NRLF
288 CJKESST.
on both sides, and that the entente cordiale
has been thoroughly restored. The bullet
which it is said played a highly impor-
tant part in the subsequent explanation,
proving to have come from a revolver fired
by some outsider has been extracted from
Mr. McKinstry's thigh, and he is doing
well, with every prospect of a speedy re-
covery."
Smiling, albeit not uncomplacently, at this
valuable contribution to history from an un-
fettered press, his eye fell upon the next
paragraph, perhaps not so complacently :
" Benjamin Daubigny, Esq., who left
town for Sacramento on important busi-
ness, not entirely unconnected with his new
interests in Indian Springs, will, it is ru-
mored, be shortly joined by his wife, who
has been enabled by his recent good fortune
to leave her old home in the States, and
take her proper proud position at his side.
Although personally unknown to Indian
Springs, Mrs. Daubigny is spoken of as a
beautiful and singularly accomplished wo-
man, and it is to be regretted that her hus-
band's interests will compel them to abandon
Indian Springs for Sacramento as a future
residence. Mr. Daubigny was accompanied
CRESS Y. 289
by his private secretary Rupert, the eldest
son of H. G. Filgee, Esq., who has been a
promising graduate of the Indian Spring
Academy, and offers a bright example to
the youth of this district. We are happy
to learn that his younger brother is recover-
ing rapidly from a slight accident received
last week through the incautious handling
of firearms."
The master, with his eyes upon the paper,
remained so long plunged in a reverie that
the school-room was quite filled and his lit-
tle flock was wonderingly regarding him be-
fore he recalled himself. He was hurriedly
reaching his hand towards the bell when he
was attracted by the rising figure of Octa-
via Dean.
" Please, sir, you did n't ask if we had
any news ! "
" True I forgot," said the master smil-
ing. " Well, have you anything to tell
us?"
"Yes, sir. Cressy McKinstry has left
school."
"Indeed!"
" Yes, sir ; she 's married."
" Married," repeated the master with an
effort, yet conscious of the eyes concentrated
v, 24 J Bret Harte
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
SANTA CRUZ
SANTA CRUZ
Gift oi
CABRILLO COLLEGE
'HOW MUCH IS A TRUE STORY?"
Cressy
"ARGONAUT EDITION" OF
THE WORKS OF BRET HARTB
CRESSY
THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN
BY
BRET HARTE
ILLUSTRATED
P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
fublithed under tpeeial arrangement vtitA
the HouyfUon Mijflin Company
COPYRIGHT 1889
BY BRET HARTE
COPYRIGHT 1907
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY
All rights reserved
C7
CKESSY.
CHAPTER I.
As the master of the Indian Spring school
emerged from the pine woods into the little
clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped
whistling, put his hat less jauntily on his
head, threw away some wild flowers he had
gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed
the severe demeanor of his profession and
his mature age which was at least twenty.
Not that he usually felt this an assumption ;
it was a firm conviction of his serious nature
that he impressed others, as he did himself,
with the blended austerity and ennui of deep
and exhausted experience.
The building which was assigned to him
and his flock by the Board of Education
of Tuolumne County, California, had been
originally a church. It still bore a faded
odor of sanctity, mingled, however, with a
later and slightly alcoholic breath of polit-
v. 4 A Bret Harte
2 CRE88Y.
ical discussion, the result of its weekly occu-
pation under the authority of the Board as a
Tribune for the enunciation of party prin-
ciples and devotion to the Liberties of the
People. There were a few dog-eared hymn-
books on the teacher's desk, and the black-
board but imperfectly hid an impassioned
appeal to the citizens of Indian Spring to
" Rally " for Stebbins as Supervisor. The
master had been struck with the size of the
black type in which this placard was printed,
and with a shrewd perception of its value
to the round wandering eyes of his smaller
pupils, allowed it to remain as a pleasing ex-
ample of orthography. Unfortunately, al-
though subdivided and spelt by them in its
separate letters with painful and perfect
accuracy, it was collectively known as
" Wally," and its general import productive
of vague hilarity.
Taking a large key from his pocket, the
master unlocked the door and threw it open,
stepping back with a certain precaution be-
gotten of his experience in once finding a
small but sociable rattlesnake coiled up near
the threshold. A slight disturbance which
followed his intrusion showed the value of
that precaution, and the fact that the room
CRES8Y. 8
had been already used for various private
and peaceful gatherings of animated nature t
An irregular attendance of yellow-birds and
squirrels dismissed themselves hurriedly
through the broken floor and windows, but a
golden lizard, stiffened suddenly into stony
fright on the edge of an open arithmetic,
touched the heart of the master so strongly
by its resemblance to some kept-in and for-
gotten scholar who had succumbed over the
task he could not accomplish, that he was
seized with compunction.
Recovering himself, and reestablishing, as
it were, the decorous discipline of the room
by clapping his hands and saying " Sho ! "
he passed up the narrow aisle of benches, re-
placing the forgotten arithmetic, and pick-
ing up from the desks here and there certain
fragmentary pieces of plaster and crumbling
wood that had fallen from the ceiling, as if
this grove of Academus had been shedding
its leaves overnight. When he reached his
own desk he lifted the lid and remained for
some moments motionless, gazing into it.
His apparent meditation however was simply
the combined reflection of his own features
in a small pocket-mirror in its recesses and a
perplexing doubt in his mind whether the
4 CRESS T.
sacrifice of his budding moustache was not
essential to the professional austerity of his
countenance. But he was presently aware
of the sound of small voices, light cries, and
brief laughter scattered at vague and remote
distances from the schoolhouse not unlike
the birds and squirrels he had just dispos-
sessed. He recognized by these signs that
it was nine o'clock, and his scholars were
assembling.
They came in their usual desultory fash-
ion the fashion of country school-children
the world over irregularly, spasmodically,
and always as if accidentally ; a few hand-
in-hand, others driven ahead of or dropped
behind their elders; some in straggling
groups more or less coherent and at times
only connected by far-off intermediate voices
scattered on a space of half a mile, but never
quite alone; always preoccupied by some-
thing else than the actual business on hand ;
appearing suddenly from ditches, behind
trunks, and between fence-rails ; cropping
up in unexpected places along the road after
vague and purposeless detours seemingly
going anywhere and everywhere but to
school ! So unlooked-for, in fact, was their
final arrival that the master, who had a few
CRE8ST 5
moments before failed to descry a single torn
straw hat or ruined sun -bonnet above his
visible horizon, was always startled to find
them suddenly under his windows, as if, like
the birds, they had alighted from the trees.
Nor was their moral attitude towards their
duty any the more varied ; they always ar-
rived as if tired and reluctant, with a doubt-
ing sulkiness that perhaps afterwards beamed
into a charming hypocrisy, but invariably
temporizing with their instincts until the
last moment, and only relinquishing possible
truancy on the very threshold. Even after
they were marshalled on their usual benches
they gazed at each other every morning with
a perfectly fresh astonishment and a daily
recurring enjoyment of some hidden joke in
this tremendous rencontre.
It had been the habit of the master to
utilize these preliminary vagrancies of his
little flock by inviting them on assembling
to recount any interesting incident of their
journey hither ; or failing this, from their
not infrequent shyness in expressing what
had secretly interested them, any event that
had occurred within their knowledge since
they last met. He had done this, partly to
give them time to recover themselves in that
6 CRES8T.
more formal atmosphere, and partly, I fear,
because, notwithstanding his conscientious
gravity, it greatly amused him. It also di-
verted them from their usual round -eyed,
breathless contemplation of himself a reg-
ular morning inspection which generally em-
braced every detail of his dress and appear-
ance, and made every change or deviation
the subject of whispered comment or stony
astonishment. He knew that they knew him
more thoroughly than he did himself, and
shrank from the intuitive vision of these
small clairvoyants.
" Well ? " said the master gravely.
There was the usual interval of bashful
hesitation, verging on nervous hilarity or
hypocritical attention. For the last six
months this question by the master had been
invariably received each morning as a veiled
pleasantry which might lead to baleful in-
formation or conceal some query out of the
dreadful books before him. Yet this very
element of danger had its fascinations.
Johnny Filgee, a small boy, blushed vio-
lently, and, without getting up, began hur-
riedly in a high key, " Tige ith got," and
then suddenly subsided into a whisper.
" Speak up, Johnny,'* said the master en-
couragingly.
CRE88Y. 7
" Please, sir, it ain't anythin' he 's seed
nor any real news, s ' said Rupert Filgee, his
elder brother, rising with family concern
and frowning openly upon Johnny ; " it 's
jest his foolishness ; he oughter be licked."
Finding himself unexpectedly on his feet,
and apparently at the end of a long speech,
he colored also, and then said hurriedly,
"Jimmy Snyder he seed suthin*. Ask
him I " and sat down a recognized hero.
Every eye, including the master's, was
turned on Jimmy Snyder. But that youth-
ful observer, instantly diving his head and
shoulders into his desk, remained there gur-
gling as if under water. Two or three near-
est him endeavored with some struggling
to bring him to an intelligible surface again.
The master waited patiently. Johnny Fil-
gee took advantage of the diversion to begin
again in a high key, " Tige ith got thix,"
and subsided.
" Come, Jimmy," said the master, with
a touch of peremptoriness. Thus adjured,
Jimmy Snyder came up glowingly, and brist-
ling with full stops and exclamation points.
"Seed a black b'ar comin' outer Daves'
woods," he said excitedly. " Nigh to me ez
you be. 'N big ez a hoss ; 'n snarlin' I 'n
8 C RE 8 ST.
snappin' ! like gosh ! Kem along ker
clump torords me. Reckoned he 'd skeer
me ! Did n't skeer me worth a cent. I
heaved a rock at him I did now ! " (in de-
fiance of murmurs of derisive comment)
" 'n he slid. Ef he 'd kern up f urder I 'd hev
up with my slate and swotted him over the
snoot bet your boots ! "
The master here thought fit to interfere,
and gravely point out that the habit of strik-
ing bears as large as a horse with a school-
slate was equally dangerous to the slate
(which was also the property of Tuolumne
County) and to the striker; and that the
verb " to swot " and the noun substantive
" snoot " were likewise indefensible, and not
to be tolerated. Thus admonished Jimmy
Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in his
own courage, sat down.
A slight pause ensued. The youthful
Filgee, taking advantage of it, opened in a
higher key, " Tige ith " but the master's
attention was here diverted by the searching
eyes of Octavia Dean, a girl of eleven, who
after the fashion of her sex preferred a per-
sonal recognition of her presence before she
spoke. Succeeding in catching his eye, she
threw back her long hair from her shoulders
CRESS Y. 9
with an easy habitual gesture, rose, and with
a faint accession of color said :
"Cressy McKinstry came home from
Sacramento. Mrs. McKinstry told mother
she 's comin' back here to school."
The master looked up with an alacrity per-
haps inconsistent with his cynical austerity.
Seeing the young girl curiously watching
him with an expectant smile, he regretted it.
Cressy McKinstry, who was sixteen years
old, had been one of the pupils he had found
at the school when he first came. But as he
had also found that she was there in the ex-
traordinary attitude of being " engaged " to
one Seth Davis, a fellow-pupil of nineteen,
and as most of the courtship was carried on
freely and unceremoniously during school-
hours with the full permission of the master's
predecessor, the master had been obliged to
point out to the parents of the devoted
couple the embarrassing effects of this asso-
ciation on the discipline of the school. The
result had been the withdrawal of the lovers,
and possibly the good -will of the parents.
The return of the young lady was conse-
quently a matter of some significance. Had
the master's protest been accepted, or had
the engagement itself been broken off?
10
Either was not improbable. His momentary
loss of attention was Johnny Filgee's great
gain.
" Tige," said Johnny, with sudden and
alarming distinctness, " ith got thix pupths
mothly yaller."
In the laugh which followed this long
withheld announcement of an increase in the
family of Johnny's yellow and disreputable
setter "Tiger," who usually accompanied
him to school and howled outside, the master
joined with marked distinctness. Then he
said, with equally marked severity, " Books ! "
The little levee was ended, and school began.
It continued for two hours with short
sighs, corrugations of small foreheads, the
complaining cries and scratchings of slate
pencils over slates, and other signs of minor
anguish among the more youthful of the
flock ; and with more or less whisperings,
movements of the lips, and unconscious
soliloquy among the older pupils. The mas-
ter moved slowly up and down the aisle with
a word of encouragement or explanation here
and there, stopping with his hands behind
him to gaze abstractedly out of the windows
to the wondering envy of the little ones. A
faint hum, as of invisible insects, gradually
CBESST. 11
pervaded the school; the more persistent
droning of a large bee had become danger-
ously soporific. The hot breath of the pines
without had invaded the doors and windows ;
the warped shingles and weather-boarding at
times creaked and snapped under the rays
of the vertical and unclouded sun. A gentle
perspiration broke out like a mild epidemic
in the infant class ; little curls became damp,
brief lashes limp, round eyes moist, and
small eyelids heavy. The master himself
started, and awoke out of a perilous dream
of other eyes and hair to collect himself
severely. For the irresolute, half-embar-
rassed, half-lazy figure of a man had halted
doubtingly before the porch and open door.
Luckily the children, who were facing the
master with their backs to the entrance, did
not see it.
Yet the figure was neither alarming nor
unfamiliar. The master at once recognized
it as Ben Dabney, otherwise known as
" Uncle Ben," a good-humored but not over-
bright miner, who occupied a small cabin on
an unambitious claim in the outskirts of
Indian Spring. His avuncular title was
evidently only an ironical tribute to his
amiable incompetency and heavy good-na-
12 CRESBT.
ture, for he was still a young man with no
family ties, and by reason of his singular
shyness not even a visitor in the few fami-
lies of the neighborhood. As the master
looked up, he had an irritating recollection
that Ben had been already haunting him for
the last two days, alternately appearing and
disappearing in his path to and from school
as a more than usually reserved and bashful
ghost. This, to the master's cynical mind,
clearly indicated that, like most ghosts, he
had something of essentially selfish import
to communicate. Catching the apparition's
half -appealing eye, he proceeded to exorcise
it with a portentous frown and shake of the
head, that caused it to timidly wane and fall
away from the porch, only however to reap-
pear and wax larger a few minutes later at
one of the side windows. The infant class
hailing his appearance as a heaven-sent
boon, the master was obliged to walk to the
door and command him sternly away, when,
retreating to the fence, he mounted the
uppermost rail, and drawing a knife from
his pocket, cut a long splinter from the
rail, and began to whittle it in patient and
meditative silence. But when recess was
declared, and the relieved feelings of the
CRESS T. 13
little flock had vent in the clearing around
the schoolhouse, the few who rushed to the
spot found that Uncle Ben had already dis-
appeared. Whether the appearance of the
children was too inconsistent with his ghostly
mission, or whether his heart failed him at
the last moment^ the master could not deter-
mine. Yet, distasteful as the impending in-
terview promised to be, the master was
vaguely and irritatingly disappointed.
A few hours later, when school was being
dismissed, the master found Octavia Dean
lingering near his desk. Looking into the
girl's mischievous eyes, he good-humoredly
answered their expectation by referring to
her morning's news. " I thought Miss Mc-
Kinstry had been married by this time," he
said carelessly.
Octavia, swinging her satchel like a censer,
as if she were performing some act of thu-
rification over her completed tasks, replied
demurely : " Oh no ! dear no ! not that."
" So it would seem," said the master.
" I reckon she never kalkilated to, either,"
continued Octavia, slyly looking up from
the corner of her lashes.
"Indeed!"
" No she was just funning with Seth
Davis that 'sail."
14 CRESSY.
" Funning with him ? "
" Yes, sir. Kinder foolin' him, you know."
" Kinder foolin' him ! "
For an instant the master felt it his pro-
fessional duty to protest against this most
unmaidenly and frivolous treatment of the
matrimonial engagement, but a second glance
at the significant face of his youthful audi-
tor made him conclude that her instinctive
knowledge of her own sex could be better
trusted than his imperfect theories. He
turned towards his desk without speaking.
Octavia gave an extra swing to her satchel,
tossing it over her shoulder with a certain
small coquettishness and moved towards the
door. As she did so the infant Filgee from
the safe vantage of the porch where he had
lingered was suddenly impelled to a crown-
ing audacity ! As if struck with an original
idea, but apparently addressing himself to
space, he cried out, " Crethy M'Kinthry
likth teacher," and instantly vanished.
Putting these incidents sternly aside, the
master addressed himself to the task of set-
ting a few copies for the next day as the
voices of his departing flock faded from the
porch. Presently a silence fell upon the
little school-house. Through the open door
CSESSY. 15
a cool, restful breath stole gently as if na-
ture were again stealthily taking possession
of her own. A squirrel boldly came across
the porch, a fsw twittering birds charging
in stopped, beat the air hesitatingly for a
moment with their wings, and fell back with
bashfully protesting breasts aslant against
the open door and the unlooked-for spec-
tacle of the silent occupant. Then there
was another movement of intrusion, but this
time human, and the master looked up an-
grily to behold Uncle Ben.
He entered with a slow exasperating step,
lifting his large boots very high and putting
them down again softly as if he were afraid
of some insecurity in the floor, or figura-
tively recognized the fact that the pathways
of knowledge were thorny and difficult.
Reaching the master's desk and the minis-
tering presence above it, he stopped awk-
wardly, and with the rim of his soft felt
hat endeavored to wipe from his face the
meek smile it had worn when he entered.
It chanced also that he had halted before
the minute stool of the infant Filgee, and his
large figure instantly assumed such Brobding-
nagian proportions in contrast that he became
more embarrassed than ever. The master
16 CRESS 7.
made no attempt to relieve him, but regarded
him with cold interrogation.
" I reckoned," he began, leaning one hand
on the master's desk with affected ease, as
he dusted his leg with his hat with the other,
" I reckoned that is I allowed I
orter say that I 'd find ye alone at this
time. Ye gin' rally are, ye know. It's a
nice, soothin', restful, stoodious time, when
a man kin, so to speak, run back on his ed-
dication and think of all he ever knowed.
Ye 're jist like me, and ye see I sorter spotted
your ways to onct."
" Then why did you come here this morn-
ing and disturb the school?" demanded the
master sharply.
" That 's so, I sorter slipped up thar,
did n't I ? " said Uncle Ben with a smile of
rueful assent. " You see I did n't allow to
come in then, but on'y to hang round a
leetle and kinder get used to it, and it to
me."
" Used to what ? " said the master impa-
tiently, albeit with a slight softening at his
intruder's penitent expression.
Uncle Ben did not reply immediately, but
looked around as if for a seat, tried one or
two benches and a desk with his large hand
GXEB8Y. 17
as if testing their security, and finally aban-
doning the idea as dangerous, seated himself
on the raised platform beside the master's
chair, having previously dusted it with the
flap of his hat. Finding, however, that the
attitude was not conducive to explanation,
he presently rose again, and picking up one
of the school-books from the master's desk
eyed it unskilfully upside down, and then
said hesitatingly,
" I reckon ye ain't usin' Dobell's 'Rithme-
tic here?"
" No," said the master.
" That 's bad. 'Pears to be played out
that Dobell feller. I was brought up on
Dobell. And Parsings' Grammar? Ye
don't seem to be a using Parsings' Grammar
either?"
" No," said the master, relenting still more
as he glanced at Uncle Ben's perplexed face
with a faint smile.
" And I reckon you 'd be saying the same
of Jones' 'Stronomy and Algebry ? Things
hev changed. You 've got all the new style
here," he continued, with affected careless-
ness, but studiously avoiding the master's
eye. "For a man ez wos brought up on
Parsings, Dobell, and Jones, thar don't ap-
pear to be much show nowadays."
18 CRES87.
The master did not reply. Observing
several shades of color chase each other on
Uncle Ben's face, he bent his own gravely
over his books. The act appeared to relieve
his companion, who with his eyes still turned
towards the window went on :
" Ef you 'd had them books which you
have n't I had it in my mind to ask you
suthen'. I had an idea of of sort of re-
viewing my eddication. Kinder going over
the old books agin jist to pass the time.
Sorter running in yer arter school hours and
doin' a little practising eh? You looking
on me as an extry scholar and I payin' ye
as sich but keepin' it 'twixt ourselves, you
know just for a pastime, eh?"
As the master smilingly raised his head,
he became suddenly and ostentatiously at-
tracted to the window.
" Them jay birds out there is mighty
peart, coming right up to the school-house I
I reckon they think it sort o' restful too."
" But if you really mean it, could n't you
use these books, Uncle Ben ? " said the mas-
ter cheerfully. " I dare say there 's little
difference the principle is the same, you
know."
Uncle Ben's face, which had suddenly
CUES ST. 19
brightened, as suddenly fell. He took the
book from the master's hand without meeting
his eyes, held it at arm's length, turned it
over and then laid it softly down upon the
desk as if it were some excessively fragile
article. " Certingly," he murmured, with
assumed reflective ease. " Certingly. The
principle 's all there." Nevertheless he was
quite breathless and a few beads of perspira-
tion stood out upon his smooth, blank fore-
head.
" And as to writing, for instance," contin-
ued the master with increasing heartiness as
he took notice of these phenomena, " you
know any copy-book will do."
He handed his pen carelessly to Uncle
Ben. The large hand that took it timidly
not only trembled but grasped it with such
fatal and hopeless unfarniliarity that the
master was fain to walk to the window and
observe the birds also.
" They 're mighty bold them jays," said
Uncle Ben, laying down the pen with scru-
pulous exactitude beside the book and gazing
at his fingers as if he had achieved a miracle
of delicate manipulation. " They don't seem
to be af eared of nothing, do they? "
There was another pause. The master
20 CRES87.
suddenly turned from the window. " I tell
you what, Uncle Ben," he said with prompt
decision and unshaken gravity, '" the only
thing for you to do is to just throw over
Dobell and Parsons and Jones and the old
quill pen that I see you 're accustomed to,
and start in fresh as if you 'd never known
them. Forget 'em all, you know. It will
be mighty hard of course to do that," he
continued, looking out of the window, " but
you must do it."
He turned back, the brightness that trans-
figured Uncle Ben's face at that moment
brought a slight moisture into his own eyes.
The humble seeker of knowledge said hur-
riedly that he would try.
" And begin again at the beginning," con-
tinued the master cheerfully. " Exactly like
one of those in fact, as if you really were
a child again."
" That 's so," said Uncle Ben, rubbing his
hands delightedly, " that 's me ! Why, that 's
jest what I was sayin' to Roop "
" Then you 've already been talking about
it?" intercepted the master in some surprise.
" I thought you wanted it kept secret ? "
" Well, yes," responded Uncle Ben du-
biously. " But you see I sorter agreed with
CKES87. 21
Roop Filgee that if you took to my Ideas and
did n't object, I 'd give him two bits l every
time he 'd kem here and help me of an arter-
noon when you was away and kinder stand
guard around the school -house, you know,
so as to keep the fellows off. And Roop 's
mighty sharp for a boy, ye know."
The master reflected a moment and con-
cluded that Uncle Ben was probably right.
Rupert Filgee, who was a handsome boy of
fourteen, was also a strongly original char-
acter whose youthful cynicism and blunt,
honest temper had always attracted him. He
was a fair scholar, with a possibility of being
a better one, and the proposed arrangement
with Uncle Ben would not interfere with the
discipline of school hours and might help
them both. Nevertheless he asked good-hu-
moredly, "But couldn't you do this more
securely and easily in your own house ? I
might lend you the books, you know, and
come to you twice a week."
Uncle Ben's radiant face suddenly clouded.
" It would n't be exactly the same kind o'
game to me an' Roop," he said hesitatingly.
" You see thar 's the idea o' the school-house,
ye know, and the restfulness and the quiet,
1 Two bits, i. e., twenty-five cents.
22 CRESS Y.
and the gen'ral air o' study. And the boys
around town ez would n't think nothin' o'
trapsen' into my cabin if they spotted what
I was up to thar, would never dream o' hunt-
ing me here."
" Very well," said the master, " let it be
here then." Observing that his companion
seemed to be struggling with an inarticulate
gratitude and an apparently inextricable
buckskin purse in his pocket, he added qui-
etly, " I '11 set you a few copies to commence
with," and began to lay out a few unfinished
examples of Master Johnny Filgee's scholas-
tic achievements.
"After thanking you, Mr. Ford," said
Uncle Ben, faintly, "ef you'll jest kinder
signify, you know, what you consider a
fair"
Mr. Ford turned quickly and dexterously
offered his hand to his companion in such a
manner that he was obliged to withdraw his
own from his pocket to grasp it in return.
u You 're very welcome," said the master,
" and as I can only permit this sort of thing
gratuitously, you 'd better not let me know
that you propose giving anything even to
Rupert." He shook Uncle Ben's perplexed
hand again, briefly explained what he had
CRE88Y. 23
to do, and saying that he would now leave
him alone a few minutes, he took his hat and
walked towards the door.
"Then you reckon," said Uncle Ben
slowly, regarding the work before him, " that
I'd better jest chuck them Dobell fellers
overboard ? "
" I certainly should," responded the mas-
ter with infinite gravity.
"And sorter waltz in fresh, like one o'
them children?"
" Like a child," nodded the master as he
left the porch.
A few moments later, as he was finishing
his cigar in the clearing, he paused to glance
in at the school-room window. Uncle Ben,
stripped of his coat and waistcoat, with his
shirt-sleeves rolled up on his powerful arms,
had evidently cast Dobell and all misleading
extraneous aid aside, and with the perspira-
tion standing out on his foolish forehead,
and his perplexed face close to the master's
desk, was painfully groping along towards
the light in the tottering and devious tracks
of Master Johnny Filgee, like a very child
indeed !
CHAPTER II.
As the children were slowly straggling to
their places the next morning, the master
waited for an opportunity to speak to Ru-
pert. That beautiful but scarcely amiable
youth was, as usual, surrounded and im-
peded by a group of his small female ad-
mirers, for whom, it is but just to add, he
had a supreme contempt. Possibly it was
this healthy quality that inclined the mas-
ter towards him, and it was consequently
with some satisfaction that he overheard
fragments of his openly disparaging com-
ments upon his worshippers.
" There ! " to Clarinda Jones, " don't flop !
And don't you" to Octavia Dean, " go on
breathing over my head like that. If there 's
anything I hate it 's having a girl breathing
round me. Yes, you were ! I felt it in
my hair. And you too you're always
snoopin' and snoodgin'. Oh, yes, you want
to know why I 've got an extry copy-book
and another 'Rithmetic, Miss Curiosity.
CRESSY. 25
Well, what would you give to know ? "Want
to see if they 're pretty " (with infinite scorn
at the adjective). " No, they ain't pretty.
That 's all you girls think about what 's
pretty and what 's curious ! Quit now !
Come! Don't ye see teacher lookin* at
you ? Ain't you ashamed ? "
He caught the master's beckoning eye
and came forward, slightly abashed, with a
flush of irritation still on his handsome face,
and his chestnut curls slightly rumpled.
One, which Octavia had covertly accented
by twisting round her forefinger, stood up
like a crest on his head.
" I 've told Uncle Ben that you might help
him here after school hours," said the mas-
ter, taking him aside. " You may therefore
omit your writing exercise in the morning
and do it in the afternoon."
The boy's dark eyes sparkled. *' And if
it would be all the same to you, sir," he
added earnestly, " you might sorter give out
in school that I was to be kept in."
" I 'm afraid that would hardly do," said
the master, much amused. " But why ? "
Rupert's color deepened. " So ez to keep
them darned girls from foolin' round me and
followin' me back here."
26 CSE83Y.
" We will attend to that," said the mas-
ter smiling ; a moment after he added more
seriously, " I suppose your father knows
that you are to receive money for this?
And he doesn't object? "
" He ! Oh no ! " returned Rupert with a
slight look of astonishment, and the same
general suggestion of patronizing his pro-
genitor that he had previously shown to his
younger brother. 4t You need n't mind him."
In reality Filgee pere, a widower of two
years' standing, had tacitly allowed the dis-
cipline of his family to devolve upon Rupert.
Remembering this, the master could only
say, " Very well," and good-naturedly dismiss
the pupil to his seat and the subject from
his mind. The last laggard had just slipped
in, the master had glanced over the occupied
benches with his hand upon his warning
bell, when there was a quick step on the
gravel, a flutter of skirts like the sound of
alighting birds, and a young woman lightly
entered.
In the rounded, untouched, and untroubled
freshness of her cheek and chin, and the
forward droop of her slender neck, she ap-
peared a girl of fifteen ; in her developed
figure and the maturer drapery of her full
CRESS T. 27
skirts she seemed a woman ; in her combina-
tion of naive recklessness and perfect under-
standing of her person she was both. In
spite of a few school-books that jauntily
swung from a strap in her gloved hand, she
bore no resemblance to a pupil ; in her
pretty gown of dotted muslin with bows of
blue ribbon on the skirt and corsage, and a
cluster of roses in her belt, she was as in-
consistent and incongruous to the others as
a fashion-plate would have been in the dry
and dog-eared pages before them. Yet she
carried it off with a demure mingling of
the naivete of youth and the aplomb of a
woman, and as she swept down the narrow
aisle, burying a few small wondering heads
in the overflow of her flounces, there was no
doubt of her reception in the arch smile
that dimpled her cheek. Dropping a half
curtsey to the master, the only suggestion
of her equality with the others, she took her
place at one of the larger desks, and resting
her elbow on the lid began to quietly remove
her gloves. It was Cressy McKinstry.
Irritated and disturbed at the girl's un-
ceremonious entrance, the master for the mo-
ment recognized her salutation coldly, and
affected to ignore her elaborate appearance.
28 C RES ST.
The situation was embarrassing. He could
not decline to receive her as she was no
longer accompanied by her lover, nor could
he plead entire ignorance of her broken en-
gagement; while to point out the glaring
inappropriateness of costume would be a
fresh interference he knew Indian Spring
would scarcely tolerate. He could only ac-
cept such explanation as she might choose
to give. He rang his bell as much to avert
the directed eyes of the children as to bring
the scene to a climax.
She had removed her gloves and was
standing up.
" I reckon I can go on where I left off ? "
she said lazily, pointing to the books she
had brought with her.
" For the present," said the master dryly.
The first class was called. Later, when
his duty brought him to her side, he was
surprised to find that she was evidently al-
ready prepared with consecutive lessons, as
if she were serenely unconscious of any
doubt of her return, and as coolly as if she
had only left school the day before. Her
studies were still quite elementary, for
Cressy McKinstry had never been a bril-
liant scholar, but he perceived, with a cynical
CJRESS7. 29
doubt of its permanency, that she had be-
stowed unusual care upon her present per-
formance. There was moreover a certain
defiance in it, as if she had resolved to stop
any objection to her return on the score of
deficiencies. He was obliged in self-defence
to take particular note of some rings she
wore, and a large bracelet that ostenta-
tiously glittered on her white arm which
had already attracted the attention of her
companions, and prompted the audible com-
ment from Johnny Filgee that it was " truly
gold." Without meeting her eyes he con-
tented himself with severely restraining the
glances of the children that wandered in
her direction. She had never been quite
popular with the school in her previous role
of fiancee, and only Octavia Dean and one
or two older girls appreciated its mysterious
fascination ; while the beautiful Rupert, se-
cure in his avowed predilection for the mid-
dle-aged wife of the proprietor of the In-
dian Spring hotel, looked upon her as a
precocious chit with more than the usual
propensity to objectionable "breathing."
Nevertheless the master was irritatingly con-
scious of her presence a presence which
now had all the absurdity of her ridiculous
30 CRE88Y.
love-experiences superadded to it. He tried
to reason with himself that it was only a
phase of frontier life, which ought to have
amused him. But it did not. The intru-
sion of this preposterous girl seemed to dis-
arrange the discipline of his life as well as
of his school. The usual vague, far-off
dreams in which he was in the habit of in-
dulging during school -hours, dreams that
were perhaps superinduced by the remote-
ness of his retreat and a certain restful sym-
pathy in his little auditors, which had made
him the grown-up dreamer acceptable
to them in his gentle understanding of their
needs and weaknesses, now seemed to have
vanished forever.
At recess, Octavia Dean, who had drawn
near Cressy and reached up to place her
arm round the older girl's waist, glanced at
her with a patronizing smile born of some
rapid free-masonry, and laughingly retired
with the others. The master at his desk,
and Cressy who had halted in the aisle were
left alone.
" I have had no intimation yet from your
father or mother that you were coming back
to school again," he began. " But I suppose
they have decided upon your return ? "
CRESS Y. 31
An uneasy suspicion of some arrangement
with her former lover had prompted the em-
phasis.
The young girl looked at him with lan-
guid astonishment. " I reckon paw and maw
ain't no objection," she said with the same
easy ignoring of parental authority that
had characterized Rupert Filgee, and which
seemed to be a local peculiarity. " Maw
did offer to come yer and see you, but I
told her she need n't bother.'*
She rested her two hands behind her on
the edge of a desk, and leaned against it,
looking down upon the toe of her smart lit-
tle shoe which was describing a small semi-
circle beyond the hem of her gown. Her
attitude, which was half -defiant, half -indo-
lent, brought out the pretty curves of her
waist and shoulders. The master noticed it
and became a trifle more austere.
" Then I am to understand that this is a
permanent thing ? " he asked coldly.
"What's that?" said Cressy interroga-
tively.
"Am I to understand that you intend
coming regularly to school ? " repeated the
master curtly, " or is this merely an arrange-
ment for a few days until "
32 CRESBY.
" Oh," said Cressy comprehendingly, lift-
ing her unabashed blue eyes to his, " you
mean that. Oh, that 's broke off. Yes,"
she added contemptuously, making a larger
semicircle with her foot, " that 's over
three weeks ago."
"And Seth Davis does he intend re-
turning too ? "
" He ! " She broke into a light girlish
laugh. " I reckon not much ! S 'long's I'm
here, at least." She had just lifted herself
to a sitting posture on the desk, so that her
little feet swung clear of the floor in their
saucy dance. Suddenly she brought her
heels together and alighted. " So that 's
all? "she asked.
" Yes."
" Kin I go now ? "
"Yes."
She laid her books one on the top of the
other and lingered an instant.
" Been quite well ? " she asked with indo-
lent politeness.
" Yes thank you."
" You 're lookin' right peart."
She walked with a Southern girl's undu-
lating languor to the door, opened it, then
charged suddenly upon Octavia Dean, twirled
CRESS r. 33
her round in a wild waltz and bore her
away ; appearing a moment after on the
playground demurely walking with her arm
around her companion's waist in an ostenta-
tious confidence at once lofty, exclusive, and
exasperating to the smaller children.
When school was dismissed that afternoon
and the master had remained to show Rupert
Filgee how to prepare Uncle Ben's tasks,
and had given his final instructions to his
youthful vicegerent, that irascible Adonis
unburdened himself querulously :
" Is Cressy McKinstry comin' reg'lar,
Mr. Ford?"
" She is," said the master dryly. After a
pause he asked, " Why ? "
Rupert's curls had descended on his eye-
brows in heavy discontent. "It's mighty
rough, jest ez a feller reckons he 's got quit
of her and her jackass bo', to hev her pran-
cin' back inter school agin, and rigged out
like ez if she 'd been to a fire in a milliner's
shop."
" You should n't allow your personal dis-
likes, Rupert, to provoke you to speak of a
fellow-scholar in that way and a young
lady, too," corrected the master dryly.
" The woods is full o' sich feller-scholars
v - 24 B Bret Harte
34 CUE s ST.
and sich young ladies, if yer keer to go a
gunning for 'em," said Rupert with dark and
slangy significance. "Ef I'd known she
was comin' back I 'd " he stopped and
brought his sunburnt fist against the seam
of his trousers with a boyish gesture, " I 'd
hev jist "
" What ? " said the master sharply.
"I'd hev played hookey till she left
school agin ! It mout n't hev bin so long,
neither," he added with a mysterious
chuckle.
" That will do," said the master peremp-
torily. " For the present you '11 attend to
your duty and try to make Uncle Ben see
you 're something more than* a foolish, preju-
diced school-boy, or," he added significantly,
" he and I may both repent our agreement.
Let me have a good account of you both
when I return."
He took his hat from its peg on the wall,
and in obedience to a suddenly formed reso-
lution left the school-room to call upon the
parents of Cressy McKinstry. He was not
quite certain what he should say, but, after
his habit, would trust to the inspiration of
the moment. At the worst he could resign
a situation that now appeared to require
CRE88Y. 86
more tact and delicacy than seemed consis-
tent with his position, and he was obliged to
confess to himself that he had lately sus-
pected that his present occupation the
temporary expedient of a poor but clever
young man of twenty was scarcely bring-
ing him nearer a realization of his daily
dreams. For Mr. Jack Ford was a youthful
pilgrim who had sought his fortune in Cali-
fornia so lightly equipped that even in the
matter of kin and advisers he was deficient.
That prospective fortune had already eluded
him in San Francisco, had apparently not
waited for him in Sacramento, and now
seemed never to have been at Indian Spring.
Nevertheless, when he was once out of sight
of the school-house he lit a cigar, put his
hands in his pockets, and strode on with the
cheerfulness of that youth to which all things
are possible.
The children had already dispersed as
mysteriously and completely as they had ar-
rived. Between him and the straggling
hamlet of Indian Spring the landscape
seemed to be without sound or motion. The
wooded upland or ridge on which the school-
house stood, half a mile further on, began to
slope gradually towards the river, on whose
36 CRES8Y.
banks, seen from that distance, the town
appeared to have been scattered irregularly
or thrown together hastily, as if cast ashore
by some overflow the Cosmopolitan Hotel
drifting into the Baptist church, and drag-
ging in its tail of wreckage two saloons and
a blacksmith's shop ; while the County
Court-house was stranded in solitary gran-
deur in a waste of gravel half a mile away.
The intervening flat was still gashed and
furrowed by the remorseless engines of ear-
lier gold-seekers.
Mr. Ford was in little sympathy with this
unsuccessful record of frontier endeavor
the fortune he had sought did not seem to
lie in that direction and his eye glanced
quickly beyond it to the pine -crested hills
across the river, whose primeval security was
so near and yet so inviolable, or back again
to the trail he was pursuing along the ridge.
The latter prospect still retained its semi-
savage character in spite of the occasional
suburban cottages of residents, and the few
outlying farms or ranches of the locality.
The grounds of the cottages were yet un-
cleared of underbrush ; bear and catamount
still prowled around the rude fences of the
ranches ; the late alleged experience of the
CRESS Y. 87
infant Snyder was by no means improbable or
unprecedented.
A light breeze was seeking the heated flat
and river, and thrilling the leaves around
him with the strong vitality of the forest.
The vibrating cross -lights and tremulous
chequers of shade cast by the stirred foliage
seemed to weave a fantastic net around him
as he walked. The quaint odors of certain
woodland herbs known to his scholars, and
religiously kept in their desks, or left like
votive offerings on the threshold of the
school-house, recalled all the primitive sim-
plicity and delicious wildness of the little
temple he had left. Even in the mischiev-
ous glances of evasive squirrels and the moist
eyes of the contemplative rabbits there were
faint suggestions of some of his own truants.
The woods were trembling with gentle mem-
ories of the independence ho hud always
known here of that sweet aiid grave re-
treat now so ridiculously invaded.
He be^an to hesitate, with one of thoso
revulsions of sentiment characteristic of his
nature : Why should he bother himself
about this girl after all ? Why not make
up his mind to accept her as his predecessor
had done? Why wan it neeeHHary for him to
38 CRE8BT.
find her inconsistent with his ideas of duty
to his little flock and his mission to them ?
Was he not assuming a sense of decorum
that was open to misconception? The ab-
surdity of her school costume, and any re-
sponsibility it incurred, rested not with him
but with her parents. What right had he to
point it out to them, and above all how was
he to do it ? He halted irresolutely at what
he believed was his sober second thought,
but which, like most reflections that take
that flattering title, was only a reaction as
impulsive and illogical as the emotion that
preceded it.
Mr. McKinstry's " snake rail " fence was
already discernible in the lighter opening of
the woods, not far from where he had halted.
As he stood there in hesitation, the pretty
figure and bright gown of Cressy McKin-
stry suddenly emerged from a more secluded
trail that intersected his own at an acute
angle a few rods ahead of him. She was
not alone, but was accompanied by a male
figure whose arm she had evidently just dis-
lodged from her waist. He was still trying
to resume his lost vantage ; she was as reso-
lutely evading him with a certain nymph-like
agility, while the sound of her half-laughing,
CRB88Y. 39
half-irate protest could be faintly heard.
Without being able to identify the face or
figure of her companion at that distance, he
could see that it was not her former be-
trothed, Seth Davis.
A superior smile crossed his face ; he no
longer hesitated, but at once resumed his
former path. For some time Cressy and her
companion moved on quietly before him.
Then on reaching the rail-fence they turned
abruptly to the right, were lost for an instant
in the intervening thicket, and the next mo-
ment Cressy appeared alone, crossing the
meadow in a shorter cut towards the houses,
having either scaled the fence or slipped
through some familiar gap. Her companion
had disappeared. Whether they had no-
ticed that they were observed he could not
determine. He kept steadily along the trail
that followed the line of fence to the lane
that led directly to the farm-building, and
pushed open the front gate as Cressy's light
dress vanished round an angle at the rear of
the house.
The house of the McKinstrys rose, or
rather stretched, itself before him, in all
the lazy ungainliness of Southwestern archi-
tecture. A collection of temporary make-
40 C RE 88 7.
shifts of boards, of logs, of canvas, prema-
turely decayed, and in some instances aban-
doned for a newer erection, or degraded to
mere outhouses it presented with singular
frankness the nomadic and tentative disposi-
tion of its founder. It had been repaired
without being improved; its additions had
seemed only to extend its primitive ugliness
over a larger space. Its roofs were roughly
shingled or rudely boarded and battened,
and the rafters of some of its " lean-to's "
were simply covered with tarred canvas. As
if to settle any doubt of the impossibility of
this heterogeneous mass ever taking upon
itself any picturesque combination, a small
building of corrugated iron, transported in
sections from some remoter locality, had
been set up in its centre. The McKinstry
ranch had long been an eyesore to the mas-
ter : even that morning he had been mutely
wondering from what convolution of that
hideous chrysalis the bright butterfly Cressy
had emerged. It was with a renewal of this
curiosity that he had just seen her flutter
back to it again.
A yellow dog who had observed him hesi-
tating in doubt where he should enter, here
pawned, rose from the sunlight where he had
CRESS Y. 41
been blinking, approached the master with
languid politeness, and then turned towards
the iron building as if showing him the way.
Mr. Ford followed him cautiously, painfully
conscious that his hypocritical canine intro-
ducer was only availing himself of an oppor-
tunity to gain ingress into the house, and
was leading him as a responsible accomplice
to probable exposure and disgrace. His ex-
pectation was quickly realized : a lazily quer-
ulous, feminine outcry, with the words,
" Yer 's that darned hound agin ! " came
from an adjacent room, and his exposed and
abashed companion swiftly retreated past
him into the road again. Mr. Ford found
himself alone in a plainly-furnished sitting-
room confronting the open door leading to
another apartment at which the figure of a
woman, preceded hastily by a thrown dish-
cloth, had just appeared. It was Mrs. Mc-
Kinstry ; her sleeves were rolled up over her
red but still shapely arms, and as she stood
there wiping them on her apron, with her
elbows advanced, and her closed hands raised
alternately in the air, there was an odd
pugilistic suggestion in her attitude. It was
not lessened on her sudden discovery of the
master by her retreating backwards with
CRESS Y.
her hands up and her elbows still well for-
ward as if warily retiring to an imaginary
corner."
Mr. Ford at once tactfully stepped back
from the doorway. " 1 beg your pardon,"
he said, .delicately addressing the opposite
wall, " but I found the door open and I fol-
lowed the dog."
u That 's just one of his pizenous tricks,"
responded Mrs. McKinstry dolefully from
within. " On'y last week he let in a China-
man, and in the nat'ral liustlirf that f ollered
he managed to help himself outer the pork
bar'l. There ain't no shade o' cussedness
that or'nary hound ain't up to." Yet not-
withstanding this ominous comparison she
presently made her appearance with her
sleeves turned down, her black woollen
dress "tidied," and a smile of fatigued but
not unkindly welcome and protection on her
face. Dusting a chair with her apron and
placing it before the master, she continued
maternally, " Now that you 're here, set ye
right down and make yourself to home. My
men folks are all out o' door, but some of
'em's sure to happen in soon for suthin';
that day ain't yet created that they don't
come himtin' up Mammy McKinstry every
five minutes for this thing or that."
CRESBY. 43
The glow of a certain hard pride burned
through the careworn languor of her brown
cheek. What she had said was strangely
true. This raw-boned woman before him,
although scarcely middle-aged, had for years
occupied a self-imposed maternal and pro-
tecting relation, not only to her husband and
brothers, but to the three or four men, who
as partners, or hired hands, lived at the
ranch. An inherited and trained sympathy
with what she called her " boys " and her
"men folk," and their needs had partly un-
sexed her. She was a fair type of a class
not uncommon on the Southwestern fron-
tier ; women who were ruder helpmeets of
their rude husbands and brothers, who had
shared their privations and sufferings with
surly, masculine endurance, rather than fem-
inine patience ; women who had sent their
loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible
vendetta as a matter of course, or with par-
tisan fury ; who had devotedly nursed the
wounded to keep alive the feud, or had re-
ceived back their dead dry -eyed and re-
vengeful. Small wonder that Cressy Mc-
Kinstry had developed strangely under this
sexless relationship. Looking at the mother,
albeit not without a certain respect Mr.
44 CREBSY.
Ford found himself contrasting her with the
daughter's graceful femininity, and wonder-
ing where in Cressy's youthful contour the
possibility of the grim figure before him was
even now hidden.
" Hiram allowed to go over to the school-
house and see you this mornm'," said Mrs.
McKinstry, after a pause ; " but I reckon ez
how he had to look up stock on the river.
The cattle are that wild this time o' year,
huntin' water, and hangin' round the tules,
that my men are nigh worrited out o' their
butes with 'em. Hank and Jim ain't been
off their mustangs since sun up, and Hiram,
what with partrollen' the West Boundary
all night, watchin' stakes whar them low
down Harrisons hev been trespassin' has
n't put his feet to the ground in fourteen
hours. Mebbee you noticed Hiram ez you
kem along? Ef so, ye did n't remember
what kind o' shootin' irons he had with
him ? I see his rifle over yon. Like ez not
he 'z only got his six-shooter, and them Har-
risons are mean enough to lay for him at
long range. But," she added, returning to
the less important topic, " I s'pose Cressy
came all right."
" Yes," said the master hopelessly.
CRE83Y. 45
" I reckon she looked so," continued Mrs.
McKinstry, with tolerant abstraction. " She
allowed to do herself credit in one of them
new store gownds that she got at Sacramento.
At least that 's what some of our men said.
Late years, I ain't kept tech with the fash-
ions myself." She passed her fingers ex-
planatorily down the folds of her own coarse
gown, but without regret or apology.
"She seemed well prepared in her les-
sons," said the master, abandoning for the
moment that criticism of his pupil's dress,
which he saw was utterly futile, " but am I
to understand that she is coming regularly
to school that she is now perfectly free
to give her entire attention to her studies
that that her engagement is broken
off?"
" Why, did n't she tell ye? " echoed Mrs.
McKinstry in languid surprise.
" She certainly did," said the master with
slight embarrassment, " but "
" Ef she said so," interrupted Mrs. Mc-
Kinstry abstractedly, " she oughter know,
and you kin tie to what she says."
" But as I 'm responsible to parents and
not to scholars for the discipline of my
school," returned the young man a little
46 CKEBSf.
stiffly, "I thought it my duty to hear it
from you."
" That 's so," said Mrs. McKinstry medi-
tatively ; " then I reckon you 'd better see
Hiram. That ar' Seth Davis engagement
was a matter of hern and her father's, and
not in my line. I 'spose that Hiram nat'-
rally allows to set the thing square to you
and inquirin' friends."
" I hope you understand," said the mas-
ter, slightly resenting the classification,
"that my reason for inquiring about the
permanency of your daughter's attendance
was simply because it might be necessary to
arrange her studies in a way more suitable
to her years ; perhaps even to suggest to
you that a young ladies' seminary might
be more satisfactory "
"Sartain, sartain," interrupted Mrs.
McKinstry hurriedly, but whether from
evasion of annoying suggestion or weari-
ness of the topic, the master could not de-
termine. " You 'd better speak to Hiram
about it. On'y," she hesitated slightly, " ez
he 's got now sorter set and pinted towards
your school, and is a trifle worrited with
stock and them Harrisons, ye might tech it
lightly. He oughter be along yer now. I
CRE88T. 47
can't think what keeps him." Her eye wan-
dered again with troubled preoccupation to
the corner where her husband's Sharps' rifle
stood. Suddenly she raised her voice as if
forgetful of Mr. Ford's presence.
" O Cressy ! "
"OMaw!"
The response came from the inner room.
The next moment Cressy appeared at the
door with an odd half -lazy defiance in her
manner, which the master could not under-
stand except upon the hypothesis that she
had been listening. She had already
changed her elaborate toilet for a long
clinging, coarse blue gown, that accented
the graceful curves of her slight, petticoat-
less figure. Nodding her head towards the
master, she said, " Howdy ? " and turned to
her mother, who practically ignored their
personal acquaintance. " Cressy," she said,
" Dad 's gone and left his Sharps' yer, d' ye
mind takin' it along to meet him, afore he
passes the Boundary corner. Ye might tell
him the teacher 's yer, wantin' to see him."
"One moment," said the master, as the
young girl carelessly stepped to the corner
and lifted the weapon. " Let me take it.
It 's all on my way back to school and I '11
meet him."
48 CREB8T.
Mrs. McKinstry looked perturbed. Cressy
opened her clear eyes on the master with
evident surprise. " No, Mr. Ford," said
Mrs. McKinstry, with her former maternal
manner. " Ye 'd better not mix yourself up
with these yer doin's. Ye Ve no call to do
it, and Cressy has; it's all in the family.
But it 's outer your line, and them Harri-
son whelps go to your school. Fancy the
teacher takin' weppins betwixt and be-
tween ! "
" It 's fitter work for the teacher than for
one of his scholars, and a young lady at
that," said Mr. Ford gravely, as he took the
rifle from the hands of the half -amused, half-
reluctant girl. " It 's quite safe with me,
and I promise I shall deliver it into Mr.
McKinstry's hands and none other."
" Perhaps it would n't be ez likely to be
giu'rally noticed ez it would if one of us
carried it," murmured Mrs. McKinstry in
confidential abstraction, gazing at her daugh-
ter sublimely unconscious of the presence
of a third party.
"You're quite right," said the master
composedly, throwing the rifle over his
shoulder and turning towards the door.
" So I '11 say good-afternoon, and try and
find your husband."
CRE88T. 49
Mrs. McKinstry constrainedly plucked at
the folds of her coarse gown. " Ye '11 like
a drink afore ye go," she said, in an ill-con-
cealed tone of relief. " I clean forgot my
manners. Cressy, fetch out that demijohn."
" Not for me, thank you," returned Mr,
Ford smiling.
" Oh, I see you 're temperance, nat'-
rally," said Mrs. McKinstry with a tolerant
sigh.
" Hardly that," returned the master ; " I
follow no rule, I drink sometimes but not
to-day."
Mrs. McKinstry's dark face contracted.
" Don't you see, Maw," struck in Cressy
quickly. "Teacher drinks sometimes, but
he don't use whiskey. That 's all."
Her mother's face relaxed. Cressy slipped
out of the door before the master, and pre-
ceded him to the gate. When she had
reached it she turned and looked into his
face.
" What did Maw say to yer about seein'
me just now ? "
" I don't understand you."
" To your seein' me and Joe Masters on
the trail?"
" She said nothing."
50 CREBBT.
"Humph," said Cressy meditatively.
" What was it you told her about it ? "
" Nothing."
" Then you did n't see us ? "
" I saw you with some one I don't
know whom."
" And you did n't tell Maw ? "
* 4 I did not. It was none of my busi-
ness."
He instantly saw the utter inconsistency
of this speech in connection with the reason
he believed he had in coming. But it was
too late to recall it, and she was looking at
him with a bright but singular expression.
"That Joe Masters is the conceitedest
fellow goin'. I told him you could see his
foolishness."
" Ah, indeed."
Mr. Ford pushed open the gate. As the
girl still lingered he was obliged to hold it a
moment before passing through.
" Maw could n't quite hitch on to your
not drinkin'. She reckons you 're like
everybody else about yer. That 's where
she slips up on you. And everybody else,
I kalkilate."
" I suppose she 's somewhat anxious about
your father, and I dare say is expecting me
to hurry," returned the master pointedly.
CRESS Y. 61
"Oh, dad '$ all right," said Cressy mis-
chievously* " You '11 come across him over
yon, iti the clearing. But you 'r"e looking
right purty with that guii. It kinder sets
you off. You oughter wear one."
The mastei* Smiled slightly, said " Good-
bye " and took leave of the girl, but not of
her eyes, which were still following him.
Even when he had reached the end of the
lane and glanced back at the rambling dwell-
itig, she was still leaning on the gate with
one foot on the lower rail aiid her chin
cupped in the hollow of her hand. She made
a slight gesture, not clearly intelligible at
that distant; it might have been a mis*
chievous imitation of the way he had thrown
the gun over his shoulder, it might have
been a wafted kiss.
The master however continued his way in
no very self-satisfied mood. Although he
did not regret having taken the place of
Cressy as the purveyor of lethal weapons
between the belligerent parties, he knew he
was tacitly mingling in the feud between
people for whom he cared little or nothing.
It was true that the Harrisons sent their
children to his school, and that in the fierce
partisanship of the locality this simple cour-
52 CRESS T.
tesy was open to misconstruction. But he
was more uneasily conscious that this mis-
sion, so far as Mrs. McKinstry was con-
cerned, was a miserable failure. The strange
relations of the mother and daughter per-
haps explained much of the girl's conduct,
but it offered no hope of future amelioration.
Would the father, " worrited by stock " and
boundary quarrels a man in the habit of
cutting Gordian knots with a bowie knife
prove more reasonable ? Was there any
nearer sympathy between father and daugh-
ter ? But she had said he would meet
McKinstry in the clearing : she was right,
for here he was coming forward at a gallop I
CHAPTER III.
WHEN within a dozen paces of the mas-
ter, McKinstry, scarcely checking his mus-
tang, threw himself from the saddle, and
with a sharp cut of his riata on the animal's
haunches sent him still galloping towards
the distant house. Then, with both hands
deeply thrust in the side pockets of his long,
loose linen coat, he slowly lounged with
clanking spurs towards the young man. He
was thick-set, of medium height, densely and
reddishly bearded, with heavy-lidded pale
blue eyes that wore a look of drowsy pain,
and after their first wearied glance at the
master, seemed to rest anywhere but on him.
" Your wife was sending you your rifle by
Cressy," said the master, " but I offered to
bring it myself, as I thought it scarcely a
proper errand for a young lady. Here it
is. I hope you didn't miss it before and
don't require it now," he added quietly.
Mr. McKinstry took it in one hand with
an air of slightly embarrassed surprise,
54 CRESS T.
rested it against his shoulder, and then with
the same hand and without removing the
other from his pocket, took off his soft felt
hat, showed a bullet-hole in its rim, and re-
turned lazily, " It 's about half an hour late,
but them Harrisons reckoned I was fixed for
'em and war too narvous to draw a clear
bead on me."
The moment was evidently not a felicitous
one for the master's purpose, but he was de-
termined to go on. He hesitated an instant,
when his companion, who seemed to be
equally but more sluggishly embarrassed, in
a moment of preoccupied perplexity with-
drew from his pocket his right hand swathed
in a blood-stained bandage, and following
some instinctive habit, attempted, as if re-
flectively, to scratch his head with two stif-
fened fingers.
"You are hurt," said the master, genu-
inely shocked, "and here I am detaining
you."
" I had my hand up so," explained
McKinstry, with heavy deliberation, " and
the ball raked off my little finger after it
went through my hat. But that ain't what
I wanted to say when I stopped ye. I ain't
just kam enough yet," he apologized in the
CBEB8Y. 56
calmest manner, " and I clean forgit myself,"
he added with perfect self-possession. " But
I was kalkilatin' to ask you " he laid his
bandaged hand familiarly on the master's
shoulder " if Cressy kem all right ? "
Perfectly," said tbe master. " But shan't
I walk on home with you, and we can talk
together after your wound is attended to ? "
** And she looked piirty ? " continued M<J-
Kinstry without moving.
"Very."
" And you thought them new store gowndg
of hers right peart ? "
" Yes," said the master. " Perhaps a little
too fine for the school, you know," he added
insinuatingly, " and "
" Not for her not for her," interrupted
McKinstry. " I reckon thar 's more whar
that cam from ! Ye need n't fear but that
she kin keep up that gait ez long ez Hiram
McKinstry hez the runuin' of her."
Mr. Ford gazed hopelessly at the hideous
ranch in the distance, at the sky, and the
trail before him ; then his glance fell upon
the hand still upon his shoulder, and he
struggled with a final effort. " At another
time I 'd like to have a long talk with you
about your daughter, Mr. McKinstry."
56 CRESS Y.
"Talk on," said McKinstry, putting his
wounded hand through the master's arm.
" I admire to hear you. You 're that kam,
it does me good."
Nevertheless the master was conscious that
his own arm was scarcely as firm as his com-
panion's. It was however useless to draw
back now, and with as much tact as he could
command he relieved his mind of its purpose.
Addressing the obtruding bandage before
him, he dwelt upon Cressy's previous attitude
in the school, the danger of any relapse, the
necessity of her having a more clearly defined
position as a scholar, and even the advisabil-
ity of her being transferred to a more ad-
vanced school with a more mature teacher
of her own sex. " This is what I wished to
say to Mrs. McKinstry to-day," he concluded,
" but she referred me to you."
" In course, in course," said McKinstry,
nodding complacently. " She 's a good wo-
man in and around the ranch, and in any
doin's o' this kind," he lightly waved his
wounded arm in the air, " there ain't a bet-
ter, tho' I say it. She was Blair Rawlins'
darter ; she and her brother Clay bein' the
only ones that kem out safe arter their twenty
years' fight with the McEntees in West
CRE8BY. 67
Kaintuck. But she don't understand gals
ez you and me do. Not that I 'm much, ez
I orter be more kam. And the old woman
jest sized the hull thing when she said she
hadn't any hand in Cressy's engagement.
No more she had ! And ez far ez that goes,
no more did me, nor Seth Davis, nor Cressy."
He paused, and lifting his heavy-lidded eyes
to the master for the second time, said re-
flectively, " Ye must n't mind my tellin' ye
ez betwixt man and man that the one
ez is most responsible for the makin' and
breakin' o' that engagement is you I "
" Me ! " said the master in utter bewilder-
ment.
" You ! " repeated McKinstry quietly, re-
installing the hand Ford had attempted to
withdraw. " I ain't sayin' ye either know'd
it or kalkilated on it. But it war so. Ef
ye 'd hark to me, and meander on a little,
I '11 tell ye how it war. I don't mind walkin'
a piece your way, for if we go towards the
ranch, and the hounds see me, they'll set
up a racket and bring out the old woman,
and then good-by to any confidential talk
betwixt you and me. And I 'm, somehow,
kammer out yer."
He moved slowly down the trail, still
58 CRES8Y.
holding Ford's arm confidentially, although,
owing to his large protecting manner, he
seemed to offer a ridiculous suggestion of
supporting him with his wounded member.
"When you first kem to Injin Spring,'*
he began, " Seth and Cressy was goin' to
school, boy and girl like, and nothin' more.
They 'd known each other from babies the
Davises bein' our neighbors in Kaintuck,
and emigraten' with us from St. Joe. Seth
mout hev cottoned to Cress, and Cress to
him, in course o' time, and there was n't any-
thin' betwixt the families to hev kept 'em
from marryin' when they wanted. But there
never war any words passed, and no engage-
ment."
"But*" interrupted Ford hastily, "my
predecessor, Mr. Martin, distinctly told me
that there was, and that it was with your
permission."
" That 's only because you noticed suthin'
the first day you looked over the school with
Martin. 4 Dad,' sez Cress to me, ' that new
teacher 's very peart ; and he 's that keen
about noticin' me and Seth that I reckon
you'd better giv out that we're engaged.'
4 But are you ? ' sez I. ' It '11 come to that
in the end,' sez Cress, c and if that yer teacher
CRESS Y. 59
hez come here with Northern ideas o' society,
it 's just ez well to let him see Injin Spring
ain't entirely in the woods about them things
either.' So I agreed, and Martin told you
it was all right ; Cress and Seth was an en-
gaged couple, and you was to take no notice.
And then you ups and objects to the hull
thing, and allows that courtin' in school,
even among engaged pupils, ain't proper."
The master turned his eyes with some un-
easiness to the face of Cressy's father. It
was heavy but impassive.
** 1 don't mind tellin' you, now that it 's
over, what happened. The trouble with me,
Mr. Ford, is I ain't kam! and you air,
and that 's what got me. For when I heard
what you 'd said, I got on that mustang and
started for the school-house to clean you out
and giv' you five minutes to leave Injin
Spring. I don't know ez you remember that
day. I ? d kalkilated my time so ez to ketch
ye comin' out o' school, but I was too airly.
I hung around out o' sight, and then hitched
my hoss to a buckeye and peeped inter the
winder to hev a good look at ye. It was
very quiet and kam. There was squirrels
over the roof, yellow- jackets and bees dronin'
away, and kinder sleeping-like all around in
60 CRESS T.
the air, and jay-birds twitterin' in the shin-
gles, and they never minded me. You were
movin' up and down among them little gals
and boys, liftin' up their heads and talkin'
to 'em softly and quiet like, ez if you was
one of them yourself. And they looked
contented and kam. And onct I don't
know if you remember it you kem close
up to the winder with your hands behind
you, and looked out so kam and quiet and
so far off, ez if everybody else outside the
school was miles away from you. It kem to
me then that I 'd given a heap to hev had
the old woman see you thar. It kem to me,
Mr. Ford, that there was n't any place for me
thar ; and it kem to me, too and a little
rough like that raebbee there was n't any
place there for my Cress either ! So I rode
away without disturbin' you nor the birds
nor the squirrels. Talkin' with Cress that
night, she said ez how it was a fair sample
of what happened every day, and that you 'd
always treated her fair like the others. So
she allowed that she 'd go down to Sacra
mento, and get some things agin her and
Seth bein' married next month, and she
reckoned she would n't trouble you nor the
school agin. Hark till I 've done, Mr.
CRE88T. 61
Ford," he continued, as the young man
made a slight movement of deprecation.
" Well, I agreed. But arter she got to Sac-
ramento and bought some fancy fixin's, she
wrote to me and sez ez how she 'd been
thinkin' the hull thing over, and she reck-
oned that she and Seth were too young to
marry, and the engagement had better be
broke. And I broke it for her."
"But how? "asked the bewildered mas-
ter.
" Gin'rally with this gun," returned Mc-
Kinstry with slow gravity, indicating the
rifle he was carrying, " for I ain't kam. I
let on to Seth's father that if I ever found
Seth and Cressy together again, I 'd shoot
him. It made a sort o' coolness betwixt the
families, and hez given some comfort to
them low-down Harrisons ; but even the law,
I reckon, recognizes a father's rights. And
ez Cress sez, now ez Seth 's out o' the way,
thar ain't no reason why she can't go back
to school and finish her eddication. And
I reckoned she was right. And we both
agreed that ez she 'd left school to git them
store clothes, it was only fair that she 'd give
the school the benefit of 'em."
The case seemed more hopeless than ever.
62 CRESS Y.
The 'master knew that the man beside him
might hardly prove as lenient to a second
objection at his hand. But that very rea-
son, perhaps, impelled him, now that he knew
his danger, to consider it more strongly as a
duty, and his pride revolted from a possible
threat underlying McKinstry's confidences.
Nevertheless he began gently :
" But you are quite sure you won't regret
that you did n't avail yourself of this broken
engagement, and your daughter's outfit to
send her to some larger boarding-school in
Sacramento or San Francisco? Don't you
think she may find it dull, and soon tire of
the company of mere children when she has
already known the excitement of " he was
about to say " a lover," but checked himself,
and added, " a young girl's freedom ? "
" Mr. Ford," returned McKinstry, with
the slow and fatuous misconception of a one-
ideaed man, "when I said just now that,
lookin' inter that kam, peaceful school of
yours, I didn't find a place for Cress, it
war n't because I did n't think she oughter
hev a place thar. Thar was that thar wot
she never had ez a little girl with me and
the old woman, and that she could n't find
ez a grownd up girl in any boarding-school
CRESST. 63
the home of a child ; that kind o y inno-
cent foolishness that I sometimes reckon
must hev slipped outer OUT emigrant wagon
comin' across the plains, or got left behind
at St. Joe. She was a grownd girl fit to
many afore she was a child. She had
young fellers a-sparkin' her afore she ever
played with 'em ez boy and girl. I don't
mind tellin' you that it wer n't in the natur
of Blair Rawlins' darter to teach her own
darter any better, for all she 's been a
mighty help to me. So if it 's all the same
to you, Mr. Ford, we won't talk about a
grownd up school ; I 'd rather Cress be a
little girl again among them other children.
I should be a powerful sight more kam if I
knowed that when I was away huntin' stock
or fightin' stakes with them Harrisons, that
she was a settin' there with them and the
birds and the bees, and listenin' to them and
to you. Mebbee there 's been a little too
many scrimmages goin' on round the ranch
sence she 's been a child ; mebbee she orter
know suthin' more of a man than a feller
who sparks her and fights for her."
The master was silent. Had this dull,
narrow-minded partisan stumbled upon a
truth that had never dawned upon his own
64 CREBS7.
broader comprehension ? Had this selfish
savage and literally red -handed frontier
brawler been moved by some dumb instinct
of the power of gentleness to understand his
daughter's needs better than he ? For a mo-
ment he was staggered. Then he thought of
Cressy's later flirtations with Joe Masters,
and her concealment of their meeting from
her mother. Had she deceived her father
also ? Or was not the father deceiving him
with this alternate suggestion of threat and
of kindliness of power and weakness.
He had heard of this cruel phase of South-
western cunning before. With the feeble
sophistry of the cynic he mistrusted the
good his scepticism could not understand.
Howbeit, glancing sideways at the slumber-
ing savagery of the man beside him, and his
wounded hand, he did not care to show his
lack of confidence. He contented himself
with that equally feeble resource of weak
humanity in such cases good-natured in-
difference. " All right," he said carelessly ;
" I '11 see what can be done. But are you
quite sure you are fit to go home alone?
Shall I accompany you ? " As McKinstry
waived the suggestion with a gesture, he
added lightly, as if to conclude the inter-
CRESS r. 65
view, " I '11 report progress to you from time
to time, if you like."
" To me" emphasized McKinstry ; " not
over thar" indicating the ranch. " But
p'rhaps you would n't mind my ridin' by
and lookin' in at the school-room winder onct
in a while ? Ah you would" he added,
with the first deepening of color he had
shown. " Well, never mind."
" You see it might distract the children
from their lessons," explained the master
gently, who had however contemplated with
some concern the infinite delight which a
glimpse of McKinstry's fiery and fatuous
face at the window would awaken in Johnny
Filgee's infant breast.
" Well, no matter ! " returned McKinstry
slowly. "Ye don't keer, I s'pose, to come
over to the hotel and take suthin' ? A julep
or a smash ? "
44 1 should n't think of keeping you a mo-
ment longer from Mrs. McKinstry," said
the master, looking at his companion's
wounded hand. " Thank you all the same.
Good-by."
They shook hands, McKinstry transfer-
ring his rifle to the hollow of his elbow
to offer his unwounded left. The master
v. 24 C Bret Harte
66 CRES8Y.
watched Mm slowly resume his way towards
the ranch. Then with a half uneasy and
half pleasurable sense that he had taken
some step whose consequences were more
important than he would at present under-
stand, he turned in the opposite direction
to the school-house. He was so preoccupied
that it was not until he had nearly reached
it that he remembered Uncle Ben. With
an odd recollection of McKinstry's previous
performance, he approached the school from
the thicket in the rear and slipped noise-
lessly to the open window with the inten-
tion of looking in. But the school-house,
far from exhibiting that " kam " and studi-
ous abstraction which had so touched the
savage breast of McKinstry, was filled with
the accents of youthful and unrestrained
vituperation. The voice of Rupert Filgee
came sharply to the master's astonished
ears.
" You need n't try to play off Dobell or
Mitchell on me you hear ! Much you
know of either, don't you? Look at that
copy. If Johnny couldn't do better than
that, I 'd lick him. Of course it 's the pen
it ain't your stodgy fingers oh, no !
P'r'aps you'd like to hev a few more boxes
67
o* quills and gold pens and Gillott's best
thrown in, for two bits a lesson ? I tell you
what ! I '11 throw up the contract in an-
other minit ! There goes another quill
busted ! Look here, what you want ain't a
pen, but a clothes-pin and a split nail!
That '11 about jibe with your dilikit gait."
The master at once stepped to the window
and, unobserved, took a quick survey of the
interior. Following some ingenious idea of
his own regarding fitness, the beautiful
Filgee had induced Uncle Ben to seat him-
self on the floor before one of the smallest
desks, presumably his brother's, in an atti-
tude which, while it certainly gave him con-
siderable elbow-room for those contortions
common to immature penmanship, offered
his youthful instructor a superior eminence,
from which he hovered, occasionally swoop-
ing down upon his grown-up pupil like a
mischievous but graceful jay. But Mr.
Ford's most distinct impression was that,
far from resenting the derogatory position
and the abuse that accompanied it, Uncle
Ben not only beamed upon his persecutor
with unquenchable good humor, but with
undisguised admiration, and showed not the
slightest inclination to accept his proposed
resignation.
68 CRE8BT.
" Go slow, Roop," he said cheerfully.
" You was onct a boy yourself. Nat'rally I
kalkilate to stand all the damages. You 've
got ter waste some powder over a blast like
this yer, way down to the bed rock. Next
time I '11 bring my own pens."
" Do. Some from the Dobell school you
uster go to," suggested the darkly ironical
Rupert. " They was iron-clad injin-rubber,
war n't they ? "
" Never you mind wot they were," said
Uncle Ben good - huinoredly. "Look at
that string of 'CV in that line. There's
nothing mean about them."
He put his pen between his teeth, raised
himself slowly on his legs, and shading his
eyes with his hand from the severe perspec-
tive of six feet, gazed admiringly down
upon his work. Rupert, with his hands in
his pockets and his back to the window,
cynically assisted at the inspection.
" Wot 's that sick worm at the bottom of
the page ? " he asked.
"Wot might you think it wos?" said
Uncle Ben beamingly.
" Looks like one o' them snake roots you
dig up with a little mud stuck to it," re-
turned Rupert critically.
CUES ST. 69
" That 's my name."
They both stood looking at it with their
heads very much on one side. " It ain't so
bad as the rest you Ve done. It might be
your name. That ez, it don't look like any-
thin' else," suggested Rupert, struck with a
new idea that it was perhaps more profes-
sional occasionally to encourage his pupil.
" You might get on in course o' time. But
what are you doin' all this for ? " he asked
suddenly.
"Doin' what?"
"This yer comin' to school when you
ain't sent, and you ain't got no call to go
you, a grown-up man ! "
The color deepened in Uncle Ben's face
to the back of his ears. " Wot would you
giv' to know, Hoop ? S'pose I reckoned
some day to make a strike and sorter drop
inter saciety easy eh ? S'pose I wanted
to be ready to keep up my end with the
other fellers, when the time kem ? To be
able to sling po'try and read novels and
sich eh?"
An expression of infinite and unutterable
scorn dawned in the eyes of Rupert. "You
do ? Well," he repeated with slow and cut-
ting deliberation, " I '11 tell you what you 're
70 CRE8BT.
comin' here for, and the only thing that
makes you come ! "
"What?"
" It 's some girl ! "
Uncle Ben broke into a boisterous laugh
that made the roof shake, stamping about
and slapping his legs till the crazy floor
trembled. But at that moment the master
stepped to the porch and made a quiet but
discomposing entrance.
CHAPTER IV.
THE return of Miss Cressida McKinstry
to Indian Spring and her interrupted stud-
ies was an event whose effects were not en-
tirely confined to the school. The broken
engagement itself seemed of little moment
in the general estimation compared to her
resumption of her old footing as a scholar.
A few ill-natured elders of her own sex, and
naturally exempt from the discriminating
retort of Mr. McKinstry's " shot-gun,'' al-
leged that the Seminary at Sacramento had
declined to receive her, but the majority ac-
cepted her return with local pride as a prac-
tical compliment to the educational facili-
ties of Indian Spring. The Tuolumne
" Star," with a breadth and eloquence
touchingly disproportionate to its actual
size and quality of type and paper, referred
to the possible " growth of a grove of Aca-
demus at Indian Spring, under whose clois-
tered boughs future sages and statesmen
were now meditating," in a way that made
72 CRESSY.
the master feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
For some days the trail between the Mc-
Kinstrys' ranch and the school-house was
lightly patrolled by reliefs of susceptible
young men, to whom the enfranchised Cres-
sida, relieved from the dangerous supervi-
sion of the Davis-McKinstry clique, was an
object of ambitious admiration. The young
girl herself, who, in spite of the master's
annoyance, seemed to be following some
conscientious duty in consecutively arraying
herself in the different dresses she had
bought, however she may have tantalized
her admirers by this revelation of bridal
finery, did not venture to bring them near
the limits of the play-ground. It struck the
master with some surprise that Indian Spring
did not seem to trouble itself in regard to
his own privileged relations with its rustic
enchantress ; the young men clearly were
not jealous of him ; no matron had sug-
gested any indecorum in a young girl of
Cressy's years and antecedents being in-
trusted to the teachings of a young man
scarcely her senior. Notwithstanding the
attitude which Mr. Ford had been pleased
to assume towards her, this implied compli-
ment to his supposed monastic vocations af-
CRESS F, 73
fected him almost as uncomfortably as the
" Star's " extravagant eulogium. He was
obliged to recall certain foolish experiences
of his own to enable him to rise superior to
this presumption of his asceticism.
In pursuance of his promise to McKin-
stry, he had procured a few elementary
books of study suitable to Cressy's new posi-
tion, without, however, taking her out of the
smaller classes or the discipline of the school.
In a few weeks he was enabled to further
improve her attitude by making her a " mon-
itor" over the smaller girls, thereby divid-
ing certain functions with Rupert Filgee,
whose ministrations to the deceitful and
" silly " sex had been characterized by per-
haps more vigilant scorn and disparagement
than was necessary. Cressy had accepted it
as she had accepted her new studies, with an
indolent good-humor, and at times a frankly
supreme ignorance of their abstract or moral
purpose that was discouraging. " What 's
the good of that?" she would ask, lifting
her eyes abruptly to the master. Mr. Ford,
somewhat embarrassed by her look, which
always, sooner or later, frankly confessed it-
self an excuse for a perfectly irrelevant ex-
amination of his features in detail, would
74 CREBBY.
end in giving her some severely practical
answer. Yet, if the subject appealed to any
particular idiosyncrasy of her own, she would
speedily master the study. A passing pre-
dilection for botany was provoked by a single
incident. The master deeming this study a
harmless young-lady-like occupation, had one
day introduced the topic at recess, and was
met by the usual answer. " But suppose,"
he continued artfully, "somebody sent you
anonymously some flowers."
" Her bo ! " suggested Johnny Filgee
hoarsely, with bold bad recklessness. Ignor-
ing the remark and the kick with which Ru-
pert had resented it on the person of his
brother, the master continued:
" And if you could n't find out who sent
them, you would want at least to know what
they were and where they grew."
"Ef they grew anywhere 'bout yer we
could tell her that," said a chorus of small
voices.
The master hesitated. He was conscious
of being on delicate ground. He was sur-
rounded by a dozen pairs of little keen eyes
from whom Nature had never yet succeeded
in hiding her secrets eyes that had waited
for and knew the coming up of the earliest
CRESS Y. 75
flowers; little fingers that had never turned
the pages of a text-book, but knew where to
scrape away the dead leaves above the first
anemone, or had groped painfully among the
lifeless branches in forgotten hollows for the
shy dog-rose ; unguided little feet that had in-
stinctively made their way to remote south-
ern slopes for the first mariposas, or had un-
erringly threaded the title-hidden banks of
the river for flower-de-luce. Convinced that
he could not hold his own on their level, he
shamelessly struck at once above it.
" Suppose that one of those flowers," he
continued, "was not like the rest; that its
stalks and leaves, instead of being green and
soft, were white and stringy like flannel as
if to protect it from cold, would n't it be nice
to be able to say at once that it had lived
only in the snow, and that some one must
have gone all that way up there above the
snow line to pick it ? " The children, taken
aback by this unfair introduction of a floral
stranger, were silent. Cressy thoughtfully
accepted botany on those possibilities. A
week later she laid on the master's desk a
limp-looking plant with a stalk like heavy
frayed worsted yarn. " It ain't much to
look at after all, is it?" she said. " I reckon
76 CRESS Y.
I could cut a better one with scissors outer
an old cloth jacket of mine."
" And you found it here ? " asked the mas-
ter in surprise.
" I got Masters to look for it when he was
on the Summit. I described it to him. I
did n't allow he had the gumption to get it.
But he did."
Although botany languished slightly after
this vicarious effort, it kept Cressy in fresh
bouquets, and extending its gentle influence
to her friends and acquaintances became
slightly confounded with horticulture, led to
the planting of one or two gardens, and was
accepted in school as an implied concession
to berries, apples, and nuts. In reading and
writing Cressy greatly improved, with a
marked decrease in grammatical solecisms,
although she still retained certain character-
istic words, and always her own slow South-
western, half musical intonation. This
languid deliberation was particularly notice-
able in her reading aloud, and gave the stud-
ied and measured rhetoric a charm of which
her careless colloquial speech was incapable.
Even the " Fifth Reader," with its imposing
passages from the English classics carefully
selected with a view of paralyzing small,
CRESS Y. 77
hesitating, or hurried voices, in Cressy's
hands became no longer an unintelligible in-
cantation. She had quietly mastered the
difficulties of pronunciation by some in-
stinctive sense of euphony if not of compre-
hension. The master with his eyes closed
hardly recognized his pupil. Whether or
not she understood what she read he hesi-
tated to inquire ; no doubt, as with her other
studies, she knew what attracted her. Ru-
pert Filgee, a sympathetic if not always a
correct reader, who boldly took four and five
syllabled fences flying only to come to grief
perhaps in the ditch of some rhetorical pause
beyond, alone expressed his scorn of her
performance. Octavia Dean, torn between
her hopeless affection for this beautiful but
inaccessible boy, and her soul-friendship for
this bigger but many-frocked girl, studied
the master's face with watchful anxiety.
It is needless to say that Hiram McKin-
stry was, in the intervals of stake - driving
and stock - hunting, heavily contented with
this latest evidence of his daughter's pro-
gress. He even intimated to the master that
her reading being an accomplishment that
could be exercised at home was conducive to
that "kam" in which he was so deficient. It
78 CRESST.
was also rumored that Cressy's oral render-
ing of Addison's " Reflections in Westmin-
ster Abbey" and Burke's "Indictment of
Warren Hastings," had beguiled him one
evening from improving an opportunity to
" plug " one of Harrison's boundary " raid-
ers."
The master shared in Cressy's glory in the
public eye. But although Mrs. McKinstry
did not materially change her attitude of
tolerant good-nature towards him, he was
painfully conscious that she looked upon her
daughter's studies and her husband's inter-
ests in them as a weakness that might in
course of time produce infirmity of homici-
dal purpose and become enervating of eye
and trigger-finger. And when Mr. McKin-
stry got himself appointed as school-trus-
tee, and was thereby obliged to mingle with
certain Eastern settlers, colleagues on
the Board, this possible weakening of the
old sharply drawn sectional line between
"Yanks" and themselves gave her grave
doubts of Hiram's physical stamina.
" The old man's worrits hev sorter shook
out a little of his sand," she had explained.
On those evenings when he attended the
Board, she sought higher consolation in
CXES8Y. 79
prayer meeting at the Southern Baptist
Church, in whose exercises her Northern
and Eastern neighbors, thinly disguised as
" Baal " and " Astaroth," were generally
overthrown and their temples made deso-
late.
If Uncle Ben's progress was slower, it was
no less satisfactory. Without imagination
and even without enthusiasm, he kept on
with a dull laborious persistency. When
the irascible impatience of Rupert Filgee at
last succumbed to the obdurate slowness of
his pupil, the. master himself, touched by
Uncle Ben's perspiring forehead and per-
plexed eyebrows, often devoted the rest of
the afternoon to a gentle elucidation of the
mysteries before him, setting copies for his
heavy hand, or even guiding it with his own,
like a child's, across the paper. At times
the appalling uselessness of Uncle Ben's en-
deavors reminded him of Rupert's taunting
charge. Was he really doing this from a
genuine thirst for knowledge? It was in-
consistent with all that Indian Spring knew
of his antecedents and his present ambitions ;
he was a simple miner without scientific or
technical knowledge; his already slight ac-
quaintance with arithmetic and the scrawl
80 CRESS Y.
that served for his signature were more than
sufficient for his needs. Yet it was with this
latter sign-manual that he seemed to take
infinite pains. The master, one afternoon,
thought fit to correct the apparent vanity of
this performance.
" If you took as much care in trying to
form your letters according to copy, you 'd
do better. Your signature is fair enough as
it is."
" But it don't look right, Mr. Ford," said
Uncle Ben, eying it distrustfully ; " some-
how it ain't all there."
"Why, certainly it is. Look,DABNEY
not very plain, it 's true, but there are all
the letters."
" That 's just it, Mr. Ford ; them ain't all
the letters that orter be there. I 've allowed
to write it DABNEY to save time and
ink, but it orter read DAUBIGNY,"
said Uncle Ben, with painful distinctness.
" But that spells d'Aubigny ! "
"It are."
" Is that your name ? "
" I reckon."
The master looked at Uncle Ben doubt-
fully. Was this only another form of the
Dobell illusion? "Was your father a
Frenchman ? " he asked finally.
CRESS Y. 81
Uncle Ben paused as if to recall the tri-
fling circumstances of his father's national-
ity. "No."
" Your grandfather ? "
"I reckon not. At least ye couldn't
prove it by me."
" "Was your father or grandfather a voy-
ageur or trapper, or Canadian?"
"They were from Pike County, Miz-
zoori."
The master regarded Uncle Ben still du-
biously. "But you call yourself Dabney.
What makes you think your real name is
d'Aubigny?"
" That 's the way it uster be writ in let-
ters to me in the States. Hold on. I '11
show ye." He deliberately began to feel in
his pockets, finally extracting his old purse
from which he produced a crumpled enve-
lope, and carefully smoothing it out, com-
pared it with his signature.
" Thar, you see. It 's the same d'Au-
bigny."
The master hesitated. After all, it was
not impossible. He recalled other instances
of the singular transformation of names in
the Californian emigration. Yet he could
not help saying, " Then you concluded
82 CRE88Y.
d'Aubigny was a better name than Dab-
ney?"
" Do you think it 's better ? "
"Women might. I dare say your wife
would prefer to be called Mrs. d'Aubigny
rather than Dabney,"
The chance shot told. Uncle Ben sud-
denly flushed to his ears.
"I didn't think o' that," he said hur-
riedly. " I had another idee. I reckoned
that on the matter o' holdin' property and
passin' in money it would be better to hev
your name put on the square, and to sorter
go down to bed rock for it, eh ? If I wanted
to take a hand in them lots or Ditch shares,
for instance it would be only law to hev
it made out in the name o' d'Aubigny."
Mr. Ford listened with a certain impatient
contempt. It was bad enough for Uncle
Ben to have exposed his weakness in invent-
ing fictions about his early education, but to
invest himself now with a contingency of
capital for the sake of another childish van-
ity, was pitiable as it was preposterous.
There was no doubt that he had lied about
his school experiences ; it was barely proba-
ble that his name was really d'Aubigny, and
it was quite consistent with all this even
CRESS Y. 83
setting apart the fact that he was perfectly
well known to be only a poor miner that
he should lie again. Like most logical rea-
soners Mr. Ford forgot that humanity might
be illogical and inconsistent without being
insincere. He turned away without speak-
ing as if indicating a wish to hear no more.
" Some o' these days,'" said Uncle Ben,
with dull persistency, " I '11 tell ye suthen'."
" I 'd advise you just now to drop it and
stick to your lessons," said the master
sharply.
"That's so," said Uncle Ben hurriedly,
hiding himself as it were in an all-encom-
passing blush. "In course lessons first,
boys, that 's the motto." He again took up
his pen and assumed his old laborious atti-
tude. But after a few moments it became
evident that either the master's curt dismis-
sal of his subject or his own preoccupation
with it, had somewhat unsettled him. He
cleaned his pen obtrusively, going to the
window for a better light, and whistling
from time to time with a demonstrative care-
lessness and a depressing gayety. He once
broke into a murmuring, meditative chant evi-
dently referring to the previous conversation,
in its " That 's so Yer we go Lessons
84 CRESS Y.
the first, boys, Yo, heave O." The rollick-
ing marine character of this refrain, despite
its utter incongruousness, apparently struck
him favorably, for he repeated it softly,
occasionally glancing behind him at the
master who was coldly absorbed at his desk.
Presently he arose, carefully put his books
away, symmetrically piling them in a pyra-
mid beside Mr. Ford's motionless elbow,
and then lifting his feet with high but gen-
tle steps went to the peg where his coat and
hat were hanging. As he was about to put
them on he appeared suddenly struck with
a sense of indecorousness in dressing himself
in the school, and taking them on his arm
to the porch resumed them outside. Then
saying, " I clean disremembered I 'd got to
see a man. So long, till to-morrow," he dis-
appeared whistling softly.
The old woodland hush fell back upon the
school. It seemed very quiet and empty. A
faint sense of remorse stole over the master.
Yet he remembered that Uncle Ben had ac-
cepted without reproach and as a good joke
much more direct accusations from Rupert
Filgee, and that he himself had acted from
a conscientious sense of duty towards the
man. But a conscientious sense of duty to
CRESS Y. 85
inflict pain upon a fellow-mortal for his own
good does not always bring perfect serenity
to the inflicter possibly because, in the de-
fective machinery of human compensation,
pain is the only quality that is apt to appear
in the illustration. Mr. Ford felt uncom-
fortable, and being so, was naturally vexed
at the innocent cause. Why should Uncle
Ben be offended because he had simply de-
clined to follow his weak fabrications any
further? This was his return for having
tolerated it at first ! It would be a lesson
to him henceforth. Nevertheless he got
up and went to the door. The figure of Un-
cle Ben was already indistinct among the
leaves, but from the motion of his shoulders
he seemed to be still stepping high and
softly as if not yet clear of insecure and en-
gulfing ground.
The silence still continuing, the master
began mechanically to look over the desks
for forgotten or mislaid articles, and to rear-
range the pupils' books and copies. A few
heartsease gathered by the devoted Octavia
Dean, neatly tied with a black thread and
regularly left in the inkstand cavity of Ru-
pert's desk, were still lying on the floor
where they had been always hurled with
86 CRESS 7.
equal regularity by that disdainful Adonis.
Picking up a slate from under a bench, his
attention was attracted by a forgotten car-
toon on the reverse side. Mr. Ford at once
recognized it as the work of that youthful
but eminent caricaturist, Johnny Filgee.
Broad in treatment, comprehensive in sub-
ject, liberal in detail and slate-pencil it
represented Uncle Ben lying on the floor
with a book in his hand, tyrannized over by
Rupert Filgee and regarded in a striking
profile of two features by Cressy McKinstry.
The daring realism of introducing the names
of each character on their legs perhaps
ideally enlarged for that purpose left no
doubt of their identity. Equally daring but
no less effective was the rendering of a lim-
ited but dramatic conversation between the
parties by the aid of emotional balloons at-
tached to their mouths like a visible gulp
bearing the respective legends: "I luv
you," " O my," and " You git ! "
The master was for a moment startled at
this unlooked-for but graphic testimony to
the fact that Uncle Ben's visits to the school
were not only known but commented upon.
The small eyes of those youthful observers
had been keener than his own. He had
CRES8T. 87
again been stupidly deceived, in spite of his
efforts. Love, albeit deficient in features
and wearing an improperly short bell-shaped
frock, had boldly reentered the peaceful
school, and disturbing complications on ab-
normal legs were following at its heels.
CHAPTER V.
WHILE this simple pastoral life was cen-
tred around the school-house in the clearing,
broken only by an occasional warning pistol-
shot in the direction of the Harrison-McKin-
stry boundaries, the more business part of
Indian Spring was overtaken by one of those
spasms of enterprise peculiar to all Califor-
nian mining settlements. The opening of
the Eureka Ditch and the extension of stage-
coach communication from Big Bluff were
events of no small importance, and were
celebrated on the same day. The double
occasion overtaxing even the fluent rhetoric
of the editor of the " Star " left him strug-
gling in the metaphorical difficulties of a
Pactolian Spring, which he had rashly turned
into the Ditch, and obliged him to transfer
the onerous duty of writing the editorial
on the Big Bluff Extension to the hands of
the Honorable Abner Dean, Assemblyman
from Angel's. The loss of the Honorable
Mr. Dean's right eye in an early pioneer
CRESS T. 89
fracas did not prevent him from looking into
the dim vista of the future and discovering
with that single unaided optic enough to fill
three columns of the " Star." " It is not too
extravagant to say," he remarked with
charming deprecation, " that Indian Spring,
through its own perfectly organized system
of inland transportation, the confluence of
its North Fork with the Sacramento River,
and their combined effluence into the illimi-
table Pacific, is thus put not only into direct
communication with far Cathay but even re-
moter Antipodean markets. The citizen of
Indian Spring taking the 9 A. M. Pioneer
Coach and arriving at Big Bluff at 2.40 is
enabled to connect with the through express
to Sacramento the same evening, reaching
San Francisco per the Steam Navigation
Company's palatial steamers in time to take
the Pacific Mail Steamer to Yokohama on
the following day at 3.30 P. M." Although
no citizen of Indian Spring appeared to avail
himself of this admirable opportunity, nor
did it appear at all likely that any would,
everybody vaguely felt that an inestimable
boon lay in the suggestion, and even the
master professionally intrusting the reading
aloud of the editorial to Rupert Filgee with
90 CRE88Y.
ulterior designs of practice in the pronuncia-
tion of five -syllable words, was somewhat
affected by it. Johnny Filgee and Jimmy
Snyder accepting it as a mysterious some-
thing that made Desert Islands accessible at
a moment's notice and a trifling outlay, were
round-eyed and attentive. And the culmi-
nating information from the master that this
event would be commemorated by a half -hol-
iday, combined to make the occasion as ex-
citing to the simple school-house in the clear-
ing as it was to the gilded saloon in the main
street.
And so the momentous day arrived, with
its two new coaches from Big Bluff contain-
ing the specially invited speakers always
specially invited to those occasions, and yet
strangely enough never before feeling the
extreme " importance and privilege " of it
as they did then. Then there were the firing
of two anvils, the strains of a brass band,
the hoisting of a new flag on the liberty-pole,
and later the ceremony of the Ditch opening,
when a distinguished speaker in a most un-
workman-like tall hat, black frock coat, and
white cravat, which gave him the general air
of a festive grave-digger, took a spade from
the hands of an apparently hilarious chief
CRE8BY. 91
mourner and threw out the first sods. There
were anvils, brass bands, and a " collation "
at the hotel. But everywhere overriding
the most extravagant expectation and even
the laughter it provoked the spirit of in-
domitable youth and resistless enterprise
intoxicated the air. It was the spirit that
had made California possible ; that had sown
a thousand such ventures broadcast through
its wilderness ; that had enabled the sower
to stand half -humorously among his scant
or ruined harvests without fear and without
repining, and turn his undaunted and ever
hopeful face to further fields. What mat-
tered it that Indian Spring had always before
its eyes the abandoned trenches and ruined
outworks of its earlier pioneers? What
mattered it that the eloquent eulogist of the
Eureka Ditch had but a few years before as
prodigally scattered his adjectives and his
fortune on the useless tunnel that confronted
him on the opposite side of the river ? The
sublime forgetfulness of youth ignored its
warning or recognized it as a joke. The
master, fresh from his little flock and pre-
maturely aged by their contact, felt a stir-
ring of something like envy as he wandered
among these scarcely older enthusiasts.
92 CRESBY.
Especially memorable was the exciting day
to Johnny Filgee, not only for the delight-
fully bewildering clamor of the brass band,
in which, between the trombone and the bass
drum, he had got inextricably mixed ; not
only for the half-frightening explosions of
the anvils and the maddening smell of the
gunpowder which had exalted his infant soul
to sudden and irrelevant whoopings, but for
a singular occurrence that whetted his always
keen perceptions. Having been shamelessly
abandoned on the veranda of the Eureka
Hotel while his brother Rupert paid bashful
court to the pretty proprietress by assisting
her in her duties, Johnny gave himself up to
unlimited observation. The rosettes of the
six horses, the new harness, the length of the
driver's whiplash, his enormous buckskin
gloves and the way he held his reins; the
fascinating odor of shining varnish on the
coach, the gold-headed cane of the Honorable
Abner Dean : all these were stored away in
the secret recesses of Johnny's memory, even
as the unconsidered trifles he had picked up
en route were distending his capacious pock-
ets. But when a young man had alighted
from the second or " Truly " coach among
the real passengers, and strolled carelessly
CRESS 7. 93
and easily in the veranda as if the novelty
and the occasion were nothing to him, John-
ny, with a gulp of satisfaction, knew that he
had seen a prince ! Beautifully dressed in a
white duck suit, with a diamond ring on his
finger, a gold chain swinging from his fob,
and a Panama hat with a broad black ribbon
jauntily resting on his curled and scented
hair, Johnny's eyes had never rested on a
more resplendent vision. He was more ro-
mantic than Yuba Bill, more imposing and
less impossible than the Honorable Abner
Dean, more eloquent than the master far
more beautiful than any colored print that
he had ever seen. Had he brushed him in
passing Johnny would have felt a thrill ; had
he spoken to him he knew he would have
been speechless to reply. Judge then of his
utter stupefaction when he saw Uncle Ben
actually Uncle Ben! approach this para-
gon of perfection, albeit with some embar-
rassment, and after a word or two of unin-
telligible conversation walk away with him !
Need it be wondered that Johnny, forgetful
at once of his brother, the horses, and even
the collation with its possible " goodies," in-
stantly followed.
The two men turned into the side street,
94 CRESST.
which, after a few hundred yards, opened
upon the deserted mining flat, crossed and
broken by the burrows and mounds made by
the forgotten engines of the early gold-seek-
ers. Johnny, at times hidden by these ir-
regularities, kept closely in their rear, saun-
tering whenever he came within the range
of their eyes in that sidelong, spasmodic
and generally diagonal fashion peculiar to
small boys, but ready at any moment to as-
sume utter unconsciousness and the appear-
ance of going somewhere else or of search-
ing for something on the ground. In this
way appearing, if noticed at all, each time in
some different position to the right or left of
them, Johnny followed them to the fringe of
woodland which enabled him to draw closer
to their heels.
Utterly oblivious of this artistic " shadow-
ing " in the insignificant person of the small
boy who once or twice even crossed their
path with affected timidity, they continued
an apparently confidential previous inter-
view. The words " stocks " and " shares "
were alone intelligible. Johnny had heard
them during the day, but he was struck by
the fact that Uncle Ben seemed to be seek-
ing information from the paragon and was
CRE9SY. 95
perfectly submissive and humble. But the
boy was considerably mystified when after a
tramp of half an hour they arrived upon the
debatable ground of the Harrison-McKin-
stry boundary. Having been especially
warned never to go there, Johnny as a mat-
ter of course was perfectly familiar with it.
But what was the incomprehensible stranger
doing there? Was he brought by Uncle
Ben with a view of paralyzing both of the
combatants with the spectacle of his perfec-
tions ? Was he a youthful sheriff, a young
judge, or maybe the son of the Governor of
California ? Or was it that Uncle Ben was
"silly" and didn't know the locality?
Here was an opportunity for him, Johnny,
to introduce himself, and explain and even
magnify the danger, with perhaps a slight
allusion to his own fearless familiarity with
it. Unfortunately, as he was making up his
small mind behind a tree, the paragon
turned and with the easy disdain that so well
became him, said :
" Well, /would n't offer a dollar an acre
for the whole ranch. But if you choose to
give a fancy price that 's your lookout."
To Johnny's already prejudiced mind,
Uncle Ben received this just contempt sub-
96 CRESS 7.
missively, as lie ought, but nevertheless lie
muttered something " silly " in reply, which
Johnny was really too disgusted to listen to.
Ought he not to step forward and inform
the paragon that he was wasting his time on
a man who could n't even spell " ba-ker,"
and who was taught his letters by his, John-
ny's, brother ?
The paragon continued :
"And of course you know that merely
your buying the title to the land don't give
you possession. You '11 have to fight these
squatters and jumpers just the same. It '11
be three instead of two fighting that 's
all ! "
Uncle Ben's imbecile reply did not trouble
Johnny. He had ears now only for the su-
perior intellect before him. It continued
coolly :
" Now let 's take a look at that yield of
yours. I haven't much time to give you,
as I expect some men to be looking for me
here and I suppose you want this thing
still kept a secret. I don't see how you Ve
managed to do it so far. Is your claim
near ? You live on it I think you said ? "
But that the little listener was so preoc-
cupied with the stranger, this suggestion of
CUES ST. 97
Uncle Ben's having a claim worth the atten-
tion of that distinguished presence would
have set him thinking ; the little that he un-
derstood he set down to Uncle Ben's " gas-
sin'." As the two men moved forward
again, he followed them until Uncle Ben's
house was reached.
It was a rude shanty of boards and rough
boulders, half burrowing in one of the largest
mounds of earth and gravel, which had once
represented the tailings or refuse of the
abandoned Indian Spring Placer. In fact
it was casually alleged by some that Uncle
Ben eked out the scanty " grub wages," he
made by actual mining, in reworking and
sifting the tailings at odd times a degrad-
ing work hitherto practised only by Chinese,
and unworthy the Caucasian ambition. The
mining code of honor held that a man
might accept the smallest results of his daily
labor, as long as he was sustained by the
prospect of a larger "strike," but condemned
his contentment with a modest certainty.
Nevertheless a little of this suspicion encom-
passed his dwelling and contributed to its
loneliness, even as a long ditch, the former
tail-race of the claim, separated him from
his neighbors. Prudently halting at the
v. 24 D Bret Harte
98 CSESST.
edge of the wood, Johnny saw his resplen-
dent vision cross the strip of barren flat,
and enter the cabin with Uncle Ben like any
other mortal. He sat down on a stump and
awaited its return, which he fondly hoped
might be alone ! At the end of half an hour
he made a short excursion to examine the
condition of a blackberry bramble, and re-
turned to his post of observation. But there
was neither sound nor motion in the direction
of the cabin. When another ten minutes
had elapsed, the door opened and to Johnny's
intense discomfiture, Uncle Ben appeared
alone and walked leisurely towards the
Woods. Burning with anxiety Johnny threw
himself in Uncle Ben's way. But here oc-
curred one of those surprising inconsisten-
cies known only to children. As Uncle Ben
turned his small gray eyes upon him in a
half astonished, half questioning manner, the
potent spirit of childish secretiveness sud-
denly took possession of the boy. Wild
horses could not now have torn from him
that question which only a moment before
was on his lips.
" Hullo, Johnny ! What are ye doin'
here ? " said Uncle Ben kindly.
"NothinV After a pause, in which he
CRESS Y. 99
walked all round Uncle Ben's large figure,
gazing up at him as if lie were a monu-
ment, he added, " Huntin' blackberrieth."
" Why ain't you over at the collation ? "
" Ruperth there," he answered promptly.
The idea of being thus vicariously present
in the person of his brother seemed a suffi-
cient excuse. He leap-frogged over the
stump on which he had been sitting as an
easy unembarrassing pause for the next
question. But Uncle Ben was apparently
perfectly satisfied with Johnny's reply, and
nodding to him, walked away.
When his figure had disappeared in the
bushes, Johnny cautiously approached the
cabin. At a certain distance he picked up
a stone and threw it against the door, imme-
diately taking to his heels and the friendly
copse again. No one appearing he repeated
the experiment twice and even thrice with a
larger stone and at a nearer distance. Then
he boldly skirted the cabin and dropped into
the race-way at its side. Following it a few
hundred yards he came upon a long disused
shaft opening into it, which had been cov-
ered with a rough trap of old planks, as if to
protect incautious wayfarers from falling in.
Here a sudden and inexplicable fear over-
100 CUES ST.
took Johnny, and he ran away. When he
reached the hotel, almost the first sight that
met his astounded eyes was the spectacle of
the paragon, apparently still in undisturbed
possession of all his perfections driving
coolly off in a buggy with a fresh compan-
ion.
Meantime Mr. Ford, however touched by
the sentimental significance of the celebra-
tion, became slightly wearied of its details.
As his own room in the Eureka Hotel was
actually thrilled by the brass band without
and the eloquence of speakers below, and
had become redolent of gunpowder and
champagne exploded around it, he deter-
mined to return to the school-house and avail
himself of its woodland quiet to write a few
letters.
The change was grateful, the distant mur-
mur of the excited settlement came only as
the soothing sound of wind among the
leaves. The pure air of the pines that filled
every cranny of the quiet school-room, and
seemed to disperse all taint of human ten-
ancy, made the far-off celebrations as unreal
as a dream. The only reality of his life
was here.
He took from his pocket a few letters - -
CRESS Y. 101
one of which was worn and soiled with fre-
quent handling. He re-read it in a half
methodical, half patient way, as if he were
waiting for some revelation it inspired, which
was slow that afternoon in coming. At
other times it had called up a youthful en-
thusiasm which was wont to transfigure his
grave and prematurely reserved face with a
new expression. To-day the revelation and
expression were both wanting. He put the
letter back with a slight sigh, that sounded
so preposterous in the silent room that he
could not forego an embarrassed smile. But
the next moment he set himself seriously to
work on his correspondence.
Presently he stopped; once or twice he
had been overtaken by a vague undefinable
sense of pleasure, even to the dreamy halt-
ing of his pen. It was a sensation in no way
connected with the subject of his correspon-
dence, or even his previous reflections it
was partly physical, and yet it was in some
sense suggestive. It must be the intoxica-
ting effect of the woodland air. He even
fancied he had noticed it before, at the same
hour when the sun was declining and the
fresh odors of the undergrowth were rising.
It certainly was a perfume. He raised his
102 CXE88Y.
eyes. There lay the cause on the desk be-
fore him a little nosegay of wild Calif or-
nian myrtle encircling a rose-bud which had
escaped his notice.
There was nothing unusual in the circum-
stance. The children were in the habit of
making their offerings generally without par-
ticular reference to time or occasion, and it
might have been overlooked by him during
school-hours. He felt a pity for the for-
gotten posy already beginning to grow limp
in its neglected solitude. He remembered
that in some folk-lore of the children's, per-
haps a tradition of the old association of the
myrtle with Venus, it was believed to be em-
blematic of the affections. He remembered
also that he had even told them of this prob-
able origin of their superstition. He was
still holding it in his hand when he was con-
scious of a silken sensation that sent a mag-
netic thrill through his fingers. Looking at
it more closely he saw that the sprigs were
bound together, not by thread or ribbon, but
by long filaments of soft brown hair tightly
wound around them. He unwound a single
hair and held it to the light. Its length,
color, texture, and above all a certain inex-
plicable instinct, told him it was Cressy Me-
CRE8SY. 103
Kinstry's. He laid it down quickly, as if he
had, in that act, familiarly touched her per-
son.
He finished his letter, but presently found
himself again looking at the myrtle and
thinking about it. From the position in
which it had been placed it was evidently in-
tended for him ; the fancy of binding it with
hair was also intentional and not a necessity,
as he knew his feminine scholars were usually
well provided with bits of thread, silk, or
ribbon. If it had been some new absurdity
of childish fashion introduced in the school,
he would have noticed it ere this. For it
was this obtrusion of a personality that
vaguely troubled him. He remembered
Cressy's hair ; it was certainly very beauti-
ful, in spite of her occasional vagaries of
coiffure. He recalled how, one afternoon, it
had come down when she was romping with
Octavia in the play-ground, and was sur-
prised to find what a vivid picture he re-
tained of her lingering in the porch to put it
up ; her rounded arms held above her head,
her pretty shoulders, full throat, and glow-
ing face thrown back, and a wisp of the very
hair between her white teeth! He began
another letter.
104 C RES ST.
When it was finished the shadow of the
pine-branch before the window, thrown by
the nearly level sun across his paper, had
begun slowly to reach the opposite wall. He
put his work away, lingered for a moment in
hesitation over the myrtle sprays, and then
locked them in his desk with an odd feeling
that he had secured in some vague way a
hold upon Cressy's future vagaries ; then re-
flecting that Uncle Ben, whom he had seen
in town, would probably keep holiday with
the others, he resolved to wait no longer, but
strolled back to the hotel. The act however
had not recalled Uncle Ben to him by any
association of ideas, for since his discovery
of Johnny Filgee's caricature he had failed
to detect anything to corroborate the carica-
turist's satire, and had dismissed the subject
from his mind.
On entering his room at the hotel he
found Rupert Filgee standing moodily by
the window, while his brother Johnny, over-
come by a repletion of excitement and col-
lation, was asleep on the single arm-chair.
Their presence was not unusual, as Mr.
Ford, touched by the loneliness of these
motherless boys, had often invited them to
come to his rooms to look over his books and
illustrated papers.
105
"Well?" he said cheerfuHy.
Rupert did not reply or change his posi-
tion. Mr. Ford, glancing at him sharply,
saw a familiar angry light in the boy's beau-
tiful eyes, slightly dimmed by a tear. Lay-
ing his hand gently on Rupert's shoulder he
said, " What 's the matter, Rupert? "
"Nothin'," said the boy doggedly, with
his eyes still fixed on the pane.
" Has has Mrs. Tripp " (the fair
proprietress) " been unkind ? " he went on
lightly.
No reply.
" You know, Rupe," continued Mr. Ford
demurely, " she must show some reserve be-
fore company like to-day. It won't do to
make a scandal."
Rupert maintained an indignant silence.
But the dimple (which he usually despised
as a feminine blot) on the cheek nearer the
master became slightly accented. Only for
a moment ; the dark eyes clouded again.
" I wish I was dead, Mr. Ford."
" Hallo ! "
"Or doin' suthin'."
" That 's better. What do you want to
do?"
" To work make a livin' myself. Quit
106 CRESS T.
toten' wood and water at home ; quit cookin'
and makin' beds, like a yaller Chinaman;
quit nussin' babies and dressin' 'em and un-
dressiii' 'em, like a girl. Look at him now,"
pointing to the sweetly unconscious Johnny,
"look at him there. Do you know what
that means ? It means I Ve got to pack him
home through the town jist ez he is thar, and
then make a fire and bile his food for him,
and wash him and undress him and put him
to bed, and ' Now I lay me down to sleep'
him, and tuck him up; and Dad all the
while 'scootin' round town with other idjits,
jawin' about ' progress ' and the ' future of
Injin Spring.' Much future we Ve got over
our own house, Mr. Ford. Much future he 's
got laid up for me ! "
The master, to whom those occasional out-
breaks from Rupert were not unfamiliar,
smiled, albeit with serious eyes that belied
his lips, and consoled the boy as he had
often done before. But he was anxious to
know the cause of this recent attack and its
probable relations to the fascinating Mrs.
Tripp.
" I thought we talked all that over some
time ago, Rupe. In a few months you '11 be
able to leave school, and I '11 advise your
CRE88T. 107
father about putting you into something to
give you a chance for yourself. Patience,
old fellow; you're doing very well. Con-
sider there 's your pupil, Uncle Ben."
" Oh, yes ! That 's another big baby to
tot round in school when I ain't niggerin' at
home."
" And I don't see exactly what else you
could do at Indian Spring," continued Mr.
Ford.
" No," said Eupert gloomily, " but I could
get away to Sacramento. Yuba Bill says
they take boys no bigger nor me in thar ex-
press offices or banks and in a year or two
they 're as good ez anybody and get paid as
big. Why, there was a fellow here, just
now, no older than you, Mr. Ford, and not
half your learnin', and he dressed to death
with jewelry, and everybody bowin' and
scrapin' to him, that it was perfectly sick-
eninV'
Mr. Ford lifted his eyebrows. " Oh, you
mean the young man of Benham and Co.,
who was talking to Mrs. Tripp ? " he said.
A quick flush of angry consciousness
crossed Eupert's face. " Maybe ; he has
just cheek enough for anythin'."
" And you want to be like him ? " said
Mr. Ford.
108 CXESSY.
" You know what I mean, Mr. Ford.
Not like him. Why you 're as good as he
is, any day," continued Rupert with relent*
less na/ivetf; "but if a jay-bird like that
can get on, why could n't I ? "
There was no doubt that the master here
pointed out the defectiveness of Rupert's
logic and the beneficence of patience and
study, as became their relations of master
and pupil, but with the addition of a cer-
tain fellow sympathy and some amusing re-
cital of his own boyish experiences, that
had the effect of calling Rupert's dimples
into action again. At the end of half an
hour the boy had become quite tractable,
and, getting ready to depart, approached
his sleeping brother with something like
resignation. But Johnny's nap seemed to
have had the effect of transforming him
into an inert jelly-like mass. It required
the joint exertions of both the master and
Rupert to transfer him bodily into the lat-
ter's arms, where, with a single limp elbow
encircling his brother's neck, he lay with
his unfinished slumber still visibly distend-
ing his cheeks, his eyelids, and even lifting
his curls from his moist forehead. The
master bade Rupert "good-night," and re-
CRESS Y. 109
turned to his room as the boy descended the
stairs with his burden.
But here Providence, with, I fear, its oc-
casional disregard of mere human morality,
rewarded Kupert after his own foolish de-
sires. Mrs. Tripp was at the foot of the
stairs as Rupert came slowly down. He
saw her, and was covered with shame ; she
saw him and his burden, and was touched
with kindliness. Whether or not she was
also mischievously aware of Rupert's ad-
miration, and was not altogether displeased
with it, I cannot say. In a voice that
thrilled him, she said :
" What ! Rupert, are you going so soon ? "
" Yes, ma'am - -- on account of Johnny."
" But let me take him I can keep him
here to-night."
It was a great tetaptation, but Rupert had
strength to refuse, albeit with his hat pulled
over his downcast eyes.
"Poor dear, how tired he looks."
She approached her still fresh and pretty
face close to Rupert and laid her lips on
Johnny's cheek. Then she lifted her au-
dacious eyes to his brother, and pushing
back his well-worn chip hat from his cluster-
ing curls, she kissed him squarely on the
forehead.
110 CRE88T.
" Good-night, dear."
The boy stumbled, and then staggered
blindly forward into the outer darkness.
But with a gentleman's delicacy he turned
almost instantly into a side street, as if to
keep this consecration of himself from vulgar
eyes. The path he had chosen was rough
and weary, the night was dark, and Johnny
was ridiculously heavy, but he kept steadily
on, the woman's kiss in the fancy of the fool-
ish boy shining on his forehead and lighting
him onward like a star.
CHAPTER VI.
WHEN the door closed on Rupert the
master pulled down the blind, and, trim-
ming his lamp, tried to compose himself by
reading. Outside, the " Great Day for In-
dian Spring " was slowly evaporating in
pale mists from the river, and the celebra-
tion itself spasmodically taking flight here
and there in Roman candles and rockets.
An occasional outbreak from revellers in
the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler
along the planked sidewalk before the hotel,
only seemed to intensify the rustic stillness.
For the future of Indian Spring was still so
remote that Nature insensibly re-invested
its boundaries on the slightest relaxation of
civic influence, and Mr. Ford lifted his head
from the glowing columns of the " Star " to
listen to the far-off yelp of a coyote on the
opposite shore.
He was also conscious of the recurrence
of that vague, pleasurable recollection, so
indefinite that, when he sought to identify
112 CRESS Y.
it with anything even the finding of the
myrtle sprays on his desk it evaded him.
He tried to work, with the same interrup-
tion. Then an uneasy sensation that he
had not been sufficiently kind to Rupert in
his foolish love-troubles remorsefully seized
him. A half pathetic, half humorous pic-
ture of the miserable Rupert staggering un-
der the double burden of his sleeping brother
and a misplaced affection, or possibly aban-
doning the one or both in the nearest ditch
in a reckless access of boyish frenzy and
fleeing his home forever, rose before his
eyes. He seized his hat with the intention
of seeking him or forgetting him in some
other occupation by the way. For Mr.
Ford had the sensitive conscience of many
imaginative people ; an unfailing monitor, it
was always calling his whole moral being
into play to evade it.
As he crossed the passage he came upon
Mrs. Tripp hooded and elaborately attired
in a white ball dress, which however did
not, to his own fancy, become her as well as
her ordinary costume. He was passing her
with a bow, when she said, with complacent
consciousness of her appearance, " Are n't
you going to the ball to-night ? "
CRESS Y. 113
He remembered then that "an opening
ball " at the Court-house was a part of the
celebration. " No," he said smiling ; " but
it is a pity that Rupert could n't have seen
you in your charming array."
" Rupert," said the lady, with a slightly
coquettish laugh ; " you have made him as
much a woman-hater as yourself. I offered
to take him in our party, and he ran away
to you." She paused, and giving him a
furtive critical glance said, with an easy
mingling of confidence and audacity, " Why
don't you go ? Nobody '11 hurt you."
" I 'm not so sure of that," replied Mr.
Ford gallantly. " There 's the melancholy
example of Rupert always before me."
Mrs. Tripp tossed her chignon and de-
scended a step of the stairs. " You 'd bet-
ter go," she continued, looking up over the
balusters. " You can look on if you can't
dance."
Now Mr. Ford could dance, and it so
chanced, rather well, too. With this con-
sciousness he remained standing in half in-
dignant hesitation on the landing as she dis-
appeared. Why should n't he go ? It was
true, he had half tacitly acquiesced in the
reserve with which he had been treated, and
114 CRESS Y.
had never mingled socially in the gatherings
of either sex at Indian Spring but that
was no reason. He could at least dress
himself, walk to the Court - house and
look on.
Any black coat and white shirt was suf-
ficiently de rigueur for Indian Spring. Mr.
Ford added the superfluous elegance of a
forgotten white waistcoat. When he reached
the sidewalk it was only nine o'clock, but
the windows of the Court-house were al-
ready flaring like a stranded steamer on the
barren bank where it had struck. On the
way thither he was once or twice tempted to
change his mind, and hesitated even at the
very door. But the fear that his hesitation
would be noticed by the few loungers be-
fore it, and the fact that some of them were
already hesitating through bashfulness, de-
termined him to enter.
The clerks' office and judges' chambers
on the lower floor had been invaded by
wraps, shawls, and refreshments, but the
dancing was reserved for the upper floor or
court-room, still unfinished. Flags, laurel-
wreaths, and appropriate floral inscriptions
hid its bare walls ; but the coat of arms of
the State, already placed over the judges 1
CHESS T. 115
dais with its illimitable golden sunset, its
triumphant goddess, and its implacable griz-
zly, seemed figuratively to typify the occasion
better than the inscriptions. The room was
close and crowded. The flickering candles
in tin sconces against the walls, or depend-
ing in rude chandeliers of barrel-hoops from
the ceiling, lit up the most astounding di-
versity of female costume the master had
ever seen. Gowns of bygone fashions,
creased and stained with packing and dis-
use, toilets of forgotten festivity revised
with modern additions ; garments in and out
of season a fur-trimmed jacket and a tulle
skirt, a velvet robe under a pique sacque ;
fresh young faces beneath faded head-
dresses, and mature and buxom charms in
virgin white. The small space cleared for
the dancers was continually invaded by the
lookers-on, who in files of three deep lined
the room.
As the master pushed his way to the
front, a young girl, who had been standing
in the sides of a quadrille, suddenly darted
with a nymph - like quickness among the
crowd and was for an instant hidden. With-
out distinguishing either face or figure, Mr.
Ford recognized in the quick, impetuous ao-
116 CRESS T.
tion a characteristic movement of Cressy's ;
with an embarrassing instinct that he could
not account for, he knew she had seen him,
and that, for some inexplicable reason, he
was the cause of her sudden disappearance.
But it was only for a moment. Even
while he was vaguely scanning the crowd
she reappeared and took her place beside
her mystified partner the fascinating
stranger of Johnny's devotion and Rupert's
dislike. She was pale ; he had never seen
her so beautiful. All that he had thought
distasteful and incongruous in her were but
accessories of her loveliness at that moment,
in that light, in that atmosphere, in that
strange assembly. Even her full pink gauze
dress, from which her fair young shoulders
slipped as from a sunset cloud, seemed only
the perfection of virginal simplicity ; her
girlish length of limb and the long curves
of her neck and back were now the outlines
of thorough breeding. The absence of color
in her usually fresh face had been replaced
by a faint magnetic aurora that seemed to
him half spiritual. He could not take his
eyes from her ; he could not believe what
he saw. Yet that was Cressy McKinstry
his pupil! Had he ever really seen her?
CR8ST. 117
Did he know her now ? Small wonder that
all eyes were bent upon her, that a murmur
of unspoken admiration, or still more intense
hush of silence moved the people around
him. He glanced hurriedly at them, and
was oddly relieved by this evident partici-
pation in his emotions.
She was dancing now, and with that same
pale restraint and curious quiet that had
affected him so strongly. She had not even
looked in his direction, yet he was aware by
the same instinct that had at first possessed
him that she knew he was present. His de-
sire to catch her eye was becoming mingled
with a certain dread, as if in a single inter-
change of glances the illusions of the moment
would either vanish utterly or become irrev-
ocably fixed. He forced himself, when the
set was finished, to turn away, partly to avoid
contact with some acquaintances who had
drifted before him, and whom politeness
would have obliged him to ask to dance, and
partly to collect his thoughts. He deter-
mined to make a tour of the rooms and then
go quietly home. Those who recognized him
made way for him with passive curiosity;
the middle-aged and older adding a confiden-
tial sympathy and equality that positively
118 CRE88T.
irritated him. For an instant he had an idea
of seeking out Mrs. Tripp and claiming her
as a partner, merely to show her that he
danced.
He had nearly made the circuit of the
room when he was surprised by the first
strains of a . waltz. Waltzing was not a
strong feature of Indian Spring festivity,
partly that the Church people had serious
doubts if David's saltatory performances be-
fore the Ark included "round dances," and
partly that the young had not yet maptered
its difficulties. When he yielded to his im-
pulse to look again at the dancers he found
that only three or four couples had been bold
enough to take the floor. Cressy McKinstry
and her former partner were one of them.
In his present exaltation he was not aston-
ished to find that she had evidently picked
up the art in her late visit, and was now
waltzing with quiet grace and precision, but
he was surprised that her partner was far
from being equally perfect, and that after a
few turns she stopped and smilingly disen-
gaged her waist from his arm. As she
stepped back she turned with unerring in-
stinct to that part of the room where the
master stood, and raised her eyes through
CRESS Y. 119
the multitude of admiring faces to his.
Their eyes met in an isolation as supreme as
if they had been alone. It was an attraction
the more dangerous because unformulated
a possession without previous pledge, prom-
ise, or even intention a love that did not
require to be " made."
He approached her quietly and even more
coolly than he thought possible. " Will you
allow me a trial ? " he asked.
She looked in his face, and as if she had
not heard the question but was following her
own thought, said, " I knew you would come ;
I saw you when you first came in." With-
out another word she put her hand in his,
and as if it were part of an instinctive ac-
tion of drawing closer to him, caught with
her advancing foot the accent of the waltz,
and the next moment the room seemed to
slip away from them into whirling space.
The whole thing had passed so rapidly
from the moment he approached her to the
first graceful swing of her full skirt at his
side, that it seemed to him almost like the
embrace of a lovers' meeting. He had often
been as near her before, had stood at her
side at school, and even leaned over her
desk, but always with an irritated instinct
120 CRESS Y.
of reserve that had equally affected her,
and which he now understood. With her
conscious but pale face so near his own,
with the faint odor of her hair clinging to
her, and with the sweet confusion of the half
lingering, half withheld contact of her hand
and arm, all had changed. He did not dare
to reflect that he could never again approach
her except with this feeling. He did not
dare to think of anything ; he abandoned
himself to the sense that had begun with the
invasion of her hair -bound myrtle in the
silent school-room, and seemed to have at last
led her to his arms. They were moving now
in such perfect rhythm and unison that they
seemed scarcely conscious of motion. Once
when they neared the open window he caught
a glimpse of the round moon rising above
the solemn heights of the opposite shore, and
felt the cool breath of mountain and river
sweep his cheek and mingle a few escaped
threads of her fair hair with his own. With
that glimpse and that sensation the vulgarity
and the tawdriness of their surroundings, the
guttering candles in their sconces, the bizarre
figures, the unmeaning faces seemed to be
whirled far into distant space. They were
alone with night and nature ; it was they who
CRESS Y. 121
were still ; all else had receded in a vanish-
ing perspective of dull reality, in which they
had no part.
Play on, O waltz of Strauss ! Whirl on,
O love and youth! For you cannot whirl
so swiftly but that this receding world will
return again with narrowing circle to hem
you in. Faster, O cracked clarionet ! Louder,
O too brazen bassoon ! Keep back, O dull
and earthy environment, till master and pupil
have dreamed their foolish dream !
They are in fancy alone on the river-bank,
only the round moon above them and their
linked shadows faintly fluttering in the
stream. They have drawn so closely together
now that her arm is encircling his neck, her
soft eyes uplifted like the moon's reflection
and drowning into his ; closer and closer till
their hearts stop beating and their lips have
met in a first kiss. Faster, O little feet!
swing clear, O Cressy's skirt and keep the
narrowing circle back ! . . . They are again
alone ; the judges' dais and the emblazoning
of the State caught in a single whirling flash
of consciousness are changed to an altar,
seen dimly through the bridal veil that cov-
ers her fair head. There is the murmur of
voices mingling two lives in one. They turn
122 CREB8Y.
and pass proudly down between the aisles of
wondering festal faces. Ah! the circle is
drawing closer. One more quick whirl to
keep them back, O flying skirt and dainty-
winged feet ! Too late ! The music stops.
The tawdry walls shut in again, the vulgar
crowds return, they stand pale and quiet,
the centre of a ring of breathless, admiring,
frightened, or forbidding faces. Her arms
fold like wings at her side. The waltz is
over.
A shrill feminine chorus assail her with
praises, struck here and there with a metallic
ring of envy ; a dozen all-daring cavaliers,
made reckless by her grace and beauty,
clamor for her hand in the next waltz. She
replies, not to them, but to him, " Not again,"
and slips away in the crowd with that strange
new shyness that of all her transformations
seems the most delicious. Yet so conscious
are they of their mutual passion that they do
not miss each other, and he turns away as
if their next meeting were already an ap-
pointed tryst. A few congratulate him on
his skill. Johnny's paragon looks after him
curiously ; certain elders shake hands with
him perplexedly, as if not quite sure of the
professional consistency of his performance.
CRE8ST. 123
Those charming tide-waiters on social suc-
cess, the fair, artfully mingling expectation
with compliment, only extract from him the
laughing statement that this one waltz was
the single exception allowed him from the
rule of his professional conduct, and he refers
them to his elder critics. A single face,
loutish, looming, and vindictive, stands out
among the crowd the face of Seth Davis.
He had not seen him since he left the school ;
he had forgotten his existence ; even now he
only remembered his successor, Joe Masters,
and he looked curiously around to see if that
later suitor of Cressy's was present. It was
not until he reached the door that he began
to think seriously of Seth Davis's jealous
face, and was roused to a singular indigna-
tion. " Why had n't this great fool vented
his jealousy on the openly compromising
Masters," he thought. He even turned and
walked back with some vaguely aggressive
instinct, but the young man had disappeared.
With this incident still in his mind he came
upon Uncle Ben and Hiram McKinstry,
standing among the spectators in the door-
way. Why might not Uncle Ben be jealous
too ? and if his single waltz had really ap-
peared so compromising, why should not
124 CRESS 7.
Cressy's father object? But both men
albeit, McKinstry usually exhibited a vague
unreasoning contempt for Uncle Ben were
unanimous in their congratulations and out-
spoken admiration.
" When I see'd you sail in, Mr. Ford,"
said Uncle Ben, with abstract reflectiveness,
"I sez to the fellers, 'lie low, boys, and
you '11 see style.' And when you put on
them first steps, I sez, ' that 's French the
latest high-toned French style outer the
best masters, and and outer the best
books. For why ? ' sez I. ' It 's the same
long, sliding stroke you see in his copies.
There 's that long up sweep, and that easy
curve to the right with no hitch. That 's
the sorter swing he hez in readin' po'try too.
That 's why it 's called the po'try of motion,'
sez I. ' And you ken bet your boots, boys,
it 's all in the trainiri' o' education.' '
" Mr. Ford," said Mr. McKinstry gravely,
slightly waving a lavender-colored kid glove,
with which he had elected to conceal his
maimed hand, and at the same moment indi-
cate a festal occasion : " I hev to thank ye
for the way you took out that child o' mine,
like ez she woz an ontried filly, and put her
through her paces. I don't dance myself,
CJRESST. 125
partikly in that gait which I take to be
suthin' betwixt a lope and a canter and I
don't get to see much danciii' nowadays on
account o' bein' worrited by stock, but
seem' you two together just now, suthin'
came over me, and I don't think I ever felt
so kam in my life."
The blood rushed to the master's cheek
with an unexpected consciousness of guilt
and shame. "But," he stammered awk-
wardly, " your daughter dances beautifully
herself ; she has certainly had practice."
" That," said McKinstry, laying his gloved
hand impressively on the master's shoulder,
with the empty little finger still more em-
phasized by being turned backward in the
act , " that may be ez it ez, but I wanted
to say that it was the simple, easy, fammily
touch that you gev it, that took me. Toward
the end, when you kinder gathered her up
and she sorter dropped her head into your
breast-pocket, and seemed to go to sleep,
like ez ef she was still a little girl, it so re-
minded me of the times when I used to tote
her myself walkin' by the waggin at Platt
River, that it made me wish the old woman
was here to see it."
Still coloring, the master cast a rapid, side-
126 CRESST.
long glance at McKinstry's dark red face
and beard, but in the slow satisfaction of
his features there was no trace of that irony
which the master's self -consciousness knew.
" Then your wife is not here ? " said Mr.
Ford abstractedly.
" She war at church. She reckoned that
I 'd do to look arter Cressy she bein', so
to speak, under conviction. D' ye mind
walkin' this way a bit ; I want to speak a
word with ye ? " He put his maimed hand
through the master's arm, after his former
fashion, and led him to a corner.
" Did ye happen to see Seth Davis about
yer?"
" I believe I saw him a moment ago,"
returned Mr. Ford half contemptuously.
" Did he get off anythin' rough on ye ? "
" Certainly not," said the master haugh-
tily. " Why should he dare ? "
" That 's so," said McKinstry meditatively.
" You had better keep right on in that line.
That 's your gait, remember. Leave him
or his father it 's the same thing to
me. Don't you let yourself be roped in to
this yer row betwixt me and the Davises.
You ain't got no call to do it. It 's already
been on my mind your bringin' that gun to
CRE88T. 127
me in the Harrison row. The old woman
had n't oughter let you nor Cress either.
Hark to me, Mr. Ford ! I reckon to stand
between you and both the Davises till the
cows come home only mind you give
him the go-by when he happens to meander
along towards you."
"I 'in very much obliged to you," said
Ford with disproportionately sudden choler ;
" but I don't propose to alter my habits for
a ridiculous school -boy whom I have dis-
missed." The unjust and boyish petulance
of his speech instantly flashed upon him,
and he felt his cheek burn again.
McKinstry regarded him with dull, red,
slumbrous eyes. "Don't you go to lose
your best holt, Mr. Ford and that 's kam.
Keep your kam and you 've allus got the
dead wood on Injin Springs. / ain't got
it," he continued, in his slowest, most pas-
sionless manner, " and a row more or less
ain't much account to me but you, you
keep your kam." He paused, stepped back,
and regarding the master, with a slight
wave of his crippled hand over his whole
person, as if indicating some personal adorn-
ment, said, " It sets you off ! "
He nodded, turned, and reentered the
128 CRESS 7.
ball-room. Mr. Ford, without trusting him-
self to further speech, elbowed his way
through the crowded staircase to the street.
But even there his strange anger, as well as
the equally strange remorse, which had
seized him in McKinstry's presence, seemed
to evaporate in the clear moonlight and soft
summer air. There was the river-bank,
with the tremulous river glancing through
the dreamy mist, as they had seen it from
the window together. He even turned to
look back on the lighted ball-room, as if she
might have been looking out, too. But he
knew he should see her again to-morrow,
and he hurriedly put aside all reserve, all
thought of the future, all examination of
his conduct, to walk home enwrapped in the
vaguer pleasure of- the past. Rupert Filgee,
to whom he had never given a second
thought, now peacefully slumbering beside
his baby brother, had not gone home in
more foolish or more dangerous company.
When he reached the hotel, he was sur-
prised to find it only eleven o'clock. No one
had returned, the building was deserted by
all but the bar-keeper and a flirting cham-
bermaid, who regarded him with aggrieved
astonishment. He began to feel very foolish,
CUES 8 Y. 129
and half regretted that he had not stayed
to dance with Mrs. Tripp ; or, at least, re-
mained as a quiet onlooker apart from the
others. With a hasty excuse about return-
ing to write letters for the morning's post,
he took a candle and slowly remounted the
stairs to his room. But on entering he
found himself unprepared for that singu-
lar lack of sympathy with which familiar
haunts always greet our new experiences ;
he could hardly believe that lie had left that
room only two hours before ; it seemed so
uncongenial and strange to the sensation
that was still possessing him. Yet there
were his table, his books, his arm-chair, his
bed as he had left them ; even a sticky
fragment of gingerbread that had fallen
from Johnny's pocket. He had not yet
reached that stage of absorbing passion
where he was able to put the loved one in
his own surroundings ; she as yet had no
place in this quiet room ; he could scarcely
think of her here, and he must think of her,
if he had to go elsewhere. An extravagant
idea of walking the street until his restless
dream was over seized him, but even in his
folly the lackadaisical, moonstruck quality
of such a performance was too obvious.
v - 2 4 E Bret Harte
130 CRZSSY.
The school-house ! He would go there ; it
was only a pleasant walk, the night was
lovely, and he could bring the myrtle-spray
from his desk. It was too significant now
if not too precious to be kept there.
Perhaps he had not examined it closely, nor
the place where it had lain ; there might be
an additional sign, word, or token he had
overlooked. The thought thrilled him, even
while he was calmly arguing to himself that
it was an instinct of caution.
The air was quieter and warmer than usual,
though still characteristic of the locality in
its dry, dewless clarity. The grass was yet
warm from the day-long sun, and when he
entered the pines that surrounded the school-
house, they had scarcely yet lost their spicy
heat. The moon, riding high, filled the
dark aisles with a delicious twilight that lent
itself to his waking dreams. It was not
long before to-morrow ; he could easily man-
age to bring her here in the grove at recess,
and would speak with her there. It did
not occur to him what he should say, or why
he should say it ; it did not occur to him
that he had no other provocation than her
eyes, her conscious manner, her eloquent si-
lence, and her admission that she had ex-
ORES ST. 131
pected him. It did not occur to him that
all this was inconsistent with what he knew
of her antecedents, her character, and her
habits. It was this very inconsistency that
charmed and convinced him. We arc al-
ways on the lookout for these miracles of
passion. We may doubt the genuineness
of an affection that is first-hand, but never
of one that is transferred.
He approached the school-house and un-
locking the door closed it behind him, not so
much to keep out human intrusion as the
invasion of bats and squirrels. The nearly
vertical moon, while it perfectly lit the play-
ground and openings in the pines around
the house, left the interior in darkness, ex-
cept the reflection upon the ceiling from the
shining gravel without. Partly from a sense
of precaution and partly because he was fa-
miliar with the position of the benches, he
did not strike a light, and reached his own
desk unerringly, drew his chair before it and
unlocked it, groped in its dark recess for the
myrtle spray, felt its soft silken binding
with an electrical thrill, drew it out, and in
the security of the darkness, raised it to his
lips.
To make room for it in his breast pocket
132 CSJES8Y.
he was obliged to take out his letters
among them the well-worn one he had tried
to read that morning. A mingling of pleas-
ure and remorse came over him as he felt
that it was already of the past, and as he
dropped it carelessly into the empty desk it
fell with a faint, hollow sound as if it were
ashes to ashes.
What was that?
The noise of steps upon the gravel, light
laughter, the moving of two or three shad-
ows on the ceiling, the sound of voices, a
man's, a child's, and hers !
Could it be possible ? Was not he mis-
taken ? No ! the man's voice was Masters' ;
the child's, Octavia's ; the woman's, hers.
He remained silent in the shadow. The
school-room was not far from the trail where
she would have had to pass going home from
the ball. But why had she come there ? had
they seen him arrive? and were mischiev-
ously watching him ? The sound of Cressy's
voice and the lifting of the unprotected win-
dow near the door convinced him to the con-
trary.
"There, that'll do. Now you two can
step aside. 'Tave, take him over to yon
fence, and keep him there till I get in. No
CRESS Y. 133
thank you, sir I can assist myself.
I 've done it before. It ain't the first time
I 've been through this window, is it,
'Tave?"
Ford's heart stopped beating. There was
a moment of laughing expostulation, the
sound of retreating voices, the sudden dark-
ening of the window, the billowy sweep of a
skirt, the faint quick flash of a little ankle,
and Cressy McKinstry swung herself into
the room and dropped lightly on the floor.
She advanced eagerly up the moonlit pas-
sage between the two rows of benches.
Suddenly she stopped; the master rose at
the same moment with outstretched warning
hand to check the cry of terror he felt sure
would rise to her lips. But he did not know
the lazy nerves of the girl before him. She
uttered no outcry. And even in the faint
dim light he could see only the same expres-
sion of conscious understanding come over
her face that he had seen in the ball-room,
mingled with a vague joy that parted her
breathless lips. As he moved quickly for-
ward their hands met ; she caught his with a
quick significant pressure and darted back
to the window.
" Oh, 'Tave ! " (very languidly.)
134 CRE8SY.
" Yes."
" You two had better wait for me at the
edge of the trail yonder, and keep a lookout
for folks going by. Don't let them see you
hanging round so near. Do you hear?
I 'm all right."
With her hand still meaningly lifted, she
stood gazing at the two figures until they
slowly receded towards the distant trail.
Then she turned as he approached her, the
reflection of the moonlit road striking up
into her shining eyes and eager waiting face.
A dozen questions were upon his lips, a
dozen replies were ready upon hers. But
they were never uttered, for the next mo-
ment her eyes half closed, she leaned for-
ward and fell into a kiss.
She was the first to recover, holding his
face in her hands, turned towards the moon-
light, her own in passionate shadow. " Lis-
ten," she said quickly. " They think I
came here to look for something I left in my
desk. They thought it high fun to come
with me these two. I did come to look
for something not in my desk, but yours."
" Was it this ? " he whispered, taking the
myrtle from his breast. She seized it with
a light cry, putting it first to her lips and
CRESSY. 135
then to his. Then clasping his face again
between her soft palms, she turned it to the
window and said : " Look at them and not
at me."
He did so seeing the two figures slowly
walking in the trail. And holding her there
firmly against his breast, it seemed a blas-
phemy to ask the question that had been
upon his lips.
" That 's not all," she murmured, moving
his face backwards and forwards to her lips
as if it were something to which she was
giving breath. "When we came to the
woods I felt that you would be here."
" And feeling that, you brought him ? "
said Ford, drawing back.
"Why not?" she replied indolently.
" Even if he had seen you, I could have
managed to have you walk home with me."
"But do you think it's quite fair?
Would he like it ? "
" Would he like it? " she echoed lazily.
" Cressy," said the young man earnestly,
gazing into her shadowed face. " Have you
given him any right to object ? Do you un-
derstand me ? "
She stopped as if thinking. " Do you
want me to call him in ? " she said quietly,
136 CRESS 7.
but without the least trace of archness or
coquetry. " Would you rather he were here
or shall we go out now and meet him ?
I '11 say you just came as I was going out."
What should he say ? " Cressy," he
asked almost curtly, " do you love me ? "
It seemed such a ridiculous thing to ask,
holding her thus in his arms, if it were true ;
it seemed such a villainous question, if it
were not.
"I think I loved you when you first
came," she said slowly. "It must have
been that that made me engage myself to
him," she added simply. " I knew I loved
you, and thought only of you when I was
away. I came back because I loved you.
I loved you the day you came to see Maw
even when I thought you came to tell her
of Masters, and to say that you couldn't
take me back."
" But you don't ask me if / love you ? "
" But you do you could n't help it
now," she said confidently.
What could he do but reply as illogically
with a closer embrace, albeit a slight tremor
as if a cold wind had blown across the open
window, passed over him. She may have
felt it too, for she presently said, " Kiss me
and let me go."
CRESS Y. 137
" But we must have a longer talk, darling
when when others are not waiting."
" Do you know the far barn near the
boundary ? " she asked.
" Yes."
" I used to take your books there, after-
noons to to be with you," she whis*
pered, " and Paw gave orders that no one
was to come nigh it while I was there. Come
to-morrow, just before sundown."
A long embrace followed, in which all that
they had not said seemed, to them at least,
to become articulate on their tremulous and
clinging lips. Then they separated, he un-
locking the door softly to give her egress
that way. She caught up a book from a
desk in passing, and then slipped like a rosy
shaft of the coming dawn across the fading
moonlight, and a moment after her slow
voice, without a tremor of excitement, was
heard calling to her companions.
CHAPTER
THE conversation which Johnny Filgee
had overheard between Uncle Ben and the
gorgeous stranger, although unintelligible to
his infant mind, was fraught with some sig-
nificance to the adult settlers of Indian
Spring. The town itself, like most interior
settlements, was originally a mining encamp-
ment, and as such its founders and settlers
derived their possession of the soil under the
mining laws that took precedence of all
other titles. But although that title was
held to be good even after the abandonment
of their original occupation, and the estab-
lishment of shops, offices, and dwellings on
the site of the deserted places,, the suburbs
of the town and outlying districts were more
precariously held by squatters, under the
presumption of their being public land open
to preemption, or the settlement of school-
land warrants upon them. Few of the squat-
ters had taken the trouble to perfect even
these easy titles, merely holding " possession "
CRESS Y. 139
for agricultural or domiciliary purposes, and
subject only to the invasion of "jumpers,"
a class of adventurers who, in the abeyance
of recognized legal title, " jumped " or for-
cibly seized such portions of a squatter's
domains as were not protected by fencing or
superior force. It was therefore with some
excitement that Indian Spring received the
news that a Mexican grant of three square
leagues, which covered the whole district,
had been lately confirmed by the Govern-
ment, and that action would be taken to re-
cover possession. It was understood that it
would not affect the adverse possessions held
by the town under the mining laws, but it
would compel the adjacent squatters like
McKinstry, Davis, Masters, and Filgee, and
jumpers like the Harrisons, to buy the legal
title, or defend a slow but losing lawsuit.
The holders of the grant rich capitalists
of San Francisco were open to compro-
mise to those in actual possession, and in the
benefits of this compromise the unscrupu-
lous "jumper," who had neither sown nor
reaped, but simply dispossessed the squatter
who had done both, shared equally with him.
A diversity of opinion as to the effect of
the new claim naturally obtained ; the older
140 CRESS Y.
settlers still clung to their experiences of an
easy aboriginal holding of the soil, and were
sceptical both as to the validity and justice
of these revived alien grants ; but the newer
arrivals hailed this certain tenure of legal
titles as a guarantee to capital and an incen-
tive to improvement. There was also a
growing and influential party of Eastern and
Northern men, who were not sorry to see a
fruitful source of dissension and bloodshed
removed. The feuds of the McKinstrys and
Harrisons, kept alive over a boundary to
which neither had any legal claim, would
seem to bring them hereafter within the
statute law regarding ordinary assaults with-
out any ethical mystification. On the other
hand McKinstry and Harrison would each
be able to arrange any compromise with the
new title holders for the lands they possessed,
or make over that " actual possession " for a
consideration. It was feared that both men,
being naturally lawless, would unite to ren-
der any legal eviction a long and dangerous
process, and that they would either be left
undisturbed till the last, or would force a
profitable concession. But a greater excite-
ment followed when it was known that a sec-
tion of the land had already been sold by
CRESS Y 141
the owners of the grant, that this section ex-
actly covered the debatable land of the Mc-
Kinstry-Harrison boundaries, and that the
new landlord would at once attempt its legal
possession. The inspiration of genius that
had thus effected a division of the Harrison-
McKinstry combination at its one weak spot
excited even the admiration of the sceptics.
No one in Indian Spring knew its real au-
thor, for the suit was ostensibly laid in the
name of a San Francisco banker. But the
intelligent reader of Johnny Filgee's late ex-
perience during the celebration will have al-
ready recognized Uncle Ben as the man, and
it becomes a part of this veracious chronicle
at this moment to allow him to explain, not
only his intentions, but the means by which
he carried them out, in his own words.
It was one afternoon at the end of his usual
solitary lesson, and the master and Uncle
Ben were awaiting the arrival of Kupert.
Uncle Ben's educational progress lately,
through dint of slow tenacity, had somewhat
improved, and he had just completed from
certain forms and examples in a book before
him a " Letter to a Consignee " informing
him that he, Uncle Ben, had just shipped
" 2 cwt. Ivory Elephant Tusks, 80 peculs of
142 CRESS Y.
rice and 400bbls. prime mess pork from
Indian Spring ; " and another beginning
"Honored Madam,'' and conveying in ad-
mirably artificial phraseology the " lamented
decease" of the lady's husband from yellow
fever, contracted on the Gold Coast, and
Uncle Ben was surveying his work with crit-
ical satisfaction when the master, somewhat
impatiently, consulted his watch. Uncle
Ben looked up.
" I oughter told ye that Rupe did n't kal-
kilate to come to-day."
"Indeed why not?"
" I reckon because I told him he need n't.
I allowed to to hev' a little private talk
with ye, Mr. Ford, if ye didn't mind."
Mr. Ford's face did not shine with invita-
tion. " Very well," he said, " only remem-
ber I have an engagement this afternoon."
"But that ain't until about sundown,"
said Uncle Ben quietly. " I won't keep ye
ez long ez that."
Mr. Ford glanced quickly at Uncle Ben
with a rising color. " What do you know
of my engagements ? " he said sharply.
" Nothin', Mr. Ford," returned Uncle Ben
simply ; " but hevin' bin layin' round, lookin'
for ye here and at the hotel for four or five
CRESST. 143
days allus about that time and not findin'
you, I rather kalkilated you might hev'
suthin' reg'lar on hand."
There was certainly nothing in his face or
manner to indicate the least evasion or de-
ceit, or indeed anything but his usual nai-
vete, perhaps a little perturbed and preoccu-
pied by what he was going to say. " I had
an idea of writin' you a letter," he continued,
" kinder combinin' practice and confidential
information, you know. To be square with
you, Mr. Ford, in pint o' fact, I 've got it
here. But ez it don't seem to entirely gibe
with the facts, and leaves a heap o' things
onsaid and onseen, perhaps it 's jest ez wall
ez I read it to you myself putteh' in a
word here and there, and explainin' it gin'-
rally. Do you sabe ? "
The master nodded, and Uncle Ben drew
from his desk a rude portfolio made from the
two covers of a dilapidated atlas, and took
from between them a piece of blotting-paper,
which through inordinate application had ac-
quired the color and consistency of a slate,
and a few pages of copy-book paper, that to
the casual glance looked like sheets of ex-
ceedingly difficult music. Surveying them
with a blending of chirographic pride, ortho-
144 CRESS Y.
graphic doubt, and the bashful consciousness
of a literary amateur, he traced each line
with a forefinger inked to the second joint,
and slowly read aloud as follows :
" ' Mr. Ford, Teacher.
" ' DEAR SIR, Yours of the 12th rec'd
and contents noted.' " (" I did n t," explained
Uncle Ben parenthetically, " receive any let-
ter of yours, but I thought I might heave in
that beginning from copy for practice. The
rest is me.") " t In refference to my having
munney,'" continued Uncle Ben reading and
pointing each word as he read, " ' and being
able to buy Ditch Stocks an' Land '"
" One moment," said Mr. Ford interrupt-
ing, " I thought you were going to leave out
copy. Come to what you have to say."
" But I hev this is all real now. Hold
on and you '11 see," said Uncle Ben. He re-
sumed with triumphant emphasis :
" ' When it were gin'rally allowed that I
haddent a red cent, I want to explain to you
Mister Ford for the first time a secret. This
here is how it was done. When I first came
to Injian Spring, I settled down into the old
Palmetto claim, near a heap of old taillings.
Knowin' it were against rools, and regular
Chinyman's bizness to work them I didd n't
CRESS T. 145
let on to enyboddy what I did witch wos
to turn over some of the quarts what I
thought was likely and Orrifferus. Doing
this I kem uppon some pay ore which them
Palmetto fellers had overlookt, or more likely
had kaved in uppon them from the bank on-
known. Workin' at it in od times by and
large, sometimes afore sun up and sometimes
after sundown, and all the time keeping up
a day's work on the clame for a show to the
boys, I emassed a honist fortun in 2 years
of 50,000 dolers and still am. But it will
be askd by the incredjulos Reeder How did
you never let out anything to Injian Spring,
and How did you get rid of your yeald?
Mister Ford, the Anser is I took it twist a
month on hoss back over to La Port and sent
it by express to a bank in Sacramento, givin'
the name of Daubigny, witch no one in La
Port took for me. The Ditch Stok and the
Land was all took in the same name, hens
the secret was onreviled to the General Eye
stop a ininit,' ? ' he interrupted himself
quickly as the master in an accession of im-
patient scepticism was about to break in upon
him, " it ain't all." Then dropping his voice
to a tremulous and almost funereal climax,
he went on:
146 CREBBT.
" ' Thus we see that pashent indurstry is
Rewarded in Spite of Mining Rools and
Reggylashuns, and Predgudisses agin Furrin
Labor is played out and fleeth like a shad-or
contenueyeth not long in One Spot, and that
a Man may apear to be off no Account and
yet Emass that witch is far abov rubles and
Fadith not Away.
" 4 Hoppin' for a continneyance
" ' of your fevors I remain,
" 4 Yours to command,
" 4 BENJ D' AUBIGNY.' "
gloomy satisfaction with which Uncle
Ben regarded this peroration a satisfac-
tion that actually appeared to be equal to
the revelation itself only corroborated the
master's indignant doubts.
" Come," he said, impulsively taking the
paper from Uncle Ben's reluctant hand,
" how much of this is a concoction of yours
and Rupe's and how much is a true story ?
Do you really mean ? "
" Hold on, Mr. Ford ! " interrupted Uncle
Ben, suddenly fumbling in the breast-pocket
of his red shirt, " I reckoned on your being
a little hard with me, remembering our first
talk 'bout these things so I allowed I 'd
CRESS Y. 147
bring you some proof." Slowly extracting
a long legal envelope from his pocket, he
opened it, and drew out two or three crisp
certificates of stock, and handed them to the
master.
" Ther 's one hundred shares made out to
Benj Daubigny. I 'd hev brought you over
the deed of the land too, but ez it 's rather
hard to read off-hand, on account of the law
palaver, I 've left it up at the shanty to tackle
at odd times by way of practising. But ef
you like we '11 go up thar, and I '11 show it
to you."
Still haunted by his belief in Uncle Ben's
small duplicities, Mr. Ford hesitated. These
were certainly bond fide certificates of stock
made out to " Daubigny." But he had never
actually accepted Uncle Ben's statement of
his identity with that person, and now it was
offered as a corroboration of a still more im-
probable story. He looked at Uncle Ben's
simple face slightly deepening in color un-
der his scrutiny perhaps with conscious
guilt.
" Have you made anybody your confidant ?
Rupe, for instance ? " he asked significantly.
" In course not," replied Uncle Ben with
a slight stiffening of wounded pride. " On'y
148 CRESS Y.
yourself, Mr. Ford, and the young feller
Stacey from the bank ez was obligated to
know it. In fact, I wos kalkilatin' to ask
you to help me talk to him about that yer
boundary land."
Mr. Ford's scepticism was at last stag-
gered. Any practical joke or foolish com-
plicity between the agent of the bank and a
man like Uncle Ben was out of the question,
and if the story were his own sole invention,
he would have scarcely dared to risk so ac-
cessible and uncompromising a denial as the
agent had it in his power to give.
He held out his hand to Uncle Ben. " Let
me congratulate you," he said heartily, " and
forgive me if your story really sounded so
wonderful I could n't quite grasp it. Now
let me ask you something more. Have you
had any reason for keeping this a secret,
other than your fear of confessing that you
violated a few bigoted and idiotic mining
rules which, after all, are binding only
upon sentiment and which your success
has proved to be utterly impractical ? "
" There was another reason, Mr. Ford,"
said Uncle Ben, wiping away an embarrassed
smile with the back of his hand, " that is,
to be square with you, why I thought of
CRESS Y. 149
consultin' you. I did n't keer to have Mc-
Kinstry, and " he added hurriedly, " in
course Harrison, too, know that I bought up
the title to thar boundary."
" I understand," nodded the master. " I
should n't think you would."
" Why shouldn't ye?" asked Uncle Ben
quickly.
" Well I don't suppose you care to
quarrel with two passionate men."
Uncle Ben's face changed. Presently,
however, with his hand to his face, he man-
aged to manipulate another smile, only it
appeared for the purpose of being as awk-
wardly wiped away.
" Say one passionate man, Mr. Ford."
" Well, . one if you like," returned the
master cheerfully. " But for the matter of
that, why any ? Come do you mind tell-
ing me why you bought the land at all?
You know it 's of little value to any but Mc-
Kinstry and Harrison."
" Soppose," said Uncle Ben slowly, with
a great affectation of wiping his ink-spotted
desk with his sleeve, " soppose that I had
got kinder tired of seein' McKinstry and
Harrison allus fightin' and scrimmagin' over
their boundary line. Soppose I kalkilated
150 CRESS Y.
that it war n't the sort o' thing to induce
folks to settle here. Soppose I reckoned
that by gettin' the real title in my hands I 'd
have the deadwood on both o' them, and set-
tle the thing my own way, eh ? "
" That certainly was a very laudable in-
tention," returned Mr. Ford, observing Un-
cle Ben curiously, " and from what you said
just now about one passionate man, I sup-
pose you have determined already who to
favor. I hope your public spirit will be ap-
preciated by Indian Spring at least if it
is n't by those two men."
" You lay low and keep dark and you '11
see," returned his companion with a hopeful-
ness of speech which his somewhat anxious
eagerness however did not quite, bear out.
" But you 're not goin' yet, surely," he added,
as the master again absently consulted his
watch. " It 's on'y half past four. It 's
true thar ain't any more to tell," he added
simply, " but I had an idea that you might
hev took to this yer little story of mine more
than you 'pear to be, and might be askin'
questions and kinder bedevlin' me with jokes
ez to what I was goin' to do and all that.
But p'raps it don't seem so wonderful to you
arter all. Come to think of it squarely
CRESS7. 151
now," he said, with a singular despondency,
" I 'm rather sick of it myself eh ? "
" My dear old boy," said Ford, grasping
both his hands, with a swift revulsion of
shame at his own utterly selfish abstraction,
" I am overjoyed at your good luck. More
than that, I can say honestly, old fellow, that
it could n't have fallen in more worthy hands,
or to any one whose good fortune would have
pleased me more. There ! And if I 've
been slow and stupid in taking it in, it is be-
cause it 's so wonderful, so like a fairy tale
of virtue rewarded as if you were a kind
of male Cinderella, old man ! " He had no
intention of lying he had no belief that
he was : he had only forgotten that his pre-
vious impressions and hesitations had arisen
from the very fact that he did doubt the con-
sistency of the story with his belief in Uncle
Ben's weakness. But he thought himself
now so sincere that the generous reader, who
no doubt is ready to hail the perfect equity
of his neighbor's good luck, will readily for-
give him.
In the plenitude of this sincerity, Ford
threw himself at full length on one of the
long benches, and with a gesture invited
Uncle Ben to make himself equally at his
152 CRESS T.
ease. " Come," he said with boyish gayety,
" let 's hear your plans, old man. To begin
with, who 's to share them with you ? Of
course there are ' the old folks at home '
first ; then you have brothers and perhaps
sisters ? " He stopped and glanced with a
smile at Uncle Ben ; the idea of there being
a possible female of his species struck his
fancy.
Uncle Ben, who had hitherto always exer-
cised a severe restraint partly from re-
spect and partly from caution over his
long limbs in the school-house, here slowly
lifted one leg over another bench, and sat
himself astride of it, leaning forward on his
elbow, his chin resting between his hands.
" As far as the old folks goes, Mr. Ford,
I 'm a kind of an orphan."
" A kind of orphan ? " echoed Ford.
" Yes," said Uncle Ben, leaning heavily
on his chin, so that the action of his jaws
with the enunciation of each word slightly
jerked his head forward as if he were im-
parting confidential information to the bench
before him. " Yes, that is, you see, I 'm all
right ez far as the old man goes he's
dead ; died way back in Mizzouri. But ez
to my mother, it 's sorter betwixt and be-
CRE88Y. 153
tween kinder unsartain. You see, Mr.
Ford, she went off with a city feller an
entire stranger to me afore the old man
died, and that 's wot broke up my sehoolin'.
Now whether she 's here, there, or yon, can't
be found out, though Squire Tompkins al-
lowed and he were a lawyer that the
old man could get a divorce if he wanted,
and that you see would make me a whole
orphan, ef I keerd to prove title, ez the
lawyers say. Well thut sorter lets the
old folks out. Then my brother was onc't
drowned in the North Platt, and I never
had any sisters. That don't leave much
family for plannin' about does it ? "
" No," said the master reflectively, gazing
at Uncle Ben, " unless you avail yourself of
your advantages now and have one of your
own. I suppose now that you are rich, you '11
marry."
Uncle Ben slightly changed his position,
and then with his finger and thumb began to
apparently feed himself with certain crumbs
which had escaped from the children's lun-
cheon-baskets and were still lying on the
bench. Intent on this occupation and with-
out raising his eyes to the master, he re-
turned slowly, " Well, you see, I 'm sorter
married already."
154 CRESS Y.
The master sat up quickly.
" What, you married now ? "
" Well, perhaps that 's a question. It 's a
good deal like my beein' an orphan oncer-
tain and onsettled." He paused to pursue
an evasive crumb to the end of the bench
and having captured it, went on : " It was
when I was younger than you be, and she
war n't very old neither. But she knew a
heap more than I did ; and ez to readin'
and writin', she was thar, I tell you, every
time. You 'd hev admired to see her, Mr.
Ford." As he paused here as if he had ex-
hausted the subject, the master said impa-
tiently, " Well, where is she now ? "
Uncle Ben shook his head slowly. "I
ain't seen her sens I left Mizzouri, goin' on
five years ago."
" But why have n't you ? What was the
matter ? " persisted the master.
" Well you see I runned away. Not
she, you know, but / /scooted, skedaddled
out here."
" But what for ? " asked the master, re-
garding Uncle Ben with hopeless wonder.
"Something must have happened. What
was it ? Was she "
" She was a good schollard," said Uncle
CRESS 7. 155
Ben gravely, " and allowed to be sech, by all.
She stood about so high," he continued, in-
dicating with his hand a medium height.
" War little and dark complected."
" But you must have had some reason for
leaving her ? "
" I 've sometimes had an idea," said Un-
cle Ben cautiously, "that mebbee runnin'
away ran in some f am lies. Now, there war
my mother run off with an entire stranger,
and yer 's me ez run off by myself. And
what makes it the more one-like is that jest
as dad allus allowed he could get a devorce
agin mother, so my wife could hev got one
agin me for leavin' her. And it 's almost
an evenhanded game that she hez. It 's there
where the oncertainty comes in."
" But are you satisfied to remain in this
doubt? or do you propose, now that you
are able, to institute a thorough search for
her?"
" I was kalkilatin' to look around a little,"
said Uncle Ben simply.
" And return to her if you find her ? "
continued the master.
" I did n't say that, Mr. Ford."
" But if she has n't got a divorce from
you that 's what you '11 have to do, and what
156 CRESS T.
you ought to do if I understand your
story. For by your own showing, a more
causeless, heartless, and utterly inexcusable
desertion than yours, I never heard of."
" Do you think so ? " said Uncle Ben with
exasperating simplicity.
" Do /think so ? " repeated Mr. Ford, in-
dignantly. " Everybody '11 think so. They
can't think otherwise. You say you deserted
her, and you admit she did nothing to pro-
voke it."
" No," returned Uncle Ben quickly, " noth-
in'. Did I tell you, Mr. Ford, that she
could play the pianner and sing ? "
" No," said Mr. Ford, curtly, rising impa-
tiently and crossing the room. He was more
than half convinced that Uncle Ben was de-
ceiving him. Either under the veil of his
hide-bound simplicity he was an utterly self-
ish, heartless, secretive man, or else he was
telling an idiotic falsehood.
" I 'm sorry I can neither congratulate
you nor condole with you on what you have
just told me. I cannot see that you have
the least excuse for delaying a single mo-
ment to search for your wife and make
amends for your conduct. And if you want
my opinion it strikes me as being a much
CRESS Y. 157
more honorable way of employing your new
riches than mediating in your neighbors'
squabbles. But it's getting late and I'm
afraid we must bring our talk to an end.
I hope you '11 think this over before we meet
again and think differently."
Nevertheless, as they both left the school-
house, Mr. Ford lingered over the locking
of the door to give Uncle Ben a final chance
for further explanation. But none came.
The new capitalist of Indian Spring re-
garded him with an intensification of his
usual half sad, half embarrassed smile, and
only said : " You understand this yer 's a
secret, Mr. Ford? "
" Certainly," said Ford with ill-concealed
irritation.
" 'Bout my bein' sorter married ? "
" Don't be alarmed," he responded dryly ;
" it 's not a taking story."
They separated ; Uncle Ben, more than
ever involved in his usual unsatisfactory
purposes, wending his way towards his
riches ; the master lingering to observe his
departure before he plunged, in virtuous
superiority, into the woods that fringed the
Harrison and McKinstry boundaries.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE religious attitude which Mrs. Mc-
Kinstry had assumed towards her husband's
weak civilized tendencies was not entirely
free from human rancor. That strong loyal
nature which had unsexed itself in the one
idea of duty, now that duty seemed to be
no longer appreciated took refuge in her
forgotten womanhood and in the infinitesi-
mally small arguments, resources, and ma-
noeuvres at its command. She had conceived
a singular jealousy of this daughter who had
changed her husband's nature, and who had
supplanted the traditions of the household
life; she had acquired an exaggerated de-
preciation of those feminine charms which
had never been a factor in her own domes-
tic happiness. She saw in her husband's
desire to mitigate the savage austerities of
their habits only a weak concession to the
powers of beauty and adornment degrad-
ing vanities she had never known in their
life-long struggle for frontier supremacy
CRES8Y. 159
that had never brought them victorious out
of that struggle. "Frizzles," " furblows,"
and " fancy fixin's " had never helped them
in their exodus across the plains ; had never
taken the place of swift eyes, quick ears,
strong hands, and endurance; had never
nursed the sick or bandaged the wounded.
When envy or jealousy invades the female
heart after forty it is apt to bring a bitter-
ness which knows no attenuating compensa-
tion in that coquetry, emulation, passionate
appeal, or innocent tenderness, which makes
tolerable the jealous caprices of the younger
woman. The struggle for rivalry is felt to
be hopeless, the power of imitation is gone.
Of her forgotten womanhood Mrs. McKin-
stry revived only a capacity to suffer meanly
and inflict mean suffering upon others. In
the ruined castle of her youth, and the fall-
ing in of banqueting hall and bower, the
dungeon and torture - chamber appeared to
have been left, or, to use her own metaphor,
she had querulously complained to the par-
son that, " Accordin' to some folks, she
mout hev bin the barren fig-tree e-lected to
bear persimmums."
Her methods were not entirely different
from those employed by her suffering sis-
160 CRES87.
terhood in like emergencies. The unlucky
Hiram, " worrited by stock," was hardly
placated or consoled by learning from her
that it was only the result of his own weak-
ness, acting upon the cussedness of the
stock-dispersing Harrisons; the perplexity
into which he was thrown by the news of
the new legal claim to his land was not
soothed by the suggestion that it was a
trick of that Yankee civilization to which
he was meanly succumbing. She who had
always been a rough but devoted nurse in
sickness was now herself overtaken by
vague irregular disorders which involved
the greatest care and the absence of all ex-
citing causes. The attendance of McKin-
stry and Cressy at a " crazy quilting party "
had brought on " blind chills ; " the impor-
tation of a melodeon for Cressy to play on
had superinduced an " innerd rash," and a
threatened attack of "palsy creeps" had
only been warded off by the timely post-
ponement of an evening party suggested by
her daughter. The old nomadic instinct,
morbidly excited by her discontent, caused
her to lay artful plans for a further emigra-
tion. She knew she had the germs of
" mash fever " caught from the adjacent
CRESS T. 161
river ; she related mysterious information,
gathered in " class- meeting," of the supe-
rior facilities for stock raising on the higher
foot-hills; she resuscitated her dead and
gone Missouri relations in her daily speech,
to a manifest invidious comparison with the
living ; she revived even the incidents of
her early married life with the same baleful
intent. The acquisition of a few " biled
shirts " by Hiram for festive appearances
with Cressy painfully reminded her that he
had married her in " hickory ; " she further
accented the change by herself appearing in
her oldest clothes, on the hypothesis that it
was necessary for some one to keep up the
traditions of the past.
Her attitude towards Cressy would have
been more decided had she ever possessed
the slightest influence over her, or had even
understood her with the intuitive sympa-
thies of the maternal relations. Yet she
went so far as to even openly regret the
breaking off of the match with Seth Davis,
whose family, at least, still retained the
habits and traditions she revered ; but she
was promptly silenced by her husband in-
forming her that words " that had to be tuk
back " had already passed between him and
v. 24 F Bret Harte
162 CREB8T.
Seth's father, and that, according to those
same traditions, blood was more likely to be
spilled than mingled. Whether she was
only withheld from attempting a reconcili-
ation herself through lack of tact and op-
portunity remains to be seen. For the
present she encouraged Masters's attentions
under a new and vague idea that a flirtation
which distracted Cressy from her studies
was displeasing to McKinstry and inimical
to his plans. Blindly ignorant of Mr.
Ford's possible relations to her daughter,
and suspecting nothing, she felt towards
him only a dull aversion as being the sense-
less pivot of her troubles. Seeing no one,
and habitually closing her ears to any fam-
ily allusion to Cressy's social triumphs, she
was unaware of even the popular admiration
their memorable waltz had excited.
On the morning of the day that Uncle
Ben had confided to the master his ingen-
ious plan for settling the boundary disputes,
the barking of McKinstry's yellow dog an-
nounced the approach of a stranger to the
ranch. It proved to be Mr. Stacey not
only as dazzlingly arrayed as when he first
rose above Johnny Filgee's horizon, but
wearing, in addition to his jaunty business
CRESS T. 163
air, a look of complacent expectation of the
pretty girl whom he had met at the ball.
He had not seen her for a month. It was
a happy inspiration of his own that enabled
him to present himself that morning in the
twin functions of a victorious Mercury and
Apollo.
McKinstry had to be summoned from an
adjacent meadow, while Cressy, in the mean
time, undertook to entertain the gallant
stranger. This was easily done. It was
part of her fascinations that, disdaining the
ordinary real or assumed ignorance of the
ingenue of her class, she generally exhibited
to her admirers (with perhaps the single
exception of the master) a laughing con-
sciousness of the state of mind into which
her charms had thrown them. She under-
stood their passion if she could not accept
it. This to a bashful rustic community was
helpful, but in the main unsatisfactory ;
with advances so promptly unmasked, the
most strategic retreat was apt to become an
utter rout. Leaning against the lintel of
the door, her curved hand shading the
sparkling depths of her eyes, and the sun-
light striking down upon the pretty curves
of her languid figure, she awaited the at-
tack-
164 CRE88Y.
" I have n't seen you, Miss Cressy, since
we danced together a month ago."
"That was mighty rough papers," said
Cressy, who was purposely dialectical to
strangers, " considering that you trapsed up
and down the lane, past the house, twice
yesterday."
" Then you saw me ? " said the young man,
with a slightly discomfited laugh.
44 1 did. And so did the hound, and so, I
reckon, did Joe Masters and the hired man.
And when you pranced back on the home
stretch, there was the hound, Masters, the
hired man, and Maw all on your trail, and
Paw bringin' up the rear with a shot-gun.
There was about a half a mile of you alto-
gether." She removed her hand from her
eyes to indicate with a lazily grcuvful s\vot>p
this somewhat imaginative procession, and
laughed.
You are certainly well guarded," said
Stacey bositatingly ; "and looking at you,
Miss Cressy, 1 ' he added boldly, "I don't
wonder at it"
" Well, it w reckoned that next to Paw's
boundaries I'm pretty well protected from
squatters and jumpers."
Forceful and quaint as her language was.
CRESSY. 165
the lazy sweetness of her intonation, and the
delicate refinement of her face, more than
atoned for it. It was unconventional and
picturesque as her gestures. So at least
thought Mr. Stacey, and it emboldened him
to further gallantry.
" Well, Miss Cressy, as my business with
your father to-day was to try to effect a com-
promise of his boundary claims, perhaps you
might accept my services in your own be-
half."
"Which means," responded the young
lady pertly, "the same thing to me as to
Paw. No trespassers but yourself. Thank
you, sir." She twirled lightly on her heel
and dropped him that exaggerated curtsey
known to the school-children as a " cheese."
It permitted in its progress the glimpse of a
pretty little slipper which completed his
subjugation.
" Well, if it 's only a fair compromise," he
began laughingly.
" Compromise means somebody giving up.
Who is it? "she asked.
The infatuated Stacey had reached the
point of thinking this repartee if possible
more killing than his own.
" Ha ! That 's for Migg Crewy to say."
166 CREsar.
But the young lady leaning back against
the lintel with the comfortable ease of being
irresponsibly diverted, sagely pointed out
that that was the function of the arbitrator.
" Ah well, suppose we begin by giving up
Seth Davis, eh ? You see that I 'm pretty
well posted, Miss Cressy."
"You alarm me," said Cressy sweetly.
" But I reckon he had given up."
" He was in the running that night at the
ball. Looked half savage while I was dan-
cing with you. Wanted to eat me."
" Poor Seth ! And he used to be so par-
ticular in his food," said the witty Cressy.
Mr. Stacey was convulsed. " And there 's
Mr. Dabney Uncle Ben," he continued,
" eh ? Very quiet but very sly. A dark
horse, eh ? Pretends to take lessons for the
sake of being near some one, eh ? Would
he were a boy again because somebody else
is a girl?"
" I should be frightened of you if you lived
here always," returned Cressy with invincible
naivete ; " but perhaps then you would n't
know so much."
Stacey simply accepted this as a compli-
ment. " And there 's Masters," he said in-
sinuatingly.
CRESB7. 167
"Not Joe? " said Cressy with a low laugh,
turning her eyes to the door.
" Yes," said Stacey with a quick, uneasy
smile. " Ah ! I see we must n't drop him.
Is he out there ? " he added, trying to follow
the direction of her eyes.
But the young girl kept her face studiously
averted. " Is that all ? " she asked after a
pause.
" Well there 's that solemn school-mas-
ter, who cut me out of the waltz with you
that Mr. Ford."
Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial
observer he would have seen the slight tremor
cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile,
followed by that momentary arrest of her
whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes, which
had overtaken it the night the master entered
the ball-room. But he was neither, and it
passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual
lithe but languid play of expression and color
came back, and she turned her head lazily
towards the speaker. " There 's Paw coming.
I suppose you would n't mind giving me a
sample of your style of arbitrating with him,
before you try it on me ? "
" Certainly not," said Stacey, by no means
displeased at the prospect of having so pretty
168
and intelligent a witness in the daughter of
what he believed would form an attractive
display of his diplomatic skill and gracious-
ness to the father. " Don't go away. I 've
got nothing to say Miss Cressy could not
understand and answer."
The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of
McKinstry and his shot-gun falling at this
moment between the speaker and Cressy,
spared her the necessity of a reply. Me-
Kinstry cast an uneasy glance around the
apartment, and not seeing Mrs. McKinstry
looked relieved, and even the deep traces
of the loss of a valuable steer that morning
partly faded from his Indian-red complexion.
He placed his shot-gun carefully in the cor-
ner, took his soft felt hat from his head,
folded it and put it in one of the capacious
pockets of his jacket, turned to his daughter,
and laying his maimed hand familiarly on
her shoulder, said gravely, without looking
at Stacey, "What might the stranger be
wantin', Cress?"
" Perhaps I 'd better answer that myself,"
said Stacey briskly. " I 'm acting for Ben-
ham and Co., of San Francisco, who have
bought the Spanish title to part of this prop-
erty. I"
CSJESSY. 169
"Stop there ! " said McKinstry, in a voice
dull but distinct. He took his hat from his
pocket, put it on, walked to the corner and
took up his gun, looked at Stacey for the first
time with narcotic eyes that seemed to drow-
sily absorb his slight figure, then put the
gun back half contemptuously, and with a
wave of his hand towards the door, said:
" We '11 settle this yer outside. Cress, you
stop in here. There 's man's talk goin' on."
" But, Paw," said Cressy, laying her hand
languidly on her father's sleeve without the
least change of color or amused expression.
" This gentleman has come over here on a
compromise."
" On a which ? " said McKinstry, glanc-
ing scornfully out of the door for some rare
species of mustang vaguely suggested to him
in that unfamiliar word.
" To see if we could n't come to some fair
settlement," said Stacey. " I 've no objec-
tion to going outside with you, but I think
we can discuss this matter here just as well."
His fine feathers had not made him a coward,
although his heart had beaten a little faster
at this sudden recollection of the dangerous
reputation of his host.
" Go on," said McKinstry.
170 CRESS 7.
" The plain facts of the ease are these,"
continued Stacey, with more confidence.
" We have sold a strip of this property cov-
ering the land in dispute between you and
Harrison. We are bound to put our pur-
chaser in peaceable possession. Now to save
time we are willing to buy that possession of
any man who can give it. We are told that
you can."
" Well, considerin' that for the last four
years I 've been fightin' night and day agin
them low-down Harrisons for it, I reckon
you Ve been lied to," said McKinstry delib-
erately. " Why except the clearing on
the north side, whar I put up a barn, thar
ain't an acre of it as has n't been shifted
first this side and then that as fast ez I druv
boundary stakes and fences, and the Harri-
sons pulled 'em up agin. Thar ain't more
than fifty acres ez I 've hed a clear hold on,
and I would n't hev had that ef it had n't
bin for the barn, the raisin' alone o' which
cost me a man, two horses, and this yer lit-
tle finger."
" Put us in possession of even that fifty
acres, and we 'II undertake to hold the rest
and eject those Harrisons from it," returned
Stacey complacently. " You understand that
CUE SB 7. 171
the moment we've made a peaceable en-
trance to even a foothold on your side, the
Harrisons are only trespassers, and with the
title to back us we can call on the whole
sheriff's posse to put them off. That 's the
law."
" That ar the law? " repeated McKinstry
meditatively.
" Yes," said Stacey. " So," he continued,
with a self-satisfied smile to Cressy, "far
from being hard on you, Mr. McKinstry,
we 're rather inclined to put you on velvet.
We offer you a fair price for the only thing
you can give us actual possession ; and we
help you with your old grudge against the
Harrisons. We not only clear them out,
but we pay you for even the part they held
adversely to you."
Mr. McKinstry passed his three whole
fingers over his forehead and eyes as if
troubled by a drowsy aching. '* Then you
don't reckon to hev anythin' to say to them
Harrisons ? "
" We don't propose to recognize them in
the matter at all," returned Stacey.
" Nor allow 'em anythin' ? "
" Not a cent ! So you see, Mr. McKin-
stry/' he continued magnanimously, yet with
172 CRE88T.
a mischievous smile to Cressy, " there is noth
ing in this amicable discussion that require*
to be settled outside."
" Ain't there ? " said McKinstry, in a
dull, deliberate voice, raising his eyes for
the second time to Stacey. They were
bloodshot, with a heavy, hanging f urtiveness,
not unlike one of his own hunted steers.
"But I ain't kam enuff in yer." He moved
to the door with a beckoning of his fateful
hand. " Outside a minit e/*you please."
Stacey started, shrugged his shoulders,
and half defiantly stepped beyond the thresh-
old. Cressy, unchanged in color or ex-
pression, lazily followed to the door.
" Wot," said McKinstry, slowly facing
Stacey ; " wot ef I refoose? Wot ef I say
I don't allow any man, or any bank, or any
compromise, to take up my quo'r'lls ? Wot
ef I say that low-down and mean as them
Harrisons is, they don't begin to be ez mean,
ez low-down, ez underhanded, ez sneakin' ez
that yer compromise ? Wot ef I say that ef
that 's the kind o' hogwash that law and
snivelization offers me for peace and quiet-
ness, I '11 take the fightin', and the law-
breakin', and the sheriff, and all h 11 for
his posse instead ? Wot ef I say that ? "
CRESS Y. 173
" It will only be my duty to repeat it,"
said Stacey, with an affected carelessness
which, however, did not conceal his surprise
and his discomfiture. " It 's no affair of
mine."
" Unless," said Cressy, assuming her old
position against the lintel of the door, and
smoothing the worn bear-skin that served as
a mat with the toe of her slipper, "unless
you Ve mixed it up with your other arbitra-
tion, you know."
" Wot other arbitration ? " asked McKin-
stry suddenly, with murky eyes.
Stacey cast a rapid, half indignant glance
at the young girl, who received it with her
hands tucked behind her back, her lovely
head bent submissively forward, and a pro-
longed little laugh.
" Oh nothing, Paw," she said, " only a
little private foolishness betwixt me and the
gentleman. You'd admire to hear him
talk, Paw about other things than busi-
ness. He 's just that chipper and gay."
Nevertheless, as with a muttered " Good-
morning" the young fellow turned away, she
quietly brushed past her father, and fol-
lowed him with her hands still penitently
behind her, and the rosy palms turned up-
174 CRE88Y.
ward as far as the gate. Her single long
Marguerite braid of hair trailing down her
back nearly to the hem of her skirt, ap-
peared to accent her demure reserve. At
the gate she shaded her eyes with her hand,
and glanced upward.
" It don't seem to be a good day for arbi-
trating. A trifle early in the season, ain't
it?"
" Good-morning, Miss McKinstry."
She held out her hand. He took it with
an affected ease but cautiously, as if it had
been the velvet paw of a young panther who
had scratched him, After all, what was she
but the cub of the untamed beast, McKin-
stry ? He was well out of it ! He was not
revengeful but business was business, and
he had given them the first chance.
As his figure disappeared behind the
buckeyes of the lane, Cressy cast a glance at
the declining sun. She reentered the house,
and went directly to her room. As she
passed the window, she could see her father
already remounted galloping towards the
tules, as if in search of that riparian " kam "
his late interview had disturbed. A few
straggling bits of color in the sloping mead-
ows were the children coming home from
CRESS T. 175
school. She hastily tied a girlish sun-bonnet
under her chin, and slipping out of the back
door, swept like a lissom shadow along the
line of fence until she seemed to melt into
the umbrage of the woods that fringed the
distant north boundary.
CHAPTER IX.
MEANWHILE, unaware of her husband's
sudden relapse to her old border principles
and of the visit that had induced it, Mrs.
McKinstry was slowly returning from a lu-
gubrious recital of her moods and feelings
at the parson's. As she crossed the barren
flat and reached the wooded upland midway
between the school-house and the ranch, she
saw before her the old familiar figure of
Seth Davis lounging on the trail. In her
habitual loyalty to her husband's feuds she
would probably have stalked defiantly past
him, notwithstanding her late regrets of the
broken engagement, but Seth began to ad-
vance awkwardly towards her. In fact, he
had noticed the tall, gaunt, plaid - shawled
and holland - bonneted figure approaching,
and had waited for it.
As he seemed intent upon getting in her
way she stopped and raised her right hand
warningly before her. In spite of the shawl
and the sun-bonnet, suffering had implanted
CHESS T 177
a rude Runic dignity to her attitude "Words
that hev to be took back, Seth Davis, ' she
said hastily, "hev passed between you and
my man. Out of my way, then, that I may
pass, too.''
" Not much betwixt you and me, Aunt
Rachel, ' he said with slouching deprecation,
using the old household title by which he
had familiarly known her. l< 1 've nothin
agin you and I kin prove it by wot 1 'm
yer to say. And I ain't trucklm' to yer for
myself, for ez far ez me and your'n ez con-
cerned," he continued, with a malevolent
glance, " thar ain't gold enough in Caleforny
to mak the weddin' ring that could hitch me
and Cress together. I want to tell you that
you 're bein' played ; that you 're bein' be-
fooled and bamboozled and honey - fogled,
Thet while you 're groanin' at class-meetin 1
and Hiram's quo'llin' with Dad, and Joe
Masters waitin' round to pick up any bone
that 's throwed him, that sneakin', hypocrit-
ical Yankee school-master is draggin' your
daughter to h 11 with him on the sly.*'
" Quit that, Seth Davis," said Mrs. Me-
Kinstry sternly, " or be man enough to tell
it to a man. That *s Hiram's business to
know."
178 CRESS T.
" And what if he knows it well enough
and winks at it? What if he 's willin'
enough to truckle to it, to curry favor with
them sneakin' Yanks?" said Seth malig-
nantly.
A spasm of savage conviction seized Mrs.
McKinstry. But it was more from her
jealous fears of her husband's disloyalty
than concern for her daughter's transgres-
sion. Nevertheless, she said desperately,
" It 's a lie. Where are your proofs ? "
"Proofs?" returned Seth. "Who is it
sneaks around the school-house to have pri-
vate talks with the school-master, and edges
him on with Cressy afore folks ? Your hus-
band. Who goes sneakin' off every arter-
noon with that same can tin' hound of a
school-master ? Your daughter. Who 's
been carryin' on together, and hidin' thick
enough to be ridden out on a rail together ?
Your daughter and the school - master.
Proofs ? ask anybody. Ask the children.
Look yar you, Johnny come here."
He had suddenly directed his voice to a
blackberry bush near the trail, from which
the curly head of Johnny Filgee had just
appeared. That home - returning infant
painfully disengaged himself, his slate, his
CRE88T. 179
books, and his small dinner-pail half filled
with fruit as immature as himself, and came
towards them sideways.
" Yer 's a dime, Johnny, to git some
candy," said Seth, endeavoring to distort his
passion-set face into a smile.
Johnny Filgee's small, berry-stained palm
promptly closed over the coin.
" Now, don't lie. Where 's Cressy ? "
Kithin' her bo."
"Good boy. What bo?"
Johnny hesitated. He had once seen the
school-master and Cressy together ; he had
heard it whispered by the other children
that they loved each other. But looking at
Seth and Mrs. McKinstry he felt that some-
thing more tremendous than this stupid
fact was required of him for grown - up
people, and being honest and imaginative,
he determined that it should be worth the
money.
" Speak up, Johnny, don't be afeard to
tell."
Johnny was not " afeard " he was only
thinking. He had it ! He remembered that
he had just seen his paragon, the brilliant
Stacey, coming from the boundary woods.
What more poetical and gtartlingly effective
180 CRESS r
than to connect him with Cressy ? He re-
plied promptly :
" Mithter Thtathy. He gived her a watch
and ring of truly gold. Goin y to be married
at Thacratnento,"
"You lyin' limb,*' said Seth, seizing him
roughly. But Mrs. McKinstry interposed,
" Let that brat go," she said with gleam-
ing eyes, " I want to talk to you.'' Seth
released Johnny, " It 's a trick," he said,
"he 's bin put up to it by that Ford."
But Johnny, after securing a safe vantage
behind the blackberry bush, determined to
give them another trial with facts.
" I know mor'n that," he called out,
" Git you measly pup," said Seth sav-
agely.
" I know Theriff Briggth, he rid over the
boundary with a lot o' men and horthes,"
said Johnny, with that hurried delivery with
which he was able to estop interruption.
" Theed 'em go by. Maur Harrithon theth
his dad's goin' to chuck out ole McKin-
thtry. Hooray!"
Mrs. McKinstry turned her dark face
sharply on Seth. "What 's that he sez ? "
"Nothin' but children's gassin'," he an-
swered, meeting her eyes with an evil con-
CRESS Y. 181
sciousness half loutish, half defiant, " and ef
it war true, it would only sarve Hiram Mc-
Kinstry right."
She laid her hand upon his shoulder with
swift suspicion. " Out o' my way, Seth
Davis/' she said suddenly, pushing him
aside. " Ef this ez any underhanded work
of yours, you '11 pay for it."
She strode past him in the direction of
Johnny, but at the approach of the tall
woman with the angry eyes, the boy flew.
She hesitated a moment, turned again with
a threatening wave of the hand to Seth, and
started off rapidly in the direction of the
boundary.
She had not placed so much faith in the
boy's story as in the vague revelation of evil
in Davis's manner. If there was any " cus-
sedness " afoot, Seth, convinced of Cressy's
unfaithfulness, and with no further hope of
any mediation from the parents, would
know it. Unless Hiram had been warned,
he was still lulled in his fatuous dream of
civilization. At that time he and his men
were in the tules with the stock ; to be sat-
isfied, she herself must go to the boun-
dary.
She reached the ridge of the cottonwoods
182 CRESS Y.
and sycamores, and a few hundred yards
further brought her to the edge of that gen-
tle southern slope which at last sank into the
broad meadow of the debatable ground. In
spite of Stacey's invidious criticism of its
intrinsic value, this theatre of savage dis-
sension, violence, and bloodshed was by some
irony of nature a pastoral landscape of sin-
gular and peaceful repose. The soft glacis
stretching before her was in spring cerulean
with lupins, and later starred with maripo-
sas. The meadow was transversely crossed
by a curving line of alders that indicated a
rare water-course, of which in the dry season
only a single pool remained to flash back the
unvarying sky. There had been no attempt
at cultivation of this broad expanse ; wild
oats, mustard, and rank grasses left it a toss-
ing sea of turbulent and variegated color
whose waves rode high enough to engulf
horse and rider in their choking depths.
Even the traces of human struggle, the up-
rooted stakes, scattered fence -rails, and
empty post-holes were forever hidden under
these billows of verdure. Midway of the
field and near the water-course arose Mc-
Kinstry's barn the solitary human struc-
ture whose rude, misshapen, bulging side*
CRESS Y. 183
and swallow-haunted eaves bursting with
hay from the neighboring pasture, seemed
however only an extravagant growth of the
prolific soil. Mrs. McKinstry gazed at it
anxiously. There was no sign of life or
movement near or around it ; it stood as it
had always stood, deserted and solitary. But
turning her eyes to the right, beyond the
water-course, she could see a slight regular
undulation of the grassy sea and what ap-
peared to be the drifting on its surface of
half a dozen slouched hats in the direction of
the alders. There was no longer any doubt ;
a party from the other side was approaching
the border.
A shout and the quick galloping of hoofs
behind her sent a thrill of relief to her heart.
She had barely time to draw aside as her
husband and his followers swept past her
down the slope. But it needed not his fu-
rious cry, " The Harrisons hev sold us out,"
to tell her that the crisis had come.
She held her breath as the cavalcade di-
verged, and in open order furiously ap-
proached the water-course, and she could see
a sudden check and hesitation in the move-
ment in the meadow at that unlooked-for
onset. Then she thought of the barn. It
184 CRESS Y.
would be a rallying-point for them if driven
back a tower of defence if besieged.
There were arms secreted beneath the hay
for such an emergency. She would run
there, swing-to its open doors, and get ready
to barricade them.
She ran crouchingly, seeking the higher
grasses and brambles of the ridge to escape
observation from the meadow until she could
descend upon the barn from the rear. She
threw aside her impeding shawl ; her brown
holland sun-bonnet, torn off her head and
hanging by its strings from her shoulders,
let her coarse silver - threaded hair stream
like a mane over her back ; her face and
hands were bleeding from thorns and whit-
ened by dust. But she struggled on fiercely
like some hunted animal until she reached
the descending trail, when, letting herself go
blindly, only withheld by the long grasses
she clutched at wildly on either side, she
half fell, half stumbled down the slope and
emerged beside the barn, breathless and ex-
hausted.
But what a contrast was there ! For an
instant she could scarcely believe that she
had left the ridge with her husband's savage
outcry in her ears, and in her eyes the swift
CRESS Y. 185
vision of his furious cavalcade. The boun-
dary meadow was hidden by the soft lines
of graceful willows in whose dim recesses
the figures of the passionate horsemen
seemed to have melted forever. There was
nothing now to interrupt the long vista of
peaceful beauty that stretched before her
through this lonely hollow to the distant
sleeping hills. The bursting barn in the
foreground, heaped with grain that fringed
its eaves and bristled from its windows and
doors until its unlovely bulk was hidden in
trailing feathery outlines ; the gentle flutter
of wings and soothing twitter of swallows
and jays around its open rafters, and the
drifting shadows of a few circling crows
above it; the drowsy song of bees on the
wild mustard that half hid its walls with yel-
low bloom; the sound of f aintly - trickling
water in one of those old Indian-haunted
springs that had given its name to the lo-
cality ; all these for an instant touched the
senses of this hard, fierce woman as she had
not been touched since she was a girl. For
one brief moment the joys of peace and that
matured repose that never had been hers
flashed upon her ; but with it came the sav-
age consciousness that even now it was being
186 CREBB7.
wrested away, and the thought fired her
blood again. She listened eagerly for a sec-
ond in the direction of the meadow ; there
was no report of fire-arms there was yet
time to prepare the barn for defence. She
ran to the front of the building and seized
the latch of the half-closed door. A little
feminine cry that was half a laugh came
from within, with the rapid rustle of a skirt
and as the door swung open a light figure
vanished through the rear window. The
slanting sunlight falling in the shadowed in-
terior disclosed only the single erect figure
of the school-master John Ford.
The first confusion and embarrassment of
an interrupted rendezvous that had colored
Ford's cheeks, gave way to a look of alarm
as he caught sight of the bleeding face and
dishevelled figure of Mrs. McKinstry. She
saw it. To her distorted fancy it seemed
only a proof of deeper guilt. Without a
word she closed the heavy door behind her
and swung the huge cross-bar unaided to its
place. She then turned and confronted him,
wiping the dust from her face and arms with
her torn and dangling sun-bonnet in a way
that recalled her attitude on the first day he
had met her.
CRE8BT. 187
" That was Cress with ye ? " she said.
He hesitated, still gazing at her in won-
der.
"Don't lie."
He started. " I don't propose to," he re-
torted indignantly. " It was "
" I don't ask ye how long this yer 's bin
goin' on," she said, pointing to Cressy's sun-
bonnet, a few books, and a scattered nosegay
of wild flowers lying on the hay ; " and I
don't want to know. In five minutes either
her father will be here, or them hell-hounds
of Harrison's who 've sold him out will swarm
round this barn to git possesshun. Ef this
yer " she again pointed contemptuously to
the objects just indicated " means that
you 've cast your lot with us and kalkilate to
take our bitter with our sweet, ye '11 lift up
that stack of hay and bring out a gun to help
defend it. Ef you 're rneanin' any thin' else,
Ford, you '11 hide yourself in that hay till
Hiram comes and has time enough to attend
to ye."
" And if I choose to do neither ? " he said
haughtily.
She looked at him in unutterable scorn.
" There 's the winder take it while there 's
time, afore I bar it. Ef you see Hiram, tell
188 CRESBT.
him ye left an old woman behind ye to de-
fend the place whar you uster hide with her
darter."
Before he could reply there was a distant
report, followed almost directly by another.
With a movement of irritation he walked to
the window, turned and looked at her
bolted it, and came back.
"Where's that gun?" he said almost
rudely.
" I reckoned that would fetch ye," she
said, dragging away the hay and disclosing a
long trough-like box covered with tarpaulin.
It proved to contain powder, shot, and two
guns. He took one.
" I suppose I may know what I am fight-
ing for ? " he said dryly.
" Ye might say ' Cress ' ef they " indi-
cating the direction of the reports " hap-
pen to ask ye," she returned with equal
sobriety. " Jess now ye kin take your stand
up thar in the loft and see what 's comin'."
He did not linger, but climbed to the place
assigned him, glad to escape the company of
the woman who at that moment he almost
hated. In his unreflecting passion for Cressy
he had always evaded the thought of this
relationship or propinquity ; the mother had
CRESS T. 189
recalled it to him in a way that imperilled
even his passion for the daughter ; his mind
was wholly preoccupied with the idiotic, ex-
asperating, and utterly hopeless position that
had been forced upon him. In the bitterness
of his spirit his sense of personal danger was
so far absorbed that he speculated on the
chance bullet in the mele that might end
his folly and relieve him of responsibility.
Shut up in a barn with a furious woman, in
a lawless defence of questionable rights
with the added consciousness that an equally
questionable passion had drawn him into it,
and that she knew it death seemed to offer
the only escape from the explanation he could
never give. If another sting could have
been added it was the absurd conviction that
Cressy would not appreciate his sacrifice,
but was perhaps even at that moment calmly
congratulating herself on the felicitousness
of the complication in which she had left
him.
Suddenly he heard a shout and the tramp-
ling of horse. The sides of the loft were
scantily boarded to allow the extension of
the pent-up grain, and between the interstices
Ford, without being himself seen, had an
uninterrupted view of the plain between him
190 CRESS T.
and the line of willows. As he gazed, five
men hurriedly issued from the extreme left
and ran towards the barn. McKinstry and
his followers simultaneously broke from the
same covert further to the right and galloped
forward to intercept them. But although
mounted, the greater distance they had to
traverse brought them to the rear of the
building only as the Harrison party came to
a sudden halt before the closed and barri-
caded doors of the usually defenceless barn.
The discomfiture of the latter was greeted by
a derisive shout from the McKinstry party
albeit, equally astonished. But in that
brief moment Ford recognized in the leader
of the Harrisons the well-known figure of
the Sheriff of Tuolumne. It needed only
this to cap the climax of the fatality that
seemed to pursue him. He was no longer a
lawless opposer of equally lawless forces, but
he was actually resisting the law itself. He
understood the situation now. It was some
idiotic blunder of Uncle Ben's that had pre-
cipitated this attack.
The belligerents had already cocked their
weapons, although the barn was still a ram-
part between the parties. But an adroit
flanker of McKinstry's, creeping through the
CRE887. 191
tall mustard, managed to take up an enfilad-
ing position as the Harrisons advanced to
break in the door. A threatening shout
from the ambuscaded partisans caused them
to hurriedly fall back towards the rear of the
barn. There was a pause, and then began
the usual Homeric chaff, with this West-
ern difference that it was cunningly intended
to draw the other's fire.
" Why don't you blaze away at the door,
y OU 1 It won't hurt ye ! "
" He 's afraid the bolt will shoot back ! "
Laughter from the McKinstrys.
" Come outer the tall grass and show your-
self, you black, mud-eating gopher."
" He can't. He 's dropped his grit and is
sarchin' for it." Goading laughter from the
Harrisons.
Each man waited for that single shot
which would precipitate the fight. Even in
their lawlessness the rude instinct of the
duello swayed them. The officer of the law
recognized the principle as well as its practi-
cal advantage in a collision, but he hesitated
to sacrifice one of his men in an attack on
the barn, which would draw the fire of Mc-
Kinstry at that necessarily fatal range. As
a brave man he would have taken the risk
192 CREBSY.
himself, but as a prudent one, he reflected
that his hurriedly collected posse were all
partisans, and if he fell the conflict would
resolve itself into a purely partisan struggle
without a single unprejudiced witness to jus-
tify his conduct in the popular eye. The
master also knew this ; it had checked his
first impulse to come forward as a mediator ;
his only reliance now was on Mrs. McKins-
try's restraint and the sheriff's forbearance.
The next instant both seemed to be imper-
illed.
" "Well, why don't you wade in ? " sneered
Dick McKinstry ; " who do you reckon 's
hidden in the barn ? "
"I'll tell ye," said a harsh, passionate
voice from the hill-side. " It 's Cressy Mc-
Kinstry and the school-master hidin' in the
hay."
Both parties turned quickly towards the
intruder who had approached them unper-
ceived. But the speech was followed by a
more startling revulsion of sentiment as Mrs.
McKinstry's voice rang out from the barn,
"You lie, Seth Davis!"
The brief advantage offered to the sheriff
in Davis's advent as a neutral witness, was
utterly lost by this unlooked-for revelation
CRE88Y. 193
of Mrs. McKinstry's presence in the barn !
The fates were clearly against him ! A
woman in the fight, and an old one at that !
A white woman to be forcibly ejected ! In
the whole unwritten code of Southwestern
chivalry there was no such precedent.
" Stand back," he said disgustedly to his
followers, " stand back and let the d d barn
slide. But you, Hiram McKinstry, I '11 give
you five minutes to shake yourself clear of
your wife's petticoats and git ! " His blood
was up now the quicker from his momen-
tary weakness and the trick of which he
thought himself a dupe.
Again the fatal signal seemed imminent,
again it was delayed. For Hiram McKin-
stry, with clanking spurs and rifle in hand
stepped from behind the barn, full in the
presence of his antagonists.
" Ez to my gitten in five minits," he began
in his laziest, drowsiest manner, " we '11 see
when the time's up. But jest now words
hev passed betwixt my wife and Seth Davis.
Afore anythin' else goes on yer, he 's got to
take Ms back. My wife allows he lies ; I
allow he lies too, and I stan' here to say it."
The right of personal insult to precedence
of redress was too old a frontier principle to
v. 24 G Bret Harte
194 CRESS Y.
be gainsaid now. Both parties held back
and every eye was turned to where Seth
Davis had been standing. But he had dis-
appeared.
Where ?
When Mrs. McKinstry hurled her denial
from the barn, he had taken advantage of
the greater surprise to leap to one of the
trusses of hay that projected beyond the loft,
and secure a footing from which he quickly
scrambled through the open scantling to the
interior. The master who, startled by his
voice, had made his way through the loose
grain to the rear, reached it as Seth half
crawled, half tumbled through. Their eyes
met in a single flash of rage, but before Seth
could utter an outcry, the master had dropped
his gun, seized him around the neck and
crammed a thick handful of the soft hay he
had hurriedly snatched up into his face and
gasping mouth. A furious but silent strug-
gle ensued ; the yielding hay on which they
both fell deadened all sound of a scuffle and
concealed them from view ; masses of it, al-
ready loosened by the intruder's entrance,
and dislodged in their contortions began to
slip through the opening to the ground. The
master, still uppermost and holding Seth
CRESS T. 195
firmly down, allowed himself to slip with
them, shoving his adversary before him ; the
maddened Missourian detecting his purpose,
made a desperate attempt to change his
position, and succeeded in raising his knee
against the master's chest. Ford, guarding
against what seemed to be only a wrestler's
strategy, contented himself by locking the
bent knee firmly in that position, and thus
unwittingly gave Seth the looked-for oppor-
tunity of drawing the bowie-knife concealed
in his boot leg. He knew his mistake only
as Seth violently freed his arm, and threw
it upward for the blow. He heard the steel
slither like a scythe through the hay, and
unlocking his hold desperately threw himself
on the uplifted arm. The movement saved
him. For the released body of Seth slipped
rapidly through the opening, upheld for a
single instant on the verge by the grasp of
the master's two hands on the arm that still
held the knife, and then dropped heavily
downward. Even then, the hay that had
slipped before him would have broken his
fall, but his head came in violent contact
with some farming implements standing
against the wall, and without a cry he was
stretched senseless on the ground. The
196 CZE8SY,
whole occurrence passed so rapidly and so
noiselessly that not only did McKinstry's
challenge fall upon his already unconscious
ears, but the loosened hay which in the mas-
ter's struggles to recover himself still con-
tinued to slide gently from the loft, actually
hid him from the eyes of the spectators who
sought him a moment afterwards. A mass
of hay and wild oats, dislodged apparently
by Mrs. McKinstry in securing her defences,
was all that met their eyes ; even the woman
herself was unconscious of the deadly strug-
gle that had taken place above her.
The master staggered to an upright posi-
tion half choked and half blinded with dust,
turgid and bursting with the rush of blood to
his head, but clear and collected in mind,
and unremorsefully triumphant. Uncon-
scious of the real extent of Seth's catastrophe
he groped for and seized his gun, examined
the cap and eagerly waited for a renewed at-
tack. " He tried to kill me ; he would have
killed me; if he comes again I must kill
him," he kept repeating to himself. It
never occurred to him that this was incon-
sistent with his previous thought indeed
with the whole tenor of his belief. Perhaps
the most peaceful man who has been once
CRESS T. 197
put in peril of life by an adversary, who has
recognized death threatening him in the eye
of his antagonist, is by some strange para-
dox not likely to hold his own life or the life
of his adversary as dearly as before. Every-
thing was silent now. The suspense irri-
tated him, he no longer dreaded but even
longed for the shot that would precipitate
hostilities. What were they doing ? Guided
by Seth, were they concerting a fresh at-
tack?
Listening more intently he became aware
of a distant shouting, and even more dis-
tinctly, of the dull, heavy trampling of hoofs.
A sudden angry fear that the McKinstrys
had been beaten off and were flying a
fear and anger that now for the first time
identified him with their cause came over
him, and he scrambled quickly towards the
opening below. But the sound was ap-
proaching and with it came a voice.
" Hold on there, sheriff ! "
It was the voice of the agent Stacey.
There was a pause of reluctant murmur-
ing. But the warning was enforced by a
command from another voice weak, un-
heroic, but familiar, " I order this yer to
stop right yer | "
198 CRESS T.
A burst of ironical laughter followed.
The voice was Uncle Ben's.
" Stand back ! This is no time for
foolin','' said the sheriff roughly.
"He's right, Sheriff Briggs," said Sta-
cey's voice hurriedly ; " you 're acting for
him ; he 's the owner of the land."
What ? That Ben Dabney ? "
" Yes ; he 's Daubigny, who bought the
title from us."
There was a momentary hush, and then a
hurried murmur.
" Which means, gents," rose Uncle Ben's
voice persuasively, " that this yer young
man, though fair-minded and well-intended,
hez bin a leetle too chipper and previous in
orderin' out the law. This yer ain't no law
matter with me, boys. It ain't to be set-
tled by law-papers, nor shot-guns and de-
ringers. It 's suthiii' to be chawed over so-
ciable-like, between drinks. Ef any harm hez
bin done, ef anythin's happened, I 'm yer to
Memnify the sheriff, and make it comf'ble
all round. Yer know me, boys. I 'm talkin'.
It 's me Dabney, or Daubigny, which
ever way you like it."
But in the silence that followed, the pas-
sions had not yet evidently cooled. It was
CRE8ST. 199
broken by the sarcastic drawl of Dick Mc-
Kinstry: "If them Harrisons don't mind
heven had their medders trampled over by a
few white men, why "
" The sheriff ez 'demnified for that," in-
terrupted Uncle Ben hastily.
" 'N ef Dick McKinstry don't mind the
damage to his pants in crawlin' out o' gun-
shot in the tall grass " retorted Joe Harri-
son.
" I 'm yer to settle that, boys," said Uncle
Ben cheerfully.
" But who '11 settle this f " clamored the
voice of the older Harrison from behind the
barn where he had stumbled in crossing the
fallen hay. " Yer 's Seth Davis lyin' in the
hay with the top of his head busted. Who 's
to pay for that ? "
There was a rush to the spot, and a quick
cry of reaction.
" Whose work is this ? " demanded the
sheriff's voice, with official severity.
The master uttered an instinctive excla-
mation of defiance, and dropping quickly to
the barn floor, would the next moment have
opened the door and declared himself, but
Mrs. McKinstry, after a single glance at his
determined face, suddenly threw herself be-
CREBBT.
fore him with an imperious gesture of si-
lence. Then her voice rang clearly from the
e if it 's the hound that tried to force
his way in yer, I reckon ye kin put that
down to ME I"
CHAPTER X.
IT was known to Indian Spring, the next
day, amid great excitement, that a serious
fracas had been prevented on the ill-fated
boundary by the dramatic appearance of Un-
cle Ben Dabney, not only as a peacemaker,
but as Mr. Daubigny the bond fide purchaser
and owner of the land. It was known and
accepted with great hilarity that " old marm
McKinstry" had defended the barn alone
and unaided, with as variously stated a
pitchfork, an old stable-broom, and a pail of
dirty water, against Harrison, his party, and
the entire able posse of the Sheriff of Tuo-
lumne County, with no further damage than
a scalp wound which the head of Seth Davis
received while falling from the loft of the
barn from which he had been dislodged by
Mrs. McKinstry and the broom aforesaid.
It was known with unanimous approbation
that the acquisition of the land-title by a
hitherto humble citizen of Indian Spring
was a triumph of the settlement over foreign
202 CRESS T.
interference. But it was not known that the
school-master was a participant in the fight,
or even present on the spot. At Mrs. Mc-
Kinstry's suggestion he had remained con-
cealed in the loft until after the withdrawal
of both parties and the still unconscious
Seth. When Ford had remonstrated, with
the remark that Seth would be sure to de-
clare the truth when he recovered his senses,
Mrs. McKinstry smiled grimly : " I reckon
when he comes to know / was with ye all
the time, he 'd rather hev it allowed that
I licked him than you. I don't say he '11
let it pass ez far ez you 're concerned or
won't try to get even with ye, but he won't
go round tellin' why. However," she added
still more grimly, " if you think you 're ekul
to tellin' the hull story how ye kem to be
yer and that Seth was n't lyin' arter all when
he blurted it out afore 'em why I sha'n't
hinder ye." The master said no more. And
indeed for a day or two nothing transpired
to show that Seth was not equally reticent.
Nevertheless Mr. Ford was far from be*
ing satisfied with the issue of his adventure.
His relations with Cressy were known to
the mother, and although she had not again
alluded to them, she would probably in-
CRES3Y. 203
form her husband. Yet he could not help
noticing, with a mingling of unreasoning re-
lief and equally unreasoning distrust, that
she exhibited a scornful unconcern in the
matter, apart from the singular use to which
she had put it. He could hardly count
upon McKinstry, with his heavy, blind de-
votion to Cressy, being as indifferent. On
the contrary, he had acquired the impres-
sion, without caring to examine it closely,
that her father would not be displeased at
his marrying Cressy, for it would really
amount to that. But here again he was
forced to contemplate what he had always
avoided, the possible meaning and result of
their intimacy. In the reckless, thoughtless,
extravagant yet thus far innocent in-
dulgence of their mutual passion, he had
never spoken of marriage, nor and it
struck him now with the same incongruous
mingling of relief and uneasiness had
she ! Perhaps this might have arisen from
some superstitious or sensitive recollection
on her part of her previous engagement to
Seth, but he remembered now that they had
not even exchanged the usual vows of eter-
nal constancy. It may seem strange that,
in the half-dozen stolen and rapturous in-
204 CRESS T.
terviews which had taken place between
these young lovers, there had been no sug-
gestion of the future, nor any of those glow-
ing projects for a united destiny peculiar to
their years and inexperience. They had
lived entirely in a blissful present, with no
plans beyond their next rendezvous. In
that mysterious and sudden absorption of
each other, not only the past, but the future
seemed to have been forgotten.
These thoughts were passing through his
mind the next afternoon to the prejudice
of that calm and studious repose which the
deserted school-house usually superinduced,
and which had been so fondly noted by
McKinstry and Uncle Ben. The latter had
not arrived for his usual lesson ; it was pos-
sible that undue attention had been at-
tracted to his movements now that his good
fortune was known ; and the master was
alone save for the occasional swooping in-
cursion of a depredatory jay in search of
crumbs from the children's luncheons, who
added apparently querulous insult to the
larcenous act. He regretted Uncle Ben's
absence, as he wanted to know more about
his connection with the Harrison attack and
his eventual intentions. Ever since the
CUES ST. 205
master emerged from the barn and regained
his hotel under cover of the darkness, he
had heard only the vaguest rumors, and he
purposely avoided direct inquiry.
He had been quite prepared for Cressy's
absence from school that morning indeed
in his present vacillating mood he had felt
that her presence would have been irksome
and embarrassing ; but it struck him sud-
denly and unpleasantly that her easy deser-
tion of him at that critical moment in the
barn had not since been followed by the
least sign of anxiety to know the result of
her mother's interference. What did she
imagine had transpired between Mrs. Mc-
Kinstry and himself ? Had she confidently
expected her mother's prompt acceptance
of the situation and a reconciliation ? Was
that the reason why she had treated that in-
terruption as lightly as if she were already
his recognized betrothed ? Had she even cal-
culated upon it ? had she ? He stopped,
his cheek glowing from irritation under the
suspicion, and shame at the disloyalty of
entertaining it.
Opening his desk, he began to arrange
his papers mechanically, when he discovered,
with a slight feeling of annoyance, that he
206 CRES8Y.
had placed Cressy's bouquet now dried
and withered in the same pigeon - hole
with the mysterious letters with which he
had so often communed in former days. He
at once separated them with a half bitter
smile, yet after a moment's hesitation, and
with his old sense of attempting to revive a
forgotten association, he tried to re-peruse
them. But they did not even restrain his
straying thoughts, nor prevent him from
detecting a singular occurrence. The nearly
level sun was, after its old fashion, already
hanging the shadowed tassels of the pine
boughs like a garland on the wall. But the
shadow seemed to have suddenly grown
larger and more compact, and he turned,
with a quick consciousness of some inter-
posing figure at the pane. Nothing how-
ever was to be seen. Yet so impressed had
he been that he walked to the door and
stepped from the porch to discover the in-
truder. The clearing was deserted, there
was a slight rustling in the adjacent laurels,
but no human being was visible. Neverthe-
less the old feeling of security and isolation
which had never been quite the same since
Mr. McKinstry's confession, seemed now to
have fled the sylvan school-house altogether,
CRESST. 207
and he somewhat angrily closed his desk,
locked it, and determined to go home.
His way lay through the first belt of pinea
towards the mining -flat, but to-day from
some vague impulse he turned and followed
the ridge. He had not proceeded far when
he perceived Rupert Filgee lounging before
him on the trail, and at a little distance
further on his brother Johnny. At the
sight of these two favorite pupils Mr. Ford's
heart smote him with a consciousness that
he had of late neglected them, possibly be-
cause Rupert's lofty scorn of the " silly " sex
was not as amusing to him as formerly, and
possibly because Johnny's curiosity had
been at times obtrusive. He however quick-
ened his pace and joined Rupert, laying his
hand familiarly as of old on his shoulder.
To his surprise the boy received his ad-
vances with some constraint and awkward-
ness, glancing uneasily in the direction of
Johnny. A sudden idea crossed Mr. Ford's
mind.
" "Were you looking for me at the school-
room just now?"
"No, sir."
" You did n't look in at the window to see
if I was there ? " continued the master.
208 CRESS Y.
"No, sir."
The master glanced at Rupert. Truth-
telling was a part of Rupert's truculent
temper, although, as the boy had often bit-
terly remarked, it had always " told agin'
him."
"All right," said the master, perfectly
convinced. " It must have been my fancy ;
but I thought somebody looked in or
passed by the window."
But here Johnny, who had overheard the
dialogue and approached them, suddenly
threw himself upon his brother's unoffend-
ing legs and commenced to beat and pull
them about with unintelligible protests. Ru-
pert, without looking down, said quietly,
" Quit that now I won't, I tell ye," and
went through certain automatic movements
of dislodging Johnny as if he were a mere
impeding puppy.
"What's the matter, Johnny?" said
the master, to whom these gyrations were
not unfamiliar.
Johnny only replied by a new grip of his
brother's trousers.
" Well, sir," said Rupert, slightly recover-
ing his dimples and his readiness, " Johnny,
yer, wants me to tell ye something. Ef he
CRESS T. 209
was n't the most original self -cocking, God-
forsaken liar in Injin Spring ef he did n't
lie awake in his crib mornin's to invent lies
fer the day, I would n't mind tellin' ye, and
would hev told you before. However, since
you ask, and since you think you saw some-
body around the school - house, Johnny yer
allows that Seth Davis is spyin' round and
followin' ye wherever you go, and he
dragged me down yer to see it. He says
he saw him doggin' ye."
"With a knife and pithtolth," added
Johnny's boundless imagination, to the detri-
ment of his limited facts.
Mr. Ford looked keenly from the one to
the other, but rather with a suspicion that
they were cognizant of his late fracas than
belief in the truth of Johnny's statement.
" And what do you think of it, Rupert ? "
he asked carelessly.
" I think, sir," said Rupert, " that allowin'
for onct that Johnny ain't lying, mebbee
it 's Cressy McKinstry that Seth 's huntin'
round, and knowin' that she 7 s always run-
nin' after you " he stopped, and redden-
ing with a newborn sense that his fatal
truthfulness had led him into a glaring
indelicacy towards the master, hurriedly
210 CRESS Y.
added : " I mean, sir, that mebbee it *s
Uncle Ben he 's jealous of, now that he 's
got rich enough for Cressy to hev him, and
knowin' he conies to school in the afternoon
perhaps "
" 'T ain't either ! " broke in Johnny
promptly. " Theth 's over ther beyond the
thchool, and Crethy 's eatin' ithecream at
the bakerth with Uncle Ben."
" Well, suppose she is, Seth don't know
it, silly ! " answered Rupert, sharply. Then
more politely to the master : " That 's it !
Seth has seen Uncle Ben gallivanting with
Cressy and thinks he 's bringing her over
yer. Don't you see ? "
The master however did not see but one
thing. The girl who had only two days ago
carelessly left it to him to explain a com-
promising situation to her mother this
girl who had precipitated him into a frontier
fight to the peril of his position and her
good name, was calmly eating ices with an
available suitor without the least concern of
the past ! The connection was perhaps illog-
ical, but it was unpleasant. It was the
more awkward from the fact that he fancied
that not only Rupert's beautiful eyes, but
even the infant Johnny's round ones, were
CSESS7. 211
fixed upon him with an embarrassed expres-
sion of hesitating and foreboding sympathy.
" I think Johnny believes what he says
don't you, Johnny ? " he smiled with an
assumption of cheerful ease, " but I see no
necessity just yet for binding Seth Davis
over to keep the peace. Tell me about
yourself, Rupe. I hope Uncle Ben does n't
think of changing his young tutor with his
good fortune ? "
" No, sir," returned Rupert brightening ;
" he promises to take me to Sacramento with
him as his private secretary or confidential
clerk, you know, ef ef ' he hesitated
again with very un-Rupert-like caution, " ef
things go as he wants 'em." He stopped
awkwardly and his brown eyes became
clouded. " Like ez not, Mr. Ford, he 's
only foolin' me and himself." The
boy's eyes sought the master's curiously.
" I don't know about that," returned Mr.
Ford uneasily, with a certain recollection of
Uncle Ben's triumph over his own incredu-
lity ; " he surely has n't shown himself a fool
or a boaster so far- I consider your pros-
pect a very fair one, and I wish you joy of
it, my boy." He ran his fingers through
Rupert's curls in his old caressing fashion,
212 CRESS Y.
the more tenderly perhaps that he fancied
he still saw symptoms of stormy and wet
weather in the boy's brown eyes. " Run
along home, both of you, and don't worry
yourselves about me."
He turned away, but had scarcely pro-
ceeded half a dozen yards before he felt a
tug at his coat. Looking down he saw the
diminutive Johnny. "They '11 be comin'
home thith way," he said, reaching up in a
hoarse confidential whisper.
"Who?"
" Crethy and 'im."
But before the master could make any
response to this presumably gratifying in-
formation, Johnny had rejoined his brother.
The two boys waved their hands towards
him with the same diffident and mysterious
sympathy that left him hesitating between a
smile and a frown. Then he proceeded on
his way. Nevertheless, for no other reason
than that he felt a sudden distaste to meet-
ing any one, when he reached the point
where the trail descended directly to the
settlement, he turned into a longer and
more solitary detour by the woods.
The sun was already so low that its long
rays pierced the forest from beneath, and
CRE8ST. 213
suffused the dim colonnade of straight pine
shafts with a golden haze, while it left the
dense intercrossed branches fifty feet above
in deeper shadow. Walking in this yellow
twilight, with his feet noiselessly treading
down the yielding carpet of pine needles, it
seemed to the master that he was passing
through the woods in a dream. There was
no sound but the dull intermittent double
knock of the wood -pecker, or the drowsy
croak of some early roosting bird ; all sug-
gestion of the settlement, with all traces of
human contiguity, were left far behind. It
was therefore with a strange and nervous
sense of being softly hailed by some wood-
land sprite that he seemed to hear his own
name faintly wafted upon the air. He
turned quickly ; it was Cressy, panting be-
hind him ! Even then, in her white closely
gathered skirts, her bared head and graceful
arching neck bent forward, her flying braids
freed from the straw hat which she had
swung from her arm so as not to impede her
flight, there was so much of the following
Maenad about her that he was for an instant
startled.
He stopped; she bounded to him, and
throwing her arms around his neck with a
214 CSJS88Y.
light laugh, let herself hang for a moment
breathless on his breast. Then recovering
her speech she said slowly :
" I started on an Injin trot after you, just
as you turned off the trail, but you 'd got
so far ahead while I was shaking myself
clear of Uncle Ben that I had to jist lope
the whole way through the woods to catch
up." She stopped, and looking up into his
troubled face caught his cheeks between her
hands, and bringing his knit brows down
to the level of her humid blue eyes said,
" You have n't kissed me yet. What 's the
matter ? "
" Does n't it strike you that / might ask
that question, considering that it 's three
days since I 've seen you, and that you left
me, in a rather awkward position, to explain
matters to your mother ? " he said coldly.
He had formulated the sentence in his mind
some moments before, but now that it was
uttered, it appeared singularly weak and
impotent.
44 That 's so," she said with a frank laugh,
burying her face in his waistcoat. " You
see, dandy boy " his pet name "I reck-
oned for that reason we 'd better lie low for
a day or two. Well," she continued, unty-
CRESS F. 215
ing Iris cravat and retying it again, " how
dm you crawl out of it ? "
" Do you mean to say your mother did
not tell you ? " he asked indignantly.
"Why should she?" returned Cressy
lazily. " She never talks to me of these
things, honey."
" And you knew nothing about it ? "
Cressy shook her head, and then winding
one of her long braids around the young
man's neck, offered the end of it to his
mouth, and on his sternly declining it, took
it in her own.
Yet even her ignorance of what had really
happened did not account to the master for
the indifference of her long silence, and
albeit conscious of some inefficiency in his
present unheroic attitude, he continued sar-
casticaJly, " May I ask what you imagined
would happen when you left me ? "
" Well," said Cressy confidently, " I reck-
oned, chile, you could lie as well as the
next man, and that, being gifted, you 7 d sling
Maw something new and purty. Why, /
ain't got no fancy, but I fixed up something
against Paw's questioning me. I made that
conceited Masters promise to swear that he
was in the barn with me. Then I calculated
216 CRESS T.
to tell Paw that you came meandering along
lust before Maw popped in, and that I ske-
daddled to join Masters. Of course," she
added quickly, tightening her hold of the
master as he made a sudden attempt at with-
drawal, " I did n't let on to Masters why I
wanted him to promise, or that you were
there."
" Cressy," said Ford, irritated beyond meas-
ure, " are you mad, or do you think I am ? "
The girl's face changed. She cast a half
frightened, half questioning glance at his
eyes and then around the darkening aisle.
" If we 're going to quarrel, Jack," she said
hurriedly, " don't let 's do it lef ore folks."
" In the name of Heaven," he said, follow-
ing her eyes indignantly, " what do you
mean?"
" I mean," she said, with a slight shiver of
resignation and scorn, " if you oh dear ! if
it 's all going to be like them, let 's keep it
to ourselves."
He gazed at her in hopeless bewilderment.
Did she really mean that she was more
frightened at the possible revelation of their
disagreement than of their intimacy ?
" Come," she continued tenderly, still glan-
cing, however, uneasily around her, " come !
CRESS Y. 217
We '11 be more comfortable in the hollow.
It 's only a step." Still holding him by her
braid she half led, half dragged him away.
To the right was one of those sudden depres-
sions in the ground caused by the subsidence
of the earth from hidden springs and the up-
rooting of one or two of the larger trees.
When she had forced him down this decliv-
ity below the level of the needle-strewn for-
est floor, she seated him upon a mossy root,
and shaking out her skirts in a half childlike,
half coquettish way, comfortably seated her-
self in his lap, with her arm supplementing
the clinging braid around his neck.
"Now hark to me, and don't holler so
loud," she said turning his face to her ques-
tioning eyes. " What 's gone of you any-
way, nigger boy ? " It should be premised
that Cressy's terms of endearment were
mainly negro-dialectical, reminiscences of
her brief babyhood, her slave-nurse, and the
only playmates she had ever known.
Still implacable, the master coldly re-
peated the counts of his indictment against
the girl's strange indifference and still stran-
ger entanglements, winding up by setting
forth the whole story of his interview with
her mother, his forced defence of the barn,
218 CRE88Y.
Seth'a outspoken accusation, and their silent
and furious struggle in the loft. But if he
had expected that this daughter of a South-
western fighter would betray any enthusiasm
over her lover's participation in one of their
characteristic feuds if he looked for any
fond praise for his own prowess, he was bit-
terly mistaken. She loosened her arm from
his neck of her own accord, unwound the
braid, and putting her two little hands
clasped between her knees, crossed her small
feet before her, and, albeit still in his lap,
looked the picture of languid dejection.
" Maw ought to have more sense, and you
ought to have lit out of the window after
me," she said with a lazy sigh. " Fightin'
ain't in your line it 's too much like them.
That Seth 's sure to get even with you."
" I can protect myself," he said haughtily.
Nevertheless he had a depressing conscious-
ness that his lithe and graceful burden was
somewhat in the way of any heroic expres-
sion.
" Seth can lick you out of your boots,
chile," she said with naive abstraction.
Then, as he struggled to secure an upright
position, " Don't git riled, honey. Of course
you 'd let them kill you before you 'd give
CRESSY. 219
in. But that 's their best holt that 's their
trade ! That 's all they can do don't you
see ? That 's where you 're not like them
that 's why you 're not their low down kind !
That 's why you 're my boy that 's why
I love you ! "
She had thrown her whole weight again
upon his shoulders until she had forced him
back to his seat. Then, with her locked
hands again around his neck, she looked in-
tently into his face. The varying color
dropped from her cheeks, her eyes seemed to
grow larger, the same look of rapt absorp-
tion and possession that had so transfigured
her young face at the ball was fixed upon it
now. Her lips parted slightly, she seemed
to murmur rather than speak :
" What are these people to us ? What
are Seth's jealousies, Uncle Ben's and Mas-
ters's foolishness, Paw and Maw's quarr'ls
and tantrums to you and me, dear ? What
is it what they think, what they reckon,
what they plan out, and what they set them-
selves against to us? We love each
other, we belong to each other, without their
help or their hindrance. From the time we
first saw each other it was so, and from that
time Paw and Maw, and Seth and Masters,
220 CRESS Y.
and even you and me, dear, had nothing
else to do. That was love as I know it ; not
Seth's sneaking rages, and Uncle Ben's
sneaking fooleries, and Masters's sneaking
conceit, but only love. And knowing that,
I let Seth rage, and Uncle Ben dawdle, and
Masters trifle and for what ? To keep
them from me and my boy. They were
satisfied, and we were happy."
Vague and unreasoning as he knew her
speech to be, the rapt and perfect conviction
with which it was uttered staggered him.
" But how is this to end, Cressy ? " he
said passionately.
The abstracted look passed, and the slight
color and delicate mobility of her face re-
turned. " To end, dandy boy ? " she re-
peated lazily. " You did n't think of marry-
ing me did you ? "
He blushed, stammered, and said " Yes,"
plbeit with all his past vacillation and his
present distrust of her, transparent on his
cheek and audible in his voice.
"No, dear," she said quietly, reaching
down, untying her little shoe and shaking
the dust and pine needles from its recesses,
" no ! I don't know enough to be a wife to
you, just now, and you know it. And I
CRESS T. 221
could n't keep a house fit for you, and you
could n't afford to keep me without it. And
then it would be all known, and it would n't
be us two, dear, and our lonely meetings any
more. And we could n't be engaged that
would be too much like me and Seth over
again. That 's what you mean, dandy boy
for you 're only a dandy boy, you know,
and they don't get married to back wood
Southern girls who have n't a nigger to bless
themselves with since the war! No," she
continued, lifting her proud little head so
promptly after Ford had recovered from his
surprise as to make the ruse of emptying her
shoe perfectly palpable, "no, that's what
we 've both allowed, dear, all along. And
now, honey, it 's near time for me to go.
Tell me something good before I go. Tell
me that you love me as you used to tell
me how you felt that night at the ball when
you first knew we loved each other. But
stop kiss me first there, once more
for keeps."
CHAPTER XL
WHEN Uncle Ben, or "Benjamin Dau-
bigny, Esq.," as he was already known in
the columns of the " Star," accompanied
Miss Cressy McKinstry on her way home
after the first display of attention and hos-
pitality since his accession to wealth and po*
sition, he remained for some moments in a
state of bewildered and smiling idiocy. It
was true that their meeting was chance and
accidental ; it was true that Cressy had ac-
cepted his attention with lazy amusement;
it was true that she had suddenly and au-
daciously left him on the borders of the
McKinstry woods in a way that might have
seemed rude and abrupt to any escort less
invincibly good - humored than Uncle Ben,
but none of these things marred his fatuous
felicity. It is even probable that in his
gratuitous belief that his timid attentions
had been too marked and impulsive, he at-
tributed Cressy's flight to a maidenly coy-
ness that pleasurably increased his admira-
CRES8Y. 223
tion for her and his confidence in himself.
In his abstraction of enjoyment and in the
gathering darkness he ran against a fir-tree
very much as he had done while walking
with her, and he confusedly apologized to it
as he had to her, and by her own appella-
tion. In this way he eventually overran
his trail and found himself unexpectedly
and apologetically in the clearing before the
school-house.
" Ef this ain't the singlerest thing, miss,"
he said, and then stopped suddenly. A
faint noise in the school-house like the sound
of splintered wood attracted his attention.
The master was evidently there. If he was
alone he would speak to him.
He went to the window, looked in, and in
an instant his amiable abstraction left him.
He crept softly to the door, tried it, and then
putting his powerful shoulder against the
panel, forced the lock from its fastenings.
He entered the room as Seth Davis, fright-
ened but furious, lifted himself from before
the master's desk which he had just broken
open. He had barely time to conceal some-
thing in his pocket and close the lid again
before Uncle Ben approached him.
" What mouut ye be doin' here, Seth
224 CRESS T.
Davis?" he asked with the slow delibera-
tion which in that locality meant mischief.
** And what mouut you be doin' here, Mis-
ter Ben Dabney? " said Seth, resuming his
effrontery.
"Well," returned Uncle Ben, planting
himself in the aisle before his opponent,
" I ain't doin' no sheriff's posse business jest
now, but I reckon to keep my hand in far
enuff to purtect other folks' property," he
added, with a significant glance at the broken
lock of the desk.
" Ben Dabney," said Seth in snarling ex-
postulation, " I hain't got no quar'll with
ye!"
" Then hand me over whatever you took
just now from teacher's desk and we '11 talk
about that afterwards," said Uncle Ben ad-
vancing.
" I tell ye I hain't got no quar'll with ye,
Uncle Ben," continued Seth, retreating with
a malignant sneer ; " and when you talk of
protectin' other folks' property, mebbe ye 'd
better protect your own or what ye 'd like
to call so instead of quar'llin' with the
man that's helpin' ye. I've got yer the
proofs that that sneakin' hound of a Yankee
school-master that Cress McKinstry's hell
CRESS 7. 225
bent on, and that the old man and old
woman are just chuckin' into her arms, is a
lyin', black-hearted, hypocritical seducer "
" Stop ! " said Uncle Ben in a voice that
made the crazy casement rattle.
He strode towards Seth Davis, no longer
with his habitual careful, hesitating step,
but with a tread that seemed to shake the
whole school -room. A single dominant
clutch of his powerful right hand on the
young man's breast forced him backwards
into the vacant chair of the master. His
usually florid face had grown as gray as the
twilight; his menacing form in a moment
filled the litt 1 ^ room and darkened the win-
dows. Then in some inexplicable reaction
his figure slightly drooped, he laid one heavy
hand tremblingly on the desk, and with the
other affected to wipe his mouth after his
old embarrassed fashion.
" What 's that you were sayin' o' Cressy ? "
he said huskily.
" Wot everybody says," said the fright-
ened Seth, gaining a cowardly confidence un-
der his adversary's emotion. "Wot every
cub that sets yer under his cantin' teachin',
and sees 'em together, knows. It 's wot
you 'd hev knowed ef he and Roop Filgep
v. 24 H Bret Harte
226 CRE88T.
hadn't played ye fer a softy all the time.
And while you Ve bin hangin' round yer
fer a flicker of Cressy's gownd as she prances
out o' school, he 's bin lyin' low and laffin' at
ye, and while he 's turned Roop over to keep
you here, pretendin' to give ye lessons, he 's
bin gallivantin' round with her and huggin'
and kissin' her in barns and in the brush
and now you want to quar'll with me."
He stopped, panting for breath, and stared
malignantly in the gray face of his hearer.
But Uncle Ben only lifted his heavy hand
mildly with an awkward gesture of warning,
stepped softly in his old cautious hesitating
manner to the open door, closed it, and re-
turned gently :
" I reckon ye got in through the winder,
did n't ye, Seth ? " he said, with a labored
affectation of unemotional ease, " a kind o'
one leg over, and one, two, and then you 're
in, eh ? "
" Never you mind how I got in, Ben Dab-
ney," returned Seth, his hostility and inso-
lence increasing with his opponent's evident
weakness, " ez long ez I got yer and got, by
G d ! what I kem here fer ! For whiles
all this was goin' on, and whiles the old fool
man and old fool woman was swallowin'
CRESS T. 227
what they did see and blinkin' at what they
did n't, and huggin' themselves that they 'd
got high-toned kempany fer their darter,
that high-toned kempany was playin' them
too, by G d ! Yes, sir ! that high-toned,
cantin' school-teacher was keepin' a married
woman in 'Frisco, all the while he was here
honey-foglin' with Cressy, and I Ve got the
papers yer to prove it." He tapped his
breast-pocket with a coarse laugh and thrust
his face forward into the gray shadow of his
adversary's.
" An' you sorter spotted their bein' in this
yer desk and bursted it ? " said Uncle Ben,
gravely examining the broken lock in the
darkness as if it were the most important
feature of the incident.
Seth nodded. " You bet your life. I saw
him through the winder only this afternoon
lookin over 'em alone, and I reckoned to lay
my hands on 'em if I had to bust him or his
desk. And I did ! " he added with a trium-
phant chuckle.
" And you did sure pop ! " said Uncle
Ben with slow deliberate admiration, passing
his heavy hand along the splintered lid.
"And you reckon, Seth, that this yer
showin' of him up will break off enythin' be-
228 CRESS T.
twixt him and this yer this yer Miss
Miss McKinstry?" he continued with la-
bored formality.
" I reckon ef the old fool McKinstry don't
shoot him in his tracks thar '11 be white men
enough in Injin Springs to ride this high-
toned, pizenous hypocrit on a rail outer the
settlement ! "
" That 's so ! " said Uncle Ben musingly,
after a thoughtful pause, in which he still
seemed to be more occupied with the broken
desk than his companion's remark. Then
he went on cautiously : " And ez this thing
orter be worked mighty fine, Seth, pYaps,
on the hull, you 'd better let me have them
papers."
"What! You?" snarled Seth, drawing
back with a glance of angry suspicion ; " not
if I know it ! "
" Seth," said Uncle Ben, resting his elbows
on the desk confidentially, and speaking with
painful and heavy deliberation, " when you
first interdoosed this yer subject you elluded
to my hevin', so to speak, rights o' preemp-
tion and interference with this young lady,
and that in your opinion, I was n't purtectin'
them rights. It 'pears to me that, allowin'
that to be gospel truth, them ther papers
CR8SY. 229
orter be in my possession you hevin' so
to speak no rights to purtect, bein* off the
board with this yer young lady, and bein'
moved gin'rally by free and independent
cussedness. And ez I sed afore, this sort o'
thing havin' to be worked mighty fine, and
them papers manniperlated with judgment,
I reckon, Seth, if you don't objeck, I '11 hev
hev to trouble you."
Seth started to his feet with a rapid glance
at the door, but Uncle Ben had risen again
with the same alarming expression of com-
pletely filling the darkened school-room, and
of shaking the floor beneath him at the
slightest movement. Already he fancied he
saw Uncle Ben's powerful arm hovering
above him ready to descend. It suddenly
occurred to him that if he left the execution
of his scheme of exposure and vengeance to
Uncle Ben, the onus of stealing the letters
would fall equally upon their possessor.
This advantage seemed more probable than
the danger of Uncle Ben's weakly yielding
them up to the master. In the latter case
he, Seth, could still circulate the report of
having seen the letters which Uncle Ben had
himself stolen in a fit of jealousy a hy-
pothesis the more readily accepted from the
230 CRESS Y.
latter's familiar knowledge of the school-
house and his presumed ambitious jealousy
of Cressy in his present attitude as a man of
position. With affected reluctance and hes-
itation he put his hand to his breast-pocket.
" Of course," he said, " if you 're kalki-
latin' to take up the quar'll on your rights,
and ez Cressy ain't anythin' more to me, you
orter hev the proofs. Only don't trust them
into that hound's hands. Once he gets 'em
again he '11 secure a warrant agin you for
stealin'. That '11 be his game. I "d show
'em to her first don't ye see? and I
reckon ef she 's old Ma'am McKinstry's dar-
ter, she '11 make it lively for him."
He handed the letters to the looming fig-
ure before him. It seemed to become again
a yielding mortal, and said in a hesitating
voice, " P'r'aps you 'd better make tracks
outer this, Seth, and leave me yer to put
things to rights and fix up that door and the
desk agin to-morrow mornin'. He 'd better
not know it to onct, and so start a row about
bein' broken into."
The proposition seemed to please Seth ;
he even extended his hand in the darkness.
But he met only an irresponsive void. With
a slight shrug of his shoulders and a grunt-
CRESS Y. 231
ing farewell, he felt his way to the door and
disappeared. For a few moments it seemed
as if Uncle Ben had also deserted the school-
house, so profound and quiet was the hush
that fell upon it. But as the eye became ac-
customed to the shadow a grayish bulk ap-
peared to grow out of it over the master's
desk and shaped itself into the broad figure
of Uncle Ben. Later, when the moon rose
and looked in at the window, it saw him as
the master had seen him on the first day he
had begun his lessons in the school-house,
with his face bent forward over the desk and
the same look of child-like perplexity and
struggle that he had worn at his allotted
task. Unheroic, ridiculous, and no doubt
blundering and idiotic as then, but still
vaguely persistent in his thought, he re-
mained for some moments in this attitude.
Then rising and taking advantage of the
moonlight that flooded the desk, he set him-
self to mend the broken lock with a large
mechanical clasp-knife he produced from his
pocket, and the aid of his workmanlike
thumb and finger. Presently he began to
whistle softly, at first a little artificially and
with relapses of reflective silence. The lock
of the desk restored, he secured into position
282 CRESB7.
again that part of the door-lock which he had
burst off in his entrance. This done, he
closed the door gently and once more stepped
out into the moonlit clearing. In replacing
his knife in his pocket he took out the letters
which he had not touched since they were
handed to him in the darkness. His first
glance at the handwriting caused him to
stop. Then still staring at it, he began to
move slowly and automatically backwards
to the porch. When he reached it he sat
down, unfolded the letter, and without at-
tempting to read it, turned its pages over and
over with the unfamiliarity of an illiterate
man in search of the signature. This when
found apparently plunged him again into mo-
tionless abstraction. Only once he changed
his position to pull up the legs of his trous-
ers, open his knees, and extend the distance
between his feet, and then with the unfolded
pages carefully laid in the moonlit space
thus opened before him, regarded them with
dubious speculation. At the end of ten min-
utes he rose with a sigh of physical and
mental relaxation, refolded the letter, put it
in his pocket, and made his way to the town.
When he reached the hotel he turned into
the bar-room, and observing that it happened
CRESS Y. 233
to be comparatively deserted, asked for a
glass of whiskey. In response to the bar-
keeper's glance of curiosity as Uncle Ben
seldom drank, and then only as a social
function with others he explained :
"I reckon straight whiskey is about ez
good ez the next thing for blind chills."
The bar-keeper here interposed that in his
larger medical experience he had found t'he
exhibition of ginger in combination with gin
attended with effect, although it was evident
that in his business capacity he regarded
Uncle Ben, as a drinker, with distrust.
" Ye ain't seen Mr. Ford hanging round
yer lately ? " continued Uncle Ben with la-
borious ease.
The bar-keeper, with his eye still scorn-
fully fixed on his customer, but his hands
which were engaged in washing his glasses
under the counter giving him the air of hu-
morously communicating with a hidden con-
federate, had not seen the school-master that
afternoon.
Uncle Ben turned away and slowly
mounted the staircase to the master's room.
After a moment's pause on the landing,
which must have been painfully obvious to
any one who heard his heavy ascent, he gave
234 CRE8SY.
two timid raps on the door which were
equally ridiculous in contrast with his pow-
erful tread. The door was opened promptly
by the master.
" Oh, it 's you, is it ? " he said shortly.
" Come in."
Uncle Ben entered without noticing the
somewhat ungracious form of invitation.
" It war me," he said, " dropped in, not
finding ye downstairs. Let 's have a drink."
The master gazed at Uncle Ben, who,
owing to his abstraction, had not yet wiped
his mouth of the liquor he had imperfectly
swallowed, and was in consequence more
redolent of whiskey than a confirmed toper.
He rang the bell for the desired refreshment
with a slightly cynical smile. He was sat-
isfied that his visitor, like many others of
humble position, was succumbing to his good
fortune.
" I wanted to see ye, Mr. Ford," he be-
gan, taking an unproffered chair and depos-
iting his hat after some hesitation outside
the door, " in regard to what I onct told ye
about my wife in Mizzouri. P'r'aps you
disremember ? '
" I remember, ' returned the master re-
signedly.
CRESSY. 235
"You know it was that arternoon that
fool Stacey sent the sheriff and the Harri-
sons over to McKinstry's barn."
" Go on ! " petulantly said the master, who
had his own reasons for not caring to re-
call it.
" It was that arternoon, you know, that
you had n't time to hark to me hevin' to
go off on an engagement," continued Uncle
Ben with protracted deliberation, " and "
" Yes, yes, I remember," interrupted the
master exasperatedly, " and really unless you
get on faster, I '11 have to leave you again."
" It was that arternoon," said Uncle Ben
without heeding him, " when I told you I
hadn't any idea what had become o' my
wife ez I left in Mizzouri."
"Yes," said the master sharply, "and 1
told you it was your bounden duty to look
for her."
" That 's so," said Uncle Ben nodding
comfortably, " them ' s your very words ; on'y
a leetle more strong than that, ef I don't
disremember. Well, I reckon I Ve got an
idee ! " The master assumed a sudden ex-
pression of interest, but Uncle Ben did not
vary his monotonous tone.
u I kem across that idee, so to speak, on
236 CRESS r,
the trail. I kem across it in some letters ez
was lying wide open in the brush. I picked
'em up and I Ve got 'em here."
He slowly took the letters from his pocket
with one hand, while he dragged the chair
on which he was sitting beside the master.
But with a quick flush of indignation Mr.
Ford rose and extended his hand.
" These are my letters, Dabney," he said
sternly, " stolen from my desk. Who has
dared to do this ? "
But Untie Ben had, as if accidentally, in-
terposed his elbow between the master and
Seth's spoils.
" Then it 's all right ? " he returned delib-
erately. "I brought 'em here because I
thought they might give an idee where my
wife was. For them letters is in her own
handwrite. You remember ez I told ez how
she was a scollard."
The master sat back in his chair white
and dumb. Incredible, extraordinary, and
utterly unlocked for as was this revelation,
he felt instinctively that it was true.
" I could n't read it myself ez you
know. I did n't keer to ax any one else to
read it for me you kin reckon why, too.
And that 's why I 'm troublin' you to-night,
Mr. Ford ez a friend."
CRESS T 237
The master with a desperate effort re-
covered his voice. "It is impossible> The
lady who wrote those letters does not bear
your name. More than that, ' ne added
with hasty irrelevance, (t she is so free that
she is about to be married, as you might
have read. You have made a mistake the
handwriting may be like, but it cannot be
really your wife's. '
Uncle Ben shook his head slowly. '-' It 's
hern there s no mistake. When a man,
Mr. Ford, hez studied that hand write
havin", so to speak, knowed it on'y from the
outside from seein' it passin* like between
friends that man's chances o' bein' mis-
took ain't ez great ez the man's who ony
takes in the sense of the words that might
b'long to everybody. And her name not
bein' the same ez mine, don't foller. Ef
she got a divorce she'd take her old gal's
name the name of her fammerly. And
that would seem to allow she did get a di-
vorce. What mowt she hev called herself
when she writ this ? "
The master saw his opportunity and rose
to it with a chivalrous indignation, that for
the moment imposed even upon himself.
ic I decline to answer that question," he said
238 CREBST.
angrily. "I refuse to allow the name of
any woman who honors me with her confi-
dence to be dragged into the infamous out-
rage that has been committed upon me and
common decency. And I shall hold the
thief and scoundrel whoever he may be
answerable to myself in the absence of
her natural protector."
Uncle Ben surveyed the hero of these
glittering generalities with undisguised ad-
miration. He extended his hand to him
gravely.
" Shake ! Ef another proof was wanting
Mr. Ford, of that bein' my wife's letter," he
said, " that high-toned style of yours would
settle it. For, ef thar was one thing she did
like, it was that sort of po'try. And one
reason why her and me did n't get on, and
why I skedaddled, was because it was n't in
my line. Et 's all in trainin' ! On'y a man
ez had the Fourth Reader at his fingers'
ends could talk like that. Bein' brought
up on Dobell ez is nowhere it sorter
lets me outer you, ez it did outer her. But
allowin' it ain't the square thing for you
to mention her name, that would n't be
nothin' agin' my doin' it, and callin' her,
well Lou Price in a keerless sort o' way,
eh ? "
CRESS T. 239
" I decline to answer further," replied
the master quickly, although his color had
changed at the name. " I decline to say
another word on the matter until this mys-
tery is cleared up until I know who dared
to break into my desk and steal my prop-
erty, and the purpose of this unheard-of out-
rage. And I demand possession of those
letters at once*"
Uncle Ben without a word put them in
the master's hand, to his slight surprise,
and it must be added to his faint discomfit-
ure, nor was it decreased when Uncle Ben
added, with grave naivete and a patronizing
pressure of his hand on his shoulder, "In
course ez you 're taken' it on to yourself, and
ez Lou Price ain't got no further call on me,
they orter be yours. Ez to who got ? em
outer the desk, I reckon you ain't got no
suspicion of any one spyin' round ye hev
ye?"
In an instant the recollection of Seth
Davis' s face at the window and the corrob-
oration of Rupert's warning flashed across
Ford's mind. The hypothesis that Seth
had imagined that they were Cressy's let-
ters, and had thrown them down without
reading them when he had found out his
240 CRESS Y.
mistake, seemed natural. For if he had
read them he would undoubtedly have kept
them to show to Cressy. The complex emo-
tions that had disturbed the master on the
discovery of Uncle Ben's relationship to the
writer of the letters were resolving them-
selves into a furious rage at Seth. But be-
fore he dared revenge himself he must be
first assured that Seth was ignorant of their
contents. He turned to Uncle Ben.
"I have a suspicion, but to make it cer-
tain I must ask you for the present to say
nothing of this to any one."
Uncle Ben nodded. " And when you hev
found out and you 're settled in your mind
that you kin make my mind easy about this
yer Lou Price, ez we '11 call her, bein' di-
vorced squarely, and bein', so to speak, in
the way o' gettin' married agin, ye might
let me know ez a friend. I reckon I
won't trouble you any more to-night on-
less you and me takes another sociable drink
together in the bar. No? Well, then,
good - night." He moved slowly towards
the door. With his hand on the lock he
added: "Ef yer writin' to her agin, you
might say ez how you found me lookin' well
and coinf'able, and hopin' she 's enjyin' the
same blessin'. 'So long."
CRESST. 241
He disappeared, leaving the master in a
hopeless collapse of conflicting, and, it is to be
feared, not very heroic emotions. The situa-
tion, which had begun so dramatically, had
become suddenly unromantically ludicrous,
without, however, losing any of its embar-
rassing quality. He was conscious that he
occupied the singular position of being more
ridiculous than the husband whose invin-
cible and complacent simplicity stung him
like the most exquisite irony. For an in-
stant he was almost goaded into the fury of
declaring that he had broken off from the
writer of the letters forever, but its incon-
sistency with the chivalrous attitude he had
just taken occurred to him in time to pre-
vent him from becoming doubly absurd.
His rage with Seth Davis seemed to him the
only feeling left that was genuine and ra-
tional, and yet, now that Uncle Ben had
gone, even that had a spurious ring. It was
necessary for him to lash himself into a fury
over the hypothesis that the letters might
have been Cressy's, and desecrated by that
scoundrel's touch. Perhaps he had read
them and left them to be picked up by
others. He looked over them carefully to
see if their meaning would, to the ordinary
242 CHESS T.
reader, appear obvious and compromising.
His eye fell on the first paragraph.
" I should not be quite fair with you,
Jack, if I affected to disbelieve in your faith
in your love for me and its endurance, but
I should be still more unfair if I did n't tell
you what I honestly believe, that at your
age you are apt to deceive yourself, and,
without knowing it, to deceive others. You
confess you have not yet decided upon your
career, and you are always looking forward
so hopefully, dear Jack, for a change in the
future, but you are willing to believe that
far more serious things than that will suf-
fer no change in the mean time. If we con-
tinued as we were, I, who am older than you
and have more experience, might learn the
misery of seeing you change towards me as
I have changed towards another, and for
the same reason. If I were sure I could
keep pace with you in your dreams and
your ambition, if I were sure that I always
knew what they were, we might still be
happy but I am not sure, and 1 dare not
again risk my happiness on an uncertainty.
In coming to my present resolution I do
not look for happiness, but at least I know
I shall not suffer disappointment, nor in-
CRESS T. 243
volve others in it. I confess I am growing
too old not to feel the value to a woman
a necessity to her in this country of se-
curity in her present and future position.
Another can give me that. And although
you may call this a selfish view of our rela-
tions, I believe that you will soon if you
do not, even as you read this now feel
the justice of it, and thank me for taking
it."
With a smile of scorn he tore up the let-
ter, in what he fondly believed was the bit-
terness of an outraged trustful nature, for-
getting that for many weeks he had scarcely
thought of its writer, and that he himself
in his conduct had already anticipated its
truths.
CHAPTER XII.
THE master awoke the next morning,
albeit after a restless night, with that clarity
of conscience and perception which it is to
be feared is more often the consequence of
youth and a perfect circulation than of any
moral conviction or integrity. He argued
with himself that as the only party really
aggrieved in the incident of the previous
night, the right of remedy remained with
him solely, and under the benign influence
of an early breakfast and the fresh morning
air he was inclined to feel less sternly even
towards Seth Davis. In any event, he must
first carefully weigh the evidence against
him, and examine the scene of the outrage
closely. For this purpose, he had started
for the school-house fully an hour before his
usual time. He was even light-hearted
enough to recognize the humorous aspect of
Uncle Ben's appeal to him, and his own
ludicrously paradoxical attitude, and as he
at last passed from the dreary flat into the
CUES ST. 245
fringe of upland pines, he was smiling.
Well for him, perhaps, that he was no more
affected by any premonition of the day be-
fore him than the lately awakened birds that
lightly cut the still sleeping woods around
him in their long flashing sabre-curves of
flight. A yellow-throat, destined to become
the breakfast of a lazy hawk still swinging
above the river, was especially moved to such
a causeless and idiotic roulade of mirth that
the master listening to the foolish bird was
fain to whistle too. He presently stopped,
however, with a slight embarrassment. For
a few paces before him Cressy had unex-
pectedly appeared.
She had evidently been watching for him.
But not with her usual indolent confidence.
There was a strained look of the muscles of
her mouth, as of some past repression, and
a shaded hollow under her temples beneath
the blonde rings of her shorter hair. Her
habitually slow, steady eye was troubled, and
she cast a furtive glance around her before
she searched him with her glance. Without
knowing why, yet vaguely fearing that he
did, he became still more embarrassed, and
in the very egotism of awkwardness, stam-
mered without a further salutation : " A dis-
246 CRE8SY.
graceful thing has happened last night, and
I 'm up early to find the perpetrator. My
desk was broken into, and "
" I know it," she interrupted, with a half-
impatient, half uneasy putting away of the
subject with her little hand " there don't
go all over it again. Paw and Maw have
been at me about it all night ever since
those Harrisons in their anxiousness to make
up their quarrel, rushed over with the news.
I 'm tired of it ! "
For an instant he was staggered. How
much had she learned ! With the same
awkward indirectness, he said vaguely, " But
it might have been your letters, you know ? "
" But it was n't," she said, simply. " It
ought to have been. I wish it had " She
stopped, and again regarded him with a
strange expression. " Well," she said slowly,
" what are you going to do ? "
" To find out the scoundrel who has done
this," he said firmly, " and punish him as he
deserves."
The almost imperceptible shrug that had
raised her shoulders gave way as she re-
garded him with a look of wearied compas-
sion.
"No," she said, gravely, "you cannot.
CRESS Y. 247
They're too many for you. You must go
away, at once."
" Never," he said indignantly. " Even if
it were not a cowardice. It would be more
a confession I "
" Not more than they already know," she
said wearily. " But, I tell you, you must
go. I have sneaked out of the house and
run here all the way to warn you. If you
you care for me, Jack you will go."
" I should be a traitor to you if I did," he
said quickly. " I shall stay."
"But if if Jack if" she drew
nearer him with a new-found timidity, and
then suddenly placed her two hands upon
his shoulders : "If if Jack / were to
go with you ? "
The old rapt, eager look of possession had
come back to her face now ; her lips were
softly parted. Yet even then she seemed to
be waiting some reply more potent than that
syllabled on the lips of the man before her.
Howbeit that was the only response.
" Darling," he said kissing her, " but would
n't that justify them "
" Stop," she said suddenly. Then putting
her hand over his mouth, she continued with
the same half-weary expression : " Don't let
248 CRESS Y.
us go over all that again either. It is so
tiresome. Listen, dear. You '11 do one or
two little things for me won't you, dandy
boy ? Don't linger long at the school-house
after lessons. Go right home ! Don't look
after these men to-day to-morrow, Satur-
day, is your holiday you know and you '11
have more time. Keep to yourself to-day as
much as you can, dear, for twelve hours
until until you hear from me, you know.
It will be all right then," she added, lifting
her eyelids with a sudden odd resemblance
to her father's look of drowsy pain, which
Ford had never noticed before. " Promise
me that, dear, won't you? "
With a mental reservation he promised
hurriedly preoccupied in his wonder why
she seemed to avoid his explanation, in his
desire to know what had happened, in the
pride that had kept him from asking more
or volunteering a defence, and in his still
haunting sense of having been wronged.
Yet he could not help saying as he caught
and held her hand :
" You have not doubted me, Cressy ? You
have not allowed this infamous raking up of
things that are past and gone to alter your
feelings ? "
CRESS r. 249
She looked at him abstractedly. " You
think it might alter anybody's feelings,
then?"
" Nobody 's who really loved another "
he stammered.
" Don't let us talk of it any more," she
said suddenly stretching out her arms, lifting
them above her head with a wearied gesture,
and then letting them fall clasped before her
in her old habitual fashion. " It makes my
head ache ; what with Paw and Maw and the
rest of them I/m sick of it all."
She turned away as Ford drew back coldly
and let her hand fall from his arm. She
took a few steps forward, stopped, ran back
to him again, crushed his face and head in a
close embrace, and then seemed to dip like a
bird into the tall bracken, and was gone.
The master stood for some moments cha-
grined and bewildered; it was character-
istic of his temperament that he had paid
less heed to what she told him than what he
imagined had passed between her mother
and herself. She was naturally jealous of
the letters he could forgive her for that ;
she had doubtless been twitted about them,
but he could easily explain them to her par-
ents as he would have done to her. But
250 CREBSY.
he was not such a fool as to elope with her
at such a moment, without first clearing his
character and knowing more of hers. And
it was equally characteristic of him that in
his sense of injury he confounded her with
the writer of the letters as sympathizing
with his correspondent in her estimate of his
character, and was quite carried away with
the belief that he was equally wronged by
both.
It was not until he reached the school-
house that the evidences of last night's out-
rage for a time distracted his mind from his
singular interview. He was struck with the
workmanlike manner in which the locks had
been restored, and the care that had evi-
dently been taken to remove the more obvi-
ous and brutal traces of burglary. This
somewhat staggered his theory that Seth
Davis was the perpetrator ; mechanical skill
and thoughtfulness were not among the
lout's characteristics. But he was still more
disconcerted on pushing back his chair to
find a small india-rubber tobacco pouch ly-
ing beneath it. The master instantly recog-
nized it : he had seen it a hundred times
before it was Uncle Ben's. It was not
there when he had closed the room yester-
CRESS Y. 251
day afternoon. Either Uncle Ben had been
there last night, or had anticipated him this
morning. But in the latter case he would
scarcely have overlooked his fallen property
that, in the darkness of the night, might
have readily escaped detection. His brow
darkened with a sudden conviction that it
was Uncle Ben who was the real and only
offender, and that his simplicity of the
previous night was part of his deception.
A sickening sense that he had been again
duped but why or to what purpose he
hardly dared to think overcame him.
Who among these strange people could he
ever again trust ? After the fashion of more
elevated individuals, he had accepted the
respect and kindness of those he believed
his inferiors as a natural tribute to his own
superiority; any change in their feelings
must therefore be hypocrisy or disloyalty ;
it never occurred to him that he might have
fallen below their standard.
The arrival of the children and the resump-
tion of his duties for a time diverted him.
But although the morning's exercise restored
the master's self-confidence, it cannot be said
to have improved his judgment. Disdain-
ing to question Rupert Filgee, as the possi-
252 CRESS T.
ble confidant of Uncle Ben, he answered the
curious inquiries of the children as to the
broken dooiiock with the remark that it was
a matter that he should have to bring before
the Trustees of the Board, and by the time
that school was over and the pupils dis-
missed he had quite resolved upon this for-
mal disposition of it. In spite of Cressy's
warning rather because of it in the
new attitude he had taken towards her and
her friends, he lingered in the school-house
until late. He had occupied himself in
drawing up a statement of the facts, with
an intimation that his continuance in the
school would depend upon a rigid investi-
gation of the circumstances, when he was
aroused by the clatter of horses' hoofs. The
next moment the school -house was sur-
rounded by a dozen men.
He looked up; half of them dismounted
and entered the room. The other half re-
mained outside darkening the windows with
their motionless figures. Each man carried
a gun before him on the saddle ; each man
wore a rude mask of black cloth partly cov-
ering his face.
Although the master was instinctively
aware that he was threatened by serious dan-
CRESS Y. 253
ger, he was far from being impressed by the
arms and disguise of his mysterious intru-
ders. On the contrary, the obvious and
glaring inconsistency of this cheaply theat-
rical invasion of the peaceful school-house ;
of this opposition of menacing figures to the
scattered childish primers and text -books
that still lay on the desks around him, only
extracted from him a half scornful smile as
he coolly regarded them. The fearlessness
of ignorance is often as unassailable as the
most experienced valor, and the awe-inspir-
ing invaders were at first embarrassed and
then humanly angry. A lank figure to the
right made a forward movement of impo-
tent rage, but was checked by the evident
leader of the party.
" Ef he likes to take it that way, there
ain't no Regulators law agin it, I reckon,"
he said, in a voice which the master instantly
recognized as Jim Harrison's, " though ez a
gin'ral thing they don't usually find it fun"
Then turning to the master he added, " Mis-
ter Ford, ef that 's the name you go by
everywhere, we 're wantin' a man about
your size."
Ford knew that he was in hopeless peril.
He knew that he was physically defenceless
254 CRESS Y.
and at the mercy of twelve armed and law-
less men. But he retained a preternatural
clearness of perception, and audacity born
of unqualified scorn for his antagonists, with
a feminine sharpness of tongue. In a voice
which astonished even himself by its contemp-
tuous distinctness, he said : " My name is
Ford, but as I only suppose your name is
Harrison perhaps you '11 be fair enough to
take that rag from your face and show it to
me like a man."
The man removed the mask from his face
with a slight laugh.
"Thank you," said Ford. "Now, per-
haps you will tell me which one of you gen-
tlemen broke into the school-house, forced
the lock of my desk, and stole my papers.
If he is here I wish to tell him he is not
only a thief, but a cur and a coward, for the
letters are a woman's whom he neither
knows nor has the right to know."
If he had hoped to force a personal quar-
rel and trust his life to the chance of a sin-
gle antagonist, he was disappointed, for al-
though his unexpected attitude had produced
some effect among the group, and even at-
tracted the attention of the men at the win-
dows, Harrison strode deliberately towards
him.
CRESS T, 255
" That kin wait," he said ; " jest now we
propose to take you and your letters and
drop 'em and you outer this yer township
of Injin Springs. You kin take 'em back
to the woman or critter you got 'em of. But
we kalkilate you 're a little too handy and
free in them sorter things to teach school
round yer, and we kinder allow we don't
keer to hev our gals and boys eddicated up
to your high-toned standard. So ef you
choose to kem along easy we '11 mak' you
comf 'ble on a hoss we 've got waitin' outside,
an' escort you across the line. Ef you don't
we '11 take you anyway."
The master cast a rapid glance around
him. In his quickness of perception he had
already noted that the led horse among the
cavalcade was fastened by a lariat to one of
the riders so that escape by flight was im-
possible, and that he had not a single
weapon to defend himself with or even pro-
voke, in his desperation, the struggle that
could forestall ignominy by death. Nothing
was left him but his voice, clear and tren-
chant as he faced them.
" You are twelve to one," he said calmly,
" but if there is a single man among you
who dare step forward and accuse me of
256 CRE8ST.
what you only together dare do, I will tell
him he is a liar and a coward, and stand
here ready to make it good against him.
You come here as judge and jury condemn-
ing me without trial, and confronting me
with no accusers ; you come here as lawless
avengers of your honor, and you dare not
give me the privilege of as lawlessly defend-
ing my own."
There was another slight murmur among
the men, but the leader moved impatiently
forward. " We 've had enough o' your
preachhr : we want you" he said roughly.
" Come."
" Stop," said a dull voice.
It came from a mute figure which had
remained motionless among the others.
Every eye was turned upon it as it rose and
lazily pushed the cloth from its face.
" Hiram McKinstry ! " said the others in
mingled tones of astonishment and sus-
picion.
" That 's me ! " said McKinstry, coming
forward with heavy deliberation. " I joined
this yer delegation at the cross-roads instead
o' my brother, who had the call. I reckon
et 's all the same or mebbe better. For I
perpose to take this yer gentleman off your
hand*."
CHESS Y. 257
He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first
time to the master, and at the same time put
himself between him and Harrison. " I
perpose," he continued, " to take him at his
word ; I perpose ter give him a chance to an-
swer with a gun. And ez I reckon, by all
accounts, there 's no man yer ez hez a better
right than we, I perpose to be the man to put
that question to him in the same way. Et
may not suit some gents," he continued
slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the
lank figure behind him, " ez would prefer to
hev eleven men to take up their private
quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man
who is the most injured hez the right to the
first say and that man 's me"
With a careful deliberation that had a
double significance to the malcontents, he
handed his own rifle to the master and with-
out looking at him continued : " I reckon,
sir, you 've seen that afore, but ef it ain't
quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kal-
kilate, will be high-toned enuff to giv you
the chyce o' theirs. And there 's no need o'
trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this
yer affair ; I perpose to do it in ten minutes
in the brush yonder."
Whatever might have been the feelings
v. 24 I Bret Harte
258 CUES ST.
and intentions of the men around him, the
precedence of McKinstry's right to the
duello was a principle too deeply rooted in
their traditions to deny ; if any resistance to
it had been contemplated by some of them,
the fact that the master was now armed,
and that Mr. McKinstry would quickly do
battle at his side with a revolver in defence
of his rights, checked any expression. They
silently drew back as the master and McKin-
stry slowly passed out of the school-house
together, and then followed in their rear.
In that interval the master turned to Mc-
Kinstry and said in a low voice : " I accept
your challenge and thank you for it. You
have never done me a greater kindness
whatever I have done to you yet I want
you to believe that neither now nor then -*-
I meant you any harm."
" Ef you mean by that, sir, that ye reckon
ye won't return my fire, ye 're blind and
wrong. For it will do you no good with
them," he said with a significant wave of his
crippled hand towards the following crowd,
" nor me neither."
Firmly resolved, however, that he would
not fire at McKinstry, and clinging blindly
to this which he believed was the last idea
CRESST. 259
of his foolish life, he continued on without
another word until they reached the open
strip of chemisal that flanked the clearing.
The rude preliminaries were soon settled.
The parties armed with rifles were to fire at
the word from a distance of eighty yards,
and then approach each other, continuing
the fight with revolvers until one or the
other fell. The selection of seconds was
effected by the elder Harrison acting for
McKinstry, and after a moment's delay by
the volunteering of the long, lank figure pre-
viously noted to act for the master. Preoccu-
pied by other thoughts, Mr. Ford paid little
heed to his self -elected supporter, who to the
others seemed to be only taking that method
of showing his contempt for McKinstry's re-
cent insult. The master received the rifle
mechanically from his hand and walked to
position. He noticed, however, and remem-
bered afterwards that his second was half
hidden by the trunk of a large pine to his
right that marked the limit of the ground.
In that supreme moment it must be re-
corded, albeit against all preconceived theory,
that he did not review his past life, was not
illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sen-
timental memory, and did not commend his
260 CRE8ST.
soul to his Maker, but that he was simply
and keenly alive to the very actual present
in which he still existed and to his one idea
of not firing at his adversary. And if any-
thing could render his conduct more theoret-
ically incorrect it was a certain exalted sense
that he was doing quite right and was not
only not a bad sort of fellow, but one whom
his survivors might possibly regret !
" Are you ready, gentlemen ? One
two three fi . . . ! "
The explosions were singularly simultane-
ous so remarkable in fact that it seemed
to the master that his rifle, fired in the air,
had given a double report. A light wreath
of smoke lay between him and his opponent.
He was unhurt so evidently was his ad-
versary, for the voice rose again.
" Advance ! . . . Hallo there ! Stop ! "
He looked up quickly to see McKinstry
stagger and then fall heavily to the ground.
With an exclamation of horror, the first
and only terrible emotion he had felt, he
ran to the fallen man, as Harrison reached
his side at the same moment.
" For God's sake," he said wildly, throw-
ing himself on his knees beside McKinstry,
" what has happened ? For I swear to you,
CUE 8 8 T. 261
I never aimed at you ! I fired in the air.
Speak ! Tell him, you," he turned with a
despairing appeal to Harrison, "you must
have seen it all tell him it was not me ! "
A half wondering, half incredulous smile
passed quickly over Harrison's face. "In
course you did n't mean it," he said dryly,
" but let that slide. Get up and get away
from yer, while you kin," he added impa-
tiently, with a significant glance at one or
two men who lingered after the sudden and
general dispersion of the crowd at McKin-
stry'sfall. " Get will ye ! "
" Never ! " said the young man passion-
ately, " until he knows that it was not my
hand that fired that shot."
McKinstry painfully struggled to his el-
bow. "It took me yere," he said with a
slow deliberation, as if answering some pre-
vious question, and pointing to his hip,
" and it kinder let me down when I started
forward at the second call."
" But it was not I who did it, McKinstry,
I swear it. Hear me ! For God's sake, say
you believe me."
McKinstry turned his drowsy troubled
eyes upon the master as if he were vaguely
recalling something. " Stand back thar a
262 CRE88T.
minit, will ye," he said to Harrison, with a
languid wave of his crippled hand ; " I want
ter speak to this yer man."
Harrison drew back a few paces and the
master sought to take the wounded man's
hand, but he was stopped by a gesture,
" Where hev you put Cressy ? " McKinstry
said slowly.
" 1 don't understand you," stammered
Ford.
" Where are you hidin' her from me ? "
repeated McKinstry with painful distinct-
ness. " Whar hev you run her to, that
you 're reckonin' to jine her arter arter
this?"
" I am not hiding her ! I am not going
to her ! I do not know where she is. I
have not seen her since we parted early this
morning without a word of meeting again,"
said the master rapidly, yet with a bewil-
dered astonishment that was obvious even to
the dulled faculties of his hearer.
" That war true ? " asked McKinstry, lay-
ing his hand upon the master's shoulder and
bringing his dull eyes to the level of the
young man's.
"It is the whole truth," said Ford fer-
vently, " and true also that I never raised
my hand against you."
CUE ss r. 263
McKinstry beckoned to Harrison and the
two others who had joined him, and then
sank partly back with his hand upon hie
side, where the slow empurpling of his red
shirt showed the slight ooze of a deeply-
seated wound.
"You fellers kin take me over to the
ranch," he said calmly, " and let him," point-
ing to Ford, "ride your best hoss fer the
doctor. I don't," he continued in grave ex-
planation, " gin'rally use a doctor, but this
yer is suthin' outside the old woman's regu-
lar gait." He paused, and then drawing the
master's head down towards him, he added
in his ear, " When I get to hev a look at the
size and shape o' this yer ball that 's in my
hip, I'll I'll I'll be a little more
kam ! " A gleam of dull significance strug-
gled into his eye. The master evidently un-
derstood him, for he rose quickly, ran to the
horse, mounted him and dashed off for med-
ical assistance, while McKinstry, closing his
heavy lids, anticipated this looked-for calm
by fainting gently away.
CHAPTER XIII.
OP the various sentimental fallacies en-
tertained by adult humanity in regard to
childhood, none are more ingeniously inac-
curate and gratuitously idiotic than a com-
fortable belief in its profound ignorance of
the events in which it daily moves, and the
motives and characters of the people who
surround it. Yet even the occasional reve-
lations of an enfant terrible are as nothing
compared to the perilous secrets which a dis-
creet infant daily buttons up, or secures
with a hook-and-eye, or even fastens with a
safety-pin across its gentle bosom. Society
can never cease to be grateful for that tact
and consideration qualities more often
joined with childish intuition and perception
than with matured observation that they
owe to it ; and the most accomplished man
or woman of the great world might take a
lesson from this little audience who receive
from their lips the lie they feel too palpable,
with round-eyed complacency, or outwardly
CRESS r. 265
accept as moral and genuine the hollow sen-
timent they have overheard rehearsed in pri-
vate for their benefit.
It was not strange therefore that the lit-
tle people of the Indian Spring school knew
perhaps more of the real relations of Cressy
McKinstry to her admirers than the admir-
ers themselves. Not that this knowledge
was outspoken for children rarely gossip
in the grown-up sense or even communi-
cable by words intelligent to the matured
intellect. A whisper, a laugh that often
seemed vague and unmeaning, conveyed to
each other a world of secret significance, and
an apparently senseless burst of merriment
in which the whole class joined and that the
adult critic set down to " animal spirits "
a quality much more rare with children than
generally supposed was only a sympa-
thetic expression of some discovery happily
oblivious to older preoccupation. The child-
ish simplicity of Uncle Ben perhaps ap-
pealed more strongly to their sympathy, and
although, for that very reason, they re-
garded him with no more respect than tfcey
did each other, he was at times carelessly
admitted to their confidence. It was espe-
cially Kupert Filgee who extended a kind
266 CRES8Y.
of patronizing protectorate over him not
unmixed with doubts of his sanity, in spite
of the promised confidential clerkship he was
to receive from his hands.
On the day of the events chronicled in
the preceding chapter, Rupert on returning
from school was somewhat surprised to find
Uncle Ben perched upon the rail-fence be-
fore the humble door of the Filgee mansion
and evidently awaiting him. Slowly dis-
mounting as Rupert and Johnny approached,
he beamed upon the former for some mo-
ments with arch and yet affable mystery.
" Roopy, old man, I s 'pose ye 've got yer
duds all ready in yer pack, eh? "
A flush of pleasure passed over the boy's
handsome face. He cast, however, a hurried
look down on the all-pervading Johnny.
" 'Cause ye see we kalkilate to take the
down stage to Sacramento at four o 'clock,"
continued Uncle Ben, enjoying Rupert's
half sceptical surprise. "Ye enter into
office, so to speak, with me at that hour,
when the sellery, seventy-five dollars a month
and board, ez private and confidential clerk,
begins eh?"
Rupert's dimples deepened in charming,
almost feminine, embarrassment. " But
dad ? " he stammered.
CREBBY. 267
" Et 's all right with Mm. He 's agree-
able."
"But ?"
Uncle Ben followed Rupert's glance at
Johnny, who however appeared to be ab-
sorbed in the pattern of Uncle Ben's new
trousers.
" That 's fixed," he said with a meaning
smile. " There 's a sort o' bonus we pays
down, you know for a Chinyman to do
the odd jobs."
"And teacher Mr. Ford did ye tell
him ? " said Rupert brightening.
Uncle Ben coughed slightly. " He 's
agreeable, too, I reckon. That is," he wiped
his mouth meditatively, " he ez good ez al-
lowed it in gin'ral conversation a week ago,
Roop."
A swift shadow of suspicion darkened the
boy's brown eyes. " Is anybody else goin'
with us ? " he said quickly.
" Not this yer trip," replied Uncle Ben
complacently. "Ye see, Roop," he con-
tinued, drawing him aside with an air of
comfortable mystery, " this yer biz'ness
b'longs to the private and confidential
branch of the office. From informashun
we 've received "
268 CREBSY.
" We ? " interrupted Rupert.
"'We/ that's theo$ce,you know," con-
tinued Uncle Ben with a heavy assumption
of business formality, " wot we 've received
per several hands and consignee we
that 's you and me, Roop we goes down to
Sacramento to inquire into the stand in' of a
certing party, as per invoice, and ter see
ter see ter negotiate you know, tw find
out if she 's married or di-vorced," he con-
cluded quickly, as if abandoning for tho mo-
ment his business manner in consideration
of Rupert's inexperience. " We 're to find
out her standin', Roop," ho began again with
a more judicious blending of ease and tech-
nicality, "and her contracts, if any, and
where she lives and her way o' life, and ex-
ami no lior books and papers o/ to marriages
and sich, and arbitrate with hor gin'rally in
conversation you inside the house and me
out on the pavement, ready to be called in if
an interview with business principals is do-
sired."
Observing Rupert somewhat perplexed
and confused with these technicalities, ho
i;i(M,fully abandoned them for l,h< pivsrnt,
and consulting a pocket-book said, " I 've
made a memorandum of some pints that
CRESS r. 269
we'll talk over on the journey," again
charged Kupert to be punctually at the stage
office with his carpet-bag, and cheerfully de-
parted.
When he had disappeared Johnny Filgee,
without a single word of explanation, fell
upon his brother, and at once began a vio-
lent attack of kicks and blows upon his legs
and other easily accessible parts of his per-
son, accompanying his assault with unintel-
ligible gasps anil actions, finally culminating
in a flood of tears and the casting of himself
on his back in the dust with the copper-fas-
tened toes of his small boots turning im-
aginary wheels in the air. Rupert received
these characteristic marks of despairing and
outraged atYectiou with great forbearance,
only saying, "There, now, Johnny, quit
that," and eventually bearing him still
struggling into the house. Here Johnny,
declaring that he would kill any "Chiny-
inan " that otYered to dress him, and burn
down the house after his brother's infamous
desertion of it, Rupert was constrained to
mingle a few nervous, excited tears with his
brother's outbreak. Whereat Johnny, ad-
mitting the alleviation of an orange, a four-
bladed knife, and the reversionary interest
270 CRESS Y.
in much of Rupert's personal property, be-
came more subdued. Sitting there with
their arms entwined about each other, the
sunlight searching the shiftless desolation of
their motherless home, the few cheap play-
things they had known lying around them,
they beguiled themselves with those charm-
ing illusions of their future intentions com-
mon to their years illusions they only half
believed themselves and half accepted of
each other. Rupert was quite certain that
he would return in a few days with a gold
watch and a present for Johnny, and Johnny,
with a baleful vision of never seeing him
again, and a catching breath, magnificently
undertook to bring in the wood and build
the fire and wash the dishes " all of him-
self." And then there were a few childish
confidences regarding their absent father
then ingenuously playing poker in the Mag-
nolia Saloon that might have made that
public-spirited, genial companion somewhat
uncomfortable, and more tears that were
half smiling and some brave silences that
were wholly pathetic, and then the hour for
Rupert's departure all too suddenly arrived.
They separated with ostentatious whooping,
and then Johnny, suddenly overcome with
CRESS Y. 271
the dreadfulness of all earthly things, and
the hollowness of life generally, instantly re-
solved to run away I
To do this he prepared himself with a pur-
poseless hatchet, an inconsistent but long-
treasured lump of putty and all the sugar
that was left in the cracked sugar-bowl.
Thus accoutred he sallied forth, first to re-
move all traces of his hated existence that
might be left in his desk at school. If the
master were there he would say Rupert had
sent him ; if he was n't, he would climb in at
the window. The sun was already sinking
when he reached the clearing and found a
cavalcade of armed men around the building.
Johnny's first conviction was that the mas-
ter had killed Uncle Ben or Masters, and
that the men, taking advantage of the ab-
sence of his Johnny's big brother, were
about to summarily execute him. Observ-
ing no struggle from within, his second be-
lief was that the master had been suddenly
elected Governor of California and was
about to start with a state escort from the
school- house, and. that he, Johnny, was in
time to see the procession. But when the
master appeared with McKinstry, followed
by part of the crowd afoot, this quick-witted
272 CRES8Y.
child of the frontier, from his secure outlook
in the " brush," gathered enough from their
fragmentary speech to guess the serious pur-
port of their errand, and thrill with anticipa-
tion and slightly creepy excitement.
A duel ! A thing hitherto witnessed only
by grown-up men, afterwards swaggering
with importance and strange technical blood-
thirsty words, and now for the first time re-
served for a boy and that boy him, Johnny !
to behold in all its fearful completeness !
A duel ! of which he, Johnny, meanly aban-
doned by his brother, was now exalted per-
haps to be the only survivor ! He could
scarcely credit his senses. It was too much !
To creep through the brush while the pre-
liminaries were being settled, reach a certain
silver fir on the appointed ground, and with
the aid of his now lucky hatchet, climb un-
seen to its upper boughs, was an exciting
and difficult task, but one eventually over-
come by his short but energetic legs. Here
he could not only see all that occurred, but
by a fortunate chance the large pine next to
him had been selected as the limit of the
ground. The sharp eyes of the boy had
long since penetrated the disguises of the
remaining masked men, and when the long,
CXE8SY. 273
lank figure of the master's self-appointed
second took up its position beneath the pines
in full view of him, although hidden from
the spectators, Johnny instantly recognized
it to be none other than Seth Davis. The
manifest inconsistency of his appearance as
Mr. Ford's second with what Johnny knew
of his relations to the master was the one
thing that firmly fixed the incident in the
boy's memory.
The men were already in position. Har-
rison stepped forward to give the word.
Johnny's down -hanging legs tingled with
cramp and excitement. Why didn't they
begin? What were they waiting for?
What if it were interrupted, or terrible
thought made up at the last moment?
Would they " holler " out when they were
hit, or stagger round convulsively as they
did at the " cirkiss " ? Would they all run
away afterwards and leave Johnny alone to
tell the tale ? And horrible thought !
would any body believe him ? Would Ru-
pert ? Rupert, had he " on'y knowed this,"
he would n't have gone away.
"One"
With a child's perfect faith in the invul-
nerable superiority of his friends, he had not
274 CRE88T.
even looked at the master, but only at his
destined victim. Yet as the word " two "
rang out Johnny's attention was suddenly
attracted to the surprising fact that the mas-
ter's second, Seth Davis, had also drawn a
pistol, and from behind his tree was delib-
erately and stealthily aiming at McKinstry!
He understood it all now he was a friend
of the master's. Bully for Seth !
"Three!"
Crack! Z-i-i-p! Crackle I What a funny
noise ! And yet he was obliged to throw
himself flat upon the bough to keep from
falling. It seemed to have snapped beneath
him and benumbed his right leg. He did
not know that the master's bullet, fired in
the air, had ranged along the bough, strip-
ping the bark throughout its length, and
glancing with half-spent force to inflict a
slight flesh wound on his leg !
He was giddy and a little frightened.
And he had seen nobody hit, nor nothin'.
It was all a humbug ! Seth had disappeared.
So had the others. There was a faint sound
of voices and something like a group in the
distance that was all. It was getting
dark, too, and his leg was still asleep, but
warm and wet. He would get down. This
CXB8BT. 276
was very difficult, for his leg would not wake
up, and but for the occasional support he
got by striking his hatchet in the tree he
would have fallen in descending. When he
reached the ground his leg began to pain,
and looking down he saw that his stocking
and shoe were soaked with blood.
His small and dirty handkerchief, a hard
wad in his pocket, was insufficient to staunch
the flow. With a vague recollection of a
certain poultice applied to a boil on his fa-
ther's neck, he collected a quantity of soft
moss and dried yerba buena leaves, and with
the aid of his check apron and of one of his
torn suspenders tightly wound round the
whole mass, achieved a bandage of such
elephantine proportions that he could
scarcely move with it. In fact, like most
imaginative children, he became slightly ter-
rified at his own alarming precautions.
Nevertheless, although a word or an outcry
from him would have at that moment
brought the distant group to his assistance,
a certain respect to himself and his brother
kept him from uttering even a whimper of
weakness.
Yet he found refuge, oddly enough, in a
suppressed but bitter denunciation of the
276 CRESS T.
other boys of his acquaintance. What was
Cal. Harrison doing, while he, Johnny, was
alone in the woods, wounded in a grown-up
duel for nothing would convince this
doughty infant that he had not been an ac-
tive participant? Where was Jimmy Sny-
der that he did n't come to his assistance
with the other fellers ? Cowards all ; they
were afraid. Ho, ho ! And he, Johnny, was
n't afraid ! ho he did n't mind it ! Nev-
ertheless he had to repeat the phrase two or
three times until, after repeated struggles to
move forward through the brush, he at last
sank down exhausted. By this time the dis-
tant group had slowly moved away, carry-
ing something between them, and leaving
Johnny alone in the fast coming darkness.
Yet even this desertion did not affect him as
strongly as his implicit belief in the cowardly
treachery of his old associates.
It grew darker and darker, until the open
theatre of the late conflict appeared enclosed
in funereal walls ; a cool searching breath of
air that seemed to have crept through the
bracken and undergrowth like a stealthy
animal, lifted the curls on his hot forehead.
He grasped his hatchet firmly as against
possible wild beasts, and as a medicinal and
CRESS Y. 277
remedial precaution, took another turn with
his suspender around his bandage. It oc-
curred to him then that he would probably
die. They would all feel exceedingly sorry
and alarmed, and regret having made him
wash himself on Saturday night. They
would attend his funeral in large numbers
in the little graveyard, whej*e a white tomb-
stone inscribed to " John Filgee, fell in a
duel at the age of seven," would be awaiting
him. He would forgive his brother, his
father, and Mr. Ford. Yet even then he
vaguely resented a few leaves and twigs
dropped by a woodpecker in the tree above
him, with a shake of his weak fist and an
incoherent declaration that they could n't
" play no babes in the wood on him." And
then having composed himself he once more
turned on his side to die, as became the
scion of a heroic race! The free woods,
touched by an upspringing wind, waved their
dark arms above him, and higher yet a few
patient stars silently ranged themselves
around his pillow.
But with the rising wind and stars came
the swift trampling of horses' hoofs and the
flashing of lanterns, and Doctor Duchesne
and the master swept down into the opening.
278 CRJES8Y.
"It was here," said the master quickly,
" but they must have taken him on to his
own home. Let us follow."
" Hold on a moment," said the doctor, who
had halted before the tree. "What's all
this ? Why, it 's baby Filgee by thunder ! "
In another moment they had both dis-
mounted and were leaning over the half con-
scious child. Johnny turned his feverishly
bright eyes from the lantern to the master
and back again.
"What is it, Johnny boy?" asked the
master tenderly. " Were you lost ? "
With a gleam of feverish exaltation,
Johnny rose, albeit wanderingly, to the occa-
sion !
" Hit ! " he lisped feebly, " Hit in a doell!
at the age of theven."
" What I " asked the bewildered master.
But Doctor Duchesne, after a single swift
scrutiny of the boy's face, had unearthed him
from his nest of leaves, laid him in his lap,
and deftly ripped away the preposterous
bandage. " Hold the light here. By Jove !
he tells the truth. Who did it, Johnny ? "
But Johnny was silent. In an interval
of feverish consciousness and pain, his per-
ception and memory had been quickened ;
CRESS7. 279
a suspicion of the real cause of his disaster
had dawned upon him but his childish lips
were heroically sealed The master glanced
appealingly at the Doctor.
"Take him before you in the saddle to
McKinstry's," said the latter promptly. " I
can attend to both."
The master lifted the boy tenderly in his
arms. Johnny, stimulated by the prospect
of a free ride, became feebly interested in
his fellow sufferer.
" Did Theth hit him bad ? " he asked.
" Seth? " echoed the master, wildly.
" Yeth. I theed him when he took aim."
The master did not reply, but the next
moment Johnny felt himself clasped in his
arms in the saddle before him, borne like a
whirlwind in the direction of the McKinstry
ranch.
CHAPTER XIV.
THEY found the wounded man lying in
the front room upon a rudely extemporized
couch of bear-skins, he having sternly de-
clined the effeminacy of his wife's bedroom.
In the possibility of a fatal termination to
his wound, and in obedience to a grim fron-
tier tradition, he had also refused to have his
boots removed in order that he might " die
with them on," as became his ancestral cus-
tom. Johnny was therefore speedily made
comfortable in the McKinstry bed, while Dr.
Duchesne gave his whole attention to his
more serious patient. The master glanced
hurriedly around for Mrs. McKinstry. She
was not only absent from the room, but there
seemed to be no suggestion of her presence
in the house. To his greater surprise the
hurried inquiry that rose to his lips was
checked by a significant warning from the
attendant. He sat down beside the now
sleeping boy, and awaited the doctor's return
with his mind wandering between the condi-
CRESSY. 281
tion of the little sufferer and the singular
revelation that had momentarily escaped his
childish lips. If Johnny had actually seen
Seth fire at McKinstry, the latter's myste-
rious wound was accounted for but not
Seth's motive. The act was so utterly in-
comprehensible and inconsistent with Seth's
avowed hatred of the master that the boy
must have been delirious.
He was roused by the entrance of the
surgeon. " It 's not so bad as I thought,"
he said, with a reassuring nod. " It was a
mighty close shave between a shattered bone
and a severed artery, but we 've got the ball,
and he '11 pull through in a week. By Jove !
though the old fire-eater was more con-
cerned about finding the ball than living or
dying ! Go in there he wants to see you.
Don't let him talk too much. He 's called
in a lot of his friends for some reason or
other and there 's a regular mass-meeting
in there. Go in, and get rid of 'em. I '11
look after baby Filgee though the little
chap will be all right again after another
dressing."
The master cast a hurried look of relief at
the surgeon, and reentered the front room.
It was filled with men whom the master in-
282 CHESSY.
stinctively recognized as his former adver-
saries. But they gave way before him with
a certain rude respect and half abashed sym-
pathy as McKinstry called him to his side.
The wounded man grasped his hand. " Lift
me up a bit," he whispered. The master
assisted him with difficulty to his elbow.
" Gentlemen ! " said McKinstry, with a
characteristic wave of his crippled hand
towards the crowd as he laid the other on
the master's shoulder. " Ye heerd me talkin'
a minit ago ; ye heer me now. This yer
young man as we 've slipped up on and mes-
kalkilated has told the truth every time !
Ye ken tie to him whenever and wherever ye
want to. Ye ain't expected to feel ez I feel,
in course, but the man ez goes back on him
quo'lls with me. That 's all and thanks
for inquiring friends. Ye '11 git now, boys,
and leave him a minit with me."
The men filed slowly out, a few linger-
ing long enough to shake the master's hand
with grave earnestness, or half smiling, half
abashed embarrassment. The master re-
ceived the proffered reconciliation of these
men, who but a few hours before would have
lynched him with equal sincerity, with cold
bewilderment. As the door closed on the
CRESST. 283
last of the party lie turned to McKinstry.
The wounded man had sunk down again,
but was regarding with drowsy satisfaction
a leaden bullet he was holding between his
finger and thumb.
" This yer shot, Mr. Ford," he said in a
slow voice, whose weakness was only indi-
cated by its extreme deliberation, " never
kem from the gun I gave ye and was never
fired by you." He paused and then added
with his old dull abstraction, " It 's a long
time since I 've run agin anythin' that makes
me feel more kam."
In Mr. McKinstry's weak condition the
master did not dare to make Johnny's reve-
lation known to him, and contented himself
by simply pressing his hand, but the next
moment the wounded man resumed,
" That ball jest fits Seth's navy revolver
and the hound hes made tracks outer the
country.'*
" But what motive could he have in at-
tacking you at such a time ? " asked the
master.
"He reckoned that either I'd kill you
and so he 'd got shut of us both in that way,
without it being noticed ; or if I missed you,
the others would hang you ez they kalki-
284 CHESS Y.
lated to for killing me! The idea kem
to him when he overheard you hintin' you
would n't return my fire."
A shuddering conviction that McKinstry
had divined the real truth passed over the
master. In the impulse of the moment he
again would have corroborated it by reveal-
ing Johnny's story, but a glance at the
growing feverishness of the wounded man
checked his utterance. " Don't talk of it
now," he said hurriedly. " Enough for me
to know that you acquit me. I am here
now only to beg you to compose yourself
until the doctor comes back as you seemed
to be alone, and Mrs. McKinstry " he
stopped in awkward embarrassment.
A singular confusion overspread the in-
valid's face. "She hed steppt out afore
this happened, owin' to contrairy opinions
betwixt me and her. Ye mout hev noticed,
Mr. Ford, that gin'rally she did n't 'pear to
cotton to ye ! Thar ain't a woman a goin'
ez is the ekal of Blair Rawlins' darter in
nussin' a man and keeping him in fightin'
order, but in matters like things that con-
sarn herself and Cress, I begin to think,
Mr. Ford, that somehow, she ain't exakly
kam ! Bein' kam yourself, ye '11 put any
CRESS Y. 285
unpleasantness down to that. Wotever you
hear from her, and, for the matter o' that,
from her own darter too for I'm takin'
back the foolishness I said to ye over yon
about your runnin' off with Cress you '11
remember, Mr. Ford, it war n't from no ill
feeling to you, in her or Cress but on'y a
want of kam! I mout hev had my idees
about Cress, you mout hev had yours^ and
that fool Dabney mout hev had his ; but it
war n't the old woman's nor Cressy's it
war n't Blair Rawlins' darter's idea nor
yet her darter's ! And why ? For want o'
kam! Times I reckon it was left out o'
woman's nater. And beiii' kam yourself,
you understand it, and take it all in."
The old look of drowsy pain had settled
so strongly in his red eyes again that the
master was fain to put his hand gently over
them, and with a faint smile beg him to
compose himself to sleep. This he finally
did after a whispered suggestion that he
himself was feeling " more kam." The
master sat for some moments with his hand
upon the sleeping man's eyes, and a vague
and undefinable sense of loneliness seemed
to fall upon him from the empty rafters of
the silent and deserted house. The rising
286 CRESS Y.
wind moaned fitfully around its bleak shell
with the despairing sound of far and for-
ever receding voices. So strong was the
impression that when the doctor and Mc-
Kinstry's attending brother reentered the
room, the master still lingered beside the
bed with a dazed sensation of abandonment
that the doctor's practical reassuring smile
could hardly dispel.
"He's doing splendidly now," he said,
listening to the sleeper's more regular res-
piration : " and I 'd advise you to go now,
Mr. Ford, before he wakes, lest he might be
tempted to excite himself by talking to you
again. He 's really quite out of danger
now. Good-night ! I '11 drop in on you at
the hotel when I return."
The master, albeit still confused and be-
wildered, felt his way to the door and out
into the open night. The wind was still
despairingly wrestling with the tree - tops,
but the far receding voices seemed to be
growing fainter in the distance, until, as he
passed on, they too seemed to pass away for-
ever.
Monday morning had come again, and
the master was at his desk in the school-
CRESS T. 287
house early, with a still damp and inky
copy of the Star fresh from the press be-
fore him. The free breath of the pines was
blowing in the window, and bringing to his
ears the distant voices of his slowly gather-
ing flock, as he read as follows :
" The perpetrator of the dastardly out-
rage at the Indian Spring Academy on
Thursday last which, through unfortunate
misrepresentation of the facts, led to a pre-
mature calling out of several of our most
public-spirited citizens, and culminated in a
most regrettable encounter between Mr. Mc-
Kinstry and the accomplished and estimable
principal of the school has, we regret to
say, escaped condign punishment by leav-
ing the country with his relations. If, as is
seriously whispered, he was also guilty of an
unparalleled offence against a chivalrous
code which will exclude him in the future
from ever seeking redress at the Court of
Honor, our citizens will be only too glad
to get rid of the contamination of being
obliged to arrest him. Those of our readers
who know the high character of the two
gentlemen who were thus forced into a hos-
tile meeting, will not be surprised to know
that the most ample apologies were tendered
on both sides, and that the
Ins been thoroughly restored. The bullet
which it is said played a highly impor-
tant part in the subsequent explanation,
proving to have oome from a rtvofcer fired
by some mtmim tin been extracted from
Mr. McKinstry's thigh, and he is doing
well, with every prospect of a speedy re-
covery."
fr** 1 ^. albeit not uncomplacently, at this
valuable contribution to history from an un-
fettered press, his eye fell upon the next
paragraph, perhaps not so complacently:
"Benjamin Daubigny, Esq., who left
town for Sacramento on important busi-
ness, not entirely unconnected with his new
interests in Indian Springs, will, it is ru-
mored, be shortly joined by his wife, who
has been enabled by his recent good fortune
to leave her old home in the States, and
take her proper proud position at his side.
Although personally unknown to Indian
Springs, Mrs. Daubigny is spoken of as a
beautiful and singularly accomplished wo-
man, and it is to be regretted that her hus-
band's interests will compel them to abandon
Indian Springs for Sacramento as a future
Mr. Daubigny was accompanied
CBES8T.
by hi* private secretary Rupert, the eldest
son of H, G. Filgee, Esq,, who ha* been a
promising graduate of the Indian Spring
Academy, and offers a bright example to
the youth of this district We are happy
to learn that hi* younger brother is recover-
ing rapidly from a slight accident received
last week through the incautious handling
of firearms/ 9
The master, with his eyes upon the paper,
remained so long plunged in a reverie that
the school-room was quite filled and his lit-
tle flock was wonderingly regarding him be-
fore he recalled himself. He was hurriedly
reaching his hand towards the bell when he
was attracted by the rising figure of Octa-
via Dean,
"Please, fir, yon didn't ask if we had
any news I "
"TrueI forgot," said the master smil-
ing. "Well, have you anything to tell
us?"
"Yes, sir. Cressy McKinstry has left
school"
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir; she 's married."
" Married," repeated the master with an
effort, yet conscious of the eyes concentrated
v. 24 J Bret Harte
290 CRESS T.
upon his colorless face. "Married and
to whom?"
" To Joe Masters, sir, at the Baptist
Chapel at Big Bluff, Sunday, an' Marm
McKinstry was thar with her."
There was a momentary and breathless
pause. Then the voices of his little pupils
those sage and sweet truants from tradi-
tion, those gentle but relentless historians
of the future rose around him in shrill
chorus :
" Why, we knowed it all along, sir ! "
THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN,
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN . . . 295
II. AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 395
III. THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY . . . 425
IY. A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 476
V. VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION . 508
THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUN-
TAIN.
CHAPTEK I.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN.
THEY lived on the verge of a vast stony
level, upheaved so far above the surround-
ing country that its vague outlines, viewed
from the nearest valley, seemed a mere
cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills.
The rush and roar of the turbulent river
that washed its eastern base were lost at
that height ; the winds that strove with the
giant pines that half way climbed its flanks
spent their fury below the summit ; for, at
variance with most meteorological specula-
tion, an eternal calm seemed to invest this
serene altitude. The few Alpine flowers
seldom thrilled their petals to a passing
breeze; rain and snow fell alike perpen-
295
296 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
dicularly, heavily, and monotonously over
the granite bowlders scattered along its
brown expanse. Although by actual meas-
urement an inconsiderable elevation of the
Sierran range, and a mere shoulder of the
nearest white-faced peak that glimmered
in the west, it seemed to lie so near the
quiet, passionless stars, that at night it
caught something of their calm remote-
ness.
The articulate utterance of such a lo-
cality should have been a whisper ; a laugh
or exclamation was discordant; and the
ordinary tones of the human voice on the
night of the 15th of May, 1868, had a
grotesque incongruity.
In the thick darkness that clothed the
mountain that night, the human figure
would have been lost, or confounded with
the outlines of outlying bowlders, which at
such times took upon themselves the vague
semblance of men and animals. Hence
the voices in the following colloquy seemed
the more grotesque and incongruous from
being the apparent expression of an up-
right monolith, ten feet high, on the right,
and another mass of granite, that, reclin-
ing, peeped over the verge.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 297
"Hello!"
"Hello yourself!"
"You're late."
"I lost the trail, and climbed up the
slide."
Here followed a stumble, the clatter of
stones down the mountain-side, and an
oath so very human and undignified that*
it at once relieved the bowlders of any
complicity of expression. The voices, too,
were close together now, and unexpectedly
in quite another locality.
"Anything up ?"
"Looey Napoleon's declared war agin
Germany."
"Sho-o-o!"
Notwithstanding this exclamation, the
interest of the latter speaker was evidently
only polite and perfunctory. What, in-
deed, were the political convulsions of the
Old World to the dwellers on this serene,
isolated eminence of the New ?
"I reckon it's so," continued the first
voice. "French Pete and that thar feller
that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a
row over it ; emptied their six-shooters into
each other. The Dutchman's got two balls
in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an on-
298 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
nessary buttonhole in his shirt-buzzum,
and hez caved in."
This concise, local corroboration of the
conflict of remote nations, however con-
firmatory, did not appear to excite any
further interest. Even the last speaker,
now that he was in this calm, dispassion-
ate atmosphere, seemed to lose his own
concern in his tidings, and to have aban-
doned every thing of a sensational and
lower-worldly character in the pines below.
There were a few moments of absolute si-
lence, and then another stumble. But now
the voices of both speakers were quite pa-
tient and philosophical.
"Hold on, and I'll strike a light," said
the second speaker. "I brought a lantern
along, but I didn't light up. I kem out
afore sundown, and you know how it allers
is up yer. I didn't want it, and didn't
keer to light up. I forgot you're always
a little dazed and strange-like when you
first come up."
There was a crackle, a flash, and pres-
ently a steady glow, which the surrounding
darkness seemed to resent. The faces of
the two men thus revealed were singularly
alike. The same thin, narrow outline of
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 299
jaw and temple ; the same dark, grave eyes ;
the same brown growth of curly beard and
mustache, which concealed the mouth, and
hid what might have been any individual
idiosyncrasy of thought or expression,
showed them to be brothers, or better
known as the "Twins of Table Mountain."
A certain animation in the face of the sec-
ond speaker, the first-comer, a certain
light in his eye, might have at first dis-
tinguished him; but even this faded out
in the steady glow of the lantern, and had
no value as a permanent distinction, for,
by the time they had reached the western
verge of the mountain, the two faces had
settled into a homogeneous calmness and
melancholy.
The vague horizon of darkness, that a
few feet from the lantern still encompassed
them, gave no indication of their progress,
until their feet actually trod the rude
planks and thatch that formed the roof of
their habitation ; for their cabin half bur-
rowed in the mountain, and half clung, like
a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep de-
clivity that terminated the northern limit
of the summit. Had it not been for the
windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a
800 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
few heaps of stone and gravel, which were
the only indications of human labor in
that stony field, there was nothing to in-
terrupt its monotonous dead level. And,
when they descended a dozen well-worn
steps to the door of their cabin, they left
the summit, as before, lonely, silent, mo-
tionless, its long level uninterrupted, bask-
ing in the cold light of the stars.
The simile of a "nest" as applied to the
cabin of the brothers was no mere figure
of speech as the light of the lantern first
flashed upon it. The narrow ledge before
the door was strewn with feathers. A sug-
gestion that it might be the home and
haunt of predatory birds was promptly
checked by the spectacle of the nailed-up
carcasses of a dozen hawks against the
walls, and the outspread wings of an ex-
tended eagle emblazoning the gable above
the door, like an armorial bearing. With-
in the cabin the walls and chimney-piece
were dazzlingly bedecked with the party-
colored wings of jays, yellow-birds, wood-
peckers, kingfishers, and the poly-tinted
wood-duck. Yet in that dry, highly-rare-
fied atmosphere, there was not the slightest
suggestion of odor or decay.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 301
The first speaker hung the lantern upon
a hook that dangled from the rafters, and,
going to the broad chimney, kicked the
half-dead embers into a sudden resentful
blaze. He then opened a rude cupboard,
and, without looking around, called,
"Kuth!"
The second speaker turned his head
from the open doorway where he was
leaning, as if listening to something in the
darkness, and answered abstractedly,
"Band!"
"I don't believe you have touched grub
to-day I"
Ruth grunted out some indifferent reply.
"Thar hezen't been a slice cut off that
bacon since I left," continued Band, bring-
ing a side of bacon and some biscuits from
the cupboard, and applying himself to the
discussion of them at the table. "You're
gettin' off yer feet, Ruth. What's up ?"
Ruth replied by taking an uninvited
seat beside him, and resting his chin on
the palms of his hands. He did not eat,
but simply transferred his inattention
from the door to the table.
"You're workin' too many hours in the
shaft," continued Rand. "You're always
302 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
up to some such d n fool business when
I'm not yer."
"I dipped a little west to-day," Kuth
went on, without heeding the brotherly
remonstrance, "and struck quartz and
pyrites."
"Thet's you! allers dippin' west or
east for quartz and the color, instead of
keeping on plumb down to the 'cement' I" 1
"We've been three years digging for ce-
ment," said Ruth, more in abstraction than
in reproach, "three years !"
"And we may be three years more,
may be only three days. Why, you
couldn't be more impatient if if if you
lived in a valley."
Delivering this tremendous comparison
as an unanswerable climax, Rand applied
himself once more to his repast. Ruth,
after a moment's pause, without speaking
or looking up, disengaged his hand from
under his chin, and slid it along, palm up-
permost, on the table beside his brother.
Thereupon Rand slowly reached forward
his left hand, the right being engaged in
conveying victual to his mouth, and laid
i The local name for gold-bearing alluvial drift, the bed
of a prehistoric river.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 303
it on his brother's palm. The act was evi-
dently an habitual, half mechanical one;
for in a few moments the hands were as
gently disengaged, without comment or
expression. At last Rand leaned back in
his chair, laid down his knife and fork,
and, complacently loosening the belt that
held his revolver, threw it and the weapon
on his bed. Taking out his pipe, and
chipping some tobacco on the table, he said
carelessly, "I came a piece through the
woods with Mornie just now."
The face that Ruth turned upon his
brother was very distinct in its expression
at that moment, and quite belied the popu-
lar theory that the twins could not be told
apart. "Thet gal," continued Rand, with-
out looking up, "is either flighty, or or
suthin'," he added in vague disgust, push-
ing the table from him as if it were the
lady in question. "Don't tell me!"
Ruth's eyes quickly sought his brother's,
and were as quickly averted, as he asked
hurriedly, "How?"
"What gets me," continued Rand in a
petulant non sequitur, "is that you, my
own twin-brother, never lets on about her
comin' yer, permiskus like, when I ain't
304 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
yer, and you and her gallivantin' and
promanadin', and swoppin' sentiments and
mottoes."
Buth tried to contradict his blushing
face with a laugh of worldly indifference.
"She came up yer on a sort of pasear."
"Oh, yes! a short cut to the creek/'
interpolated Eand satirically.
"Last Tuesday or Wednesday," con-
tinued Ruth, with affected f orgetf ulness.
"Oh, in course, Tuesday, or Wednesday,
or Thursday! You've so many folks
climbing up this yer mountain to call on
ye," continued the ironical Rand, "that
you disremember; only you remembered
enough not to tell me. She did. She took
me for you, or pretended to."
The color dropped from Ruth's cheek.
"Took you for me ?" he asked, with an
awkward laugh.
"Yes," sneered Rand; "chirped and
chattered away about our picnic, our nose-
gays, and lord knows what! Said she'd
keep them blue- jay's wings, and wear 'em
in her hat. Spouted poetry, too, the
same sort o' rot you get off now and then."
Ruth laughed again, but rather ostenta-
tiously and nervously.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 305
"Euth, lookyer!"
Euth faced his brother.
"What's your little game? Do you
mean to say you don't know what thet gal
is ? Do you mean to say you don't know
thet she's the laughing-stock of the Ferry ;
thet her father's a d d old fool, and her
mother's a drunkard and worse ; thet she's
got any right to be hanging round yer?
You can't mean to marry her, even if you
kalkilate to turn me out to do it, for she
wouldn't live alone with ye up here.
'Tain't her kind. And if I thought you
was thinking of "
"What?" said Euth, turning upon his
brother quickly.
"Oh, thet's right! Holler; swear and
yell, and break things, do ! Tear round !"
continued Eand, kicking his boots off in a
corner, "just because I ask you a civil ques-
tion. That's brotherly," he added, jerk-
ing his chair away against the side of the
cabin, "ain't it?"
"She's not to blame because her mother
drinks, and her father's a shyster," said
Euth earnestly and strongly. "The men
who make her the laughing-stock of the
Ferry tried to make her something worse,
306 TEE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
and failed, and take this sneak's revenge
on her. 'Laughing-stock !' Yes, they knew
she could turn the tables on them."
"Of course; go on! She's better than
me. I know I'm a fratricide, that's what
I am/' said Rand, throwing himself on the
upper of the two berths that formed the
bedstead of the cabin.
"I've seen her three times," continued
Ruth.
"And you've known me twenty years,"
interrupted his brother.
Ruth turned on his heel, and walked
towards the door.
"That's right; go on! Why don't you
get the chalk ?"
Ruth made no reply. Rand descended
from the bed, and, taking a piece of chalk
from the shelf, drew a line on the floor,
dividing the cabin in two equal parts.
"You can have the east half," he said,
as he climbed slowly back into bed.
This mysterious rite was the usual ter-
mination of a quarrel between the twins.
Each man kept his half of the cabin until
the feud was forgotten. It was the mark
of silence and separation, over which no
words of recrimination, argument, or even
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 307
explanation, were delivered, until it was
effaced by one or the other. This was con-
sidered equivalent to apology or reconcilia-
tion, which each were equally bound in
honor to accept.
It may be remarked that the floor was
much whiter at this line of demarcation,
and under the fresh chalk-line appeared the
faint evidences of one recently effaced.
Without apparently heeding this poten-
tial ceremony, Ruth remained leaning
against the doorway, looking upon the
night, the bulk of whose profundity and
blackness seemed to be gathered below him.
The vault above was serene and tranquil,
with a few large far-spaced stars; the
abyss beneath, untroubled by sight or
sound. Stepping out upon the ledge, he
leaned far over the shelf that sustained
their cabin, and listened. A faint rhyth-
mical roll, rising and falling in long undu-
lations against the invisible horizon, to his
accustomed ears told him the wind was
blowing among the pines in the valley.
Yet, mingling with this familiar sound, his
ear, now morbidly acute, seemed to detect
a stranger inarticulate murmur, as of con-
fused and excited voices, swelling up from
808 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
the mysterious depths to the stars above,
and again swallowed up in the gulfs of si-
lence below. He was roused from a con-
sideration of this phenomenon by a faint
glow towards the east, which at last bright-
ened, until the dark outline of the distant
walls of the valley stood out against the
sky. Were his other senses participating
in the delusion of his ears? for with the
brightening light came the faint odor of
burning timber.
His face grew anxious as he gazed. At
last he rose, and re-entered the cabin. His
eyes fell upon the faint chalk-mark, and,
taking his soft felt hat from his head, with
a few practical sweeps of the brim he
brushed away the ominous record of their
late estrangement. Going to the bed
whereon Rand lay stretched, open-eyed, he
would have laid his hand upon his arm
lightly; but the brother's fingers sought
and clasped his own. "Get up," he said
quietly; "there's a strange fire in the
Canon head that I can't make out."
Rand slowly clambered from his shelf,
and hand in hand the brothers stood upon
the ledge. "It's a right smart chance be-
yond the Ferry, and a piece beyond the
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 309
Mill, too," said Rand, shading his eyes
with his hand, from force of habit. "It's
in the woods where " He would have
added where he met Mornie ; but it was a
point of honor with the twins, after recon-
ciliation, not to allude to any topic of their
recent disagreement.
Ruth dropped his brother's hand. "It
doesn't smell like the woods," he said
slowly.
"Smell!" repeated Rand incredulously.
"Why, it's twenty miles in a bee-line
yonder. Smell, indeed!"
Ruth was silent, but presently fell to
listening again with his former abstraction.
"You don't hear anything, do you?" he
asked after a pause.
"It's blowin' in the pines on the river,"
said Rand shortly.
"You don't hear anything else ?"
"No."
"Nothing like like like "
Rand, who had been listening with an
intensity that distorted the left side of his
face, interrupted him impatiently.
"Like what?"
"Like a woman sobbin' ?"
"Ruth," said Rand, suddenly looking up
310 TEE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
in 'his brother's face, "what's gone of
you?"
Ruth laughed. "The fire's out," he
said, abruptly re-entering the cabin. "I'm
goin' to turn in."
Rand, following his brother half re-
proachfully, saw him divest himself of his
clothing, and roll himself in the blankets
of his bed.
"Good-night, Eandy !"
Rand hesitated. He would have liked
to ask his brother another question ; but
there was clearly nothing to be done but
follow his example.
"Good-night, Ruthy !" he said, and put
out the light. As he did so, the glow in
the eastern horizon faded, too, and dark-
ness seemed to well up from the depths be-
low, and, flowing in the open door, wrapped
them in deeper slumber.
CHAPTEK II.
THE CLOUDS GATHER.
TWELVE months had elapsed since the
quarrel and reconcilation, during which in-
terval no reference was made by either of
the brothers to the cause which had pro-
voked it. Rand was at work in the shaft,
Ruth having that morning undertaken the
replenishment of the larder with game
from the wooded skirt of the mountain.
Rand had taken advantage of his brother's
absence to "prospect" in the "drift," a
proceeding utterly at variance with his pre-
vious condemnation of all such speculative
essay ; but Rand, despite his assumption of
a superior practical nature, was not above
certain local superstitions. Having that
morning put on his gray flannel shirt
wrong side out, an abstraction recognized
among the miners as the sure forerunner
of divination and treasure-discovery, he
could not forego that opportunity of try-
311
312 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
ing his luck, without hazarding a danger-
ous example. He was also conscious of
feeling "chipper," another local expres-
sion for buoyancy of spirit, not common to
men who work fifty feet below the surface,
without the stimulus of air and sunshine,
and not to be overlooked as an important
factor in fortunate adventure. Neverthe-
less, noon came without the discovery of
any treasure. He had attacked the walls
on either side of the lateral "drift" skil-
fully, so as to expose their quality without
destroying their cohesive integrity, but had
found nothing. Once or twice, returning
to the shaft for rest and air, its grim si-
lence had seemed to him pervaded with
some vague echo of cheerful holiday voices
above. This set him to thinking of his
brother's equally extravagant fancy of the
wailing voices in the air on the night of
the fire, and of his attributing it to a
lover's abstraction.
"I laid it to his being struck after that
gal ; and yet," Eand continued to himself,
"here's me, who haven't been foolin'
round no gal, and dog my skin if I didn't
think I heard one singin' up thar!" He
put his foot on the lower round of the lad-
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 813
der, paused, and slowly ascended a dozen
steps. Here lie paused again. All at
once the whole shaft was filled with the
musical vibrations of a woman's song.
Seizing the rope that hung idly from the
windlass, he half climbed, half swung
himself, to the surface.
The voice was there; but the sudden
transition to the dazzling level before him
at first blinded his eyes, so that he took in
only by degrees the unwonted spectacle of
the singer, a pretty girl, standing on tip-
toe on a bowlder not a dozen yards from
him, utterly absorbed in tying a gayly-
striped neckerchief, evidently taken from
her own plump throat, to the halliards of a
freshly-cut hickory-pole newly reared as a
flag-staff beside her. The hickory-pole,
the halliards, the fluttering scarf, the
young lady herself, were all glaring inno-
vations on the familiar landscape; but
Rand, with his hand still on the rope, si-
lently and demurely enjoyed it.
For the better understanding of the gen-
eral reader, who does not live on an iso-
lated mountain, it may be observed that
the young lady's position on the rock ex-
hibited some study of pose, and a certain
314 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
exaggeration of attitude, that betrayed the
habit of an audience; also that her voice
had an artificial accent that was not wholly
unconscious, even in this lofty solitude.
Yet the very next moment, when she
turned, and caught Rand's eye fixed upon
her, she started naturally, colored slightly,
uttered that feminine adjuration, "Good
Lord ! gracious ! goodness me !" which is
seldom used in reference to its effect upon
the hearer, and skipped instantly from the
bowlder to the ground. Here, however,
she alighted in a pose, brought the right
heel of her neatly-fitting left boot closely
into the hollowed side of her right instep,
at the same moment deftly caught her fly-
ing skirt, whipped it around her ankles,
and, slightly raising it behind, permitted
the chaste display of an inch or two of
frilled white petticoat. The most irrev-
erent critic of the sex will, I think, admit
that it has some movements that are auto-
matic.
"Hope I didn't disturb ye," said Rand,
pointing to the flag-staff.
The young lady slightly turned her
head. "No," she said; "but I didn't
know anybody was here, of course. Our
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 315
party" she emphasized the word, and ac-
companied it with a look toward the
further extremity of the plateau, to show
she was not alone "our party climbed
this ridge, and put up this pole as a sign
to show they did it" The ridiculous self-
complacency of this record in the face of
a man who was evidently a dweller on the
mountain apparently struck her for the
first time. "We didn't know," she stam-
mered, looking at the shaft from which
Eand had emerged, "that that " She
stopped, and, glancing again towards the
distant range where her friends had disap-
peared, began to edge away.
"They can't be far off," interposed
Rand quietly, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world for the lady to be there.
"Table Mountain ain't as big as all that.
Don't you be scared! So you thought
nobody lived up here ?"
She turned upon him a pair of honest
hazel eyes, which not only contradicted the
somewhat meretricious smartness of her
dress, but was utterly inconsistent with the
palpable artificial color of her hair, an
obvious imitation of a certain popular
fashion then known in artistic circles as
316 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
the "British Blonde," and began to os-
tentatiously resume a pair of lemon-colored
kid gloves. Having, as it were, thus indi-
cated her standing and respectability, and
put an immeasurable distance between her-
self and her bold interlocutor, she said im-
pressively, "We evidently made a mistake :
I will rejoin our party, who will, of course,
apologize."
"What's your hurry?" said the imper-
turbable Eand, disengaging himself from
the rope, and walking towards her. "As
long as you're up here, you might stop a
spell."
"I have no wish to intrude ; that is, our
party certainly has not," continued the
young lady, pulling the tight gloves, and
smoothing the plump, almost bursting
fingers, with an affectation of fashionable
ease.
"Oh! I haven't any thing to do just
now," said Eand, "and it's about grub
time, I reckon. Yes, I live here, Euth
and me, right here."
The young woman glanced at the shaft.
"No, not down there," said Eand, fol-
lowing her eye, with a laugh. "Come
here, and I'll ehow you."
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 317
A strong desire to keep up an appear-
ance of genteel reserve, and an equally
strong inclination to enjoy the adventurous
company of this good-looking, hearty
young fellow, made her hesitate. Per-
haps she regretted having undertaken a
role of such dignity at the beginning: she
could have been so perfectly natural with
this perfectly natural man, whereas any
relaxation now might increase his famili-
arity. And yet she was not without a
vague suspicion that her dignity and her
gloves were alike thrown away on him, a
fact made the more evident when Rand
stepped to her side, and, without any ap-
parent consciousness of disrespect or gal-
lantry, laid his large hand, half persua-
sively, half fraternally, upon her shoulder,
and said, "Oh, come along, do !"
The simple act either exceeded the limits
of her forbearance, or decided the course
of her subsequent behavior. She instantly
stepped back a single pace, and drew her
left foot slowly and deliberately after her ;
then she fixed her eyes and uplifted eye-
brows upon the daring hand, and, taking
it by the ends of her thumb and forefinger,
lifted it, and dropped it in mid-air. She
318 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
then folded her arms. It was the indig-
nant gesture with which "Alice," the Pride
of Dumballin Village, received the loath-
some advances of the bloated aristocrat, Sir
Parkyns Parkyn, and had at Marysville, a
few nights before, brought down the house.
This effect was, I think, however, lost
upon Rand. The slight color that rose to
his cheek as he looked down upon his clay-
soiled hands was due to the belief that he
had really contaminated her outward su-
perfine person. But his color quickly
passed: his frank, boyish smile returned,
as he said, "It'll rub off. Lord, don't mind
that ! Thar, now come on !"
The young woman bit her lip. Then
nature triumphed; and she laughed, al-
though a little scornfully. And then Prov-
idence assisted her with the sudden pre-
sentation of two figures, a man and
woman, slowly climbing up over the moun-
tain verge, not far from them. With a
cry of "There's Sol, now!" she forgot her
dignity and her confusion, and ran towards
them.
Rand stood looking after her neat figure,
less concerned in the advent of the strangers
than in her sudden caprice. He was not
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 319
so young and inexperienced but that he
noted certain ambiguities in her dress and
manner : he was by no means impressed by
her dignity. But he could not help watch-
ing her as she appeared to be volubly re-
counting her late interview to her com-
panions ; and, still unconscious of any im-
propriety or obtrusiveness, he lounged
down lazily towards her. Her humor had
evidently changed ; for she turned an hon-
est, pleased face upon him, as she girlishly
attempted to drag the strangers forward.
The man was plump and short; unlike
the natives of the locality, he was closely
cropped and shaven, as if to keep down the
strong blue-blackness of his beard and hair,
which nevertheless asserted itself over his
round cheeks and upper lip like a tattooing
of Indian ink. The woman at his side
was reserved and indistinctive, with that
appearance of being an unenthusiastic fam-
ily servant peculiar to some men's wives.
When Eand was within a few feet of him,
he started, struck a theatrical attitude,
and, shading his eyes with his hand, cried,
"What, do me eyes deceive me!" burst
into a hearty laugh, darted forward, seized
Rand's hand, and shook it briskly.
320 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"Pinkney, Pinkney, my boy! how are
you ? And this is your little 'prop' ? your
quarter-section, your country-seat, that
we've been trespassing on, eh ? A nice lit-
tle spot, cool, sequestered, remote, a trifle
unimproved; carriage-road as yet unfin-
ished. Ha, ha ! But to think of our mak-
ing a discovery of this inaccessible moun-
tain, climbing it, sir, for two mortal hours,
christening it 'Sol's Peak,' getting up a
flag-pole, unfurling our standard to the
breeze, sir, and then, by Gad, winding up
by finding Pinkney, the festive Pinkney,
living on it at home !"
Completely surprised, but still perfectly
good-humored, Rand shook the stranger's
right hand warmly, and received on his
broad shoulders a welcoming thwack from
the left, without question. "She don't
mind her friends making free with me evi-
dently," said Rand to himself, as he tried
to suggest that fact to the young lady in
a meaning glance.
The stranger noted his glance, and sud-
denly passed his hand thoughtfully over his
shaven cheeks. "No," he said "yes,
surely, I forget yes, I see ; of course you
don'! Rosy," turning to his wife, "of
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 321
course Pinkney doesn't know Phemie,
eh?"
"No, nor me either, Sol," said that lady
warningly.
"Certainly!" continued Sol. "It's his
misfortune. You weren't with me at Gold
Hill. Allow me," he said, turning to
Rand, "to present Mrs. Sol Saunders, wife
of the undersigned, and Miss Euphemia
Neville, otherwise known as the 'Marys-
ville Pet/ the best variety actress known
on the provincial boards. Played Ophelia
at Marysville, Friday; domestic drama at
Gold Hill, Saturday; Sunday night, four
songs in character, different dress each
time, and a clog-dance. The best clog-
dance on the Pacific Slope," he added in a
stage aside. "The minstrels are crazy to
get her in 'Frisco. But money can't buy
her prefers the legitimate drama to this
sort of thing." Here he took a few steps of
a jig, to which the "Marysville Pet" beat
time with her feet, and concluded with a
laugh and a wink the combined expres-
sion of an artist's admiration for her abil-
ity, and a man of the world's scepticism
of feminine ambition.
Miss Euphemia responded to the formal
322 TEE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
introduction by extending her hand frankly
with a re-assuring smile to Rand, and an
utter obliviousness of her former hauteur.
Rand shook it warmly, and then dropped
carelessly on a rock beside them.
"And you never told me you lived up
here in the attic, you rascal!" continued
Sol with a laugh.
"No," replied Rand simply. "How
could I? I never saw you before, that I
remember;"
Miss Euphemia stared at Sol. Mrs. Sol
looked up in her lord's face, and folded
her arms in a resigned expression, Sol
rose to his feet again, and shaded his
eyes with hk hand, but this time quite
seriously, and gazed at Rand's smiling
face.
"Good Lord ! Do you mean to say your
name isn't Pinkney?" he asked, with a
half embarrassed laugh.
"It is Pinkney," said Rand; "but I
never met you before."
"Didn't you come to see a young lady
that joined my troupe at Gold Hill last
month, and say you'd meet me at Keeler's
Ferry in a day or two ?"
said Rand, with a good-bu-
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 323
mored laugh. "I haven't left this moun-
tain for two months." : >.-
He might have added more ; but his at-
tention was directed to Miss Euphemia,
who during this short dialogue, having
stuffed alternately her handkerchief, the
corner of her mantle, and her gloves, into
her mouth, restrained herself no longer,
but gave way to an uncontrollable fit of
laughter. "O Sol!" she gasped explana-
torily, as she threw herself alternately
against him, Mrs. Sol, and a bowlder,
"you'll kill me yet! O Lord! first we
take possession of this man's property, then
we claim him." The contemplation of this
humorous climax affected her so that she
was fain at last to walk away, and confide
the rest of her speech to space.
Sol joined in the laugh until his wife
plucked his sleeve, and whispered some-
thing in his ear. In an instant his face
became at once mysterious and demure.
"I owe you an apology," he said, turning
to Rand, but in a voice ostentatiously
pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to
overhear: "I see I have made a mistake.
A resemblance only a mere resemblance,
as I look at you now led me astray. Of
v. 24 K Bret Harte
324 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
course you don't know any young lady in
the profession ?"
"Of course he doesn't, Sol," said Miss
Euphemia. "I could have told you that.
He didn't even know me !"
The voice and mock-heroic attitude of
the speaker was enough to relieve the gen-
eral embarrassment with a laugh. Hand,
now pleasantly conscious of only Miss
Euphemia's presence, again offered the hos-
pitality of his cabin, with the polite recog-
nition of her friends in the sentence, "and
you might as well come along too."
"But won't we incommode the lady of
the house ?" said Mrs. Sol politely.
"What lady of the house" ? said Band
almost angrily.
"Why, Euth, you know!"
It was Eand's turn to become hilarious.
"Euth," he said, "is short for Eutherford,
my brother." His laugh, however, was
echoed only by Euphemia.
"Then you have a brother?" said Mrs.
Sol benignly.
"Yes," said Eand: "he will be here
soon." A sudden thought dropped the
color from his cheek. "Look here," he
said, turning impulsively upon Sol. "I
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 825
have a brother, a twin-brother. It couldn't
be Mm "
Sol was conscious of a significant femi-
nine pressure on his right arm. He was
equal to the emergency. "I think not," he
said dubiously, "unless your brother's hair
is much darker than yours. Yes! now I
look at you, yours is brown. He has a
mole on his right cheek hasn't he?"
The red came quickly back to Rand's
boyish face. He laughed. "JSTo, sir: my
brother's hair is, if any thing, a shade
lighter than mine, and nary mole. Come
along!"
And leading the way, Rand disclosed
the narrow steps winding down to the shelf
on which the cabin hung. "Be careful,"
said Rand, taking the now unresisting
hand of the "Marysville Pet" as they de-
scended: u a step that way, and down you
go two thousand feet on the top of a pine-
tree."
But the girl's slight cry of alarm was
presently changed to one of unaffected
pleasure as they stood on the rocky plat-
form. "It isn't a house: it's 'a nest,
and the loveliest !" said Euphemia breath-
lessly.
326 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"It's a scene, a perfect scene, sir !" said
Sol, enraptured. "I shall take the liberty
of bringing my scene-painter to sketch it
some day. It would do for 'The Moun-
taineer's Bride' superbly, or," continued
the little man, warming through the blue-
black border of his face with professional
enthusiasm, "it's enough to make a play
itself. 'The Cot on the Crags.' Last
scene moonlight the struggle on the
ledge ! The Lady of the Crags throws
herself from the beetling heights ! A
shriek from the depths a woman's wail !"
"Dry up !" sharply interrupted Rand, to
whom this speech recalled his brother's
half-forgotten strangeness. "Look at the
prospect."
In the full noon of a cloudless day, be-
neath them a tumultuous sea of pines
surged, heaved, rode in giant crests,
stretched and lost itself in the ghostly,
snow-peaked horizon. The thronging
woods choked every defile, swept every
crest, filled every valley with its dark-
green tilting spears, and left only Table
Mountain sunlit and bare. Here .and
there were profound olive depths, over
which the gray hawk hung lazily, and into
TEE CLOUDS GATHER. 327
which blue jays dipped. A faint, dull yel-
lowish streak marked an occasional water-
course ; a deeper reddish ribbon, the moun-
tain road and its overhanging murky cloud
of dust.
"Is it quite safe here ?" asked Mrs. Sol,
eying the little cabin. "I mean from
storms ?"
"It never blows up here," replied Rand,
"and nothing happens."
"It must be lovely," said Euphemia,
clasping her hands.
"It is that/ 7 said Rand proudly. "It's
four years since Ruth and I took up this
yer claim, and raised this shanty. In
that four years we haven't left it alone a
night, or cared to. It's only big enough
for two, and them two must be brothers.
It wouldn't do for mere pardners to live
here alone, they couldn't do it. It
wouldn't be exactly the thing for man and
wife to shut themselves up here alone.
But Ruth and me know each other's ways,
and here we'll stay until we've made a
pile. We sometimes one of us takes a
pasear to the Ferry to buy provisions ; but
we're glad to crawl up to the back of old
'Table' at night."
328 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"You're quite out of the world here,
then ?" suggested Mrs. Sol.
"That's it, just it I We're out of the
world, out of rows, out of liquor, out of
cards, out of bad company, out of tempta-
tion. Cussedness and foolishness hez got
to follow us up here to find us, and there's
too many ready to climb down to them
things to tempt 'em to come up to us."
There was a little boyish conceit in his
tone, as he stood there, not altogether un-
becoming his fresh color and simplicity.
Yet, when his eyes met those of Miss
Euphemia, he colored, he hardly knew
why, and the young lady herself blushed
rosily.
When the neat cabin, with its decorated
walls, and squirrel and wild-cat skins, was
duly admired, the luncheon-basket of the
Saunders party was re-enforced by pro-
visions from Rand's larder, and spread
upon the ledge; the dimensions of the
cabin not admitting four. Under the po-
tent influence of a bottle, Sol became hi-
larious and professional. The "Pet" was
induced to favor the company with a reci-
tation, and, under the plea of teaching
Rand, to perform the clog-dance with both
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 329
gentlemen. Then there was an interval,
in which Rand and Euphemia wandered a
little way down the mountain-side to
gather laurel, leaving Mr. Sol to his siesta
on a rock, and Mrs. Sol to take some knit-
ting from the basket, and sit beside him.
When Eand and his companion had dis-
appeared, Mrs. Sol nudged her sleeping
partner. "Do you think that was the
brother?"
Sol yawned. "Sure of it. They're as
like as two peas, in looks.
"Why didn't you tell him so, then ?"
"Will you tell me, my dear, why you
stopped me when I began ?"
"Because something was said about Ruth
being here; and I supposed Ruth was a
woman, and perhaps Pinkney's wife, and
knew you'd be putting your foot in it by
talking of that other woman. I supposed
it was for fear of that he denied knowing
you."
"Well, when he this Rand told me he
had a twin-brother, he looked so frightened
that I knew he knew nothing of his
brother's doings with that woman, and I
threw him off the scent. He's a good fel-
low, but awfully green, and I didn't want
330 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
to worry him with tales. I like him, and
I think Phemie does too."
"Nonsense! He's a conceited prig!
Did you hear his sermon on the world
and its temptations ? I wonder if he
thought temptation had come up to him
in the person of us professionals out
on a picnic. I think it was positively
rude."
"My dear woman, you're always seeing
slights and insults. I tell you he's taken a
shine to Phemie; and he's as good as four
seats and a bouquet to that child next Wed-
nesday evening, to say nothing of the eclat
of getting this St. Simeon what do you
call him ? Stalactites ?"
"Stylites," suggested Mrs. Sol.
"Stylites, off from his pillar here. I'll
have a paragraph in the paper, that the
hermit crahs of Table Mountain "
"Don't be a fool, Sol!"
"The hermit twins of Table Mountain
bespoke the chaste performance."
"One of them being the protector of the
well-known Mornie Nixon," responded
Mrs. Sol, viciously accenting the name
with her knitting-needles.
"Rosy, you're unjust. You're preju-
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 331
diced by the reports of the town. Mr.
Pinkney's interest in her may be a purely
artistic one, although mistaken. She'll
never make a good variety-actress: she's
too heavy. And the boys don't give her a
fair show. No woman can make a debut
in my version of 'Somnambula,' and have
the front row in the pit say to her in the
sleep-walking scene, 'You're out rather
late, Mornie. Kinder forgot to put on
your things, didn't you? Mother sick, I
suppose, and you're goin' for more gin ?
Hurry along, or you'll ketch it when ye
get home.' Why, you couldn't do it your-
self, Rosy!"
To which Mrs. Sol's illogical climax
was, that, "bad as Eutherford might be,
this Sunday-school superintendent, Rand,
was worse."
Rand and his companion returned late,
but in high spirits. There was an un-
necessary effusiveness in the way in which
Euphemia kissed Mrs. Sol, the one
woman present, who understood, and was
to be propitiated, which did not tend to
increase Mrs. Sol's good humor. She had
her basket packed all ready for departure ;
and even the earnest solicitation of Rand,
332 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
that they would defer their going until
sunset, produced no effect.
"Mr. Rand Mr. Pinkney, I mean
says the sunsets here are so lovely,"
pleaded Euphemia.
"There is a rehearsal at seven o'clock,
and we have no time to lose," said Mrs.
Sol significantly.
"I forgot to say," said the "Marysville
Pet" timidly, glancing at Mrs. Sol, "that
Mr. Rand says he will bring his brother on
Wednesday night, and wants four seats in
front, so as not to be crowded."
Sol shook the young man's hand warmly.
"You'll not regret it, sir : it's a surprising,
a remarkable performance."
"I'd like to go a piece down the moun-
tain with you," said Rand, with evident
sincerity, looking at Miss Euphemia ; "but
Ruth isn't here yet, and we make a rule
never to leave the place alone. I'll show
you the slide: it's the quickest way to go
down. If you meet any one who looks
like me, and talks like me, call him 'Ruth,'
and tell him I'm waitin' for him yer."
Miss Phemia, the last to go, standing on
the verge of the declivity, here remarked,
with a dangerous smile, that, if she met
TEE CLOUDS GATHER. 833
any one who bore that resemblance, she
might be tempted to Jkeep him with her, a
playfulness that brought the ready color to
Rand's cheek. When she added to this the
greater audacity of kissing her hand to
him, the young hermit actually turned
away in sheer embarrassment. When he
looked around again, she was gone, and
for the first time in his experience the
mountain seemed barren and lonely.
The too sympathetic reader who would
rashly deduce from this any newly
awakened sentiment in the virgin heart of
Rand would quite misapprehend that pe-
culiar young man. That singular mix-
ture of boyish inexperience and mature
doubt and disbelief, which was partly the
result of his temperament, and partly of
his cloistered life on the mountain, made
him regard his late companions, now that
they were gone, and his intimacy with
them, with remorseful distrust. The
mountain was barren and lonely, because it
was no longer his. It had become a part
of the great world, which four years ago
he and his brother had put aside, and in
which, as two self-devoted men, they
walked alone. More than that, he be-
334 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
lieved he had acquired some understanding
of the temptations that assailed his brother,
and the poor little vanities of the "Marys-
ville Pet" were transformed into the bland-
ishments of a Circe. Hand, who would
have succumbed to a wicked, superior
woman, believed he was a saint in with-
standing the foolish weakness of a simple
one.
He did not resume his work that day.
He paced the mountain, anxiously await-
ing his brother's return, and eager to re-
late his experiences. He would go with
him to the dramatic entertainment; from
his example and wisdom, Ruth should
learn how easily temptation might be over-
come. But, first of all, there should be
the fullest exchange of confidences and
explanations. The old rule should be
rescinded for once, the old discussion in
regard to Mornie re-opened, and Rand,
having convinced his brother of error,
would generously extend his forgiveness.
The sun sank redly. Lingering long
upon the ledge before their cabin, it at last
slipped away almost imperceptibly, leaving
Rand still wrapped in revery. Darkness,
TEE CLOUDS GATHER. 335
the smoke of distant fires in the woods,
and the faint evening incense of the pines,
crept slowly up ; but Ruth came not. The
moon rose, a silver gleam on the farther
ridge; and Rand, becoming uneasy at hfl
brother's prolonged absence, resolved to
break another custom, and leave the sum-
mit, to seek him on the trail. He buckled
on his revolvers, seized his gun, when a
cry from the depths arrested him. He
leaned over the ledge, and listened. Again
the cry arose, and this time more distinctly.
He held his breath: the blood settled
around his heart in superstitious terror.
It was the wailing voice of a woman.
"Ruth, Ruth! for God's sake come and
help me !"
The blood flew back hotly to Rand's
cheek. It was Mornie's voice. By lean-
ing over the ledge, he could distinguish
something moving along the almost pre-
cipitous face of the cliff, where an aban-
doned trail, long since broken off and dis-
rupted by the fall of a portion of the ledge,
stopped abruptly a hundred feet below
him. Rand knew the trail, a dangerous
one always: in its present condition a
single mis-step would be fatal. ,Would
836 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
she make that mis-step? He shook off a
horrible temptation that seemed to be seal-
ing his lips, and paralyzing his limbs, and
almost screamed to her, "Drop on your
face, hang on to the chaparral, and don't
move !"
In another instant, with a coil of rope
around his arm, he was dashing down
the almost perpendicular "slide." When
he had nearly reached the level of the
abandoned trail, he fastened one end of
the rope to a jutting splinter of granite,
and began to "lay out," and work his way
laterally along the face of the mountain.
Presently he struck the regular trail at the
point from which the woman must have
diverged.
"It is Band," she said, without lifting
her head.
"It is," replied Rand coldly. "Pass the
rope under your arms, and I'll get you back
to the trail."
"Where is Ruth ?" she demanded again,
without moving. She was trembling, but
with excitement rather than fear.
"I don't know," returned Rand impa-
tiently. "Come! the ledge is already
crumbling beneath our feet"
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 337
"Let it crumble I" said the woman pas-
sionately.
Rand surveyed her with profound dis-
gust, then passed the rope around her
waist, and half lifted, half swung her from
her feet. In a few moments she began to
mechanically help herself, and permitted
him to guide her to a place of safety.
That reached, she sank down again.
The rising moon shone full upon her
face and figure. Through his growing in-
dignation Rand was still impressed and
even startled with the change the few last
months had wrought upon her. In place
of the silly, fanciful, half-hysterical hoy-
den whom he had known, a matured
woman, strong in passionate self-will, fas-
cinating in a kind of wild, savage beauty,
looked up at him as if to read his very
soul.
"What are you staring at?" she said
finally. "Why don't you help me on ?"
"Where do you want to go ?" said Rand
quietly.
"Where! Up there!" she pointed
savagely to the top of the mountain, "to
him! Where else should I go?" she said,
with a bitter laugh.
338 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"I've told you he wasn't there," said
Rand roughly. "He hasn't returned."
"I'll wait for him do you hear ? wait
for him ; stay there till he comes. If you
won't help me, I'll go alone."
She made a step forward but faltered,
staggered, and was obliged to lean against
the mountain for support. Stains of travel
were on her dress; lines of fatigue and
pain, and traces of burning passionate
tears, were on her face; her black hair
flowed from beneath her gaudy bonnet;
and, shamed out of his brutality, Rand
placed his strong arm round her waist, and
half carrying, half supporting her, began
the ascent. Her head dropped wearily on
his shoulder; her arm encircled his neck;
her hair, as if caressingly, lay across his
breast and hands; her grateful eyes were
close to his; her breath was upon his
cheek: and yet his only consciousness was
of the possibly ludicrous figure he might
present to his brother, should he meet him
with Mornie Nixon in his arms. Not a
word was spoken by either till they reached
the summit. Relieved at finding his
brother still absent, he turned not unkindly
toward the helpless figure on his arm. "I
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 339
don't see what makes Ruth so late," he
said. "He's always here by sundown.
Perhaps"
"Perhaps he knows I'm here," said
Mornie, with a bitter laugh.
"I didn't say that," said Rand, "and I
don't think it. What I meant was, he
might have met a party that was picnick-
ing here to-day, Sol. Saunders and wife,
and Miss Euphemia "
Mornie flung his arm away from her
with a passionate gesture. "They here !
picnicking here! those people here!"
"Yes," said Rand, unconsciously a little
ashamed. "They came here accidentally."
Mornie's quick passion had subsided:
she had sunk again wearily and helplessly
on a rock beside him. "I suppose," she
said, with a weak laugh "I suppose, they
talked of me. I suppose they told you
how, with their lies and fair promises,
they tricked me out, and set me before an
audience of brutes and laughing hyenas to
make merry over. Did they tell you of
the insults that I received ? how the sins
of my parents were flung at me instead of
bouquets? Did they tell you they could
have spared me this, but they wanted the
340 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
few extra dollars taken in at the door?
"They said nothing of the kind," re-
plied Rand surlily.
"Then you must have stopped them.
You were horrified enough to know that I
had dared to take the only honest way left
me to make a living. I know you, Ran-
dolph Pinkney ! You'd rather see Joaquin
Muriatta, the Mexican bandit, standing be-
fore you to-night with a revolver, than the
helpless, shamed, miserable Mornie Nixon.
And you can't help yourself, unless you
throw me over the cliff. Perhaps you'd
better," she said, with a bitter laugh that
faded from her lips as she leaned, pale and
breathless, against the bowlder.
"Ruth will tell you " began Rand.
"D nRuth!"
Rand turned away.
"Stop !" she said suddenly, staggering to
her feet. "I'm sick for all I know,
dying. God grant that it may be so!
But, if you are a man, you will help me
to your cabin to some place where I can
He down now, and be at rest. I'm very,
very tired."
She paused. She would have fallen
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 341
again : but Rand, seeing more in her face
than her voice interpreted to his sullen
ears, took her sullenly in his arms, and
carried her to the cabin. Her eyes glanced
around the bright party-colored walls, and
a faint smile came to her lips as she put
aside her bonnet, adorned with a com-
panion pinion of the bright wings that
covered it.
"Which is Ruth's bed?" she asked.
Rand pointed to it.
"Lay me there!"
Rand would have hesitated, but, with
another look at her face, complied.
She lay quite still a moment. Presently
she said, "Give me some brandy or
whiskey !"
Rand was silent and confused.
"I forgot," she added half bitterly. "I
know you have not that commonest and
cheapest of vices."
She lay quite still again. Suddenly she
raised herself partly on her elbow, and in
a strong, firm voice, said, "Rand!"
"Yes, Mornie."
"If you are wise and practical, as you
assume to be, you will do what I ask you
without a question. If you do it at once,
34:2 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
you may save yourself and Ruth some
trouble, some mortification, and perhaps
some remorse and sorrow. Do you hear
me?"
"Yes."
"Go to the nearest doctor, and bring him
here with you.
"But you !"
Her voice was strong, confident, steady,
and patient. "You can safely leave me
until then."
In another moment Rand was plunging
down the "slide." But it was past mid-
night when he struggled over the last bowl-
der up the ascent, dragging the half -ex-
hausted medical wisdom of Brown's Ferry
on his arm.
"I've been gone long, doctor," said Rand
feverishly, "and she looked so death-like
when I left. If we should be too late !"
The doctor stopped suddenly, lifted his
head, and pricked his ears like a hound on
a peculiar scent. "We are too late," he
said, with a slight professional laugh.
Indignant and horrified, Rand turned
upon him.
"Listen," said the doctor, lifting his
hand.
THE CLOUDS GATHER. 343
Rand listened, so intently that lie heard
the familiar moan of the river below ; but
the great stony field lay silent before him.
And then, borne across its bare barren
bosom, like its own articulation, came
faintly the feeble wail of a new-born babe.
III.
STORM.
THE doctor hurried ahead in the dark-
ness. Rand, who had stopped paralyzed
at the ominous sound, started forward
again mechanically; but as the cry arose
again more distinctly, and the full signifi-
cance of the doctor's words came to him,
he faltered, stopped, and, with cheeks
burning with shame and helpless indigna-
tion, sank upon a stone beside the shaft,
and, burying his face in his hands, fairly
gave way to a burst of boyish tears. Yet
even then the recollection that he had not
cried since, years ago, his mother's dying
hands had joined his and Ruth's childish
fingers together, stung him fiercely, and
dried his tears in angry heat upon his
cheeks.
How long he sat there, he remembered
not; what he thought, he recalled not
344
STORM. 345
But the wildest and most extravagant plans
and resolves availed him nothing in the
face of this forever desecrated home, and
this shameful culmination of his ambitious
life on the mountain. Once he thought of
flight ; but the reflection that he would still
abandon his brother to shame, perhaps a
self-contented shame, checked him hope-
lessly. Could he avert the future? He
must' but how? Yet he could only sit
and stare into the darkness in dumb ab-
straction.
Sitting there, his eyes fell upon a pe-
culiar object in a crevice of the ledge beside
the shaft. It was the tin pail containing
his dinner, which, according to their cus-
tom, it was the duty of the brother who
staid above ground to prepare and place
for the brother who worked below. Euth
must, consequently, have put it there before
he left that morning, and Rand had over-
looked it while sharing the repast of the
strangers at noon. At the sight of this
dumb witness of their mutual cares and
labors, Rand sighed, half in brotherly sor-
row, half in a selfish sense of injury done
him.
He took up the pail mechanically, re-
346 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
moved its cover, and started; for on
top of the carefully bestowed provisions lay
a little note, addressed to him in Ruth's
peculiar scrawl.
He opened it with feverish hands, held
it in the light of the peaceful moon, and
read as follows :
DEAR, DEAR BROTHER, When you read this, I
shall be far away. I go because I shall not stay
to disgrace you, and because the girl that I brought
trouble upon has gone away too, to hide her dis-
grace and mine; and where she goes, Rand, I
ought to follow her, and, please God, I will! I
am not as wise or as good as you are, but it seems
the best I can do; and God 'bless you, dear old
Randy, boy! Times and times again I've wanted
to tell you all, and reckoned to do so ; but whether
you was sitting before me in the cabin, or working
beside me in the drift, I couldn't get to look upon
your honest face, dear brother, and say what things
I'd been keeping from you so long. I'll stay away
until I've done what I ought to do, and if you can
say, "Come, Ruth," I will come; but, until you can
say it, the mountain is yours, Randy, boy, the mine
is yours, the cabin is yours, all is yours. Rub out
the old chalk-marks, Rand, as I rub them out
here in my [A few words here were blurred and
indistinct, as if the moon had suddenly become
dim-eyed too]. God bless you, brother!
P.S. You know I mean Mornie all the time.
It's she I'm going to seek; but don't you think so
bad of her as you do, I am so much worse than
she. I wanted to tell you that all along, but I
didn't dare. She's run away from the Ferry half
crazy; said she was going to Sacramento, and I
am going there to find her alive or dead. Forgive
me, brother! Don't throw this down right away;
hold it in your hand a moment, Randy, boy, and
STORM. 347
try hard to think it's my hand in yours. And so
good-by, and God bless you, old Randy!
From your loving brother,
RUTH.
A deep sense of relief overpowered every
other feeling in Rand's breast. It was
clear that Ruth had not yet discovered the
truth of Mornie's flight: he was on his
way to Sacramento, and before he could
return, Mornie could be removed. Once
despatched in some other direction, with
Ruth once more returned and under his
brother's guidance, the separation could be
made easy and final. There was evidently
no marriage as yet; and now, the fear of
an immediate meeting over, there should
be none. For Rand had already feared
this ; had recalled the few infelicitous rela-
tions, legal and illegal, which were com-
mon to the adjoining camp, the flagrantly
miserable life of the husband of a San
Francisco anonyma who lived in style at
the Ferry, the shameful carousals and
more shameful quarrels of the Frenchman
and Mexican woman who "kept house" at
"the Crossing," the awful spectacle of the
three half-bred Indian children who played
before the cabin of a fellow miner and
townsman. Thank Heaven, the Eagle's
348 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
Nest on Table Mountain should never be
pointed at from the valley as another
A heavy hand upon his arm brought him
trembling to his feet. He turned, and
met the half-anxious, half-contemptuous
glance of the doctor.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said
dryly; "but it's about time you or some-
body else put in an appearance at that
cabin. Luckily for her, she's one woman
in a thousand ; has had her wits about her
better than some folks I know, and has
left me little to do but make her comfort-
able. But she's gone through too much,
fought her little fight too gallantly, is
altogether too much of a trump to be played
off upon now. So rise up out of that,
young man, pick up your scattered facul-
ties, and fetch a woman some sensible
creature of her own sex to look after
her ; for, without wishing to be personal,
I'm d d if I trust her to the likes of
you."
There was no mistaking Dr. Duchesne's
voice and manner; and Band was affected
by it ; as most people were throughout the
valley of the Stanislaus. But he turned
upon him his frank and boyish face,
STORM. 349
and said simply, "But I don't know any
woman, or where to get one."
The doctor looked at him again. "Well,
I'll find you some one," he said, softening.
"Thank you I" said Eand.
The doctor was disappearing. With an
effort Rand recalled him. "One moment,
doctor." He hesitated, and his cheeks
were glowing. "You'll please say nothing
about this down there" he pointed to the
valley "for a time. And you'll say to
the woman you send "
Dr. Duchesne, whose resolute lips were
sealed upon the secrets of half Tuolumne
County, interrupted him scornfully. "I
cannot answer for the woman you must
talk to her yourself. As for me, generally
I keep my professional visits to myself;
but " he laid his hand on Hand's arm
"if I find out you're putting on any airs to
that poor creature, if, on my next visit,
her lips or her pulse tell me you haven't
been acting on the square to her, I'll drop
a hint to drunken old Nixon where his
daughter is hidden. I reckon she could
stand his brutality better than yours.
Good-night !"
In another moment he was gone. Rand,
350 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
who had held back his quick tongue, feeling
himself in the power of this man, once
more alone, sank on a rock, and buried his
face in his hands. Kecalling himself in a
moment, he rose, wiped his hot eyelids, and
staggered toward the cabin. It was quite
still now. He paused on the topmost step,
and listened : there was no sound from the
ledge, or the Eagle's Nest that clung to it.
Half timidly he descended the winding
steps, and paused before the door of the
cabin. "Mornie," he said, in a dry, me-
tallic voice, whose only indication of the
presence of sickness was in the lowness of
its pitch, "Mornie!" There was no re-
ply. "Mornie," he repeated impatiently,
"it's me, Rand. If you want anything,
you're to call me. I am just outside."
Still no answer came from the silent cabin.
He pushed open the door gently, hesitated,
and stepped over the threshold.
A change in the interior of the cabin
within the last few hours showed a new
presence. The guns, shovels, picks, and
blankets had disappeared; the two chairs
were drawn against the wall, the table
placed by the bedside. The swinging-
lantern was shaded towards the bed, the
STORM. 851
object of Rand's attention. On that bed,
his brother's bed, lay a helpless woman,
pale from the long black hair that matted
her damp forehead, and clung to her hollow
cheeks. Her face was turned to the wall,
so that the softened light fell upon her pro-
file, which to Rand at that moment seemed
even noble and strong. But the next mo-
ment his eye fell upon the shoulder and
arm that lay nearest to him, and the little
bundle, swathed in flannel, that it clasped
to her breast. His brow grew dark as he
gazed. The sleeping woman moved. Per-
haps it was an instinctive consciousness of
his presence ; perhaps it was only the cur-
rent of cold air from the opened door : but
she shuddered slightly, and, still uncon-
scious, drew the child as if away from him,
and nearer to her breast. The shamed
blood rushed to Rand's face; and saying
half aloud, "I'm not going to take your
precious babe away from you," he turned
in half -boyish pettishness away. Never-
theless he came back again shortly to the
bedside, and gazed upon them both. She
certainly did look altogether more lady-
like, and less aggressive, lying there so
still: sickness, that cheap refining process
862 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
of some natures, was not unbecoming to
her. But this bundle! A boyish curi-
osity, stronger than even his strong objec-
tion to the whole episode, was steadily im-
pelling him to lift the blanket from it. "I
suppose she'd waken if I did," said Hand ;
"but I'd like to know what right the doctor
had to wrap it up in my best flannel shirt."
This fresh grievance, the fruit of his curi-
osity, sent him away again to meditate on
the ledge. After a few moments he re-
turned again, opened the cupboard at the
foot of the bed softly, took thence a piece
of chalk, and scrawled in large letters upon
the door of the cupboard, "If you want any-
thing, sing out : I'm just outside. BAND/'
This done, he took a blanket and bear-skin
from the corner, and walked to the door.
But here he paused, looked back at the
inscription (evidently not satisfied with
it), returned, took up the chalk, added a
line, but rubbed it out again, repeated this
operation a few times until he produced
the polite postscript, "Hope you'll be bet-
ter soon." Then he retreated to the ledge,
spread the bear-skin beside the door, and,
rolling himself in a blanket, lit his pipe for
his night-long vigil. But Rand, although
STORM. 353
a martyr, a philosopher, and a moralist,
was young. In less than ten minutes the
pipe dropped from his lips, and he was
asleep.
He awoke with a strange sense of heat
and suffocation, and with Difficulty shook
off his covering. Rubbing his eyes, he dis-
covered that an extra blanket had in some
mysterious way been added in the night;
and beneath his head was a pillow he had
no recollection of placing there when he
went to sleep. By degrees the events of
the past night forced themselves upon his
benumbed faculties, and he sat up. The
sun was riding high; the door of the
cabin was open. Stretching himself, he
staggered to his feet, and looked in through
the yawning crack at the hinges. He
rubbed his eyes again. Was he still asleep,
and followed by a dream of yesterday?
For there, even in the very attitude he re-
membered to have seen her sitting at her
luncheon on the previous day, with her
knitting on her lap, sat Mrs. Sol Saunders !
What did it mean ? or had she really been
sitting there ever since, and all the events
that followed only a dream ?
354 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
A hand was laid upon his arm; and,
turning, he saw the murky black eyes and
Indian-inked beard of Sol beside him.
That gentleman put his finger on his lips
with a theatrical gesture, and then, slowly
retreating in the well-known manner of
the buried Majesty of Denmark, waved
him, like another Hamlet, to a remoter
part of the ledge. This reached, he
grasped Rand warmly by the hand, shook
it heartily, and said, "It's all right, my
boy ; all right !"
"But" began Rand. The hot blood
flowed to his cheeks: he stammered, and
stopped short.
"It's all right, I say ! Don't you mind !
We'll pull you through."
"But, Mrs. Sol ! what does she "
"Rosey has taken the matter in hand,
sir; and when that woman takes a matter
in hand, whether it's a baby or a rehearsal,
sir, she makes it buzz."
"But how did she know?" stammered
Rand.
"How? Well, sir, the scene opened
something like this," said Sol profession-
ally. "Curtain rises on me and Mrs. Sol.
Domestic interior : practicable chairs, table,
STORM. 355
books, newspapers. Enter Dr. Duchesne,
eccentric character part, very popular
with the boys, tells off-hand affecting
story of strange woman one 'more un-
fortunate' having baby in Eagle's Nest,
lonely place on 'peaks of Snowdon,' mid-
night; eagles screaming, you know, and
far down unfathomable depths; only at-
tendant, cold-blooded ruffian, evidently
father of child, with sinister designs on
child and mother."
"He didn't say that !" said Rand, with
an agonized smile.
"Order ! Sit down in front !" continued
Sol easily. u Mrs. Sol highly interested,
a mother herself demands name of place.
'Table Mountain.' No; it cannot be it
is! Excitement. Mystery! Rosey rises
to occasion comes to front: 'Some one
must go ; I I will go myself !' Myself,
coming to center : 'Not alone, dearest ; I
I will accompany you!' A shriek at
right upper center. Enter the 'Marysville
Pet.' 'I have heard all. Tis a base
calumny. It cannot be he Randolph!
Never!' 'Dare you accompany us?' 'I
will ? Tableau.
"Is Miss Euphemia here ?" gasped
v. 24 L Bret Harte
356 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
Eand, practical even in his embarrass-
ment.
"Or-r-rder! Scene second. Summit of
mountain moonlight. Peaks of Snowdon
in distance. Right lonely cabin. Enter
slowly up defile, Sol, Mrs. Sol, the 'Pet.'
Advance slowly to cabin. Suppressed
shriek from the 'Pet,' who rushes to re-
cumbent figure Left discovered lying
beside cabin-door. ' 'Tis he ! Hist ! he
sleeps!' Throws blanket over him, and
retires up stage so." Here Sol achieved
a vile imitation of the "Pet's" most en-
chanting stage-manner. "Mrs. Sol ad-
vances Center throws open door.
Shriek! ' 'Tis Mornie, the lost found!'
The 'Pet' advances : 'And the father is V
'Not Rand!' The Tet' kneeling: 'Just
Heaven, I thank thee !' No, it is ' "
"Hush!" said Rand appealingly, look-
ing toward the cabin.
"Hush it is!" said the actor good-na-
turedly. "But it's all right, Mr. Rand:
we'll pull you through."
Later in the morning, Rand learned that
Mornie's ill-fated connection with the Star
Variety Troupe had been a source of
anxiety to Mrs. Sol, and she had (re-
STORM. 367
preached herself for the girl's infelicitous
debut.
"But, Lord bless you, Mr. Eand !" said
Sol, "it was all in the way of business.
She carne to us was fresh and new. Her
chance, looking at it professionally, was
as good as any amateur's; but what with
her relations here, and her bein' known,
Bhe didn't take. We lost money on her!
It's natural she should feel a little ugly.
We all do when we get sorter kicked back
onto ourselves, and find we can't stand
alone. Why, you wouldn't believe it," he
continued, with a moist twinkle of his
black eyes ; "but the night I lost my little
Rosey, of diphtheria in Gold Hill, the
child was down on the bills for a comic
song; and I had to drag Mrs. Sol on, cut
up as she was, and filled up with that
much of Old Bourbon to keep her nerves
stiff, so she could do an old gag- with me to
gain time, and make up the Variety.'
Why, sir, when I came to the front, / was
ugly! And when one of the boys in the
front row sang out, 'Don't expose that poor
child to the night air, Sol,' meaning Mrs.
Sol, I acted ugly. No, sir, it's human
nature; and it was quite natural that
358 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
Morale, when she caught sight o' Mrs.
Sol's face last night, should rise up and
cuss us both. Lord, if she'd only acted
like that! But the old lady got her quiet
at last ; and, as I said before, it's all right,
and we'll pull her through. But don't you
thank us : it's a little matter betwixt us and
Mornie. We've got everything fixed, so
that Mrs. Sol can stay right along. We'll
pull Mornie through, and get her away
from this, and her baby too, as soon as we
can. You won't get mad if I tell you
something?" said Sol, with a half-apolo-
getic laugh. "Mrs. Sol was rather down
on you the other day, hated you on sight,
and preferred your brother to you; but
when she found he'd run off and left you,
you, don't mind my savin', a 'mere
boy,' to take what oughter be his place,
why, she just wheeled round agin' him. I
suppose he got flustered, and couldn't face
the music. Never left a word of explana-
tion? Well, it wasn't exactly square,
though I tell the old woman it's human
nature. He might have dropped a hint
where he was goin'. Well, there, I won't
say a word more agin' him. I know how
vou feel. Hush it is."
8TORM. 359
It was the firm conviction of the simple-
minded Sol that no one knew the various
natural indications of human passion bet-
ter than himself. Perhaps it was one of
the fallacies of his profession that the ex-
pression of all human passion was limited
to certain conventional signs and sounds.
Consequently, when Eand colored vio-
lently, became confused, stammered, and
at last turned hastily away, the good-
hearted fellow instantly recognized the un-
failing evidence of modesty and innocence
embarrassed by recognition. As for Rand,
I fear his shame was only momentary.
Confirmed in the belief of .his ulterior wis-
dom and virtue, his first embarrassment
over, he was not displeased with this half-
way tribute, and really believed that the
time would come when Mr. Sol should
eventually praise his sagacity and reserva-
tion, and acknowledge that he was some-
thing more than a mere boy. He, never-
theless, shrank from meeting Mornie that
morning, and was glad that the presence of
Mrs. Sol relieved him from that duty.
The day passed uneventfully. Rand
busied himself in his usual avocations, and
constructed a temporary shelter for him-
360 THE TWIN8 OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
self and Sol beside the shaft, besides rudely
shaping a few necessary articles of furni-
ture for Mrs. Sol.
"It will be a little spell yet afore
Mornie's able to be moved," suggested Sol,
"and you might as well be comfortable."
Rand sighed at this prospect, yet pres-
ently forgot himself in the good humor of
his companion, whose admiration for
himself he began to patronizingly admit.
There was no sense of degradation in ac-
cepting the friendship of this man who
had traveled so far, seen so much, and yet,
as a practical man of the world, Kand felt
was so inferior to himself. The absence of
Miss Euphemia, who had early left the
mountain, was a source of odd, half-
definite relief. Indeed, when he closed
his eyes to rest that night, it was with a
sense that the reality of his situation was
not as bad as he had feared. Once only,
the figure of his brother haggard, weary,
and footsore, on his hopeless quest, wander-
ing in lonely trails and lonelier settlements
came across his fancy; but with it
came the greater fear of his return, and
the pathetic figure was banished. "And,
besides, he's in Sacramento by this time,
STORM. 361
and like as not forgotten us all," he mut-
tered; and, twining this poppy and man-
dragora around his pillow, he fell asleep.
His spirits had quite returned the next
morning, and once or twice he found him-
self singing while at work in the shaft
The fear that Ruth might return to the
mountain before he could get rid of
Mornie, and the slight anxiety that had
grown upon him to know something of his
brother's movements, and to be able to
govern them as he wished, caused him to
hit upon the plan of constructing an in-
genious advertisement to be published in
the San Francisco journals, wherein the
missing Euth should be advised that news
of his quest should be communicated to
him by u a friend," through the same
medium, after an interval of two weeks.
Full of this amiable intention, he returned
to the surface to dinner. Here, to his
momentary confusion, he met Miss Eu-
phemia, who, in absence of Sol, was as-
sisting Mrs. Sol in the details of the house-
hold.
If the honest frankness with which that
young lady greeted him was not enough to
relieve his embarrassment, he would have
362 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
forgotten it in the utterly new and changed
aspect she presented. Her extravagant
walking-costume of the previous day was
replaced by some bright calico, a little
white apron, and a broad-brimmed straw-
hat, which seemed to Rand, in some odd
fashion, to restore her original girlish sim-
plicity. The change was certainly not un-
becoming to her. If her waist was not as
tightly pinched, a la mode, there still was
an honest, youthful plumpness about it;
her step was freer for the absence of her
high-heel boots ; and even the hand she ex-
tended to Rand, if not quite so small as in
her tight gloves, and a little brown from
exposure, was magnetic in its strong,
kindly grasp. There was perhaps a slight
suggestion of the practical Mr. Sol in her
wholesome presence; and Rand could not
help wondering if Mrs. Sol had ever been
a Gold Hill "Pet" before her marriage
with Mr. Sol. The young girl noticed his
curious glance.
"You never saw me in my rehearsal
dress before," she said, with a laugh.
"But I'm not 'company' to-day, and didn't
put on my best harness to knock round in.
I suppose I look dreadful."
STORM. 363
"I don't think you look bad/' said Rand
simply.
"Thank you," said Euphemia, with a
laugh and a courtesy. "But this isn't get-
ting the dinner."
As part of that operation evidently was
the taking-off of her hat, the putting-up of
some thick blond locks that had escaped,
and the rolling-up of her sleeves over a
pair of strong, rounded arms, Rand lin-
gered near her. All trace of the "Pet's"
previous professional coquetry was gone,
perhaps it was only replaced by a more
natural one; but as she looked up, and
caught sight of Rand's interested face, she
laughed again, and colored a little. Slight
as was the blush, it was sufficient to kindle
a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks,
which was so utterly unexpected to him that
he turned on his heel in confusion. "I
reckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like
Ruth," he soliloquized, and, determining
not to look at her again, betook himself to a
distant and contemplative pipe. In vain did
Miss Euphemia address herself to the os-
tentatious getting of the dinner in full view
of him ; in vain did she bring the coffee-pot
away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with
364 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
the apparent intention of examining its
contents in a better light; in vain, while
wiping a plate, did she, absorbed in the
distant prospect, walk to the verge of the
mountain, and become statuesque and for-
getful. The sulky young gentleman took
no outward notice of her.
Mrs. Sol's attendance upon Mornie pre-
vented her leaving the cabin, and Rand and
Miss Euphemia dined in the open air alone.
The ridiculousness of keeping up a formal
attitude to his solitary companion caused
Rand to relax; but, to his astonishment,
the "Pet" seemed to have become corre-
spondingly distant and formal. After a
few moments of discomfort, Rand, who
had eaten little, arose, and u believed he
would go back to work."
"Ah, yes!" said the "Pet," with an in-
different air, "I suppose you must. Well,
good-by, Mr. Pinkney."
Rand turned. "You are not going ?" he
asked, in some uneasiness.
"I've got some work to do too," re-
turned Miss Euphemia a little curtly.
"But," said the practical Rand, "I
thought you allowed that you were fixed to
stay until to-morrow?"
STORM. 365
But here Miss Euphemia, with rising
color and slight acerbity of voice, was not
aware that she was "fixed to stay" any-
where, least of all when she was in the
way. More than that, she must say al-
though perhaps it made no difference, and
she ought not to say it that she was not
in the habit of intruding upon gentlemen
who plainly gave her to understand that
her company was not desirable. She did
not know why she said this of course it
could make no difference to anybody who
didn't, of course, care but she only
wanted to say that she only came here be-
cause her dear friend, her adopted mother,
and a better woman never breathed,
had come, and had asked her to stay. Of
course, Mrs. Sol was an intruder herself
Mr. Sol was an intruder they were all in-
truders : she only wondered that Mr. Pink-
ney had borne with them so long. She
knew it was an awful thing to be here,
taking care of a poor poor, helpless
woman ; but perhaps Mr. Rand's brother
might forgive them, if he couldn't. But
no matter, she would go Mr. Sol would
go all would go; and then, perhaps, Mr.
Rand
366 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
She stopped breathless; she stopped
with the corner of her apron against her
tearful hazel eyes; she stopped with
what was more remarkable than all
Rand's arm actually around her waist, and
his astonished, alarmed face within a few
inches of her own.
"Why, Miss Euphemia, Phemie, my
dear girl! I never meant anything like
that" said Rand earnestly. "I really
didn't now! Come now!"
"You never once spoke to me when I
sat down," said Miss Euphemia, feebly en-
deavoring to withdraw from Rand's grasp.
"I really didn't! Oh, come now, look
here ! I didn't ! Don't ! There's a dear
there !"
This last conclusive exposition was a
kiss. Miss Euphemia was not quick
enough to release herself from his arms.
He anticipated that act a full half-second,
and had dropped his own, pale and breath-
less. .
The girl recovered herself first. "There,
I declare, I'm forgetting Mrs. Sol's coffee !"
she exclaimed hastily, and, snatching up
the coffee-pot, disappeared. When she re-
turned, Rand was gone. Miss Euphemia
STORM. 367
busied herself demurely in clearing up the
dishes, with the tail of her eye sweeping
the horizon of the summit level around her.
But no Rand appeared. Presently she be-
gan to laugh quietly to herself. This oc-
curred several times during her occupa-
tion, which was somewhat prolonged. The
result of this meditative hilarity was
summed up in a somewhat grave and
thoughtful deduction as she walked slowly
back to the cabin: "I do believe I'm 'the
first woman that that boy ever kissed."
Miss Euphemia staid that day and the
next, and Eand forgot his embarrassment.
By what means I know not, Miss Eu-
phemia managed to restore Rand's confi-
dence in himself and in her, and in a little
ramble on the mountain-side got him to
relate, albeit somewhat reluctantly, the
particulars of his rescue of Mornie from
her dangerous position on the broken
trail.
"And, if you hadn't got there as soon as
you did, she'd have fallen?" asked the
"Pet."
"I reckon," returned Rand gloomily:
"she was sorter dazed and crazed like."
"And you saved her life?"
368 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"I suppose so, if you put it that way,"
said Rand sulkily.
"But how did you get her up the moun-
tain again?"
"Oh! I got her up," returned Rand
moodily.
"But how? Really, Mr. Rand, you
don't know how interesting this is. It's
as good as a play," said the "Pet," with a
little excited laugh.
"Oh, I carried her up!"
"In your arms ?"
"Y-e-e-s."
Miss Euphemia paused, and bit off the
stalk of a flower, made a wry face, and
threw it away from her in disgust.
Then she dug a few tiny holes in the
earth with her parasol, and buried bits of
the flower-stalk in them, as if they had
been tender memories. "I suppose you
knew Mornie very well ?" she asked.
"I used to run across her in the woods,"
responded Rand shortly, "a year ago. I
didn't know her so well then as " He
stopped.
"As what? As now ?" asked the "Pet"
abruptly. Rand, who was coloring over
his narrow escape from a topic which a
STORM. 869
delicate kindness of Sol had excluded from
their intercourse on the mountain, stam-
mered, "as you do, I meant."
The "Pet" tossed her head a little.
"Oh! I don't know her at all except
through Sol."
Rand stared hard at this. The "Pet,"
who was looking at him intently, said,
"Show me the place where you saw Mornie
clinging that night."
"It's dangerous," suggested Rand.
"You mean I'd be afraid ! Try me ! I
don't believe she was so dreadfully fright-
ened!"
"Why?" asked Rand, in astonishment.
"Oh because "
Rand sat down in vague wonderment.
"Show it to me," continued the "Pet,"
"or I'll find it alone r
Thus challenged, he rose, and, after a
few moments' climbing, stood with her
upon the trail. "You see that thorn-bush
where the rock has fallen away. It was
just there. It is not safe to go farther.
No, really! Miss Euphemia! Please
don't! It's almost certain death!"
But the giddy girl had darted past him,
and, face to the wall of the cliff, was creep-
370 THE TWIN8 OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
ing along the dangerous path. Rand fol-
lowed mechanically. Once or twice the
trail crumbled beneath her feet; but she
clung to a projecting root of chaparral, and
laughed. She had almost reached her
elected goal, when, slipping, the treach-
erous chaparral she clung to yielded in her
grasp, and Rand, with a cry, sprung for-
ward.
But the next instant she quickly trans-
ferred her hold to a cleft in the cliff,
and was safe. Not so her companion.
The soil beneath him, loosened by the im-
pulse of his spring, slipped away: he was
falling with it, when she caught him
sharply with her disengaged hand, and to-
gether they scrambled to a more secure
footing.
"I could have reached it alone," said the
"Pet," "if you'd left me alone."
"Thank Heaven, we're saved!" said
Rand gravely.
"And without a rope" said Miss Eu-
phemia significantly.
Rand did not understand her. But, as
they slowly returned to the summit, he
stammered out the always difficult thanks
of a man who has been physically helped
STORM. 371
by one of the weaker sex. Miss Euphemia
was quick to see her error.
"I might have made you lose your foot-
ing by catching at you," she said meekly.
"But I was so frightened for you, and
could not help it."
The superior animal, thoroughly bam-
boozled, thereupon complimented her on
her dexterity.
"Oh, that's nothing!" she said, with a
sigh. "I used to do the flying-trapeze
business with papa when I was a child,
and I've not forgotten it." With this and
other confidences of her early life, in
which Rand betrayed considerable interest,
they beguiled the tedious ascent. "I ought
to have made you carry me up," said the
lady, with a little laugh, when they reached
the summit; "but you haven't known me
as long as you have Mornie, have you?"
With this mysterious speech she bade Eand
"good-night," and hurried off to the cabin.
And so a week passed by, the week so
dreaded by Rand, yet passed so pleasantly,
that at times it seemed as if that dread
were only a trick of his fancy, or as if the
circumstances that surrounded him were
different from what he believed them to
872 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
be. On the seventh day the doctor had
staid longer than usual; and Rand, who
had been sitting with Euphemia on the
ledge by the shaft, watching the sunset,
had barely time to withdraw his hand
from hers, as Mrs. Sol, a trifle pale and
wearied-looking, approached him.
"I don't like to trouble you," she said,
indeed, they had seldom troubled him with
the details of Mornie's convalescence, or
even her needs and requirements, "but
the doctor is alarmed about Mornie, and she
has asked to see you. I think you'd better
go in and speak to her. You know," con-
tinued Mrs. Sol delicately, a you haven't
been in there since the night she was taken
sick, and maybe a new face might do her
good."
The guilty blood flew to Band's face as
he stammered, "I thought I'd be in the
way. I didn't believe she cared much to
see me. Is she worse?"
"The doctor is looking very anxious,"
said Mrs. Sol simply.
The blood returned from Rand's face,
and settled around his heart. He turned
very pale. He had consoled himself al-
ways for his complicity in Ruth's absence,
STORM. 373
that he was taking good care of Mornie,
or what is considered by most selfish na-
tures an equivalent permitting or en-
couraging some one else to "take good care
of her ;" but here was a contingency utterly
unforeseen. It did not occur to him that
this "taking good care" of her could result
in anything but a perfect solution of her
troubles, or that there could be any future
to her condition but one of recovery. But
what if she should die? A sudden and
helpless sense of his responsibility to Ruth,
to her, brought him trembling to his feet.
He hurried to the cabin, where Mrs. Sol
left him with a word of caution : "You'll
find her changed and quiet, very quiet.
If I was you, I wouldn't say anything to
bring back her old self."
The change which Rand saw was so
great, the face that was turned to him so
quiet, that, with a new fear upon him, he
would have preferred the savage eyes and
reckless mien of the old Mornie whom he
hated. With his habitual impulsiveness
he tried to say something that should ex-
press that fact not unkindly, but faltered,
and awkwardly sank into the chair by her
bedside.
374 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"I don't wonder you stare at me now,"
she said in a far-off voice. "It seems to
you strange to see me lying here so quiet.
You are thinking how wild I was when I
came here that night. I must have been
crazy, I think. I dreamed that I said
dreadful things to you ; but you must for-
give me, and not mind it. I was crazy
then." She stopped, and folded the
blanket between her thin fingers. "I
didn't ask you to come here to tell you that,
or to remind you of it; but but when I
was crazy, I said so many worse, dreadful
things of him; and you you will be left
behind to tell him of it."
Eandwas vaguely murmuring something
to the effect that "he knew she didn't mean
anything," that "she musn't think of it
again," that "he'd forgotten all about
it," when she stopped him with a tired
gesture.
"Perhaps I was wrong to think, that,
after I am gone, you would care to tell
him anything. Perhaps I'm wrong to
think of it at all, or to care what he will
think of me, except for the sake of the
child his child, Kand that I must leave
behind me. He will know that U never
STORM. 375
abused him. No, God bless its sweet heart !
it never was wild and wicked and hateful,
like its cruel, crazy mother. And he will
love it ; and you, perhaps, will love it too
just a little, Eand! Look at it!" She
tried to raise the helpless bundle beside
her in her arms, but failed. "You must
lean over," she said faintly to Rand. "It
looks like him, doesn't it ?"
Rand, with wondering, embarrassed
eyes, tried to see some resemblance, in the
little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face
of his brother, which even then was haunt-
ing him from some mysterious distance.
He kissed the child's forehead, but even
then so vaguely and perfunctorily, that
the mother sighed, and drew it closer to
her breast.
"The doctor says," she continued in a
calmer voice, "that Fm not doing as well
as I ought to. I don't think," she faltered,
with something of her old bitter laugh,
"that I'm ever doing as well as I ought to,
and perhaps it's not strange now that I
don't. And he says that, in case any-
thing happens to me, I ought to look ahead.
I have looked ahead. It's a dark look
ahead, Rand a horror of blackness, with-
376 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
out kind faces, without the baby, with-
out without Mm!"
She turned her face away, and laid it
on the bundle by her side. It was so quiet
in the cabin, that, through the open door
beyond, the faint, rhythmical moan of the
pines below was distinctly heard.
"I know it's foolish; but that is what
'looking ahead' always meant to me," she
said, with a sigh. "But, since the doctor
has been gone, I've talked to Mrs. Sol, and
find it's for the best. And I look ahead,
and see more clearly. I look ahead, and
see my disgrace removed far away from
him and you. I look ahead, and see you
and he living together happily, as you did
before I came between you. I look ahead,
and see my past life forgotten, my faults
forgiven; and I think I see you. both
loving my baby, and perhaps loving me a
little for its sake. Thank you, Rand,
thank you !"
For Rand's hand had caught hers beside
the pillow, and he was standing over her,
whiter than she. Something in the pres-
sure of his hand emboldened her to go on a
and even lent a certain strength to her
voice.
STORM. 377
"When it comes to that, Eand, you'll
not let these people take the baby away.
You'll keep it here with you until he
conies. And something tells me that he will
come when I am gone. You'll keep it here
in the pure air and sunlight of the moun-
tain, and out of those wicked depths below;
and when I am gone, and they are gone,
and only you and Ruth and baby are here,
maybe you'll think that it came to you in
a cloud on the mountain, a cloud that
lingered only long enough to drop its bur-
den, and faded, leaving the sunlight and
dew behind. What is it, Eand? What
are you looking at?"
"I was thinking," said Rand in a
strange altered voice, "that I must trouble
you to let me take down those duds and
furbelows that hang on the wall, so that I
can get at some traps of mine behind
them." He took some articles from the
wall, replaced the dresses of Mrs. Sol, and
answered Mornie's look of inquiry.
"I was only getting at my purse and
my revolver," he said, showing them.
"I've got to get some stores at the Ferry
by daylight."
Mornie sighed. "I'm giving you great
378 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
trouble, Rand, I know ; but it won't be for
long."
He muttered something, took her hand
again, and bade her "good-night" When
he reached the door, he looked back. The
light was shining full upon her face as she
lay there, with her babe on her breast,
bravely "looking ahead."
IV.
THE CLOUDS PASS.
IT was early morning at the Ferry.
The "up coach" had passed, with lights un-
extinguished, and the "outsides" still
asleep. The ferryman had gone up to the
Ferry Mansion House, swinging his lan-
tern, and had found the sleepy-looking
"all night" bar-keeper on the point of with-
drawing for the day on a mattress under
the bar. An Indian half-breed, porter of
the Mansion House, was washing out the
stains of recent nocturnal dissipation from
the bar-room and veranda; a few birds
were twittering on the cotton-woods beside
the river; a bolder few had alighted upon
the veranda, and were trying to recon-
cile the existence of so much lemon-peel
and cigar-stumps with their ideas of a be-
neficent Creator. A faint earthly fresh-
ness and perfume rose along the river-
379
380 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
banks. Deep shadow still lay upon the
opposite shore; but in the distance, four
miles away, Morning along the level crest
of Table Mountain walked with rosy tread.
The sleepy bar-keeper was that morning
doomed to disappointment; for scarcely
had the coach passed, when steps were
heard upon the veranda, and a weary,
dusty traveller threw his blanket and knap-
sack to the porter, and then dropped into
a vacant arm-chair, with his eyes fixed on
the distant crest of Table Mountain. He
remained motionless for some time, until
the bar-keeper, who had already concocted
the conventional welcome of the Mansion
House, appeared with it in a glass, put it
upon the table, glanced at the stranger, and
then, thoroughly awake, cried out,
"Ruth Pinkney or I'm a Chinaman!"
The stranger lifted his eyes wearily.
Hollow circles were around their orbits;
haggard lines were in his cheeks. But it
was Ruth.
He took the glass, and drained it at a
single draught. "Yes," he said absently,
"Ruth Pinkney," and fixed his eyes again
on the distant rosy crest.
"On your way up home 3" suggested the
THE CLOUDS PASS. 381
bar-keeper, following the direction of
Ruth's eyes.
"Perhaps."
"Been upon a pasear, hain't yer ? Been
havin 7 a little tear round Sacramento,
seein' the sights ?"
Ruth smiled bitterly. "Yes."
The bar-keeper lingered, ostentatiously
wiping a glass. But Ruth again became
abstracted in the mountain, and the bar-
keeper turned away.
How pure and clear that summit looked
to him! how restful and steadfast with
serenity and calm! how unlike his own
feverish, dusty, travel- worn self ! A week
had elapsed since he had last looked upon
it, a week of disappointment, of anxious
fears, of doubts, of wild imaginings, of
utter helplessness. In his hopeless quest
of the missing Mornie, he had, in fancy,
seen this serene eminence haunting his re-
morseful, passion-stricken soul. And now,
without a clew to guide him to her un-
known hiding-place, he was back again, to
face the brother whom he had deceived,
with only the confession of his own weak-
ness. Hard as it was to lose forever the
fierce, reproachful glances of the woman
382 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
he loved, it was still harder, to a man of
Ruth's temperament, to look again upon
the face of the brother he feared. A hand
laid upon his shoulder startled him. It
was the bar-keeper.
"If it's a fair question, Ruth Pinkney,
I'd like to ask ye how long ye kalkilate to
hang around the Ferry to-day."
"Why ?" demanded Ruth haughtily.
"Because, whatever you've been and
done, I want ye to have a square show.
Ole Nixon has been cavoortin' round yer
the last two days, swearin' to kill you on
sight for runnin' off with his darter.
Sabe ? Now, let me ax ye two questions.
First, Are you heeled ?"
Ruth responded to this dialectical in-
quiry affirmatively by putting his hand on
his revolver.
"Good ! Now, second, Have you got the
gal along here with you ?"
"No," responded Ruth in a hollow
voice.
"That's better yet," said the man, with-
out heeding the tone of the reply. "A
woman and especially the woman in a
row of this kind handicaps a man
awful." He paused, and took up the
THE CLOUDS PASS. 383
empty glass. "Look yer, Ruth Pinkney,
I'm a square man, and I'll be square with
you. So I'll just tell you you've got the
demdest odds agin' ye. Pr'aps ye know
it, and don't keer. Well, the boys around
yer are all sidin' with the old man Nixon.
It's the first time the old rip ever had a
hand in his favor : so the boys will see fair
play for Mxon, and agin' you. But I
reckon you don't mind him!"
"So little, I shall never pull trigger on
him," said Ruth gravely.
The bar-keeper stared, and rubbed his
chin thoughtfully. "Well, thar's that
Kanaka Joe, who used to be -sorter sweet
on Mornie, he's an ugly devil, he's
helpin' the old man."
The sad look faded from Ruth's eyes
suddenly. A certain wild Berserker rage
a taint of the blood, inherited from
heaven knows what Old- World ancestry,
which had made the twin-brothers' South-
western eccentricities respected in the set-
tlement glowed in its place. The bar-
keeper noted it, and augured a lively fu-
ture for the day's festivities. But it faded
again; and Ruth, as he rose, turned hesi-
tatingly towards him.
384 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
"Have you seen my brother Rand
lately?"
"Nary."
"He hasn't been here, or about the
Terry?"
"Nary time."
"You haven't heard," said Ruth, with a
faint attempt at a smile, "if he's been
around here asking after me, sorter look-
ing me up, you know ?"
"Not much," returned the bar-keeper
deliberately. "Ez far ez I know Rand,
that ar brother o' yours, he's one of yer
high-toned chaps ez doesn't drink, thinks
bar-rooms is pizen, and ain't the sort to
come round yer, and sling yarns with me."
Ruth rose; but the hand that he placed
upon the table, albeit a powerful one,
trembled so that it was with difficulty he
resumed his knapsack. When he did so,
his bent figure, stooping shoulders, and
haggard face, made him appear another
man from the one who had sat down.
There was a slight touch of apologetic def-
erence and humility in his manner as he
p;iid his reckoning, and slowly and hesi-
tatingly began to descend the steps.
The bar-keeper looked after him thought-
THE CLOUDS PASS. 385
fully. "Well, dog my skin!" he ejacu-
lated to himself, "ef I hadn't seen that
man that same Kuth Pinkney straddle
a friend's body in this yer very room, and
dare a whole crowd to come on, I'd swar
that he hadn't any grit in him. Thar's
something up !"
But here Ruth reached the last step, and
turned again.
"If you see old man Nixon, say I'm in
town ; if you see that " (I
regret to say that I cannot repeat his exact
and brief characterization of the present
condition and natal antecedents of Kanaka
Joe), "say I'm looking out for him," and
was gone.
He wandered down the road, towards
the one long, straggling street of the set-
tlement. The few people who met him at
that early hour greeted him with a kind of
constrained civility; certain cautious souls
hurried by without seeing him ; all turned
and looked after him ; and a few followed
him at a respectful distance. A somewhat
notorious practical joker and recognized
wag at the Ferry apparently awaited his
coming with something of invitation and
expectation, but, catching sight of Ruth's
386 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
haggard face and blazing eyes, became in-
stantly practical, and by no means jocular
in his greeting. At the top of the hill,
Ruth turned to look once more upon the
distant mountain, now again a mere cloud-
line on the horizon. In the firm belief
that he would never again see the sun rise
upon it, he turned aside into a hazel-
thicket, and, tearing out a few leaves from
his pocket-book, wrote two letters, one to
Rand, and one to Mornie, but which, as
they were never delivered, shall not burden
this brief chronicle of that eventful day.
For, while transcribing them, he was
startled by the sounds of a dozen pistol-
shots in the direction of the hotel he had
recently quitted. Something in the mere
sound provoked the old hereditary fighting
instinct, and sent him to his feet with a
bound, and a slight distension of the nos-
trils, and sniffing of the air, not unknown
to certain men who become half intoxicated
by the smell of powder. He quickly
folded his letters, and addressed them care-
fully, and, taking off his knapsack and
blanket, methodically arranged them under
a tree, with the letters on top. Then he
examined the lock of his revolver, and
TEE CLOUDS PASS. 887
then, with the step of a man ten years
younger, leaped into the road. He had
scarcely done so when he was seized, and
by sheer force dragged into a blacksmith's
shop at the roadside. He turned his sav-
age face and drawn weapon upon his as-
sailant, but was surprised to meet the
anxious eyes of the bar-keeper of the Man-
sion House.
"Don't be a d d fool," said the man
quickly. "Thar's fifty agin 7 you down
thar. But why in h 11 didn't you wipe
out old Nixon when you had such a good
chance ?"
"Wipe out old Mxon ?" repeated Euth.
"Yes ; just now, when you had him cov-
ered."
"What 1"
The bar-keeper turned quickly upon
Euth, stared at him, and then suddenly
burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, I've
knowed you two were twins, but damn me
if I ever thought I'd be sold like this!"
And he again burst into a roar of laughter.
"What do you mean ?" demanded Euth
savagely.
"What do I mean ?" returned the bar-
keeper. "Why, I mean this. I mean that
v. 24 M Bret Harte
388 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
your brother Rand, as you call him, he'z
bin for a young feller, and a pious feller
doin' about the tallest kind o' fightin'
to-day that's been done at the Ferry. He
laid out that ar Kanaka Joe and two of
his chums. He was pitched into on your
quarrel, and he took it up for you like a
little man. I managed to drag him off,
up yer in the hazel-bush for safety, and
out you pops, and I thought you was him.
He can't be far away. Halloo! There
they're conrin' ; and thar's the doctor, try-
ing to keep them back 1"
A crowd of angry, excited faces, filled
the road suddenly; but before them
Dr. Duchesne, mounted, and with a
pistol in his hand, opposed their further
progress.
"Back in the bush !" whispered the bar-
keeper. u Now's your time I"
But Ruth stirred not. "Go you back,"
he said in a low voice, "find Rand, and
take him away. I will fill his place here."
He drew his revolver, and stepped into the
road.
A shout, a report, and the spatter of red
dust from a bullet near his feet, told him
he was recognized. He stirred not; but
THE CLOUDS PAS 8. 889
another shout, and a cry, "There they are
both of 'em !" made him turn.
His brother Rand, with a smile on his
lip and fire in his eye, stood by his side.
Neither spoke. Then Rand, quietly, as
of old, slipped his hand into his brother's
strong palm. Two or three bullets sang
by them; a splinter flew from the black-
smith's shed: but the brothers, hard grip-
ping each other's hands, and looking into
each other's faces with a quiet joy, stood
there calm and imperturbable.
There was a momentary pause. The
voice of Dr. Duchesne rose above the
crowd.
u Keep back, I say ! keep back ! Or hear
me! for five years I've worked among
you, and mended and patched the holes
you've drilled through each other's car-
casses Keep back, I say! or the next
man that pulls trigger, or steps forward,
will get a hole from me that no surgeon can
stop. I'm sick of your bungling ball prac-
tice ! Keep back ! or, by the living
Jingo, I'll show -you where a man's vitals
are !"
There was a burst of laughter from the
crowd, and for a moment the twins were
390 THE TWIN 8 OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
forgotten in this audacious speech and
coolly impertinent presence.
"That's right! Now let that infernal
old hypocritical drunkard, Mat Nixon,
step to the front."
The crowd parted right and left, and
half pushed, half dragged Nixon before
him.
"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "this is
the man who has just shot at Rand Pink-
ney for hiding his daughter. Now, I tell
you, gentlemen, and I tell him, that for
the last week his daughter, Mornie
Nixon, has been under my care as a patient,
and my protection as a friend. If there's
anybody to be shot, the job must begin
with me !"
There was another laugh, and a cry of
"Bully for old Sawbones !" Ruth started
convulsively, and Rand answered his look
with a confirming pressure of his hand.
"That isn't all, gentlemen : this drunken
brute has just shot at a gentleman whose
only offence, to my knowledge, is, that he
has, for the last week, treated her with a
brother's kindness, has taken her into his
own home, and cared for her wants as if
she were his own sister."
THE CLOUDS PA88. 391
Ruth's hand again grasped his brother's.
Rand colored and hung his head.
"There's more yet, gentlemen. I tell
you that that girl, Mornie Nixon, has, to
my knowledge, been treated like a lady, has
been cared for as she never was cared for
in her father's house, and, while that father
has been proclaiming her shame in every
bar-room at the Ferry, has had the sympa-
thy and care, night and day, of two of the
most accomplished ladies of the Ferry,
Mrs. Sol Saunders, gentlemen, and Miss
Euphemia."
There was a shout of approbation from
the crowd. Nixon would have slipped
away, but the doctor stopped him.
"]STot yet! I've one thing more to say.
I've to tell you, gentlemen, on my profes-
sional word of honor, that, besides being an
old hypocrite, this same old Mat Nixon is
the ungrateful, unnatural grandfather of
the first boy born in the district."
A wild huzza greeted the doctor's cli-
max. By a common consent the crowd
turned toward the Twins, who, grasping
each other's hands, stood apart. The doc-
tor nodded his head. The next moment
the Twins were surrounded, and lifted in
392 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
the arms of the laughing throng, and borne
in triumph to the bar-room of the Mansion
House.
"Gentlemen," said the bar-keeper, "call
for what you like: the Mansion House
treats to-day in honor of its being the first
time that Rand Pinkney has been admitted
to the bar."
It was agreed, that, as her condition was
still precarious, the news should be broken
to her gradually and indirectly. The in-
defatigable Sol had a professional idea,
which was not displeasing to the Twins.
It being a lovely summer afternoon, the
couch of Mornie was lifted out on the
ledge, and she lay there basking in the sun-
light, drinking in the pure air, and looking
bravely ahead in the daylight as she had
in the darkness, for her couch commanded
a view of the mountain flank. And, lying
there, she dreamed a pleasant dream, and
in her dream saw Rand' returning up the
mountain-trail. She was half conscious
that he had good news for her ; and, when
he at last reached her bedside, he began
gently and kindly to tell his news. But
THE CLOUDS PA88. 893
she heard him not, or rather in her dream
was most occupied with his ways and man-
ners, which seemed unlike him, yet inex-
pressibly sweet and tender. The tears
were fast coming in her eyes, when he sud-
denly dropped on his knees beside her,
threw away Rand's disguising hat and coat,
and clasped her in his arms. And by that
she knew it was Ruth.
But what they said ; what hurried words
of mutual explanation and forgiveness
passed between them ; what bitter yet ten-
der recollections of hidden fears and
doubts, now forever chased away in the
rain of tears and joyous sunshine of that
mountain-top, were then whispered ; what-
ever of this little chronicle that to the
reader seems strange and inconsistent (as
all human record must ever be strange and
imperfect, except to the actors) was then
made clear, was never divulged by them,
and must remain with them forever. The
rest of the party had withdrawn, and they
were alone. But when Mornie turned,
and placed the baby in its father's arms,
they were so isolated in their happiness,
that the lower world beneath them might
have swung and drifted away, and left that
394 THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
mountain-top the beginning and creation
of a better planet.
"You know all about it now," said Sol
the next day, explaining the previous epi-
sodes of this history to Kuth: "you've got
the whole plot before you. It dragged a
little in the second act, for the actors
weren't up in their parts. But for an am-
ateur performance, on the whole, it wasn't
bad."
"I don't know, I'm sure," said Rand
impulsively, u how we'd have got on with-
out Euphemia. It's too bad she couldn't
be here to-day."
"She wanted to come," said Sol; "but
the gentleman she's engaged to came up
from Marysville last night."
"Gentleman engaged !" repeated Rand,
white and red by turns.
"Well, yes. I say, 'gentleman,' al-
though he's in the variety profession. She
always said," said Sol, quietly looking at
Rand, "that she'd never marry out of it"
AN HEIEESS OF BED DOG.
THE first intimation given of the eccen-
tricity of the testator was, I think, in the
spring of 1854. He was at that time in
possession of a considerable property,
heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a
wife of some attraction, on whose affections
another friend held an encumbering lien.
One day it was found that he had secretly
dug, or caused to be dug, a deep trap be-
fore the front-door of his dwelling, into
which a few friends, in the course of the
evening, casually and familiarly dropped.
This circumstance, slight in itself, seemed
to point to the existence of a certain humor
in the man, which might eventually get
into literature, although his wife's lover
a man of quick discernment, whose leg was
broken by the fall took other views. It
was some weeks later, that, while dining
with certain other friends of his wife, he
excused himself from the table to quietly
396 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
re-appear at the front-window with a three-
quarter inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream
of water projected at the assembled com-
pany. An attempt was made to take pub-
lic cognizance of this ; but a majority of
the citizens of Red Dog, who were not at
dinner, decided that a man had a right to
choose his own methods of diverting his
company. Nevertheless, there were some
hints of his insanity ; his wife recalled
other acts clearly attributable to dementia;
the crippled lover argued from his own ex-
perience that the integrity of her limbs
could only be secured by leaving her hus-
band's house; and the mortgagee, fearing
a further damage to his property, fore-
closed. But here the cause of all this
anxiety took matters into his own hands,
and disappeared.
When we next heard from him, he had,
in some mysterious way, been relieved
alike of his wife and property, and was
living alone at Rockville fifty miles away,
and editing a newspaper. But that origi-
nality he had displayed when dealing with
the problems of his own private life, when
applied to politics in the columns of "The
Rockville Vanguard" was singularly un-
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 397
successful. An amusing exaggeration, pur-
porting to be an exact account of the man-
ner in which the opposing candidate had
murdered his Chinese laundryman, was, I
regret to say, answered only by assault and
battery. A gratuitous and purely imagi-
native description of a great religious re-
vival in Calaveras, in which the sheriff of
the county a notoriously profane sceptic
was alleged to have been the chief ex-
horter, resulted only in the withdrawal of
the county advertising from the paper. In
the midst of this practical confusion he
suddenly died. It was then discovered, as
a crowning proof of his absurdity, that he
had left a will, bequeathing his entire ef-
fects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the
Eockville Hotel. But that absurdity be-
came serious when it was also discovered
that among these effects were a thousand
shares in the Rising Sun Mining Com-
pany, which a day or two after his demise,
and while people were still laughing at his
grotesque benefaction, suddenly sprang
into opulence and celebrity. Three mil-
lions of dollars was roughly estimated as
the value of the estate thus wantonly sac-
rificed. For it is only fair to state, as a
398 A.N HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
just tribute to the enterprise and energy of
that young and thriving settlement, that
there was not probably a single citizen who
did not feel himself better able to control
the deceased humorist's property. Some
had expressed a doubt of their ability to
support a family; others had felt perhaps
too keenly the deep responsibility resting
upon them when chosen from the panel as
jurors, and had evaded their public duties ;
a few had declined office and a low salary :
but no one shrank from the possibility of
having been called upon to assume the
functions of Peggy Moffat, the heiress.
The will was contested, first by the
widow, who it now appeared had never
been legally divorced from the deceased;
next by four of his cousins, who awoke,
only too late, to a consciousness of his
moral and pecuniary worth. But the
humble legatee a singularly plain, un-
pretending, uneducated Western girl ex-
hibited a dogged pertinacity in claiming
her rights. She rejected all compromises.
A rough sense of justice in the community,
while doubting her ability to take care of
the whole fortune, suggested that she ought
to be content with three hundred thousand
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 399
dollars. "She's bound to throw even that
away on some derned skunk of a man,
natoorally; but three millions is too much
to give a chap for makin' her onhappy.
It's offerin' a temptation to cussedness."
The only opposing voice to this counsel
came from the sardonic lips of Mr. Jack
Hamlin. "Suppose," suggested that gen-
tleman, turning abruptly on the speaker,
"suppose, when you won twenty thousand
dollars of me last Friday night suppose
that, instead of handing you over the
money as I did suppose I'd got up on my
hind-legs, and said, 'Look yer, Bill Weth-
ersbee, you're a d d fool. If I give
ye that twenty thousand, you'll throw it
away in the first skin-game in 'Frisco, and
hand it over to the first short-card sharp
you'll meet. There's a thousand, enough
for you to fling away, take it and get !'
Suppose what I'd said to you was the
frozen truth, and you know'd it, would
that have been the square thing to play on
you?" But here Wethersbee quickly
pointed out the inefficiency of the compar-
ison by stating that he had won the money
fairly with a stake. "And how do you
know," demanded Hamlin savagely, bend-
400 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
ing his black eyes on the astounded casu-
ist, "how do you know that the gal hezn't
put down a stake ?" The man stammered
an unintelligible reply. The gambler laid
his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder.
"Look yer, old man," he said, "every gal
stakes her whole pile, you can bet your
life on that, whatever's her little game.
If she took to keerds instead of her feel-
ings, if she'd put up 'chips 7 instead o' body
and soul, she'd bust every bank 'twixt this
and 'Frisco ! You hear me ?"
Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I
fear not quite as sentimentally, to Peggy
Moffat herself. The best legal wisdom of
San Francisco, retained by the widow and
relatives, took occasion, in a private inter-
view with Peggy, to point out that she
stood in the quasi-criminal attitude of hav-
ing unlawfully practised upon the affec-
tions of an insane elderly gentleman, with
a view of getting possession of his prop-
erty, and suggested to her that no vestige
of her moral character would remain after
the trial, if she persisted in forcing her
claims to that issue. It is said that Peggy,
on hearing this, stopped washing the plate
she had in her hands, and, twisting the
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 401
towel around her fingers, fixed her small
pale blue eyes at the lawyer.
u And ez that the kind o' chirpin these
critters keep up ?"
"I regret to say, my dear young lady,"
responded the lawyer, "that the world is
censorious. I must add," he continued,
with engaging frankness, "that we profes-
sional lawyers are apt to study the opinion
of the world, and that such will be the
theory of our side."
"Then," said Peggy stoutly, "ez I allow
I've got to go into court to defend my
character, I might as well pack in them
three millions too."
There is hearsay evidence that Peg
added to this speech a wish and desire to
"bust the crust" of her traducers, and, re-
marking that "that was the kind of hair-
pin" she was, closed the conversation with
an unfortunate accident to the plate, that
left a severe contusion on the legal brow of
her companion. But this story, popular
in the bar-rooms and gulches, lacked con-
firmation in higher circles. Better au-
thenticated was the legend related of an
interview with her own lawyer. That
gentleman had pointed out to her the ad-
402 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
vantage of being able to show some reason-
able cause for the singular generosity of
the testator.
"Although," he continued, "the law does
not go back of the will for reason or cause
for its provisions, it would be a strong
point with the judge and jury particu-
larly if the theory of insanity were set up
for us to show that the act was logical
and natural. Of course you have I
speak confidently, Miss Moffat certain
ideas of your own why the late Mr. By-
ways was so singularly generous to you."
"No, I haven't," said Peg decidedly.
"Think again. Had he not expressed
to you you understand that this is confi-
dential between us, although I protest, my
dear young lady, that I see no reason why
it should not be made public had he not
given utterance to sentiments of a nature
consistent with some future matrimonial
relations?" But here Miss Peg's large
mouth, which had been slowly relaxing
over her irregular teeth, stopped him.
"If you mean he wanted to marry me
No!"
"I see. But were there any condi-
tions of course you know the law takes
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 403
no cognizance of any not expressed in the
will ; but still, for the sake of mere corrob-
oration of the bequest do you know of
any conditions on which he gave you the
property ?"
"You mean did he want anything in
return ?"
"Exactly, my dear young lady."
Peg's face on one side turned a deep
magenta color, on the other a lighter
cherry, while her nose was purple, and
her forehead an Indian red. To add to the
effect of this awkward and discomposing
dramatic exhibition of embarrassment, she
began to wipe her hands on her dress, and
sat silent.
"I understand/' said the lawyer hastily.
"No matter the conditions were ful-
filled."
"No!" said Peg amazedly. "How
could they be until he was dead ?"
It was the lawyer's turn to color and
grow embarrassed.
"He did say something, and make some
conditions," continued Peg, with a certain
firmness through her awkwardness ; "but
that's nobody's business but mine and
his'n. And it's no call o' yours or theirs."
404 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
fa
"But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these
very conditions were proofs of his right
mind, you surely would not object to make
them known, if only to enable you to put
yourself in a condition to carry them out."
"But/ 7 said Peg cunningly, "s'pose you
and the Court didn't think 'em satisfac-
tory? S'pose you thought ? em queer ?
Eh>'
With this helpless limitation on the part
of the defence, the case came to trial.
Everybody remembers it, how for six
weeks it was the daily food of Calaveras
County ; how for six weeks the intellectual
and moral and spiritual competency of Mr.
James Byways to dispose of his property
was discussed with learned and formal ob-
scurity in the court, and with unlettered
and independent prejudice by camp-fires
and in bar-rooms. At the end of that
time, when it was logically established
that at least nine-tenths of the population
of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, and
everybody else's reason seemed to totter on
its throne, an exhausted jury succumbed
one day to the presence of Peg in the
court-room. It was not a prepossessing
presence at any time; but the excitement,
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 406
and an injudicious attempt to .ornament
herself, brought her defects into a glaring
relief that was almost unreal. Every
freckle on her face stood out and asserted
itself singly ; her pale blue eyes, that gave
no indication of her force of character,
were weak and wandering, or stared
blankly at the judge ; her over-sized head,
broad at the base, terminating in the scanti-
est possible light-colored braid in the mid-
dle of her narrow shoulders, was as hard
and uninteresting as the wooden spheres
that topped the railing against which she
sat
The jury, who for six weeks had had
her described to them by the plaintiffs as
an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped
the failing reason of Jim Byways, revolted
to a man. There was something so ap-
pallingly gratuitous in her plainness, that
it was felt that three millions was scarcely
a compensation for it. "Ef that money
was give to her, she earned it sure, boys:
it wasn't no softness of the old man," said
the foreman. When the jury retired, it
was felt that she had cleared her character :
when they re-entered the room with their
verdict, it was known that she had been
406 AV urnum* of RBD
awarded Jhree millions damages for ite
defamation,
She got the money. But those who had
confidently expected to see her squander it
were disappointed \ on the contrary, it was
presently whispered that she was rttflMd"
ingly penurious. That admirable woman,
Mrs. Stiver of Red Dog, who accompanied
her to San Francisco to assist her in mak-
ing purchases, was loud in her indignation.
"She cares more for two bits' than I do for
fire dollars. She wouldn't buy anything
at the 'City of Paris/ because it was 'too
expensive/ and at last rigged herself out, a
perfect guy, at some cheap slop-shops in
Market Street, And after all the care
Jane and me took of her, giving up our
time and experience to her, she never so
much a* made Jane a single present"
Popular opinion, which regarded Mrs.
Stiver's attention as purely speculative,
was not shocked at thi- - dk
nrtiMmtnt; but when Peg refused to give
anything to clear the mortgage off the new
Pl^tryterian ' '1 ever*
to take *h*r<~ Jr..
any an an <<p0)ly sacred and safe
*. *tH k^ UkJt ^k.Mh..Vw\. ,. h. M. ^^kfe^ ^bM^k^Jk
< V v x v ' w . \
tv> ta frxy*
tx^ T^ *& wjM^ftw*^ \x\
\H
xKv^k y\C
408 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
That handsome, graceless vagabond had
struck the outskirts of Ked Dog in a cy-
clone of dissipation which left him a
stranded but still rather interesting wreck
in a ruinous cabin not far from Peg
MofTat's virgin bower. Pale, crippled
from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous
from sympathetic emotion more or less de-
veloped by stimulants, he lingered lan-
guidly, with much time on his hands, and
only a few neighbors. In this fascinating
kind of general deshabille of morals, dress,
and the emotions, he appeared before Peg
Moffat. More than that, he occasionally
limped with her through the settlement.
The critical eye of Red Dog took in the
singular pair, -Jack, voluble, suffering, ap-
parently overcome by remorse, conscience,
vituperation, and disease; and Peg, open-
mouthed, high-colored, awkward, yet de-
lighted; and the critical eye of Eed Dog,
seeing this, winked meaningly at Rock-
ville. ISTo one knew what passed between
them; but all observed that one summer
day Jack drove down the main street of
Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress
of that town beside him. Jack, albeit a
trifle shaky, held the reins with something
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 409
of his old dash ; and Mistress Peggy, in an
enormous bonnet with pearl-colored rib-
bons a shade darker than her hair, holding
in her short, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet
of yellow roses, absolutely glowed crim-
son in distressful gratification over the
dash-board. So these two fared on, out of
the busy settlement, into the woods, against
the rosy sunset. Possibly it was not a
pretty picture: nevertheless, as the dim
aisles of the solemn pines opened to receive
them, miners leaned upon their spades, and
mechanics stopped in their toil to look
after them. The critical eye of Red Dog,
perhaps from the sun, perhaps from the
fact that it had itself once been young and
dissipated, took on a kindly moisture as it
gazed.
The moon was high when they returned.
Those who had waited to congratulate Jack
on this near prospect of a favorable change
in his fortunes were chagrined to find,
that, having seen the lady safe home, he
had himself departed from Red Dog.
Nothing was to be gained from Peg, who,
on the next day and ensuing days, kept the
even tenor of her way, sunk a thousand or
two more in unsuccessful speculation, and
410 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
made no change in her habits of personal
economy. Weeks passed without any ap-
parent sequel to this romantic idyl. Noth-
ing was known definitely until Jack, a
month later, turned up in Sacramento, with
a billiard-cue in his hand, and a heart
overcharged with indignant emotion. "I
don't mind saying to you, gentlemen, in
confidence," said Jack to a circle of sympa-
thizing players, "I don't mind telling
you regarding this thing, that I was as
soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tal-
low-haired gal, as if she'd been a a an
actress. And I don't mind saying, gentle-
men, that, as far as I understand women,
she was just as soft on me. You kin
laugh ; but it's so. One day I took her
out buggy-riding, in style, too, and out
on the road I offered to do the square
thing, just as if she'd been a lady, offered
to marry her then and there. And what
did she do?" said Jack with a hysterical
laugh. "Why, blank it all! offered me
twenty-five dollars a week allowance pay
to be stopped when I wasn't at home!"
The roar of laughter that greeted this
frank confession was broken by a quiet
voice asking, "And what did you say ?"
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 411
"Say ?" screamed Jack, "I just told her to
go to with her money." "They
say," continued the quiet voice, "that you
asked her for the loan of two hundred and
fifty dollars to get you to Sacramento
and that you got it." "Who says so?"
roared Jack. "Show me the blank liar."
There was a dead silence. Then the
possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack
Hamlin, languidly reached under the
table, took the chalk, and, rubbing the
end of his billiard-cue, began with gentle
gravity : "It was an old friend of mine in
Sacramento, a man with a wooden leg, a
game eye, three fingers on his right hand,
and a consumptive cough. Being unable,
naturally, to back himself, he leaves things
to me. So, for the sake of argument,"
continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down
his cue, and fixing his wicked black eyes
on the speaker, "say it's me!"
I am afraid that this story, whether
truthful or not, did not tend to increase
Peg's popularity in a community where
recklessness and generosity condoned for
the absence of all the other virtues ; and it
is possible, also, that Red Dog was no more
free from prejudice than other more civ-
412 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
ilized but equally disappointed match-
makers. Likewise, during the following
year, she made several more foolish ven-
tures, and lost heavily. In fact, a feverish
desire to increase her store at almost any
risk seemed to possess her. At last it was
announced that she intended to reopen the
infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it her-
self.
Wild as this scheme appeared in theory,
when put into practical operation there
seemed to be some chance of success.
Much, doubtless, was owing to her practi-
cal knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more
to her rigid economy and untiring in-
dustry. The mistress of millions, she
cooked, washed, waited on table, made the
beds, and labored like a common menial.
Visitors were attracted by this novel spec-
tacle. The income of the house increased
as their respect for the hostess lessened.
No anecdote of her avarice was too ex-
travagant for current belief. It was even
alleged that she had been known to carry
the luggage of guests to their rooms, that
she might anticipate the usual porter's
gratuity. She denied herself the ordinary
necessaries of life. She was poorly clad,
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 413
she was ill-fed but the hotel was making
money.
A few hinted of insanity; others shook
their heads, and said a curse was entailed
on the property. It was believed, also,
from her appearance, that she could not
long survive this tax on her energies, and
already there was discussion as to the
probable final disposition of her property.
It was the particular fortune of Mr.
Jack Hamlin to be able to set the world
right on this and other questions regarding
her.
A stormy December evening had set in
when he chanced to be a guest of the Rock-
ville Hotel. He had, during the past
week, been engaged in the prosecution of
his noble profession at Red Dog, and had,
in the graphic language of a coadjutor,
"cleared out the town, except his fare in
the pockets of the stage-driver." "The
Red Dog Standard" had bewailed his de-
parture in playful obituary verse, begin-
ning, "Dearest Johnny, thou hast left
us," wherein the rhymes "bereft us" and
"deplore" carried a vague allusion to "a
thousand dollars more." A quiet content-
ment naturally suffused his personality,
414 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
and he was more than usually lazy and de-
liberate in his speech. At midnight, when
he was about to retire, he was a little sur-
prised, however, by a tap on his door, fol-
lowed by the presence of Mistress Peg
Moffat, heiress, and landlady of Eockville
Hotel.
Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous de-
fence of Peg, had no liking for her. His
fastidious taste rejected her uncomeliness ;
his habits of thought and life were all an-
tagonistic to what he had heard of her nig-
gardliness and greed. As she stood there,
in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolent
with the day's cuisine, crimson with em-
barrassment and the recent heat of the
kitchen range, she certainly was not an al-
luring apparition. Happily for the late-
ness of the hour, her loneliness, and the
infelix reputation of the man before her,
she was at least a safe one. And I fear
the very consciousness of this scarcely re-
lieved her embarrassment.
"I wanted to say a few words to ye
alone, Mr. Hamlin," she began, taking an
unoffered seat on the end of his portman-
teau, "or I shouldn't hev intruded. But
it's the only time I can ketch you, or you
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 415
me ; for I'm down in the kitchen from sun-
up till now."
She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen
to the wind, which was rattling the
windows, and spreading a film of rain
against the opaque darkness without.
Then, smoothing her wrapper over her
knees, she remarked, as if opening a des-
ultory conversation, "Thar's a power of
rain outside."
Mr. Hamlin's only response to this
meteorological observation was a yawn, and
a preliminary tug at his coat as he began
to remove it.
"I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a
favor," continued Peg, with a hard, awk-
ward laugh, "partik'ly seein' ez folks al-
lowed you'd sorter bin a friend o' mine,
and hed stood up for me at times when you
hedn't any partikler call to do it. I
hevn't" she continued, looking down on
her lap, and following with her finger and
thumb a seam of her gown, "I hevn't so
many friends ez slings a kind word for me
these times that I disremember them."
Her under lip quivered a little here ; and,
after vainly hunting for a forgotten hand-
kerchief, she finally lifted the hem of her
416 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but
left the tears still in her eyes as she raised
them to the man,
Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time di-
vested himself of his coat, stopped unbut-
toning his waistcoat, and looked at her.
''Like ez not thar'll be high water on the
North Fork, ef this rain keeps on," said
Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward
the window.
The other rain having ceased, Mr. Ham-
lin began to unbutton his waistcoat again.
"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr.
about Jack Folinsbee," began Peg again
hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is
mighty low. And he's losin' a heap o'
money here and thar, and mostly to you.
You cleaned him out of two thousand dol-
lars last night all he had."
"Well ?" said the gambler coldly.
"Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o'
mine, I'd ask ye to let up a little on him,"
said Peg, with an affected laugh. "You
kin do it. Don't let him play with ye."
"Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack,
with lazy deliberation, taking off his watch,
and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're
that much stuck after Jack Folinsbee, you
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 417
kin keep him off of me much easier than I
kin. You're a rich woman. Give him
enough money to break my bank, or break
himself for good and all; but don't keep
him forlin' round me in hopes to make a
raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat it
don't pay !"
A finer nature than Peg's would have
misunderstood or resented the gambler's
slang, and the miserable truths that under-
laid it. But she comprehended him in-
stantly, and sat hopelessly silent,
"Ef you'll take my advice," continued
Jack, placing his watch and chain under
his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cra-
vat, "you'll quit this yer forlin', marry
that chap, and hand over to him the money
and the money-makin' that's killin' you.
He'll get rid of it soon enough. I don't
say this because / expect to git it; for,
when he's got that much of a raise, he'll
make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to
some first-class sport there. I don't say,
neither, that you mayn't be in luck enough
to reform him. I don't say, neither- and
it's a denied sight more likely! that you
mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die
afore he gits rid of your money. But I do
418 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
say you'll make him happy now; and, ez I
reckon you're about ez badly stuck after
that chap ez I ever saw any woman, you
won't be hurtin' your own feelin's either."
The blood left Peg's face as she looked
up. "But that's why I can't give him the
money and he won't marry me with-
out it."
Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the
last button of his waistcoat. "Can't
give him the money?" he repeated
s Jowly.
"Ho."
"Why?"
"Because because I love him."
Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat,
and sat down patiently on the bed. Peg
arose, and awkwardly drew the portman-
teau a little nearer to him.
"When Jim Byways left me this yer
property," she began, looking cautiously
around, "he left it to me on conditions; not
conditions ez waz in his written will, but
conditions ez waz spoken. A promise I
made him in this very room, Mr. Ham-
lin, this very room, and on that very bed
you're sittin' on, in which he died."
Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 419
superstitious. He rose hastily from the
bed, and took a chair beside the window.
The wind shook it as if the discontented
spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-
enforcing his last injunction.
"I don't know if you remember him,"
said Peg feverishly. "He was a man ez
hed suffered. All that he loved wife,
fammerly, friends had gone back on him.
He tried to make light of it afore folks;
but with me, being a poor gal, he let him-
self out. I never told anybody this. I
don't know why he told me ; I don't know,"
continued Peg, with a sniffle, u why he
wanted to make me unhappy too. But he
made me promise, that, if he left me his
fortune, I'd never, never so help me
God! never share it with any man or
woman that I loved. I didn't think it
would be hard to keep that promise then,
Mr. Hamlin; for I was very poor, and
hedn't a friend nor a living bein' that was
kind to me, but him/'
"But you've as good as broken your
promise already," said Hamlin. "You've
given Jack money, as I know."
"Only what I made myself. Listen to
me, Mr. Hamlin. When Jack proposed
v. 24 N Bret Harte
420 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
to me, I offered him about what I kalki-
lated I could earn myself. When he went
away, and was sick and in trouble, I came
here and took this hotel. I knew that by
hard work I could make it pay. Don't
laugh at me, please. I did work hard, and
did make it pay without takin' one cent
of the fortin'. And all I made, workin' by
night and day, I gave to him. I did, Mr.
Hamlin. I ain't so hard to him as you
think, though I might be kinder, I know."
Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed
his coat, watch, hat, and overcoat. When
he was completely dressed again, he turned
to Peg. "Do you mean to say that you've
been givin' all the money you made here
to this A i first-class cherubim 3"
"Yes; but he didn't know where I got
it. O Mr. Hamlin ! he didn't know that."
"Do I understand you, that he's bin
buckin agin Faro with the money that you
raised on hash ? And you makin' the
hash ?"
"But he didn't know that. He wouldn't
hev took it if I'd told him."
"]S T o, he'd hev died fust!" said Mr.
Hamlin gravely. "Why, he's that sensi-
tive is Jack Folinsbee that it nearly
4N BB1RE8S OF RED DOG. 421
kills him to take money even of me. But
where does this angel reside when he isn't
fightin' the tiger, and is, so to speak, visible
to the naked eye?"
"He he stops here," said Peg, with
an awkward blush.
"I see. Might I ask the number of his
room or should I be a disturbing him
in his meditations ?" continued Jack Ham-
lin, with grave politeness.
"Oh ! then you'll promise ? And you'll
talk to him, and make him promise ?"
"Of course," said Hamlin quietly.
"And you'll remember he's sick very
sick? His room's No. 44, at the end of
the hall. Perhaps I'd better go with you ?"
"I'll find it."
"And you won't be too hard on him ?"
"I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin
demurely, as he opened the door and
stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a
moment, and then turned, and gravely held
out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He
did not seem quite in earnest; and his
black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated
nothing. But he shook her hand warmly,
and the next moment was gone.
He found the room with no difficulty.
422 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
A faint cough from within, and a querulous
protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin
entered without further ceremony. A sick-
ening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of
stale dissipation, and the wasted figure
of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed, extended
upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin
was for an instant startled. There were
hollow circles round the sick man's eyes ;
there was palsy in his trembling limbs;
there was dissolution in his feverish
breath.
"What's up?" he asked huskily and
nervously.
"I am, and I want you to get up too."
"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up."
He reached his shaking hand towards a
glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-
smelling liquid ; but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.
"Do you want to get back that two thou-
sand dollars you lost ?"
"Yes."
"Well, get up, and marry that woman
down stairs."
Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half
sardonically.
"She won't give it to me."
"No; but/ will."
AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 423
"Your
"Yes."
Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reck-
less laugh, rose, trembling and with diffi-
culty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed
him narrowly, and then bade him lie down
again. "To-morrow will do," he said,
"and then"
"If I don't"
"If you don't," responded Hamlin,
"why, I'll just wade in and cut you
out!"
But on the morrow T Mr. Hamlin was
spared that possible act of disloyalty; for,
in the night, the already hesitating spirit
of Mr. Jack Folinsbee took flight on the
wings of the south-east storm. When or
how it happened, nobody knew. Whether
this last excitement and the near prospect
of matrimony, or whether an overdose of
anodyne, had hastened his end, was never
known. I only know, that, when they
came to awaken him the next morning, the
best that was left of him a face still
beautiful and boy-like looked up coldly
at the tearful eyes of Peg Moffat. "It
serves me right, it's a judgment," she said
in a low whisper to Jack Hamlin; "for
424 AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.
God knew that I'd broken my word, and
willed all my property to him."
She did not long survive him. Whether
Mr. Hamlin ever clothed with action the
suggestion indicated in his speech to
the lamented Jack that night, is not of
record. He was always her friend, and
on her demise became her executor. But
the bulk of her property was left to a dis-
tant relation of handsome Jack Folinsbee,
and so passed out of the control of Eed
Dog forever.
THE
GKEAT DEAD WOOD MYSTEEY
IT was growing quite dark in the tele-
graph-office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne
County, California. The office, a box-like
enclosure, was separated from the public
room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin parti-
tion ; and the operator, who was also news
and express agent at Cottonwood, had
closed his window, and was lounging by his
news-stand preparatory to going home.
Without, the first monotonous rain of the
season was dripping from the porches of
the hotel in the waning light of a Decem-
ber day. The operator, accustomed as he
was to long intervals of idleness, was fast
becoming bored.
The tread of mud-muffled boots on the
veranda, and the entrance of two men, of-
fered a momentary excitement. He recog-
nized in the strangers two prominent citi-
zens of Cottonwood ; and their manner be-
425
426 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
spoke business. One of them proceeded to
the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it
to the other interrogatively.
"That's about the way the thing p'ints,"
responded his companion assentingly.
"I reckoned it only squar to use his
dientical words?"
"That's so."
The first speaker turned to the operator
with the despatch.
"How soon can you shove her through ?"
The operator glanced professionally over
the address and the length of the despatch.
"Now," he answered promptly.
"And she gets there ?"
"To-night. But there's no delivery
until to-morrow."
"Shove her through to-night, and say
there's an extra twenty left here for de-
livery."
The operator, accustomed to all kinds of
extravagant outlay for expedition, replied
that he would lay this proposition with the
despatch, before the San Francisco office.
He then took it and read it and re-read it.
He preserved the usual professional ap-
athy, had doubtless sent many more enig-
matical and mysterious messages, but
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 427
nevertheless, when he finished, he raised
his eyes inquiringly to his customer.
That gentleman, who enjoyed a reputation
for equal spontaneity of temper and re-
volver, met his gaze a little impatiently.
The operator had recourse to a trick. Un-
der the pretence of misunderstanding the
message, he obliged the sender to repeat it
aloud for the sake of accuracy, and even
suggested a few verbal alterations, osten-
sibly to insure correctness, but really to ex-
tract further information. Nevertheless,
the man doggedly persisted in a literal
transcript of his message. The operator
went to his instrument hesitatingly.
"I suppose," he added half-questioning-
ly, "there ain't no chance of a mistake.
This address is Eightbody, that rich old
Bostonian that everybody knows. There
ain't but one ?"
"That's the address," responded the first
speaker coolly.
"Didn't know the old chap had invest-
ments out here," suggested the operator,
lingering at his instrument.
"E"o more did I," was the insufficient
reply.
For some few moments nothing was
428 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
heard but the click of the instrument, as
the operator worked the key, with the usual
appearance of imparting confidence to a
somewhat reluctant hearer who preferred
to talk himself. The two men stood by,
watching his motions with the usual awe of
the unprofessional. When he had finished,
they laid before him two gold-pieces. As
the operator took them up, he could not
help saying,
"The old man went off kinder sudden,
didn't he ? Had no time to write ?"
"Not sudden for that kind o* man," was
the exasperating reply.
But the speaker was not to be discon-
certed. "If there is an answer " he
began.
"There ain't any," replied the first
speaker quietly.
"Why?"
"Because the man ez sent the message is
dead."
"But it's signed by you two."
"On'y ez witnesses eh ?*' appealed the
first speaker to his comrade.
"On'y ez witnesses," responded the
other.
The operator shrugged his shoulders.
TEE aREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 429
The business concluded, the first speaker
slightly relaxed. He nodded to the op-
erator, and turned to the bar-room with a
pleasing social impulse. When their
glasses were set down empty, the first
speaker, with a cheerful condemnation of
the hard times and the weather, apparently
dismissed all previous proceedings from
his mind, and lounged out with his com-
panion. At the corner of the street they
stopped.
"Well, that job's done," said the first
speaker, by way of relieving the slight so-
cial embarrassment of parting.
"Thet's so," responded his companion,
and shook his hand.
They parted. A gust of wind swept
through the pines, and struck a faint
./Eolian cry from the wires above their
heads ; and the rain and the darkness again
slowly settled upon Cottonwood.
The message lagged a little 'at San Fran-
cisco, laid over half an hour at Chicago,
and fought longitude the whole way; so
that it was past midnight when the "all
night" operator took it from the wires at
Boston. But it was freighted with a man-
date from the San Francisco office; and a
430 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
messenger was procured, who sped with it
through dark snow-hound streets, between
the high walls of close-shuttered rayless
houses, to a certain formal square ghostly
with snow-covered statues. Here he
ascended the hroad steps of a reserved and
solid-looking mansion, and pulled a bronze
bell-knob, that somewhere within those
chaste recesses, after an apparent reflective
pause, coldly communicated the fact that a
stranger was waiting without as he ought.
Despite the lateness of the hour, there was
a slight glow from the windows, clearly not
enough to warm the messenger with indica-
tions of a festivity within, but yet bespeak-
ing, as it were, some prolonged though suK-
dued excitement. The sober servant who
took the despatch, and receipted for it as
gravely as if witnessing a last will and test-
ament, respectfully paused before the en-
trance of the drawing-room. The sound
of measured and rhetorical speech, through
which the occasional catarrhal cough of the
New-England coast struggled, as the only
effort of nature not wholly repressed, came
from its heavily-curtained recesses ; for the
occasion of the evening had been the recep-
tion and entertainment of various distin-
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 431
guished persons, and, as had been epigram-
matically expressed by one of the guests,
"the history of the country" was taking its
leave in phrases more or less memorable
and characteristic. Some of these vale-
dictory axioms were clever, some witty, a
few profound, but always left as a genteel
contribution to the entertainer. Some had
been already prepared, and, like a card,
had served and identified the guest at other
mansions.
The last guest departed, the last car-
riage rolled away, when the servant ven-
tured to indicate the existence of the de-
spatch to his master, who was standing on
the hearth-rug in an attitude of wearied
self -righteousness. He took it, opened it,
read it, re-read it, and said,
"There must be some mistake! It is
not for me. Call the boy, Waters."
Waters, who was perfectly aware that
the boy had left, nevertheless obediently
walked towards the hall-door, but was re-
called by his master.
"No matter at present!"
"It's nothing serious, William?" asked
Mrs. Rightbody, with languid wifely con-
cern.
432 THE GREAT DEAD-WOOD MYSTERY.
"No, nothing. Is there a light in my
study?"
"Yes. But, before you go, can you give
me a moment or two ?"
Mr. Kightbody turned a little impa-
tiently towards his wife. She had thrown
herself languidly on the sofa ; her hair was
slightly disarranged, and part of a slip-
pered foot was visible. She might have
been a finely-formed woman ; but even her
careless deshabille left the general impres-
sion that she was severely flannelled
throughout, and that any ostentation of
womanly charm was under vigorous san-
itary surveillance.
"Mrs. Marvin told me to-night that her
son made no secret of his serious attach-
ment for our Alice, and that, if I was sat-
isfied, Mr. Marvin would be glad to confer
with you at once."
The information did not seem to ab-
sorb Mr. Bightbody's wandering attention,
but rather increased his impatience. He
said hastily, that he would speak of that
to-morrow ; and partly by way of reprisal,
and partly to dismiss the subject, added
"Positively James must pay some atten-
tion to the register and the thermometer. It
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 433
was over 70 to-night, and the ventilating
draught was closed in the drawing-room."
"That was because Professor Ammon
sat near it, and the old gentleman's tonsils
are so sensitive."
"He ought to know from Dr. Dyer Doit
that systematic and regular exposure to
draughts stimulates the mucous membrane ;
while fixed air over 60 invariably "
"I am afraid, William,"' interrupted
Mrs. Rightbody, with feminine adroitness,
adopting her husband's topic with a view
of thereby directing him from it, "I'm
afraid that people do not yet appreciate the
substitution of bouillon for punch and ices.
I observed that Mr. Spondee declined it,
and, I fancied, looked disappointed. The
fibrine and wheat in liqueur-glasses passed
quite unnoticed too."
"And yet each half-drachm contained
the half-digested substance of a pound of
beef. I'm surprised at Spondee!" con-
tinued Mr. Rightbody aggrievedly. "Ex-
hausting his brain and nerve force by the
highest creative efforts of the Muse, he pre-
fers perfumed and diluted alcohol flavored
with carbonic acid gas. Even Mrs. Far-
ingway admitted to me that the sudden
434 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
lowering of the temperature of the stomach
by the introduction of ice "
"Yes; but she took a lemon ice at the
last Dorothea Reception, and asked me if I
had observed that the lower animals re-
fused their food at a temperature over
60."
Mr. Rightbody again moved impatiently
towards the door. Mrs. Rightbody eyed
him curiously.
"You will not write, I hope ? Dr. Kep-
pler told me to-night that your cerebral
symptoms interdicted any prolonged men-
tal strain."
"I must consult a few papers," re-
sponded Mr. Rightbody curtly, as he
entered his library.
It was as richly-furnished apartment,
morbidly severe in its decorations, which
were symptomatic of a gloomy dyspepsia
of art, then quite prevalent. A few curios,
very ugly, but providentially equally rare,
were scattered about. There were various
bronzes, marbles, and casts, all requiring
explanation, and so fulfilling their purpose
of promoting conversation, and exhibiting
the erudition of their owner. There were
souvenirs of travel with a history, old brie-
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 435
d-brac with a pedigree, but little or noth-
ing that challenged attention for itself
alone. In all cases the superiority of the
owner to his possessions was admitted. As
a natural result, nobody ever lingered
there, the servants avoided the room, and
no child was ever known to play in it.
Mr. Kightbody turned up the gas, and
from a cabinet of drawers, precisely la-
belled, drew a package of letters. These
he carefully examined. All were discol-
ored, and made dignified by age ; but some,
in their original freshness, must have ap-
peared trifling, and inconsistent with any
correspondent of Mr. Rightbody. Never-
theless, that gentleman spent some mo-
ments in carefully perusing them, occa-
sionally referring to the telegram in his 1
hand. Suddenly there was a knock at the
door. Mr. Eightbody started, made a half-
unconscious movement to return the let-
ters to the drawer, turned the telegram
face downwards, and then, somewhat
harshly, stammered,
"Eh ? Who's there ? Come in."
"I beg your pardon, papa," said a very
pretty girl, entering, without, however, the
slightest trace of apology or awe in her
436 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MJSTSItr.
manner, and taking a chair with the self-
possession and familiarity of an habitue of
the room; "but I knew it was not your
habit to write late, so I supposed you were
not busy. I am on my way to bed."
She was so very pretty, and withal so
utterly unconscious of it, or perhaps so
consciously superior to it, that one was
provoked into a more critical examination
of her face. But this only resulted in a
reiteration of her beauty, and perhaps the
added facts that her dark eyes were very
womanly, her rich complexion eloquent,
and her chiselled lips fell enough to be
passionate or capricious, notwithstanding
that their general effect suggested neither
caprice, womanly weakness, nor passion.
With the instinct of an embarrassed
man, Mr. Rightbody touched the topic he
would have preferred to avoid.
"I suppose we must talk over to-mor-
row/' he hesitated, "this matter of yours
and Mr. Marvin's? Mrs. Marvin has
formally spoken to your mother."
Miss Alice lifted her bright eyes intelli-
gently, but not joyfully; and the color of
action, rather than embarrassment, rose to
her round cheeks.
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 437
"Yes, lie said she would/' she answered
simply.
"At present," continued Mr. Eightbody
still awkwardly, "I see no objection to the
proposed arrangement."
Miss Alice opened her round eyes at
this.
"Why, papa, I thought it had been
all settled long ago ! Mamma knew it, you
knew it. Last July, mamma and you
talked it over."
"Yes, yes," returned her father, fum-
bling his papers; "that is well, we will
talk of it to-morrow." In fact, Mr. Eight-
body had intended to give the affair a
proper attitude of seriousness and solem-
nity by due precision of speech, and some
apposite reflections, when he should im-
part the news to his daughter, but felt
himself unable to do it now. "I am glad,
Alice," he said at last, "that you have
quite forgotten your previous whims and
fancies. You see we are right."
"Oh ! I dare say, papa, if I'm to be mar-
ried at all, that Mr. Marvin is in every
way suitable."
Mr. Eightbody looked at his daughter
narrowly. There was not the slightest im-
488 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
patience nor bitterness in her manner: it
was as well regulated as the sentiment she
expressed.
"Mr. Marvin is " he began.
"I know what Mr. Marvin is" inter-
rupted Miss Alice; "and he has promised
.me that I shall be allowed to go on with
my studies the same as before. I shall
graduate with my class; and, if I prefer
to practise my profession, I can do so in
two years after our marriage.' 7
"In two years ?" queried Mr. Rightbody
curiously.
"Yes. You see, in case we should have
a child, that would give me time enough to
wean it."
Mr. Rightbody looked at this flesh of
his flesh, pretty and palpable flesh as it
was ; but, being confronted as equally with
the brain of his brain, all he could do was
to say meekly,
"Yes, certainly. We will see about all
that to-morrow."
Miss Alice rose. Something in the free,
unfettered swing of her arms as she rested
them lightly, after a half yawn, on her
lithe hips, suggested his next speech, al-
though still distrait and impatient.
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MY8TER?. 439
"You continue your exercise with the
health-lift yet, I see."
"Yes, papa; but I had to give up the
flannels. I don't see how mamma could
wear them. But my dresses are high-
necked, and by bathing I toughen my skin.
See !" she added, as, with a child-like un-
consciousness, she unfastened two or three
buttons of her gown, and exposed the white
surface of her throat and neck to her
father, "I can defy a chill."
Mr. Rightbody, with something akin to
a genuine playful, paternal laugh, leaned
forward and kissed her forehead.
"It's getting late, Ally," he said pa-
rentally, but not dictatorially. "Go to
bed."
"I took a nap of three hours this after-
noon," said Miss Alice, with a dazzling
smile, "to anticipate this dissipation.
Good-night, papa. To-morrow, then."
"To-morrow," repeated Mr. Rightbody,
with his eyes still fixed upon the girl
vaguely. "Good-night."
Miss Alice tripped from the room, pos-
sibly a trifle the more light-heartedly that
she had parted from her father in one of
his rare moments of illogical human weak-
440 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
ness. And perhaps it was well for the
poor girl that she kept this single remem-
brance of him, when, I fear, in after-years,
his methods, his reasoning, and indeed all
he had tried to impress upon her child-
hood, had faded from her memory.
For, when she had left, Mr. Rightbody
fell again to the examination of his old let-
ters. This was quite absorbing; so much
so, that he did not notice the footsteps of
Mrs. Rightbody, on the staircase as she
passed to her chamber, nor that she had
paused on the landing to look through the
glass half-door on her husband, as he sat
there with the. letters beside him, and the
telegram opened before him. Had she
waited a moment later, she would have
seen him rise, and walk to the sofa with a
disturbed air and a slight confusion; so
that, on reaching it, he seemed to hesitate
to lie down, although pale and evidently
faint. Had she still waited, she would
have seen him rise again with an ago-
nized effort, stagger to the table, fum-
blingly refold and replace the papers in
the cabinet, and lock it, and, although
now but half-conscious, hold the telegram
over the gas-flame till it was consumed.
TMJE 6RJLT DBA.DWOOD MYSTERY. 441
For, had she waited until this moment,
she would have flown unhesitatingly to
his aid, as, this act completed, he stag-
gered again, reached his hand toward the
bell, hut vainly, and then fell prone upon
the sofa.
But alas ! no providential nor accidental
hand was raised to save him, or anticipate
the progress of this story. And when, half
an hour later, Mrs. Rightbody, a little
alarmed, and more indignant at his viola-
tion of the doctor's rules, appeared upon
the threshold, Mr. Rightbody lay upon the
sofa, dead f
With bustle, with thronging feet, with
the irruption of strangers, and a hurrying
to and fro, but, more than all, with an im-
pulse and emotion unknown to the mansion
when its owner was in life, Mrs. Rightbody
strove to call back the vanished life, but in
vain. The highest medical intelligence,
called from its bed at this strange hour,
saw only the demonstration of its theories
made a year before. Mr. Rightbody was
dead without doubt, without mystery,
even as a correct man should die logi-
cally, and indorsed by the highest medical
authority.
442 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
But even in the confusion, Mrs. Right-
body managed to speed a messenger to the
telegraph-office for a copy of the despatch
received by Mr. Rightbody, but now
missing.
In the solitude of her own room, and
without a confidant, she read these
words :
"[Copy.]
"To MB. ADAMS RIGHTBODY, BOSTON, MASS.
"Joshua Silsbie died suddenly this morning.
His last request was that you should remember
your sacred compact with him of thirty years ago.
( Signed ) "SEVENTY-FOUR.
"SEVENTY-FIVE."
In the darkened home, and amid the
formal condolements of their friends who
had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold
features of their late associate, Mrs. Right-
body managed to send another despatch.
It was addressed to "Seventy-Four and
Seventy-Five," Cottonwood. In a few
hours she received the following enigmat-
ical response:
"A horse-thief named Josh Silsbie was
lynched yesterday morning by the Vig-
ilantes at Deadwood."
PAET II.
THE spring of 1874 was retarded in the
California sierras ; so much so, that certain
Eastern tourists who had early ventured
into the Yo Semite Valley found them-
selves, one May morning, snow-bound
against the tempestuous shoulders of El
Capitan. So furious was the onset of the
wind at the Upper Merced Canon, that
even so respectable a lady as Mrs. Eight-
body was fain to cling to the neck of her
guide to keep her seat in the saddle ; while
Miss Alice, scorning all masculine assist-
ance, was hurled, a lovely chaos, against
the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs. Right-
body screamed; Miss Alice raged under
her breath, but scrambled to her feet
again in silence.
"I told you so!" said Mrs. Eightbody,
in an indignant whisper, as her daughter
again ranged beside her. "I warned you
especially, Alice that that "
443
444 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
"What?" interrupted Miss Alice curtly.
"That you would need your chemiloons
and high boots," said Mrs. Rightbody, in
a regretful undertone, slightly increasing
her distance from the guides.
Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders
scornfully, but ignored her mother's im-
plication.
"You were particularly warned against
going into the valley at this season," she
only replied grimly.
Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes impa-
tiently.
"You know how anxious I was to dis-
cover your poor father's strange corre-
spondent, Alice. You have no considera-
tion."
"But when you have discovered him
what then ?" queried Miss Alice.
"What then?"
"Yes. My belief is, that you will find
the telegram only a mere business cipher,
and all this quest mere nonsense."
"Alice ! Why, you yourself thought
your father's conduct that night very
strange. Have you forgotten ?"
The young lady had not, but, for some
far-reaching feminine reason, chose to ig-
THE QRSAT DEADWQOD MYSTERY. 445
nore it at that moment, when her late
tumble in the snow was still fresh in her
mind.
"And this woman, whoever she may
be " continued Mrs. Eightbody.
"How do you know there's a woman in
the case?" interrupted Miss Alice, wick-
edly I fear.
"How do I know there's a
woman ?" slowly ejaculated Mrs. Right-
body, floundering in the snow and the un-
expected possibility of such a ridiculous
question. But here her guide flew to her
assistance, and estopped further speech.
And, indeed, a grave problem was before
them.
The road that led to their single place of
refuge a cabin, half hotel, half trading-
post, scarce a mile away skirted the base
of the rocky dome, and passed perilously
near the precipitous wall of the valley.
There was a rapid descent of a hundred
yards or more to this terrace-like passage ;
and the guides paused for a moment of con-
sultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the ter-
rified questioning of Mrs. Rightbody, or
the half-insolent independence of the
daughter. The elder guide was russet-
446 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
bearded, stout, and humorous : the younger
was dark-bearded, slight, and serious.
"Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to
let you tote her on your shoulders, I'll git
the Madam to hang on to me," came to
Mrs. Bightbody's horrified ears as the ex-
pression of her particular companion.
"Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon
on me if the daughter starts in to play it
alone," was the enigmatical response of the
younger guide.
Miss Alice overheard both propositions ;
and, before the two men returned to their
side, that high-spirited young lady had
urged her horse down the declivity.
Alas ! at this moment a gust of whirling
snow swept down upon her. There was a
flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the
wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but un-
availing struggles, and both horse and rider
slid ignominiously down toward the rocky
shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss
Alice, from a confused debris of snow and
ice, uplifted a vexed and coloring face to
the younger guide, a little the more
angrily, perhaps, that she saw a shade of
impatience on his face.
"Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass'
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MY8TERT. 447
under your arms, and throw me the other,"
he said quietly.
""What do you mean by 'lass' the
lasso ?" asked Miss Alice disgustedly.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Then why don't you say so ?"
"O Alice!" reproachfully interpolated
Mrs. Rightbody, encircled by the elder
guide's stalwart arm.
Miss Alice deigned no reply, but drew
the loop of the lasso over her shoulders,
and let it drop to her round waist. Then
she essayed to throw the other end to her
guide. Dismal failure! The first fling
nearly knocked her off the ledge ; the sec-
ond went all wild against the rocky wall;
the third caught in a thorn-bush, twenty
feet below her companion's feet. Miss
Alice's arm sunk helplessly to her side, at
which signal of unqualified surrender, the
younger guide threw himself half way
down the slope, worked his way to the
thorn-bush, hung for a moment perilously
over the parapet, secured the lasso, and
then began to pull away at his lovely bur-
den. Miss Alice was no dead weight, how-
ever, but steadily half-scrambled on her
hands and knees to within a foot or two of
448 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MY8TER7.
her rescuer. At this too familiar prox-
imity, she stood up, and leaned a little
stiffly against the line, causing the guide to
give an extra pull, which had the lamen-
table effect of landing her almost in his
arms.
As it was, her intelligent forehead
struck his nose sharply, and I regret to
add, treating of a romantic situation,
caused that somewhat prominent sign and
token of a hero to bleed freely. Miss Alice
instantly clapped a handful of snow over
his nostrils.
"Now elevate your right arm," she said
commandingly.
He did as he was bidden, but sulkily.
"That compresses the artery."
No man, with a pretty woman's hand
and a handful of snow over his mouth and
nose, could effectively utter a heroic sen-
tence, nor, with his arm elevated stiffly
over his head, assume a heroic attitude.
But, when his mouth was free again, he
said half-sulkily, half-apologetically,
"I might have known a girl couldn't
throw worth a cent,"
"Why?" demanded Miss Alice sharply.
"Because why because you see
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 449
they haven't got the experience," he stam-
mered feebly.
"Nonsense! they haven't the clavicle
that's all ! It's because I'm a woman, and
smaller in the collar-bone, that I haven't
the play of the fore-arm which you have.
See !" She squared her shoulders slightly,
and turned the blaze of her dark eyes full
on his. "Experience, indeed ! A girl can
learn anything a boy can."
Apprehension took the place of ill-
humor in her hearer. He turned his eyes
hastily away, and glanced above him. The
elder guide had gone forward to catch Miss
Alice's horse, which, relieved of his rider,
was floundering toward the trail. Mrs.
Rightbody was nowhere to be seen. And
these two were still twenty feet below the
trail !
There was an awkward pause.
"Shall I put you up the same way?"
he queried. Miss Alice looked at his nose,
and hesitated. "Or will you take my
hand ?" he added in surly impatience. To
his surprise, Miss Alice took his hand, and
they began the ascent together.
But the way was difficult and dangerous.
Once or twice her feet slipped on the
450 TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
smoothly- worn rock beneath; and she con-
fessed to an inward thankfulness when her
uncertain feminine hand-grip was ex-
changed for his strong arm around her
waist. Not that he was ungentle; but
Miss Alice angrily felt that he had once
or twice exercised his superior masculine
functions in a rough way ; and yet the next
moment she would have probably rejected
the idea that she had even noticed it.
There was no doubt, however, that he was
a little surly.
A fierce scramble finally brought them
back in safety to the trail; but in the
action Miss Alice's shoulder, striking a
projecting bowlder, wrung from her a fem-
inine cry of pain, her first sign of womanly
weakness. The guide stopped instantly.
"I am afraid I hurt you ?"
She raised her brown lashes, a trifle
moist from suffering, looked in his eyes,
and dropped her own. Why, she could not
tell. And yet he had certainly a kind face,
despite its seriousness; and a fine face,
albeit unshorn and weather-beaten. Her
own eyes had never been so near to any
man's before, save her lover's ; and yet she
had never seen so much in even his. She
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 451
slipped her hand away, not with any refer-
ence to him, but rather to ponder over this
singular experience, and somehow felt un-
comfortable thereat.
Nor was he less so. It was but a few
days ago that he had accepted the charge
of this young woman from the elder guide,
who was the recognized escort of the Right-
body party, having been a former corre-
spondent of her father's. He had been
hired like any other guide, but had un-
dertaken the task with that chivalrous en-
thusiasm which the average Calif ornian
always extends to the sex so rare to him.
But the illusion had passed ; and he had
dropped into a sulky, practical sense of his
situation, perhaps fraught with less danger
to himself. Only when appealed to by his
manhood or her weakness, he had for-
gotten his wounded vanity.
He strode moodily ahead, dutifully
breaking the path for her in the direction
of the distant canon, where Mrs. Right-
body and her friend awaited them. Miss
Alice was first to speak. In this trackless,
uncharted terra incognita of the passions,
it is always the woman who steps out to
lead the way.
v. 24 O Bret Harte
452 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
"You know this place very well. . I sup-
pose you have lived here long ?"
"Yes."
"You were not born here no?"
A long pause.
"I observe they call you 'Stanislaus Joe.'
Of course that is not your real name?"
(Mem. Miss Alice had never called him
anything, usually prefacing any request
with a languid, "O-er-er, please, mis-
ter-er-a!" explicit enough for his station.)
"No."
Miss Alice (trotting after him, and
bawling in his ear). "What name did
you say ?"
The Man (doggedly). "I don't know."
Nevertheless, when they reached the cabin,
after an half -hour's buffeting with the
storm, Miss Alice applied herself to her
mother's escort, Mr. Byder.
"What's the name of the man who takes
care of my horse?"
"Stanislaus Joe," responded Mr. Eyder.
"Is that all?"
"No. Sometimes he's called Joe Stanis-
laus."
Miss Alice (satirically). "I suppose
it's the custom here to send young ladies
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 458
out with gentlemen who hide their names
under an ulias T }
Mr. Ryder (greatly perplexed). "Why,
dear me, Miss Alice, you allers 'peared to
me as a gal as was able to take keer "
Miss Alice (interrupting with a
wounded, dove-like timidity). "Oh, never
mind, please!"
The cabin offered but scanty accommo-
dation to the tourists ; which fact, when in-
dignantly presented by Mrs. Eightbody,
was explained by the good-humored Ryder
from the circumstance that the usual hotel
was only a slight affair of boards, cloth,
and paper, put up during the season, and
partly dismantled in the fall. "You
couldn't be kept warm enough there," he
added. Nevertheless Miss Alice noticed
that both Mr. Ryder and Stanislaus Joe
retired there with their pipes, after having
prepared the ladies' supper, with the assist-
ance of an Indian woman, who apparently
emerged from the earth at the coming of
the party, and disappeared as mysteriously.
The stars came out brightly before they
slept; and the next morning a clear, un-
winking sun beamed with almost summer
power through the shutterless window of
454 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
their cabin, and ironically disclosed the de-
tails of its rude interior. Two or three
mangy, half-eaten buffalo-robes, a bear-
skin, some suspicious-looking blankets,
rifles and saddles, deal-tables, and barrels,
made up its scant inventory. A strip of
faded calico hung before a recess near the
chimney, but so blackened by smoke and
age that even feminine curiosity respected
its secret. Mrs. Rightbody was in high
spirits, and informed her daughter that she
was at last on the track of her husband's
unknown correspondent. "Seventy-Four
and Seventy-Five represent two members
of the Vigilance Committee, my dear, and
Mr. Ryder will assist me to find them."
"Mr. Ryder!" ejaculated Miss Alice, in
scornful astonishment.
"Alice," said Mrs. Rightbody, with a
suspicious assumption of sudden defence,
"you injure yourself, you injure me, by
this exclusive attitude. Mr. Ryder is a
friend of your father's, an exceedingly
well-informed gentleman. I have not, of
course, imparted to him the extent of my
suspicions. But he can help me to what
I must and will know. You might treat
him a little more civilly or, at least, a
'THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 455
little better than you do his servant, your
guide. Mr. Kyder is a gentleman, and
not a paid courier."
Miss Alice was suddenly attentive.
When she spoke again, she asked, "Why
do you not find out something about this
Silsbie who died or was hung or
something of that kind?"
"Child!" said Mrs. Kightbody, "don't
you see there was no Silsbie, or, if there
was, he was simply the confidant of that
woman ?"
A knock at the door, announcing the
presence of Mr. E-yder and Stanislaus Joe
with the horses, checked Mrs. Rightbody's
speech. As the animals were being packed,
Mrs. Rightbody for a moment withdrew in
confidential conversation with Mr. Ryder,
and, to the young lady's still greater an-
noyance, left her alone with Stanislaus
Joe. Miss Alice was not in good temper,
but she felt it necessary to say something.
"I hope the hotel offers better quarters
for travellers than this in summer," she
began.
"It does."
"Then this does not belong to it ?"
"No, ma'am."
456 TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
"Who lives here, then?' 7
"I do."
"I beg your pardon," stammered Miss
Alice, "I thought you lived where we
hired where we met you in in You
must excuse me."
"I'm not a regular guide; but as times
were hard, and I was out of grub, I took
the job."
"Out of grub!" "job!" And she was
the "job." What would Henry Marvin
say ? It would nearly kill him. She be-
gan herself to feel a little frightened, and
walked towards the door.
"One moment, miss !"
The young girl hesitated. The man's
tone was surly, and yet indicated a certain
kind of half -pathetic grievance. Her curi-
osity got the better of her prudence, and
she turned back.
"This morning," he began hastily,
"when we were coming down the valley,
you picked me up twice."
"I picked you up ?" repeated the aston-
ished Alice.
"Yes, contradicted me: that's what I
mean, once when you said those rocks
were volcanic, once when you said the
THE GREAT DEAD WOOD MYSTERY. 457
flower you picked was a poppy. I didn't
let on at the time, for it wasn't my say;
but all the while you were talking I might
have laid for you "
"I don't understand you," said Alice
haughtily.
"I might have entrapped you before
folks. But I only want you to know that
Fm right, and here are the books to
show it."
He drew aside the dingy calico curtain,
revealed a small shelf of bulky books, took
down two large volumes, one of botany,
one of geology, nervously sought his text,
and put them in Alice's outstretched hands.
"I had no intention " she began, half-
proudly, half-embarrassedly.
"Am I right, miss ?" he interrupted.
"I presume you are, if you say so."
"That's all, ma'am. Thank you !"
Before the girl had time to reply, he
was gone. When he again returned, it was
with her horse, and Mrs. Rightbody and
Ryder were awaiting her. But Miss Alice
noticed that his own horse was missing.
"Are you not going with us ?" she asked.
"No, ma'am."
"Oh, indeed!"
458 THE ORE AT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
Miss Alice felt her speech was a feeble
conventionalism; but it was all she could
say. She, however, did something. Hith-
erto it had been her habit to systematically
reject his assistance in mounting to her
seat. Now she awaited him. As he ap-
proached, she smiled, and put out her little
foot. He instantly stooped; she placed it
in his hand, rose with a spring, and for one
supreme moment Stanislaus Joe held her
unresistingly in his arms. The next mo-
ment she was in the saddle; but in that
brief interval of sixty seconds she had ut-
tered a volume in a single sentence,
"I hope you will forgive me !"
He muttered a reply, and turned his face
aside quickly as if to hide it.
Miss Alice cantered forward with a
smile, but pulled her hat down over her
eyes as she joined her mother. She was
blushing.
PART III.
ME. RYDEE was as good as his word. A
day or two later he entered Mrs. Right-
body's parlor at the Chrysopolis Hotel in
Stockton, with the information that he had
seen the mysterious senders of the de-
spatch, and that they were now in the office
of the hotel waiting her pleasure. Mr.
Ryder further informed her that these
gentlemen had only stipulated that they
should not reveal their real names, and
that they be introduced to her simply as
the respective "Seventy-Four" and "Sev-
enty-Five" who had signed the despatch
sent to the late Mr. Rightbody.
Mrs. Rightbody at first demurred to
this ; but, on the assurance from Mr. Ryder
that this was the only condition on which
an interview would be granted, finally con-
sented.
"You will find them square men, even
if they are a little rough, ma'am. But, if
459
460 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
you'd like me to be present, I'll stop;
though I reckon, if ye'd calkilated on that,
you'd have had me take care o' your busi-
ness by proxy, and not come yourself three
thousand miles to do it."
Mrs. Rightbody believed it better to see
them alone.
"All right, ma'am. I'll hang round out
here; and ef ye should happen to have a
ticklin' in your throat, and a bad spell o'
coughin', I'll drop in, careless like, to see
if you don't want them drops. Sabe?"
And with an exceedingly arch wink, and
a slight familiar tap on Mrs. Rightbody's
shoulder, which might have caused the late
Mr. Rightbody to burst his sepulchre, he
withdrew.
A very timid, hesitating tap on the door
was followed by the entrance of two men,
both of whom, in general size, strength,
and uncouthness, were ludicrously incon-
sistent with their diffident announcement.
They proceeded in Indian file to the cen-
tre of the room, faced Mrs. Rightbody,
acknowledged her deep courtesy by a
strong shake of the hand, and, drawing
two chairs opposite to her, sat down side
by side.
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 461
"I presume I have the pleasure of ad-
dressing " began Mrs. Bightbody.
The man directly opposite Mrs. Right-
body turned to the other inquiringly.
The other man nodded his head, and re-
plied,
"Seventy-Pour."
"Seventy-Five," promptly followed the
other.
Mrs. Eightbody paused, a little con-
fused.
"I have sent for you," she began again,
"to learn something more of the circum-
stances under which you gentlemen sent a
despatch to my late husband."
"The circumstances," replied Seventy-
Four quietly, with a side-glance at his
companion, "panned out about in this yer
style. We hung a man named Josh
Silsbie, down at Deadwood, for hoss-
stealin'. When I say we, I speak for Sev-
enty-Five yer as is present, as well as
representing so to speak, seventy-two other
gents as is scattered. We hung Josh Sils-
bie on squar, pretty squar, evidence.
Afore he was strung up, Seventy-Five yer
axed him, accordin' to custom, ef ther was
enny thing he had to say, or enny request
462 THE ORE AT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
that he allowed to make of us. He turns
to Seventy-Five yer, and "
Here he paused suddenly, looking at his
companion.
"He sez, sez he," began Seventy-Five,
taking up the narrative, "he sez, 'Kin I
write a letter ?' sez he. Sez I, 'Not much,
ole man : ye've got no time.' Sez he, 'Kin
I send a despatch by telegraph? 7 I sez,
'Heave ahead.' He sez, these is his
dientikal words, 'Send to Adam Right-
body, Boston. Tell him to remember his
sacred compack with me thirty years ago.' '
" 'His sacred compack with me thirty
years ago,' " echoed Seventy-Four, "his
dientikal words."
"What was the compact?" asked Mrs.
Rightbody anxiously.
Seventy-Four looked at Seventy-Five,
and then both arose, and retired to the
corner of -the parlor, where they engaged
in a slow but whispered deliberation.
Presently they returned, and sat down
again.
"We allow," said Seventy-Four, quietly
but decidedly, "that you know what that
sacred compact was."
Mrs. Rightbody lost her temper and her
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 463
truthfulness together. "Of course," she
said hurriedly, "I know. But do you
mean to say that you gave this poor man
no further chance to explain before you
murdered him?"
Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five both
rose again slowly, and retired. When they
returned again, and sat down, Seventy-
Five, who by this time, through some sub-
tle magnetism, Mrs. Eightbody began to
recognize as the superior power, said
gravely,
"We wish to say, regarding this yer
murder, that Seventy-Four and me is
equally responsible ; that we reckon also to
represent, so to speak, seventy-two other
gentlemen as is scattered; that we are
ready, Seventy-Four and me, to take and
holt that responsibility, now and at any
time, afore every man or men as kin be
fetched agin us. We wish to say that this
yer say of ours holds good yer in Cali-
forny, or in any part of these United
States."
a Or in Canady," suggested Seventy-
Four.
"Or in Canady. We wouldn't agree to
cross the water, or go to furrin parts, un-
464 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
less absolutely necessary. We leaves the
chise of weppings to your principal,
ma'am, or being a lady, ma'am, and in-
terested, to any one you may fetch to act
for him. An advertisement in any of the
Sacramento papers, or a playcard or hand-
bill stuck unto a tree near Deadwood, say-
ing that Seventy-Four or Seventy-Five
will communicate with this yer principal
or agent of yours, will fetch us allers."
Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and
desperate, saw her blunder. "I mean
nothing of the kind," she said hastily. "I
only expected that you might have some
further details of this interview with Sils-
bie; that perhaps you could tell me "
a bold, bright thought crossed Mrs. Eight-
body's mind "something more about her."
The two men looked at each other.
"I suppose your society have no objec-
tion to giving me information about her"
said Mrs. Rightbody eagerly.
Another quiet conversation in the cor-
ner, and the return of both men.
"We want to say that we've no objec-
tion."
Mrs. Rightbody's heart beat high. Her
boldness had made her penetration good.
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 465
Yet she felt she must not alarm the men
heedlessly.
"Will you inform me to what extent Mr.
Rightbody, my late husband, was inter-
ested in her ?"
This time it seemed an age to Mrs.
Rightbody before the men returned from
their solemn consultation in the corner.
She could both hear and feel that their dis-
cussion was more animated than their pre-
vious conferences. She was a little morti-
fied, however, when they sat down, to hear
Seventy-Four say slowly,
"We wish to say that we don't allow to
say how much."
"Do you not think that the 'sacred com-
pact' between Mr. Rightbody and Mr. Sils-
bie referred to her ?"
"We reckon it do."
Mrs. Rightbody, flushed and animated,
would have given worlds had her daughter
been present to hear this undoubted con-
firmation of her theory. Yet she felt a
little nervous and uncomfortable even on
this threshold of discovery.
"Is she here now ?"
"She's in Tuolumne," said Seventy-
Four.
466 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
"A little better looked arter than for-
merly/ 7 added Seventy-Five.
"I see. Then Mr. Silsbie enticed her
away ?"
"Well, ma'am, it was allowed as she
runned away. But it wasn't proved, and
it generally wasn't her style."
Mrs. Rightbody trifled with her next
question.
"She was pretty, of course ?"
The eyes of both men brightened.
"She was that I" said Seventy-Four em-
phatically.
"It would have done you good to see
her!" added Seventy-Five.
Mrs. Rightbody inwardly doubted it;
but, before she could ask another question,
the two men again retired to the corner for
consultation. When they came back, there
was a shade more of kindliness and confi-
dence in their manner; and Seventy-Four
opened his mind more freely.
"We wish to say, ma'am, looking at the
thing, by and large, in a far-minded way,
that, 'ez you seem interested, and ez Mr.
Rightbody was interested, and was, accord-
ing to all accounts, deceived and led away
by Silsbie, that we don't mind listening to
TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 467
any proposition you might make, as a
lady allowin' you was ekally inter-
ested."
"I understand," said Mrs. Kightbody
quickly. "And you will furnish me with
any papers ?"
The two men again consulted.
"We wish to say, ma'am, that we think
she's got papers, but "
"I must have them, you understand,"
interrupted Mrs. Kightbody, "at any
price."
"We was about to say, ma'am," said
Seventy-Four slowly, "that, considerin' all
things, and you being a lady you kin
have her, papers, pedigree, and guaranty,
for -twelve hundred dollars."
It has been alleged that Mrs. Eightbody
asked only one question more, and then
fainted. It is known, however, that by
the next day it was understood in Dead-
wood that Mrs. Rightbody had confessed to
the Vigilance Committee that her husband,
a celebrated Boston millionaire, anxious to
gain possession of Abner Springer's well-
known sorrel mare, had incited the unfor-
tunate Josh Silsbie to steal it; and that
'finally, failing in this, the widow of the
468 TEE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
deceased Boston millionaire was now in
personal negotiation with the owners.
Howbeit, Miss Alice, returning home
that afternoon, found her mother with a
violent headache.
"We will leave here by the next
steamer," said Mrs. Rightbody languidly.
"Mr. Ryder has promised to accompany
us."
"But, mother"
"The climate, Alice, is over-rated. My
nerves are already suffering from it. The
associations are unfit for you, and Mr.
Marvin is naturally impatient."
Miss Alice colored slightly.
"But your quest, mother?"
"I've abandoned it."
"But I have not," said Alice quietly.
"Do you remember my guide at the Yo
Semite, Stanislaus Joe? Well, Stanis-
laus Joe is who do you think ?"
Mrs. Rightbody was languidly indif-
ferent.
"Well, Stanislaus Joe is the son of
Joshua Silsbie."
Mrs. Rightbody sat upright in astonish-
ment.
"Yes. But, mother, he knows nothing
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 469
of what we know. His father treated him
shamefully, and set him cruelly adrift
years ago; and, when he was hung, the
poor fellow, in sheer disgrace, changed his
name."
"But, if he knows nothing of his father's
compact, of what interest is this ?"
"Oh, nothing ! Only I thought it might
lead to something."
Mrs. Righthody suspected that "some-
thing," and asked sharply, "And pray how
did you find it out ? You did not speak of
it in the valley."
"Oh ! I didn't find it out till to-day,"
said Miss Alice, walking to the window.
"He happened to be here, and told me."
PAET IV.
IF Mrs. Rightbody's friends had been
astounded by her singular and unexpected
pilgrimage to California so soon after her
husband's decease, they were still more
astounded by the information, a year later,
that she was engaged to be married to a
Mr. Ryder, of whom only the scant history
was known, that he was a Californian, and
former correspondent of her husband. It
was undeniable that the man was wealthy,
and evidently no mere adventurer; it was
rumored that he was courageous and
manly : but even those who delighted in his
odd humor were shocked at his grammar
and slang.
It was said that Mr. Marvin had but
one interview with his father-in-law
elect, and returned so supremely dis-
gusted, that the match was broken off.
The horse-stealing story, more or less gar-
bled, found its way through lips that pre-
470
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 471
tended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it.
Only one member of the Rightbody fam-
ily and a new one saved them from
utter ostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder,
the adopted son of the prospective head of
the household, whose culture, manners, and
general elegance, fascinated and thrilled
Boston with a new sensation. It seemed
to many that Miss Alice should, in the
vicinity of this rare exotic, forget her
former enthusiasm for a professional life ;
but the young man was pitied by society,
and various plans for diverting him from
any mesalliance with the Rightbody fam-
ily were concocted.
It was a wintry night, and the second
anniversary of Mr. Rightbody's death, that
a light was burning in his library. But
the dead man's chair was occupied by
young Mr. Ryder, adopted son of the new
proprietor of the mansion ; and before him
stood Alice, with her dark eyes fixed on
the table.
"There must have been something in it,
Joe, believe me. Did you never hear your
father speak of mine ?"
"Never."
"But you say he was college-bred, and
472 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
born a gentleman, and in his youth he must
have had many friends."
"Alice," said the young man gravely,
"when I have done something to redeem
my name, and wear it again before these
people, before you, it would be well to re-
vive the past. But till then "
But Alice was not to be put down. "I
remember," she went on, scarcely heeding
him, "that, when I came in that night,
papa was reading a letter, and seemed to
be disconcerted."
"A letter?"
"Yes; but," added Alice, with a sigh,
"when we found him here insensible, there
was no letter on his person. He must
have destroyed it."
"Did you ever look among his papers ?
If found, it might be a clew."
The young man glanced toward the cab-
inet. Alice read his eyes, and answered,
"Oh, dear, no! The cabinet contained
only his papers, all perfectly arranged,
you know how methodical were his hab-
its, and some old business and private
letters, all carefully put away."
"Let us see them," said the young man.
rising.
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 473
They opened drawer after drawer; files
upon files of letters and business papers,
accurately folded and filed. Suddenly
Alice uttered a little cry, and picked up a
quaint ivory paper-knife lying at the bot-
tom of a drawer.
"It was missing the next day, and never
could be found: he must have mislaid it
here. This is the drawer," said Alice
eagerly.
Here was a clew. But the lower part of
the drawer was filled with old letters, not
labelled, yet neatly arranged in files. Sud-
denly he stopped, and said, "Put them
back, Alice, at once."
"Why?"
"Some of these letters are in my father's
handwriting."
"The more reason why I should see
them," said the girl imperatively. "Here,
you take part, and I'll take part, and we'll
get through quicker."
There was a certain decision and inde-
pendence in her manner which he had
learned to respect. He took the letters,
and in silence read them with her. They
were old college letters, so filled with
boyish dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and
474 THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY.
Utopian theories, that I fear neither of
these young people even recognized their
parents in the dead ashes of the past.
They were both grave, until Alice uttered a
little hysterical cry, and dropped her face in
her hands. Joe was instantly beside her.
"It's nothing, Joe, nothing. Don't read
it, please; please, don't. It's so funny!
it's so very queer!"
But Joe had, after a slight, half -playful
struggle, taken the letter from the girl.
Then he read aloud the words written by
his father thirty years ago.
"I thank you, dear friend, for all you
say about my wife and boy. I thank you
for reminding me of our boyish compact.
He will be ready to fulfil it, I know, if he
loves -those his father loves, even if you
should marry years later. I am glad for
your sake, for both our sakes, that it is a
boy. Heaven send you a good wife, dear
Adams, and a daughter, to make my son
equally happy."
Joe Silsbie looked down, took the half-
laughing, half-tearful face in his hands,
kissed her forehead, and, with tears in his
grave eyes, said, "Amen !"
I am inclined to think that this senti-
THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY. 475
merit was echoed heartily by Mrs. Right-
body's former acquaintances, when, a year
later, Miss Alice was united to a profes-
sional gentleman of honor and renown, yet
who was known to be the son of a convicted
horse-thief. A few remembered the pre-
vious Californian story, and found cor-
roboration therefor; but a majority be-
lieved it a just reward to Miss Alice for
her conduct to Mr. Marvin, and, as Miss
Alice cheerfully accepted it in that light,
I do not see why I may not end my story
with happiness to all concerned.
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
IT was the sacred hour of noon at
Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner;
and the serious Kellner of "Der Wilde-
mann" glanced in mild reproach at Mr.
James Clinch^ who, disregarding that fact
and the invitatory table d'hote, stepped
into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten
a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic
and American, and, moveover, preoccupied
with business. He was consequently in-
dignant, on entering the garden-like court
and cloister-like counting-house of "Von
Becheret, Sons, Uncles, and Cousins," to
find the comptoir deserted even by the
porter, and was furious at the maid-
servant, who offered the sacred shibboleth
"Mittagsessen" as a reasonable explanation
of the solitude. "A country," said Mr.
Clinch to himself, "that stops business at
mid-day to go to dinner, and employs
476
A LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT. 477
women-servants to talk to business-men, is
played out."
He stepped from the silent building into
the equally silent Kronprinzen Strasse.
Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on
rows of two-storied, gray-stuccoed build-
ings that might be dwellings, or might be
offices, all showing some traces of feminine
taste and supervision in a flower or a cur-
tain that belied the legended "Comptoir,"
or "Direction," over their portals. Mr.
Clinch thought of Boston and State Street,
of New York and Wall Street, and became
coldly contemptuous.
Yet there was clearly nothing to do but
to walk down the formal rows of chestnuts
that lined the broad Strasse, and then walk
back again. At the corner of the first
cross-street he was struck with the fact that
two men who were standing in front of a
dwelling-house appeared to be as incon-
sistent, and out of proportion to the silent
houses, as were the actors on a stage to the
painted canvas thoroughfares before which
they strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no
fancies, had no eye for quaintness; be-
sides, this was not a quaint nor romantic
district, only an entrepot for silks and vel-
478 A LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT.
vets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a
tourist, but as a purchaser. The guide-
books had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was
too good an American to waste time in
looking up uncatalogued curiosities. Be-
sides, he had been here once before, an
entire day!
One o'clock. Still a full hour and a
half before his friend would return to
business. What should he do? The
Verein where he had once been entertained
was deserted even by its waiters; the
garden, with its ostentatious out-of-door
tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch
was not artistic in his tastes; but even he
was quick to detect the affront put upon
Nature by this continental, theatrical gar-
dening, and turned disgustedly away.
Born near a "lake" larger than the German
Ocean, he resented a pool of water twenty-
five feet in diameter under that alluring
title; and, a frequenter of the Adiron-
dacks, he could scarce contain himself over
a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. "A
country," said Mr. Clinch, "that" but
here he remembered that he had once seen
in a park in his native city an imitation of
the Drachenfels in plaster, on a scale of
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 479
two inches to the foot, and checked his
speech.
He turned into the principal allee of the
town. There was a long white building at
one end, the Bahnhof: at the other end
he remembered a dye-house. He had, a
year ago, met its hospitable proprietor : he
would call upon him now.
But the same solitude confronted him as
he passed the porter's lodge beside the
gateway. The counting-house, half villa,
half factory, must have convoked its hu-
manity in some out-of-the-way refectory,
for the halls and passages were tenantless.
For the first time he began to be impressed
with a certain foreign quaintness in the
surroundings; he found himself also re-
calling something he had read when a boy,
about an enchanted palace whose inhab-
itants awoke on the arrival of a long-pre-
destined Prince. To assure himself of the
absolute ridiculousness of this fancy, he
took from his pocket the business-card of
its proprietor, a sample of dye, and re-
called his own personality in a letter of
credit. Having dismissed this idea from
his mind, he lounged on again through a,
rustic lane that might have led to a farm-
480 A LEGEND OF SAMMT8TADT.
house, yet was still, absurdly enough, a
part of the factory gardens. Crossing a
ditch by a causeway, he presently came to
another ditch and another causeway, and
then found himself idly contemplating a
massive, ivy-clad, venerable brick wall.
As a mere wall it might not have attracted
his attention; but it seemed to enter and
bury itself at right angles in the side-wall
of a quite modern-looking dwelling.
After satisfying himself of this fact, he
passed on before the dwelling, but was
amazed to see the wall reappear on the
other side exactly the same. old, ivy-
grown, sturdy, uncompromising, and ridic-
ulous.
Could it actually be a part of the
house ? He turned back, and repassed the
front of the building. The entrance door
was hospitably open. There was a hall and
a staircase, but by all that was prepos-
terous! they were built over and around
the central brick intrusion. The wall
actually ran through the house ! "A coun-
try," said Mr. Clinch to himself, "where
they build their houses over ruins to
accommodate them, or save the trouble of
removal, is, ' but a very pleasant voice
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 481
addressing him. here stopped his usual
hasty conclusion.
"Guten M or gen!"
Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning
on the parapet of what appeared to be a
garden on the roof of the house was
a young girl, red-cheeked, bright-eyed,
blond-haired. The voice was soft, sub-
dued, and mellow ; it was part of the new
impression he was receiving, that it seemed
to be in some sort connected with the ivy-
clad wall before him. His hat was in his
hand as he answered,
"GutenMorgen!"
"Was the Herr seeking anything?"
"The Herr was only waiting a long-
time-coming friend, and had strayed here to
speak with the before-known proprietor."
"So ? But, the before-known proprietor
sleeping well at present after dinner, would
the Herr on the terrace still a while
linger?"
The Herr would, but looked around in
vain for the means to do it. He was
thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the
young woman reappeared at the open
door, and bade him enter.
Following the youthful hostess, Mr.
482 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
Clinch mounted the staircase, but, passing
the mysterious wall, could not forbear an
allusion to it. "It is old, very old," said
the girl: "it was here when I came."
"That was not very long ago," said Mr.
Clinch gallantly.
"No ; but my grandfather found it here
too."
"And built over it?"
"Why not ? It is very, very hard, and
so thick."
Mr. Clinch here explained, with mas-
culine superiority, the existence of such
modern agents as nitro-glycerine and
dynamite, persuasive in their effects upon
time-honored obstructions and encum-
brances.
"But there was not then what you call
this ni nitro-glycerine."
"But since then 2"
The young girl gazed at him in troubled
surprise. "My great-grandfather did not
take it away when he built the house : why
should we?"
"Oh!"
They had passed through a hall and
dining-room, and suddenly stepped out of
a window upon a gravelled terrace. From
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 483
this a few stone steps descended to another
terrace, on which trees and shrubs were
growing ; and yet, looking over the parapet,
Mr. Clinch could see the road some twenty
feet below. It was nearly on a level with,
and part of, the second story of the house.
Had an earthquake lifted the adjacent
ground ? or had the house burrowed into a
hill ? Mr. Clinch turned to his companion,
who was standing close beside him, breath-
ing quite audibly, and leaving an impres-
sion on his senses as of a gentle and fra-
grant heifer.
"How was all this done ?"
The maiden did not know. "It was
always here."
Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He
had quite forgotten his impatience. Pos-
sibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the
girl, who, but for her ready color, did not
seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it
was the peaceful repose of this mausoleum
of the dead and forgotten wall that sub-
dued him, but he was quite willing to take
the old-fashioned chair on the terrace
which she offered him, and follow her mo-
tions with not altogether mechanical eyes
as she drew out certain bottles and glasses
v - 2 4 P Bret Harte
484 A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT.
from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr.
Clinch had the weakness of a majority of
his sex in believing that he was a good
judge of wine and women. The latter, as
shown in the specimen before him, he
would have invoiced as a fair sample of
the middle-class German woman, healthy,
comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very
genius of domesticity. Even in her virgin
outlines the future wholesome matron was
already forecast, from the curves of her
broad hips, to the flat lines of her back
and shoulders. Of the wine he was to
judge later. That required an even more
subtle and unimpassioned intellect.
She placed two bottles before him on the
table, one, the traditional long-necked,
amber-colored Rheinflasche ; the other,
an old, quaint, discolored, amphorax-pat-
terned glass jug. The first she opened.
"This," she said, pointing to the other,
"cannot be opened."
Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the
opened bottle, a good quality of Nier-
steiner. With his intellect thus clarified,
he glanced at the other.
"It is from my great-grandfather. It is
old as the wall."
A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT. 485
Mr. Clinch examined the bottle atten-
tively. It seemed to have no cork.
Formed of some obsolete, opaque glass, its
twisted neck was apparently hermetically
sealed by the same material. The maiden
smiled, as she said,
"It cannot be opened now without break-
ing the bottle. It is not good luck to do
so. My grandfather and my father would
not."
But Mr. Clinch was still examining the
bottle. Its neck was flattened towards the
mouth; but a close inspection showed it
was closed by some equally hard cement,
but not glass.
"If I can open it without breaking the
bottle, have I your permission?"
A mischievous glance rested on Mr.
Clinch, as the maiden answered,
"I shall not object; but for what will
you do it ?"
"To taste it, to try it."
"You are not afraid P
There was just enough obvious admira-
tion of Mr. Clinch's audacity in the
maiden's manner to impel him to any risk.
His only answer was to take from his
pocket a small steel instrument. Holding
486 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
the neck of the bottle firmly in one hand,
he passed his thumb and the steel twice or
thrice around it. A faint rasping, scratch-
ing sound was all the wondering girl heard.
Then, with a sudden, dexterous twist of
his thumb and finger, to her utter astonish-
ment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut
off, in her hand.
"There's a better and more modern bot-
tle than you had before," he said, pointing
to the cleanly-divided neck, "and any cork
will fit it now."
But the girl regarded him with anxiety.
"'And you still wish to taste the wine ?"
"With your permission, yes!"
He looked up in her eyes. There was
permission: there was something more,
that was flattering to his vanity. He took
the wine-glass, and, slowly and in silence,
filled it from the mysterious flask.
The wine fell into the glass clearly,
transparently, heavily, but still and cold as
death. There was no sparkle, no cheap
ebullition, no evanescent bubble. Yet it
was so clear, that, but for a faint amber-
tinting, the glass seemed empty. There was
no aroma, no ethereal diffusion from its
equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy,
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 487
perhaps it was from nervous excitement;
but a slight chill seemed to radiate from
the still goblet, and bring down the tem-
perature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch and
his companion both insensibly shivered.
But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch
raised the glass to his lips. As he did so,
he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a
picture before him, the sunlit terrace, the
pretty girl in the foreground, an amused
spectator of his sacrilegious act, the out-
lying ivy-crowned wall, the grass-grown
ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising
above the chestnuts, and the distant pop-
lars that marked the Rhine.
The wine was delicious ; perhaps a trifle ,
only a trifle, heady. He was conscious of
a slight exaltation. There was also a
smile upon the girl's lip and a roguish'
twinkle in her eye as she looked at him.
"Do you find the wine to your taste?"
she asked.
"Fair enough, I warrant," said Mr.
Clinch with ponderous gallantry ; "but me-
thinks 'tis nothing compared with the nec-
tar that grows on those ruby lips. Nay,
by St. Ursula, I swear it !"
No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous
488 A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT.
speech passed the lips of the unfortunate
man than he would have given worlds to
have recalled it. He knew that he must
be intoxicated; that the sentiment and
language were utterly unlike him, he was
miserably aware; that he did not even
know exactly what it meant, he was also
hopelessly conscious. Yet feeling all this,
feeling, too, the shame of appearing be-
fore her as a man who had lost his senses
through a single glass of wine, neverthe-
less he rose awkwardly, seized her hand,
and by sheer force drew her towards him,
and kissed her. With an exclamation that
was half a cry and half a laugh, she fled
from him, leaving him alone and be-
wildered on the terrace.
For a moment Mr. Clinch supported
himself against the open window, leaning
his throbbing head on the cold glass.
Shame, mortification, an hysterical half-
consciousness of his utter ridiculousness,
and yet an odd, undefined terror of some-
thing, by turns possessed him. Was he
ever before guilty of such perfect folly?
Had he ever before made such a spectacle
of himself ? Was it possible that he, Mr.
James Clinch, the coolest head at a late
A. LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT. 489
supper, he, the American, who had re-
peatedly drunk Frenchmen and English-
men under the table could be transformed
into a sentimental, stagey idiot by a single
glass of wine ? He was conscious, too, of
asking himself these very questions in a
stilted sort of rhetoric, and with a rising
brutality of anger that was new to him.
And then everything swam before him,
and he seemed to lose all consciousness.
But only for an instant.- With a strong
effort of his will he again recalled himself,
his situation, his surroundings, and, above
all, his appointment. He rose to his feet,
hurriedly descended the terrace-steps, and,
before he well knew how, found himself
again on the road. Once there, his fac-
ulties returned in full vigor ; he was again
himself. He strode briskly forward
toward the ditch he had crossed only a
few moments before, but was suddenly
stopped. It was filled with water. He
looked up and down. It was clearly the
same diteh; but a flowing stream thirty
feet wide now separated him from the
other bank.
The appearance of this unlooked-for
obstacle made Mr. Clinch doubt the full
490 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
restoration of his faculties. He stepped
to the brink of the flood to bathe his head
in the stream, and wash away the last
vestiges of his potations. But as he ap-
proached the placid depths, and knelt
down he again started back, and this time
with a full conviction of his own madness ;
for reflected from its mirror-like surface
was a figure he could scarcely call his own,
although here and there some trace of his
former self remained.
His close-cropped hair, trimmed a la
mode, had given way to. long, curling locks
that dropped upon his shoulders. His
neat mustache was frightfully prolonged,
and curled up at the ends stiffly. His
Piccadilly collar had changed shape and
texture, and reached a mass of lace to a
point midway of his breast ! His boots,
why had he not noticed his boots before ?
these triumphs of his Parisian bootmaker,
were lost in hideous leathern cases that
reached half way up his thighs. In place
of his former high silk hat, there lay upon
the ground beside him the awful thing he
had just taken off, a mass of thickened
felt, flap, feather, and buckle that weighed
at least a stone.
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 491
A single terrible idea now took posses-
sion of him. He had been "sold," "taken
in," "done for." He saw it all. In a
state of intoxication he had lost his way,
had been dragged into some vile den,
stripped of his clothes and valuables, and
turned adrift upon the quiet town in this
shameless masquerade. How should he
keep his appointment? how inform the
police of this outrage upon a stranger and
an American citizen ? how establish his
identity? Had they spared his papers?
He felt feverishly in his breast. Ah !
his watch? Yes, a watch heavy, jew-
elled, enamelled and, by all that was
ridiculous, five others! He ran his hands
into his capacious trunk hose. What was
this ? Brooches, chains, finger-rings,
one large episcopal one, ear-rings, and a
handful of battered gold and silver coins.
His papers, his memorandums, his pass-
port all proofs of his identity were
gone ! In their place was the unmistaka-
ble omnium gatherum of an accomplished
knight of the road. Not only was his
personality, but his character, gone for-
ever.
It was a part of Mr. Clinch's singular
492 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
experience that this last stroke of ill for-
tune seemed to revive in him something of
the brutal instinct he had felt a moment
before. He turned eagerly about with the
intention of calling some one the first
person he met to account. But the house
that he had just quitted was gone. The
wall! Ah, there it was, no longer pur-
poseless, intrusive, and ivy-clad, but part
of the buttress of another massive wall that
rose into battlements above him. Mr.
Clinch turned again hopelessly toward
Sammtstadt. There was the fringe of
poplars on the Ehine, there were the out-
lying fields lit by the same meridian sun ;
but the characteristic chimneys of Sammt-
stadt were gone. Mr. Clinch was hope-
lessly lost.
The sound of a horn breaking the still-
ness recalled his senses. He now for the
first time perceived that a little distance
below him, partly hidden in the trees,
was a queer, tower-shaped structure with
chains and pulleys, that in some strange
way recalled his boyish reading. A draw-
bridge and portcullis ! And on the battle-
ment a figure in a masquerading dress as
r.bsurd as his own, flourishing a banner
A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT.
and trumpet, and trying to attract his
attention.
"Was wollen Sie?"
"I want to see the proprietor," said
Mr. Clinch, choking back his rage.
There was a pause, and the figure turned
apparently to consult with some one be-
hind the battlements. After a moment he
reappeared, and in a perfunctory mono-
tone, with an occasional breathing spell on
the trumpet, began,
"You do give warranty as a good knight
and true, as well as by the bones of the
blessed St. Ursula, that you bear no ill
will, secret enmity, wicked misprise or con-
spiracy, against the body of our noble lord
and master Von Kolnsche? And you
bring with you no ambush, siege, or sur-
prise of retainers, neither secret warrant
nor lettres de cachet, nor carry on your
knightly person poisoned dagger, magic
ring, witch-powder, nor enchanted bullet,
and that you have entered into no unhal-
lowed alliance with the Prince of Dark-
ness, gnomes, hexies, dragons, Undines,
Loreleis, nor the like ?"
"Come down out of that, you d d
old fool!" roared Mr. Clinch, now per-
494 A LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT.
fectly beside himself with rage, "come
down, and let me in !"
As Mr. Clinch shouted out the last
words, confused cries of recognition and
welcome, not unmixed with some con-
sternation, rose from the battlements:
"Ach Gott!" "Mutter Gott it is he! It
is Jann, Der Wanderer. It is himself."
The chains rattled, the ponderous draw-
bridge creaked and dropped ; and across it
a medley of motley figures rushed pell-
mell. But, foremost among them, the very
maiden whom he had left not ten minutes
before flew into his arms, and with a cry
of joyful greeting sank upon his breast.
Mr. Clinch looked down upon the fair
head and long braids. It certainly was
the same maiden, his cruel enchantress;
but where did she get those absurd gar-
ments ?
"WillJcommen" said a stout figure, ad-
vancing with some authority, and seizing
his disengaged hand, "where hast thou
been so long?"
Mr. Clinch, by no means placated, coldly
dropped the extended hand. It was not
the proprietor he had known. But there
was a singular resemblance in his face to
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 495
some one of Mr. Clinch's own kin; but
who, he could not remember. "May I
take the liberty of asking your name ?" he
asked coldly.
The figure grinned. "Surely; but, if
thou standest upon punctilio, it is for me
to ask thine, most noble Freiherr," said he,
winking upon his retainers. "Whom have
I the honor of entertaining?"
"My name is Clinch, James Clinch of
Chicago, 111."
A shout of laughter followed. In the
midst of his rage and mortification Mr.
Clinch fancied he saw a shade of pain and
annoyance flit across the face of the
maiden. He was puzzled, but pressed her
hand, in spite of his late experiences, re-
assuringly. She made a gesture of silence
to him, and then slipped away in the
crowd.
"Schames KTn'sche von Schekargo,"
mimicked the figure, to the unspeakable
delight of his retainers. "So! That is
the latest French style. Holy St. Ursula !
Hark ye, nephew! I am not a travelled
man. Since the Crusades we simple Rhine
gentlemen have staid at home. But I call
myself Kolnsche of Koln, at your service."
496 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
"Very likely you are right," said Mr.
Clinch hotly, disregarding the caution of
his fair companion; "but, whoever you
are, / am a stranger entitled to protection.
I have been robbed."
If Mr. Clinch had uttered an exquisite
joke instead of a very angry statement, it
could not have been more hilariously re-
ceived. He paused, grew confused, and
then went on hesitatingly,
"In place of my papers and credentials
I find only these." And he produced the
jewelry from his pockets.
Another shout of laughter and clapping
of hands followed this second speech ; and
the baron, with a wink at his retainers,
prolonged the general mirth by saying,
"By the way, nephew, there is little doubt
but there has been robbery somewhere."
"It was done/' continued Mr. Clinch,
hurrying to make an end of his explana-
tion, "while I was inadvertently overcome
with liquor, drugged liquor."
The laughter here was so uproarious
that the baron, albeit with tears of laughter
in his own eyes, made a peremptory ges-
ture of silence. The gesture was peculiar
to the baron, efficacious and simple. It
A LEQEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 497
consisted merely in knocking down the
nearest laugher. Having thus restored
tranquillity, he strode forward, and took
Mr. Clinch by the hand. "By St. Adolph,
I did doubt thee a moment ago, nephew;
but this last frank confession of thine
shows me I did thee wrong. Willkommen
zu Hause, Jann, drunk or sober, willkom-
men zu Cracoiven/'
More and more mystified, but convinced
of the folly of any further explanation, Mr.
Clinch took the extended hand of his al-
leged uncle, and permitted himself to be
led into the castle. They passed into a
large banqueting-hall adorned with armor
and implements of the chase. Mr. Clinch
could not help noticing, that, although the
appointments were liberal and picturesque,
the ventilation was bad, and the smoke
from the huge chimney made the air
murky. The oaken tables, massive in
carving and rich in color, were unmis-
takably greasy ; and Mr. Clinch slipped on
a piece of meat that one of the dozen half-
wild dogs who were occupying the room
was tearing on the floor. The dog, yelp-
ing, ran between the legs of a retainer, pre-
cipitating him upon the baron, who in-
498 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
stantly, with the "equal foot" of fate,
kicked him and the dog into a corner.
"And whence came you last ?" asked the
baron, disregarding the little contretemps,
and throwing himself heavily on an oaken
settle, while he pushed a queer, uncom-
fortable-looking stool, with legs like a
Siamese-twin-connected double X, towards
his companion.
Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself
up to fate, answered mechanically,
"Paris."
The baron winked his eye with unutter-
able, elderly wickedness. "Ach Gott! it
is nothing to what it was when I was your
age. Ah! there was Manon, Sieur
Manon we used to call her. I suppose
she's getting old now. How goes on the
feud between the students and the citizens ?
Eh ? Did you go to the lal in la Cite f
Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those
Justice-Shallow-like reminiscences by an
uneasy exclamation. He was thinking of
the maiden who had disappeared so sud-
denly. The baron misinterpreted his ner-
vousness. "What ho, within there!
Max, Wolfgang, lazy rascals ! Bring
A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT. 499
At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started
to his feet. "Not for me! Bring me
none of your body-and-soul-destroying
poison ! I've enough of it !"
The baron stared. The servitors stared
also.
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Clinch,
recalling himself slowly ; "but I fear that
Rhine wine does not agree with me."
The baron grinned. Perceiving, how-
ever, that the three servitors grinned also,
he kicked two of them into obscurity, and
felled the third to the floor with his fist.
"Hark ye, nephew," he said, turning to
the astonished Clinch, "give over, this non-
sense! By the mitre of Bishop Hatto,
thou art as big a fool as he !"
"Hatto," repeated Clinch mechanically.
"What ! he of the Mouse Tower?"
"Ay, of the Mouse Tower !" sneered the
baron. "I see you know the story."
"Why am I like him 2" asked Mr. Clinch
in amazement.
The baron grinned. "He punished the
Rhenish wine as thou dost, without judg-
ment. He had "
"The jim-jams," said Mr. Clinch me-
chanically again.
500 A LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT.
The baron frowned. "I know not what
gibberish thou sayest by ' jim-jams' ; but
he had, like thee, the wildest fantasies and
imaginings ; saw snakes, toads, rats, in his
boots, but principally rats; said they pur-
sued him, came to his room, his bed ach
Gottr
"Oh!" said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden
return to his firmer self and his native in-
quiring habits ; "then that is the fact about
Bishop Hatto of the story?"
"His enemies made it the subject of a
vile slander of an old friend of mine," said
the baron; "and those cursed poets, who
believe everything, and then persuade
others to do so, may the Devil fly away
w r ith them! kept it up."
Here were facts quite to Mr. Clinch's
sceptical mind. He forgot himself and his
surroundings.
"And that story of the Drachenf els ?"
he asked insinuatingly, "the dragon, you
know. Was he too "
The baron grinned. "A boar trans-
formed by the drunken brains of the
Bauers of the Siebengebirge. Ach Gott!
Ottef ried had many a hearty laugh over it ;
and it did him, as thou knowest, good ser-
A LEGEND OF SAMMT8TADT. 501
vice with the nervous mother of the silly
maiden."
"And the seven sisters of Schonberg?"
asked Mr. Clinch persuasively.
" 'Schonberg ! Seven sisters !' What
of them?" demanded the baron sharply.
"Why, you know, the maidens who
were so coy to their suitors, and don't
you remember ? jumped into the Rhine to
avoid them."
" 'Coy ? Jumped into the Ehine to
avoid suitors' ?" roared the baron, purple
with rage. "Hark ye, nephew! I like
not this jesting. Thou knowest I married
one of the Schonberg girls, as did thy
father. How 'coy' they were is neither
here nor there ; but mayhap we might tell
another story. Thy father, as weak a fel-
low as thou art where a petticoat is con-
cerned, could not as a gentleman do other
than he did. And this is his reward?
Ach Gott! 'Coy!' And iliis, I warrant,
is the way the story is delivered in Paris."
Mr. Clinch would have answered that
this was the way he read it in a guide-
book, but checked himself at the hopeless-
ness of the explanation. Besides, he was
on the eve of historic information ; he was,
502 A LEGEND OF 8AMMT8TADT.
as it were, interviewing the past; and,
whether he would ever be able to profit by
the opportunity or not, he could not bear to
lose it. "And how about the Lorelei is
she, too, a fiction ?" he asked glibly.
"It was said," observed the baron sar-
donically, "that when thou disappeared
with the gamekeeper's daughter at Ober-
^assel Heaven knows where! thou wast
swallowed up in a whirlpool with some
creature. Ach Gott! I believe it! But
a truce to this balderdash. And so thou
wantest to know of the 'coy' sisters of
Schonberg? Hark ye, Jann, that cousin
of thine is a Schonberg. Call you her
'coy' ? Did I not see thy greeting ? Eh ?
By St. Adolph, knowing thee as she does
to be robber and thief, call you her greet-
ing 'coy' ?"
Furious as Mr. Clinch inwardly became
under these epithets, he felt that his ex-
planation would hardly relieve the maiden
from deceit, or himself from weakness.
But out of his very perplexity and tur-
moil a bright idea was born. He turned
to the baron,
"Then you have no faith in the Khine
legends ?"
A LEGEND OF 8AMMTSTADT. 503
The baron only replied with a contempt-
uous shrug of his shoulders.
"But what if I told you a new one ?"
"You?"
"Yes ; a part of my experience ?"
The baron was curious. It was early
in the afternoon, just after dinner. He
might be worse bored.
"I've only one condition," added Mr.
Clinch: "the young lady I mean, of
course, my cousin must hear it too."
"Oh, ay! I see. Of course the old
trick ! Well, call the jade. But mark ye,
Sir Nephew, no enchanted maidens and
knights. Keep to thyself. Be as thou
art, vagabond Jann Kolnische, knight of
the road. What ho there, scoundrels!
Call the Lady Wilhemina."
It was the first time Mr. Clinch had
heard his fair friend's name; but it was
not, evidently, the first time she had seen
him, as the very decided wink the gentle
maiden dropped him testified. Neverthe-
less, with hands lightly clasped together y
and downcast eyes, she stood before them.
Mr. Clinch began. Without heeding the
baron's scornful grin, he graphically de-
scribed his meeting, two years before, with
504 A LEGEND OF SAMMT8TADT.
a Lorelei, her usual pressing invitation,
and his subsequent plunge into the Rhine.
"I am free to confess," added Mr.
Clinch, with an affecting glance to Wil-
helmina, "that I was not enamoured of the
graces of the lady, but was actuated by my
desire to travel, and explore hitherto un-
known regions. I wished to travel, to
visit"
"Paris," interrupted the baron sarcas-
tically.
"America," continued Mr. Clinch.
"What?" "America."
" 'Tis a gnome-like sounding name, this
Meriker. Go on, nephew : tell us of Mer-
iker."
With the characteristic fluency of his
nation, Mr. Clinch described his landing
on those enchanted shores, viz, the Rhine
Whirlpool and Hell Gate, East River, New
York. He described the railways, tram-
ways, telegraphs, hotels, phonograph, and
telephone. An occasional oath broke
from the baron, but he listened attentively ;
and in a few moments Mr. Clinch had the
raconteur's satisfaction of seeing the vast
hall slowly filling with open-eyed and open-
mouthed retainers hanging upon his words.
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 505
Mr. Clinch went on to describe his aston-
ishment at meeting on these very shores
some of his own blood and kin. "In fact,"
said Mr. Clinch, "here were a race calling
themselves 'Clinch,' but all claiming to
have descended from Kolnische."
"And how?" sneered the baron.
"Through James Kolnische and Wil-
helmina his wife," returned Mr. Clinch
boldly. "They emigrated from Kb'ln and
Crefeld to Philadelphia, where there is a
quarter named Crefeld." Mr. Clinch felt
himself shaky as to his chronology, but
wisely remembered that it was a chronol-
ogy of the future to his hearers, and they
could not detect an anachronism. With
his eyes fixed upon those of the gentle
Wilhelmina, Mr. Clinch now proceeded to
describe his return to his fatherland, but
his astonishment at finding the very face
of the country changed, and a city stand-
ing on those fields he had played in as a
boy ; and how he had wandered hopelessly
on, until he at last sat wearily down in a
humble cottage built upon the ruins of a
lordly castle. "So utterly travel-worn and
weak had I become," said Mr. Clinch,
with adroitly simulated pathos, "that a
506 A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT.
single glass of wine offered me by the sim-
ple cottage maiden affected me like a pro-
longed debauch."
A long-drawn snore was all that followed
this affecting climax. The baron was
asleep; the retainers were also asleep.
Only one pair of eyes remained open,
arch, luminous, blue, Wilhelmina's.
"There is a subterranean passage below
us to Linn. Let us fly !" she whispered.
"But why?" "They always do it in
the legends/' she murmured modestly.
"But your father ?"
"He sleeps. Do you not hear him ?"
Certainly somebody was snoring. But,
oddly enough, it seemed to be Wilhelmina.
Mr. Clinch suggested this to her.
'Tool, it is yourself !"
Mr. Clinch, struck with the idea, stopped
to consider. She was right. It certainly
was himself.
With a struggle he awoke. The sun
was shining. The maiden was looking at
him. But the castle the castle was gone !
"You have slept well," said the maiden
archly. "Everybody does after dinner at
Sammtstadt. Father has just awakened,
and is coming."
A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 507
Mr. Clinch stared at the maiden, at the
terrace, at the sky, at the distant chimneys
of Sammtstadt, at the more distant Rhine,
at the table before him, and finally at the
empty glass. The maiden smiled. "Tell
me," said Mr. Clinch, looking in her eyes,
"is there a secret passage underground be-
tween this place and the Castle of Linn ?"
"An underground passage ?"
"Ay whence the daughter of the house
fled with a stranger knight."
"They say there is," said the maiden,
with a gentle blush.
"Can you show it to me ?"
She hesitated. "Papa is coming: I'll
ask him."
I presume she did. At least the Herr
Consul at Sammtstadt informs me of a
marriage-certificate issued to one Clinch of
Chicago, and Kolnische of Koln ; and there
is an amusing story extant in the Verein at
Sammtstadt, of an American connoisseur
of Rhine wines, who mistook a flask of
Cognac and rock-candy, used for "craftily
qualifying" lower grades of wine to the
American standard, for the rarest Rudes-
heimerberg.
VIEWS FEOM A GEBMAN SPIOK
OUTSIDE of my window, two narrow
perpendicular mirrors, parallel with the
casement, project into the street, yet with a
certain unobtrusiveness of angle that en-
ables them to reflect the people who pass,
without any reciprocal disclosure of their
own. The men and women hurrying by
not only do not know they are observed,
but, what is worse, do not even see their
own reflection in this hypocritical plane,
and are consequently unable, through its
aid, to correct any carelessness of garb,
gait, or demeanor. At first this seems to
be taking an unfair advantage of the hu-
man animal, who invariably assumes an at-
titude when he is conscious of being under
human focus. But I observe that my
neighbors' windows, right and left, have
a similar apparatus, that this custom is ev-
idently a local one, and the locality is Ger-
508
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN 8PION. 609
man. Being an American stranger, I am
quite willing to leave the morality of the
transaction with the locality, and adapt
myself to the custom: indeed, I had
thought of offering it, figuratively, as an
excuse for any unfairness of observation I
might make in these pages. But my Ger-
man mirrors reflect without prejudice, se-
lection, or comment; and the American
eye, I fear, is but mortal, and like all mor-
tal eyes, figuratively as well as in that lit-
eral fact noted by an eminent scientific
authority, infinitely inferior to the work of
the best German opticians.
And this leads me to my first observa-
tion, namely, that a majority of those who
pass my mirror have weak eyes, and have
already invoked the aid of the optician.
Why are these people, physically in all else
so much stronger than my countrymen, de-
ficient in eyesight ? Or, to omit the pass-
ing testimony of my Spion, and take my
own personal experience, why does my
young friend Max, brightest of all school-
boys, who already wears the cap that de-
notes the highest class, why does he shock
me by suddenly drawing forth a pair of
spectacles, that upon his fresh, rosy face
510 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
would be an obvious mocking imitation of
the Herr Papa if German children could
ever, by any possibility, be irreverent ? Or
why does the Fraulein Marie, his sister,
pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenly
veil her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette
in the midst of our polyglot conversation ?
Is it to evade the direct, admiring glance
of the impulsive American? Dare I say
No? Dare I say that that frank, clear,
honest, earnest return of the eye, which
has on the Continent most unfairly brought
my fair countrywomen under criticism, is
quite as common to her more carefully-
guarded, tradition-hedged German sisters ?
No, it is not that. Is it any thing in these
emerald and opal tinted skies, which seem
so unreal to the American eye, and for the
first time explain what seemed the unreal-
ity of German art? in these mysterious
yet restful Ehine fogs, which prolong the
twilight, and hang the curtain of romance
even over mid-day? Surely not. Is it
not rather, O Herr Professor profound in
analogy and philosophy ! is it not rather
this abominable black-letter, this else-
where-discarded, uncouth, slowly-decaying
text known as the German Alphabet, that 1
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 511
plucks out the bright eyes of youth, and
bristles the gateways of your language with
a chevaux de frise of splintered rubbish?
Why must I hesitate whether it is an acci-
dent of the printer's press, or the poor
quality of the paper, that makes this letter
a "fc" or a "t" ? Why must I halt in an
emotion or a thought because "s" and "/"
are so nearly alike ? Is it not enough that
I, an impulsive American, accustomed to
do a thing first, and reflect upon it after-
wards, must grope my way through a blind
alley of substantives and adjectives, only
to find the verb of action in an obscure cor-
ner, without ruining my eyesight in the
groping ?
But I dismiss these abstract reflections
for a fresh and active resentment. This is
the fifth or sixth dog that has passed my
Spion, harnessed to a small barrow-like
cart, and tugging painfully at a burden
so ludicrously disproportionate to his size,
that it would seem a burlesque, but for the
poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps it is be-
cause I have the barbarian's fondness for
dogs, and for their lawless, gentle, loving
uselessness, that I rebel against this un-
natural servitude. It seems as monstrous
512 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
as if a child were put between the shafts,
and made to carry burdens; and I have
come to regard those men and women, who
in the weakest perfunctory way affect to
aid the poor brute by laying idle hands on
the barrow behind, as I would unnatural
parents. Pegasus harnessed to the
Thracian herdsman's plough was no more
of a desecration. I fancy the poor dog
seems to feel the monstrosity of the per-
formance, and, in sheer shame for his mas-
ter, forgivingly tries to assume it is play;
and I have seen a little "colley" running
along, barking, and endeavoring to leap
and gambol in the shafts, before a load
that any one out of this locality would
have thought the direst cruelty. Nor do
the older or more powerful dogs seem to
become accustomed to it. When his cruel
taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly
the dog, either by sitting down in his har-
ness, or crawling over the shafts, or by
some unmistakable dog-like trick, utterly
scatters any such delusion of even the habit
of servitude. The few of his race who do
not work in this ducal city seem to have
lost their democratic canine sympathies,
and look upon him with something of that
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 513
indifferent calm with which yonder officer
eyes the road-mender in the ditch below
him. He loses even the characteristics of
species. The common cur and mastiff look
alike in harness. The burden levels all
distinctions. I have said that he was gen-
erally sincere in his efforts. I recall but
one instance to the contrary. I remember
a young colley who first attracted my
attention by his persistent barking.
Whether he did this, as the plough-boy
whistled, "for want of thought /'or whether
it was a running protest against his occu-
pation, I could not determine, until one
day I noticed, that, in barking, he slightly
threw up his neck and shoulders, and that
the two-wheeled barrow-like vehicle behind
him, having its weight evenly poised on the
wheels by the trucks in the hands of its
driver, enabled him by this movement to
cunningly throw the center of gravity and
the greater weight on the man, a fact
which that less sagacious brute never dis-
cerned. Perhaps I am using a strong ex-
pression regarding his driver. It may be
that the purely animal wants of the dog, in
the way of food, care, and shelter, are more
bountifully supplied in servitude than in
514 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
freedom; becoming a valuable and useful
property, he may be cared for and pro-
tected as such (an odd recollection that
this argument, had been used forcibly in
regard to human slavery in my own coun-
try strikes me here) ; but his picturesque-
ness and poetry are gone, and I cannot
help thinking that the people who have lost
this gentle, sympathetic, characteristic
figure from their domestic life and sur-
roundings have not acquired an equal gain
through his harsh labors.
To the American eye there is, through-
out the length and breadth of this foreign
city, no more notable and striking object
than the average German house-servant.
It is not that she has passed my Spion a
dozen times within the last hour, for
here she is messenger, porter, and com-
missionnaire, as well as housemaid and
cook, but that she is always a phenome-
non to the American stranger, accustomed
to be abused in his own country by his
foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence
is as refreshing and grateful as the morn-
ing light, and as inevitable and regular.
When I add that with the novelty of being
well served is combined the satisfaction of
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 515
knowing that you have in your household
an intelligent being who reads and writes
with fluency, and yet does not abstract
your books, nor criticise your literary com-
position; who is cleanly clad, and neat
in her person, without the suspicion of
having borrowed her mistress's dresses;
who may be good-looking without the least
imputation of coquetry or addition to her
followers; who is obedient without ser-
vility, polite without flattery, willing and
replete with supererogatory performance,
without the expectation of immediate
pecuniary return, what wonder that the
American householder translated into Ger-
man life feels himself in a new Eden of
domestic possibilities unrealized in any
other country, and begins to believe in a
present and future of domestic happiness !
What wonder that the American bachelor
living in German lodgings feels half the
terrors of the conjugal future removed,
and rushes madly into love and house-
keeping! What wonder that I, a long-
suffering and patient master, who have
been served by the reticent but too imita-
tive Chinaman ; who have been "Massa" to
the childlike but untruthful negro; who
v. 24 Q Bret Harte
616 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
have been the recipient of the brotherly but
uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea
Islander, and have been proudly disre-
garded by the American aborigine, only
in due time to meet the fate of my country-
men at the hands of Bridget the Celt,
what wonder that I gladly seize this oppor-
tunity to sing the praises of my German
handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen,
wherever thou goest ! Heaven bless thee
in thy walks abroad ! whether with that
tightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday
gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted
apron and bare head as thou trottest
nimbly on mine errands, errands which
Bridget O'Flaherty would scorn to under-
take, or, undertaking, would hopelessly
blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child, in
thy early risings and in thy later sittings,
at thy festive board overflowing with Essig
and Pett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen,
in the fulness of thy Bier, and in thy
nightly suffocations beneath mountainous
and multitudinous feathers! Good, hon-
est, simple-minded, cheerful, duty-loving
Lenchen! Have not thy brothers, strong
and dutiful as thou, lent their gravity and
earnestness to sweeten and strengthen the
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 517
fierce youth of the Republic beyond the
seas ? and shall not thy children inherit the
broad prairies that still wait for them, and
discover the fatness thereof, and send a
portion transmuted in glittering shekels
back to thee ?
Almost as notable are the children whose
round faces have as frequently been re-
flected in my Spion. Whether it is only
a fancy of mine that the average German
retains longer than any other race his
childish simplicity and unconsciousness, or
whether it is because I am more accus-
tomed to the extreme self-assertion and
early maturity of American children, I
know not ; but I am inclined to believe that
among no other people is childhood as
perennial, and to be studied in such charac-
teristic and quaint and simple phases as
here. The picturesqueness of Spanish and
Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of
the pantomime and the conscious attitudin-
izing of the Latin races. German children
are not exuberant or volatile: they are
serious, a seriousness, however, not to be
confounded with the grave reflectiveness of
age, but only the abstract wonderment of
childhood; for all those who have made a
518 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
loving study of the young human animal
will, I think, admit that its dominant ex-
pression is gravity, and not playfulness,
and will be satisfied that he erred pitifully
who first ascribed "light-heartedness" and
"thoughtlessness" as part of its phenom-
ena. These little creatures I meet upon
the street, whether in quaint wooden
shoes and short woollen petticoats, or
neatly booted and furred, with school knap-
sacks jauntily borne upon little square
shoulders, all carry likewise in their
round chubby faces their profound wonder-
ment and astonishment at the big busy
world into which they have so lately
strayed. If I stop to speak with this little
maid who scarcely reaches to the top-boots
of yonder cavalry officer, there is less of
bashful self-consciousness in her sweet
little face than of grave wonder at the
foreign accent and strange ways of this
new figure obtruded upon her limited hori-
zon. She answers honestly, frankly, pret-
tily, but gravely. There is. a remote pos-
sibility that I might bite; and, with this
suspicion plainly indicated in her round
blue eyes, she quietly slips her little red
hand from mine, and moves solemnly
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN 8PION. 519
away. I remember once to have stopped
in the street with a fair countrywoman of
mine to interrogate a little figure in sabots,
the one quaint object in the long, formal
perspective of narrow, gray bastard-Ital-
ian fagaded houses of a Rhenish German
Strasse. The sweet little figure wore a
dark-blue woollen petticoat that came to
its knees; gray woollen stockings covered
the shapely little limbs below ; and its very
blonde hair, the color of a bright dande-
lion, was tied in a pathetic little knot at
the back of its round head, and garnished
with an absurd green ribbon. Now, al-
though this gentlewoman's sympathies
were catholic and universal, unfortunately
their expression was limited to her own
mother-tongue. She could not help pour-
ing out upon the child the maternal love
that was in her own womanly breast, nor
could she withhold the "baby-talk" through
which it was expressed. But, alas ! it was
in English. Hence ensued a colloquy,
tender and extravagant on the part of the
elder, grave and wondering on the part of
the child. But the lady had a natural
feminine desire for reciprocity, particu-
larly in the presence of our emotion-scorn-
520 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
ing sex, and as a last resource she emptied
the small silver of her purse into the lap
of the coy maiden. It was a declaration
of love, susceptible of translation at the
nearest cake-shop. But the little maid,
whose dress and manner certainly did not
betray an habitual disregard of gifts of
this kind, looked at the coin thoughtfully,
but not regretfully. Some innate sense of
duty, equally strong with that of being po-
lite to strangers, filled her consciousness.
With the utterly unexpected remark that
her father did not allow her to take money,
the queer little figure moved away, leaving
the two Americans covered with mortifi-
cation. The rare American child who
could have done this would have done it
with an attitude. This little German
bourgeoise did it naturally. I do not in-
tend to rush to the deduction that German
children of the lower classes habitually re-
fuse pecuniary gratuities: indeed, I re-
member to have wickedly suggested to my
companion, that, to avoid impoverishment
in a foreign land, she should not repeat the
story nor the experiment. But I simply
offer it as a fact, and to an American, at
home or abroad, a novel one.
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 521
I owe to these little figures another ex-
perience quite as strange. It was at the
close of a dull winter's day, a day from
which all out-of-door festivity seemed to
be naturally excluded : there was a baleful
promise of snow in the air and a dismal
reminiscence of it under foot, when sud-
denly, in striking contrast with the dread-
ful bleakness of the street, a half dozen
children, masked and bedizened with cheap
ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed
across my Spion. I was quick to under-
stand the phenomenon. It was the Car-
nival season. Only the night before I had
been to the great opening masquerade, a
famous affair, for which this art-loving
city is noted, and to which strangers are
drawn from all parts of the Continent. I
remember to have wondered if the pleas-
ure-loving German in America had not
broken some of his conventional shackles
in emigration; for certainly I had found
the Carnival balls of the "Lieder Kranz
Society" in New York, although decorous
and fashionable to the American taste, to
be wild dissipations compared with the
practical seriousness of this native per-
formance, and I hailed the presence of
522 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN 8PION.
these children in the open street as a
promise of some extravagance, real, un-
trammelled, and characteristic. I seized
my hat and -overcoat, a dreadful in-
congruity to the spangles that had whisked
by, and followed the vanishing figures
round the corner. Here they were re-
enforced by a dozen men and women, fan-
tastically, but not expensively arrayed,
looking not unlike the supernumeraries of
some provincial opera troupe. Following
the crowd, which already began to pour in
from the side-streets, in a few moments I
was in the broad, grove-like allee, and in
the midst of the masqueraders.
I remember to have been told that this
was a characteristic annual celebration of
the lower classes, anticipated with eager-
ness, and achieved with difficulty, indeed,
often only through the alternative of pawn-
ing clothing and furniture to provide the
means for this ephemeral transformation.
T remember being warned, also, that the
buffoonery was coarse, and some of the
slang hardly fit for "ears polite." But I
am afraid that I was not shocked at the
prodigality of these poor people, who pur-
chased a holiday on such hard conditions ;
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 523
and, as to the coarseness of the perform-
ance, I felt that I certainly might go where
these children could.
At first the masquerading figures ap-
peared to be mainly composed of young
girls of ages varying from nine to eigh-
teen. Their costumes if what was often
only the addition of a broad, bright-colored
stripe to the hem of a short dress could be
called a costume were plain, and seemed
to indicate no particular historical epoch
or character. A general suggestion of the
peasant's holiday attire was dominant in
all the costumes. Everybody was closely
masked. All carried a short, gayly-
striped baton of split wood, called a
Pritsche, which, when struck sharply on
the back or shoulders of some spectator or
sister-masker, emitted a clattering, rasping
sound. To wander hand in hand down
this broad dllee, to strike almost mechani-
cally, and often monotonously, at each
other with their batons, seemed to be the
extent of that wild dissipation. The
crowd thickened. Young men with false
noses, hideous masks, cheap black or red
cotton dominoes, soldiers in uniform,
crowded past each other, up and down the
524 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
promenade, all carrying a Pritsche, and
exchanging blows with each other, but al-
ways with the same slow seriousness of de-
meanor, which, with their silence, gave the
performance the effect of a religious rite.
Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a
dozen young fellows broke out in song;
but the shout was provocative of nothing,
the song faltered as if the singers were
frightened at their own voices. One blithe
fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-
capped shoulders, began to dance; but, on
the crowd stopping to observe him seri-
ously, he apparently thought better of it,
and slipped away. Nevertheless, the
solemn beating of Pritschen over each
other's backs went on. I remember that
I was followed the whole length of the
allee by a little girl scarcely twelve years
old, in a bright striped skirt and black
mask, who from time to time struck me
over the shoulders with a regularity and
sad persistency that was peculiarly irre-
sistible to me ; the more so, as I could not
help thinking that it was not half as amus-
ing to herself. Once only did the ordinary
brusque gallantry of the Carnival spirit
show itself. A man with an enormous
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 525
pair of horns, like a half-civilized satyr,
suddenly seized -a young girl and en-
deavored to kiss her. A slight struggle
ensued, in which I fancied I detected in
the girl's face and manner the confusion
and embarrassment of one who was obliged
to overlook, or seem to accept, a familiarity
that was distasteful, rather than be laughed
at for prudishness or ignorance. But the
incident was exceptional. Indeed, it was
particularly notable to my American eyes
to find such decorum where there might
easily have been the greatest license. I
am afraid that an American mob of this
class would have scarcely been as orderly
and civil under the circumstances. They
might have shown more humor; but there
would have probably been more effrontery:
they might have been more exuberant ;
they would certainly have been drunker.
I did not notice a single masquerader un-
duly excited by liquor: there was not a
word or motion from the lighter sex that
could have been construed into an impro-
priety. There was something almost pa-
thetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety
and excitement out of these dull materials ;
to fight against the blackness of that wintry
526 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
sky, and the stubborn hardness of the
frozen soil, with these painted sticks of
wood ; to mock the dreariness of their pov-
erty with these flaunting raiments. It
did not seem like them, or rather, con-
sistent with my idea of them. There was
incongruity deeper than their bizarre ex-
ternals; a half -melancholy, half -crazy ab-
surdity in their action, the substitution of
a grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, that
rightly or wrongly impressed me. When
the increasing gloom of the evening made
their figures undistinguishable, I turned
into the first cross-street. As I lifted my
hat to my persistent young friend with the
Pritsche, I fancied she looked as relieved
as myself. If, however, I was mistaken;
if that child's pathway through life be
strewn with rosy recollections of the unre-
sisting back of the stranger American ; if
any burden, O Gretchen! laid upon thy
young shoulders, be lighter for the trifling
one thou didst lay upon mine, know,
then, that I, too, am content.
And so, day by day, has my Spion re-
flected the various changing forms of life
before it. It has seen the first flush of
spring in the broad aZZee,when the shadows
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN 8PION. 527
of tiny leaflets overhead were beginning to
checker the cool, square flagstones. It has
seen the glare and fulness of summer sun-
shine and shadow, the flying of November
gold through the air, the gaunt limbs, and
stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter.
It has seen children in their queer, wicker
baby-carriages, old men and women, and
occasionally that grim usher of death, in
sable cloak and cocked hat, a baleful
figure for the wandering invalid tourist to
meet, who acts as undertaker for this
ducal city, and marshals the last melan-
choly procession. I well remember my
first meeting with this ominous function-
ary. It was an early autumnal morning;
so early, that the long formal perspective
of the alUe, and the decorous, smooth
vanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted
houses, were unrelieved by a single human
figure. Suddenly a tall black spectre, as
theatrical and as unreal as the painted
scenic distance, turned the corner from a
cross-street, and moved slowly towards me.
A long black cloak, falling from its
shoulders to its feet, floated out on either
side like sable wings ; a cocked hat trimmed
with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-
528 VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION.
like feather, covered a passionless face;
and its eyes, looking neither left nor right,
were fixed fatefully upon some distant
goal. Stranger as I was to this Conti-
nental ceremonial figure, there was no mis-
taking his functions as the grim messenger,
knocking "with equal foot" on every door ;
and, indeed, so perfectly did he act and
look his role, that there was nothing ludic-
rous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial
expression and dignity of bearing were
perfect; the whole man seemed saturated
with the accepted sentiment of his office.
Recalling the half-confused and half-con-
scious ostentatious hypocrisy of the Ameri-
can sexton, the shameless absurdities of the
English mutes and mourners, I could not
help feeling, that, if it were demanded that
Grief and Fate should be personified, it
were better that it should be well done.
And it is one observation of my Spion,
that this sincerity and belief is the charac-
teristic of all Continental functionaries.
It is possible that my Spion has shown
me little that is really characteristic of the
people, and the few observations I have
made I offer only as an illustration of the
impressions made upon two-thirds of
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION. 529
American strangers in the larger towns of
Germany. Assimilation goes on more rap-
idly than we are led to imagine. As I
have seen my friend Karl, fresh and awk-
ward in his first uniform, lounging later
down the allee with the blase listlessness
of a full-blown militaire, so I have seen
American and English residents gradually
lose their peculiarities, and melt and merge
into the general mass. Returning to my
Spion after a flying trip through Belgium
and France, as I look down the long per-
spective of the Strasse, I am conscious of
recalling the same style of architecture and
humanity at Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and
Paris, and am inclined to believe that, even
as I would have met, in a journey of the
same distance through a parallel of the
same latitude in America, a greater di-
versity of type and character, and a more
distinct flavor of locality, even so would I
have met a more heterogeneous and pic-
turesque display from a club window on
Fifth Avenue, New York, or Montgomery
Street, San Francisco.
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
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