& D. Downey, London. 
 
 BRET HARTE. 
 
wbus 
 
 University of California Berkeley 
 
 Bequest of 
 ISABEL JACKSON NEFF 
 
o 
 
 FLIP 
 
 AND 
 
 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET HARTE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 re#& amfcn&0e 
 
 1882 
 
Copyright, 1882, 
 By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FLIP : A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE 1 
 
 FOUND AT BLAZING STAB 109 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IUST where the red track of the Los 
 Gatos road streams on and upward 
 like the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket 
 until it is extinguished in the blue shad 
 ows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed 
 terrace near the summit, hedged by dwarf 
 firs. At every bend of the heat-laden road 
 the eye rested upon it wistfully ; all along 
 the flank of the mountain, which seemed to 
 pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through 
 rising dust, the slow creaking of dragging 
 wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs, 
 and the muffied beat of plunging hoofs, it 
 held out a promise of sheltered coolness and 
 1 
 
2 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 green silences beyond. Sunburned and anx 
 ious faces yearned toward it from the dizzy, 
 swaying tops of stage-coaches, from lagging 
 teams far below, from the blinding white 
 canvas covers of " mountain schooners," and 
 from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh 
 down the scrambling, sweating animals be 
 neath. But it would seem that the hope was 
 vain, the promise illusive. When the ter 
 race was reached it appeared not only to have 
 caught and gathered all the heat of the valley 
 below, but to have evolved a re of its own 
 from some hidden crater-like source unknown. 
 Nevertheless, instead of prostrating and en 
 ervating man and beast, it was said to have 
 induced the wildest exaltation. The heated 
 air was filled and stifling with resinous exha 
 lations. The delirious spices of balm, bay, 
 spruce, juniper, yerba buena, wild syringa, and 
 strange aromatic herbs as yet unclassified, dis 
 tilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 3 
 
 seemed to fire with a midsummer madness 
 all who breathed their fumes. They stung, 
 smarted, stimulated, intoxicated. It was said 
 that the most jaded and foot-sore horses be 
 came furious and ungovernable under their 
 influence ; wearied teamsters and muleteers, 
 who had exhausted their profanity in the as 
 cent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in 
 this fiery air, extended their vocabulary, and 
 created new and startling forms of objurga 
 tion. It is recorded that one bibulous stage- 
 driver exhausted description and condensed its 
 virtues in a single phrase : " Gin and gin 
 ger." This felicitous epithet, flung out in a 
 generous comparison with his favorite drink, 
 " rum and gum," clung to it ever after. 
 
 Such was the current comment on this vale 
 of spices Like most human criticism it was 
 hasty and superficial. No one yet had been 
 known to have penetrated deeply its mysteri 
 ous recesses. It was still far below the sum- 
 
4 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE 
 
 mit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the 
 intruding foot of hunter and prospector ; and 
 the inquisitive patrol of the county surveyor 
 had only skirted its boundary. It remained 
 for Mr. Lance Harriott to complete its explo 
 ration. His reasons for so doing were simple. 
 He had made the journey thither underneath 
 the stage-coach, and clinging to its axle. He 
 had chosen this hazardous mode of convey 
 ance at night, as the coach crept by his place 
 of concealment in the wayside brush, to elude 
 the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, 
 who were after him. He had not made him 
 self known to his fellow-passengers as they 
 already knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, 
 and a desperado ; he deemed it unwise to pre 
 sent himself in his newer reputation of a man 
 who had just slain a brother gambler in a 
 quarrel, and for whom a reward was offered. 
 He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach 
 swirled past the brushing branches of fir, and 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 5 
 
 for an instant lay unnoticed, a scarcely distin 
 guishable mound of dust in the broken fur 
 rows of the road. Then, more like a beast 
 than a man, he crept on his hands and knees 
 into the steaming underbrush. Here he lay 
 still until the clatter of harness and the sound 
 of voices faded in the distance. Had he been 
 followed, it would have been difficult to detect 
 in that inert mass of rags any semblance to 
 a known form or figure. A hideous reddish 
 mask of dust and clay obliterated his face; 
 his hands were shapeless stumps exaggerated 
 in his trailing sleeves. And when he rose, 
 staggering like a drunken man, and plunged 
 wildly into the recesses of the wood, a cloud 
 of dust followed him, and pieces and patches 
 of his frayed and rotten garments clung to the 
 impeding branches. Twice he fell, but, mad 
 dened and upheld by the smarting spices and 
 stimulating aroma of the air, he kept on his 
 course. 
 
6 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 Gradually the heat became less oppressive ; 
 once when he stopped and leaned exhaustedly 
 against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr 
 he could not yet feel in the glittering and 
 trembling of leaves in the distance before him. 
 Again the deep stillness was moved with a 
 faint sighing rustle, and he knew he must be 
 nearing the edge of the thicket. The spell of 
 silence thus broken was followed by a fainter, 
 more musical interruption the glassy tinkle 
 of water ! A step further his foot trembled 
 on the verge of a slight ravirfe, still closely 
 canopied by the interlacing boughs overhead. 
 A tiny stream that he could have dammed 
 with his hand yet lingered in this parched red 
 gash in the hillside and trickled into a deep, 
 irregular, well-like cavity, that again over 
 flowed and sent its slight surplus on. It had 
 been the luxurious retreat of many a spotted 
 trout ; it was to be the bath of Lance Har 
 riott. Without a moment's hesitation, with- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 7 
 
 out removing a single garment, he slipped cau 
 tiously into it, as if fearful of losing a single 
 drop. His head disappeared from the level of 
 the bank ; the solitude was again unbroken. 
 Only two objects remained upon the edge of 
 the ravine, his revolver and tobacco pouch. 
 A few minutes elapsed. A fearless blue 
 jay alighted on the bank and made a prospect 
 ing peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in 
 favor of a gopher, who endeavored to draw it 
 toward his hole, but in turn gave way to a 
 red squirrel, whose attention was divided, how 
 ever, between the pouch and the revolver, 
 which he regarded with mischievous fascina 
 tion. Then there was a splash, a grunt, a 
 sudden dispersion of animated nature, and the 
 head of Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above 
 the bank. It was a startling transformation. 
 Not only that he had, by this wholesale pro 
 cess, washed himself and his light "drill " gar 
 ments entirely clean, but that he had, appar- 
 
8 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 ently by the same operation, morally cleansed 
 himself, and left every stain and ugly blot of 
 his late misdeeds and reputation in his bath. 
 His face, albeit scratched here and there, was 
 rosy, round, shining with irrepressible good 
 humor and youthful levity. His large blue 
 eyes were infantine in their innocent surprise 
 and thoughtlessness. Dripping yet with 
 water, and panting, he rested his elbows lazily 
 on the bank, and became instantly absorbed 
 with a boy's delight in the movements of the 
 gopher, who, after the first alarm, returned 
 cautiously to abduct the tobacco pouch. If 
 any familiar had failed to detect Lance Har 
 riott in this hideous masquerade of dust and 
 grime and tatters, still less would any passing 
 stranger have recognized in this blonde faun 
 the possible outcast and murderer. And, when 
 with a swirl of his spattering sleeve, he drove 
 back the gopher in a shower of spray and 
 leaped to the bank, he seemed to have ac- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 9 
 
 cepted his felonious hiding-place as a mere 
 picnicking bower. 
 
 A slight breeze was unmistakably permeat 
 ing the wood from the west. Looking in that 
 direction, Lance imagined that the shadow 
 was less dark, and although the undergrowth 
 was denser, he struck off carelessly toward it. 
 As he went on, the wood became lighter and 
 lighter ; branches, and presently leaves, were 
 painted against the vivid blue of the sky. He 
 knew he must be near the summit, stopped, 
 felt for his revolver, and then lightly put the 
 few remaining branches aside. 
 
 The full glare of the noonday sun at first 
 blinded him. When he could see more clearly, 
 he found himself on the open western slope of 
 the mountain, which in the Coast Range was 
 seldom wooded. The spiced thicket stretched 
 between him and the summit, and again be 
 tween him and the stage road that plunges 
 from the terrace, like forked lightning into 
 
10 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 the valley below. He could command all the 
 approaches without being seen. Not that this 
 seemed to occupy his thoughts or cause him 
 any anxiety. His first act was to disencum 
 ber himself of his tattered coat ; he then filled 
 and lighted his pipe, and stretched himself 
 full-length on the open hillside, as if to bleach 
 in the fierce sun. While smoking he care 
 lessly perused the fragment of a newspaper 
 which had enveloped his tobacco, and being 
 struck with some amusing paragraph, read it 
 half aloud again to some imaginary auditor, 
 emphasizing its humor with an hilarious slap 
 upon his leg. 
 
 Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and 
 the bath, which had become a vapor one as 
 he alternately rolled and dried himself in the 
 baking grass, his eyes closed dreamily. He 
 was awakened by the sound of voices. They 
 were distant ; they were vague ; they ap 
 proached no nearer. He rolled himself to the 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 11 
 
 verge of the first precipitous grassy descent. 
 There was another bank or plateau below 
 him, and then a confused depth of olive shad 
 ows, pierced here and there by the spiked hel 
 mets of pines. There was no trace of habi 
 tation, yet the voices were those of some 
 monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly 
 heard through them the click of crockery and 
 the ring of some household utensil. It ap 
 peared to be the inter jectional, half listless, 
 half perfunctory, domestic dialogue of an old 
 man and a girl, of which the words were un 
 intelligible. Their voices indicated the sol 
 itude of the mountain, but without sadness ; 
 they were mysterious without being awe-in 
 spiring. They might have uttered the dreari 
 est commonplaces, but, in their vast isolation, 
 they seemed musical and eloquent. Lance 
 drew his first sigh, they had suggested 
 dinner. 
 
 Careless as his nature was, he was too cau- 
 
12 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 tious to risk detection in broad daylight. He 
 contented himself for the present with en 
 deavoring to locate that particular part of 
 the depths from which the voices seemed to 
 rise. It was more difficult, however, to select 
 some other way of penetrating it than by the 
 stage road. " They 're bound to have a fire 
 or show a light when it 's dark," he reasoned, 
 and, satisfied with that reflection, lay down 
 again. Presently he began to amuse himself 
 by tossing some silver coins in the air. Then 
 his attention was directed to, a spur of the 
 Coast Range which had been sharply sil 
 houetted against the cloudless western sky. 
 Something intensely white, something so small 
 that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin 
 in his hand, was appearing in a slight cleft of 
 the range. 
 
 While he looked it gradually filled and ob 
 literated the cleft. In another moment the 
 whole serrated line of mountain had disap- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 13 
 
 peared. The dense, dazzling white, encom 
 passing host began to pour over and down 
 every ravine and pass of the coast. Lance 
 recognized the sea-fog, and knew that scarce 
 ly twenty miles away lay the ocean and 
 safety! The drooping sun was now caught 
 and hidden in its soft embraces. A sudden 
 chili breathed over the mountain. He shiv 
 ered, rose, and plunged again for very warmth 
 into the spice-laden thicket. The heated 
 balsamic air began to affect him like a pow 
 erful sedative ; his hunger was forgotten in 
 the languor of fatigue : he slumbered. When 
 he awoke it was dark. He groped his way 
 through the thicket. A few stars were shin 
 ing directly above him, but beyond and below, 
 everything was lost in the soft, white, fleecy 
 veil of fog. Whatever light or fire might 
 have betokened human habitation was hidden. 
 To push on blindly would be madness ; he 
 could only wait for morning. It suited the 
 
14 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 outcast's lazy philosophy. He crept back 
 again to his bed in the hollow and slept. In 
 that profound silence and shadow, shut out 
 from human association and sympathy by the 
 ghostly fog, what torturing visions conjured 
 up by remorse and fear should have pursued 
 him ? What spirit passed before him, or 
 slowly shaped itself out of the infinite black 
 ness of the wood? None. As he slipped 
 gently into that blackness he remembered 
 with a slight regret, some biscuits that were 
 dropped from the coach by a careless luncheon- 
 consuming passenger. That pang over, he 
 slept as sweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, 
 as a child. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE awoke with the aroma of the woods 
 still steeping his senses. His first instinct 
 was that of all young animals ; he seized a 
 few of the young, tender green leaves of the 
 yerba buena vine that crept over his mossy 
 pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a 
 half berry-like flavor that seemed to soothe 
 the cravings of his appetite. The languor of 
 sleep being still upon him, he lazily watched 
 the quivering of a sunbeam that was caught 
 in the canopying boughs above. Then he 
 dozed again. Hovering between sleeping and 
 waking, he became conscious of a slight move 
 ment among the dead leaves on the bank be 
 side the hollow in which he lay. The move 
 ment appeared to be intelligent, and directed 
 
16 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 toward his revolver, which glittered on the 
 bank. Amused at this evident return of his 
 larcenious friend of the previous day, he lay 
 perfectly still. The movement and rustle 
 continued, but it now seemed long and undu 
 lating. Lance's eyes suddenly became set ; 
 he was intensely, keenly awake. It was not 
 a snake, but the hand of a human arm, half 
 hidden in the moss, groping for the weapon. 
 In that flash of perception he saw that it 
 was small, bare, and deeply freckled. In an 
 instant he grasped it firmly,yand rose to his 
 feet, dragging to his own level as he did so, 
 the struggling figure of a young girl. 
 
 " Leave me go I " she said, more ashamed 
 than frightened. 
 
 Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more 
 than fifteen, slight and lithe, with a boyish 
 flatness of breast and back. Her flushed 
 face and bare throat were absolutely peppered 
 with minute brown freckles, like grains of 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 17 
 
 spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were 
 large and gray, presented the singular spec 
 tacle of being also freckled, at least they 
 were shot through in pupil and cornea with 
 tiny spots like powdered allspice. Her hair 
 was even more remarkable in its tawny, deer 
 skin color, full of lighter shades, and bleached 
 to the faintest of blondes on the crown of her 
 head, as if by the action of the sun. She had 
 evidently outgrown her dress, which was 
 made for a smaller child, and the too brief 
 skirt disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy 
 desert of shapely limb, for which the darned 
 stockings were equally too scant. Lance let 
 his grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, 
 and then with a good-humored gesture tossed 
 it lightly back to her. 
 
 She did not retreat, but continued looking 
 at him in a half-surly embarrassment. 
 
 " I ain't a bit frightened," she said ; " I 'm 
 not going to run away, don 't you fear." 
 
 2 
 
18 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " Glad to hear it," said Lance, with unmis 
 takable satisfaction, " but why did you go for 
 my revolver ? " 
 
 She flushed again and was silent. Pres 
 ently she began to kick the earth at the roots 
 of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to 
 her foot, 
 
 " I wanted to get hold of it before you did." 
 
 " You did ? and why ? " 
 
 " Oh, you know why." 
 
 Every tooth in Lance's head showed that 
 he did, perfectly. But he was discreetly si 
 lent. 
 
 " I did n't know what you were hiding 
 there for," she went on, still addressing the 
 tree, " and," looking at him sideways under 
 her white lashes, " I did n't see your face." 
 
 This subtle compliment was the first sug 
 gestion of her artful sex. It actually sent the 
 blood into the careless rascal's face, and for 
 a moment confused him. He coughed. " So 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 19 
 
 you thought you 'd freeze on to that six- 
 shooter of mine until you saw my hand ? " 
 
 She nodded. Then she picked up a broken 
 hazel branch, fitted it into the small of her 
 back, threw her tanned bare arms over the 
 ends of it, and expanded her chest and her bi 
 ceps at the same moment. This simple action 
 was supposed to convey an impression at once 
 of ease and muscular force. 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd like to take it now," said 
 Lance, handing her the pistol. 
 
 " I Ve seen six-shooters before now," said 
 the girl, evading the proffered weapon and its 
 suggestion. " Dad has one, and my brother 
 had two derringers before he was half as big 
 as me." 
 
 She stopped to observe in her companion 
 the effect of this capacity of her family to 
 bear arms. Lance only regarded her amused 
 ly. Presently she again spoke abruptly : 
 
 " What made you eat that grass, just now ? " 
 
20 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " Grass! " echoed Lance. 
 
 " Yes, there," pointing to the yerba buena. 
 
 Lance laughed. " I was hungry. Look ! " 
 he said, gayly tossing some silver into the air. 
 " Do you think you could get me some break 
 fast for that, and have enough left to buy 
 something for yourself ? " 
 
 The girl eyed the money and the man with 
 half-bashful curiosity. 
 
 " I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he 
 had a mind ter, though ez a rule he 's down 
 on tramps ever since they run, off his chick 
 ens. Ye might try." 
 
 4 ' But I want you to try. You can bring it 
 to me here." 
 
 The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, 
 and, with a smile that was a charming hes 
 itation between bashfulness and impudence, 
 said : " So you are hidin', are ye ? " 
 
 " That 's just it. Your head 's level. I 
 am," laughed Lance unconcernedly. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 21 
 
 " Yur ain't one o' the McCarty gang are 
 ye?" 
 
 Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral 
 exaltation in declaring truthfully that he was 
 not one of a notorious band of mountain free 
 booters known in the district under that 
 name. 
 
 " Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters 
 that raided Henderson's ranch? We don't 
 go much on that kind o' cattle yer." 
 
 " No," said Lance, cheerfully. 
 
 " Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife 
 unto death at Santa Clara ? " 
 
 Lance honestly scorned the imputation. 
 Such conjugal ill treatment as he had in 
 dulged in had not been physical, and had 
 been with other men's wives. 
 
 There was a moment's further hesitation on 
 the part of the girl. Then she said shortly : 
 
 " Well, then, I reckon you kin come along 
 with me." 
 
22 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " Where ? " asked Lance. 
 
 " To the ranch," file replied simply. 
 
 " Then you won't bring me anything to eat 
 here ? " 
 
 " What for ? You kin get it down there." 
 Lance hesitated. " I tell you it 's all right," 
 she continued. " I '11 make it all right with 
 Dad." 
 
 " But suppose I reckon I 'd rather stay 
 here," persisted Lance, with a perfect con 
 sciousness, however, of affectation in his cau 
 tion. 
 
 " Stay away then," said the girl coolly ; 
 " only as Dad perempted this yer woods " 
 
 " Pre-empted," suggested Lance. 
 
 " Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like," 
 continued the girl scornfully, "ez he's got 
 a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez well see 
 him down thar ez here. For here he 's like 
 to come any minit. You can bet your life on 
 that." 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 23 
 
 She must have read Lance's amusement in 
 his eyes, for she again dropped her own with 
 a frown of brusque embarrassment. " Come 
 along, then ; I 'm your man," said Lance, 
 gayly, extending his hand. 
 
 She would not accept it, eying it, however, 
 furtively, like a horse about to shy. " Hand 
 me your pistol first," she said. 
 
 He handed it to her with an assumption 
 of gayety. She received it on her part with 
 unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her 
 shoulder like a gun. This combined action 
 of the child and heroine, it is quite unneces 
 sary to say, afforded Lance undiluted joy. 
 
 " You go first," she said. 
 
 Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad 
 grin. " Looks kinder as if I was a prisner, 
 don't it ? " he suggested. 
 
 " Go on, and don't fool," she replied. 
 
 The two fared onward through the wood. 
 For one moment he entertained the facetious 
 
24 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 idea of appearing to rush frantically away, 
 " just to see what the girl would do," but 
 abandoned it. " It 's an even thing if she 
 would n't spot me the first pop," he reflected 
 admiringly. 
 
 When they had reached the open hillside, 
 Lance stopped inquiringly. u This way," she 
 said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite 
 an opposite direction to the valley where he 
 had heard the voices, one of which he now 
 recognized as hers. They skirted the thicket 
 for a few moments, and then turned sharply 
 into a trail which began to dip toward a ra 
 vine leading to the valley. 
 
 " Why do you have to go all the way 
 round ? " he asked. 
 
 " We don't," the girl replied with empha 
 sis ; " there 's a shorter cut." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " That's telling," she answered shortly. 
 
 " What 's your name ? " asked Lance, after 
 a steep scramble and a drop into the ravine. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 25 
 
 " Flip." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Flip." 
 
 " I mean your first name, your front 
 name." 
 
 " Flip." 
 
 " Flip ! Oh, short for Felipa ! " 
 
 " It ain't Flipper, it 's Flip." And she 
 relapsed into silence. 
 
 " You don't ask me mine ? " suggested 
 Lance. 
 
 She did not vouchsafe a reply. 
 
 " Then you don't want to know ? " 
 
 " Maybe Dad will. You can lie to him." 
 
 This direct answer apparently sustained the 
 agreeable homicide for some moments. He 
 moved onward, silently exuding admiration. 
 
 " Only," added Flip, with a sudden caution, 
 " you 'd better agree with me." 
 
 The trail here turned again abruptly and 
 reentered the canon. Lance looked up, and 
 
26 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 noticed they were almost directly beneath the 
 bay thicket and the plateau that towered far 
 above them. The trail here showed signs of 
 clearing, and the way was marked by felled 
 trees and stumps of pines. 
 
 " What does your father do here ? " he 
 finally asked. Flip remained silent, swinging 
 the\ revolver. Lance repeated his question. 
 
 " Burns charcoal and makes diamonds," 
 said Flip, looking at him from the corners of 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Makes diamonds ? " echoed Lance. 
 
 Flip nodded her head. 
 
 " Many of 'em ? " he continued carelessly. 
 
 " Lots. But they 're not big," she returned, 
 with a sidelong glance. 
 
 " Oh, they 're not big ? " said Lance gravely. 
 
 They had by this time reached a small 
 staked inclosure, whence the sudden flutter 
 ing and cackle of poultry welcomed the return 
 of the evident mistress of this sylvan retreat. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 27 
 
 It was scarcely imposing. Further on, a cook 
 ing stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, 
 a few household implements scattered about, 
 indicated the "ranch." Like most pioneer 
 clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid 
 upon nature that had left behind a desolate 
 battle-field strewn with waste and decay. The 
 fallen trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered 
 limbs, the rudely torn-up soil, were made hid 
 eous by their grotesque juxtaposition with the 
 wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty 
 cans, broken bottles, battered hats, soleless 
 boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and the 
 crowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skele 
 ton of a hooped skirt hanging from a branch. 
 The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the 
 most virgin solitude, was less dreary and for 
 lorn than this first footprint of man. The 
 only redeeming feature of this prolonged biv 
 ouac was the cabin itself. Built of the half- 
 cylindrical strips of pine bark, and thatched 
 
28 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 with the same material, it had a certain pic 
 turesque rusticity. But this was an accident 
 of economy rather than taste, for which Flip 
 apologized by saying that the bark of the pine 
 was " no good " for charcoal. 
 
 " I reckon dad 's in the woods," she added, 
 pausing before the open door of the cabin. 
 " Oh, Dad ! " Her voice, clear and high, 
 seemed to fill the whole long canon, and ech 
 oed from the green plateau above. The mo 
 notonous strokes of an axe were suddenly pre- 
 termitted, and somewhere from the depths of 
 the close-set pines a voice answered " Flip." 
 There was a pause of a few moments, with 
 some muttering, stumbling, and crackling in 
 the underbrush, and then the sudden appear 
 ance of " Dad." 
 
 Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he 
 would have been puzzled to assign his race to 
 Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Per 
 functory but incomplete washings of his hands 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 29 
 
 and face, after charcoal burning, had gradu 
 ally ground into his skin a grayish slate-pen 
 cil pallor, grotesquely relieved at the edges, 
 where the washing had left off, with a border 
 of a darker color. He looked like an over 
 worked Christy minstrel with the briefest of 
 intervals between his performances. There 
 were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as 
 if he gazed feebly out of unglazed spectacles, 
 which heightened his simian resemblance, al 
 ready grotesquely exaggerated by what ap 
 peared to be repeated and spasmodic experi 
 ments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the 
 slightest notice of Lance, he inflicted his pro 
 testing and querulous presence entirely on his 
 daughter. 
 
 " Well ! what 's up now? Yer ye are call 
 ing me from work an hour before noon. Dog 
 my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore 
 it 's ' Dad ! ' and ' Oh, Dad ! ' " 
 
 To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl re- 
 
30 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 ceived this harangue with an air of supreme 
 indifference, and when " Dad " had relapsed 
 into an unintelligible, and, as it seemed to 
 Lance, a half-frightened muttering, she said 
 coolly, 
 
 " Ye 'd better drop that axe and scoot round 
 getten' this stranger some breakfast and some 
 grub to take with him. He 's one of them 
 San Francisco sports out here trout fishing in 
 the branch. He 's got adrift from his party, 
 has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp 
 out last night in the Gin and Ginger Woods." 
 
 "That's just it; it's allers suthin like 
 that," screamed the old man, dashing his fist 
 on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but 
 without looking at Lance. "Why in blazes 
 don't he go up to that there blamed hotel on 
 the summit ? Why in thunder " But here 
 he caught his daughter's large, freckled eyes 
 full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice 
 fell into a tone of whining entreaty. " Now, 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 31 
 
 look yer, Flip, it 's playing it rather low down 
 on the old man, this yer running in o' tramps 
 and desarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors 
 and forlorn widders and ravin' lunatics, on 
 ttiis yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister," he 
 said abruptly, turning to Lance for the first 
 time, but as if he had already taken an active 
 part in the conversation, "I put it as a gen 
 tleman yourself, and a fair-minded sportin' 
 man, if this is the square thing ? " 
 
 Before Lance could reply, Flip had already 
 begun. " That 's just it ! D' ye reckon, be 
 ing a sportin' man and an A 1 feller, he 's 
 goin' to waltz down inter that hotel, rigged 
 out ez he is ? D' ye reckon he 's goin' to let 
 his partners get the laugh onter him ? D' ye 
 reckon he 's goin' to show his head outer this 
 yer ranch till he can do it square ? Not much ! 
 Go 'long. Dad, you 're talking silly ! " 
 
 The old man weakened. He feebly trailed 
 his axe between his legs to a stump and sat 
 
32 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and 
 imparting to it the appearance of a slate with 
 a difficult sum partly rubbed out. He looked 
 despairingly at Lance. " In course," he said, 
 with a deep sigh, " you naturally ain't got 
 any money. In course you left your pocket- 
 book, containing fifty dollars, under a stone, 
 and can't find it. In course," he continued, 
 as he observed Lance put his hand to his 
 pocket, " you 've only got a blank check on 
 Wells, Fargo & Co. for a hundred dollars, 
 and you'd like me to give ypu the differ 
 ence?" 
 
 Amused as Lance evidently was at this, 
 his absolute admiration for Flip absorbed 
 everything else. With his eyes fixed upon 
 the girl, he briefly assured the old man that 
 he would pay for everything he wanted. He 
 did this with a manner quite different from 
 the careless, easy attitude he had assumed to 
 ward Flip ; at least the quick-witted girl no- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 33 
 
 ticed it, and wondered if he was angry. It 
 was quite true that ever since his eye had 
 fallen upon another of his own sex, its glance 
 had been less frank and careless. Certain 
 traits of possible impatience, which might de 
 velop into man-slaying, were coming to the 
 fore. Yet a word or a gesture of Flip's was 
 sufficient to change that manner, and when, 
 with the fretful assistance of her father, she 
 had prepared a somewhat sketchy and prim 
 itive repast, he questioned the old man about 
 diamond-making. The eye of Dad kindled. 
 
 " I want ter know how ye knew I was 
 making diamonds," he asked, with a certain 
 bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's. 
 
 " Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with 
 glib mendacity, glancing at the girl. 
 
 " I reckon they 're gettin' sort of skeert 
 down there them jewelers," chuckled Dad, 
 " yet it 's in nater that their figgers will have 
 to come down. It 's only a question of the 
 
34 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 price of charcoal. I suppose they did n't tell 
 you how I made the discovery ? " 
 
 Lance would have stopped the old man's 
 narrative by saying that he knew the story, 
 but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself 
 to her father's delusion. 
 
 " Ye see, one night about two years ago I 
 had a pit o' charcoal burning out there, and 
 tho' it had been a smouldering and a smoking 
 and a blazing for nigh unto a month, some 
 how it did n't charcoal worth a cent. And 
 yet, dog my skin, but the heal; o' that er pit 
 was suthin hidyus and frightful ; ye could n't 
 stand within a hundred yards of it, and they 
 could feel it on the stage road three miles 
 over yon, t 'other side the mountain. There 
 was nights when me and Flip had to take our 
 blankets up the ravine and camp out all night, 
 and the back of this yer hut shriveled up 
 like that bacon. It was about as nigh on to 
 hell as any sample ye kin get here. Now, 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 35 
 
 mebbe you think I built that air fire ? Meb- 
 be you '11 allow the heat was just the nat'ral 
 burning of that pit ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Lance, trying to see Flip's 
 eyes, which were resolutely averted. 
 
 " Thet 's whar you 'd be lyin' ! That yar 
 heat kem out of the bowels of the yearth, 
 kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and 
 kep up that yar fire. And when she cools 
 down a month after, and I got to strip her, 
 there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring 
 o' bilin', scaldin' water pourin' out of it ez 
 big as your waist. And right in the middle 
 of it was this yer." He rose with the instinct 
 of a skillful raconteur, and whisked from un 
 der his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he 
 emptied on the table before them. It .con 
 tained a small fragment of native rock crystal, 
 half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It 
 was so glaringly truthful, so really what it 
 purported to be, that the most unscientific 
 
36 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 woodman or pioneer would have understood 
 it at a glance. Lance raised his mirthful 
 eyes to Flip. 
 
 " It was cooled suddint, stunted by the 
 water," said the girl, eagerly. She stopped, 
 and as abruptly turned away her eyes and 
 her reddened face. 
 
 " That 's it, that 's just it," continued the 
 old man. " Thar 's Flip, thar, knows it ; she 
 ain't no fool ! " Lance did not speak, but 
 turned a hard, unsympathizing look upon the 
 old man, and rose almost roughly. The old 
 man clutched his coat. " That 's it, ye see. 
 The carbon 's just turning to di'mens. And 
 stunted. And why ? 'Cos the heat was n't 
 kep up long enough. Mebbe yer think I 
 stopped thar ? That ain't me. Thar 's a pit 
 out yar in the woods ez hez been burning 
 six months ; it hain't, in course, got the ad 
 vantages o' the old one, for it 's nat'ral heat. 
 But I 'm keeping that heat up. I 've got a 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 37 
 
 hole where I kin watch it every four hours. 
 When the time comes, I 'm thar ! Don't 
 you see ? That 's me ! that 's David Fairley, 
 that 's the old man, you bet ! " 
 
 "That's so," said Lance, curtly. "And 
 now, Mr. Fairley, if you '11 hand me over a 
 coat or a jacket till I can get past these fogs 
 on the Monterey road, I won't keep you from 
 your diamond pit." He threw down a hand 
 ful of silver on the table. 
 
 " Ther 's a deerskin jacket yer," said the 
 old man, " that one o' them vaqueros left for 
 the price of a bottle of whiskey." 
 
 " I reckon it would n't suit the stranger," 
 said Flip, dubiously producing a much-worn, 
 slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But 
 it did suit Lance, who found it warm, and 
 also had suddenly found a certain satisfaction 
 in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, 
 and nodded coldly to the old man, and care 
 lessly to Flip, he walked to the door. 
 
38 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " If you 're going to take the Monterey 
 road, I can show you a short cut to it," said 
 Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility. 
 
 The paternal Fairley groaned. "That's 
 it ; let the chickens and the ranch go to thun 
 der, as long as there 's a stranger to trapse 
 round with ; go on ! " 
 
 Lance would have made some savage reply, 
 but Flip interrupted. " You know yourself, 
 Dad, it 's a blind trail, and as that 'ere con 
 stable that kem out here hunting French Pete, 
 could n't find it, and had to g round by the 
 canon, like ez not the stranger would lose his 
 way, and have to come back ! " This dan 
 gerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip 
 and Lance stepped into the road together. 
 They walked on for some moments without 
 speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his 
 companion. 
 
 " You did n't swallow all that rot about the 
 diamond, did you ? " he asked, crossly. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 39 
 Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a re- 
 
 Pfy* 
 
 " You don't mean to say that 's the sort of 
 
 hog wash the old man serves out to you reg 
 ularly?" continued Lance, becoming more 
 slangy in his ill temper. 
 
 " I don't know that it 's any consarn o' 
 yours what I think," replied Flip, hopping 
 from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the 
 bed of a dry watercourse. 
 
 " And I suppose you 've piloted round and 
 dry-nussed every tramp and dead beat you 've 
 met since you came here," continued Lance, 
 with unmistakable ill humor. "How many 
 have you helped over this road ? " 
 
 "It's a year since there was a Chinaman 
 chased by some Irishmen from the Crossing 
 into the brush about yer, and he was too 
 afeered to come out, and nigh most starved to 
 death in thar. I had to drag him out and 
 start him on the mountain, for you could n't 
 
40 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 get him back to the road. He was the last 
 one but you" 
 
 " Do you reckon it 's the right thing for a 
 girl like you to run about with trash of this 
 kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of 
 roughs and bad company?" said Lance. 
 
 Flip stopped short. " Look ! if you 're 
 goin' to talk like Dad, I '11 go back." 
 
 The ridiculousness of such a resemblance 
 struck him more keenly than a consciousness 
 of his own ingratitude. He hastened to assure 
 Flip that he was joking. When he had made 
 his peace they fell into talk again, Lance be 
 coming unselfish enough to inquire into one or 
 two facts concerning her life which did not 
 immediately affect him. Her mother had died 
 on the plains when she was a baby, and her 
 brother had run away from home at twelve. 
 She fully expected to see him again, and 
 thought he might sometime stray into their 
 canon. " That is why, then, you take so much 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 41 
 
 stock in tramps," said Lance. " You expect 
 to recognize him ? " 
 
 " Well," replied Flip, gravely, " there is 
 suthing in that, and there's suthing in this : 
 some o' these chaps might run across brother 
 and do him a good turn for the sake of me." 
 
 " Like me, for instance ? " suggested Lance. 
 
 " Like you. You 'd do him a good turn, 
 would n't you?" 
 
 " You bet ! " said Lance, with a sudden 
 emotion that quite startled him ; " only don't 
 you go to throwing yourself round promiscu 
 ously." He was half-conscious of an irritat 
 ing sense of jealousy, as he asked if any of her 
 proteges had ever returned. 
 
 u No," said Flip, "no one ever did. It 
 shows," she added with sublime simplicity, 
 " I had done 'em good, and they could get on 
 alone. Don't it ? " 
 
 " It does," responded Lance grimly. " Have 
 you any other friends that come ? " 
 
42 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " Only the Postmaster at the Crossing." 
 
 " The Postmaster ? " 
 
 " Yes : he 's reckonin' to marry me next 
 year, if I 'm big enough." 
 
 " And what do you reckon ? " asked Lance 
 earnestly. 
 
 Flip began a series of distortions with her 
 shoulders, ran on ahead, picked up a few peb 
 bles and threw them into the wood, glanced 
 back at Lance with swimming mottled eyes, 
 that seemed a piquant incarnation of every 
 thing suggestive and tantalizing, and said, 
 
 " That 's telling." 
 
 They had by this time reached the spot 
 where they were to separate. "Look," said 
 Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their 
 path, which seemed, however, to lose itself in 
 the underbrush a dozen yards away, " ther 's 
 your trail. It gets plainer and broader the 
 further you get on, but you must use your 
 eyes here, and get to know it well afore you 
 get into the fog. Good-by." 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 43 
 
 "Good-by." Lance took her hand and 
 drew her beside him. She was still redolent 
 of the spices of the thicket, and to the young 
 man's excited fancy seemed at that moment 
 to personify the perfume and intoxication of 
 her native woods. Half laughingly, half ear 
 nestly, he tried to kiss her : she struggled for 
 some time strongly, but at the last moment 
 yielded, with a slight return and the exchange 
 of a subtle fire that thrilled him, and left him 
 standing confused and astounded as she ran 
 away. He watched her lithe, nymph-like fig 
 ure disappear in the checkered shadows of the 
 wood, and then he turned briskly down the 
 half-hidden trail. His eyesight was keen, he 
 made good progress, and was soon well on his 
 way toward the distant ridge. 
 
 But Flip's return had not been as rapid. 
 When she reached the wood she crept to its 
 beetling verge, and looking across the canon 
 watched Lance's figure as it vanished and re- 
 
44 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 appeared in the shadows and sinuosities of the 
 ascent. When he reached the ridge the out 
 lying fog crept across the summit, caught him 
 in its embrace, and wrapped him from her 
 gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her al 
 ternate foot on a stump, and took a long pull 
 at her too-brief stockings. When she had 
 pulled down her skirt and endeavored once 
 more to renew the intimacy that had existed 
 in previous years between the edge of her pet 
 ticoat and the top of her stockings, she sighed 
 again, and went home. , 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FOR six months the sea fogs monotonously 
 came and went along the Monterey coast ; for 
 six months they beleaguered the Coast Range 
 with afternoon sorties of white hosts that reg 
 ularly swept over the mountain crest, and 
 were as regularly beaten back again by the 
 leveled lances of the morning sun. For six 
 months that white veil which had once hidden 
 Lance Harriott in its folds returned without 
 him. For that amiable outlaw no longer 
 needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift 
 wave of pursuit that had dashed him on the 
 summit had fallen back, and the next day 
 was broken and scattered. Before the week 
 had passed, a regular judicial inquiry relieved 
 his crime of premeditation, and showed it 
 
46 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 to be a rude duel of two armed and equally 
 desperate men. From a secure vantage in a 
 seacoast town Lance challenged a trial by 
 his peers, and, as an already prejudged man 
 escaping from his executioners, obtained a 
 change of venue. Regular justice, seated by 
 the calm Pacific, found the action of an in 
 terior, irregular jury rash and hasty. Lance 
 was liberated on bail. 
 
 The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had 
 just received the weekly mail and express 
 from San Francisco, and was engaged in ex 
 amining it. It consisted of five letters and 
 two parcels. Of these, three of the letters 
 and the two parcels were directed to Flip. It 
 was not the first time during the last six 
 months that this extraordinary event had oc 
 curred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was 
 duly excited. As Flip had never called per 
 sonally for the letters or parcels, but had sent 
 one of her wild, irregular scouts or hench- 
 
A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 47 
 
 * 
 
 men to bring them, and as she was seldom 
 seen at the Crossing or on the stage road, that 
 curiosity was never satisfied. The disappoint 
 ment to the Postmaster a man past the 
 middle age partook of a sentimental nature. 
 He looked at the letters and parcels ; he 
 looked at his watch ; it was yet early, he 
 could return by noon. He again examined 
 the addresses ; they were in the same hand 
 writing as the previous letters. His mind was 
 made up, he would deliver them himself. The 
 poetic, soulful side of his mission was deli 
 cately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a 
 clean shirt, and a small package of ginger- 
 nuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond. 
 
 The common road to Fairley's Ranch was 
 by the stage turnpike to a point below the 
 Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent 
 horseman usually left his beast and followed 
 the intersecting trail afoot. It was here that 
 the Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge 
 
48 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 of the wood the figure of an elegantly-dressed 
 woman ; she was walking slowly, and appar 
 ently at her ease; one hand held her skirts 
 lightly gathered between her gloved fingers, 
 the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was 
 it a picnic of some people from Monterey or 
 Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough 
 to justify his coming nearer. Suddenly she 
 withdrew into the wood ; he lost sight of her ; 
 she was gone. He remembered, however, that 
 Flip was still to be seen, and as the steep trail 
 was beginning to tax all his energies, he was 
 fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly 
 vertical when he turned into the canon, and 
 saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. At 
 almost the same moment Flip appeared, 
 flushed and panting, in the road before him. 
 
 " You 've got something for me," she said, 
 pointing to the parcel and letter. Completely 
 taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechani 
 cally yielded them up, and as instantly regret- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 49 
 
 ted it. " They 're paid for," continued Flip, 
 observing his hesitation. 
 
 " That 's so," stammered the official of the 
 Crossing, seeing his last chance of knowing 
 the contents of the parcel vanish ; " but I 
 thought ez it 's a valooable package, maybe 
 ye jnight want to examine it to see that it 
 was all right afore ye receipted for it." 
 
 "I '11 risk it," said Flip, coolly, "and if it 
 ain't right I '11 let ye know." 
 
 As the girl seemed inclined to retire with 
 her property, the Postmaster was driven to 
 other conversation. " We ain't had the pleas 
 ure of seeing you down at the Crossing for 
 a month o' Sundays," he began, with airy 
 yet pronounced gallantry. " Some folks let 
 on you was keepin' company with some fel 
 ler like Bijah Brown, and you were getting 
 a little too set up for the Crossing." The 
 individual here mentioned being the county 
 butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless 
 4 
 
50 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 affection for Flip by making a long and use 
 less divergence from his weekly route to enter 
 the canon for " orders," Flip did not deem it 
 necessary to reply. " Then I allowed how ez 
 you might have company," he continued ; " I 
 reckon there 's some city folks up at the sum 
 mit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble gal ca 
 vorting round. Hed no end o' style and fancy 
 fixin's. That 's my kind, I tell you. I just 
 weaken on that sort o' gal," he continued, in 
 the firm belief that he had awakened Flip's 
 jealousy, as he glanced at lier well-worn 
 homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly 
 fixed on his own. 
 
 " Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she 
 replied coolly, shouldering her parcel, and 
 quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him 
 for his extra- official act. 
 
 " But you might get to see her at the edge 
 of the Gin and Ginger Woods," he persisted 
 feebly, in a last effort to detain her ; " if 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 51 
 
 you '11 take a pasear there with me." Flip's 
 only response was to walk on toward the 
 cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary 
 suggestion of " droppin' in to pass the time o' 
 day " with her father, the Postmaster meekly 
 followed. 
 
 The paternal Fahiey, once convinced that 
 his daughter's new companion required no 
 pecuniary or material assistance from his 
 hands, relaxed to the extent of entering into 
 a querulous confidence with him, during which 
 Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. 
 As Fairley had that infelicitous tendency of 
 most weak natures, to unconsciously exagger 
 ate unimportant details in their talk, the 
 Postmaster presently became convinced that 
 the butcher was a constant and assiduous 
 suitor of Flip's. The absurdity of his send 
 ing parcels and letters by post when he might 
 bring them himself did not strike the official. 
 On the contrary, he believed it to be a master- 
 
52 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and 
 Flip's indifference, he " deemed it his duty " 
 using that facile form of cowardly offen- 
 siveness to betray Flip. 
 
 Of which she was happily oblivious. Once 
 away from the cabin, she plunged into the 
 woods, with the parcel swung behind her like 
 a knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently 
 struck off in a straight line through cover and 
 underbrush with the unerring instinct of an 
 animal, climbing hand over hand the steepest 
 ascent, or fluttering like a bird from branch 
 to branch down the deepest declivity. She 
 soon reached that part of the trail where the 
 susceptible Postmaster had seen the fasci 
 nating unknown. Assuring herself she was 
 not followed, she crept through the thicket 
 until she reached a little waterfall and basin 
 that had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. 
 The spot bore signs of later and more fre 
 quent occupancy, and when Flip carefully 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 53 
 
 removed some bark and brushwood from a 
 cavity in the rock and drew forth various 
 folded garments, it was evident she had used 
 it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here she opened 
 the parcel ; it contained a small and delicate 
 shawl of yellow China crepe. Flip instantly 
 threw it over her shoulders and stepped hur 
 riedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she 
 began to pass backward and forward before 
 the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was 
 visible on the tree, but a closer inspection 
 showed a large pane of ordinary window glass 
 stuck in the fork of the branches. It was 
 placed at such a cunning angle against the 
 darkness of the forest opening that it made 
 a soft and mysterious mirror, not unlike a 
 Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only the 
 passing figure of the young girl was seen, but 
 the dazzling green and gold of the hillside, 
 and the far-off silhouetted crests of the Coast 
 Range. 
 
54 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 But this was evidently only a prelude to a 
 severer rehearsal. When she returned to the 
 waterfall she unearthed from her stores a 
 large piece of yellow soap and some yards of 
 rough cotton " sheeting." These she deposited 
 beside the basin and again crept to the edge 
 of the wood to assure herself that she was 
 alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot had 
 invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her 
 bath and began to undress. A slight wind 
 followed her, and seemed to whisper to the 
 circumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her 
 sister naiads and nymphs, who, joining their 
 leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently 
 moving band of trembling lights and shadows, 
 of flecked sprays and inextricably mingled 
 branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan 
 obscurity, veiled alike from pursuing god or 
 stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowed 
 precincts was the musical ripple of laughter 
 and falling water, and at times the glimpse of 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 55 
 
 a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight 
 trembling over bright flanks, or the white 
 austere outline of a childish bosom. 
 
 When she drew again the leafy curtain, 
 and once more stepped out of the wood, she 
 was completely transformed. It was the fig 
 ure that had appeared to the Postmaster ; the 
 slight, erect, graceful form of a young woman 
 modishly attired. It was Flip, but Flip made 
 taller by the lengthened skirt and clinging 
 habiliments of fashion. Flip freckled, but, 
 through the cunning of a relief of yellow color 
 in her gown, her piquant brown-shot face and 
 eyes brightened and intensified until she 
 seemed like a spicy odor made visible. I 
 cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's 
 mysterious modiste was infallible, or that the 
 taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, her patron, was 
 fastidious ; enough that it was picturesque, 
 and perhaps not more glaring and extravagant 
 than the color in which Spring herself had 
 
56 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. . 
 
 once clothed the sere hillside where Flip was 
 now seated. The phantom mirror in the tree 
 fork caught and held her with the sky, the 
 green leaves, the sunlight and all the gracious- 
 ness of her surroundings, and the wind gently 
 tossed her hair and the gay ribbons of her 
 gypsy hat. Suddenly she started. Some re 
 mote sound in the trail below, inaudible to 
 any ear less tine than hers, arrested her breath 
 ing. She rose swiftly and darted into cover. 
 Ten minutes passed. The sun was declin 
 ing ; the white fog was beginning to creep 
 over the Coast Range. From the edge of the 
 wood Cinderella appeared, disenchanted, and 
 in her homespun garments. The clock had 
 struck the spell was past. As she disap 
 peared down the trail even the magic mirror, 
 moved by the wind, slipped from the tree top 
 to the ground, and became a piece of common 
 glass. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE events of the day had produced a re 
 markable impression on the facial aspect of 
 the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary 
 processes of thought, indicated by repeated 
 rubbing of his forehead, had produced a high 
 light in the middle and a corresponding deep 
 ening of shadow at the sides, until it bore the 
 appearance of a perfect sphere. It was this 
 forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully 
 as became a deceived comrade, menacingly as 
 became an outraged parent in the presence of 
 a third party and a Postmaster ! 
 
 " Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent 
 bundles and letters, eh ? " he began. Flip 
 sent one swift, withering look of contempt 
 at the Postmaster, who at once becoming in- 
 
58 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 vertebrate and groveling, mumbled that he 
 must " get on " to the Crossing, and rose to 
 go. But the old man, who had counted on 
 his presence for moral support, and was clearly 
 beginning to hate him for precipitating this 
 scene with his daughter, whom he feared, vio 
 lently protested. 
 
 " Sit down, can't ye ? Don't you see 
 you 're a witness ? " he screamed hysterically. 
 
 It was a fatal suggestion. " Witness," re 
 peated Flip, scornfully. 
 
 " Yes, a witness ! He gave ye letters and 
 bundles." 
 
 " Were n't they directed to me ? " asked 
 Flip. 
 
 " Yes," said the Postmaster, hesitatingly ; 
 " in course, yes." 
 
 " Do you lay claim to them ? " she said, 
 turning to her father. 
 
 " No," responded the old man. 
 
 " Do you ? " sharply, to the Postmaster. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 59 
 
 " No," he replied. 
 
 " Then," said Flip, coolly, " if you 're not 
 claimin' 'em for yourself, and you hear father 
 say they ain't his, I reckon the less you have 
 to say about 'em the better." 
 
 "Thar 's suthin' in that," said the old man, 
 shamelessly abandoning the Postmaster. 
 
 " Then why don't she say who sent 'em, 
 and what they are like," said the Postmaster, 
 44 if there 's nothin' in it ? " 
 
 "Yes," echoed Dad. "Flip, why don't 
 you?" 
 
 Without answering the direct question, 
 Flip turned upon her father. 
 
 " Maybe you forget how you used to row 
 and tear round here because tramps and such 
 like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave 
 it to 'em ? Maybe you '11 quit tearin' round 
 and letting yourself be made a fool of now 
 by that man, just because one of those tramps 
 gets up and sends us some presents back in 
 turn ? " 
 
60 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " 'Twas n't me, Flip," said the old man, 
 deprecatingly, but glaring at the astonished 
 Postmaster. " 'Twas n't my doin'. I allus 
 said if you cast your bread on the waters it 
 would come back to you by return mail. The 
 fact is, the Gov'ment is gettin' too high 
 handed ! Some o' these bloated officials had 
 better climb down before next leckshen." 
 
 " Maybe," continued Flip to her father, 
 without looking at her discomfited visitor, 
 " ye 'd better find out whether one of those 
 officials comes up to this yer 'ranch to steal 
 away a gal about my own size, or to get points 
 about diamond-making. I reckon he don't 
 travel round to find out who writes all the 
 letters that go through the Post Office." 
 
 The Postmaster had seemingly miscalcu 
 lated the old man's infirm temper, and the 
 daughter's skillful use of it. He was unpre 
 pared for Flip's boldness and audacity, and 
 when he saw that both barrels of the accu- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 61 
 
 sation had taken effect on the charcoal burner, 
 who was rising with epileptic rage, he fairly 
 turned and fled. The old man would have 
 followed him with objurgation beyond the 
 door, but for the restraining hand of Flip. 
 
 Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was 
 not wholly unkind to the retreating suitor. 
 Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked 
 up a letter which had fallen from Flip's 
 pocket. He recognized the writing, and did 
 not scruple to read it. It was not a love 
 epistle, at least, not such a one as he would 
 have written, it did not give the address 
 nor the name of the correspondent ; but he 
 read the following with greedy eyes : 
 
 " Perhaps it 's just as well that you don't rig 
 yourself out for the benefit of those dead beats at 
 the Crossing, or any tramp that might hang round 
 the ranch. Keep all your style for me when I 
 come. I can't tell you when, it 's mighty uncertain 
 before the rainy season. But I 'm coming soon. 
 
62 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA JIOMANCE. 
 
 Don't go back on your promise about lettiu' up on 
 the tramps, and being a little more high-toned. 
 And don't you give 'em so much. It 's true I sent 
 you hats twice. I clean forgot all about the first ; 
 but / would n't have given a ten-dollar hat to a 
 nigger woman who had a sick baby because I had 
 an extra hat. I 'd have let that baby slide. I for 
 got to ask whether the skirt is worn separately ; I 
 must see that dressmaking sharp about it ; but I 
 think you '11 want something on besides a jacket 
 and skirt ; at least, it looks like it up here. I don't 
 think you could manage a piano down there with 
 out the old man knowing it, and raisin' the devil 
 generally. I promised you I 'd let up on him. 
 Mind you keep all your promises to me. I 'm glad 
 you 're gettin' on with the six-shooter ; tin cans are 
 good at fifteen yards, but try it on suthin' that 
 moves ! I forgot to say that I am on the track of 
 your big brother. It 's a three years' old track, 
 and he was in Arizona. The friend who told me 
 did n't expatiate much on what he did there, but I 
 reckon they had a high old time. If he 's above 
 the earth I '11 find him, you bet. The yerba buena 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 63 
 
 and the southern wood came all right, they 
 smelt like you. Say, Flip, do you remember the 
 last the very last thing that happened when 
 you said * Good-by ' on the trail ? Don't let me 
 ever find out that you 've let anybody else kiss " 
 
 But here the virtuous indignation of the 
 Postmaster found vent in an oath. He threw 
 the letter a\vay. He retained of it only two 
 facts, Flip had a brother who was missing ; 
 she had a lover present in the flesh. 
 
 How much of the substance of this and 
 previous letters Flip had confided to her father 
 I cannot say. If she suppressed anything it 
 was probably that which affected Lance's 
 secret alone, and it was doubtful how much 
 of that she herself knew. In her own affairs 
 she was frank without being communicative, 
 and never lost her shy obstinacy even with 
 her father. Governing the old man as com 
 pletely as she did, she appeared most embar 
 rassed when she was most dominant ; she had 
 
64 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 her own way without lifting her voice or her 
 eyes ; she seemed oppressed by mauvaise honte 
 when she was most triumphant ; she would 
 end a discussion with a shy murmur addressed 
 to herself, or a single gesture of self-conscious 
 ness. 
 
 The disclosure of her strange relations with 
 an unknown man, and the exchange of pres 
 ents and confidences seemed to suddenly 
 awake Fairley to a vague, uneasy sense of 
 some unfulfilled duties as a parent. The first 
 effect of this on his weak nature, was a peevish 
 antagonism to the cause of it. He had long, 
 fretful monologues on the vanity of diamond- 
 making, if accompanied with " pestering " by 
 " interlopers ; " on the wickedness of conceal 
 ment and conspiracy, and their effects on 
 charcoal-burning ; on the nurturing of spies 
 and " adders " in the family circle, and on the 
 seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils 
 in which a gray-haired father was left out. It 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 65 
 
 was true that a word or look from Flip gen 
 erally brought these monologues to an inglo 
 rious and abrupt termination, but they were 
 none the less lugubrious as long as they lasted. 
 In time they were succeeded by an affectation 
 of contrite apology and self-depreciation. 
 " Don't go out o' the way to ask the old 
 man," he would say, referring to the quantity 
 of bacon to be ordered ; " it 's nat'ral a young 
 gal should have her own advisers." The state 
 of the flour barrel would also produce a like 
 self-abasement;. " Unless ye 're already in 
 correspondence about more flour, ye might 
 take the opinion o' the first tramp ye meet ez 
 to whether Santa Cruz Mills is a good brand, 
 but don't ask the old man." If Flip was in 
 conversation with the butcher, Fairley would 
 obtrusively retire with the hope " he was n't 
 intrudin' on their secrets." 
 
 These phases of her father's weakness were 
 not frequent enough to excite her alarm, but 
 
 5 
 
66 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 she could not help noticing they were accom 
 panied with a seriousness unusual to hini.^ He 
 began to be tremulously watchful of her, re 
 turning often from work at an earlier hour, 
 and lingering by the cabin in the morning. 
 He brought absurd and useless presents for 
 her, and presented them with a nervous anx 
 iety, poorly concealed by an assumption of 
 careless, paternal generosity. " Suthin' I 
 picked up at the Crossin' for ye to-day," he 
 would say, airily, and retire to watch the ef 
 fect of a pair of shoes two sizes too large, or a 
 fur cap in September. He would have hired 
 a cheap parlor organ for her, but for the 
 apparently unexpected revelation that she 
 could n't play. He had received the news of 
 a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, 
 but lately he seemed to look upon it as a fore 
 gone conclusion, and one that necessarily 
 solved the question of companionship for 
 Flip. " In course, when you' ve got your 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 67 
 
 own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go fool- 
 in' around with strangers." These autumnal 
 blossoms of affection, I fear, came too late for 
 any effect upon Flip, precociously matured by 
 her father's indifference and selfishness. But 
 she was good humored, and, seeing him se 
 riously concerned, gave him more of her time, 
 even visited him in the sacred seclusion of the 
 " diamond pit," and listened with far-off eyes 
 to his fitful indictment of all things outside 
 his grimy laboratory. Much of this patient 
 indifference came with a capricious change in 
 her own habits ; she no longer indulged in 
 the rehearsal of dress, she packed away her 
 most treasured garments, and her leafy bou 
 doir knew her no more. She sometimes 
 walked on the hillside, and often followed the 
 trail she had taken with Lance when she led 
 him to the ranch. She once or twice ex 
 tended her walk to the spot where she had 
 parted from him, and as often came shyly 
 
68 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 away, her eyes downcast and her face warm 
 with color. Perhaps because these experi 
 ences and some mysterious instinct of matur 
 ing womanhood had left a story in her eyes, 
 which her two adorers, the Postmaster and 
 the Butcher, read with passion, she became 
 famous without knowing it. Extravagant 
 stories of her fascinations brought strangers 
 into the valley. The effect upon her father 
 may be imagined. Lance could not have de 
 sired a more effective guardian than he proved 
 to be in this emergency. Those who had 
 been told of this hidden pearl were surprised 
 to find it so jealously protected. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE long, parched summer had drawn to 
 its dusty close. Much of it was already blown 
 abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, 
 or crackled in harsh, unelastic fibres on hill 
 side and meadow. Some of it had disap 
 peared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery 
 crests by night of burning forests. The be 
 sieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinned 
 their hosts, and. at last vanished. The wind 
 changed from northwest to southwest. The 
 salt breath of the sea was on the summit. 
 And then one day the staring, unchanged sky 
 was faintly touched with remote mysterious 
 clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. 
 The next morning dawned upon a newer face 
 in the heavens, on changed woods, on altered 
 
70 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 outlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten dis 
 tances. It was raining ! 
 
 Four weeks of this change, with broken 
 spaces of sunlight and intense blue aerial is 
 lands, and then a storm set in. All day the 
 summit pines and redwoods rocked in the 
 blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed 
 to be held back by the fury of the gale, or 
 was visibly seen in sharp waves on the hill 
 side. Unknown and concealed watercourses 
 suddenly overflowed the trails, pools became 
 lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from the 
 storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys 
 was broken by the impetuous rush of waters ; 
 even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip's 
 retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became 
 a cascade. 
 
 The storm drove Fairley from his couch 
 early. The falling of a large tree across the 
 trail, and the sudden overflow of a small 
 stream beside it, hastened his steps. But he 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 71 
 
 was doomed to encounter what was to him a 
 more disagreeable object a human figure. 
 By the bedraggled drapery that flapped and 
 fluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt 
 hair that hid the face and eyes, and by the 
 grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man 
 recognized one of his old trespassers, an 
 Indian squaw. 
 
 " Clear out 'er that ! Come, make tracks, 
 will ye ? " the old man screamed ; but here 
 the wind stopped his voice, and drove him 
 against a hazel bush. 
 
 44 Me heap sick," answered the squaw, 
 shivering through her muddy shawl. 
 
 " I '11 make ye a heap sicker if ye don't 
 vamose the ranch," continued Fairley, ad 
 vancing. 
 
 " Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl 
 give me heap grub," said the squaw, without 
 moving. 
 
 " You bet your life," groaned the old man 
 
72 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 to himself. Nevertheless an idea struck him. 
 " Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye ? " he 
 asked cautiously. " Ye ain't got no pooty 
 things for poor Wangee girl ? " he continued, 
 insinuatingly. 
 
 "Me got heap cache nuts and berries," said 
 the squaw. 
 
 " Oh, in course ! in course ! That 's just 
 it," screamed Fairley ; " you 've got 'em cached 
 only two mile from yer, and you'll go and 
 get 'em for a half dollar, cash down." 
 
 " Me bring Wangee girl to cache" replied 
 the Indian, pointing to the wood. " Honest 
 Injin." 
 
 Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley. 
 But it required some elaboration. Hurrying 
 the squaw with him through the pelting rain, 
 he reached the shelter of the corral. Vainly 
 the shivering aborigine drew her tightly ban 
 daged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, 
 and looked longingly toward the cabin; tho 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 73 
 
 old man backed her against the palisade. 
 Here he cautiously imparted his dark inten 
 tions to employ her to keep watch and ward 
 over the ranch, and especially over its young 
 mistress " clear out all the tramps 'ceptin' 
 yourself, and I '11 keep ye in grub and rum." 
 Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer 
 in various forms at last seemed to affect the 
 squaw ; she nodded violently, and echoed the 
 last word " rum." " Now," she added. The 
 old man hesitated ; she was in possession of 
 his secret; he groaned, and, promising an im 
 mediate installment of liquor, led her to the 
 cabin. 
 
 The door was so securely fastened against 
 the impact of the storm that some moments 
 elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old 
 man had become impatient and profane. 
 When it was partly opened by Flip he hastily 
 slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and 
 cast one single suspicious glance around the 
 
74 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 rude apartment which served as a sitting-room. 
 Flip had apparently been writing. A small 
 inkstand was still on the board table, but her 
 paper had evidently been concealed before 
 she allowed them to enter. The squaw in 
 stantly squatted before the adobe hearth, 
 warmed her bundled baby, and left the cer 
 emony of introduction to her companion. 
 Flip regarded the two with calm preoccupa 
 tion and indifference. The only thing that 
 touched her interest was the old squaw's 
 draggled skirt and limp neckerchief. They 
 were Flip's own, long since abandoned and 
 cast off in the Gin and Ginger Woods. " Se 
 crets again," whined Fairley, still eying Flip 
 furtively. " Secrets again, in course in 
 course jiss so. Secrets that must be kep 
 from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own 
 flesh and blood. Go on ! go on ! Don't 
 mind me." Flip did not reply. She had 
 even lost the interest in her old dress. Per- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 75 
 
 haps it had only touched some note in unison 
 with her revery. 
 
 " Can 't ye get the poor critter some whis 
 key ? " he queried, fretfully. " Ye used to be 
 peart enuff before." As Flip turned to the 
 corner to lift the demijohn, Fairley took 
 occasion to kick the squaw with his foot, and 
 indicate by extravagant pantomime that the 
 bargain was not to be alluded to before the 
 girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tin 
 cup, and, approaching the squaw, handed it 
 to her. " It 's like ez not," continued Fairley 
 to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, 
 " that she '11 be huntin' the woods off and 
 on, and kinder looking after the last pit near 
 the Madronos ; ye '11 give her grub and licker 
 ez she likes. Well, d' ye hear, Flip ? Are 
 ye moonin ' agin with yer secrets ? What 's 
 gone with ye ? " 
 
 If the child were dreaming, it was a de 
 licious dream. Her magnetic eyes were suf- 
 
76 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 fused by a strange light, as though the eye 
 itself had blushed ; her full pulse showed it 
 self more in the rounding outline of her cheek 
 than in any deepening of color ; indeed, if 
 there was any heightening of tint, it was in 
 her freckles, which fairly glistened like tiny 
 spangles. Her eyes were downcast, her shoul 
 ders slightly bent, but her voice was low and 
 clear and thoughtful as ever. 
 
 " One o' the big pines above the Madrono 
 pit has blown over into the run," she said. 
 " It 's choked up the water, acid it 's risin' 
 fast. Like ez not it 's pourin' over into the 
 pit by this time." 
 
 The old man rose with a fretful cry. " And 
 why in blazes didn't you say so first?" he 
 screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to 
 the door. 
 
 " Ye did n't give me a chance," said Flip, 
 raising her eyes for the first time. With an 
 impatient imprecation, Faiiiey darted by her 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 11 
 
 and rushed into the wood. In an instant she 
 had shut the door and bolted it. In the same 
 instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair 
 not only from her eyes, but from her head, 
 tore away her shawl and blanket, and re 
 vealed the square shoulders of Lance Har 
 riott I Flip remained leaning against the 
 door ; but the young man in rising dropped 
 the bandaged papoose, which rolled from his 
 lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry, sprang to 
 ward it ; but Lance caught her by the waist 
 with one arm, as with the other he dragged 
 the bundle from the flames. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed," he said, gayly, " it 's 
 only" 
 
 " What ? " said Flip, trying to disengage 
 herself. 
 
 " My coat and trousers." 
 
 Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to 
 another attempt to kiss her. She evaded it 
 by diving her head into his waistcoat, and 
 saying, " There 's father." 
 
78 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " But he 's gone to clear away that tree ? " 
 suggested Lance. 
 
 One of Flip's significant silences followed. 
 
 " Oh, I see," he laughed. " That was a 
 plan to get him away ! Ah ! " She had re 
 leased herself. 
 
 " Why did you come like that ? " she said, 
 pointing to his wig and blanket. 
 
 " To see if you'd know me," he responded. 
 
 " No," said Flip, dropping her eyes. " It 's 
 to keep other people from knowing you. 
 You 're hidin' agin." , 
 
 " I am," returned Lance ; " but," he inter 
 rupted, " it 's only the same old thing." 
 
 "But you wrote from Monterey that it was 
 all over," she persisted. 
 
 " So it would have been," he said gloomily, 
 " but for some dog down here who is hunting 
 up an old scent. I '11 spot him yet, and " He 
 stopped suddenly, with such utter abstraction 
 of hatred in his fixed and glittering eyes that 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 79 
 
 she almost feared him. She laid her hand 
 quite unconsciously on his arm. He grasped 
 it ; his face changed. 
 
 "I couldn't wait any longer to see you, 
 Flip, so I came here anyway," he went on. 
 " I thought to hang round and get a chance 
 to speak to you first, when I fell afoul of the 
 old man. He did n't know me, and tumbled 
 right in my little game. Why, do you believe 
 he wants to hire me for my grub and liquor, 
 to act as a sort of sentry over you and the 
 ranch?" And here he related with great 
 gusto the substance of his interview. "I 
 reckon as he 's that suspicious," he concluded, 
 " I 'd better play it out now as I 've begun, 
 only it 's mighty hard I can't see you here 
 before the fire in your fancy toggery, Flip, but 
 must dodge in and out of the wet underbrush 
 in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in 
 the old place in the Gin and Ginger Woods." 
 
 "Then you came here just to see me?" 
 asked Flip. 
 
80 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "For only that?" 
 
 " Only that." 
 
 Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his 
 other arm around her waist, but her resisting 
 little hand was still potent. 
 
 " Listen," she said at last without looking 
 up, but apparently talking to the intruding 
 arm, "when Dad comes I '11 get him to send 
 you to watch the diamond pit. It isn't far; 
 it 's warm, and" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I '11 come, after a bit, and see yon. Quit 
 foolin' now. If you 'd only have come here 
 like yourself like like a white man." 
 
 " The old man," interrupted Lance, "would 
 have just passed me on to the summit. I 
 couldn't have played the lost fisherman on 
 him at this time of year.'* 
 
 " Ye could have been stopped at the Cross 
 ing by high water, you silly," said the girl. 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 81 
 
 "It was." This grammatical obscurity re 
 ferred to the stage coach. 
 
 " Yes, but I might have been tracked to this 
 cabin. And look here, Flip," he said, sud 
 denly straightening himself, and lifting the 
 girl's face to a level with his own, "I don't 
 want you to lie any more for me. It ain't 
 right." 
 
 " All right. Ye need n't go to the pit, then, 
 and I won't come." 
 
 " Flip ! " 
 
 " And here 's Dad coming. Quick ! " 
 
 Lance chose to put his own interpretation 
 on this last adjuration. The resisting little 
 hand was now lying quite limp on his shoul 
 der. He drew her brown, bright face near 
 his own, felt her spiced breath on his lips, his 
 cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, 
 kissed her, hurriedly replaced his wig and 
 blanket, and dropped beside the fire with the 
 tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first 
 
 6 
 
82 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 passion. Flip had withdrawn to the window, 
 and was looking out upon the rocking pines. 
 
 " He don't seem to be coming," said Lance, 
 with a half -shy laugh. 
 
 "No," responded Flip demurely, pressing 
 her hot oval cheek against the wet panes ; " I 
 reckon I was mistaken. You 're sure," she 
 added, looking resolutely another way, but 
 still trembling like a magnetic needle toward 
 Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, 
 " you 're sure you 'd like me to come to you ? " 
 
 " Sure, Flip ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Flip, as this reassuring query 
 of reproachful astonishment appeared about 
 to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash 
 of Lance's ; " hush ! he 's coining this time, 
 sure." 
 
 It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, 
 exceedingly bedraggled, exceedingly sponged 
 out as to color, and exceedingly profane. It 
 appeared that there was, indeed, a tree that 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 83 
 
 had fallen in the " run," but that, far from 
 diverting the overflow into the pit, it had es 
 tablished "back water," which had forced 
 another outlet. All this might have been 
 detected at once by any human intellect not 
 distracted by correspondence with strangers, 
 and enfeebled by habitually scorning the in 
 tellect of its own progenitor. This reckless 
 selfishness had further only resulted in giving 
 "rheumatics" to that progenitor, who now 
 required the external administration of opo 
 deldoc to his limbs, and the internal adminis 
 tration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr. 
 Fairley, with great promptitude and infantine 
 simplicity, at once bared two legs of entirely 
 different colors and mutely waited for his 
 daughter to rub them. If Flip did this all 
 unconsciously, and with the mechanical dex 
 terity of previous habit, it was because she 
 did not quite understand the savage eyes and 
 impatient gestures of Lance in his encom- 
 
84 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 passing wig and blanket, and because it helped 
 her to voice her thought. 
 
 " Ye '11 never be able to take yer watch at 
 the diamond pit to-night, Dad," she said ; 
 " and I 've been reck'nin' you might set the 
 squaw there instead. I can show her what 
 to do." 
 
 But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her 
 father promptly objected. " Mebbee I 've 
 got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbee I may 
 have my secrets, too eh?" he said, with 
 dark significance, at the same time adminis 
 tering a significant nudge to Lance, which 
 kept up the young man's exasperation. " No, 
 she '11 rest yer a bit just now. I '11 set her to 
 watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want 
 her." Flip fell into one of her suggestive 
 silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mol 
 lified by a single furtive glance from her sig 
 nificant eyes; the rain dashed against the 
 windows, and occasionally spattered and 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 85 
 
 hissed in the hearth of the broad chimney, 
 and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuaged 
 by the internal administration of whiskey, 
 grew more loquacious. The genius of incon 
 gruity and inconsistency which generally ruled 
 his conduct came out with freshened vigor 
 under the 'gentle stimulation of spirit. " On 
 an evening like this," he began, comfortably 
 settling himself on the floor beside the chim 
 ney, " ye might rig yerself out in them new 
 duds and fancy fixin's that that Sacramento 
 shrimp sent ye, and let your own flesh and 
 blood see ye. If that 's too much to do for 
 your old dad, ye might do it to please that 
 digger squaw as a Christian act." Whether 
 in the hidden depths of the old man's con 
 sciousness there was a feeling of paternal 
 vanity in showing this wretched aborigine the 
 value and importance of the treasure she was 
 about to guard, I cannot say. Flip darted an 
 interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a 
 
86 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 quiet assent, and she flew into the inner room. 
 She did not linger on the details of her toilet, 
 but reappeared almost the next moment in 
 her new finery, buttoning the neck of her 
 gown as she entered the room, and chastely 
 stopping at the window to characteristically 
 pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of her 
 situation increased her usual shyness ; she 
 played with the black and gold beads of a 
 handsome necklace, Lance's last gift, as 
 the merest child might ; her unbuckled shoe 
 gave the squaw a natural opportunity of show 
 ing her admiration and devotion by insisting 
 upon buckling it, and gave Lance, under that 
 disguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing 
 the little foot and ankle in the shadow of the 
 chimney ; an event which provoked slight 
 hysterical symptoms in Flip, and caused her 
 to sit suddenly down in spite of the remon 
 strances of her parent. " Ef you can't quit 
 gigglin' and squirmin' like an Injin baby 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 87 
 
 yourself, ye 'd better git rid o' them duds," 
 he ejaculated with peevish scorn. 
 
 Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his 
 weak vanity could not be hidden, and he en 
 joyed the evident admiration of a creature 
 whom he believed to be half-witted and de 
 graded all the more keenly because it did not 
 make him jealous. She could not take Flip 
 from him. Rendered garrulous by liquor, he 
 went to voice his contempt for those who 
 might attempt it. Taking advantage of his 
 daughter's absence to resume her homely gar 
 ments, he whispered confidentially to Lance, 
 
 " Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might 
 think is presents. Pr'aps Flip lets on they 
 are? Pr'aps she don't know any better. But 
 they ain't presents. They 're only samples o' 
 dressmaking and jewelry that a vain, con 
 ceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento 
 sends down here to get customers for. In 
 course I 'm to pay for 'em. In course he 
 
88 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 reckons I 'm to do it. In course I calkilate 
 to do it ; but he need n't try to play 'em off 
 as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down 
 here, sportin' hisself off on Flip as a fancy 
 buck ! Not ez long ez the old man 's here, 
 you bet." Thoroughly carried away by his 
 fancied wrongs, it was perhaps fortunate that 
 he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance 
 behind his lank and lustreless wig ; but see 
 ing only the figure of Lance, as he had con 
 jured him, he went on : " That 's why I want 
 you to hang around her. Hang around her 
 on til my boy, him that 's comin' home on a 
 visit, gets here, and I reckon he '11 clear out 
 that yar Sacramento counter-jumper. Only 
 let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does. Eh ? 
 D'ye hear? Dog my skin if I don't believe 
 the d d Injin 's drunk." It was fortunate 
 that at that moment Flip reappeared, and, 
 dropping on the hearth between her father 
 and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 89 
 
 his with a warning pressure. The light touch 
 momentarily recalled him to himself and her, 
 but not until the quick-witted girl had had 
 revealed to her in one startled wave of con 
 sciousness, the full extent of Lance's infirmity 
 of temper. With the instinct of awakened 
 tenderness came a sense of responsibility, and 
 a vague premonition of danger. The coy 
 blossom of her heart was scarce unfolded 
 before it was chilled by approaching shadows. 
 Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. 
 Every moment of Lance's stay was imper 
 iled by a single word that might spring from 
 his suppressed white lips ; beyond and above 
 the suspicions his sudden withdrawal might 
 awaken in her father's breast, she was dimly 
 conscious of some mysterious terror without 
 that awaited him. She listened to the furious 
 onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores 
 beside their cabin, and thought she heard it 
 there ; she listened to the sharp fusillade of 
 
90 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 rain upon roof and pane, and the turbulent 
 roar and rush of leaping mountain torrents at 
 their very feet, and fancied it was there. She 
 suddenly sprang to the window, and, pressing 
 her eyes to the pane, saw through the misty 
 turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying 
 branches the scintillating intermittent flames 
 of torches moving on the trail above, and 
 knew it was there ! 
 
 In an instant she was collected and calm. 
 " Dad," she said, in her ordinary indifferent 
 tone, " there 's torches movin' i\p toward the 
 diamond pit. Likely it 's tramps. I '11 take 
 the squaw and see." And before the old man 
 could stagger to his feet she had dragged 
 Lance with her into the road. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE wind charged down upon them, slam 
 ming the door at their backs, extinguishing 
 the broad shaft of light that had momentarily 
 shot out into the darkness, and swept them a 
 dozen yards away. Gaining the lee of a ma 
 drono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, 
 enfolded the girl, and felt her for one brief 
 moment tremble and nestle in his bosom like 
 some frightened animal. " Well," he said, 
 gayly, "what next? " Flip recovered herself. 
 " You 're safe now anywhere outside the 
 house. But did you expect them to-night ? " 
 Lance shrugged his shoulders. " Why not ? " 
 " Hush ! " returned the girl ; " they 're coming 
 this way." 
 The four flickering, scattered lights presently 
 
92 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 dropped into line. The trail had been found ; 
 they were coming nearer. Flip breathed 
 quickly ; the spiced aroma of her presence 
 filled the blanket as he drew her tightly be 
 side him. He had forgotten the storm that 
 raged around them, the mysterious foe that 
 was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve 
 with a slight laugh. " Why, it 's Kennedy 
 and Bijah ? " 
 
 " Who 's Kennedy and Bijah ? " asked 
 Lance, curtly. 
 
 " Kennedy 's the Postmaster and Bijah 's 
 the Butcher." 
 
 " What do they want? " continued Lance. 
 
 " Me," said Flip, coyly. 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 u Yes ; let 's run away." 
 
 Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip 
 made her way with unerring woodcraft down 
 the ravine. The sound of voices and even 
 the tumult of the storm became fainter, an 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 93 
 
 acrid smell of burning green wood smarted 
 Lance's lips and eyes ; in the midst of the 
 darkness beneath him gradually a faint, gi 
 gantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and 
 sank, quivered and faded with the spent 
 breath of the gale as it penetrated their re 
 treat. "The pit," whispered Flip; "it's 
 safe on the other side," she added, cautiously 
 skirting the orbit of the great eye, and lead 
 ing him to a sheltered nest of bark and saw 
 dust. It was warm and odorous. Neverthe 
 less, they both deemed it necessary to enwrap 
 themselves in the single blanket. The eye 
 beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a 
 wave of lambent tremulousness passed across 
 it ; its weirdness was an excuse for their draw 
 ing nearer each other in playful terror. 
 
 " Flip." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " What did the other two want ? To see 
 you, tool"' 
 
94 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 " Likely," said Flip, without the least trace 
 of coquetry. " There 's been a lot of stran 
 gers yer, off and on." 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd like to go back and see 
 them ? " 
 
 " Do you want me to? " 
 
 Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he 
 was vaguely uneasy. " Looks a little as if I 
 were running away, don't it ? " he suggested. 
 
 "No," said Flip; "they think you're only 
 a squaw ; it 's me they 're "after." Lance 
 smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A 
 strange and irritating sensation had been 
 creeping over him it was his first experi 
 ence of shame and remorse. " I reckon I '11 
 go back and see," he said, rising abruptly. 
 
 Flip was silent. She was thinking. Be 
 lieving that the men were seeking her only, 
 she knew that their attention would be di 
 rected from her companion when it was found 
 out he was no longer .with her, and she 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 95 
 
 dreaded to meet them in his irritable pres 
 ence. 
 
 " Go," she said, " tell Dad something 's 
 gone wrong in the diamond pit, and say I 'm 
 watching it for him here." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 " I '11 go there and wait for him. If he 
 can't get rid of them, and they follow him 
 there, I '11 come back here and meet you. 
 Anyhow, I '11 manage to have Dad wait there 
 a spell." 
 
 She took his hand and led him back by a 
 different path to the trail. He was surprised 
 to find that the cabin, its window glowing 
 from the fire, was only a hundred yards away. 
 " Go in the back way, by the shed. Don't go 
 in the room, nor near the light, if you can. 
 Don't talk inside, but call or beckon to Dad. 
 Remember," she said, with a laugh, "you're 
 keeping watch of me for him. Pull your hair 
 down on your eyes so." This operation, like 
 
96 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 most feminine embellishments of the mascu 
 line toilet was attended by a kiss, and Flip, 
 stepping back into the shadow, vanished in 
 the storm. 
 
 Lance's first movements were inconsistent 
 with his assumed sex. He picked up his 
 draggled skirt, and drew a bowie knife from 
 his boot. From his bosom he took a revolver, 
 turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the 
 caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly 
 and gained the shed. It was quite dark but 
 for a pencil of light piercing a^ crack of the 
 rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sit 
 ting room. A single voice not unfamiliar to 
 him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his 
 ears. A name was mentioned his own! 
 His angry hand was on the latch. One mo 
 ment more and he would have burst the door, 
 but in that instant another name was uttered 
 a name that dropped his hand from the 
 latch and the blood from his cheeks. He 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 97 
 
 staggered backward, passed his hand swiftly 
 across his forehead, recovered himself with a 
 gesture of mingled rage and despair, and, sink 
 ing on his knees beside the door, pressed his 
 hot temples against the crack. 
 
 "Do I know Lance Harriott ?" said the 
 
 voice. " Do I know the d d ruffian ? 
 
 Did n't I hunt him a year ago into the brush 
 three miles from the Crossing ? Didn't we lose 
 sight of him the very day he turned up yer at 
 this ranch, and got smuggled over into Mon 
 terey ? Ain't it the same man as killed 
 Arkansaw Bob Bob Ridley the name he 
 went by in Sonora ? And who was Bob Rid 
 ley, eh? Who? Why, you d d old fool, 
 
 it was Bob Fairley YOUR SON ! " 
 
 The old man's voice rose querulous and in 
 distinct. 
 
 " What are ye talkin' about?" interrupted 
 the first speaker. " I tell you I know. Look 
 at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. 
 7 
 
98 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 Look at 'em. Pictures of you and your girl. 
 Pr'aps you '11 deny them. Pr'aps you '11 tell 
 me I lie when I tell you he told me he was your 
 son ; told me how he ran away from you; how 
 you were livin' somewhere in the mountains 
 makin' gold, or suthin' else, outer charcoal. 
 He told me who he was as a secret. He 
 never let on he told it to any one else. And 
 when I found that the man who killed him, 
 Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, had 
 been sendin' spies all around to find out all 
 about your son, had been foolin' you and try- 
 in' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, 
 I knew that he knew it too." 
 
 LIAB ! " 
 
 The door fell in with a crash. There was 
 the sudden apparition of a demoniac face, still 
 half hidden by the long trailing black locks of 
 hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A 
 cry of terror filled the room. Three of the 
 men dashed from the door and fled precipitate- 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 99 
 
 ly. The man who had spoken sprang toward 
 his rifle in the chimney corner. But the move 
 ment was his last ; a blinding flash and shat 
 tering report interposed between him and his 
 weapon. The impulse carried him forward 
 headlong into the fire, that hissed and splut 
 tered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with 
 his smoking pistol, strode past him to the door. 
 Already far down the trail there were hurried 
 voices, the crack and crackling of impending 
 branches growing fainter and fainter in the 
 distance. Lance turned back to the solitary 
 living figure the old man. 
 
 Yet he might have been dead too, he sat so 
 rigid and motionless, his fixed eyes staring 
 vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before 
 him on the table lay the cheap photographs, 
 one evidently of himself, taken in some remote 
 epoch of complexion, one of a child which 
 Lance recognized as Flip. 
 
 " Tell me," said Lance hoarsely, laying his 
 
100 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 quivering hand on the table, " was Bob Ridley 
 your son ? " 
 
 " My- son," echoed the old man in a strange, 
 far-off voice, without turning his eyes from 
 the corpse " My son is is is there ! " 
 pointing to the dead man. " Hush ! Did n't 
 he tell you so ? Didn't you hear him say it ? 
 Dead dead shot shot ! " 
 
 " Silence ! are you crazy, man ? " repeated 
 Lance, tremblingly ; " that is not Bob Ridley, 
 but a dog, a coward, a liar gone to his reck 
 oning. Hear me ! If your son was Bob Rid 
 ley, I swear to God I never knew it, now or 
 or then. Do you hear me? Tell me ! Do 
 you believe me ? Speak ! You shall speak." 
 
 He laid his hand almost menacingly on the 
 old man's shoulder. Fairley slowly raised his 
 head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. 
 The weak lips were wreathed with a feeble im 
 ploring smile, but the eyes wherein the fretful, 
 peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blank 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 101 
 
 and tenantless ; the flickering intellect that 
 had lit them was blown out and vanished. 
 
 Lance walked toward the door and remained 
 motionless for a moment, gazing into the night. 
 When he turned back again toward the fire his 
 face was as colorless as the dead man's on the 
 hearth ; the fire of passion was gone from his 
 beaten eyes ; his step was hesitating and slow. 
 He went up to the table. 
 
 " I say, old man," he said, with a strange 
 smile and an odd, premature suggestion of the 
 infinite weariness of death in his voice, " you 
 wouldn't mind giving me this, would you ? " 
 and he took up the picture of Flip. The old 
 man nodded repeatedly. " Thank you," said 
 Lance. He went to the door, paused a mo 
 ment, and returned. " Good-by, old man," 
 he said, holding out his hand. Fairley took 
 it with a childish smile. " He 's dead," said 
 the old man softly, holding Lance's hand, but 
 pointing to the hearth. " Yes," said Lance, 
 
102 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 with the faintest of smiles on the palest of 
 faces. " You feel sorry for any one that 's 
 dead, don't you ? " Fairley nodded again. 
 Lance looked at him with eyes as remote as 
 his own, shook his head, and turned away. 
 When he reached the door he laid his revolver 
 carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostenta 
 tiously, upon a chair. But when he stepped 
 from the threshold he stopped a moment in 
 the light of the open door to examine the lock 
 of a small derringer which he drew from his 
 pocket. He then shut the door carefully, and 
 with the same slow, hesitating step, felt his 
 way into the night. 
 
 He had but one idea in his mind, to find 
 some lonely spot ; some spot where the foot 
 steps of man would never penetrate, some spot 
 that would yield him rest, sleep, obliteration, 
 forgetfulness, and, above all, where he would 
 be forgotten. He had seen such places ; surely 
 there were many, where bones were picked 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 103 
 
 up of dead men who had faded from the earth 
 and had left no other record. If he could only 
 keep his senses now he might find such a 
 spot, but he must be careful, for her little feet 
 went everywhere, and she must never see him 
 again alive or dead. And in the midst of his 
 thoughts, and the darkness, and the storm, 
 he heard a voice at his side, " Lance, how long 
 you have been ! " 
 
 Left to himself, the old man again fell into 
 a vacant contemplation of the dead body be 
 fore him, until a stronger blast swept down 
 like an avalanche upon the cabin, burst 
 through the ill-fastened door and broken 
 chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living 
 embers over the floor, filled the room with 
 blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with 
 a feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon by 
 some dominant memory, groped under the 
 bed until he found his buckskin bag and his 
 
104 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 precious crystal, and fled precipitately from 
 the room. Lifted by this second shock from 
 his apathy, he returned to the fixed idea of 
 his life, the discovery and creation of the 
 diamond, and forgot all else. The feeble 
 grasp that his shaken intellect kept of the 
 events of the night relaxed, the disguised 
 Lance, the story of his son, the murder, 
 slipped into nothingness ; there remained 
 only the one idea, his nightly watch by the 
 diamond pit. The instinct of long habit was 
 stronger than the darkness or the onset .of the 
 storm, and he kept his tottering way over 
 stream and fallen timber until he reached the 
 spot. A sudden tremor seemed to shake the 
 lambent flame that had lured him on. He^ 
 thought he heard the sound of voices ; there 
 were signs of recent disturbance, footprints 
 in the sawdust ! With a cry of rage and sus 
 picion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang 
 toward the nearest opening. To his frenzied 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 105 
 
 fancy it had been tampered with, his secret 
 discovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen 
 from him that very night. With superhuman 
 strength he began to open the pit, scattering 
 the half-charred logs right and left, and giv 
 ing vent to the suffocating gases that rose 
 from the now incandescent charcoal. At 
 times the fury of the gale would drive it back 
 and hold it against the sides of the pit, leav 
 ing the opening free ; at times, following the 
 blind instinct of habit, the demented man 
 would fall upon his face and bury his nose 
 and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At 
 last, the paroxysm past, he sank back again in 
 his old apathetic attitude of watching, the at 
 titude he had so often kept beside his sylvan 
 crucible. In this attitude and in silence he 
 waited for the dawn. 
 
 It came with a hush in the storm ; it came 
 with blue openings in the broken up and tum 
 bled heavens ; it came with stars that glis- 
 
106 FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 
 
 tened first, and then paled, and at last, sank 
 drowning in those deep cerulean lakes ; it 
 came with those cerulean lakes broadening 
 into vaster seas, whose shores expanded at 
 last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no 
 more, but flecked with crimson and opal dyes ; 
 it came with the lightly lifted misty curtain of 
 the day, torn and rent on crag and pine top, 
 but always lifting, lifting. It came with the 
 sparkle of emerald in the grasses, and the flash 
 of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper in 
 the awakening woods, and voices in the trav 
 eled roads and trails. 
 
 The sound of these voices stopped before 
 the pit, and seemed to interrogate the old 
 man. He came, and, putting his finger on 
 his lips, made a sign of caution. When three 
 or four men had descended he bade them fol 
 low him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but 
 persistently: "My boy my son Robert 
 came home came home at last here with 
 Flip both of them come and see ! " 
 
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE. 107 
 
 He had reached a little niche or nest in the 
 hillside, and stopped and suddenly drew aside 
 a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip 
 and Lance, dead, with their cold hands clasped 
 in each other's. 
 
 " Suffocated ! " said two or three, turning 
 with horror toward the broken up and still 
 smouldering pit. 
 
 " Asleep ! " said the old man. " Asleep ! 
 I 've seen 'em lying that way when they were 
 babies together. Don't tell me ! Don't say 
 I don't know my own flesh and blood ! So ! 
 so ! So, my pretty ones ! " He stooped and 
 kissed them. Then, drawing the blanket over 
 them gently, he rose and said softly, " Good 
 night ! " 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAB. 
 
 THE rain had only ceased with the gray 
 streaks of morning at Blazing Star, and the 
 settlement awoke to a moral sense of cleanli 
 ness, and the rinding of forgotten knives, tin 
 cups, and smaller camp utensils, where the 
 heavy showers had washed away the debris 
 and dust heaps before the cabin doors. In 
 deed, it was recorded in Blazing Star that a 
 fortunate early riser had once picked up on 
 the highway a solid chunk of gold quartz 
 which the rain had freed from its incumber- 
 ing soil, and washed into immediate and glit 
 tering popularity. Possibly this may have 
 been the reason why early risers in that lo 
 cality, during the rainy season, adopted a 
 
112 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 thoughtful habit of body, and seldom lifted 
 their eyes to the rifted or india-ink washed 
 skies above them. 
 
 " Cass " Beard had risen early that morn 
 ing, but not with a view to discovery. A leak 
 in his cabin roof, quite consistent with his 
 careless, improvident habits, had roused 
 him at 4 A. M., with a flooded " bunk " and 
 wet blankets. The chips from his wood pile 
 refused to kindle a fire to dry his bed-clothes, 
 and he had recourse to a more provident 
 neighbor's to supply the deficiency. This 
 was nearly opposite. Mr. Cassius crossed the 
 highway, and stopped suddenly. Something 
 glittered in the nearest red pool before him. 
 Gold, surely ! But, wonderful to relate, not 
 an irregular, shapeless fragment of crude ore, 
 fresh from Nature's crucible, but a bit of jew 
 eler's handicraft in the form of a plain gold 
 ring. Looking at it more attentively, he saw 
 that it bore the inscription, " May to Cass." 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 113 
 
 Like most of his fellow gold-seekers, Cass 
 was superstitious. " Cass ! " His own name ! 
 He tried the ring. It fitted his little finger 
 closely. It was evidently a woman's ring. 
 He looked up and down the highway. No 
 one was yet stirring. Little pools of water 
 in the red road were beginning to glitter and 
 grow rosy from the far-flushing east, but there 
 was no trace of the owner of the shining waif. 
 He knew that there was no woman in camp, 
 and among his few comrades in the settle 
 ment he remembered to have seen none 
 wearing an ornament like that. Again, the 
 coincidence of the inscription to his rather 
 peculiar nickname would have been a peren 
 nial source of playful comment in a camp 
 that made no allowance for sentimental mem 
 ories. He slipped the glittering little hoop 
 into his pocket, and thoughtfully returned to 
 his cabin. 
 
 Two hours later, when the long, straggling 
 
114 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 procession, which every morning wended its 
 way to Blazing Star Gulch, the seat of 
 mining operations in the settlement, began 
 to move, Cass saw fit to interrogate his fel 
 lows. " Ye did n't none on ye happen to 
 drop anything round yer last night ? " he 
 asked, cautiously. 
 
 " I dropped a pocketbook containing gov 
 ernment bonds and some other securities, with 
 between fifty and sixty thousand dollars," re 
 sponded Peter Drummond, carelessly ; " but 
 no matter, if any man will return a few au 
 tograph letters from foreign potentates that 
 happened to be in it, of no value to any 
 body but the owner, he can keep the money. 
 Thar 's nothin' mean about me," he concluded, 
 languidly. 
 
 This statement, bearing every evidence of 
 the grossest mendacity, was lightly passed 
 over, and the men walked on with the deepest 
 gravity. 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 115 
 
 " But hev you? " Cass presently asked of 
 another. 
 
 " I lost my pile to Jack Hamlin at draw- 
 poker, over at Wingdam last night," returned 
 the other, pensively, " but I don't calkilate 
 to find it lying round loose." 
 
 Forced at last by this kind of irony into 
 more detailed explanation, Cass confided to 
 them his discovery, and produced his treasure. 
 The result was a dozen vague surmises, 
 only one of which seemed to be popular, and 
 to suit the dyspeptic despondency of the 
 party, a despondency born of hastily mas 
 ticated fried pork and flapjacks. The ring 
 was believed to have been dropped by some 
 passing " road agent " laden with guilty spoil. 
 
 " Ef I was you," said Drummond, gloomily, 
 " I would n't flourish that yer ring around 
 much afore folks. I 've seen better men nor 
 you strung up a tree by Vigilantes for having 
 even less than that in their possession." 
 
116 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " And I would n't say much about bein' up 
 so d d early this morning," added an even 
 more pessimistic comrade; " it might look bad 
 before a jury." 
 
 With this the men sadly dispersed, leaving 
 the innocent Cass with the ring in his Land, 
 and a general impression on his mind that he 
 was already an object of suspicion to his com 
 rades, an impression, it is hardly necessary 
 to say, they fully intended should be left to 
 rankle in his guileless bosom. 
 
 Notwithstanding Cass's first hopeful super 
 stition, the ring did not seem to bring him 
 nor the camp any luck. Daily the " clean 
 up " brought the same scant rewards to their 
 labors, and deepened the sardonic gravity of 
 Blazing Star. But, if Cass found no material 
 result from his treasure, it stimulated his lazy 
 imagination, and, albeit a dangerous and se 
 ductive stimulant, at least lifted him out of 
 the monotonous grooves of his half-careless, 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 117 
 
 half-slovenly, but always self-contented camp 
 life. Heeding the wise caution of his com 
 rades, he took the habit of wearing the ring 
 only at night. Wrapped in his blanket, he 
 stealthily slipped the golden circlet over his 
 little finger, and, as he averred, " slept all the 
 better for it." Whether it ever evoked any 
 wanner dream or vision during those calm, 
 cold, virgin-like spring nights, when even the 
 moon and the greater planets retreated into 
 the icy blue, steel-like firmament, I cannot 
 say. Enough that this superstition began to 
 be colored a little by fancy, and his fatalism 
 somewhat mitigated by hope. Dreams of this 
 kind did not tend to promote his efficiency 
 in the communistic labors of the camp, and 
 brought him a self-isolation that, however 
 gratifying at first, soon debarred him the ben 
 efits of that hard practical wisdom which un 
 derlaid the grumbling of his fellow workers. 
 " I 'm dog-goned," said one commentator, 
 
118 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " ef I don't believe that Cass is looney over 
 that yer ring he found. Wears it on a string 
 under his shirt." 
 
 Meantime, the seasons did not wait the 
 discovery of the secret. The red pools in 
 Blazing Star highway were soon dried up in 
 the fervent June sun and riotous night winds 
 of those altitudes. The ephemeral grasses 
 that had quickly supplanted these pools and 
 the chocolate-colored mud, were as quickly 
 parched and withered. The footprints of 
 spring became vague and indefinite, and were 
 finally lost in the impalpable dust of the sum 
 mer highway. 
 
 In one of his long, aimless excursions, Cass 
 had penetrated a thick undergrowth of buck 
 eye and hazel, and found himself quite unex 
 pectedly upon the high road to Red Chief's 
 Crossing. Cass knew by the lurid cloud of 
 dust that hid the distance, that the up coach 
 had passed. He had already reached that 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 119 
 
 stage of superstition when the most trivial 
 occurrence seemed to point in some way to 
 an elucidation of the mystery of his treasure. 
 His eyes had mechanically fallen to the ground 
 again, as if he half expected to find in some 
 other waif a hint or corroboration of his im 
 aginings. Thus abstracted, the figure of a 
 young girl on horseback, in the road directly 
 before the bushes he emerged from, appeared 
 to have sprung directly from the ground. 
 
 " Oh, come here, please do ; quick ! " 
 
 Cass stared, and then moved hesitatingly 
 toward her. 
 
 "I heard some one coming through the 
 bushes, and I waited," she went on. " Come 
 quick. It 's something too awful for any 
 thing." 
 
 In spite of this appalling introduction, Cass 
 could not but notice that the voice, although 
 hurried and excited, was by no means agitated 
 or frightened ; that the eyes which looked 
 
120 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 into his sparkled with a certain kind of pleased 
 curiosity. 
 
 " It was just here," she went on vivaciously, 
 " just here that I went into the bush and cut 
 a switch for my mare, and," leading him 
 along at a brisk trot by her side, "just 
 here, look, see ! this is what I found." 
 
 It was scarcely thirty feet from the road. 
 The only object that met Cass's eye was a 
 man's stiff, tall hat, lying emptily and va 
 cantly in the grass. It was new, shiny, and 
 of modish shape. But it was so incongruous, 
 so perkily smart, and yet so feeble and help 
 less lying there, so ghastly ludicrous in its 
 very appropriateness and incapacity to adjust 
 itself to the surrounding landscape, that it 
 affected him with something more than a 
 sense of its grotesqueness, and he could only 
 stare at it blankly. 
 
 " But you 're not looking the right way," 
 the girl went on sharply ; " look there ! " 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 121 
 
 Cass followed the direction of her whip. 
 At last, what might have seemed a coat 
 thrown carelessly on the ground met his eye, 
 but presently he became aware of a white, 
 rigid, aimlessly-clinched hand protruding from 
 the flaccid sleeve ; mingled with it in some 
 absurd way and half hidden by the grass, lay 
 what might have been a pair of cast-off trou 
 sers but for two rigid boots that pointed in 
 opposite angles to the sky. It was a dead 
 man. So palpably dead that life seemed to 
 have taken flight from his very clothes. So 
 impotent, feeble, and degraded by them that 
 the naked subject of a dissecting table would 
 have been less insulting to humanity. The 
 head had fallen back, and was partly hidden 
 in a gopher burrow, but the white, upturned 
 face and closed eyes had less of helpless death 
 in them than those wretched enwrappings. 
 Indeed, one limp hand that lay across the 
 swollen abdomen lent itself to the grotesquely 
 
122 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 hideous suggestion of a gentleman sleeping off 
 the excesses of a hearty dinner. 
 
 "Ain't he horrid?" continued the girl; 
 "but what killed him?" 
 
 Struggling between a certain fascination at 
 the girl's cold-blooded curiosity and horror of 
 the murdered man, Cass hesitatingly lifted 
 the helpless head. A bluish hole above the 
 right temple, and a few brown paint-like spots 
 on the forehead, shirt collar, and matted hair 
 proved the only record. 
 
 " Turn him over again," said the girl, im 
 patiently, as Cass was about to relinquish 
 his burden. " May be you '11 find another 
 wound." 
 
 But Cass was dimly remembering certain 
 formalities that in older civilizations attend 
 the discovery of dead bodies, and postponed a 
 present inquest. 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd better ride on, Miss, afore 
 you get summoned as a witness. I '11 give 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 123 
 
 warning at Red Chief's Crossing, and send the 
 coroner down here." 
 
 44 Let me go with you," she said, earnestly, 
 " it would be such fun. I don't mind being a 
 witness. Or," she added, without heeding 
 Cass's look of astonishment, " I '11 wait here 
 till you come back." 
 
 " But you see, Miss, it would n't seem 
 right," began Cass. 
 
 " But I found him first," interrupted the 
 girl, with a pout. 
 
 Staggered by this preemptive right, sacred 
 to all miners, Cass stopped. 
 
 " Who is the coroner ? " she asked. 
 
 " Joe Hornsby." 
 
 " The tall, lame man, who was half eaten 
 by a grizzly ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Well, look now ! I '11 ride on and bring 
 him back in half an hour. There ! " 
 
 " But, Miss ! " 
 
124 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " Oh, don't mind me. I never saw any 
 thing of this kind before, and I want to see it 
 all." 
 
 " Do you know Hornsby ? " asked Cass, 
 unconsciously a trifle irritated. 
 
 " No, but I '11 bring him." She wheeled 
 her horse into the road. 
 
 In the presence of this living energy Cass 
 quite forgot the helpless dead. " Have you 
 been long in these parts, Miss ? " he asked. 
 
 " About two weeks," she answered, shortly. 
 " Good-by, just now. Look around for the 
 pistol or anything else you can find, although 
 / have been over the whole ground twice al 
 ready." 
 
 A little puff of dust as the horse sprang 
 into the road, a muffled shuffle, struggle, then 
 the regular beat of hoofs, and she was gone. 
 
 After five minutes had passed, Cass regret 
 ted that he had not accompanied her : waiting 
 in such a spot was an irksome task. Not that 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 125 
 
 there was anything in the scene itself to 
 awaken gloomy imaginings ; the bright, truth 
 ful Californian sunshine scoffed at any illu 
 sion of creeping shadows or waving branches. 
 Once, in the rising wind, the empty hat rolled 
 over but only in a ludicrous, drunken way. 
 A search for any further sign or token had 
 proved futile, and Cass grew impatient. He 
 began to hate himself for having stayed ; he 
 would have fled but for shame. Nor was his 
 good humor restored when at the close of a 
 weary half hour two galloping figures emerged 
 from the dusty horizon Hornsby arid the 
 young girl. 
 
 His vague annoyance increased as he fancied 
 that both seemed to ignore him, the coroner 
 barely acknowledging his presence with a 
 nod. Assisted by the young girl, whose 
 energy and enthusiasm evidently delighted 
 him, Hornsby raised the body for a more care 
 ful examination. The dead man's pockets 
 
126 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 were carefully searched. A few coins, a silver 
 pencil, knife, and tobacco-box were all they 
 found. It gave no clew to his identity. Sud 
 denly the young girl, who had, with unabashed 
 curiosity, knelt beside the exploring official 
 hands of the Red Chief, uttered a cry of 
 gratification. 
 
 " Here 's something ! It dropped from the 
 bosom of his shirt on the ground. Look ! " 
 
 She was holding in the air, between her 
 thumb and forefinger, a folded bit of well- 
 worn newspaper. Her eyes sparkled. 
 
 " Shall I open it ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It 's a little ring," she said ; " looks like 
 an engagement ring. Something is written 
 on it. Look ! ' May to Cass.' " 
 
 Cass darted forward. " It 's mine," he 
 stammered, " mine ! I dropped it. It 's noth 
 ing nothing," he went on, after a pause, 
 embarrassed and blushing, as the girl and her 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 127 
 
 companion both stared at him "a mere 
 trifle. I '11 take it." 
 
 But the coroner opposed his outstretched 
 hand. " Not much," he said, significantly. 
 
 " But it 's mine" continued Cass, indigna 
 tion taking the place of shame at his dis 
 covered secret. " I found it six months ago 
 in the road. I picked it up." 
 
 " With your name already written on it ! 
 How handy ! " said the coroner, grimly. 
 
 " It 's an old story," said Cass, blushing 
 again under the half-mischievous, half-search 
 ing eyes of the girl. " All Blazing Star knows 
 I found it." 
 
 " Then ye '11 have no difficulty in provin' 
 it," said Hornsby, coolly. " Just now, how 
 ever, we 've found it, and we propose to keep 
 it for the inquest." 
 
 Cass shrugged his shoulders. Further al 
 tercation would have only heightened his 
 ludicrous situation in the girl's eyes. He 
 
128 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 turned away, leaving his treasure in the cor 
 oner's hands. 
 
 The inquest, a day or two later, was prompt 
 and final. No clew to the dead man's iden 
 tity ; no evidence sufficiently strong to prove 
 murder or suicide ; no trace of any kind, in 
 culpating any party, known or unknown, were 
 found. But much publicity and interest were 
 given to the proceedings by the presence of 
 the principal witness, a handsome girl. " To 
 the pluck, persistency, and intellect of Miss 
 Porter," said the "Red CJiief Recorder," 
 " Tuoluinne County owes the recovery of the 
 body." 
 
 No one who was present at the inquest 
 failed to be charmed with the appearance and 
 conduct of this beautiful young lady. 
 
 " Miss Porter has but lately arrived in this 
 district, in which, it is hoped, she will become 
 an honored resident, and continue to set an 
 example to all lackadaisical and sentimental 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 129 
 
 members of the so-called 4 sterner sex.' " After 
 this universally recognized allusion to Cass 
 Beard, the " Recorder "returned to its record : 
 " Some interest was excited by what appeared 
 to be a clew to the mystery in the discovery 
 of a small gold engagement ring on the body. 
 Evidence was afterward offered to show it was 
 the property of a Mr. Cass Beard of Blazing 
 Star, who appeared upon the scene after the 
 discovery of the corpse by Miss Porter. He 
 alleged he had dropped it in lifting the unfor 
 tunate remains of the deceased. Much amuse 
 ment was created in court by the sentimental 
 confusion of the claimant, and a certain par 
 tisan spirit shown by his fellow-miners of 
 Blazing Star. It appearing, however, by the 
 admission of this sighing Strephon of the 
 Foot Hills, that he had himself found this 
 pledge of affection lying in the highway six 
 months previous, the coroner wisely placed it 
 
130 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 in the safe-keeping of the county court until 
 the appearance of the rightful owner." 
 
 Thus on the 13th of September, 186-, the 
 treasure found at Blazing Star passed out of 
 the hands of its finder. 
 
 Autumn brought an abrupt explanation of 
 the mystery. Kanaka Joe had been arrested 
 for horse stealing, but had with noble candor 
 confessed to the finer offense of manslaugh 
 ter. That swift and sure justice which over 
 took the horse stealer in thes,e altitudes was 
 stayed a moment and hesitated, for the victim 
 was clearly the mysterious unknown. Curi 
 osity got the better of an extempore judge 
 and jury. 
 
 " It was a fair fight," said the accused, not 
 without some human vanity, feeling that the 
 camp hung upon his words, " and was settled 
 by the man az was peartest and liveliest with 
 his weapon. We had a sort of unpleasantness 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 131 
 
 over at Lagrange the night afore, along of 
 our both hevin' a monotony of four aces. We 
 had a clinch and a stamp around, and when 
 we was separated it was only a question of 
 shootin' on sight. He left Lagrange at sun 
 up the next morning, and I struck across a 
 bit o' buckeye and underbrush and came upon 
 him, accidental like, on the Red Chief Road. 
 I drawed when I sighted him, and called out. 
 He slipped from his mare and covered him 
 self with her flanks, reaching for his holster, 
 but she rared and backed down on him across 
 the road and into the grass, where I got in 
 another shot and fetched him." 
 
 " And you stole his mare ? " suggested the 
 Judge. 
 
 " I got away," said the gambler, simply. 
 
 Further questioning only elicited the fact 
 that Joe did not know the name or condition 
 of his victim. He was a stranger in Lagrange. 
 
 It was a breezy afternoon, with some tur- 
 
132 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 bulency in the camp, and much windy discus 
 sion over this unwonted delay of justice. The 
 suggestion that Joe should be first hung for 
 horse stealing and then tried for murder was 
 angrily discussed, but milder counsels were of 
 fered that the fact of the killing should be 
 admitted only as proof of the theft. A large 
 party from Red Chief had come over to as 
 sist in judgment, among them the coroner. 
 
 Cass Beard had avoided these proceedings, 
 which only recalled an unpleasant experience, 
 and was wandering with pick, pan, and wallet 
 far from the camp. These accoutrements, as I 
 have before intimated, justified any form of 
 aimless idleness under the equally aimless title 
 of " prospecting." He had at the end of three 
 hours' relaxation reached the highway to Red 
 Chief, half hidden by blinding clouds of dust 
 torn from the crumbling red road at every 
 gust which swept down the mountain side. 
 The spot had a familiar aspect to Cass, al- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 133 
 
 though some freshly-dug holes near the way 
 side, with scattered earth beside them, showed 
 the presence of a recent prospector. He was 
 struggling with his memory, when the dust 
 was suddenly dispersed and he found himself 
 again at the scene of the murder. He started : 
 he had not put foot on the road since the in 
 quest. There lacked only the helpless dead 
 man and the contrasting figure of the alert 
 young woman to restore the picture. The 
 body was gone, it was true, but as he turned 
 he beheld Miss Porter, at a few paces distant, 
 sitting her horse as energetic and observant 
 as on the first morning they had met. A su 
 perstitious thrill passed over him and awoke 
 his old antagonism. 
 
 She nodded to him slightly. " I came here 
 to refresh my memory," she said, " as Mr. 
 Hornsby thought I might be asked to give my 
 evidence again at Blazing Star." 
 
 Cass carelessly struck an aimless blow with 
 his pick against the sod and did not reply. 
 
134 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " And you ? " she queried. 
 
 " I stumbled upon the place just now while 
 prospecting, or I should n't be here." 
 
 " Then it was you made these holes ? " 
 
 " No," said Cass, with ill-concealed disgust. 
 " Nobody but a stranger would go foolin' 
 round such a spot." 
 
 He stopped, as the rude significance of his 
 speech struck him, and added surlily. " I 
 mean no one would dig here." 
 
 The girl laughed and showed a set of very 
 white teeth in her square jaw. Cass averted 
 his face. 
 
 '.' Do you mean to say that every miner 
 does n't know that it 's lucky to dig wherever 
 human blood has been spilt ? " 
 
 Cass felt a return of his superstition, but 
 he did not look up. "I never heard it be 
 fore," he said, severely. 
 
 "And you call yourself a California mi 
 ner?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 135 
 
 It was impossible for Miss Porter to mis 
 understand his curt speech and unsocial man 
 ner. She stared at him and colored slightly. 
 Lifting her reins lightly, she said : " You cer 
 tainly do not seem like most of the miners I 
 have met." 
 
 " Nor you like any girl from the East I 
 ever met," he responded. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked, check 
 ing her horse. 
 
 " What I say," he answered, doggedly. 
 Reasonable as this reply was, it immediately 
 struck him that it was scarcely dignified or 
 manly. But before he could explain himself 
 Miss Porter was gone. 
 
 He met her again that very evening. The 
 trial had been summarily suspended by the 
 appearance of the Sheriff of Calaveras and 
 his posse, who took Joe from that self-consti 
 tuted tribunal of Blazing Star and set his 
 face southward and toward authoritative al- 
 
136 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 though more cautious justice. But not before 
 the evidence of the previous inquest had been 
 read, and the incident of the ring again deliv 
 ered to the public. It is said the prisoner 
 burst into an incredulous laugh and asked to 
 see this mysterious waif. It was handed to 
 him. Standing in the very shadow of the 
 gallows tree which might have been one of 
 the pines that sheltered the billiard room in 
 which the Vigilance Committee held their 
 conclave the prisoner gave way to a burst 
 of merriment, so genuine and honest that the 
 judge and jury joined in automatic sympathy. 
 When silence was restored an explanation was 
 asked by the Judge. But there was no re 
 sponse from the prisoner except a subdued 
 chuckle. 
 
 " Did this ring belong to you ? " asked the 
 Judge, severely, the jury and spectators cran 
 ing their ears forward with an expectant 
 smile already on their faces. But the prison- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 137 
 
 er's eyes only sparkled maliciously as ho 
 looked around the court. 
 
 " Tell us, Joe," said a sympathetic and 
 laughter-loving juror, under his breath. "Let 
 it out and we '11 make it easy for you." 
 
 " Prisoner," said the Judge, with a return 
 of official dignity, " remember that your life 
 is in peril. Do you refuse ? " 
 
 Joe lazily laid his arm on the back of his 
 chair with (to quote the words of an animated 
 observer) " the air of having a Christian hope 
 and a sequence flush in his hand," and said : 
 " Well, as I reckon I 'm not up yer for steal- 
 in' a ring that another man lets on to have 
 found, and as fur as I kin see, hez nothin' to 
 do with the case, I do ! " And as it was here 
 that the Sheriff of Calaveras made a precipi 
 tate entry into the room, the mystery re 
 mained unsolved. 
 
 The effect of this freshly-important ridicule 
 on the sensitive mind of Cass might have been 
 
138 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 foretold by Blazing Star had it ever taken 
 that sensitiveness into consideration. He had 
 lost the good humor and easy pliability which 
 had tempted him to frankness, and he had 
 gradually become bitter and hard. He had at 
 first affected amusement over his own van 
 ished day dream hiding his virgin disap 
 pointment in his own breast ; but when he 
 began to turn upon his feelings he turned 
 upon his comrades also. Cass was for a while 
 unpopular. There is no ingratitude so revolt 
 ing to the human mind as that of the butt 
 who refuses to be one any longer. The man 
 who rejects that immunity which laughter 
 generally casts upon him and demands to be 
 seriously considered deserves no mercy. 
 
 It was under these hard conditions that 
 Cass Beard, convicted of overt sentimentalism, 
 aggravated by inconsistency, stepped into the 
 Red Chief coach that evening. It was his 
 habit usually to ride with the driver, but the 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 139 
 
 presence of Hornsby and Miss Porter on the 
 box seat changed his intention. Yet he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing that neither had no 
 ticed him, and as there was no other passen 
 ger inside, he stretched himself on the cushion 
 of the back seat and gave way to moody re 
 flections. He quite determined to leave Blaz 
 ing Star, to settle himself seriously to the task 
 of money getting, and to return to his com 
 rades, some day, a sarcastic, cynical, successful 
 man, and so overwhelm them with confusion. 
 For poor Cass had not yet reached that supe 
 riority of knowing that success would depend 
 upon his ability to forego his past. Indeed, 
 part of his boyhood had been cast among 
 these men, and he was not old enough to have 
 learned that success was not to be gauged by 
 their standard. The moon lit up the dark in 
 terior of the coach with a faint poetic light. 
 The lazy swinging of the vehicle that was 
 bearing him away albeit only for a night 
 
140 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 and a day the solitude, the glimpses from 
 the window of great distances full of vague 
 possibilities, made the abused ring potent as 
 that of Gyges. He dreamed with his eyes 
 open. From an Alnaschar vision he suddenly 
 awoke. The coach had stopped. The voices 
 of men, one in entreaty, one in expostulation, 
 came from the t}ox. Cass mechanically put 
 his hand to his pistol pocket. 
 
 " Thank you, but I insist upon getting 
 down." 
 
 It was Miss Porter's voice. /This was fol 
 lowed by a rapid, half-restrained interchange 
 of words between Hornsby and the driver. 
 Then the latter said, gruffly, 
 
 " If the lady wants to ride inside, let her." 
 
 Miss Porter fluttered to the ground. She 
 was followed by Hornsby. "Just a minit, 
 Miss," he expostulated, half shamedly, half 
 brusquely, "ye don't onderstand me. I 
 only" 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 141 
 
 But Miss Porter had jumped into the coach. 
 
 Hornsby placed his hand on the handle 
 of the door. Miss Porter grasped it firmly 
 from the inside. There was a slight struggle. 
 
 All of which was part of a dream to the 
 boyish Cass. But he awoke from it a man ! 
 " Do you," he asked, in a voice he scarcely 
 recognized himself, "Do you want this man 
 inside ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Cass caught at Hornsby's wrist like a 
 young tiger. But alas ! what availed instinct 
 ive chivalry against main strength. He only 
 succeeded in forcing the door open in spite of 
 Miss Porter's superior strategy, and I fear 
 I must add, muscle also and threw himself 
 passionately at Hornsby's throat, where he 
 hung on and calmly awaited dissolution. But 
 he had, in the onset, driven Hornsby out into 
 the road and the moonlight. 
 
 " Here ! Somebody take my lines." The 
 
142 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 voice was " Mountain Charley's," the driver. 
 The figure that jumped from the box and 
 separated the struggling men belonged to this 
 singularly direct person. 
 
 " You 're riding inside ? " said Charley, in 
 terrogatively, to Cass. Before he could reply 
 Miss Porter's voice came from the window. 
 
 " He is ! " 
 
 Charley promptly bundled Cass into the 
 coach. 
 
 "And you?" to Hornsby, a onless you're 
 kalkilatin' to take , a little ' pasear ' you 're 
 booked outside. Get up." 
 
 It is probable that Charley assisted Mr. 
 Hornsby as promptly to his seat, for the next 
 moment the coach was rolling on. 
 
 Meanwhile Cass, by reason of his forced 
 entry, had been deposited in Miss Porter's lap, 
 whence, freeing himself, he had attempted to 
 climb over the middle seat, but in the starting 
 of the coach was again thrown heavily against 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 143 
 
 her hat and shoulder ; all of which was incon 
 sistent with the attitude of dignified reserve 
 he had intended to display. Miss Porter, 
 meanwhile, recovered her good humor. 
 
 " What a brute he was, ugh ! " she said, 
 retying the ribbons of her bonnet under her 
 square chin, and smoothing out her linen 
 duster. 
 
 Cass tried to look as if he had forgotten the 
 whole affair. " Who ? Oh, yes ! I see ! " he 
 responded, absently. 
 
 "I suppose I ought to thank you," she 
 went on with a smile, " but you know, really, 
 I could have kept him out if you had n't 
 pulled his wrist from outside. I '11 show you. 
 Look ! Put your hand on the handle there I 
 Now, I '11 hold the lock inside firmly. You 
 see, you can't turn the catch ! " 
 
 She indeed held the lock fast. It was a 
 firm hand, yet soft their fingers had touched 
 over the handle and looked white in the 
 
144 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 moonlight. He made no reply, but sank back 
 again in his seat with a singular sensation in 
 the fingers that had touched hers. He was in 
 the shadow, and, without being seen, could 
 abandon his reserve and glance at her face. 
 It struck him that he had never really seen 
 her before. She was not so tall as she had 
 appeared to be. Her eyes were not large, 
 but her pupils were black, moist, velvety, and 
 so convex as to seem embossed on the white. 
 She had an indistinctive nose, a rather color 
 less face whiter at the angles of the mouth 
 and nose through the relief of tiny freckles 
 like grains of pepper. Her mouth was straight, 
 dark, red, but moist as her eyes. She had 
 drawn herself into the corner of the back seat, 
 her wrist put through and hanging over the 
 swinging strap, the easy lines of her plump 
 figure swaying from side to side with the mo 
 tion of the coach. Finally, forgetful of any 
 presence in the dark corner opposite, she threw 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 145 
 
 her head a little farther back, slipped a trifle 
 lower, and placing two well-booted feet upon 
 the middle seat, completed a charming and 
 wholesome picture. 
 
 Five minutes elapsed. She was looking 
 straight at the moon. Cass Beard felt his 
 dignified reserve becoming very much like 
 awkwardness. He ought to be coldly polite. 
 
 "I. hope you're not flustered, Miss, by the 
 by the " he began. 
 
 44 1 ? " She straightened herself up in the 
 seat, cast a curious glance into the dark cor 
 ner, and then, letting herself down again, 
 said: "Oh, dear, no!" 
 
 Another five minutes elapsed. She had 
 evidently forgotten him. She might, at least, 
 have been civil. He took refuge again in his 
 reserve. But it was now mixed with a cer 
 tain pique. 
 
 Yet how much softer her face looked in the 
 moonlight ! Even her square jaw had lost 
 
 10 
 
146 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 that hard, matter-of-fact, practical indication 
 which was so distasteful to him, and always 
 had suggested a harsh criticism of his weak 
 ness. How moist her eyes were actually 
 shining in the light! How that light seemed 
 to concentrate in the corner of the lashes, and 
 then slipped a flash away ! Was she ? 
 Yes, she was crying. 
 
 Cass melted. He moved. Miss Porter put 
 her head out of the window and drew it back 
 in a moment, dry-eyed. 
 
 " One meets all sorts of folks traveling," 
 said Cass, with what he wished to make ap 
 pear a cheerful philosophy. 
 
 " I dare say. I don't know. I never be 
 fore met any one who was rude to me. I 
 have traveled all over the country alone, and 
 with all kinds of people ever since I was so 
 high. I have always gone my own way, 
 without hindrance or trouble. I always do. 
 I don't see why I should n't. Perhaps other 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 147 
 
 people may n't like it. I do. I like excite 
 ment. I like to see all that there is to see. 
 Because I 'm a girl I don't see why I cannot 
 go out without a keeper, and why I cannot do 
 what any man can do that is n't wrong, do 
 you? Perhaps you do perhaps you don't. 
 Perhaps you like a girl to be always in the 
 house dawdling or thumping a piano or read 
 ing novels. Perhaps you think I 'm bold be 
 cause I don't like it, and won't lie and say I 
 do." 
 
 She spoke sharply and aggressively, and so 
 evidently in answer to Cass's unspoken indict 
 ment against her, that he was not surprised 
 when she became more direct. 
 
 " You know you were shocked when I went 
 to fetch that Hornsby, the coroner, after we 
 found the dead body." 
 
 " Hornsby was n't shocked," said Cass, a 
 little viciously. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she said, abruptly. 
 
148 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " You were good friends enough until " 
 " Until he insulted me just now, is that it? " 
 " Until he thought," stammered Cass, " that 
 because you were you know not so 
 so so careful as other girls, he could be a 
 little freer." 
 
 " And so, because I preferred to ride a mile 
 with him to see something real that had hap 
 pened, and tried to be useful instead of look 
 ing in shop windows in Main Street or prom 
 enading before the hotel" 
 
 " And being ornamental," interrupted Cass. 
 But this feeble and un-Cass-like attempt at 
 playful gallantry met with a sudden check. 
 
 Miss Porter drew herself together, and 
 looked out of the window. " Do you wish 
 me to walk the rest of the way home? " 
 
 "No," said Cass, hurriedly, with a crimson 
 face and a sense of gratuitous rudeness. 
 " Then stop that kind of talk, right there ! " 
 There was an awkward silence. " I wish I 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 149 
 
 was a man," she said, half bitterly, half ear 
 nestly. Cass Beard was not old and cynical 
 enough to observe that this devout aspiration 
 is usually uttered by those who have least rea 
 son to deplore their own femininity ; and, but 
 for the rebuff he had just received, would have 
 made the usual emphatic dissent of our sex, 
 when the wish is uttered by warm red lips and 
 tender voices a dissent, it may be remarked, 
 generally withheld, however, when the mas 
 culine spinster dwells on the perfection of 
 woman. I dare say Miss Porter was sincere, 
 for a moment later she continued, poutingly : 
 
 "And yet I used to go to fires in Sacra 
 mento when I was only ten years old. I saw 
 the theatre burnt down. Nobody found fault 
 with me then." 
 
 Something made Cass ask if her father and 
 mother objected to her boyish tastes. The 
 reply was characteristic if not satisfactory, 
 
 " Object ? I 'd like to see them do it. " 
 
150 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 The direction of the road had changed. 
 The fickle moon now abandoned Miss Pouter 
 and sought out Cass on the front seat. It 
 caressed the young fellow's silky moustache 
 and long eyelashes, and took some of the sun 
 burn from his cheek. 
 
 " What 's the matter with your neck ? " said 
 the girl, suddenly. 
 
 Cass looked down, blushing to find that the 
 collar of his smart " duck " sailor shirt was 
 torn open. But something more than his 
 white, soft, girlish skin was exposed ; the shirt 
 front was dyed quite red with blood from a 
 slight cut on the shoulder. He remembered 
 to have felt a scratch while struggling with 
 Hornsby. 
 
 The girl's soft eyes sparkled. " Let we," 
 she said, vivaciously. " Do ! I 'm good at 
 wounds. Come over here. No stay there. 
 I '11 come over to you." 
 
 She did, bestriding the back of the middle 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 151 
 
 seat and dropping at his side. The magnetic 
 fingers again touched his; he felt her warm 
 breath on his neck as she bent toward him. 
 
 "It's nothing," he said, hastily, more agi 
 tated by the treatment than the wound. 
 
 " Give me your flask," she responded, with 
 out heeding. A stinging sensation as she 
 bathed the edges of the cut with the spirit 
 brought him back to common sense again. 
 " There," she said, skillfully extemporizing a 
 bandage from her handkerchief and a com 
 press from his cravat. " Now, button your 
 coat over your chest, so, and don't take 
 cold." She insisted upon buttoning it for 
 him; greater even than the feminine delight / 
 in a man's strength is the ministration to his 
 weakness. Yet, when this was finished, she 
 drew a little away from him in some embar 
 rassment an embarrassment she wondered 
 at, as his skin was finer, his touch gentler, his 
 clothes cleaner, and not to put too fine a 
 
152 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 point upon it lie exhaled an atmosphere 
 much sweeter than belonged to most of the 
 men her boyish habits had brought her in 
 contact with not excepting her own father. 
 Later she even exempted her mother from 
 the possession of this divine effluence. After 
 moment she asked, suddenly, " What are you 
 going to do with Hornsby ? " 
 
 Cass had not thought of him. His short 
 lived rage was past with the occasion that 
 provoked it. Without any fear of his adver 
 sary he would have been content quite willing 
 to meet him no more. He only said, " That 
 will depend upon him." 
 
 " Oh, you won't hear from him again," 
 said she, confidently, " but you really ought to 
 get up a little more muscle. You 've no more 
 than a girl." She stopped, a little confused. 
 
 " What shall I do with your handker 
 chief ? " asked the uneasy Cass, anxious to 
 change the subject. 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 153 
 
 " Oh, keep it, if you want to, only don't 
 show it to everybody as you did that ring you 
 found." Seeing signs of distress in his face, 
 she added : " Of course that was all nonsense. 
 If you had cared so much for the ring you 
 couldn't have talked about it, or shown it. 
 Could you ? " 
 
 It relieved him to think that this might be 
 true ; he certainly had not looked at it in that 
 light before. 
 
 "But did you really find it?" she asked, 
 with sudden gravity. " Really, now ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And there was no real May in the case ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," laughed Cass, se 
 cretly pleased. 
 
 But Miss Porter, after eying him critically 
 for a moment, jumped up and climbed back 
 again to her seat. " Perhaps you had better 
 give me that handkerchief back." 
 
 Cass began to unbutton his coat. 
 
154 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " No ! no ! Do you want to take your 
 death of cold ? " she screamed. And Cass, to 
 avoid this direful possibility, rebuttoned his 
 coat again over the handkerchief and a pe 
 culiarly pleasing sensation. 
 
 Very little now was said until the rattling, 
 bounding descent of the coach denoted the ap 
 proach to Red Chief. The straggling main 
 street disclosed itself, light by light. In the 
 flash of glittering windows and the sound of 
 eager voices Miss Porter descended, without 
 waiting for Cass's proffered assistance, and 
 anticipated Mountain Charley's descent from 
 the box. A few undistinguishable words 
 passed between them. 
 
 " You kin freeze to me, Miss," said Char 
 ley ; and Miss Porter, turning her frank laugh 
 and frankly opened palm to Cass, half re 
 turned the pressure of his hand and slipped 
 away. 
 
 A few days after the stage coach incident, 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 155 
 
 Mountain Charley drew up beside Cass on the 
 Blazing Star turnpike, and handed him a 
 small packet. "I was told to give ye that 
 by Miss Porter. Hush listen ! It 's that 
 rather old dog-goned ring o' yours that 's bin 
 in all the papers. She 's bamboozled that 
 sap-headed county judge, Boompointer, into 
 givin' it to her. Take my advice and sling 
 it away for some other feller to pick up and 
 get looney over. That's all ! " 
 
 "Did she say anything?" asked Cass, 
 anxiously, as he received his lost treasure 
 somewhat coldly. 
 
 " Well, yes ! I reckon. She asked me to 
 stand betwixt Hornsby and you. So don't 
 you tackle him, and I '11 see Tie don't tackle 
 you," and with a portentous wink Mountain 
 Charley whipped up his horses and was gone. 
 
 Cass opened the packet. It contained 
 nothing but the ring. Unmitigated by any 
 word of greeting, remembrance, or even rail- 
 
156 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 ery, it seemed almost an insult. Had she 
 intended to flaunt his folly in his face, or had 
 she believed he still mourned for it and 
 deemed its recovery a sufficient reward for 
 his slight service? For an instant he felt 
 tempted to follow Charley's advice, and cast 
 this symbol of folly and contempt in the dust 
 of the mountain road. And had she not 
 made his humiliation complete by begging 
 Charley's interference between him and his 
 enemy ? He would go home and send her 
 back the handkerchief she l^ad given him. 
 But here the unromantic reflection that al 
 though he had washed it that very afternoon 
 in the solitude of his own cabin, he could not 
 possibly iron it, but must send it " rough 
 dried," stayed his indignant feet. 
 
 Two or three days, a week, a fortnight 
 even, of this hopeless resentment filled Cass's 
 breast. Then the news of Kanaka Joe's ac 
 quittal in the State Court momentarily re- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 157 
 
 vived the story of the ring, and revamped a 
 few stale jokes in the camp. But the interest 
 soon flagged ; the fortunes of the little com 
 munity of Blazing Star had been for some 
 months failing ; and with early snows in the 
 mountain and wasted capital in fruitless 
 schemes on the river, there was little room 
 for the indulgence of that lazy and original 
 humor which belonged to their lost youth 
 and prosperity. Blazing Star truly, in the 
 grim figure of their slang, was " played out." 
 Not dug out, worked out, or washed out, but 
 dissipated in a year of speculation and chance. 
 Against this tide of fortune Cass struggled 
 manfully, and even evoked the slow praise of 
 his companions. Better still, he won a certain 
 praise for himself, in himself, in a conscious 
 ness of increased strength, health, power, and 
 self-reliance. He began to turn his quick 
 imagination and perception to some practical 
 account, and made one or two discoveries 
 
158 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 which quite startled his more experienced, 
 but more conservative companions. Never 
 theless, Cass's discoveries and labors were 
 not of a kind that produced immediate pecu 
 niary realization, and Blazing Star, which 
 consumed so many pounds of pork and flour 
 daily, did not unfortunately produce the daily 
 equivalent in gold. Blazing Star lost its 
 credit. Blazing Star was hungry, dirty, and 
 ragged. Blazing Star was beginning to set. 
 
 Participating in the general ill luck of the 
 camp, Cass was not without fyis own individ 
 ual mischances. He had resolutely deter 
 mined to forget Miss Porter and all that 
 tended to recall the unlucky ring, but, cruelly 
 enough, she was the only thing that refused 
 to be forgotten whose undulating figure re 
 clined opposite to him in the weird moonlight 
 of his ruined cabin, whose voice mingled with 
 the song of the river by whose banks he toiled, 
 and whose eyes and touch thrilled him in his 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 159 
 
 dreams. Partly for this reason, and partly 
 because his clothes were beginning to be 
 patched and torn, he avoided Red Chief and 
 any place where he would be likely to meet 
 her. In spite of this precaution he had once 
 seen her driving in a pony carriage, but so 
 smartly and fashionably dressed that he drew 
 back in the cover of a wayside willow that 
 she might pass without recognition. He 
 looked down upon his red-splashed clothes 
 and grimy, soil-streaked hands, and for a mo 
 ment half hated her. His comrades seldom 
 spoke of her instinctively fearing some 
 temptation that might beset his Spartan res 
 olutions, but he heard from time to time that 
 she had been seen at balls and parties, appar 
 ently enjoying those very frivolities of her sex 
 she affected to condemn. It was a Sabbath 
 morning in early spring that he was return 
 ing from an ineffectual attempt to enlist a 
 capitalist at the county town to redeem the 
 
160 FOUND AT BLALING STAR. 
 
 fortunes of Blazing Star. He was pondering 
 over the narrowness of that capitalist, who 
 had evidently but illogically connected Cass's 
 present appearance with the future of that 
 struggling camp, when he became so footsore 
 that he was obliged to accept a u lift " from a 
 wayfaring teamster. As the slowly lumber 
 ing vehicle passed the new church on the out 
 skirts of the town, the congregation were sal 
 lying forth. It was too late to jump down 
 and run away, and Cass dared not ask his 
 new-found friend to whip up his cattle. Con 
 scious of his unshorn beard and ragged gar 
 ments, he kept his eyes fixed upon the road. 
 A voice that thrilled him called his name. It 
 was Miss Porter, a resplendent vision of silk, 
 laces, and Easter flowers yet actually run 
 ning, with something of her old dash and free 
 dom, beside the wagon. As the astonished 
 teamster drew up before this elegant appari 
 tion, she panted: 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR 161 
 
 " Why did you make me run so far, and 
 why did n't you look up ? " 
 
 Cass, trying to hide the patches on his 
 knees beneath a newspaper, stammered that 
 he had not seen her. 
 
 "And you did not hold down your head 
 purposely ? " 
 
 " No," said Cass. 
 
 " Why have you not been to Red Chief ? 
 Why didn't you answer my message about 
 the ring? " she asked, swiftly. 
 
 " You sent nothing but the ring," said 
 Cass, coloring, as he glanced at the teamster. 
 
 " Why, that was a message, you born idiot." 
 
 Cass stared. The teamster smiled. Miss 
 Porter gazed anxiously at the wagon. "I 
 think I 'd like a ride in there ; it looks awfully 
 good." She glanced mischievously around at 
 the lingering and curious congregation. " May 
 I?" 
 
 But Cass deprecated that proceeding strong- 
 11 
 
162 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 ly. It was dirty ; he was not sure it was even 
 wholesome ; she would be so uncomfortable ; 
 he, himself, was only going a few rods far 
 ther, and in that time she might ruin her 
 dress 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said, a little bitterly, " cer 
 tainly, my dress must be looked after. And 
 what else ? " 
 
 " People might think it strange, and believe 
 I had invited you," continued Cass, hesitat 
 ingly. 
 
 " When I had only invited myself ? Thank 
 you. Good-by." 
 
 She waved her hand and stepped back from 
 the wagon. Cass would have given worlds to 
 recall her, but he sat still, and the vehicle 
 moved on in moody silence. At the first 
 crossroad he jumped down. " Thank you," 
 he said to the teamster. " You 're welcome," 
 returned that gentleman, regarding him curi 
 ously, " but the next time a gal like that asks 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR 103 
 
 to ride in this yer wagon, I reckon I won't 
 take the vote of any deadhead passenger. 
 Adios, young fellow. Don't stay out late ; 
 ye might be run off by some gal, and what 
 would your mother say ? " Of course the 
 young man could only look unutterable things 
 and walk away, but even in that dignified ac 
 tion he was conscious that its effect was some 
 what mitigated by a large patch from a ma 
 terial originally used as a flour sack, which 
 had repaired his trousers, but still bore the 
 ironical legend, " Best Superfine." 
 
 The summer brought warmth and promise 
 and some blossom, if not absolute fruition to 
 Blazing Star. The long days drew Nature 
 into closer communion with the men, and 
 hopefulness followed the discontent of their 
 winter seclusion. It was easier, too, for Capi 
 tal to be wooed and won into making a picnic 
 in these mountain solitudes than when high 
 water stayed the fords and drifting snow the 
 
164 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 Sierran trails. At the close of one of these 
 Arcadian days Cass was smoking before the 
 door of his lonely cabin when he was as 
 tounded by the onset of a dozen of his com 
 panions. Peter Drummond, far in the van, 
 was waving a newspaper like a victorious 
 banner. " All 's right now, Cass, old man ! " 
 he panted as he stopped before Cass and 
 shoved back his eager followers. 
 
 " What 's all right ? " asked Cass, dubiously. 
 
 You ! You kin rake down the pile now. 
 You 're hunky ! You 're on velvet. Listen ! " 
 
 He opened the newspaper and read, with 
 annoying deliberation, as follows : 
 
 " LOST. If the finder of a plain gold ring, 
 bearing the engraved inscription, ' May to 
 Cass,' alleged to have been picked up on the 
 high road near Blazing Star on the 4th March, 
 186-, will apply to Bookham & Sons, bank 
 ers, 1007 Y. Street, Sacramento, he will be 
 suitably rewarded either for the recovery of 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 165 
 
 the ring, or for such facts as may identify it, 
 or the locality where it was found." 
 
 Cass rose and frowned savagely on his com 
 rades. " No ! no ! " cried a dozen voices, as- 
 suringly. " It 's all right ! Honest Injun ! 
 True as gospel ! No joke, Cass ! " 
 
 " Here 's the paper, Sacramento " Union " 
 of yesterday. Look for yourself," said Drum- 
 mond, handing him the well-worn journal. 
 " And you see," he added, " how darned 
 lucky you are. It ain't necessary for you to 
 produce the ring, so if that old biled owl of a 
 Boompointer don't giv' it back to ye, it 's all 
 the same." 
 
 " And they say nobody but the finder need 
 apply," interrupted another. " That shuts 
 out Boompointer or Kanaka Joe for the mat 
 ter o' that." 
 
 " It 's clar that it means you, Cass, ez much 
 ez if they 'd given your name," added a third. 
 
 For Miss Porter's sake and his own Cass 
 
166 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 had never told them of the restoration of the 
 ring, and it was evident that Mountain 
 Charley had also kept silent. Cass could not 
 speak now without violating a secret, and he 
 was pleased that the ring itself no longer 
 played an important part in the mystery. 
 But what was that mystery, and why was the 
 ring secondary to himself ? Why was so 
 much stress laid upon his finding it ? 
 
 " You see," said Drummond, as if answer 
 ing his unspoken thought, ' that 'ar gal for 
 it is a gal in course hez read all about it 
 in the papers, and hez sort o' took a shine to 
 ye. It don't make a bit o' difference who in 
 thunder Cass is or waz, for I reckon she 's 
 kicked him over by this time " 
 
 " Sarved him right, too, for losing the girl's 
 ring and then lying low and keeping dark 
 about it," interrupted a sympathizer. 
 
 " And she 's just weakened over the roman 
 tic, high-toned way you stuck to it," continued 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 167 
 
 Drummond, forgetting the sarcasms he had 
 previously hurled at this romance. Indeed 
 the whole camp, by this time, had become 
 convinced that it had fostered and developed 
 a chivalrous devotion which was now on the 
 point of pecuniary realization. It was gener 
 ally accepted that " she " was the daughter 
 of this banker, and also felt that in the cir 
 cumstances the happy father could not do less 
 than develop the resources of Blazing Star at 
 once. Even if there were no relationship, 
 what opportunity could be more fit for pre 
 senting to capital a locality that even pro 
 duced engagement rings, and, as Jim Fauquier 
 put it, " the men ez knew how to keep 'em." 
 It was this sympathetic Virginian who took 
 Cass aside with the following generous sug 
 gestion : " If you find that you and the old 
 gal couldn't hitch hosses, owin' to your not 
 likin' red hair or a game leg " (it may be 
 here recorded that Blazing Star had, for no 
 
168 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 reason whatever, attributed these unprepos 
 sessing qualities to the mysterious advertiser), 
 " you might let me in. You might say ez 
 how I used to jest worship that ring with you, 
 and allers wanted to borrow it on Sundays. 
 If anything comes of it why we 're pard- 
 ners I " 
 
 A serious question was the outfitting of Cass 
 for what now was felt to be a diplomatic rep 
 resentation of the community. His garments, 
 it hardly need be said, were inappropriate to 
 any wooing except that of thp " maiden all 
 forlorn," which the advertiser clearly was not. 
 " He might," suggested Fauquier, " drop in 
 jest as he is kinder as if he 'd got keerless 
 of the world, being lovesick." But Cass ob 
 jected strongly, and was borne out in his ob 
 jection by his younger comrades. At last a 
 pair of white duck trousers, a red shirt, a 
 flowing black silk scarf, and a Panama hat 
 Tere procured at Red Chief, on credit, after 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 169 
 
 a judicious exhibition of the advertisement. 
 A heavy wedding ring, the property of Drum- 
 mond (who was not married), was also lent 
 as a graceful suggestion, and at the last mo 
 ment Fauquier affixed to Cass's scarf an enor 
 mous specimen pin of gold and quartz. " It 
 sorter indicates the auriferous wealth o' this 
 yer region, and the old man (the senior mem 
 ber of Bookham & Sons) need n't know I 
 won it at draw poker in Frisco," said Fau- 
 qier. 
 
 " Ef you ' pass ' on the gal, you kin hand it 
 back to me and I'll try it on." Forty dollars 
 for expenses was put into Cass's hands, and 
 the entire community accompanied him to the 
 cross roads where he was to meet the Sacra 
 mento coach, which eventually carried him 
 away, followed by a benediction of waving 
 hats and exploding revolvers. 
 
 That Cass did not participate in the ex 
 travagant hopes of his comrades, and that he 
 
170 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 rejected utterly their matrimonial speculations 
 in his behalf, need not be said. Outwardly, he 
 kept his own counsel with good-humored as 
 sent. But there was something fascinating in 
 the situation, and while he felt he had forever 
 abandoned his romantic dream, he was not 
 displeased to know that it might have proved 
 a reality. Nor was it distasteful to him to 
 think that Miss Porter would hear of it and 
 regret her late inability to appreciate his senti 
 ment. If he really were the object of some 
 opulent maiden's passion, he would show Miss 
 Porter how he could sacrifice the most brill 
 iant prospects for her sake. Alone, on the 
 top of the coach, he projected one of those 
 satisfying conversations in which imaginative 
 people delight, but which unfortunately never 
 come quite up to rehearsal. " Dear Miss 
 Porter," he would say, addressing the back of 
 the driver, " if I could remain faithful to a 
 dream of my youth, however illusive and un- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 171 
 
 real, can you believe that for the sake of lucre 
 I could be false to the one real passion that 
 alone supplanted it." In the composition 
 and delivery of this eloquent statement an 
 hour was happily forgotten : the only draw 
 back to its complete effect was that a misplace 
 of epithets in rapid repetition did not seem to 
 make the slightest difference, and Cass found 
 himself saying "Dear Miss Porter, if I could 
 be false to ar dream of my youth, etc., etc., 
 can you believe I could be faithful to the one 
 real passion, etc., etc.," with equal and per 
 fect satisfaction. As Miss Porter was reputed 
 to be well off, if the unknown were poor, that 
 might be another drawback. 
 
 The banking house of Bookham & Sons did 
 not present an illusive nor mysterious appear 
 ance. It was eminently practical and matter 
 of fact; it was obtrusively open and glassy; 
 nobody would have thought of leaving a secret 
 there that would have been inevitaby ciicu- 
 
172 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 lated over the counter. Cass felt an uncom 
 fortable sense of incongruity in himself, in his 
 story, in his treasure, to this temple of disen 
 chanting realism. With the awkwardness of 
 an embarrassed man he was holding promi 
 nently in his hand an envelope containing the 
 ring and advertisement as a voucher for his 
 intrusion, when the nearest clerk took the 
 envelope from his hand, opened it, took out 
 the ring, returned it, said briskly, " T' other 
 shop, next door, young man," and turned to 
 another customer. 
 
 Cass stepped to the door, saw that " T' other 
 shop " was a pawnbroker's, and returned again 
 with a flashing eye and heightened color. 
 " It 's an advertisement I have come to an 
 swer," he began again. 
 
 The clerk cast a glance at Cass's scarf and 
 pin. "Place taken yesterday no room for 
 any more," he said, abruptly. 
 
 Cass grew quite white. But his old experi- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 173 
 
 ence in Blazing Star repartee stood him in 
 good stead. " If it 's your place you mean," he 
 said coolly, " I reckon you might put a dozen 
 men in the hole you 're rattlin' round in but 
 it 's this advertisement I 'm after. If Book- 
 ham is n't in, maybe you '11 send me one of 
 the grown-up sons." The production of the 
 advertisement and some laughter from the by 
 standers had its effect. The pert young clerk 
 retired, and returned to lead the way to the 
 bank parlor. Cass's heart sank again as he 
 was confronted by a dark, iron-gray man in 
 dress, features, speech, and action uncom 
 promisingly opposed to Cass his ring and 
 his romance. When the young man had told 
 his story and produced his treasure he paused. 
 The banker scarcely glanced at it, but said, 
 impatiently, 
 
 " Well, your papers ? " 
 
 " My papers ? " 
 
 " Yes. Proof of your identity. You say 
 
174 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 your name is Cass Beard. Good ! What 
 have you got to prove it ? How can I tell 
 who you are ? " 
 
 To a sensitive man there is no form of sus 
 picion that is as bewildering and demoralizing 
 at the moment as the question of his identity. 
 Cass felt the insult in the doubt of his word, 
 and the palpable sense of his present inability 
 to prove it. The banker watched him keenly 
 but not unkindly. 
 
 " Come," he said at length, " this is not my 
 affair ; if you can legally satisfy the lady for 
 whom I am only agent, well and good. I be 
 lieve you can ; I only warn you that you must. 
 And my present inquiry was to keep her from 
 losing her time with imposters, a class I don't 
 think you belong to. There 's her card. Good 
 day." 
 
 " Miss Mortimer." It was not the banker's 
 daughter. The first illusion of Blazing Star 
 was rudely dispelled. But the care taken by 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 175 
 
 the capitalist to shield her from imposture in 
 dicated a person of wealth. Of her youth and 
 beauty Cass no longer thought. 
 
 The address given was not distant. With 
 a beating heart he rung the bell of a respecta 
 ble-looking house, and was ushered into a pri 
 vate drawing-room. Instinctively he felt that 
 the room was only temporarily inhabited ; an 
 air peculiar to the best lodgings, and when 
 the door opened upon a tall lady in deep 
 mourning, he was still more convinced of an 
 incongruity between the occupant and her sur 
 roundings. With a smile that vacillated be 
 tween a habit of familiarity and ease, and a 
 recent restraint, she motioned him to a chair. 
 
 " Miss Mortimer " was still young, still 
 handsome, still fashionably dressed, and still 
 attractive. From her first greeting to the 
 end of the interview Cass felt that she knew 
 all about him. This relieved him from the 
 onus of proving his identity, but seemed to 
 
176 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 put him vaguely at a disadvantage. It in 
 creased his sense of inexperience and youth- 
 fulness. 
 
 " I hope you will believe," she began, " that 
 the few questions I have to ask you are to sat 
 isfy my own heart, and for no other purpose." 
 She smiled sadly as she went on. " Had it 
 been otherwise, I should have instituted a le 
 gal inquiry, and left this interview to some 
 one cooler, calmer, and less interested than 
 myself. But I think, I know I can trust you. 
 Perhaps we women are weak' and foolish to 
 talk of an instinct, and when you know my 
 story you may have reason to believe that but 
 little dependence can be placed on that; but 
 I am not wrong in saying, am I ? " (with 
 a sad smile) " that you are not above that 
 weakness ? " She paused, closed her lips 
 tightly, and grasped her hands before her. 
 " You say you found that ring in the road 
 some three months before the the you 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 177 
 
 know what I mean the body was discov 
 ered ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You thought it might have been dropped 
 by some one in passing ? " 
 
 " I thought so, yes it belonged to no one 
 in camp." 
 
 " Before your cabin or on the highway ? " 
 
 " Before my cabin." 
 
 " You are sure ? " There was something so 
 very sweet and sad in her smile that it oddly 
 made Cass color. 
 
 " But my cabin is near the road," he sug 
 gested. 
 
 " I see ! And there was nothing else ; no 
 paper nor envelope ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " And you kept it because of the odd resem 
 blance one of the names bore to yours ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 V " For no other reason ? " 
 
 12 
 
178 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " None." Yet Cass felt he was blushing. 
 
 " You '11 forgive my repeating a question 
 you have already answered, but I am so anx 
 ious. There was some attempt to prove at 
 the inquest that the ring had been found on 
 the body of the unfortunate man. But you 
 tell me it was not so ? " 
 
 " I can swear it." 
 
 " Good God the traitor ! " She took a 
 hurried step forward, turned to the window, 
 and then came back to Cass with a voice 
 broken with emotion. " I have told you I 
 could trust you. That ring was mine ! " 
 
 She stopped, and then went on hurriedly. 
 " Years .ago I gave it to a man who deceived 
 and wronged me ; a man whose life since then 
 has been a shame and disgrace to all who 
 knew him. A man who, once, a gentleman, 
 sank so low as to become the associate of 
 thieves and ruffians ; sank so low, that when 
 he died, by violence a traitor even to them 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 179 
 
 his own confederates shrunk from him, and 
 left him to fill a nameless grave. That man's 
 body you found ! " 
 
 Cass started. " And his name was ? " 
 
 " Part of your surname. Cass Henry 
 Cass." 
 
 " You see why Providence seems to have 
 brought that ring to you," she went on. 
 " But you ask me why, knowing this, I am so 
 eager to know if the ring was found by you 
 in the road, or if it were found on his body. 
 Listen ! It is part of my mortification that 
 the story goes that this man once showed this 
 ring, boasted of it, staked, and lost it at a 
 gambling table to one of his vile comrades." 
 
 " Kanaka Joe," said Cass, overcome by a 
 vivid recollection of Joe's merriment at the 
 trial. 
 
 " The same. Don't you see," she said, hur 
 riedly, " if the ring had been found on him 
 I could believe that somewhere in his heart 
 
180 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 he still kept respect for the woman he had 
 wronged. I am a woman a foolish woman, 
 I know but you have crushed that hope 
 forever." 
 
 "But why have you sent for me?" asked 
 Cass, touched by her emotion. 
 
 " To know it for certain," she said, almost 
 fiercely. " Can you not understand that a 
 woman like me must know a thing once and 
 forever? But you can help me. I did not 
 send for you only to pour my wrongs in your 
 ears. You must take me with you to this 
 place to the spot where you found the ring 
 to the spot where you found the body 
 to the spot where where he lies. You must 
 do it secretly, that none shall know me." 
 
 Cass hesitated. He was thinking of his 
 companions and the collapse of their painted 
 bubble. How could he keep the secret from 
 them ? 
 
 "If it is money you need, let not that 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 181 
 
 stop you. I have no right to your time with 
 out recompense. Do not misunderstand me. 
 There has been a thousand dollars awaiting 
 my order at Bookham's when the ring should 
 be delivered. It shall be doubled if you help 
 me in this last moment." 
 
 It was possible. He could convey her se 
 cretly there, invent some story of a reward 
 delayed for want of proofs, and afterward 
 share that reward with his friends. He an 
 swered promptly, " I will take you there." 
 
 She took his hands in both of hers, raised 
 them to her lips, and smiled. The shadow of 
 grief and restraint seemed to have fallen from, 
 her face, and a half-mischievous, half-coquet 
 tish gleam in her dark eyes touched the sus 
 ceptible Cass in so subtle a fashion that he 
 regained the street in some confusion. He 
 wondered what Miss Porter would have 
 thought. But was he not returning to her, a 
 fortunate man, with one thousand dollars in 
 
182 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 his pocket ! Why should he remember he 
 was handicapped, by a pretty woman and a 
 pathetic episode ? It did not make the prox 
 imity less pleasant as he helped her into the 
 coach that evening, nor did the recollection of 
 another ride with another woman obtrude it 
 self upon those consolations which he felt it 
 his duty, from time to time, to offer. It was 
 arranged that he should leave her at the 
 " Red Chief " Hotel, while he continued on to 
 Blazing Star, returning at noon to bring her 
 with him when he could do it without expos 
 ing her to recognition. The gray dawn came 
 soon enough, and the coach drew up at " Red 
 Chief " while the lights in the bar-room and 
 dining-room of the hotel were still struggling 
 with the far flushing east. Cass alighted, 
 placed Miss Mortimer in the hands of the 
 landlady, and returned to the vehicle. It was 
 still musty, close, and frowzy, with half-awak 
 ened passengers. There was a vacated seat 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 183 
 
 on the top, which Cass climbed up to, and 
 abstractedly threw himself beside a figure 
 muffled in shawls and rugs. There was a 
 slight movement among the multitudinous 
 enwrappings, and then the figure turned to 
 him and said, dryly, " Good morning ! " It 
 wa*s Miss Porter ! 
 
 " Have you been long here ? " he stam 
 mered. 
 
 " All night." 
 
 He would have given worlds to leave her at 
 that moment. He would have jumped from 
 the starting coach to save himself any expla 
 nation of the embarrassment he was furiously 
 conscious of showing, without, as he believed, 
 any adequate cause. And yet, like all inex 
 perienced, sensitive men, he dashed blindly 
 into that explanation ; worse, he even told 
 his secret at once, then and there, and then 
 sat abashed and conscience stricken, with an 
 added sense of its utter futility. 
 
184 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " And this," summed up the young girl, 
 with a slight shrug of her pretty shoulders, 
 "is your May?" 
 
 Cass would have recommenced his story. 
 
 " No, don't, pray ! It is n't interesting, nor 
 original. Do you believe it ? " 
 
 " I do," said Cass, indignantly. 
 
 " How lucky ! Then let me go to sleep." 
 
 Cass, still furious, but uneasy, did not again 
 address her. When the coach stopped at 
 Blazing Star she asked him, indifferently : 
 " When does this sentimental pilgrimage be- 
 gin ? " 
 
 " I return for her at one o'clock," replied 
 Cass, stiffly. 
 
 He kept his word. He appeased his eager 
 companions with a promise of future fortune, 
 and exhibited the present and tangible re 
 ward. By a circuitous route known only to 
 himself, he led Miss Mortimer to the road be 
 fore the cabin. There was a pink flush of 
 excitement on her somewhat faded cheek. 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 185 
 
 " And it was here? " she asked, eagerly. 
 
 " I found it here." 
 
 "And the body?" 
 
 " That was afterward. Over in that direc 
 tion, beyond the clump of buckeyes, on the 
 Red Chief turnpike." 
 
 " And any one coming from the road we 
 left just now and going to to that place, 
 would have to cross just here ? Tell me," she 
 said, with a strange laugh, laying her cold 
 nervous hand on his, " would n't they ? " 
 
 " They would." 
 
 " Let us go to that place." 
 
 Cass stepped out briskly to avoid observa 
 tion and gain the woods beyond the highway. 
 "You have crossed here before," she said. 
 " There seems to be a trail." 
 
 " I may have made it : it 's a short cut to 
 the buckeyes." 
 
 " You never found anything else on the 
 trail ? " 
 
186 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " You remember, I told you before, the ring 
 was all I found." 
 
 " Ah, true ! " she smiled sweetly ; " it was 
 that which made it seem so odd to you. I 
 forgot." 
 
 In half an hour they reached the buckeyes. 
 During the walk she had taken rapid recog 
 nizance of everything in her path. When 
 they crossed the road and Cass had pointed 
 out the scene of the murder, she looked anx 
 iously around. " You are sure we are not 
 seen?" 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " You will not think me foolish if I ask 
 you to wait here while I go in there " she 
 pointed to the ominous thicket near them 
 " alone ? " She was quite white. 
 
 Cass's heart, which had grown somewhat 
 cold since his interview with Miss Porter, 
 melted at once. 
 
 " Go ; I will stay here." 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 187 
 
 He waited five minutes. She did not re 
 turn. What if the poor creature had deter 
 mined upon suicide on the spot where her 
 faithless lover had fallen ? He was reassured 
 in another moment by the rustle of skirts in 
 the undergrowth. 
 
 " I was becoming quite alarmed," he said, 
 aloud. 
 
 " You have reason to be," returned a hur 
 ried voice. He started. It was Miss Porter, 
 who stepped swiftly out of the cover. " Look," 
 she said, " look at that man down the road. 
 He has been tracking you two ever since you 
 left the cabin. Do you know who he is ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Then listen. It is three-fingered Dick, 
 one of the escaped road agents. I know 
 him ! " 
 
 " Let us go and warn her," said Cass, ea 
 gerly. 
 
 Miss Porter laid her hand upon his shoulder. 
 
188 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 "I don't think she'll thank you," she said, 
 dryly. u Perhaps you 'd better see what she 's 
 doing, first. 
 
 Utterly bewildered, yet with a strong sense 
 of the masterfulness of his companion, he 
 followed her. She crept like a cat through 
 the thicket. Suddenly she paused. " Look ! " 
 she whispered, viciously, " look at the tender 
 vigils of your heart-broken May ! " 
 
 Cass saw the woman who had left him a 
 moment before on her knees on the grass, 
 with long thin fingers digging like a ghoul in 
 the earth. He had scarce time to notice her 
 eager face and eyes, cast now and then back 
 toward the spot where she had left him, be 
 fore there was a crash in the bushes, and a 
 man, the stranger of the road, leaped to 
 her side. " Run," he said; " run for it now. 
 You 're watched ! " 
 
 " Oh ! that man, Beard ! " she said, con 
 temptuously. 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 189 
 
 " No, another in a wagon. Quick. Fool, 
 you know the place now, you can come 
 later ; run ! " And half-dragging, half-lifting 
 her, he bore her through the bushes. Scarcely 
 had they closed behind the pair than Miss 
 Porter ran to the spot vacated by the woman. 
 " Look ! " she cried, triumphantly, " look ! " 
 
 Cass looked, and sank on his knees beside 
 her. 
 
 " It was worth a thousand dollars, was n't 
 it?" she repeated, maliciously, " wasn't it? 
 But you ought to return it ! Really you 
 ought." 
 
 Cass could scarcely articulate. " But how 
 did you know it ? " he finally gasped. 
 
 "Oh, I suspected something; there was a 
 woman, and you know you 're such a fool! " 
 
 Cass rose, stiffly. 
 
 " Don't be a greater fool now, but go and 
 bring my horse and wagon from the hill, and 
 don't say anything to the driver." 
 
190 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 " Then you did not come alone ? " 
 
 " No ; it would have been bold and im 
 proper." 
 
 " Please ! " 
 
 " And to think it was the ring, after all, 
 that pointed to this," she said. 
 
 " The ring that you returned to me." 
 
 44 What did you say?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Don't, please, the wagon is coming." 
 
 In the next morning's edition of the " Red 
 Chief Chronicle" appeared the following 
 startling intelligence : 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY 
 
 FINDING OF THE STOLEN TREASURE OF WELLS, FARGO 
 & CO. OVER $300,000 RECOVERED. 
 
 Our readers will remember the notorious 
 robbery of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s treasure 
 from the Sacramento and Red Chief Pioneer 
 Coach on the night of September 1. Al- 
 
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 191 
 
 though most of the gang were arrested, it is 
 known that two escaped, who, it was pre 
 sumed, cached the treasure, amounting to 
 nearly $500,000 in gold, drafts, and jewelry, 
 as no trace of the property was found. Yes 
 terday our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Cass 
 Beard, long and favorably known in this 
 county, succeeded in exhuming the treasure 
 in a copse of hazel near the Red Chief turn 
 pike, adjacent to the spot where an 
 unknown body was lately discovered. This 
 body is now strongly suspected to be that of 
 one Henry Cass, a disreputable character, who 
 has since been ascertained to have been one of 
 the road agents who escaped. The matter is 
 now under legal investigation. The success 
 ful result of the search is due to a systematic 
 plan evolved from the genius of Mr. Beard, 
 who has devoted over a year to this labor. It 
 was first suggested to him by the finding of a 
 ring, now definitely identified as part of the 
 
192 FOUND AT BLAZING STAR. 
 
 treasure which was supposed to have been 
 dropped from Wells, Fargo & Co.'s boxes by 
 the robbers in their midnight flight through 
 Blazing Star. 
 
 In the same journal appeared the no less 
 important intelligence, which explains, while 
 it completes this veracious chronicle : 
 
 " It is rumored that a marriage is shortly 
 to take place between the hero of the late 
 treasure discovery and a young lady of Red 
 Chief, whose devoted aid and assistance to this 
 important work is well known to this com 
 munity." 
 
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