*aa 
 
 IT 1 i 
 
THE 
 
 HEART OF IT 
 
 A ROMANCE OF EAST AND WEST 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM OSBORN STODDARD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1880 
 
Copyright, iSSo, 
 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 A MAN, A MINE, AND A MULE i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DANIEL BROWN'S DAY-DREAM 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE OTHER SlDE OF THE GREAT GULF OF RESPECTABILITY 2O 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 How OLIVER ADJOURNED A CONVENTION A HINT AT THE 
 
 ORIGIN OF METAPHYSICS 31 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DOG WITH A POSITION IN LIFE A DOG WITHOUT ANY POSI- 
 TION, AND HOW WHAT HE HAD WAS TAKEN FROM HlM 
 
 WITH A WARNING TO PEOPLE WHOSE PROSPERITY CROWDS 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE 44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 ONE KIND OF GUARDIAN ANGEL 57 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 " UGH!" 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BEATEN BY MORE DEVILS THAN ONE 74 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A PRACTICAL LESSON ON THE VALUE OF INSTITUTIONS 82 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE DANGER OF BELIEVING IN A LIE 91 
 
 M532985 
 
i v CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. PAGE 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE I02 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A REMARKABLE HUNT AND WHAT CAME OF IT 112 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SAVED BY A SACRIFICE OLIVER ACCEPTS A CALL AS AS- 
 SISTANT I2 3 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WISE AS A SERPENT AND HARMLESS AS A DOVE 133 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BEARING ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS 142 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE SITUATION CHEERFULLY ACCEPTED BY MAN AND BEAST 152 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 DISCOVERY OF A HOUSEHOLD TREASURE CONFLICTING VIEWS 
 
 CONCERNING A LOST SHEEP 159 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A THROUGH TRAIN, AND ALL THROUGH A NIGHT 169 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 TRAVELLING EXPENSES AND A VERY EXPENSIVE JOURNEY 179 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OUT OF THE ISLAND BY ONE OF THE SIDE DOORS 188 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 PRINCE AND THE WIDOW TAKE A SURVEY OF THE SITUATION. . 199 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RAW VOLUNTEERS AGAINST REGULAR TROOPS 210 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INTRODUCING A STEP-MOTHER MR. BROWN GOES A STEP 
 FARTHER 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 OLIVER PROTECTS THE MINE IN THE DOCTOR'S ABSENCE 228 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 A PARADE AND INSPECTION ON THE SKIRMISH LINE 237 
 
CONTENTS. v 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MR. BROWN HOLDS OUT HIS HAND WITH AN INVITATION 24 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A VERY STORMY~PASSAGE 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A PERMANENT PROVISION MADE FOR TWO OF THE MINOR CHAR- 
 ACTERS 267 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A MODERN CASE OF METAMORPHOSIS 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE HARD FATE OF AN ENTERPRISING PUBLIC SERVANT 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 EVEN A GOOD DEED SOMETIMES REQUIRES HUMBLE CON- 
 FESSION 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FRED HERON RENEWS SOME OF HIS FAMILY TIES 306 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DR. MlLYNG AND OTHERS ARE COMPELLED TO SUBMIT TO 
 
 DELAY 318 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A DESPERATE EFFORT TO GET EVEN WITH A GRASPING COR- 
 PORATION 328 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 ONE OF THE SERMONS THERE ARE IN IRON BARS 336 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A VERY LONG JOURNEY, AND WHAT WAS FOUND At THE END 
 
 OF IT 350 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 WILL YOU COME INTO MY PARLOR, SAID THE SPIDER TO THE 
 FLY. 362 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 THERE is NO SUCH THING AS CERTAINTY IN A PAY-STREAK 372 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 A SEASON OF VERY BRIGHT WEATHER CLOSES IN A STORM 382 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 THE MOST PROMISING HOPES MAY BE WITHERED BY A SUDDEN 
 
 BLAST 394 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 FRED AND OLIVER ENGINEER A SURPRISE PARTY 406 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 S SUCCESS OF THE EXPEDITION, AND THE FINDING OF THE 
 HEART 420 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A MAN, A MINE AND A MULE. 
 
 ONLY one man, clad in somewhat tattered 
 buckskins, and near him there sprawled upon 
 the ground, equally solitary, a long-legged, rough- 
 coated, ill-conditioned mule. 
 
 The eyes of the mule were tightly shut, but those 
 of the human being were open, and were gazing 
 mournfully into a hole in the ledge of glittering 
 quartz before which he was standing, and which 
 flashed back upon him the hot rays of the morning 
 sun. 
 
 Behind these two, in a grandly irregular oval, 
 swept a vast natural amphitheatre, formed by the 
 rugged cliffs that reached down from the Sierras 
 to the endless levels of the South-western plains. 
 
2 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 The rocks were mostly granitic, and here and 
 there the broken ledges and terraces gleamed snowy 
 white with quartz. 
 
 Westward and above were peaks on peaks. East- 
 ward and below, through a mere cleft in the rocky 
 wall of the amphitheatre, a ravine widened rapidly 
 into a valley, and led out upon a grassy table-land, 
 through mighty fringes of primeval forest. 
 
 The opening in the face of that ledge was not a 
 wide one, and it had evidently been made by the 
 well-worn pick which had now been thrown upon 
 the heap of brownish fragments in front of it. 
 
 These latter manifestly claimed kindred with a 
 seam or discolored streak some two or three feet in 
 width, which extended on either side of the open- 
 ing and bore the appearance of b'eing partly de- 
 composed. 
 
 They were of a very peculiar and unusual struct- 
 ure, those fragments of brownish quartz, calculated 
 to suggest more than one problem to the miner or 
 the mineralogist. They seemed, however, to have 
 solved one for this man, and he was both. 
 
 He was of more than middle height, with a thin, 
 black beard and moustaches concealing the lower 
 third of his bronzed face, and a pair of bright, red 
 lips, of firm but sensuous mould, showed through 
 them as he spoke. Between these latter, moreover, 
 gleamed teeth of dazzling whiteness. 
 
 A hawk nose, piercing black eyes, a well formed 
 
A. MAN, A MINE AND A MULE. 3 
 
 but somewhat narrow forehead, and long hair of 
 Indian blackness, crowned by a broad sombrero, 
 completed the remarkable visage of the solitary 
 miner. 
 
 A seemingly heavy pack was strapped upon his 
 shoulders but the manner in which his meagre, 
 sinewy frame moved under it, gave token, to a 
 practised eye, of a rare degree of physical vigor and 
 endurance. Near him lay a handsomely mounted 
 repeating rifle, and his belt was well supplied with 
 other weapons. Small doubt but what such a man 
 would know how to use them well. 
 
 He was not indulging in merely silent reverie. 
 The broken remarks and expletives which burst 
 from him, at intervals, were fairly divided among a 
 sufficient number of tongues to have started a new 
 Babel. English, Spanish, French, German, dialects 
 of the red men, garnished with even a Latin quota- 
 tion or two. A "polyglot," indeed, but would not 
 one language have answered the purposes of his 
 angry discontent? 
 
 Or did he bring the others in to keep himself 
 some sort of company in his loneliness? 
 
 If so they were all equally inclined to strong ex- 
 pressions relating to the mine and the mule. 
 
 " I give it up," he said, at last. " I can't do it 
 any kind of justice. I knew there was such a place 
 as this. I've searched the Sierras for it, year after 
 year. I followed the lines of the system, when I 
 
4 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 learned there was one, from the Dalles of the Colum- 
 bia to this, on that one mule, and now, here it is, 
 and he has gone under. Oliver, do you hear that ? 
 This is what we've been looking for. We've found 
 it!" 
 
 Oliver responded by a feeble shake of his ropy 
 tail, and an apparently futile effort to open one eye. 
 
 There was no sign of exultation in the expression 
 of his countenance, and he was plainly in no frame 
 of mind to become excited about mining matters. 
 Oliver was a very much used-up mule. 
 
 But what was it for which the miner had made 
 so long a search, and what had he now found ? 
 
 So intelligent and capable a man could hardly 
 have been deliberately throwing away his time, yet 
 there was nothing now before him but a heap of 
 broken stone, and a hole in a quartz ledge. 
 
 "There it is," he said, again, "the heart of the 
 gold system. It's in there. Just the out-crop is 
 nearly half metal. There isn't any other vein like 
 that, and it '11 work richer the deeper it's followed. 
 But what can I do, all alone? No mill; no tools; 
 no provisions; no nothing. Not even a mule to 
 carry out a load of specimens. I must pack what I 
 can, myself. Won't stop this side of the eastern 
 cities, either. I can get capital enough, there. 
 Money, men, machinery, that's what I must have. 
 The sooner I go for it the better. Oliver, I'll have 
 to leave you for the coyotes and buzzards. I can't 
 
A MAN, A MINE AND A MULE. 5 
 
 stay here. I'd wait and nurse you up, but you're 
 too far gone for that. The Apaches raced you a bit 
 too hard. The sooner I'm out of this the better, 
 for I don't know when they may show again. Won- 
 der if they bagged the boys?" 
 
 His preparations for departure, simple as they 
 were of necessity, had evidently been already com- 
 pleted. 
 
 He did but pause for another look at his mule and 
 a half affectionate, " Good-by, Oliver, old fellow. 
 You were the best mule I ever had." 
 
 And then lie strode away towards the valley which 
 seemed the only feasible entrance to the rocky 
 amphitheatre. 
 
 Was there no danger that others might come, in 
 his absence, and find and claim the hole in the rock 
 to which he seemed to attach so great a value ? 
 
 Possibly, but not probably, for that was widely 
 beyond the range of all ordinary mining explora- 
 tion, and there were excellent reasons, apart from 
 the frail security of mining law, why no other foot 
 of white man was likely to come up that ravine for 
 some time thereafter. 
 
 Nearly a hundred such reasons were even then 
 riding slowly across the grassy plain, less than a 
 score of miles away, and several carried at their 
 belts sad answers to the miner's question concern- 
 ing "the boys," or some of them, for the scalps 
 were freshly taken. 
 
6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 It was many long minutes after his master's de- 
 parture before Oliver exhibited any noteworthy 
 signs of life. His rough coat rose and fell with his 
 slow breathing, and his hind legs quivered once or 
 twice, as if with a dreamy memory of their departed 
 power to kick, but that was all. A more completely 
 used-up mule, to all outward appearance, never 
 surrendered his right to carry his burdens. Even 
 the richest ores of the richest of all mines would 
 not have tempted Oliver to stand up and be laden 
 for a journey. 
 
 By-and-by, however, the sleepy, heavy head was 
 lifted a little from the rock, and one eye came 
 slowly open. Then the other, and Oliver took a 
 swift survey of his surroundings. 
 
 There was not a living thing to be seen. 
 
 As if gathering inspiration from that discovery, 
 the legs kicked aside their limpness, and in a moment 
 more Oliver was on his feet. 
 
 The pick and the shovel? He knew them very 
 well, for he had carried them many a long mile and 
 day, but they were all that was left him of his hu- 
 man guide and guardian. There was the heap of 
 ore, too, and not a pound of it would be packed, 
 now, for his carrying. 
 
 Fluttering in the crevice, there by the heap, was 
 something more which momentarily attracted the 
 mule's attention. 
 
 No, not good to eat. Only an old letter envelope 
 
A MAN, A MINE AND A MULE. j 
 
 which Oliver did not so much as pause to read. 
 It was adressed to 
 
 " DR. GEORGE MILYNG, 
 
 "St. Louis, Mo." 
 
 and had been afterwards written all over with pen- 
 cilled memoranda, before it was lost or thrown away. 
 Oliver had no pocket for such things, but he had 
 an aching void within him which called for some- 
 
 o 
 
 thing more nutritious than he could hope to 
 find among the barren rocks where Dr. Milyng 
 had abandoned him. Nor had his lassitude been 
 altogether sham, else it would hardly have imposed 
 upon such a keen-eyed master. If Oliver were not 
 indeed half-dead there was good enough reason why 
 he might have been, as the doctor was well aware. 
 Even at the best, he was no mule now to carry ores 
 to the settlements. 
 
 He could carry himself out of that mysterious 
 amphitheatre, however, and he proceeded to do so, 
 marching slowly and circumspectly, lest by any 
 chance he should again intrude upon the solitude of 
 the discontented miner. 
 
 At the head of the ravine there was a little spring, 
 and Oliver halted by it long enough to drink its tiny 
 basin nearly dry, and nibble all there was of the few 
 green tufts on its arid, stony margin, but there was 
 a wide world beyond, with plenty of grass in it, and 
 the hand of hunger beckoned him down the valley. 
 
 With a more rapid and vigorous stride than his 
 
8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 mule would have been capable of, Dr. Milyng had 
 made his way along that same trail, only pausing for 
 a shot at an antelope as he reached the lower level. 
 
 No missing, of course, and the next duty on hand 
 was very like Oliver's, for it carried his master, with 
 his game on his shoulder, deep in among the forest 
 trees. 
 
 " I wish I could eat him all, now. Lay in enough 
 for a week and walk right ahead. If I knew where 
 those Apaches were camped I'd try for a mount 
 of some kind. Reckon they've broke up the boys, 
 entirely. Well, if any of 'em got away, they don't 
 know my secret, and so they can't tell it. I'll make 
 for the ruins, first. Sorry to lose Oliver, but a mule's 
 a mule." 
 
 Doubtless, but he might have learned a lesson in 
 mule wisdom if his vision had not then been con- 
 fined by so many tree trunks. 
 
 At that very moment the sagacious Oliver was 
 trotting out into the grassy level below and hunting 
 for a hollow where he might eat his fill unseen and 
 undisturbed. 
 
 He had voted himself a vacation, and he was, be- 
 yond all cloubt, fully entitled to it. 
 
 If Dr. Milyng was unable to eat awhole antelope, 
 he was clearly competent to provision himself effect- 
 ually. All men who have seen much service under 
 uncertainties as to when and where they are to eat 
 their next dinner, acquire a faculty of this kind. It 
 
A MAN, A MINE AND A MULE. g 
 
 is truly wonderful how the power of condensing 
 three meals into one can be developed, even in a thin 
 and wiry frame like that of the solitary miner. 
 
 The only thing which seemed to trouble him was 
 the fact that he had kindled a fire in the day-time, 
 and that the smoke of it must show above the tops of 
 the trees. 
 
 " It'll be spread a good deal, to be sure, but In- 
 dian eyes'd take it. They may not be near enough, 
 and then again they may. I mustn't lose my scalp 
 now. It's worth more'n it ever was before. I be^ 
 lieve I'm even getting a little excited over it. 
 Haven't talked so much in a long time." 
 
 Curious talk it was, too, in a not unmusical voice, 
 and with a sort of drawling, nasal cadence, such as 
 is common among the Indians and Mexicans. The 
 tones grew deep and strong, at times, and the broad, 
 powerful chest from which they came swelled and 
 heaved, while the black eyes flashed and the dark 
 cheeks reddened, and once something very like a 
 laugh of triumph rang out among the long colonnades 
 of the gigantic pines. A strange man was this ; one 
 not to be easily disheartened by circumstances, and 
 if it were possible to find a way of escape from his 
 present perils he was the very man of men to do it. 
 
 Toil, privation, danger, suffering, desperate enter- 
 prise these had been his daily companions, till they 
 had become half a necessity of life, and their endur- 
 ance a second nature. 
 
10 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 No mule was ever foaled that could out-worK or 
 out-travel a veteran explorer of Dr. Milyng's frame 
 of body and mind. Oliver had sustained himself 
 wonderfully well, for as the doctor remarked, he was 
 the very best kind of mule, but even he had been 
 compelled to succumb at last. 
 
 There he was now, in his grassy hollow, feeding 
 as energetically as his master himself, but preparing 
 less for a long march than for all the sleep his future 
 circumstances might permit him to take. 
 
 "The heart, the golden heart," muttered the 
 doctor to himself, as he again set forward, heavily 
 burdened with supplies as well as specimens. "I 
 must get the right sort of men. It'll take all the 
 rest of this season to put our outfit in shape and get 
 away from the settlements, but we can be at the 
 mine early next spring. It's nearly September, now, 
 and I can't tell how long I may be making my way 
 in. Afoot and alone make a long road of it. I 
 must try and get me some kind of a mount, as sure's 
 you're born. Even a pony'd be better'n nothing." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 DANIEL BROWN'S DAY-DREAM. 
 
 A NOBLE residence it was, in the outskirts of a 
 \. great city on the Atlantic seaboard. Within the 
 city limits, yet with enough of shrubbery and green- 
 sward around it to give it almost the air of a coun- 
 try-seat. One of those abodes of wealth and refine- 
 ment which are such an eye-sore to the ascetic on 
 the one hand and the communist on the other. 
 
 It is not always easy to see why there should be 
 palaces for some men and huts for others, but so it 
 is, and so it always has been, and the size of the hut 
 has never been increased by pulling down the palace, 
 whatever the man in the hut may choose to think 
 about it. 
 
 In one wing of this house the lights \vere blazing 
 brightly, that evening in August, the wire gauze at 
 the windows baffling the mosquitoes, as the unseen 
 laws of political economy baffle financial theorists. 
 
 Only a buzz and a bite thrown away, in either 
 case. 
 
 II 
 
12 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 That was the " library wing," and the crowded 
 shelves of its ample space bore witness to the 
 breadth and liberality of their owner's wishes. 
 Of course he could not actually have read a 
 very large percentage of the books, being but one 
 man, and a pretty hard working man of business. 
 No doubt he would have liked to read them. 
 It is that sort of feeling and its shadow, " I'd 
 like people to think I've read them," which are 
 the main support of the booksellers. 
 
 The tall, strongly-built, square-visaged man, 
 now sitting well back in his easy chair of woven 
 cane, there by the library table, was plainly a 
 man of thought and action, rather than a reader. 
 Few men possess the faculty of being both. All 
 others do well to discover, early in life, how few 
 are the books which cannot be swallowed at a gulp, 
 or squeezed dry at a gripe. 
 
 There he sat, now, the strong, iron-gray man, 
 with the thick, prominent nose and the massive 
 chin, while opposite to him, across the library table, 
 there was perched on the edge of the high-backed, 
 richly carved imitation of a mediaeval throne, a mid- 
 dle-aged gentleman, whom nobody would have mis- 
 taken for anything less than a doctor of divinity. 
 
 The consciousness of his ecclesiastical dignity 
 shone from the bald spot on his crown and through all 
 the blandly expressive muscles of his face. His very 
 tailor had expressed it in the fashion of his garments, 
 
DA NIEL BRO WN ' S DA V- DAE AM. 1 3 
 
 although the body to which he belonged has 
 neither canons nor customs relating to fashion- 
 plates. 
 
 A very good face was his, and it had been beam- 
 ing wonderfully upon his rich and liberal host, across 
 the library table. 
 
 How a man with a good income does get beamed 
 upon in the course of his earthly pilgrimage! 
 
 But just at this particular moment a sort of cloud 
 was slowly rising on the benignant countenance of 
 the good man, and his white hands were working 
 uncertainly with a mass of papers before him, 
 and which he seemed to be on the point of fold- 
 ing up. 
 
 " My dear brother Brown, do I really get your 
 meaning? These plans of yours, will they interfere 
 with your customary contributions?" 
 
 "Can't say, just now, Dr. Derrick. Everything 
 will have to wait till I get my mind clear." 
 
 "You have not explained the nature of them." 
 
 " No, indeed. I wish I could. When I can, I 
 shall take the greatest pleasure in so doing." 
 
 "But are you not assuming a fearful responsi- 
 bility? Men of money are answerable, Mr. Brown." 
 
 "Just what I've been thinking, my dear doctor, 
 and I've told you some of my experiences. It's a 
 great responsibility to take, to put money in other 
 men's hands, instead of using it one's self." 
 
 The conversation had evidently not been a short 
 
!4 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 one, and this was about the end of it, for the clean- 
 shaven lower jaw of Mr. Brown was putting on a 
 firmer look with every minute, while that of disap- 
 pointment deepened in the dignified face of his 
 guest. 
 
 It was too bad that so good a man should pre- 
 sent a subscription paper in vain, but there was no 
 help for it, and Dr. Derrick folded up his documents 
 and took his leave. 
 
 There had been nothing but the kindliest cour- 
 tesy in the manner of his reception, and even when 
 the door closed behind him and he marched slowly 
 down towards the front gate, where his cab was 
 waiting for him, he muttered, " Plans ? Plans? 
 What has a man like Daniel Brown to do with 
 plans? At his age, too, to be muddling his brains 
 and crippling his charities with visionary schemes. 
 Never heard of such a thing. He'll get over 
 it before long, and then I'll come and see him 
 again." 
 
 But the thoughts of Mr. Brown were not follow- 
 ing his reverend friend down the lamp-lit avenue. 
 He had resumed his easy chair at the library table, 
 and was leaning back with a dreamy look on 
 his features which hardly seemed at home there. 
 The door through which he had entered was still 
 open, and now there swept gracefully through it 
 the form of a young lady. Very young, and very 
 graceful, and she bore in her hands a tray, of Japan- 
 
DA NIEL BR WN 'S DA Y-DREA M. \ 5 
 
 ese lacquer work, on which were strewn a number 
 of fragments of mineral. 
 
 " Dr. Derrick has gone, Mabel. I'm half sorry, 
 but I fear he's disappointed." 
 
 " In not making a gold mine of you?" 
 
 " In finding me a good deal like others, I fancy. 
 More mine than gold." 
 
 " He can't expect that you will always sub^ 
 scribe." 
 
 "Can't say. Maybe I've spoiled him. But what 
 do you think of your specimens ?" 
 
 "Very pretty, Uncle Daniel. Some of them are 
 very interesting. But some of the others seem to 
 have very little gold in them." 
 
 " Not that you can see, my dear. Sometimes 
 those are the best, but it takes money to get the 
 money out. 
 
 "Yes, for men, and for machinery, and all that. 
 But the others will look better in a cabinet. The 
 gold shows." 
 
 "Precisely. It costs enough to get it out, even 
 then." 
 
 " I should think you could just melt it out of a 
 piece like that. It's pretty enough for jewelry." 
 
 "So it is. If the mines were made up of that 
 sort of thing gold wouldn't be worth a great 
 deal." 
 
 " It would come so easily, it would be too cheap. 
 I see" 
 
1 6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " Precisely. Worth very little, but for the labor 
 and cost of getting it. Do you know, Mabel, 
 there's something wonderfully fascinating to me 
 about a gold mine." 
 
 " There must be. Why, it's like a story of the 
 Arabian Nights. Digging into the ground and 
 finding treasure." 
 
 " What could not a man do, Mabel, if he had ac- 
 cess to some of the gold that lies hidden away in 
 the dark among our western mountains." 
 
 " Don't speak of it, Uncle Daniel. It's enough to 
 give one a headache." 
 
 " He could pay the national debt." 
 
 " I thought you said that would be a national 
 calamity, the other day? He could feed and clothe 
 the poor people." 
 
 " And that would be a worse thing than the 
 other. But he could set at work a host of men 
 who are idle." 
 
 " He could send out missionaries " 
 
 " Mabel, my dear, he could do anything. I'm 
 half afraid it isn't safe for me to think or talk 
 about it." 
 
 "Then I wouldn't look at those specimens any 
 longer. You don't own any mines, do you?" 
 
 " No, but I easily could. The- market is full of 
 them." 
 
 "Why, I should want to keep one, seems to me, 
 if I owned it." 
 
DA NIEL BR IV N 'S DAY DREA M. \ j 
 
 " Didn't I tell you it took a great deal of money 
 to work one, after you found it ?" 
 
 " Yes, but I'd like to find one." 
 
 " I knew a man, once, that knew the way to more 
 mines !" 
 
 " Do you know where he is ?" 
 
 " I almost wish I did." 
 
 " Couldn't you find him ?" 
 
 " Hardly. He used to turn up, every now and 
 then, with the most remarkable specimens and the 
 most thrilling stories of where he found them." 
 
 " Did they make him rich ?" 
 
 " I believe they did, several times. But all he 
 made in one mine he'd spend in finding another. 
 He was a born explorer." 
 
 " Look at that piece of quartz, Uncle Daniel. 
 Such a lump of gold." 
 
 " Nothing at all, my dear, to what I've seen Dr. 
 Milyng bring in. He was the most complete en- 
 thusiast you ever saw. Well educated, too, and the 
 strangest person. Extravagant, reckless, sometimes 
 dissipated, at others abstemious as an anchorite. 
 I'd give a good deal to meet him again. I'd help 
 him work some of his mining claims." 
 
 " What for, Uncle Daniel ? You are rich 
 enough ?" 
 
 " For some things, Mabel, but not for others. 
 I've a plan in my head." 
 
 " A plan, Uncle Daniel ? What for ?"' 
 
1 8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " That is more than I can tell you, just now. It is 
 educational, denominational, evangelical, and all but 
 universal, and it needs a gold mine to carry it out." 
 
 The strong, grim, practical face grew brighter 
 and warmer as he spoke, and his niece herself re- 
 sponded with a glow of girlish enthusiasm which 
 well became the sunny beauty of her rosy but some- 
 what aristocratic face. 
 
 " Would any of these ores do, uncle?" 
 
 " If the vein were as rich throughout. But there's 
 the difficulty. A vein is like a man it always wishes 
 to be judged by the best specimens it can send." 
 
 "These are the good deeds, then?" 
 
 "And we are not always sure where they come 
 from, any more than if we heard golden things about 
 one of our neighbors. The further off the greater 
 the uncertainty. 
 
 " How would you ever know, then ?" 
 
 " Cultivate a closer acquaintance, my dear. Look 
 him or it in the face, and judge for myself." 
 
 " Do you mean you would go on a mining 
 expedition ?" 
 
 " I mean, I would never pour my money into a 
 hole in the ground till I had at least seen the hole. 
 The contrary course has led to most of the waste in 
 mining interprises." 
 
 " But where is your friend ?" 
 
 "Doctor Milyng?" 
 
 "Yes, the wonderful miner." 
 
DANIEL BRO WN'S DA Y-DREA M. \ Q 
 
 " I mean to try and hunt him up, between this 
 and winter. I believe I'm getting the gold fever." 
 
 " Seems to me I can feel it in these specimens, 
 uncle. Jt is so strange to think of digging for 
 gold." 
 
 " I was sorry to disappoint the good doctor, to- 
 night. But then, all I could do now would be 
 nothing at all in comparison !" 
 
 Mabel put herself in mind, just then, of some 
 household duty, and tripped away, leaving her uncle 
 sitting there with a great thought in his strong, 
 comprehensive mind, and a great fever slowly grow- 
 ing hotter and hotter within him. He found him- 
 self before long, fingering and gazing at the bits of 
 rock on the tray, prying into their crannies and 
 crevices, and peering curiously around every smallest 
 freckle of dingy yellow. 
 
 It is not true that weak men are the easiest vic- 
 tims of enthusiasms and chimeras. Oysters, human 
 or otherwise, never go crazy. It is reserved for them 
 to sit in their shells and wonder why those other 
 foolish fish go darting through the sea with such a 
 useless expenditure of energy, when there is such a 
 world of easy and unexciting loafing to be done. 
 Daniel Brown was no oyster, and he was by no means 
 a fool at any time. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GREAT GULF OF 
 RESPECTABILITY. 
 
 IT is difficult to guess correctly the age of a man, 
 nowadays. The difficulty always existed with ref- 
 erence to women. A man's age has so little to do 
 with time, after all, that the wonder of it need not 
 be great, when the same person may be hardly 
 out of his first childhood on one side of his character, 
 and drooling into his second on another. 
 
 The gentleman who was promenading a thorough- 
 fare of that same great city, several hours before 
 the call of Dr. Derrick upon Mr. Daniel Brown, may 
 have been thirty years of age by the almanac, but 
 he was a remarkably old-looking young man, that 
 day. He had neither gray hairs nor wrinkles, and 
 his well proportioned frame was erect enough, but, 
 from his boots to his hat, there was no single thing 
 about him new or fresh. Not that he was ragged 
 or dirty, nor did his dark, steady eyes fall before 
 those of any passer-by, as if he recognized any rea- 
 son for shunning the faces of his fellow-men. 
 20 
 
THE GULF OF RESPECTABILITY. 2 l 
 
 Not a " dead beat," decidedly, but a gentleman 
 whose boots had not been recently brushed, and 
 whose linen was not what he could have desired. 
 
 A strongly marked face, and by no means hand- 
 some; colorless without pallor, and with lines of 
 weakness crossed and underlaid by others which 
 promised more than usual strength of character. 
 Decidedly, a man with a past, and who might yet 
 have a future, but who seemed to have little or no 
 present to speak of. 
 
 Nor did he seem disposed to speak of it to any- 
 body, but sauntered along with the throng of pedes- 
 trians for square after square, until he was suddenly 
 halted by a hail, and a man of nearly twice his size 
 stood in his way. 
 
 " Fred Heron, is this you ?" 
 
 " Since you recognize me, I suppose it is, but I was 
 beginning to doubt it." 
 
 "Doubt it? Why?" 
 
 " I meet so many who seem to deny it. Men of 
 good judgment, too." 
 
 "Well, you've only yourself to blame." 
 
 "Very likely. But I've not been blaming any- 
 body. Not even myself." 
 
 " I mean, you've no business to go about looking 
 this way. A man who has been what you have !" 
 
 ''! have not asked anybody's permission, Bob 
 Fettridge." 
 
 "You've got to ask mine." 
 
22 777^ HEART OF IT. 
 
 The speaker was a big man, well, and even showily 
 dressed, and he had drawn Fred Heron out by the 
 curbstone while he was talking. His face, a singu- 
 larly hard and worldly face, with a marked tinge of 
 sensuality, had put on a curious expression, which 
 now became almost resentful. 
 
 " Your permission? I'd like to know why?" 
 
 "Why? Well, because I knew you in old times. 
 Because you have done me favors. Because I owe 
 you for them. It's an insult to me to have you 
 going around this way. I won't submit to it." 
 
 " Don't see how you'll help it." 
 
 " I do, then. How much do you want? I'll lend 
 it to you." 
 
 "I'm not borrowing money. I might never be 
 able to pay." 
 
 "No nonsense, now. How much? Say the 
 word." 
 
 " No, I won't." 
 
 " Yes, you will. Take that, or I'll never look you 
 in the face again. Pay me when you can. I want 
 to keep some self-respect, I do." 
 
 There was a weak spot in Fred Heron, some- 
 where, for his hand closed over the crisp notes 
 held out to him by the big man, and the latter 
 added : 
 
 " Come and see me. I'm in a hurry." 
 
 A moment more and he was gone, and Fred had 
 not so much as said " thank you." 
 
THE GULF OF RESPECTABILITY. 2 $ 
 
 "Two hundred dollars? From him? Where 
 won't the lightning strike next. But I ought not to 
 have taken it. Yes, but I have, and here it is. 
 Bessie? Yes, I can give her a lift, now. She, at 
 least, has managed to keep her friends." 
 
 There was not the slightest external change in 
 his demeanor, but he walked faster than before. 
 Steadily on, for street after street, only stopping a 
 few minutes at a little stationer's shop to write a 
 note, until he stood before a mansion of somewhat 
 more than average respectability. 
 
 " Is Miss Heron in ?" he asked of the servant who 
 answered the bell. 
 
 '"No, sir." 
 
 " Then hand her that little parcel as soon as she 
 comes in." 
 
 " Parcel, indeed ! Why, it's only a letter." 
 
 " Hand it to her." 
 
 The door was closed in his face a trifle briskly, for 
 his appearance was hardly in keeping with the tone of 
 that front entrance, and Fred marched rapidly 
 away. 
 
 Long walks, he was taking, and his next pause 
 was before one of those dingy edifices which, in the 
 older neighborhoods of every great city, have no 
 need of a sign. It was an unmistakable "boarding- 
 house." 
 
 "Jenny, is Mrs. Gibbs in?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Heron, but it's no use. Her orders 
 
24 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 are that you can't have your things. Even Mr. 
 Augustus " 
 
 " Tell her I want to see her." 
 
 "Yes, sir O here she is." 
 
 " Mrs. Gibbs, I've come to pay my bill. It's an 
 even fifty, I think." 
 
 " Fifty for you, Mr. Heron, and it's a shame, the 
 way I've been treated. Your brother went off owing 
 me ten, and he's got a good situation, and I've never 
 seen or heard " 
 
 "That makes sixty. Please give me a receipt." 
 
 " For you and him ? I always said you was a 
 gentleman. Sit down. I'll bring it in a minute." 
 
 But Fred did not sit down, although he had 
 walked into the dismal parlor quite unceremoniously. 
 A sort of pallor was creeping into his face, but the 
 lines about his mouth were hardening rather than 
 softening. 
 
 She was as good as her word, for the bills were 
 ready, and only needed receipting. A minute was 
 enough. 
 
 " Your things are ready any time. The fourth 
 floor front, the hall room, is vacant just now, but 
 
 " Keep them till I send for them. Good after- 
 noon, Mrs. Gibbs." 
 
 Again the door closed behind him, but not so 
 unkindly, and he did not hear her say: 
 
 "That's queer, Jenny. He isn't even dressed 
 up, but he's paid his bill." 
 
THE GULF OF RESPECTABILITY. 2 $ 
 
 "Some doesn't need so much dressin' as some 
 does, Mrs. Gibbs. He doesn't seem so sick as he 
 used to be, and I'm glad of that." 
 
 " So am I, Jenny. I wouldn't mind lettin' him 
 have the hall room " 
 
 But Fred Heron was walking as fast as ever, and 
 kept it up until he was arrested by a half-sarcastical, 
 "Shine 'em up? Only five cents," from an urchin 
 who seemed to think his street-cry a tolerable joke 
 when thrown at the ears of such a wayfarer. 
 
 " Don't care if I do, boy. Give 'em a good one." 
 
 "Needs two, sir," responded the irrepressible 
 youth, as he whacked his box down on the sidewalk 
 and went vigorously to work. 
 
 That was a very decent looking pair of boots 
 when the job was done. 
 
 "A hat, now. A cheap one. They're selling 
 summer styles at cost. Then a coat and pants. 
 No, this coat must do. But trousers, now, and a 
 vest and some socks and shirts, and some under 
 rigging. Then for a Turkish bath and a change." 
 
 He carried out his programme, but when he came 
 out of the bath house, an hour later, small as had 
 been his expenditures on personal account, even 
 Bob Fettridge would not have felt his appearance an 
 insult to his friends. Jenny was right about the 
 effect of dress on "some people." 
 
 He had, however, two bundles in his hands and 
 they seemed to trouble him. 
 
2 6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " I can have the pants cleaned and pressed," he 
 muttered, "but I'd never disgrace myself by letting 
 a washerwoman see those things. I know what 
 I'll do." 
 
 It was but a few blocks to the nearest ferry, cross- 
 ing an arm of the sea, and a half-brick, picked up on 
 the way, was quietly bound in the smaller bundle. 
 
 It was but a slight splash in the water, as he 
 leaned over the rail, and when he returned, on the 
 same boat, he carried but one bundle. This too 
 was speedily deposited, in accordance with his mut- 
 tered intention, at a small " tailoring and repairing" 
 shop, and then he seemed disposed to walk slowly and 
 take an account of stock, financial and otherwise. 
 
 "About ten dollars left, eh? Wonder if I've dealt 
 fair with Fettridge. Hardly. He meant me to use 
 it all. But then Bessie couldn't have gone to her 
 western friends. Mrs. Gibbs, too. Let me see. I 
 had a dinner day before yesterday, and a breakfast 
 yesterday morning. It's time I had something to 
 eat." 
 
 He entered a restaurant, accordingly, but a pro- 
 longed study of the bill of fare seemed to offer him 
 only moderate temptation. Even when his selection 
 was made and the waiter brought it, he ate like a 
 man to whom such things were an effort, a matter of 
 duty, rather than as if he had an appetite. Perhaps 
 his stomach was out of practice, and hardly knew 
 how to begin again. 
 
THE GULF OF RESPECTABILITY. 2 J 
 
 He ate, however, and paid the reckoning after- 
 wards, adding a dime for the waiter, which was 
 quite enough under the circumstances. 
 
 It was now getting late in the day and Fred 
 Heron's walk must come to an end, somewhere. 
 
 An apothecary's shop? 
 
 Was he ill, a man who could walk like that with- 
 out eating? 
 
 " Only three grains," he said to the smug assistant. 
 
 " Three? Is it regular?" 
 
 " No. I'm cutting down, now. Got it almost 
 run out. You may give me as many for to-mor- 
 row. Only I'm going to try it with two. Perhaps 
 one." 
 
 " No you won't, then. I've seen it tried, lots of 
 times. Wish you could, but it don't work, somehow. 
 Opium don't let go." 
 
 "Won't it? W T ell, then, I can let go. But not 
 this time. Three for now, and three for experi- 
 ments." 
 
 The young druggist silently put up the pills, but 
 the look of incredulity on his face saddened as he 
 handed them over the counter, in a way which did 
 him credit. 
 
 An opium eater ? 
 
 At all events he put those three pills in his 
 mouth, and the little box with the other three in 
 his vest pocket. 
 
 The shadows were deepening as he resumed his 
 
28 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 walk, and the lights in the shops were streaming 
 out brilliantly, one after another. 
 
 There are more poisons than opium, and very 
 brilliant places they are sold in, occasionally, but a 
 man of Fred Heron's present appearance, in spite 
 of the elderly character of his outer garment, was 
 welcome to walk in under the utmost glitter of 
 glass and gas and all the splendor of the most pre- 
 tentious gilding. 
 
 Welcome, no doubt, but he seemed in no hurry. 
 In fact, he stood before one gorgeous entrance for 
 more than a quarter of an hour, and then he walked 
 slowly up and down. 
 
 More than one passer-by had jostled him. He 
 had even been spoken to, but the voice had not 
 been a man's voice, neither had he answered it. 
 
 " This once," he murmured, at last. " It seems 
 as if it would have to be, just this once. I think 
 I've stood it wonderfully well, as it is." 
 
 He went in, he drank something, and he came 
 out, and there was no pallor in his face now. Even 
 the weakness was gone from it, but the lines which 
 were hardening instead were not all pleasant to 
 look upon. They were the face marks of the gladi- 
 ator whose weapon has broken in his hand, but who 
 closes with his enemy nevertheless. 
 
 Almost a handsome man was Fred Heron, in the 
 glare of the street lamp near him, as he turned and 
 strode away. Would he never end his walking? 
 
THE GULF OF RESPECTABILITY. 
 
 2 9 
 
 Where could he now be bound, after such an after- 
 noon ? 
 
 Whether he had any special errand on hand or 
 not, he strode vigorously away, nor did he so much 
 as cast a glance at any other brilliant and tempting 
 entrance. Neither did he speak to any human 
 being as he went. 
 
 At that very hour a trim and prim looking young 
 lady, the embodiment of neat respectability, sat by 
 a desk in the house which he had first visited that 
 day the very respectable house and she was writ- 
 ing a letter which began with, 
 
 " Dear brother Fred." 
 
 Of course, it would never do to quote a young 
 lady's letter entire, but there were passages worth 
 quoting: 
 
 " I am truly thankful for the hundred dollars. 
 Not only it will carry me West, but I take it as a 
 sign that you are really reforming, and are disposed 
 to do your duty again. Of course I do not feel 
 like asking you to come and see me here. They are 
 exceedingly particular, you know. But you can bid 
 me good-by at the cars, and I will write to you. 
 What a pity you would not always be guided by me. 
 
 " I am so glad about Augustus. His salary is a 
 hundred dollars a month. He is such a dear boy. 
 I am finishing some shirts and things for him, and 
 to-morrow I sh,all get him a new necktie. It is a 
 time since I have been able to do for him- 
 
30 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 'as I would have liked, but now, if you will redeem 
 yourself, I hope for better things. I wish you were 
 more like Augustus, but you will not listen to me. 
 I shall pray for you. I feel sure I have had a good 
 influence here, and Mrs. Baird tells me so; but I 
 doubt if she really understands me. She is a 
 good woman and means to be kind, but she 
 is sadly lacking in some things. I have told her 
 all about you, and she sympathises with me. Don't 
 forget that a hundred dollars will not last forever." 
 An excellent letter, from a good young woman, 
 but it was a long time before it reached the eyes of 
 Fred Heron. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW OLIVER ADJOURNED A CONVENTION A HINT 
 AT THE ORIGIN OF METAPHYSICS. 
 
 OLIVER was a mule of more than common ex- 
 perience, as well as natural abilities, and he 
 had thoroughly mastered the features of his own 
 case. 
 
 Rest and grass were what he wanted, the same to 
 be taken in a state of as complete concealment as 
 possible. The hollow he had chosen promised well 
 for his requirements, and he did his full duty by the 
 grass. 
 
 Not that he ate steadily. No mule was ever 
 known to do that. At the end of an hour or so he 
 slowly and solemnly marched up the nearest slope 
 and took a position in a dense thicket of prairie- 
 willows. It was just the place where a practised 
 herdsman would have gone to look for a lost mule, 
 but Oliver was in no dread that anybody would be 
 looking for him. On the contrary, it almost seemed 
 as if he were looking for somebody. 
 
 31 
 
32 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Not that he walked around, or made any vain ex- 
 cursions upon the open plain, for he maintained 
 his position among the willows as obstinately as the 
 Turks did theirs at Plevna. 
 
 The difference was that nobody tried to drive him 
 out of it. 
 
 Nobody even looked at him, but it was not long 
 before he himself had a view of a solitary man, evi- 
 dently heavily laden, plodding steadily along through 
 the short grass at a distance of nearly a quarter of 
 a mile, without any kind of quadruped to help him. 
 
 Ought Oliver to have hailed the doctor? Or was 
 he justified in harboring feelings of resentment at 
 the heartless manner in which he had that morning 
 been left to shift for himself? 
 
 At all events he sent no hail, not even a "good-by," 
 across the intervening silence. He did but stretch 
 his ungainly neck and head in that most ridiculous 
 of all pantomimes, a noiseless bray. There was 
 just a perceptible wheeze and whimper at the end 
 of it, for Dr. Milyng was at that moment disappearing 
 over a distant roll of the plain, and it might well be 
 that Oliver would never look upon his like again. 
 
 He could bear that, perhaps, better than a load of 
 ore, gold or otherwise. There was more grass to be 
 eaten, and then a siesta to be had for purposes 
 of digestion, but Oliver was no longer so weak and 
 feeble a patient as he had seemed when he lay down 
 in front of the mining claim. 
 
OLIVER ADJOURNS A CONVENTION. 33 
 
 Shade there was none, in that immediate vicinity^ 
 and Oliver decided against an expedition to the 
 forest. The short grass would answer his temporary 
 purposes. 
 
 Still, it would have been wise to have first assured 
 himself of -solitude. Even young ladies at board- 
 ing schools know enough to look under the bed for 
 burglars before they turn the light out, and Congres- 
 sional conventions inquire whether their candidate 
 has ever been convicted of anything before they set 
 him up. 
 
 There were burglars on that level, and they held a 
 convention around Oliver before he had been asleep 
 half an hour. 
 
 Undersized, gray-headed, hungry-looking fellows, 
 with the faces of politicians and the tails of foxes, 
 but with slanderously sharp teeth and an inborn 
 disposition to use them on anything helpless. 
 
 Anything like a dying deer or a dead mule, for 
 instance. 
 
 That was the question before the convention. 
 
 Was Oliver dead ? Or was he dead enough for 
 the purposes of such a band of coyotes as were now 
 gathered around him? 
 
 Had he been a statesman with a flaw in his rec- 
 ord, he could not have been smelt of with more 
 respectful care before venturing an open assault. 
 
 More than a dozen of them, and they were work- 
 ing their way closer and closer, for Oliver did not 
 
34 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 exhibit the slightest appreciation of their presence. 
 He could not be very dead, they were beginning to 
 be sure of that, and one elderly coyote who had ad- 
 vanced from the rear, like the cautious and self-pre- 
 serving brute that he was, suddenly dropped on his 
 haunches, threw up his head, uttered a sharp bark, 
 and was about to follow it with a howl of grief over 
 the fear he felt that their prey might not yet be 
 quite ready for them. 
 
 Little he knew about mules, or the Creedmoor ac- 
 curacy with which a mule's hoof can extend itself 
 south-westerly. 
 
 Right in the middle of his howl and his head, the hoof 
 of Oliver struck him, and nothing more was needed 
 to prepare a small lunch for his indignant comrades. 
 They began at once to explain why nobody has ever 
 seen a dead coyote. 
 
 As for Oliver, he had slept enough for the time, 
 and was now on his feet, lazily gazing at the snarl- 
 ing group around the carcass of the wolf who had 
 begun to wail for him. No such thing as disturb- 
 ing them seemed to enter his mind, nor was there, 
 to him, any novelty about them. Had he not been 
 familiar with their tribe and their ways from his 
 very cradle ? 
 
 He did not so much as call for help, but he walked 
 leisurely along, picking at a bunch or so of grass, in 
 a direction which would carry him close past them. 
 Under other and less exciting circumstances they 
 
OLI VER AD JO URNS A CON YEN TION. 3 5 
 
 would have increased their distance, but as it was, 
 they fought and tore just the same, even when he 
 turned his head contemptuously away from them. 
 He must have had the range to perfection, for, in 
 another instant, that villainous pack was scattered 
 right and left as if something had burst among them, 
 and Oliver sprang away at a pace which would have 
 astonished Dr. Milyng if he had witnessed it. 
 
 There was very little doubt but what they would 
 follow him, but not so many would come, for the 
 coyote which had been in the way of Oliver's heels 
 had all the travel knocked out of him before he 
 knocked over his companions. No wonder they at 
 once took out their spite on all that was left of him. 
 He ought not to have been where the mule could 
 hit him. 
 
 There was something very human about it all, 
 on both sides, and Oliver could not hope to be 
 forgiven. 
 
 As for Dr. Milyng, a couple of hours of resolute 
 marching sufficed to bring from his iron lips: 
 
 " I can do it. No doubt of that. But I must try 
 and do better. The ruins are ten miles yet. I can 
 reach them by noon, and then I must look about me. 
 What a pity Oliver broke down. He was the best 
 mule I ever saw, and the knowingest. He'd have 
 made the fortune of a circus, he would. I'd never 
 have left him, if it wasn't a matter of life and death. 
 There's that mine, too. The heart of it. The golden 
 
36 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 heart of the continent. As if there could be a sys- 
 tem without a heart. All the veins and arteries lead 
 to it. There's as sure to be a heart as a backbone, 
 and ain't the Rocky Mountains a backbone, I'd like 
 to know?" 
 
 Not many men could have sustained that steady, 
 unvarying stride, under such a weight as he was 
 carrying. Fewer still would have made the at- 
 tempt, but there is no enthusiasm, except that of 
 an apostle or a missionary, which will nerve a hu- 
 man being like the gold fever. Witness the deeds 
 and endurances of the early Spanish explorers and 
 their English buccaneer assailants. 
 
 Pity that humanity develops a Pizarro or a Drake 
 so much more frequently than a Paul or a Mar- 
 quette or a Judson. 
 
 On plodded the doctor, as if he knew the path 
 where there was no sign of a path, and his eagle eyes 
 were continually scanning the horizon, right and 
 left, in swift, keen glances, as if he half-expected, at 
 any moment, to detect some sign of coming peril. 
 
 " It'll come," he said to himself. " Of course it'll 
 come. No man ever found a gold mine yet but 
 what he was followed by it. Don't I know? But I'll 
 beat it this time. It can't follow me very strong, 
 with just these specimens. No, I ain't so sure of 
 that. Maybe a nugget's enough." 
 
 He had turned a little southerly, now, and before 
 long struck into the slowly increasing channel of 
 
OLI VER AD JO URNS A CON VEN TION. 3 7 
 
 what seemed to have been, in some old time, a water 
 course. 
 
 There were traces of it further west, towards the 
 highlands, and here and there the nature of its too 
 regular banks and borders was strangely suggestive 
 of skill and purpose in their construction. As, 
 for instance, the skill and purpose of forgotten 
 men. 
 
 The signs of human operation increased as he 
 plodded onward, and even in the deepest hollows 
 crossed by the channel, the sloping, grass-grown 
 banks went with it. 
 
 It was now quite deep enough to protect a foot 
 passenger at the bottom of it from being seen by 
 any one at a short distance on either side, and Dr. 
 Milyng's moccasined feet made no sound on the 
 yielding sod. 
 
 " Gone, all of 'em. Gone," soliloquized the doc- 
 tor, as he now and then looked around him. " They 
 knew how to build an accquia, but they didn't un- 
 derstand gold mining. "That's one reason they 
 didn't stay. To think of their living so near the 
 golden heart and never knowing it. It's a danger- 
 ous thing for one man to know, however. I must 
 divide my luck as soon as I can. Even lightning 
 doesn't hurt if it has plenty of conductors to run 
 through." 
 
 Many and diverse and contradictory are the su- 
 perstitions of the mining community. In all climes 
 
38 THE HEART OF IT, 
 
 and ages they have nourished an ample demon- 
 ology of their own, and have deemed themselves in 
 peculiar relations with those occult and eccentric 
 agencies and intelligences of which the rest of the 
 world has no knowledge. 
 
 Even a man of Dr. Milyng's education and force 
 of character could afford to admit, talking to him- 
 self, there in the dry bed of the old accquia, ideas 
 which his pride of intellect would have studiously 
 concealed had he been in the society of men. He 
 might even have scoffed at them on the lips of an- 
 other miner. 
 
 Now, however, as mile after mile was patiently 
 overcome, the path on which the doctor was walk- 
 ing changed its character. Dry enough, to be sure, 
 but gravelly instead of grassy, and strewn at inter- 
 vals with fragments of stone. 
 
 Could those be fragments of earthenware, also? 
 
 They looked like it, but they must have been fa- 
 miliar objects to the miner, for he paid them no 
 manner of attention, strong as was their testimony 
 to some by-gone human workmanship. 
 
 They meant something, even to him, nevertheless, 
 for pretty soon he clambered cautiously up the 
 steep bank of the accquia, now more than thirty 
 feet high, and peered over through the fringe of 
 tall grass. 
 
 There was a good deal worth looking at, but the 
 only remark drawn from Dr. Milyng was : 
 
OLIVER ADJOURNS A CONVENTION. 39 
 
 " Not here, I should say, but it's a good place to 
 watch for 'em. I'll have to run the risk of being 
 cornered in one of those traps." 
 
 They had never been set for traps, at all events, 
 those grim, solid, mysterious ruins of the ancient 
 city. 
 
 Up and down, at broken intervals, and with little 
 apparent regularity, as far as he could see, % were 
 scattered tumbling walls and fragments of walls, 
 many of them still retaining the form of houses. A 
 few were of more than one story in height. Some 
 had been of three and even four, if an opinion could 
 be formed from the successive apertures which may 
 have served for windows. There is no certainty in 
 indications of that sort, apt as men are to accept 
 them. 
 
 As soon as he had completed his precautionary 
 survey, the doctor directed his rapid footsteps to 
 the entrance of the largest ruin near him. 
 
 Temple or palace, or both, it were hard to say, 
 and mattered little, just then, for all that was now 
 asked of it was a hiding-place. 
 
 It was easy to find that, among the heaps of rub- 
 bish and fallen masonry which cumbered the ample 
 space of the interior, and the pile behind which the 
 miner threw himself may have covered an altar or 
 a coronation stone equally well. 
 
 To rest, but not to sleep, for his keen black eyes 
 were not closed an instant, and his every sense 
 
4Q THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 seemed to be on guard as he lay and munched a 
 fragment of cold roast-antelope. 
 
 It was a good place to be watchful in, for an hour 
 had hardly passed before there came a sound of 
 horse's hoofs outside, that drew nearer and clearer 
 until it ceased before the entrance of that very 
 ruin. 
 
 " Crapped," he whispered. " Let's see how it '11 
 turn out." 
 
 A good horse, with a highly ornamented Mexi- 
 can saddle and bridle, and the rider who dis- 
 mounted from him was worth crossing the street 
 to see. 
 
 A tall and somewhat corpulent Indian, with a face 
 in which pompous self-conceit strove with coarse 
 animal cunning for supremacy. 
 
 Such a face as comes to the front, inevitably, in 
 the councils of red savages, the caucusses of political 
 parties, and the conferences of ecclesiastical func- 
 tionaries, as a " medicine man" of some kind or 
 name. 
 
 Safe to win, in either case, great influence in the 
 synagogue, and great power over ignorance, greed, 
 prejudice and superstition. 
 
 The first act of the new-comer, after tethering his 
 horse, was to take off his moccasins, and lay them 
 together in the doorway with the toes pointing out- 
 ward, as if to suggest to other men a similar direc- 
 tion for their own. 
 
OLI VER AD JO URNS A CON VEN TION. 4 r 
 
 A good enough idea, probably, among barbarians, 
 but in any highly civilized Christian community, it 
 would but have cost him that elegantly embroi- 
 dered pair of moccasins. 
 
 This done, he went back among the cool shadows, 
 near the heap which sheltered Dr. Milyng, and lay 
 down, spreading under him the broad folds of an 
 immense robe of skins which he had taken from be- 
 hind his saddle. Many and marvellous were the 
 hieroglyphics painted on the velvety inside finish 
 of that robe, and some of them seemed to corres- 
 pond with the tattooing now exposed on the dark 
 skin of its owner. 
 
 Not a man in his tribe would have stolen that 
 robe, for his life> much less wrapped its mystery 
 around him. 
 
 A pipe, tobacco, a tedious struggle with flint and 
 steel for a light, and then the comfort of a smoke. 
 All Indians are fond of smoking, when they can get 
 the wherewithal. 
 
 But there was something curious in the odor of 
 that tobacco. 
 
 Well, could a great medicine man be expected to 
 produce the same odor with ordinary mortals? 
 
 Certainly not, and the odor left by some of them 
 has indeed been extraordinary. 
 
 There was more than tobacco in the bowl of that 
 fantastically carven pipe, and more was expected 
 from it by the man who smoked. 
 
42 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 It was " big medicine," but who shall say from 
 what unknown plant of the far West he had obtained 
 the strong narcotic which speedily put an end 
 to even the gentle exercise of sucking the pipe- 
 stem ? 
 
 These, doubtless, were a part of the devotions 
 which obtained him the reverence of his fellows. 
 Not another man of them could put himself in 
 such a state of absolute oblivion, without the 
 aid of whiskey, and he was to be respected accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 For now there came the sound of the feet of 
 other horses, many of them, and, as they passed, 
 their riders paused briefly for a stare at the pair of 
 moccasins. One or two of the bolder ones threw 
 themselves off and peered in for a moment, but it 
 was only to make sure of the presence and condition 
 of the "Big Medicine." If they envied him, or if 
 they feared him, they said nothing about it, but re- 
 mounted and rode on. A mile or so further down, 
 the whole band halted near a spring, and went into 
 camp as if they meant to stay for a day or so. They 
 may. have numbered a hundred braves, with squaws 
 and pappooses to match, and could not, therefore, 
 have been on any war-path. It was a capital place 
 for an Indian camp, with plenty of grass and water, 
 game in the neighborhood, and a big medicine man 
 smoke-drunk in the immediate vicinity. They were 
 not likely to trouble him, however, but would pa- 
 
OLIVER ADJOURNS A CONVENTION. 43 
 
 tiently wait till he should wake up and come to tell 
 them all he had learned during his slumber. If he 
 should happen to tell them anything over and above, 
 he would not be the first of his kind to exhibit that 
 species of liberality. 
 
 But then he was not altogether alone in the old 
 ruin, just now. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DOG WITH A POSITION IN LIFE A DOG WITH- 
 OUT ANY POSITION, AND HOW WHAT HE HAD 
 WAS TAKEN FROM HIM WITH A WARNING TO 
 PEOPLE WHOSE PROSPERITY CROWDS OTHER 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 WHEN good Dr. Derrick transferred his just 
 chagrin and disappointment from Daniel 
 Brown's library to the cab which was to bear him 
 home, the form of a man stood by the gate as he 
 hastened through it. 
 
 It may have been a gentleman, for all he knew, 
 but his glance at it was too brief for certainty, and 
 the word which escaped him by way of comment 
 or recognition, was only 
 
 " Tramp." 
 
 It could not have been an order, for it was not 
 uttered as such, and the man on whose ears it fell 
 had been tramping all day, through the hot streets 
 of the wearisome city. The cab rolled away at once, 
 and the man stood there by the gate, but he was now 
 44 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION^. 
 
 45 
 
 repeating in a low voice, the remark of Dr. 
 Derrick. 
 
 " Tramp. That's it. Whoever he is, he's right. 
 I'm a tramp, and I have been one for a month. I, 
 Frederick Heron. Homeless, houseless, penniless, 
 friendless, hungry, dirty, a tramp. No, Bob Fett- 
 ridge taught me a lesson, to-day, and I mean to hunt 
 up my friends to-morrow. I feel more like it, some- 
 how. Won't borrow any money, though. Glad Gus 
 is provided for, but he might have paid his board 
 bill. Bessie, too, all her piety's going west. No, 
 I guess I won't see her off. A tramp has no busi- 
 ness among so much respectability. I'm clean, now, 
 though; I can feel that, all over. Got a clean shirt 
 on and some stamps in my pocket. Mustn't waste 
 them on a lodging, such a fine warm night as this. 
 I reckon I can get a place on some newspaper. I 
 understand that sort of thing. Hallo, what's that? 
 More tramps?" 
 
 He stood in the shadow of the great stone gate 
 post, while he talked to himself, and all the street 
 and neighborhood seemed utterly deserted. Not 
 even a policeman in sight, though that by no means 
 implied solitude. 
 
 Perhaps it invited the company of the two persons 
 who were now walking so rapidly around the 
 corner. 
 
 " I saw them throw something over, I'm sure I 
 did. It lit on the gravel walk, inside. I've heard 
 
46 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 of an empty pocketbook disposed of in that way. 
 Can't help it. I must investigate." 
 
 Noiselessly the gate was opened, and in a moment 
 Fred Heron was hidden among the shrubbery. 
 
 He had but a few rods to go, and then he once 
 more came out into the dim light. 
 
 " Not a pocketbook, this time. But how came 
 they to throw away a good piece of meat like that? 
 Cooked. Let me see. Dogs eat meat. Some 
 meat doesn't agree with some dogs. I must try an 
 experiment. There are plenty of poor dogs with no 
 meat. I must find one." 
 
 The spikes of the iron fence compelled a return 
 by way of the gate, but Fred was quickly in the 
 street. 
 
 " O for a dog. My kingdom fora dog. There 
 comes one. Yellow as the hair of Sigurd, and as 
 hungry as a boarding house. He shall try my ex- 
 periment. It's the way the patent medicine men 
 test their new pills. If it doesn't kill him I'll make 
 him give me a certificate." 
 
 Gently and kindly, like a fly at the wary head 
 of a trout, the savory half-pound of beef was 
 launched in the path of the wandering quadruped. 
 
 A sniff, a yelp of joy, a gulp, and the dog went 
 on. 
 
 " He is carrying off my experiment. I must fol- 
 low him." 
 
 More than one square, but not many, and then a 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION. 47 
 
 sudden change made itself manifest. A pause, a 
 shudder, a growl, a yelp, a spasm, and then a mass 
 of yellow hair and legs lay kicking for a minute in the 
 gutter. 
 
 " A most convincing certificate," remarked Fred. 
 " The city is thoroughly cured of that dog at one 
 dose. But I think the wrong patient got it. I 
 must continue my investigations. Verily, this is 
 gay. But I care not to make too close an acquaint- 
 ance of the other dog." 
 
 Strange spirits for a tramp to be in, and strange 
 recklessness on his part to venture again among the 
 shadows and shrubbery of Daniel Brown's princely 
 residence. 
 
 There was a sort of fascination in the adventure, 
 and he drew nearer the house, till he stood under 
 the dense foliage of a lilac bush, near one of the 
 library windows, looking up. The wire mosquito- 
 gauze protected the privacy of the interior, but just 
 then a shadow fell upon it. A clearly out-lined 
 shadow, growing clearer, until a robe of white and 
 then a face was pressed against the dim and misty 
 barrier. A sweet, sunny face, as pure as a new 
 moon, but with a trace of hauteur in it. 
 
 Fred looked and looked, and then, as it disap- 
 peared, his own face went down upon his hands. 
 
 <; They are not all dead, those women. That 
 was one of them. I used to know such. Would 
 any of them know me now? I guess not. Only 
 
48 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 such men as Bob Fettridge. The more a man or a 
 woman thinks he or she is imitating Christ, nowa- 
 days, the more careful they are not to speak to 
 publicans and sinners. It's 'most two thousand 
 years since He died, and He has not yet come 
 again. The publicans and sinners are here yet, though. 
 I'm one of 'em. Hey, there's that dog !" 
 
 Not the same animal, indeed, but a most lordly 
 compound of mastiff and St. Bernard. The kind of 
 dog whose acquaintance is better to be cultivated 
 by day than by night, and in other grounds than 
 those of his own master. 
 
 It was too late to try for the gate, for the stately 
 promenade of the rich man's guardian was carrying 
 him down the gravel walk in that precise direction. 
 
 " Glad there are trees in the world," remarked 
 Fred. " I'm a bigger man than Zaccheus, but I 
 need some kind of a sycamore a*s badly as he did. 
 Nobody could sic a more disagreeable brute than 
 that on a fellow." 
 
 The big dog was evidently on a scouting expedi- 
 tion, after being released from his day's confine- 
 ment, and meant to make sure of the safety of his 
 beat, like a policeman, before he lay down any- 
 where. The first incident to disturb his mind was 
 the spot on the gravel where the meat had fallen". 
 His detective nose at once informed him that 
 something was wrong. Meat there had been, and 
 meat there was not now, and he rapidly ranged to 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION. 49 
 
 and fro in all directions, with a plain desire to meet 
 the solution of his problem. 
 
 Foot-prints ! and his nose again suggested that 
 these were not the accustomed prints of the place. 
 
 " A very good tree," remarked Fred, as he swung 
 himself into the lower branches of a fine horse- 1 
 chestnut. 
 
 " I'm glad the dog is not a climbing animal. He 
 has not yet reached that stage of his development. 
 The squirrel and the tree-toad are between him and 
 humanity. He owes at least that much to Mr. 
 Darwin. Here he is, now, right under me. A 
 lower form of life, and I'm wonderfully glad of it, 
 just now. But what a voice he has. Great native 
 power, but no cultivation." 
 
 He was there, declaring by great bounds and 
 cavernous growls his disgust for the fact that he 
 could not climb. 
 
 He could summon help, however, and in less than 
 a minute more he was joined, as Fred expressed it, 
 by " one of those nobler types of being who can 
 climb." 
 
 " What are you doing up there ?" 
 
 " Keeping out of the dog's way." 
 
 " But how came you up there?" 
 
 " Climbed the tree." 
 
 " I'll have you arrested. What are you doing on 
 my grounds?" 
 
 " I came in, my dear sir, to steal a piece of meat 
 
50 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 which a couple of gentlemen had presented to your 
 dog. Perhaps it is just as well I succeeded, judg- 
 ing by its effects upon the other dog." 
 
 " What other dog?" 
 
 " The one I gave it to. If you'll call off this 
 one, I'll go and show him to you. It's only a little 
 way. He is waiting for the coroner." 
 
 "Down, Prince. Be quiet. He'll not hurt you, 
 sir 
 
 " My name is not Prince, but I'll come down. I 
 should hardly care to spend the night here. Your 
 dog might take me for the moon, and I like not his 
 baying. 
 
 " Explain, sir, I beg you. You seem to be a 
 gentleman 
 
 " By no means, my dear sir," said Fred, as he 
 alighted, " I am a tramp, but when a dog is to be pois- 
 oned, I have my preferences. Permit me to add 
 that if I were you I would put up extra mosquito 
 bars, to-night. You may have visitors before 
 morning." 
 
 " Prince will take care of that." 
 
 " Not unless you can cure him of his fatal and 
 most brutal fondness for animal food. Will you 
 come with me and view the remains of the other 
 dog?" 
 
 "I will, indeed. It seems I owe you a debt of 
 thanks. I am Mr. Daniel Brown, of No. 340 
 Beaver Street, merchant " 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION. 5 ! 
 
 "And I am Mr. Frederick Heron, cosmopolite, 
 which means that my politeness is cosmic in its 
 character. Your dog should reflect upon his past 
 life, Mr. Brown. He has had a very narrow escape." 
 
 The dignity of the man of wealth and standing 
 chafed sorely under the easy freedom of the chaff 
 he was undergoing, but his blood was up a little and 
 he had plenty of it. 
 
 Fred had apparently paid no manner of attention 
 to three or four servants, male and female, who had 
 by this time made their appearance. He had even 
 ignored the presence, a few paces back among the 
 shadows, of a slight and graceful shape in a white 
 robe, nor did he turn his head when a clear but anx- 
 ious voice inquired 
 
 " Uncle Daniel, shall you be gone long?" 
 
 "Only a moment, Mabel. Our friend here has 
 something to show me." 
 
 " Come here, Prince." 
 
 The dog looked wistfully at his master, but the 
 question of his duty settled itself at once. He 
 could not climb, but he could march back like a hero 
 and take up the position of a defending champion 
 by the side of that young lady in white. She 
 would be in excellent company during her uncle's 
 absence, and any tramp who should come too near 
 would be likely to get a lesson in the tendency 
 which large dogs have for animal food. 
 
 As Mr. Brown and his strange visitor walked on- 
 
$2 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 ward, the former received a brief and clear account of 
 the suspicious occurrences, and the yet warm carcase 
 of the yellow dog afforded abundant corroboration. 
 
 " They'll come again, sir, depend upon it, but 
 then you " 
 
 " Yes, I came again," drily interrupted Fred. " I 
 am fond of sleeping in the open air in such weather 
 as this, and besides, I wanted to see the rest of it." 
 
 " The rest of it ? O the operations of those two 
 men. Why did you not give the alarm ?" 
 
 "I did not feel any. "Besides, I have not the 
 honor of your acquaintance." 
 
 " I told you" 
 
 "So you did, but I should prefer an introduction 
 by some responsible party known to me. No of- 
 fence, my dear sir, but there are so many impostors, 
 nowadays. You would probably have told me the 
 same if I had rung your door-bell or called upon you 
 at your office." 
 
 " But then you did not scruple to trespass on my 
 grounds?" 
 
 " Certainly not. They are yours, no doubt, but 
 then, since I became a tramp I have learned to 
 doubt your right to them." 
 
 " My right to them ?" 
 
 " Any man's right to so large a slice of the earth's 
 surface, when there is so little of it in this neigh- 
 borhood." 
 
 " A communist ?" 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION. 53 
 
 " By no means. Only a tramp. I believe in the 
 rights of property. I only mean there are some 
 other rights, that's all. If I were rich, now, I might 
 not see some things so clearly. I doubt if the rich 
 men ever will see them until it is too late." 
 
 " What do you mean by too late ?" 
 
 " Until the men who are crowded off, over the 
 edge of things, get to be more numerous and power- 
 ful than the men who are doing the crowding." 
 
 They had arrived again in front of Mr. Brown's 
 gate, and the latter responded : 
 
 " You interest me very much, sir; will you not 
 walk in ? I would like to talk with you." 
 
 " I should be glad to do so, I assure you, but I 
 never accept a courtesy which I cannot return." 
 
 " The courtesy is to me, my friend. Besides, you 
 have saved the life of my dog, and warned me of a 
 danger. I think your pride need not be in the 
 way." 
 
 " I will, then, but I think I had better not come 
 in as a gentleman. Simply as a tramp." 
 
 "As you please." 
 
 Fred Heron looked around him admiringly as he 
 shortly took his seat in the library, and his host 
 noticed that he seemed very much at home. It was 
 not the first time he had been in such a place as 
 that, and the vagabondish "chaff" of face and 
 manner disappeared the moment he crossed the 
 threshold. 
 
54 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Did such men ever go unfed, and sleep in the 
 open air? Men with good clothes, polished boots 
 and clean linen? Mr. Brown's keen common sense 
 told him that he had gotten hold of either a very 
 remarkable or a very suspicious case, but he soon 
 found that it was all in vam to ask leading questions 
 of his singular " tramp." 
 
 Books, social, political, even religious questions, 
 he was quite ready and willing to discuss, but not 
 himself, from any point of view. Mr. Brown found 
 that he had met his match, and a little more, conver- 
 sationally, and now, as they warmed up to it, not 
 the rich man himself was more gravely, dignifiedly 
 courteous, than the stranger he had found in his 
 horse chestnut tree. 
 
 "Uncle Daniel?" 
 
 "What is it, Mabel?" 
 
 " There's a policeman at the front door. Ithink 
 Mike spoke to him." 
 
 "A policeman? O yes, I must tell him about the 
 tramps. Sit still, Mr. Heron. My niece, Miss 
 Varick." 
 
 And Mabel Varick' s bow was not one shade more 
 icily distant than Fred Heron's own. 
 
 Had he failed there he would have failed in- 
 deed, but when Mr. Brown returned, after an absence 
 of five minutes, his astonished ears informed him 
 that his exclusive niece was defending the bay and 
 sky of Naples against a subtle assault on the part 
 
A DOG WITH A POSITION. 55 
 
 of the vagabond who had poisoned the yellow dog. 
 
 " No, Miss Varick, the Italian sky is very well in 
 its way, for Italians, and so forth. It gained its 
 reputation before ours was known. It keeps it be- 
 cause so few good judges have ventured to cross 
 the sea or dared to tell the truth afterwards." 
 
 And yet there was nothing at all irritating in the 
 way he said it. 
 
 Mr. Brown was compelled to say to himself: 
 
 " He may be a tramp, now, but he has been a 
 gentleman. I must and will know more about 
 him." 
 
 The evening was slipping away, however, and 
 shortly after Mabel Varick withdrew, Fred arose to 
 excuse himself. 
 
 " I hardly know what time it is, Mr. Brown, but 
 I'm sure it is late." 
 
 " I have enjoyed your conversation exceedingly, 
 my dear sir. May I not offer you a bed? I think 
 you told me you intended " 
 
 "To sleep in the open air? Certainly, as becomes 
 a tramp. I could not accept your hospitality." 
 
 " Not even the wherewithal to purchase a lodg- 
 ing?" 
 
 " No, indeed, for I am also a gentleman." 
 
 " I am sure of that. You are evidently a man of 
 good family and education." 
 
 " The best in the world, sir. I have been taught 
 in the school of adversity. None better. As fot 
 
5 6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 family, I am a lineal descendant of Esau, an Edom- 
 ite of the purest blood." 
 
 "An Edomite?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, and I have even consumed my 
 pottage, now my inheritance is gone. Esau could 
 have done no better. The descendants of Jacob 
 are even now in possession of all I had left." 
 
 " I think I understand you. They are always on 
 the lookout for Edomites. But shall I not see you 
 again ? I should be glad to do you a service." 
 
 " To-morrow, then. Not to-night. This is my 
 last day of tramping." 
 
 " I hope so. I have never met a man in whom I 
 took so deep an interest." 
 
 " Thank you. Please suggest to Prince that I 
 have no further designs on his trees. Good-night, 
 Mr. Brown." 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Heron. Prince, come here, 
 
 sir." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ONE KIND OF GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 BESSIE HERON descended into the parlor, 
 after finishing her sisterly letter to Fred. She 
 had done her duty by him, speaking very plainly, 
 as was her wont, and her conscience was therefore 
 as clear as was the gaze with which her comprehen- 
 sive, blue-gray eyes met those of Mrs. Baird and 
 her lady visitor. 
 
 Not above the medium height was Bessie, 
 and although she could hardly be called pretty, 
 there was a good deal about her that was interest- 
 ing and even attractive. She had, above all things, 
 the rare and valuable gift of concentrating upon 
 herself and her own affairs the attention of any lit- 
 tle coterie of her own sex in which she might hap- 
 pen to find herself. She was one of those young 
 ladies who, from childhood up, are invariably in 
 need of a helping hand, and who just as invariably 
 manage to get it. How they escape becoming self- 
 supporting, at some period, is a miracle, but they 
 do it. There are men of the same sort, but unless 
 
 57 
 
58 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 they are very " religious," and they sometimes 
 are, they drift out of sight sooner than the women 
 do. Defects of early education are sometimes 
 largely to blame, but the puzzle is, after all, that no 
 amount of later education, even in hard schools, 
 seems adequate to correct the difficulty. Never by 
 any chance, however, does a male or female of this 
 class admit the possibility of any fault or failing on 
 their own part. To do so w r ould in a manner forfeit 
 their best claim to the sympathy of a soft-hearted 
 and well-meaning, but, in their eyes, a very imperfect 
 and unappreciative world. 
 
 Good Mrs. Baird was already aware that Bessie 
 had obtained the means for her proposed transfer 
 of residence, and her strong, kindly, motherly face 
 was beaming with good will as she said : 
 
 " Mrs. Boyce and I have been talking about you 
 and your prospects, dear. Have you written your 
 letter to your brother?" 
 
 "To Fred? Yes, Mrs. Baird. I have said all I 
 know how. I am hoping, sincerely, that he is on 
 the right path, at last." 
 
 " Do you know what he is doing?" 
 
 " O no. He does not tell me. I have suggested a 
 great many things, but he never would follow my ad- 
 vice. If he had, things would have been very different." 
 
 "Your brother Augustus is doing well, is he not? 
 Mrs. Baird tells me he has got a place," said Mrs. 
 Boyce. 
 
ONE KIND OF GUARDIAN ANGEL. 59 
 
 , "Yes, I'm thankful for that. He went to some 
 old friends of Fred's, and they were glad to take 
 him. I wish Fred would do something for himself." 
 
 " Was he not out of health, for a long time?" 
 
 "Yes, very much," and a deep sigh conveyed a 
 world of meaning as to the nature of her brother's 
 illness. 
 
 "Something he contracted in the army?" 
 
 u Yes, it was in the army." 
 
 And the second sigh was deeper than the first. 
 
 A polished, admirably well-dressed lady was Mrs. 
 Boyce, with a soft, winning music in her tone, and 
 a subtle caress in every smile, but her smooth hand- 
 some face told no tales whatever of what might be 
 going on behind it. The faintest suggestion of 
 grief was in the colors she wore, for she had left her 
 married life behind her for nearly a second year. 
 Such a friend she might have been to a young 
 woman like Bessie Heron, and Bessie had often 
 thought of it, but it was too late now, at least for the 
 present. 
 
 "My dear," she said, melodiously, "perhaps I 
 can help your brother. He is very capable, I am 
 sure, from what Mrs. Baird has told me. I will 
 speak about him to my friend Mr. Brown, the great 
 merchant. He is retiring from business, a little, 
 but I'm sure he could find a place for your brother." 
 
 " I would be so thankful, Mrs. Boyce, but then he 
 ought not to be misinformed. He should know all 
 
60 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 about Fred before he takes him. Mrs. Baird will 
 bear me witness that I have concealed nothing from 
 her. She can tell you anything you want to 
 know." 
 
 "Why? Does he drink?" 
 
 " Please, Mrs. Boyce, it is so very painful to me. 
 He is my brother, you know, and I do so want to 
 help him ! I would not prejudice you against him 
 for the world. He will redeem himself, I feel sure 
 he will." 
 
 Mrs. Boyce smiled very sweetly and sympathiz- 
 ingly, and Bessie looked for a moment like a nice 
 little martyr in a picture, but Mrs. Baird's foot was 
 tapping uneasily on the carpet. 
 
 " Does he gamble?" she exclaimed. " Where 
 did he get the hundred dollars he sent you to-day?" 
 
 "Did he send her a hundred dollars?" softly in- 
 quired Mrs. Boyce. "He is a good brother, then. 
 He cannot be all bad. I should so like to see him. 
 Does he not write for the newspapers ?" 
 
 "O yes," replied Bessie, willing to skip financial 
 questions, "and I have often urged him to take a 
 place on some newspaper or magazine, as editor. 
 He would have a good salary then, and I should no 
 longer be dependent on friends." 
 
 " That would indeed be an excellent thing to do," 
 said Mrs. Boyce, " or he might start a newspaper of 
 his own. Just think how profitable some of them 
 are." 
 
OAF KIND OF GUARDIAN ANGEL. 6 1 
 
 " But that requires capital ?" vaguely suggested 
 Mrs. Baird. "And they all have editors of their 
 own, have they not ?" 
 
 " Fred himself made some such objection, when I 
 spoke to him," said Bessie, " but I told him that 
 where there was a will there was a way. Other 
 men have done it, and he could. He lacks ambition, 
 I fear." 
 
 " Pity he is not married," cooed Mrs. Boyce, 
 "that would tend to steady him." 
 
 " O Mrs. Boyce, that would be dreadful. Think 
 of Fred with a wife. He came very near it, once. 
 Quite a fortune, too." 
 
 "Was it broken off?" 
 
 " Long ago. About the time he began to go 
 down." 
 
 " But what was the trouble?" 
 
 " It is so hard to say. Of course I cannot give 
 her name, but I went to see her, myself." 
 
 "Went to see her? What did she say?" and 
 there was a curious look on the widow's face when 
 she asked the question. 
 
 " O it was no manner of good. I told her all 
 about him, and begged her to try and reform him, 
 but she would not listen to me." 
 
 " Ahem! There's nothing a sister will not do for 
 an erring brother. But I must be going, Mrs. 
 Baird. Miss Heron, I really mean to speak to Mr. 
 Brown about Fred. He was a near friend of my 
 
62 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 husband, and I know he would be glad to oblige me. 
 I hope you will have a. nice time with your western 
 friends." 
 
 Parting words, plenty of them, a kiss or two, and 
 Mrs. Baird and Bessie were left alone. 
 
 " Such a sweet woman," said the former. 
 
 " But I fear she is worldly, Mrs. Baird. She has 
 so large a share of this world's goods. Do you not 
 think she is inclined to be politic ?" 
 
 " She is a great fool if she's not, my dear. I no- 
 tice that she is exceedingly careful as to what she 
 says about other people." 
 
 " But one should always tell the truth, Mrs. Baird." 
 
 " If they know it. Or else say nothing at all. I 
 wish I knew the truth about your brother." 
 
 "So do I, indeed, but he never tells me any thing, 
 
 and he is so proud and independent. If he would 
 
 only learn a little true humility and be more frank, 
 
 I should take it as a hopeful sign of his repent- 
 
 .ance." 
 
 Mrs. Baird had something like a doubt written on 
 her face as she listened, and it was not long before 
 Bessie excused herself for returning to her own room 
 to pack up. 
 
 It was after- she had gone that Mrs. Baird came 
 out of a long fit of musing with 
 
 " No, I shall not ask her to come back here. It 
 is not my duty. I think I've done my share. But 
 I mean to ask Mr. Baird to hunt up her brother 
 
ONE KIND OF GUARDIAN ANGEL. 63 
 
 Fred. What can he have done that is so dread- 
 ful. She ought to tell, if she knows. Mr. Baird 
 can find out, anyhow." 
 
 And Bessie, in her own room, was arranging a 
 good- sized trunk and soliloquizing 
 
 " No, I sometimes fear Mrs. Baird herself does 
 not understand me. But how can .1 expect that 
 from strangers, when my own brother will not yield 
 to my influence ? I have done all I could for him. 
 I think I will write and tell him I've enlisted Mrs. 
 Boyce for him. So many friends and opportunities 
 I have brought him, and he has thrown them all 
 away. If I could only see Mr. Brown, myself, now, 
 and tell him just what Fred is!" 
 
 If she could but have done so, what a grand 
 opening Fred Heron would have had, fight before 
 him. A grand one ! 
 
 And yet she was a good young woman, and her 
 intentions were excellent. She would have said as 
 much herself, and believed every word of it. Fire 
 could not have burned that conviction out of her. 
 Neither as to her own goodness or the goodness of 
 her good intentions. But they would have paved 
 quite a section of well, of Boston, for instance, 
 nevertheless. And Mrs. Boyce, lazily lying back in 
 her carriage, on her way home, was not thinking of 
 either of the two ladies with whom she had been 
 talking. No, nor of Fred Heron, either. 
 
 She was saying to herself 
 
64 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " Well, it did me good to go out. I'd have gone 
 wild if I'd remained any longer cooped up at home. 
 I must see Mr. Brown to-morrow, indeed. He will 
 know what is best to be done. I could hardly do 
 better than to leave everything in his hands. The 
 clearest head ! And then he's got a heart of gold. 
 I wish there were more such men. And what a 
 sweet girl Mabel is. Wonderfully set in her way. 
 If she belonged to our church she'd 6e a terrible 
 ritualist. But then Mr. Brown's liberal enough. 
 He thinks for himself. So do I, but I think I'm in 
 dreadfully hot water, just at this present time." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 "UGH!" 
 
 THE sun had passed the zenith when Dr. Milyng 
 crept behind the pile of fallen masonry in the 
 ruin, and the day was well spent before the " big 
 medicine man" of that band of Apaches surrendered 
 himself to his log-like slumber. If the trapped miner 
 intended to get out of his cage it was well to be 
 moving about the matter, for even such a lethargy 
 as that could not last forever. There could be no 
 danger from the sleeper, whatever might come from 
 his roving clansmen outside. 
 
 No danger, indeed, but the doctor's views of the 
 situation were broader than that, and worthy of the 
 sagacity and courage which had carried him through 
 unnumbered perils in adventurous days gone by. 
 
 They were broad, courageous and sagacious, but 
 their morality belonged to that latitude and longi- 
 tude, for they were aboriginal rather than Christian, 
 at least in theory. 
 
 No lawyer in the settlements, not in the largest 
 
66 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 of them, could have relieved a client of his estate 
 with greater patience and skill than Dr. Milyng dis- 
 played in obtaining possession of that splendid robe 
 of skins. No unmannerly tugging, but the little 
 pulls followed one another as gently and as per- 
 sistently as fees in a long bill, and only once was the 
 sleeper in the least disturbed. He had to be, a little, 
 towards the end, but it did not wake him up. Well 
 for him it did not, for in that event the doctor 
 would have been compelled to use the long, keen 
 hunting-knife which he drew and laid beside him 
 when he began his operations. It would, per- 
 haps, have been easier to have used it at once, 
 and it would have greatly shortened the job, 
 but it would have been imprudent, for several 
 reasons, and, after all, it is a mean thing to cut the 
 throat of a sleeping man merely to steal the robe 
 he is lying on. There was no reason, however, why 
 his well-filled cartridge box should not be examined. 
 
 "All right," said the doctor. " Regulation size. 
 Just what I want. I'll make 'em last me to Santa 
 Fe. Now for it. It covers me from head to foot. 
 Couldn't be better." 
 
 Not, certainly, if he meant to conceal himself en- 
 tirely, head and all, with his sombrero under his arm, 
 and his various valuables stowed around him. He 
 was simply a moving column, and a fat one, of fur 
 robe. 
 
 At the entrance he avoided disturbing the pair of 
 
"UGH!" 67 
 
 moccasins, but he dropped a handful of gravel in 
 each one by way of a joke. 
 
 " They'll never dream an enemy did that," he mut- 
 tered, as he cast loose the lariat of the really noble 
 animal that stood waiting him. " I could hardly 
 have asked for a better horse, but I'll try for a 
 pack-pony. I'll need one, if only to carry meat 
 for me." 
 
 Once in the saddle he covered himself as com- 
 pletely as before, and rode slowly away in the di- 
 rection opposite the Apache encampment. Such 
 simple-minded red horsemen as he met were well 
 acquainted with that peculiar outfit, and never 
 dreamed of asking it any questions, much less of 
 interfering with its freedom. Whatever mummery 
 might be on hand, to induce their Big Medicine to 
 wear furs in summer, was no business of theirs, and 
 they rode by in naked comfort, like sensible savages. 
 
 About a mile from the ruins the doctor met a little 
 drove of ponies, under the guidance of a half-grown 
 Indian boy, mounted on the best of them. 
 
 A deep growl came from under the robe as a 
 hand reached forth, grasped the hide lariat of that 
 particular pony, and vanished. A few harsh gut- 
 turals followed, which might have been interpreted : 
 "Get off, you young wolf," and they were obeyed 
 with an alacrity which spoke well for the religious 
 training of the stripling horse-thief who heard it. 
 He sprang upon another at once, for he would have 
 
68 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 scorned walking with a horse at hand, but it did 
 not seem to occur to him that anything unusual had 
 happened. 
 
 As for Dr. Milyng, he soon began to quicken his 
 pace now, and took a more northerly course. There 
 were mountains in that direction, but it was likely 
 their passes were not unknown to him. At all events 
 he meant to make the best use of his time before the 
 former owner of his sultry garment should awake 
 from his prophetic dreams. Even after the shadows 
 lengthened and the mists began to gather in the 
 lowlands, he steadily pursued his way, and the 
 darkness itself did not halt him. The stars and the 
 moon were light enough for such a flight as his, and 
 he had ridden both fast and far before he deemed 
 it prudent, out of regard for his quadrupeds rather 
 than his own tough and tireless frame, to find a 
 place for a camp. 
 
 " No fire," he remarked, " but they must feed. I've 
 a bit of cold meat left. To-morrow I'll do some more 
 cooking. But this has been the biggest kind of a 
 day's work. If I can throw them off the scent I'll 
 make a bee-line for Santa Fe." 
 
 Iron nerves, he must have had, to be able to 
 sleep under such circumstances, but sleep he did, 
 and the robe'of skins was an excellent addition, by 
 way of comfort, to his own Navajo blanket. 
 
 Not an Apache in all the band he had left behind 
 him, but would have awarded the most unstinted 
 
"UGH!" 69 
 
 admiration to such a feat as the doctor had per- 
 formed, if he could have known how it was done. 
 
 But that was the precise question which dis- 
 turbed them, a little after sunset, that evening. 
 
 The interior of the ruined quadrangle was grow- 
 ing more than a little dusky when the Big Medicine 
 awoke. He might have slept longer, but for the 
 unprotected sharpness with which some of the 
 stony fragments under him worked their points 
 and edges into his naked flesh. Changes of posi- 
 tion did him no manner of service, and. his dreams 
 were of a character which threatened woe to the 
 entire nation of the Apaches. 
 
 If they were bad, however,, so were his sensations 
 on awaking. At first he imagined that he must 
 have, so to speak, rolled out of bed, and he looked 
 gropingly around for his precious robe. Many a 
 day of toil had his own squaws and those of lesser 
 men toiled in the tanning of all that peltry, and 
 many a thoughtful hour had he exhausted upon its 
 skilful illumination. Its pictured interior had 
 grown into a sort of panorama of his greatness. 
 That is, of his own opinion of his mighty deeds 
 and character. It was dreadful to wake up from 
 stony visions to find even his autobiography gone 
 from under him. 
 
 But it was gone. And where ? 
 
 He sprang to his feet with greater agility than 
 could have been expected of him, and the exclama- 
 
70 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 tion he uttered was a cross between a grunt and a 
 yell which testified his barbarism. A civilized man 
 would have sworn at or by something sacred, but 
 that privilege was as yet denied the untutored high- 
 priest of the red men. 
 
 There was just about light enough left by which 
 to satisfy himself of his solitude, as well as of his 
 loss, and he rushed for the entrance. 
 
 His horse, with its splendid equipment, where 
 was that ? 
 
 Gone also. But there were his moccasins, point- 
 ing their toes outward on the threshold, as if indicat- 
 ing the general direction taken by his other prop- 
 erty. He overlooked the vagueness of it, and hur- 
 riedly pulled on one of them. It was the left foot 
 first, which is always unlucky, for he instantly 
 pulled it off with a hoarse " ugh !" 
 
 Nothing worse than gravel, but that is hardly the 
 correct thing in shoes of any pattern. Even if he 
 had heard of the pious devotee who boiled the peas 
 for his pilgrimage of penance, it would have done 
 him no service. No amount of boiling would have 
 softened that gravel. 
 
 The other moccasin was gravely examined before 
 putting it on. 
 
 Somebody had been trifling with his dignity and 
 he was too well trained a savage not to look around 
 at once for "sign !" 
 
 Foot prints there were, in abundance, and they 
 
"UGH!" ji 
 
 came from the ruin, but they were those of a man. 
 No mischievous boy had ventured to play this 
 prank. Curious foot-prints they were. Not pre- 
 cisely those of an Apache, but just as unlike any 
 white men's feet that he had ever seen. The toes 
 did not turn cut, nor did the manner of putting 
 down the foot betray an accustomed boot-heel and 
 a body-lifting stride. Dr. Milyng was too much of 
 an Indian in his habits of life not to have caught 
 their walk to a certain degree of perfection. 
 
 It was a very interesting study, but it produced 
 no practical results, and the Big Medicine's temper 
 was rising too fast and too hotly for calmly scientific 
 investigation. 
 
 It was at this point, too, that he discovered the 
 lightness of his cartridge-box. 
 
 Why had not his carbine also been taken? 
 
 Perhaps because of its weight, seeing that the 
 removal of the hammer-pin of the lock had turned 
 it into a very useless kind of freight for any man 
 to carry. One gun was all the doctor had thought 
 he would need on that trip, but the Big Medicine 
 would require a new one or a gunsmith. 
 
 It was a long time since that powerful conjurer 
 had walked so fast as he now did, on his way to 
 the camp of his brethren. His wrath swelled 
 within him as he went, and he paid no attention to 
 the inquiring glances cast upon him by chance 
 braves of the meaner sort, and by squaws of the 
 
72 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 older, as he strode along. He did not even seek 
 the retirement of the lodge his faithful wives had 
 set up for him, but plunged at once into the aris- 
 tocratic circle where a dozen chiefs, distinguished 
 in field and council, were discussing the morrow's 
 hunt. 
 
 Rich were they in scalps and stolen horses, and 
 the Big Medicine himself had been second to 
 none of them, before he began to grow fat and 
 gather wisdom. 
 
 With fierce gesticulations, but half-choked with 
 passion, he detailed the intolerable practical joke 
 which had been played upon him. 
 
 It is an odd mistake, a musty memory of the 
 manners of the vanished Pequods and Iroquois, to 
 suppose that Indian warriors never laugh. When 
 they are parading their pride in the part assigned 
 them in that ancient comedy known as " Treaty," 
 they are usually as solemn as owls, but it is to be 
 doubted if even then they fail to see and enjoy the 
 fun of the thing. 
 
 There in their own camp, at all events, they were 
 quite ready to take up the joke on their man of mys- 
 tery, and the gravel in the moccasins nearly cost 
 one grim old scalper his life. 
 
 But there was a serious side to it all, and it 
 quickly turned up, for more than one of the increas- 
 ing assembly was prepared to say that be had met 
 the conjurer, that very afternoon, wrapped in his 
 
-ucur 73 
 
 own great robe, and riding his own horse. The 
 boy, too, from whom the pony had been taken, 
 came incautiously forward with his contribution to 
 the general fund. It cost him, afterward, a pony's 
 worth of lariat end at the hands of his disconsolate 
 father. It would be long before another pony 
 would be taken from under that same boy. 
 
 Of course there was an immediate adjournment 
 to the ruin, but it was too dark now to look for 
 signs, or to follow a trail, and all that could be done 
 was to study thoroughly all the points they had in 
 hand, and to make ready a dozen of their best- 
 mounted men for an early start in the morning. 
 
 It was remarkable with what unanimous sagacity 
 the dusky investigators came to the conclusion 
 that " a white man has done this." No hostile sav- 
 age would have been contented with horse and 
 robe, when a scalp also lay ready for the taking. 
 They knew that by their own feelings. 
 
 " Want hoss, want robe. No want scalp. No 
 hurt. Good. Like him much. Big chief, any- 
 how." 
 
 Dr. Milyng's conduct was therefore more thor- 
 oughly appreciated than he had thought or cared. 
 It is even possible that a friendly feeling mingled 
 with the general admiration. But not in the dis- 
 gusted soul of the Big Medicine. Even his squaws 
 required beating, that night, for the unseemly levity 
 of their behavior towards their lord and master. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BEATEN BY MORE DEVILS THAN ONE. 
 
 FRED HERON was not to sleep in the open 
 air, that night. 
 
 On coming out of Mr. Brown's gate he felt no 
 desire to sleep at all or anywhere. Not only was 
 all his mind in a tumult of excited wakefulness over 
 the events of the day and evening, but it seemed 
 to him that there were two lives within him, be- 
 tween which a fierce struggle for mastery had been 
 provoked. He had felt that way before, and many 
 a time, and the recurring strife had been of ever-in- 
 creasing severity, but never had it risen to its pres- 
 ent height and bitterness. The influence of his 
 poor "three grains" had been worked off by his 
 severe exercise of mind and body, and had left be- 
 hind it an augmented hunger of that gnawing pain 
 which does not come to human beings in any otner 
 way. 
 
 With the narcotic, too, disappeared the side of 
 74 
 
MORE DE VILS THAN ONE. 75 
 
 his character which had been uppermost for the 
 past few hours. Drugs create nothing. They only 
 call out this or that or the other set of faculties in un- 
 due relation, or without any relation, to other faculties 
 and developments. These, then, the stimulus aba- 
 ting, sink out of sight fatigued, and leave yet others 
 in undue and unwholesome prominence for the 
 time being. Insanity of any kind has a somewhat 
 similar analysis. And yet Fred Heron was not in- 
 sane. He had those other three grains in his pocket, 
 but he touched them not. Not even when the tu- 
 mult and tearing within him grew to a great and 
 exceeding bitter conflict. 
 
 There were endless successions, too, on the street 
 corners he was passing, of those places where the 
 other great poison is sold, but he entered them not, 
 although he had in his pocket the wherewithal to 
 buy oblivion. 
 
 " Strange," he said to himself, " I began with this 
 thing to save myself from suffering. I did but accu- 
 mulate pain, putting it safely at usury, to be paid me 
 now, both principal and interest. What an awful div- 
 idend it is, to be sure. An honest debtor is pain, and 
 it will surely pay. I wonder if hell is anything like 
 this? We won't have our bodies, there. Not these 
 bodies. But then it is not my body that is suffering. 
 Take the soul out and the body would be quiet 
 enough. Quiet as that yellow dog with his unex- 
 pected supper. Things that come to us in that sudden 
 
76 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 way are very apt to have poison in them: I've tried it. 
 Made a tramp of me. But then about hell. I 
 think I know how it feels, just now. I can reason 
 about it, too. It isn't this gnawing I want to be 
 rid of, but the cause of it, so it won't come again, 
 forever and ever. I want a complete salvation. I 
 wouldn't give a cent to be saved from hell. Some- 
 how I don't appreciate it very highly, after what 
 I've been through." 
 
 He had wandered from the street, just then, into 
 an open square, thickly strewn with grand old 
 shade trees. The skies had clouded rapidlv, as if 
 for rain, and the gloom was intense, for there were 
 no lamps, away in there. He had stopped under a 
 great elm, and was looking upward. 
 
 There came a flash of lightning that played 
 through the branches and over his face. A pale, 
 working, suffering face, full of pain, and of a great 
 longing. 
 
 " No," he exclaimed aloud, " I would not give a 
 brass farthing for a salvation that only saves from 
 hell. I want to be saved from sin !" 
 
 Was the lightning the outward form of a 
 thought ? 
 
 Perhaps, but as it passed, and the utter darkness 
 came again, deeper than before, his head sank upon 
 his breast and he muttered : 
 
 "Is that it? Emmanuel? I read that once. 
 Does anybody believe it, nowadays? It's true, 
 
MOKE DE VILS THA N ONE. j j 
 
 though. I can feel it. Or else there is no God. 
 And if there were no God there could not be any 
 hell. The one implies the other, so long as a man 
 is able to ask a question about it. It is ail getting 
 dim again." 
 
 The dimness of suffering. The darkness after 
 the flash. Strange contradiction there is in human 
 nature, for now Fred Heron took out the little box 
 and swallowed the other three pills, and then he 
 went straight to the nearest corner for a half turn- 
 
 o 
 
 bier full of whisky to wash them down and increase 
 their effect. 
 
 Was that a breaking off ? Or was it a breaking 
 down ? 
 
 Would it ever be well to shut up such men at 
 such a time, till the last struggle is over? It is a 
 hard question to answer, but Fred had been making 
 a magnificent fight, after all. 
 
 He turned now towards the leading thorough- 
 fares, which were already beginning to be some- 
 what deserted. The gnawing pain was gone, and in 
 its place was coming a strong elation, a combative, 
 heroic energy, such as made him feel sure that he 
 should yet come off victor, and more than victor, 
 over all his evil circumstances. 
 
 " Moses himself had a rough time of it, at first, 
 after he smote that Egyptian,'* he was saying, as he 
 plunged into the greater privacy of a somewhat dis- 
 reputable cross street, but at that moment his quick- 
 
*7g THE HEART OF JT. 
 
 ened senses were assailed by the sound of blows 
 and curses. 
 
 " Get up. Get up, I tell you ; come along with me." 
 
 The prostrate form of a man, a not very well- 
 dressed one, was on the sidewalk, and over him bent 
 one of the uniformed guardians of the peace, whose 
 business it is to keep the streets clear of fallen men. 
 
 The blows of the locust were heavy, and were rap- 
 idly repeated, with small care as to where they fell. 
 
 " Stop, there. What are you striking that man 
 for? Don't you see he can't get up?" 
 
 The policeman was silent for a moment, with the 
 very wonder of it, but he permitted no such inva- 
 sion of his rights, and the bitter profanity of his re- 
 ply to Fred Heron was accompanied by a vicious 
 whack on the head of his victim. 
 
 In another instant his arm was seized by what 
 seemed a grasp of steel. 
 
 "Don't you- strike him again." 
 
 The locust changed hands, and an alarm rap was 
 made on the pavement .before any attempt to use it 
 on Fred. 
 
 That followed, of course, but it was of no man- 
 ner of effect. The excited young man, naturally 
 athletic, seemed to be endowed with the strength 
 of Antaeus for the moment. The policeman could 
 neither strike nor escape. 
 
 Not so the roundsman, who quickly came to 
 his assistance, and the last thing Fred saw, for 
 
MORE DEVILS THAN ONE. 
 
 79 
 
 the next half-hour, was a sudden shower of stars. 
 
 A locust club is a terrible weapon in a strong 
 hand, accustomed to its use, and that roundsman 
 had had years and years of practice. 
 
 When Fred came to himself he was in darkness, 
 relieved only by a faint glimmer through a grating 
 at about the height of his own head from the ground. 
 
 He was in a cell at the station-house, and in the 
 hands of the police. 
 
 His head felt badly, and he discovered that it had 
 been washed and bandaged. There was something 
 odd in that, but he was unaware of the fact that a 
 surgeon had been in the office when he and the 
 other man were brought in, on stretchers, and that a 
 good deal of a fuss, a ridiculous fuss, had been made 
 by the man of science. It had been of no use to 
 tell him the first case had been drunk and disorderly, 
 for he had curtly said : 
 
 u Epilepsy. Beaten horribly. The man will die. 
 Even if he'd been well and drunk it would have been 
 outrageous. This other man has a bad scalp wound." 
 
 " He resisted the policeman." 
 
 " Bully for him. Wish he'd shot him. Looks 
 like a respectable party." 
 
 " Tremendously powerful." 
 
 " Nonsense. A man of very ordinary strength. 
 Could handle him myself, without clubbing. Cow- 
 ardly outrage. I shall report it to the Board in the 
 morning," 
 
80 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 He did what he could, but he had not been long 
 on the force, that surgeon, and he knew very little 
 of the ways in which unpleasant facts will slip out 
 from under impertinent fingers. By the time his 
 complaint was ready, on the morrow, the dying 
 epileptic had disappeared among the small-pox 
 cases, and was beyond his jurisdiction, while Mr. 
 John Rogers, as poor Fred gave his name, not 
 wishing to sully his real one by appearing in the 
 police returns, had been sent to " the Island," for 
 sixty days, for disorderly conduct. Why he got no 
 more was a problem which the police justice was 
 angrily called upon to explain, and which he solved 
 for his uniformed inquirer with: 
 
 " Nonsense. Don't you s'pose I understand it? 
 The clubbing was punishment enough for all he 
 did, anyhow. I only sent him over to oblige you. 
 He isn't the kind of man that fights the police. He 
 wasn't even drunk. You're carrying this thing too 
 far, anyhow, nowadays. The people may go back 
 on you, the first you know. They would, now, if it 
 wasn't for the good they know of some of you, and 
 the bad they don't know of the rest." 
 
 A rough man was the justice, and he wanted to 
 be popular with " the boys," but he had some dim 
 notions of right and wrong, and of what was the 
 wise policy to pursue with a club. He knew there 
 was a possibility of overdoing the most humane and 
 necessary public service. 
 
MORE DE VILS THAN ONE. g I 
 
 And so Fred Heron did not spend that night in the 
 open air, but the cell he lay in contained no hindrances 
 to thought. Even the burning thirst which consumed 
 him, and for which no relief was to be had, brought 
 with it a copious fund of pertinent suggestion. 
 
 " Well," he muttered, " if Abraham wouldn't send 
 Lazarus, it's no use for me to ask favors of one of 
 these fellows. I'll just bear it. Dives had to. But 
 then he got in by a different way from the one I 
 took to-night. Would I do it again? I would. 
 Every time. Now I like that. I'm glad it's in me. 
 It's a good sign. Wonder if that other man was 
 dead. Maybe he'd been eating the wrong kind of 
 meat. Adam and Eve did that is, apples. If 
 there ever was any Adam, or any Eve, or any ap- 
 ples. Mr. Darwin suggests monkeys and cocoanuts. 
 W r ell, some of us have got beyond the monkey level, 
 and some haven't. Or if they have they're sorry for 
 it, and are selecting themselves back again. That's 
 a strong argument for Darwin. If I had my way 
 v/ith that policeman for awhile, I think I would 
 reduce him to his original jelly. Think of a proto- 
 plasm in a blue uniform." 
 
 Perhaps Fred's brain 'was getting a little flighty, 
 and if it was no one could wonder, seeing what it 
 had undergone that day, and before that day, not 
 to speak of the concussion of its retaining shell 
 against the hard and heavy " locust" to wind up 
 with. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A PRACTICAL LESSON ON THE VALUE OF INSTITU- 
 TIONS. 
 
 THAT was an uneasy night for Mr. Brown's cfog 
 Prince. 
 
 He had fully comprehended that he did not un- 
 derstand the situation, and had thereby surpassed the 
 intellectual achievements of many a modern states- 
 man. 
 
 There had been the smell of meat on the gravel- 
 walk, where no meat was, or should have been. 
 There, too, had been the strange man in the horse- 
 chestnut, where he had never before seen a human 
 being at that time of night. All the subsequent per- 
 formances, even to the departure unbitten of the 
 suspicious stranger, had been of a nature to disturb 
 the canine mind, and Prince felt himself called upon 
 for an unusual degree of watchfulness. 
 
 For that very reason, perhaps, he stoutly adhered 
 to the neighborhood of the front gate, when he 
 would have been in a fairer road to usefulness in the 
 rear of the house. 
 82 
 
FENCES AND THEIR USES. 3 
 
 For it was only a little after one o'clock when the 
 lonely streets of that aristocratic and therefore 
 thinly-peopled neighborhood were favored with an- 
 other presence than that of the police. 
 
 A double presence, of two men, between whom 
 neither the artist nor the moralist could have found 
 much to choose, so perfectly could either one of 
 them have sat for the portrait of a vagabond. 
 
 At one corner they paused for a moment. 
 
 " Dead dog, Bill." 
 
 " Eat somethin' didn't agree with him, most 
 likely." 
 
 " Guess he ain't the only one in this 'ere vicinity. 
 It's a bad night for dogs." 
 
 " Wust kind. Hain't seen a sign of a cop, not 
 yet." 
 
 " Sleep, somewheres, most likely. No need o' 
 givin' them chaps any buttons." 
 
 " Not much, thar ain't. Now, Bill, we mustn't 
 hurt anybody, not if we kin help it." 
 
 "Of course not. They don't foller it up so close 
 when nobody's hurt, unless the swag's big enough 
 to set the 'tectives at work." 
 
 "And then they won't settle the hash at all, if any 
 harm's done. Still, I don't mean to be imposed on." 
 
 "Nor I, nuther. All they've got to do is to lie 
 still and let us fellows take what belongs to us." 
 
 " That's all. Thar'll be a gineral divide, some day, 
 you see 'f thar ain't." 
 
84 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " I'll be thar, my boy. But I want part of my 
 sheer now. Let's cut for the back street. No dog 
 this time." 
 
 " You bet. But he was an all-fired big one, he was." 
 
 They passed the front gate, but Prince was at that 
 moment looking up into the chestnut tree, and he 
 was much too dignified a dog to bark at chance pas- 
 sengers who seemed to be minding their own busi- 
 ness. 
 
 City dogs learn in time that a contrary course in- 
 volves much useless labor, if not a peril of bronchial 
 difficulties. 
 
 A similar course of reasoning may account for the 
 continued silence of some city pulpits concerning the 
 every day current of evil of which they make no 
 mention. 
 
 Prince could afford to wait, like other guardians 
 of the sleeping, until his own particular fences were 
 assailed. 
 
 He did, at least, and so, a good deal like the 
 others, his fences were scaled for him before he had 
 the slightest notion of coming danger. 
 
 Over the fence, with noiseless feet, and swift, 
 crouching, watchful advances, until the two invaders 
 were standing under the bay window on the opposite 
 side of the library wing, right across from the win- 
 dow in which Mabel Varick had appeared to Fred 
 Heron. She was in her own room, now, dreaming 
 wild, fairy-land dreams, of mountains of gold and 
 
FENCES AND THEIR USES. 85 
 
 silver, while her uncle was rolling uneasily from side 
 to side on his solitary couch, in the room adjoin- 
 ing, trying vainly to drive from his heated brain 
 the distorted remnants of his conversation with that 
 remarkable tramp. 
 
 "A terribly keen thinker. I never met a man 
 whose talk disturbed me so. Can the lower classes 
 really be moved to any depth by the ideas he pre- 
 sented? If so, it is high time something should be 
 done to counteract it. And yet, mere repression 
 won't do. Might as well pile weights on a safety- 
 valve. Only make a bigger explosion by-and-by. 
 Blow things all to smithereens. Wealth has its 
 duties, and I do not mean to shrink from mine. But 
 has religion no power? Of course not, unless it is 
 put in operation. How much religion filters down 
 among these fellows, and what sort of stuff is it by 
 the time it gets to them? I'd like to know that. I 
 got a glimpse of it, to-night. He thinks our church- 
 work is a species of humbug, and so it is, a good 
 deal of it. Religious clubs, he called them, and so 
 they are. I must carry out my plans,, but it will 
 take a perfect mountain of gold to do it. Then I 
 must get my mountain, first. I wish I knew where 
 I could find Dr. Milyng. Hark, was that a noise 
 inside the house? Can't be, or I'd have heard from 
 Prince before this." 
 
 The noise was inside the house, nevertheless, for 
 it was made by the breaking of a small brass bolt, a 
 
86 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 filagree affair, on one of the frames of the mosquito- 
 net at the library window. 
 
 The noise was inside, but that was all, as yet, for 
 one man stood braced against the wall of the house, 
 with out-stretched hands, while his companion stood 
 on his shoulders and pried skilfully at the frail bar- 
 rier before him. 
 
 But an unusual sound travels further by night than 
 by day, and that sharp little snap had reached other 
 ears than those of Mr. Brown. 
 
 Prince heard it, as he turned away from his horse- 
 chestnut tree, and it seemed to make another dog of 
 him in the twinkling of an eye. If he had seemed, 
 for the time being, over given to contemplation and 
 inclined to study things hopelessly above him, in 
 imitation of ordinary human folly, he was now once 
 more a watch-dog, and in a desperate hurry to get 
 around the house. 
 
 The window was open by the time he got there, 
 and the uppermost burglar was withdrawing his 
 stockingless feet from the shoulders of his pedestal. 
 
 Not the sound of anything breaking, this time, un- 
 less it was the silence, but a sharp, irrepressible yell of 
 pain, such as rises from the lips of a man in whose 
 rear the fangs of a large and pitiless dog are sinking. 
 
 "Bill, is that the dog?" 
 
 Only another yell, with verbal expressions to 
 match. 
 
 "Then the job is busted !" 
 
FENCES AND THEIR USES. 87 
 
 He alighted on the grass as he spoke, and his duty 
 was to have made an immediate assault on Prince. 
 
 There is one difficulty, however, with all organi- 
 zations whose only cohesive power is the hope of 
 plunder. 
 
 Realize the hope, and they are disintegrated by 
 the sure quarrel over the spoils. Take it away, and 
 the moral corpses remove themselves in all direc- 
 tions according to their instincts and interests. 
 
 Both the instincts and interests of .that burglar 
 forbade his lingering longer in Mr. Brown's back- 
 yard, and he sprang away for the fence. 
 
 Alas for him ! 
 
 The fence was there, and so was a stalwart man, in 
 blue uniform, with a locust club in one hand and a 
 revolver in the other, and a perfect willingness of 
 mind to make use of both or either. 
 
 The agility of the fugitive was proved by the vault- 
 ing spring with which he cleared the fence, and the 
 efficiency of the policeman by the vigor with which 
 the locust was plied the moment the fence was cleared. 
 
 " I give in ! I give in !" 
 
 "You better had. Here, put these on. Hands 
 behind your back, now." 
 
 No help for it, and the moment the handcuffs were 
 sprung it was safe to tie them to the fence and rush 
 to the assistance of Prince. 
 
 Not that he needed help half so much as Bill did, 
 for that worthy was now flat on the ground, and the 
 
88 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 double-barrelled gun of Mr. Brown was bearing on 
 him from the window. 
 
 It was of small consequence that there was no 
 cartridge in either barrel of the gun, for Prince was 
 " loaded to the muzzle," and especially well at the 
 muzzle. 
 
 " Call him off, Mr. Brown. I'll take that chap in 
 charge and rap for assistance. There isn't any fight 
 in him, I guess." 
 
 No, not a bit, but there was a good deal in Prince, 
 and it required all the authority of his master, most 
 vigorously exerted, to overcome what Fred Heron 
 might have called the dog's innate tendency to 
 animal food. 
 
 The rights of property had been fully vindicated, 
 and communism pure and simple had suffered a 
 most ignominious defeat. So it always will when it 
 comes to the front otherwise than under cover of 
 the forms of law. When it succeeds in doing that, 
 it will have the dogs and other public servants on 
 its side, and there is no telling what it may put them 
 up to. 
 
 But the policeman's rap was speedily answered, 
 for notice had been given of a possible need, and 
 the two nocturnal adventurers were speedily as safe 
 from doing any further mischief, that night, as was 
 poor Fred Heron himself. 
 
 Neither one of them would be compelled to sleep 
 in the open air, but whatever slumber was taken by 
 
FENCES AND THEIR USES. $ 
 
 the man named Bill did not come to him while he 
 was lying on his back. 
 
 And Prince himself passed his time till morning 
 in a stately promenade from the back window to the 
 horse-chestnut tree, as if he in some mysterious man- 
 ner connected them in his mental analysis of the 
 events which had upset him. 
 
 He was not the only member of that household 
 who could be fairly said to be upset. Every closet 
 was looked into and every barrel in cellar and garret 
 was looked behind, and every bed was looked under, 
 before Mr. Brown felt justified in turning to his 
 niece to say, " Well, Mabel, we owe a debt of grati- 
 tude to that Mr. Heron. If he had not saved Prince, 
 as he did, those fellows could have walked right in." 
 
 "They might have murdered us all !" 
 
 "Well, I had my shot-gun" 
 
 " O uncle Daniel, you will not leave it loaded ?" 
 
 " No, dear, I'll remove the cartridges at once. 
 They can be replaced in a moment if there should 
 be any necessity. I left it on the library table." 
 
 All the gas-jets in the house were in a blaze, and it 
 was safe to go anywhere after so thorough an inves- 
 tigation. The deep voice of Prince in the front 
 yard was itself a magnificent guaranty that peace 
 reigned to the very frontiers. 
 
 But Mr. Brown examined his weapon somewhat 
 anxiously when he took it in his hand. 
 
 An elegant piece, of the best and latest pattern, 
 
g O THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 and its owner had tested it on snipe the previous 
 season. In capital order, too, not a spring or a 
 screw out of place, and it was really a weapon to 
 charm the eye of an amateur sportsman. 
 
 " I declare, if I didn't forget to load it ! Why, it 
 wouldn't have gone off if I'd have pulled the trigger 
 all night !" 
 
 No more it would, and Mr. Brown had a splendid 
 chance to go to bed and moralize on the uselessness 
 of brilliant institutions with no powder and ball in 
 them. He put the gun away, looked very carefully 
 to the fastenings of all his doors and windows, sent an 
 encouraging whistle to Prince, for which a most loyal 
 wag of the tail was duly returned, and then retired 
 once more to his lonely reveries, not slumbers. 
 
 If Mrs. Brown had been alive, what a lesson he 
 might have secured on the comparative usefulness 
 of good dogs and empty guns ! But then he thought 
 the subject up, for himself. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DANGER OF BELIEVING IN A LIE. 
 
 WHAT between eating and sleeping, Oliver 
 passed as comfortable a day as an overworked 
 mule could well have asked for, in that country, but 
 he would have been glad of either more or less com- 
 pany when night began to fall. Less, if he could 
 have had his own way, and more if he could have 
 had his choice, for the coyotes had speedily over- 
 come their annoyance over the events of the morn- 
 ing, and persisted in following his motions, go where 
 he would and do whatever he might. 
 
 Their numbers, moreover, had been reinforced, and 
 they were beginning to exhibit a degree of cautious 
 familiarity which worried him, while they avoided 
 taking up any position which offered an opening, or 
 the smallest portion of a wolf, for the exercise of his 
 peculiar talents. They were beginning to under- 
 stand mule better than they did at first, and they 
 were content to wait for such opportunities as the 
 future might bring them. 
 
92 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 There was an increasing unpleasantness about it, 
 and Oliver hesitated about selecting a night's lodg- 
 ing for himself so long as his couch might be sur- 
 rounded in such a manner as that. The darkness, 
 he knew, belonged to his enemies, and they would 
 have a degree of courage in it which sunlight de- 
 prived them of. It was best, therefore, to keep in 
 motion, and he was better prepared for such exer- 
 tion than he had been a few hours before. 
 
 The night was not a dark one, and, as the beleag- 
 uered mule marched warily on from one roll of grass 
 to another, annoyed by an occasional yelp, and even 
 a castanet-like snap of hungry jaws, he saw, at no 
 great distance in front of him, a huge, ungainly 
 shape, looming up in the gloom. 
 
 Anything for company and a possibility of help. 
 
 A sharp trot, and Oliver was.no longer alone, but 
 he might almost as well have been. If he had been 
 besieged, the stranger was beset. 
 
 A mighty fellow, too, with the strength of a nation 
 of prairie wolves yet remaining in him, for he was a 
 buffalo bull of the largest size. Not even enfeebled 
 by age, and yet 
 
 Yes, that was it, the arrows. 
 
 Three of them were sticking in his flanks, and the 
 life was slowly ebbing from his huge bulk as he tot- 
 tered over the plain. 
 
 He had made his last fight, his last run, and there 
 was no help for Oliver in him. 
 
BELIE VI NG IN A LIE. g^ 
 
 It looked so, indeed, for the vicious miscreants 
 had already assailed his hind quarters, from time to 
 time, in efforts to further cripple him, and his foes 
 were more numerous than Oliver's own. 
 
 His weapons of defence were all in front, as com- 
 pletely as the mule's were at the opposite extremity 
 of his organization, and the very shape and garni- 
 ture of his massive shoujders made it difficult to 
 properly watch and guard his rear. A proper com- 
 bination of two such forces as his and Oliver's might 
 have done well, but generalship would have been 
 required for that, and the world knows how rare a 
 thing is a good general. So rare that it often takes 
 years of war to find him. He is then discovered 
 by the light of other men's defeats, and neither 
 Oliver nor the bull enjoyed any such precious 
 privileges. 
 
 The bull had one comfort, just one, as Oliver drew 
 near, and his own followers dashed suddenly forward 
 to ascertain if their neighbors were doing better 
 than themselves. In the rush and confusion of the 
 moment a luckless coyote was jostled within reach- 
 ing distance of the disabled monarch of the herd. 
 
 A sickly lurch, a quick lowering and lifting of the 
 furiously angry head who would have thought such 
 electric motion was in that massive neck. 
 
 But how high that prowling rascal did go! 
 
 The horn went through him there was comfort 
 in that but it had no barb to detain him, and up he 
 
94 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 went, as if the bull had put his last despairing en. 
 ergy into the cast. 
 
 He fell in the grass a score of yards behind his 
 destroyer, but the latter sank forward on his knees 
 with a low, thunderous, suffocating bellow. 
 
 There is no earthly thing from which other earthly 
 things retire to a safer distance than the deathbed 
 of fallen greatness, and Oliver did not linger a mo- 
 ment after he saw the bull go down. He trotted 
 as if for his life, without so much as looking behind 
 him, cutting a dismayed bray of his own short off 
 in the middle. 
 
 But the coyotes of either pack? 
 
 Well, a few of them hesitated and cantered doubt- 
 fully after Oliver for a short distance, but the politi- 
 cal economy of the case was too plain for even a 
 congressman to have erred in making it out. A bull 
 in the hand was worth two mules in the bush, and 
 so they all stayed to get their share of the coming 
 feast. What they might do or think of doing, after- 
 wards, was quite another matter, but here was a 
 great and rich corporation already on its knees, and 
 they were just the lawyers to foreclose those three 
 arrowy mortgages. The only drawback was that 
 they would, after all, be compelled to leave the rails 
 and roadway that is, to speak less figuratively, the 
 skeleton to whiten on the ground, after the meat 
 should be picked off. A pity, when there might be 
 such toothsome marrow in those bones, if it could 
 
BELIE VI NG IN A LIE. 95 
 
 but be got at. They would have to leave all that 
 to the ants. 
 
 But Oliver had done very well, considering, and 
 it was not his fault that he was less attractive than 
 a dying buffalo. He cculd now march on, after he 
 tired of running, until he found another thicket of 
 willows and could obtain therein both safety, and, 
 what all travellers call for, " a room to himself." 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed that Oliver troubled 
 himself much about the fortunes of the master who 
 had so completely deserted and forgotten him. and 
 Dr. Milyng had quite enough to think of, that 
 night, without recurring to the mule he left behind 
 him. 
 
 The spot he had chosen for his camp was at the 
 foot of a long, outlying spur of a chain of moun- 
 tains which arose to the north and east of him, and 
 it was so deeply buried in a wooded ravine that an 
 army might have marched past it, that night, and 
 never guessed that it contained a camp. 
 
 With the earliest light of returning day the doc- 
 tor was on his feet, but his first attentions were paid 
 to the wants of his quadruped friends, rather than 
 his own. They could hardly ever before have 
 known such thorough grooming. He evidently 
 knew well the secret of making a horse hold out on 
 a long journey, and the one before him was likely 
 to test to the uttermost the capacity of his two 
 prizes. 
 
C)6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Prizes they were, and he remarked concerning trie 
 first: 
 
 " Wonder where they stole him ? He never was 
 foaled in any Indian corral. Not an army horse, 
 either ; isn't branded. Must have come from the set- 
 tlements. Fine fellow. Worth a dozen ponies. 
 And yet that pony's a good one. Don't look as if 
 he'd been overworked. If I'd have had my pick of the 
 camp I could hardly have done better. That's just 
 what he had, I reckon. The old impostor. Wonder 
 what he said when he woke up. They'll be after 
 me, sure, but I'm more afraid of what I may meet 
 than of anything behind me. If I can clear the 
 passes, there won't be so much difficulty, but it's a 
 long road to Santa Fe, and a thirsty one. I must 
 lay in some meat before I strike the alkali plains. 
 Pity I've nothing to tote water in." 
 
 He gave his beasts a hearty breakfast, so far as 
 grass would go, for they were not likely to feed 
 again, that day, and then he set out at a singularly 
 steady pace, for a man on whose trail the Apache 
 horsemen might even then be racing. A wary mail 
 was he, and could calculate to a fraction how much 
 of speed would be left in Indian ponies after long 
 spurring in a hot sun. 
 
 He kept the lowlands for a few miles, keenly 
 studying the changing outlines of the neighboring 
 knobs and ridges, until at last he halted at the side 
 of what looked like a beaten path. 
 
BELIE VING IN A LIE. QJ 
 
 And how could that be, in such a wilderness, 
 where the feet which came and went must be so few 
 and far between ? 
 
 Feet of men, of horses, yes, but what about other 
 feet? Buffalo, for instance? Did their mighty 
 multitudes never find their way from one slope of 
 the ranges to another? 
 
 Assuredly, and their innumerable, endless tramp- 
 ings, year by year, had worn and beaten that nar- 
 row, hard, and at some points deeply sunken path, 
 and had, at the same time, pointed -out for all fu- 
 ture travellers the place where any other animal, 
 biped or quadruped, could find a pass over the 
 mountains. 
 
 Could they not have gone around that long spur, 
 away there to the South ? 
 
 A long detour, cafions and chasms beyond, a river 
 beyond that, not always fordable and always dan- 
 gerous, lay in that direction, and so the four-footed 
 engineers had led their followers by a better and 
 surer way. Trust them for that. The doctor knew 
 enough to do so, and he struck into the buffalo path 
 with a feeling of absolute certainty of the result. 
 
 No theologian, following the familiar rut of an 
 ancient doctrine, could have been more complacently 
 devoid of doubt as to the security of the road be- 
 fore him, however threateningly the opposing heights 
 might seem to rise on either hand. 
 
 " Where they've tramped it we can follow " he 
 
C)8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 cheerily exclaimed, " and I'll see if I can't find a 
 place where I can set up a stop-thief behind me. 
 There must be more than one narrow track and 
 sharp corner before we get onto the other slope." 
 
 No wonder he travelled leisurely, with such an idea 
 in his head. But then he was no novice in moun- 
 tain ways and warfare, and there was no law com- 
 pelling him to leave that natural highway as passa- 
 ble as he found it. 
 
 It might have been as well, however, if he could 
 have known just how long it had been since the last 
 drove of buffaloes had plodded along that steep and 
 winding ascent, and what had been the then condi- 
 tion of the track, and what the end of their journey. 
 
 That was one of the things he was to learn, before 
 the day was over. 
 
 There were places as he rode along where distances 
 might have been saved by shorter cuts, but there 
 is no haste in the migration of a herd of bisons, and 
 their trail followed natural curves and easy grades 
 as accurately as a railway survey. 
 
 It would not do to risk possible loss of time in un- 
 certain efforts to improve on their guidance, and the 
 doctor steadily plodded on, now and then halting 
 to breathe his horse and take a look behind him. 
 
 He could Command, from one elevation after an- 
 other, unobstructed views of a good deal of the 
 ground he had passed over, and, for a couple of 
 hours all his observations seemed to be encouraging. 
 
BELIE VING IN A LIE. 
 
 99 
 
 " They may have struck it, but they can't be very 
 close," he said to himself, after one long and careful 
 scrutiny. " If they'll give me two or three hours 
 more I won't care whether they follow or not. 
 Hullo! What's that? The Apaches? And that 
 close to me? They've done it. Well, it's as hard 
 climbing for them as for me, and the pass is getting 
 narrower, every reach we make. But I must push 
 along." 
 
 The pass was indeed growing narrower, winding 
 along the side of a treeless mass of granite, which 
 rose for a thousand feet above him, in rugged grand- 
 eur, with a broken declivity below of almost equal 
 depth, except where here and there some natural 
 rift of the ledges led the trail between walls of rock 
 on either hand, 
 
 In more than one of these latter the doctor paused 
 a moment, as if studying its capacity for purposes of 
 obstruction, but each time he hurried on again, to 
 seek a gap of better promise. 
 
 It was not likely that he would have to climb 
 much higher, but he had no doubt that his pursuers 
 had been gaining on him. If so, to be sure, it must 
 be at the expense of their ponies' wind, while his 
 own animals showed as yet scarcely any tokens of 
 fatigue. 
 
 A man*of iron nerve and imperturbable coolness, 
 was the doctor, and he needed all his steadiness of 
 head and hand for the frightful path upon which he 
 
100 THE HEAR 7' OF IT. 
 
 was now entering. So nearly perpendicular fell the 
 sheer descent at his right,_ so narrow was the foot- 
 hold between that sure destruction and the beetling 
 cliff at his left. The Alps, the Appenines, our own 
 Sierras, have many such giddy tracks to show, and 
 the wonder is that human hearts can find the will 
 to go over them with any less powerful incentive 
 than death to drive. 
 
 The buffalo herds had made the passage, however, 
 time out of mind, and therefore it must be safe. 
 
 But what about that last herd ? 
 
 The doctor had just turned the corner of a pro- 
 jecting rock when he drew his rein with almost dan- 
 gerous quickness, and his good horse stood still, 
 shivering, and with the cold sweat streaming from 
 his flanks. 
 
 The path was gone ! 
 
 Some mighty mass, set free by frost and sun, had 
 fallen from above and broken away at a blow not 
 less than thirty feet in length of the narrow ledge. 
 
 The doctor looked dizzily down, and there, among 
 the shattered fragments at the bottom of the preci- 
 pice at his right, he could discern, heaped in white 
 and bleaching confusion, uncounted bones and horns, 
 as if all the bisons of the plains had come thither to 
 die. 
 
 Not all of them, indeed, but vast must have been 
 the numbers of the last drove which had tried that 
 pass. And they had marched on in single file, each 
 
BELIE VING IN A LIE. I Q I 
 
 pressing closely on the Heels of the brute before 
 him, till they reached that fatal gap. 
 
 There could then be neither pause nor retreat, 
 with the blind instinct of their nature urging them 
 slowly on, and so the foremost bulls, the patriarchs 
 of the plains, had gone bellowing down, and after 
 them had been crowded their stupid followers, like 
 human beings believing in a lie, till the last bison of 
 the drove found himself unable to turn around on 
 the narrow ledge. And he had stood and bellowed 
 and pawed and trembled over the failure of his faith, 
 till the faintness of starvation came upon him, and 
 he too toppled helplessly over the remorseless edge. 
 
 There was not even room to dismount, apparently, 
 and the doctor could already hear the whoops and 
 yells of the foremost Apache warriors, as they urged 
 their wearied and dripping ponies forward up the 
 pass behind him. 
 
 In a few minutes, now, they would be upon him. 
 
 But what of that, when there could be as little 
 return for them as for him from the awful trap whose 
 jaws had received the horned multitude before them ? 
 
 "The golden heart," he said, mournfully. "The 
 golden heart of the continent." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE. 
 
 ^HERE was a great deal of good in Bessie 
 
 J- Heron. 
 
 There always is in young women of that cast of 
 mind, although it may seem to develop itself ab- 
 normally. 
 
 She had, among other excellent traits, that rever- 
 ence for the " correct" which is sure to work out in 
 a sense of order, a rigid orthodoxy, and a commenda- 
 ble degree of personal neatness. 
 
 She would have made a methodical and scrupu- 
 lous housekeeper, it may be, but an unkind fate had 
 denied her that field, and so she kept the narrow 
 domain of her own wardrobe in a state of organized 
 precision which admitted of almost an instantaneous 
 change of base. 
 
 If Fred could have had his own way, the collection 
 
 would have possessed more bulk and variety, and 
 
 with it less celerity of mobilization. As it was, no 
 
 default of her preparations prevented her being 
 
 1 02 
 
A NEW DEPAR TURE. \ 03 
 
 ready in ample time for the train which was to take 
 her west, on the day following the receipt of her 
 supplies. 
 
 She was a good sister, too, as all good women are, 
 and she labored hard to find excuses, to Mrs. Baird 
 and her husband, for Fred's non-appearance, at the 
 house or the railway depot, to see her off. 
 
 Her apologies were necessarily conjectural, and 
 were received as such, but it was impossible that 
 they should all be complimentary to Fred, and for 
 that very reason Bessie was fully entitled to the 
 flood of tears with which she said good-bye to her 
 kindly host and hostess. 
 
 It was too bad that they should have any reason 
 for unpleasant surmises concerning her brother, but 
 it was all his fault and not hers. 
 
 What would either of them have thought had 
 they known that the scapegrace was even then on 
 his way to " the Island," with a broken head, after 
 a collision with the police? 
 
 As it was, when the. conductor shouted "all 
 aboard," the train moved on with its precious freight, 
 and the wonder concerning Fred was fairly divided. 
 
 "A very excellent young woman," remarked Mr. 
 Baird, as he gave his arm to his wife, and turned 
 away. But she is a good deal tried." 
 
 " So she is," said Mrs. Baird, a trifle sharply, " but 
 what do you know about it ?" 
 
 " Why, her brother-^-" 
 
104 THE HEART F IT - 
 
 " Mr. Baird, I wish you would hunt him up. He 
 sent her some money. I'd like to know what there 
 is against him." 
 
 " Why, of course you could not expect her to tell." 
 
 " No, indeed I couldn't, that's a fact. I don't 
 know as it's the hardest thing in the world to con- 
 fess the sins of other people, though. Will you try 
 and find him?" 
 
 " Find a needle in a haystack, my dear. Where 
 am I to look for him ?" 
 
 " She might have given me some address or other. 
 I'll hunt up all I know and put it together. You 
 might get the police to help you." 
 
 " He'd hardly thank me for that. If I knew some 
 of his friends " 
 
 " There's his brother. He must know something. 
 Only I don't believe he knows much. He never 
 sent his sister 'any money, that I know of. Too 
 good, I suppose." 
 
 " Now, my dear, I must say you are making re- 
 marks." 
 
 "So I am. What do men know about women? 
 Not but what I admire Miss Heron, but then I'd 
 like to know what to think. It's too bad to be left 
 in the dark, imagining all sorts of awful things, when 
 they may not be just." 
 
 ''Well, my dear, I'll hunt him up, or try to. It 
 ought not to be impossible. By the way, there's 
 one of the Tiloogoo missionaries " 
 
A NEW DEPAR TURE. IO 5 
 
 " Coming to board with us for awhile? Well, I'm 
 almost glad of it. I'd like to see somebody that 
 has done something, or tried to do it." 
 
 " O he's never been there, but he's going in a few 
 weeks." 
 
 " That's all the same. He means to try and do 
 something. I'll give him the room Miss Heron 
 had. It's as neat as wax, I'll say that for her. She 
 hasn't a fault in the world. I almost wish she 
 had." 
 
 And so it was settled that Fred Heron was to be 
 hunted for, but the chances of success were even 
 poorer than good Mr. Baird himself imagined, and 
 his faith would not have balanced the tiniest dwarf 
 of a young mustard-seed. 
 
 And ail the while Bessie, poor girl, was carried 
 further and further from her brothers, and from one 
 great army of her friends, and her crying-spell lasted 
 her a long time. 
 
 She was exceedingly lonely, and she could but 
 wonder why she had been Singled out from the 
 great world of human beings for a fate so hard and 
 uncongenial. 
 
 So many good things came to others, on the 
 right hand and on the left; homes, husbands, in- 
 comes, influence, friends, good brothers, wealth ; 
 while to her, without a single fault or error on her 
 part, had been drifted only the dry and tasteless 
 sand of an unsupported existence. 
 
1 06 THE HE A RT OF IT. 
 
 Such a text that was which came to comfort her, 
 and when she came to the clause : " Of whom the 
 world was not worthy," she said it aloud, and the 
 smile on her face was one which would have done 
 Mrs. Baird good if not Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 The latter lady, at that moment, was not think- 
 ing of anybody's goodness, no, nor badness, but of 
 how provoking it was that Mr. Brown should have 
 been compelled to go down town so much earlier 
 than usual, that morning. 
 
 Mabel Varick had been exceedingly glad to see 
 Mrs. Boyce, and to tell her all about the burglars. 
 The library window had been exhibited, with the 
 broken bolt, and so had Mr. Brown's double-bar- 
 relled gun. 
 
 Prince himself had been called in for commenda- 
 tion, and when he yawned, probably from the effects 
 of a sleepless night, he displayed such a sharklike 
 range of teeth that Mrs. Boyce found her sympathies 
 rapidly going over to the side of the man he had 
 used them on. 
 
 " How he must have suffered !" she exclaimed. 
 
 " Not a bit," replied Mabel. " He isn't hurt at 
 all. But they tried to poison him, and they'd have 
 succeeded, but for a gentleman who saw them. 
 Such a strange man." 
 
 " I didn't mean Prince " 
 
 " Nor did I. He said he was a tramp, but Uncle 
 Daniel says he is a gentleman of unusually good 
 
A NE W DEPAR TURE. I Q/ 
 
 mind and education. His name is Heron. At 
 least he said so." 
 
 "What, the burglar?" 
 
 " No, there were two of them, and we did not 
 get their names. Uncle Daniel went down to the 
 police court to appear against them. He will go 
 from there to his office. He is almost excited 
 about it, and that, you know, is a rare thing for 
 him." 
 
 " Dear man ! He is so cool and collected, al- 
 ways. Such admirable judgment. I value his ad- 
 vice above that of any other friend I have. I need 
 it, to-day, too, my dear." 
 
 " He will be glad to give it, I know. But, Mrs. 
 Boyce, how dare you live alone, the way you do, in 
 that great house. Think of such men as came here 
 last night. You have not even a dog." 
 
 " I've never thought of such things, my dear. 
 Burglars are not the worst misfortunes that can 
 come. But I must go, now. By the way, what did 
 you say his name was?" 
 
 "Whose name?" 
 
 "The man that poisoned Prince." 
 
 " O you mean the gentleman tramp who took 
 the meat away from him. Heron, Mrs. Boyce, 
 and Prince drove him up a tree, and uncle found 
 him there, and asked him in. It's a funny story, 
 but I mustn't keep you now. I'm afraid it '11 be 
 days and days before I feel like myself again." 
 
IO8 THE HEART OF IT-. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce could have sympathized more com- 
 pletely than she cared to tell, before seeing Mr. 
 Brown himself, and she cut short her call with the 
 kindly haste which is allowable in an older person 
 and an intimate friend of the family. She had al- 
 ways been especially sweet on Mabel Varick, and 
 Mabel in turn had learned to consider her a very 
 lovable woman. 
 
 " So little understood by those who call her 
 worldly." 
 
 Mr. Brown himself had passed a morning of more 
 than a little annoyance. If there was one thing he 
 disliked more than another, it was newspaper noto- 
 riety, and here he was, now, with a dead certainty of 
 being published in connection with a " criminal 
 sensation." 
 
 He did his duty by the two prisoners, however, 
 and they were both bound over for trial, being 
 locked up in default of bail, and their coming sen- 
 tence was likely to be a good deal of a matter of 
 form. Even the man who entered the window 
 could be so easily identified. He had upon him no 
 marks of having been arrested by Prince. 
 
 It was on his way down town that the thoughts 
 of the worthy merchant returned to the -man to 
 whom he deemed himself in great measure indebted 
 for the safety of his household, and he grew decid- 
 edly anxious, as he turned the matter over, for an- 
 other meeting with his eccentric benefactor. 
 
A NE W DEPAR TURE. 1 09 
 
 " I wonder if he will call to-day? I hope he will. 
 There's something worth saving in that man. I'm 
 sure there is." 
 
 A remark which implied that, in the respect indi- 
 cated, Mr. Frederick Heron was a species of ex- 
 ception. A piece of heathenism very prevalent 
 among the most orthodox, and it is mainly caused 
 by exceeding vaguerie-ss of idea as to what "saving" 
 consists in. A pity, too, when one's cursory judg- 
 ment may so readily err in an estimate of the rela- 
 tive value of souls. Precious stones will at times 
 deceive experts, let alone the common run of deal- 
 ers, and a soul 
 
 Well, no man can tell how a soul will turn out, 
 until it has been cut and ground and mounted, and 
 even then it has to be shown in a good light. That 
 of heaven, for instance, or a time of trial. 
 
 But whether or not Fred was one of the excep- 
 tional cases "worth saving," he did not make his 
 appearance at Daniel Brown's office that day. 
 
 There were plenty of others who did, however, 
 and among them was a very brisk and smiling gen- 
 tleman, with a diamond pin and a confidentially 
 husky voice. He did not interrupt anybody else, 
 for he blandly waited some minutes in the main 
 office, until his opportunity arrived for a solitary 
 approach. 
 
 He did not see, therefore, the slight shade of an- 
 noyance on the merchant's face when his card was 
 
I IQ THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 laid on the desk in the little private business parlor. 
 If he had seen it, it is likely he would have opened 
 his budget in precisely the same tone of confident 
 expectation. 
 
 "Your usual contribution, of course?" he said, 
 after a brief exchange of preliminaries. "We must 
 begin early. Our foes are already in the field. A 
 sharp campaign before us, I assure you. We must 
 do our best, or the state and the nation will fall into 
 the hands of those " 
 
 "But, Mr. Magrath, what are" we to divide on, this 
 time? What's to be the platform?" 
 
 "Platform, Mr. Brown?" exclaimed the distin- 
 guished political manager, with astonishment rising 
 in his rosy face. "Platform? Why, sir, we shall 
 adhere to our time-honored and fundamental princi- 
 ples, without wavering or quavering. Every plank 
 
 " But, Mr. Magrath, what's the difference between 
 the two platforms? Ours and the other? I've read 
 them both, and I can't see." 
 
 "Difference, sir? The difference? Why, sir, it's 
 the difference between the two parties, sir. Between 
 fraud, treachery, corruption, false doctrine, on the 
 one side, and, on the other ' 
 
 " I know what's on the other, Mr. Magrath. At 
 least, before election. But how is it that we divide 
 up differently after election, say in Congress, from 
 what we do at the polls? I'm beginning to feel as 
 if I wanted to think matters over a little." 
 
A NE W DEPAR TURE. 1 1 1 
 
 "You would not have us abandon our magnificent 
 historic organization ? You would not withdraw 
 your support?" 
 
 "By no means, Mr. Magrath, a good body is a 
 splendid thing, but how about the soul of it? I've 
 a new idea at work in my head, and I hardly feel 
 like paying out much money till I get it clear." 
 
 " Your contribution will be delayed, for the present, 
 Mr. Brown?" 
 
 " I think it will" 
 
 At that moment a card was laid before him and 
 he remarked : 
 
 " Ah indeed ! a lady, Mr. Magrath. You will 
 have to excuse me. Not many lady visitors, you 
 know, and even politics must give them precedence." 
 
 " O by all means. Certainly, I'd never, of course, 
 Mr. Brown. But then I must call again and ex- 
 plain matters. We really have the salvation of the 
 country ' 
 
 "Yes, yes, Mr. Magrath, it needs a terrific amount 
 of saving, just now. Never needed more. Good- 
 morning." 
 
 And, as the discomfitted "wheel horse" of a great 
 party bowed himself out of the merchant's parlor- 
 ofrice, another door opened, and an attentive clerk 
 bowed in the exquisitely lady-like presence of the 
 widow Boyce, with a smile on her face which grew 
 more and more sad and confiding as she stepped 
 forward. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A REMARKABLE HUNT AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 
 
 A PRIME necessity of the case which the med- 
 dlesome police-surgeon had threatened to re- 
 port was that the two offenders should be gotten 
 out of the way. 
 
 The battered epileptic, consigned to the security 
 of Potter's Field by way of the small-pox hospital, 
 would make no audible complaint sooner than the 
 Day of Judgment. His treatment had been based 
 upon the prevailing official notion that either no 
 such day is coming, or that the leading witnesses 
 will not then put in an appearance. False teaching 
 and superstition have put so indefinitely far away 
 among doctrinal uncertainties an ordeal which is 
 really so close at hand for every one of us. It is so 
 hard for a man with a free club in his hand, and 
 cruelty in his heart, to understand that the domain 
 of time does not at all lap over into that of eternity, 
 and that the narrow rules of the less do not control 
 the operations of the greater. What awful sur- 
 
A VERY REMARKABLE HUNT. 113 
 
 prises must come, occasionally, to men who pound 
 epileptics, and to some other kinds of men ! 
 
 As for the man Rogers, he was well satisfied not 
 to be known as " Fred Heron," when he was 
 marched out of the police court, that morning. He 
 shuddered as he entered the Black Maria, as the 
 prison-van is called by those who know its name, but 
 his emotion was misunderstood by the policeman who 
 had just been saying something to him. It was not 
 so much fear as disgust, and, after he had taken his 
 place among the horrible collection of human wrecks 
 within, he muttered to himself: 
 
 " Worse will come to me, eh, if I make any more 
 noise after I get out? Then I'm afraid worse will 
 have to come. That is, if I live through it. My head 
 must be a pretty hard one, but it feels as if there 
 was a mill in it, just now." 
 
 The receiving authorities of the "Island" were by 
 no means neglectful of their duties, and Fred went, 
 therefore, to a cot in the hospital, on his arrival. 
 It was quite the customary thing with fresh con- 
 signments of disturbers of the peace, but it was the 
 best that could have come to Fred, under the cir- 
 cumstances. It relieved him of a part, at least, of 
 the unpleasant rigors of the place. 
 
 Sunlight, fresh air, silence, and a decent place to 
 lie down and go crazy. 
 
 That was about all the prisoner could have asked 
 for, that morning, and before long his delirium, aided 
 
1 14 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 by the remaining effects of those last three grains, and 
 the blow on his head, sent him into a deep, troubled, 
 dreamy lethargy, in which there was hidden enough 
 of the healing medicine called sleep to do him a 
 world of good. 
 
 There must have been an unusual degree of re- 
 cuperative toughness in that much-abused organiza- 
 tion of his. 
 
 The hospital surgeon, going his rounds among his 
 over-numerous patients, looked down on him, felt 
 his pulse, examined his heart, and said to the nurse : 
 
 " Let him sleep. It's the best he can do. I'll see 
 him again, to-morrow or next day." 
 
 A deal is necessarily left to nature in a great hos- 
 pital, but she is a better physician in some disorders 
 than she is in others. She would do all the better 
 for a little help, sometimes. But Fred slept on, un- 
 disturbed, for hour after hour, and when at last he 
 awoke, there was a strange looking man, of middle 
 stature, standing beside him. 
 
 Long haired, with a pinched, pale face, and a seedy 
 coat of an old-fashioned, semi-clerical cut, there Was 
 an expression in his watery blue eyes which partook 
 oddly of both benevolence and anxiety. 
 
 " Poor fellow. They'll do you good. Take them. 
 Here, I'll cut one in two. Eat it right away." 
 
 A withered little pair of hands had been fumbling 
 in his coat-tail pockets till they came out with three 
 lemons. 
 
A VERY REMARKABLE HUNT. \\^ 
 
 The sunlight from the window fell on the yellow 
 fruit, and seemed to invest it with a kind of halo in 
 the half-dazed eyes of Fred JHferon, alias Rogers. 
 
 The cutting was quickly done, at the cost o 
 dropping one lemon on the bed, and another on the 
 floor, and while the stranger scrambled for the lat- 
 ter, Fred squeezed the sharp, delicious juice into 
 his burning, foul-tasting mouth. 
 
 O how good it was, and how evident the purpose 
 for which lemons had been created ! 
 
 But Fred was not indulging in that kind of specu- 
 lation just then. 
 
 "Thank you," he said. " Do you belong here?" 
 
 "Yes, I belong anywhere. Don't I know how you 
 feel? I've been there. You was pretty bad? I'm 
 almost glad of that. Tasted good, eh ?" 
 
 " Wonderful. But what brings you here, with 
 your lemons, if you don't regularly belong here?" 
 
 " Hunting, my dear fellow. Hunting that's 
 all. I do it for pay, and I may not get it, after all." 
 
 " Guess I can pay for three lemons, unless they've 
 picked my pockets," remarked the puzzled patient. 
 
 " Not from you, my dear fellow, not from you. I 
 run my own risk. I'd like to give a cup of cold water, 
 or a lemon, or something, to one of Christ's little 
 ones. There must be some of 'em left, somewhere, 
 and I hunt for 'em in the hospitals and all over." 
 
 "You've missed it, this time," said Fred, half- 
 mournfully. " I'm not a little one, and I don't be- 
 
j X 6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 long to Him. You'd better take back these other 
 lemons. Try some of the rest." 
 
 " I have. I begged a box of 'em yesterday, and 
 these are the last. No, you keep 'em. His little 
 ones are born so very small they don't always know 
 it. I wouldn't say about you. I run my risk. Keep 
 those and eat 'em by-and-by. He made 'em. Did 
 you ever see Him?" 
 
 " See whom?" 
 
 "I mean Christ. Did you ever see Him? I did, 
 once." 
 
 " And he told you to carry some lemons to folks 
 in hospitals? It sounds like what I've heard about 
 Him. I can think of Him, just now, with all His 
 pockets full of lemons." 
 
 " Can you ? Then I may have hit it, this time. 
 If ever you meet Him, tell him I did it in His name, 
 will you ? There, I must go now, or I may lose 
 my reward. I'm getting self-righteous every min- 
 ute. Good-morning." 
 
 And the strange man hurried away, just as Fred 
 was trying to gather his wits and ask: 
 
 "But where shall I find Him?" 
 
 Perhaps the stranger could not have given very 
 intelligent directions, but it looked as if he were on 
 or near the right track, himself. 
 
 Fred ate the other half of the lemon, put the 
 two that were left under his pillow, and then arose 
 with more of strength than he had expected, and 
 
A VERY REMARKABLE HUNT. 
 
 sat on the side of his bed, looking around on the 
 great room and its occupants. 
 
 Plenty of them, all males, and in every stage of 
 physical disability, but what struck Fred was the 
 very good order and general neatness, while there 
 was such a seeming dearth of attendance. It al- 
 most looked as if the hospital was running itself. 
 Perhaps he did not dwell with sufficient force on 
 the fact that people who cannot get up are rarely 
 disposed to create any disturbance, and that this 
 . was about the quietest ward of all. 
 
 He did not know that, but in a few minutes he 
 arose, with no man to hinder, and walked to one of 
 the windows. He could see other buildings, and 
 he knew enough of the locality to bring to his 
 mind's eye a picture of all he could not see. 
 
 " Prisons, hospitals, almshouses, insane asylums, 
 workhouses, a great piece of property like this, and 
 cords of others. Police, soldiers, courts, lawyers, 
 detectives, charities, Black Marias, a gallows, now 
 and then. What an enormous tax it all is. A 
 perfect mountain of gold thrown away, every year. 
 Why couldn't Congress pass a law, abolishing sin ? 
 If there wasn't any sin, now! But then that would 
 never do. There wouldn't be any more, Congress. 
 The kind we have. Nor any lawyers, or police, or, 
 no, it would never do. Too many people would be 
 thrown out of employment, and there'd be the worst 
 kind of a riot unless the law was repealed." 
 
1 1 8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Fred's brain was not yet in the best of working 
 order, and he felt now, in spite of the lemon, the 
 growing pain of an awful craving within him. 
 
 He turned deadly pale as he felt it, for the 
 thought came upon him that in this place he would 
 be compelled to face it, once for all, without any 
 possible palliation or escape. 
 
 The thought was maddening. 
 
 Could he live through it? 
 
 " That's just what I will do," he exclaimed aloud. 
 " I can't get any here. Now's my best chance for 
 a victory." 
 
 "O is that so? Can't you get any?" 
 
 A soft, clear, but tremulous and deeply-agitated 
 voice, close to him, and it made him spin around on 
 his feet in utter astonishment. 
 
 A lady, a young one, and well dressed, with a 
 refined, intellectual face that many would have 
 called handsome, if it had not been so pale. She 
 seemed to be shaking from head to foot with a 
 nervous tremor, and Fred could hardly help saying 
 half-aloud : 
 
 "Delirium tremens!" 
 
 " No, sir, not quite that, but I could not stay in 
 the woman's ward. It's right across the passage, 
 yonder. It was easy to slip out. Did you say it 
 was impossible to get any here ?" 
 
 "Any what?" 
 
 " O anything. Seems to rne I could drink whis- 
 
A VERY REMARKABLE HUNT. ug 
 
 key, though brandy is what I always want when the 
 fit comes on." 
 
 "Try a lemon, and then tell me about it." 
 
 " Are you one of the physicians ? I haven't seen 
 one yet. Not till I saw you." 
 
 Fred was cutting the lemon, and did not make 
 any answer, but the young lady grasped the half he 
 handed her with a teverish, thirsty eagerness. 
 
 " It is good for me. I know that by experience," 
 she said. " How nice it is. But, O that I should 
 come to this. I, Carrie Dillaye ! I'm glad my mother 
 is dead. What would Uncle Daniel say. now, and 
 Mabel ? I wouldn't dare to die, though. And yet 
 I don't believe there is any, over there." 
 
 ' A little flighty, ' thought Fred, but he had not 
 missed a word of her incoherent soliloquy. 
 
 " Try the other half, Miss Dillaye," he said, gently. 
 " How did all this happen ? When did you get 
 here?" 
 
 "Yesterday morning, sir. I must have drank my- 
 self crazy, and then I don't know what happened. 
 All I know is that I'm here. I haven't even told 
 them what my name is. How do you know it? 
 Did I ever see you before ?" 
 
 " No, but what do you mean to do? Shall you 
 write to Mr. Brown or Miss Varick ?" 
 
 It had been a somewhat daring guess and ven- 
 ture, and Fred was taken all aback by the conse- 
 quences. 
 
120 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Such a frightened, appealing, earnest gaze from 
 those deep, sorrowful gray eyes, and then a lady 
 kneeling at his feet in a storm of passionate weep* 
 ing. 
 
 " No ! no ! A thousand times no ! O- sir, do not 
 tell them of this disgrace. That I am on the Island. 
 Indeed, sir, I have done nothing wrong. Not a 
 single thing. Seems to me I did not even sin in 
 taking the brandy. It was in me before I knew. I 
 can't tell how it was. Don't let them know. It's 
 only for twenty days. I can bear it." 
 
 Fred took her folded hands to raise her up, and 
 just then one of those rare birds, a hospital assist- 
 ant, came hurrying up to ascertain the meaning 
 of it. 
 
 A female prisoner in that ward! 
 
 HoW could such a thing have happened? 
 
 As if it had never happened before! 
 
 " Silence, Miss Dillaye," whispered Fred. " I will 
 keep your secret, and I will see you again. Take 
 this lemon. You must go back, now. On no ac- 
 count take any stimulus." 
 
 And then he turned to the rapid questions of the 
 nurse, not answering any of them, with : 
 
 " She had better have a soothing draught of some 
 kind. There's been a mistake. Can't you see it ? 
 Be as respectful as you know how, or it will be the 
 worse for you." 
 
 Something of authority in his voice and manner 
 
A VERY REMARKABLE HUNT. I2 i 
 
 had its effect on the natural born subordinate before 
 him. Men who were made with a cringe in them 
 quickly understand who is and who is not a proper 
 object of their temporary tyranny, and the nurse 
 obeyed with alacrity. A female assistant was called 
 from the adjoining ward, and Caroline Dillaye was 
 led back to her own quarters with a show of gentle- 
 ness which owed something, even then, to the addi- 
 tional injunctions and imperative words of Fred 
 Heron. 
 
 " If you're a doctor, sir," said the assistant, on his 
 return, " I wish you'd lend us a hand. There's so 
 many on leave, workin' up the primaries in their 
 own wards, that we hain't men enough to feed 'em, 
 let alone bandages and medicines. The surgeon, 
 he's wild about it, but then he dasn't peep, you 
 know." 
 
 "Guess I know enough to help you a little," re- 
 plied Fred. "Fix this bandage of mine, will you, 
 and give me an egg and a cup of coffee, and I'll see 
 what I can do." 
 
 There are those who would have called it " cheek," 
 but a better phrase would be, " Readiness to take 
 advantage of circumstances." 
 
 When his own hurt was dressed, he quietly re- 
 marked : 
 
 "Thank you, but if I can't beat you at that I'll 
 give up. Where'd you get your training?" 
 
 " Never had much. I was an iron-moulder before 
 
122 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I went into politics, and I most wish I was back at 
 my trade, sometimes. On'y this 'ere's lighter work." 
 
 There were sufferers in that hospital whose needs 
 called for defter and more delicate fingers than those of 
 the ex-iron-moulder, and the latter openly expressed 
 his admiration of the rapidity and skill with which 
 his new helper did his work for him. He conformed 
 to Fred's requirement about the coffee and eggs, 
 and when the surgeon came around he made a fair 
 report of the matter. 
 
 " Glad of it," replied the man of science, " but he 
 must go to bed himself, now. He's worked up a 
 fever with all you've put on him. How long's he 
 in for?" 
 
 " Sixty days. Case of assault." 
 
 " I'll keep him here, then. He's no primaries to 
 attend to. I wish the police would pick up a few 
 more like him and send 'em over." 
 
 And yet all the skill Fred had displayed had been 
 " picked up," for he was as devoid of regular pro- 
 fessional training as if he had been appointed to 
 that hospital for political services instead of resist- 
 ing a policeman. 
 
 As the surgeon said, however: 
 
 " He's a gentleman, and well educated. He couldn't 
 know less than the rest of 'em, if he should try. 
 Seems to have a touch of humanity, too." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SAVED BY A SACRIFICE OLIVER ACCEPTS A CALL AS 
 ASSISTANT. 
 
 OVER such a path as that had been, Dr. Milyng 
 had led his pack pony by a precautionary 
 length of lariat, and it had not yet brought his 
 head around the corner of the cliff. 
 
 The horse, of course, bore no burden except his 
 own trappings and the doctor. 
 
 Had the path behind been straight, or nearly so, 
 a perfect horseman might have ventured to rein back, 
 for a few yards, at least, but, as it was, the length of 
 a man would bring him over the edge, at the curve. 
 
 Louder and clearer rang the yells and whbopings, 
 up the pass from the rear, and the end was evidently 
 drawing very near. 
 
 But the doctor's iron face took on no pallor, nor 
 did his hand tremble as he lowered his repeating 
 rifle and leaned it against the rock at his left. 
 
 His long knife was out next, and he cut the throat- 
 latch of his bridle and the strap around the robe of 
 skins behind him, on the crupper. 
 
 123 
 
124 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 "Can't save the saddle/' he said, "but I can do 
 without that if I can keep the pony. Good-by, old 
 horse; it isn't my fault. I never hated anything 
 worse than this in all my life." 
 
 As he spoke, he lightly removed his feet from the 
 stirrups, and in an instant he was down, wedged be- 
 tween his horse's side and the wall. The trembling 
 beast braced himself as if he understood it all, but 
 he had no foothold sufficient to bring his strength 
 to bear. 
 
 Off came the bridle, and then, as if to -add yet 
 another triumph of nerve and pluck, the doctor seized 
 the horn of the saddle and severed the surcingle at 
 a blow. 
 
 "I'd give a ton of gold rather than do it, but I've 
 no other chance," he muttered, hoarsely. 
 
 And then, with a sharp, despairing neigh of sud- 
 den agony and fear, the noble animal before him 
 reared and went over into the abyss, while the con- 
 jurer's great robe of skins floated after him like the 
 out-spread wings of a condor hovering over his 
 prey. 
 
 There were drops of cold perspiration on the doc- 
 tor's face, but he was lying flat on the narrow ledge, 
 creeping along with his rifle in his hand. 
 
 The savage warriors had been but a short quarter 
 of a mile away at that moment of terrible decision, 
 and they saw enough of what had happened to bring 
 them to a sudden halt. 
 
SA FED BY A SA ORIFICE. 1 2 5 
 
 A moment of silence, and then a shrill yell of ex- 
 ultation. 
 
 But after that there came to them an occasion for 
 careful thinking, for their keen, practised eyes were 
 searching the ravine, and the presence of those 
 whitened bones explained the mystery to them in a 
 moment. 
 
 Warned in time, but no more, for any further fol- 
 lowing would have brought them upon that track 
 from which there was no return. 
 
 There was nothing there, now, to tempt them on, 
 and even their curiosity gave way to a feeling of 
 dread which had something closely akin to panic 
 in it. 
 
 Weary as were their panting ponies, they wheeled 
 in their tracks and fled along the pass as if they 
 feared that at any moment it might give way be- 
 neath their feet. 
 
 It was Bad Medicine, the whole of it, and they 
 felt assured that only a suitable fate had befallen 
 the sacrilegious thief who had dared to carry away 
 the sacred robe during the mystic slumbers of its 
 owner. 
 
 The authority of the conjurer had received a 
 tremendous lift, but he had not recovered his 
 property. 
 
 Dr. Milyng lay and watched the retreating horse- 
 men until the last one was out of sight, and then 
 slowly arose to his feet. He had saved his arms and 
 
126 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 equipments, and the pony still carried his other 
 valuables. But what was to be done about them 
 and him? 
 
 The path was a trifle wider where the pony stood, 
 and his own size, between fourteen and fifteen hands, 
 was in favor of the doctor's next undertaking. 
 
 Carefully, slowly, with pats and caresses and reas- 
 suring words, the frightened animal was relieved of 
 his burdens, and these were drawn forward out of his 
 way. 
 
 Could any horse be backed for such a distance, 
 over such a mere gangway? 
 
 Patience and strength and skill are great things, 
 and the doctor had them all. 
 
 Foot by foot, rod after rod, until a spot was 
 reached where the path widened into a little table of 
 flat rock. 
 
 No room to spare, but if the pony would do his 
 part it was a possibility, and the doctor slipped 
 quickly past him. 
 
 Gentle pulls, plenty of time given for him to gather 
 his feet under him, and then the doctor wanted to 
 shout, for the pony's head was safely pointed down 
 the pass. 
 
 For a little distance he led him on, till he reached 
 a place where he could tether him, and then he re- 
 turned again and again after his baggage. He did 
 not leave a pound of it on the ledge, and he even sat 
 down and repaired the saddle and bridle. He knew 
 
SA VED BY A SA CRIFICE. \ 2 7 
 
 that his enemies were using that time to get further 
 and further away from him. 
 
 The pony was laden but not mounted, and the 
 descent began. His master was not sure enough of 
 his training to risk his neck on him there and then. 
 Besides, it is even possible the doctor's nerves had 
 endured all they were capable of, that day. 
 
 " If I only had Oliver, now," he said to himself. 
 " He was the best animal for mountain work that 
 ever stood on four legs. I'll never get hold of such 
 another mule as long as I live." 
 
 Probably not, for Oliver was as much of an ex- 
 ceptional character among his kind as the mining 
 explorer was among his, and he was having his own 
 peculiar experiences, that day. 
 
 His sleep had been refreshing, and his breakfast 
 of dewy grass had been every way to his liking, but 
 he could not easily forget all he had learned con- 
 cerning coyotes and their manner of life. He knew, 
 too, that in any further wanderings on that plain ic 
 would be sure to fall in again with its various abor- 
 iginal inhabitants. 
 
 In short, he found himself longing for company, 
 and yet in dread of the sort he was most likely to 
 obtain. 
 
 Noon came and went, and Oliver moved forward 
 uneasily, sheering away as best he might from even 
 a group of buffaloes and an occasional deer. 
 
 None of them attempted to molest him, but at 
 
128 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 last Oliver suddenly halted and shook his ears. 
 There could be no mistaking the character of that 
 short, yelping, vicious bark. He had felt sure they 
 would come again, or others like them, and here 
 they were. He had no heart for eating any more, 
 just then, but trotted nervously forward, and it may 
 be he thought of the buffalo bull, and wondered if 
 he could already have been entirely eaten up. 
 
 It was a moment of great anxiety, but Oliver was 
 travelling in the right direction, so far as his imme- 
 diate safety was concerned, albeit he was running 
 from one trouble into another. 
 
 The world is full of troubles, and here were more 
 than a dozen of them, cantering across the prairie 
 on their wiry mustangs, and ready to bring affliction 
 to any created thing which might cross their path. 
 
 Oliver recognized them at a glance, and he was 
 too much of a white man's mule to regard Apache 
 warriors with unmixed complacency. He paused 
 and hesitated for a moment, but a chorus of whoops 
 informed him that the recognition had been mutual, 
 and that it was now too late for him to take coun- 
 sel with himself as to the policy he should pursue. 
 
 Similar information, if hearkened to in season, 
 not unfrequently leads individuals with shorter ears 
 than Oliver's to their wisest strokes of genius. That 
 is, the world looks on and calls it genius, when the 
 actor himself is growling: " Couldn't help it, you 
 know." 
 
WELCOMING THE INEVITABLE. 129 
 
 It was of no use to run away, and therefore Oliver 
 uttered a long, sonorous bray of peace, threw up hi^ 
 heels, and trotted straight towards the half-sur- 
 prised line of yelling horsemen. He had no fear 
 for his scalp, there being no treaty, nor any chance 
 for one, between the mules and the Apaches. 
 
 He was hardly prepared for the immediate conse- 
 quences, calmly as he submitted to them, for the 
 tallest, fattest, heaviest of the tattooed and painted 
 riders, dismounted from the undersized brute Ire had 
 been killing, transferred his bridle to Oliver, and 
 sprang on his back in token of asserted ownership. 
 
 It must be said that the Big Medicine looked bet- 
 ter on an animal of Oliver's size and general* digmty 
 of appearance than on the wheezing dwarf he had 
 abandoned. His pride returned to him as he urged 
 his new servant to his paces, and his comrades 
 looked on in glum doubt as to whether they should 
 quietly surrender their claim to a share in- such a 
 prize. They knew that, although a mule, m-ay not 
 have the speed of a mustang, such a specimen as 
 that, with a little fattening, would trade for a dozen 
 of their mottled quadrupeds. There seemed to be 
 no help for it, however, so suddenly had the Big 
 Medicine made his pre-emption. Besides, the fact 
 of his recent loss was in his favor, and he was the 
 " biggest Indian" of that squad. 
 
 And so, for the day was well spent and their hunt 
 had been fairly successful, they wheeled in the di- 
 
! 30 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 rection of their camp, and Oliver's mind was relieved 
 of any further anxiety on the wolf question. But 
 he was in the hands of the aborigines, for all that. 
 
 That is, unless the cities whose ruins are to be 
 found in that region were actually built by the hands 
 of men, and if the race that built them found no 
 other race there before them. 
 
 Perhaps the coyotes were the real and only abor- 
 igines, after all. 
 
 It was not a long march to the camp, and it led 
 through the scattered remnants of the ancient town, 
 many of which could have been turned into very 
 fair stables for valuable live stock, now they were no 
 longer needed for men. 
 
 There was no special occasion for glorification 
 over the capture of one solitary stray mule, but the 
 Big Medicine seemed to feel that the plaster for his 
 wounded vanity ought to be exhibited in the vil- 
 lage, and he rode right onward to where, in default 
 of a tavern or a barber shop, the influential gossips 
 of the dusky community were accustomed to gather. 
 It was the inevitable parliament of those who are 
 able or anxious to live on the labor of others, and to 
 whom, therefore, the disposition of affairs is com- 
 mitted by those who do the work stupid braves, 
 squaws, and the like. 
 
 They were gathered in good force, for the expe^ 
 dition in search of the daring horse-thief had not re- 
 turned, and it was necessary to guess when it would, 
 
WEL COMING THE INE VITA BLE. \ 31 
 
 and if it would or would not be successful. Not 
 even the conjurer himself surmised, however, how 
 rare a feather for his own cap the absent warriors 
 would bring with them. 
 
 Still, he rode his new mule gallantly in before 
 the circle of admiring eyes, and it looked to them 
 a good deal as if their mystery man must have 
 dreamed to some purpose, after all. 
 
 A whoop, a sharp jerk at the reins, much sharper 
 than Oliver's mouth had been accustomed to, and 
 he halted with a promptness of obedience which did 
 him no end of credit. 
 
 In fact, he not only stopped as if he had been 
 shot, just as he reached the centre of the circle, but 
 he sat down, in polite imitation of the other chiefs 
 among whom he found himself. 
 
 It was admirably well done, but the Big Medicine 
 was not Dr. Milyng, and his horsemanship had 
 taught him no preparation for manoeuvres of that 
 description. The whoop had hardly died away on 
 his lips, therefore, before he found himself rolling 
 on the ground behind the highly intelligent beast he 
 had come there to boast of. 
 
 For the second time within twenty-four hours the 
 conjurer had provided that gathering with occasion 
 for unlimited mirth, and he arose with a feeling that 
 if this was to go on his influence with his con- 
 gregation would be gone forever. At the same 
 time he discerned that any severity towards Oliver 
 
!32 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 would do him no good, and that there might be more 
 in that mule than appeared on the surface. He 
 therefore, when he regained his feet, advanced and 
 reached out his hand as if to stroke the long ears. 
 Instantly, for the sign had a meaning he had learned 
 well in days by-gone, Oliver lay down at full length, 
 as if dead. 
 
 A loud shout greeted the discovery that, at last, 
 the Big Medicine had secured the services of a 
 " medicine mule," and Oliver's reputation was made. 
 He was free of the camp from that day forward, and 
 neither coyotes nor mischievous little Indian boys 
 would be permitted to molest him. 
 
 Whether his exalted character would exempt him 
 from the duties of a burden bearer on long marches 
 was yet a problem of the future, but it was glory 
 enough for him, when he arose, not to be imme- 
 diately remounted. On the contrary, he was con- 
 ducted away from the assembly of the magnates 
 with the degree of respect belonging to a stranger 
 whose powers and qualities were as yet only guessed 
 at by those who led him. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WISE AS A SERPENT AND HARMLESS AS A DOVE. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Daniel Brown returned to his lux- 
 urious home, that afternoon, he carried across 
 the threshold a face so clouded with anxiety that 
 Mabel Varick exclaimed, on meeting him : 
 
 " O Uncle Daniel, what has happened ? What 
 is the matter?" 
 
 " Come with me into the library, my dear. I 
 don't think I could eat any dinner till I've talked it 
 over." 
 
 Mabel's face assumed at once that look of loving 
 sympathy which is the best help in the world for a 
 man who has troubles to talk about, for her good, 
 kind uncle was the one being on whom her girlish 
 affections as well as her reverence had centered 
 themselves. He was worthy of it, every bit, and 
 yet, if the particular trouble in hand had been strictly 
 his own, it is quite possible he would have kept it 
 to himself, much as he confided in his fair and right- 
 minded niece. 
 
 133 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 The library table was the very thing to hold a 
 council over, although it was more than usually 
 cluttered that day. Books and maps were scat- 
 tered over its surface, and the presence of the tray 
 of quartz specimen-ores might have told a tale con- 
 cerning one of Mabel's idle hours, if any one had 
 been in a mood for studying such indications. 
 
 Mr. Brown was a very direct and simple sort of 
 man, which may have been one secret of his success 
 in business, and he was at once in the middle of his 
 first subject. 
 
 "There's a good deal to tell, my dear. To begin 
 with, your cousin Caroline has disappeared." 
 
 " Disappeared ! Uncle ?" 
 
 " Gone for two days, and no one seems to have a 
 trace of her. You know the physicians declared 
 her entirely cured of her mania for stimulus, and 
 they had almost ceased to watch her movements. 
 Still, I'm inclined to connect it with that." 
 
 "She's as good as good can be, Uncle Daniel. 
 O poor Carrie ! What can have become of her." 
 
 " Every means is being taken to find her. It can 
 hardly be a question of suicide, however it may be 
 of insanity. You know she has sometimes been 
 quite violent in her fits of excitement." 
 
 "So gentle, too. To think of her inheriting a 
 disease like that. And yet her father is a good 
 man." 
 
 " And so was his father, except that he was pretty 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE DOVE. 135 
 
 wild when he was young. We can't go back of that 
 with any certainty. I don't believe we understand 
 these matters very well. We call things inherited 
 for want of a better explanation." 
 
 "Do you think there is one?" 
 
 . " I do not know. I've been thinking a great deal 
 lately, and a good many things are less clear to me 
 than they once seemed to be." 
 
 " Carrie's case has always been a mystery. It is 
 now. I wish I could stop thinking about it." 
 
 " I can't. Besides, if I've been on the wrong 
 track, all these years, I would like to know it. Do 
 you know, I'd give something to ask that odd fellow 
 I don't like to call him a tramp that Mr. Heron, 
 what he thinks of such a case." 
 
 "What could he tell you?" 
 
 " Something from his own experience, it may be. 
 Something better than guess-work. But I'll talk 
 to you more about Carrie, by-and-by. It's too sad 
 for anything, and I hardly know which way to 
 turn." 
 
 " Why, uncle, are there any more misfortunes 
 coming upon us ?" 
 
 a Not on us, my dear, but on our friends. Mrs 
 Boyce " 
 
 "O Uncle Daniel, she was here this morning, to 
 see you, and she hardly seemed like herself. She 
 said she meant to go to your office." 
 
 " Well, she came, and she was there a long time. 
 
136 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I knew the firm of Boyce, Millington & Co. were 
 in doubtful credit, but I'd no idea things were so 
 bad." 
 
 "Have they failed?" 
 
 " They will to-morrow. And that is not the worst 
 of it. They've been running on in a bankrupt con- 
 dition for several years even before Mr. Boyce 
 died. They have tried to regain their lost foothold 
 by speculation, and have only made matters worse. 
 There is absolutely nothing left, and poor Mrs. 
 Boyce will be stripped of all she has in the world. 
 There has never been any settlement with her. In- 
 deed, none could have been made, as I understand 
 it." 
 
 "Will she lose her home?" 
 
 " Everything. The money she has been living 
 on ought never to have been paid her, but the firm 
 were afraid to curtail her expenses, for fear of in- 
 juring their credit. It is a very sad affair." 
 
 " But what can you do, Uncle Daniel?" 
 
 "Can not you do something, my dear?" 
 
 The idea in the benevolent mind of the merchant 
 was a vague one, and he would hardly have wished 
 to be the first to express it in words, but Mabel 
 caught it and put it in shape at once, like the en- 
 thusiastic, warm-hearted girl that she was. 
 
 " May I ask her to come and visit with me, Uncle 
 Daniel ? I'm lonely sometimes, and I'm so young, 
 to be all by myself." 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE DO VE. 137 
 
 " Take your carnage, after dinner, and go over 
 and see her. If she will come, she is welcome. Joe 
 Boyce and I were schoolmates, and I'd hardly like 
 to see his widow without a house over her head, or 
 wherewithal to procure a meal of victuals." 
 
 "She's a very independent woman." 
 
 " I know she is, but then " 
 
 "I know she has an immense respect for you, and 
 if I tell her it's your invitation as well as mine, I 
 feel sure she'll come." 
 
 "You may tell her anything you please, Mabel. 
 Come, now, let us go in to dinner." 
 
 " Did that Mr. Heron make his appearance to- 
 day, uncle?" 
 
 " No, my dear, and I half-hoped he would." 
 
 " He's another independent person, if I am any 
 judge of faces." 
 
 " He would not come to ask a favor of me, I am 
 sure of that. And yet I'd like to do him one, if 
 only for keeping old Prince from poisoning himself." 
 
 " So would I. Dear old Prince. He has been 
 the proudest dog you ever saw, all day." 
 
 And so they went into dinner, and Mr. Brown 
 found his appetite returning, now he had in a man- 
 ner discharged his mind of its load. It was a brief 
 meal, however, for some things' could not be dis- 
 cussed before the servants, and both uncle and 
 niece were anxious to be back in 'the library. 
 
 A lonelier meal than theirs had been that of 
 
138 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce, for she had taken it in her own room. 
 
 Already she had given warning to her servants, 
 and all but two or three had been paid and dis- 
 missed. 
 
 " I don't know what the law is," she said to her- 
 self, " but they are poor, and the creditors of the 
 firm are mostly rich. I shall be poor to-morrow, 
 and I wouldn't like to be disappointed about my 
 wages if I ever earn any." 
 
 A sound spot in the mind and will of the charm- 
 ing widow, but for all that she had been planning 
 a "situation" for herself. 
 
 Truth to tell, she had not been so ignorant as 
 her husband's business partners imagined, of the 
 true state of affairs, and if, when they objected to 
 her drafts on them, she had insisted so strenuously 
 and urged the necessities of her household as a 
 ground for them, she had had her own notions as 
 to how long those drafts would continue to be hon- 
 ored. That was the reason, too, why all the money 
 so drawn had not slipped through her fingers, and 
 why she was even now so much in the habit of re- 
 calling to mind the parable of the unjust steward. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce was not the sort of person to go into 
 voluntary starvation, but she was all the better 
 prepared to meet the impending crash because it 
 did not come upon her as a surprise. 
 
 She had thought, planned, studied, and no part 
 of her plans had been more carefully elaborated 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE DO VE. \ 39 
 
 than her interview with Mr. Brown, that morning. 
 She would have preferred the house, with Mabel 
 within call, but she had made up her mind, after- 
 wards, that the down-town office was just as well, 
 if not better. 
 
 So dignified she had been, so carefully self-con- 
 trolled, so business-like, in short, so wise as a ser- 
 pent and so harmless as a dove, that Mr. Brown 
 had heard her story in utter forgetfulness that the 
 world contained serpents, and with an increasing 
 pity for the undeserved misfortunes of its widowed 
 doves. 
 
 " I think he will," she said to herself, as she 
 poured out a second cup of tea. "I think Mabel 
 will come into it at once. They'll never be willing 
 to let me go after I am once settled in the family. 
 But I must not let Mr. Brown know I've any 
 money left. That would spoil it all. It isn't much, 
 to be sure, but after the failure is all arranged I 
 can make some disposition of it, so it will grow. 
 I'm sure Millington and the rest have taken care of 
 themselves, but not one of them will think of car- 
 ing for me." 
 
 It was a time of peculiar anxiety, nevertheless, in 
 spite of her confidence in the skill with which she 
 had managed her campaign. The greatest generals 
 must have their moments of doubt as to the battle's 
 issu-e when they hear the rattle of the first firing 
 along the skirmish line. 
 
140 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Patiently, over her tea, and not expecting any 
 immediate tokens of success, the widow sat and 
 studied the plans she had matured for her future, 
 an'd the unflinching courage she was displaying was 
 worthy of any man's admiration. She was no ordi- 
 nary woman, and her wisdom merited success as 
 much as any purely worldly wisdom ever can. 
 
 Faint and far away, from the lower part of the 
 great house, came the tinkle of the front-door bell. 
 
 " Who can it be ? O I will not receive any call- 
 ers to-night, and I forgot to say so. Well, I don't 
 care who it is, I'll send word that I am engaged. 
 Martha " 
 
 The door of her room was pushed gently open 
 as she spoke, and she turned her head expecting to 
 add her message, but the door-bell had been rung 
 by a hand that did not intend to be' pushed 
 away. 
 
 " Mabel Varick ! My dear girl, what does this 
 mean? I'm glad to see you, but has anything hap- 
 pened? Your uncle?" 
 
 " He has told me all about it, Mrs. Boyce. I've 
 just come to cry and to ask you to visit with me. 
 Uncle Daniel said so, and he means every word 
 of it." 
 
 " My dear, do you mean he has made up his 
 mind to cry? Now, Mabel, sweet." 
 
 And the widow's arms were around her guest, for 
 there were genuine tears in Mabel's eyes, and the 
 
THE WISD OM OF THE DOVE. 141 
 
 widow had a heart of her own in spite of her 
 worldly wisdom. 
 
 " Oh, no, he won't cry. I must do all of that. 
 Don't you do any, please. But he wants you to 
 come and take care of me for awhile. You'll come, 
 won't you ?" 
 
 " Why, Mabel, dear, not now. I could not come 
 to-night." 
 
 "Can't you? I shall be so disappointed. I 
 thought from what he said you had lost every- 
 thing." 
 
 " So I have, dear, except the golden hearts of 
 some of my friends. The house does not belong 
 to me any more, nor the furniture, nor anything. 
 Except, I suppose, my own wardrobe, and my 
 jewelry. Mr. Brown tells me I've a right to keep 
 all of that. I mean to be guided by him in every- 
 thing." 
 
 " But you can see him better at our house. I've 
 brought the carriage. Come, now. In the morn- 
 ing you can drive around and attend to matters. 
 It's dreadful to leave you here, all alone, at such a 
 time." 
 
 Mrs. Boyce had been thinking rapidly, and she 
 saw that the iron was hot. It was therefore the 
 time to strike, and she allowed herself to be over- 
 persuaded. There might have been a mistake or a 
 risk in not doing so, and Mabel had her own sweet, 
 kind-hearted way. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BEARING ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS. 
 
 THERE had been that in the previous experi- 
 ence of Fred Heron which gave him a trained 
 capacity for adapting himself to circumstances, but 
 for all that his feverish slumbers, during the suc- 
 ceeding twelve or fourteen hours, were disturbed 
 by all sorts of mental phenomena. He awoke in 
 the morning, a good deal refreshed, though still 
 weak, and it required half an hour or so of thinking 
 before he had quite mastered his peculiar surround- 
 ings. 
 
 It all came to him, at last, and by no means the 
 least important of his new interests was his curiosity 
 concerning his lady acquaintance of the previous 
 afternoon. He arose and dressed himself with little 
 difficulty, his control of his limbs improving with 
 every use he made of them, and, by that time, Mil- 
 ler, the hospital assistant, made his appearance. 
 
 The surgeon's remarks were duly reported, and 
 Miller added: " He'll fix it all for you. It'll be a 
 142 
 
FRIENDS IN AD VERSITY. 143 
 
 heap better, every way. You won't be turned in 
 with the rest of the crowd. You'll have better quar- 
 ters and better rations. Plenty to do, perhaps 
 
 " O I won't mind that," interrupted Fred. " Any, 
 thing but idleness for me. I'm glad of a chance. 
 How about breakfast? I'll be ready to go to work, 
 after that." 
 
 The rules of the place were briefly explained to 
 him, and they were simple enough for any man's 
 comprehension. Breakfast was an affair for which 
 he would have to wait his turn. He felt no appe- 
 tite, but he had an idea growing within him, and 
 it was very necessary to its carrying out that he 
 should eat and recover strength as fast as might be. 
 
 Food, too, was likely to be his best help against 
 that gnawing enemy within him, and constant oc- 
 cupation another nearly as good. 
 
 After awhile he ventured to ask a question or two 
 concerning the female ward, and Miller replied with 
 a grin : 
 
 " O you want to learn somethin' 'bout her, do ye ? 
 Well, I'll make out to send ye in there on an errand 
 of some kind, by-and-by. She's a lady. There's 
 no mistaking that. Do you know 'bout her?" 
 
 " Ought not to be here at all. It's a stupid blun- 
 der of the police. They'd never have done it for 
 anything, if they'd known. She probably got away 
 from her friends, and was violent, that's all." 
 
 That was not all, nor did Fred so much as guess 
 
144 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 what a providence had carried Miss Dillaye to the 
 station-house and the Island, instead of leaving her 
 in the hands of the demons who were surrounding 
 her when her own excesses attracted the attention 
 of the blind ministers of a blind iu-atice. 
 
 Miller was as good as his word, and k was all the 
 better for Fred's purpose that his " errand" was to 
 the matron of the female ward. 
 
 A word in the private ear of that experienced 
 individual. A suggestion concerning influential 
 friends, wealth, position, good things to come, and 
 he could afford to say with emphasis: 
 
 " She must be kept here, you know. Not turned 
 in with the rest. It's an exceedingly delicate mat- 
 ter." 
 
 " I understand. Guess you can't teach me much. 
 Do you want to see her?" 
 
 "Of course I do. And you must be careful she 
 doesn't get hold of stimulus of any kind." 
 
 " Dipsomania. That's what they call it for rich 
 people. Gin fever for- common folks. Well, she's 
 up and dressed. There she is, over yonder. Guess 
 she sees you." 
 
 Fred approached in a straightforward, business 
 manner, as became a hospital assistant, but the 
 first word he heard was : 
 
 "O sir, you have not let them know? And yet 
 I shall die if I cannot get away from here. Such 
 things as I have heard and seen!" 
 
FRIENDS fN ADVERSITY. 145 
 
 " I am powerless to help you, except in one way. 
 I am as much of a prisoner as you are." 
 
 "You? A prisoner? Why, you are a gentleman. 
 Your head is hurt, I know, but then " 
 
 " I haven't anything in the world I'm so proud 
 of as I am of that bandage," said Fred, " but we 
 won't talk about that, now. I must send word to 
 your friends." 
 
 " Not to my father. O not to my father. I can 
 never look him in the face again." 
 
 "To Mr. Brown, then, or Miss Varick. I think 
 I shall do so, even without your permission." 
 
 "O sir, what shall I do?" 
 
 " Get out of this. Do you feel any return of your 
 thirst?" 
 
 " Not so much, but it was dreadful last night. 
 I don't know what I'd have done, but for that 
 lemon." 
 
 " Then I guess it did come from Him, after all," 
 muttered Fred, " and maybe He knew beforehand 
 where it was going. I thought it could hardly have 
 been meant for me." 
 
 " I don't quite understand you ?" 
 
 " No more do I. The matron is waiting to speak to 
 me. Keep as quiet as you can. I must go now." 
 
 And to the robust and all but masculine official, 
 he said : 
 
 " I shall write to her friends, to-day. You won't 
 be forgotten." 
 
146 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 There was little more to be said but, somehow, 
 it was three days before Mr. Brown received the 
 letter Fred wrote on going back to his own ward. 
 
 There was enough for him to do there, for the 
 exigencies of a great political party had rendered 
 the corps of helpers exceptionally thin, at that 
 juncture, but he had a trial in store for him that 
 day. 
 
 The hospital dispensary, with its store of drugs 
 of every description, was under the especial and 
 very competent charge of the regular surgical and 
 medical authorities of the institution and their 
 more or less educated pupils and assistants. Fred 
 soon found out that a line was drawn, after all, be- 
 tween the former and men of Miller's class, but he 
 also discovered that if anything once got out of the 
 dispensary, its chances for getting back again were 
 small, indeed. 
 
 Somehow or other, too, a great many things did 
 get out, and they were not always the precise articles 
 covered by the written prescriptions, in every case. 
 
 There was a mystery in it, and one not to be 
 solved by a " sixty-day man," on duty as a tem- 
 porary nurse. Fred readily understood that there 
 was no purpose of making things clear to him, but 
 he was none the less startled when, that second 
 afternoon, in the cot of a patient who had been un- 
 expectedly removed, he found a small paper box 
 labelled " P. Ophii. 2 gr.," and which contained a full 
 
FRIENDS IN AD VERSIT Y. ! 47 
 
 dozen of little round pellets. He felt morally sure 
 that no one of the hospital magnates had ordered 
 the issue of such a prescription, although it was not 
 impossible. At all events, he stuck the box in his 
 pocket, until he finished making up the cot. 
 
 When he mentioned it to Miller, the ex-iron- 
 moulder looked at him vaguely, and said: 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "What am I to do with it?" 
 
 " I dunno. Eat it. We never minds them things. 
 If it's wuth anythin' it's your luck, and if it isn't, 
 why, tain't hard to get rid of a box o' pills." 
 
 "Then I can keep it?" 
 
 " Make a breastpin of it, if ye want to. We don't 
 watch no sweepin's here." 
 
 Little did Miller imagine the importance of what 
 he was saying, or how every nerve in Fred Heron's 
 body was quivering with eager appreciation of the 
 untold wealth contained in that little paper box. 
 
 Even the gnawing within him released its busy 
 teeth for a moment, as if in anticipation of better 
 things to come, and Fred felt a warm glow arising 
 in his pallid cheeks and forehead. 
 
 Et was his, to do with as he chose. 
 
 His by !he rules and customs of the hospital. 
 
 But what would he choose to do with it? 
 
 That was the question, and a tremendous ques- 
 tion it was. 
 
 He was glad he had written concerning Caroline 
 
1 48 ' THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Dillaye before this other matter came up. He 
 could not have held a pen or spelled a word after 
 that. 
 
 Even Miller wondered what was the matter with 
 him, for it seemed as if the whole hospital did not 
 contain work enough for him to do. 
 
 " Guess he must have a mighty big practice when 
 he's out," muttered Miller, " and he's kind o' makin' 
 up for it. He's the smartest feller we've had sent 
 over since I've been here. Wonder what he'll do 
 with them pills. He can't eat 'em. They'd kill 
 him, sure." 
 
 There is no natural power in a box of pills to 
 generate heat. No locomotive was ever run by 
 means of a box of pills under the boiler. But, for 
 all that, it seemed to Fred Heron as if the hottest 
 thing he had ever heard of were burning and burn- 
 ing in his left vest-pocket. 
 
 Would he be able to stand it after sunset, and all 
 through the night ? 
 
 He could throw them away. 
 
 No, he could not. He felt that he could not, and 
 that there would be no good in it, if he did. He 
 had taken the pledge too often not to know how 
 slender a thing is any sort of "dodge" in a struggle 
 between a man and his appetites. 
 
 There was no definite shape or form, however, in 
 the thoughts and purposes which came to him and 
 went from him, and he was all in a mist, when, a 
 
FRIENDS IN AD VERSITY. 
 
 little before sunset, he stood by the window near 
 his own bed and looked dreamily out towards the 
 great city. 
 
 " There it is," he muttered. "The city. And I 
 cannot get there. I've no place there, if I could. 
 I wonder if I'll ever have. There's another city 
 somewhere. Even the old Norse heathens had heard 
 of it, and they called it Asgard, and said that the 
 good fighters would go there. Especially if they 
 fell in battle. I'm not a good fighter. I'm being 
 whipped, now, by a paper box of muddy-looking 
 pills." 
 
 " Please, sir, if you'd only take it away from me." 
 
 The same soft, silvery, tremulous voice he had 
 heard in that spot the previous afternoon, and, when 
 he turned around, there was Miss Dillaye, with a 
 strange flush in her face and a brightness in her 
 eyes, holding out to him a small, flat flask of 
 glass. 
 
 " I gave one of the nurses five dollars to bring it 
 to me, but now I've had it in my hands I feel 
 stronger. I can't give it up, but if you would take 
 it away from me !" 
 
 " I'll do that, Miss Dillaye, but you must do some- 
 thing for me at the same time." 
 
 " If I can. Only don't wait too long. I can't 
 wait;" 
 
 " Feel in my vest-pocket, there. No, I'll hand it 
 to you. I'm not so far gone as that. I'd rather 
 
I 50 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 hand it to you, of my own free will. I'll keep the 
 flask/' 
 
 " You won't drink it ?" 
 
 " No, and you'll not eat the pills?" 
 
 "The nasty things. No, indeed, I feel so much 
 better. All I ever need is a little help at the right 
 time. I'm so glad you were here. Have you sent 
 the word?" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Dillaye. I've written to Mr. Brown. 
 But you must promise me one thing." 
 
 " What is that ?" 
 
 " Never to tell Mr. Brown, or anybody else, that 
 you saw me here." 
 
 " Certainly. But I'm glad I did see you here. I 
 don't believe you are bad." 
 
 " Yes, I am, but I'll tell you how I came to be 
 sent here." 
 
 And he did so, briefly and simply, not concealing 
 anything, and Miss Dillaye's pale, refined face, took 
 on a tinge of the most respectful admiration, by 
 the time he finished his story. It did not go an 
 an hour back of his interference with the police- 
 man. She exclaimed : 
 
 " O sir, you are a kind of martyr." 
 
 " Only a sixty-day martyr. After that I shall be 
 something else." 
 
 " I'm not even that. I can't tell you anything, 
 except that I think something was born in me." 
 
 "To be thirsty?" 
 
FRIENDS IN AD VERSIT Y. j 5 j 
 
 " Once in awhile. It had not come for a year, till 
 the other day. It came so suddenly. Then I don't 
 know what happened, after that. O here's the 
 matron. You'll keep the flask?" 
 
 " Of course, and glad to. You won't have them 
 bring you any more?" 
 
 "Not for the world. But O what shall I say 
 when I see my father!" 
 
 The matron was inclined to be surly in her pro- 
 test against so reckless a violation of rules, even by 
 a privileged character, and Carrie was led back 
 within her proper meets and bounds in a state of 
 something like humiliation, but Fred Heron felt as 
 if he had made a long march towards the City 
 the City of Asgard, where the gods live. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SITUATION CHEERFULLY ACCEPTED BY MAN 
 AND BEAST. 
 
 DR. MILYNG felt very positive that he would 
 find no hostile presence in his way, as he re- 
 traced his steps down that winding and perilous 
 pass, but he kept up the keenest and most cau- 
 tious outlook. He did not intend to stumble into 
 another trap, after his narrow escape from the one 
 set for him by the buffalo drove. 
 
 " So much," he said, " for blindly following too 
 old a trail. It was made too long ago. Led over 
 the mountains well enough in those days. Every- 
 thing gets played out in the course of time. Even 
 a buffalo-path. But the mountains don't play out, 
 and I've got to find my way across 'em, somehow. 
 Sorry I had to throw away that horse, but there 
 was no help for it. Glad the pony's a good one. I 
 can manage with him after a fashion, but I'll have 
 to foot it a good deal. Don't mind that. I can 
 outwalk anything that ever went on four legs, ex- 
 t Oliver. What a mule he was. Wish I had 
 152 
 
 
A CCEP TING THE SITU A TION. 1 5 3 
 
 him now. He'd be worth a whole corral of mus- 
 tangs." 
 
 No doubt of that, but the pony was plodding 
 along very patiently, and really looked well in the 
 trappings which he had fallen heir to. He even 
 seemed to take a kind of pride in them, as if he 
 had been promoted and felt the dignity of his new 
 shoulder-straps. 
 
 Still, they did not make a full-sized horse of him, 
 any more than an extra allowance of stars will 
 make a general out of a successful demagogue. 
 
 It was. by no means pleasant to come out again on 
 the same side of the range, after all that toil and dan- 
 ger, but the doctor was compelled to content him- 
 self. And, after all, it was something to have 
 brought whole bones and his breath back from 
 such an adventure. 
 
 " The luck of the mine ought to be pretty well 
 used up, for awhile," he said to himself. " I'm 
 kind o' glad it came all in a heap and got beaten. 
 Now, if I make good time, it may not catch up with 
 me again before I get across the alkali plains. It 
 wouldn't, if it was any ordinary mine, but then, 
 that one I must make the best kind of time." 
 
 Precisely what he meant, he might not have been 
 able to put in words, but it was a real and practi- 
 cal thing to him, nevertheless. As real as Napo- 
 leon's " star" was to him, or Caesar's " fortune," or 
 any gambler's "run of luck." 
 
I 54 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 Intangible, chimerical, fanciful, the creations of 
 diseased or overheated imaginations, unworthy the 
 serious consideration of scientific investigation, are 
 all these puerile superstitions, but sometimes pne 
 turns from the positive chemist in his little shop, 
 so sure of his " laws" and their operation, and 
 thinks of Attila, Timour, Hannibal, and the rest, 
 and wonders if the party in the shop has got it all. 
 
 If one has ever heard of Moses, Abraham, Paul, 
 Daniel, and a few others of that sort, still another 
 field is open to him, unless he is in fear of the de- 
 risive smile of the little man among- the crucibles. 
 
 o 
 
 And he? Well, he is ever as ready as an inch- 
 xvorm to raise his derisive back and measure his in- 
 finite length of worm over anything and everything 
 which he has decided is " immaterial." 
 
 But the doctor kept steadily on till he came to 
 the place where he had turned into the ancient 
 highway of the bisons. 
 
 Not a redskin was in sight, nor any other sign of 
 danger, as he wheeled southward, but he turned 
 and looked along the path which had cost him his 
 day's work and his best horse, with the remark: 
 
 " There's just one thing I'd like to have some- 
 body explain to me. All the droves took that 
 trail, up to the one that was lost on it, and it's safe 
 to bet that not another hoof has tried it from that 
 day to this. Now, how did the rest of 'em get the 
 secret? It beats me. I've known such things come 
 
A CCEP TING THE SITU A TION. 1 5 5 
 
 out in a good many ways. A fellow told me, once, 
 it was a good deal the same way with fish. I tell 
 you what* there's something talks to the animals 
 that don't and can't talk to men. Wish it would 
 talk to my pony and tell him where we'd best try 
 and circumvent this spur." 
 
 He pushed onward, however, until the sun went 
 down, and he found a spring of water, as if he had 
 a good deal of confidence in the means of finding 
 his own way which were his birthright as a human 
 being. 
 
 Alone, with enemies behind him, if not before ; 
 with a great and terrible wilderness to cross ; 
 mountains, deserts, heat, hunger, thirst, fatigue, all 
 possible perils to be overcome. And yet the veteran 
 explorer did not lie awake an hour thinking about 
 them. They were to be met in their turn, as they 
 should come, not sooner, and the present demand 
 upon his resources was met as accurately as a bank 
 teller would have paid a recognized check. Not a 
 fraction more or less, and not a thought given to 
 the possible face of the next draft to come. Suffi- 
 cient unto the day had been the evil thereof, and 
 the night was meant for rest, even to a man whom 
 the Apaches had so nearly driven over a precipice. 
 
 If he could but have known, for his comfort, that 
 his old friend Oliver had also overcome the difficul- 
 ties of his situation ! 
 
 And Oliver had certainly done so, and he availed 
 
156 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 himself to the uttermost of a night of safety. 
 
 Not a coyote barked in his hearing, during all the 
 slumberous hours, and when the sun again looked 
 in upon him he was the first animal in that corral 
 to mention the matter. 
 
 Any mule can bray, but there's as much odds in 
 mules as in the traditional Connecticut deacons. 
 
 Oliver was not one of the smaller representatives 
 of his kind, for his father had come from Spain and 
 his mother had pulled a dray in her time. 
 
 From the latter he had inherited his bone and 
 muscle, and, perhaps, his capacity for straight kick- 
 ing, but from the former all the sonorous echoes of 
 the Andalusian hills had come down to him, 
 
 At least, that camp of Apaches had never listened 
 to such a reverberating reveille as rang among their 
 scattered lodges within five minutes of the time 
 
 o 
 
 when Oliver decided that he did not care to have 
 another nap before breakfast. 
 
 The effect was electric, so to speak, and one too- 
 ready brave found himself mounted on his pony, 
 with a whoop half-way up his larynx, before he dis- 
 covered the meaning of the strange alarm. 
 
 Then he also discovered that his pony was yet 
 tethered, and that the bow in his hard would be of 
 no manner of use until he should fit a string to it. 
 So he dismounted and proceeded to give one of his 
 squaws the beating required to keep her in good 
 condition. 
 
 
A CCEP TING THE SITU A TION. 1 57 
 
 A grand bray was that, and a proud Indian was 
 the Big Medicine when he listened to it, but some 
 of the sager counsellors of the band shook their 
 heads doubtfully. 
 
 What if that clarion should ever be sounded at 
 the wrong time ? 
 
 There was danger in it. 
 
 Still, a question of the sort could well be left to 
 that indefinite future which contains the solution 
 of so many other important problems. 
 
 What would the world do if it were compelled to 
 settle all its mules the first time it heard them 
 bray? 
 
 There is nothing more peaceful than an Indian 
 hunting camp, with braves enough to kill the game, 
 and squaws enough to do all the hard work after- 
 wards. The natural relations of the sexes are no- 
 where else presented in so striking and picturesque 
 a light. What is called the " Chivalry of the Middle 
 Ages," the barbaric era of our own tribes, can no- 
 where else receive so complete an illustration. 
 
 The Big Medicine was not disposed to do much 
 hunting, and when he did go forth he preferred 
 some other bearer than Oliver. It would hardly 
 have answered to be sat down with in the middle of 
 a drove of bisons. 
 
 Besides, before the next sunset, the band of young 
 braves which had followed the trail of Dr. Milyng 
 returned with a full report of their doings and ob- 
 
1 5 8 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 serrations, and the Big Medicine was, thereupon, 
 restored to all, and more than all he had lost in the 
 reverence of his fellows. 
 
 He on his part was prepared to take the entire 
 credit of what had happened, as fully as if he had him- 
 self driven the hapless drove of bisons through that 
 pass and over the precipice, and had now induced 
 Dr. Milyng to follow their example. He was not 
 the man to hinder the faith of the wavering by any 
 false modesty, and he was altogether ready to smoke 
 himself into another dream, while the men he 
 smoked for. galloped around the grass and killed his 
 meat for him. 
 
 What could civilization have done for such a 
 man D Nothing, now all the sheepskins are used up. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF A HOUSEHOLD TREASURE CON- 
 FLICTING VIEWS CONCERNING A LOST SHEEP. 
 
 THE failure of the old firm of Boyce, Millington 
 & Co. surprised some .people more than it did 
 others, but there were a good many to whom it was 
 a severe as well as a sudden blow. The business 
 had been a large one, and time had been when few 
 houses stood higher or had better connections, at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 The downfall was every way as complete as Mr. 
 Brown had intimated to Mabel Varick, but he did 
 not figure in the long list of creditors. His own 
 private counsel, however, speedily made his appear- 
 ance as the especial representative of the widow 
 Boyce, and all concerned were free to admit that 
 her interests needed looking after. 
 
 There were even a good many expressions of 
 sympathy, as of right there should have been, for 
 a lady of her social standing and accustomed sur- 
 roundings, so hopelessly reduced to penury. 
 
 Of course she was an innocent party, and nothing 
 
 159 
 
l6o THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 could have been more satisfactory than the manner 
 in which she surrendered every atom of property in 
 her possession to the assignee. She even offered 
 to submit her neatly kept housekeeping books of 
 account, but an examination of these was gallantly 
 and considerately waived by the gentlemen creditors 
 of the ruined firm. 
 
 She was also permitted, by an unanimous vote, 
 to keep and reserve from her household effects 
 the property of her late husband a good many 
 articles which would not have brought any consid- 
 erable sum at auction, but which, it was surmised, 
 might afterwards be of use to her, or might have 
 some special value from association. 
 
 Mr. Brown's attorney took care of all that, and 
 Mrs. Boyce herself attended to the selection and 
 removal of the list of articles specified. 
 
 You can always squeeze one more paper under 
 an india-rubber band, particularly when you have 
 only one band and there are a good many papers 
 lying around loose. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mrs. Boyce was a lady of the high- 
 est moral character and the strictest integrity. The 
 auctioneer testified to that when he came, after- 
 wards, to make the sale, and found not a single ar- 
 ticle missing which was called for by his schedule, 
 and all things in excellent condition and order. 
 
 The schedule was copied from a list furnished 
 the assignee by Mrs. Boyce herself, and must there- 
 
A TREASURE AND A LOST SHEEP. 161 
 
 fore Have been absolutely correct, but the auc- 
 tioneer did not know all that. 
 
 The bankrupt widow went home with Mabel 
 Varick, that first night, and not only Mabel but 
 her uncle were compelled to admiration of the even- 
 tempered fortitude displayed by their unfortunate 
 guest. 
 
 Mabel began to speak of it, but was interrupted 
 with: 
 
 " Now, my dear, I did not come here to bring a 
 cloud with me. I certainly have not lost every- 
 thing when such a home as this opens its doors to 
 receive me. I do not propose that my own life 
 shall be soured and spoiled, and I won't be mean 
 and selfish enough to make my friends uncomforta- 
 ble." 
 
 The look Mr. Brown shot at his niece, across the 
 breakfast-table, at the end of Mrs. Boyce's remarks, 
 was as much as to say : 
 
 " There, my dear, there's a lesson for you. If 
 ever you lose your husband and your property, re- 
 member that." 
 
 And he might have added, if he had known 
 everything : 
 
 " There's nothing will help you do it well, like 
 about two years of getting ready. You won't mind 
 it more than an old tombstone, after two years' 
 daily contemplation." 
 
 Wise people do not show how much they really 
 
1 62 THE HEART OF 2 T. 
 
 mind their tribulations, and Mrs. Boyce dropped 
 into her niche in the household organism as per- 
 fectly as if it had been fitted to her by her Q\VII 
 dressmaker. In less than a week it began to seem 
 as if there must have been something lacking in 
 that establishment before the widow came, and 
 surely would be if she should take it into her head 
 to go away. This, too, in the very heat and worry 
 of her own affairs, and when she was by no means 
 neglecting them. She had studied the campaign 
 she was now fighting, and the ground on which her 
 forces were moving was tolerably well known to 
 her. 
 
 That she was an accomplished woman, well edu- 
 cated and well read, Avas an understood thing, al- 
 though she was not in the habit of forcing her 
 strong points on the attention of other people, but 
 who would have expected her to possess so intimate 
 an acquaintance with technical geology and miner- 
 alogy? 
 
 Not Mr. Daniel Brown, surely, and all the greater 
 was his astonishment at the critical examination 
 she gave, a few evenings after her arrival, to his 
 tray full of specimens. 
 
 "I've a bag of them at the office," he remarked, 
 after asking a good many questions which he him- 
 self could not have answered. "I'll have them 
 sent up to-morrow. Perhaps you can tell me some- 
 thing about them." 
 
A TREASURE AND A LOST SHEEP. 163 
 
 " Indeed, I may not. But I've paid pretty dearly 
 for what little I know. Or others have for me. I 
 cannot help thinking that if my advice had 
 been taken, long ago, there would be fewer worth- 
 less mining shares among the assets of the 
 firm." 
 
 "You disapprove of mining speculation, then?" 
 
 " Decidedly, Mr. Brown. I am opposed to all 
 gambling. But even gold mining need not be 
 speculation." 
 
 " I understand you, I think. Well, I've no no- 
 tion of speculating, or of getting up bubble com- 
 panies, but then a really good mine " 
 
 "If you can find one?" 
 
 " I could never find one for myself, but I know 
 a man who can," 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 " That's what I'm hoping to learn before long. 
 He will turn up, one of these days, with a whole 
 pocket full of mines." 
 
 "Better than these, I hope, then. And yet 
 some of them are quite promising." 
 
 " You shall see the rest. I am in no manner of 
 hurry about it. You have already earned a fee as 
 an expert." 
 
 " Have I? That is splendid. Please let me earn 
 as many as you can." 
 
 And Mr. Brown's keen senses recognized the 
 laudable feeling of independence, and the desire to 
 
164 THE HE ART OF IT. 
 
 return a compensation for favors, which underlay 
 the widow's request. 
 
 " She is a good deal more than earning her 
 board," he thought. u She will be invaluable com- 
 pany for Mabel. Stir her mind up. I'm half glad 
 the firm failed, for our sakes." 
 
 But Mrs. Boyce and her troubles and accom- 
 plishments were not the only matters of importance 
 which pressed upon the mind of the merchant dur- 
 ing those next few days. 
 
 He was alone in his office, about noon of the 
 second, when a gentleman entered who had not 
 taken the pains to send a card of announcement 
 before him. 
 
 "Brother Dillaye? I had been both hoping and 
 fearing to see you. Have you any news of poor 
 Carrie?" 
 
 The visitor was a man of medium height, slender, 
 well-proportioned, admirably well dressed, and did 
 not seem to be above fifty years of age. His clean 
 shaven face was almost cadaverous in its thinness, 
 and its hard, resolute, haughty lines, revealed them- 
 selves with singular distinctness as he replied, in a 
 steady, modulated voice : 
 
 " Nothing, Brother Brown. I doubt if we ever 
 shall. To you, as a near connection, I am willing 
 to say, I hope we never may." 
 
 "Mr. Dillaye?" 
 
 " I mean it. This is the last drop in the cup of 
 
A TREASURE AND A LOST SHEEP. 165 
 
 our disgrace. If I should find her, I could not take 
 her back again." 
 
 " But what would you do?" 
 
 "I cannot say, just now. An asylum might an- 
 swer, if far enough away, or if I could make it per- 
 petual. My own house, never." 
 
 "What, not if you found her? Would you steel 
 your heart against her misfortune ? It is not her 
 fault." 
 
 "How do you know that? Who made you a 
 judge between me and my daughter?" 
 
 " Who made you a judge between her and God ?" 
 
 " She is my daughter." 
 
 " And He is her Father, a good deal more cer- 
 tainly than He is yours, just now." 
 
 " I did not come here to be dictated to, Brother 
 Brown." 
 
 u I'm very much in the habit of saying what I 
 think, Mr. Dillaye. I wonder how much real search 
 you've had made for her." 
 
 " Good-morning, Brother Brown. I think I may 
 as well go. I can manage my family affairs without 
 your help, I think." 
 
 " Good-morning, then, but I may as well say that 
 the daughter of my wife's sister will not be sent to 
 an asylum, if I find her, you to the contrary not- 
 withstanding." 
 
 Curiously stiff and dignified had been the brief, 
 formal exchange of views, as became men of their 
 
1 66 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 age and standing, who were family connections and 
 officers of the same church, but it needed no special 
 acumen to discern that there was small love lost 
 between them, and that no very tender ties were 
 severed when Mr. Dillaye so politely marched through 
 the office doorway. 
 
 " The old flint," exclaimed the merchant, a mo- 
 ment later. " I hope I do him no injustice, but I'd 
 like to know in what shape her mother's property 
 is. I'll see, before many days. It's my turn to 
 hunt for Carrie, now. I ought to have seen him 
 before. But then I've been so busy, and he and I 
 never did hitch teams. I'm glad it happened in my 
 office rather than his. He can't say I interfered 
 without a reason. I wouldn't like to stand in his 
 shoes when God asks him what has become of his 
 daughter. No, nor some other questions, either. 
 Cain's case was nothing to it." 
 
 Mr. Brown's color had been improving, from the 
 moment of Mr. Dillaye's entrance, and there was a 
 good deal of red in it when he came to the mention 
 of Cain. 
 
 It was not the first time, by many, that he had 
 found himself called upon to criticise the exceed- 
 ingly correct and respectable gentleman who had 
 been his wife's sister's husband, and the blood may 
 have been all ready to rise at the word. 
 
 Nothing was said about that interview in the 
 home circle, not even to Mabel Varick, for it might 
 
A TREASURE AND A LOST SHEEP. \6j 
 
 well be that no news of Carrie would come, but 
 there was as little sleep on the merchant's pillow, 
 that night, as if he had been listening for the voice 
 of Prince to announce another pair of burglars. 
 
 The third day passed without any special excite- 
 ment, except a conference or two with sharp-eyed 
 gentlemen whom nobody knew, but who, neverthe- 
 less, knew a great many other people. The detec- 
 tives were set at work with a vision of good pay 
 before them, and there was no telling what they 
 might do. 
 
 On the following morning, before Mr. Brown left 
 his house, the postman deposited at the door, among 
 other things, a small, yellow envelope, which looked 
 as if it might have been constructed for the purpose 
 of containing " powders" of some sort. 
 
 It was addressed to the merchant himself, and he 
 carelessly opened it, as a man will to whom many 
 envelopes come, from day to day. 
 
 " Mabel! Mrs. Boyce!" 
 
 The exclamation was so sharply sudden that even 
 the widow came very near upsetting her coffee, and 
 Mabel arose from her seat. 
 
 " After breakfast, please," he added, in a calmer 
 tone, " I will see you in the library." 
 
 "Mabel, your uncle means you." 
 
 " Both of you. I may need your adv?ce, Mrs. 
 Boyce." 
 
 It was well the postman did not reach that dis- 
 
1 68 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 tant part of his route too early, or that breakfast 
 would not have amounted to much. As it was, so 
 little of it remained to be eaten that its neglect was 
 of small consequence. They were all the sooner in 
 the library. 
 
 "It's all in a word," said Mr. Brown. "Carrie 
 Dillaye is in the hospital on the Island, and we 
 must get her out." 
 
 "On the Island, uncle?" 
 
 " Why, Mr. Brown !" 
 
 " I'll see my lawyer, at once. Get ready, both of 
 you. I'll order the carriage. Here's a matter, in- 
 deed. We must observe the most utter secresy. 
 Not even her father must know a word of it till 
 she's safe under our own roof." 
 
 " Not even her father, uncle?" 
 
 " No, and I'll tell you why, as we drive along. 
 Mrs. Boyce, your aid and counsel will be invalua- 
 ble. I'm not afraid to trust you with a family 
 secret." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Brown" 
 
 " Haste, now it seems as if every minute were a 
 week. Her own sister's child. Poor Carrie. And 
 yet, there's no name signed to the letter. I can't 
 understand it. There's something under it all." 
 
 No doubt. There always is. But Mr. Brown's 
 legal adviser was just the man to prevent that some- 
 thing from being made in any manner unpleasantly 
 public. What wires there were, he knew. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A THROUGH TRAIN AND ALL THROUGH A NIGHT. 
 
 BESSIE HERON reached the end of her journey 
 in perfect safety. There had been, from the 
 word "all aboard," something almost orthodox, 
 whatever that may be, in the behavior of that 
 train of cars, and Bessie felt that they were all do- 
 ing their duty by her. Not a connection was missed, 
 not a violation of the time-table occurred. If the 
 latter had been a creed, settled by a majority in a 
 " council," it could not have been more conscien- 
 tiously adhered to. 
 
 And yet, not one of the benighted servants of 
 the several railways the train passed over had a 
 glimmer of an idea that all this was by reason of 
 having for a passenger a young lady of such a high 
 moral character and such exceptional deserts. 
 
 Bessie knew it, however. She had often noted 
 similar things before, concerning cars and steamers 
 and such things, when she was on board, and it was 
 a great comfort, especially when members of her 
 
 169 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 own family, not to speak of short-sighted members 
 of the same church, failed to appreciate her. 
 
 Nor is there any call for a laugh at Bessie's ex- 
 pense, just there. 
 
 The prevailing notion among too large a section 
 of that part of humanity which assumes to be " good" 
 is that God's providence, though generally correct, 
 within limits, in its management of other people, is 
 decidedly out, so far as they are concerned. Whether 
 wilfully so or ignorantly, they are not always care- 
 ful to state, but of their convictions in the premises 
 there can be no manner of doubt. One of these 
 days there will be a reckoning, they plainly intimate, 
 and even if they shall then refuse to accept an 
 apology they will get their back pay with interest. 
 
 Not so much as an adventure came to relieve the 
 monotony of the long ride, until the afternoon of 
 the second day, and Bessie had an ample opportu- 
 nity for an historical review of her career as well as 
 a prophetic summary of her future. 
 
 The past and the present could be summed up in 
 one word. 
 
 They were in every respect and altogether " in- 
 adequate," and they had been made so by the 
 lamentable short-comings of those who, if they had 
 no regard for themselves, might at least have re- 
 membered, having been born under the same roof, 
 what a treasure had been committed to their guar- 
 dianship. 
 
A THRO UGH TRAIN'. ! 7 x 
 
 Where would she have laid the blame if Fred 
 Heron and a few others had been drowned, or 
 something, when she was yet in her teens? 
 
 Some people's relatives do get drowned early . 
 but then the question of relative " goodness" remains 
 to be settled, after all, and the argument amounts 
 to nothing. 
 
 But that second afternoon was fruitful of one 
 break to the prolonged dulness, and it came in the 
 shape of a young man in spectacles and a white 
 necktie. 
 
 He could hardly have told, without help from 
 Bessie, just how it was he came to be seated oppo- 
 site her, carrying on so delightful and improving a 
 conversation. The names of mutual friends and 
 acquaintances had fluttered to the surface, one after 
 another, till he found his soul divided between a 
 wonder as to who his fellow-traveller could be, and 
 whether or no his collar were too disgracefully 
 wilted. 
 
 He would have given a new pair of gloves to 
 have known if there were any cinders on his 
 face. 
 
 And yet he need not, for Bessie Heron would 
 unquestionably have told him, if there had been. 
 
 Duties of that kind, whether of a spiritual or 
 material nature, she never under any circumstances 
 neglected. 
 
 But then he did not know Bessie Heron.,. 
 
1 72 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " May I ask if you are settled over a church?" 
 she inquired, at last. 
 
 " Settled? Church?" he stammered, with a per- 
 ceptible wilt now in his shirt-collar. " I'm not in 
 the ministry, I'm in the grain trade. The one thing 
 that troubles me about it is that our house some- 
 times takes a turn in whiskey. I don't mind pork, 
 though I once had quite a prejudice about that 
 
 " Not in the ministry ?" exclaimed Bessie. " Well, 
 now ! I felt sure of it. Have you not mistaken your 
 vocation?" 
 
 " Perhaps I have, but it isn't always easy to tell, 
 you know. I was unfortunate at college ' 
 
 "Tickets, please," interjected the conductor, and 
 Bessie was doomed to hear no more, just then, of 
 the course of events which had perverted the career 
 of her railway acquaintance. She said to herself, 
 however: 
 
 "Well, if he is not a minister he looks like one. 
 What business has he to dress in that way, white 
 tie and all ? It's an imposition." 
 
 So it was. All that sort of thing is. 
 
 There were reasons for doubting, however, if 
 Bessie would have received a correct account of the 
 college misfortunes so vaguely referred to. They 
 probably amounted, at the uttermost, to some 
 stupid blunder or gross injustice on the part of a 
 narrow-minded and misguided " faculty." Our in- 
 stitutions of learning rarely know what they are 
 
A THRO UGH TRAIN. 173 
 
 about, but now and then they do a good thing for 
 the grain trade, and other lines of commerce and 
 industry. 
 
 Bessie Heron reached her journey's end in safety, 
 and was most hospitably received, in accordance 
 with the invitation she had applied for, but all that 
 while, Fred had been devoting himself to his duties 
 as hospital assistant's assistant, over there on the 
 Island. 
 
 A very unsatisfactory way for a man to spend 
 his precious time, no doubt, but it was not at all a 
 bad thing for the crowded and half-cared for in- 
 valids, for Fred continued to take hold with a sin- 
 gular and most unselfish energy. 
 
 It did not seem to matter to him whether he 
 were sick or well, although the effects of his inter- 
 ference with the roundsman's club had not by any 
 means departed. 
 
 " Let her ache," he muttered to himself, as he 
 passed from one cot to another. " There don't 
 seem to be any chance here for the little ones that 
 fellow spoke of, unless they're too small to be seen, 
 but I may as well take my chances for these sixty 
 days. They won't be so long, anyhow." 
 
 Dreadfully long they were, nevertheless, and 
 Fred had that within him which made them longer. 
 It was not so hard, nearly, when he was on duty, 
 and as busy as a lobby member in the last week of 
 a "long session," but the tug came during the in- 
 
174 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 terminable hours when he was supposed to be 
 asleep. 
 
 It was never entirely dark in the great room, 
 but, at times, there was just light enough left to 
 see all the shapes that were not there. 
 
 A strange population is that, in any room. For 
 instance, in a church while funeral services are go- 
 ing on, and the handkerchiefs pressed hard against 
 aching eyes prevent the use of any but interior 
 sight. 
 
 Fred Heron knew all about that, and some such 
 experiences came back to him, while he lay there. 
 Particularly one, where the sweetfaced woman in 
 the coffin, before the pulpit, yonder, wore a smile 
 on her dead lips. They had always worn a smile 
 for him, so long as the soul was in them, from the 
 earliest day he could remember. He hoped nobody 
 would tell her where he was now, or, if they did, 
 they would explain how he came there. 
 
 He could remember once, when he was a little 
 fellow, coming home with blackened eyes and a 
 bloody nose from a fight he had in defending a 
 cripple, and his mother hugged him instead of 
 scolding him. 
 
 " I'd as lief as not tell her all about it," he said 
 to himself. " She was an angel, then, and she 
 must feel a good deal the same way now, about 
 some things. I'd tell her, anyhow. But how queer 
 all the cots look, with the sick folk in them. And 
 
A HOSPITAL TWILIGHT. ^5 
 
 every body of them has a soul in it, they say, only 
 no one seems able to explain what they mean by 
 a soul. Suppose, now, some of these fellows 
 haven't any ? I've got one, I know that. I can 
 feel it, now, as I lie here. That isn't correct, 
 either. I don't mean I have one. I mean I am 
 one." 
 
 And as that thought took possession of him, he' 
 seemed to become a little more the master of his 
 vulture-like internal craving, but the shadowy area 
 around and above him was less and less of a 
 solitude. 
 
 Physicians who have studied the effects of vari- 
 ous narcotics tell strange stories of their observa- 
 tions. Things incredible, but for the high charac- 
 ter and pure motives of the narrators, and for the 
 scientific bearing of the data so gathered. The 
 longer Fred Heron lay and looked, that night, the 
 more distinctly he seemed to see, although not a 
 solitary gas-jet was increased above the dull blue 
 glimmer of the midnight watch. 
 
 At last his attention seemed to concentrate it- 
 self, without any will of his, upon a narrow bed, at 
 some little distance, where lay a prisoner whose ex- 
 act condition and requirements had been a puzzle 
 to the hospital authorities. 
 
 " He could not move an inch when I left him. 
 Was he shamming? He seems to be rising, now. 
 Delirious? No, he had no fever. And how comes 
 
1 76 TPIE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 it that he's all dressed ? What's that? A Prussian 
 army uniform ! Where did he get it, and all those 
 medals and decorations? Standing on the cot 
 and looking down at it, I declare. Where's the 
 man on duty. If he can't keep a better lookout, 
 I'll attend to it myself. Hallo, where's he 
 gone?" 
 
 Fred was on his feet, now, but all things around 
 him were in so deep a shadow that, but for the 
 whiteness of the couches, he could hardly have 
 made his way among them. 
 
 He did, however, as rapidly as he could, and 
 with a feeling creeping over him which he did not 
 remember to have had before. 
 
 It was nearly half a minute until he stood by that 
 particular cot. 
 
 There was a head on the pillow, a massive, well- 
 made head, such as belongs to a grand physique, 
 but Fred half doubted if there were any body for 
 it, under the coverlet. 
 
 So he slipped his hand under the bed clothes and 
 passed it across -the iron ribs of the body till it 
 stopped, suddenly, of itself. It was just over the 
 heart, and there was no need for it to go any 
 further. 
 
 The broad chest had forever ceased to rise and fall, 
 and the heart to beat. 
 
 Fred withdrew his hand and walked softly to the 
 other end of the ward. 
 
A HOSPITAL TWILIGHT. 
 
 In a few minutes afterwards a rough voice 
 aroused the surgeon in charge. 
 
 " No. i8's dead, sir." 
 
 "Dead? When did he die?" 
 
 " Just now, sir, all of a sudden, like." 
 
 " Heart disease, eh? I thought so, this afternoon. 
 I'll be there in a minute." And then, as he slowly 
 arose, he added : " Dead. Well, there are those 
 who will be sorry, and those who will be glad. For 
 once the extradition treaty has been fairly beaten. 
 But I'll have a report to make, and there'll be no 
 end of bother." 
 
 Fred Heron had done his duty, and, somehow, 
 when he returned to his own couch, he speedily 
 fell fast asleep, and not so much as a dream dis- 
 turbed him till morning. 
 
 He needed all the rest he could get, and Miller 
 had to shake him more than once before he could 
 be made to understand that he was "a man under 
 authority," from whom obedience and prompt ser- 
 vice were required by those into whose hands he 
 had fallen. 
 
 "Another day?" he said. "Well, and then I 
 suppose there will be another night to follow it." 
 
 Day it was, but all the sunlight of it failed to 
 make clear for him his experience of the previous 
 night. 
 
 " What did I see ?" He asked himself, again and 
 again. " How do I know I saw anything? Was it 
 
178 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 a ghost? No, I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, I 
 know what's the matter with me. It isn't as if my 
 brain and nerves were in good order. I saw a good 
 many other things I know were not there. He 
 wasn't there, either. But that's the very thing that 
 puzzles me. He was dead. And what's that, I'd 
 likexto know? Pity I can't ask some such man as 
 Tyndall, now, or Huxley, and have it all explained 
 in a twinkling. How those fellows have delivered 
 the world from superstition. There isn't a grain 
 in me. I mean of superstition. No, nor of any- 
 thing else, and I'm glad of that." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 TRAVELING EXPENSES AND A VERY EXPENSIVE 
 JOURNEY. 
 
 A MAN of Dr. Milyng's experience, thoroughly 
 well acquainted with the manners and customs 
 of mountains, was not likely to be long in finding 
 his way across any given range. It was of little use 
 for them, the mountains, to rise and station-them- 
 selves across his intended path, with their elbows 
 touching. He was well aware, however, that the 
 force of discipline and long habit would make them 
 keep their ranks in that precise order, like Russian 
 infantry, until he should have more than time for 
 bringing his pony and its precious freight through 
 and beyond them. 
 
 There they stood, when he reached the easterly 
 slopes, only they seemed to have faced about, and 
 to be frowning down upon him, as if they would 
 have said : 
 
 " You have done it. We are not unwilling. But 
 here we stand, now, between you and your wonder- 
 
 179 
 
ISO THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 ful mine. You will never repass us, and beyond 
 you are the deserts." 
 
 A good distance beyond him, as yet, and the im- 
 mediate vicinity was rich in pasture-valleys where 
 the abundance of game suggested the propriety of 
 laying in an ample supply of "jerked meat," before 
 he struck out into the arid solitudes beyond. Nor 
 was he the man to disregard so plain a dictate of 
 prudence. 
 
 Of course, the hunting and the other operations 
 consumed time, days and days of it, but there was 
 no help for it, and the doctor's solitary explorations, 
 in the performance of his duties, brought him some- 
 thing more than dried venison. 
 
 " I can't afford to load myself down with it," he 
 said, after a hard day's work in the bottom of a 
 sandy ravine, "but some of the pockets are first 
 rate, and I'll need a little ready money when I get 
 to the settlements. It can't be there are many 
 placers, here away, but this is a good one. There's 
 pay-dirt enough for a season's work, with a sluice. 
 If I had supplies I'd stay here for a month. It'd all 
 be so much capital towards working the other mine." 
 
 That's the way of it. All our best windfalls in 
 life are apt to be treated in precisely that way. 
 They are only regarded as so much " capital for 
 working that other mine." And, nine times out of 
 ten, that other mine had a great deal better be left 
 un worked, so far as we are concerned. 
 
A COSTLY JOURNEY. l8l 
 
 But the doctor was not now going through his 
 first " placer" campaign, and his judgment as to the 
 value of the " claim" he had struck was likely to be 
 correct. He would wash, therefore, and sift, and 
 dig around, until he had laid in his expense-money, 
 against his return to civilization, and then he would 
 pack his pony and move on. So he did, and the 
 pony himself seemed to consider it in the light of 
 a desirable summer vacation, and grew fat and frolic- 
 some, up to the very day when he resumed his load. 
 Then, indeed, he discovered that his master had 
 not been idle, and that provisions and other things 
 are subject to the tyrannical law of gravitation. 
 
 Even now, however, the doctor was in no wise 
 disposed to exhaust either himself or his horse by 
 too long and rapid marches. 
 
 " We'll have to call on all we've got in us, by-and- 
 by," he remarked, "and we might as well keep a 
 good stock on hand. Those two antelope skins'll 
 hold water fairly well, now, but if I take on any 
 more load I'll use up the pony." 
 
 It was now about ten days since he left the 
 mountain ranges behind him, and, for the last three, 
 the ravines in which he found water enough to 
 camp by had been separated by long reaches of hot 
 desert, almost devoid of either vegetable or animal 
 life. Still, he had been able to take very good care 
 of his pony, and that sagacious animal had recipro- 
 cated by a degree of docility which might easily 
 
1 8 2 THE HE A RT OF IT. 
 
 have been educated and ripened into affectionate 
 obedience. 
 
 " Muddy, but sweet/' was the doctor's comment 
 upon what was left of the pool he was preparing to 
 leave, one of those mornings. " Reckon I might as 
 well fill up my skins. There's no telling what the 
 next drink'll be sweetened with." 
 
 But the "next drink" did not come in the way 
 of that day's journeying, nor of the next, and the 
 slender provision he had been able to lay in had to 
 be husbanded with the utmost care. 
 
 A man is better than a horse, for he can endure 
 thirst better, and the pony's wants were invariably 
 cared for before those of his master. He was per- 
 mitted to avail himself of every eatable bunch of 
 grass, and every possible moment of rest, and his 
 parched mouth was washed out with fluid for which 
 every corner of the human organization in charge 
 of him was clamoring. 
 
 " It isn't so much mercy as it is selfishness," re- 
 marked the doctor. " If I can manage to keep him 
 on his feet for twenty-four hours more we're pretty 
 safe to strike water of some kind, even at tl]is 
 season." 
 
 Very possibly his four-footed friend only partly 
 comprehended him, but he took his allowance, and 
 whinnied pitifully for more. A proper knowledge 
 of his " rights" might have induced the latter to 
 "strike," or even to trample out whatever water 
 
A COSTLY JO URNE Y. 183 
 
 was left in the skin-bottle, but he was too much of 
 a brute for any such exhibition of lower-class in- 
 telligence, and the thirsty march went on. 
 
 Towards the close of that third day, however, Dr. 
 Milyng's own eyes began to brighten over sundry 
 indications which he discerned in the distant hori- 
 zon, and he turned to say, in a voice which was 
 husky with heat, fatigue, and a thirst-swollen tongue : 
 
 " One more pull, old fellow. It can't be more'n 
 fifteen or twenty miles, now. We'll strike it before 
 midnight." 
 
 But the pony halted by the side of a withered 
 sage-bush, and stood panting with outstretched 
 head, and bloodshot eyes, in the hot sun. 
 
 " Come to that, has it ? I've been afraid of it, all 
 day. There's only one thing to do, for I can't give 
 ye up." 
 
 Every ounce of load was promptly removed from 
 the pony and stacked under the sage-bush. The 
 end of the long lariat was fastened to the latter. 
 And then the last pint of water was squeezed down 
 the throat of the worn-out pony. 
 
 " Best I can do, old fellow. If I ain't mistaken 
 I'll be back for ye before morning." 
 
 Somewhat relieved and refreshed although he 
 might be, the hardy and faithful animal seemed to 
 comprehend that he was to be left alone, and looked 
 after the retreating steps of his master with a mourn- 
 ful, reproaching neigh. 
 
1 84 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 The doctor took with him no ores, no gold, no 
 provisions. Only his weapons and one of the ante- 
 lope-skin water-bottles on which he had expended 
 so much tallow and ingenuity. He had suffered 
 more than a little, in that long test of endurance, 
 but he strode away towards the sunrise with an 
 elasticity and rapidity which could hardly have been 
 expected. 
 
 That is, not from any ordinary man or under any 
 ordinary circumstances, but the doctor was no or- 
 dinary man, and a walk for life can scarcely be 
 termed an ordinary circumstance. 
 
 Mile after mile of sand and gravel, with here and 
 there a sage-bush or a dismal acacia, with patches 
 of soil interspersed that were whitened with alka- 
 line salts, and then the sun went down behind him, 
 but still the doctor kept up that steady, unfalter- 
 ing gait. 
 
 The moon came up, hot and red, and then the doc- 
 tor could not keep his resolute mouth shut any longer. 
 If he did any soliloquizing the sound of his voice 
 was lost in the harsh rattle of his dry breath. 
 
 A tough pull, but he had had precisely such an 
 experience before, and he did not seem to yield, 
 for an instant, to the manifest horrors of his situa- 
 tion. If there was any of the thing called faith in 
 his mental operations it was of that strong, uncon- 
 scious kind, which does not throw its vitality away 
 on disabling doubts. 
 
A CO S TL Y JO URNE Y. 185 
 
 Forward, till the moon was high in heaven, and 
 then, at last, the doctor stumbled. 
 
 " Bunch grass, eh ?" he whispered. " Now, that's 
 good. What's that ahead ?" 
 
 He regained his feet, with an effort, and pushed 
 forward for a couple of hundred yards. 
 
 Willows. A clump of them. Sumach bushes. 
 Some young cottonwoods. Short grass. A ravine. 
 Tall, bright, fresh blue grass. Hurrah, the bed of 
 a water-course, with standing pools at intervals ! 
 He knew that the desert, or the worst of it, lay 
 behind him, and a hope of life before. 
 
 He had kindled no fire for days, and it might be 
 dangerous now, but when he arose from his first 
 long, delicious draught of that yellow water, there 
 stood before him, on a knoll scarce thirty paces dis- 
 tant, a shape which brought his rifle to his shoulder, 
 as if without his volition. 
 
 " Splendid buck," he muttered, a moment later. 
 " I must have a square meal before I take the back 
 track." 
 
 A fire was built, therefore, and the venison was 
 cooked and eaten all that one man could eat. The 
 rest was swung up to the lower branch of a cotton- 
 wood. 
 
 A long sleep now, as a matter of course? 
 
 It would have been for some men, but Dr. Milyng 
 was at work in the blue grass with his long knife. 
 
 Men do not eat grass, but he did not rest until 
 
!86 THE HEART OF IT, 
 
 he had cut and tied up quite a bundle of the forage, 
 and then he proceeded to fill his " bottle." A good 
 deal of a load they would make for weary shoulders, 
 but the bottle and the grass were lifted unflinch- 
 ingly, and once more the man of iron turned his 
 footsteps westward. 
 
 Slower, now, for he had to follow the trail he had 
 made and marked, and not many white men could 
 have done that, even in broad daylight. 
 
 To miss it would be serious, indeed, but he had 
 no notion of missing it. 
 
 All distances are longer, too, to a hungry and 
 thirsty man, than to the same pedestrian after a 
 hearty meal. Even the forage and the water did 
 not cover the difference. 
 
 Still, the night was far spent when the doctor 
 once more stood beside the sage-bush to which he 
 had tethered his pony. 
 
 " Not any too soon," he muttered. " He's lying 
 down. I'll have to work carefully with him." 
 
 And so he did, for hours. 
 
 Water and rubbing. A handful of grass, and 
 some more water. More rubbing, and then the 
 pony got upon his feet and took some more water. 
 Then he lay down for awhile and considered the 
 matter, and seemed to think well of it, for he got 
 up again of his own accord and whinnied for re- 
 freshments. A careful process it was, but by the 
 arrival of daylight the doctor declared : 
 
A COSTLY JO URNE Y. 1 87 
 
 " He's safe to stand it now, but I'll give him a 
 day's rest when we get there. He's a good one." 
 
 The pony was compelled to resume his load, but 
 he stood fairly well under it and plodded on with- 
 out a stagger until he planted his own happy hoofs 
 among the blue grass at the border of the pool and 
 took a long, sweet draught in his own way. 
 
 But the doctor made another attack on the veni- 
 son, and then picked out a shady spot among the 
 bushes and lay down. 
 
 After such a strain as that had been, sleep had to 
 come, peril or no peril, and for twelve long hours 
 the weary veteran was as much at the mercy of all 
 comers as if he had taken a smoke with the Big 
 Medicine of the Apaches. Even the pony's pre- 
 cious burden lay unprotected on the grass, and that 
 hardy animal solaced himself for the trouble it had 
 caused him by giving it as wide a berth as possible 
 in his pasturing. To tell the truth, a civilized 
 horse, unaccustomed to that kind of vicissitude, 
 would hardly have survived the amount of feeding 
 and watering he did before his master woke up. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OUT OF THE ISLAND BY ONE OF THE SIDE DOORS. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Daniel Brown ordered his carnage 
 for that errand of mercy, with Mrs. Boyce 
 and Mabel Varick to bear him company, his ideas 
 of what he had better do in the premises were 
 somewhat vague. In fact, the more he examined 
 them, the more dim and undecided was the shape 
 they assumed, and he said so. 
 
 " But, Mr. Brown," remarked the widow, " I 
 thought we were to go to your legal adviser, 
 first?" 
 
 "And so we are." 
 
 " Well, won't he be very likely to know how it is 
 best -to proceed ?" 
 
 " I suppose so. He'll recommend something. 
 They always do. But then we'll have to decide, 
 after all." 
 
 In any ordinary business matter Mr. Brown was 
 
 188 
 
THE SHOR TEST WAY U T. \ 89 
 
 just the man to disgust his " counsel" by deciding 
 for himself, instead of agreeing with them, but for 
 once he discovered that the situation was master of 
 him. 
 
 A sharp-eyed, well-fed, resolute little man, was 
 Mr. Allyn, when he smiled around the little circle 
 of his distinguished visitors, that morning, and he 
 seemed to take the deepest interest in the case 
 presented,, but when Mr. Brown inquired: 
 
 "That's the whole sad story, Mr. Allyn, how are 
 we to get over there?" he quietly responded : 
 
 " Riotous and disorderly conduct is the surest 
 way, my dear sir." 
 
 " But we must see her at once. It isn't a matter 
 to be trifled with." 
 
 " Please do not mistake me, my dear sir, but you 
 surely do not think of going over, yourselves, you 
 three ?" 
 
 " Certainly. We cannot do less. May I ask, why 
 not?" 
 
 " Because you would thereby defeat the very 
 object I suppose you to have in view." 
 
 " How do you mean ?" 
 
 "By, in the first place, making sure of the most 
 disagreeable publicity. It would be in all the 
 papers. In the second place, I fear you would pre- 
 vent my securing Miss Dillaye's immediate release." 
 
 " I do not see that. It's an outrage. A gross out- 
 rage. I'm not without influence, Mr. Allyn " 
 
THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 " Can you bring it to bear without stating your 
 case to some one, or perhaps to a number?" 
 
 " Ah well no I suppose not." 
 
 "What if I say then, that no sort of influence, 
 such as you can wield, is required, and that, of the 
 kind which is required, there are saloon-keepers and 
 dog-fanciers who have twice as much as you. Not 
 to speak of humble members of the bar." 
 
 "Such as yourself?" 
 
 " By no means, but such as I shall retain, with 
 your permission. Please write me a letter, of intro- 
 duction and so forth, to Miss Dillaye, and I will 
 guarantee her prompt release and delivery at your 
 house." 
 
 "But can we not meet her, at some place?" 
 
 " On this side of the river, my dear sir. Your 
 carriage can be in waiting at two o'clock, this after- 
 noon." 
 
 "But can you not explain?" 
 
 " Not till I know more myself. I shall do nothing 
 improper, you may be very sure of that." 
 
 "Mrs. Boyce," remarked Mr. Brown, "what do 
 you say ?" 
 
 " Why, Mr. Brown, Mr. Allyn certainly knows 
 more about it than I do. I should not dream of 
 trying to improve on his advice." 
 
 "O uncle," exclaimed Mabel, "it surely is the 
 better way. I will come down with the carriage 
 and wait for her." 
 
THE SHORTEST WA Y OUT. igi 
 
 " So will I, then. Beg your pardon, Mr. Allyn, 
 but I believe I have got myself excited over this 
 matter." 
 
 " No wonder," replied the lawyer, " but men of 
 our profession have to avoid that. Our first lesson 
 is to keep cool. If we fail to learn that, our other 
 lessons do not amount to much. I will telegraph 
 in a couple of hours or so, where you had better 
 wait for us. I do not think you will be disappointed." 
 
 Very politely he bowed them out, but they were 
 hardly gone when he sat back in his office-chair with 
 a dry little chuckle. 
 
 " Pretty kettle of fish he'd have made of it. 
 Stirred up the courts and the city departments. 
 Made a big row. Got the reporters after him for a 
 week. Shouldn't wonder if the whole family had 
 their portraits in the illustrated weeklies. The 
 poor girl never'd have heard the end of it. Get 
 her out ? Of course I can. They'll be only too glad 
 to have it done without any unpleasant fuss. They've 
 too many awkward things on their calendar already 
 to be hungry for another just now." 
 
 Mr. Brown had not neglected, before departing, 
 to pen a hasty note of " authority" to Carrie Dillaye, 
 and, armed with this, Mr. Allyn put on his hat and 
 sallied forth. To do him justice, he was quite willing 
 to let other matters look out for themselves while 
 he devoted himself to such an errand as he had now 
 in hand. 
 
!C)2 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 There were not many " wires" to be pulled, or 
 at least it did not require any more time to pull 
 them than Mr. Allyn had given himself, and the 
 promised telegram was duly sent and received. 
 
 A little to Mr. Brown's surprise, Mrs. Boyce de- 
 cidedly declined making one of the party for the 
 second trip. 
 
 " I've thought it over," she said, " and I am sure 
 Miss Dillaye would rather meet no one but you 
 and Mabel, under such disagreeable circumstances. 
 Especially if she is ill or nervous it will be better 
 so. I will have everything ready here when you 
 return." 
 
 And after Mr. Brown was in the carnage he said 
 to Mabel: 
 
 " What good common sense Mrs. Boyce has. 
 Genuine delicacy. I can see that her decision was 
 a wise one, but most women would have come right 
 along, without thinking." 
 
 Mabel assented, but she did not seem disposed to 
 talk much. Probably she was thinking and feeling 
 too deeply about her cousin Carrie. 
 
 She could not, of course, have helped admiring 
 Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 It was about half-past one o'clock of that day 
 that Fred Heron, after struggling desperately with 
 the restless spirit which possessed him, took it into 
 his head to manoeuvre for an errand to the female 
 ward of the hospital. He was anxions to have a 
 
THE SHOR TEST WA Y UT. 
 
 word with the matron, but he was not very clear as 
 to what he wanted to say to her. 
 
 It must have been something about Carrie Dillaye, 
 for no sooner had he crossed the supposed-to-be im- 
 passable boundary of that section of the sick-prison 
 than he looked quickly around for his acquaintance. 
 
 He searched in every direction, but he found her 
 not. 
 
 Could she have been taken down sick again ? Or 
 could anything have happened to her? Could she 
 have been removed to the common ward ? 
 
 He knew there were traditions of dreadful things 
 connected with the history of that noble institu- 
 tion, and all he had heard, and more, came trooping 
 through his mind as he looked, and looked in vain. 
 
 It was the matron'i voice at his elbow, as hard 
 and as harsh as ever. 
 
 " It's all right, Rogers. She's been gone these 
 ten minutes. They came down fairly well, but I 
 expect you to look out for me a little when your 
 own turn comes." 
 
 "Gone?" exclaimed Fred. 
 
 "Yes, didn't you know they were coming? The 
 lawyers? Mum's the word, though, for they're 
 awful nice about it. What's her real name, any 
 way? The one she gave me was Dillaye. Of course 
 that's a blind." 
 
 " Blindest sort," replied Fred, "but I can't give 
 you any other, not without lying." 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 "You can't, eh? Well, I don't care. One's as 
 good as another. I hain't got much curiosity, no- 
 how." 
 
 But Fred Heron went back to his own limits, with 
 a great buzz of doubt in his head. 
 
 Had the right parties come for Carrie Dillaye? 
 Was there no fraud about it? 
 
 He would have been glad to be sure about that, 
 and it half-way seemed as if she ought to have sent 
 for him before going. 
 
 And yet, why should she ? 
 
 What was the hospital assistant, that she should 
 remember him in such a moment of excitement as 
 that in which Mr. Allyn handed her Mr. Brown's 
 note, and said he had come to take her away. 
 
 " Home?" she had said. " My father?" 
 
 " I've not seen him, Miss Dillaye, but Mr. Brown's 
 own carriage will be waiting for you. I believe he 
 means to take you to his house." 
 
 "O I'm so thankful! But nobody will see me? 
 Nobody will know?" 
 
 "Only Mr. Clark, here, and myself. You can 
 trust our prudence, Miss Dillaye. Shall we not go 
 at once? The boat is ready for us." 
 
 And so it was. Not a ferry-boat, nor yet the 
 " tug" which plied between the Island and the shore, 
 at useful intervals, but a good-sized yawl, manned 
 by four oarsmen who seemed very decent fellows 
 for convicts, and commanded by an official whose 
 
THE SHOR TEST WAY UT. j 95 
 
 face struck Carrie Dillaye, if not the lawyers, as de- 
 cidedly the worst one on board. 
 
 So difficult it is to judge by a man's face whether 
 he should be in prison in one capacity or in another. 
 
 A sweep of the oars, and the boat darted away 
 from the landing into the strong rush of the tide, 
 which instantly called for all the muscle of the four 
 convicts. 
 
 A long, slender, waspish piece of land, was the 
 Island, with its various temples of charity and cor- 
 rection strewn irregularly over its surface, and on 
 either side of it the tides poured back and forth 
 with their ceaseless ebb and flow, stronger there 
 than anywhere else, because pent between such nar- 
 row barriers of sea-wall and pier. And beyond the 
 swift currents, on either shore, were the endless 
 streets and squares of the great city which is by 
 that water split in two. 
 
 A great city, and through all those endless miles 
 of stony thoroughfares the tides of human life ebb 
 and flow with a velocity and turbulence they attain 
 not elsewhere, because nowhere else are they pent 
 between such narrow barriers of unyielding circum- 
 stance. 
 
 But Carrie Dillaye had not yet begun to think of 
 the city. She was looking back at the Island. 
 
 "O sir," she suddenly exclaimed, "I ought to 
 have seen him, before I came away. I ought at 
 least to have said good-bye to him." 
 
196 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " To whom, Miss Dillaye?" politely inquired Mr. 
 Allyn. 
 
 " Mr. Rogers, one of the hospital keepers. He 
 was very kind to me. The only person who was. 
 Seems to me I owe him my liberty. He told me 
 he should write to Mr. Brown." 
 
 "O he knows your uncle? It's all right, then. 
 Of course we could not go back, now. Mr. Brown 
 and Miss Varick will be waiting for us." 
 
 "Will they, indeed? I would not keep them 
 waiting one moment. But I must not be ungrate- 
 ful. I do hope I shall see him again." 
 
 " Never fear about that, Miss Dillaye. If you 
 don't see him, Mr. Brown will. That sort of man 
 is never backward to report himself if he has any 
 good excuse." 
 
 " He is not that sort of man, I'm sure he is not/' 
 began Carrie, half-indignantly, but there was a smile 
 of derisively superior intelligence on the lips of the 
 polite lawyer, and the young lady somehow called 
 to mind the fact that she herself was but just escap^ 
 ing from the horrible grasp of a prison hospital, 
 and she subsided into a pale and anxious sort of 
 silence. 
 
 The channel between the Island and the city is 
 a narrow one, but it is not to be ferried in a hurry 
 by a row-boat when the tide is running strong, so 
 that Carrie Dillaye had plenty of time to collect 
 her thoughts, or to scatter them, before the yawl 
 
THE SIT OR TEST WA Y OUT. 
 
 was pulled in at the bottom of a little flight of 
 movable wooden stairs. 
 
 " Let me help you up," said Mr. Allyn, and Carrie 
 felt that she needed help. She had never in all her 
 life stood at the bottom of so tremendous an eleva- 
 tion as that between the boat's gunwale and the 
 level of that rickety, dirty pier. It seemed to con- 
 tain all the moral distance between the Island and 
 the city, and Carrie did not know how delusive a 
 thing that might be. Her trembling steps were 
 aided in their task right vigorously by Mr. Allyn, 
 for that gentleman was on a strictly business errand, 
 and would have reproached himself for any neglect 
 of the least part of it, and in a moment more she 
 was conscious, dimly, that the boat had instantly 
 been rowed away by its convict crew, and their un- 
 convicted captain. 
 
 A long, narrow pier, longer, by hundreds and 
 hundreds of miles of shame and suffering, than any 
 which Carrie Dillaye had ever before seen or heard 
 of, but a close carriage, drawn by a very stylish pair 
 of horses, was waiting at the shore end. 
 
 Mr. Alfyn must have been a gentleman as well 
 as a lawyer, for not one word was spoken as the 
 door of the carriage came open, and Carrie was all 
 but lifted through it, and it was banged behind her 
 instantly, and the driver whipped up his horses, 
 and all she knew or cared to know for a few min- 
 utes was that a pair of strong arms received her. 
 
IQ8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 She 1cnew whose arms they were, although Mr. 
 Brown struggled in vain to unchoke a kindly word 
 or so from the glut of them which were struggling 
 so fiercely in his riotous and disorderly throat. 
 
 She knew it was her uncle, and then she had no 
 doubt whatever by whose side he had put her down, 
 on the back seat, for another, not so strong a pair 
 of arms, was round her now, and the voice of Mabel 
 Varick sounded slightly defiant of somebody, if not 
 of everybody, as she exclaimed : 
 
 " You're going home with us, Carrie, dear. Don't 
 be afraid. Don't cry. We'll take care of you.'* 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PRINCE AND THE WIDOW TAKE A SURVEY OF THE 
 SITUATION. 
 
 A VERY wise woman was Mrs. Boyce, and 
 gifted with a high degree of that kind of 
 philosophy which refuses to break its heart over the 
 inevitable. Her business affairs, she knew, were 
 in better hands than her own, although she was 
 well pleased with the fact that her several boxes 
 were safely stored, and that her personal trunks, 
 with her wardrobe and so forth, were under the 
 protecting aegis of Mr. Daniel Brown's hospitable 
 roof. 
 
 The past was secure, and so, to all appearance, 
 was the present, but she had hardly as yet had a 
 day-light opportunity for quiet contemplation of 
 the latter. The first chance came when Mabel 
 Varick and her uncle drove off together on their 
 errand of mercy and hope, leaving the widow look- 
 ing after them from the open window of the 
 library. 
 
 199 
 
200 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Prince followed them to the gate, for he had 
 been blessed with an increase of liberty since his 
 adventure with the tramps, albeit with the melan- 
 choly drawback of a wire-cage on his muzzle. That, 
 to be sure, was only meant as a protection against 
 improper food which might again be cast in his 
 path, but the sorrow of it was none the less de- 
 pressing to the mind of the dog. 
 
 There is probably no created thing that is satis-. 
 fied with its muzzle, no matter what the reason for 
 strapping it firmly on. 
 
 Prince looked at the departing carriage with a 
 low whine, as much as to say: 
 
 "Gone. So they have. And the only protec- 
 tion this world has from its tramps and things is 
 left here with his faithful nose in prison." 
 
 And then he turned and strode back along the 
 gravel-walk, up the front steps and through the yet 
 open door. He might as well have a whole house 
 over his head as that intolerable wire-cage. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce had not hitherto succeeded in ac- 
 quiring the confidence of Prince-, but she was well 
 aware of his importance. Of small account in any 
 household must be that member whom the house- 
 dog refuses to recognize as "one of us," and Mrs. 
 Boyce knew altogether too much not to know that. 
 
 When, therefore, the stately quadruped marched 
 into the library and looked around him so wist- 
 fully, he was greeted with a degree of cordiality 
 
EXTREME DOGMA TISM. 2 Ql 
 
 which ought to have gone to his very heart. It 
 must have done so, more or less, for not only were 
 the usual effects visible in the corresponding sway 
 of his heavily fringed tail, but he came forward, 
 more and more slowly, until his wire-bound head 
 was thrust into her lap. 
 
 Absurdly forlorn was the look he gave her, and 
 her own eyes suddenly lighted up with a half- 
 triumphant expression. It seemed as if all the in- 
 dications were so completely in her favor, even 
 Prince 
 
 But the one great enemy of the profoundest 
 human wisdom is its proneness to that haste which 
 makes the present the enemy of the future. Such 
 a perpetual infanticide of hope goes on at the 
 hands of that same haste! Mrs. Boyce had per- 
 mitted her too-ready hands to fumble with the 
 strap and buckle of Prince's muzzle, as if she had it 
 in mind to earn his gratitude by a temporary gift 
 of freedom. 
 
 He knew what she meant, there could be no 
 doubt of that, but all the brute fidelity within him 
 arose in prompt resentment. That was an act of 
 sovereignty which belonged to his master alone, or 
 his known and accredited delegates, and its usurpa- 
 tion by unauthorized fingers called for so gruff, 
 husky, threatening a protest, and so green a gleam 
 in his sagacious eyes, that Mrs. Boyce drew back 
 her touch as if from something very hot. 
 
202 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " You ungrateful fellow. Wear it, if you want to. 
 I'll never offer to help you again." 
 
 Prince wagged his tail, but did not remove his 
 head, and the widow was a little puzzled what to 
 do about it. She had duties before her, all over 
 the house, more than anybody else knew anything 
 about, and here was this monstrous animal right in 
 the way of them all. Especially in her own way. 
 There, too, he seemed disposed to remain, for min- 
 ute after minute passed, and Prince continued his 
 unwavering study of her face, with his upturned 
 eyes, except when, now and then, he yawned as 
 widely as the confining wires would let him. In 
 those brief moments Mrs. Boyce obtained a clearer 
 idea than she had ever had before, of what is meant 
 by " the jaws of destruction." She concluded that 
 they must be lined with ranges of long, white teeth 
 around a cavern of vivid red, shading into black 
 streaks, here and there. It was a great improve- 
 ment in the situation, whenever Prince again shut 
 his mouth. 
 
 How long it lasted, that mutual study of dog and 
 lady, were hard to say, with exactness, nor could 
 its further duration have been prophesied, but at 
 last the front-door went to with a great bang, when 
 a passing servant discovered how carelessly it had 
 been left open, and Prince was compelled to go for 
 a look into the hall. Mrs. Boyce was on her feet in 
 an instant. 
 
EXTREME DOGMA TISM. 203 
 
 " Was I afraid of him?" she said to herself. " He 
 could not have bitten me. I declare, it seemed to 
 me as if I could not have moved. Have dogs any 
 mesmeric power?" 
 
 One would say not, at least if they are well muz- 
 zled, but under some circumstances, at the foot of a 
 fruit-tree with a boy in it, for instance. But then 
 that may not be considered genuine mesmerism. 
 
 Once delivered, the widow had no notion of re- 
 turning into bondage, but Prince was by no means 
 disposed to deprive her of his company. 
 
 Slowly, thoughtfully, as she passed from room to 
 room, mentally grasping the contents and capacities 
 of each as only such a woman can, just so slowly, 
 thoughtfully, and with even greater dignity, the 
 great and solemn dog, with his wire muzzle on his 
 head, paced from room to room behind her. He 
 knew she belonged in the house, and perhaps he saw 
 no special objection to her present pilgrimage, but 
 whatever article of furniture, of art, of curious an- 
 tiquity or other attraction, the widow paused be- 
 fore, on that same piece of property were at the 
 same moment concentrated the eyes and interest of 
 the sagacious Prince. 
 
 In one room on the second floor, a large corner 
 room, there stood an elegantly carved ebony cabinet 
 between the windows. It was surmounted by a 
 mirror, but was evidently more of a writing-desk 
 than dressing-table, although it might have served 
 
204 THE HEART OF IT - 
 
 for either or both. A curious ancient sort of an 
 affair, and the key was in the lock, as much as to 
 say, " No secrets here, certainly none from you." 
 
 Mrs. Boyce put out a white, plump hand, on 
 which were lovely rings, and it rested a moment on 
 a little carven dragon, just above the key. Then it 
 was quickly and sharply snatched away, although 
 the ebony dragon had neither moved wing or claw 
 nor uttered a sound. 
 
 No, not the dragon. The growl came through 
 the meshes of that wire-cage on the head of the 
 house-dog. 
 
 "You foolish fellow," she exclaimed, " I shall not 
 steal anything." 
 
 But Prince only wagged his tail and yawned. 
 There was much about his self-assumed duty which 
 he did not clearly understand, and he knew that 
 good manners were required of all in that house. 
 As much tail-wagging, therefore, as politeness might 
 suggest, but not too much investigation, and all that 
 sort of thing. His mind was clearly made up on 
 that head, whatever might be the temporary dis- 
 abilities of his own. 
 
 Certainly a noble mansion, elegantly and taste- 
 fully furnished in every part. Even the servants' 
 rooms were models of neatness and comfort. Mr. 
 Brown would have despised himself if he had per- 
 mitted them to be otherwise, and Mrs. Boyce was 
 compelled to remark : " The housekeeper is a good 
 
EXTREME DOGMA TJSM. 205 
 
 one, no doubt, but there is more in Mabel Varick 
 than I had imagined. This is not all housekeeper. 
 There's more than a little mistress about it. I'm 
 glad to have learned so much as that, in spite of 
 this horrid old dog. I'll make a friend of him, 
 though, soon enough. He'll get used to me, and 
 then it'll be only a question of bones. Dogs are all 
 alike." 
 
 That is the prevailing superstition, but there is a 
 tremendous fallacy in it. One dog is no more like 
 another than one day is like another. No, not so 
 much, for the days are nominally of the same length, 
 while the dogs are not. Even clipping their tails 
 will not make them so. 
 
 Back to the library, now, and Prince went about 
 his other business, and left Mrs. Boyce to the en- 
 joyment of the book she picked up from the table. 
 There was one occupation, at all events, which he 
 considered entirely innocent, but in which he took 
 no interest. Even if he had known more about 
 such things, it is possible he might have retained 
 his opinion without any loss of reputation for wis- 
 dom. He would simply have continued to vote with 
 the majority of his fellow-beings. 
 
 But Mrs. Boyce had not picked up that book with 
 any intention of reading it. Something to hold in the 
 hand while gazing out of the window and following 
 a very wandering train of thought, that was all. 
 There was a good deal in her present circumstances 
 
206 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 which called for careful thinking, and even the con- 
 duct of Prince may have had its suggestiveness to 
 so keen a mind as that of the widow. Her survey 
 of the house had been conducted leisurely, and had 
 consumed a good deal of time for her, and patient 
 waiting by the window ate up the rest, until there 
 came a sound of rapid wheels up the street and Mr. 
 Brown's carriage stopped in front of the gate. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce had at first intended to open the front- 
 door for them, in person, but she had now thought 
 better of that, and she did but pull the bell for a 
 servant. When they came in she could be just a 
 little in the back-ground, at the library door. 
 
 It was admirably done, for Mr. Brown did not 
 have to ring the bell, and when Mabel and Carrie 
 came in, the latter was just able to perceive, in a dim, 
 cloudy sort of way, that she was "received" by Mrs. 
 Boyce. Such a kindly sweet-voiced, smiling wel- 
 come, a good deal more friendly than motherly, but 
 with a subtle absence of any undue expression of 
 feeling, for which Carrie could not help being grate- 
 ful. It seemed so to ignore the suggestion that 
 there were any unpleasant things connected with 
 her coming, and such a delicate desire to make her 
 feel at home. Mabel Varick had been trying to 
 school her cousin into that state of mind, all the 
 way, and she too would have been grateful if it had 
 not been for the self-possessed completeness of 
 that reception. It was not only self-possessed, it 
 
EXTREME DOGMA TISM. 2 Q? 
 
 seemed to her, but almost house-possessed as 
 well. And good Mr. Brown thought he had never 
 witnessed anything so nearly perfect in all his life. 
 
 Very likely he never had. 
 
 "Would your cousin not like to go to her own- 
 room, dear?" asked the widow, of Mabel. "It is 
 all ready for her." 
 
 " Her room ? O yes, she is to room with me. 
 Come, Carrie, I'll order lunch, and we'll be ready for 
 it. Uncle Daniel can stay and talk with Mrs. 
 Boyce. I know she won't mind our leaving her." 
 
 " Certainly not, dear. And I'll see about the 
 lunch. Is there anything special you and your 
 cousin would like?" 
 
 " Never mind them," exclaimed Mr. Brown, his 
 strong, honest face all aglow with the enthusiasm of 
 his inner purposes. "Run right along, girls; I'll 
 see to everything. I'm just happy all over. You 
 are safe, now, Carrie." 
 
 Miss Dillaye had arisen, while he was speaking, 
 from the sofa upon which she had sank on entering, 
 and Mabel had put an arm around her, as if she 
 thought some sort of assistance might be needed, 
 but there was a great light on her cousin's face as 
 she leaned towards Mr. Brown and murmured : 
 
 " Uncle Daniel, I am safe, indeed I am. It would 
 never have happened if I had been here. I see it 
 all, now. Quick, Mabel, I must go with you before 
 I say any more." 
 
2o8 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 And there was a half-frightened look on Mabel 
 Varick's face as the two hurried out of the library, 
 but it had chased away something very like a 
 cloud. 
 
 If Mr. Brown expected to be plied with questions 
 concerning what had passed since he left the house, 
 he was agreeably disappointed, but the account he 
 gave the widow was amply sufficient. He told all 
 he knew, before lunch was ready, and she listened 
 with the utmost sympathy and appreciation. He 
 was absolutely sure of her admiring approval. Nor 
 was there the least touch of hypocrisy on the part 
 of Mrs. Boyce. She was just the woman to com- 
 prehend the vigorous unselfishness of such a man. 
 The one thing she failed to see, perhaps, was 
 that very little weakness displayed itself, after 
 all, in what seemed to be the soft spots of Mr. 
 Brown's character. A moderate pilgrimage among 
 his business acquaintances would have enabled her 
 to discover many things to which she was as yet 
 disposed to be a little blind. Even her own self- 
 knowledge should have taught her that a woman 
 like the widow Boyce could not possibly have so 
 admired a man who was the least bit of a fool. 
 
 What she wanted to ask him about, after all, was 
 the nature of his purposes, rather than the history 
 of what he had already done, but Carrie herself had 
 said enough to suggest the idea that those purposes 
 would require more than a little close thinking. 
 
EXTREME DOGMA T1SM. 
 
 209 
 
 " Can there be," she said to herself, " a skele- 
 ton of any sort among the closets of a family like 
 this?" 
 
 If so, Daniel Brown was just the man to string the 
 loose bones of it together and secure them a decent 
 burial, without setting up any unnecessarily des- 
 criptive monument. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RAW VOLUNTEERS AGAINST REGULAR TROOPS. 
 
 THERE is no other corner of the habitable globe 
 so entirely hidden and unexplorable as the 
 private chamber of a young lady, unless it may be 
 the inner room of her own heart. But Bessie Heron 
 sat by her table, that evening, with her pen in her 
 hand, inditing a somewhat minute confidential pic- 
 ture of both kinds of privacy to her former hostess, 
 Mrs. Baird. That is to say, she gave a reasonably 
 full description of her present surroundings, and 
 ornamented it with graphic settings forth of her 
 state of mind. 
 
 Nor could Mrs. Baird have complained of any 
 lack of truth to nature on the part of the artist, 
 for Bessie was a good hand with a pen. 
 
 But she wa^ not contented to stop there. Other 
 states of mind and heart required analysis and de- 
 scription, especially those belonging to her erring 
 brother Fred, and if Mrs. Baird had never before 
 obtained a clear idea concerning the needs and dis- 
 210 
 
ON THE SKIRMISH LINE. 2 1 1 
 
 qualifications of that luckless wanderer, she received 
 one now. That is, if Bessie's picture made its due 
 impression on her mind. It was all done so lov- 
 ingly, too, with such a perpetual ripple of sisterly 
 sorrow and hope, as ought to have been in the 
 highest degree satisfactory to Fred, or even to his 
 wife, if he had had one. Pity he had not, and that 
 she could not have received that letter. How it 
 would have opened her eyes. And Bessie thought 
 it not unlikely Fred might meet Mrs. Baird, some 
 day or other, and she desired to interest that good 
 and kindly lady on his behalf. She, in turn, might 
 interest others, and they ought to know all about 
 him, and how very much he stood in need of con- 
 stant surveillance. She had helped him, in that 
 way, had that good sister of his, more times than 
 once, already, and one striking proof of the de- 
 pravity of his nature was that he had not only 
 shown no appreciation of her kindness, but had 
 even manifested a disposition thereafter to separate 
 and conceal from her his ways in life. He had 
 gone so far as to take pains that she should not 
 know or come in contact with any of his present 
 friends and associates. 
 
 It was hard to understand, and^Bessie said as 
 much, in a long letter she wrote him, after com- 
 pleting the one to Mrs. Baird. 
 
 Many things she had to endure, in the inscruta 
 ble course of Divine Providence could that have 
 
212 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 been Bessie's Sunday name for Blind Luck? but 
 the lack of her brother's sympathy and confidence 
 had been one of the bitterest drops in the cup of 
 her earthly discomfort. She felt for him, and she 
 wanted him to understand it, but she had neither 
 care nor thought for herself she had never had 
 and she freely and frankly told him so. For his own 
 sake, however, the sooner he aroused himself and 
 began to care somewhat for others, not for her, in- 
 deed, for she had friends who loved her and cared 
 for her, and acknowledged how much they were 
 indebted to her, but for Augustus, and for well 
 for quite a list of more or less able-bodied men and 
 women the sooner he would realize what a dis- 
 graceful failure he had made of his life thus far, and 
 that would be a tremendous blessing. 
 
 So it would, but it might be Fred had a tolerably 
 clear notion of the sort already. 
 
 Bessie's philosophy of help differed somewhat 
 from poor, old, stupid John Bunyan's, not to speak 
 of some of the writers from whom the tramp in 
 Bedford jail was so fond of quoting. He, and some 
 of the rest, talked of their pilgrim as finding a 
 means of casting off his burden. There was even a 
 place for it to fall into, so that he saw it no more, 
 but marched on rejoicing, but Bessie understood 
 clearly that no such thing would have done for 
 Fred. If she had known, that night, in what ward 
 of what hospital to look for him, she would, no 
 
ON THE SKIRMISH LINE. 2 1 3 
 
 doubt, have wept profusely, but she would have 
 consoled herself with the hopeful thought 
 
 "I expected some such thing. But will it be 
 enough? Will it teach him what he really is? It's 
 only for sixty days. O if he would but come out 
 subdued and in a frame of mind to listen to me, I 
 would not care how much he suffered. It would 
 all be well put in." 
 
 Yes, if she had known it all she would have borne 
 it, for she had a good deal of that sort of heroism 
 in her composition, as Fred had more than once 
 discovered. 
 
 Even such a case as that of Carrie Dillaye would 
 have had its bright and comforting side to a mind 
 like Bessie's, and it was a pity the two were so widely 
 separated, that evening. As it was, the course of 
 events at Mr. Brown's had been led by the nose in 
 a way the wisdom of which was open to question. 
 
 Mabel and Carrie remained in thelatter's dressing- 
 room an unconscionably long time, considering 
 what had been said about lunch, and only the faint- 
 est outline can be given of what they had been 
 up to. 
 
 " I'm so glad," Mabel remarked, " that we are so 
 nearly of a size. My things always fitted you. 
 Nevermind the colors being a little wrong for you." 
 
 "Do I look very badly?" 
 
 " No, not even pale. You must have had enough 
 to eat." 
 
214 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " So I did, but I could not eat at all, at first. 
 Then, I must say, my appetite came back, and I'm 
 ever so hungry now. I wonder how I shall get at 
 my own things !" 
 
 The two girls were standing' by the dressing- 
 bureau as she said that, and the thought that came 
 with it certainly did make her pale. 
 
 Her father? His house? Her future? What 
 about them? 
 
 Mabel heard all the questions that were not asked, 
 for she quickly answered. 
 
 " Dont speak of it now, Carrie; Uncle Daniel will 
 take care of it all. I know he will. Don't you 
 suppose he loves you as well as he does me?" 
 
 " But my father!" 
 
 " I suppose I mustn't say what I think, Carrie, but 
 he cannot have his way in everything, even to 
 please your stepmother. Uncle Daniel will see 
 about all that, too. I believe they will be afraid 
 of him." 
 
 " They do not like him any too well. I know 
 that. But, Mabel, what about Mrs. Boyce? Is she 
 here on a visit ?" 
 
 " O Carrie, that's another of Uncle Daniel's good 
 deeds, I suppose. She's poor, now- " 
 
 "Poor? Mrs. Boyce?" 
 
 "O you've not heard. Well, I'll tell you" 
 
 And so she did, and it was very well told, too, for 
 before the story was ended Mabel herself knew 
 
ON THE SKIRMISH LINE. 2 1 5 
 
 more than when she began it. There is nothing 
 occult or uncommon about that, as everybody 
 knows. If you want to understand a thing, try to 
 explain it to somebody else. The result will some- 
 times surprise you. It did Mabel, for it brought 
 from her, at last, the exclamation : 
 
 " And now I've another reason for being glad to 
 have you here. It seems as if I had an ally." 
 
 "Why, Mabel! Is it war?" 
 
 " Hardly a skirmish yet, but I feel as if the in- 
 vader had already passed the frontier and was be- 
 ginning to fortify herself." 
 
 "She can't be starved out." 
 
 " No, Carrie, but I'll tell you what we can do." 
 
 "What's that, dear?" 
 
 " We can take care of Uncle Daniel. Think of 
 what a change there has been in your own house 
 
 " It makes me shudder to think of it. But what 
 can I do, Mabel?" 
 
 "You can throw off all the prison air you brought 
 with you, and come down to lunch as if you and I 
 owned all this part of the city." 
 
 It was a grandly good thing for Carrie Dillaye to 
 have something besides herself to think of, just 
 then. She certainly was looking well, and her selec- 
 tions from Mabel's ample wardrobe fitted and be- 
 came her admirably, in spite of any criticisms on 
 " the colors." 
 
 The latter seemed to suit Carrie's darker style al- 
 
2l6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 most as well as they did the sunny hair and fair 
 complexion of her cousin. 
 
 No higher compliment than that could have been 
 paid to colors or fabrics by any young lady. But 
 then neither Mabel nor Carrie belonged to that 
 large class of females whose obstinate and ill-tem- 
 pered beauty seems in a perpetual death-grapple 
 with its surroundings. Sometimes the dress is 
 killed, and sometimes the beauty, but not uncom- 
 monly they both perish, and their unfortunate 
 owner might almost as well not have had any dress 
 at all. 
 
 That is, nothing but clothing. 
 
 Clothing does not imply dress, and an inspection 
 of a grand ball or a royal reception will promptly 
 establish the fact that dress, on the other hand, by 
 no means implies clothing at least, for the lady 
 part of the human beings on exhibition. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce had met Carrie Dillaye more than 
 once, in days gone by, and believed herself to have 
 formed as clear and correct an estimate of her as 
 of Mabel Varick, but her face put on a puzzled as 
 well as delighted look when the two girls sailed into 
 the dining-room. 
 
 If the widow had proposed to herself to relieve 
 Mabel of the irksome duty of presiding at the 
 lunch table she was not quick enough in making 
 the offer. It took several seconds too much time 
 for her to tell Carrie Dillaye how very greatly she 
 
ON THE SKIRMISH LINE. 2 1 / 
 
 was improved in appearance already, for Mr. Brown 
 joined her in the pleasant business, most exuberantly, 
 and he had to be made to feel how entirely he had 
 the womanly sympathy of his accomplished guest. 
 
 In not neglecting that impotant matter, Mrs. 
 Boyce temporarily missed the control of the coffee- 
 urn and Mabel Varick was able to remark: 
 
 " Come, Uncle Daniel, Carrie is hungry. You 
 must be, also, Mrs. Boyce. Sorry we kept you 
 waiting so long, but we could not help it. After 
 this you won't have to wait. Carrie can take my 
 place when I'm not here." 
 
 " It will be so pleasant," softly responded Mrs. 
 Boyce, but Mr. Brown was vaguely conscious of a 
 formless and soulless idea, vainly scratching for en- 
 trance at the bare spot on the top of his mind. It 
 is every bit as well for all men that they are not 
 endowed with feminine perceptions. It would only 
 make them miserable, every time they blundered. 
 Even as it is, a good many of them are more fully 
 posted than they need be concerning their occasional 
 short-comings. But that is generally owing to ex- 
 cess of loving zeal on the part of the best woman 
 in the world. 
 
 Mr. Brown had not blundered, nor had anybody 
 else, perceptibly, and the nearest thing to it was 
 when he said something about his house being a 
 better place for a hungry young lady than the hos- 
 pital on the Island. 
 
2 1 8 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 " Is there such a place, Uncle Daniel ?" exclaimed 
 Carrie. " Havel ever been there? It seems tome 
 as if I had been just waked up from a dreadful 
 dream, but I cannot recall much of it, just now." 
 
 " Do not try," suggested Mrs. Boyce, with some- 
 thing arch in her smile. " The best we can do with 
 ugly dreams is to forget them." 
 
 "That's it, Carrie," said Mr. Brown, very heartily. 
 " Nobody knows anything about your dream. If 
 any one should ask me where you are, I should 
 tell them you are visiting your cousin Mabel at my 
 house. You and she may be planning a summer 
 tour together, for all I know." 
 
 "Or we may not," suggested Mabel. "What 
 shall I do about dinner, Uncle Daniel, after so very 
 late a lunch ?" 
 
 " Dinner? O well I suppose I shall not be 
 here. Doubt if I'm home before its quite late. I 
 have some very important business on hand." 
 
 "Then, if Mrs. Boyce does not care," said Mabel, 
 " we will only have tea, and it's almost too warm 
 for even that." 
 
 "Me?" said Mrs. Boyce. " I shall be glad to be 
 rid of the responsibility of eating a dinner. It will 
 be so much time saved for my inspection." 
 
 "Your inspection?" 
 
 "Yes. If you and Miss Dillaye will come to my 
 room with me, after your uncle goes, I will get you 
 to help me." 
 
ON THE SKIRMISH LINE. 2 1 9 
 
 Either Mabel Varick or Carrie Dillaye would have 
 scorned the idea that she could be influenced by so 
 base a motive as curiosity, but Mrs. Boyce had won 
 a move on them, for all that. She was by all odds a 
 more experienced player, and it is quite possible 
 she was taking a deeper interest in the game than 
 either of Mr. Brown's nieces. 
 
 That gentleman himself was momentarily put- 
 ting on more and more of the accustomed wrinkles 
 of his business face, and it was evident that not all 
 of his thoughts were pleasant ones. They cut short 
 his lunch for him, at all events, and, late as it was, 
 he was speedily hurrying away on some errand 
 about which he was exceedingly in earnest. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce was left, therefore, to make such an 
 explanation of her " inspection" as she might choose, 
 and it was pretty sure to include such an unselfish 
 effort to amuse Carrie Dillaye as would keep her 
 and Mabel within the reach of the widow's eye and 
 tongue for the remainder of that evening, whatever 
 might be its other and more remote consequences. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INTRODUCING A STEP-MOTHER MR. BROWN GOES 
 A STEP FARTHER. 
 
 A GREAT city like that has many neighborhoods, 
 +-* although the greater part of its population 
 never by any chance get into one of them. It is 
 only the very poor, the very rich, and the socially 
 capable and designing, who succeed in discovering 
 neighbors among a crowd so vast. When a city 
 gets to be a millionaire it is apt t.o be a trifle care- 
 less as to how its varied thousands are invested and 
 arranged. That's one reason so many of them find 
 their way into bonds of one kind and another, and 
 so large a percentage is annually wasted and lost. 
 Mr. Brown's neighborhood was a good one, full 
 of old families, some of whom could even show the 
 pictures of their grandfathers, though very few of 
 them would have freely exhibited said portraits, if 
 authentic. Strange that the best thing in oil should 
 be shut out of a portrait gallery, if the name of the 
 subject goes with it, and it should represent a man 
 with a pack on his back, a tinsmith's hammer in his 
 220 
 
CARRIE'S THER INHERITANCE. 2 2 1 
 
 hand, a broken flat-iron on a leather apron in his 
 lap, or even a robust and motherly woman leaning 
 over a wash-tub, with a pipe in her mouth. But 
 such is one of the latter-day tastes of the old fami- 
 lies in the great city. 
 
 Did you ever see, in one of those galleries, the 
 portly ancestor with the ribbon in his button-hole, 
 and did you take it for so mean a thing as a decora- 
 tion accorded him by some royal numbskull beyond 
 the salt, salt sea ? 
 
 That was your own blunder, then, for it was fairly 
 won him by his proud, prize pig, at a great and 
 memorable show in the good old times when pork 
 was less generally diffused through our social struc- 
 ture than it now is. 
 
 But in the vicinity of Mr. Dillaye's own residence 
 there was just as creditable a sprinkle of old fami- 
 lies as in Mr. Brown's neighborhood, with the dif- 
 ference that the houses were more closely packed 
 together, and some people even lived next door to 
 one another. Fewer opportunities, of course, for 
 the disreputable doings of tramps, but fewer also 
 for the acquisition of honorable distinction by canine 
 heroes like Prince. 
 
 The distance between the two settlements of 
 wealth and aristocracy was a long one, and the 
 church attended by the related families was about 
 half-way between, and only to be reached, comforta- 
 bly, by either, in their respective carriages. 
 
222 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 And neither Mr. Brown or Mr. Dillaye had ever 
 been known to express any feeling of regret over 
 this feature of their circumstances in life. 
 
 On this particular evening, at the very hour when 
 the former was getting away from his home as fast 
 as he could, the latter was expanding the courteous 
 chill of his presence as respectably as he could 
 around the dinner-table of his own. 
 
 He was assisted by a tall, large, showy-looking 
 woman, who did not seem the least afraid of him, 
 but who absolutely appeared to be absorbing in- 
 formation from him through her rusty brown eyes, 
 even when he was not saying a word. 
 
 It is the nature of sponges to absorb, but at last 
 she concentrated enough of what she had obtained 
 to squeeze out: 
 
 " I see how it is, Mr. Dillaye. Not a word con- 
 cerning that unfortunate young woman?" 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " I've had all the papers brought in, and I'm posi- 
 tive they do not contain the slightest hint." 
 
 " Not the slightest. It is really a very great 
 mystery." 
 
 " Every day renders the certainty more absolute. 
 We shall never see her again." 
 
 "You forget yourself, Mrs. Dillaye. She is my 
 daughter " 
 
 " I hope I forget nothing, Mr. Dillaye. Have 
 you heard anything more from Mr. Brown ?" 
 
CARRIE'S OTHER INHERITANCE. 223 
 
 "No, and I do not think I shall. He is too wise 
 a man to give unpleasant publicity to a strictly 
 family affair. As to any other kind of meddling, 
 he has not the smallest pretext for that." 
 
 "Of course not. We have done our whole duty, 
 and we can prove it." 
 
 Something like a wince passed over the well-dressed 
 frame of Mr. Dillaye as his wife emphasized this 
 last remark, but he was momentarily passing more* 
 and more completely under the influence of her 
 absorption. 
 
 It was not difficult to see who was the control- 
 ling sponge of that table and house. 
 
 Would those two have sat every whit as com- 
 fortably over their tea-cups, at the close of their 
 stately meal, if they could have known, by tele- 
 phone or otherwise, just what was passing, during 
 those long, aimless minutes, between Mr. Daniel 
 Brown and his deeply interested counsel? 
 
 Perhaps not, for Mr. Allyn said, among other 
 things : 
 
 " Certainly, my dear sir. She is of age, and mis- 
 tress of her own movements. She is entirely com- 
 petent to select her business agent, and to give 
 him full power of attorney to manage her affairs. 
 I will draw one in due form before you leave the 
 office. She will execute it ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly. Her father has declared to me 
 that she can never return to his house. In that 
 
224 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 state of things she must assume control of her pro- 
 perty, obviously. Any other course would be out 
 of the question. It is in precisely the same con- 
 dition as was that of my own wife. You have at- 
 tended to that, and know the terms of the old 
 gentleman's will." 
 
 " Exactly, but your wife left no children. Did 
 her sister have any other besides Caroline?" 
 
 " None, so that her right is beyond dispute. The 
 very house he will not let her into is her own un- 
 questioned property. So also is a good share of 
 the income that runs it. I only wish I knew just 
 how Dillaye has been doing, financially, of late 
 years." 
 
 " None too well, I fancy. Hardly anybody has. 
 But will he not try to regain control of his daugh- 
 ter? It's likely he will." 
 
 " I'd like to see him, then, that's all. The first 
 information he gets of her whereabouts ought to 
 be a somewhat formal one." 
 
 " Trust me for that, my dear sir. He is the last 
 man to want any public row made. Unless he is 
 in a pretty tight place, I think a demand will be 
 enough." 
 
 " You do not know Stephen Dillaye, then. That's 
 all I've got to say. Nor his wife, either." 
 
 " We shall see. There's no possible loophole for 
 him to escape an accounting. Take it altogether, 
 it's one of the most remarkable cases I ever had 
 
CARRIE'S OTHER INHERITANCE. 225 
 
 anything to do with. Even your discovery of your 
 niece is not the least singular part of it. How does 
 she explain it? Did she ask some one to write to 
 you? She said something of the sort to me." 
 
 " No, and that makes me think. No hurry about 
 it, of course, but one of the hospital assistants was 
 very kind to her, and he must be hunted up. A 
 young man named Rogers. He wrote to me, she 
 says. Seemed to know her, and me too. Very 
 queer, but I must not forget a favor from a man of 
 that sort." 
 
 " He won't forget it, if you do, my dear sir. 
 Hospital assistants on the Island are the very men 
 to report themselves, in such a case, the very first 
 time they get a day off and can visit the city." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 " Well, if he does not, we can find him in an 
 hour, any day we want him. We know exactly 
 where to look for him." 
 
 So they did, but that does not surely imply that 
 they knew just where to find him. Especially if 
 they should wait till his sixty days ran o-ut before 
 looking for him. 
 
 The lawyer and his client had a good many 
 things to talk about, and the more confidentially 
 they talked the less they said which would have 
 been pleasant hearing for either Carrie Dillaye's 
 father or stepmother. If there is anything in the 
 old up-country superstition worth noticing, there 
 
226 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 were at least two left ears that should have been 
 uncomfortably warm. And yet even Fred Heron- 
 Rogers did not experience the least degree of 
 fever on the right side of his head. 
 
 There must be something wrong about the su- 
 perstition, or, at least, it is like some men's piety, 
 and does not always work. 
 
 Fred Heron, indeed, was not thinking of himself, 
 that evening, and cared very little whether other 
 people were talking good or bad concerning him. 
 Ever since he had ascertained the departure of the 
 young lady patient who had so deeply interested 
 him, he had been in a decidedly uncomfortable state 
 of mind. He would have given almost anything to 
 be sure that his own epistle had fallen into the 
 right hands, and that she had followed it with con- 
 sequent security. It was too bad that he should be 
 deprived of that small consolation. 
 
 " I've done all I could, anyhow," he said to him- 
 self. "A fellow in jail is a trifle limited, that's a 
 fact. I never fully appreciated my liberty before. 
 And yet JMiller tells me the tramps come back reg- 
 ularly, some of them, and get themselves shut up 
 for the winter. Freedom less desirable in cold 
 weather, eh? I think I shall try and keep mine 
 when I get it again. I wonder if I c' n stand it 
 here till then? Got to, I suppose. At a 1 events, I'm 
 not shut up very closely. I believe they'd hardly 
 say a word if I strolled all over the Island." 
 
CARRIE'S OTHER INHERITANCE. 22/ 
 
 A doleful day, with a doleful night to follow it. 
 
 Fred could not have imagined that such a sense 
 of utter loneliness was possible in a crowded ward 
 of a great public institution. 
 
 Crowded, indeed, for after the lights were turned 
 down he peopled the dim spaces around him with 
 all the forms and faces he had ever known. 
 
 He even brought in, at last, the library at Mr. 
 Brown's, and imagined himself again seated at the 
 book-strewn table. It was not a very difficult men- 
 tal feat, but then, when Mabel Varick came in, as 
 on that memorable evening, he could not shape 
 Miss Dillaye as entering with her and was compelled 
 to turn- anxiously to Mr. Brown with : 
 
 "Where is your other niece? I wrote to you 
 about her." 
 
 And then, without any imagination at all, he 
 turned over on his pallet and muttered : 
 
 " I hope it's all right. Bessie would say she is in 
 the hands of Providence." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OLIVER PROTECTS THE MINE IN THE DOCTOR'S 
 ABSENCE. 
 
 ALL these things came to pass in the great city 
 a good while before Dr. Milyng reached or 
 passed the thirsty desert, nor had the -veteran 
 mining explorer the least idea that he was at 
 all concerned in them or in anything else be- 
 yond the reach of his own hawk-like vision. When 
 he awoke from the long, refreshing sleep called for 
 by his protracted exertions, he found himself a 
 trifle stiff and sore, but this soon passed away, as 
 he busied himself with preparations for his 
 breakfast. 
 
 The pony was at work among the blue grass 
 around one of the pools, and seemed entirely satis- 
 fied with his occupation. So much so that he 
 gently and suggestively edged away when his 
 master drew near, as if he would have said : 
 
 " There, now, don't you see I'm happy? Why 
 disturb me, then ? Let's rest awhile." 
 228 
 
OLIVER TAKES THE CHANCES. 229 
 
 " Rest it'll have to be," remarked the doctor. " I 
 can't say exactly where we are, but there's a good 
 long pull before us, yet. I think the worst is over, 
 but I must get him in good condition before I move 
 on." 
 
 Prudent, but difficult, for the doctor's thoughts 
 were busy with his one tremendous enthusiasm and 
 the conviction was growing upon him that, in mining 
 matters, delays are dangerous. 
 
 " I wouldn't care so much if it were a little 
 later," he soliloquized, " but there's time yet, this 
 season, for almost anything to turn up. The luck 
 of it has followed me pretty close, thus far, but there's 
 something going wrong, just now. I'd like to take 
 a look at that ledge of rocks, I would, if only to 
 know they're all alone. Poor old Oliver ! I'm afraid 
 the coyotes have picked his bones clean before this. 
 But then his very bones might help point somebody 
 the way to that claim. Pity he tumbled down right 
 where he did." 
 
 But Oliver and his bones had nothing to do with 
 it. Nor had any other living thing, human or 
 quadruped. It was just that ungovernable chance, 
 which exercises such a mysterious control over the 
 affairs of men and rocks, which led those three 
 ragged men into that valley while Dr. Milyng was 
 eating his broiled venison, so many miles away. 
 The valley itself looked a good deal as it did when 
 the doctor marched out of it, and the mine was 
 
230 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 there, or rather the wonderfully promising place for 
 one, just where chance had gathered the ore for it 
 in the first place, and where the doctor had chanced 
 to find it. There, too, was his worn-out pick, just 
 where he had chanced to leave it, but the chapter of 
 accidents did not include the bones of Oliver. A 
 wonderfully calculating brain has the thing called 
 " chance !" 
 
 And those three men had as many mules of their 
 own, with a couple of very spare ponies, and they too, 
 the men, were manifestly of the mining and explor- 
 ing persuasion. 
 
 " Wall, boys," said one of them, " we've tracked 
 him good, and if he's lit on anything yer like he 
 did in the other places, we hain't followed him for 
 nothin' ! And we won't be the first lot that's 
 made thar pile by pickin' up what he's throwed 
 away." 
 
 "Wall, thar's his marks," replied another, "and 
 we mought jest as well take possession. He'll never 
 come back for it." 
 
 " What if he does? Hain't he abandoned it, I'd 
 like to know ? What's minin' law good for, if a 
 man's to let a thing lie and not work it ? Besides, he's 
 bound to lose his hair, some day, foolin' round the 
 Sierras all alone." 
 
 Very strong and hearty were the expressions of 
 assent, but already busy hands were getting out 
 tools from the packs on the starved-looking animals, 
 
OLIVER TAKES THE CHANCES. 23! 
 
 and it was evident that Dr. Milyng's precious claim 
 was about to be investigated. 
 
 That was not all. 
 
 It was about to be jumped. 
 
 A man of ordinary agility could have cleared the 
 traces of the doctor's solitary toil at a single bound, 
 but that was not the precise duty in hand. 
 
 Terrible are the misuses of human speech, and 
 one of the worst is perpetrated when a hardy miner 
 is said to "jump" the bit of rock belonging to an- 
 other man which he feloniously settles on and digs 
 into. That was what these ragged three were about 
 to happen to do. 
 
 They were men of experience, and the remarks 
 they dropped, from time to time, showed that 
 they not only knew Dr. Milyng, but had an un- 
 bounded confidence in his judgment as a mining 
 expert. A claim on which he had wasted such an 
 amount of labor as he had there expended hardly 
 needed any additional recommendation in their 
 eyes. If it had, however, their own rude tests 
 would have given it, before they had worked three 
 hours. 
 
 " This '11 do, boys. This yer's the biggest thing 
 out o' doors." 
 
 " It's too good. It's a sure thing the doctor '11 
 come back to look after it." 
 
 "Don't you believe it. And what if he does? 
 How's he to prove anything? Wasn't he all alone ? 
 
232 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I'd like to see how he'll work it, and we in posses- 
 sion." 
 
 No wonder the doctor felt a sense of anxiety 
 creeping over him as he cut another slice of veni- 
 son and went to the pool for another cup of yellow 
 water. Chance, and the luck of the mine, and the 
 whole chapter of scientific probabilities were arrang- 
 ing themselves dead against him. There was not a 
 single thing for him to do to protect his interests, 
 and those three enterprising adventurers were hav- 
 ing it all their own way. 
 
 Everything, mine and all. 
 
 Everything but Oliver, and they knew nothing 
 whatever about him. 
 
 He was worth all three of their mules to them, 
 however, with the two spare ponies thrown in, for 
 Oliver's bones were his own, that day, and the Big 
 Medicine and a whole swarm of his devoted con- 
 gregation were following him to convince him that he 
 had made a mistake. 
 
 Oliver had made good time over that same 
 ground, once before, to his own and his master's 
 sorrow, but that had not prevented him from taking 
 advantage of the temporary carelessness of Big 
 Medicine and trying another race. 
 
 If men of another race had been behind him, in- 
 deed, he might have been sooner caught, but the 
 Apache hunters were warriors as well, and it speedily 
 occurred to them that Oliver's motions were guided 
 
OLIVER TAKES THE CHANCES. 233 
 
 by some kind of knowledge. They had not at all con- 
 nected him, in their own minds, with the daring thief 
 their braves had driven over the precipice, and yet 
 somebody, they knew, must have lost him. What 
 if he should now guide them to something worth 
 their stealing? More than one squad of their out- 
 ranging buffalo butchers joined them as they pushed 
 forward on the heels of their medicine-mule, and by 
 the time he entered the wooded valley they were 
 full two score, with the Big Medicine at their 
 head. 
 
 Oliver knew his ground, and he could hardly have 
 managed his business better if he had been acting 
 under instructions from his master. Whether or 
 not he had any idea of recovering the doctor him- 
 self is a question for those who know what passes 
 in the mind of a mule. 
 
 There was but one way, that one, into that 
 strange amphitheatre, or if there was another prac- 
 ticable pass nobody then present knew anything 
 about it. And so, when Oliver led his Apaches up 
 the narrowing ravine he thereby shut up the only 
 hope of escape for any one who might just then 
 happen to be investigating, or jumping, mining 
 claims in the ledges beyond. 
 
 It was a singular chance, for on any previous day 
 the Apache hunters would have found nothing more 
 valuable to them than some odds and ends of worn- 
 out mining tools, and a heap of, broken rock for 
 
034 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 which they would not have given the scalp of a 
 jackass-rabbit. 
 
 But now, there were three men, and only three, 
 with mules and ponies, and nothing in the wide 
 world to prevent an immediate application of the 
 true intent and meaning of the last treaty the Apache 
 tribes had made with their Great Father at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Nothing whatever, except that the three miners 
 dropped their tools and picked up their rifles as if 
 they intended making some species of seditious 
 protest. 
 
 If there had but been a few more of them, or if 
 greater time had been given them for preparation ! 
 
 Men who venture into the mountains as they had 
 done are not likely to be backward in matters of 
 self-defence, and the first whoop which came echo- 
 ing up the valley had warned them that the treaty 
 was in full force. They made no futile attempt at 
 a parley, therefore, but each man sprang towards 
 the best cover he could see, leaving the quadrupeds 
 and the mine to take care of themselves. 
 
 It was a sad thing for the Big Medicine, just then, 
 that he was not mounted on Oliver, or at least on 
 a swifter pony. The sorry animal he rode was so 
 slow of foot that almost every brave of the faithful 
 flock went clean past his pastor before any of them 
 were within rifle range of the miners. It was best 
 so, for what place has a chaplain in a charge? None 
 
OLIVER TAKES THE CHANCES. 235 
 
 at all. His duties come afterwards, when the dead 
 are to be buried and their effects divided. The 
 Big Medicine's slow pony was of special value to 
 the tribe, just then, for the whooping rider whose 
 bounding steed really did make him the foremost 
 man rolled off upon the stony level at the first 
 crack of those three rifles. All three of them had 
 been pointed at him, and no amount of medicine, 
 big or little, could have done him any good. 
 
 His fall, however, did not check the rush of those 
 wild horsemen, and a storm of arrows and bullets 
 went before them. The three white men had 
 taken cover behind the same bowlder, and it was 
 big enough for twice as many, but the closing scene 
 of the little tragedy was thereby concentrated within 
 very narrow limits, both as to time and space. 
 
 Forty men on horseback, all well armed, against 
 three on foot, and the latter a little taken by surprise. 
 
 They were not taken prisoners. 
 
 They had been congratulating themselves on 
 their luck, a few minutes before. Fortune had 
 never smiled on them so liberally in- all their lives. 
 Such wealth was theirs ! but that Oliver chanced 
 to get away from Big Medicine just when he did, 
 and so many yelling red men happened to follow 
 him. 
 
 And now, three corpses reeking'in the hot sun. 
 Three scalps at as many belts of savage riders. 
 
 A mining expedition entirely obliterated, and a 
 
236 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 great claim left to take care of itself without so 
 much as a single man to " jump" it. 
 
 Not even Oliver, for, having accomplished at 
 least as much as he set out for, that excellent mule 
 fraternized with those of the miners and permitted 
 Big Medicine to mount and ride him homeward in 
 triumph. For on this occasion also the great man 
 calmly took to himself the credit of leading the 
 way to the exploit which had ended so gloriously. 
 Nothing was said, however, about the dead brave 
 being charged to his account, or the half-dozen 
 shrewd hurts which the doomed miners had distri- 
 buted among their other assailants. These things 
 were all in violation of the treaty, and Big Medicine 
 had nothing to do with them. 
 
 Dr. Milyng did not know a word of it all, but 
 his claim had been taken care of for him in a re- 
 markably opportune way. There was some kind of 
 luck about that mine. 
 

 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A PARADE AND INSPECTION ON THE SKIRMISH 
 LINE 
 
 IT has long been one of the standing marvels of 
 art and literature that Cornelia should have been 
 so offensively proud of two little heathen Italian 
 boys. Mrs. Boyce, however, had given herself to the 
 collection of jewels of quite another sort, and it was 
 with these, rather than even with her very interest- 
 ing wardrobe, that her proposed inspection had 
 to do. 
 
 There was no unseemly haste or urgency in her 
 management of the matter, but it was not a great 
 while after lunch that Mabel and Carrie found them- 
 selves smiled all the way up-stairs, and into the 
 ample front chamber set apart for the uses of the 
 widow and the stranded wreck of her former pros- 
 perity. 
 
 If Mabel Varick was really beginning to organize 
 herself upon a skirmish line with reference to her 
 uncle's fascinating guest, her presence in that cham- 
 ber, after those caskets and cases were spread upon 
 
 237 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 the centre-table, was a grave strategical mistake. 
 Neither she nor her wondering cousin, nor their 
 mothers before them, had ever possessed the tithe 
 of such a collection. In good truth they had never 
 seen anything like it, outside of a shopkeeper's 
 show case. 
 
 The mere pecuniary value was no small considera- 
 tion, and would have made quite an item if trans- 
 ferred to the column of assets of the late firm of 
 Boyce, Millington &Co., but there it did not belong 
 by any known rule of law, or any practised rule of 
 equity. 
 
 Some of the stones were superb, and all were fine, 
 well selected, well set, and in perfect order and 
 condition. The exposure of each in succession to 
 the strong light now thrown upon them called forth 
 from the two girls the most enthusiastic expressions 
 of admiration. Mrs. Boyce had pulled down the 
 window shades and lighted the argand drop-light on 
 the table and the effect was all the most experienced 
 salesman could have asked. 
 
 " Lovely!" 
 
 " Exquisite!" 
 
 * Perfect ! O Mrs. Boyce what will you do with 
 them all?" 
 
 " Have them put away in a safe place now. I 
 wanted you to see them first. One of these days I 
 must sell them. That is, the greater part of them." 
 
 " How sad" 
 
THE WID W'S JE IV EL S. 239 
 
 " Sad, Mabel, dear ? Yes, it makes me sad enough 
 at times, for I fear I am a very worldly woman. But 
 it is the more costly of them that I can part with 
 most easily. Perhaps they will help me keep the 
 keepsakes." 
 
 "Are many of them keepsakes?" 
 
 "Yes, Carrie, I was a bride, once, and some of 
 these came to me then. Some before marriage. 
 Others came afterwards. They have little histories 
 of their own, my dear " 
 
 And then, with the matronly calmness which so 
 well became her, Mrs. Boyce repressed her feelings 
 and softly rehearsed to her young friends the little 
 romances of some of those jewels. Such sacred 
 names came up as she did so ! 
 
 Father. Mother. Betrothal. Marriage. Husband, 
 others, of relative and friend. A favored woman 
 had she been before the tide of her life began to 
 ebb and its good things were drifted away from 
 her. And yet, from beginning to end, she uttered 
 no word of foolish complaint, and gave way to no 
 single spasm of false sentiment. Her auditors were 
 compelled to confess to themselves that they were 
 listening to no ordinary woman. They even failed, 
 in their admiration of her and her treasures, to ob- 
 tain any information as to how she came to possess 
 so many mere diamonds without any history at all. 
 These, indeed, had come with later years and a more 
 intimate acquaintance with her husband's business 
 
240 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 affairs, and she had never so much as worn them. 
 They were quite sure to bring their value, or very 
 near it, should their sale be properly managed at 
 some future day. 
 
 There was little or nothing said about this, how- 
 ever, and when Carrie Dillaye remarked: 
 
 " If I had such things I don't believe I could help 
 wearing them," Mrs. Boyce replied: 
 
 "You must wear this garnet cross for me, dear. 
 It suits your complexion exactly. There is its ex- 
 act mate in torquoises, Mabel; that is for you, un- 
 less you would prefer this pearl cluster " 
 
 "O Mrs. Boyce" 
 
 u Indeed, I cannot" 
 
 " My dear young friends " 
 
 There was a little cloud of pain on the widow's 
 face, and her plump, white hand unconsciously shut 
 down the cover of a casket wherein a diamond 
 necklace rested. 
 
 They looked at one another for a brief second, 
 and she added: 
 
 "'I did not dare to offer you anything more valu- 
 able. If you would let me I would give you your 
 choice of all, but I was afraid " 
 
 The least possible tremor in the clear soft voice, 
 and Mabel Varick picked up the torquoise cross. 
 An elegant thing it was, and richly set, but not of 
 too large a mere pecuniary value. Just the precise 
 thing to be selected as a present from among its 
 
THE WID OW'S JE WEL S. 241 
 
 more showy companion gems that were for sale, by. 
 and-by. 
 
 " It is beautiful. I shall prize it ever so much. 
 It is prettier than even the pearls." 
 
 " I never saw such perfect garnets," exclaimed 
 Carrie. " The color is so rich, and they are so very 
 clear. So exquisitely polished, too. Thank you, 
 ever so much !" 
 
 And even while their two pairs of hands were 
 busy with the crosses at their respective throats, 
 the captured girls leaned over, one after the other, 
 to kiss the graceful donor of the jewels. They 
 could see, as they did so, that they had been but 
 just in time to keep the tears from her eyes, and 
 they remembered that misfortune has its privileges, 
 and that one of them is to be a trifle sensitive at 
 times. It would have been dreadfully unkind 
 of them to have refused her presents. Mabel, 
 indeed, went a step further, in the reaction of 
 her feelings. She had removed a small ruby 
 brooch to make room for the cross, and now, with 
 another kiss, she pinned that upon the widow's 
 bosom. 
 
 Somehow it seemed to make both of them feel 
 better. 
 
 Mabel, oddly enough, felt less of a burden of 
 obligation, and Mrs. Boyce felt better assured that 
 her torquoises had been wisely expended. 
 
 Carrie had stepped before the mirror to complete 
 
242 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 the location of her garnets, and she could but be 
 proud of them. 
 
 " Some day, my dear," said the Avidow, "you 
 must make your husband get you earrings to 
 match. I never had complete sets of either of 
 those crosses." 
 
 " I hope I shall not have to wait as long as that," 
 said Carrie, merrily. 
 
 " Your brooch is such a sweet little thing, Mabel," 
 said the widow, as she took it off and held it to the 
 light. " I've another keepsake, now. They are 
 the only jewels I shall ever care for or wear. I 
 wish the rest of them were all sold now, but I must 
 wait awhile for that." 
 
 And then the talk rippled on, and the two girls 
 were astonished to find how much the widow knew 
 about the general subject of pre.cious stones. She 
 told them more than they had ever known before, 
 and in so interesting a way that they ceased to 
 wonder at her for having gathered such a collection. 
 
 The caskets were closed, one by one, and packed 
 away in their boxes, and those were placed in the 
 bottom of a trunk, and clothing filled neatly in 
 above them. 
 
 "O Mrs. Boyce," said Mabel, "I should think 
 you would be afraid of robbers." 
 
 " What, in your house, and with Mr. Prince in the 
 front yard? Well, so I am, and so I shall be, till 
 Mr. Brown helps me put all these away, somewhere. 
 
THE WIDO WS JE WELS. 243 
 
 I shall ask him in a day or so. Meantime I will 
 show you something, if you will never tell. Re^ 
 member, I have been a lone woman for two years, 
 not even so well protected in my own house as I am 
 here." 
 
 And, as she spoke, she pulled open a little upper 
 drawer of the bureau, and there, reposing in their 
 case of Russia leather and velvet, was a richly 
 mounted pair of revolvers. Not too small for ser- 
 vice, nor too large to be carried in one's pockets, if 
 need should be, but with a decided flash of possible 
 danger on their blue barrels and gilded handles. 
 
 "You must not tell." 
 
 "But can you use them?" 
 
 " I will show you, some day. I can hit a visiting 
 card, across this room, almost every time." 
 
 "But in the dark?" 
 
 " A burglar is larger than a visiting card." 
 
 " How would you ever get to the bureau, for them, 
 if you heard a noise ? I should cover my head up." 
 
 " O they go to bed with me." 
 
 " But would you really dare to shoot at anybody ?" 
 
 " I fear I should be too much of a coward not to. 
 It must require a wonderful deal of courage not to 
 shoot sometimes." 
 
 The widow was right about that, but after the 
 pistol drawer was closed the two girls began to be- 
 lieve they had remained long enough. 
 
 Still, even at the tea-table, afterwards, the con- 
 
244 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 versation ran curiously upon jewelry and fire-arms 
 and kindred topics. Mrs. Boyce had made a great 
 point, that day, and her young friends little im- 
 agined how difficult it would thenceforth be to set 
 up again the barrier they had thus permitted to be 
 thrown down. 
 
 There came a later hour, however, in the retire- 
 ment of their own room, when they felt called upon 
 to re-examine and admire again their respective 
 presents from the widow. 
 
 "They are more beautiful, now we cannot com- 
 pare them with the other things," said Mabel. 
 
 " It's always so. That's what makes shopping of 
 any kind so difficult. I get bewildered, and half the 
 time I pick out the wrong thing." 
 
 u Mrs. Boyce would not. She'd get just the 
 pattern she went for, in spite of "anybody." 
 
 " I believe you are right, Mabel. Which of us 
 has she picked out ?" 
 
 " Carrie Dillaye ! I wish she had her crosses back 
 again." 
 
 "I do not, then. I shall wear mine. If I had 
 any brooch on when I left home I can't guess where 
 it is now. This is a beauty.'* 
 
 " I shall wear mine, too. She would feel hurt if 
 I did not." 
 
 " Hurt, Mabel, are you sure of that?" 
 
 " Why, she is certainly not heartless, and she has 
 plenty of pride. I must not be unjust to her." 
 
THE WIDO IV' S JE WELS. 24$ 
 
 " But then, if one gets it into one's head once, 
 that any other person is designing, it goes through 
 every idea one has about them." 
 
 "Good people may be designing." 
 
 " So they may, but it isn't easy to see always, 
 just where the good leaves off and the designing 
 begins." 
 
 " Not with women like Mrs. Boyce, at all events." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MR. BROWN HOLDS OUT HIS HAND WITH AN IN- 
 VITATION. 
 
 DAY after day went by, containing, as all days 
 do, a great many matters of interest. That 
 is the difficulty of it. All matters are of interest, 
 but they cannot all be recorded. Life is both too 
 long and too short for that. 
 
 The papers prepared by Mr. Allyn were signed by 
 Carrie Dillaye, without a thought of demur or hesita- 
 tion, and the lawyer had his instructions from Mr. 
 Brown to lose no time in taking the steps required. 
 
 Mr. Dillaye's down-town office was in the rear of 
 the warehouse in which the greater part of his com- 
 mercial business was transacted, but he had so fitted 
 it up that it wore, like himself, a thoroughly well- 
 dressed and respectable air, particularly his own 
 little den in one corner of it. 
 
 It was into this little den, one day, that there 
 entered a spruce and active-looking young gentle* 
 man with a paper in his hand. 
 
 "Mr. Dillaye?" 
 
 "That is my name, sir." 
 246 
 
WHERE IS M Y DA UGH TER ? 247 
 
 "All right. I am instructed to deliver this to 
 you, personally." 
 
 " Any answer?" 
 
 "To be sent as directed in the inclosure, I sup- 
 pose. I am not aware that I am to wait for one." 
 
 "Very well. I'll examine it at my leisure." 
 
 The young man had been even hasty in his with- 
 drawal, and Mr. Dillaye's eyes were absorbed by the 
 large envelope he was tearing open. 
 
 When he began to read, however, his absorption 
 became every moment more and more intense. It 
 took all the color out of his face, and then put it all 
 back again, with interest at a high rate. Then it 
 brought out a more profuse perspiration than even 
 the heat of the day could have developed upon a 
 man of Stephen Dillaye's organism. It made 'his 
 hands tremble and his lips quiver, and finally made 
 him drop the paper and bow his head upon the 
 desk before him. 
 
 "Ruin! Ruin! Disgrace !" he muttered. "The 
 black-hearted villain. He has planned all this. The 
 deep, deceptive scoundrel. Turning my own daugh- 
 ter against her father. And that man calls himself 
 a Christian !" 
 
 Severe language, to be sure, and yet it had been 
 applied to no less a man than Mr. Daniel Brown, 
 and had been called forth by so very simple a docu- 
 ment as a formal, legal demand, on the part of one 
 Caroline Dillaye, for an accounting and delivery to 
 
248 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 her, or her attorney in fact, the said Daniel Brown, 
 of certain specified and described properties, real 
 and personal and mixed, to her belonging, and 
 formerly a part of the estate of her mother, and so 
 forth, and so forth, now deceased. 
 
 He recognized his daughter's signature, as well 
 as that of Mr. Brown, for the papers served upon 
 him were originals, to prevent question or denial 
 on his part. He saw that either would be impos- 
 sible. 
 
 ''But where is she?" he exclaimed, springing to 
 his feet. "Where has she been, all this time? I 
 am the rightful custodian of my own child !" 
 
 When a child becomes of age it ceases to have 
 any rightful custodian, but for all that Mr. Dillaye 
 seized his hat, and in a very short time, for a man 
 not accustomed to fast walking, he stood, still cov- 
 ered, in the office and presence of Mr. Daniel Brown. 
 
 "Ah, Brother Dillaye? Glad to see you. This 
 is the right course to pursue. We can settle every- 
 thing between ourselves, and the world be none the 
 wiser. Take a chair." 
 
 ."No, sir, I will not. Nor your hand either. 
 Where is my daughter Caroline, Mr. Brown?" 
 
 " I believe she is visiting with some friends, at 
 present, Brother Dillaye. She has put all her af- 
 fairs in my hands, meantime. I merely propose 
 to take possession of them. That's all." 
 
 "Take possession of them?" 
 
WHERE IS MY DA UGH TER ? 249 
 
 " Every dollar's worth. You have yourself told 
 me she can never come back to your roof. I shall 
 see to it that she has one of her own to cover her." 
 
 The merchant looked his visitor calmly in the 
 eyes while he was talking, and was himself aston- 
 ished at the effect his words seemed to produce. 
 
 Could it have been that then for the first time 
 Mr. Dillaye received a clear perception that his 
 daughter had any rights in the premises which he, 
 her father, was bound to respect ? 
 
 If so, he was not unlike a great many other fath- 
 ers, to whom their children never assume the atti- 
 tude of fellow-citizens, their equals before God and 
 the law. Many a man, who would scorn the thought 
 of depriving any human being of aught which be- 
 longed to them, will nevertheless pitilessly rob and 
 plunder his own flesh and blood, cursing them if 
 they murmur under the operation. As if he failed 
 to recognize them as human beings. 
 
 But, if Stephen Dillaye was then and there in 
 the act of learning something, his feelings towards 
 the man by means of whom he was learning it lost 
 none of their bitterness as the new ideas came to 
 him. 
 
 They were not pleasant ideas to receive, and they 
 came with such a dreadful pressure of Daniel Brown 
 behind them. Had he been a weak man, a poor 
 one, a man who could be argued with, cajoled, 
 threatened, pooh-poohed, in any way, it would not 
 
250 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 have been so bad, but when Daniel Brown held out 
 his broad palm to anybody and said, ''Settle!" it 
 was well understood by all who knew him that some 
 kind of a settlement was among the sure things of 
 the future. 
 
 " Mr. Brown, again I ask you, where is my daugh- 
 ter?" 
 
 " You have not tried so hard to find her that you 
 have much to say on that head, Brother Dillaye. 
 I assure you she is in the hands of friends, who will 
 not only take good care of her, but will see that 
 she is protected in her rights. I shall send for her 
 wardrobe, this very day, and I may as well say to 
 you that the gentleman who comes for it will b 
 provided with proper authority. Whatever he asks 
 for had better be surrendered to him without any 
 nonsense. I do not think you would care to get into 
 the papers for refusing your daughter her clothing." 
 
 Bitter words, to be spoken so calmly, but Mr. 
 Dillaye had heard all he could hear at one hearing. 
 His hands were clenched till the nails pierced the 
 skin, and his teeth were grinding audibly as he turned 
 on his heel and strode out into the street. 
 
 There is nothing so galls a proud and self-willed 
 man as a sense of utter helplessness in the hands of 
 another. The sense of wrong-doing on his own 
 part does not by any means ease the smart of it, 
 and any degree of personal hatred is the worst kind 
 of an aggravation. 
 
WHERE IS M Y DA UGH TER ? 2 $I 
 
 Dillaye had it all, and with it a sense of shame 
 concerning his treatment of his daughter which had 
 never visited him before. 
 
 And for this also he was indebted to the calm eyes 
 of Mr. Brown. 
 
 He did not return to his own place of business, 
 though there must have been matters there which 
 needed his attention, but, calling a cab, he ordered 
 the driver to make his best speed uptownwards. 
 He felt that it was a good time for him to have a 
 consultation with his own wife. 
 
 And Mrs. Dillaye herself had been having a busy 
 morning of it. Day after day she had grown less 
 and less anxious concerning the whereabouts of her 
 missing stepdaughter. Whatever remarks she had 
 felt called upon to make in that connection had been 
 merely such as were calculated to sustain the just in- 
 dignation of a respectable father whose unworthy 
 daughter had got drunk and run away from home. 
 Day after day, too, she had realized the obligation 
 resting upon her to make things generally cheerful 
 for her husband, so that he might not dwell too 
 gloomily upon his heavy affliction. But, for all 
 that, Mrs. Dillaye had never before, since her mar- 
 riage, realized as she was now doing, the fact that 
 she was once for all mistress of that mansion. A 
 sense of proprietorship was creeping over her, and 
 she had more than once muttered to herself: 
 
 " Even if things went wrong in the business, none 
 
252 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 of Mr. Dillaye's creditors could touch this property. 
 I'm glad he has never compromised it in any way. 
 She will never come back after it." 
 
 It was under that impression, doubtless, that 
 Carrie's stepmother, on this particular morning, per- 
 formed such a remarkable piece of housework in 
 and about Carrie's own room. 
 
 " Better pack them all up and store them away, 
 for the present," she said, as she put article after ar- 
 ticle of dress and ornament into the great trunks she 
 brought in. 
 
 " I wouldn't touch a thing of 'em, not if the 
 moths ate 'em all up. But I won't have 'em lying 
 around where her poor father can see 'em. Even 
 if they were put in the closets, he'd be sure to 
 stumble on to them some time." 
 
 It is likely, moreover, that Mrs. Dillaye flattered 
 herself that something of a sentiment of personal 
 honesty entered into the considerations which led her 
 to pack those trunks so carefully. It was no small 
 job, albeit Carrie's wearing apparel had not been at 
 all scattered around the house, but was contained, 
 on the contrary, within the narrow limits of her 
 own private domain. 
 
 When all was done, and Mrs. Dillaye sat down on 
 one of the ample " Saratogas" to think about it, she 
 remarked to herself : 
 
 " What a terrible thing wine is. To think of 
 her inheriting such a taste for it that she could 
 
WHERE IS M Y DA UGHTER ? 253 
 
 not keep her hands off from my own brandy flask 
 when it happened to come in her way. And it 
 couldn't have tasted very good, either, with what 
 was in it." 
 
 Wine. That was what she called it. 
 
 And yet Carrie Dillaye had not inherited a taste 
 for "wine," and there had not been a drop of it in 
 the fatal flask which came a little more than " in her 
 way." And many a human being goes down to the 
 gutter, and lower still, and he and his friends lay 
 the curse of it upon " wine," a liquid of which 
 neither he nor they know the taste. 
 
 But Mrs. Dillaye was about to comfort herself 
 with some additional remarks upon the subject of 
 intemperance and its manifold evils, when she heard 
 the sound of a well-known foot on the stairs, and 
 hastily slipped from her not very graceful perch on 
 the Saratoga. Even for a tall woman, it was a 
 pretty high seat. 
 
 " Mr. Dillaye ! Why, what can have brought you 
 home?" 
 
 "This did, and I think you may read it for your- 
 self." 
 
 " This" w r as the legal document he had received, 
 that morning, and it was no wonder he preferred 
 his wife should read it, rather than himself unfold 
 to her its unpleasant contents. 
 
 Rapidly her rusty-brown eyes ran from line to 
 line, down more than one long page, and at first 
 
254 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 it seemed as if she were trying to hold her breath 
 till she got through. That proving an impossibility, 
 she still employed so little air in her reading that 
 when, at last, she crushed the paper in her hand 
 she could only gasp: 
 
 " Mr. Brown ! Stephen. Mr. Brown !" 
 " The old villain ! Yes, it's his work." 
 " Have you seen him? Where is Caroline?" 
 " I've seen him, but he refused to tell me." 
 "Then she's at his house. We must see her, Mr. 
 Dillaye." 
 
 " I would not cross his threshold !" 
 " But we mast make her cross it. Why, she has 
 not even her clothes " 
 
 " I expect a man here for them any minute. 
 There's the door-bell, now. I hurried home to tell 
 you." 
 
 " Not a stitch of them shall go out of the house 
 till she comes for them." 
 
 " We cannot help ourselves, my dear. It is a 
 legal proceeding. If we do not give them up they 
 will be taken by force. Trust Daniel Brown for 
 that. The -cast-iron old scoundrel." 
 
 The servant who answered the door-bell was 
 coming up now, and Mr. Dillaye's surmise proved 
 correct. The young gentleman from Mr. Allyn's 
 office had brought a carman with him, and had his 
 employer's instructions to permit no trifling. 
 
 " They are all ready for her," exclaimed Mrs. 
 
WHERE IS M Y DA UGH TER ? 
 
 Dillaye, with a suddenness of acquiescence which 
 astonished her husband. " E\ erything is in these 
 trunks. You'd better take them all." 
 
 (t Mrs. Djllaye, will it not do as well to send one 
 of them ?" 
 
 c And have her accuse me of holding back some- 
 thing? No, indeed. She shall have every rag. And 
 then we must see her ourselves. I tell you she is 
 there." 
 
 There was work to be done in getting those 
 trunks on the dray, for they contained old clothes 
 as well as new, and winter outfit as well as that 
 adapted to the season, and, by the time the*young 
 man from Allyn's set out with his prize, Mr. Dillaye 
 was already half-way to Mr. Brown's in the cab. 
 Not that he had any idea of then entering the 
 house, but, an hour and a half later, he was able to 
 say to his \vife : 
 
 " I did precisely as you requested, and I saw the 
 dray stop in front of Mr. Brown's gate." 
 
 "Then we must call there, to-morrow, just as if 
 nothing had happened, and Caroline herself had 
 sent for us." 
 
 Mr. Dillaye's face was a study as he listened, but 
 discipline was fully vindicated in the fact that he 
 made no open sign of dissent. If he made none 
 then, it was safe to say that he would not on the 
 morrow, but it is not always wise to put off un- 
 til the morrow what can just as well be done to-day 
 
256 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 When Mr. Brown came to dinner that afternoon, 
 almost his first question was : 
 
 " Mabel, did Carrie's things come?" 
 
 "Yes, uncle, and she and I and Mrs. Boyce have 
 been sorting and packing, ever since. We will be 
 all ready to start, in the morning." 
 
 " Well, dear, a few weeks in the mountains will 
 be good for all of you. Sorry I cannot go right 
 away, but you'll see me before long. I had a talk 
 with Mr. Dillaye, to-day, but I won't say anything 
 about it just yet." 
 
 He had to before the evening was over, and it 
 was anything but agreeable, even though Carrie 
 tried hard to seem composed, and kept most of her 
 crying for her own room. 
 
 There was no change made in the programme, 
 however, and when, the next day, while Mr. Brown 
 was about his business, a lady and gentleman called 
 to see Miss Dillaye, all the answer they could get 
 from the staid servant at the door was: 
 
 "The ladies is all gone to the country, mum. I 
 don't know when they'll be back. Not for some 
 weeks, mum." 
 
 And "the country" is so very wide ! 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A VERY STORMY PASSAGE. 
 
 SLOWLY, one after another, the summer days 
 went by, there in the city. Almost as slowly 
 as to Dr. Milyng himself, among his rocks and 
 deserts. But all the while Mr. Brown's plans and 
 ideas were working themselves into a more magnifi- 
 cent system of confusion in that clear, practical and 
 benevolent head of his. He saw more and more, 
 as he studied the matter, what tremendous things 
 he was capable of doing, if he only had money 
 enough for them, and again and again were his 
 growing trays of specimens brought out upon the 
 library table to be studied over. 
 
 He was alone now, and the evenings were too 
 warm to read with any comfort, and almost every- 
 body he knew was out of town. 
 
 The matter of Carrie Dillaye's estate was going 
 forward, but a little slowly, for he still hoped to 
 secure a settlement without the business getting 
 into the courts and the newspapers. As to the 
 
 257 
 
258 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Boyce affair, that required little further attention, 
 as there was no prospect that the widow would 
 ever receive any other consolation than a release 
 from any claim upon her, individually. That would 
 come, as a matter of course, in due time, and Mr. 
 Allyn would see that nothing was overlooked. 
 
 But Mr. Brown had more than a little business of 
 his own, which required attention and settlement, 
 especially if he was ever to do anything with those 
 philanthropic dreams of his. Even if he should not, 
 these were times when careful men looked closely 
 to their investments, and were disposed to trust as 
 little as might be to the hands and brains of sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 But if time travelled slowly elsewhere, his feet 
 lingered with multiplied loads of lead and other 
 heavy material among the wards of the hospital on 
 the Island. Not even the most faithful and zeal- 
 ous discharge of his duties among the patients 
 availed to relieve Fred Heron of the intolerable 
 sense of duration which seemed to be crushing him. 
 
 The days had already lengthened into weeks, and 
 these were a good deal more like centuries to look 
 back upon, while those which were yet to come be- 
 fore the termination of his sentence were ages and 
 ages to face. 
 
 "What an awful thing a life-sentence must be," 
 he muttered, as he lay awake in the growing light 
 of one cloudless morning. " And yet there is one 
 
OUT WITH THE TIDE. 259 
 
 relief there. The very absence of hope must be 
 something. One could get a sort of resignation 
 out of that. I'm used to being forgotten, but I 
 haven't acquired the faculty of forgetting myself. 
 That's what's the matter. I'm looking forward to 
 some sort of life to come. This isn't life. And 
 yet I've done what I could for these poor fellows. 
 Even the surgeon told me he hoped I'd get myself 
 convicted again as soon as possible. So I shall, if I 
 see another policeman pounding a sick man. But 
 what's this ? I haven't had a touch of it before for 
 a fortnight. Perhaps a cup of coffee will help me 
 throw it off." 
 
 Perhaps. It had done so, in part, at least, on one 
 or two occasions, for " this " of which he was con- 
 scious was simply a return of that old inward 
 opium-gnawing with which he had wrestled so often. 
 He could have gratified it now, without much diffi- 
 culty, for there were all sorts of things in the dis- 
 pensary, and the hospital assistants had their privi- 
 leges. Hardly any one seemed to remember, nowa- 
 days, that he was a convict, and Miller treated him 
 with a half-way sort of respect, as a man who must 
 really be somebody, if ever he should get out of his 
 bad luck. Miller had known all sorts of men to 
 take a brief vacation on the Island, and the great 
 world they had left be none the wiser for it. 
 
 One of the consequences of Fred's hospital occu- 
 pation, as well as of his exceptional steadiness and 
 
2 6o THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 good behavior, had been that he was now a privi- 
 leged character, not the only one by a good many, 
 with a pretty free run of the whole water-guarded area. 
 
 And pretty well the water guarded it, too, with 
 its strong tides, its powerful eddies, its absolute cer- 
 tainty of drowning nine men out of ten who should 
 fall into it, and the added certainty that lynx-eyed 
 policemen were patrolling the opposite banks to 
 whom a man in convict garb or even in wet clothing 
 would surely be an object of curiosity. 
 
 But Fred was not in convict garb, and he had more 
 than once gazed into that water at the " slack," 
 when the eddies were still, and the straws on the 
 surface barely moved, and he had thought how short 
 a swim would give him at least a chance of liberty. 
 And with it, too, a chance of being sent back again 
 for a longer term and under less favorable circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Reason had repeatedly urged him to wait, those 
 few remaining days, and he had waited, heroically, 
 and perhaps he would still have waited if it had 
 not been for that singular return of his malady. 
 
 It is one of the curious phenomena of chronic 
 narcotic poisoning, so to describe it, that the return 
 of .the hunger itself, after long abstinence, brings 
 with it some of the mental and physical effects more 
 or less fully developed, of a dose of the poison. 
 That is one reason why precisely the same antidote 
 may often be employed with effect. 
 
OUT WITH THE TIDE. 26 1 
 
 The same is true, .to a less degree, with alcoholic 
 poisoning. The symptoms vary so much, however, 
 in different cases, that there is little wonder profes- 
 sional men are at such loggerheads about it all. Each 
 man reasons from his own experience and observa- 
 tion, and sometimes these are worth a good deal 
 more than they are at other times. 
 
 In Fred Heron's present case his cup of contract 
 coffee gave him a little temporary relief. It might 
 have given him more if there had been more coffee 
 in it, but it was a species of Java and Mocha, 
 mixed, of which the vender might truthfully have 
 declared : 
 
 " No chiccory in this. Give you my word. This 
 is the genuine bean." 
 
 So it was, but not all beans are alike in the ef- 
 fect of soup made from them upon the disordered, 
 or ordered, human system. 
 
 And so, as Fred proceeded with the punctual dis- 
 charge of his daily duties, his old enemy grew to 
 larger and larger proportions within him, till his 
 hand shook and his step became uncertain. He 
 made a tremendous effort, for he knew he would 
 have a chance for a breath of fresh air, by-and-by, 
 and he longed for a look at the walls and spires of 
 the city. 
 
 A busy day, with a number of new arrivals, some 
 of them very interesting cases, and it was later than 
 usual before the opportunity came. When it did, 
 
262 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 he had to take it carefully, so that no man's atten- 
 tion was attracted to him as he drew nearer and 
 nearer the unwalled, unguarded edge on which he 
 was so hungry to stand. As yet, not a thought of 
 anything more had entered his mind, for it was still 
 broad daylight, and the tide was rushing out with 
 even more than its usual violence. 
 
 O how beautiful the city looked the great city, 
 by which such men as he were so utterly forgotten 
 on principle. He drew in his breath painfully as 
 he stood there all alone, and it seemed as if he had 
 never been so much alone in his life. Forgotten by 
 even the keepers of the prison. He wondered if 
 indeed any one really remembered him. And then 
 he felt the rising within him of a strong, painful, 
 almost agonizing exhilaration, and with it came a 
 thought that was full of despairing temptation. 
 
 " If it were only night ! If it were but dark ! I 
 could not more than die, and that would surely 
 bring me a sort of freedom. Would it, though ? 
 How about suicide ? Would it be suicide if I got 
 drowned ? I wonder where they go to " 
 
 He had not been looking up, or he would 'have 
 seen that, even before he left the hospital, the sum- 
 mer sky had begun to exhibit symptoms of an ap- 
 proaching change. There are no storms so terrible 
 as those which gather in the hearts of men, but now 
 and then an August afternoon will give the world 
 a very fair material imitation of them. One of these 
 
OUT WITH THE TIDE. 263 
 
 was coming now, and any sensible convict would 
 have sought the shelter of his prison, as every 
 keeper and patrol had already done, for the sky 
 was as black as the cap the old-time judges wore 
 when they sentenced men to be hung for sheep- 
 stealing. 
 
 Fred had noticed nothing of it all,' but he saw 
 that the angry flood before him was growing 
 strangely dark and menacing, except where it was 
 streaked with livid lines of foam. The air was 
 charged with electricity and all his nerves were so 
 many galvanic points prepared to receive it. 
 
 Does not the mind as well as the body sometimes 
 take in from an outer atmosphere of its own some 
 subtle fluid which prepares it for explosive action? 
 
 Fred Heron felt as if he were full of something. 
 Full to bursting. 
 
 There was a vivid flash of lightning, followed by 
 such a stunning thunder crash as made him start 
 back from the edge of the water and look around 
 him. 
 
 Had night indeed come? 
 
 Something like darkness had, and in a moment 
 more not only the city over yonder, but the gray 
 buildings on the Island were hidden from him by 
 blinding sheets of plunging rain. 
 
 He stepped forward again. 
 
 It was less than four feet from tile level of the 
 bank to the surface of the water, but he could only 
 
264 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 see the hissing, foaming rush, as the torrent from 
 above smote the offended torrent below. 
 
 Fred Heron was a good swimmer, with enough 
 of practice to know precisely the nature of the risk 
 he was running, but he never thought of either his 
 own skill or the terrible danger. 
 
 The thunder pealed again, in a long, continuous 
 roll, and the lightning made blue clefts in the glit- 
 tering walls of the falling rain. That was the last 
 thing he saw as he yielded to the storm within him 
 and without him, and sprang with a fierce shout from 
 the stone sea-wall of the Island. 
 
 It was well he made a leap, for the impetus of it 
 carried him to the further side of a somewhat dan- 
 gerous eddy, and within the power of the out-rush* 
 ing tide. What a power that was when he felt it 
 grasp him. 
 
 No living swimmer could have done more than 
 keep himself on its sur'face as it bore him swiftly 
 away. 
 
 " It'll carry me out to sea if I let it have its own 
 will," he thought, as he strove to direct his course 
 towards the opposite shore. " If it isn't running 
 six miles an hour and more, I'm mistaken." 
 
 More than that, just there, but not so fast in the 
 wider waters below. It was one result of the heavy 
 rain, however, that but little sea was running, in 
 spite of the wind. There was very small danger, 
 or hope either, that he would be seen by anybody. 
 
OUT WITH THE TIDE. 
 
 26 5 
 
 " I must look out for ferryboats and other craft," 
 he said to himself. " If I go under one, or if one 
 goes over me, it'll be all day with me." 
 
 It was hard work, for even a good swimmer, and 
 Fred was beginning to feel anxious. He had not 
 the least idea how far he had been carried, but he 
 was keenly aware of one other thing every trace 
 of his unpleasant internal sensations had disappeared 
 and he felt like shouting: 
 
 "Victory!" 
 
 Just then a huge, misty object loomed up before 
 him; and he was compelled to pull with all his re- 
 maining strength to avoid being swept against the 
 hull of a vessel, moored in the stream. He saw no 
 one, and he had not made up his mind whether or 
 not to shout for help, when, as he reached the stern, 
 he saw a yawl-boat fastened to it by a painter. 
 
 That would do, admirably, but when he clam- 
 bered over the side he was compelled to throw him- 
 self flat on the bottom, utterly exhausted, although 
 the water was several inches deep. It was a very grate- 
 ful feeling, that of having something buoyant be- 
 tween him and death, and he lay as if the mere 
 pelting of the rain were a luxury. 
 
 Just how long it was he could not have told, 
 precisely, but he became conscious, after awhile, 
 of another motion than the rocking of the waves, 
 and he raised his head. 
 
 There was no ship in sight over the prow of the 
 
2 66 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 boat. The painter was free. It bad been carelessly 
 secured, and he had helped loosen it in climbing in. 
 There were oars in the boat and he knew how to 
 use them, but nothing could have been more hopeless 
 than an effort to restore that yawl to her owners, 
 just then, and he did not think of such a thing. It 
 would have been a more hopeless task than even 
 Fred himself imagined, for she had been in the 
 temporary service of the tramps of the harbor, and 
 when the crew of that ship returned on board, after 
 the storm, they had small difficulty in capturing 
 three half-drunken river-thieves who had been 
 trapped at their vocation by giving the painter of 
 their stolen boat so very tipsy a hitch. But Fred 
 Heron knew nothing of all that. His only ambi- 
 tion was to get ashore somewhere without attract- 
 ing too much attention, and he knew he could do 
 that best, if he got ashore at all, while it was still 
 raining hard. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A PERMANENT PROVISION MADE FOR TWO OF THE 
 MINOR CHARACTERS. 
 
 THE one peculiar thing about a clock is that it 
 ticks right on, without the slightest reference 
 to the human experiences, few or many, which may 
 or may not be crowded into the hours it measures. 
 
 There were clocks, for instance, in the western 
 home which Bessie Heron had provided for herself, 
 and they continued to tick for her after she had 
 written every letter which her sense of duty called 
 for. And after that, of course, she felt called upon 
 to do something for the clocks. That is, she deter- 
 mined to make the best possible use of her time, 
 and so she said to her hospitable friends. 
 
 She had soon discovered that they had responsi- 
 bilities and connections of their own. Strange as it 
 seemed, at first sight, their family relations had been 
 planned fcr them in gross disregard of such possi- 
 bilities as the advent of Bessie Heron, and they 
 were in grave danger of other visitors to come. 
 
 267 
 
268 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Had Fred been the man he should have been, 
 and never exposed himself to the wretched casual- 
 ties of war and sickness and consequent disability 
 of all sorts, this would have made no difference, but 
 as it was, Bessie foresaw a coming necessity for ac- 
 tion on her part. And she was a young woman of 
 action. She had always been. She was fond of 
 saying so. She had taken care of herself, at the 
 expense of others, for ever so long, in spite of the 
 misconduct of various members of her own family. 
 She was ready, now, to continue her glorious work, 
 and all she asked for was her work room. 
 
 If there was one thing in which she was without 
 a rival, it was the management of children, provided 
 she could have unobstructed control. In spite of 
 all manner of obstructions, she had brought up her 
 father, uncles, brothers, and quite an extended 
 list of her male connections, not to speak of 
 outside parties, and now she was absolutely hungry 
 for a fresh engagement. Nor could one be long 
 in making an offer,, in a western city, where young 
 women of her stamp must necessarily be like the 
 visits of other angels, far and few between. Very 
 few. 
 
 A middle-aged widower, with children on his 
 hands. A good house, plenty of money, business to 
 attend to, frequent absences from home. That was 
 a mission field for which Bessie Heron was willing 
 to have sacrificed anything except the duty and 
 
FROM DESERT TO WILDERNESS. 269 
 
 privilege of writing to and talking about her erring 
 relatives, and she entered upon it with a great sigh 
 of admiration. 
 
 Not of the mission field, but of her heroineism in 
 undertaking it. 
 
 She wrote about it to Mrs. Baird and to other of 
 her friends in the east, and, if they did not melt into 
 tears of some kind over those letters, it was no fault 
 of the mistress-hand by which they were written^ 
 Every justice was done, assuredly, to the virtues 
 and the failings of the widower's four children, and 
 the terrible defects of their brirrging-up before the 
 arrival of their good angel. That is about the usual 
 way with missionaries, home and foreign. Trust 
 them to count and classify the weeds in their res- 
 pective vineyards, but who ever heard of one find- 
 ing so much as a wild vine ? 
 
 But Bessie's time went by for her in her new 
 vineyard, more rapidly than for others, and she was 
 so thoroughly ingrossed with her weeds and other 
 things tha,t she hardly wondered at not receiving 
 an answer to her letters to Fred. And yet he had 
 always been a good correspondent, and she ought 
 really to have wondered a little. 
 
 Perhaps she may have felt, with Dr. Milyng, that 
 she had crossed her desert, and that it really mat- 
 tered very little what became of the pony which 
 had carried her over. He would be pretty sure to 
 find pasture, somewhere. 
 
2/O THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 And yet, to do him justice, Dr. Milyng did care. 
 His day of rest by the summer remnants of the 
 far-western " river" was not prolonged for an hour 
 more than was necessary, and his quadruped com- 
 panion was called upon for all the working power 
 he had in him, when they again moved forward. 
 But when, some few days thereafter, the borders of 
 civilization were reached, within "staging distance" 
 of a railway terminus, the doctor made no effort to 
 sell that pony. 
 
 The " dust and nugget" part of his precious lug- 
 gage was promptly turned into ready cash and 
 eastern bills of exchange. Saddle and bridle and 
 even weapons were transformed into available 
 greenbacks, but the doctor steadfastly refused more 
 than one good offer for the full value of his mustang. 
 He had his eyes about him, nevertheless, and he 
 seemed at last to have found the man he wanted 
 under the tattered sombrero of a veteran New Mexi- 
 can herder. 
 
 Tattered as was the sombrero of Senor Jose Val- 
 lejo, he could have drawn his check for an amount 
 which would have startled many a better dressed 
 man, and he and the doctor understood one another 
 at sight. 
 
 "You see," said the doctor,"! stole that pony 
 of the Apaches, 'way beyond the Mogollan Sk 
 erras." 
 
 " Si, Senor/' 
 
FROM DESER T TO WILDERNESS. 2 J\ 
 
 " And I worked him across the alkali plains and 
 I risked my own life to save his." 
 
 " Si, Seflor." 
 
 " Now he's come through with me, and I can't 
 take money for him." 
 
 u Of course not. I understand you. It is the 
 feeling of a true caballero." 
 
 " Will you give him the freedom of your range, 
 not to be worked or branded ?" 
 
 " One of my peones will lead him to my ranche 
 to-night, if you say it." 
 
 " Will you oblige me by accepting this repeating 
 rifle? I assure you it is a perfect weapon, Senor." 
 
 "You honor me, Sefior. I esteem it a great 
 privilege to accept your favor. The pony will live 
 and die without a saddle-mark. May I ask your 
 kind attention to some little matters for me in St. 
 Louis? A caballero of such distinguished senti- 
 ments is a man I can trust. I beg of you to give 
 me your considerate friendship." 
 
 A very ragged miner was Dr. Milyng, at that day 
 and hour, and an equally remarkable person was 
 the man he was conversing with, but the former 
 had been a United States Army Surgeon, and was 
 now the owner of endless mining claims, besides 
 the very good sum in his pockets, while the latter 
 was lord of uncounted herds of cattle, sheep and 
 horses, as well as of " land till you can't rest." 
 
 There was little doubt but what the Apache 
 
272 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 pony's latter days would be better for him than his 
 first, for Senor Jose Vallejo would have used up 
 his last mustang before he would have called for a 
 day's labor from the beast he had so received " in 
 trust." 
 
 And yet Dr. Milyng discovered that the business 
 entrusted to his management in consequence of the 
 pony matter carried with it " commissions" which 
 materially increased the moderate store he had 
 digged and washed from the placers " this side the 
 mountains." 
 
 From that time forward, however, the doctor's 
 movements were governed by a very different phase 
 of human progress from that against which he had 
 been struggling since he was compelled to part 
 company with his faithful Oliver. A couple of 
 days of swift staging brought him to one of the 
 rays of the great railroad spider-web which has been 
 woven over the Western Continent, and he had 
 nothing to do then, but to slide along that ray to- 
 wards the central den where the spiders themselves 
 abide. There were stoppages, brief ones, of course, 
 especially for the care of Senor Vallejo's interests 
 in St. Louis, but very little time was really wasted 
 before he found himself once more bewildered by 
 the rush and roar of the great city by the sea. 
 
 He had been there before. He had visited many 
 another great city, in his time, but never had he so 
 deeply felt the unfathomable difference between 
 
FROM DESERT TO WILDERNESS. 273 
 
 that awful hive of human life and the solitudes 
 among which he had been seeking the ''Golden 
 Heart." He could hardly make it real. 
 
 The streets were ravines which ought to lead to 
 either heights or depths, and they only opened into 
 other ravines as helplessly regular and aimless. The 
 crowds were an intolerable burden, for among them 
 all he sa^v no man whom he cared to either seek or 
 ayoid. 
 
 He had had something like a similar experience, 
 in days gone by, but it all seemed new to him now, 
 and he found himself possessed with a strong de- 
 sire to flee from it and be at rest again among his 
 peaceful mountain ranges. 
 
 He had had in mind, as he whirled along over 
 the railways which brought him, the names of more 
 than one man to whom he meant to open the sub- 
 ject of his mining discoveries, and that of Mr. 
 Daniel Bro\vn had been among them, but, on the 
 very morning after his arrival, he found his first 
 choice made for him. 
 
 He had selected his hotel, hit or miss, and had 
 made himself remarkably at home, as the hotel 
 clerk thought, over-night, but he had risen, bright 
 and early, with the idea that what he needed most 
 was an " outfit." 
 
 A clothing store, a bootmaker's, hatter's, and 
 various other establishments, were visited, with such 
 a result that Oliver himself would not have known 
 
2/4 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 his master, not to speak of matters which were 
 ordered to be sent to his hotel. If he had been 
 preparing for a season of fashionable operations 
 among the summer watering-places, now so soon to 
 close, he could hardly have been more liberal. But 
 the doctor's notions of Avhat belonged to the armor 
 of a mining warrior about to assail the strongholds 
 of eastern capital included something more than 
 mere clothing. He must have \veapons as well as 
 uniform, and he entered a jewelry store. He knew 
 what he wanted. K seal ring, some diamond studs, 
 sleeve-buttons, a watch and chain, and something 
 curious to hang on the chain. 
 
 That was all, but when he came to pay for them 
 the loose paper in his wallet, already drawn upon 
 for many items of expenditure, was hardly sufficient. 
 
 A trifle, to a man who could offer western bills 
 of exchange to so comfortable an amount. 
 
 "Are you Dr. Charles Milyng?" 
 
 "Of course I am. Just give me a pen and I'll 
 endorse that draft. You can give me your check 
 for the difference. It's all right." 
 
 " Haven't a doubt of it, my dear sir, but you can 
 easily identify yourself?" 
 
 "I identify myself? Do you mean to dispute 
 my word?" 
 
 " Certainly not. It's a mere matter of business. 
 We can't deviate from our rule, you know. Some- 
 body that knows you must identify you." 
 
FROM DESERT TO WILDERNESS. 275 
 
 The doctor's black eyes flashed, and he felt for 
 his revolver. 
 
 It was not there, and it was just as well for the 
 jewelry salesman that it was not. 
 
 Then he looked at the watch and chain which 
 he had already put on, and he thought for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " City ways," he muttered, and then he added, 
 aloud, " Do yo*u know Mr. Daniel Brown?" 
 
 11 The Mr. Brown? Merchant, and all that?" re- 
 plied the clerk, running over several items of the 
 business connections by which the world knew of 
 such a man. 
 
 "That's him. He knows me." 
 
 " He'll do. One of our men will go with you to 
 his office. He'll cash your bill for you at sight, if 
 he knows you." 
 
 "Knows me? Well, I guess he does. Send on 
 your man. Tell him to come right along with me." 
 
 " Queer customer," remarked the man of gold 
 and watches, as the doctor sailed out of sight, " but 
 I guess he's the right sort. I'd like to sell a few 
 more watches and things to-day at those figures. 
 Old Brown's check'll do for me." 
 
 And so it did, but Dr. Milyng himself was hardly 
 prepared for the exceedingly hearty welcome he 
 received from his old acquaintance, the city mer- 
 chant. His bill was cashed, as a matter of course, 
 but he himself was forbidden to leave the office un- 
 
?^6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 til he did so in Mr. Brown's own carnage, and be- 
 fore the evening was over, burned out like a candle 
 to the very socket, the doctor had discovered that 
 he was under no necessity of hunting around among 
 eastern capitalists. The man whose soul was all 
 gunpowder for the kind of sparks he had brought 
 with him was already on fire. The tray of speci- 
 mens had been brought out, as a matter of course, 
 but they, the specimens, were mere mud compared 
 to the evidences of mineral wealth which Dr. Milyng 
 laid beside them. 
 
 j <k We can have any assay you please to ask for, 
 Mr. Brown " 
 
 " Don't need any, my dear old friend. You say 
 it's the best mine you ever found ?" 
 
 " Found, sir? I didn't find it. There's no such 
 thing about it. It's the centre of a system. I 
 reasoned it out, years ago, and I've been working 
 down to it, ever since. The gold region is no hap- 
 hazard work of luck and chance. It's governed by 
 laws, and I've discovered the operation of those 
 laws, that's all. Every system has a heart. Our mine 
 is the heart, not a mere vein. Veins play out ; use up ; 
 all that sort of thing. What we are to work on is the 
 golden heart of the continent. The golden heart of 
 the world. All we want is the money to work it." 
 
 " I've got that," said Mr. Brown. 
 
 " Then we'll form our company, and I won't look 
 any further." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A MODERN CASE OF META- 
 MORPHOSIS. 
 
 MR. BROWN had been wise in sending the 
 ladies of his household into the mountains 
 for the remainder of the hot weather. Thereby he 
 placed Carrie Dillaye beyond the reach of annoy- 
 ance from other members of her family, pending the 
 proceedings for a settlement, now in the hands of 
 Mr. Allyn. Thereby he relieved Mabel Varick from 
 a responsibility which threatened to be a trifle too 
 heavy for a young lady of her few years and small 
 experience. Thereby, too, although he hardly con- 
 fessed as much to 'himself, he prevented the sojourn 
 of Mrs. Boyce at his house from putting on too 
 permanent an aspect. As it now appeared, she had 
 but accompanied his two nieces for a vacation in 
 the country, and he was in less of a hurry to join 
 them than the widow herself expected or could, per- 
 haps, have desired. 
 
 The locality selected for them was sufficiently 
 fashionable, and they were under .no bonds to re- 
 
 27; 
 
278 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 main there a day longer than pleased them, and the 
 two girls themselves were speedily ready to declare 
 to one another that they would not have been with- 
 out Mrs. Boyce for the world. She did not in any 
 perceptible degree curtail their freedom, and yet 
 her matronly presence did supply such a tremendous 
 element of propriety and protection. 
 
 He would have been a singularly bold social free- 
 booter who would have ventured on any, the slight- 
 est, act of piracy, under the guns of such a woman- 
 of-war as Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 She deemed it proper, on more than one occasion, 
 to come out, in company with her young friends, 
 resplendent with such jewels as made them proud 
 of her, and effectually prevented any notion, on the 
 part of anybody, that she was other than a t: great 
 lady." Even those who failed to bow to her 
 matchless manners were ready to prostrate them- 
 selves before her diamonds. 
 
 It was a regular campaign for the widow, and she 
 would have won every battle of it, but for one thing. 
 
 Mabel and Carrie called it a peace, or at least a 
 truce, in the absence of Uncle Daniel, and there was 
 really nothing to be won from them during so com- 
 plete a cessation of hostilities. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce began to understand it, after a while, 
 and she longed for, although she was too wise to 
 hasten, a return to some sort of debatable ground. 
 It was altogether too much like a defeat to have her 
 
A LITTLE UNEXPECTED. 279 
 
 position as "elderly friend of the family" so frankly 
 and unreservedly conceded to her. 
 
 " Could it be," she thought, " that Mabel Varick 
 was anything more than a mere girl, after all? 
 There is no doubt about Carrie. She is even too 
 ready to get up flirtations. Mabel has not flirted 
 with a soul since we left the city." 
 
 That was a bad sign, as every matron knows. It 
 always means something, and it is not always easy to 
 discover what it means. 
 
 There was nothing for it, however, but to see 
 it through, and Mrs. Boyce herself had but a faint 
 idea of how little would have been gained by a 
 transfer of operations to the city. 
 
 Mr. Brown's business affairs, of themselves, would 
 have been enemy enough to meet, just then, with 
 his fifty-odd years to back them, not to speak of 
 Mabel Varick and other considerations, but now 
 the arrival of Dr. Milyng! 
 
 The doctor himself had no idea how often his 
 face had returned to the merchant's memory and his 
 name to his lips, during the dreamy evenings spent 
 over those fragments of ore at the library table. 
 Still less did he imagine the effect actually pro- 
 duced by the exhibition of his few but weighty evi- 
 dences of the wealth of his new discovery. 
 
 Talk of boys. 
 
 If you care to know what enthusiasm is, wait till 
 you see a man of mature middle-age throw him. 
 
2gO THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 self away on a hobby. Henry Berg, Cyrus Field, 
 Dr. Livingstone, all the rest of them, how they do 
 shame the cold-blooded, cautious, calculating shiver- 
 ers of twenty-one. Now and then some sophomore 
 gets up gas enough to blow out his cork, but then it 
 is only a cork, after all, as a general thing, and the 
 world never joins in a grand rush to pick it up. 
 They know there could not have been anything 
 wonderful in that kind of a bottle, no matter how 
 large a kind of beer the bottle may think of itself. 
 
 It is a grand thing to capture a genuine hobby 
 and break it in for your own riding. If it does not 
 throw you and break your blessed neck you 
 must take your own risk of that when you mount 
 it it will be sure to carry you somewhere, where 
 neither you nor anybody else ever went before. 
 
 Mr. Brown's hobby was yet a trifle indefinite as 
 to form and features, and was likely to develop a 
 good many of both, in time, but he felt the bound- 
 ing motion of it under him, from the moment when 
 Dr. Milyng entered his office. The doctor was com- 
 pelled to transfer his baggage and headquarters 
 from his hotel to the merchant's residence, that first 
 night, bringing with him the ores which had been 
 such a weariness to the pony during that thirsty 
 third day on the alkali plains. 
 
 The next morning the two rode down town to- 
 gether, and Mr. Brown never stopped talking about 
 mining affairs until he reached his office. That 
 
A LITTLE UNEXPECTED. 28 1 
 
 was the reason he never till then asked himself the 
 question what he should do with Dr. Milyng* for 
 the remainder of the day. 
 
 It was a question which had to be asked and an- 
 swered, nevertheless, and the doctor could give but 
 a very partial and insufficient solution of the con- 
 undrum. 
 
 Ores could be taken to an assayer. That would 
 be something, and would consume a little time. 
 
 There could be a consultation with Mr. Allyn as 
 to legal formula relating to a mining company, of 
 which the members and corporators were yet to be 
 selected. Then there could be a hunt for a map- 
 maker, by whom a more or less accurate profile of 
 the region around the Golden Heart should be put 
 on paper. All that was very well, and the mer- 
 chant and the miner stopped there, as if exhausted 
 in laying out such a programme for one day's 
 operations. 
 
 But all that was mere antelope-shooting to a man 
 like Dr. Milyng. He could have seen twenty law- 
 yers, fifty assayers, a hundred map-makers, killed 
 them all, and then complained that the hunting 
 was poor. When and where he got his lunch, he 
 .could hardly have reported correctly, but in the 
 course of the afternoon he found himself explor- 
 ing some of the wild and unknown regions in the 
 lower part of the city. He knew there was salt 
 water in that direction, somewhere, and that some 
 
2 g2 TH E HEART OF IT. 
 
 of those red-brick ravines and passes led down, 
 through the ranges of warehouses and lager-beer 
 shops, to wharves, and shipping, and he had pene- 
 trated within a hopeful distance of a discovery when 
 he became aware of a change in the* weather. JNo 
 such thing couldhave taken him by surprise on the 
 plains or among the mountains, where storms givq 
 fair warning l but now he had barely time to spring 
 past a wooden Indian, of no tribe with which he 
 was familiar, before the rain came down. It was 
 no hardship for a man who smoked, to be driven 
 into a tobacco shop, but if it had been he could 
 have consoled himself by gazing out at the familiar 
 violence of that " cloud-burst." 
 
 There was nothing for it, having respect to his 
 civilized clothes, but to wait, and he waited. 
 
 And it happened that, at the end of that very 
 street, there was a boat-landing. A pier not alto- 
 gether given up to big vessels. There was hardly 
 another like it on the whole water-front of the city, 
 which is like life, with few places where small craft 
 can land their cargoes with comfort and security. 
 
 Just before the deluge ceased, there came a yawl- 
 boat, rowed by one man, leisurely pulling towards 
 that boat-landing, and the only wonder was that 
 the oarsman should be in no greater hurry to get 
 ashore. 
 
 " Had a tough pull, I reckon," said a policeman 
 under an awning as he saw the boat pulled in. 
 
A LITTLE UNEXPECTED. 
 
 283 
 
 " Hullo, mister," shouted a small boy, " forgot 
 yer umberelly, did yer?" 
 
 But the drenched boatman made no sign or sound 
 as he fastened his boat, nodded to the pier-keeper, 
 and he hurried away up the street. 
 
 He moved very much like a man who was wet 
 and wanted a change of clothes, and everybody 
 looked at him as if they thought he was just that 
 kind of a man. 
 
 Certainly no one thought of inquiring how he hap- 
 pened to have come ashore in that particular yawl. 
 
 The rain was holding up, now, and the sun was 
 coming out again as the boatman strode rapidly 
 forward. It was a hot sun, too, such as comes after 
 thunderstorms, and well adapted to make men and 
 things dry again. 
 
 " Beg your pardon, sir." 
 
 A wet man has no business to run against a dry 
 one, especially one so glossily dry, so shiningly un- 
 moist as the gentleman addressed, but he showed 
 no sign of bad temper. 
 
 "Got soaked, did ye? Hallo. Look here, is it 
 you ? Fred Heron ! How d'ye do, old boy? If I 
 ain't glad, now. Give us your hand." 
 
 " Dr. Milyng " 
 
 " That's me. I'd have given anything to meet 
 you. You're just the man I want. Where'd you 
 come from? Never mind your wetting. That's 
 nothing." 
 
284 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Fred Heron had taken the doctor's outstretched 
 hand, almost mechanically, and he had let him shake 
 it half-loose, but he withdrew it, now, remarking : 
 
 "You're the first man I've met, Dr. Milyng " 
 
 "Ami? Are all the rest dead? I ain't, then. 
 What are you up to? Tm just glad to have met 
 you/' 
 
 Fred's face had been changing color rapidly for 
 those few moments, but there was a firm expression 
 gathering about his lips. 
 
 "Dr. Milyng," he said, now half-huskily, "you're 
 an old friend, and I must tell you just how it is with 
 me. I've just escaped from the Island." 
 
 "The Island? What's that? It's a kind of jail, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " It's all kinds of a jail." 
 
 " And you got yourself corralled by the lawyers, 
 did you ? How did they get in on ye? What was 
 the matter with your lookout ?" 
 
 There was not the slightest cooling in the cordi- 
 ality of the doctor's manner. On the contrary, his 
 interest seemed to be growing, as if his young friend 
 had come out of a sharp brush with some- tribe of 
 Eastern Apaches, and was about to tell the story of 
 it. And so he was, for Fred could but see and feel 
 that anything but the utmost frankness was out of 
 the question. His wet clothes were of less conse- 
 quence in the warm sunshine now pouring down 
 upon him, and his story was not a long one, for he 
 
A LITTLE UNEXPECTED. 285 
 
 confined it mainly to the manner of his getting in, 
 at the Island, and his remarkable exploit of that 
 very afternoon. He told it all well, but his modest 
 way of presenting the facts did but bring them out 
 more clearly, and the doctor came very near throw- 
 ing his arms around the very damp narrator. 
 
 If Fred Heron had had a friendly hold upon the 
 heart of the mining veteran before he told that 
 story, he had fastened him now as with hooks of 
 steel. The English language itself ran short of 
 words to express the doctor's enthusiastic admira- 
 tion, and loose fragments of half a dozen others 
 were called in to make up the deficiency. He 
 wound up with : 
 
 " You shall go right along with me, my boy. You 
 shall be the secretary of our mining company. We 
 will go right straight to old Brown's office and I'll 
 tell him I've engaged you." 
 
 " What, in this rig ?" 
 
 "That rig? No, indeed. He's a very particular 
 man, and well, if I ain't an old fool. Come on, 
 Fred, we'll get you an outfit first thing." 
 
 " But I've no money, doctor, and I can't borrow, 
 even of you." 
 
 " Can't you, indeed? Well, then, I'll divide my 
 pile with you, and I'll break your neck if you make 
 any dispute about it. Don't be too proud, now. 
 It's only an advance on your salary as secretary of 
 the company." 
 
286 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 "But I don't know anything about the company. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "You'll know, soon enough. Come along, now." 
 
 The ideas entertained by men of Dr. Milyng's 
 stamp about money matters are apt to be a little 
 vague. No others set so small a value on the treas- 
 ures they hunt for, once they have found and pock- 
 eted them. All their greed of gold seems to cool 
 off as soon as the metal takes the form of coin, and 
 is at zero when it is expressed by mere paper. 
 
 Fred went with the doctor, but was compelled to 
 interfere continually as a moderator of the profuse 
 liberality of the latter's notions of what became the 
 secretary of the Golden Heart to wear and shine 
 with. As it was, he feared that at least three 
 months' pay must have disappeared before their 
 shopping was completed. All their packages had 
 been ordered to a hotel, selected by Fred, and when, 
 after an hour spent in his room, the escaped con- 
 vict reappeared arm in arm with the now radiant 
 miner, all the keepers on the Island would have 
 walked by without knowing him. 
 
 There was one thing more, which tended to make 
 the young man walk firmly and look all men in the 
 face. 
 
 While his outward seeming had undergone so 
 great a change, a wonderfully fresh and joyous feel- 
 ing crept over him, through nerve and vein. A feel- 
 ing of freedom. Not of mere freedom from stone 
 
A LITTLE UNEXPECTED. 287 
 
 walls and water-guarded Island limits, but from 
 the torturing grasp of that old enemy within. 
 
 He had broken the last fetter of his bondage 
 when he sprang from the sea-wall into the foaming 
 tide. 
 
 Dr. Milyng knew nothing of all that, however, 
 and he urged his companion to a tremendously 
 rapid rate of walking as they left the hotel. 
 
 "It's four o'clock/' he said, "and old Brown '11 
 be bound home before a great while. We must 
 not run the risk of keeping him waiting." 
 
 Risk, indeed! 
 
 Mr. Brown had been waiting and fretting and 
 fuming for an hour, and imagining that his friend 
 had lost himself somewhere. The carriage was 
 waiting, too, to take them home to dinner, and the 
 merchant's face clouded a little, when he saw that 
 his wanderer had not returned alone. 
 
 "I've found him," exclaimed the doctor, as he 
 marched in. "My old friend, Mr. Fred Heron. Knew 
 his father, and his mother, and his whole family. 
 I'll tell you all about him. He's to be the secretary 
 of our mining company." 
 
 Somewhat to the doctor's astonishment, the mer- 
 chant was on his feet before the queer introduction 
 was over. 
 
 "Mr. Heron. Glad to see you, sir. Been won* 
 dering for a month and more, why you did not keep 
 your promise to call on me. How do you do, sir?" 
 
288 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 11 Very well, thank you, Mr. Brown. It has been 
 impossible for me to call. I've not been in the 
 city." 
 
 " Tramping, eh? Well, it has done you good, I 
 should say. You must tell me about it when we 
 get to the house. You will dine with us?" 
 
 "With pleasure, Mr. Brown. I am anxious to 
 know more about the company." 
 
 "You know each other, then," slowly remarked 
 the doctor. " I didn't suppose anybody knew any- 
 body else, here-away. Why, Fred's face is the only 
 one I've met all-day, that I could fit a handle to." 
 
 " Big crowds, eh, doctor? Well, the carriage is 
 waiting. We'll drive right to the house." 
 
 Fred walked out of the office with them, like a 
 man in a dream. He had waked that morning, a pris- 
 oner, on a pallet in a hospital on the Island. He 
 had fought for his life with the angry waves and the 
 storm. He had landed from a stolen boat, with a 
 feeling that the world did not contain a more hope- 
 less, helpless, half-drowned castaway. And here he 
 was, now, better dressed than he had been before 
 for years, and whisking through the streets of the 
 great city in a stylish turnout, the guest of a great 
 merchant, a strong friend by his side, and the open- 
 ing dawn of a new career before him. Let some- 
 body moralize. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE HARD FATE OF AN ENTERPRISING PUBLIC SER. 
 VANT. 
 
 DURING all those lengthening days following 
 their fruitless visit to the Brown mansion, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Dillaye found the world growing dark to 
 them. 
 
 Not that they were visibly annoyed by those 
 whom Mr. Dillaye termed " the hired minions of 
 Brown's infernal malice." 
 
 In fact they knew only too little of the steps 
 which were steadily taken by that astute and cautious 
 gentleman, Mr. Counsellor Allyn. All they knew was 
 that he was moving, and that nothing they could now 
 do could hinder him. The condition of Mr. Dillaye's 
 own business affairs rendered him quite willing that 
 such should be the case, since that which was un- 
 known to him must also be a secret to the financial 
 gentlemen who discounted his notes. 
 
 All the more vexatious was it, one morning, to 
 find in a journal somewhat given to the mysterious 
 and sensational in the manufacture of what it called 
 
 289 
 
290 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 its "news," an item under the head of "mysterious 
 disappearance," setting forth that the daughter of 
 one of the city's first families, the heiress of large 
 wealth, a young lady of singular beauty and accom- 
 plishments, and an ornament to the society in which 
 she moved, had been for some weeks among the 
 missing. Her relatives had offered fabulous re- 
 wards, so it was stated, and the entire detective 
 force had been employed, but without avail, and 
 the darkest suspicions were entertained of foul play. 
 
 "Can they mean Carrie?" he mournfully ex- 
 claimed, as he passed the sheet across the break- 
 fast table to his wife. 
 
 She read the item carefully through. 
 
 " Don't care if they do. What can they make of 
 it? We can give a perfect answer to all inquiries." 
 
 " But they have not inquired. They have printed 
 it at once. What they want is something to fill up 
 with." 
 
 "Wish it would poison them, then/' 
 
 But poison does not work on constitutions daily 
 accustomed to it, and the reporter, who had over- 
 heard an incautious conversation between two of 
 Mr. Allyn's clerks in a restaurant, was not disposed 
 to let the matter rest there. Not even the con- 
 temptuous snubbing he received at the lawyer's 
 office, in spite of his credentials from the influential 
 journal he represented, served to cool his profes- 
 sional ardor. He had struck a trail, and he would 
 
A TRIUMPH OF JOURNALISM. 2 gi 
 
 follow it, like a red Indian or any other blood- 
 hound, for he had even caught the names of indi- 
 viduals with those long, keen ears of his. 
 
 Failing to find Mr. Dillaye when he called,, in the 
 course of the day, at that gentleman's place of busi- 
 ness, he proceeded at once to his residence. 
 
 "My daughter, sir? Mr. Dillaye's daughter? 
 What have you to do with her?" was the curt 
 and severe response of the lady who entered the 
 parlor in response to his card, and who listened so 
 grimly to his smirking statement of his errand. 
 
 " Beg pardon, Madame. A very painful case, no 
 doubt. Sorry to intrude on family matters, but 
 the public interest is greatly excited, and it is the 
 duty of the press to meet the popular demand. 
 We must really ascertain the particulars, or some of 
 our unscrupulous rivals may print a false and garbled 
 account of it." 
 
 " Let 'em, then. Miss Dillaye is visiting with her 
 uncle, Mr. Daniel Brown. You'd better see him, I 
 think. Good-morning, sir. John, show the gentle- 
 man the door, and keep an eye on the hat-rack. See 
 that no more of his kind get in," 
 
 Unbroken was the metallic smile on the reporter's 
 face as he bowed himself out of the parlor, for he 
 was used to that sort of thing, and had little doubt 
 but what he should come again, with a certainty of 
 a better reception "when the secret leaked out." 
 
 And he knew, too, that a hundred other warriors 
 
2Q2 THE HEART OF IT, 
 
 of his tribe were even then scouting" in all directions 
 for some traces of the very trail he was following. 
 
 At the Brown mansion he made even a more 
 complete failure, for he failed to pass the threshold, 
 and Prince himself stood calmly by while the house- 
 keeper repeated her assurances that " the ladies is in 
 the country, sir." 
 
 Further questioning was made difficult by the 
 thickness and strength of the door which was closed 
 in his face, and any prolonged survey of the premises 
 was vetoed by Prince. The reporter discerned that 
 there had been some carelessness in fastening the 
 wire muzzle, that morning, and he had doubts of 
 Prince's appreciation of the privileges of a free and 
 untamed press. 
 
 "Old Brown himself. I'll make him disgorge. 
 See f f I don't." 
 
 And his next descent was upon Mr. Daniel Brown. 
 
 " Disappearance ? My niece? Miss Dillaye? O 
 yes. She is my niece, and she has disappeared. 
 Gone very mysteriously to the Bald Mountain 
 House, in company with my other niece, Miss Varick, 
 and her friend, Mrs. Boyce. Remarkable, is it 
 not ? Glad to give you any information, sir." 
 
 " But, Mr. Brown" 
 
 " Excuse me, my young friend, that's all. I've no 
 time to bother with your blunders. Good-morning." 
 
 Another very open door through which he some- 
 what sadly made his exit, but he felt more sure than 
 
A TRIUMPH OF JOURNALISM. 293 
 
 ever that he had a good thing on his hands if he 
 could only get at the bottom of it. So strong and 
 so unerring is brute instinct, especially when its 
 brutality is well trained and well rewarded. 
 
 There was no throwing him off in that way, and 
 the Bald Mountain House was not so far from the 
 city that the afternoon train could not carry there a 
 man who represented so many puffs of so very many 
 summer hotels. A few hours by rail and boat, and 
 
 he was there. 
 
 t 
 
 " Lo, 'twas a gala night," and the ladies were 
 dressing for the dance which was to come as soon 
 as the dining-hall could be transformed into a ball- 
 room. All the parlors were filling up, already, but 
 the reporter had help from the landlord and the 
 clerk, and Mrs. Boyce's party were duly advised that 
 a gentleman from the city was waiting to have a 
 word with them. 
 
 " Will you see him, Mrs. Boyce ?" asked Mabel. 
 " I do not know the name on his card." 
 
 " He sends word especially to Miss Dillaye. Do 
 you know him, Carrie ?" 
 
 " I think not, but I will not see him alone. If it 
 were any law business we should have heard from 
 Uncle Daniel or Mr. Allyn." 
 
 " If you wish it, dear, I will see what he wants," 
 said Mrs. Boyce, for she had completed her toilette, 
 and in a minute or so more the gentleman of the press 
 felt a throb of triumph at his heart as the stately 
 
294 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 lady sailed into the reception-room where he waited 
 and hoped. 
 
 " Miss Dillaye? I am grateful indeed, and sorry 
 to trouble you about so unpleasant an affair, but I 
 represent the most widely read and influential 
 journal in the country, and we are desirous of lay- 
 ing before the public the particulars of your late 
 mysterious disappearance. I wish particularly to 
 know all that happened, and under what circum- 
 stances you returned. I assure you it is not generally 
 known that such is the fact." 
 
 Mrs. Boyce listened, with an expression of the 
 deepest interest. 
 
 " Certainly. But may I ask when I disappeared ?" 
 
 " That's precisely the first thing I wish to know. 
 The public is deeply interested." 
 
 " Very sorry to disappoint you, but I really do 
 not know. This is the first I have heard of it. If 
 you would only tell me, now." 
 
 " Why, Miss Dillaye, you certainly will not be so 
 cruel) so unwise. The most dreadfully incorrect re- 
 ports might get in circulation " 
 
 " Permit me to correct you, sir. My name is 
 Mrs. Boyce, and you will please address me as such. 
 I beg leave to decline any further conversation upon 
 the subject of your errand. It is a strictly private 
 affair. Good-evening, sir." 
 
 A flood of light broke in upon the soul of the re- 
 porter as the elegantly-dressed lady swept from the 
 
A TRIUMPH OF JOURNALISM. 295 
 
 room. He saw through it all, now. Not even the 
 shallow subterfuge played by the landlord and his 
 cunning subordinate were proof against such saga- 
 city as his. He would not let them know he had 
 seen through it. Not he. 
 
 , " O if I could only get a glimpse of Boyce him- 
 self!" 
 
 And so he lingered at the door of the dining 
 ball-room, until, the centre of a brilliant group of 
 ladies and gentlemen, the widow passed him. He 
 entered, he watched, he made his unerring selec- 
 tion. 
 
 Mabel Varick and Carrie Dillaye had begged 
 Mrs. Boyce to relieve them as much as possible of 
 that particular young man, but they had never 
 guessed what would come of it by reason of his 
 being so skilfully detained at the widow's side. 
 
 Another day, and the great journal announced 
 the solution of its social enigma. 
 
 The supposed disappearance had been an elope- 
 ment, no more, no less, and the lady, " who, though 
 very beautiful, is quite old enough to take care of 
 herself, has evidently married for love. Nothing 
 else would compel any woman to tie herself to such 
 a red-haired noodle of a boy as Mr. Boyce, whoever 
 he may be. It is rumored, by the way, that he 
 is enormously wealthy, but, of course, that has 
 nothing to do with it. Her family and friends are 
 evidently a good deal discomfited by the match 
 
296 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 and the manner of it. The happy couple are 
 spending their honeymoon at the Bald Mountain 
 House, the accomplished proprietor of which popu- 
 lar resort is doing his utmost to make it pleasant 
 for them.'* 
 
 There was half a column of it, and there was no 
 question but what it was news, pure and simple, 
 and the reporter had won a glorious triumph, as 
 usual, over the obstacles thrown in his way by the 
 absurd scruples of private delicacy. 
 
 When, however, that article was perused by Mr. 
 Daniel Brown, he picked up his pen with a very red 
 face. 
 
 The first thing he wrote was a telegram. The 
 second was a note, which was carried to the editori- 
 al office of that newspaper by Mr. Allyn, and was 
 therefore printed. 
 
 It was a bad thing for the reporter, for it called 
 the attention of his superiors and the public to the 
 facts that, " My niece, now visiting with me, did 
 not run away or elope ; is not married ; was not 
 seen by your reporter, or conversed with ; and her 
 friend Mrs. Boyce, whom he seems to have deter- 
 mined to misrepresent, is the widow of the head of 
 the late house of Boyce, MilTIngton & Co. You 
 have been very absurdly victimized".'* 
 
 And then everybody laughed at the great jour- 
 nal, except the ladies whose names had been bandied 
 about so freely, and the discharged reporter him- 
 
A TRIUMPH OF JOURNALISM. 297 
 
 self. The latter was dropped, as his chief informed 
 him, " for being made a fool of by a woman." As 
 if, indeed, he was to blame for his likeness to Adam. 
 
 But the telegram brought to a sudden end that 
 pleasant vacation among the mountains, for Mr. 
 Brown wisely concluded that the best way to pre- 
 vent any mystery was to have his household under 
 his own roof. 
 
 A busy man was he, and the little mess provided 
 by the reporter did not tend to clear his mind, so 
 that he might well be pardoned if he neglected to 
 inform Dr. Milyng and Fred Heron of the change 
 in his family arrangements. The former was the 
 very man to have rejoiced at it, but the latter had 
 congratulated himself only too heartily on the exist- 
 ing state of affairs. He had said to himself: 
 
 "If Miss Dillaye has told him anything about 
 Rogers, she has not been able to mix me up with 
 him. I'll keep away from the house after she 
 gets home." 
 
 He had his misgivings, even then, 'about what 
 might possibly come to pass, and the more friendly 
 and confidential the treatment he received from 
 Mr. Brown, the more he felt disposed to give him 
 the truth concerning his recent " absence from the 
 city." He spoke to the doctor about it, but the 
 veteran of the mountains had his little streak of 
 worldly wisdom. 
 
 "I wouldn't," he said. "It's none of his busi- 
 
2 9 3 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 ness. He wouldn't see it as I do. He never was 
 in jail in his life, and he'd be prejudiced. No more 
 was I, but I've done what would have put me there 
 if I'd tried it on in the settlements. Why, the last 
 thing I did, before I came east, was to steal two 
 horses and a lot of other things. That's a heap 
 worse than interfering with a policeman," 
 
 And so, sure of the sympathy of his admiring 
 friend, Fred had let matters drift, and Mr. Brown 
 took a stronger liking to him every day, insisting 
 on his coming to the house for his dinner and for 
 the talks about mining matters, not to speak of 
 social, political, and religious questions, which the 
 rush of down-town business rendered impossible at 
 the office. But it was the very frankness of the 
 manner in which the merchant treated him which 
 was beginning to trouble him, and, on the day after 
 the sending of that telegram, he went through Mr. 
 .Brown's front gate with a mind made up. Come 
 what would, he would make a clean breast of it. No 
 man should be able to say of him that he had ob- 
 tained social recognition under false pretences. 
 
 " I ought to have told him before," he said to 
 himself, " the doctor to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing." 
 
 And so, perhaps, he ought, but there had been a 
 great many other things to talk about, during 
 those few days after he came ashore. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 EVEN A GOOD DEED SOMETIMES REQUIRES HUMBLE 
 CONFESSION. 
 
 MR. BROWN and Dr. Milyng were in the 
 library when Fred Heron arrived, and were 
 busy over some drawings which had that day been 
 sent in from the mapmaker's. 
 
 "They will do," remarked the doctor. "What do 
 you think of them, Fred ? We will all be out there 
 the first thing, next spring. There's never any win- 
 ter there, but we must do our travelling before the 
 hot weather sets in. Especially if we are to have 
 lady company." 
 
 " Lady company?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Brown says it's likely we may. We 
 shall not take our machinery with us r you know. 
 Only a strong working party to make a good begin- 
 ning and complete our surveys. The machinery 
 can follow us. We'll have a grand time." 
 
 Fred's face grew gloomier with every word for 
 the mention of the ladies drove and clinched the last 
 nail in his determination. 
 
 299 
 
300 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " Then, doctor, it's high time Mr. Brown knew 
 precisely what sort of a fellow he is dealing with 
 and bringing into his house in this way. Mr. 
 Brown, I should have said it earlier, but I say it 
 now. I have been a prisoner on the Island." 
 
 "You? On the Island?" 
 
 "All the time, sir, from the very night I first en- 
 tered this room until the day Dr. Milyng brought 
 me to your office." 
 
 If one of the quartz specimens on the table be- 
 fore him had touched itself off and exploded, Mr. 
 Brown's face could hardly have put on an expression 
 of greater astonishment. 
 
 "On the Island, Mr. Heron?" 
 
 "And what is more, sir " 
 
 Just then the door from the hall swung open, 
 and Fred heard a great rustle of silk and the like 
 behind him. He had not been seated, and he 
 turned on his feet to face the unexpected inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 " Miss Dillaye!" 
 
 " Mr. Rogers ! O Uncle Daniel, I'm so glad you 
 have found him. Has he told you? I have so 
 much to thank him for." 
 
 She held her hand out frankly as she spoke, 
 and Fred saw no reason why he should not 
 take it, although his face was crimson as he did 
 so, for it looked still more like a case of false pre- 
 tences. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 30 1 
 
 " Was that the name under which you were con- 
 victed," sternly demanded Mr. Brown. 
 
 " It was" 
 
 " But, uncle, it was he that wrote you about me. 
 He was the only friend I had there." 
 
 " There was no name signed to the letter I 
 received " 
 
 " Carrie," suddenly exclaimed Mabel Varick, " why 
 do you not tell Uncle Daniel all you told me? He 
 ought to know why Mr. Heron was arrested. Tell 
 him. If you won't, I will 
 
 And Mabel went on like one who could not wait 
 for any other tongue, for never in her life had any- 
 thing appealed to her like the story her cousin 
 had told her of the young hero of the hospital, 
 locked up for his knightly interference in behalf 
 of the helpless against the strong. She forgot that 
 the hero himself was standing there by the library 
 table, and she told the tale with flushed cheeks 
 and flashing eyes. 
 
 " There is more in that girl than I thought there 
 was," said Mrs. Boyce to herself. " I'm on the 
 young man's side as strongly as she is. Good for 
 Mabel, but it ought to have come from Carrie." 
 
 So thought Carrie herself, and she added all the 
 emphasis she knew how to her cousin's swift recital. 
 As for poor Fred, his head was drooping humbly 
 enough, now, as if he longed to hide it somewhere, 
 and then, to complete his discomfiture, Dr. Milyng 
 
302 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 capped the story of his incarceration with that of 
 his superlatively daring escape. 
 
 The merchant had not lost a word. 
 
 4< Saved my house from burglars/' he muttered, 
 "and my niece from prison and worse, and not a 
 stain upon him that ought not to be set in pearls !" 
 
 Getting poetic in his old age, as sure as shooting. 
 
 It was the doctor thought that, but Mr. Brown 
 was holding out his hand to Fred, with a light on 
 his face that the discovery of another mine could 
 hardly have brought there. 
 
 ' I'll hear your explanation of it all some other 
 time, my young friend. This'll do for once. We'll 
 go into dinner now. Mrs. Boyce, Mr. Heron. Mrs. 
 Boyce, Dr. Milyng." 
 
 " Both hands, please," exclaimed the widow, as 
 she held out her own to Fred. " I'm glad there are 
 such men. I don't care if you've been in fifty jails, 
 if you got there in such a way." 
 
 " My only experience of the kind, I assure you. 
 God keep me from such another." 
 
 That was a dinner-table, indeed, and the girls 
 could hardly eat for sheer excitement. It was less 
 to be wondered at in Carrie's case, for all the reali- 
 ties of her terrible adventure were brought back to 
 her most vividly, but it was odd fora young woman 
 like Mabel Varick to be stirred up by the fortunes 
 and misfortunes of a man whom she had first en- 
 countered as an avowed tramp, rescued from a dog- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 303 
 
 watched tree in her own front yard. But then the 
 lives of well-bred young ladies have so few ripples 
 of genuine disturbance in them, and these two had 
 returned from the country in no very equable frame 
 of mind. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce was in her element, and Mr. Brown's 
 close observation of his young guest more than ever 
 convinced him that the " tramp" felt very much at 
 home in the character and associations of a gentleman. 
 
 Very modest was Fred, for the attentions he re- 
 ceived were by no means easy to bear, and he con- 
 stantly sheltered himself behind the free, exuberant 
 talk of the thoroughly delighted doctor. 
 
 Such tales of mountain life and western adven- 
 ture as the latter did tell! all of them true, be- 
 yond a doubt, but losing nothing by his telling. 
 
 "And I tell you what it is, ladies," he said, 
 11 there's nothing I've told you that called for any 
 more courage than Fred's jump into the river to be 
 swept out to sea by the tide. There are not many 
 men I know of that would care to try that. I'm 
 going to give Fred a mining claim for every hun- 
 dred yards he swam." 
 
 And, after dinner, there were the wonderful ores 
 to be examined, and the story of the Golden Heart 
 to be told, and all the thrilling adventures of the 
 long, perilous, lonely march to the settlements, 
 over mountains and deserts. And when, late in the 
 evening, Fred Heron took his departure, he left 
 
304 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 behind him enough of red-hot mining enthusiasm 
 to have furnished forth a dozen companies instead 
 of one. 
 
 To be sure, the summer was over, and bad weather 
 would be sure to come on before preparations for 
 active operations could be completed. 
 
 The doctor and his friends understood that well 
 enough, but they could prepare, just the same. 
 Machinery could be bought or manufactured and 
 sent upon its long way westward. All eastern busi- 
 ness which might otherwise interfere could be stead- 
 ily closed up or set in order to take care of itself. 
 In short, the proposed mining and exploring expe- 
 dition could be rendered all the more complete and 
 sure of a comfortable success by reason of not 
 sending it out in a hurry. 
 
 Meantime, the Golden Heart would wait, in the 
 centre of its supposed "system," whether or not 
 that had any existence outside of the feverish brain 
 of its discoverer. 
 
 There was no doubt about the quality of the 
 .specimen ores he had brought with him, as the re- 
 port of the assayer abundantly testified, and Mr. 
 Brown's other dreams took on an aspect of some- 
 thing like reality as he perused that same report. 
 
 Fred Heron slept more soundly than might have 
 been expected the night after that dinner at Mr. 
 Brown's, for a considerable load had been lifted 
 from his mind. He had less and less doubt, too, 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 305 
 
 about his own future, whether or not he should turn 
 out a successful miner. It would be hardly fair to 
 expose the peculiarly mixed character of some ot 
 his dreams, however, or the extent to which they 
 were confused by the entry of enthusiastic females 
 in rustling drapery. He could but confess to him- 
 self that Carrie Dillaye looked wonderfully im- 
 proved, in her city surroundings, from the sorrow- 
 ful girl he had known on the Island, but for all 
 that he was compelled to add, and this when he 
 was wide awake, and not in any dream : 
 
 "But she does not compare with her cousin. 
 She was splendid, to-night. Handsomer than she 
 looked, at the window, the first time I saw her. I'm 
 on better terms with Prince, now, than I was then." 
 
 And that meant a good deal, considering whose 
 dog Prince was, and what sort of a dog. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FRED HERON RENEWS SOME OF HIS FAMILY TIES. 
 
 FRED HERON was a man of what are called 
 " strong family instincts," whatever may have 
 at any time appeared to the contrary, and one of 
 his first doings on finding himself restored to the 
 world had been to write a long letter to his sister. 
 Another had been to hunt up his brother Augustus. 
 
 In his letter to Bessie he had a good deal to say, 
 of course, concerning his new employment, although 
 he somehow failed to give the names of those with 
 whom he found himself associated. 
 
 "Just Fred's way," she said to herself, when she 
 read the letter. " I've no means of learning about 
 them. I'd write to them on his behalf if he had 
 only given me an opportunity. Anyhow, I'll write 
 to Mrs. Baird. I'm sure Mr. Baird would not mind 
 hunting the matter up for me. Poor, foolish boy. 
 What will become of him? To think, after all the 
 mistakes he has made, of his mixing himself up with 
 gold-hunters and such people. I'll write and tell 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHA NCE. 307 
 
 him what I think of it, anyhow. He shall never 
 say I did not do my duty by him." 
 
 And so she did, copiously, and her brother was 
 fully warned, so far as faithful words could warn 
 him, of the character and purposes of the disreput- 
 able sharpers who had drawn him into their wild 
 and visionary schemes. 
 
 He must at once, she said, shake himself clear 
 of his fresh entanglements, and take some honor- 
 able and lucrative position which would enable him 
 to do justice to himself and to others. 
 
 "Yes," he had remarked, when he came to that, 
 "I guess I'd better take a bank. Nothing bet- 
 ter than that, unless it is a large landed estate. 
 Either would do. The only difficulty is that when 
 fellows take those things other fellows make a ter- 
 rible fuss about it." 
 
 What would Bessie have thought and written 
 had she known that there were ladies in the case, 
 and that her brother was likely to be thrown a good 
 deal into their society? If there was one danger 
 against which she had persistently warned him it 
 had been the designing character of her own sex, 
 and thus far he had seemed disposed to be more 
 or less guided, in that particular. She could at least 
 congratulate herself upon her success in breaking up 
 and dissipating the most serious peril of the kind 
 which had ever taken hold of him. 
 
 But Fred's second letter, like his first, preserved 
 
308 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 a sphinx-like silence concerning those " mining even- 
 ings" as he called them, which he was now so fre- 
 quently passing, with Dr. Milyng and the rest, over 
 Mr. Brown's library table. 
 
 To be sure, the talk did not always run upon 
 mines, for the doctor himself had an endless fund 
 of other reminiscences, and was by no means ignor- 
 ant of books, and Fred. 
 
 Well, the more they knew him, and the more he 
 unfolded to them the facts of his history, the more 
 they were disposed to deal charitably, to say the 
 least, with their strange acquaintance. 
 
 " He's a wonderful fellow/' said Mrs. Boyce, 
 "and I don't believe weVe heard a tenth of what 
 he must have gone through. There are matters he 
 does not mention, depend upon it, and I do not 
 believe they are at all discreditable to him." 
 
 " What sort of matters ?" said Carrie. 
 
 " Well, family matters, for instance. He has told 
 us nothing about his .immediate connections. I'd 
 like to know about them." 
 
 " He must have some." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and I'm not sure but I have a sort 
 of a clue. I've waited for some word from him be- 
 fore mentioning it, but I heard of Fred Heron be- 
 fore I ever saw him." 
 
 "You did?" exclaimed both of the girls, as if 
 with one voice. 
 
 "Yes" and then followed a detailed account of 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHA NCR. 309 
 
 the widow's call on Mrs. Baird, and her meeting 
 with Bessie, and all she knew of that young lady. 
 There could be no question of Fred's identity with 
 the " erring brother," but the interest attaching to 
 him was none the less. Certainly not by reason of 
 any lack of accuracy in Mrs. Boyce's estimate and 
 description of Bessie Heron. For once in her life 
 Bessie had really given Fred a lift, and it was a 
 great pity she could not have known it, and known, 
 too, just how the lift was given. 
 
 " O Mrs. Boyce," said Mabel, " if you would only 
 call on Mrs. Baird and see if you an learn any 
 more. I'd even like to know 'about his sister, and 
 what she is doing now." 
 
 v I do not believe she half appreciates him," ex- 
 claimed Carrie. 
 
 " People who appreciate themselves too well 
 rarely get correct ideas of others, my dear. But I 
 have already seen Mrs. Baird. There was very lit- 
 tle she could tell me. She was glad to hear that 
 Fred was doing well. His sister is in the west, and 
 seems to be quite comfortable. It is my belief, 
 from what Mrs. Baird told me, he sent her his last 
 d3llar, just before he was put on the Island." 
 
 " It would be just what I would expect of him," 
 said Carrie. " Think of his giving me those lemons 
 when he was so sick himself." 
 
 "Any Christian ought to have done that," re- 
 marked Mabel, severely. 
 
3 10 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " And how many of them would have given away 
 both lemons? Besides, Mr. Heron is not a Chris- 
 tian." 
 
 " Isn't he? How do you know?'* 
 
 " He has such queer notions 
 
 " I wish some other people had 'em, then 
 
 " I'm not so sure as I used to be, what it takes 
 to make a Christian of a man," interrupted Mrs. 
 Boyce. "At all events, if Mr. Heron does not wish 
 to talk of his family, we have no right to make him. 
 He may, some day." 
 
 " I hope so," quietly remarked Mabel. 
 
 But they were to meet with one of Fred's rela- 
 tives, at least, before a great while. 
 
 When he went to Mrs. Gibbs's boarding-house for 
 his trunk, to remove it to more convenient quarters, 
 he tried in vain to obtain the present address of 
 his brother Augustus, and he remained in ignor- 
 ance of it until he met him in that great world's 
 reception room, " the street." 
 
 A good looking, well-dressed fellow, was Mr. 
 Augustus Heron, and he seemed as much delighted 
 as surprised to meet with his even better-dressed, 
 if not quite so handsome, elder brother. If the 
 good clothes were anything of a puzzle to him he 
 made no mention of the fact. He may have been 
 accustomed to expecting unexpected things from 
 Fred. 
 
 A good deal was said, on both sides, in a very 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHANCE. 3 j I 
 
 few moments, but Augustus learned nothing con- 
 cerning the Island, and little more than the name 
 of the mining company. 
 
 As they talked they walked, and when Augustus 
 remarked : 
 
 " Hold on, Fred, I've some business in here at 
 Brown's. Won't keep me three minutes," Fred 
 simply responded : " So have I," and entered with 
 him. 
 
 The business which had brought Augustus had 
 made necessary a note of introduction from the 
 very reputable house in whose employ 'he was, and 
 this, when handed to Mr. Brown, elicited the in- 
 quiry: 
 
 "Heron? Any way connected with my young 
 friend Frederick. Ah, Mr. Heron, is that you ? 
 Come in." 
 
 " My brother, sir," responded the astonished 
 Augustus, as Fred leaned over the desk assigned 
 him as secretary and so forth, and began to examine 
 some papers and open a letter or two. 
 
 " Brother, eh? Is that so, Fred? Glad to know 
 you, sir. Know your house very well. Senior 
 partner is an old friend of mine. You must bring 
 your brother to the house, Fred. Why can he not 
 come this evening?" 
 
 "Give me sincere pleasure," remarked Augustus, 
 before his brother could say a word, and the latter 
 could only add : 
 
312 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 11 Thank you, Mr. Brown. We will be there soon 
 after dinner " 
 
 " Come to dinner, both of you. It'll be a great 
 deal pleasanter." 
 
 So it would, not only for the young men, but, it 
 might be, for others. As for Mr. Brown himself, he 
 might well be pardoned if under his cordial hospi- 
 tality were concealed a vague idea of acquiring in- 
 formation. 
 
 Fred Heron would hardly have planned precisely 
 that arrangement if all had been left to him, but 
 his brother was precisely the man to understand 
 and appreciate, yea, and to grasp, the social advan- 
 tages involved in an invitation to dinner at so ex- 
 cellent a house as that of the great merchant. He 
 had his social capacities, too, of a very respectable 
 order, and before that evening was over he had 
 done for Fred at least the service of confirming 
 Mr. Brown's opinion of their birth and breeding. 
 He hardly knew how much more he had told to 
 such keen eyes and practised ears as those which 
 had been around him during what he described as 
 a "truly delightful time." 
 
 The worst accusation brought against many peo- 
 ple is that they " do not improve their advantages," 
 and Mr. Augustus Heron may have been one of 
 these, in times past. In fact, his sister Bessie had 
 more than once dimly hinted as much under the 
 form of accusing Fred of not improving them for 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHA NCE. 3 1 3 
 
 him, but he did not propose, evidently, to thro\v 
 away the good- things of his immediate present. In 
 fact, he was disposed to stretch them into the futuni 
 as much as possible. 
 
 His employers, next day, were well enough pleased 
 to find where he had spent his evening, as well as to 
 learn that: 
 
 " Mr. Brown's a great friend of my brother Fred, 
 you know. Fred and he are working some mines 
 together." 
 
 It was about as good as a promotion for Gus, 
 and secured him a very good report when next 
 their senior partner found himself in conversation 
 with the merchant. 
 
 It is curious how our friends do improve on our 
 hands when we find, or think we are finding, how 
 very creditable to them their other friends are. 
 
 From that time forward, however, the Brown 
 household found it more difficult than ever to com- 
 prehend their first acquaintance. 
 
 While Augustus was fond of society, of amuse- 
 ments-, and always at the service of his lady friends, 
 Fred persistently refused to go anywhere or see 
 anybody. He even came less and less frequently 
 to the house, and never except in company with 
 Mr. Brown and the doctor. 
 
 The latter saw less to wonder at in it all, for he 
 knew with what patient and successful assiduity 
 Fred was devoting himself to his new profession of 
 
314 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 miner. He knew of lectures attended ; books de- 
 voured ; geological cabinets ransacked and studied ; 
 chemists consulted ; all sorts of mechanical and en- 
 gineering information gathered and stored away, 
 with marvellous rapidity. It was, in the doctor's 
 opinion, precisely the course which ought to have 
 been pursued by a man in such a position, and he 
 said as much to Mr. Brown. 
 
 The merchant very warmly assented, but he some- 
 how neglected to explain the matter at home, per- 
 haps not thinking any explanation necessary, and 
 it was the less to be wondered at that the ladies 
 sought for one of their own. Mrs. Boyce did, at 
 least. 
 
 She had employed Fred, very confidentially, to 
 dispose of some of her diamonds for her, and he 
 had done the business remarkably well, and she 
 was saying as much to Mabel Varick, and adding: 
 
 "He's a very trustworthy fellow. Not the sort 
 that are ever favorites with young ladies, but none 
 the worse for that." 
 
 " I do not see why you should say that, Mrs. 
 Boyce. I'm sure we have treated him very well. 
 It is not our fault if he does not come here. He 
 is a proud-spirited young gentleman. Anybody 
 can see that, and there are reasons we know of for 
 his avoiding society." 
 
 " Have you never thought of anything else, 
 Mabel?" 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHA NCR. 3 T jj 
 
 " No, indeed," said Mabel, with a slight flush on 
 her cheek. " What else should there be?" 
 
 " Have you forgotten under what romantic cir- 
 cumstances he became acquainted with Carrie?" 
 
 " So they were, and I have heard her express 
 her gratitude and respect a hundred times." 
 
 "Gratitude and respect? And see how she has 
 taken up with Augustus. Why, it almost seems 
 to me as if I ought to speak about it to Mr. 
 Brown." 
 
 " She is of age, and Mr. Heron comes here by 
 my uncle's invitation." 
 
 " I know that, but that is not everything. Au- 
 gustus Heron is a very handsome fellow." 
 
 " But what has all that got to do with his brother ? 
 Frederick is worth a dozen of him." 
 
 Cunning Mrs. Boyce ! How very much she thought 
 she was gathering from that frank and unembar- 
 rassed expression of opinion. She did not know, 
 however, how relieved Mabel Varick felt after she 
 had succeeded in making it. She even succeeded 
 in concealing the effort, and that is sometimes the 
 very hardest thing to do. 
 
 But if Mrs. Boyce did not learn a great deal from 
 Mabel, neither did she from Fred himself. She 
 did not even know that he had felt called upon, 
 already, to speak pretty freely with his brother. 
 So freely that something almost akin to a coolness 
 had sprung up between them. 
 
316 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce thought she discovered signs of that, 
 indeed, although she had a somewhat incorrect idea 
 of the possible cause. The most skilful physicians 
 err, at times, in the diagnosis they make of internal 
 difficulties, and there are none so deceptive and 
 misleading in their symptoms as are affections of 
 the heart. 
 
 What is described before death as something 
 else, or as an " enlargement," turns out, on a post 
 mortem, to be only an ossification. 
 
 What curious discoveries will be made concern- 
 ing the hearts of most of us when the angels make 
 our final post mortem for us. Such "cases" as they 
 must have, from time to time, and with such mar- 
 vellous " complications," displacements, lesions, and 
 such curiously obstructive " fatty deposits." 
 
 Of course it was impossible that Mr. Augustus 
 Heron should not gradually become acquainted 
 with the peculiar relations existing between Carrie 
 Dillaye and the other members of her family. In 
 fact, he one day astonished the astute and cautious 
 Mr. Allyn by a conversational revelation of the ex- 
 tent and accuracy of the information he had ac- 
 quired on that head. So much so that the lawyer 
 felt himself almost compelled, from that time 
 forward, to take the young man into his con- 
 fidence, after his own sagacious and unconfidential 
 manner. 
 
 The open-heartedness with which some men will 
 
THE Y ME T BY CHA NCR. 3 1 7 
 
 permit another to tell them all he knows has some- 
 thing touching in it. Mr. Allyn was one of those 
 men. 
 
 Still, he was thereby enabled to make himseltf 
 reasonably sure against Mr. Augustus Heron telling 
 the same things to anybody else. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 DR. MILYNG AND OTHERS ARE COMPELLED TO SUB- 
 MIT TO DELAY, 
 
 MR. DANIEL BROWN was not the man to 
 make an unnecessary secret of anything, and 
 yet all that the business world knew of his mining 
 plans was that he had somehow acquired an inter- 
 est in some seemingly valuable claims, and pro- 
 posed paying them a visit to ascertain their true 
 character before putting any considerable amount 
 of money in them. 
 
 "Just like him," said his friends. "Trust old 
 Brown not to get his fingers bitten. He's going to 
 make it a summer tour and picnic. Wish he'd in- 
 vite me to join him. They'll have a grand time. 
 He knows how to do up that sort of thing in style. 
 If he doesn't make a cent out of his mines he'll 
 make everything else he can." 
 
 It never occurred to one of them that their hard- 
 headed emblem of commercial common sense had 
 actually been bitten by the golden serpent aspoison- 
 ously, almost, as Dr. Milyng himself. 
 
 318 
 
WAITING ASA FINE AR T. 319 
 
 Very few of them knew anything of the doctor, 
 but those who had met Mr. Secretary Heron were 
 compelled to admit that Mr. Brown had shown his 
 usual good judgment in the very quiet, intelligent, 
 industrious young man he had selected. 
 
 What if they had known that Fred swam over 
 from the Island to enter Mr. Brown's employment ? 
 
 That might have opened their eyes. 
 
 But, as the weeks and months went by, not the 
 least important and difficult of Fred's duties and 
 responsibilities was his care of Dr. Milyng himself. 
 
 There is nothing in the wide world so uneasy as 
 a fish out of water. 
 
 Did you ever catch one ? 
 
 The prevailing impression among ignorant people 
 is that all his flopping and flouncing is occasioned by 
 the suffering he endures on being snatched from his 
 proper element. 
 
 Not a bit of it. He is taking in too much oxygen, 
 and taking it in by the wrong way from the air in- 
 stead of the water, that is all. 
 
 Dr. Milyng was no longer among Tiis ledges and 
 placers, but he was as much possessed by his mining 
 fever as ever. Day after day he came forward with 
 some new " claim" or discovery, raked up from the 
 maps and tracings of his wanderings among the 
 mountains, and which he deemed it wise to add to 
 the already enormous assets of the great company. 
 Day after day, too, his notions of the proper valu- 
 
32O THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 ation of those assets grew and flourished, until Mr. 
 Brown told him : 
 
 " Now, doctor, I'm perfectly willing we should 
 pay the national debt, by-and-by. It would hardly 
 be noticed if taken from such a pile as ours. But 
 suppose we do not print the stock and bonds for it 
 till we get some of the bullion into our treasury." 
 
 The doctor could stand any amount of good- 
 natured chaffing, but one thing he could not do, 
 and that was to measure his current expenditures 
 by the gold in his pocket rather than by that which 
 was waiting for him in the Sierras. 'If he could have 
 had his own way it would have required some car- 
 loads, at least, to make good the drafts he desired 
 the company's treasury to cash before a pound .of 
 its machinery had been shipped westward. It was 
 well for him that Mr. Brown held the purse, and 
 that he stood in very wholesome awe of Mr. 
 Brown, as of a man on whom depended the future 
 of the Golden Heart. 
 
 For the doctor's heart was there, after all, and 
 not in the city. He would have starved himself 
 and gone in rags rather than have thrown away the 
 dazzling dream of conducting a working party to 
 the mouth of that treasury of the world. 
 
 And now the time drew nearer and nearer, the 
 set time for the departure of the expedition, and all 
 things were assuming a prepared and perfected 
 shape. 
 
WA I TING ASA FINE ART. 321 
 
 There was not a loose peg left in the arrangement 
 of Mr. Brown's business affairs. The doctor could 
 not think of an article of probable need which had 
 not been either purchased, or at least declared un- 
 necessary by Mr. Brown and Fred Heron. The 
 heavier goods had all been shipped, even, and that 
 which had for so long a time been a beautiful dream 
 and a thing of the future began to put on more and 
 more the semblance of a positive reality. 
 
 Only one matter somehow refused to be settled, 
 and that was what troubled the soul of Mr. Allyn. 
 
 Do what he could, Mr. and Mrs. Dillaye managed 
 to put him off, and they were aided and abetted to 
 a certain extent by Mr. Brown. 
 
 They had counted on that, very deliberately, or at 
 least Mrs. Dillaye had done so, and had courageously 
 sustained her sometimes faltering husband. Of 
 course they had not interposed anything like a re- 
 fusal to settle, and a considerable part of the securi- 
 ties involved had been from time, to time surrendered, 
 but the " settlement" seemed as far away as ever, 
 and there were no symptoms of a coming delivery 
 of the real estate. Carrie herself had objected to 
 any proceedings which would involve a public scan- 
 dal, and the only one thing in which she had ex- 
 hibited any feeling of bitterness was in her persis- 
 tent refusal to hold any personal conference with 
 her father or step-mother. So clearly had she stated 
 her determination to this effect that even Mrs. 
 
322 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Dillaye had given the matter up as hopeless, for the 
 present. 
 
 " She will be more easily reached after Mr. Brown 
 goes west," she said to her husband, when the 
 mining adventure was detailed to her. 
 
 " But suppose he takes Carrie with him ?" 
 
 "With him? Do you mean there are ladies 
 going?" 
 
 "Quite a party." 
 
 "Well, then, he will do nothing against us, more 
 than he has done, before they get back. Every 
 postponement is of value to us, now. If we can 
 tide over the spring and summer, we shall be all 
 right." 
 
 "But suppose Carrie should get married?" 
 
 " We must prevent that. If we hear of anything 
 of the kind on foot, it will be our duty to let the 
 party in interest know her history. That would 
 always be enough, I think." 
 
 " I should say it would. Few men would care to 
 have that kind of a wife." 
 
 "She has property." 
 
 " But nobody knows that. Even Mr. Brown can- 
 not say much about that, just now, and he won't. 
 
 Hit or miss, that was the policy determined upon, 
 and it so far succeeded that when Mr. Brown's other 
 preparations were all complete he was unable to in- 
 clude among them a settlement of Carrie's affairs. 
 And Carrie bit her lips over it, but of late she had 
 
WAITING ASA FINE AR T. 323 
 
 seemed more sedate than formerly, with less of what 
 Mrs. Boyce called "a slight tendency to frivolity." 
 
 The cares of the world sat lightly upon her at all 
 times, but there had not been, since she entered 
 her uncle's house, the least "out-cropping," as Dr. 
 Milyng would have called it, of her unfortunate 
 constitutional tendency. 
 
 " In many respects a most remarkable young 
 woman," said Mrs. Boyce to herself. 
 
 But if Carrie was an enigma to the penetrating 
 eyes and practised sagacity of the widow, she was a 
 thousand times more so to the youth and inex- 
 perience of Mabel Varick. Much as she loved her 
 cousin, Mabel could but feel that their relations 
 were less intimate than at the first, and she strove 
 in vain to account for it. 
 
 " Could Augustus Heron have anything to do with 
 it? I don't believe she cares for him, but if she does, 
 can she imagine I would interfere? I'd like to un- 
 deceive her, that's all. But what can have become 
 of his brother. He's hardly here at all nowadays." 
 
 And Mabel had other perplexities which did not 
 decrease with time. The interest which Mrs. 
 Boyce had taken in the mining affair, and the energy 
 with which she had identified herself with the expe- 
 dition, had done as much as anything else to settle 
 her position as a member of Mr. Brown's household 
 until all that should be over, but Mabel could but 
 ask herself, now and then, "How about the future? 
 
^ 24 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Will she come back with us? Is it to be a perman- 
 ency? I wish I knew what Uncle Daniel thinks 
 about it." 
 
 And the question should rather have been, if he 
 thought at all about it. 
 
 How could it be otherwise ? A man of his age 
 and knowledge of the world 3 How could he but 
 think? 
 
 Well, what if he thought that, with two young, 
 unmarried nieces in his house, it was an absolute 
 necessity they should have an older and wiser com- 
 panion, a lady of discretion, education, high char- 
 acter, to advise them, and to play propriety for 
 them? Especially if they were to travel, would it 
 not be needful that he should provide them with a 
 Mrs. Boyce? And who so admirably fitted for the 
 position as the very Mrs. Boyce herself? 
 
 He may have had some such train of thought, at 
 some time. He certainly did when he came to con- 
 sider the "mining and exploring picnic," for the 
 " quite a party" referred to by Mr. Dillaye included 
 none besides the ladies of his own household. 
 
 No invitation was extended to Mr. Augustus 
 Heron, and it may be Mr. Brown decided, in a 
 friendly way, that it would not be well to take the 
 young man for so long a time from his business 
 pursuits. If he did not neglect the invitation on 
 that ground, the result was all the same. 
 
 And yet, when the morning set for the departure 
 
WAITING ASA FINE ART. 325 
 
 actually arrived, among the little crowd which 
 gathered at the Brown mansion to say good-by, 
 came Augustus Heron with a satchel in his hand. 
 
 "Am I not fortunate?" he said to Mr. Brown. 
 " Our house has given me a commission for them 
 in Pittsburg, and I can travei that far in your com- 
 pany. Combine business with pleasure." 
 
 And Mr. Brown smiled assent in a curious sort 
 of way, for there were three others talking to him 
 at the time. 
 
 Fred took his brother's presence a good deal as 
 a matter of course, not seeming to be overjoyed 
 about it, at all events, and he won golden opinions 
 from Mrs. Boyce by the attention and thoughtful- 
 ness with which he prevented the least "jar" or 
 oversight in the perplexing process of getting so 
 large a party safely lodged in their own proper 
 palace-car at the depot. 
 
 As for Dr. Milyng, a more uselessly enthusiastic 
 individual never stood on two feet. He could 
 hardly have sworn to that much on his own account, 
 for it seemed to him as if he could already see the 
 white-capped Sierras rising around him, and he half 
 felt that it was time for him to be on the look-out 
 for roving bands of Apaches and other of the kindly 
 neighbors he and his friends were about to visit. 
 
 This too, although the latest news from the min- 
 ing regions had been to the effect that the United 
 States cavalry, under General Crump, had entirely 
 
326 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 pacified the immediate locality of the Golden 
 Heart, in a succession of brilliant encounters, fol- 
 lowed by a "very advantageous treaty." 
 
 If Carrie Dillaye felt sadly at missing either her 
 father or her step-mother among the " good-by 
 party," she made no outward sign of it. Neither 
 could Mrs. Boyce's eyes detect the least flutter of 
 either pleasure or the reverse when Augustus Heron 
 announced his good fortune. 
 
 " I really do not understand her," said the widow 
 to herself. 
 
 She was absolutely right in that, and so is any 
 woman when she says the same thing of any other. 
 Because why, there is no woman who does not contain 
 possibilities of which even she herself, let alone all 
 others of her sex, has but a dim and imperfect con- 
 ception. And these possibilities may be for either 
 good or evil, or both. 
 
 *Men get over the difficulty admirably well by 
 giving it up to begin with. 
 
 But there comes to every train, whether composed 
 mainly of palace-cars or not, a moment when the 
 heartless conductor looks at his watch and shouts : 
 
 "All aboard." 
 
 From that moment the train and its passengers 
 condenses into .a little world by itself, cognizant of 
 other worlds, indeed, but separated from them by 
 the very speed with which it rushes forward upon 
 its own curves. The inhabitants of that world, too, 
 
WAITING AS A FINE ART. ^ 2 7 
 
 are apt soon to become absorbed with either them- 
 selves or one another, with a perpetual undertone, 
 if the trip be a long one, of "shall we get there 
 without an accident ?" 
 
 And sometimes the unspoken question is answered 
 for them in one way, sometimes in another. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A DESPERATE EFFORT TO GET EVEN WITH A GRASP- 
 ING CORPORATION. 
 
 IT is a standing complaint of our public-spirited 
 friends, the communists, that our lines of rail- 
 way, the great highways of the nation, are con- 
 structed, by those grasping comorants, the capital- 
 ists, with sole reference to profits, that is, to divi- 
 dends, and all that sort of thing, ignoring the un- 
 doubted right of the people, imported or otherwise, 
 to have indefinite transportation in all directions 
 provided for them by " government." 
 
 One of the consequences of this " monumental 
 robbery" of the many by the few is that we have only 
 a bare half-dozen or less of east-and-west main lines, 
 which absorb to themselves the trade and traffic of a 
 continent. Whether they do so with profit or not, 
 is a point upon which the authorities differ. That 
 is, the communists give a different account of it 
 from that rendered to and remembered by the 
 stockholders. 
 
 328 
 
SE TTING A PERFE C T TRA P. 329 
 
 If the truth were known, however, it would prob- 
 ably appear that the fortunes of most of our great 
 railway lines would not be badly represented by a 
 costly section of one of them which penetrates, 
 with many a twist and climb, the rugged ranges of 
 the Appalachian chain. 
 
 After winding among great knobby hills of tree- 
 less stone, shooting through tunnels and burrow- 
 ing in cuts which must have troubled the very 
 souls of the constructing engineers, the track at last 
 enters upon a steep down-grade, with a gorge of 
 varying depth on one side, and a mountain round 
 which it winds, on the other, and at the bottom of 
 this grade there hardly seems a level, so quickly 
 does the opposite ascent begin, with a steeper grade 
 than ever. It is hard to tell which is the more 
 difficult and perilous to train or corporation, the 
 down-grade of the expense account or the up-grade 
 towards the height of an honest dividend. 
 
 Be that as. it may, the train on which Mr. Brown 
 and his party left the great city reached that very 
 section a little while after darkness closed in upon 
 the varied experiences of their first day's travel. 
 The snow lay deeply enough among the mountain 
 gorges, for it was yet March. Dr. Milyng intended 
 to reach the early summer which April would bring 
 with it to the warm valleys and plains eastward of 
 the Golden Heart, but winter had to be traversed 
 at the outset. 
 
33O THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 A dark and cloudy night, but not stormy, and as 
 safe for a railway train as the peacefulest Indian 
 summer day. 
 
 Perfectly safe, for no road on the continent was 
 better managed, or could boast of having fewer acci- 
 dents. So long as steel and rock and sound 
 timber could be trusted, with skill, experience and 
 fidelity 
 
 But what about human malice, greed, cruelty, 
 callous indifference to the pain and loss of others? 
 Are there no devils on the earth? Of course not, 
 nor anywhere else, for is it not now settled that 
 hell is a myth ! 
 
 He was not a devil, therefore, but a mere human 
 being, if anybody will kindly tell us what that is, 
 and he was standing, in the dense gloom, just a 
 little beyond the terminus of the down-grade. 
 Those familiar with the spot will remember that 
 the curve is a trifle sharp, but that the bank on the 
 right is not more than thirty feet in height, while 
 the ravine to the left is barely twice as much. 
 Nothing about it, therefore, so far as mere feet and 
 inches are concerned, that is very startling. 
 
 Neither was there about the man, but some re- 
 cent " repair train" had unloaded a couple of new 
 rails at the side of the track, and the man was prying 
 strongly at one of these with a long crowbar. He 
 moved it very expeditiously, too, as if his task were 
 one which called for haste. 
 
SE TTING A PERFECT TRAP. 3 3 1 
 
 But could he possibly mean to leave it there or 
 had he only paused for breath there across the 
 track, at that treacherous angle with the permanent 
 rails? 
 
 A train coming, down from the east would surely 
 be thrown from the track, with its iron head 
 plunged hard against the rock, and then what would 
 become of cars, and passengers? 
 
 Down the gulf, at forty miles an hour, or fifty, 
 or sixty, for who knows the speed of- a lightning 
 express at the end of a down run, with a stiff climb 
 just ahead of it? 
 
 " Reckon that '11 fix 'em/' huskily remarked the 
 crowbar man, as he took a step backward. " Teach 
 'em a lesson. Other people's got some rights, as 
 well as they have/' 
 
 Other words, thick-voiced, hot, terrible words, 
 strangely mingled with great names, sacred and 
 otherwise. 
 
 If there were a hell, and any devils in it, one 
 might expect to hear such expressions there and 
 from them. 
 
 What a good thing it is for many human beings 
 that there is no hereafter. If there were, and they 
 were there compelled to associate with their kind, 
 what a terrible realization of our most lurid dreams 
 of hell would shortly result from that association. 
 Apd somehow orje cannot help thinking, at times, 
 that the absence of any hereafter leaves the work of 
 
332 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 creation, or the " cosmos," if you will, dreadfully in- 
 complete and unsatisfactory. 
 
 This man must have been a very complete phil- 
 osopher, for, after setting his ingenious trap for 
 that train, he calmly descended into the hollow, 
 clambered up a few yards on the opposite side, and 
 sat down to await results. 
 
 Foolish fellow, to have taken so much unnecessary 
 pains, when sheer chance had been providing a surer 
 trap, a more certain and terrible destruction, for that 
 doomed express train, than could have been pro- 
 vided by a score of such as he. 
 
 He did not know it. 
 
 How should he have known the secrets of the 
 rolling-mill and the forge, and the hidden things of 
 all the iron bars and their weldings? 
 
 An hour before, another train of cars had passed 
 that spot. A long, dark, heavy-looking train, laden 
 with coal and with pig-iron, and drawn by two huge, 
 hoarse- throated " camel-back" engines, whose utmost 
 strength had barely sufficed to haul their enormous 
 following up the long, steep grade beyond. They 
 had done so, however, and had screamed with steamy 
 satisfaction when they reached the summit, miles 
 away, and pulled their grimy column of burdened 
 trucks nearly out upon the side-track where they 
 were to rest until the express train should pass 
 them. 
 
 There was something almost human about it 
 
SE TTING A PERFE C T TRA P. 333 
 
 the locomotives gave their shout of triumph too 
 soon. 
 
 Laborers and brakemen had sprung to the ground, 
 after the brakes were thrown open again, for that 
 was a lunch station for them, as well as for the en- 
 gines, but the last cars had not passed the switch 
 when, for some reason, the locomotives were 
 " backed" a little. 
 
 Only one of the innumerable retrogrades incident 
 to such work, but when the forward start was given 
 again, the coupling broke between the seventh and 
 eighth cars, back, and the great mass of the train 
 was free of its iron yoke. 
 
 Safe, so long as it was on the track. 
 
 Well, it could not wander much, but it could 
 slip along the rails, with momentarily increasing 
 speed, and gathering in its solid bulk the resistless, 
 measureless power of inertia. 
 
 That is one of the powers which the philosophers 
 have exquisitely explained to us. They have 
 traced it up to yes, up, and up, and up, to the 
 place where they could not trace it any further, 
 and there they set up a triumphal tombstone and 
 wrote " Nature" across the face of it. What more 
 would you have, if you are a reasonable man, and 
 do not believe in a hereafter? 
 
 But those awful car-loads of coal and iron, turned 
 so suddenly into a " wild train," with that gather- 
 ing power within them, and that sharp yell of 
 
334 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 human astonishment and fear arising behind them. 
 
 One man there had been, a brakeman, who sprang 
 after his escaping charge, and followed it gallantly, 
 in a desperate determination to get on board and 
 apply the brakes, but he failed in his leap, and was 
 now lying senseless on the track, well off in having 
 nothing worse than a heavy fall and a broken arm. 
 
 Had he succeeded, not ten such men could have 
 brought the runaway to a stand-still on that down- 
 grade, and he would have shared the fate of the 
 train. Considering the size of his family, it was well 
 he did not succeed in boarding that rear car. 
 
 Faster, now, and with every second faster, on 
 plunged the long line of cars, that had neither man 
 nor any trained servant of man to drive them or 
 restrain them. 
 
 The rails beneath them would do Well enough 
 for a guide, but the white-faced men at the station 
 knew only too well what that guiding would be. 
 There were those among the latter strong men, 
 too, with horny hands and weatherbeaten faces 
 who sat down and covered the one with the other, 
 and did but groan when spoken to. One did say : 
 
 "Women! Children! Men! Ground to pieces ! 
 O it makes me feel faint !" 
 
 And then there was something said about a 
 wreck, and sending for surgeons, but nobody seemed 
 to know exactly what to do. 
 
 Faster and faster, on dashed the " wild train," 
 
SE TTING A PERFECT TRAP. 335 
 
 attaining a speed rarely given or permitted to one 
 of its kind with steam in control of it. A compe- 
 tent mathematician could easily have calculated that, 
 with a given acceleration, and the speed of the express 
 train approaching from the opposite direction being 
 also known, the meeting of the two would take place 
 precisely in so many minutes and at such an exact 
 point. He could therefore have assured the man with 
 the crowbar how entirely he had thrown away the free 
 labor he had expended in slanting 'that rail across 
 the track and assuming the responsibility of the 
 coming crash. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 ONE OF THE SERMONS THERE ARE IN IRON BARS. 
 
 HHHAT had been a very interesting day on board 
 -L the western-bound express train. At least to 
 a part of the inmates of one of its palace cars. 
 One of the first and most interesting features of 
 their position was that before noon they found 
 themselves in sole possession of the car, which was 
 about as good as it could be. There is nothing else 
 in a republic half so princely as having a whole car 
 to yourself. 
 
 Then there was a good deal to be seen from the 
 windows, and all the eyes on board worked at that 
 until they were weary of it and did not care what 
 might be the name of the next town or of the river 
 they had just crossed. 
 
 But the older portion of Mr. Brown's party 
 found something to think of, after awhile, in the 
 conduct and bearing of their juniors. 
 
 They had rfever before known Fred Heron to 
 
 336 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 337 
 
 come out quite so strong as he was now doing, so 
 full of wit, anecdote, information, the very soul of 
 the party, and yet, withal, so very unobtrusive, so 
 politely considerate of others. 
 
 " He will be a treasure at this rate," soliloquized 
 Mr. Brown. 
 
 " He puzzles me more than ever," was the thought 
 of Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 Dr. Milyng regarded him with a sort of pride, as 
 much as to say : 
 
 " That's another of my discoveries. You'd never 
 have owned that claim if it hadn't been for me." 
 
 And no more they would. But Mr. Augustus 
 Heron was not " panning out" as well as his brother, 
 just then. He was almost as much disposed to be 
 silent as was Carrie Dillaye herself, and yet he had 
 left no angry, unreconciled father behind him. Could 
 he have been dwelling, untimely, upon the sad fact 
 that he was an orphan, or upon the other fact that 
 he was a self-invited member of that travelling 
 party ? 
 
 Mabel Varick appeared most amiably in the 
 character of a young lady willing to be amused, 
 which was all that could be reasonably asked of her.' 
 
 There were other interesting things to come, how- 
 ever, one of which arrived in the shape of a late din- 
 ner, served on board, and after that the gentlemen 
 retired to the smoking-room and left the ladies for 
 awhile to their own devices. 
 
338 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 They had not a great many, but then they had 
 their tongues, and that was a good deal, for they 
 had a plenty to talk about. 
 
 "Carrie, my dear," at last said Mrs. Boyce, "what 
 is the matter with you ? You must not let anything 
 you have left behind you prey upon your spirits." 
 
 Carrie's reply seemed in a manner to burst from 
 her. 
 
 "It is not what I have left behind me, Mrs. 
 Boyce, it is what I have brought with me." 
 
 " Brought with you ? Why, my dear child, what 
 can that be?" 
 
 "My secrets!" 
 
 And here Carrie covered her face with her hands 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 "Your secrets, Carrie, dear," exclaimed Mabel 
 Varick, " have you any that we cannot help you 
 keep? Don't tell us anything we ought not to 
 know " 
 
 " I must tell you ! I feel that I ought never to 
 have any. You and Uncle Daniel and Mrs. Boyce 
 are all so good to me !" 
 
 Mabel and the widow stared at one another as 
 much as to say : " What can it all mean/* but they 
 waited patiently, considering the circumstances, for 
 the termination of what became a long and somewhat 
 awkward silence. The darkness of the cloudy March 
 day was deepening, and the pause was prolonged by 
 the entrance of the train porter to light the lamps. 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 339 
 
 They were not sorry, any of them, to have the 
 stern and gloomy scenery of the mountains shut 
 out for awhile. 
 
 When he had finished his duties and they were 
 once more alone, Carrie suddenly began again with : 
 
 " You know my terrible adventure on the Island ?" 
 
 No answer seemed to be called for. 
 
 " Well, that is one of my secrets. I do not 
 mean only that it is a dark spot in my life which I 
 must forever conceal from the world from every- 
 body but those who know it now but there is 
 something darker than that about it." 
 
 " Why, Carrie," exclaimed Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 " Yes O so dark J I refused to let myself think 
 about it, at first. It was not my father " 
 
 " Not your father !" 
 
 " No, it was my step-mother." 
 
 " Your step-mother ? Why, Carrie Dillaye, what 
 can you mean ? Are you going crazy?" asked 
 Mabel, with wide open eyes. 
 
 "Mean? Why, I mean it was all a trap. A 
 plan of hers. She meant it all, and I do not know, 
 to this day, precisely how she managed it." 
 
 "Do you mean she sent you to the Island?" 
 
 " No, she could not have thought so far ahead 
 as that. But she intended I should go wile! and 
 disgrace myself, so that my father and my friends 
 should cast me off. She has always hated me. She 
 knew I was proud. She believed if I once went 
 
34O THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 away in such a manner she would never hear of me 
 again. She was right, too. I should never have 
 shown my face again to any one who had known me 
 if it had not been for the manner in. which I was 
 rescued. I thank God for that. Next to Him, I 
 thank Fred Heron, and my good, kind uncle. And 
 then, to think I could ever be so base, so unkind, 
 so ungrateful to him!" 
 
 " Ungrateful to Mr. Heron, or to Uncle Daniel?" 
 again exclaimed the astonished Mabel, while Mrs. 
 Boyce stared through the window into the now im* 
 penetrable gloom beyond. 
 
 There was a good deal of darkness gathering 
 about that " lightning express" train, as it plunged 
 along the rails on that down-grade around the 
 mountain. 
 
 It is the way of human lives. ^Not a man or a train 
 of us all, knows how far in the future a fellow with 
 a crowbar may have been getting things ready for 
 our coming. 
 
 Carrie turned her face full upon Mabel, a flushed 
 face, into whose humility of self-accusation that 
 question seemed to have brought a new and hardly 
 so meek an element, and her lips were parted as if 
 the remaining secret were about to come out, but 
 just then the door of the smoking-room opened, 
 and Mr. Brown strode through it, followed by the 
 three other gentlemen. 
 
 They could hardly have finished their cigars so 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 341 
 
 soon, but there had been a mild breaking of bottled 
 secrets among them also. 
 
 Not so very many minutes earlier, Dr. Milynghad 
 turned upon Fred, with: 
 
 " I see how it is, my boy. The mines have got 
 hold of you. So they have of me. I was never 
 in such tremendous spirits in all my life, and yet I 
 know there's something coming." 
 
 "The mines?" exclaimed Fred. "Well, I have 
 been in pretty good spirits, to-day, and the mines 
 have something to do with it, but not all. It's a 
 family matter, and I've had no chance even to talk 
 with Gus about it, but you are such good friends I 
 don't mind telling you all. It's this my only sister 
 is now living at the west and just before leaving 
 the city, I received a letter from her, announcing 
 her marriage " 
 
 " Done well, then ?" asked the doctor. 
 
 "Bessie married!" exclaimed Augustus. 
 
 "Married a gentleman named Gresham," con- 
 tinued Fred, " for whom she has been keeping house. 
 A man of high character and some wealth, a 
 widower, and so she has a home secured to her ? 
 whatever may become of me." 
 
 " Or me," remarked Augustus, and he too seemed 
 affected to a greater degree of cheerfulness by the 
 unexpected news. 
 
 But Mr. Brown arose, saying : 
 
 "I congratulate you, heartily, Mr. Heron. .1 can 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 easily understand your gratification over your sis- 
 ter's happiness. I think the ladies would be par- 
 ticularly interested. Come, let's be fair and give 
 them the news. You and your brother can talk 
 about it afterwards." 
 
 Neither of the young men could object, and it 
 may be they were more than willing, while the doc- 
 tor followed, as a matter of course. The very man- 
 ner of their coming attracted the attention of the 
 ladies, for Mr. Brown's benevolent face was full of 
 news-bearing eagerness. Strange that Carrie Dil- 
 laye should turn pale at the sight of it. 
 
 "A wedding," he exclaimed. "A wedding in 
 the Heron family!" 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Daniel," gasped Carrie. 
 
 What would next have been said it were some- 
 what difficult to guess, but at that moment the air 
 was cleft by an exceedingly shrill whistle, and they 
 were aware that the brakes were being applied with 
 an energy which spoke plainly enough of some 
 peril close at hand. 
 
 If they could but have known what a peril it was! 
 
 The scream of the engine was repeated, with 
 what seemed a tremor of metallic fear in it, and 
 the presence of danger must have been palpably 
 felt in that car, for neither man nor woman uttered 
 a word. 
 
 And yet the peril had passed, almost at the mo- 
 ment of its discovery, so swiftly had the train 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 343 
 
 dashed on, in spite of all the power of the brakes 
 and all the efforts of the engineer. 
 
 The man with the crowbar had been sitting in 
 the snow, on the steep side of the narrow ravine, 
 opposite his trap, a few moments before that, and 
 he had ceased even to mutter profane words to 
 himself as he peered into the darkness. He knew 
 it was nearly time for the arrival of the express 
 train from the east. It may be, too, that his nerves, 
 and consequently his senses, were aroused to an un- 
 usual pitch of excitement and keenness. At all 
 events they were not so completely absorbed by 
 the awful watch he was keeping that they failed to 
 catch the warning roar of the " wild train" corning 
 from the west. 
 
 He must have been a railway man, perhaps a dis- 
 charged employee, for he instantly understood the 
 situation well enough to remark: 
 
 "Now won't there be a crash ! I wonder which 
 one'll get here first." 
 
 He had but a moment left for any speculation, 
 and what was now the foremost car of the wild 
 train was not armed, as a locomotive would have 
 been, with a " cow-catcher" and a consequent hope 
 of thrusting aside the slanting rail. The wheels 
 of its truck caught fairly on the rigid steel of the 
 obstruction, only to be thereby given a direction 
 opposite from that intended by the man with the 
 crowbar for those of the express train. 
 
344 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Over the sleepers that first car bounded to the 
 right, with a great leap, and if all those behind it 
 had been so many sheep they could not more 
 closely and blindly have followed the plunge of 
 their leader down into the ravine, and grand was 
 the rattle and crash they made in doing so. 
 
 The rail, its work assure'd, was buffeted from one 
 position to another, till it lay at right angles across 
 the track, with six feet of its length extending over 
 the edge. If any one can tell how the fragments of 
 a wreck get into the places and positions they are 
 found in he can do more than anybody else can. 
 But the last car of the series was fairly bounced into 
 the air by the force of the jerk which snatched it 
 from the rails, and it came down, with its tons and 
 tons of weight, on the projecting end of that fatal 
 bar of steel. 
 
 A big bar and a heavy one, but the fillip it re- 
 ceived was powerful in a full proportion, and it was 
 spun into the air as boys at play will spin a chip of 
 pine-wood. Had the blow been harder the rail 
 would have been hurled farther, but, as it was, it 
 was projected in a great arc, clean across the little 
 ravine. There it was found by the wondering 
 track-menders and wrecking-train hands, the next 
 morning, and under it was the body of a man with ' 
 a long crowbar convulsively grasped in his right 
 hand. 
 
 "It struck him in front," they said. "Nobody 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 345 
 
 will ever know who he was by looking at his 
 face." 
 
 Perhaps there were those, in the place where he 
 was gone, who would be able to recognize him by 
 other tokens than any his face had worn in life. 
 That is, the face of his human body. 
 
 But the exploit of that last car of the wild train 
 had cleared the track of all obstruction, and the rails 
 were not so badly pried out of place but what a 
 chance remained for wheels to keep upon them. 
 
 Barely that and nothing more, and the very speed 
 of the express train was its safety. The engineer 
 had heard the crash of that great wreck, if he had 
 not at all understood it, and he had whistled "down 
 brakes," but his entire train had passed the point 
 of danger before any great degree of " slowing" hac" 
 been accomplished. 
 
 A full stop was speedily made, and a hurried in- 
 vestigation revealed no reason why they should not 
 try and reach the station on the summit. Some- 
 thing like an explanation would probably be ob- 
 tained there. 
 
 The advance was cautious, for there was no as- 
 surance of finding the track on the up-grade clear, 
 nor was the anxiety of the conductor and his 
 passengers relieved until they heard the great 
 shout with which their arrival was greeted at the 
 station. * 
 
 "It seems 'most like seem dead -folks come to 
 
346 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 life," exclaimed the man who had appeared to feel 
 the worst about it. "I'm goin' to meetin' next 
 Sunday. You see 'f I don't." 
 
 And now even the lady passengers were made 
 aware of the nature and extent of the peril which 
 .had been so near them, and Uncle Daniel, after the 
 shudder with which he told them of it, felt it im- 
 peratively necessary for him to give each of his 
 nieces a hug and a kiss. 
 
 " It was God's providence," he said, although he 
 knew nothing of the trap which had been set by 
 the crowbar man, or of the precise manner in which 
 it had been sprung by the wild train. 
 
 The young men looked at one another and at 
 their lady friends, but seemed unable to think of 
 anything worth saying, under the circumstances. 
 
 Fred Heron had a thought of his own in his 
 head, however, and it led him to look up the 
 broken coupling which had set free all those coal 
 and iron cars, and Dr. Milyng went with him. 
 
 There was the flaw, in the centre of the bent bar, 
 just where it had been ever since the liquid metal 
 poured from the great crucible at the smelting 
 works. No amount of subsequent drawing and 
 forging had sufficed to remove that original defect, 
 hidden as it was by the strong shell of iron around it. 
 
 " Do you see that ?" he said to Dr. Milyng. 
 "That coupling held to draw a good many trains. 
 It held this one all the way up that grade, but it 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 347 
 
 broke just exactly in time. How do you account 
 for that?" 
 
 " S'pose it had broke too soon, or had held on a 
 little too long?" said the doctor, with a dreamy 
 look in his keen black eyes. 
 
 " I don't like to think of what would have hap- 
 pened to our party." 
 
 "But that's the way it turns out, now and then. 
 Trains do get wrecked, and their passengers do get 
 smashed up. Ships go down at sea, too, with all 
 on board. What about Providence, then?" 
 
 " Well, I've been face to face with death a good 
 many times. So have you. I never found anything 
 in the looks of it that warranted me in suspecting 
 God of a failure, in case He let it come to me. 
 What's true of one man is true of a hundred, or a 
 hundred thousand. I'm not half so much troubled 
 about them as I am about this flaw in the coupling. 
 The preparations for that flaw were made when the 
 ore was packed away in the rocks of Pennsylvania, 
 millions of years ago." 
 
 " Not a doubt of it," said the doctor. " When we 
 get into the gold country I'll show you some points 
 that '11 beat that. But I've made up my mind to 
 one thing." 
 
 "What's that, doctor?" 
 
 " Death's nothing at all, and God knows it. Our 
 mistake is that we think He hasn't found out yet, 
 what a dreadful affair it is. I tell you what, Fred, 
 
348 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I ain't any too good, more's the pity, and I'm afraid 
 I never shall be. Piety doesn't seem to thrive 
 among the gold diggings. But if there's anything 
 I'm sick of, it's hearing one kind of fool and another 
 making apologies for God. He just don't need 
 any." 
 
 " Reckon you've about hit it," replied Fred, 
 thoughtfully, u but where did you get your 
 theology?" 
 
 "Not a grain of it in me," stoutly exclaimed the 
 doctor, "but, if a mountain can't preach a sermon, 
 why then an alkali plain can. That's all. It ain't 
 quite all, neither. I read more'n you'd think, and 
 I tell you that when science climbs and climbs and 
 climbs, till it reaches the level of a Digger Indian, 
 about some things, it had just better let the Diggers 
 do its loose whooping and yelling for it. That's 
 what I say." 
 
 And Fred dropped the broken coupling, and he 
 and the doctor went back to the car to ask Mr. 
 Daniel Brown what he thought about it. 
 
 The train was quickly in motion, and before long 
 the porters began to put the sleeping apparatus in 
 order, so that the discussion had to be postponed, 
 for the greater part, till the following day. 
 
 It lasted, with kindred topics, until they reached 
 Pittsburg, and it served at least one purpose. 
 Whatever may have been the state of Carrie 
 Dillaye's mind and feelings, she made no further 
 
THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP. 349 
 
 reference to the subject of her "secrets," if any re- 
 mained untold. 
 
 Neither her cousin nor Mrs. Boyce saw fit, what- 
 ever may haVe been their respective reasons, to ask 
 her any questions about it. 
 
 At Pittsburg Fred managed to write and post a 
 hurried letter to Bessie, with his good wishes and 
 congratulations, and with the news that he and his 
 friends were on their way to the gold regions. 
 
 "That'll startle her," he said to himself, "as 
 much as her marriage did me. And won't Gus get 
 some letters, after he reaches the city? I'd almost 
 like to read 'em." 
 
 They would be good letters, no doubt ; the best 
 kind ; but it seemed a difficult thing for Mr. Augus- 
 tus Heron to break away from that party. There 
 was a serious flaw in his " coupling," somewhere, 
 however, and he had to go. 
 
 And after he had gone, and the train moved on, 
 Carrie Dillaye appeared, strangely enough, to re- 
 cover her spirits and light-heartedness, as if her 
 handsome friend had himself been the incubus which 
 had weighed them down. 
 
 And Mrs. Boyce thought and thought about it, 
 and so did Mabel Varick, without arriving at a con- 
 clusion of any kind. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A VERY LONG JOURNEY, AND WHAT WAS FOUND AT 
 THE END OF IT. 
 
 APRIL, in the latitude of Dr. Milyng's great 
 discovery, was the counterpart of June in less 
 favored regions at the north, and mountain and 
 plain were in all their glory when the mining- 
 picnic party rested from the fatigue of their jour- 
 ney, under the oaks and pines near the mouth of 
 the narrow ravine. The " wagoning" part of their 
 trip had not been nearly so severe as the ladies had ex- 
 pected, rapidly as Dr. Milyng had pressed his teams, 
 and every hour had brought before their eyes fresh 
 wonders of unrivalled scenery. 
 
 Again and again did Mrs. Boyce thank Mr. 
 Brown for permitting her to be one of the party, 
 and just so often was he able to assure her, truth- 
 fully, that he and not she was the obliged individual. 
 
 For the remarkable capacities of the widow for 
 all sorts of management came out with greater and 
 greater strength as successive exigencies called 
 
 350 
 
WHA T WE CAME FOX. 35 x 
 
 upon her for their exhibition. It was a grand piece 
 of education for Mabel Varick that she found her- 
 self compelled to strive for the pre-eminence as a 
 housekeeper, or rather as a camp-keeper, with so 
 complete a mistress of all the arts thereof. They 
 could but respect one another, those two women, 
 while Mr. Brown looked on in an admiration which 
 but feebly comprehended the facts of the case, and 
 he and his friends got the benefit of it all. 
 
 If Carrie Dillaye were acting as an ally of either 
 party, open or secret, she kept her own counsels, 
 and received from the gentlemen all the attentions 
 the other ladies gave themselves no time for. She 
 seemed to have become, in the course of the trip, es- 
 pecially well acquainted with Mr. Frederick Heron, 
 and Mrs. Boyce went so far as to remark to Mabel : 
 
 " That looks a good deal more like poetical jus- 
 tice, but what would Augustus say, if he were 
 here ?" 
 
 " Do you suppose Fred Mr. Heron would do 
 anything in his brother's absence " 
 
 "That he would not if Augustus were here? 
 Certainly not, but I'm not so sure as I'd like to be 
 about everybody else. There are some things I do 
 not understand at all." 
 
 Mabel was silent. If she had anything on her 
 mind, just then, it was probably not of a kind 
 which she felt impelled to confide to the fair widow. 
 Nor did Dr. Milyng tell her, as he might have 
 
352 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 done, that Mr. Brown had said to him, that very 
 day : 
 
 " You are right about Fred. If they were my 
 daughters instead of my nieces, I could not more 
 heartily commend the respectful reserve of his be- 
 havior. I believe him to be a most honorable 
 young man." 
 
 " Sure as you live," returned the doctor, " but, I 
 tell you what it is, Mr. Brown, this expedition will 
 leave him anything but a poor man, and if I was 
 a girl " 
 
 "Well, you don't look much like one, but what if 
 you were a girl?" 
 
 " I'd think twice before I turned up my nose at 
 Fred Heron, for fear I might go further and fare 
 worse." 
 
 " But, doctor" 
 
 " I know, they kind o' look down on him. Per- 
 haps they look down on a man like me, but I'd 
 have 'em know " 
 
 " Come, come, doctor, who's been looking down 
 on you? Why, even Mrs. Boyce is enthusiastic 
 about you." 
 
 The color mounted richly in the veteran's bronzed 
 face, and his petulance departed like a summer cloud, 
 but Mr. Brown smiled most benevolently, later in 
 the day, at beholding the cavalier-like devotion 
 with which his friend returned from scolding a team of 
 mules, or giving orders to his men, to do the honors 
 
IV 11 A T WE CA ME FOR. 353 
 
 of the journey at the side of Mrs. Boyce's ambling 
 pony. 
 
 All that, and many another talk and incident, 
 came to pass by the way, and ever, as they pushed 
 forward, the mining fever warmed in their veins, 
 until, at last, when the wagons were pulled in under 
 the trees at the foot of the ravine, the whole party, 
 with one accord, followed the lead of the impatient 
 doctor, as he dashed forward, leaving to the teams- 
 ters and hired miners the task of going into camp. 
 
 It was not a long ride, but hardly a word was 
 spoken until they reined in their several steeds at 
 the side of their guide in front of the hole in the 
 ledge where he had thrown down his worn-out pick, 
 so many long months before. 
 
 Dr. Milyng's face was pale, and he had taken off 
 his broad-brimmed hat to wipe the perspiration 
 from his forehead. 
 
 " There it is," he said, slowly, in a deep voice, 
 husky with emotion. " There it is, Mr. Brown. 
 It's not a very big hole, but it leads to the treasury 
 of the world." 
 
 "There it is," repeated Mr. Brown. 
 
 " And is that the wonderful mine?" doubtfully 
 inquired Mabel. 
 
 "That's the mine, my dear young lady," said the 
 doctor. u That brownish-white stuff lying there 
 is almost half-gold, a good deal of it. Some of it 
 doesn't belong to the pay-streak. That hole runs 
 
354 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 in, horizontally, for thirty feet, and the pay-streak 
 widens all the way in. There's plenty of water, up 
 among the rocks. We must set up our little mill 
 and go to grinding. I can't wait till the stamps 
 come." 
 
 If Mabel and Carrie found it hard to believe that 
 they had come so far to see no more than that, not 
 so with Mrs. Boyce, nor with Mr. Brown, and they 
 were about to say as much, when the doctor, who 
 had been looking curiously in all directions, sud- 
 denly exclaimed : 
 
 " Not a bone of him ! I declare, the old rascal 
 picked himself up and walked off, after I'd gone." 
 
 "Some friend of yours?" said Mabel. 
 
 "And a good friend he was. My old mule, 
 Oliver. I thought he was so broken down he'd 
 never get up again, and so I left him. But I might 
 have known better. There never was such another 
 mule." 
 
 "That's the one you've told us so much about? 
 The knowing one?" 
 
 "Knowing? I reckon he was. I only wish I 
 could have him back again. He'd come, too, if I 
 called him, as far as he could hear me." 
 
 Meantime, Fred Heron had been prying around, 
 in various directions, and he now came up again with: 
 
 " Well, now we've seen the mine, had we not bet- 
 ter go back to camp and get some supper?" 
 
 The ladies felt themselves reminded of their 
 
WHA T WE CAME FOR. 355 
 
 duties, and very promptly assented, and Mr. Brown 
 wheeled his horse, for he had not dismounted, to 
 accompany them. 
 
 " Doctor," remarked Fred, after they had ridden 
 a hundred yards or so, " come back with me, a mo- 
 ment. There's one thing more I want to ask. We 
 can rejoin the rest in a few minutes." 
 
 He could hardly have been accused of excessive 
 gallantry, but the doctor caught from him a some- 
 what expressive glance which prevented any demur 
 on his part. 
 
 " What is it, Fred ?" 
 
 " This way, please " 
 
 And he led him straight to the bowlder behind 
 which the three ragged miners had taken their last 
 stand after " jumping" the Golden Heart. 
 
 " Were those bones there when you were here 
 before ?" 
 
 " Picked clean ! No, indeed. But they're white 
 men's bones. Look at the bits of cloth and shoe 
 leather. I ain't sure, but I can guess at 'em. Must 
 have followed me, like they and their kind have 
 done before. The luck of the mine took 'em. 
 Reckon we're safe now." 
 
 " The luck of the mine, doctor? That skull's got 
 a bullet hole in the forehead, and that other one 
 looks as if a club had broken it in. Makes me think 
 of red Indians, more than of any other kind of 
 luck." 
 
356 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 *' That's it. Exactly. But did you ever read 
 history, Fred ?" 
 
 " Yes, I think I may say I have." 
 
 " Well then, can you think of any discovery, worth 
 having, that hasn't got the bones of more or less 
 dead men lying around the mouth of it? It some- 
 how works that way." 
 
 "Why, are you superstitious about it?" 
 
 "Perhaps I am. I'm only dealing with facts, you 
 know. I ain't smart enough to get behind them. 
 Sometimes I wish I was." 
 
 "Well, doctor, all I've got to say about the luck 
 of the mine is that we must look out and not leave 
 our own skeletons here, and we must have these 
 carted off and buried before the ladies see 
 them." 
 
 " That's so. Don't want to give them such a 
 scare as that would be. Spoil all their fun for them. 
 That was the work of the Apaches. They're the 
 only redskins here-away. Glad Crump h#s dressed 
 them out for us." 
 
 " They may come back again ?" 
 
 "Of course they will, but a party like ours is 
 another thing from one man, or even three. Es- 
 pecially after the drubbings they've had. Still, I'm 
 not sorry Crump promised to send an escort with 
 the machinery." 
 
 Fred smiled. Even with reference to the Apaches, 
 the doctor's anxieties went out to his mining affairs 
 
WHA T WE CA ME FOR. 357 
 
 rather than to the picnic party. It was clear enough 
 what was the state of his affections. 
 
 A squad of miners was sent up, that evening, with 
 directions as to the burial of the three skeletons, 
 and the ladies were none the wiser. 
 
 Six teamsters, eight experienced miners, Mr. 
 Brown, the doctor, Fred Heron that made seven- 
 teen well armed men, in case of necessity. Enough 
 for all the work which could as yet be done, with spare 
 hands for scouting and hunting and the care of the 
 animals. None too many, but quite all that would 
 be necessary until the hole in the ledge should be 
 made deeper and broader and the heavier machinery 
 should arrive. Mr. Brown had preferred too many, 
 rather than too few, strong as had been the peace- 
 ful assurances of the military authorities. 
 
 The doctor deemed it only right to inform his 
 friend concerning the bones behind the bowlder, 
 adding: 
 
 " Now you see, Mr. Brown, we're sure nobody's 
 been able to enter a conflicting claim for our mine. 
 The Apaches have kept our title good for us, while 
 I was gone." 
 
 That was one way of looking at it, but it helped 
 Mr. Brown to a clearer view of the nature of min- 
 ing titles, and he determined to add as much as he 
 possibly could in other ways to the neighborly work 
 of the Apaches. 
 
 That was a clear and beautifully moonlit evening, 
 
358 THE HE A RT OF IT. 
 
 and nobody felt like going to rest very early, in 
 spite of the energetic operations already planned 
 for the morrow. It was-pleasanter, after supper, to 
 stroll around under the trees, or look out upon the 
 misty plain, or away to the dim and cloudlike out- 
 lines of the snow-crowned Sierras. 
 
 Somehow, for the first time in their acquaintance, 
 this sort of feverish wandering brought Fred Heron 
 and Mabel Varick together, by themselves, a little 
 distance below the ravine, and although she said to 
 herself: "I suppose he would prefer Carrie," she 
 said aloud to him : 
 
 "Mr. Heron, is it not beautiful? I would not 
 have missed it for anything." 
 
 " Nor I, Miss Varick. I wish I could see how 
 those quartz rocks, up yonder, look under this 
 moonlight." 
 
 " So do I. Why can we not make a party and 
 go up there?" 
 
 Fred thought of the grave-diggers, now at their 
 work, and the three skeletons, and he replied : 
 
 " Splendid. I move we do so, some evening. 
 The moon will be full in a night or so more." 
 
 " Could we not go to-night?" 
 
 " I doubt if either your uncle or Dr. Milyng 
 would approve of it. Miss Varick, until we are a 
 little better acquainted with our surroundings. 
 There are no police here, you know, and the lamps 
 in the ravine are not lighted." 
 
 o 
 
WHA T WE CAME FOR. 359 
 
 It was pleasantly, indeed, laughingly said, but 
 Mabel could not help understanding that there 
 was more of a reason than he gave for his polite 
 refusal. 
 
 Acquiescence was a matter of course, but she 
 was almost surprised at herself to find how much 
 of a hurt and disappointed feeling she had about 
 her proposed stroll. 
 
 Whether or not Fred was aware of it all, he sud- 
 denly changed the subject. 
 
 " Do you remember what Dr. Milyng tolcl us, 
 Miss Varick, about the ruins of the ancient 
 city?" 
 
 "Yes, are they near us?" 
 
 u Across the prairie yonder. We can ride 
 over there, some day. That is, if we find all 
 things around us quiet and safe for such expe- 
 ditions." 
 
 "Why, is there any doubt of it?" 
 
 " There are always doubts about such things in a 
 region like this, and it does not pay to run any 
 risks" And then he added, with an energy that 
 startled his companion : 
 
 " Risks? No, not for the world !" 
 
 His face was towards her, as he spoke, and the 
 words seemed to say themselves, but Mabel saw 
 something in the young man's eyes, which she had 
 never noticed there before, and something very like 
 it was quivering around his mouth. She could not 
 
360 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 analyze it, in that quick, flashing, moonlit glance, 
 but the presence of one thing in that uncontrolla- 
 ble expression could not be mistaken. 
 
 That one thing was suffering was pain. 
 
 Just then she heard the voice of her uncle, close 
 at hand, saying : 
 
 " Mabel, my dear, are you there? Come, now, 
 I think you have had enough for one day. Ah, 
 Mr. Heron? A grand night, is it not? Come, 
 Mabel." 
 
 And she turned away, with a kinder " good-night" 
 than she would have said to him, but for seeing 
 that strange ripple on the usually calm surface of 
 his life. 
 
 Fred Heron stood still, for a moment, on the 
 spot where she had left him, not following her with 
 so much as a glance after returning her word of 
 good will. But now the lines on his face grew 
 deeper and more rigid, with that wonderful power 
 of expression which surely follows upon long re- 
 straint 
 
 " Glad to be alone," he muttered. " It is not the 
 old agony, thank God ! I thought, once, there 
 could be nothing worse than that, and I ought to 
 know, but I was mistaken. It is one of the penal- 
 ties of a wasted life, I suppose. I don't believe 
 even Esau succeeded in selling this part of his 
 birthright the power to suffer. He could still 
 cry, with a great and exceeding bitter cry. Poor 
 
WHA T WE CAME FOR. 361 
 
 fellow ! Well, if that mine is what it seems to be, 
 I'm likely to have a good deal of one kind of 
 pottage before long. Will there be enough of it 
 to buy me what I want? If it could be bought at 
 all I should not want it." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 WILL YOU COME INTO MY PARLOR, SAID THE 
 SPIDER TO THE FLY. 
 
 WHEN Augustus Heron returned to the great 
 city his employers expressed themselves well 
 satisfied with the manner in which he had per- 
 formed their western errand for them. Nor were 
 they left in ignorance of the fact that their young 
 friend had made the first part of his trip as a mem- 
 ber of Mr. Daniel Brown's party. 
 
 They were glad to be served by a man who pos- 
 sessed some sort of social position, as who is not? 
 
 They probably did not feel any special surprise, 
 knowing Fred's relation to the mining company, 
 but it was not many days before an event occurred 
 which might have surprised them, somewhat, if they 
 had known more about the circumstances of the case. 
 
 They had had occasional dealings with Mr. Ste- 
 phen Dillaye, in times past, and of late he had 
 shown some slight disposition to cultivate them, 
 but they hardly knew upon which of his business 
 
 ^62 
 
WALK IN, MR. FL Y. 363 
 
 calls he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Augus, 
 tus Heron. Nevertheless, it came to pass, one 
 morning, that the senior partner said to Augustus : 
 
 " Here's an order from Dillaye & Co. that we 
 can't make out. You know him. Just step around 
 and get his explanation." 
 
 A few other, and more minute directions, and 
 Augustus was on his way, with a momentarily 
 growing conviction that the real business he had in 
 hand was not altogether for other people. 
 
 He attended to the mercantile puzzle first, as in 
 duty bound, and was struck by the extreme cor- 
 diality of his reception, as well as by the further 
 fact that the troublesome order was very nearly 
 doubled on the spot, which would be a good thing 
 for him to report on his return. 
 
 " Must say, Mr. Heron," remarked Mr. Dillaye, 
 " I like your way of doing business. Quite confirms 
 what I have heard of you." 
 
 "Thank you, indeed 
 
 "And I have a reason of my own for desiring a 
 further acquaintance with you." 
 
 " I shall be most happy, Mr. Dillaye." 
 
 "You will excuse me from saying more, now, but 
 if you will do me the favor to see me at my house, 
 some evening, at your convenience" 
 
 " Entirely at your own, Mr. Dillaye." 
 
 "Then, say to-morrow evening? Shall I expect 
 you ?" 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 "Will eight o'clock do? Or earlier? Or later?" 
 " A good hour. But please do not mention it to 
 any one." 
 
 " Certainly not. I shall be happy to come." 
 And it was not until Augustus had crossed the 
 office threshold that his countenance betrayed the 
 least token of any mental perturbation. He must 
 have shared fully in the family capacity for self-con- 
 trol. That is, for face-control, which is not always 
 quite the same thing. The report he made on his 
 return was in all respects satisfactory, but, if he con- 
 sidered himself under a promise not to disclose his 
 invitation to anybody he must have adopted the 
 conventional view that a lawyer is nobody when a 
 secret is in question. At all events he was closeted 
 with Mr. Allyn, as soon as he could get away from 
 business, that afternoon. 
 
 The learned and vivacious counsellor was a diffi- 
 cult man to take by surprise, but he must have been 
 captured in that way for once, to judge by the ex- 
 pression of his face after the first half-hour of his 
 talk with Augustus Heron. He had permitted his 
 young friend to do most of the talking, up to that 
 point. 
 
 " There's one thing very clear to me, Mr. Heron,'' 
 he now remarked, " you must go and hear what they 
 have to say. Then I think you had better come 
 and see me again." 
 
 "That was my intention." 
 
WALK IN, MR. FLY. 365 
 
 "Take it all in all, it's one of the most interesting 
 cases I ever had in my hands, I wonder how many 
 more complications there will be?" 
 
 "I do not propose to make any, I assure you. I 
 am quite willing to be guided entirely by your advice.' 
 
 "Then see to it, my dear sir, that neither Mr. 
 Dillaye nor his wife obtains the smallest atom of 
 fresh information from you. It might be injurious 
 if they should. It might not, but the less they 
 know, the better." 
 
 " I have no intimation of his -purpose in having 
 me call. It may be in relation to some business 
 matter." 
 
 "Yes, very important business, to him. He's a 
 good deal of a fox, Mr. Heron, but he's a baby com. 
 pared to that wife of his. You will see. now.' 1 
 
 So warned, Augustus felt in a manner forearmed, 
 but there was a tantalizing bit of a surprise in store 
 for him also. He called, he was well received by 
 Mr. Dillaye, and more than well by the lady of the 
 house. But there were other guests, including a 
 couple of very fascinating young ladies, heiresses, 
 selected from the choice preserves of that aristo- 
 cratic neighborhood. Augustus was charmed, and 
 his host and hostess appeared so willing he should 
 be that the evening slipped away unawares, and at 
 last, when he made some mention of the hour, Mr. 
 Dillaye replied : 
 
 "Can it be so late? I beg you a thousand par- 
 
366 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 dons. The ladies did it. Of course we cannot do 
 anything with business to-night, but, if it would not 
 be asking too much " 
 
 "O don't speak of it. I have enjoyed myself 
 exceedingly. Shall be most happy to call again, if 
 you will be good enough to name an evening." 
 
 *'This night week? Or any other, if you are up 
 this way. I'm almost always at home, and if I'm 
 not, Mrs. Dillaye, I am sure " 
 
 That lady had received a sign to draw near, and 
 she was ready at this juncture to reinforce her hus- 
 band in a manner which would have been quite 
 overwhelming to an unsophisticated young man, 
 such as Mr. Augustus Heron, with all his good 
 points, decidedly was not. He took his leave, but 
 here was a report, indeed, to make to Mr. Allyn. 
 When he made it, the next day, the man of law 
 and subtlety sat away back in his chair and came 
 within an ace of laughing outright. 
 
 "My dear sir," he said, "it's all plain enough 
 now. No other business would have been handled 
 in that way. One evening to study you, and then, 
 'will you walk in, Mr. Fly?' Go again, a little be- 
 fore the week is out. Not to be in any hurry, you 
 know, but just the least in the world dazzled." 
 
 " I think I must look a little dazzled," remarked 
 Augustus. " If I were only a trifle more used to 
 the company of fashionable ladies, now!" 
 
 "That's good. Very good. You will do, my 
 
WALK IN, MR. PL Y. 367 
 
 dear sir. Upon my word you will. I am sure of it." 
 
 And, after Augustus had taken his departure, 
 Mr. Allyn repeated to himself his conviction that: 
 
 " Yes, he'll do. Not a bad lot, by any means, but 
 what an essay he could write on cheek and its uses. 
 I'd like to see him and Mrs. Dillaye together, with- 
 out their seeing me. It would be a study for an 
 artist." 
 
 Mr. Augustus Heron must have managed, in 
 some way, to win a high place in the esteem of 
 Mr. Counsellor Allyn. 
 
 The days went by, however, and the young man 
 faithfully observed the advice of his counsel, which 
 was a strong sign of common sense, and timed his 
 next call at the Dillaye mansion just twenty-four 
 hours within the suggested week. 
 
 The master of the house was not at home, but 
 soon would be. Mrs. Dillaye 
 
 " Please hand her my card. I will come in and 
 wait." 
 
 There was no other company, that evening, but 
 Mrs. Dillaye's greeting was all that the most rapa- 
 cious young gentleman caller could have demanded. 
 
 So softly, winningly cordial, and with such an 
 unnoticed but exquisitely rapid drift through the 
 friendly into the almost confidential. 
 
 How and by what masterly turn of her tongue 
 did she bring Augustus into a discussion of the 
 Browns, and at what point of it did she slip over 
 
368 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 Fred and Mrs. Boyce and Mabel, right past Mr. 
 Daniel Brown himself, and his mining picnic, and 
 close her sudden lips upon the name of Carrie 
 Dillaye ? 
 
 Augustus tried, more than once, afterwards, to 
 make out how she had done it, but, like the path 
 of a serpent on a rock, her windings left no tracea- 
 ble trail. 
 
 " My own poor, dear, unfortunate step-daughter. 
 How I do love that girl, Mr. Heron, and how sin- 
 cerely I commiserate her. No one knows what her 
 father and I have suffered on her account !" 
 
 And she never said a truer word, for nobody 
 knew. 
 
 Augustus could but reply with a remark which 
 somewhat vaguely expressed his high esteem for 
 the young lady in question, and there was then a 
 sad and motherly smile on Mrs. Dillaye's face when 
 she assured him that she was by no means ignorant 
 of his intimacy with the household of Mr. Brown. 
 
 "You must, however," she said, " be ignorant of 
 some things, some facts, some dreadful facts, which 
 even poor Caroline's nearest and dearest could not 
 conscientiously conceal. That is, from any one 
 who, in their best judgment, had a right to know." 
 
 " Most honorable on your part, I am sure, but 
 nothing would induce me to pry into matters which 
 might be regarded as sacred by others." 
 
 " Your delicacy does you credit, my dear young 
 
WALK IN, MR. FL Y. 369 
 
 friend, but O I hope I am not committing an 
 error! Can I trust you, Mr. Heron?" 
 
 " Implicitly, Mrs. Dillaye." 
 
 "Then I will I must I feel that it is your 
 due!" 
 
 And she did, unflinchingly. So fully, so circum- 
 stantially, so graphically, that before .she had 
 really done full justice, in her own eyes, to the sad 
 misfortunes of her step-daughter, she had the satis- 
 faction, more than once, of seeing her gentleman 
 guest change color, vividly, while the toe of his 
 right foot beat rapidly and nervously upon the 
 noiseless carpet. In fact, several times his mouth 
 came open, and then shut again as if he were biting 
 something in two, but not an audible word escaped 
 him. 
 
 Could it be that Augustus was passing through 
 some kind of an ordeal ? Some unprecedented test 
 of his power of self-control, and of obeying the ad- 
 vice of his counsel ? 
 
 Very possibly, but, if so, he came out of it vic- 
 toriously, for Mrs. Dillaye was herself surprised by 
 his entire reticence. 
 
 That was when, at last, she paused, giving an op- 
 portunity for a reply, and manifestly expecting one. 
 
 None came, for a moment, and a slight flush be- 
 gan to arise in the cheeks of the lady, which were 
 at all times somewhat fresh in color. 
 
 " I have tried to do my duty," she said. 
 
370 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " Believe me, madame, I am not insensible," 
 slowly remarked Augustus. "The truly painful 
 facts you have confided to me are safe in my keep- 
 ing. Not a living soul shall ever hear them from 
 my lips. Not even my brother." 
 
 " Your brother?" 
 
 " Yes, my brother Fred. He told me, once, a good 
 deal that you have now. Some things he omitted. 
 He may not have known them. Some other things 
 he said that you have omitted." 
 
 "Other things? What other things?" 
 
 " Pardon me, Mrs. Dillaye, I could not be guilty 
 of a breach of confidence with him, any more than 
 with you. All I have learned, from either source, 
 will be held absolutely sacred, I assure you." 
 
 He had been taking out his watch, as he spoke, 
 and he suddenly added. "So late? Dear me, I had 
 no idea of the time. I beg your pardon for my 
 terribly long call. I must see Mr. Dillaye some 
 other night." 
 
 " He will soon be in 
 
 " O but I have trespassed already. You are 
 so kind, but I must not take advantage 
 
 He had risen now, and although Mrs. Dillaye did 
 her best to detain him, without appearing too anx- 
 ious, Augustus managed to make his escape. He 
 did so, too, full of malicious pleasure over the as- 
 surance that he had left behind him a female mind 
 ready to burst with curiosity concerning " those 
 
WALK IN, MR. FL Y, 3 7 1 
 
 other things" which had come to him from Fred. 
 
 " It is my revenge," he muttered to himself. " I 
 owed her that much. But wasn't it tough work, to 
 sit and hear the old she-devil go on at that rate 
 about Carrie ? I believe the worst, now. Who'd 
 believe a Vvoman could have so bitter a charge of 
 gall in her. She doesn't deserve any mercy, and 
 she wont get any, so far as I have anything to say 
 about it." 
 
 Nor was he innocent of a shrewd guess, repeated 
 by Mr. Allyn when he met him, next day, at the 
 truth, for such it was, that Mr. Stephen Dillaye had 
 been at home that evening, and that all the "busi- 
 ness" contemplated by his invitation to call had 
 been quite thoroughly transacted. 
 
 Whether satisfactorily or not was one of the con- 
 undrums which remained for that gentleman and 
 his wife to puzzle over. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CERTAINTY IN A PAY- 
 STREAK. 
 
 IF one being more than another seemed to have 
 impressed his character, for the season, upon the 
 gloriously beautiful surroundings of the wonderful 
 mine, it was the angel of peace, if so be there is 
 such a being, and if he is an angel, and if he has any 
 character to impress. 
 
 At any distance from the camp the silence was 
 oppressive, unless the ear took note of those voices 
 of nature whose gathered and blended volume comes 
 to us so like an essential element of genuine silence. 
 
 Up there in the rocky amphitheatre, above the 
 narrow head of the ravine, the sound of human 
 voices and the muffled stroke of tools on the rock 
 or on other tools, broke through the natural charm 
 to suggest another and stronger fascination, while 
 out upon the prairie the feeding animals of the train, 
 and the wild ones who came to look at them and 
 then bound away, prevented the sense of solitude 
 
 372 
 
HIDDEN DANGERS. 373 
 
 from ever becoming painful. Even the adjacent 
 cliffs were sometimes crowned with groups of " big- 
 horned" sentinels gazing curiously down. 
 
 These latter were of interest to the hunters and 
 the camp larder, as well as to the lady tourists, but 
 they belonged, after all, to the prevailing atmos- 
 phere of peace which came, each day, close on the 
 heels of the sunrise and the morning mist. 
 
 Day followed day in almost cloudless beauty, and 
 Dr. Milyng congratulated himself and Mr. Brown 
 that not the slightest interruption from w*ar or 
 weather had caused the waste of precious working 
 time. The picks and spades had been plied with 
 steady energy, the little "reducing mill" had been 
 worked to its full capacity, and under the doctor's 
 skilful direction, -quite a stack of yellow ingots had 
 already been smelted out as witnesses of the extra- 
 ordinary richness of that " pay-streak/' But there 
 were clouds in the gold-mining sky, nevertheless. 
 
 " We're not doing very clean work, Mr. Brown." 
 remarked the veteran miner one morning. "We must 
 save all our tailings. It'll pay to work 'em over, every 
 pound of 'em. But how the vein does improve as 
 we go in. The boys are fairly wild about it, and they 
 work splendidly. I have to keep a sharp lookout, 
 or they'll get careless with their blasting. We've en- 
 larged the tunnel, now, so we can work free, and 
 we're ten feet further in. We shall go ahead fast, 
 now." 
 
374 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " So far as I can see, doctor, the mine is all we 
 could ask." 
 
 " We shall know more about it after we reach the 
 first fault." 
 
 " Do you look for one ?" 
 
 " Can't say. Fve been up on the ledge above, 
 and I ain't sure, but we shall know, pretty soon, where 
 we must sink our first shaft." 
 
 " But what if the vein keeps right on into the 
 mountain, unbroken?" 
 
 The doctor's face clouded a little, but he answered, 
 steadily: 
 
 " That, Mr. Brown, is a good deal more than I care 
 to promise you, to-day. We shall soon know, at all 
 events." 
 
 "A fault. A fault," muttered the merchant, as 
 he turned away. " I believe I know what that 
 means. Will it be a check to all these plans and 
 dreams of mine? The doctor does not seem to be 
 much disturbed about it. He does not mean it 
 shall take me by surprise if it comes. Such ore as 
 that is. To think of the vein running out against 
 a dead wall of rock." 
 
 And yet that is precisely the meaning of a " fault," 
 in mining language, and sometimes it means a good 
 deal, and sometimes not so much. 
 
 Peace and plenty, and tons on tons of rich ore, in 
 the present, therefore, but how about the future? 
 
 That is the ever-recurring record of all the veins 
 
HIDDEN DA NGERS. 375 
 
 in the world's history, whether their " pay-streak'' 
 involves a metal or the life of a nation. And there 
 is always one thing which can be done, and that is 
 to work hard while the pay-streak lasts. 
 
 So they did, and all that while the ladies found 
 enough to do and enjoy, to keep them from weary- 
 ing of their new, strange life, and Fred Heron di- 
 vided his time very fairly between them and the 
 mine. 
 
 A strange fellow he was growing to be, and Mrs. 
 Boyce declared to Mabel Varick that he puzzled 
 her more than ever. 
 
 " The very expression of his face has changed 
 since we came among the mountains. There's 
 something loftier in it, but not so much sunshine as 
 I'd like to see. He has been through a great deal 
 for one so young." 
 
 "And he is young," said Mabel, thoughtfully. 
 " I half forget that." 
 
 Not old, certainly, although he felt so, at times, 
 but he could have told his lady friends, had he 
 chosen to do so, that his present experiences were 
 quite equal to any he had known before. Very like 
 a sequel to them, in some respects, with the past 
 cropping out in the face of the present, as it is al- 
 ways sure to do. 
 
 " Seems to me," he said to himself, " there's a 
 sort of a mining tunnel being bored into me. Good 
 and deep. It hurts, too, for the picking and drill- 
 
376 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 ing goes on without much mercy. Wonder if 
 anything worth while will be found at the end 
 of it." 
 
 And then his face, for a moment, told of the hurt 
 and the suffering, whatever may have been the 
 cause of it. 
 
 He too had his conferences with Dr. Milyng, and 
 perhaps he knew more than Mr. Brown of the possi- 
 bilities before them. If so, he had nothing to say 
 about it, for the work must, in any event, go on. 
 
 And the doctor himself? 
 
 Well, so far as the picnic and the lady tourists 
 were concerned, the doctor had almost ceased to 
 be. He was a mine, a tunnel, a pay-streak, a walk- 
 ing embodiment of a wonderful dream of gold, but 
 he was very little more. The fire in his black eyes 
 grew deeper and sometimes fiercer, day by day, and 
 his red lips came together with a harder compression. 
 He was polite, to the verge of extravagance, but 
 that was only a surface indication. It was plain 
 that he was under a pressure of excitement almost 
 too intense for even his nerves of iron. All saw it, 
 and Mr. Brown found himself getting moody and 
 anxious, in spite of the apparent triumph at the 
 close of each day's work. 
 
 " So much depends upon it," he said to Mrs. 
 Boyce. " If all I have spent were a dead loss, I 
 should not mind it, but if it should prove not to be 
 a true vein " 
 
HIDDEN DANGERS. 377 
 
 " How could you lose much, with such a quantity 
 of good ore already out?" 
 
 " That would be something, to be sure. But 
 then the future would be lost. I am not digging 
 for gold on my own account, Mrs. Boyce." 
 
 " Indeed, I know you are not selfish in this, or in 
 any other matter. But why do you let it worry 
 you ? Worry will not help the matter." 
 
 She was always ready to assume the attitude of 
 a wise and gentle mentor, and she did it admirably 
 well. All the better because her desire to be 
 of use in that direction was unquestionably sin- 
 cere. 
 
 " I'm ashamed of myself, Mrs. Boyce, but if you 
 only knew what hopes I have built up, with that 
 hole in the ledge for a foundation." 
 
 " Not a bad one, I hope. By the way, begging 
 your pardon for a change of subject, have you 
 noticed Carrie Dillaye of late?" 
 
 " No, not specially. She seems to be well, does 
 she not?" 
 
 "Yes, well enough." 
 
 "And enjoying herself?" 
 
 " Perhaps so, but a good deal more quiet and re- 
 served than formerly." 
 
 "Can you imagine any reason ?" 
 
 " None which might not be a grave injustice to 
 her as well as to somebody else." 
 
 "I think I understand you, Mrs. Boyce. Will 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 you do me the favor to advise me of anything which 
 in your opinion calls for my attention?" 
 
 " Most assuredly I will, but I would not make a 
 mistake in such a matter, for a good deal. And 
 yet, you know, there have been peculiar circum- 
 stances." 
 
 " I know. I know. I am not at all foolish about 
 such things. She might have greater misfortunes 
 than that come to her." 
 
 " Yes, indeed she might." 
 
 That was just an hour or so after supper, one 
 glorious evening, when the sky was all one blaze of 
 stars, in that pure atmosphere, and Mabel Varick 
 could have told them, if they had asked her, that 
 Carrie Dillaye was at that very moment strolling 
 out among the pines at the edge of the prairie, ac- 
 companied by Fred Heron. 
 
 There had been some talk, not much encouraged 
 by Dr. Milyng, of an excursion, before long, to the 
 ruins of the ancient city, and for some minutes the 
 chat of the young people had leaned that way. It 
 did so until they were safely beyond all peril of 
 other ears, and then Fred suddenly broke away 
 from it with : 
 
 " I have thought it all over, Carrie, and my mind 
 is made up." 
 
 "And you think?" 
 
 " That your uncle ought to know. I have obeyed 
 your wishes, thus far, although it has been 
 
HIDDEN DA NGERS. 3 79 
 
 clearer and clearer to me that I had no right to 
 
 do so." 
 
 " No more have I. And yet, how can I tell him? 
 
 It has been crushing me to the earth. He is so 
 good and kind. He has done so much for me. Oh, 
 why did I ever put myself in such a false po- 
 sition !" 
 
 She was sobbing, now, and Fred made no attempt 
 to comfort her. He only said, almost coldly: 
 
 "There is but one way out of a false position. 
 You have asked me to decide. I have waited and 
 waited. I decided long ago " 
 
 u But I cannot bear to do it!" 
 
 " Do you remember the hospital on the Island, 
 Carrie, when you would not let me write to your 
 friends, and I told you I would do so without your 
 permission?" 
 
 " And you wrote to Mr. Brown." 
 
 "Would concealment have done any good then ?" 
 
 " No, but what will he think of us?" 
 
 " Nor will it now. I cannot help what he thinks. 
 I must do my duty. Will you tell him, or shall I? 
 One of us must, and without any further delay." 
 
 " O if you would ! I cannot. You are a man. 
 I never was very strong. I have done weak and 
 foolish things all my life." 
 
 " I will tell him, then, the first chance I can get. 
 Let us walk back to the camp now." 
 
 Weak natures, erratic, unevenly-developed minds, 
 
380 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 have one characteristic in common which is too 
 often lost sight of. They are subject to spasms of 
 will-power which temporarily, often hysterically, 
 counterfeit strength. 
 
 If Fred Heron was aware of it he was expecting 
 nothing of the kind from Carrie Dillaye, for, after 
 he parted from her, within the circle of light from 
 the fading camp-fire, he strode away again in the 
 shadows. He did not see, therefore, how anxiously 
 she looked around, or how, when she saw her uncle 
 just parting from Mrs. Boyce at the door of her 
 tent, she stepped rapidly and firmly forward till 
 she could lay her hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Uncle Daniel, I have something I want to say 
 to you." 
 
 "To me, Carrie? Well, my dear, I am ready to 
 hear it. I like to have you come to me." 
 
 That was encouragingly and kindly said, but it 
 reached no other ears than Carrie's, nor did her an- 
 swer, nor any of the other words of a conversation, 
 under the shadows of the lordly pines, in the course 
 of which Mr. Daniel Brown forgot, for awhile, all 
 about his mine and his great plans. For although 
 he listened and said little, and although Carrie's 
 voice was full of pleading, even of tears, it 
 soon became plain that the wrath of the merchant 
 was kindled within him. It is said, too, that those 
 who are slow to wrath are sometimes more to be 
 dreaded, more savage and unreasonable than others, 
 
HIDDEN DA NGERS. 3 8 1 
 
 when by any means their inner furnace is heated 
 for them. 
 
 And all that time Fred Heron was strolling aim- 
 lessly around by himself, except when, at last, he 
 found a comfortless seat on a rugged bowlder of 
 quartz and held up his saddened, suffering face to 
 the starlight. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 A SEASON OF VERY BRIGHT WEATHER CLOSES IN A 
 STORM. 
 
 THE scattered ruins of the ancient city put on 
 an air of peculiar beauty, that starlit night. 
 In the broad glare of noon there was something 
 commonplace about them. They were then so 
 many piles of crumbling masonry, such as abound 
 in the too well-known and too much described 
 holiday-lands of Europe, and Asia, and Africa, where 
 dates abound, and the kind of obtrusive fiction 
 known as history robs the defenceless walls, and so 
 forth, of half their interest. 
 
 Nobody had as yet set any lamp-posts in this 
 western oblivion, and at night the stars had things 
 all their own way. There was not so much as a 
 camp-fire among the ruins, but there was a very 
 good one a half-mile to the southward. 
 
 There was mystery enough among the relics of 
 ancient architecture, but there was very little 
 around that camp-fire, for even the Big Medicine 
 
 382 
 
FA UL TS ! FALSE ! 383 
 
 was for the time being holding forth in the charac- 
 ter of an earthly counsellor. 
 
 It was well for the excursion party from the 
 mining-picnic that they had postponed their coming, 
 for that particular band of Apaches had not yet 
 held an interview with General Crump, and their 
 council was a good deal more enterprising than 
 pacific in the tone of its discussions. 
 
 There was force, too, in the oration of the Big 
 Medicine. 
 
 First, he told them, a few loose miners came 
 straggling in, and had carried nothing out, not even 
 their scalps. Then one audacious robber had made 
 free with his own horse and robe, not to mention 
 the pony, and he had gone down among the buffalo 
 bones, as was fit and proper. Then three who 
 came to dig had been destroyed through the sagaci- 
 ty of his own medicine mule. So far, all was se- 
 rene, but now a larger, more important party of 
 white men, vastly better worth plundering, had ven- 
 tured to make what looked like a permanent settle- 
 ment. Should this be permitted, there would be 
 no more use for Apaches in all that region. Clean 
 work was called for, and the sooner it was done the 
 better. What hope had they for presents from 
 their Great Father at Washington, unless they made 
 themselves felt and their power appreciated, from 
 time to time? 
 
 There was no such thing as replying to such 
 
384 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 practical eloquence as that, and the best and wari- 
 est scouts were accordingly sent out, that the chiefs 
 and elders might not make their further plans in 
 the absence of accurate information. 
 
 The scouts departed, the council adjourned itself, 
 and nothing whatever remained to interfere with 
 the peaceful character of the scenery, for an Indian 
 village is quiet enough when even the dogs are 
 tired and have gone to sleep after a full supper. 
 
 It is a good deal so with more civilized communi- 
 ties, but when the dogs are neither worked hard 
 nor fed full the nights are apt to be noisy. Perhaps 
 the best remedy for such difficulties is the one 
 never thought of not to keep any dogs. 
 
 Miles and miles away, in the mining camp, only 
 the watchful " lookouts" were apparently stirring. 
 Dr. Milyng was not the man to neglect that sort of 
 precaution, under such circumstances, and he had 
 brought with him men of whose trustworthiness he 
 knew or could learn something. 
 
 Everybody else ought to have been sound asleep, 
 but the thing which ought to be is rarely the thing 
 which is. 
 
 The doctor himself lay rolled up in his blanket, 
 under a tree, with his head on a saddle, according 
 to his highest idea of comfort, but his eyes were 
 not closed. They were still striving, as they had 
 been all that day, to penetrate a few feet further 
 into the rock his men had been drilling. 
 
FA UL TS ! FALSE ! 385 
 
 Fred Heron had gone to his tent, when he grew 
 weary of watching the stars, but he had not thrown 
 aside any portion of his clothing. He had stretched 
 himself at full length on his camp-bed, but it had 
 never before seemed so comfortless a couch and he 
 was wide, very wide, awake. 
 
 " What right had a man like me," he muttered, 
 " to let such a thing come in ? All my other foes have 
 crept in upon me before I knew it. I let a thing 
 take full possession of me before I begin to fight it. 
 Then I have to suffer the consequences of my folly. 
 And yet, I might have been a man. I might have 
 had a right to aspire, even to her. Seems to me I 
 have all my life been swimming, or trying to swim, 
 with shot in my pockets. Then I go down, down, 
 down, every time, as a matter of course. I didn't 
 put it all in, either. Well, who did? I don't care 
 to accuse anybody. Gus, he's provided for. Bessie's 
 married and happy, I hope. Her husband '11 have 
 all the advice he can live up to, that's one certain 
 thing. I hope he's a man of strong digestive 
 powers. Stronger than mine. Anyhow, I must 
 see Mr. Brown, the first thing in the morning, and 
 get at least one load off my mind, whatever maybe 
 the consequences." 
 
 And so he lay and tossed about, and muttered, 
 just as he had done, many another night, in the 
 memory-crowded gloom of the hospital on the Is- 
 land. 
 
386 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 The ladies tented together, under a great spread 
 of canvas, with ail sorts of comforts and even ele- 
 gancies about them. Separate couches, to be sure, 
 and movable screens between them, but no parti- 
 tions through which the sound of an ill-advised 
 soliloquy would not have been audible. 
 
 If they were awake, therefore, they were compelled 
 to husband at least their voices, whatever they 
 might do with their thoughts. 
 
 Once or twice the others imagined they heard a 
 sound resembling a suppressed and smothered sob 
 from Carrie Dillaye's corner, but, if so, they did not 
 tell her they had heard it. 
 
 What would Dr. Milyng have said if he had 
 known that the thoughts of the widow were dwell- 
 ing on the same subject with his own. 
 
 "A fault?" she said to herself. "I would not 
 like to have Mr. Brown disappointed. I hope he 
 may succeed, but not just now. Entire success or 
 utter failure would alike be disastrous to me. Of 
 the two I would prefer the latter. I think he would 
 need me, then. I never intended to let myself be- 
 come so deeply interested, but what a man he is. 
 He is only ten years older than I am. He needs 
 me, too. I wonder what sort of a woman his first 
 wife was. Not very strong, I fancy. She and both 
 her sisters died before they were of middle age. 
 That's not uncommon. All married well, too. That 
 is, what the world calls well. So did I, but the 
 
FA UL TS ! FALSE ! 387 
 
 world does not always know everything. I wonder 
 what it thinks of me. Sure to be wrong, I can an- 
 swer for that, when I do not even know myself. 
 Does anybody do that ?" 
 
 As for Mabel Varick, she got to sleep at last, and 
 Nebuchadnezzar himself would have been troubled 
 by such dreams as came to her. 
 
 Not the first ones, of a young man and a young 
 woman wandering away together under the pines 
 and the starlight, although sometimes she seemed 
 to be herself that young woman, and sometimes 
 that young woman seemed to be somebody else. 
 
 But then the young man underwent a change, 
 and became a mountain, a sort of human moun- 
 tain, but with a terrible air of inaccessibility about 
 it. Very grand and high, and very hard. And then 
 she found herself mining for gold in the side of 
 that mountain, and voices told her continually about 
 " faults, faults, horrible faults," such as made it 
 not worth her while to mine there, and she heard 
 herself reply : 
 
 " But the golden heart, so rich, so wonderfully 
 rich. I know it is in here, somewhere. I will spend 
 all I am worth, but I will find it." 
 
 Something like that may have been running, at 
 about the same time, through the troubled mind 
 of Mr. Daniel Brown, but not all of his midnight 
 perplexities came to him from the hole in the 
 ledge. 
 
3 SS THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 11 Betrayed," he muttered. " Insulted, deceived. 
 Concealed it from me. I'm glad Mrs. Boyce did 
 not know anything about it. She would have told 
 me, I'm sure she would. She has my interests at 
 heart. Yes, and she would respect my feelings. 
 And yet I do not see, for my life, why I should 
 feel it so deeply. A boy and a girl. Both fools. 
 A good deal of worldly cunning on his part, too, 
 I should say. But his brother. I was never so 
 upset and disappointed about anybody. I'd have 
 trusted well it's no use crying over spilt milk, and 
 the doctor tells me we shall probably get our answer 
 from the mine to-morrow." 
 
 A curious night, all around, but it could not last 
 forever, and people who rest badly are apt to rise 
 early, especially if the causes of their unrest rise 
 before them and wait for them ready dressed to 
 say " Bad morning." 
 
 A glorious morning, too, as Mr. Brown was re- 
 marking to himself, when he looked out upon it 
 from the border of the camp, but just then an- 
 other voice came to his ears, and he turned to look 
 into the pale and troubled face of Fred Heron. 
 
 " Mr. Brown, I have something on my mind. 
 Something I desire to tell you." 
 
 " Ah, have you, indeed ?" 
 
 The answer did not come in the merchant's usual 
 tone or manner, but Fred went on : 
 
 " It is something I have been longing to say, and 
 
FAULTS! FALSE! 389 
 
 my conscience tells me I ought to have said it be- 
 fore. I cannot and will not keep it from you any 
 longer." 
 
 "Spare yourself, Mr. Heron, you need not give 
 yourself any pain. You are too late with your 
 news. Carrie Mrs. Heron that now is told me 
 the whole story, before I went to bed last night. 
 It is a miserable affair. A most unprovoked and 
 unworthy insult to myself. It should not have 
 been thought of. Least of all should it have been 
 concealed from me by those in whom I was repos- 
 ing such entire confidence. Carrie is a woman. A 
 young one. In very peculiar circumstances. I do 
 not know that I condemn her, altogether. But a 
 man. You " 
 
 "You condemn me, Mr. Brown?" 
 
 " Condemn ? Ask yourself, sir. How can I trust 
 you, henceforth? What confidence can I put in a 
 man who has once betrayed me? More than that, 
 sir. Is not this an explanatory comment on your 
 whole character? Does it not throw a light on 
 your past career? What else can I think, sir?" 
 
 The old lines of suffering had been settling them- 
 selves deep and rigidly in Fred's face while the 
 merchant was speaking. Every word and look fell 
 like a sharp blow on an old sore, sending successive 
 pangs through his whole being. Blows of the same 
 sort upon a healthy organism are never felt in such 
 a manner as that. A certain amount of education 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 in the art of suffering is required before a man can 
 get the full benefit of an unjust or bitter speech. 
 Fred Heron's powers in that direction were fully 
 developed, and Mr. Brown's angry, taunting, scorn- 
 ful tirade was too much for him. 
 
 He had, perhaps, expected something unpleasant, 
 but nothing like this, for he had greatly under-esti- 
 mated his own place in the merchant's esteem. 
 The place he could now see he was losing, or had 
 lost. 
 
 There must have been some special reason, never- 
 theless, why the young man turned so white, and 
 walked suddenly away with so quick and so uncer- 
 tain a step. 
 
 Mr. Brown looked after him in amazement. 
 
 " He did not answer me. What could he have 
 said, if he had tried to? He did conceal it from 
 me. It was not right or honorable. It was cow- 
 ardly to the last degree. But how he looked. Have 
 I said too much ? Have I been unjust to him ? Am 
 I sure, now, that Carrie told me all? He came to 
 tell me. He did not know that she had done so. 
 Look here, now, maybe there's something about 
 this matter that I do not understand. It is never 
 safe for a man to lose his temper. I never saw such 
 a face on a human being. It was mean of me to 
 speak in that manner of his past mistakes. What 
 do I know about them?'* 
 
 Mr. Daniel Brown was a just man, and an upright, 
 
FA UL TS ! FALSE ! 39 1 
 
 with a righteous scorn of clandestine ways, breaches 
 of trust, all shapes and forms of dishonor, but his 
 very love of justice was now beginning to accuse 
 him concerning the words he had spoken in his 
 anger. 
 
 And Fred Heron, striding back through the camp, 
 had passed three ladies, without knowing it, and 
 they had all three looked in his face and read as 
 much of it as they each knew how to read. 
 
 Carrie covered her own with her hands, exclaiming : 
 
 " O Mabel ! O Mrs. Boyce ! He has been talk- 
 ing about it to Mr. Brown, and they have quarrelled. 
 And yet, Uncle Daniel forgave me, last night, when 
 I told him. He said he did." 
 
 "Told him what, Carrie?" they both exclaimed, 
 in a breath. 
 
 " O come into the tent. I must tell you, too. 
 It is dreadful !" 
 
 And they followed her, and she told them, and 
 Mrs. Boyce forgot, while Carrie was speaking, to so 
 much as glance at Mabel, to see what effect the 
 story had on her. 
 
 "Just before you left the city? Married him? 
 And neither he nor you said a word about it to Mr. 
 Brown? I do not wonder he is angry. If I were 
 he, I'd never speak to Fred Heron again." 
 
 " Fred ? Why is he angry with Fred ?" exclaimed 
 Carrie. " When he promised me he would forgive 
 Augustus himself?" 
 
THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " Augustus ? What has he to do with it ?" almost 
 gasped Mabel. 
 
 " Do with it? Why, he is my husband. I mar- 
 ried him not Fred. What has Fred to do with it ? 
 
 " Married Augustus ?" said Mrs. Boyce, springing 
 to her feet from the camp-stool she had been sit- 
 ting on. 
 
 " Why, you've said nothing but * Mr. Heron* and 
 'we/ all along. How should we know it was Au- 
 gustus? Well, all I've got to say is, I'm glad it was 
 not Fred. I should have been dreadfully disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 Carrie's color was rising now, as it ought to have 
 done, for the widow's last words were clearly not 
 intended for a compliment to Gus. 
 
 " Fred knew nothing about it till we got here. I 
 told him because the secret tormented me. He is 
 my brother-in-law, now, and I had a right to ask his 
 advice. He is not nearly so good as Augustus. He 
 does not compare with him. But he told me he 
 should tell Mr. Brown. I only got him to wait a 
 few days, that's all." 
 
 She was talking pretty fast, and a little angrily, 
 but Mabel leaned nearer and put her arm around 
 her neck and said : 
 
 "Come, Carrie, dear, do not get so excited. . If 
 Uncle Daniel has forgiven you and Augustus, it'll 
 all be right. He is too good a man to be unjust to 
 anybody." 
 
FA UL TS ! FALSE ! 393 
 
 The widow's lips were moving as if something 
 were on them that her judgment condemned to 
 silence, but she speedily came to Mabel's help, and 
 Carrie was pacified concerning her husband. 
 
 They remained in the tent, however, all three of 
 them, until it was time for them to attend to the 
 coffee and the other last preparations for breakfast. 
 
 When they gathered at table there was nobody 
 missing but Fred Heron, and it was odd that there 
 were no inquiries concerning the reasons for his 
 absence. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE MOST PROMISING HOPES MAY BE WITHERED 
 BY A SUDDEN BLAST. 
 
 MR. BROWN did not go up for a look at the 
 mine immediately after breakfast. 
 
 Dr. Milyng went, as usual, after eating a very 
 good allowance of bacon and broiled venison in a 
 remarkably short space of time, but the merchant 
 lingered long over his coffee. 
 
 After that there came a protracted private con- 
 ference with Carrie, now Mrs. Augustus Heron, from 
 which her uncle turned away with fewer clouds upon 
 his brow than had gathered there during his morn- 
 ing meal. Then it was the widow's turn for a long 
 talk, and there can be no doubt but what she gave 
 him good advice, for when Mabel met him at the 
 door of the tent his face wore a good deal of its ac- 
 customed benevolence. 
 
 Mabel had a number of things to say about Carrie 
 and Augustus, but she was glad to find that no 
 special pleading was any longer necessary. 
 394 
 
RESUL TS OF AN EXPLOSION. 395 
 
 He thought she had never looked sweeter in her 
 life than when she thanked him for forgiving her 
 cousin and her husband their silly error. 
 
 " But, Uncle Daniel," she said, at last, " is there 
 anything wrong between you and Mr. Fred Heron?" 
 
 "Why do you ask, dear?" 
 
 " He was not at breakfast with us, and then, when 
 I saw him, this morning, he did look so 
 
 " Mrs. Boyce thinks " 
 
 He checked himself, he hardly knew why, and 
 Mabel expressed no curiosity concerning the widow's 
 thoughts. 
 
 " You have not quarrelled with him ? Has he 
 done anything which you cannot forgive?" 
 
 He did not seem to notice the effort it cost her to 
 ask that question. 
 
 "Done? O Fred has not done anything wrong, 
 at all. I misunderstood Carrie, and supposed him 
 privy to the whole affair and concealing it from me. 
 He has behaved most honorably, and I 
 
 "What have you done, Uncle Daniel?" 
 
 " Made a fool of myself, my dear, as a man is very 
 apt to do when he is angry. I insulted him out- 
 rageously. The question is whether he will forgive 
 me. If I'd said half as much to Dr. Milyng, he'd 
 never forgive me to all time." 
 
 " But Dr. Milyng is not Mr. Heron." 
 
 " No, and the worst of it is I hardly know how to 
 get at it. I must make haste, though. He's just 
 
396 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 the man to take himself out of camp and away, 
 with such a driving." 
 
 "Away, Uncle Daniel?" 
 
 " Yes, and if he did we would never see him again, 
 I think. I must be going, Mabel, before any mis- 
 chief comes of it." 
 
 Wise man ! As if enough of mischief had not 
 come of it already. But he strode away in the direc- 
 tion of the mine. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce came out of the tent, just then, with 
 a very serious look on her face. 
 
 "Well, Mabel," she said, "is it not too bad?" 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Boyce, if they really love one another. 
 They've been wrong and foolish, but then 
 
 "Yes, Mabel, and she and Augustus are well 
 enough suited to one another. But poor Fred- 
 how he must feel ! His own brother, too. It sounds 
 like some doleful old romance, I declare it does. 
 Poor Fred." 
 
 Mabel was looking in the direction taken by her 
 uncle, and she did but silently echo the widow, in 
 a sort of dreamy way, for she only murmured : 
 
 " Poor Fred Mr. Heron, I mean." 
 
 And the young man himself, the object of so 
 much sympathy, really deserved a good deal, for 
 his quarrel with Mr. Brown had cost him his break- 
 fast, and one's appetite is apt to be somewhat keen 
 in the bracing air of the mountains. 
 
 He had gone to the mine, instead of the breakfast 
 
RESUL TS OF AN EXPLOSION. 397 
 
 table, and the excited miners were not long behind 
 him. When the doctor arrived he found them all 
 at work, with an energy born of something more 
 than their five dollars a day and rations. The ore 
 they were taking out, indeed, was quite enough 
 to stir a fever in the blood of veteran" prospectors" 
 such as they were. Never before had they seen 
 anything approaching it, among all the gold-bear- 
 ing Sierras, and they were ready to believe, with the 
 doctor, that the " heart of it all" had been found, 
 at last. 
 
 That is, if that vein held out. 
 
 The doctor could do very little more than stand 
 and look on, although there would be work for him 
 at the mill, before long, and Fred had a good op- 
 portunity to tell him the interesting story of his 
 brother's clandestine marriage. 
 
 At any other time the d6ctor would have entered 
 into the spirit of the thing as fully as anybody, but 
 now, with that hole in the ledge before him, and 
 the muffled sound of the mining tools in his ears, 
 he heard as one who heard not. only putting in a 
 word of comment, here and there, until Fred came 
 to the details of his interview with Mr. Brown, 
 that very morning. Then indeed the doctor with- 
 drew his gaze from the mouth of the tunnel, and 
 listened with all his ears. 
 
 "Did he say that, Fred?" 
 
 " Every word, and more." 
 
398 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 " And without any just cause or provocation ? 
 It seems almost impossible. What did you say?" 
 
 u Nothing. I had nothing to say. I turned in 
 my tracks and left him. I have come to see you 
 before leaving camp, partly because I owe you that 
 much, to say the least, and partly because I'm a trifle 
 green on the plains, and want a few directions as to 
 the trail I had better follow." 
 
 "Trail? Leave camp? You?" exclaimed the 
 doctor. ' ' Well, now, I reckon not. Not quite so 
 bad as that. You hold on till we've made this blast 
 and I'll talk to you about it. There they come." 
 
 " They" were the gang of miners who had been 
 at work in the tunnel, preparing for a blast of more 
 than usual size and of great anticipated effect, at 
 its inner terminus. 
 
 The drilling and charging were done, and now r the 
 fuses were lighted and it was time for everybody 
 to get out of range of that hole in the ledge, for 
 there was no telling how far some odd fragment of 
 quartz might be projected: 
 
 A moment or so passed in impatient waiting, and 
 the doctor hardly seemed to breathe. Then there 
 came a dull and thunderous detonation, a strong 
 puff of smoke and dust and bits of ore from the 
 mouth of the tunnel. 
 
 "Hold on, boys," exclaimed the doctor, "the 
 whole charge may not have gone off. There it 
 comes." 
 
RESUL TS OF AN EXPLOSION. 
 
 A second detonation, fainter than the first, and 
 Dr. Milyng sprang forward, followed by Fred. He 
 carried in his hand a powerful reflecting lantern, and 
 it was needed, even near the mouth, for the smoke 
 of the gunpowder lingered in the long and slightly 
 irregular gallery. There were broken masses of 
 quartz lying here and there, but there was no need 
 to stumble over them, and the doctor and his 
 young friend were quickly at the end of the tunnel. 
 
 " See that, Fred ?" said the doctor, as he passed 
 his hand over a surface of remarkable smoothness, 
 before them. "The blast has peeled the fault as 
 clean as a pane of glass." 
 
 " But the vein, where is that?" 
 
 " Where ? Why, down below, somewhere. The 
 rock has an incline of about fifteen degrees, I 
 should say. That points us away to the left, but 
 we can strike it, as sure as shooting, if the fault 
 keeps on down as perfect as this. The vein-bear- 
 ing rock, the matrix, broke off and settled in cool- 
 ing, that's all." 
 
 " But how far down is it? How can you find it?" 
 
 "Sink a shaft, run galleries out from it to the 
 distance indicated by the cleavage. Perhaps further. 
 We haven't begun to mine yet. That's the sort of 
 thing that eats up the money. The machinery for 
 it is on the way. Everything we need." 
 
 "You are not discouraged, then?" 
 
 "What, with a rock like that before me, that 
 
4oo 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 seems as plain as print? If you'd worked in as 
 many drifts and galleries as I have, you'd know 
 what it means to strike a strange rock in a place 
 like this. Cleavage wrong. Signs of chaos and 
 general confusion in all that lies beyond." 
 
 " We would be all at sea in such a case?" 
 
 " Certainly. Nothing to guide us, or to calculate 
 by. It's one of those things it's hard to make plain 
 to an outsider. Even experienced miners, that are 
 used to working in other kinds of rock, can't make 
 head or tail of a fault in this old quartz, sometimes. 
 It's the only rock such a vein as ours could be in, 
 anyhow. Let's walk out and get a breath of fresh 
 air." 
 
 Very coolly he talked, for, now the result was ob- 
 tained for the time being, the enthusiast's excite- 
 ment fell to its every-day level very rapidly. The 
 other miners, who had followed, remained to ex- 
 amine and discuss and their interest and curiosity 
 appeared to be as great as ever. 
 
 Just as Fred and the doctor stepped out into the 
 sunlight, they found themselves face to face with 
 Mr. Brown, and very benign he was looking, as he 
 held out his hand, but Dr. Milyng did not keep the 
 secret of the mine for an instant. 
 
 "We've found it, Mr. Brown. We've uncovered 
 the fault. It's there." 
 
 "There? The fault? I was just going to speak 
 about it" 
 
RESUL TS OF AN EXPLOSION. 49 1 
 
 " Well the blast left it bare, and it's plain enough. 
 We must begin a shaft at once. I've got all my 
 plans clear in my head, and I haven't a shadow of 
 doubt as to the result." 
 
 Mr. Brown's thoughts concentrated themselves on 
 the mine, while the doctor was speaking, and Fred 
 Heron was temporarily put aside. Not a word 
 had been said to him, directly, and there was no 
 reason why he should remain, and run the risk, as 
 he imagined, of a repetition before witnesses of the 
 unpleasant affair of the early morning. Before, 
 therefore, the two older gentlemen took any note 
 of his movements, he was striding rapidly away, ak 
 ready too near the mouth of the ravine to be re- 
 called. In a moment more he had disappeared. 
 
 " He will not run away ?" exclaimed Mr. Brown. 
 
 "Yes, he will," replied the doctor, " but not with* 
 out seeing me. I wouldn't stay in your camp if I 
 were he. Not over night. Reckon he's gone to 
 get his traps together." 
 
 " He must not go, doctor. You must stop him. 
 It is all a mistake I owe him an apology." 
 
 U O you do. Well, that's another sort of an 
 affair. I'd hardly take one, myself, but he may. 
 I'll go after him, in a little while, if you'll explain 
 it to me. According to his story, he's been as 
 straight as a string." 
 
 " So he has. But I did not get it right, at first, 
 and so I lost my temper. He told you all about it? 
 
402 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 About his brother's marriage with my niece?" 
 
 "Yes, he told me of that." 
 
 " Then let's finish our talk about the mine, and 
 you go and see if you cannot arrange the matter. 
 I feel very badly about it." 
 
 "That's right," said the doctor, bluntly, "so you 
 ought. But he's worth a wagon-load of his 
 brother. There ain't many men I'd tie to in prefer- 
 ence to Fred Heron. He isn't perfect, but then!" 
 
 " I know. I know. Don't let's say any more, 
 just now." 
 
 And in good truth they had other matters of im- 
 portance, quite sufficient to absorb them, and Mr. 
 Brown's next business was to enter the hole in the 
 ledge and inspect it for himself, aided by the doctor's 
 lucid and very hopeful exposition of the costly and 
 difficult engineering operations rendered necessary 
 by the "fault." 
 
 Meantime, ignorant of any favorable change in 
 the tide of his affairs, Fred Heron became more 
 and more keenly conscious, as he walked swiftly 
 down the ravine, not only of his wrongs, but of his 
 hungry condition of body. 
 
 It was a most unromantic but a very positive 
 fact that he had eaten nothing since supper the 
 evening before, and it was now nearly noon. He 
 made his way into the camp from the forest side, 
 through the corral. The horses and mules were 
 being herded on the prairie, just outside, but Fred 
 
RESUL TSOFAN EX PL SI ON. 403 
 
 managed to reach the camp kitchen, as he thought, 
 unobserved, and at once began a furious attack 
 upon a saddle of cold roast antelope which he was 
 fortunate enough to unearth. 
 
 He worked away, diligently, for a quarter of an 
 hour, and had paused for a rest before taking hold 
 again, when he was aware of a light footstep behind 
 him. 
 
 " Mr. Heron." 
 
 " Miss Varick." 
 
 " I am glad you have not lost your appetite as 
 well as your breakfast." 
 
 There was a manifest effort at friendly cheerful- 
 ness in the young lady's voice and manner. Too 
 plainly manifest, altogether, for it was a direct sug- 
 gestion that something had gone wrong, and that 
 she knew it. 
 
 Fred's hunger disappeared in the twinkling of an 
 eye, and his heart bounded so, for a moment, that he 
 could make no reply, while his face took on a set, 
 drawn, pallid look. 
 
 "Can he be so angry?" thought Mabel. "Or is 
 Mrs. Boyce right?" 
 
 But she added, aloud : 
 
 " Carrie has told us all about her marriage with 
 your brother. So wrong of them to conceal it from 
 Uncle Daniel ! But he has forgiven both her and 
 Augustus, and she is quite happy again." 
 
 " I hope she may continue to be so, Miss Varick. 
 
404 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I love my brother very much, and I rejoice heartily 
 over his good fortune." 
 
 He spoke sincerely, heartily, but there was a 
 strange tremor of pain in his voice, which seemed to 
 go through Mabel's ears, down, down, till she, too, 
 was conscious of a tremor. 
 
 " O Mr. Heron, I am truly sorry there should be 
 anything unkind between you and Uncle Daniel. 
 But he is such a good and just man 
 
 " I know it, Miss Varick," said Fred calmly, as he 
 rose to his feet. " I am not good, but I can try to 
 be just, even to myself. I do not blame your 
 uncle. You may tell him so, if you will do me so 
 great a favor. I should blame myself, however, if 
 I did not now make my escape. Now and forever. 
 Please tell Dr. Milyng to meet me at the further 
 lookout, after dark, and bring my horse. He will 
 know what else to bring. God bless you, Mabel 
 Varick. If I stay another minute I shall either die 
 or say that which I ought not. Believe me, I have 
 never been I am not now I never shall be, so bad 
 as you have thought !" 
 
 Terrible words, for they soundsd like cries wrung 
 from a brave and strong man in the last extreme of 
 a great agony, and, before Mabel Varick could find 
 breath to answer him, he was gone. She saw him 
 dash into his tent for his weapons and ammunition, 
 and she wanted to call him back, but the name she 
 strove to utter died faintly on her lips. 
 
RESUL TS OF AN EXPLOSION. 405 
 
 Perhaps she might have called to him, but there 
 had been one brief, electric, flashing moment, when 
 the young man's burning eyes had poured a flood 
 of intense meaning deep into her own, and she was 
 trembling all over, with the thrill of her struggle 
 against the meaning of that look. Such pain came 
 with it ! 
 
 But had he gone? Would he never come back? 
 Why did she let him go ! 
 
 Ought she not to have even followed him, as, 
 rifle in hand, he had walked so swiftly away through 
 the forest? 
 
 Follow? When she was trembling so from head 
 to foot, and when all her face was crimson with the 
 answer which had risen from some hiding-place in 
 her soul to meet that last look of his? 
 
 He had not seen it, but Mabel was only half-sure 
 of that. 
 
 She did not, could not know how, at that moment, 
 the faults of Fred Heron's past life were rising be- 
 fore his agonized sight as a more terrible barrier 
 between him and hope than the smooth face of 
 quartz at the end of Dr. Milyng's tunnel was to the 
 further search for the Golden Heart. 
 
 No, she could neither call him back nor follow 
 him, but she could hide herself, for awhile, in the 
 seclusion of her tent. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 FRED AND OLIVER ENGINEER A SURPRISE PARTY. 
 
 IT was a good two hours after Fred Heron's visit 
 to the camp that the doctor and Mr. Brown re- 
 turned from the mine. They came with cheerful 
 and pleasant faces, although they brought and an- 
 nounced the news of the fault in the vein. 
 
 Mrs. Boyce drew a long breath when she heard 
 of it, but she held out her hand to Mr. Brown, with 
 a smile that was brimful of sympathy and encour- 
 agement, as she said : 
 
 "And how bravely you take it. Dr. Milyng, too. 
 I am proud of you both." 
 
 It was an excellent thing to say, and she said it 
 from her very heart, and Mr. Brown felt, as he had 
 never felt before, that there was hardly anything 
 more desirable, more helpful, than the support and 
 admiration of such a woman as the widow. He 
 had known her for years and years, but she had 
 never at any time seemed to have so much in her 
 as she did just then. 
 
 406 
 
A SURPRISE PARTY. 407 
 
 She heard Dr. Milyng ask, at that moment : 
 
 " Has anybody seen Fred Heron? Has he been 
 in the camp ?" and she turned to reply : 
 
 " I saw him go to his tent for his rifle, about 
 noon. Then he walked away into the prairie." 
 
 " Did he get anything to eat ? Did he leave any 
 word." 
 
 The doctor's voice was keenly anxious. 
 
 "Yes," said Mabel Varick, "I think he ate quite 
 a hearty lunch, and he told me to ask you to meet 
 him at the further lookout, just after dark." 
 
 It was odd, for a young woman like Mabel Varick, 
 but it did seem as if it cost her a great effort to say 
 those few words. Not only that, but she turned 
 away her head as she spoke. 
 
 " He said you would know what else to bring 
 him, besides his horse." 
 She added that as she walked away towards her tent. 
 
 "It's all right, then, Mr. Brown, I can fix him," 
 said the doctor, but the merchant was following his 
 niece. 
 
 "Was that all he said, Mabel?" he asked, as he 
 slipped through the canvas door, behind her. 
 
 " No, not all, Uncle Daniel." 
 
 "Anything about me?" 
 
 " He said he did not blame you. He wanted you 
 to know that. He is suffering a great deal, I am 
 sure. I do not think I ought to tell all he said. He 
 may not have meant to say it." 
 
408 
 
 THE HEART OF IT, 
 
 " I think I understand you, Mabel, my dear. You 
 have a perfect right to your own decision in such 
 a matter. But, Mabel, you need not have sent 
 Fred Heron away on my account. I never saw a 
 young man 
 
 " O uncle, you do both him and me a terrible 
 injustice," exclaimed Mabel, with the tears begin- 
 ning to start down over her burning cheeks. " He 
 did not say anything of the kind to me nor did I 
 send him away." 
 
 "Talk of honor!" exclaimed Mr. Brown. " I be- 
 lieve that young man is too honorable for his own 
 good. Tramp or no tramp, Island or no Island, 
 I hope he will come back again." 
 
 " O I am afraid he never will !" 
 
 " The doctor must take care of that, I think. I 
 shall go with him, myself, to meet Mr. Heron. Now, 
 Mabel." 
 
 "What is it, uncle?" 
 
 " Smooth your face a bit, and let us go out as 
 if nothing particular had happened. You must 
 play the hypocrite a little, I think." 
 
 Trust a young lady for something like perfection 
 in an art-effort of that kind where her pride is con- 
 cerned. When Mabel came out of the tent, not 
 the eyes of Mrs. Boyce herself were able to detect 
 the trace of a cause for her sudden disappear- 
 ance. 
 
 Still, it was just as well that they all had plenty 
 
A S URPR1SE PARTY. 409 
 
 to talk about, and were even eager to talk 
 about it. 
 
 And, all that time, Fred Heron was thinking 
 about his friends quite as much as they were think- 
 ing about him. He thought so much, so intensely, 
 that he hardly noticed what was going on around 
 him, and failed, therefore, to avail himself of two 
 or three fair chances at various game. Could he 
 have hit anything, with his mind in such a condi- 
 tion as it was, that afternoon ? Perhaps, or perhaps 
 not, but he had walked on till he had hit a clump 
 of trees and bushes. A " towhead" of the usual 
 pattern, but there was nobody there to tell Fred 
 Heron of the shelter it had given that wise mule, 
 Oliver, during the first hours of his short-lived and 
 anxious freedom. 
 
 It offered shade from the sun, however, and a 
 capital place to lie down and think in, and that 
 was just the thing for what was left of that after- 
 noon. 
 
 Fred took no note of time, but he became aware 
 that the sun was well down towards the horizon at 
 the same moment that the sound of a horse's feet 
 on the sod near by warned him of the approach of 
 somebody. He had " served," and a quick return 
 of his old campaigning instincts bade him lie still 
 till he knew more than the pad of the hoofs could 
 tell him. 
 
 "What? An Indian?" 
 
4 IO THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 He crept closer in among the bushes, for the red 
 horseman was all alone, and he was plainly making 
 for that very towhead. 
 
 " He may be an enemy, and he may not, but I 
 think the doctor would tell me to get ready for 
 him. In fact, I hardly know if that is all he would 
 do. Glad there is only one of him." 
 
 Now, if that towhead was a good place for Fred 
 to lie and think, it was also a good cover for an 
 Apache warrior to wait in until the arrival of dusk 
 and more Apaches. He could have no suspicion 
 of any other presence, and as he rode in he sprang 
 from his pony, and secured him to a tree, well out 
 of sight of any one passing on the prairie. Then 
 he would not have been an Indian if he had not 
 proceeded, lance in hand, to a close inspection of 
 his surroundings. 
 
 " No help for it," thought Fred, as he sprang to 
 his feet. " He will find me." 
 
 He . stepped forward, holding out his hand in 
 token of amity, but that was not the errand on 
 which that Indian had come, and the reply was a 
 thrust of the lance, so quick and so savage that 
 only a practised swordsman could have parried it. 
 Fred did so, however, with a forward spring and a 
 blow of his fist, " straight from the shoulder," that 
 sent his cowardly assailant sprawling on the grass. 
 He was up with a bound, but the carbine was ex- 
 tended now, in place of the open hand. A flash and 
 
A S URPRISE PARTY, 411 
 
 a report, and Fred Heron was again alone in the 
 towhead. 
 
 No, there was the mustang, a good one, with a 
 saddle and other equipments which betokened a 
 brave of some rank for his master. 
 
 " Sorry to have to kill anybody," said Fred, " but 
 there was no help for it. To think of boxing with 
 an Indian warrior. He'd have boxed me, soon 
 enough, but for my rifle. Fm mounted, now, at all 
 events. Yes, and there's one thing more. I can't 
 leave the expedition if it's in any danger of this 
 kind. I must warn the doctor. Who knows but I 
 can get a chance to die with some credit. They've 
 one enemy the less, already. Even such a man as I 
 am can shoot Apaches. Mr. Brown himself cannot 
 deny that. I'll lie right here till the sun is down. 
 That is, unless I see some reason for getting out 
 of it." 
 
 He lay there, therefore, among the sumach bushes, 
 but now and then he crept out and crawled to the 
 top of a neighboring knoll, from which he could see 
 more of the plain beyond and what was passing 
 on it. 
 
 " This is my last," he remarked, as the sun was 
 setting and he lifted his head above the grass. 
 " I'll mount now, and hullo, there they are ! 
 They've got by me ! One, two, three, a round 
 dozen of 'em. What'll I do now? They will be 
 between me and the camp. I must let them get 
 
412 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 well ahead and then I must take my chances. No 
 such squad as that will venture an attack." 
 
 No, indeed, but there were other just such squads 
 on the plains beyond, whom he could not see, and a 
 much larger one was even then creeping slowly up 
 at the edge of the forest, under cover of the trees. 
 They were none of them in a hurry, for their scouts 
 had reported all things in good and promising condi- 
 tion for a most complete and overwhelming surprise. 
 
 Waiting was hard discipline, under such circum- 
 stances, but the night falls quickly on the plains, 
 after the sun is down, and the trial was not so pro- 
 longed as it was severe. 
 
 " They shall not be surprised if I can help it," said 
 Fred, hoarsely, as he sprang to the saddle and urged 
 his prize to a swift gallop in the direction of the 
 camp. " I think, now, I ought to have ridden in at 
 once. And so I would, but for one thing." 
 
 There was a sting in the fact that he had not 
 done so, nevertheless, and it made him somewhat 
 reckless in his movements, which was just as well 
 for all concerned. 
 
 He did not draw rein until he not only saw before 
 him the dim twinkle of a campfire, through the 
 trees, but within a short distance of him, right ahead, 
 a score or so of dark forms on horseback. 
 
 " I must break through them at all hazards," he 
 said to himself. "They won't be looking for an 
 attack in the rear. I may succeed, and anyhow I'll 
 
A S URPRISE PARTY. 413 
 
 make noise enough to alarm the camp. Hullo T 
 what's that? I never heard awarwhoop in my life, 
 but that sounds more like ten mules braying at once. 
 What a horrible noise." 
 
 It was followed by a sudden commotion in the 
 line of dark horsemen, and Fred saw that his time 
 to strike had come. 
 
 Not around them, to meet other and unseen 
 enemies, but right through the middle of the group 
 as they clustered, for some reason, more closely 
 together, and plying his revolver right and left as 
 he did so. A splendid charge, carrying with it the 
 security which so often rewards utter audacity, for 
 the fleet mustang bore him safely on, while more 
 than one red warrior pitched sickly from his pony 
 into the grass. 
 
 The shout Fred himself gave was nothing at all 
 to the savage yells which followed him, but he had 
 broken up that surprise party. 
 
 That had been a busier day in the mining camp 
 than Fred Heron was at all aware of. Before his 
 adventure with the Apache in the towhead, Dr. 
 Milyng had returned from a visit to the reducing 
 mill with something more than a report of the day's 
 work. He beckoned Mr. Brown one side and said 
 to him : 
 
 " I reckon we won't have the ladies camp down 
 here, to-night." 
 
 -Not here! Why?" 
 
4 1 4 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 " Well, Broadus, the scout, tells me he isn't sure 
 but he saw Indians, this afternoon. I don't mean 
 there's any danger, but there's no use in taking 
 risks." 
 
 "Of course there is not." 
 
 " I had all the heavy wagons hauled up beyond 
 the mine, when we came, with just that notion. Now, 
 it won't take half an hour, after supper, to move up 
 the camp fixings. I'll have the horses and mules 
 drove up, when they come in. The tents can come 
 down now, and be all ready. Only, we needn't alarm 
 the ladies." 
 
 " They'll miss the shade of the trees. But then 
 their picnic is about over, now we've reached the 
 fault." 
 
 "Yes, there's no telling how long it'll take to sink 
 the shaft." 
 
 And so, while Fred Heron had been brooding 
 over his troubles, in the towhead, things at the 
 camp had undergone a change. 'There had been 
 room for criticism, indeed, of Dr. Milyng's prudence 
 in ever pitching it in so exposed a position. But it 
 had been so exceedingly pleasant, with ladies to 
 care for, and the citadel above the ravine had been 
 so near a refuge. 
 
 The latter would hardly have been sought in time, 
 however, if it had not been for the keen eyes of 
 Broadus the scout and the prompt action of the 
 doctor. As it was, although little now remained 
 
A SURPRISE PARTY. 4! 5 
 
 besides the trees and the dying camp-fire, and the 
 men were for the greater part busy getting things 
 to rights in the new location, there were reasons 
 why the rest of the party lingered on the deserted 
 spot as if loth to leave it. 
 
 There could be no secret made of the expected 
 conference between the doctor and Fred Heron, and 
 the general interest in the result was by no means 
 diminishing as the hours went by. 
 
 " I'll go with you, doctor," Mr. Brown had said. 
 " I must be the bearer of my own apology." 
 
 " So much the better. There's plenty of wild 
 blood in Fred, but I reckon we can make him come 
 down." 
 
 Mabel Varick had given her uncle a very grateful 
 look, but the one thought which insisted on return- 
 ing to her, was: 
 
 " Could I not have kept him ?" 
 
 It was a thought with a sting in it, now, for she 
 had heard Mrs. Boyce say to Mr. Brown : 
 
 "O dear me! If there is really any danger com- 
 ing, Mr. Heron must have walked right into it." 
 
 And the merchant's face had worn a graver and 
 more anxious look from that very moment. 
 
 " It'll be a lesson to me as long as I live," he said 
 to Mrs. Boyce, but Mabel had not a soul to whom 
 she could say anything, and it was but a doubtful 
 comfort to have Carrie put her arms around her and 
 murmur: 
 
41 6 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 "O Mabel, dear, I'm so glad it isn't Augustus! 
 What should I do if he were out there alone!" 
 
 But the time passed, and, as the sun went down 
 and the shadows faded into the one great shadow 
 of the coming darkness, Dr. Milyng and the mer- 
 chant, rifle in hand, but leading no horse for Fred, 
 strolled thoughtfully out towards the spot where it 
 had been customary, ever since their arrival, to 
 station a night sentinel, a "lookout." It was a 
 lonely sort of place, but there, chatting and peering 
 restlessly out upon the prairie, they waited the re- 
 turn of the wanderer. 
 
 Very naturally, their talk turned, upon Indian 
 tactics and doings, and the doctor had full store of 
 subjects for such talk as that. He told, among 
 other things, how, just a little while after he dis- 
 covered that mine, he had gone out for game, further 
 than usual, and had descried what seemed a small 
 party of white men, in the distance. And how, 
 almost at the same time, a band of Apaches made 
 their appearance. He could only guess what be- 
 came of the strangers, but he himself had ridden 
 for his life, back towards the mine. Ridden so long 
 and so hard that he had used up his mule. 
 
 " But what if they had followed you to the mine?" 
 
 " I'd have given 'em a good time in that narrow 
 part of the ravine and then I'd have taken to the 
 rocks. No Indian ever followed me far over the 
 mountains, on foot. They won't go any great dis- 
 
A SURPRISE PARTY. ^ 
 
 tance without a horse, and they're no kind of climbers. 
 But don't I wish I had that mule, Oliver, now? 
 Why, I used to turn him loose, at night, and in the 
 morning I'd give a finger-whistle, and he'd hear it, 
 ever so far, and he'd come in, a-kiting. So." 
 
 And the doctor suited the action to the word, 
 putting his fingers to his mouth and giving a whistle 
 so shrill and piercing that almost any listener would 
 have wanted to know the meaning of it. Even a 
 mule. 
 
 And the whistle was answered ! 
 
 " I declare," exclaimed the doctor, " that's Oliver. 
 No other mule on earth can pitch a bray like that. 
 Here he comes ! See him ?" 
 
 It was most extraordinary. And, before Mr. 
 Brown could find words to express his astonishment, 
 a very large and long-eared quadruped came trot- 
 ting swiftly -in, whimpering as he came, and Dr. 
 Milyng actually dropped his rifle and threw his arms 
 around the neck of that mule. 
 
 He snatched up his weapon quickly enough, 
 however, for his next words were : 
 
 " Saddled and bridled ? The red-skins are here, 
 Mr. Brown. Hark, do you hear that? What can 
 all that mean ?" 
 
 Rapid pistol shots, a shout, fierce whoops and 
 yells, and then a single horseman dashing in upon 
 them with : 
 
 " Doctor ! Dr. Milyng ! Apaches ! 
 
4 1 8 THE HEAR T OF IT. 
 
 "Fred, my boy, is that you? Did you pepper 
 any of 'em ?" 
 
 "Two or three, besides the one I got my horse 
 of. Ah ! Mr. Brown ! No time to talk now, sir. 
 It's life and death. It's more than that. Where 
 are the ladies?" 
 
 All three of them moved rapidly onward, as the 
 breathless sentences sprang from Fred's lips, but the 
 doctor was as cool as Oliver himself. He briefly 
 stated what had already been done for safety. 
 
 " Now," he said, " we must lose no time. They're 
 checked for a moment. We'll take the ladies no, 
 Mr. Brown, you and Fred take the ladies to the 
 ravine undercover of the trees. There's two of the 
 scouts handy to help you. I'll keep along outside 
 and see what's going on." 
 
 "That'll do," began Mr. Brown, hastily striding 
 forward, but Fred Heron firmly responded : 
 
 "No, doctor, Mr. Brown and the scouts are enough 
 for that. I'll stay with you," and he sprang from 
 his captured mustang as he spoke. 
 
 "Good for you, Fred. I may need help. They're 
 riding in closer. Do your best walking, Mr. Brown." 
 
 A moment later, in response to his hurried, but 
 not panicky explanation, Mrs. Boyce exclaimed : 
 "And Fred has been fighting them already? All 
 alone? The brave fellow!" 
 
 And Mabel Varick added, in a lower, more anxi- 
 ous tone: 
 
A S URPR1SE PARTY. 4 1 g 
 
 "O Uncle Daniel, where is he? Is he hurt?" 
 
 " Not a bit. He's out there with Dr. Milyng, 
 holding the rascals in check while we run for the 
 ravine." 
 
 And neither Mabel nor Carrie made any further 
 remark just then, for each one was saying to her- 
 self, " If it had not been for me." 
 
 And they were both wrong about it, each in her 
 own way. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE SUCCESS OF THE EXPEDITION AND THE FINDING 
 OF THE HEART. 
 
 THE Big Medicine had looked remarkably well 
 on the big medicine mule, as he rode forward 
 among his clansmen, that afternoon, and all things 
 had worked to his entire satisfaction, so far as he or 
 they knew, until, as they halted in the gloaming, 
 within sight of the camp-fire which was so soon, 
 they thought, to light them to all sorts of 
 plunder and murder and glory, that myste- 
 rious whistle came shrieking across the grass. Some 
 of them had seen a locomotive, and wondered at its 
 power of voice, but no branch of the Pacific Rail- 
 way had ever wandered in among those solitudes. 
 They were sure of that- 
 
 The Big Medicine dropped his bridle to listen, 
 but Oliver's ears came forward with a jerk, and all 
 his being seemed to melt in sound as he stretched 
 his neck towards the forest and the camp-fire. 
 
 It was not altogether the mere force of that bray 
 
 420 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEAR T. 42 1 
 
 which sent the Big Medicine so suddenly out of the 
 saddle, for Oliver had other resources, but he used 
 them remorselessly on a rider taken unawares. 
 
 And all the rest of the squad were also taken un- 
 awares, for Oliver sprang away like a quarter-horse, 
 and no hand was put out to stay him. Was he not 
 a medicine mule, and was not his medicine master 
 in the grass? Their first duty was to their dis- 
 mounted conjurer, but before he could more than 
 rise to explain, another surprise came, charging 
 among and through them, sending lead and death 
 on either hand. One horseman attacking twenty, 
 and escaping their hasty shots and thrusts un- 
 harmed. 
 
 "A great brave," they said, but their vengeful 
 wrath boiled high within them as they picked up 
 their fallen. 
 
 There was an empty saddle ready, now, for the 
 Big Medicine. A " vacancy" provided in the nick 
 of time, as happens curiously often for those who 
 are ready to spring into the empty saddles of the 
 men who fall. 
 
 Squad after squad of wild riders came dashing 
 fiercely up, but the minutes they were consuming 
 in determining what to do next were of more im- 
 portance than they had any idea of. More would 
 have been lost, but for an order from their great 
 "war-chief," now with his men on the edge of the 
 forest, to dash on to the mouth of the ravine and 
 
422 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 cut off the flight of the white men he was about to 
 drive out of that camp. 
 
 Good strategy, for the Indian leaders sometimes 
 exhibit remarkable evidence of the absence of poli- 
 tical influence in the matter of their appointment to 
 office. 
 
 Wisdom is none the less wisdom because it is a 
 trifle late in its operation, and history is a long suc- 
 cession of lost guesses as to whether some Blucher 
 or Grouchy will get to the right spot first. In every 
 case the man that guesses wrong loses his bet. 
 
 Forward dashed the redskins, but O how earn- 
 estly Mr. Brown and his now thoroughly frightened 
 lady friends did thank God for every minute of that 
 brief delay. 
 
 This was a picnic, indeed ! 
 
 And out there on the edge of the camp, the doc- 
 tor and Fred Heron kept slowly on, so as to be be- 
 tween the hawks of the prairie and their trembling 
 prey. 
 
 " We'll make it," said the doctor. " They don't 
 know we've quit the camp. You've done a big 
 thing to-night, Fred. There forward! They're 
 flanking us. Let 'em have it. One's down. Keep 
 undercover. Forward!" 
 
 Well that the distance was short, for the merchant 
 had hardly urged his panting charge inside the 
 rocky mouth, perilous refuge as it was, before the 
 great chorus of yells which had been swelling be- 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEART. 423 
 
 hind him was suddenly doubled, and he understood 
 two facts at the same moment. 
 
 The rush of the war-chief and his braves into the 
 camp had been made, and that section of the whoop, 
 ing was chargeable to the ''disappointment ac- 
 count," say to profit and loss. 
 
 The other and, alas, the nearer, meant an imme- 
 diate and close pursuit. 
 
 "O Uncle Daniel, where is Fred?" exclaimed 
 Mabel Varick. 
 
 "And the doctor?" said Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 " Hear the rifle shots, right down there? Here 
 they come!" shouted Broadus the scout. "Run, 
 ladies, run for your lives. Tell the other boys to 
 hurry down if they want to save our skelps and 
 their'n too." 
 
 Run, it was, although their trembling limbs would 
 hardly have carried them, but for the help and en- 
 couragement of Mr. Brown. Mrs. Boyce looked at 
 the merchant's pale face a hundred times, in admi- 
 ration of his calm and steady courage. He had 
 never been in a fight before, but it was plain that 
 the stuff for one was in him. 
 
 The two scouts, Broadus and the other, were 
 thoroughbred plainsmen, and they faced about, but 
 they could hardly have told whether Fred and the 
 doctor or the foremost Apaches were upon them 
 first. 
 
 Steady, now. Four dead-shots, armed with re- 
 
424 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 peating carbines, make an awful fence to ride up to, 
 even at night, in a rocky pass less than fifty feet 
 wide and narrowing. Shoulder to shoulder stood 
 the white men, retreating as they fired, and firing as 
 they retreated. Had that first rush of Apaches 
 been all, that would have been the end of it, for 
 too many of them were going down and the nar- 
 rowest part of the pass, the mere " gate," was close 
 at hand. But other swarms were coming. So many 
 of them, so full of yelling and whooping and mur- 
 der and all evil ! 
 
 ''Are you hit, Fred?" 
 
 " I can stand it, doctor. If I go down, tell them 
 I did my best for them." 
 
 " Good for somebody," exclaimed Broadus. 
 " Hear them wheels." 
 
 Who would have expected war wisdom from a 
 Beaver Street merchant' 
 
 Nobody, and very correctly, for it was Mrs. Boyce 
 who suggested that the big wagon standing near 
 the head of the pass, should be rolled into it, and 
 Mr. Brown did but give the order. 
 
 "Under the wagon, doctor. Under the wagon, 
 boys. Creep through. We're ready for 'em." 
 
 Even the Apaches gave back, for a moment, as 
 they heard the shouts. 
 
 "Pick him up," exclaimed the doctor. "They 
 shan't get his hair while I'm alive." 
 
 But Broadus was just then lifting the body of 
 
THE FINDING OF THE II EA RT. 425 
 
 his comrade, and straining all his remaining strength 
 to thrust him under the wagon, and D/. Milyng 
 stood alone in front of his prostrate friend. 
 
 "The mine is safe, anyhow," he muttered. " Old 
 Brown won't fail to work it. Take that, will you. 
 How they do crowd in. I'm glad Old Brown and 
 the ladies ain't hurt." 
 
 " So am I," exclaimed a cheery voice at his side. 
 " Get him in, boys. We'll keep them back for a 
 moment, doctor." 
 
 It was the merchant himself who was plying his 
 carbine so coolly, amid that tempest of yells and 
 shots and hissing arrows, and beside him were half 
 a dozen brawny forms that had followed him under 
 the wagon. 
 
 " Now, doctor. Now, boys." 
 
 Even in that crowded ravine, the savages had 
 been slow to dismount, for their centaur instincts 
 almost forbade them to fight on foot. Otherwise 
 no man of that brave squad could have made the 
 retreat he did. 
 
 Once on the other side of the barrier, frail as it 
 was, the riflemen were at a most manifest advantage, 
 which they were increasing with every fragment of 
 rock and with every box or barrel they could add 
 to their rampart. 
 
 " The Indians don't live that can force that against 
 a dozen repeaters," remarked the doctor, and a simi- 
 lar conviction expressed itself in the fierce yells of 
 
426 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 disappointment which arose from the other side. 
 
 The rifles were at work, however, without cessa- 
 tion, and it was safer to ride back, down the ravine, 
 than to stay there and make night hideous. 
 
 Dr. Milyng had so sternly attended to his first 
 duty, of beating off the Apaches, that he had 
 missed one or two little incidents. 
 
 The body of Fred Heron had been closely followed 
 under the wagon by that of Mr. Daniel Brown, but 
 hardly had the latter resumed an erect posture before 
 a white hand was on his shoulder. 
 
 " O Mr. Brown, it was splendid ! You are a 
 hero ! But are you hurt ?" 
 
 " Not a scratch, Mrs. Boyce." 
 
 " I'm so thankful !" 
 
 And the widow covered her face with her hands 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 "She was- thinking of me, then, and not of her- 
 self," muttered the merchant, with a queer feeling 
 in his throat, but he said to her, in a tone that sur- 
 prised him very much and gave her no pain what- 
 ever: 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Boyce, you must not stay here, 
 among these flying arrows. Where are the girls? 
 They will need you." 
 
 But " the girls" had a care of their own, just then. 
 Carrie was sitting on a bowlder, a hundred yards 
 further on, and sobbing. 
 
 "O I'm so sorry. How shall I ever tell Angus- 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEAR T. 427 
 
 tus. He was so kind. So brave. So true. I owed 
 him everything." 
 
 But Mabel Varick was neither crying nor talking. 
 She was sitting on the ground, with the head of a 
 prostrate man in her lap. The face, never a very 
 handsome one, was pale now, with streaks of blood 
 and of gunpowder on it, here and there, to make it 
 less so, but, for all that, it wore an expression of 
 placid manliness which was worth any good woman's 
 while to look upon. 
 
 " Oh, if I could do something for him," she said, 
 at last. " His pulse is beating yet. He is not dead." 
 
 It must have taken some courage for her to have 
 found that out, and, in a minute or so more, another 
 form dropped on its knees beside her. 
 
 "Arrow through his leg. Mustn't pull it out, just 
 yet. No, not poisoned. It's a hunting arrow. 
 Lance cut in the side. Rib turned it. Bled a good 
 deal but missed the vitals. Awful rap on his head. 
 Redskin threw his club. Wonder it didn't break 
 the skull, but it didn't. He'll do, Miss Varick, but 
 you must give him to me and Broadus, for awhile." 
 
 "He's not killed, then, doctor?" exclaimed the 
 voice of Mr. Brown. 
 
 " Not a bit. My word for that. But he told me, 
 in case he was killed, to tell you all he did his best 
 for you." 
 
 Something like a big sob came from the breast of 
 Mr. Brown. 
 
428 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 The doctor and Broadus were promptly lifting 
 the wounded man, to carry him to a safer and softer 
 couch than that patch of flinty gravel, but Mabel 
 Varick did not rise to her feet at once. Mrs. Boyce 
 was close behind the merchant, and Mabel may not 
 have cared to look the widow too directly in the eye 
 at that particular juncture. Her uncle's hand was 
 reaching out to her, now, and she seemed to cling 
 to it nervously, as he lifted her. Such a strong, 
 kindly, comforting sort of hand. 
 
 "The doctor says they will not attack us again, 
 to-night. He thinks they have had enough for 
 once." 
 
 "Was anybody else hurt?" 
 
 "One of the scouts is killed, and several more 
 have arrow wounds. The doctor himself is cut in 
 several places, but he doesn't seem to mind it. No 
 more gold for me, if I've got to give blood for it." 
 
 Time had sped faster than they thought, and 
 they were astonished to find how late it was. The 
 running and fighting seemed to them now to have 
 lasted but a few minutes. But there was little 
 enough of sleeping done, except by the hardy scouts 
 and miners, during the remaining hours of that 
 anxious night. 
 
 Just as the dawning day lit up the open tent 
 where Fred Heron was lying, his feverish rest was 
 broken by the entrance of a soft, light step. 
 
 "How is he now, doctor?" 
 
THE FINDING Of THE HEART. 429 
 
 " Doing very well, Miss Varick. All he wants is 
 care 
 
 " He must have it " 
 
 " Will you be so kind as to sit here a minute ? I 
 want to take a look at the other fellows." 
 
 " I shall be so glad to." 
 
 But the doctor vanished as she sat down near 
 the sufferer's head, and she was left alone. 
 
 Could Fred Heron have been aware of her 
 presence? 
 
 Perhaps, in the vague and misty consciousness 
 that belongs to half-awakened men, feverish from 
 wounds and loss of blood. He did not speak to 
 her, but his tongue was busy. He murmured, with 
 queer pauses between the words, here and there: 
 
 " The doctor says so. I can get away in a few 
 days. They're safe, now. So is the mine. She 
 can't say I told her. No ; I kept my secret. That 
 was pretty well, for a tramp. A fellow from the 
 Island. A disgraced man. Would she feel de- 
 graded if she knew I had dared? " and as he said 
 that his head turned on his hard camp-pillow, and 
 was lifted a little. 
 
 "Miss Varick? You here? What is that ? There 
 is blood on your dress? You are not hurt?" 
 
 "Hurt? No. O Fred, it is your own blood. 
 Yours" 
 
 "Mine? I do not remember the doctor did 
 not tell me " 
 
THE HE- ART OF IT. 
 
 "O Fred, you will get well? For my sake. 
 Won't you, Fred ?" 
 
 Could it be a dream? A consequence of having 
 stopped that Apache war-club with his head? 
 
 Or was it a reality, and the haughty and beauti- 
 ful niece of Mr. Daniel Brown was kneeling beside 
 the wounded tramp? The poor fellow who had 
 suffered so much and fought so well? 
 
 He had not told her how much of his suffering 
 and fighting had been done for her, but in some 
 mysterious way, the knowledge had come to her. 
 
 And Fred, on his part, dimly understood what 
 must have happened to transfer so much blood 
 from his broken head to that beautiful white robe 
 there, that seemed to have a glory shining round 
 it. He could not lift a hand without pain, but 
 both were raised and clasped, in spite of that, and 
 his eyes closed for a moment. 
 
 "I do not understand," he said, in a faint whis- 
 per. " I am not worthy of it. Can I have found 
 what Dr. Milyng has missed?" 
 
 "The heart?" she said. "The Golden Heart? 
 No, Fred, I think I have found that." 
 
 "But the fault?" he murmured, dreamily. 
 
 "Faults? Yours cannot be greater than mine. 
 I have never been tried as you have been. O 
 Fred" 
 
 Just then there came the sound of another foot- 
 step behind her, and she turned her head. 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEART. 43 1 
 
 "O Uncle Daniel, is that you? He is better, 
 now. I am sure he will live. It was Uncle Daniel, 
 Fred, that helped Dr. Milyng keep back the In- 
 dians and bring you in. He risked his life for 
 you" 
 
 " Glad I had a chance! Glad I had a chance ! I 
 owed him some kind of reparation." 
 
 " Mr. Brown, if you only knew," began poor Fred, 
 but he was interrupted by another voice, that of 
 Carrie : 
 
 " I found them for you. I knew there was a box 
 of them left, somewhere in the store-wagon. Most 
 of them were spoiled, but these are good." 
 
 "Lemons?" said Mabel. 
 
 " He gave me all he had, once. I'm so glad. I 
 know they'll do him good. I'd give him anything 
 
 "I never thought of lemons," said Mabel, with a 
 half-jealous tremor in her voice, "but I've given 
 him all I could !" 
 
 "Have you?" exclaimed Mr. Brown, excitedly. 
 "Have you, Mabel?" 
 
 " O Uncle Daniel, I don't care if Carrie is here ! 
 He is my Fred, now, Uncle Daniel! Mine! No- 
 body else has any right 
 
 "Glad of it, my dear. From the bottom of my 
 heart. But what's that ? Music?" 
 
 Only the sweetness of a cavalry bugle, borne up 
 from the ravine by the glad-winged breeze of the 
 prairie. 
 
432 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 '* Hurrah, girls! Hurrah, Fred, my boy! No 
 more Apaches. That's from some of Crump's men." 
 
 He and Carrie sprang away, and it was Mabel 
 Varick's hand, after all, that pressed the cooling 
 drops of juice upon the feverish lips of the wounded 
 man. Who shall say what else was dropped upon 
 them, then and there, with more of help and life 
 for love is help and life than could have come to 
 him in any other way? 
 
 But the bugle sounded again, so sweetly, telling 
 of Crump's men. 
 
 They had come, a full company of them, to 
 break up the mining-picnic, and escort it back to 
 safety. It brought word, moreover, that, in view 
 of the threatening attitude of the red men, all min- 
 ing operations in that region must be suspended 
 until more quiet times. 
 
 " You see," said the gruff general to Mr. Brown, 
 wiien he met him, some few weeks later, " the army 
 is so enormously large that it interferes too much 
 with the liberties of our red-skinned fellow-citizens, 
 and so Congress cuts it down. Otherwise I could 
 protect you. As it is, I thought I'd send and save 
 your scalp while I could. One of these days, per- 
 haps, you can try it on again." 
 
 The machinery and the rest of the mining outfit 
 had been detained, as a matter of course, and the 
 cavalry had made forced marches. 
 
 It was some days after their arrival, however, be- 
 
7Y/A FINDING OF THE HEART. 433 
 
 fore the wounded men could safely be moved, and 
 Dr. Milyng employed every hour he could in grind- 
 ing and smelting. 
 
 It was a terrible thing to leave all that ore lying 
 there in the sun, and that hole in the ledge leading 
 to the very spot from which a shaft could be sunk 
 to the treasury of the world. Still, there was no 
 doubt but what the company would get a perfect 
 title to that mine, however long the Apaches might 
 keep them from working it. There would be no 
 "jumping." Trust the red men for that, especially 
 as the loss of his mule had prevented the Big 
 Medicine from any other loss, or even exposure, 
 during the careless shooting which had taken place 
 already. 
 
 Fred Heron's hurts healed more rapidly than 
 those of the other men, and he was soon able to 
 discuss almost any subject with Mr. Brown. He 
 had no further reason to complain of anything said 
 to him by the merchant, but he was justly aston- 
 ished by the enthusiasm of Mrs. Boyce's congratu- 
 lations. It was as if she had set her heart on his 
 winning Mabel Varick, and had now little left to 
 ask for. 
 
 Dr. Milyng had to be sought for at the reducing 
 mill, by those who would commune with him, but 
 he knew what was going on, nevertheless. 
 
 u Doctor," said Fred to him, one day, "life has 
 a centre, whether the mining region has one or not. 
 
434 
 
 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 I've struck a fresh vein, leading straight to it, with- 
 out a fault in the way." 
 
 The doctor took off his sombrero with a reverent 
 look, as if he were saluting something. 
 
 " Don't say any more, my boy. I believe that. I 
 rode one mule, from the Dalles of the Columbia, 
 clean down through the Sierras, hunting for the 
 Golden Heart, and you've found a better mine 
 without half the trouble." 
 
 "Half the trouble?" echoed Fred. "I think I 
 know something about trouble. Is that Oliver, 
 yonder?" 
 
 "The very mule that carried me." 
 
 "Well, the mules I used to ride didn't have so 
 much sense as he has. A good deal of the time 
 they turned about and rode me." 
 
 "Well," drawled the doctor, "see that you don't 
 let your ears grow again, that's all." 
 
 The Apaches came not again, being doubtless 
 aware of the arrival of the men in blue, but a day 
 dawned, at last, on a deserted mine and a wagon 
 train in motion. The doctor and Mr. Brown and 
 their friends lingered till the last. 
 
 " I'm so glad about Fred and Mabel," said Mrs. 
 Boyce to the merchant, as they rode through the 
 ravine, side-by-side. " You will have them live with 
 you, will you not?" 
 
 "If they wish, perhaps I will. But her property 
 is ample, and he is very energetic and independent. 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEART. 43 5 
 
 I think they will prefer to set up for them- 
 selves." 
 
 "And leave you all alone?" 
 
 Her face was turned half from him as she said 
 that, which was unlike Mrs. Boyce. 
 
 " Alone, Mrs. Boyce? Would you do that? 
 Would you, now could you leave me all alone? 
 I had almost hoped I could persuade you, if Mabel 
 went away, and I had nobody to take care of me 
 I'm an old sort of a fellow, Mrs. Boyce 
 
 " Mr. Brown ! I fear I do not understand you. 
 I wish I'm afraid I know more than I did once. 
 Only a very good woman, a great deal better than 
 I am, is fit, is worthy, has any business whatever 
 my dear friend, you must not say any more to me, 
 just now " 
 
 " I do not want to say any more, Mrs. Boyce. 
 I've all the answer I need. Mabel, dear, please ride 
 this way?" 
 
 And Mabel came. 
 
 " You may tell Fred and Carrie and the doctor, 
 too, if you like, that there will be more than one 
 wedding when we get home. Is it not so, Mrs. 
 Boyce?" 
 
 "O Mr. Brown! Mabel, dear, I am so happy. 
 Lean over here and kiss me." 
 
 "That's for me," said Mr. Brown. 
 
 The only gloomy man of that returning picnic 
 party was Dr. Milyng. He insisted on riding Oliver, 
 
436 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 and on having that worthy animal shipped east- 
 ward as far as St. Louis. There he, the doctor, 
 parted from his other friends, and when Mr. Brown 
 renewed, for the hundredth time, his assurances 
 that work on the mine should be resumed as soon 
 as it could be without risk to human life, he re- 
 sponded : 
 
 " I don't think anything could kill me,, with that 
 to wait for. I'm right down glad you're going back 
 so happy, considering how much the trip has cost. 
 You and Fred have struck good veins by it, any- 
 how. I shall rest awhile, and then I shall try the 
 mountains again." 
 
 "They cannot have two hearts?" suggested Mrs. 
 Boyce. 
 
 " No," he said, " but when one has found a heart, 
 he wants to live as near it as he can." 
 
 " Poor doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Boyce, after the 
 farewells were completed. " But there was a good 
 deal of truth in one thing he said." 
 
 On their arrival in the great city it was easy 
 enough for Mr. Brown to adjust his relations with 
 Mr. Augustus Heron, as the husband of Carrie and 
 as the brother of Fred, but that was probably as 
 much as Augustus expected, under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Mr. Counsellor Allyn had a very complete and 
 business-like report to make. Mr. Dill-aye had suc- 
 cessfully "postponed" until, as a last resort, he was 
 
THE FINDING OF THE HEAR T. 43 j 
 
 informed of his daughter's marriage. Even his wile 
 advised him to settle at once when she heard that 
 news. 
 
 Fred wrote to Bessie that the mining enterprise 
 was temporarily a failure, but that he was about to 
 get married, and he received in return a most ad- 
 mirable epistle. 
 
 "You should have told me something about it 
 before," she said, among other things, ** but I fear 
 it may be too late, now. How do I know that 
 your choice has been a wise one ? You do not even 
 give me her address. No one can talk to her 
 about you as I can. No one knows you as I do. 
 I shall write to her at the first opportunity. Have 
 you told her all? It is only right that she should 
 know. Otherwise she cannot be the help to you 
 that she ought. If indeed you are to be married, 
 and I see no way of preventing it. After the fail- 
 ure of your ridiculous mining affair, too. When 
 will you learn to avoid speculators? I do hope you 
 will redeem yourself. Imitate Augustus. He writes 
 me that he has married a lovely woman. An heiress, 
 too, but her parents are still living. And you arc 
 to marry an orphan. But you never would be 
 guided by me." 
 
 There was a good deal more of that letter, and 
 it was all very good and wise and sisterly, as Bessie's 
 letters and conduct had always been. Fred did not 
 read it to Mabel. He offered to, but she took the 
 
438 THE HEART OF IT. 
 
 paper from him and then threw it on the carpet 
 before she had finished a page. 
 
 " Augustus, indeed ! What can she be made of ! 
 Well, I suppose Carrie is satisfied, but Fred 
 Fred" 
 
 "What is it, dear?" 
 
 " I have found more than she has, or Bessie, or 
 Dr. Milyng, either. None of them know what a 
 heart is a golden heart 
 
 " But, Mabel, the fault?" 
 
 " We're away beyond that, Fred." 
 
 Mr. Daniel Brown's business friends understood, 
 in a vague and general sort of way, that his western 
 trip had been a tremendous success. So habitually 
 close-mouthed a man was not expected to say much 
 about it, and he did not offer any shares for sale. 
 He evidently intended to be sole proprietor of his 
 mine. 
 
 The approaching marriages were duly announced, 
 although they were to be strictly private. As to 
 that, so perfectly was the privacy secured that 
 " society" never afterwards got it clearly through 
 its curious and gossipping head whether or no the 
 marriage of Carrie and Augustus took place at the 
 same time with the other two. All three of them 
 were " published" together. 
 
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rne neart or it 
 
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