Under the Redwoods / Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

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Title: Under the Redwoods

Author: Bret Harte

Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2555]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Donald Lainson





UNDER THE REDWOODS


By Bret Harte




CONTENTS


JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA

THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER

A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY

THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT

UNDER THE EAVES

HOW REUBEN ALLEN "SAW LIFE" IN SAN FRANCISCO

THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD

A VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN

A ROMANCE OF THE LINE

BOHEMIAN DAYS IN SAN FRANCISCO





UNDER THE REDWOODS




JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA


As night crept up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer's
Ledge was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but presently
reappeared in little nebulous star-like points along the mountain side,
as the straggling cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by
the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying
brilliancy that evening, two notably so--one that eventually resolved
itself into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity;
the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one.
They might have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the
settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a
lucky miner; and the sick-bed of Dick Lasham, an unlucky one.

The latter was, however, not quite alone. He was ministered to by Daddy
Folsom, a weak but emotional and aggressively hopeful neighbor, who was
sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there
was something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were continually
straying to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities
could be seen between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the
songs and laughter that came faintly from the distance than on the
feverish breathing and unintelligible moans of the sufferer.

Nevertheless he looked troubled equally by the condition of his charge
and by his own enforced absence from the revels. A more impatient moan
from the sick man, however, brought a change to his abstracted face, and
he turned to him with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.

"In course! Lordy! I know jest what those pains are: kinder ez ef you
was havin' a tooth pulled that had roots branchin' all over ye! My! I've
jest had 'em so bad I couldn't keep from yellin'! That's hot rheumatics!
Yes, sir, I oughter know! And" (confidentially) "the sing'ler thing
about 'em is that they get worse jest as they're going off--sorter
wringin' yer hand and punchin' ye in the back to say 'Good-by.' There!"
he continued, as the man sank exhaustedly back on his rude pillow of
flour-sacks. "There! didn't I tell ye? Ye'll be all right in a minit,
and ez chipper ez a jay bird in the mornin'. Oh, don't tell me about
rheumatics--I've bin thar! On'y mine was the cold kind--that hangs on
longest--yours is the hot, that burns itself up in no time!"

If the flushed face and bright eyes of Lasham were not enough to
corroborate this symptom of high fever, the quick, wandering laugh he
gave would have indicated the point of delirium. But the too optimistic
Daddy Folsom referred this act to improvement, and went on cheerfully:
"Yes, sir, you're better now, and"--here he assumed an air of cautious
deliberation, extravagant, as all his assumptions were--"I ain't sayin'
that--ef--you--was--to--rise--up" (very slowly) "and heave a blanket or
two over your shoulders--jest by way o' caution, you know--and leanin'
on me, kinder meander over to Bob Falloner's cabin and the boys, it
wouldn't do you a heap o' good. Changes o' this kind is often prescribed
by the faculty." Another moan from the sufferer, however, here
apparently corrected Daddy's too favorable prognosis. "Oh, all right!
Well, perhaps ye know best; and I'll jest run over to Bob's and say how
as ye ain't comin', and will be back in a jiffy!"

"The letter," said the sick man hurriedly, "the letter, the letter!"

Daddy leaned suddenly over the bed. It was impossible for even his
hopefulness to avoid the fact that Lasham was delirious. It was a strong
factor in the case--one that would certainly justify his going over
to Falloner's with the news. For the present moment, however, this
aberration was to be accepted cheerfully and humored after Daddy's own
fashion. "Of course--the letter, the letter," he said convincingly;
"that's what the boys hev bin singin' jest now--

     'Good-by, Charley; when you are away,
     Write me a letter, love; send me a letter, love!'

"That's what you heard, and a mighty purty song it is too, and kinder
clings to you. It's wonderful how these things gets in your head."

"The letter--write--send money--money--money, and the photograph--the
photograph--photograph--money," continued the sick man, in the rapid
reiteration of delirium.

"In course you will--to-morrow--when the mail goes," returned Daddy
soothingly; "plenty of them. Jest now you try to get a snooze, will ye?
Hol' on!--take some o' this."

There was an anodyne mixture on the rude shelf, which the doctor had
left on his morning visit. Daddy had a comfortable belief that what
would relieve pain would also check delirium, and he accordingly
measured out a dose with a liberal margin to allow of waste by the
patient in swallowing in his semi-conscious state. As he lay more quiet,
muttering still, but now unintelligibly, Daddy, waiting for a more
complete unconsciousness and the opportunity to slip away to Falloner's,
cast his eyes around the cabin. He noticed now for the first time since
his entrance that a crumpled envelope bearing a Western post-mark was
lying at the foot of the bed. Daddy knew that the tri-weekly post had
arrived an hour before he came, and that Lasham had evidently received a
letter. Sure enough the letter itself was lying against the wall beside
him. It was open. Daddy felt justified in reading it.

It was curt and businesslike, stating that unless Lasham at once sent
a remittance for the support of his brother and sister--two children in
charge of the writer--they must find a home elsewhere. That the arrears
were long standing, and the repeated promises of Lasham to send money
had been unfulfilled. That the writer could stand it no longer. This
would be his last communication unless the money were sent forthwith.

It was by no means a novel or, under the circumstances, a shocking
disclosure to Daddy. He had seen similar missives from daughters, and
even wives, consequent on the varying fortunes of his neighbors; no one
knew better than he the uncertainties of a miner's prospects, and
yet the inevitable hopefulness that buoyed him up. He tossed it aside
impatiently, when his eye caught a strip of paper he had overlooked
lying upon the blanket near the envelope. It contained a few lines in
an unformed boyish hand addressed to "my brother," and evidently slipped
into the letter after it was written. By the uncertain candlelight Daddy
read as follows:--


Dear Brother, Rite to me and Cissy rite off. Why aint you done it? It's
so long since you rote any. Mister Recketts ses you dont care any more.
Wen you rite send your fotograff. Folks here ses I aint got no big
bruther any way, as I disremember his looks, and cant say wots like him.
Cissy's kryin' all along of it. I've got a hedake. William Walker make
it ake by a blo. So no more at present from your loving little bruther
Jim.


The quick, hysteric laugh with which Daddy read this was quite
consistent with his responsive, emotional nature; so, too, were the
ready tears that sprang to his eyes. He put the candle down unsteadily,
with a casual glance at the sick man. It was notable, however, that
this look contained less sympathy for the ailing "big brother" than his
emotion might have suggested. For Daddy was carried quite away by his
own mental picture of the helpless children, and eager only to relate
his impressions of the incident. He cast another glance at the invalid,
thrust the papers into his pocket, and clapping on his hat slipped from
the cabin and ran to the house of festivity. Yet it was characteristic
of the man, and so engrossed was he by his one idea, that to the usual
inquiries regarding his patient he answered, "he's all right," and
plunged at once into the incident of the dunning letter, reserving--with
the instinct of an emotional artist--the child's missive until the last.
As he expected, the money demand was received with indignant criticisms
of the writer.

"That's just like 'em in the States," said Captain Fletcher; "darned if
they don't believe we've only got to bore a hole in the ground and snake
out a hundred dollars. Why, there's my wife--with a heap of hoss sense
in everything else--is allus wonderin' why I can't rake in a cool fifty
betwixt one steamer day and another."

"That's nothin' to my old dad," interrupted Gus Houston, the "infant"
of the camp, a bright-eyed young fellow of twenty; "why, he wrote to me
yesterday that if I'd only pick up a single piece of gold every day and
just put it aside, sayin' 'That's for popper and mommer,' and not fool
it away--it would be all they'd ask of me."

"That's so," added another; "these ignorant relations is just the ruin
o' the mining industry. Bob Falloner hez bin lucky in his strike to-day,
but he's a darned sight luckier in being without kith or kin that he
knows of."

Daddy waited until the momentary irritation had subsided, and then drew
the other letter from his pocket. "That ain't all, boys," he began in a
faltering voice, but gradually working himself up to a pitch of pathos;
"just as I was thinking all them very things, I kinder noticed this yer
poor little bit o' paper lyin' thar lonesome like and forgotten,
and I--read it--and well--gentlemen--it just choked me right up!" He
stopped, and his voice faltered.

"Go slow, Daddy, go slow!" said an auditor smilingly. It was evident
that Daddy's sympathetic weakness was well known.

Daddy read the child's letter. But, unfortunately, what with his real
emotion and the intoxication of an audience, he read it extravagantly,
and interpolated a child's lisp (on no authority whatever), and a
simulated infantile delivery, which, I fear, at first provoked the
smiles rather than the tears of his audience. Nevertheless, at its
conclusion the little note was handed round the party, and then there
was a moment of thoughtful silence.

"Tell you what it is, boys," said Fletcher, looking around the table,
"we ought to be doin' suthin' for them kids right off! Did you," turning
to Daddy, "say anythin' about this to Dick?"

"Nary--why, he's clean off his head with fever--don't understand a
word--and just babbles," returned Daddy, forgetful of his roseate
diagnosis a moment ago, "and hasn't got a cent."

"We must make up what we can amongst us afore the mail goes to-night,"
said the "infant," feeling hurriedly in his pockets. "Come, ante up,
gentlemen," he added, laying the contents of his buckskin purse upon the
table.

"Hold on, boys," said a quiet voice. It was their host Falloner, who had
just risen and was slipping on his oilskin coat. "You've got enough to
do, I reckon, to look after your own folks. I've none! Let this be my
affair. I've got to go to the Express Office anyhow to see about my
passage home, and I'll just get a draft for a hundred dollars for
that old skeesicks--what's his blamed name? Oh, Ricketts"--he made a
memorandum from the letter--"and I'll send it by express. Meantime, you
fellows sit down there and write something--you know what--saying that
Dick's hurt his hand and can't write--you know; but asked you to send
a draft, which you're doing. Sabe? That's all! I'll skip over to the
express now and get the draft off, and you can mail the letter an hour
later. So put your dust back in your pockets and help yourselves to the
whiskey while I'm gone." He clapped his hat on his head and disappeared.

"There goes a white man, you bet!" said Fletcher admiringly, as the door
closed behind their host. "Now, boys," he added, drawing a chair to the
table, "let's get this yer letter off, and then go back to our game."

Pens and ink were produced, and an animated discussion ensued as to
the matter to be conveyed. Daddy's plea for an extended explanatory and
sympathetic communication was overruled, and the letter was written to
Ricketts on the simple lines suggested by Falloner.

"But what about poor little Jim's letter? That ought to be answered,"
said Daddy pathetically.

"If Dick hurt his hand so he can't write to Ricketts, how in thunder is
he goin' to write to Jim?" was the reply.

"But suthin' oughter be said to the poor kid," urged Daddy piteously.

"Well, write it yourself--you and Gus Houston make up somethin'
together. I'm going to win some money," retorted Fletcher, returning
to the card-table, where he was presently followed by all but Daddy and
Houston.

"Ye can't write it in Dick's name, because that little brother knows
Dick's handwriting, even if he don't remember his face. See?" suggested
Houston.

"That's so," said Daddy dubiously; "but," he added, with elastic
cheerfulness, "we can write that Dick 'says.' See?"

"Your head's level, old man! Just you wade in on that."

Daddy seized the pen and "waded in." Into somewhat deep and difficult
water, I fancy, for some of it splashed into his eyes, and he sniffled
once or twice as he wrote. "Suthin' like this," he said, after a
pause:--


DEAR LITTLE JIMMIE,--Your big brother havin' hurt his hand, wants me to
tell you that otherways he is all hunky and A1. He says he don't forget
you and little Cissy, you bet! and he's sendin' money to old Ricketts
straight off. He says don't you and Cissy mind whether school keeps
or not as long as big Brother Dick holds the lines. He says he'd have
written before, but he's bin follerin' up a lead mighty close, and
expects to strike it rich in a few days.


"You ain't got no sabe about kids," said Daddy imperturbably; "they've
got to be humored like sick folks. And they want everythin' big--they
don't take no stock in things ez they are--even ef they hev 'em worse
than they are. 'So,'" continued Daddy, reading to prevent further
interruption, "'he says you're just to keep your eyes skinned lookin'
out for him comin' home any time--day or night. All you've got to do is
to sit up and wait. He might come and even snake you out of your beds!
He might come with four white horses and a nigger driver, or he might
come disguised as an ornary tramp. Only you've got to be keen on
watchin'.' (Ye see," interrupted Daddy explanatorily, "that'll jest keep
them kids lively.) 'He says Cissy's to stop cryin' right off, and if
Willie Walker hits yer on the right cheek you just slug out with your
left fist, 'cordin' to Scripter.' Gosh," ejaculated Daddy, stopping
suddenly and gazing anxiously at Houston, "there's that blamed
photograph--I clean forgot that."

"And Dick hasn't got one in the shop, and never had," returned Houston
emphatically. "Golly! that stumps us! Unless," he added, with diabolical
thoughtfulness, "we take Bob's? The kids don't remember Dick's face, and
Bob's about the same age. And it's a regular star picture--you bet! Bob
had it taken in Sacramento--in all his war paint. See!" He indicated a
photograph pinned against the wall--a really striking likeness which did
full justice to Bob's long silken mustache and large, brown determined
eyes. "I'll snake it off while they ain't lookin', and you jam it in
the letter. Bob won't miss it, and we can fix it up with Dick after he's
well, and send another."

Daddy silently grasped the "infant's" hand, who presently secured the
photograph without attracting attention from the card-players. It was
promptly inclosed in the letter, addressed to Master James Lasham. The
"infant" started with it to the post-office, and Daddy Folsom returned
to Lasham's cabin to relieve the watcher that had been detached from
Falloner's to take his place beside the sick man.

Meanwhile the rain fell steadily and the shadows crept higher and higher
up the mountain. Towards midnight the star points faded out one by one
over Sawyer's Ledge even as they had come, with the difference that the
illumination of Falloner's cabin was extinguished first, while the dim
light of Lasham's increased in number. Later, two stars seemed to shoot
from the centre of the ledge, trailing along the descent, until they
were lost in the obscurity of the slope--the lights of the stage-coach
to Sacramento carrying the mail and Robert Falloner. They met and passed
two fainter lights toiling up the road--the buggy lights of the doctor,
hastily summoned from Carterville to the bedside of the dying Dick
Lasham.


The slowing up of his train caused Bob Falloner to start from a half
doze in a Western Pullman car. As he glanced from his window he could
see that the blinding snowstorm which had followed him for the past six
hours had at last hopelessly blocked the line. There was no prospect
beyond the interminable snowy level, the whirling flakes, and the
monotonous palisades of leafless trees seen through it to the distant
banks of the Missouri. It was a prospect that the mountain-bred Falloner
was beginning to loathe, and although it was scarcely six weeks since
he left California, he was already looking back regretfully to the deep
slopes and the free song of the serried ranks of pines.

The intense cold had chilled his temperate blood, even as the rigors and
conventions of Eastern life had checked his sincerity and spontaneous
flow of animal spirits begotten in the frank intercourse and brotherhood
of camps. He had just fled from the artificialities of the great
Atlantic cities to seek out some Western farming lands in which he
might put his capital and energies. The unlooked-for interruption of his
progress by a long-forgotten climate only deepened his discontent. And
now--that train was actually backing! It appeared they must return to
the last station to wait for a snow-plough to clear the line. It was,
explained the conductor, barely a mile from Shepherdstown, where there
was a good hotel and a chance of breaking the journey for the night.

Shepherdstown! The name touched some dim chord in Bob Falloner's memory
and conscience--yet one that was vague. Then he suddenly remembered that
before leaving New York he had received a letter from Houston informing
him of Lasham's death, reminding him of his previous bounty, and begging
him--if he went West--to break the news to the Lasham family. There was
also some allusion to a joke about his (Bob's) photograph, which he had
dismissed as unimportant, and even now could not remember clearly. For a
few moments his conscience pricked him that he should have forgotten it
all, but now he could make amends by this providential delay. It was not
a task to his liking; in any other circumstances he would have written,
but he would not shirk it now.

Shepherdstown was on the main line of the Kansas Pacific Road, and as he
alighted at its station, the big through trains from San Francisco
swept out of the stormy distance and stopped also. He remembered, as he
mingled with the passengers, hearing a childish voice ask if this was
the Californian train. He remembered hearing the amused and patient
reply of the station-master: "Yes, sonny--here she is again, and here's
her passengers," as he got into the omnibus and drove to the hotel. Here
he resolved to perform his disagreeable duty as quickly as possible,
and on his way to his room stopped for a moment at the office to ask for
Ricketts' address. The clerk, after a quick glance of curiosity at his
new guest, gave it to him readily, with a somewhat familiar smile. It
struck Falloner also as being odd that he had not been asked to write
his name on the hotel register, but this was a saving of time he was not
disposed to question, as he had already determined to make his visit to
Ricketts at once, before dinner. It was still early evening.

He was washing his hands in his bedroom when there came a light tap at
his sitting-room door. Falloner quickly resumed his coat and entered the
sitting-room as the porter ushered in a young lady holding a small boy
by the hand. But, to Falloner's utter consternation, no sooner had the
door closed on the servant than the boy, with a half-apologetic glance
at the young lady, uttered a childish cry, broke from her, and calling,
"Dick! Dick!" ran forward and leaped into Falloner's arms.

The mere shock of the onset and his own amazement left Bob without
breath for words. The boy, with arms convulsively clasping his body, was
imprinting kisses on Bob's waistcoat in default of reaching his face.
At last Falloner managed gently but firmly to free himself, and turned
a half-appealing, half-embarrassed look upon the young lady, whose own
face, however, suddenly flushed pink. To add to the confusion, the boy,
in some reaction of instinct, suddenly ran back to her, frantically
clutched at her skirts, and tried to bury his head in their folds.

"He don't love me," he sobbed. "He don't care for me any more."

The face of the young girl changed. It was a pretty face in its
flushing; in the paleness and thoughtfulness that overcast it it was a
striking face, and Bob's attention was for a moment distracted from
the grotesqueness of the situation. Leaning over the boy she said in a
caressing yet authoritative voice, "Run away for a moment, dear, until
I call you," opening the door for him in a maternal way so inconsistent
with the youthfulness of her figure that it struck him even in his
confusion. There was something also in her dress and carriage that
equally affected him: her garments were somewhat old-fashioned in style,
yet of good material, with an odd incongruity to the climate and season.

Under her rough outer cloak she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of
summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly
trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air
of breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. It was possible
that her cool self-possession might have been due to some instinctive
antagonism, for as she came a step forward with coldly and
clearly-opened gray eyes, he was vaguely conscious that she didn't like
him. Nevertheless, her manner was formally polite, even, as he fancied,
to the point of irony, as she began, in a voice that occasionally
dropped into the lazy Southern intonation, and a speech that easily
slipped at times into Southern dialect:--

"I sent the child out of the room, as I could see that his advances
were annoying to you, and a good deal, I reckon, because I knew your
reception of them was still more painful to him. It is quite natural, I
dare say, you should feel as you do, and I reckon consistent with your
attitude towards him. But you must make some allowance for the depth of
his feelings, and how he has looked forward to this meeting. When I
tell you that ever since he received your last letter, he and his
sister--until her illness kept her home--have gone every day when the
Pacific train was due to the station to meet you; that they have taken
literally as Gospel truth every word of your letter"--

"My letter?" interrupted Falloner.

The young girl's scarlet lip curled slightly. "I beg your pardon--I
should have said the letter you dictated. Of course it wasn't in your
handwriting--you had hurt your hand, you know," she added ironically.
"At all events, they believed it all--that you were coming at any
moment; they lived in that belief, and the poor things went to the
station with your photograph in their hands so that they might be the
first to recognize and greet you."

"With my photograph?" interrupted Falloner again.

The young girl's clear eyes darkened ominously. "I reckon," she said
deliberately, as she slowly drew from her pocket the photograph Daddy
Folsom had sent, "that that is your photograph. It certainly seems an
excellent likeness," she added, regarding him with a slight suggestion
of contemptuous triumph.

In an instant the revelation of the whole mystery flashed upon him! The
forgotten passage in Houston's letter about the stolen photograph stood
clearly before him; the coincidence of his appearance in Shepherdstown,
and the natural mistake of the children and their fair protector, were
made perfectly plain. But with this relief and the certainty that he
could confound her with an explanation came a certain mischievous desire
to prolong the situation and increase his triumph. She certainly had not
shown him any favor.

"Have you got the letter also?" he asked quietly.

She whisked it impatiently from her pocket and handed it to him. As he
read Daddy's characteristic extravagance and recognized the familiar
idiosyncrasies of his old companions, he was unable to restrain a smile.
He raised his eyes, to meet with surprise the fair stranger's leveled
eyebrows and brightly indignant eyes, in which, however, the rain was
fast gathering with the lightning.

"It may be amusing to you, and I reckon likely it was all a California
joke," she said with slightly trembling lips; "I don't know No'thern
gentlemen and their ways, and you seem to have forgotten our ways as you
have your kindred. Perhaps all this may seem so funny to them: it may
not seem funny to that boy who is now crying his heart out in the hall;
it may not be very amusing to that poor Cissy in her sick-bed longing
to see her brother. It may be so far from amusing to her, that I should
hesitate to bring you there in her excited condition and subject her
to the pain that you have caused him. But I have promised her; she is
already expecting us, and the disappointment may be dangerous, and I
can only implore you--for a few moments at least--to show a little more
affection than you feel." As he made an impulsive, deprecating gesture,
yet without changing his look of restrained amusement, she stopped him
hopelessly. "Oh, of course, yes, yes, I know it is years since you have
seen them; they have no right to expect more; only--only--feeling as you
do," she burst impulsively, "why--oh, why did you come?"

Here was Bob's chance. He turned to her politely; began gravely, "I
simply came to"--when suddenly his face changed; he stopped as if struck
by a blow. His cheek flushed, and then paled! Good God! What had he
come for? To tell them that this brother they were longing for--living
for--perhaps even dying for--was dead! In his crass stupidity, his
wounded vanity over the scorn of the young girl, his anticipation of
triumph, he had forgotten--totally forgotten--what that triumph meant!
Perhaps if he had felt more keenly the death of Lasham the thought of it
would have been uppermost in his mind; but Lasham was not his partner or
associate, only a brother miner, and his single act of generosity was
in the ordinary routine of camp life. If she could think him cold and
heartless before, what would she think of him now? The absurdity of her
mistake had vanished in the grim tragedy he had seemed to have cruelly
prepared for her. The thought struck him so keenly that he stammered,
faltered, and sank helplessly into a chair.

The shock that he had received was so plain to her that her own
indignation went out in the breath of it. Her lip quivered. "Don't you
mind," she said hurriedly, dropping into her Southern speech; "I didn't
go to hurt you, but I was just that mad with the thought of those
pickaninnies, and the easy way you took it, that I clean forgot I'd no
call to catechise you! And you don't know me from the Queen of Sheba.
Well," she went on, still more rapidly, and in odd distinction to her
previous formal slow Southern delivery, "I'm the daughter of Colonel
Boutelle, of Bayou Sara, Louisiana; and his paw, and his paw before him,
had a plantation there since the time of Adam, but he lost it and six
hundred niggers during the Wah! We were pooh as pohverty--paw and maw
and we four girls--and no more idea of work than a baby. But I had
an education at the convent at New Orleans, and could play, and speak
French, and I got a place as school-teacher here; I reckon the first
Southern woman that has taught school in the No'th! Ricketts, who used
to be our steward at Bayou Sara, told me about the pickaninnies, and how
helpless they were, with only a brother who occasionally sent them money
from California. I suppose I cottoned to the pooh little things at first
because I knew what it was to be alone amongst strangers, Mr. Lasham; I
used to teach them at odd times, and look after them, and go with them
to the train to look for you. Perhaps Ricketts made me think you didn't
care for them; perhaps I was wrong in thinking it was true, from the way
you met Jimmy just now. But I've spoken my mind and you know why." She
ceased and walked to the window.

Falloner rose. The storm that had swept through him was over. The quick
determination, resolute purpose, and infinite patience which had made
him what he was were all there, and with it a conscientiousness which
his selfish independence had hitherto kept dormant. He accepted the
situation, not passively--it was not in his nature--but threw himself
into it with all his energy.

"You were quite right," he said, halting a moment beside her; "I don't
blame you, and let me hope that later you may think me less to blame
than you do now. Now, what's to be done? Clearly, I've first to make it
right with Tommy--I mean Jimmy--and then we must make a straight dash
over to the girl! Whoop!" Before she could understand from his face the
strange change in his voice, he had dashed out of the room. In a moment
he reappeared with the boy struggling in his arms. "Think of the little
scamp not knowing his own brother!" he laughed, giving the boy a really
affectionate, if slightly exaggerated hug, "and expecting me to open my
arms to the first little boy who jumps into them! I've a great mind not
to give him the present I fetched all the way from California. Wait
a moment." He dashed into the bedroom, opened his valise--where he
providentially remembered he had kept, with a miner's superstition, the
first little nugget of gold he had ever found--seized the tiny bit of
quartz of gold, and dashed out again to display it before Jimmy's eager
eyes.

If the heartiness, sympathy, and charming kindness of the man's whole
manner and face convinced, even while it slightly startled, the young
girl, it was still more effective with the boy. Children are quick
to detect the false ring of affected emotion, and Bob's was so
genuine--whatever its cause--that it might have easily passed for a
fraternal expression with harder critics. The child trustfully nestled
against him and would have grasped the gold, but the young man
whisked it into his pocket. "Not until we've shown it to our little
sister--where we're going now! I'm off to order a sleigh." He dashed
out again to the office as if he found some relief in action, or, as
it seemed to Miss Boutelle, to avoid embarrassing conversation. When he
came back again he was carrying an immense bearskin from his luggage. He
cast a critical look at the girl's unseasonable attire.

"I shall wrap you and Jimmy in this--you know it's snowing frightfully."

Miss Boutelle flushed a little. "I'm warm enough when walking," she
said coldly. Bob glanced at her smart little French shoes, and
thought otherwise. He said nothing, but hastily bundled his two guests
downstairs and into the street. The whirlwind dance of the snow made the
sleigh an indistinct bulk in the glittering darkness, and as the young
girl for an instant stood dazedly still, Bob incontinently lifted her
from her feet, deposited her in the vehicle, dropped Jimmy in her lap,
and wrapped them both tightly in the bearskin. Her weight, which
was scarcely more than a child's, struck him in that moment as being
tantalizingly incongruous to the matronly severity of her manner and its
strange effect upon him. He then jumped in himself, taking the direction
from his companion, and drove off through the storm.

The wind and darkness were not favorable to conversation, and only
once did he break the silence. "Is there any one who would be likely to
remember--me--where we are going?" he asked, in a lull of the storm.

Miss Boutelle uncovered enough of her face to glance at him curiously.
"Hardly! You know the children came here from the No'th after your
mother's death, while you were in California."

"Of course," returned Bob hurriedly; "I was only thinking--you know
that some of my old friends might have called," and then collapsed into
silence.

After a pause a voice came icily, although under the furs: "Perhaps
you'd prefer that your arrival be kept secret from the public? But they
seem to have already recognized you at the hotel from your inquiry about
Ricketts, and the photograph Jimmy had already shown them two weeks
ago." Bob remembered the clerk's familiar manner and the omission to ask
him to register. "But it need go no further, if you like," she added,
with a slight return of her previous scorn.

"I've no reason for keeping it secret," said Bob stoutly.

No other words were exchanged until the sleigh drew up before a plain
wooden house in the suburbs of the town. Bob could see at a glance that
it represented the income of some careful artisan or small shopkeeper,
and that it promised little for an invalid's luxurious comfort. They
were ushered into a chilly sitting-room and Miss Boutelle ran upstairs
with Jimmy to prepare the invalid for Bob's appearance. He noticed that
a word dropped by the woman who opened the door made the young girl's
face grave again, and paled the color that the storm had buffeted to
her cheek. He noticed also that these plain surroundings seemed only
to enhance her own superiority, and that the woman treated her with a
deference in odd contrast to the ill-concealed disfavor with which she
regarded him. Strangely enough, this latter fact was a relief to his
conscience. It would have been terrible to have received their kindness
under false pretenses; to take their just blame of the man he personated
seemed to mitigate the deceit.

The young girl rejoined him presently with troubled eyes. Cissy was
worse, and only intermittently conscious, but had asked to see him. It
was a short flight of stairs to the bedroom, but before he reached it
Bob's heart beat faster than it had in any mountain climb. In one corner
of the plainly furnished room stood a small truckle bed, and in it lay
the invalid. It needed but a single glance at her flushed face in its
aureole of yellow hair to recognize the likeness to Jimmy, although,
added to that strange refinement produced by suffering, there was a
spiritual exaltation in the child's look--possibly from delirium--that
awed and frightened him; an awful feeling that he could not lie to this
hopeless creature took possession of him, and his step faltered. But
she lifted her small arms pathetically towards him as if she divined his
trouble, and he sank on his knees beside her. With a tiny finger curled
around his long mustache, she lay there silent. Her face was full of
trustfulness, happiness, and consciousness--but she spoke no word.

There was a pause, and Falloner, slightly lifting his head without
disturbing that faintly clasping finger, beckoned Miss Boutelle to his
side. "Can you drive?" he said, in a low voice.

"Yes."

"Take my sleigh and get the best doctor in town to come here at once.
Bring him with you if you can; if he can't come at once, drive home
yourself. I will stay here."

"But"--hesitated Miss Boutelle.

"I will stay here," he repeated.

The door closed on the young girl, and Falloner, still bending over the
child, presently heard the sleigh-bells pass away in the storm. He still
sat with his bent head, held by the tiny clasp of those thin fingers.
But the child's eyes were fixed so intently upon him that Mrs. Ricketts
leaned over the strangely-assorted pair and said--

"It's your brother Dick, dearie. Don't you know him?"

The child's lips moved faintly. "Dick's dead," she whispered.

"She's wandering," said Mrs. Ricketts. "Speak to her." But Bob, with
his eyes on the child's, lifted a protesting hand. The little sufferer's
lips moved again. "It isn't Dick--it's the angel God sent to tell me."

She spoke no more. And when Miss Boutelle returned with the doctor she
was beyond the reach of finite voices. Falloner would have remained all
night with them, but he could see that his presence in the contracted
household was not desired. Even his offer to take Jimmy with him to the
hotel was declined, and at midnight he returned alone.

What his thoughts were that night may be easily imagined. Cissy's death
had removed the only cause he had for concealing his real identity.
There was nothing more to prevent his revealing all to Miss Boutelle and
to offer to adopt the boy. But he reflected this could not be done until
after the funeral, for it was only due to Cissy's memory that he should
still keep up the role of Dick Lasham as chief mourner. If it seems
strange that Bob did not at this crucial moment take Miss Boutelle into
his confidence, I fear it was because he dreaded the personal effect
of the deceit he had practiced upon her more than any ethical
consideration; she had softened considerably in her attitude towards him
that night; he was human, after all, and while he felt his conduct had
been unselfish in the main, he dared not confess to himself how much her
opinion had influenced him. He resolved that after the funeral he would
continue his journey, and write to her, en route, a full explanation of
his conduct, inclosing Daddy's letter as corroborative evidence. But on
searching his letter-case he found that he had lost even that evidence,
and he must trust solely at present to her faith in his improbable
story.

It seemed as if his greatest sacrifice was demanded at the funeral! For
it could not be disguised that the neighbors were strongly prejudiced
against him. Even the preacher improved the occasion to warn the
congregation against the dangers of putting off duty until too late. And
when Robert Falloner, pale, but self-restrained, left the church with
Miss Boutelle, equally pale and reserved, on his arm, he could with
difficulty restrain his fury at the passing of a significant smile
across the faces of a few curious bystanders. "It was Amy Boutelle, that
was the 'penitence' that fetched him, you bet!" he overheard, a barely
concealed whisper; and the reply, "And it's a good thing she's made out
of it too, for he's mighty rich!"

At the church door he took her cold hand into his. "I am leaving
to-morrow morning with Jimmy," he said, with a white face. "Good-by."

"You are quite right; good-by," she replied as briefly, but with the
faintest color. He wondered if she had heard it too.

Whether she had heard it or not, she went home with Mrs. Ricketts
in some righteous indignation, which found--after the young lady's
habit--free expression. Whatever were Mr. Lasham's faults of omission it
was most un-Christian to allude to them there, and an insult to the poor
little dear's memory who had forgiven them. Were she in his shoes she
would shake the dust of the town off her feet; and she hoped he would.
She was a little softened on arriving to find Jimmy in tears. He had
lost Dick's photograph--or Dick had forgotten to give it back at
the hotel, for this was all he had in his pocket. And he produced a
letter--the missing letter of Daddy, which by mistake Falloner
had handed back instead of the photograph. Miss Boutelle saw the
superscription and Californian postmark with a vague curiosity.

"Did you look inside, dear? Perhaps it slipped in."

Jimmy had not. Miss Boutelle did--and I grieve to say, ended by reading
the whole letter.

Bob Falloner had finished packing his things the next morning, and was
waiting for Mr. Ricketts and Jimmy. But when a tap came at the door, he
opened it to find Miss Boutelle standing there. "I have sent Jimmy into
the bedroom," she said with a faint smile, "to look for the photograph
which you gave him in mistake for this. I think for the present he
prefers his brother's picture to this letter, which I have not explained
to him or any one." She stopped, and raising her eyes to his, said
gently: "I think it would have only been a part of your goodness to have
trusted me, Mr. Falloner."

"Then you will forgive me?" he said eagerly.

She looked at him frankly, yet with a faint trace of coquetry that the
angels might have pardoned. "Do you want me to say to you what Mrs.
Ricketts says were the last words of poor Cissy?"

A year later, when the darkness and rain were creeping up Sawyer's
Ledge, and Houston and Daddy Folsom were sitting before their brushwood
fire in the old Lasham cabin, the latter delivered himself oracularly.

"It's a mighty queer thing, that news about Bob! It's not that he's
married, for that might happen to any one; but this yer account in the
paper of his wedding being attended by his 'little brother.' That gets
me! To think all the while he was here he was lettin' on to us that he
hadn't kith or kin! Well, sir, that accounts to me for one thing,--the
sing'ler way he tumbled to that letter of poor Dick Lasham's little
brother and sent him that draft! Don't ye see? It was a feller feelin'!
Knew how it was himself! I reckon ye all thought I was kinder soft
reading that letter o' Dick Lasham's little brother to him, but ye see
what it did."




THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER


I do not think that any of us who enjoyed the acquaintance of the Piper
girls or the hospitality of Judge Piper, their father, ever cared for
the youngest sister. Not on account of her extreme youth, for the eldest
Miss Piper confessed to twenty-six--and the youth of the youngest sister
was established solely, I think, by one big braid down her back. Neither
was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls
was a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was
not entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of
intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity
was astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I
think it could be said that a slight deafness, which might impart an
embarrassing publicity to any statement--the reverse of our general
feeling--that might be confided by any one to her private ear, was a
sufficient reason; for it was pointed out that she always understood
everything that Tom Sparrell told her in his ordinary tone of voice.
Briefly, it was very possible that Delaware--the youngest Miss
Piper--did not like us. Yet it was fondly believed by us that the other
sisters failed to show that indifference to our existence shown by Miss
Delaware, although the heartburnings, misunderstandings, jealousies,
hopes and fears, and finally the chivalrous resignation with which we
at last accepted the long foregone conclusion that they were not for
us, and far beyond our reach, is not a part of this veracious chronicle.
Enough that none of the flirtations of her elder sisters affected or
were shared by the youngest Miss Piper. She moved in this heart-breaking
atmosphere with sublime indifference, treating her sisters' affairs with
what we considered rank simplicity or appalling frankness. Their few
admirers who were weak enough to attempt to gain her mediation or
confidence had reason to regret it.

"It's no kind o' use givin' me goodies," she said to a helpless suitor
of Louisiana Piper's who had offered to bring her some sweets, "for I
ain't got no influence with Lu, and if I don't give 'em up to her when
she hears of it, she'll nag me and hate you like pizen. Unless," she
added thoughtfully, "it was wintergreen lozenges; Lu can't stand them,
or anybody who eats them within a mile." It is needless to add that
the miserable man, thus put upon his gallantry, was obliged in honor to
provide Del with the wintergreen lozenges that kept him in disfavor
and at a distance. Unfortunately, too, any predilection or pity for any
particular suitor of her sister's was attended by even more disastrous
consequences. It was reported that while acting as "gooseberry"--a role
usually assigned to her--between Virginia Piper and an exceptionally
timid young surveyor, during a ramble she conceived a rare sentiment of
humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice lingering behind
in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or "running on ahead"
to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect on the shy and
speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder sister rambled
indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss Piper leaped
upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a thimbleberry in her
mouth swung her small feet to and fro and surveyed him dispassionately.

"Ye don't seem to be ketchin' on?" she said tentatively.

The young man smiled feebly and interrogatively.

"Don't seem to be either follering suit nor trumpin'," continued Del
bluntly.

"I suppose so--that is, I fear that Miss Virginia"--he stammered.

"Speak up! I'm a little deaf. Say it again!" said Del, screwing up her
eyes and eyebrows.

The young man was obliged to admit in stentorian tones that his progress
had been scarcely satisfactory.

"You're goin' on too slow--that's it," said Del critically. "Why, when
Captain Savage meandered along here with Jinny" (Virginia) "last
week, afore we got as far as this he'd reeled off a heap of Byron and
Jamieson" (Tennyson), "and sich; and only yesterday Jinny and Doctor
Beveridge was blowin' thistletops to know which was a flirt all along
the trail past the crossroads. Why, ye ain't picked ez much as a single
berry for Jinny, let alone Lad's Love or Johnny Jumpups and Kissme's,
and ye keep talkin' across me, you two, till I'm tired. Now look here,"
she burst out with sudden decision, "Jinny's gone on ahead in a kind o'
huff; but I reckon she's done that afore too, and you'll find her, jest
as Spinner did, on the rise of the hill, sittin' on a pine stump and
lookin' like this." (Here the youngest Miss Piper locked her
fingers over her left knee, and drew it slightly up,--with a sublime
indifference to the exposure of considerable small-ankled red
stocking,--and with a far-off, plaintive stare, achieved a colorable
imitation of her elder sister's probable attitude.) "Then you jest go up
softly, like as you was a bear, and clap your hands on her eyes, and
say in a disguised voice like this" (here Del turned on a high falsetto
beyond any masculine compass), "'Who's who?' jest like in forfeits."

"But she'll be sure to know me," said the surveyor timidly.

"She won't," said Del in scornful skepticism.

"I hardly think"--stammered the young man, with an awkward smile, "that
I--in fact--she'll discover me--before I can get beside her."

"Not if you go softly, for she'll be sittin' back to the road,
so--gazing away, so"--the youngest Miss Piper again stared dreamily in
the distance, "and you'll creep up just behind, like this."

"But won't she be angry? I haven't known her long--that is--don't you
see?" He stopped embarrassedly.

"Can't hear a word you say," said Del, shaking her head decisively.
"You've got my deaf ear. Speak louder, or come closer."

But here the instruction suddenly ended, once and for all time! For
whether the young man was seriously anxious to perfect himself; whether
he was truly grateful to the young girl and tried to show it; whether he
was emboldened by the childish appeal of the long brown distinguishing
braid down her back, or whether he suddenly found something peculiarly
provocative in the reddish brown eyes between their thickset hedge of
lashes, and with the trim figure and piquant pose, and was seized with
that hysteric desperation which sometimes attacks timidity itself, I
cannot say! Enough that he suddenly put his arm around her waist and
his lips to her soft satin cheek, peppered and salted as it was by
sun-freckles and mountain air, and received a sound box on the ear for
his pains. The incident was closed. He did not repeat the experiment on
either sister. The disclosure of his rebuff seemed, however, to give a
singular satisfaction to Red Gulch.

While it may be gathered from this that the youngest Miss Piper was
impervious to general masculine advances, it was not until later that
Red Gulch was thrown into skeptical astonishment by the rumors that all
this time she really had a lover! Allusion has been made to the charge
that her deafness did not prevent her from perfectly understanding the
ordinary tone of voice of a certain Mr. Thomas Sparrell.

No undue significance was attached to this fact through the very
insignificance and "impossibility" of that individual;--a lanky,
red-haired youth, incapacitated for manual labor through lameness,--a
clerk in a general store at the Cross Roads! He had never been the
recipient of Judge Piper's hospitality; he had never visited the house
even with parcels; apparently his only interviews with her or any of
the family had been over the counter. To do him justice he certainly had
never seemed to seek any nearer acquaintance; he was not at the church
door when her sisters, beautiful in their Sunday gowns, filed into the
aisle, with little Delaware bringing up the rear; he was not at the
Democratic barbecue, that we attended without reference to our personal
politics, and solely for the sake of Judge Piper and the girls; nor
did he go to the Agricultural Fair Ball--open to all. His abstention we
believed to be owing to his lameness; to a wholesome consciousness
of his own social defects; or an inordinate passion for reading cheap
scientific textbooks, which did not, however, add fluency nor conviction
to his speech. Neither had he the abstraction of a student, for his
accounts were kept with an accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the
store, as ignobly practical, and even malignant. Possibly we might have
expressed this opinion more strongly but for a certain rude vigor of
repartee which he possessed, and a suggestion that he might have a
temper on occasion. "Them red-haired chaps is like to be tetchy and
to kinder see blood through their eyelashes," had been suggested by an
observing customer.

In short, little as we knew of the youngest Miss Piper, he was the last
man we should have suspected her to select as an admirer. What we did
know of their public relations, purely commercial ones, implied the
reverse of any cordial understanding. The provisioning of the Piper
household was entrusted to Del, with other practical odds and ends of
housekeeping, not ornamental, and the following is said to be a truthful
record of one of their overheard interviews at the store:--

The youngest Miss Piper, entering, displacing a quantity of goods in the
centre to make a sideways seat for herself, and looking around loftily
as she took a memorandum-book and pencil from her pocket.

"Ahem! If I ain't taking you away from your studies, Mr. Sparrell,
maybe you'll be good enough to look here a minit;--but" (in affected
politeness) "if I'm disturbing you I can come another time."

Sparrell, placing the book he had been reading carefully under the
counter, and advancing to Miss Delaware with a complete ignoring of her
irony: "What can we do for you to-day, Miss Piper?"

Miss Delaware, with great suavity of manner, examining her
memorandum-book: "I suppose it wouldn't be shocking your delicate
feelings too much to inform you that the canned lobster and oysters you
sent us yesterday wasn't fit for hogs?"

Sparrell (blandly): "They weren't intended for them, Miss Piper. If
we had known you were having company over from Red Gulch to dinner, we
might have provided something more suitable for them. We have a fair
quality of oil-cake and corn-cobs in stock, at reduced figures. But the
canned provisions were for your own family."

Miss Delaware (secretly pleased at this sarcastic allusion to her
sister's friends, but concealing her delight): "I admire to hear you
talk that way, Mr. Sparrell; it's better than minstrels or a circus. I
suppose you get it outer that book," indicating the concealed volume.
"What do you call it?"

Sparrell (politely): "The First Principles of Geology."

Miss Delaware, leaning sideways and curling her little fingers around
her pink ear: "Did you say the first principles of 'geology' or
'politeness'? You know I am so deaf; but, of course, it couldn't be
that."

Sparrell (easily): "Oh no, you seem to have that in your hand"--pointing
to Miss Delaware's memorandum-book--"you were quoting from it when you
came in."

Miss Delaware, after an affected silence of deep resignation: "Well!
it's too bad folks can't just spend their lives listenin' to such
elegant talk; I'd admire to do nothing else! But there's my family up at
Cottonwood--and they must eat. They're that low that they expect me
to waste my time getting food for 'em here, instead of drinking in the
First Principles of the Grocery."

"Geology," suggested Sparrell blandly. "The history of rock formation."

"Geology," accepted Miss Delaware apologetically; "the history of rocks,
which is so necessary for knowing just how much sand you can put in the
sugar. So I reckon I'll leave my list here, and you can have the things
toted to Cottonwood when you've got through with your First Principles."

She tore out a list of her commissions from a page of her
memorandum-book, leaped lightly from the counter, threw her brown braid
from her left shoulder to its proper place down her back, shook out
her skirts deliberately, and saying, "Thank you for a most improvin'
afternoon, Mr. Sparrell," sailed demurely out of the store.

A few auditors of this narrative thought it inconsistent that a daughter
of Judge Piper and a sister of the angelic host should put up with a
mere clerk's familiarity, but it was pointed out that "she gave him as
good as he sent," and the story was generally credited. But certainly
no one ever dreamed that it pointed to any more precious confidences
between them.

I think the secret burst upon the family, with other things, at the big
picnic at Reservoir Canyon. This festivity had been arranged for weeks
previously, and was undertaken chiefly by the "Red Gulch Contingent,"
as we were called, as a slight return to the Piper family for their
frequent hospitality. The Piper sisters were expected to bring nothing
but their own personal graces and attend to the ministration of such
viands and delicacies as the boys had profusely supplied.

The site selected was Reservoir Canyon, a beautiful, triangular valley
with very steep sides, one of which was crowned by the immense reservoir
of the Pioneer Ditch Company. The sheer flanks of the canyon descended
in furrowed lines of vines and clinging bushes, like folds of falling
skirts, until they broke again into flounces of spangled shrubbery over
a broad level carpet of monkshood, mariposas, lupines, poppies, and
daisies. Tempered and secluded from the sun's rays by its lofty shadows,
the delicious obscurity of the canyon was in sharp contrast to the
fiery mountain trail that in the full glare of the noonday sky made
its tortuous way down the hillside, like a stream of lava, to plunge
suddenly into the valley and extinguish itself in its coolness as in a
lake. The heavy odors of wild honeysuckle, syringa, and ceanothus that
hung over it were lightened and freshened by the sharp spicing of pine
and bay. The mountain breeze which sometimes shook the serrated tops of
the large redwoods above with a chill from the remote snow peaks even in
the heart of summer, never reached the little valley.

It seemed an ideal place for a picnic. Everybody was therefore
astonished to hear that an objection was suddenly raised to this perfect
site. They were still more astonished to know that the objector was the
youngest Miss Piper! Pressed to give her reasons, she had replied that
the locality was dangerous; that the reservoir placed upon the mountain,
notoriously old and worn out, had been rendered more unsafe by
false economy in unskillful and hasty repairs to satisfy speculating
stockbrokers, and that it had lately shown signs of leakage and sapping
of its outer walls; that, in the event of an outbreak, the little
triangular valley, from which there was no outlet, would be instantly
flooded. Asked still more pressingly to give her authority for these
details, she at first hesitated, and then gave the name of Tom Sparrell.

The derision with which this statement was received by us all, as the
opinion of a sedentary clerk, was quite natural and obvious, but not
the anger which it excited in the breast of Judge Piper; for it was not
generally known that the judge was the holder of a considerable number
of shares in the Pioneer Ditch Company, and that large dividends had
been lately kept up by a false economy of expenditure, to expedite a
"sharp deal" in the stock, by which the judge and others could sell out
of a failing company. Rather, it was believed, that the judge's anger
was due only to the discovery of Sparrell's influence over his daughter
and his interference with the social affairs of Cottonwood. It was said
that there was a sharp scene between the youngest Miss Piper and the
combined forces of the judge and the elder sisters, which ended in the
former's resolute refusal to attend the picnic at all if that site was
selected.

As Delaware was known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness,
and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was
merely "stickin' up for Sparrell's judgment" without any reference to
her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed
away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and
envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the
reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that
only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular
afternoon of the picnic; that even if it did happen, there was no direct
proof that it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than
a spice of excitement to the affair. The "Red Gulch Contingent," who
WOULD be there, was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in
case of any accident, as any lame crank who wouldn't, but could only
croak a warning to them from a distance. A few even wished something
might happen that they might have an opportunity of showing their
superior devotion; indeed, the prospect of carrying the half-submerged
sisters, in a condition of helpless loveliness, in their arms to a place
of safety was a fascinating possibility. The warning was conspicuously
ineffective; everybody looked eagerly forward to the day and the
unchanged locality; to the greatest hopefulness and anticipation was
added the stirring of defiance, and when at last the appointed hour
had arrived, the picnic party passed down the twisting mountain trail
through the heat and glare in a fever of enthusiasm.

It was a pretty sight to view this sparkling procession--the girls cool
and radiant in their white, blue, and yellow muslins and flying ribbons,
the "Contingent" in its cleanest ducks, and blue and red flannel shirts,
the judge white-waistcoated and panama-hatted, with a new dignity
borrowed from the previous circumstances, and three or four impressive
Chinamen bringing up the rear with hampers--as it at last debouched into
Reservoir Canyon.

Here they dispersed themselves over the limited area, scarcely half an
acre, with the freedom of escaped school children. They were secure in
their woodland privacy. They were overlooked by no high road and
its passing teams; they were safe from accidental intrusion from the
settlement; indeed they went so far as to effect the exclusiveness of
"clique." At first they amused themselves by casting humorously defiant
eyes at the long low Ditch Reservoir, which peeped over the green wall
of the ridge, six hundred feet above them; at times they even simulated
an exaggerated terror of it, and one recognized humorist declaimed a
grotesque appeal to its forbearance, with delightful local allusions.
Others pretended to discover near a woodman's hut, among the belt of
pines at the top of the descending trail, the peeping figure of the
ridiculous and envious Sparrell. But all this was presently forgotten
in the actual festivity. Small as was the range of the valley, it
still allowed retreats during the dances for waiting couples among the
convenient laurel and manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side.
After the dancing, old-fashioned children's games were revived with
great laughter and half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies;
notably one pastime known as "I'm a-pinin'," in which ingenious
performance the victim was obliged to stand in the centre of a circle
and publicly "pine" for a member of the opposite sex. Some hilarity was
occasioned by the mischievous Miss "Georgy" Piper declaring, when it
came to her turn, that she was "pinin'" for a look at the face of Tom
Sparrell just now!

In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the
long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was
neatly proposed by the editor of the "Argus." The judge responded with
great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his
humble endeavor to promote harmony--that harmony so characteristic
of American principles--in social as he had in political circles,
and particularly among the strangely constituted yet purely American
elements of frontier life. He accepted the present festivity with
its overflowing hospitalities, not in recognition of himself--("yes!
yes!")--nor of his family--(enthusiastic protests)--but of that American
principle! If at one time it seemed probable that these festivities
might be marred by the machinations of envy--(groans)--or that
harmony interrupted by the importation of low-toned material
interests--(groans)--he could say that, looking around him, he had never
before felt--er--that--Here the judge stopped short, reeled slightly
forward, caught at a camp-stool, recovered himself with an apologetic
smile, and turned inquiringly to his neighbor.

A light laugh--instantly suppressed--at what was at first supposed to
be the effect of the "overflowing hospitality" upon the speaker himself,
went around the male circle until it suddenly appeared that half a dozen
others had started to their feet at the same time, with white faces, and
that one of the ladies had screamed.

"What is it?" everybody was asking with interrogatory smiles.

It was Judge Piper who replied:--

"A little shock of earthquake," he said blandly; "a mere thrill! I
think," he added with a faint smile, "we may say that Nature herself has
applauded our efforts in good old Californian fashion, and signified her
assent. What are you saying, Fludder?"

"I was thinking, sir," said Fludder deferentially, in a lower voice,
"that if anything was wrong in the reservoir, this shock, you know,
might"--

He was interrupted by a faint crashing and crackling sound, and looking
up, beheld a good-sized boulder, evidently detached from some greater
height, strike the upland plateau at the left of the trail and bound
into the fringe of forest beside it. A slight cloud of dust marked its
course, and then lazily floated away in mid air. But it had been watched
agitatedly, and it was evident that that singular loss of nervous
balance which is apt to affect all those who go through the slightest
earthquake experience was felt by all. But some sense of humor, however,
remained.

"Looks as if the water risks we took ain't goin' to cover earthquakes,"
drawled Dick Frisney; "still that wasn't a bad shot, if we only knew
what they were aiming at."

"Do be quiet," said Virginia Piper, her cheeks pink with excitement.
"Listen, can't you? What's that funny murmuring you hear now and then up
there?"

"It's only the snow-wind playin' with the pines on the summit. You girls
won't allow anybody any fun but yourselves."

But here a scream from "Georgy," who, assisted by Captain Fairfax, had
mounted a camp-stool at the mouth of the valley, attracted everybody's
attention. She was standing upright, with dilated eyes, staring at
the top of the trail. "Look!" she said excitedly, "if the trail isn't
moving!"

Everybody faced in that direction. At the first glance it seemed indeed
as if the trail was actually moving; wriggling and undulating its
tortuous way down the mountain like a huge snake, only swollen to twice
its usual size. But the second glance showed it to be no longer a trail
but a channel of water, whose stream, lifted in a bore-like wall four or
five feet high, was plunging down into the devoted valley.

For an instant they were unable to comprehend even the nature of the
catastrophe. The reservoir was directly over their heads; the bursting
of its wall they had imagined would naturally bring down the water in a
dozen trickling streams or falls over the cliff above them and along the
flanks of the mountain. But that its suddenly liberated volume should
overflow the upland beyond and then descend in a pent-up flood by their
own trail and their only avenue of escape, had been beyond their wildest
fancy.

They met this smiting truth with that characteristic short laugh
with which the American usually receives the blow of Fate or the
unexpected--as if he recognized only the absurdity of the situation.
Then they ran to the women, collected them together, and dragged them
to vantages of fancied security among the bushes which flounced the long
skirts of the mountain walls. But I leave this part of the description
to the characteristic language of one of the party:--

"When the flood struck us, it did not seem to take any stock of us in
particular, but laid itself out to 'go for' that picnic for all it
was worth! It wiped it off the face of the earth in about twenty-five
seconds! It first made a clean break from stem to stern, carrying
everything along with it. The first thing I saw was old Judge Piper,
puttin' on his best licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice
cream that was trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his
collar, whenever a bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was
left of the brass band; the big drum just humpin' itself to keep
abreast o' the ice cream, mixed up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few
Chinamen, and then what they call in them big San Francisco processions
'citizens generally.' The hull thing swept up the canyon inside o'
thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax called 'the reflex action in
the laws o' motion' happened, and darned if the hull blamed procession
didn't sweep back again--this time all the heavy artillery, such as
camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses, and crockery that was
left behind takin' the lead now, and Judge Piper and that ice cream can
bringin' up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second time, we noticed
that that ice cream can--hevin' swallowed water--was kinder losing its
wind, and we encouraged the old man by shoutin' out, 'Five to one on
him!' And then, you wouldn't believe what followed. Why, darn my skin,
when that 'reflex' met the current at the other end, it just swirled
around again in what Captain Fairfax called the 'centrifugal curve,' and
just went round and round the canyon like ez when yer washin' the dirt
out o' a prospectin' pan--every now and then washin' some one of the
boys that was in it, like scum, up ag'in the banks.

"We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin'
round on the home stretch, passin' the quarter post two lengths ahead
o' the can. A good deal o' the ice cream had washed away, but it took
us ten minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o' the
old man's clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he
was clinging. This sort o' 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' kep'
on until most o' the humans was got out, and only the furniture o'
the picnic was left in the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went
sloshin' round here and there, ez the water kep' comin' down by the
trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I was holdin' up all the time in a laurel
bush, gets an idea, for all she was wet and draggled; and ez the things
went bobbin' round, she calls out the figures o' a cotillon to 'em.
'Two camp-stools forward.' 'Sashay and back to your places.' 'Change
partners.' 'Hands all round.'

"She was clear grit, you bet! And the joke caught on and the other
girls jined in, and it kinder cheered 'em, for they was wantin' it. Then
Fludder allowed to pacify 'em by sayin' he just figured up the size o'
the reservoir and the size o' the canyon, and he kalkilated that the
cube was about ekal, and the canyon couldn't flood any more. And then
Lulu--who was peart as a jay and couldn't be fooled--speaks up and says,
'What's the matter with the ditch, Dick?'

"Lord! then we knew that she knew the worst; for of course all the water
in the ditch itself--fifty miles of it!--was drainin' now into that
reservoir and was bound to come down to the canyon."

It was at this point that the situation became really desperate, for
they had now crawled up the steep sides as far as the bushes afforded
foothold, and the water was still rising. The chatter of the girls
ceased, there were long silences, in which the men discussed the wildest
plans, and proposed to tear their shirts into strips to make ropes to
support the girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in
one of those intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman's axe were
heard high on the upland at the point where the trail descended to the
canyon. Every ear was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon
could get a fair view of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain
Fairfax and Georgy Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that
side, and were now standing up, gazing excitedly in that direction.

"Some one is cutting down a tree at the head of the trail," shouted
Fairfax. The response and joyful explanation, "for a dam across the
trail," was on everybody's lips at the same time.

But the strokes of the axe were slow and painfully intermittent.
Impatience burst out.

"Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven't they brought two men?"

"It's only one man," shouted the captain, "and he seems to be a cripple.
By Jiminy!--it is--yes!--it's Tom Sparrell!"

There was a dead silence. Then, I grieve to say, shame and its twin
brother rage took possession of their weak humanity. Oh, yes! It was all
of a piece! Why in the name of Folly hadn't he sent for an able-bodied
man. Were they to be drowned through his cranky obstinacy?

The blows still went on slowly. Presently, however, they seemed to
alternate with other blows--but alas! they were slower, and if possible
feebler!

"Have they got another cripple to work?" roared the Contingent in one
furious voice.

"No--it's a woman--a little one--yes! a girl. Hello! Why, sure as you
live, it's Delaware!"

A spontaneous cheer burst from the Contingent, partly as a rebuke to
Sparrell, I think, partly from some shame over their previous rage. He
could take it as he liked.

Still the blows went on distressingly slow. The girls were hoisted
on the men's shoulders; the men were half submerged. Then there was a
painful pause; then a crumbling crash. Another cheer went up from the
canyon.

"It's down! straight across the trail," shouted Fairfax, "and a part of
the bank on the top of it."

There was another moment of suspense. Would it hold or be carried away
by the momentum of the flood? It held! In a few moments Fairfax again
gave voice to the cheering news that the flow had stopped and the
submerged trail was reappearing. In twenty minutes it was clear--a muddy
river bed, but possible of ascent! Of course there was no diminution of
the water in the canyon, which had no outlet, yet it now was possible
for the party to swing from bush to bush along the mountain side until
the foot of the trail--no longer an opposing one--was reached. There
were some missteps and mishaps,--flounderings in the water, and some
dangerous rescues,--but in half an hour the whole concourse stood
upon the trail and commenced the ascent. It was a slow, difficult, and
lugubrious procession--I fear not the best-tempered one, now that the
stimulus of danger and chivalry was past. When they reached the dam made
by the fallen tree, although they were obliged to make a long detour to
avoid its steep sides, they could see how successfully it had diverted
the current to a declivity on the other side.

But strangely enough they were greeted by nothing else! Sparrell and
the youngest Miss Piper were gone; and when they at last reached the
highroad, they were astounded to hear from a passing teamster that no
one in the settlement knew anything of the disaster!

This was the last drop in their cup of bitterness! They who had expected
that the settlement was waiting breathlessly for their rescue, who
anticipated that they would be welcomed as heroes, were obliged to
meet the ill-concealed amusement of passengers and friends at their
dishevelled and bedraggled appearance, which suggested only the
blundering mishaps of an ordinary summer outing! "Boatin' in the
reservoir, and fell in?" "Playing at canal-boat in the Ditch?" were some
of the cheerful hypotheses. The fleeting sense of gratitude they had
felt for their deliverers was dissipated by the time they had reached
their homes, and their rancor increased by the information that when the
earthquake occurred Mr. Tom Sparrell and Miss Delaware were enjoying
a "pasear" in the forest--he having a half-holiday by virtue of
the festival--and that the earthquake had revived his fears of a
catastrophe. The two had procured axes in the woodman's hut and did what
they thought was necessary to relieve the situation of the picnickers.
But the very modesty of this account of their own performance had the
effect of belittling the catastrophe itself, and the picnickers' report
of their exceeding peril was received with incredulous laughter.

For the first time in the history of Red Gulch there was a serious
division between the Piper family, supported by the Contingent, and the
rest of the settlement. Tom Sparrell's warning was remembered by
the latter, and the ingratitude of the picnickers to their rescuers
commented upon; the actual calamity to the reservoir was more or less
attributed to the imprudent and reckless contiguity of the revelers on
that day, and there were not wanting those who referred the accident
itself to the machinations of the scheming Ditch Director Piper!

It was said that there was a stormy scene in the Piper household that
evening. The judge had demanded that Delaware should break off her
acquaintance with Sparrell, and she had refused; the judge had demanded
of Sparrell's employer that he should discharge him, and had been met
with the astounding information that Sparrell was already a silent
partner in the concern. At this revelation Judge Piper was alarmed;
while he might object to a clerk who could not support a wife, as a
consistent democrat he could not oppose a fairly prosperous tradesman.
A final appeal was made to Delaware; she was implored to consider the
situation of her sisters, who had all made more ambitious marriages
or were about to make them. Why should she now degrade the family by
marrying a country storekeeper?

It is said that here the youngest Miss Piper made a memorable reply, and
a revelation the truth of which was never gainsaid:--

"You all wanter know why I'm going to marry Tom Sparrell?" she queried,
standing up and facing the whole family circle.

"Yes."

"Why I prefer him to the hull caboodle that you girls have married or
are going to marry?" she continued, meditatively biting the end of her
braid.

"Yes."

"Well, he's the only man of the whole lot that hasn't proposed to me
first."

It is presumed that Sparrell made good the omission, or that the family
were glad to get rid of her, for they were married that autumn. And
really a later comparison of the family records shows that while Captain
Fairfax remained "Captain Fairfax," and the other sons-in-law did not
advance proportionately in standing or riches, the lame storekeeper of
Red Gulch became the Hon. Senator Tom Sparrell.




A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY


The Widow Wade was standing at her bedroom window staring out, in that
vague instinct which compels humanity in moments of doubt and perplexity
to seek this change of observation or superior illumination. Not that
Mrs. Wade's disturbance was of a serious character. She had passed the
acute stage of widowhood by at least two years, and the slight redness
of her soft eyelids as well as the droop of her pretty mouth were
merely the recognized outward and visible signs of the grievously minded
religious community in which she lived. The mourning she still wore
was also partly in conformity with the sad-colored garments of
her neighbors, and the necessities of the rainy season. She was in
comfortable circumstances, the mistress of a large ranch in the valley,
which had lately become more valuable by the extension of a wagon road
through its centre. She was simply worrying whether she should go to
a "sociable" ending with "a dance"--a daring innovation of some
strangers--at the new hotel, or continue to eschew such follies, that
were, according to local belief, unsuited to "a vale of tears."

Indeed at this moment the prospect she gazed abstractedly upon seemed
to justify that lugubrious description. The Santa Ana Valley--a long
monotonous level--was dimly visible through moving curtains of rain or
veils of mist, to the black mourning edge of the horizon, and had looked
like that for months. The valley--in some remote epoch an arm of the San
Francisco Bay--every rainy season seemed to be trying to revert to its
original condition, and, long after the early spring had laid on its
liberal color in strips, bands, and patches of blue and yellow, the
blossoms of mustard and lupine glistened like wet paint. Nevertheless on
that rich alluvial soil Nature's tears seemed only to fatten the
widow's acres and increase her crops. Her neighbors, too, were equally
prosperous. Yet for six months of the year the recognized expression
of Santa Ana was one of sadness, and for the other six months--of
resignation. Mrs. Wade had yielded early to this influence, as she had
to others, in the weakness of her gentle nature, and partly as it was
more becoming the singular tragedy that had made her a widow.

The late Mr. Wade had been found dead with a bullet through his head in
a secluded part of the road over Heavy Tree Hill in Sonora County. Near
him lay two other bodies, one afterwards identified as John Stubbs, a
resident of the Hill, and probably a traveling companion of Wade's,
and the other a noted desperado and highwayman, still masked, as at the
moment of the attack. Wade and his companion had probably sold their
lives dearly, and against odds, for another mask was found on the
ground, indicating that the attack was not single-handed, and as
Wade's body had not yet been rifled, it was evident that the remaining
highwayman had fled in haste. The hue and cry had been given by
apparently the only one of the travelers who escaped, but as he was
hastening to take the overland coach to the East at the time, his
testimony could not be submitted to the coroner's deliberation. The
facts, however, were sufficiently plain for a verdict of willful murder
against the highwayman, although it was believed that the absent witness
had basely deserted his companion and left him to his fate, or, as was
suggested by others, that he might even have been an accomplice. It
was this circumstance which protracted comment on the incident, and
the sufferings of the widow, far beyond that rapid obliteration which
usually overtook such affairs in the feverish haste of the early days.
It caused her to remove to Santa Ana, where her old father had feebly
ranched a "quarter section" in the valley. He survived her husband
only a few months, leaving her the property, and once more in mourning.
Perhaps this continuity of woe endeared her to a neighborhood where
distinctive ravages of diphtheria or scarlet fever gave a kind of social
preeminence to any household, and she was so sympathetically assisted by
her neighbors in the management of the ranch that, from an unkempt
and wasteful wilderness, it became paying property. The slim, willowy
figure, soft red-lidded eyes, and deep crape of "Sister Wade" at church
or prayer-meeting was grateful to the soul of these gloomy worshipers,
and in time she herself found that the arm of these dyspeptics of mind
and body was nevertheless strong and sustaining. Small wonder that she
should hesitate to-night about plunging into inconsistent, even though
trifling, frivolities.

But apart from this superficial reason, there was another instinctive
one deep down in the recesses of Mrs. Wade's timid heart which she had
kept to herself, and indeed would have tearfully resented had it been
offered by another. The late Mr. Wade had been, in fact, a singular
example of this kind of frivolous existence carried to a man-like
excess. Besides being a patron of amusements, Mr. Wade gambled, raced,
and drank. He was often home late, and sometimes not at all. Not that
this conduct was exceptional in the "roaring days" of Heavy Tree Hill,
but it had given Mrs. Wade perhaps an undue preference for a less
certain, even if a more serious life. His tragic death was, of course,
a kind of martyrdom, which exalted him in the feminine mind to a saintly
memory; yet Mrs. Wade was not without a certain relief in that. It
was voiced, perhaps crudely, by the widow of Abner Drake in a visit of
condolence to the tearful Mrs. Wade a few days after Wade's death. "It's
a vale o' sorrow, Mrs. Wade," said the sympathizer, "but it has its ups
and downs, and I recken ye'll be feelin' soon pretty much as I did about
Abner when HE was took. It was mighty soothin' and comfortin' to feel
that whatever might happen now, I always knew just whar Abner was
passin' his nights." Poor slim Mrs. Wade had no disquieting sense of
humor to interfere with her reception of this large truth, and she
accepted it with a burst of reminiscent tears.

A long volleying shower had just passed down the level landscape, and
was followed by a rolling mist from the warm saturated soil like the
smoke of the discharge. Through it she could see a faint lightening
of the hidden sun, again darkening through a sudden onset of rain, and
changing as with her conflicting doubts and resolutions. Thus gazing,
she was vaguely conscious of an addition to the landscape in the shape
of a man who was passing down the road with a pack on his back like
the tramping "prospectors" she had often seen at Heavy Tree Hill. That
memory apparently settled her vacillating mind; she determined she
would NOT go to the dance. But as she was turning away from the window
a second figure, a horseman, appeared in another direction by a
cross-road, a shorter cut through her domain. This she had no difficulty
in recognizing as one of the strangers who were getting up the dance.
She had noticed him at church on the previous Sunday. As he passed the
house he appeared to be gazing at it so earnestly that she drew back
from the window lest she should be seen. And then, for no reason
whatever, she changed her mind once more, and resolved to go to the
dance. Gravely announcing this fact to the wife of her superintendent
who kept house with her in her loneliness, she thought nothing more
about it. She should go in her mourning, with perhaps the addition of a
white collar and frill.

It was evident, however, that Santa Ana thought a good deal more than
she did of this new idea, which seemed a part of the innovation already
begun by the building up of the new hotel. It was argued by some that
as the new church and new schoolhouse had been opened by prayer, it was
only natural that a lighter festivity should inaugurate the opening of
the hotel. "I reckon that dancin' is about the next thing to travelin'
for gettin' up an appetite for refreshments, and that's what the
landlord is kalkilatin' to sarve," was the remark of a gloomy but
practical citizen on the veranda of "The Valley Emporium." "That's so,"
rejoined a bystander; "and I notice on that last box o' pills I got for
chills the directions say that a little 'agreeable exercise'--not too
violent--is a great assistance to the working o' the pills."

"I reckon that that Mr. Brooks who's down here lookin' arter mill
property, got up the dance. He's bin round town canvassin' all the women
folks and drummin' up likely gals for it. They say he actooally sent an
invite to the Widder Wade," remarked another lounger. "Gosh! he's got
cheek!"

"Well, gentlemen," said the proprietor judicially, "while we don't
intend to hev any minin' camp fandangos or 'Frisco falals round Santa
Any--(Santa Ana was proud of its simple agricultural virtues)--I ain't
so hard-shelled as not to give new things a fair trial. And, after all,
it's the women folk that has the say about it. Why, there's old Miss
Ford sez she hasn't kicked a fut sence she left Mizoori, but wouldn't
mind trying it agin. Ez to Brooks takin' that trouble--well, I suppose
it's along o' his bein' HEALTHY!" He heaved a deep dyspeptic sigh, which
was faintly echoed by the others. "Why, look at him now, ridin' round
on that black hoss o' his, in the wet since daylight and not carin' for
blind chills or rhumatiz!"

He was looking at a serape-draped horseman, the one the widow had seen
on the previous night, who was now cantering slowly up the street.
Seeing the group on the veranda, he rode up, threw himself lightly from
his saddle, and joined them. He was an alert, determined, good-looking
fellow of about thirty-five, whose smooth, smiling face hardly commended
itself to Santa Ana, though his eyes were distinctly sympathetic. He
glanced at the depressed group around him and became ominously serious.

"When did it happen?" he asked gravely.

"What happen?" said the nearest bystander.

"The Funeral, Flood, Fight, or Fire. Which of the four F's was it?"

"What are ye talkin' about?" said the proprietor stiffly, scenting some
dangerous humor.

"YOU," said Brooks promptly. "You're all standing here, croaking like
crows, this fine morning. I passed YOUR farm, Johnson, not an hour ago;
the wheat just climbing out of the black adobe mud as thick as rows of
pins on paper--what have YOU to grumble at? I saw YOUR stock, Briggs,
over on Two-Mile Bottom, waddling along, fat as the adobe they were
sticking in, their coats shining like fresh paint--what's the matter
with YOU? And," turning to the proprietor, "there's YOUR shed, Saunders,
over on the creek, just bursting with last year's grain that you know
has gone up two hundred per cent. since you bought it at a bargain--what
are YOU growling at? It's enough to provoke a fire or a famine to hear
you groaning--and take care it don't, some day, as a lesson to you."

All this was so perfectly true of the prosperous burghers that they
could not for a moment reply. But Briggs had recourse to what he
believed to be a retaliatory taunt.

"I heard you've been askin' Widow Wade to come to your dance," he said,
with a wink at the others. "Of course she said 'Yes.'"

"Of course she did," returned Brooks coolly. "I've just got her note."

"What?" ejaculated the three men together. "Mrs. Wade comin'?"

"Certainly! Why shouldn't she? And it would do YOU good to come too,
and shake the limp dampness out o' you," returned Brooks, as he quietly
remounted his horse and cantered away.

"Darned ef I don't think he's got his eye on the widder," said Johnson
faintly.

"Or the quarter section," added Briggs gloomily.

For all that, the eventful evening came, with many lights in the
staring, undraped windows of the hotel, coldly bright bunting on the
still damp walls of the long dining-room, and a gentle downpour from the
hidden skies above. A close carryall was especially selected to bring
Mrs. Wade and her housekeeper. The widow arrived, looking a little
slimmer than usual in her closely buttoned black dress, white collar and
cuffs, very glistening in eye and in hair,--whose glossy black ringlets
were perhaps more elaborately arranged than was her custom,--and with
a faint coming and going of color, due perhaps to her agitation at this
tentative reentering into worldly life, which was nevertheless quite
virginal in effect. A vague solemnity pervaded the introductory
proceedings, and a singular want of sociability was visible in the
"sociable" part of the entertainment. People talked in whispers or with
that grave precision which indicates good manners in rural communities;
conversed painfully with other people whom they did not want to talk to
rather than appear to be alone, or rushed aimlessly together like water
drops, and then floated in broken, adherent masses over the floor. The
widow became a helpless, religious centre of deacons and Sunday-school
teachers, which Brooks, untiring, yet fruitless, in his attempt to
produce gayety, tried in vain to break. To this gloom the untried
dangers of the impending dance, duly prefigured by a lonely cottage
piano and two violins in a desert of expanse, added a nervous
chill. When at last the music struck up--somewhat hesitatingly and
protestingly, from the circumstance that the player was the church
organist, and fumbled mechanically for his stops, the attempt to make
up a cotillon set was left to the heroic Brooks. Yet he barely escaped
disaster when, in posing the couples, he incautiously begged them to
look a little less as if they were waiting for the coffin to be borne
down the aisle between them, and was rewarded by a burst of tears from
Mrs. Johnson, who had lost a child two years before, and who had to
be led away, while her place in the set was taken by another. Yet the
cotillon passed off; a Spanish dance succeeded; "Moneymusk," with the
Virginia Reel, put a slight intoxicating vibration into the air, and
healthy youth at last asserted itself in a score of freckled but buxom
girls in white muslin, with romping figures and laughter, at the lower
end of the room. Still a rigid decorum reigned among the elder dancers,
and the figures were called out in grave formality, as if, to Brooks's
fancy, they were hymns given from the pulpit, until at the close of
the set, in half-real, half-mock despair, he turned desperately to Mrs.
Wade, his partner:--

"Do you waltz?"

Mrs. Wade hesitated. She HAD, before marriage, and was a good waltzer.
"I do," she said timidly, "but do you think they"--

But before the poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception
of "round dances," Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment
she heard with a "fearful joy" the opening bars of a waltz. It was an
old Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative
to foot, swamping to intellect, arresting to judgment, irresistible,
supreme! Before Mrs. Wade could protest, Brooks's arm had gathered up
her slim figure, and with one quick backward sweep and swirl they were
off! The floor was cleared for them in a sudden bewilderment of alarm--a
suspense of burning curiosity. The widow's little feet tripped quickly,
her long black skirt swung out; as she turned the corner there was
not only a sudden revelation of her pretty ankles, but, what was more
startling, a dazzling flash of frilled and laced petticoat, which
at once convinced every woman in the room that the act had been
premeditated for days! Yet even that criticism was presently forgotten
in the pervading intoxication of the music and the movement. The younger
people fell into it with wild rompings, whirlings, and clasping of hands
and waists. And stranger than all, a corybantic enthusiasm seized upon
the emotionally religious, and those priests and priestesses of Cybele
who were famous for their frenzy and passion in camp-meeting devotions
seemed to find an equal expression that night in the waltz. And when,
flushed and panting, Mrs. Wade at last halted on the arm of her partner,
they were nearly knocked over by the revolving Johnson and Mrs. Stubbs
in a whirl of gloomy exultation! Deacons and Sunday-school teachers
waltzed together until the long room shook, and the very bunting on
the walls waved and fluttered with the gyrations of those religious
dervishes. Nobody knew--nobody cared how long this frenzy lasted--it
ceased only with the collapse of the musicians. Then, with much vague
bewilderment, inward trepidation, awkward and incoherent partings,
everybody went dazedly home; there was no other dancing after that--the
waltz was the one event of the festival and of the history of Santa Ana.
And later that night, when the timid Mrs. Wade, in the seclusion of her
own room and the disrobing of her slim figure, glanced at her spotless
frilled and laced petticoat lying on a chair, a faint smile--the first
of her widowhood--curved the corners of her pretty mouth.

A week of ominous silence regarding the festival succeeded in Santa
Ana. The local paper gave the fullest particulars of the opening of the
hotel, but contented itself with saying: "The entertainment concluded
with a dance." Mr. Brooks, who felt himself compelled to call upon his
late charming partner twice during the week, characteristically soothed
her anxieties as to the result. "The fact of it is, Mrs. Wade, there's
really nobody in particular to blame--and that's what gets them. They're
all mixed up in it, deacons and Sunday-school teachers; and when
old Johnson tried to be nasty the other evening and hoped you hadn't
suffered from your exertions that night, I told him you hadn't quite
recovered yet from the physical shock of having been run into by him and
Mrs. Stubbs, but that, you being a lady, you didn't tell just how you
felt at the exhibition he and she made of themselves. That shut him up."

"But you shouldn't have said that," said Mrs. Wade with a frightened
little smile.

"No matter," returned Brooks cheerfully. "I'll take the blame of it with
the others. You see they'll have to have a scapegoat--and I'm just the
man, for I got up the dance! And as I'm going away, I suppose I shall
bear off the sin with me into the wilderness."

"You're going away?" repeated Mrs. Wade in more genuine concern.

"Not for long," returned Brooks laughingly. "I came here to look up a
mill site, and I've found it. Meantime I think I've opened their eyes."

"You have opened mine," said the widow with timid frankness.

They were soft pretty eyes when opened, in spite of their heavy red
lids, and Mr. Brooks thought that Santa Ana would be no worse if they
remained open. Possibly he looked it, for Mrs. Wade said hurriedly, "I
mean--that is--I've been thinking that life needn't ALWAYS be as gloomy
as we make it here. And even HERE, you know, Mr. Brooks, we have six
months' sunshine--though we always forget it in the rainy season."

"That's so," said Brooks cheerfully. "I once lost a heap of money
through my own foolishness, and I've managed to forget it, and I even
reckon to get it back again out of Santa Ana if my mill speculation
holds good. So good-by, Mrs. Wade--but not for long." He shook her
hand frankly and departed, leaving the widow conscious of a certain
sympathetic confidence and a little grateful for--she knew not what.

This feeling remained with her most of the afternoon, and even imparted
a certain gayety to her spirits, to the extent of causing her to hum
softly to herself; the air being oddly enough the Julien Waltz. And
when, later in the day, the shadows were closing in with the rain,
word was brought to her that a stranger wished to see her in the
sitting-room, she carried a less mournful mind to this function of her
existence. For Mrs. Wade was accustomed to give audience to traveling
agents, tradesmen, working-hands and servants, as chatelaine of her
ranch, and the occasion was not novel. Yet on entering the room, which
she used partly as an office, she found some difficulty in classifying
the stranger, who at first glance reminded her of the tramping miner
she had seen that night from her window. He was rather incongruously
dressed, some articles of his apparel being finer than others; he wore
a diamond pin in a scarf folded over a rough "hickory" shirt; his light
trousers were tucked in common mining boots that bore stains of travel
and a suggestion that he had slept in his clothes. What she could see
of his unshaven face in that uncertain light expressed a kind of dogged
concentration, overlaid by an assumption of ease. He got up as she came
in, and with a slight "How do, ma'am," shut the door behind her and
glanced furtively around the room.

"What I've got to say to ye, Mrs. Wade,--as I reckon you be,--is
strictly private and confidential! Why, ye'll see afore I get through.
But I thought I might just as well caution ye agin our being disturbed."

Overcoming a slight instinct of repulsion, Mrs. Wade returned, "You can
speak to me here; no one will interrupt you--unless I call them," she
added with a little feminine caution.

"And I reckon ye won't do that," he said with a grim smile. "You are the
widow o' Pulaski Wade, late o' Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon?"

"I am," said Mrs. Wade.

"And your husband's buried up thar in the graveyard, with a monument
over him setting forth his virtues ez a Christian and a square man and a
high-minded citizen? And that he was foully murdered by highwaymen?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Wade, "that is the inscription."

"Well, ma'am, a bigger pack o' lies never was cut on stone!"

Mrs. Wade rose, half in indignation, half in terror.

"Keep your sittin'," said the stranger, with a warning wave of his
hand. "Wait till I'm through, and then you call in the hull State o'
Californy, ef ye want."

The stranger's manner was so doggedly confident that Mrs. Wade sank
back tremblingly in her chair. The man put his slouch hat on his knee,
twirled it round once or twice, and then said with the same stubborn
deliberation:--

"The highwayman in that business was your husband--Pulaski Wade--and his
gang, and he was killed by one o' the men he was robbin'. Ye see,
ma'am, it used to be your husband's little game to rope in three or four
strangers in a poker deal at Spanish Jim's saloon--I see you've heard o'
the place," he interpolated as Mrs. Wade drew back suddenly--"and when
he couldn't clean 'em out in that way, or they showed a little more
money than they played, he'd lay for 'em with his gang in a lone part of
the trail, and go through them like any road agent. That's what he did
that night--and that's how he got killed."

"How do you know this?" said Mrs. Wade, with quivering lips.

"I was one o' the men he went through before he was killed. And I'd hev
got my money back, but the rest o' the gang came up, and I got away jest
in time to save my life and nothin' else. Ye might remember thar was one
man got away and giv' the alarm, but he was goin' on to the States by
the overland coach that night and couldn't stay to be a witness. I was
that man. I had paid my passage through, and I couldn't lose THAT too
with my other money, so I went."

Mrs. Wade sat stunned. She remembered the missing witness, and how she
had longed to see the man who was last with her husband; she
remembered Spanish Jim's saloon--his well-known haunt; his frequent and
unaccountable absences, the sudden influx of money which he always said
he had won at cards; the diamond ring he had given her as the result of
"a bet;" the forgotten recurrence of other robberies by a secret masked
gang; a hundred other things that had worried her, instinctively,
vaguely. She knew now, too, the meaning of the unrest that had driven
her from Heavy Tree Hill--the strange unformulated fears that had
haunted her even here. Yet with all this she felt, too, her present
weakness--knew that this man had taken her at a disadvantage, that she
ought to indignantly assert herself, deny everything, demand proof, and
brand him a slanderer!

"How did--you--know it was my husband?" she stammered.

"His mask fell off in the fight; you know another mask was found--it
was HIS. I saw him as plainly as I see him there!" he pointed to a
daguerreotype of her husband which stood upon her desk.

Mrs. Wade could only stare vacantly, hopelessly. After a pause the man
continued in a less aggressive manner and more confidential tone, which,
however, only increased her terror. "I ain't sayin' that YOU knowed
anything about this, ma'am, and whatever other folks might say when THEY
know of it, I'll allers say that you didn't."

"What, then, did you come here for?" said the widow desperately.

"What do I come here for?" repeated the man grimly, looking around the
room; "what did I come to this yer comfortable home--this yer big ranch
and to a rich woman like yourself for? Well, Mrs. Wade, I come to get
the six hundred dollars your husband robbed me of, that's all! I ain't
askin' more! I ain't askin' interest! I ain't askin' compensation for
havin' to run for my life--and," again looking grimly round the walls,
"I ain't askin' more than you will give--or is my rights."

"But this house never was his; it was my father's," gasped Mrs. Wade;
"you have no right"--

"Mebbe 'yes' and mebbe 'no,' Mrs. Wade," interrupted the man, with
a wave of his hat; "but how about them two checks to bearer for two
hundred dollars each found among your husband's effects, and collected
by your lawyer for you--MY CHECKS, Mrs. Wade?"

A wave of dreadful recollection overwhelmed her. She remembered the
checks found upon her husband's body, known only to her and her lawyer,
believed to be gambling gains, and collected at once under his legal
advice. Yet she made one more desperate effort in spite of the instinct
that told her he was speaking the truth.

"But you shall have to prove it--before witnesses."

"Do you WANT me to prove it before witnesses?" said the man, coming
nearer her. "Do you want to take my word and keep it between ourselves,
or do you want to call in your superintendent and his men, and all
Santy Any, to hear me prove your husband was a highwayman, thief, and
murderer? Do you want to knock over that monument on Heavy Tree Hill,
and upset your standing here among the deacons and elders? Do you want
to do all this and be forced, even by your neighbors, to pay me in the
end, as you will? Ef you do, call in your witnesses now and let's have
it over. Mebbe it would look better ef I got the money out of YOUR
FRIENDS than ye--a woman! P'raps you're right!"

He made a step towards the door, but she stopped him.

"No! no! wait! It's a large sum--I haven't it with me," she stammered,
thoroughly beaten.

"Ye kin get it."

"Give me time!" she implored. "Look! I'll give you a hundred down
now,--all I have here,--the rest another time!" She nervously opened a
drawer of her desk and taking out a buckskin bag of gold thrust it in
his hand. "There! go away now!" She lifted her thin hands despairingly
to her head. "Go! do!"

The man seemed struck by her manner. "I don't want to be hard on
a woman," he said slowly. "I'll go now and come back again at nine
to-night. You can git the money, or what's as good, a check to bearer,
by then. And ef ye'll take my advice, you won't ask no advice from
others, ef you want to keep your secret. Just now it's safe with me; I'm
a square man, ef I seem to be a hard one." He made a gesture as if to
take her hand, but as she drew shrinkingly away, he changed it to an
awkward bow, and the next moment was gone.

She started to her feet, but the unwonted strain upon her nerves and
frail body had been greater than she knew. She made a step forward, felt
the room whirl round her and then seem to collapse beneath her feet,
and, clutching at her chair, sank back into it, fainting.

How long she lay there she never knew. She was at last conscious of some
one bending over her, and a voice--the voice of Mr. Brooks--in her ear,
saying, "I beg your pardon; you seem ill. Shall I call some one?"

"No!" she gasped, quickly recovering herself with an effort, and staring
round her. "Where is--when did you come in?"

"Only this moment. I was leaving tonight, sooner than I expected, and
thought I'd say good-by. They told me that you had been engaged with a
stranger, but he had just gone. I beg your pardon--I see you are ill. I
won't detain you any longer."

"No! no! don't go! I am better--better," she said feverishly. As she
glanced at his strong and sympathetic face a wild idea seized her. He
was a stranger here, an alien to these people, like herself. The advice
that she dare not seek from others, from her half-estranged religious
friends, from even her superintendent and his wife, dare she ask from
him? Perhaps he saw this frightened doubt, this imploring appeal, in her
eyes, for he said gently, "Is it anything I can do for you?"

"Yes," she said, with the sudden desperation of weakness; "I want you to
keep a secret."

"Yours?--yes!" he said promptly.

Whereat poor Mrs. Wade instantly burst into tears. Then, amidst her
sobs, she told him of the stranger's visit, of his terrible accusations,
of his demands, his expected return, and her own utter helplessness. To
her terror, as she went on she saw a singular change in his kind face;
he was following her with hard, eager intensity. She had half hoped,
even through her fateful instincts, that he might have laughed, manlike,
at her fears, or pooh-poohed the whole thing. But he did not. "You say
he positively recognized your husband?" he repeated quickly.

"Yes, yes!" sobbed the widow, "and knew that daguerreotype!" she pointed
to the desk.

Brooks turned quickly in that direction. Luckily his back was towards
her, and she could not see his face, and the quick, startled look that
came into his eyes. But when they again met hers, it was gone, and even
their eager intensity had changed to a gentle commiseration. "You have
only his word for it, Mrs. Wade," he said gently, "and in telling your
secret to another, you have shorn the rascal of half his power over you.
And he knew it. Now, dismiss the matter from your mind and leave it all
to me. I will be here a few minutes before nine--AND ALONE IN THIS ROOM.
Let your visitor be shown in here, and don't let us be disturbed. Don't
be alarmed," he added with a faint twinkle in his eye, "there will be no
fuss and no exposure!"


It lacked a few minutes of nine when Mr. Brooks was ushered into the
sitting-room. As soon as he was alone he quietly examined the door and
the windows, and having satisfied himself, took his seat in a chair
casually placed behind the door. Presently he heard the sound of voices
and a heavy footstep in the passage. He lightly felt his waistcoat
pocket--it contained a pretty little weapon of power and precision, with
a barrel scarcely two inches long.

The door opened, and the person outside entered the room. In an instant
Brooks had shut the door and locked it behind him. The man turned
fiercely, but was faced by Brooks quietly, with one finger calmly hooked
in his waistcoat pocket. The man slightly recoiled from him--not as much
from fear as from some vague stupefaction. "What's that for? What's your
little game?" he said half contemptuously.

"No game at all," returned Brooks coolly. "You came here to sell a
secret. I don't propose to have it given away first to any listener."

"YOU don't--who are YOU?"

"That's a queer question to ask of the man you are trying to
personate--but I don't wonder! You're doing it d----d badly."

"Personate--YOU?" said the stranger, with staring eyes.

"Yes, ME," said Brooks quietly. "I am the only man who escaped from the
robbery that night at Heavy Tree Hill and who went home by the Overland
Coach."

The stranger stared, but recovered himself with a coarse laugh. "Oh,
well! we're on the same lay, it appears! Both after the widow--afore we
show up her husband."

"Not exactly," said Brooks, with his eyes fixed intently on the
stranger. "You are here to denounce a highwayman who is DEAD and escaped
justice. I am here to denounce one who is LIVING!--Stop! drop your hand;
it's no use. You thought you had to deal only with a woman to-night, and
your revolver isn't quite handy enough. There! down!--down! So! That'll
do."

"You can't prove it," said the man hoarsely.

"Fool! In your story to that woman you have given yourself away. There
were but two travelers attacked by the highwaymen. One was killed--I am
the other. Where do YOU come in? What witness can you be--except as
the highwayman that you are? Who is left to identify Wade but--his
accomplice!"

The man's suddenly whitened face made his unshaven beard seem to bristle
over his face like some wild animal's. "Well, ef you kalkilate to blow
me, you've got to blow Wade and his widder too. Jest you remember that,"
he said whiningly.

"I've thought of that," said Brooks coolly, "and I calculate that to
prevent it is worth about that hundred dollars you got from that
poor woman--and no more! Now, sit down at that table, and write as I
dictate."

The man looked at him in wonder, but obeyed.

"Write," said Brooks, "'I hereby certify that my accusations against the
late Pulaski Wade of Heavy Tree Hill are erroneous and groundless, and
the result of mistaken identity, especially in regard to any complicity
of his in the robbery of John Stubbs, deceased, and Henry Brooks, at
Heavy Tree Hill, on the night of the 13th August, 1854.'"

The man looked up with a repulsive smile. "Who's the fool now, Cap'n?
What's become of your hold on the widder, now?"

"Write!" said Brooks fiercely.

The sound of a pen hurriedly scratching paper followed this first
outburst of the quiet Brooks.

"Sign it," said Brooks.

The man signed it.

"Now go," said Brooks, unlocking the door, "but remember, if you should
ever be inclined to revisit Santa Ana, you will find ME living here
also."

The man slunk out of the door and into the passage like a wild animal
returning to the night and darkness. Brooks took up the paper, rejoined
Mrs. Wade in the parlor, and laid it before her.

"But," said the widow, trembling even in her joy, "do you--do you think
he was REALLY mistaken?"

"Positive," said Brooks coolly. "It's true, it's a mistake that has cost
you a hundred dollars, but there are some mistakes that are worth that
to be kept quiet."

*****

They were married a year later; but there is no record that in after
years of conjugal relations with a weak, charming, but sometimes trying
woman, Henry Brooks was ever tempted to tell her the whole truth of the
robbery of Heavy Tree Hill.




THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT


Some forty years ago, on the northern coast of California, near the
Golden Gate, stood a lighthouse. Of a primitive class, since superseded
by a building more in keeping with the growing magnitude of the adjacent
port, it attracted little attention from the desolate shore, and, it was
alleged, still less from the desolate sea beyond. A gray structure of
timber, stone, and glass, it was buffeted and harried by the constant
trade winds, baked by the unclouded six months' sun, lost for a few
hours in the afternoon sea-fog, and laughed over by circling guillemots
from the Farallones. It was kept by a recluse--a preoccupied man of
scientific tastes, who, in shameless contrast to his fellow immigrants,
had applied to the government for this scarcely lucrative position as a
means of securing the seclusion he valued more than gold. Some believed
that he was the victim of an early disappointment in love--a view
charitably taken by those who also believed that the government would
not have appointed "a crank" to a position of responsibility. Howbeit,
he fulfilled his duties, and, with the assistance of an Indian, even
cultivated a small patch of ground beside the lighthouse. His isolation
was complete! There was little to attract wanderers here: the nearest
mines were fifty miles away; the virgin forest on the mountains inland
were penetrated only by sawmills and woodmen from the Bay settlements,
equally remote. Although by the shore-line the lights of the great port
were sometimes plainly visible, yet the solitude around him was
peopled only by Indians,--a branch of the great northern tribe of
"root-diggers,"--peaceful and simple in their habits, as yet
undisturbed by the white man, nor stirred into antagonism by aggression.
Civilization only touched him at stated intervals, and then by the more
expeditious sea from the government boat that brought him supplies. But
for his contiguity to the perpetual turmoil of wind and sea, he might
have passed a restful Arcadian life in his surroundings; for even his
solitude was sometimes haunted by this faint reminder of the great port
hard by that pulsated with an equal unrest. Nevertheless, the sands
before his door and the rocks behind him seemed to have been untrodden
by any other white man's foot since their upheaval from the ocean. It
was true that the little bay beside him was marked on the map as "Sir
Francis Drake's Bay," tradition having located it as the spot where
that ingenious pirate and empire-maker had once landed his vessels and
scraped the barnacles from his adventurous keels. But of this Edgar
Pomfrey--or "Captain Pomfrey," as he was called by virtue of his
half-nautical office--had thought little.

For the first six months he had thoroughly enjoyed his seclusion. In
the company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store
that their shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more
comfortable furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his
unwonted manual labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his
reflectors, and his personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at
times assisted, he found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor
exercise, a ramble on the sands, a climb to the rocky upland, or a pull
in the lighthouse boat, amply sufficed him. "Crank" as he was supposed
to be, he was sane enough to guard against any of those early lapses
into barbarism which marked the lives of some solitary gold-miners.
His own taste, as well as the duty of his office, kept his person and
habitation sweet and clean, and his habits regular. Even the little
cultivated patch of ground on the lee side of the tower was symmetrical
and well ordered. Thus the outward light of Captain Pomfrey shone forth
over the wilderness of shore and wave, even like his beacon, whatever
his inward illumination may have been.

It was a bright summer morning, remarkable even in the monotonous
excellence of the season, with a slight touch of warmth which the
invincible Northwest Trades had not yet chilled. There was still a faint
haze off the coast, as if last night's fog had been caught in the quick
sunshine, and the shining sands were hot, but without the usual dazzling
glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose
clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the
place of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few
rocks, half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying
heights as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam
by a striking surge, or cleanly erased in the full sweep of the sea.
Beside, and partly upon one of the higher rocks, a singular object was
moving.

Pomfrey was interested but not startled. He had once or twice seen seals
disporting on these rocks, and on one occasion a sea-lion,--an estray
from the familiar rocks on the other side of the Golden Gate. But he
ceased work in his garden patch, and coming to his house, exchanged
his hoe for a telescope. When he got the mystery in focus he suddenly
stopped and rubbed the object-glass with his handkerchief. But even when
he applied the glass to his eye for a second time, he could scarcely
believe his eyesight. For the object seemed to be a WOMAN, the lower
part of her figure submerged in the sea, her long hair depending over
her shoulders and waist. There was nothing in her attitude to suggest
terror or that she was the victim of some accident. She moved slowly
and complacently with the sea, and even--a more staggering
suggestion--appeared to be combing out the strands of her long hair with
her fingers. With her body half concealed she might have been a mermaid!

He swept the foreshore and horizon with his glass; there was neither
boat nor ship--nor anything that moved, except the long swell of the
Pacific. She could have come only from the sea; for to reach the rocks
by land she would have had to pass before the lighthouse, while the
narrow strip of shore which curved northward beyond his range of view he
knew was inhabited only by Indians. But the woman was unhesitatingly
and appallingly WHITE, and her hair light even to a golden gleam in the
sunshine.

Pomfrey was a gentleman, and as such was amazed, dismayed, and cruelly
embarrassed. If she was a simple bather from some vicinity hitherto
unknown and unsuspected by him, it was clearly his business to shut up
his glass and go back to his garden patch--although the propinquity of
himself and the lighthouse must have been as plainly visible to her as
she was to him. On the other hand, if she was the survivor of some wreck
and in distress--or, as he even fancied from her reckless manner, bereft
of her senses, his duty to rescue her was equally clear. In his dilemma
he determined upon a compromise and ran to his boat. He would pull out
to sea, pass between the rocks and the curving sand-spit, and examine
the sands and sea more closely for signs of wreckage, or some overlooked
waiting boat near the shore. He would be within hail if she needed him,
or she could escape to her boat if she had one.

In another moment his boat was lifting on the swell towards the rocks.
He pulled quickly, occasionally turning to note that the strange figure,
whose movements were quite discernible to the naked eye, was still
there, but gazing more earnestly towards the nearest shore for any sign
of life or occupation. In ten minutes he had reached the curve where the
trend opened northward, and the long line of shore stretched before him.
He swept it eagerly with a single searching glance. Sea and shore were
empty. He turned quickly to the rock, scarcely a hundred yards on his
beam. It was empty too! Forgetting his previous scruples, he pulled
directly for it until his keel grated on its submerged base. There was
nothing there but the rock, slippery with the yellow-green slime of
seaweed and kelp--neither trace nor sign of the figure that had
occupied it a moment ago. He pulled around it; there was no cleft or
hiding-place. For an instant his heart leaped at the sight of something
white, caught in a jagged tooth of the outlying reef, but it was only
the bleached fragment of a bamboo orange-crate, cast from the deck of
some South Sea trader, such as often strewed the beach. He lay off the
rock, keeping way in the swell, and scrutinizing the glittering sea. At
last he pulled back to the lighthouse, perplexed and discomfited.

Was it simply a sporting seal, transformed by some trick of his vision?
But he had seen it through his glass, and now remembered such details
as the face and features framed in their contour of golden hair, and
believed he could even have identified them. He examined the rock again
with his glass, and was surprised to see how clearly it was outlined now
in its barren loneliness. Yet he must have been mistaken. His scientific
and accurate mind allowed of no errant fancy, and he had always sneered
at the marvelous as the result of hasty or superficial observation. He
was a little worried at this lapse of his healthy accuracy,--fearing
that it might be the result of his seclusion and loneliness,--akin to
the visions of the recluse and solitary. It was strange, too, that it
should take the shape of a woman; for Edgar Pomfrey had a story--the
usual old and foolish one.

Then his thoughts took a lighter phase, and he turned to the memory of
his books, and finally to the books themselves. From a shelf he picked
out a volume of old voyages, and turned to a remembered passage: "In
other seas doe abound marvells soche as Sea Spyders of the bigness of a
pinnace, the wich they have been known to attack and destroy; Sea Vypers
which reach to the top of a goodly maste, whereby they are able to draw
marinners from the rigging by the suction of their breathes; and
Devill Fyshe, which vomit fire by night which makyth the sea to shine
prodigiously, and mermaydes. They are half fyshe and half mayde of grate
Beauty, and have been seen of divers godly and creditable witnesses
swymming beside rocks, hidden to their waist in the sea, combing of
their hayres, to the help of whych they carry a small mirrore of the
bigness of their fingers." Pomfrey laid the book aside with a faint
smile. To even this credulity he might come!

Nevertheless, he used the telescope again that day. But there was no
repetition of the incident, and he was forced to believe that he had
been the victim of some extraordinary illusion. The next morning,
however, with his calmer judgment doubts began to visit him. There was
no one of whom he could make inquiries but his Indian helper, and their
conversation had usually been restricted to the language of signs or the
use of a few words he had picked up. He contrived, however, to ask if
there was a "waugee" (white) woman in the neighborhood. The Indian
shook his head in surprise. There was no "waugee" nearer than the remote
mountain-ridge to which he pointed. Pomfrey was obliged to be content
with this. Even had his vocabulary been larger, he would as soon have
thought of revealing the embarrassing secret of this woman, whom he
believed to be of his own race, to a mere barbarian as he would of
asking him to verify his own impressions by allowing him to look at her
that morning. The next day, however, something happened which forced him
to resume his inquiries. He was rowing around the curving spot when he
saw a number of black objects on the northern sands moving in and out
of the surf, which he presently made out as Indians. A nearer approach
satisfied him that they were wading squaws and children gathering
seaweed and shells. He would have pushed his acquaintance still nearer,
but as his boat rounded the point, with one accord they all scuttled
away like frightened sandpipers. Pomfrey, on his return, asked his
Indian retainer if they could swim. "Oh, yes!" "As far as the rock?"
"Yes." Yet Pomfrey was not satisfied. The color of his strange
apparition remained unaccounted for, and it was not that of an Indian
woman.

Trifling events linger long in a monotonous existence, and it was nearly
a week before Pomfrey gave up his daily telescopic inspection of the
rock. Then he fell back upon his books again, and, oddly enough, upon
another volume of voyages, and so chanced upon the account of Sir
Francis Drake's occupation of the bay before him. He had always thought
it strange that the great adventurer had left no trace or sign of
his sojourn there; still stranger that he should have overlooked the
presence of gold, known even to the Indians themselves, and have lost
a discovery far beyond his wildest dreams and a treasure to which the
cargoes of those Philippine galleons he had more or less successfully
intercepted were trifles. Had the restless explorer been content to pace
those dreary sands during three weeks of inactivity, with no thought of
penetrating the inland forests behind the range, or of even entering the
nobler bay beyond? Or was the location of the spot a mere tradition as
wild and unsupported as the "marvells" of the other volume? Pomfrey had
the skepticism of the scientific, inquiring mind.

Two weeks had passed and he was returning from a long climb inland, when
he stopped to rest in his descent to the sea. The panorama of the
shore was before him, from its uttermost limit to the lighthouse on the
northern point. The sun was still one hour high, it would take him
about that time to reach home. But from this coign of vantage he could
see--what he had not before observed--that what he had always believed
was a little cove on the northern shore was really the estuary of a
small stream which rose near him and eventually descended into the ocean
at that point. He could also see that beside it was a long low erection
of some kind, covered with thatched brush, which looked like a "barrow,"
yet showed signs of habitation in the slight smoke that rose from it and
drifted inland. It was not far out of his way, and he resolved to return
in that direction. On his way down he once or twice heard the barking
of an Indian dog, and knew that he must be in the vicinity of an
encampment. A camp-fire, with the ashes yet warm, proved that he was on
the trail of one of the nomadic tribes, but the declining sun warned
him to hasten home to his duty. When he at last reached the estuary, he
found that the building beside it was little else than a long hut, whose
thatched and mud-plastered mound-like roof gave it the appearance of a
cave. Its single opening and entrance abutted on the water's edge, and
the smoke he had noticed rolled through this entrance from a smouldering
fire within. Pomfrey had little difficulty in recognizing the purpose of
this strange structure from the accounts he had heard from "loggers" of
the Indian customs. The cave was a "sweat-house"--a calorific chamber
in which the Indians closely shut themselves, naked, with a "smudge" or
smouldering fire of leaves, until, perspiring and half suffocated, they
rushed from the entrance and threw themselves into the water before it.
The still smouldering fire told him that the house had been used that
morning, and he made no doubt that the Indians were encamped near by. He
would have liked to pursue his researches further, but he found he
had already trespassed upon his remaining time, and he turned somewhat
abruptly away--so abruptly, in fact, that a figure, which had evidently
been cautiously following him at a d