hands were in her lap, her head slightly bent 
 forward over her knees. I fancied that she, too, 
 had dropped her eyes before the brutal situation; to 
 my horror I saw that she had a drawing-book in her 
 hand, and was actually sketching it. I turned my 
 eyes in preference to the dying bull. 
 
 The second animal led out for this ingenious 
 
 17*
 
 26O THE DEVOTION Of ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 slaughter was, however, more sullen, uncertain, and 
 discomposing to his butchers. He accepted the 
 irony of a trial with gloomy, suspicious eyes, and he 
 declined the challenge of whirling and insulting 
 picadors. He bristled with banderillas like a hedge 
 hog, but remained with his haunches backed against 
 the barrier, at times almost hidden in the fine dust 
 raised by the monotonous stroke of his sullenly paw 
 ing hoof his one dull, heavy protest. A vague un 
 easiness had infected his adversaries; the picadors 
 held aloof, the banderilleros skirmished at a safe 
 distance. The audience resented only the indecision 
 of the bull. Galling epithets were flung at him, fol 
 lowed by cries of "Espada!" and, curving his elbow 
 under his short cloak, the matador, with his flashing 
 blade in hand, advanced and stopped. The bull 
 remained motionless. 
 
 For at that moment a heavier gust of wind than 
 usual swept down upon the arena, lifted a suffocat 
 ing cloud of dust, and whirled it around the tiers of 
 benches and balcony, and for a moment seemed to 
 stop the performance. I heard an exclamation from
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 26 I 
 
 the geologist, who had risen to his feet. I fancied 
 I heard even a faint cry from Miss Mannersley; but 
 the next moment, as the dust was slowly settling, 
 we saw a sheet of paper in the air, that had been 
 caught up in this brief cyclone, dropping, dipping 
 from side to side on uncertain wings, until it slowly 
 descended in the very middle of the arena. It was 
 a leaf from Miss Mannersley s sketch-book, the one 
 on which she had been sketching. 
 
 In the pause that followed it seemed to be the 
 one object that at last excited the bull s growing but 
 tardy ire. He glanced at it with murky, distended 
 eyes; he snorted at it with vague yet troubled fury. 
 Whether he detected his own presentment in Miss 
 Mannersley s sketch, or whether he recognised it as 
 an unknown and unfamiliar treachery in his sur 
 roundings, I could not conjecture; for the next mo 
 ment the matador, taking advantage of the bull s 
 concentration, with a complacent leer at the audience, 
 advanced toward the paper. But at that instant a 
 young man cleared the barrier into the arena with a 
 single bound, shoved the matador to one side, caught
 
 262 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 up the paper, turned toward the balcony and Miss 
 Mannersley with a gesture of apology, dropped gaily 
 before the bull, knelt down before him with an ex 
 aggerated humility, and held up the drawing as if 
 for his inspection. A roar of applause broke from 
 the audience, a cry of warning and exasperation 
 from the attendants, as the goaded bull suddenly 
 charged the stranger. But he sprang to one side 
 with great dexterity, made a courteous gesture to 
 the matador as if passing the bull over to him, and, 
 still holding the paper in his hand, releaped the 
 barrier, and rejoined the audience in safety. I did 
 not wait to see the deadly, dominant thrust with 
 which the matador received the charging bull; my 
 eyes were following the figure now bounding up the 
 steps to the balcony, where with an exaggerated 
 salutation he laid the drawing in Miss Mannersley s 
 lap and vanished. There was no mistaking that 
 thin, lithe form, the narrow black mustache, and 
 gravely dancing eyes. The audacity of conception, 
 the extravagance of execution, the quaint irony of 
 the sequel, could belong to no one but Enriquez.
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 263 
 
 I hurried up to her as the six yoked mules 
 dragged the carcass of the bull away. She was 
 placidly putting up her book, the unmoved focus of 
 a hundred eager and curious eyes. She smiled 
 slightly as she saw me. "I was just telling Mr. 
 Briggs what an extraordinary creature it was, and 
 how you knew him. He must have had great ex 
 perience to do that sort of thing so cleverly and 
 safely. Does he do it often? Of course, not just 
 that. But does he pick up cigars and things that I 
 see they throw to the matador? Does he belong to 
 the management? Mr. Briggs thinks the whole thing 
 was a feint to distract the bull," she added, with a 
 wicked glance at the geologist, who, I fancied, looked 
 disturbed. 
 
 "I am afraid," I said dryly, "that his act was as 
 unpremeditated and genuine as it was unusual." 
 
 "Why afraid?" 
 
 It was a matter-of-fact question, but I instantly 
 saw my mistake. What right had I to assume that 
 Enriquez s attentions were any more genuine than 
 her own easy indifference; and if I suspected that
 
 264 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 they were, was it fair in me to give my friend away 
 to this heartless coquette? "You are not very gal 
 lant," she said, with a slight laugh, as I was hesitat 
 ing, and turned away with her escort before 1 could 
 frame a reply. But at least Enriquez was now ac 
 cessible, and I should gain some information from 
 him. I knew where to find him, unless he were still 
 lounging about the building, intent upon more extra 
 vagance; but I waited until I saw Miss Mannersley 
 and Briggs depart without further interruption. 
 
 The hacienda of Ramon Saltillo, Enriquez s 
 cousin, was on the outskirts of the village. When 
 I arrived there I found Enriquez s pinto mustang 
 steaming in the corral, and, although I was momen 
 tarily delayed by the servants at the gateway, I was 
 surprised to find Enriquez himself lying languidly 
 on his back in a hammock in the patio. His arms 
 were hanging down listlessly on each side as if in 
 the greatest prostration, yet I could not resist the 
 impression that the rascal had only just got into the 
 hammock when he heard of my arrival. 
 
 "You have arrive, friend Pancho, in time," he
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 265 
 
 said in accents of exaggerated weakness. "I am 
 absolutely exhaust. I am bursted, caved in, kerflum- 
 moxed. I have behold you, my friend, at the barrier. 
 I speak not, I make no sign at the first, because I 
 was on fire; I speak not at the feenish for I am 
 exhaust." 
 
 "I see; the bull made it lively for you." 
 
 He instantly bounded up in the hammock. "The 
 bull! Caramba! Not a thousand bulls! And thees 
 one, look you, was a craven. I snap my fingers over 
 his horn; I roll my cigarette under his nose." 
 
 "Well, then what was it?" 
 
 He instantly lay down again, pulling up the 
 sides of the hammock. Presently his voice came 
 from its depths, appealing in hollow tones to the sky. 
 "He asks me thees friend of my soul, thees brother 
 of my life, thees Pancho that I lofe what it was? 
 He would that I should tell him why I am game in 
 the legs, why I shake in the hand, crack in the 
 voice, and am generally wipe out! And yet he, my 
 pardner thees Francisco know that I have seen 
 the mees from Boston! That I have gaze into the
 
 266 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 eye, touch the hand, and for the instant possess the 
 picture that hand have drawn! It was a sublime 
 picture, Pancho," he said, sitting up again suddenly, 
 "and have kill the bull before our friend Pepe s 
 sword have touch even the bone of hees back and 
 make finish of him." 
 
 "Look here, Enriquez," I said bluntly, "have 
 you bee.n serenading that girl?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders without the least em 
 barrassment, and said: "Ah, yes. What would you? 
 It is of a necessity." 
 
 "Well," I retorted, "then you ought to know 
 that her uncle took it all to himself thought you 
 some grateful Catholic pleased with his religious 
 tolerance." 
 
 He did not even smile. "Bueno," he said gravely. 
 "That make something, too. In thees affair it is 
 well to begin with the duenna. He is the duenna." 
 
 "And," I went on relentlessly, "her escort told 
 her just now that your exploit in the bull-ring was 
 only a trick to divert the bull, suggested by the 
 management."
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 267 
 
 "Bah! her escort is a geologian. Naturally, she 
 is to him as a stone." 
 
 I would have continued, but a peon interrupted 
 us at this moment with a sign to Enriquez, who 
 leaped briskly from the hammock, bidding me wait 
 his return from a messenger in the gateway. 
 
 Still unsatisfied of mind, I waited, and sat down 
 in the hammock that Enriquez had quitted. A scrap 
 of paper was lying in its meshes, which at first ap 
 peared to be of the kind from which Enriquez rolled 
 his cigarettes; but as I picked it up to throw it 
 away, I found it was of much firmer and stouter 
 material. Looking at it more closely, I was surprised 
 to recognize it as a piece of the tinted drawing- 
 paper torn off the "block" that Miss Mannersley had 
 used. It had been deeply creased at right angles 
 as if it had been folded; it looked as if it might 
 have been the outer half of a sheet used for a note. 
 
 It might have been a trifling circumstance, but 
 it greatly excited my curiosity. I knew that he had 
 returned the sketch to Miss Mannersley, for I had 
 seen it in her hand. Had she given him another?
 
 268 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 And if so, why had it been folded to the destruction 
 of the drawing? Or was it part of a note which he 
 had destroyed? In the first impulse of discovery I 
 walked quickly with it toward the gateway where 
 Enriquez had disappeared, intending to restore it to 
 him. He was just outside talking with a young girl. 
 I started, for it was Jocasta Miss Mannersley s 
 maid. 
 
 With this added discovery came that sense of 
 uneasiness and indignation with which we illogically 
 are apt to resent the withholding of a friend s con 
 fidence, even in matters concerning only himself. It 
 was no use for me to reason that it was no business 
 of mine, that he was right in keeping a secret that 
 concerned another and a lady; but I was afraid I 
 was even more meanly resentful because the discovery 
 quite upset my theory of his conduct and of Miss 
 Mannersley s attitude toward him. I continued to 
 walk on to the gateway, where I bade Enriquez a 
 hurried good-by, alleging the sudden remembrance 
 of another engagement, but without appearing to 
 recognise the girl, who was moving away, when, to
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 269 
 
 my further discomfiture, the rascal stopped me with 
 an appealing wink, threw his arms around my neck, 
 whispered hoarsely in my ear, "Ah! you see you 
 comprehend but you are the mirror of discretion!" 
 and returned to Jocasta. But whether this meant 
 that he had received a message from Miss Mannersley, 
 or that he was trying to suborn her maid to carry 
 one, was still uncertain. He was capable of 
 either. 
 
 During the next two or three weeks I saw him 
 frequently; but as I had resolved to try the effect of 
 ignoring Miss Mannersley in our conversation, I 
 gathered little further of their relations, and, to my 
 surprise, after one or two characteristic extravagances 
 of allusion, Enriquez dropped the subject, too. Only 
 one afternoon, as we were parting, he said carelessly: 
 " My friend, you are going to the casa of Mannersley 
 to-night. I too have the honor of the invitation. 
 But you will be my Mercury my Leporello you 
 will take of me a message to thees Mees Boston, 
 that I am crushed, desolated, protraste, and flabber 
 gasted that I cannot arrive, for I have of that night
 
 27O THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 to sit up with the grandaunt of my brother-in-law, 
 who has a quinsy to the death. It is sad." 
 
 This was the first indication I had received of 
 Miss Mannersley s advances. I was equally surprised 
 at Enriquez s refusal. 
 
 "Nonsense!" I said bluntly. "Nothing keeps 
 you from going." 
 
 "My friend," returned Enriquez, with a sudden 
 lapse into languishment that seemed to make him 
 absolutely infirm, "it is everything that shall restrain 
 me. I am not strong. I shall become weak of the 
 knee and tremble under the eye of Mees Boston. 
 I shall precipitate myself to the geologian by the 
 throat. Ask me another conundrum that shall be 
 easy." 
 
 He seemed idiotically inflexible, and did not go. 
 But I did. I found Miss Mannersley exquisitely 
 dressed and looking singularly animated and pretty. 
 The lambent glow of her inscrutable eye as she 
 turned toward me might have been flattering but for 
 my uneasiness in regard to Enriquez. I delivered 
 his excuses as naturally as I could. She stiffened
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 2JI 
 
 for an instant, and seemed an inch higher. "I am 
 so sorry," she said at last in a level voice. "I 
 thought he would have been so amusing. Indeed, 
 I had hoped we might try an old Moorish dance 
 together which I have found and was practising." 
 
 "He would have been delighted, I know. It s a 
 great pity he didn t come with me," I said quickly; 
 "but," I could not help adding, with emphasis on 
 her own words, "he is such an (extraordinary 
 creature,) you know." 
 
 "I see nothing extraordinary in his devotion to 
 an aged relative," returned Miss Mannersley, quietly, 
 as she turned away, "except that it justifies my 
 respect for his character." 
 
 I do -not know why I did not relate this to him. 
 Possibly I had given up trying to understand them; 
 perhaps I was beginning to have an idea that he 
 could take care of himself. But I was somewhat 
 surprised a few days later when, after asking me to 
 go with him to a rodeo at his uncle s he added 
 composedly, "You will meet Mees Boston." 
 
 I stared, and but for his manner would have
 
 272 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 thought it part of his extravagance. For the rodeo 
 a yearly chase of wild cattle for the purpose of 
 lassoing and branding them was a rather brutal 
 affair, and purely a man s function; it was also a 
 family affair a property stock-taking of the great 
 Spanish cattle-owners and strangers, particularly 
 Americans, found it difficult to gain access to its 
 mysteries and the festa that followed. 
 
 "But how did she get an invitation?" I asked. 
 "You did not dare to ask " I began. 
 
 "My friend," said Enriquez, with a singular de 
 liberation, "the great and respectable Boston herself, 
 and her serene, venerable oncle, and other Boston 
 magnificos, have of a truth done me the inexpressible 
 honor to solicit of my degraded, papistical oncle that 
 she shall come that she shall of her own superior 
 eye behold the barbaric customs of our race." 
 
 His tone and manner were so peculiar that I 
 stepped quickly before him, laid my hands on his 
 shoulders, and looked down into his face. But the 
 actual devil which I now for the first time saw in his 
 eyes went out of them suddenly, and he relapsed
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 273 
 
 again in affected languishment in his chair. "I shall 
 be there, friend Pancho," he said, with a preposterous 
 grasp. "I shall nerve my arm to lasso the bull, 
 and tumble him before her at her feet. I shall throw 
 the buck-jump mustang at the same sacred spot. 
 I shall pluck for her the buried chicken at full 
 speed from the ground, and present it to her. You 
 shall see it, friend Pancho. I shall be there." 
 
 He was as good as his word. When Don Pedro 
 Amador, his uncle, installed Miss Mannersley, with 
 Spanish courtesy, on a raised platform in the long 
 valley where the rodeo took place, the gallant En- 
 riquez selected a bull from the frightened and gal 
 loping herd, and, cleverly isolating him from the 
 band, lassoed his hind legs, and threw him exactly 
 before the platform where Miss Mannersley was 
 seated. It was Enriquez who caught the unbroken 
 mustang, sprang from his own saddle to the bare 
 back of his captive, and with only the lasso for a 
 bridle, halted him on rigid haunches at Miss Man- 
 nersley s feet. It was Enriquez who, in the sports 
 that followed, leaned from his saddle at full speed, 
 
 In a Hollow of the Hills, etc. 1 8
 
 274 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 caught up the chicken buried to its head in the 
 sand without wringing its neck, and tossed it un 
 harmed and fluttering toward his mistress. As for 
 her, she wore the same look of animation that I had 
 seen in her face at our previous meeting. Although 
 she did not bring her sketch-book with her, as at 
 the bull-fight, she did not shrink from the branding 
 of the cattle, which took place under her very eyes. 
 
 Yet I had never seen her and Enriquez together; 
 they had never, to my actual knowledge, even ex 
 changed words. And now, although she was the 
 guest of his uncle, his duties seemed to keep him 
 in the field, and apart from her. Nor, as far as I 
 could detect, did either apparently make any effort 
 to have it otherwise. The peculiar circumstance 
 seemed to attract no attention from anyone else. 
 But for what I alone knew or thought I knew of 
 their actual relations, I should have thought them 
 strangers. 
 
 But I felt certain that the festa which took place 
 in the broad patio of Don Pedro s casa would bring 
 them together. And later in the evening, as we
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 275 
 
 were all sitting on the veranda watching the dancing 
 of the Mexican women, whose white-flounced sayas 
 were monotonously rising and falling to the strains 
 of two melancholy harps, Miss Mannersley rejoined 
 us from the house. She seemed to be utterly ab 
 sorbed and abstracted in the barbaric dances, and 
 scarcely moved as she leaned over the railing with 
 her cheek resting on her hand. Suddenly she arose 
 with a little cry. 
 
 "What is it?" asked two or three. 
 
 "Nothing only I have lost my fan." She had 
 risen, and was looking abstractedly on the floor. 
 
 Half a dozen men jumped to their feet. "Let 
 me fetch it," they said. 
 
 "No; thank you. I think I know where it is, 
 and will go for it myself." She was moving away. 
 
 But Don Pedro interposed with Spanish gravity. 
 Such a thing was not to be heard of in his casa. 
 If the senorita would not permit him, an old man, 
 to go for it, it must be brought by Enriquez, her 
 cavalier of the day. 
 
 But Enriquez was not to be found. I glanced 
 
 18*
 
 276 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 at Miss Mannersley s somewhat disturbed face, and 
 begged her to let me fetch it. I thought I saw a 
 flush of relief come into her pale cheek as she 
 said, in a lower voice, "On the stone seat in the 
 garden." 
 
 I hurried away, leaving Don Pedro still pro 
 testing. I knew the gardens, and the stone seat at 
 an angle of the wall, not a dozen yards from the 
 casa. The moon shone full upon it. There, in 
 deed, lay the little gray- feathered fan. But close 
 beside it, also, lay the crumpled, black, gold-em 
 broidered riding-gauntlet that Enriquez had worn at 
 the rodeo. 
 
 I thrust it hurriedly into my pocket, and ran 
 back. As I passed through the gateway I asked a 
 peon to send Enriquez to me. The man stared. 
 Did I not know that Don Enriquez had ridden away 
 two minutes ago? 
 
 When I reached the veranda, I handed the fan 
 to Miss Mannersley without a word. "Bueno," said 
 Don Pedro, gravely; "it is as well. There shall be 
 no bones broken over the getting of it, for Enriquez,
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 277 
 
 I hear, has had to return to the Encinal this very 
 evening." 
 
 Miss Mannersley retired early. I did not inform 
 her of my discovery, nor did I seek in any way to 
 penetrate her secret. There was no doubt that she 
 and Enriquez had been together, perhaps not for 
 the first time; but what was the result of their inter 
 view? From the young girl s demeanor, and En- 
 riquez s hurried departure, I could only fear the 
 worst for him. Had he been tempted into some 
 further extravagance and been angrily rebuked, or 
 had he avowed a real passion concealed under his 
 exaggerated mask and been deliberately rejected? 
 I tossed uneasily half the night, following in my 
 dreams my poor friend s hurrying hoof-beats, and 
 ever starting from my sleep at what I thought was 
 the sound of galloping hoofs. 
 
 I rose early, and lounged into the patio; but 
 others were there before me, and a small group of 
 Don Pedro s family were excitedly discussing some 
 thing, and I fancied they turned away awkwardly 
 and consciously as I approached. There was an air
 
 278 THE DEVOTION OF ENR1QUEZ. 
 
 of indefinite uneasiness everywhere. A strange fear 
 came over me with the chill of the early morning 
 air. Had anything happened to Enriquez? I had 
 always looked upon his extravagance as part of his 
 playful humor. Could it be possible that under the 
 sting of rejection he had made his grotesque threat 
 of languishing effacement real? Surely Miss Man- 
 nersley would know or suspect something, if it were 
 the case. 
 
 I approached one of the Mexican women and 
 asked if the sefiorita had risen. The woman started, 
 and looked covertly round before she replied. Did 
 not Don Pancho know that Miss Mannersley and her 
 maid had not slept in their beds that night, but had 
 gone, none knew where? 
 
 For an instant I felt an appalling sense of my 
 own responsibility in this suddenly serious situation, 
 and hurried after the retreating family group. But 
 as I entered the corridor a vaquero touched me on 
 the shoulder. He had evidently just dismounted, 
 and was covered with the dust of the road. He 
 handed me a note written in pencil on a leaf from
 
 THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ. 279 
 
 Ivtiss Mannersley s sketch-book. It was Enriquez s 
 hand, and his signature was followed by his most 
 extravagant rubric. 
 
 FRIEND PANCHO: When you read this line you 
 shall of a possibility think I am no more. That is 
 yhere you shall slip up, my little brother! I am 
 much more I am two times as much, for I have 
 marry Miss Boston. At the Mission Church, at five 
 of the morning, sharp! No cards shall be left! I 
 lass the hand of my venerable uncle-in-law. You 
 shall say to him that we fly to the South wilderness 
 as the combined evangelical missionary to the heathen ! 
 Miss Boston herself say this. Ta-ta! How are you 
 now? Your own ENRIQUEZ. 
 
 THE END.
 
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