THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH and Other Tales

by

Bret Harte




CONTENTS.
THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH
A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE FOOT-HILLS
A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL
CAPTAIN JIM'S FRIEND



THE HERITAGE OF DEDLOW MARSH.


I.


The sun was going down on the Dedlow Marshes.  The tide was
following it fast as if to meet the reddening lines of sky and
water in the west, leaving the foreground to grow blacker and
blacker every moment, and to bring out in startling contrast the
few half-filled and half-lit pools left behind and forgotten.  The
strong breath of the Pacific fanning their surfaces at times
kindled them into a dull glow like dying embers.  A cloud of sand-
pipers rose white from one of the nearer lagoons, swept in a long
eddying ring against the sunset, and became a black and dropping
rain to seaward.  The long sinuous line of channel, fading with the
light and ebbing with the tide, began to give off here and there
light puffs of gray-winged birds like sudden exhalations.  High in
the darkening sky the long arrow-headed lines of geese and 'brant'
pointed towards the upland.  As the light grew more uncertain the
air at times was filled with the rush of viewless and melancholy
wings, or became plaintive with far-off cries and lamentations.  As
the Marshes grew blacker the far-scattered tussocks and accretions
on its level surface began to loom in exaggerated outline, and two
human figures, suddenly emerging erect on the bank of the hidden
channel, assumed the proportion of giants.

When they had moored their unseen boat, they still appeared for
some moments to be moving vaguely and aimlessly round the spot
where they had disembarked.  But as the eye became familiar with
the darkness it was seen that they were really advancing inland,
yet with a slowness of progression and deviousness of course that
appeared inexplicable to the distant spectator.  Presently it was
evident that this seemingly even, vast, black expanse was traversed
and intersected by inky creeks and small channels, which made human
progression difficult and dangerous.  As they appeared nearer and
their figures took more natural proportions, it could be seen that
each carried a gun; that one was a young girl, although dressed so
like her companion in shaggy pea-jacket and sou'wester as to be
scarcely distinguished from him above the short skirt that came
halfway down her high india-rubber fishing-boots.  By the time they
had reached firmer ground, and turned to look back at the sunset,
it could be also seen that the likeness between their faces was
remarkable.  Both, had crisp, black, tightly curling hair; both had
dark eyes and heavy eyebrows; both had quick vivid complexions,
slightly heightened by the sea and wind.  But more striking than
their similarity of coloring was the likeness of expression and
bearing.  Both wore the same air of picturesque energy; both bore
themselves with a like graceful effrontery and self-possession.

The young man continued his way.  The young girl lingered for a
moment looking seaward, with her small brown hand lifted to shade
her eyes,--a precaution which her heavy eyebrows and long lashes
seemed to render utterly gratuitous.

"Come along, Mag.  What are ye waitin' for?" said the young man
impatiently.

"Nothin'.  Lookin' at that boat from the Fort."  Her clear eyes
were watching a small skiff, invisible to less keen-sighted
observers, aground upon a flat near the mouth of the channel.
"Them chaps will have a high ole time gunnin' thar, stuck in the
mud, and the tide goin' out like sixty!"

"Never you mind the sodgers," returned her companion, aggressively,
"they kin take care o' their own precious skins, or Uncle Sam will
do it for 'em, I reckon.  Anyhow the people--that's you and me,
Mag--is expected to pay for their foolishness.  That's what they're
sent yer for.  Ye oughter to be satisfied with that," he added with
deep sarcasm.

"I reckon they ain't expected to do much off o' dry land, and they
can't help bein' queer on the water," returned the young girl with
a reflecting sense of justice.

"Then they ain't no call to go gunnin', and wastin' Guv'nment
powder on ducks instead o' Injins."

"Thet's so," said the girl thoughtfully.  "Wonder ef Guv'nment pays
for them frocks the Kernel's girls went cavortin' round Logport in
last Sunday--they looked like a cirkis."

"Like ez not the old Kernel gets it outer contracts--one way or
another.  WE pay for it all the same," he added gloomily.

"Jest the same ez if they were MY clothes," said the girl, with a
quick, fiery, little laugh, "ain't it?  Wonder how they'd like my
sayin' that to 'em when they was prancin' round, eh, Jim?"

But her companion was evidently unprepared for this sweeping
feminine deduction, and stopped it with masculine promptitude.

"Look yer--instead o' botherin' your head about what the Fort girls
wear, you'd better trot along a little more lively.  It's late
enough now."

"But these darned boots hurt like pizen," said the girl, limping.
"They swallowed a lot o' water over the tops while I was wadin'
down there, and my feet go swashin' around like in a churn every
step."

"Lean on me, baby," he returned, passing his arm around her waist,
and dropping her head smartly on his shoulder.  "Thar!"  The act
was brotherly and slightly contemptuous, but it was sufficient to
at once establish their kinship.

They continued on thus for some moments in silence, the girl, I
fear, after the fashion of her sex, taking the fullest advantage of
this slightly sentimental and caressing attitude.  They were moving
now along the edge of the Marsh, parallel with the line of rapidly
fading horizon, following some trail only known to their keen
youthful eyes.  It was growing darker and darker.  The cries of the
sea-birds had ceased; even the call of a belated plover had died
away inland; the hush of death lay over the black funereal pall of
marsh at their side.  The tide had run out with the day.  Even the
sea-breeze had lulled in this dead slack-water of all nature, as if
waiting outside the bar with the ocean, the stars, and the night.

Suddenly the girl stopped and halted her companion.  The faint far
sound of a bugle broke the silence, if the idea of interruption
could have been conveyed by the two or three exquisite vibrations
that seemed born of that silence itself, and to fade and die in it
without break or discord.  Yet it was only the 'retreat' call from
the Fort two miles distant and invisible.

The young girl's face had become irradiated, and her small mouth
half opened as she listened.  "Do you know, Jim," she said with a
confidential sigh, "I allus put words to that when I hear it--it's
so pow'ful pretty.  It allus goes to me like this: 'Goes the day,
Far away, With the light, And the night Comes along--Comes along--
Comes along--Like a-a so-o-ong.'"  She here lifted her voice, a
sweet, fresh, boyish contralto, in such an admirable imitation of
the bugle that her brother, after the fashion of more select
auditors, was for a moment quite convinced that the words meant
something.  Nevertheless, as a brother, it was his duty to crush
this weakness.  "Yes; and it says:'shut your head, Go to bed,'" he
returned irascibly; "and YOU'D better come along, if we're goin' to
hev any supper.  There's Yeller Bob hez got ahead of us over there
with the game already."

The girl glanced towards a slouching burdened figure that now
appeared to be preceding them, straightened herself suddenly, and
then looked attentively towards the Marsh.

"Not the sodgers again?" said her brother impatiently.

"No," she said quickly; "but if that don't beat anythin'!  I'd hev
sworn, Jim, that Yeller Bob was somewhere behind us.  I saw him
only jest now when 'Taps' sounded, somewhere over thar."  She
pointed with a half-uneasy expression in quite another direction
from that in which the slouching Yellow Bob had just loomed.

"Tell ye what, Mag, makin' poetry outer bugle calls hez kinder
muddled ye.  THAT'S Yeller Bob ahead, and ye orter know Injins well
enuff by this time to remember that they allus crop up jest when ye
don't expect them.  And there's the bresh jest afore us.  Come!"

The 'bresh,' or low bushes, was really a line of stunted willows
and alders that seemed to have gradually sunk into the level of the
plain, but increased in size farther inland, until they grew to the
height and density of a wood.  Seen from the channel it had the
appearance of a green cape or promontory thrust upon the Marsh.
Passing through its tangled recesses, with the aid of some unerring
instinct, the two companions emerged upon another and much larger
level that seemed as illimitable as the bay.  The strong breath of
the ocean lying just beyond the bar and estuary they were now
facing came to them salt and humid as another tide.  The nearer
expanse of open water reflected the after-glow, and lightened the
landscape.  And between the two wayfarers and the horizon rose,
bleak and startling, the strange outlines of their home.

At first it seemed a ruined colonnade of many pillars, whose base
and pediment were buried in the earth, supporting a long
parallelogram of entablature and cornices.  But a second glance
showed it to be a one-storied building, upheld above the Marsh by
numberless piles placed at regular distances; some of them sunken
or inclined from the perpendicular, increasing the first illusion.
Between these pillars, which permitted a free circulation of air,
and, at extraordinary tides, even the waters of the bay itself, the
level waste of marsh, the bay, the surges of the bar, and finally
the red horizon line, were distinctly visible.  A railed gallery or
platform, supported also on piles, and reached by steps from the
Marsh, ran around the building, and gave access to the several
rooms and offices.

But if the appearance of this lacustrine and amphibious dwelling
was striking, and not without a certain rude and massive grandeur,
its grounds and possessions, through which the brother and sister
were still picking their way, were even more grotesque and
remarkable.  Over a space of half a dozen acres the flotsam and
jetsam of years of tidal offerings were collected, and even guarded
with a certain care.  The blackened hulks of huge uprooted trees,
scarcely distinguishable from the fragments of genuine wrecks
beside them, were securely fastened by chains to stakes and piles
driven in the marsh, while heaps of broken and disjointed bamboo
orange crates, held together by ropes of fibre, glistened like
ligamented bones heaped in the dead valley.  Masts, spars,
fragments of shell-encrusted boats, binnacles, round-houses and
galleys, and part of the after-deck of a coasting schooner, had
ceased their wanderings and found rest in this vast cemetery of the
sea.  The legend on a wheel-house, the lettering on a stern or bow,
served for mortuary inscription.  Wailed over by the trade winds,
mourned by lamenting sea-birds, once every year the tide visited
its lost dead and left them wet with its tears.

To such a spot and its surroundings the atmosphere of tradition and
mystery was not wanting.  Six years ago Boone Culpepper had built
the house, and brought to it his wife--variously believed to be a
gypsy, a Mexican, a bright mulatto, a Digger Indian, a South Sea
princess from Tahiti, somebody else's wife--but in reality a little
Creole woman from New Orleans, with whom he had contracted a
marriage, with other gambling debts, during a winter's vacation
from his home in Virginia.  At the end of two years she had died,
succumbing, as differently stated, from perpetual wet feet, or the
misanthropic idiosyncrasies of her husband, and leaving behind her
a girl of twelve and a boy of sixteen to console him.  How futile
was this bequest may be guessed from a brief summary of Mr.
Culpepper's peculiarities.  They were the development of a singular
form of aggrandizement and misanthropy.  On his arrival at Logport
he had bought a part of the apparently valueless Dedlow Marsh from
the Government at less than a dollar an acre, continuing his
singular investment year by year until he was the owner of three
leagues of amphibious domain.  It was then discovered that this
property carried with it the WATER FRONT of divers valuable and
convenient sites for manufactures and the commercial ports of a
noble bay, as well as the natural embarcaderos of some 'lumbering'
inland settlements.  Boone Culpepper would not sell.  Boone
Culpepper would not rent or lease.  Boone Culpepper held an
invincible blockade of his neighbors, and the progress and
improvement he despised--granting only, after a royal fashion,
occasional license, revocable at pleasure, in the shape of tolls,
which amply supported him, with the game he shot in his
kingfisher's eyrie on the Marsh.  Even the Government that had made
him powerful was obliged to 'condemn' a part of his property at an
equitable price for the purposes of Fort Redwood, in which the
adjacent town of Logport shared.  And Boone Culpepper, unable to
resist the act, refused to receive the compensation or quit-claim
the town.  In his scant intercourse with his neighbors he always
alluded to it as his own, showed it to his children as part of
their strange inheritance, and exhibited the starry flag that
floated from the Fort as a flaunting insult to their youthful eyes.
Hated, feared, and superstitiously shunned by some, regarded as a
madman by others, familiarly known as 'The Kingfisher of Dedlow,'
Boone Culpepper was one day found floating dead in his skiff, with
a charge of shot through his head and shoulders.  The shot-gun
lying at his feet at the bottom of the boat indicated the
'accident' as recorded in the verdict of the coroner's jury--but
not by the people.  A thousand rumors of murder or suicide
prevailed, but always with the universal rider, 'Served him right.'
So invincible was this feeling that but few attended his last
rites, which took place at high water.  The delay of the
officiating clergyman lost the tide; the homely catafalque--his own
boat--was left aground on the Marsh, and deserted by all mourners
except the two children.  Whatever he had instilled into them by
precept and example, whatever took place that night in their lonely
watch by his bier on the black marshes, it was certain that those
who confidently looked for any change in the administration of the
Dedlow Marsh were cruelly mistaken.  The old Kingfisher was dead,
but he had left in the nest two young birds, more beautiful and
graceful, it was true, yet as fierce and tenacious of beak and
talon.


II.


Arriving at the house, the young people ascended the outer flight
of wooden steps, which bore an odd likeness to the companion-way of
a vessel, and the gallery, or 'deck,' as it was called--where a
number of nets, floats, and buoys thrown over the railing completed
the nautical resemblance.  This part of the building was evidently
devoted to kitchen, dining-room, and domestic offices; the
principal room in the centre serving as hall or living-room, and
communicating on the other side with two sleeping apartments.  It
was of considerable size, with heavy lateral beams across the
ceiling--built, like the rest of the house, with a certain maritime
strength--and looked not unlike a saloon cabin.  An enormous open
Franklin stove between the windows, as large as a chimney, blazing
with drift-wood, gave light and heat to the apartment, and brought
into flickering relief the boarded walls hung with the spoils of
sea and shore, and glittering with gun-barrels.  Fowling-pieces of
all sizes, from the long ducking-gun mounted on a swivel for boat
use to the light single-barrel or carbine, stood in racks against
the walls; game-bags, revolvers in their holsters, hunting and
fishing knives in their sheaths, depended from hooks above them.
In one corner stood a harpoon; in another, two or three Indian
spears for salmon.  The carpetless floor and rude chairs and
settles were covered with otter, mink, beaver, and a quantity of
valuable seal-skins, with a few larger pelts of the bear and elk.
The only attempt at decoration was the displayed wings and breasts
of the wood and harlequin duck, the muir, the cormorant, the gull,
the gannet, and the femininely delicate half-mourning of petrel and
plover, nailed against the wall.  The influence of the sea was
dominant above all, and asserted its saline odors even through the
spice of the curling drift-wood smoke that half veiled the ceiling.

A berry-eyed old Indian woman with the complexion of dried salmon;
her daughter, also with berry eyes, and with a face that seemed
wholly made of a moist laugh; 'Yellow Bob,' a Digger 'buck,' so
called from the prevailing ochre markings of his cheek, and
'Washooh,' an ex-chief; a nondescript in a blanket, looking like a
cheap and dirty doll whose fibrous hair was badly nailed on his
carved wooden head, composed the Culpepper household.  While the
two former were preparing supper in the adjacent dining-room,
Yellow Bob, relieved of his burden of game, appeared on the gallery
and beckoned mysteriously to his master through the window.  James
Culpepper went out, returned quickly, and after a minute's
hesitation and an uneasy glance towards his sister, who had
meantime pushed back her sou'wester from her forehead, and without
taking off her jacket had dropped into a chair before the fire with
her back towards him, took his gun noiselessly from the rack, and
saying carelessly that he would be back in a moment, disappeared.

Left to herself, Maggie coolly pulled off her long boots and
stockings, and comfortably opposed to the fire two very pretty feet
and ankles, whose delicate purity was slightly blue-bleached by
confinement in the tepid sea-water.  The contrast of their waxen
whiteness with her blue woolen skirt, and with even the skin of her
sunburnt hands and wrists, apparently amused her, and she sat for
some moments with her elbows on her knees, her skirts slightly
raised, contemplating them, and curling her toes with evident
satisfaction.  The firelight playing upon the rich coloring of her
face, the fringe of jet-black curls that almost met the thick sweep
of eyebrows, and left her only a white strip of forehead, her short
upper lip and small chin, rounded but resolute, completed a piquant
and striking figure.  The rich brown shadows on the smoke-stained
walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief of the
scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of the
steel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture.
Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on
the Marsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that
had impressed her--at first softly, and finally with the full pitch
of her voice.

Suddenly she stopped.

There was a faint and unmistakable rapping on the floor beneath
her.  It was distinct, but cautiously given, as if intended to be
audible to her alone.  For a moment she stood upright, her feet
still bare and glistening, on the otter skin that served as a rug.
There were two doors to the room, one from which her brother had
disappeared, which led to the steps, the other giving on the back
gallery, looking inland.  With a quick instinct she caught up her
gun and ran to that one, but not before a rapid scramble near the
railing was followed by a cautious opening of the door.  She was
just in time to shut it on the extended arm and light blue sleeve
of an army overcoat that protruded through the opening, and for a
moment threw her whole weight against it.

"A dhrop of whiskey, Miss, for the love of God."

She retained her hold, cocked her weapon, and stepped back a pace
from the door.  The blue sleeve was followed by the rest of the
overcoat, and a blue cap with the infantry blazoning, and the
letter H on its peak.  They were for the moment more
distinguishable than the man beneath them--grimed and blackened
with the slime of the Marsh.  But what could be seen of his mud-
stained face was more grotesque than terrifying.  A combination of
weakness and audacity, insinuation and timidity struggled through
the dirt for expression.  His small blue eyes were not ill-natured,
and even the intruding arm trembled more from exhaustion than
passion.

"On'y a dhrop, Miss," he repeated piteously, "and av ye pleeze,
quick! afore I'm stharved with the cold entoirely."

She looked at him intently--without lowering her gun.

"Who are you?"

"Thin, it's the truth I'll tell ye, Miss--whisth then!" he said in
a half-whisper; "I'm a desarter!"

"Then it was YOU that was doggin' us on the Marsh?"

"It was the sarjint I was lavin', Miss."

She looked at him hesitatingly.

"Stay outside there; if you move a step into the room, I'll blow
you out of it."

He stepped back on the gallery.  She closed the door, bolted it,
and still holding the gun, opened a cupboard, poured out a glass of
whiskey, and returning to the door, opened it and handed him the
liquor.

She watched him drain it eagerly, saw the fiery stimulant put life
into his shivering frame, trembling hands, and kindle his dull eye--
and--quietly raised her gun again.

"Ah, put it down, Miss, put it down!  Fwhot's the use?  Sure the
bullets yee carry in them oiyes of yours is more deadly!  It's out
here oi'll sthand, glory be to God, all night, without movin' a fut
till the sarjint comes to take me, av ye won't levil them oiyes at
me like that.  Ah, whirra! look at that now! but it's a gooddess
she is--the livin' Jaynus of warr, standin' there like a statoo,
wid her alybaster fut put forward."

In her pride and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at
thus appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as
impossible to her nature as it would have been to a queen or the
goddess of his simile.  His presence and his compliment alike
passed her calm modesty unchallenged.  The wretched scamp
recognized the fact and felt its power, and it was with a
superstitious reverence asserting itself through his native
extravagance that he raised his grimy hand to his cap in military
salute and became respectfully rigid.

"Then the sodgers were huntin' YOU?" she said thoughtfully,
lowering her weapon.

"Thrue for you, Miss--they worr, and it's meself that was lyin'
flat in the ditch wid me faytures makin' an illigant cast in the
mud--more betoken, as ye see even now--and the sarjint and his
daytail thrampin' round me.  It was thin that the mortial cold
sthruck thro' me mouth, and made me wake for the whiskey that would
resthore me."

"What did you desert fer?"

"Ah, list to that now!  Fwhat did I desart fer?  Shure ev there was
the ghost of an inemy round, it's meself that would be in the front
now!  But it was the letthers from me ould mother, Miss, that is
sthruck wid a mortial illness--long life to her!--in County Clare,
and me sisthers in Ninth Avenue in New York, fornint the daypo,
that is brekken their harruts over me listin' in the Fourth
Infanthry to do duty in a haythen wilderness.  Av it was the
cavalry--and it's me own father that was in the Innishkillen
Dthragoons, Miss--oi wouldn't moind.  Wid a horse betune me legs,
it's on parade oi'd be now, Miss, and not wandhering over the bare
flure of the Marsh, stharved wid the cold, the thirst, and hunger,
wid the mud and the moire thick on me; facin' an illigant young
leddy as is the ekal ov a Fayld Marshal's darter--not to sphake ov
Kernal Preston's--ez couldn't hold a candle to her."

Brought up on the Spanish frontier, Maggie Culpepper was one of the
few American girls who was not familiar with the Irish race.  The
rare smile that momentarily lit up her petulant mouth seemed to
justify the intruder's praise.  But it passed quickly, and she
returned dryly:

"That means you want more drink, suthin' to eat, and clothes.
Suppose my brother comes back and ketches you here?"

"Shure, Miss, he's just now hunten me, along wid his two haythen
Diggers, beyond the laygoon there.  It worr the yellar one that
sphotted me lyin' there in the ditch; it worr only your own oiyes,
Miss--more power to their beauty for that!--that saw me folly him
unbeknownst here; and that desaved them, ye see!"

The young girl remained for an instant silent and thoughtful.

"We're no friends of the Fort," she said finally, "but I don't
reckon for that reason my brother will cotton to YOU.  Stay out
thar where ye are, till I come to ye.  If you hear me singin'
again, you'll know he's come back, and ye'd better scoot with what
you've already got, and be thankful."

She shut the door again and locked it, went into the dining-room,
returned with some provisions wrapped in paper, took a common
wicker flask from the wall, passed into her brother's bedroom, and
came out with a flannel shirt, overalls, and a coarse Indian
blanket, and, reopening the door, placed them before the astonished
and delighted vagabond.  His eye glistened; he began, "Glory be to
God," but for once his habitual extravagance failed him.  Nature
triumphed with a more eloquent silence over his well-worn art.  He
hurriedly wiped his begrimed face and eyes with the shirt she had
given him, and catching the sleeve of her rough pea-jacket in his
dirty hand, raised it to his lips.

"Go!" she said imperiously.  "Get away while you can."

"Av it vas me last words--it's speechless oi am," he stammered, and
disappeared over the railing.

She remained for a moment holding the door half open, and gazing
into the darkness that seemed to flow in like a tide.  Then she
shut it, and going into her bedroom resumed her interrupted
toilette.  When she emerged again she was smartly stockinged and
slippered, and even the blue serge skirt was exchanged for a bright
print, with a white fichu tied around her throat.  An attempt to
subdue her rebellious curls had resulted in the construction from
their ruins of a low Norman arch across her forehead with pillared
abutments of ringlets.  When her brother returned a few moments
later she did not look up, but remained, perhaps a little
ostentatiously, bending over the fire.

"Bob allowed that the Fort boat was huntin' MEN--deserters, I
reckon," said Jim aggrievedly.  "Wanted me to believe that he SAW
one on the Marsh hidin'.  On'y an Injin lie, I reckon, to git a
little extra fire-water, for toting me out to the bresh on a fool's
errand."

"Oh, THAT'S where you went!" said Maggie, addressing the fire.
"Since when hev you tuk partnership with the Guv'nment and Kernel
Preston to hunt up and take keer of their property?"

"Well, I ain't goin' to hev such wreckage as they pick up and
enlist set adrift on our marshes, Mag," said Jim decidedly.

"What would you hev done had you ketched him?" said Maggie, looking
suddenly into her brother's face.

"Given him a dose of snipe-shot that he'd remember, and be thankful
it wasn't slugs," said Jim promptly.  Observing a deeper
seriousness in her attitude, he added, "Why, if it was in war-time
he'd get a BALL from them sodgers on sight."

"Yes; but YOU ain't got no call to interfere," said Maggie.

"Ain't I?  Why, he's no better than an outlaw.  I ain't sure that
he hasn't been stealin' or killin' somebody over theer."

"Not that man!" said Maggie impulsively.

"Not what man?" said her brother, facing her quickly.

"Why," returned Maggie, repairing her indiscretion with feminine
dexterity, "not ANY man who might have knocked you and me over on
the marshes in the dusk, and grabbed our guns."

"Wish he'd hev tried it," said the brother, with a superior smile,
but a quickly rising color.  "Where d'ye suppose I'D hev been all
the while?"

Maggie saw her mistake, and for the first time in her life resolved
to keep a secret from her brother--overnight.  "Supper's gettin'
cold," she said, rising.

They went into the dining-room--an apartment as plainly furnished
as the one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and
closely fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical
suggestion of the house--and seated themselves before a small table
on which their frugal meal was spread.  In this tete-a-tete
position Jim suddenly laid down his knife and fork and stared at
his sister.

"Hello!"

"What's the matter?" said Maggie, starting slightly.  "How you do
skeer one."

"Who's been prinkin', eh?"

"My ha'r was in kinks all along o' that hat," said Maggie, with a
return of higher color, "and I had to straighten it.  It's a boy's
hat, not a girl's."

But that necktie and that gown--and all those frills and tuckers?"
continued Jim generalizing, with a rapid twirling of his fingers
over her.  "Are you expectin' Judge Martin, or the Expressman this
evening?"

Judge Martin was the lawyer of Logport, who had proven her father's
will, and had since raved about his single interview with the
Kingfisher's beautiful daughter; the Expressman was a young fellow
who was popularly supposed to have left his heart while delivering
another valuable package on Maggie in person, and had "never been
the same man since."  It was a well-worn fraternal pleasantry that
had done duty many a winter's evening, as a happy combination of
moral admonition and cheerfulness.  Maggie usually paid it the
tribute of a quick little laugh and a sisterly pinch, but that
evening those marks of approbation were withheld.

"Jim dear," said she, when their Spartan repast was concluded and
they were reestablished before the living-room fire.  "What was it
the Redwood Mill Kempany offered you for that piece near Dead Man's
Slough?"

Jim took his pipe from his lips long enough to say, "Ten thousand
dollars," and put it back again.

"And what do ye kalkilate all our property, letting alone this yer
house, and the driftwood front, is worth all together?"

"Includin' wot the Gov'nment owes us?--for that's all ours, ye
know?" said Jim quickly.

"No--leavin' that out--jest for greens, you know," suggested
Maggie.

"Well nigh onter a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, I
reckon, by and large."

"That's a heap o' money, Jim!  I reckon old Kernel Preston wouldn't
raise that in a hundred years," continued Maggie, warming her knees
by the fire.

"In five million years," said Jim, promptly sweeping away further
discussion.  After a pause he added, "You and me, Mag, kin see
anybody's pile, and go 'em fifty thousand better."

There were a few moments of complete silence, in which Maggie
smoothed her knees, and Jim's pipe, which seemed to have become
gorged and apoplectic with its owner's wealth, snored unctuously.

"Jim dear, what if--it's on'y an idea of mine, you know--what if
you sold that piece to the Redwood Mill, and we jest tuk that money
and--and--and jest lifted the ha'r offer them folks at Logport?
Jest astonished 'em!  Jest tuk the best rooms in that new hotel,
got a hoss and buggy, dressed ourselves, you and me, fit to kill,
and made them Fort people take a back seat in the Lord's
Tabernacle, oncet for all.  You see what I mean, Jim," she said
hastily, as her brother seemed to be succumbing, like his pipe, in
apoplectic astonishment, "jest on'y to SHOW 'em what we COULD do if
we keerd.  Lord! when we done it and spent the money we'd jest snap
our fingers and skip back yer ez nat'ral ez life!  Ye don't think,
Jim," she said, suddenly turning half fiercely upon him, "that I'd
allow to LIVE among 'em--to stay a menet after that!"

Jim laid down his pipe and gazed at his sister with stony
deliberation.  "And--what--do--you--kalkilate--to make by all
that?" he said with scornful distinctness.

"Why, jest to show 'em we HAVE got money, and could buy 'em all up
if we wanted to," returned Maggie, sticking boldly to her guns,
albeit with a vague conviction that her fire was weakened through
elevation, and somewhat alarmed at the deliberation of the enemy.

"And you mean to say they don't know it now," he continued with
slow derision.

"No," said Maggie.  "Why, theer's that new school-marm over at
Logport, you know, Jim, the one that wanted to take your picter in
your boat for a young smuggler or fancy pirate or Eyetalian
fisherman, and allowed that you'r handsomed some, and offered to
pay you for sittin'--do you reckon SHE'D believe you owned the land
her schoolhouse was built on.  No!  Lots of 'em don't.  Lots of 'em
thinks we're poor and low down--and them ez doesn't, thinks"--

"What?" asked her brother sharply.

"That we're MEAN."

The quick color came to Jim's cheek.  "So," he said, facing her
quickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's
drifted here around us--jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell before
them--you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was a
Spanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father a pirate and
landgrabber, ez much as allowed he was shot by some one or killed
himself a purpose, ez said you was a heathen and a looney because
you didn't go to school or church along with their trash, ez kept
away from Maw's sickness ez if it was smallpox, and Dad's fun'ral
ez if he was a hoss-thief, and left you and me to watch his coffin
on the marshes all night till the tide kem back.  And now you--YOU
that jined hands with me that night over our father lyin' there
cold and despised--ez if he was a dead dog thrown up by the tide--
and swore that ez long ez that tide ebbed and flowed it couldn't
bring you to them, or them to you agin!  You now want--what?  What?
Why, to go and cast your lot among 'em, and live among 'em, and
join in their God-forsaken holler foolishness, and--and--and"--

"Stop!  It's a lie!  I DIDN'T say that.  Don't you dare to say it!"
said the girl, springing to her feet, and facing her brother in
turn, with flashing eyes.

For a moment the two stared at each other--it might have been as in
a mirror, so perfectly were their passions reflected in each line,
shade, and color of the other's face.  It was as if they had each
confronted their own passionate and willful souls, and were
frightened.  It had often occurred before, always with the same
invariable ending.  The young man's eyes lowered first; the girl's
filled with tears.

"Well, ef ye didn't mean that, what did ye mean?" said Jim,
sinking, with sullen apology, back into his chair.

"I--only--meant it--for--for--revenge!" sobbed Maggie.

"Oh!" said Jim, as if allowing his higher nature to be touched by
this noble instinct.  "But I didn't jest see where the revenge kem
in."

"No?  But, never mind now, Jim," said Maggie, ostentatiously
ignoring, after the fashion of her sex, the trouble she had
provoked; "but to think--that--that--you thought"--(sobbing).

"But I didn't, Mag"--(caressingly).

With this very vague and impotent conclusion, Maggie permitted
herself to be drawn beside her brother, and for a few moments they
plumed each other's ruffled feathers, and smoothed each other's
lifted crests, like two beautiful young specimens of that halcyon
genus to which they were popularly supposed to belong.  At the end
of half an hour Jim rose, and, yawning slightly, said in a
perfunctory way:

"Where's the book?"

The book in question was the Bible.  It had been the self-imposed
custom of these two young people to read aloud a chapter every
night as their one vague formula of literary and religious
discipline.  When it was produced, Maggie, presuming on his
affectionate and penitential condition, suggested that to-night he
should pick out "suthin' interestin'."  But this unorthodox
frivolity was sternly put aside by Jim--albeit, by way of
compromise, he agreed to "chance it," i. e., open its pages at
random.

He did so.  Generally he allowed himself a moment's judicious pause
for a certain chaste preliminary inspection necessary before
reading aloud to a girl.  To-night he omitted that modest
precaution, and in a pleasant voice, which in reading was
singularly free from colloquial infelicities of pronunciation,
began at once:

"'Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the
inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord,
to the help of the Lord against the mighty.'"

"Oh, you looked first," said Maggie.

"I didn't now--honest Injin!  I just opened."

"Go on," said Maggie, eagerly shoving him and interposing her neck
over his shoulder.

And Jim continued Deborah's wonderful song of Jael and Sisera to
the bitter end of its strong monosyllabic climax.

"There," he said, closing the volume, "that's what I call revenge.
That's the real Scripture thing--no fancy frills theer."

"Yes; but, Jim dear, don't you see that she treated him first--
sorter got round him with free milk and butter, and reg'larly
blandished him," argued Maggie earnestly.

But Jim declined to accept this feminine suggestion, or to pursue
the subject further, and after a fraternal embrace they separated
for the night.  Jim lingered long enough to look after the
fastening of the door and windows, and Maggie remained for some
moments at her casement, looking across the gallery to the Marsh
beyond.

The moon had risen, the tide was half up.  Whatever sign or trace
of alien footprint or occupation had been there was already
smoothly obliterated; even the configuration of the land had
changed.  A black cape had disappeared, a level line of shore had
been eaten into by teeth of glistening silver.  The whole dark
surface of the Marsh was beginning to be streaked with shining
veins as if a new life was coursing through it.  Part of the open
bay before the Fort, encroaching upon the shore, seemed in the
moonlight to be reaching a white and outstretched arm towards the
nest of the Kingfisher.


III.


The reveille at Fort Redwood had been supplemented full five
minutes by the voice of Lieutenant George Calvert's servant, before
that young officer struggled from his bed.  His head was splitting,
his tongue and lips were dry and feverish, his bloodshot eyes were
shrinking from the insufferable light of the day, his mind a
confused medley of the past night and the present morning, of cards
and wild revelry, and the vision of a reproachfully trim orderly
standing at his door with reports and orders which he now held
composedly in his hand.  For Lieutenant Calvert had been enjoying a
symposium variously known as "Stag Feed" and "A Wild Stormy Night"
with several of his brother officers, and a sickening conviction
that it was not the first or the last time he had indulged in these
festivities.  At that moment he loathed himself, and then after the
usual derelict fashion cursed the fate that had sent him, after
graduating, to a frontier garrison--the dull monotony of whose
duties made the Border horse-play of dissipation a relief.  Already
he had reached the miserable point of envying the veteran
capacities of his superiors and equals.  "If I could drink like
Kirby or Crowninshield, or if there was any other cursed thing a
man could do in this hole," he had wretchedly repeated to himself,
after each misspent occasion, and yet already he was looking
forward to them as part of a 'sub's' duty and worthy his emulation.
Already the dream of social recreation fostered by West Point had
been rudely dispelled.  Beyond the garrison circle of Colonel
Preston's family and two officers' wives, there was no society.
The vague distrust and civil jealousy with which some frontier
communities regard the Federal power, heightened in this instance
by the uncompromising attitude the Government had taken towards the
settlers' severe Indian policy, had kept the people of Logport
aloof from the Fort.  The regimental band might pipe to them on
Saturdays, but they would not dance.

Howbeit, Lieutenant Calvert dressed himself with uncertain hands
but mechanical regularity and neatness, and, under the automatic
training of discipline and duty, managed to button his tunic
tightly over his feelings, to pull himself together with his sword-
belt, compressing a still cadet-like waist, and to present that
indescribable combination of precision and jauntiness which his
brother officers too often allowed to lapse into frontier
carelessness.  His closely clipped light hair, yet dripping from a
plunge in the cold water, had been brushed and parted with military
exactitude, and when surmounted by his cap, with the peak in an
artful suggestion of extra smartness tipped forward over his eyes,
only his pale face--a shade lighter than his little blonde
moustache--showed his last night's excesses.  He was mechanically
reaching for his sword and staring confusedly at the papers on his
table when his servant interrupted:

"Major Bromley arranged that Lieutenant Kirby takes your sash this
morning, as you're not well, sir; and you're to report for special
to the colonel," he added, pointing discreetly to the envelope.

Touched by this consideration of his superior, Major Bromley, who
had been one of the veterans of last night's engagement, Calvert
mastered the contents of the envelope without the customary
anathema of specials, said, "Thank you, Parks," and passed out on
the veranda.

The glare of the quiet sunlit quadrangle, clean as a well-swept
floor, the whitewashed walls and galleries of the barrack buildings
beyond, the white and green palisade of officers' cottages on
either side, and the glitter of a sentry's bayonet, were for a
moment intolerable to him.  Yet, by a kind of subtle irony, never
before had the genius and spirit of the vocation he had chosen
seemed to be as incarnate as in the scene before him.  Seclusion,
self-restraint, cleanliness, regularity, sobriety, the atmosphere
of a wholesome life, the austere reserve of a monastery without its
mysterious or pensive meditation, were all there.  To escape which,
he had of his own free will successively accepted a fool's
distraction, the inevitable result of which was, the viewing of
them the next morning with tremulous nerves and aching eyeballs.

An hour later, Lieutenant George Calvert had received his final
instructions from Colonel Preston to take charge of a small
detachment to recover and bring back certain deserters, but notably
one, Dennis M'Caffrey of Company H, charged additionally with
mutinous solicitation and example.  As Calvert stood before his
superior, that distinguished officer, whose oratorical powers had
been considerably stimulated through a long course of "returning
thanks for the Army," slightly expanded his chest and said
paternally:

"I am aware, Mr. Calvert, that duties of this kind are somewhat
distasteful to young officers, and are apt to be considered in the
light of police detail; but I must remind you that no one part of a
soldier's duty can be held more important or honorable than
another, and that the fulfilment of any one, however trifling,
must, with honor to himself and security to his comrades, receive
his fullest devotion.  A sergeant and a file of men might perform
your duty, but I require, in addition, the discretion, courtesy,
and consideration of a gentleman who will command an equal respect
from those with whom his duty brings him in contact.  The unhappy
prejudices which the settlers show to the military authority here
render this, as you are aware, a difficult service, but I believe
that you will, without forgetting the respect due to yourself and
the Government you represent, avoid arousing these prejudices by
any harshness, or inviting any conflict with the civil authority.
The limits of their authority you will find in your written
instructions; but you might gain their confidence, and impress
them, Mr. Calvert, with the idea of your being their AUXILIARY in
the interests of justice--you understand.  Even if you are
unsuccessful in bringing back the men, you will do your best to
ascertain if their escape has been due to the sympathy of the
settlers, or even with their preliminary connivance.  They may not
be aware that inciting enlisted men to desert is a criminal
offence; you will use your own discretion in informing them of the
fact or not, as occasion may serve you.  I have only to add, that
while you are on the waters of this bay and the land covered by its
tides, you have no opposition of authority, and are responsible to
no one but your military superiors.  Good-bye, Mr. Calvert.  Let me
hear a good account of you."

Considerably moved by Colonel Preston's manner, which was as
paternal and real as his rhetoric was somewhat perfunctory, Calvert
half forgot his woes as he stepped from the commandant's piazza.
But he had to face a group of his brother officers, who were
awaiting him.

"Good-bye, Calvert," said Major Bromley; "a day or two out on grass
won't hurt you--and a change from commissary whiskey will put you
all right.  By the way, if you hear of any better stuff at Westport
than they're giving us here, sample it and let us know.  Take care
of yourself.  Give your men a chance to talk to you now and then,
and you may get something from them, especially Donovan.  Keep your
eye on Ramon.  You can trust your sergeant straight along."

"Good-bye, George," said Kirby.  "I suppose the old man told you
that, although no part of a soldier's duty was better than another,
your service was a very delicate one, just fitted for you, eh?  He
always does when he's cut out some hellish scrub-work for a chap.
And told you, too, that as long as you didn't go ashore, and kept
to a dispatch-boat, or an eight-oared gig, where you couldn't
deploy your men, or dress a line, you'd be invincible."

"He did say something like that," smiled Calvert, with an uneasy
recollection, however, that it was THE part of his superior's
speech that particularly impressed him.

"Of course," said Kirby gravely, "THAT, as an infantry officer, is
clearly your duty."

"And don't forget, George," said Rollins still more gravely, "that,
whatever may befall you, you belong to a section of that
numerically small but powerfully diversified organization--the
American Army.  Remember that in the hour of peril you can address
your men in any language, and be perfectly understood.  And
remember that when you proudly stand before them, the eyes not only
of your own country, but of nearly all the others, are upon you!
Good-bye, Georgey.  I heard the major hint something about whiskey.
They say that old pirate, Kingfisher Culpepper, had a stock of the
real thing from Robertson County laid in his shebang on the Marsh
just before he died.  Pity we aren't on terms with them, for the
cubs cannot drink it, and might be induced to sell.  Shouldn't
wonder, by the way, if your friend M'Caffrey was hanging round
somewhere there; he always had a keen scent.  You might confiscate
it as an "incitement to desertion," you know.  The girl's pretty,
and ought to be growing up now."

But haply at this point the sergeant stopped further raillery by
reporting the detachment ready; and drawing his sword, Calvert,
with a confused head, a remorseful heart, but an unfaltering step,
marched off his men on his delicate mission.

It was four o'clock when he entered Jonesville.  Following a
matter-of-fact idea of his own, he had brought his men the greater
distance by a circuitous route through the woods, thus avoiding the
ostentatious exposure of his party on the open bay in a well-manned
boat to an extended view from the three leagues of shore and marsh
opposite.  Crossing the stream, which here separated him from the
Dedlow Marsh by the common ferry, he had thus been enabled to halt
unperceived below the settlement and occupy the two roads by which
the fugitives could escape inland.  He had deemed it not impossible
that, after the previous visit of the sergeant, the deserters
hidden in the vicinity might return to Jonesville in the belief
that the visit would not be repeated so soon.  Leaving a part of
his small force to patrol the road and another to deploy over the
upland meadows, he entered the village.  By the exercise of some
boyish diplomacy and a certain prepossessing grace, which he knew
when and how to employ, he became satisfied that the objects of his
quest were not THERE--however, their whereabouts might have been
known to the people.  Dividing his party again, he concluded to
take a corporal and a few men and explore the lower marshes
himself.

The preoccupation of duty, exercise, and perhaps, above all, the
keen stimulus of the iodine-laden salt air seemed to clear his mind
and invigorate his body.  He had never been in the Marsh before,
and enjoyed its novelty with the zest of youth.  It was the hour
when the tide of its feathered life was at its flood.  Clouds of
duck and teal passing from the fresh water of the river to the salt
pools of the marshes perpetually swept his path with flying
shadows; at times it seemed as if even the uncertain ground around
him itself arose and sped away on dusky wings.  The vicinity of
hidden pools and sloughs was betrayed by startled splashings; a few
paces from their marching feet arose the sunlit pinions of a swan.
The air was filled with multitudinous small cries and pipings.  In
this vocal confusion it was some minutes before he recognized the
voice of one of his out-flankers calling to the other.

An important discovery had been made.  In a long tongue of bushes
that ran down to the Marsh they had found a mud-stained uniform,
complete even to the cap, bearing the initial of the deserter's
company.

"Is there any hut or cabin hereabouts, Schmidt?" asked Calvert.

"Dot vos schoost it, Lefdennun," replied his corporal.  "Dot vos de
shanty from der Kingvisher--old Gulbebber.  I pet a dollar, py
shimminy, dot der men haf der gekommt."

He pointed through the brake to a long, low building that now
raised itself, white in the sunlight, above the many blackened
piles.  Calvert saw in a single reconnoitring glance that it had
but one approach--the flight of steps from the Marsh.  Instructing
his men to fall in on the outer edge of the brake and await his
orders, he quickly made his way across the space and ascended the
steps.  Passing along the gallery he knocked at the front door.
There was no response.  He repeated his knock.  Then the window
beside it opened suddenly, and he was confronted with the double-
muzzle of a long ducking-gun.  Glancing instinctively along the
barrels, he saw at their other extremity the bright eyes, brilliant
color, and small set mouth of a remarkably handsome girl.  It was
the fact, and to the credit of his training, that he paid more
attention to the eyes than to the challenge of the shining tubes
before him.

"Jest stop where you are--will you!" said the girl determinedly.

Calvert's face betrayed not the slightest terror or surprise.
Immovable as on parade, he carried his white gloved hand to his
cap, and said gently, "With pleasure."

"Oh yes," said the girl quickly; "but if you move a step I'll jest
blow you and your gloves offer that railin' inter the Marsh."

"I trust not," returned Calvert, smiling.

"And why?"

"Because it would deprive me of the pleasure of a few moments'
conversation with you--and I've only one pair of gloves with me."

He was still watching her beautiful eyes--respectfully, admiringly,
and strategically.  For he was quite convinced that if he DID move
she would certainly discharge one or both barrels at him.

"Where's the rest of you?" she continued sharply.

"About three hundred yards away, in the covert, not near enough to
trouble you."

"Will they come here?"

"I trust not."

"You trust not?" she repeated scornfully.  "Why?

"Because they would be disobeying orders."

She lowered her gun slightly, but kept her black brows levelled at
him.  "I reckon I'm a match for YOU," she said, with a slightly
contemptuous glance at his slight figure, and opened the door.  For
a moment they stood looking at each other.  He saw, besides the
handsome face and eyes that had charmed him, a tall slim figure,
made broader across the shoulders by an open pea-jacket that showed
a man's red flannel shirt belted at the waist over a blue skirt,
with the collar knotted by a sailor's black handkerchief, and
turned back over a pretty though sunburnt throat.  She saw a rather
undersized young fellow in a jaunty undress uniform, scant of gold
braid, and bearing only the single gold shoulder-bars of his rank,
but scrupulously neat and well fitting.  Light-colored hair cropped
close, the smallest of light moustaches, clear and penetrating blue
eyes, and a few freckles completed a picture that did not
prepossess her.  She was therefore the more inclined to resent the
perfect ease and self-possession with which the stranger carried
off these manifest defects before her.

She laid aside the gun, put her hands deep in the pockets of her
pea-jacket, and, slightly squaring her shoulders, said curtly,
"What do you want?"

"A very little information, which I trust it will not trouble you
to give me.  My men have just discovered the uniform belonging to a
deserter from the Fort lying in the bushes yonder.  Can you give me
the slightest idea how it came there?"

"What right have you trapseing over our property?" she said,
turning upon him sharply, with a slight paling of color.

"None whatever."

"Then what did you come for?"

"To ask that permission, in case you would give me no information."

"Why don't you ask my brother, and not a woman?  Were you afraid?"

"He could hardly have done me the honor of placing me in more peril
than you have," returned Calvert, smiling.  "Then I have the
pleasure of addressing Miss Culpepper?"

"I'm Jim Culpepper's sister."

"And, I believe, equally able to give or refuse the permission I
ask."

"And what if I refuse?"

"Then I have only to ask pardon for having troubled you, go back,
and return here with the tide.  You don't resist THAT with a shot-
gun, do you?" he asked pleasantly.

Maggie Culpepper was already familiar with the accepted theory of
the supreme jurisdiction of the Federal Sea.  She half turned her
back upon him, partly to show her contempt, but partly to evade the
domination of his clear, good-humored, and self-sustained little
eyes.

"I don't know anythin' about your deserters, nor what rags o'
theirs happen to be floated up here," she said, angrily, "and don't
care to.  You kin do what you like."

"Then I'm afraid I should remain here a little longer, Miss
Culpepper; but my duty"--

"Your wot?" she interrupted, disdainfully.

"I suppose I AM talking shop," he said smilingly.  "Then my
business"--

"Your business--pickin' up half-starved runaways!"

"And, I trust, sometimes a kind friend," he suggested, with a grave
bow.

"You TRUST?  Look yer, young man, she said, with her quick, fierce,
little laugh, "I reckon you TRUST a heap too much!"  She would like
to have added, "with your freckled face, red hair, and little
eyes"--but this would have obliged her to face them again, which
she did not care to do.

Calvert stepped back, lifted his hand to his cap, still pleasantly,
and then walked gravely along the gallery, down the steps, and
towards the cover.  From her window, unseen, she followed his neat
little figure moving undeviatingly on, without looking to the left
or right, and still less towards the house he had just quitted.
Then she saw the sunlight flash on cross-belt plates and steel
barrels, and a light blue line issued from out the dark green
bushes, round the point, and disappeared.  And then it suddenly
occurred to her what she had been doing!  This, then, was her first
step towards that fancy she had so lately conceived, quarrelled
over with her brother, and lay awake last night to place anew, in
spite of all opposition!  This was her brilliant idea of dazzling
and subduing Logport and the Fort!  Had she grown silly, or what
had happened?  Could she have dreamed of the coming of this
whipper-snapper, with his insufferable airs, after that beggarly
deserter?  I am afraid that for a few moments the miserable
fugitive had as small a place in Maggie's sympathy as the
redoubtable whipper-snapper himself.  And now the cherished dream
of triumph and conquest was over!  What a "looney" she had been!
Instead of inviting him in, and outdoing him in "company manners,"
and "fooling" him about the deserter, and then blazing upon him
afterwards at Logport in the glory of her first spent wealth and
finery, she had driven him away!

And now "he'll go and tell--tell the Fort girls of his hairbreadth
escape from the claws of the Kingfisher's daughter!"

The thought brought a few bitter tears to her eyes, but she wiped
them away.  The thought brought also the terrible conviction that
Jim was right, that there could be nothing but open antagonism
between them and the traducers of their parents, as she herself had
instinctively shown!  But she presently wiped that conviction away
also, as she had her tears.

Half an hour later she was attracted by the appearance from the
windows of certain straggling blue spots on the upland that seemed
moving diagonally towards the Marsh.  She did not know that it was
Calvert's second "detail" joining him, but believed for a moment
that he had not yet departed, and was strangely relieved.  Still
later the frequent disturbed cries of coot, heron, and marsh-hen,
recognizing the presence of unusual invaders of their solitude,
distracted her yet more, and forced her at last with increasing
color and an uneasy sense of shyness to steal out to the gallery
for a swift furtive survey of the Marsh.  But an utterly unexpected
sight met her eyes, and kept her motionless.

The birds were rising everywhere and drifting away with querulous
perturbation before a small but augmented blue detachment that was
moving with monotonous regularity towards the point of bushes where
she had seen the young officer previously disappear.  In their
midst, between two soldiers with fixed bayonets, marched the man
whom even at that distance she instantly recognized as the deserter
of the preceding night, in the very clothes she had given him.  To
complete her consternation, a little to the right marched the young
officer also, but accompanied by, and apparently on the most
amicable terms with, Jim--her own brother!

To forget all else and dart down the steps, flying towards the
point of bushes, scarcely knowing why or what she was doing, was to
Maggie the impulse and work of a moment.  When she had reached it
the party were not twenty paces away.  But here a shyness and
hesitation again seized her, and she shrank back in the bushes with
an instinctive cry to her brother inarticulate upon her lips.  They
came nearer, they were opposite to her; her brother Jim keeping
step with the invader, and even conversing with him with an
animation she had seldom seen upon his face--they passed!  She had
been unnoticed except by one.  The roving eye of the deserter had
detected her handsome face among the leaves, slightly turned
towards it, and poured out his whole soul in a single swift wink of
eloquent but indescribable confidence.

When they had quite gone, she crept back to the house, a little
reassured, but still tremulous.  When her brother returned at
nightfall, he found her brooding over the fire, in the same
attitude as on the previous night.

"I reckon ye might hev seen me go by with the sodgers," he said,
seating himself beside her, a little awkwardly, and with an unusual
assumption of carelessness.

Maggie, without looking up, was languidly surprised.  He had been
with the soldiers--and where?

"About two hours ago I met this yer Leftenant Calvert," he went on
with increasing awkwardness, "and--oh, I say, Mag--he said he saw
you, and hoped he hadn't troubled ye, and--and--ye saw him, didn't
ye?"

Maggie, with all the red of the fire concentrated in her cheek as
she gazed at the flame, believed carelessly "that she had seen a
shrimp in uniform asking questions."

"Oh, he ain't a bit stuck up," said Jim quickly, "that's what I
like about him.  He's ez nat'ral ez you be, and tuck my arm,
walkin' around, careless-like, laffen at what he was doin', ez ef
it was a game, and he wasn't sole commander of forty men.  He's
only a year or two older than me--and--and"--he stopped and looked
uneasily at Maggie.

"So ye've bin craw-fishin' agin?" said Maggie, in her deepest and
most scornful contralto.

"Who's craw-fishin'?" he retorted, angrily.

"What's this backen out o' what you said yesterday?  What's all
this trucklin' to the Fort now?"

"What?  Well now, look yer," said Jim, rising suddenly, with
reproachful indignation, "darned if I don't jest tell ye everythin'.
I promised HIM I wouldn't.  He allowed it would frighten ye."

"FRIGHTEN ME!" repeated Maggie contemptuously, nevertheless with
her cheek paling again.  "Frighten me--with what?"

"Well, since yer so cantankerous, look yer.  We've been robbed!"

"Robbed?" echoed Maggie, facing him.

"Yes, robbed by that same deserter.  Robbed of a suit of my
clothes, and my whiskey-flask, and the darned skunk had 'em on.
And if it hadn't bin for that Leftenant Calvert, and my givin' him
permission to hunt him over the Marsh, we wouldn't have caught
him."

"Robbed?" repeated Maggie again, vaguely.

"Yes, robbed!  Last night, afore we came home.  He must hev got in
yer while we was comin' from the boat."

"Did, did that Leftenant say so?" stammered Maggie.

"Say it, of course he did! and so do I," continued Jim,
impatiently.  "Why, there were my very clothes on his back, and he
daren't deny it.  And if you'd hearkened to me jest now, instead of
flyin' off in tantrums, you'd see that THAT'S jest how we got him,
and how me and the Leftenant joined hands in it.  I didn't give him
permission to hunt deserters, but THIEVES.  I didn't help him to
ketch the man that deserted from HIM, but the skunk that took MY
clothes.  For when the Leftenant found the man's old uniform in the
bush, he nat'rally kalkilated he must hev got some other duds near
by in some underhand way.  Don't you see? eh?  Why, look, Mag.
Darned if you ain't skeered after all!  Who'd hev thought it?
There now--sit down, dear.  Why, you're white ez a gull."

He had his arm round her as she sank back in the chair again with a
forced smile.

"There now," he said with fraternal superiority, "don't mind it,
Mag, any more.  Why, it's all over now.  You bet he won't trouble
us agin, for the Leftenant sez that now he's found out to be a
thief, they'll jest turn him over to the police, and he's sure o'
getten six months' state prison fer stealin' and burglarin' in our
house.  But"--he stopped suddenly and looked at his sister's
contracted face; "look yer, Mag, you're sick, that's what's the
matter.  Take suthin'"--

"I'm better now," she said with an effort; "it's only a kind o'
blind chill I must hev got on the Marsh last night.  What's that?"

She had risen, and grasping her brother's arm tightly had turned
quickly to the window.  The casement had suddenly rattled.

"It's only the wind gettin' up.  It looked like a sou'wester when I
came in.  Lot o' scud flyin'.  But YOU take some quinine, Mag.
Don't YOU go now and get down sick like Maw."

Perhaps it was this well-meant but infelicitous reference that
brought a moisture to her dark eyes, and caused her lips to
momentarily quiver.  But it gave way to a quick determined setting
of her whole face as she turned it once more to the fire, and said,
slowly:

"I reckon I'll sleep it off, if I go to bed now.  What time does
the tide fall."

"About three, unless this yer wind piles it up on the Marsh afore
then.  Why?"

"I was only wonderin' if the boat wus safe," said Maggie, rising.

"You'd better hoist yourself outside some quinine, instead o'
talken about those things," said Jim, who preferred to discharge
his fraternal responsibility by active medication.  "You aren't fit
to read tonight."

"Good night, Jim," she said suddenly, stopping before him.

"Good night, Mag."  He kissed her with protecting and amiable
toleration, generously referring her hot hands and feverish lips to
that vague mystery of feminine complaint which man admits without
indorsing.

They separated.  Jim, under the stimulus of the late supposed
robbery, ostentatiously fastening the doors and windows with
assuring comments, calculated to inspire confidence in his sister's
startled heart.  Then he went to bed.  He lay awake long enough to
be pleasantly conscious that the wind had increased to a gale, and
to be lulled again to sleep by the cosy security of the heavily
timbered and tightly sealed dwelling that seemed to ride the storm
like the ship it resembled.  The gale swept through the piles
beneath him and along the gallery as through bared spars and over
wave-washed decks.  The whole structure, attacked above, below, and
on all sides by the fury of the wind, seemed at times to be lifted
in the air.  Once or twice the creaking timbers simulated the sound
of opening doors and passing footsteps, and again dilated as if the
gale had forced a passage through.  But Jim slept on peacefully,
and was at last only aroused by the brilliant sunshine staring
through his window from the clear wind-swept blue arch beyond.

Dressing himself lazily, he passed into the sitting-room and
proceeded to knock at his sister's door, as was his custom; he was
amazed to find it open and the room empty.  Entering hurriedly, he
saw that her bed was undisturbed, as if it had not been occupied,
and was the more bewildered to see a note ostentatiously pinned
upon the pillow, addressed in pencil, in a large school-hand, "To
Jim."

Opening it impatiently, he was startled to read as follows:--


"Don't be angry, Jim dear--but it was all my fault--and I didn't
tell you.  I knew all about the deserter, and I gave him the
clothes and things that they say he stole.  It was while you was
out that night, and he came and begged of me, and was mournful and
hidjus to behold.  I thought I was helping him, and getting our
revenge on the Fort, all at the same time.  Don't be mad, Jim dear,
and do not be frighted fer me.  I'm going over thar to make it all
right--to free HIM of stealing--to have YOU left out of it all--and
take it all on myself.  Don't you be a bit feared for me.  I ain't
skeert of the wind or of going.  I'll close reef everything, clear
the creek, stretch across to Injen Island, hugg the Point, and bear
up fer Logport.  Dear Jim--don't get mad--but I couldn't bear this
fooling of you nor HIM--and that man being took for stealing any
longer!--Your loving sister,

MAGGIE."


With a confused mingling of shame, anger, and sudden fear he ran
out on the gallery.  The tide was well up, half the Marsh had
already vanished, and the little creek where he had moored his
skiff was now an empty shining river.  The water was everywhere--
fringing the tussocks of salt grass with concentric curves of spume
and drift, or tumultuously tossing its white-capped waves over the
spreading expanse of the lower bay.  The low thunder of breakers in
the farther estuary broke monotonously on the ear.  But his eye was
fascinated by a dull shifting streak on the horizon, that, even as
he gazed, shuddered, whitened along its whole line, and then grew
ghastly gray again.  It was the ocean bar.


IV.


"Well, I must say," said Cicely Preston, emphasizing the usual
feminine imperative for perfectly gratuitous statement, as she
pushed back her chair from the commandant's breakfast table, "I
MUST really say that I don't see anything particularly heroic in
doing something wrong, lying about it just to get other folks into
trouble, and then rushing off to do penance in a high wind and an
open boat.  But she's pretty, and wears a man's shirt and coat, and
of course THAT settles anything.  But why earrings and wet white
stockings and slippers?  And why that Gothic arch of front and a
boy's hat?  That's what I simply ask;" and the youngest daughter of
Colonel Preston rose from the table, shook out the skirt of her
pretty morning dress, and, placing her little thumbs in the belt of
her smart waist, paused witheringly for a reply.

"You are most unfair, my child," returned Colonel Preston gravely.
"Her giving food and clothes to a deserter may have been only an
ordinary instinct of humanity towards a fellow-creature who
appeared to be suffering, to say nothing of M'Caffrey's plausible
tongue.  But her periling her life to save him from an unjust
accusation, and her desire to shield her brother's pride from
ridicule, is altogether praiseworthy and extraordinary.  And the
moral influence of her kindness was strong enough to make that
scamp refuse to tell the plain truth that might implicate her in an
indiscretion, though it saved him from state prison."

"He knew you wouldn't believe him if he had said the clothes were
given to him," retorted Miss Cicely, "so I don't see where the
moral influence comes in.  As to her periling her life, those Marsh
people are amphibious anyway, or would be in those clothes.  And as
to her motive, why, papa, I heard you say in this very room, and
afterwards to Mr. Calvert, when you gave him instructions, that you
believed those Culpeppers were capable of enticing away deserters;
and you forget the fuss you had with her savage brother's lawyer
about that water front, and how you said it was such people who
kept up the irritation between the Civil and Federal power."

The colonel coughed hurriedly.  It is the fate of all great
organizers, military as well as civil, to occasionally suffer
defeat in the family circle.

"The more reason," he said, soothingly, "why we should correct
harsh judgments that spring from mere rumors.  You should give
yourself at least the chance of overcoming your prejudices, my
child.  Remember, too, that she is now the guest of the Fort."

"And she chooses to stay with Mrs. Bromley!  I'm sure it's quite
enough for you and mamma to do duty--and Emily, who wants to know
why Mr. Calvert raves so about her--without MY going over there to
stare."

Colonel Preston shook his head reproachfully, but eventually
retired, leaving the field to the enemy.  The enemy, a little pink
in the cheeks, slightly tossed the delicate rings of its blonde
crest, settled its skirts again at the piano, but after turning
over the leaves of its music book, rose, and walked pettishly to
the window.

But here a spectacle presented itself that for a moment dismissed
all other thoughts from the girl's rebellious mind.

Not a dozen yards away, on the wind-swept parade, a handsome young
fellow, apparently halted by the sentry, had impetuously turned
upon him in an attitude of indignant and haughty surprise.  To the
quick fancy of the girl it seemed as if some disguised rustic god
had been startled by the challenge of a mortal.  Under an oilskin
hat, like the petasus of Hermes, pushed back from his white
forehead, crisp black curls were knotted around a head whose
beardless face was perfect as a cameo cutting.  In the close-
fitting blue woolen jersey under his open jacket the clear outlines
and youthful grace of his upper figure were revealed as clearly as
in a statue.  Long fishing-boots reaching to his thighs scarcely
concealed the symmetry of his lower limbs.  Cricket and lawn-
tennis, knickerbockers and flannels had not at that period
familiarized the female eye to unfettered masculine outline, and
Cicely Preston, accustomed to the artificial smartness and
regularity of uniform, was perhaps the more impressed by the
stranger's lawless grace.

The sentry had repeated his challenge; an angry flush was deepening
on the intruder's cheek.  At this critical moment Cicely threw open
the French windows and stepped upon the veranda.

The sentry saluted the familiar little figure of his colonel's
daughter with an explanatory glance at the stranger.  The young
fellow looked up--and the god became human.

"I'm looking for my sister," he said, half awkwardly, half
defiantly; "she's here, somewhere."

"Yes--and perfectly safe, Mr. Culpepper, I think," said the arch-
hypocrite with dazzling sweetness; "and we're all so delighted.
And so brave and plucky and skillful in her to come all that way--
and for such a purpose."

"Then--you know--all about it"--stammered Jim, more relieved than
he had imagined--"and that I"--

"That you were quite ignorant of your sister helping the deserter.
Oh yes, of course," said Cicely, with bewildering promptitude.
"You see, Mr. Culpepper, we girls are SO foolish.  I dare say I
should have done the same thing in her place, only I should never
have had the courage to do what she did afterwards.  You really
must forgive her.  But won't you come in--DO."  She stepped back,
holding the window open with the half-coaxing air of a spoiled
child.  "This way is quickest.  DO come."  As he still hesitated,
glancing from her to the house, she added, with a demure little
laugh, "Oh, I forget--this is Colonel Preston's quarters, and I'm
his daughter."

And this dainty little fairy, so natural in manner, so tasteful in
attire, was one of the artificial over-dressed creatures that his
sister had inveighed against so bitterly!  Was Maggie really to be
trusted?  This new revelation coming so soon after the episode of
the deserter staggered him.  Nevertheless he hesitated, looking up
with a certain boyish timidity into Cicely's dangerous eyes.

"Is--is--my sister there?"

"I'm expecting her with my mother every moment," responded this
youthful but ingenious diplomatist sweetly; "she might be here now;
but," she added with a sudden heart-broken flash of sympathy, "I
know HOW anxious you both must be.  I'LL take you to her now.  Only
one moment, please."  The opportunity of leading this handsome
savage as it were in chains across the parade, before everybody,
her father, her mother, her sister, and HIS--was not to be lost.
She darted into the house, and reappeared with the daintiest
imaginable straw hat on the side of her head, and demurely took her
place at his side.  "It's only over there, at Major Bromley's," she
said, pointing to one of the vine-clad cottage quarters; but you
are a stranger here, you know, and might get lost."

Alas! he was already that.  For keeping step with those fairy-like
slippers, brushing awkwardly against that fresh and pretty skirt,
and feeling the caress of the soft folds; looking down upon the
brim of that beribboned little hat, and more often meeting the
upturned blue eyes beneath it, Jim was suddenly struck with a
terrible conviction of his own contrasting coarseness and
deficiencies.  How hideous those oiled canvas fishing-trousers and
pilot jacket looked beside this perfectly fitted and delicately
gowned girl!  He loathed his collar, his jersey, his turned-back
sou'wester, even his height, which seemed to hulk beside her--
everything, in short, that the girl had recently admired.  By the
time that they had reached Major Bromley's door he had so far
succumbed to the fair enchantress and realized her ambition of a
triumphant procession, that when she ushered him into the presence
of half a dozen ladies and gentlemen he scarcely recognized his
sister as the centre of attraction, or knew that Miss Cicely's
effusive greeting of Maggie was her first one.  "I knew he was
dying to see you after all you had BOTH passed through, and I
brought him straight here," said the diminutive Machiavelli,
meeting the astonished gaze of her father and the curious eyes of
her sister with perfect calmness, while Maggie, full of gratitude
and admiration of her handsome brother, forgot his momentary
obliviousness, and returned her greeting warmly.  Nevertheless,
there was a slight movement of reserve among the gentlemen at the
unlooked-for irruption of this sunburnt Adonis, until Calvert,
disengaging himself from Maggie's side, came forward with his usual
frank imperturbability and quiet tact, and claimed Jim as his
friend and honored guest.

It then came out with that unostentatious simplicity which
characterized the brother and sister, and was their secure claim to
perfect equality with their entertainers, that Jim, on discovering
his sister's absence, and fearing that she might be carried by the
current towards the bar, had actually SWUM THE ESTUARY to Indian
Island, and in an ordinary Indian canoe had braved the same
tempestuous passage she had taken a few hours before.  Cicely,
listening to this recital with rapt attention, nevertheless managed
to convey the impression of having fully expected it from the
first.  "Of course he'd have come here; if she'd only waited," she
said, sotto voce, to her sister Emily.

"He's certainly the handsomer of the two," responded that young
lady.

"Of course," returned Cicely, with a superior air, "don't you see
she COPIES him."

Not that this private criticism prevented either from vying with
the younger officers in their attentions to Maggie, with perhaps
the addition of an open eulogy of her handsome brother, more or
less invidious in comparison to the officers.  "I suppose it's an
active out-of-door life gives him that perfect grace and freedom,"
said Emily, with a slight sneer at the smartly belted Calvert.
"Yes; and he don't drink or keep late hours," responded Cicely
significantly.  "His sister says they always retire before ten
o'clock, and that although his father left him some valuable
whiskey he seldom takes a drop of it."  "Therein," gravely
concluded Captain Kirby, "lies OUR salvation.  If, after such a
confession, Calvert doesn't make the most of his acquaintance with
young Culpepper to remove that whiskey from his path and bring it
here, he's not the man I take him for."

Indeed, for the moment it seemed as if he was not.  During the next
three or four days, in which Colonel Preston had insisted upon
detaining his guests, Calvert touched no liquor, evaded the evening
poker parties at quarters, and even prevailed upon some of his
brother officers to give them up for the more general entertainment
of the ladies.  Colonel Preston was politician enough to avail
himself of the popularity of Maggie's adventure to invite some of
the Logport people to assist him in honoring their neighbor.  Not
only was the old feud between the Fort and the people thus bridged
over, but there was no doubt that the discipline of the Fort had
been strengthened by Maggie's extravagant reputation as a mediator
among the disaffected rank and file.  Whatever characteristic
license the grateful Dennis M'Caffrey--let off with a nominal
punishment--may have taken in his praise of the "Quane of the
Marshes," it is certain that the men worshiped her, and that the
band pathetically begged permission to serenade her the last night
of her stay.

At the end of that time, with a dozen invitations, a dozen
appointments, a dozen vows of eternal friendship, much hand-
shaking, and accompanied by a number of the officers to their boat,
Maggie and Jim departed.  They talked but little on their way home;
by some tacit understanding they did not discuss those projects,
only recalling certain scenes and incidents of their visit.  By the
time they had reached the little creek the silence and nervous
apathy which usually follow excitement in the young seemed to have
fallen upon them.  It was not until after their quiet frugal supper
that, seated beside the fire, Jim looked up somewhat self-
consciously in his sister's grave and thoughtful face.

"Say, Mag, what was that idea o' yours about selling some land, and
taking a house at Logport?"

Maggie looked up, and said passively, "Oh, THAT idea?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well," said Jim somewhat awkwardly, "it COULD be done, you know.
I'm willin'."

As she did not immediately reply, he continued uneasily, "Miss
Preston says we kin get a nice little house that is near the Fort,
until we want to build."

"Oh, then you HAVE talked about it?"

"Yes--that is--why, what are ye thinkin' of, Mag?  Wasn't it YOUR
idea all along?" he said, suddenly facing her with querulous
embarrassment.  They had been sitting in their usual evening
attitudes of Assyrian frieze profile, with even more than the usual
Assyrian frieze similarity of feature.

"Yes; but, Jim dear, do you think it the best thing for--for us to
do?" said Maggie, with half-frightened gravity.

At this sudden and startling exhibition of female inconsistency and
inconsequence, Jim was for a moment speechless.  Then he recovered
himself, volubly, aggrievedly, and on his legs.  What DID she mean?
Was he to give up understanding girls--or was it their sole
vocation in life to impede masculine processes and shipwreck
masculine conclusions?  Here, after all she said the other night,
after they had nearly "quo'lled" over her "set idees," after she'd
"gone over all that foolishness about Jael and Sisera--and there
wasn't any use for it--after she'd let him run on to them officers
all he was goin' to do--nay, after SHE herself, for he had heard
her, had talked to Calvert about it, she wanted to know NOW if it
was best."  He looked at the floor and the ceiling, as if expecting
the tongued and grooved planks to cry out at this crowning
enormity.

The cause of it had resumed her sad gaze at the fire.  Presently,
without turning her head, she reached up her long, graceful arm,
and clasping her brother's neck, brought his face down in profile
with her own, cheek against cheek, until they looked like the
double outlines of a medallion.  Then she said--to the fire:

"Jim, do you think she's pretty?"

"Who?" said Jim, albeit his color had already answered the
question.

"You know WHO.  Do you like her?"

Jim here vaguely murmured to the fire that he thought her "kinder
nice," and that she dressed mighty purty.  "Ye know, Mag," he said
with patronizing effusion, "you oughter get some gownds like hers."

"That wouldn't make me like her," said Maggie gravely.

"I don't know about that," said Jim politely, but with an appalling
hopelessness of tone.  After a pause he added slyly, "'Pears to me
SOMEBODY ELSE thought somebody else mighty purty--eh?"

To his discomfiture she did not solicit further information.  After
a pause he continued, still more archly:

"Do you like HIM, Mag?"

"I think he's a perfect gentleman," she said calmly.

He turned his eyes quickly from the glowing fire to her face.  The
cheek that had been resting against his own was as cool as the
night wind that came through the open door, and the whole face was
as fixed and tranquil as the upper stars.


V.


For a year the tide had ebbed and flowed on the Dedlow Marsh
unheeded before the sealed and sightless windows of the
"Kingfisher's Nest."  Since the young birds had flown to Logport,
even the Indian caretakers had abandoned the piled dwelling for
their old nomadic haunts in the "bresh."  The high spring tide had
again made its annual visit to the little cemetery of drift-wood,
and, as if recognizing another wreck in the deserted home, had hung
a few memorial offerings on the blackened piles, softly laid a
garland of grayish drift before it, and then sobbed itself out in
the salt grass.

From time to time the faint echoes of the Culpeppers' life at
Logport reached the upland, and the few neighbors who had only
known them by hearsay shook their heads over the extravagance they
as yet only knew by report.  But it was in the dead ebb of the tide
and the waning daylight that the feathered tenants of the Marsh
seemed to voice dismal prophecies of the ruin of their old master
and mistress, and to give themselves up to gloomiest lamentation
and querulous foreboding.  Whether the traditional "bird of the
air" had entrusted his secret to a few ornithological friends, or
whether from a natural disposition to take gloomy views of life, it
was certain that at this hour the vocal expression of the Marsh was
hopeless and despairing.  It was then that a dejected plover,
addressing a mocking crew of sandpipers on a floating log, seemed
to bewail the fortune that was being swallowed up by the riotous
living and gambling debts of Jim.  It was then that the querulous
crane rose, and testily protested against the selling of his
favorite haunt in the sandy peninsula, which only six months of
Jim's excesses had made imperative.  It was then that a mournful
curlew, who, with the preface that he had always been really
expecting it, reiterated the story that Jim had been seen more than
once staggering home with nervous hands and sodden features from a
debauch with the younger officers; it was the same desponding fowl
who knew that Maggie's eyes had more than once filled with tears at
Jim's failings, and had already grown more hollow with many
watchings.  It was a flock of wrangling teal that screamingly
discussed the small scandals, jealous heart-burnings, and curious
backbitings that had attended Maggie's advent into society.  It was
the high-flying brent who, knowing how the sensitive girl, made
keenly conscious at every turn of her defective training and
ingenuous ignorance, had often watched their evening flight with
longing gaze, now "honked" dismally at the recollection.  It was at
this hour and season that the usual vague lamentings of Dedlow
Marsh seemed to find at last a preordained expression.  And it was
at such a time, when light and water were both fading, and the
blackness of the Marsh was once more reasserting itself, that a
small boat was creeping along one of the tortuous inlets, at times
half hiding behind the bank like a wounded bird.  As it slowly
penetrated inland it seemed to be impelled by its solitary occupant
in a hesitating uncertain way, as if to escape observation rather
than as if directed to any positive bourn.  Stopping beside a bank
of reeds at last, the figure rose stoopingly, and drew a gun from
between its feet and the bottom of the boat.  As the light fell
upon its face, it could be seen that it was James Culpepper!  James
Culpepper! hardly recognizable in the swollen features, bloodshot
eyes, and tremulous hands of that ruined figure!  James Culpepper,
only retaining a single trace of his former self in his look of set
and passionate purpose!  And that purpose was to kill himself--to
be found dead, as his father had been before him--in an open boat,
adrift upon the Marsh!

It was not the outcome of a sudden fancy.  The idea had first come
to him in a taunting allusion from the drunken lips of one of his
ruder companions, for which he had stricken the offender to the
earth.  It had since haunted his waking hours of remorse and
hopeless fatuity; it had seemed to be the one relief and atonement
he could make his devoted sister; and, more fatuous than all, it
seemed to the miserable boy the one revenge he would take upon the
faithless coquette, who for a year had played with his simplicity,
and had helped to drive him to the distraction of cards and drink.
Only that morning Colonel Preston had forbidden him the house; and
now it seemed to him the end had come.  He raised his distorted
face above the reedy bank for a last tremulous and half-frightened
glance at the landscape he was leaving forever.  A glint in the
western sky lit up the front of his deserted dwelling in the
distance, abreast of which the windings of the inlet had
unwittingly led him.  As he looked he started, and involuntarily
dropped into a crouching attitude.  For, to his superstitious
terror, the sealed windows of his old home were open, the bright
panes were glittering with the fading light, and on the outer
gallery the familiar figure of his sister stood, as of old,
awaiting his return!  Was he really going mad, or had this last
vision of his former youth been purposely vouchsafed him?

But, even as he gazed, the appearance of another figure in the
landscape beyond the house proved the reality of his vision, and as
suddenly distracted him from all else.  For it was the apparition
of a man on horseback approaching the house from the upland; and
even at that distance he recognized its well-known outlines.  It
was Calvert!  Calvert the traitor!  Calvert, the man whom he had
long suspected as being the secret lover and destined husband of
Cicely Preston!  Calvert, who had deceived him with his calm
equanimity and his affected preference for Maggie, to conceal his
deliberate understanding with Cicely.  What was he doing here?  Was
he a double traitor, and now trying to deceive HER--as he had him?
And Maggie here!  This sudden return--this preconcerted meeting.
It was infamy!

For a moment he remained stupefied, and then, with a mechanical
instinct, plunged his head and face in the lazy-flowing water, and
then once again rose cool and collected.  The half-mad distraction
of his previous resolve had given way to another, more deliberate,
but not less desperate determination.  He knew now WHY he came
there--WHY he had brought his gun--why his boat had stopped when it
did!

Lying flat in the bottom, he tore away fragments of the crumbling
bank to fill his frail craft, until he had sunk it to the gunwale,
and below the low level of the Marsh.  Then, using his hands as
noiseless paddles, he propelled this rude imitation of a floating
log slowly past the line of vision, until the tongue of bushes had
hidden him from view.  With a rapid glance at the darkening flat,
he then seized his gun, and springing to the spongy bank, half
crouching half crawling through reeds and tussocks, he made his way
to the brush.  A foot and eye less experienced would have plunged
its owner helpless in the black quagmire.  At one edge of the
thicket he heard hoofs trampling the dried twigs.  Calvert's horse
was already there, tied to a skirting alder.

He ran to the house, but, instead of attracting attention by
ascending the creaking steps, made his way to the piles below the
rear gallery and climbed to it noiselessly.  It was the spot where
the deserter had ascended a year ago, and, like him, he could see
and hear all that passed distinctly.  Calvert stood near the open
door as if departing.  Maggie stood between him and the window, her
face in shadow, her hands clasped tightly behind her.  A profound
sadness, partly of the dying day and waning light, and partly of
some vague expiration of their own sorrow, seemed to encompass
them.  Without knowing why, a strange trembling took the place of
James Culpepper's fierce determination, and a film of moisture
stole across his staring eyes.

"When I tell you that I believe all this will pass, and that you
will still win your brother back to you," said Calvert's sad but
clear voice, "I will tell you why--although, perhaps, it is only a
part of that confidence you command me to withhold.  When I first
saw you, I myself had fallen into like dissolute habits; less
excusable than he, for I had some experience of the world and its
follies.  When I met YOU, and fell under the influence of your
pure, simple, and healthy life; when I saw that isolation,
monotony, misunderstanding, even the sense of superiority to one's
surroundings could be lived down and triumphed over, without vulgar
distractions or pitiful ambitions; when I learned to love you--hear
me out, Miss Culpepper, I beg you--you saved ME--I, who was nothing
to you, even as I honestly believe you will still save your
brother, whom you love."

"How do you know I didn't RUIN him?" she said, turning upon him
bitterly.  "How do you know that it wasn't to get rid of OUR
monotony, OUR solitude that I drove him to this vulgar distraction,
this pitiful--yes, you were right--pitiful ambition?"

"Because it isn't your real nature," he said quietly.

"My real nature," she repeated with a half savage vehemence that
seemed to be goaded from her by his very gentleness, "my real
nature!  What did HE--what do YOU know of it?--My real nature!--
I'll tell you what it was," she went on passionately.  "It was to
be revenged on you all for your cruelty, your heartlessness, your
wickedness to me and mine in the past.  It was to pay you off for
your slanders of my dead father--for the selfishness that left me
and Jim alone with his dead body on the Marsh.  That was what sent
me to Logport--to get even with you--to--to fool and flaunt you!
There, you have it now!  And now that God has punished me for it by
crushing my brother--you--you expect me to let you crush ME too."

"But," he said eagerly, advancing toward her, "you are wronging me--
you are wronging yourself, cruelly."

"Stop," she said, stepping back, with her hands still locked behind
her.  "Stay where you are.  There!  That's enough!"  She drew
herself up and let her hands fall at her side.  "Now, let us speak
of Jim," she said coldly.

Without seeming to hear her, he regarded her for the first time
with hopeless sadness.

"Why did you let my brother believe you were his rival with Cicely
Preston?" she asked impatiently.

"Because I could not undeceive him without telling him I hopelessly
loved his sister.  You are proud, Miss Culpepper," he said, with
the first tinge of bitterness in his even voice.  "Can you not
understand that others may be proud too?"

"No," she said bluntly; "it is not pride but weakness.  You could
have told him what you knew to be true: that there could be nothing
in common between her folk and such savages as we; that there was a
gulf as wide as that Marsh and as black between our natures, our
training and theirs, and even if they came to us across it, now and
then, to suit their pleasure, light and easy as that tide--it was
still there to some day ground and swamp them!  And if he doubted
it, you had only to tell him your own story.  You had only to tell
him what you have just told me--that you yourself, an officer and a
gentleman, thought you loved me, a vulgar, uneducated, savage girl,
and that I, kinder to you than you to me or him, made you take it
back across that tide, because I couldn't let you link your life
with me, and drag you in the mire."

"You need not have said that, Miss Culpepper, returned Calvert with
the same gentle smile, "to prove that I am your inferior in all but
one thing."

"And that?" she said quickly.

"Is my love."

His gentle face was as set now as her own as he moved back slowly
towards the door.  There he paused.

"You tell me to speak of Jim, and Jim only.  Then hear me.  I
believe that Miss Preston cares for him as far as lies in her young
and giddy nature.  I could not, therefore, have crushed HIS hope
without deceiving him, for there are as cruel deceits prompted by
what we call reason as by our love.  If you think that a knowledge
of this plain truth would help to save him, I beg you to be kinder
to him than you have been to me,--or even, let me dare to hope, to
YOURSELF."

He slowly crossed the threshold, still holding his cap lightly in
his hand.

"When I tell you that I am going away to-morrow on a leave of
absence, and that in all probability we may not meet again, you
will not misunderstand why I add my prayer to the message your
friends in Logport charged me with.  They beg that you will give up
your idea of returning here, and come back to them.  Believe me,
you have made yourself loved and respected there, in spite--I beg
pardon--perhaps I should say BECAUSE of your pride.  Good-night and
good-bye."

For a single instant she turned her set face to the window with a
sudden convulsive movement, as if she would have called him back,
but at the same moment the opposite door creaked and her brother
slipped into the room.  Whether a quick memory of the deserter's
entrance at that door a year ago had crossed her mind, whether
there was some strange suggestion in his mud-stained garments and
weak deprecating smile, or whether it was the outcome of some
desperate struggle within her, there was that in her face that
changed his smile into a frightened cry for pardon, as he ran and
fell on his knees at her feet.  But even as he did so her stern
look vanished, and with her arm around him she bent over him and
mingled her tears with his.

"I heard it all, Mag dearest!  All!  Forgive me!  I have been
crazy!--wild!--I will reform!--I will be better!  I will never
disgrace you again, Mag!  Never, never!  I swear it!"

She reached down and kissed him.  After a pause, a weak boyish
smile struggled into his face.

"You heard what he said of HER, Mag.  Do you think it might be
true?"

She lifted the damp curls from his forehead with a sad half-
maternal smile, but did not reply.

"And Mag, dear, don't you think YOU were a little--just a little--
hard on HIM?  No!  Don't look at me that way, for God's sake!
There, I didn't mean anything.  Of course you knew best.  There,
Maggie dear, look up.  Hark there!  Listen, Mag, do!"

They lifted their eyes to the dim distance seen through the open
door.  Borne on the fading light, and seeming to fall and die with
it over marsh and river, came the last notes of the bugle from the
Fort.

"There!  Don't you remember what you used to say, Mag?"

The look that had frightened him had quite left her face now.

"Yes," she smiled, laying her cold cheek beside his softly.  "Oh
yes!  It was something that came and went, 'Like a song'--'Like a
song.'"



A KNIGHT-ERRANT OF THE FOOTHILLS.


I.


As Father Felipe slowly toiled up the dusty road towards the Rancho
of the Blessed Innocents, he more than once stopped under the
shadow of a sycamore to rest his somewhat lazy mule and to compose
his own perplexed thoughts by a few snatches from his breviary.
For the good padre had some reason to be troubled.  The invasion of
Gentile Americans that followed the gold discovery of three years
before had not confined itself to the plains of the Sacramento, but
stragglers had already found their way to the Santa Cruz Valley,
and the seclusion of even the mission itself was threatened.  It
was true that they had not brought their heathen engines to
disembowel the earth in search of gold, but it was rumored that
they had already speculated upon the agricultural productiveness of
the land, and had espied "the fatness thereof."  As he reached the
higher plateau he could see the afternoon sea-fog--presently to
obliterate the fair prospect--already pulling through the gaps in
the Coast Range, and on a nearer slope--no less ominously--the
smoke of a recent but more permanently destructive Yankee saw-mill
was slowly drifting towards the valley.

"Get up, beast!" said the father, digging his heels into the
comfortable flanks of his mule with some human impatience, "or art
THOU, too, a lazy renegade?  Thinkest thou, besotted one, that the
heretic will spare thee more work than the Holy Church."

The mule, thus apostrophized in ear and flesh, shook its head
obstinately as if the question was by no means clear to its mind,
but nevertheless started into a little trot, which presently
brought it to the low adobe wall of the courtyard of "The
Innocents," and entered the gate.  A few lounging peons in the
shadow of an archway took off their broad-brimmed hats and made way
for the padre, and a half dozen equally listless vaqueros helped
him to alight.  Accustomed as he was to the indolence and
superfluity of his host's retainers, to-day it nevertheless seemed
to strike some note of irritation in his breast.

A stout, middle-aged woman of ungirt waist and beshawled head and
shoulders appeared at the gateway as if awaiting him.  After a
formal salutation she drew him aside into an inner passage.

"He is away again, your Reverence," she said.

"Ah--always the same?"

"Yes, your Reverence--and this time to 'a meeting' of the heretics
at their pueblo, at Jonesville--where they will ask him of his land
for a road."

"At a MEETING?" echoed the priest uneasily.

"Ah yes! a meeting--where Tiburcio says they shout and spit on the
ground, your Reverence, and only one has a chair and him they call
a 'chairman' because of it, and yet he sits not but shouts and
spits even as the others and keeps up a tapping with a hammer like
a very pico.  And there it is they are ever 'resolving' that which
is not, and consider it even as done."

"Then he is still the same," said the priest gloomily, as the woman
paused for breath.

"Only more so, your Reverence, for he reads nought but the
newspaper of the Americanos that is brought in the ship, the 'New
York 'errald'--and recites to himself the orations of their
legislators.  Ah! it was an evil day when the shipwrecked American
sailor taught him his uncouth tongue, which, as your Reverence
knows, is only fit for beasts and heathen incantation."

"Pray Heaven THAT were all he learned of him," said the priest
hastily, "for I have great fear that this sailor was little better
than an atheist and an emissary from Satan.  But where are these
newspapers and the fantasies of publicita that fill his mind?  I
would see them, my daughter."

"You shall, your Reverence, and more too," she replied eagerly,
leading the way along the passage to a grated door which opened
upon a small cell-like apartment, whose scant light and less air
came through the deeply embayed windows in the outer wall.  "Here
is his estudio."

In spite of this open invitation, the padre entered with that air
of furtive and minute inspection common to his order.  His glance
fell upon a rude surveyor's plan of the adjacent embryo town of
Jonesville hanging on the wall, which he contemplated with a cold
disfavor that even included the highly colored vignette of the
projected Jonesville Hotel in the left-hand corner.  He then passed
to a supervisor's notice hanging near it, which he examined with a
suspicion heightened by that uneasiness common to mere worldly
humanity when opposed to an unknown and unfamiliar language.  But
an exclamation broke from his lips when he confronted an election
placard immediately below it.  It was printed in Spanish and
English, and Father Felipe had no difficulty in reading the
announcement that "Don Jose Sepulvida would preside at a meeting of
the Board of Education in Jonesville as one of the trustees."

"This is madness," said the padre.

Observing that Dona Maria was at the moment preoccupied in
examining the pictorial pages of an illustrated American weekly
which had hitherto escaped his eyes, he took it gently from her
hand.

"Pardon, your Reverence," she said with slightly acidulous
deprecation, "but thanks to the Blessed Virgin and your Reverence's
teaching, the text is but gibberish to me and I did but glance at
the pictures."

"Much evil may come in with the eye," said the priest
sententiously, "as I will presently show thee.  We have here," he
continued, pointing to an illustration of certain college athletic
sports, "a number of youthful cavaliers posturing and capering in a
partly nude condition before a number of shameless women, who
emulate the saturnalia of heathen Rome by waving their
handkerchiefs.  We have here a companion picture," he said,
indicating an illustration of gymnastic exercises by the students
of a female academy at "Commencement," "in which, as thou seest,
even the aged of both sexes unblushingly assist as spectators with
every expression of immodest satisfaction."

"Have they no bull-fights or other seemly recreation that they must
indulge in such wantonness?" asked Dona Maria indignantly, gazing,
however, somewhat curiously at the baleful representations.

"Of all that, my daughter, has their pampered civilization long
since wearied," returned the good padre, "for see, this is what
they consider a moral and even a religious ceremony."  He turned to
an illustration of a woman's rights convention; "observe with what
rapt attention the audience of that heathen temple watch the
inspired ravings of that elderly priestess on the dais.  It is even
this kind of sacrilegious performance that I am told thy nephew Don
Jose expounds and defends."

"May the blessed saints preserve us; where will it lead to?"
murmured the horrified Dona Maria.

"I will show thee," said Father Felipe, briskly turning the pages
with the same lofty ignoring of the text until he came to a
representation of a labor procession.  "There is one of their
periodic revolutions unhappily not unknown even in Mexico.  Thou
perceivest those complacent artisans marching with implements of
their craft, accompanied by the military, in the presence of their
own stricken masters.  Here we see only another instance of the
instability of all communities that are not founded on the
principles of the Holy Church."

"And what is to be done with my nephew?"

The good father's brow darkened with the gloomy religious zeal of
two centuries ago.  "We must have a council of the family, the
alcalde, and the archbishop, at ONCE," he said ominously.  To the
mere heretical observer the conclusion might have seemed lame and
impotent, but it was as near the Holy inquisition as the year of
grace 1852 could offer.

A few days after this colloquy the unsuspecting subject of it, Don
Jose Sepulvida, was sitting alone in the same apartment.  The
fading glow of the western sky, through the deep embrasured
windows, lit up his rapt and meditative face.  He was a young man
of apparently twenty-five, with a colorless satin complexion, dark
eyes alternating between melancholy and restless energy, a narrow
high forehead, long straight hair, and a lightly penciled
moustache.  He was said to resemble the well-known portrait of the
Marquis of Monterey in the mission church, a face that was alleged
to leave a deep and lasting impression upon the observers.  It was
undoubtedly owing to this quality during a brief visit of the
famous viceroy to a remote and married ancestress of Don Jose at
Leon that the singular resemblance may be attributed.

A heavy and hesitating step along the passage stopped before the
grating.  Looking up, Don Jose beheld to his astonishment the
slightly inflamed face of Roberto, a vagabond American whom he had
lately taken into his employment.

Roberto, a polite translation of "Bob the Bucker," cleaned out at a
monte-bank in Santa Cruz, penniless and profligate, had sold his
mustang to Don Jose and recklessly thrown himself in with the
bargain.  Touched by the rascal's extravagance, the quality of the
mare, and observing that Bob's habits had not yet affected his seat
in the saddle, but rather lent a demoniac vigor to his chase of
wild cattle, Don Jose had retained rider and horse in his service
as vaquero.

Bucking Bob, observing that his employer was alone, coolly opened
the door without ceremony, shut it softly behind him, and then
closed the wooden shutter of the grating.  Don Jose surveyed him
with mild surprise and dignified composure.  The man appeared
perfectly sober,--it was a peculiarity of his dissipated habits
that, when not actually raving with drink, he was singularly shrewd
and practical.

"Look yer, Don Kosay," he began in a brusque but guarded voice,
"you and me is pards.  When ye picked me and the mare up and set us
on our legs again in this yer ranch, I allowed I'd tie to ye
whenever you was in trouble--and wanted me.  And I reckon that's
what's the matter now.  For from what I see and hear on every side,
although you're the boss of this consarn, you're surrounded by a
gang of spies and traitors.  Your comings and goings, your ins and
outs, is dogged and followed and blown upon.  The folks you trust
is playing it on ye.  It ain't for me to say why or wherefore--
what's their rights and what's yourn--but I've come to tell ye that
if you don't get up and get outer this ranch them d--d priests and
your own flesh and blood--your aunts and your uncles and your
cousins, will have you chucked outer your property, and run into a
lunatic asylum."

"Me--Don Jose Sepulvida--a lunatico!  You are yourself crazy of
drink, friend Roberto."

"Yes," said Roberto grimly, "but that kind ain't ILLEGAL, while
your makin' ducks and drakes of your property and going into
'Merikin ideas and 'Merikin speculations they reckon is.  And
speakin' on the square, it ain't NAT'RAL."

Don Jose sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down his cell-
like study.  "Ah, I remember now," he muttered, "I begin to
comprehend: Father Felipe's homilies and discourses!  My aunt's too
affectionate care!  My cousin's discreet consideration!  The prompt
attention of my servants!  I see it all!  And you," he said,
suddenly facing Roberto, "why come you to tell me this?"

"Well, boss," said the American dryly, "I reckoned to stand by
you."

"Ah," said Don Jose, visibly affected.  "Good Roberto, come hither,
child, you may kiss my hand."

"If! it's all the same to you, Don Kosay,--THAT kin slide."

"Ah, if--yes," said Don Jose, meditatively putting his hand to his
forehead, "miserable that I am!--I remembered not you were
Americano.  Pardon, my friend--embrace me--Conpanero y Amigo."

With characteristic gravity he reclined for a moment upon Robert's
astonished breast.  Then recovering himself with equal gravity he
paused, lifted his hand with gentle warning, marched to a recess in
the corner, unhooked a rapier hanging from the wall, and turned to
his companion.

"We will defend ourselves, friend Roberto.  It is the sword of the
Comandante--my ancestor.  The blade is of Toledo."

"An ordinary six-shooter of Colt's would lay over that," said
Roberto grimly--"but that ain't your game just now, Don Kosay.  You
must get up and get, and at once.  You must vamose the ranch afore
they lay hold of you and have you up before the alcalde.  Once away
from here, they daren't follow you where there's 'Merikin law, and
when you kin fight 'em in the square."

"Good," said Don Jose with melancholy preciseness.  "You are wise,
friend Roberto.  We may fight them later, as you say--on the
square, or in the open Plaza.  And you, camarado, YOU shall go with
me--you and your mare."

Sincere as the American had been in his offer of service, he was
somewhat staggered at this imperative command.  But only for a
moment.  "Well," he said lazily, "I don't care if I do."

"But," said Don Jose with increased gravity, "you SHALL care,
friend Roberto.  We shall make an alliance, an union.  It is true,
my brother, you drink of whiskey, and at such times are even as a
madman.  It has been recounted to me that it was necessary to your
existence that you are a lunatic three days of the week.  Who
knows?  I myself, though I drink not of aguardiente, am accused of
fantasies for all time.  Necessary it becomes therefore that we
should go TOGETHER.  My fantasies and speculations cannot injure
you, my brother; your whiskey shall not empoison me.  We shall go
together in the great world of your American ideas of which I am
much inflamed.  We shall together breathe as one the spirit of
Progress and Liberty.  We shall be even as neophytes making of
ourselves Apostles of Truth.  I absolve and renounce myself
henceforth of my family.  I shall take to myself the sister and the
brother, the aunt and the uncle, as we proceed.  I devote myself to
humanity alone.  I devote YOU, my friend, and the mare--though
happily she has not a Christian soul--to this glorious mission."

The few level last rays of light lit up a faint enthusiasm in the
face of Don Jose, but without altering his imperturbable gravity.
The vaquero eyed him curiously and half doubtfully.

"We will go to-morrow," resumed Don Jose with solemn decision, "for
it is Wednesday.  It was a Sunday that thou didst ride the mare up
the steps of the Fonda and demanded that thy liquor should be
served to thee in a pail.  I remember it, for the landlord of the
Fonda claimed twenty pesos for damage and the kissing of his wife.
Therefore, by computation, good Roberto, thou shouldst be sober
until Friday, and we shall have two clear days to fly before thy
madness again seizes thee."

"They kin say what they like, Don Kosay, but YOUR head is level,"
returned the unabashed American, grasping Don Jose's hand.  "All
right, then.  Hasta manana, as your folks say."

"Hasta manana," repeated Don Jose gravely.

At daybreak next morning, while slumber still weighted the lazy
eyelids of "the Blessed Innocents," Don Jose Sepulvida and his
trusty squire Roberto, otherwise known as "Bucking Bob," rode forth
unnoticed from the corral.


II.


Three days had passed.  At the close of the third, Don Jose was
seated in a cosy private apartment of the San Mateo Hotel, where
they had halted for an arranged interview with his lawyer before
reaching San Francisco.  From his window he could see the
surrounding park-like avenues of oaks and the level white high
road, now and then clouded with the dust of passing teams.  But his
eyes were persistently fixed upon a small copy of the American
Constitution before him.  Suddenly there was a quick rap on his
door, and before he could reply to it a man brusquely entered.

Don Jose raised his head slowly, and recognized the landlord.  But
the intruder, apparently awed by the gentle, grave, and studious
figure before him, fell back for an instant in an attitude of surly
apology.

"Enter freely, my good Jenkinson," said Don Jose, with a quiet
courtesy that had all the effect of irony.  "The apartment, such as
it is, is at your disposition.  It is even yours, as is the house."

"Well, I'm darned if I know as it is," said the landlord,
recovering himself roughly, "and that's jest what's the matter.
Yer's that man of yours smashing things right and left in the bar-
room and chuckin' my waiters through the window."

"Softly, softly, good Jenkinson," said Don Jose, putting a mark in
the pages of the volume before him.  "It is necessary first that I
should correct your speech.  He is not my 'MAN,' which I comprehend
to mean a slave, a hireling, a thing obnoxious to the great
American nation which I admire and to which HE belongs.  Therefore,
good Jenkinson, say 'friend,' 'companion,' 'guide,' philosopher,'
if you will.  As to the rest, it is of no doubt as you relate.  I
myself have heard the breakings of glass and small dishes as I sit
here; three times I have seen your waiters projected into the road
with much violence and confusion.  To myself I have then said, even
as I say to you, good Jenkinson, 'Patience, patience, the end is
not far.'  In four hours," continued Don Jose, holding up four
fingers, "he shall make a finish.  Until then, not."

"Well, I'm d--d," ejaculated Jenkinson, gasping for breath in his
indignation.

"Nay, excellent Jenkinson, not dam-ned but of a possibility dam-
AGED.  That I shall repay when he have make a finish."

"But, darn it all," broke in the landlord angrily.

"Ah," said Don Jose gravely, "you would be paid before!  Good; for
how much shall you value ALL you have in your bar?"

Don Jose's imperturbability evidently shook the landlord's faith in
the soundness of his own position.  He looked at his guest
critically and audaciously.

"It cost me two hundred dollars to fit it up," he said curtly.

Don Jose rose, and, taking a buckskin purse from his saddle-bag,
counted out four slugs* and handed them to the stupefied Jenkinson.
The next moment, however, his host recovered himself, and casting
the slugs back on the little table, brought his fist down with an
emphasis that made them dance.


* Hexagonal gold pieces valued at $50 each, issued by a private
firm as coin in the early days.


"But, look yer--suppose I want this thing stopped--you hear me--
STOPPED--now."

"That would be interfering with the liberty of the subject, my good
Jenkinson--which God forbid!" said Don Jose calmly.  "Moreover, it
is the custom of the Americanos--a habit of my friend Roberto--a
necessity of his existence--and so recognized of his friends.
Patience and courage, Senor Jenkinson.  Stay--ah, I comprehend! you
have--of a possibility--a wife?"

"No, I'm a widower," said Jenkinson sharply.

"Then I congratulate you.  My friend Roberto would have kissed her.
It is also of his habit.  Truly you have escaped much.  I embrace
you, Jenkinson."

He threw his arms gravely around Jenkinson, in whose astounded face
at last an expression of dry humor faintly dawned.  After a
moment's survey of Don Jose's impenetrable gravity, he coolly
gathered up the gold coins, and saying that he would assess the
damages and return the difference, he left the room as abruptly as
he had entered it.

But Don Jose was not destined to remain long in peaceful study of
the American Constitution.  He had barely taken up the book again
and renewed his serious contemplation of its excellences when there
was another knock at his door.  This time, in obedience to his
invitation to enter, the new visitor approached with more
deliberation and a certain formality.

He was a young man of apparently the same age as Don Jose,
handsomely dressed, and of a quiet self-possession and gravity
almost equal to his host's.

"I believe I am addressing Don Jose Sepulvida," he said with a
familiar yet courteous inclination of his handsome head.  Don Jose,
who had risen in marked contrast to his reception of his former
guest, answered,--

"You are truly making to him a great honor."

"Well, you're going it blind as far as I'M concerned certainly,"
said the young man, with a slight smile, "for you don't know ME."

"Pardon, my friend," said Don Jose gently, "in this book, this
great Testament of your glorious nation, I have read that you are
all equal, one not above, one not below the other.  I salute in you
the Nation!  It is enough!"

"Thank you," returned the stranger, with a face that, saving the
faintest twinkle in the corner of his dark eyes, was as immovable
as his host's, "but for the purposes of my business I had better
say I am Jack Hamlin, a gambler, and am just now dealing faro in
the Florida saloon round the corner."

He paused carelessly, as if to allow Don Jose the protest he did
not make, and then continued,--

"The matter is this.  One of your vaqueros, who is, however, an
American, was round there an hour ago bucking against faro, and put
up and LOST, not only the mare he was riding, but a horse which I
have just learned is yours.  Now we reckon, over there, that we can
make enough money playing a square game, without being obliged to
take property from a howling drunkard, to say nothing of it not
belonging to him, and I've come here, Don Jose, to say that if
you'll send over and bring away your man and your horse, you can
have 'em both."

"If I have comprehended, honest Hamlin," said Don Jose slowly,
"this Roberto, who was my vaquero and is my brother, has approached
this faro game by himself unsolicited?"

"He certainly didn't seem shy of it," said Mr. Hamlin with equal
gravity.  "To the best of my knowledge he looked as if he'd been
there before."

"And if he had won, excellent Hamlin, you would have given him the
equal of his mare and horse?"

"A hundred dollars for each, yes, certainly."

"Then I see not why I should send for the property which is truly
no longer mine, nor for my brother who will amuse himself after the
fashion of his country in the company of so honorable a caballero
as yourself?  Stay! oh imbecile that I am.  I have not remembered.
You would possibly say that he has no longer of horses!  Play him;
play him, admirable yet prudent Hamlin.  I have two thousand
horses!  Of a surety he cannot exhaust them in four hours.
Therefore play him, trust to me for recompensa, and have no fear."

A quick flush covered the stranger's cheek, and his eyebrows
momentarily contracted.  He walked carelessly to the window,
however, glanced out, and then turned to Don Jose.

"May I ask, then," he said with almost sepulchral gravity, "is
anybody taking care of you?"

"Truly," returned Don Jose cautiously, "there is my brother and
friend Roberto."

"Ah! Roberto, certainly," said Mr. Hamlin profoundly.

"Why do you ask, considerate friend?"

"Oh! I only thought, with your kind of opinions, you must often
feel lonely in California.  Good-bye."  He shook Don Jose's hand
heartily, took up his hat, inclined his head with graceful
seriousness, and passed out of the room.  In the hall he met the
landlord.

"Well," said Jenkinson, with a smile half anxious, half
insinuating, "you saw him?  What do you think of him?"

Mr. Hamlin paused and regarded Jenkinson with a calmly
contemplative air, as if he were trying to remember first who he
was, and secondly why he should speak to him at all.  "Think of
whom?" he repeated carelessly.

"Why him--you know--Don Jose."

"I did not see anything the matter with him," returned Hamlin with
frigid simplicity.

"What? nothing queer?"

"Well, no--except that he's a guest in YOUR house," said Hamlin
with great cheerfulness.  "But then, as you keep a hotel, you can't
help occasionally admitting a--gentleman."

Mr. Jenkinson smiled the uneasy smile of a man who knew that his
interlocutor's playfulness occasionally extended to the use of a
derringer, in which he was singularly prompt and proficient, and
Mr. Hamlin, equally conscious of that knowledge on the part of his
companion, descended the staircase composedly.

But the day had darkened gradually into night, and Don Jose was at
last compelled to put aside his volume.  The sound of a large bell
rung violently along the hall and passages admonished him that the
American dinner was ready, and although the viands and the mode of
cooking were not entirely to his fancy, he had, in his grave
enthusiasm for the national habits, attended the table d'hote
regularly with Roberto.  On reaching the lower hall he was informed
that his henchman had early succumbed to the potency of his
libations, and had already been carried by two men to bed.
Receiving this information with his usual stoical composure, he
entered the dining-room, but was surprised to find that a separate
table had been prepared for him by the landlord, and that a rude
attempt had been made to serve him with his own native dishes.

"Senores y Senoritas," said Don Jose, turning from it and with
grave politeness addressing the assembled company, "if I seem to-
day to partake alone and in a reserved fashion of certain viands
that have been prepared for me, it is truly from no lack of
courtesy to your distinguished company, but rather, I protest, to
avoid the appearance of greater discourtesy to our excellent
Jenkinson, who has taken some pains and trouble to comport his
establishment to what he conceives to be my desires.  Wherefore, my
friends, in God's name fall to, the same as if I were not present,
and grace be with you."

A few stared at the tall, gentle, melancholy figure with some
astonishment; a few whispered to their neighbors; but when, at the
conclusion of his repast, Don Jose arose and again saluted the
company, one or two stood up and smilingly returned the courtesy,
and Polly Jenkinson, the landlord's youngest daughter, to the great
delight of her companions, blew him a kiss.

After visiting the vaquero in his room, and with his own hand
applying some native ointment to the various contusions and
scratches which recorded the late engagements of the unconscious
Roberto, Don Jose placed a gold coin in the hands of the Irish
chamber-maid, and bidding her look after the sleeper, he threw his
serape over his shoulders and passed into the road.  The loungers
on the veranda gazed at him curiously, yet half acknowledged his
usual serious salutation, and made way for him with a certain
respect.  Avoiding the few narrow streets of the little town, he
pursued his way meditatively along the highroad, returning to the
hotel after an hour's ramble, as the evening stage-coach had
deposited its passengers and departed.

"There's a lady waiting to see you upstairs," said the landlord
with a peculiar smile.  "She rather allowed it wasn't the proper
thing to see you alone, or she wasn't quite ekal to it, I reckon,
for she got my Polly to stand by her."

"Your Polly, good Jenkinson?" said Don Jose interrogatively.

"My darter, Don Jose."

"Ah, truly!  I am twice blessed," said Don Jose, gravely ascending
the staircase.

On entering the room he perceived a tall, large-featured woman with
an extraordinary quantity of blond hair parted on one side of her
broad forehead, sitting upon the sofa.  Beside her sat Polly
Jenkinson, her fresh, honest, and rather pretty face beaming with
delighted expectation and mischief.  Don Jose saluted them with a
formal courtesy, which, however, had no trace of the fact that he
really did not remember anything of them.

"I called," said the large-featured woman with a voice equally
pronounced, "in reference to a request from you, which, though
perhaps unconventional in the extreme, I have been able to meet by
the intervention of this young lady's company.  My name on this
card may not be familiar to you--but I am 'Dorothy Dewdrop.'"

A slight movement of abstraction and surprise passed over Don
Jose's face, but as quickly vanished as he advanced towards her and
gracefully raised the tips of her fingers to his lips.  "Have I
then, at last, the privilege of beholding that most distressed and
deeply injured of women!  Or is it but a dream!"

It certainly was not, as far as concerned the substantial person of
the woman before him, who, however, seemed somewhat uneasy under
his words as well as the demure scrutiny of Miss Jenkinson.  "I
thought you might have forgotten," she said with slight acerbity,
"that you desired an interview with the authoress of"--

"Pardon," interrupted Don Jose, standing before her in an attitude
of the deepest sympathizing dejection, "I had not forgotten.  It is
now three weeks since I have read in the journal 'Golden Gate' the
eloquent and touching poem of your sufferings, and your
aspirations, and your miscomprehensions by those you love.  I
remember as yesterday that you have said, that cruel fate have
linked you to a soulless state--that--but I speak not well your own
beautiful language--you are in tears at evenfall 'because that you
are not understood of others, and that your soul recoiled from iron
bonds, until, as in a dream, you sought succor and release in some
true Knight of equal plight.'"

"I am told," said the large-featured woman with some satisfaction,
"that the poem to which you allude has been generally admired."

"Admired!  Senora," said Don Jose, with still darker sympathy, "it
is not the word; it is FELT.  I have felt it.  When I read those
words of distress, I am touched of compassion!  I have said, This
woman, so disconsolate, so oppressed, must be relieved, protected!
I have wrote to you, at the 'Golden Gate,' to see me here."

"And I have come, as you perceive," said the poetess, rising with a
slight smile of constraint; "and emboldened by your appreciation, I
have brought a few trifles thrown off"--

"Pardon, unhappy Senora," interrupted Don Jose, lifting his hand
deprecatingly without relaxing his melancholy precision, "but to a
cavalier further evidence is not required--and I have not yet make
finish.  I have not content myself to WRITE to you.  I have sent my
trusty friend Roberto to inquire at the 'Golden Gate' of your
condition.  I have found there, most unhappy and persecuted friend--
that with truly angelic forbearance you have not told ALL--that
you are MARRIED, and that of a necessity it is your husband that is
cold and soulless and unsympathizing--and all that you describe."

"Sir!" said the poetess, rising in angry consternation.

"I have written to him," continued Don Jose, with unheeding
gravity; "have appealed to him as a friend, I have conjured him as
a caballero, I have threatened him even as a champion of the Right,
I have said to him, in effect--that this must not be as it is.  I
have informed him that I have made an appointment with you even at
this house, and I challenged him to meet you here--in this room--
even at this instant, and, with God's help, we should make good our
charges against him.  It is yet early; I have allowed time for the
lateness of the stage and the fact that he will come by another
conveyance.  Therefore, O Dona Dewdrop, tremble not like thy
namesake as it were on the leaf of apprehension and expectancy.  I,
Don Jose, am here to protect thee.  I will take these charges"--
gently withdrawing the manuscripts from her astonished grasp--
"though even, as I related to thee before, I want them not, yet we
will together confront him with them and make them good against
him."

"Are you mad?" demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or
is this an unmanly hoax?"  Suddenly she stopped in undeniable
consternation.  "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should
believe this.  He is SUCH a fool!  He has lately been queer and
jealous.  Oh dear!" she said, turning to Polly Jenkinson with the
first indication of feminine weakness, "Is he telling the truth? is
he crazy? what shall I do?"

Polly Jenkinson, who had witnessed the interview with the intensest
enjoyment, now rose equal to the occasion.

"You have made a mistake," she said, uplifting her demure blue eyes
to Don Jose's dark and melancholy gaze.  "This lady is a POETESS!
The sufferings she depicts, the sorrows she feels, are in the
IMAGINATION, in her fancy only."

"Ah!" said Don Jose gloomily; "then it is all false."

"No," said Polly quickly, "only they are not her OWN, you know.
They are somebody elses.  She only describes them for another,
don't you see?"

"And who, then, is this unhappy one?" asked the Don quickly.

"Well--a--friend," stammered Polly, hesitatingly.

"A friend!" repeated Don Jose.  "Ah, I see, of possibility a dear
one, even," he continued, gazing with tender melancholy into the
untroubled cerulean depths of Polly's eyes, "even, but no, child,
it could not be!  THOU art too young."

"Ah," said Polly, with an extraordinary gulp and a fierce nudge of
the poetess, "but it WAS me."

"You, Senorita," repeated Don Jose, falling back in an attitude of
mingled admiration and pity.  "You, the child of Jenkinson!"

"Yes, yes," joined in the poetess hurriedly; "but that isn't going
to stop the consequences of your wretched blunder.  My husband will
be furious, and will be here at any moment.  Good gracious! what is
that?"

The violent slamming of a distant door at that instant, the sounds
of quick scuffling on the staircase, and the uplifting of an irate
voice had reached her ears and thrown her back in the arms of Polly
Jenkinson.  Even the young girl herself turned an anxious gaze
towards the door.  Don Jose alone was unmoved.

"Possess yourselves in peace, Senoritas," he said calmly.  "We have
here only the characteristic convalescence of my friend and
brother, the excellent Roberto.  He will ever recover himself from
drink with violence, even as he precipitates himself into it with
fury.  He has been prematurely awakened.  I will discover the
cause."

With an elaborate bow to the frightened women, he left the room.
Scarcely had the door closed when the poetess turned quickly to
Polly.  "The man's a stark staring lunatic, but, thank Heaven,
Abner will see it at once.  And now let's get away while we can.
To think," she said, snatching up her scattered manuscripts, "that
THAT was all the beast wanted."

"I'm sure he's very gentle and kind," said Polly, recovering her
dimples with a demure pout; "but stop, he's coming back."

It was indeed Don Jose re-entering the room with the composure of a
relieved and self-satisfied mind.  "It is even as I said, Senora,"
he began, taking the poetess's hand,--"and MORE.  You are SAVED!"

As the women only stared at each other, he gravely folded his arms
and continued: "I will explain.  For the instant I have not
remember that, in imitation of your own delicacy, I have given to
your husband in my letter, not the name of myself, but, as a mere
Don Fulano, the name of my brother Roberto--'Bucking Bob.'  Your
husband have this moment arrive!  Penetrating the bedroom of the
excellent Roberto, he has indiscreetly seize him in his bed,
without explanation, without introduction, without fear!  The
excellent Roberto, ever ready for such distractions, have respond!
In a word, to use the language of the good Jenkinson--our host, our
father--who was present, he have 'wiped the floor with your
husband,' and have even carried him down the staircase to the
street.  Believe me, he will not return.  You are free!"

"Fool!  Idiot!  Crazy beast!" said the poetess, dashing past him
and out of the door.  "You shall pay for this!"

Don Jose did not change his imperturbable and melancholy calm.
"And now, little one," he said, dropping on one knee before the
half-frightened Polly, "child of Jenkinson, now that thy perhaps
too excitable sponsor has, in a poet's caprice, abandoned thee for
some newer fantasy, confide in me thy distress, to me, thy Knight,
and tell the story of thy sorrows."

"But," said Polly, rising to her feet and struggling between a
laugh and a cry.  "I haven't any sorrows.  Oh dear! don't you see,
it's only her FANCY to make me seem so.  There's nothing the matter
with me."

"Nothing the matter," repeated Don Jose slowly.  "You have no
distress?  You want no succor, no relief, no protector?  This,
then, is but another delusion!" he said, rising sadly.

"Yes, no--that is--oh, my gracious goodness!" said Polly,
hopelessly divided between a sense of the ridiculous and some
strange attraction in the dark, gentle eyes that were fixed upon
her half reproachfully.  "You don't understand."

Don Jose replied only with a melancholy smile, and then going to
the door, opened it with a bowed head and respectful courtesy.  At
the act, Polly plucked up courage again, and with it a slight dash
of her old audacity.

"I'm sure I'm very sorry that I ain't got any love sorrows," she
said demurely.  "And I suppose it's very dreadful in me not to have
been raving and broken-hearted over somebody or other as that woman
has said.  Only," she waited till she had gained the secure vantage
of the threshold, "I never knew a gentleman to OBJECT to it
before!"

With this Parthian arrow from her blue eyes she slipped into the
passage and vanished through the door of the opposite parlor.  For
an instant Don Jose remained motionless and reflecting.  Then,
recovering himself with grave precision, he deliberately picked up
his narrow black gloves from the table, drew them on, took his hat
in his hand, and solemnly striding across the passage, entered the
door that had just closed behind her.


III.


It must not be supposed that in the meantime the flight of Don Jose
and his follower was unattended by any commotion at the rancho of
the Blessed Innocents.  At the end of three hours' deliberation, in
which the retainers were severally examined, the corral searched,
and the well in the courtyard sounded, scouts were dispatched in
different directions, who returned with the surprising information
that the fugitives were not in the vicinity.  A trustworthy
messenger was sent to Monterey for "custom-house paper," on which
to draw up a formal declaration of the affair.  The archbishop was
summoned from San Luis, and Don Victor and Don Vincente Sepulvida,
with the Donas Carmen and Inez Alvarado, and a former alcalde,
gathered at a family council the next day.  In this serious
conclave the good Father Felipe once more expounded the alienated
condition and the dangerous reading of the absent man.  In the
midst of which the ordinary post brought a letter from Don Jose,
calmly inviting the family to dine with him and Roberto at San
Mateo on the following Wednesday.  The document was passed gravely
from hand to hand.  Was it a fresh evidence of mental aberration--
an audacity of frenzy--or a trick of the vaquero?  The archbishop
and alcalde shook their heads--it was without doubt a lawless, even
a sacrilegious and blasphemous fete.  But a certain curiosity of
the ladies and of Father Felipe carried the day.  Without formally
accepting the invitation it was decided that the family should
examine the afflicted man, with a view of taking active measures
hereafter.  On the day appointed, the traveling carriage of the
Sepulvidas, an equipage coeval with the beginning of the century,
drawn by two white mules gaudily caparisoned, halted before the
hotel at San Mateo and disgorged Father Felipe, the Donas Carmen
and Inez Alvarado and Maria Sepulvida, while Don Victor and Don
Vincente Sepulvida, their attendant cavaliers on fiery mustangs,
like outriders, drew rein at the same time.  A slight thrill of
excitement, as of the advent of a possible circus, had preceded
them through the little town; a faint blending of cigarette smoke
and garlic announced their presence on the veranda.

Ushered into the parlor of the hotel, apparently set apart for
their reception, they were embarrassed at not finding their host
present.  But they were still more disconcerted when a tall full-
bearded stranger, with a shrewd amused-looking face, rose from a
chair by the window, and stepping forward, saluted them in fluent
Spanish with a slight American accent.

"I have to ask you, gentlemen and ladies," he began, with a certain
insinuating ease and frankness that alternately aroused and lulled
their suspicions, "to pardon the absence of our friend Don Jose
Sepulvida at this preliminary greeting.  For to be perfectly frank
with you, although the ultimate aim and object of our gathering is
a social one, you are doubtless aware that certain infelicities and
misunderstandings--common to most families--have occurred, and a
free, dispassionate, unprejudiced discussion and disposal of them
at the beginning will only tend to augment the goodwill of our
gathering."

"The Senor without doubt is"--suggested the padre, with a polite
interrogative pause.

"Pardon me!  I forgot to introduce myself.  Colonel Parker--
entirely at your service and that of these charming ladies."

The ladies referred to allowed their eyes to rest with evident
prepossession on the insinuating stranger.  "Ah, a soldier," said
Don Vincente.

"Formerly," said the American lightly; "at present a lawyer, the
counsel of Don Jose."

A sudden rigor of suspicion stiffened the company; the ladies
withdrew their eyes; the priest and the Sepulvidas exchanged
glances.

"Come," said Colonel Parker, with apparent unconsciousness of the
effect of his disclosure, "let us begin frankly.  You have, I
believe, some anxiety in regard to the mental condition of Don
Jose."

"We believe him to be mad," said Padre Felipe promptly,
"irresponsible, possessed!"

"That is your opinion; good," said the lawyer quietly.

"And ours too," clamored the party, "without doubt."

"Good," returned the lawyer with perfect cheerfulness.  "As his
relations, you have no doubt had superior opportunities for
observing his condition.  I understand also that you may think it
necessary to have him legally declared non compos, a proceeding
which, you are aware, might result in the incarceration of our
distinguished friend in a mad-house."

"Pardon, Senor," interrupted Dona Maria proudly, "you do not
comprehend the family.  When a Sepulvida is visited of God we do
not ask the Government to confine him like a criminal.  We protect
him in his own house from the consequences of his frenzy."

"From the machinations of the worldly and heretical," broke in the
priest, "and from the waste and dispersion of inherited
possessions."

"Very true," continued Colonel Parker, with unalterable good-humor;
"but I was only about to say that there might be conflicting
evidence of his condition.  For instance, our friend has been here
three days.  In that time he has had three interviews with three
individuals under singular circumstances."  Colonel Parker then
briefly recounted the episodes of the landlord, the gambler, Miss
Jenkinson and the poetess, as they had been related to him.  "Yet,"
he continued, "all but one of these individuals are willing to
swear that they not only believe Don Jose perfectly sane, but
endowed with a singularly sound judgment.  In fact, the testimony
of Mr. Hamlin and Miss Jenkinson is remarkably clear on that
subject."

The company exchanged a supercilious smile.  "Do you not see, O
Senor Advocate," said Don Vincente compassionately, "that this is
but a conspiracy to avail themselves of our relative's weakness.
Of a necessity they find him sane who benefits them."

"I have thought of that, and am glad to hear you say so," returned
the lawyer still more cheerfully, "for your prompt opinion
emboldens me to be at once perfectly frank with you.  Briefly then,
Don Jose has summoned me here to make a final disposition of his
property.  In the carrying out of certain theories of his, which it
is not my province to question, he has resolved upon comparative
poverty for himself as best fitted for his purpose, and to employ
his wealth solely for others.  In fact, of all his vast possessions
he retains for himself only an income sufficient for the bare
necessaries of life."

"And you have done this?" they asked in one voice.

"Not yet," said the lawyer.

"Blessed San Antonio, we have come in time!" ejaculated Dona
Carmen.  "Another day and it would have been too late; it was an
inspiration of the Blessed Innocents themselves," said Dona Maria,
crossing herself.  "Can you longer doubt that this is the wildest
madness?" said Father Felipe with flashing eyes.

"Yet," returned the lawyer, caressing his heavy beard with a
meditative smile, "the ingenious fellow actually instanced the vows
of YOUR OWN ORDER, reverend sir, as an example in support of his
theory.  But to be brief.  Conceiving, then, that his holding of
property was a mere accident of heritage, not admitted by him,
unworthy his acceptance, and a relic of superstitious ignorance"--

"This is the very sacrilege of Satanic prepossession," broke in the
priest indignantly.

"He therefore," continued the lawyer composedly, "makes over and
reverts the whole of his possessions, with the exceptions I have
stated, to his family and the Church."

A breathless and stupefying silence fell upon the company.  In the
dead hush the sound of Polly Jenkinson's piano, played in a distant
room, could be distinctly heard.  With their vacant eyes staring at
him the speaker continued:

"That deed of gift I have drawn up as he dictated it.  I don't mind
saying that in the opinion of some he might be declared non compos
upon the evidence of that alone.  I need not say how relieved I am
to find that your opinion coincides with my own."

"But," gasped Father Felipe hurriedly, with a quick glance at the
others, "it does not follow that it will be necessary to resort to
these legal measures.  Care, counsel, persuasion--"

"The general ministering of kinship--nursing, a woman's care--the
instincts of affection," piped Dona Maria in breathless eagerness.

"Any light social distraction--a harmless flirtation--a possible
attachment," suggested Dona Carmen shyly.

"Change of scene--active exercise--experiences--even as those you
have related," broke in Don Vincente.

"I for one have ever been opposed to LEGAL measures," said Don
Victor.  "A mere consultation of friends--in fact, a fete like this
is sufficient."

"Good friends," said Father Felipe, who had by this time recovered
himself, taking out his snuff-box portentously, "it would seem
truly, from the document which this discreet caballero has spoken
of, that the errors of our dear Don Jose are rather of method than
intent, and that while we may freely accept the one"--

"Pardon," interrupted Colonel Parker with bland persistence, "but I
must point out to you that what we call in law 'a consideration' is
necessary to the legality of a conveyance, even though that
consideration be frivolous and calculated to impair the validity of
the document."

"Truly," returned the good padre insinuatingly; "but if a discreet
advocate were to suggest the substitution of some more pious and
reasonable consideration"--

"But that would be making it a perfectly sane and gratuitous
document, not only glaringly inconsistent with your charges, my
good friends, with Don Jose's attitude towards you and his flight
from home, but open to the gravest suspicion in law.  In fact, its
apparent propriety in the face of these facts would imply improper
influence."

The countenances of the company fell.  The lawyer's face, however,
became still more good-humored and sympathizing.  "The case is
simply this.  If in the opinion of judge and jury Don Jose is
declared insane, the document is worthless except as a proof of
that fact or a possible indication of the undue influence of his
relations, which might compel the court to select his guardians and
trustees elsewhere than among them."

"Friend Abogado," said Father Felipe with extraordinary
deliberation, "the document thou hast just described so eloquently
convinces me beyond all doubt that Don Jose is not only perfectly
sane but endowed with a singular discretion.  I consider it as a
delicate and high-spirited intimation to us, his friends and
kinsmen, of his unalterable and logically just devotion to his
family and religion, whatever may seem to be his poetical and
imaginative manner of declaring it.  I think there is not one
here," continued the padre, looking around him impressively, "who
is not entirely satisfied of Don Jose's reason and competency to
arrange his own affairs."

"Entirely," "truly," "perfectly," eagerly responded the others with
affecting spontaneity.

"Nay, more.  To prevent any misconception, we shall deem it our
duty to take every opportunity of making our belief publicly
known," added Father Felipe.

The padre and Colonel Parker gazed long and gravely into each
other's eyes.  It may have been an innocent touch of the sunlight
through the window, but a faint gleam seemed to steal into the
pupil of the affable lawyer at the same moment that, probably from
the like cause, there was a slight nervous contraction of the left
eyelid of the pious father.  But it passed, and the next instant
the door opened to admit Don Jose Sepulvida.

He was at once seized and effusively embraced by the entire company
with every protest of affection and respect.  not only Mr. Hamlin
and Mr. Jenkinson, who accompanied him as invited guests, but
Roberto, in a new suit of clothes and guiltless of stain or trace
of dissipation, shared in the pronounced friendliness of the
kinsmen.  Padre Felipe took snuff, Colonel Parker blew his nose
gently.

Nor were they less demonstrative of their new convictions later at
the banquet.  Don Jose, with Jenkinson and the padre on his right
and left, preserved his gentle and half-melancholy dignity in the
midst of the noisy fraternization.  Even Padre Felipe, in a brief
speech or exhortation proposing the health of their host, lent
himself in his own tongue to this polite congeniality.  "We have
had also, my friends and brothers," he said in peroration, "a
pleasing example of the compliment of imitation shown by our
beloved Don Jose.  No one who has known him during his friendly
sojourn in this community but will be struck with the conviction
that he has acquired that most marvelous faculty of your great
American nation, the exhibition of humor and of the practical
joke."

Every eye was turned upon the imperturbable face of Don Jose as he
slowly rose to reply.  "In bidding you to this fete, my friends and
kinsmen," he began calmly, "it was with the intention of formally
embracing the habits, customs, and spirit of American institutions
by certain methods of renunciation of the past, as became a
caballero of honor and resolution.  Those methods may possibly be
known to some of you."  He paused for a moment as if to allow the
members of his family to look unconscious.  "Since then, in the
wisdom of God, it has occurred to me that my purpose may be as
honorably effected by a discreet blending of the past and the
present--in a word, by the judicious combination of the interests
of my native people and the American nation.  In consideration of
that purpose, friends and kinsmen, I ask you to join me in drinking
the good health of my host Senor Jenkinson, my future father-in-
law, from whom I have to-day had the honor to demand the hand of
the peerless Polly, his daughter, as the future mistress of the
Rancho of the Blessed Innocents."


The marriage took place shortly after.  Nor was the free will and
independence of Don Jose Sepulvida in the least opposed by his
relations.  Whether they felt they had already committed
themselves, or had hopes in the future, did not transpire.  Enough
that the escapade of a week was tacitly forgotten.  The only
allusion ever made to the bridegroom's peculiarities was drawn from
the demure lips of the bride herself on her installation at the
"Blessed Innocents."

"And what, little one, didst thou find in me to admire?" Don Jose
had asked tenderly.

"Oh, you seemed to be so much like that dear old Don Quixote, you
know," she answered demurely.

"Don Quixote," repeated Don Jose with gentle gravity.  "But, my
child, that was only a mere fiction--a romance, of one Cervantes.
Believe me, of a truth there never was any such person!"



A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL


I.


As Mr. Herbert Bly glanced for the first time at the house which
was to be his future abode in San Francisco, he was somewhat
startled.  In that early period of feverish civic improvement the
street before it had been repeatedly graded and lowered until the
dwelling--originally a pioneer suburban villa perched upon a slope
of Telegraph Hill--now stood sixty feet above the sidewalk,
superposed like some Swiss chalet on successive galleries built in
the sand-hill, and connected by a half-dozen distinct zigzag
flights of wooden staircase.  Stimulated, however, by the thought
that the view from the top would be a fine one, and that existence
there would have all the quaint originality of Robinson Crusoe's
tree-dwelling, Mr. Bly began cheerfully to mount the steps.  It
should be premised that, although a recently appointed clerk in a
large banking house, Mr. Bly was somewhat youthful and imaginative,
and regarded the ascent as part of that "Excelsior" climbing
pointed out by a great poet as a praiseworthy function of ambitious
youth.

Reaching at last the level of the veranda, he turned to the view.
The distant wooded shore of Contra Costa, the tossing white-caps
and dancing sails of the bay between, and the foreground at his
feet of wharves and piers, with their reed-like jungles of masts
and cordage, made up a bright, if somewhat material, picture.  To
his right rose the crest of the hill, historic and memorable as the
site of the old semaphoric telegraph, the tossing of whose gaunt
arms formerly thrilled the citizens with tidings from the sea.
Turning to the house, he recognized the prevailing style of light
cottage architecture, although incongruously confined to narrow
building plots and the civic regularity of a precise street
frontage.  Thus a dozen other villas, formerly scattered over the
slope, had been laboriously displaced and moved to the rigorous
parade line drawn by the street surveyor, no matter how irregular
and independent their design and structure.  Happily, the few
scrub-oaks and low bushes which formed the scant vegetation of this
vast sand dune offered no obstacle and suggested no incongruity.
Beside the house before which Mr. Bly now stood, a prolific Madeira
vine, quickened by the six months' sunshine, had alone survived the
displacement of its foundations, and in its untrimmed luxuriance
half hid the upper veranda from his view.

Still glowing with his exertion, the young man rang the bell and
was admitted into a fair-sized drawing-room, whose tasteful and
well-arranged furniture at once prepossessed him.  An open piano, a
sheet of music carelessly left on the stool, a novel lying face
downwards on the table beside a skein of silk, and the distant
rustle of a vanished skirt through an inner door, gave a suggestion
of refined domesticity to the room that touched the fancy of the
homeless and nomadic Bly.  He was still enjoying, in half
embarrassment, that vague and indescribable atmosphere of a refined
woman's habitual presence, when the door opened and the mistress of
the house formally presented herself.

She was a faded but still handsome woman.  Yet she wore that
peculiar long, limp, formless house-shawl which in certain phases
of Anglo-Saxon spinster and widowhood assumes the functions of the
recluse's veil and announces the renunciation of worldly vanities
and a resigned indifference to external feminine contour.  The most
audacious masculine arm would shrink from clasping that shapeless
void in which the flatness of asceticism or the heavings of passion
might alike lie buried.  She had also in some mysterious way
imported into the fresh and pleasant room a certain bombaziny
shadow of the past, and a suggestion of that appalling reminiscence
known as "better days."  Though why it should be always represented
by ashen memories, or why better days in the past should be
supposed to fix their fitting symbol in depression in the present,
Mr. Bly was too young and too preoccupied at the moment to
determine.  He only knew that he was a little frightened of her,
and fixed his gaze with a hopeless fascination on a letter which
she somewhat portentously carried under the shawl, and which seemed
already to have yellowed in its arctic shade.

"Mr. Carstone has written to me that you would call," said Mrs.
Brooks with languid formality.  "Mr. Carstone was a valued friend
of my late husband, and I suppose has told you the circumstances--
the only circumstances--which admit of my entertaining his
proposition of taking anybody, even temporarily, under my roof.
The absence of my dear son for six months at Portland, Oregon,
enables me to place his room at the disposal of Mr. Carstone's
young protege, who, Mr. Carstone tells me, and I have every reason
to believe, is, if perhaps not so seriously inclined nor yet a
church communicant, still of a character and reputation not
unworthy to follow my dear Tappington in our little family circle
as he has at his desk in the bank."

The sensitive Bly, struggling painfully out of an abstraction as to
how he was ever to offer the weekly rent of his lodgings to such a
remote and respectable person, and also somewhat embarrassed at
being appealed to in the third person, here started and bowed.

"The name of Bly is not unfamiliar to me," continued Mrs. Brooks,
pointing to a chair and sinking resignedly into another, where her
baleful shawl at once assumed the appearance of a dust-cover; "some
of my dearest friends were intimate with the Blys of Philadelphia.
They were a branch of the Maryland Blys of the eastern shore, of
whom my Uncle James married.  Perhaps you are distantly related?"

Mrs. Brooks was perfectly aware that her visitor was of unknown
Western origin, and a poor but clever protege of the rich banker;
but she was one of a certain class of American women who, in the
midst of a fierce democracy, are more or less cat-like conservators
of family pride and lineage, and more or less felinely inconsistent
and treacherous to republican principles.  Bly, who had just
settled in his mind to send her the rent anonymously--as a weekly
valentine--recovered himself and his spirits in his usual boyish
fashion.

"I am afraid, Mrs. Brooks," he said gayly, "I cannot lay claim to
any distinguished relationship, even to that 'Nelly Bly' who, you
remember, 'winked her eye when she went to sleep.'"  He stopped in
consternation.  The terrible conviction flashed upon him that this
quotation from a popular negro-minstrel song could not possibly be
remembered by a lady as refined as his hostess, or even known to
her superior son.  The conviction was intensified by Mrs. Brooks
rising with a smileless face, slightly shedding the possible
vulgarity with a shake of her shawl, and remarking that she would
show him her son's room, led the way upstairs to the apartment
recently vacated by the perfect Tappington.

Preceded by the same distant flutter of unseen skirts in the
passage which he had first noticed on entering the drawing-room,
and which evidently did not proceed from his companion, whose self-
composed cerements would have repressed any such indecorous
agitation, Mr. Bly stepped timidly into the room.  It was a very
pretty apartment, suggesting the same touches of tasteful
refinement in its furniture and appointments, and withal so
feminine in its neatness and regularity, that, conscious of his
frontier habits and experience, he felt at once repulsively
incongruous.  "I cannot expect, Mr. Bly," said Mrs. Brooks
resignedly, "that you can share my son's extreme sensitiveness to
disorder and irregularity; but I must beg you to avoid as much as
possible disturbing the arrangement of the book-shelves, which, you
observe, comprise his books of serious reference, the Biblical
commentaries, and the sermons which were his habitual study.  I
must beg you to exercise the same care in reference to the valuable
offerings from his Sabbath-school scholars which are upon the
mantel.  The embroidered book-marker, the gift of the young ladies
of his Bible-class in Dr. Stout's church, is also, you perceive,
kept for ornament and affectionate remembrance.  The harmonium--
even if you are not yourself given to sacred song--I trust you will
not find in your way, nor object to my daughter continuing her
practice during your daily absence.  Thank you.  The door you are
looking at leads by a flight of steps to the side street."

"A very convenient arrangement," said Bly hopefully, who saw a
chance for an occasional unostentatious escape from a too
protracted contemplation of Tappington's perfections.  "I mean," he
added hurriedly, "to avoid disturbing you at night."

"I believe my son had neither the necessity nor desire to use it
for that purpose," returned Mrs. Brooks severely; "although he
found it sometimes a convenient short cut to church on Sabbath when
he was late."

Bly, who in his boyish sensitiveness to external impressions had by
this time concluded that a life divided between the past
perfections of Tappington and the present renunciations of Mrs.
Brooks would be intolerable, and was again abstractedly inventing
some delicate excuse for withdrawing without committing himself
further, was here suddenly attracted by a repetition of the
rustling of the unseen skirt.  This time it was nearer, and this
time it seemed to strike even Mrs. Brooks's remote preoccupation.
"My daughter, who is deeply devoted to her brother," she said,
slightly raising her voice, "will take upon herself the care of
looking after Tappington's precious mementoes, and spare you the
trouble.  Cherry, dear! this way.  This is the young gentleman
spoken of by Mr. Carstone, your papa's friend.  My daughter
Cherubina, Mr. Bly."

The fair owner of the rustling skirt, which turned out to be a
pretty French print, had appeared at the doorway.  She was a tall,
slim blonde, with a shy, startled manner, as of a penitent nun who
was suffering for some conventual transgression--a resemblance that
was heightened by her short-cut hair, that might have been cropped
as if for punishment.  A certain likeness to her mother suggested
that she was qualifying for that saint's ascetic shawl--subject,
however, to rebellious intervals, indicated in the occasional
sidelong fires of her gray eyes.  Yet the vague impression that she
knew more of the world than her mother, and that she did not look
at all as if her name was Cherubina, struck Bly in the same
momentary glance.

"Mr. Bly is naturally pleased with what he has seen of our dear
Tappington's appointments; and as I gather from Mr. Carstone's
letter that he is anxious to enter at once and make the most of the
dear boy's absence, you will see, my dear Cherry, that Ellen has
everything ready for him?"

Before the unfortunate Bly could explain or protest, the young girl
lifted her gray eyes to his.  Whether she had perceived and
understood his perplexity he could not tell; but the swift shy
glance was at once appealing, assuring, and intelligent.  She was
certainly unlike her mother and brother.  Acting with his usual
impulsiveness, he forgot his previous resolution, and before he
left had engaged to begin his occupation of the room on the
following day.

The next afternoon found him installed.  Yet, after he had unpacked
his modest possessions and put them away, after he had placed his
few books on the shelves, where they looked glaringly trivial and
frivolous beside the late tenant's severe studies; after he had set
out his scanty treasures in the way of photographs and some curious
mementoes of his wandering life, and then quickly put them back
again with a sudden angry pride at exposing them to the
unsympathetic incongruity of the other ornaments, he, nevertheless,
felt ill at ease.  He glanced in vain around the pretty room.  It
was not the delicately flowered wall-paper; it was not the white
and blue muslin window-curtains gracefully tied up with blue and
white ribbons; it was not the spotless bed, with its blue and white
festooned mosquito-net and flounced valances, and its medallion
portrait of an unknown bishop at the back; it was not the few
tastefully framed engravings of certain cardinal virtues, "The Rock
of Ages," and "The Guardian Angel"; it was not the casts in relief
of "Night" and "Morning"; it was certainly not the cosy dimity-
covered arm-chairs and sofa, nor yet the clean-swept polished grate
with its cheerful fire sparkling against the chill afternoon sea-
fogs without; neither was it the mere feminine suggestion, for that
touched a sympathetic chord in his impulsive nature; nor the
religious and ascetic influence, for he had occupied a monastic
cell in a school of the padres at an old mission, and slept
profoundly;--it was none of those, and yet a part of all.  Most
habitations retain a cast or shell of their previous tenant that,
fitting tightly or loosely, is still able to adjust itself to the
newcomer; in most occupied apartments there is still a shadowy
suggestion of the owner's individuality; there was nothing here
that fitted Bly--nor was there either, strange to say, any evidence
of the past proprietor in this inhospitality of sensation.  It did
not strike him at the time that it was this very LACK of
individuality which made it weird and unreal, that it was strange
only because it was ARTIFICIAL, and that a REAL Tappington had
never inhabited it.

He walked to the window--that never-failing resource of the unquiet
mind--and looked out.  He was a little surprised to find, that,
owing to the grading of the house, the scrub-oaks and bushes of the
hill were nearly on the level of his window, as also was the
adjoining side street on which his second door actually gave.
Opening this, the sudden invasion of the sea-fog and the figure of
a pedestrian casually passing along the disused and abandoned
pavement not a dozen feet from where he had been comfortably
seated, presented such a striking contrast to the studious quiet
and cosiness of his secluded apartment that he hurriedly closed the
door again with a sense of indiscreet exposure.  Returning to the
window, he glanced to the left, and found that he was overlooked by
the side veranda of another villa in the rear, evidently on its way
to take position on the line of the street.  Although in actual and
deliberate transit on rollers across the backyard and still
occulting a part of the view, it remained, after the reckless
fashion of the period, inhabited.  Certainly, with a door fronting
a thoroughfare, and a neighbor gradually approaching him, he would
not feel lonely or lack excitement.

He drew his arm-chair to the fire and tried to realize the all-
pervading yet evasive Tappington.  There was no portrait of him in
the house, and although Mrs. Brooks had said that he "favored" his
sister, Bly had, without knowing why, instinctively resented it.
He had even timidly asked his employer, and had received the vague
reply that he was "good-looking enough," and the practical but
discomposing retort, "What do you want to know for?"  As he really
did not know why, the inquiry had dropped.  He stared at the
monumental crystal ink-stand half full of ink, yet spotless and
free from stains, that stood on the table, and tried to picture
Tappington daintily dipping into it to thank the fair donors--
"daughters of Rebecca."  Who were they? and what sort of man would
they naturally feel grateful to?

What was that?

He turned to the window, which had just resounded to a slight tap
or blow, as if something soft had struck it.  With an instinctive
suspicion of the propinquity of the adjoining street he rose, but a
single glance from the window satisfied him that no missile would
have reached it from thence.  He scanned the low bushes on the
level before him; certainly no one could be hiding there.  He
lifted his eyes toward the house on the left; the curtains of the
nearest window appeared to be drawn suddenly at the same moment.
Could it have come from there?  Looking down upon the window-ledge,
there lay the mysterious missile--a little misshapen ball.  He
opened the window and took it up.  It was a small handkerchief tied
into a soft knot, and dampened with water to give it the necessary
weight as a projectile.

Was it apparently the trick of a mischievous child? or--

But here a faint knock on the door leading into the hall checked
his inquiry.  He opened it sharply in his excitement, and was
embarrassed to find the daughter of his hostess standing there,
shy, startled, and evidently equally embarrassed by his abrupt
response.

"Mother only wanted me to ask you if Ellen had put everything to
rights," she said, making a step backwards.

"Oh, thank you.  Perfectly," said Herbert with effusion.  "Nothing
could be better done.  In fact"--

"You're quite sure she hasn't forgotten anything? or that there
isn't anything you would like changed?" she continued, with her
eyes leveled on the floor.

"Nothing, I assure you," he said, looking at her downcast lashes.
As she still remained motionless, he continued cheerfully, "Would
you--would you--care to look round and see?"

"No; I thank you."

There was an awkward pause.  He still continued to hold the door
open.  Suddenly she moved forward with a school-girl stride,
entered the room, and going to the harmonium, sat down upon the
music-stool beside it, slightly bending forward, with one long,
slim, white hand on top of the other, resting over her crossed
knees.

Herbert was a little puzzled.  It was the awkward and brusque act
of a very young person, and yet nothing now could be more gentle
and self-composed than her figure and attitude.

"Yes," he continued, smilingly; "I am only afraid that I may not be
able to live quite up to the neatness and regularity of the example
I find here everywhere.  You know I am dreadfully careless and not
at all orderly.  I shudder to think what may happen; but you and
your mother, Miss Brooks, I trust, will make up your minds to
overlook and forgive a good deal.  I shall do my best to be worthy
of Mr. Tap--of my predecessor--but even then I am afraid you'll
find me a great bother."

She raised her shy eyelids.  The faintest ghost of a long-buried
dimple came into her pale cheek as she said softly, to his utter
consternation:

"Rats!"

Had she uttered an oath he could not have been more startled than
he was by this choice gem of Western saloon-slang from the pure
lips of this Evangeline-like figure before him.  He sat gazing at
her with a wild hysteric desire to laugh.  She lifted her eyes
again, swept him with a slightly terrified glance, and said:

"Tap says you all say that when any one makes-believe politeness to
you."

"Oh, your BROTHER says that, does he?" said Herbert, laughing.

"Yes, and sometimes 'Old rats.'  But," she continued hurriedly, "HE
doesn't say it; he says YOU all do.  My brother is very particular,
and very good.  Doctor Stout loves him.  He is thought very much of
in all Christian circles.  That book-mark was given to him by one
of his classes."

Every trace of her dimples had vanished.  She looked so sweetly
grave, and withal so maidenly, sitting there slightly smoothing the
lengths of her pink fingers, that Herbert was somewhat embarrassed.

"But I assure you, Miss Brooks, I was not making-believe.  I am
really very careless, and everything is so proper--I mean so neat
and pretty--here, that I"--he stopped, and, observing the same
backward wandering of her eye as of a filly about to shy, quickly
changed the subject.  "You have, or are about to have, neighbors?"
he said, glancing towards the windows as he recalled the incident
of a moment before.

"Yes; and they're not at all nice people.  They are from Pike
County, and very queer.  They came across the plains in '50.  They
say 'Stranger'; the men are vulgar, and the girls very forward.
Tap forbids my ever going to the window and looking at them.
They're quite what you would call 'off color.'"

Herbert, who did not dare to say that he never would have dreamed
of using such an expression in any young girl's presence, was
plunged in silent consternation.

"Then your brother doesn't approve of them?" he said, at last,
awkwardly.

"Oh, not at all.  He even talked of having ground-glass put in all
these windows, only it would make the light bad."

Herbert felt very embarrassed.  If the mysterious missile came from
these objectionable young persons, it was evidently because they
thought they had detected a more accessible and sympathizing
individual in the stranger who now occupied the room.  He concluded
he had better not say anything about it.

Miss Brooks's golden eyelashes were bent towards the floor.  "Do
you play sacred music, Mr. Bly?" she said, without raising them.

"I am afraid not."

"Perhaps you know only negro-minstrel songs?"

"I am afraid--yes."

"I know one."  The dimples faintly came back again.  "It's called
'The Ham-fat Man.'  Some day when mother isn't in I'll play it for
you."

Then the dimples fled again, and she immediately looked so
distressed that Herbert came to her assistance.

"I suppose your brother taught you that too?"

"Oh dear, no!" she returned, with her frightened glance; "I only
heard him say some people preferred that kind of thing to sacred
music, and one day I saw a copy of it in a music-store window in
Clay Street, and bought it.  Oh no! Tappington didn't teach it to
me."

In the pleasant discovery that she was at times independent of her
brother's perfections, Herbert smiled, and sympathetically drew a
step nearer to her.  She rose at once, somewhat primly holding back
the sides of her skirt, school-girl fashion, with thumb and finger,
and her eyes cast down.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bly."

"Must you go?  Good afternoon."

She walked directly to the open door, looking very tall and stately
as she did so, but without turning towards him.  When she reached
it she lifted her eyes; there was the slightest suggestion of a
return of her dimples in the relaxation of her grave little mouth.
Then she said, "good-bye, Mr. Bly," and departed.

The skirt of her dress rustled for an instant in the passage.
Herbert looked after her.  "I wonder if she skipped then--she looks
like a girl that might skip at such a time," he said to himself.
"How very odd she is--and how simple!  But I must pull her up in
that slang when I know her better.  Fancy her brother telling her
THAT!  What a pair they must be!"  Nevertheless, when he turned
back into the room again he forbore going to the window to indulge
further curiosity in regard to his wicked neighbors.  A certain new
feeling of respect to his late companion--and possibly to himself--
held him in check.  Much as he resented Tappington's perfections,
he resented quite as warmly the presumption that he was not quite
as perfect, which was implied in that mysterious overture.  He
glanced at the stool on which she had been sitting with a half-
brotherly smile, and put it reverently on one side with a very
vivid recollection of her shy maidenly figure.  In some mysterious
way too the room seemed to have lost its formal strangeness;
perhaps it was the touch of individuality--HERS--that had been
wanting?  He began thoughtfully to dress himself for his regular
dinner at the Poodle Dog Restaurant, and when he left the room he
turned back to look once more at the stool where she had sat.  Even
on his way to that fast and famous cafe of the period he felt, for
the first time in his thoughtless but lonely life, the gentle
security of the home he had left behind him.


II.


It was three or four days before he became firmly adjusted to his
new quarters.  During this time he had met Cherry casually on the
staircase, in going or coming, and received her shy greetings; but
she had not repeated her visit, nor again alluded to it.  He had
spent part of a formal evening in the parlor in company with a
calling deacon, who, unappalled by the Indian shawl for which the
widow had exchanged her household cerements on such occasions,
appeared to Herbert to have remote matrimonial designs, as far at
least as a sympathetic deprecation of the vanities of the present,
an echoing of her sighs like a modest encore, a preternatural
gentility of manner, a vague allusion to the necessity of bearing
"one another's burdens," and an everlasting promise in store, would
seem to imply.  To Herbert's vivid imagination, a discussion on the
doctrinal points of last Sabbath's sermon was fraught with delicate
suggestion and an acceptance by the widow of an appointment to
attend the Wednesday evening "Lectures" had all the shy reluctant
yielding of a granted rendezvous.  Oddly enough, the more formal
attitude seemed to be reserved for the young people, who, in the
suggestive atmosphere of this spiritual flirtation, alone appeared
to preserve the proprieties and, to some extent, decorously
chaperon their elders.  Herbert gravely turned the leaves of
Cherry's music while she played and sang one or two discreet but
depressing songs expressive of her unalterable but proper devotion
to her mother's clock, her father's arm-chair, and her aunt's
Bible; and Herbert joined somewhat boyishly in the soul-subduing
refrain.  Only once he ventured to suggest in a whisper that he
would like to add HER music-stool to the adorable inventory; but he
was met by such a disturbed and terrified look that he desisted.
"Another night of this wild and reckless dissipation will finish
me," he said lugubriously to himself when he reached the solitude
of his room.  "I wonder how many times a week I'd have to help the
girl play the spiritual gooseberry downstairs before we could have
any fun ourselves?"

Here the sound of distant laughter, interspersed with vivacious
feminine shrieks, came through the open window.  He glanced between
the curtains.  His neighbor's house was brilliantly lit, and the
shadows of a few romping figures were chasing each other across the
muslin shades of the windows.  The objectionable young women were
evidently enjoying themselves.  In some conditions of the mind
there is a certain exasperation in the spectacle of unmeaning
enjoyment, and he shut the window sharply.  At the same moment some
one knocked at his door.

It was Miss Brooks, who had just come upstairs.

"Will you please let me have my music-stool?"

He stared at her a moment in surprise, then recovering himself,
said, "Yes, certainly," and brought the stool.  For an instant he
was tempted to ask why she wanted it, but his pride forbade him.

"Thank you.  Good-night."

"Good-night!"

"I hope it wasn't in your way?"

"Not at all."

"Good-night!"

"Good-night."

She vanished.  Herbert was perplexed.  Between young ladies whose
naive exuberance impelled them to throw handkerchiefs at his window
and young ladies whose equally naive modesty demanded the
withdrawal from his bedroom of a chair on which they had once sat,
his lot seemed to have fallen in a troubled locality.  Yet a day or
two later he heard Cherry practising on the harmonium as he was
ascending the stairs on his return from business; she had departed
before he entered the room, but had left the music-stool behind
her.  It was not again removed.

One Sunday, the second or third of his tenancy, when Cherry and her
mother were at church, and he had finished some work that he had
brought from the bank, his former restlessness and sense of
strangeness returned.  The regular afternoon fog had thickened
early, and, driving him back from a cheerless, chilly ramble on the
hill, had left him still more depressed and solitary.  In sheer
desperation he moved some of the furniture, and changed the
disposition of several smaller ornaments.  Growing bolder, he even
attacked the sacred shelf devoted to Tappington's serious
literature and moral studies.  At first glance the book of sermons
looked suspiciously fresh and new for a volume of habitual
reference, but its leaves were carefully cut, and contained one or
two book-marks.  It was only another evidence of that perfect
youth's care and neatness.  As he was replacing it he noticed a
small object folded in white paper at the back of the shelf.  To
put the book back into its former position it was necessary to take
this out.  He did so, but its contents slid from his fingers and
the paper to the floor.  To his utter consternation, looking down
he saw a pack of playing-cards strewn at his feet!

He hurriedly picked them up.  They were worn and slippery from use,
and exhaled a faint odor of tobacco.  Had they been left there by
some temporary visitor unknown to Tappington and his family, or had
they been hastily hidden by a servant?  Yet they were of a make and
texture superior to those that a servant would possess; looking at
them carefully, he recognized them to be of a quality used by the
better-class gamblers.  Restoring them carefully to their former
position, he was tempted to take out the other volumes, and was
rewarded with the further discovery of a small box of ivory
counters, known as "poker-chips."  It was really very
extraordinary!  It was quite the cache of some habitual gambler.
Herbert smiled grimly at the irreverent incongruity of the hiding-
place selected by its unknown and mysterious owner, and amused
himself by fancying the horror of his sainted predecessor had he
made the discovery.  He determined to replace them, and to put some
mark upon the volumes before them in order to detect any future
disturbance of them in his absence.

Ought he not to take Miss Brooks in his confidence?  Or should he
say nothing about it at present, and trust to chance to discover
the sacrilegious hider?  Could it possibly be Cherry herself,
guilty of the same innocent curiosity that had impelled her to buy
the "Ham-fat Man"?  Preposterous!  Besides, the cards had been
used, and she could not play poker alone!

He watched the rolling fog extinguish the line of Russian Hill, the
last bit of far perspective from his window.  He glanced at his
neighbor's veranda, already dripping with moisture; the windows
were blank; he remembered to have heard the girls giggling in
passing down the side street on their way to church, and had
noticed from behind his own curtains that one was rather pretty.
This led him to think of Cherry again, and to recall the quaint yet
melancholy grace of her figure as she sat on the stool opposite.
Why had she withdrawn it so abruptly; did she consider his jesting
allusion to it indecorous and presuming?  Had he really meant it
seriously; and was he beginning to think too much about her?  Would
she ever come again?  How nice it would be if she returned from
church alone early, and they could have a comfortable chat together
here!  Would she sing the "Ham-fat Man" for him?  Would the dimples
come back if she did?  Should he ever know more of this quaint
repressed side of her nature?  After all, what a dear, graceful,
tantalizing, lovable creature she was!  Ought he not at all hazards
try to know her better?  Might it not be here that he would find a
perfect realization of his boyish dreams, and in HER all that--what
nonsense he was thinking!

Suddenly Herbert was startled by the sound of a light but hurried
foot upon the wooden outer step of his second door, and the quick
but ineffective turning of the door-handle.  He started to his
feet, his mind still filled with a vision of Cherry.  Then he as
suddenly remembered that he had locked the door on going out,
putting the key in his overcoat pocket.  He had returned by the
front door, and his overcoat was now hanging in the lower hall.

The door again rattled impetuously.  Then it was supplemented by a
female voice in a hurried whisper: "Open quick, can't you? do
hurry!"

He was confounded.  The voice was authoritative, not unmusical; but
it was NOT Cherry's.  Nevertheless he called out quickly, "One
moment, please, and I'll get the key!" dashed downstairs and up
again, breathlessly unlocked the door and threw it open.

Nobody was there!

He ran out into the street.  On one side it terminated abruptly on
the cliff on which his dwelling was perched; on the other, it
descended more gradually into the next thoroughfare; but up and
down the street, on either hand, no one was to be seen.  A slightly
superstitious feeling for an instant crept over him.  Then he
reflected that the mysterious visitor could in the interval of his
getting the key have easily slipped down the steps of the cliff or
entered the shrubbery of one of the adjacent houses.  But why had
she not waited?  And what did she want?  As he reentered his door
he mechanically raised his eyes to the windows of his neighbor's.
This time he certainly was not mistaken.  The two amused,
mischievous faces that suddenly disappeared behind the curtain as
he looked up showed that the incident had not been unwitnessed.
Yet it was impossible that it could have been either of THEM.
Their house was only accessible by a long detour.  It might have
been the trick of a confederate; but the tone of half familiarity
and half entreaty in the unseen visitor's voice dispelled the idea
of any collusion.  He entered the room and closed the door angrily.
A grim smile stole over his face as he glanced around at the dainty
saint-like appointments of the absent Tappington, and thought what
that irreproachable young man would have said to the indecorous
intrusion, even though it had been a mistake.  Would those
shameless Pike County girls have dared to laugh at HIM?

But he was again puzzled to know why he himself should have been
selected for this singular experience.  Why was HE considered fair
game for these girls?  And, for the matter of that, now that he
reflected upon it, why had even this gentle, refined, and
melancholy Cherry thought it necessary to talk slang to HIM on
their first acquaintance, and offer to sing him the "Ham-fat Man"?
It was true he had been a little gay, but never dissipated.  Of
course he was not a saint, like Tappington--oh, THAT was it!  He
believed he understood it now.  He was suffering from that
extravagant conception of what worldliness consists of, so common
to very good people with no knowledge of the world.  Compared to
Tappington he was in their eyes, of course, a rake and a roue.  The
explanation pleased him.  He would not keep it to himself.  He
would gain Cherry's confidence and enlist her sympathies.  Her
gentle nature would revolt at this injustice to their lonely
lodger.  She would see that there were degrees of goodness besides
her brother's.  She would perhaps sit on that stool again and NOT
sing the "Ham-fat Man."

A day or two afterwards the opportunity seemed offered to him.  As
he was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his eye was
taken by a tall graceful figure just preceding him.  It was she.
He had never before seen her in the street, and was now struck with
her ladylike bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly
simple attire.  In a thoroughfare haunted by handsome women and
striking toilettes, the refined grace of her mourning costume, and
a certain stateliness that gave her the look of a young widow, was
a contrast that evidently attracted others than himself.  It was
with an odd mingling of pride and jealousy that he watched the
admiring yet respectful glances of the passers-by, some of whom
turned to look again, and one or two to retrace their steps and
follow her at a decorous distance.  This caused him to quicken his
own pace, with a new anxiety and a remorseful sense of wasted
opportunity.  What a booby he had been, not to have made more of
his contiguity to this charming girl--to have been frightened at
the naive decorum of her maidenly instincts!  He reached her side,
and raised his hat with a trepidation at her new-found graces--with
a boldness that was defiant of her other admirers.  She blushed
slightly.

"I thought you'd overtake me before," she said naively.  "I saw YOU
ever so long ago."

He stammered, with an equal simplicity, that he had not dared to.

She looked a little frightened again, and then said hurriedly: "I
only thought that I would meet you on Montgomery Street, and we
would walk home together.  I don't like to go out alone, and mother
cannot always go with me.  Tappington never cared to take me out--I
don't know why.  I think he didn't like the people staring and stop
ping us.  But they stare more--don't you think?--when one is alone.
So I thought if you were coming straight home we might come
together--unless you have something else to do?"

Herbert impulsively reiterated his joy at meeting her, and averred
that no other engagement, either of business or pleasure, could or
would stand in his way.  Looking up, however, it was with some
consternation that he saw they were already within a block of the
house.

"Suppose we take a turn around the hill and come back by the old
street down the steps?" he suggested earnestly.

The next moment he regretted it.  The frightened look returned to
her eyes; her face became melancholy and formal again.

"No!" she said quickly.  "That would be taking a walk with you like
these young girls and their young men on Saturdays.  That's what
Ellen does with the butcher's boy on Sundays.  Tappington often
used to meet them.  Doing the 'Come, Philanders,' as he says you
call it."

It struck Herbert that the didactic Tappington's method of
inculcating a horror of slang in his sister's breast was open to
some objection; but they were already on the steps of their house,
and he was too much mortified at the reception of his last unhappy
suggestion to make the confidential disclosure he had intended,
even if there had still been time.

"There's mother waiting for me," she said, after an awkward pause,
pointing to the figure of Mrs. Brooks dimly outlined on the
veranda.  "I suppose she was beginning to be worried about my being
out alone.  She'll be so glad I met you."  It didn't appear to
Herbert, however, that Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy
over the occurrence, and she almost instantly retired with her
daughter into the sitting-room, linking her arm in Cherry's, and,
as it were, empanoplying her with her own invulnerable shawl.
Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied with himself than ever.

Two or three days elapsed without his seeing Cherry; even the well-
known rustle of her skirt in the passage was missing.  On the third
evening he resolved to bear the formal terrors of the drawing-room
again, and stumbled upon a decorous party consisting of Mrs.
Brooks, the deacon, and the pastor's wife--but not Cherry.  It
struck him on entering that the momentary awkwardness of the
company and the formal beginning of a new topic indicated that HE
had been the subject of their previous conversation.  In this idea
he continued, through that vague spirit of opposition which attacks
impulsive people in such circumstances, to generally disagree with
them on all subjects, and to exaggerate what he chose to believe
they thought objectionable in him.  He did not remain long; but
learned in that brief interval that Cherry had gone to visit a
friend in Contra Costa, and would be absent a fortnight; and he was
conscious that the information was conveyed to him with a peculiar
significance.

The result of which was only to intensify his interest in the
absent Cherry, and for a week to plunge him in a sea of conflicting
doubts and resolutions.  At one time he thought seriously of
demanding an explanation from Mrs. Brooks, and of confiding to her--
as he had intended to do to Cherry--his fears that his character
had been misinterpreted, and his reasons for believing so.  But
here he was met by the difficulty of formulating what he wished to
have explained, and some doubts as to whether his confidences were
prudent.  At another time he contemplated a serious imitation of
Tappington's perfections, a renunciation of the world, and an
entire change in his habits.  He would go regularly to church--HER
church, and take up Tappington's desolate Bible-class.  But here
the torturing doubt arose whether a young lady who betrayed a
certain secular curiosity, and who had evidently depended upon her
brother for a knowledge of the world, would entirely like it.  At
times he thought of giving up the room and abandoning for ever this
doubly dangerous proximity; but here again he was deterred by the
difficulty of giving a satisfactory reason to his employer, who had
procured it as a favor.  His passion--for such he began to fear it
to be--led him once to the extravagance of asking a day's holiday
from the bank, which he vaguely spent in the streets of Oakland in
the hope of accidentally meeting the exiled Cherry.


III.


The fortnight slowly passed.  She returned, but he did not see her.
She was always out or engaged in her room with some female friend
when Herbert was at home.  This was singular, as she had never
appeared to him as a young girl who was fond of visiting or had
ever affected female friendships.  In fact, there was little doubt
now that, wittingly or unwittingly, she was avoiding him.

He was moodily sitting by the fire one evening, having returned
early from dinner.  In reply to his habitual but affectedly
careless inquiry, Ellen had told him that Mrs. Brooks was confined
to her room by a slight headache, and that Miss Brooks was out.  He
was trying to read, and listening to the wind that occasionally
rattled the casement and caused the solitary gas-lamp that was
visible in the side street to flicker and leap wildly.  Suddenly he
heard the same footfall upon his outer step and a light tap at the
door.  Determined this time to solve the mystery, he sprang to his
feet and ran to the door; but to his anger and astonishment it was
locked and the key was gone.  Yet he was positive that HE had not
taken it out.

The tap was timidly repeated.  In desperation he called out,
"Please don't go away yet.  The key is gone; but I'll find it in a
moment."  Nevertheless he was at his wits' end.

There was a hesitating pause and then the sound of a key cautiously
thrust into the lock.  It turned; the door opened, and a tall
figure, whose face and form were completely hidden in a veil and
long gray shawl, quickly glided into the room and closed the door
behind it.  Then it suddenly raised its arms, the shawl was parted,
the veil fell aside, and Cherry stood before him!

Her face was quite pale.  Her eyes, usually downcast, frightened,
or coldly clear, were bright and beautiful with excitement.  The
dimples were faintly there, although the smile was sad and half
hysterical.  She remained standing, erect and tall, her arms
dropped at her side, holding the veil and shawl that still depended
from her shoulders.

"So--I've caught you!" she said, with a strange little laugh.  "Oh
yes.  'Please don't go away yet.  I'll get the key in a moment,'"
she continued, mimicking his recent utterance.

He could only stammer, "Miss Brooks--then it was YOU?"

"Yes; and you thought it was SHE, didn't you?  Well, and you're
caught!  I didn't believe it; I wouldn't believe it when they said
it.  I determined to find it out myself.  And I have; and it's
true."

Unable to determine whether she was serious or jesting, and
conscious only of his delight at seeing her again, he advanced
impulsively.  But her expression instantly changed: she became at
once stiff and school-girlishly formal, and stepped back towards
the door.

"Don't come near me, or I'll go," she said quickly, with her hand
upon the lock.

"But not before you tell me what you mean," he said half laughingly
half earnestly.  "Who is SHE? and what wouldn't you have believed?
For upon my honor, Miss Brooks, I don't know what you are talking
about."

His evident frankness and truthful manner appeared to puzzle her.
"You mean to say you were expecting no one?" she said sharply.

"I assure you I was not."

"And--and no woman was ever here--at that door?"

He hesitated.  "Not to-night--not for a long time; not since you
returned from Oakland."

"Then there WAS one?"

"I believe so."

"You BELIEVE--you don't KNOW?"

"I believed it was a woman from her voice; for the door was locked,
and the key was downstairs.  When I fetched it and opened the door,
she--or whoever it was--was gone."

"And that's why you said so imploringly, just now, 'Please don't go
away yet'?  You see I've caught you.  Ah! I don't wonder you
blush!"

If he had, his cheeks had caught fire from her brilliant eyes and
the extravagantly affected sternness--as of a school-girl monitor--
in her animated face.  Certainly he had never seen such a
transformation.

"Yes; but, you see, I wanted to know who the intruder was," he
said, smiling at his own embarrassment.

"You did--well, perhaps THAT will tell you?  It was found under
your door before I went away."  She suddenly produced from her
pocket a folded paper and handed it to him.  It was a misspelt
scrawl, and ran as follows:--

"Why are you so cruel?  Why do you keep me dansing on the stepps
before them gurls at the windows?  Was it that stuckup Saint, Miss
Brooks, that you were afraid of, my deer?  Oh, you faithless
trater!  Wait till I ketch you!  I'll tear your eyes out and hern!"

It did not require great penetration for Herbert to be instantly
convinced that the writer of this vulgar epistle and the owner of
the unknown voice were two very different individuals.  The note
was evidently a trick.  A suspicion of its perpetrators flashed
upon him.

"Whoever the woman was, it was not she who wrote the note," he said
positively.  "Somebody must have seen her at the door.  I remember
now that those girls--your neighbors--were watching me from their
window when I came out.  Depend upon it, that letter comes from
them."

Cherry's eyes opened widely with a sudden childlike perception, and
then shyly dropped.  "Yes," she said slowly; "they DID watch you.
They know it, for it was they who made it the talk of the
neighborhood, and that's how it came to mother's ears."  She
stopped, and, with a frightened look, stepped back towards the door
again.

"Then THAT was why your mother"--

"Oh yes," interrupted Cherry quickly.  "That was why I went over to
Oakland, and why mother forbade my walking with you again, and why
she had a talk with friends about your conduct, and why she came
near telling Mr. Carstone all about it until I stopped her."  She
checked herself--he could hardly believe his eyes--the pale, nun-
like girl was absolutely blushing.

"I thank you, Miss Brooks," he said gravely, "for your
thoughtfulness, although I hope I could have still proven my
innocence to Mr. Carstone, even if some unknown woman tried my door
by mistake, and was seen doing it.  But I am pained to think that
YOU could have believed me capable of so wanton and absurd an
impropriety--and such a gross disrespect to your mother's house."

"But," said Cherry with childlike naivete, "you know YOU don't
think anything of such things, and that's what I told mother."

"You told your mother THAT?"

"Oh yes--I told her Tappington says it's quite common with young
men.  Please don't laugh--for it's very dreadful.  Tappington
didn't laugh when he told it to me as a warning.  He was shocked."

"But, my dear Miss Brooks"--

"There--now you're angry--and that's as bad.  Are you sure you
didn't know that woman?"

"Positive!"

"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you
opened the door."

"That was perfectly natural."

"I don't think it was natural at all."

"But--according to Tappington"--

"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him."

"I assure you I have no such intention.  But what more can I say?
I give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was.
No doubt she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had
mistaken the house, and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at
my voice as I was at hers.  Can I say more?  Is it necessary for me
to swear that since I have been here no woman has ever entered that
door--but"--

"But who?"

"Yourself."

"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened
look, gliding to the outer door.  "It's shameful what I've done.
But I only did it because--because I had faith in you, and didn't
believe what they said was true."  She had already turned the lock.
There were tears in her pretty eyes.

"Stop," said Herbert gently.  He walked slowly towards her, and
within reach of her frightened figure stopped with the timid
respect of a mature and genuine passion.  "You must not be seen
going out of that door," he said gravely.  "You must let me go
first, and, when I am gone, lock the door again and go through the
hall to your own room.  No one must know that I was in the house
when you came in at that door.  Good-night."

Without offering his hand he lifted his eyes to her face.  The
dimples were all there--and something else.  He bowed and passed
out.

Ten minutes later he ostentatiously returned to the house by the
front door, and proceeded up the stairs to his own room.  As he
cast a glance around he saw that the music-stool had been moved
before the fire, evidently with the view of attracting his
attention.  Lying upon it, carefully folded, was the veil that she
had worn.  There could be no doubt that it was left there
purposely.  With a smile at this strange girl's last characteristic
act of timid but compromising recklessness, after all his
precautions, he raised it tenderly to his lips, and then hastened
to hide it from the reach of vulgar eyes.  But had Cherry known
that its temporary resting-place that night was under his pillow
she might have doubted his superior caution.

When he returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped
ostentatiously at his door.  "Mother wishes me to ask you," she
began with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not
preclude dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your
company at our Church Festival to-night?  There will be a concert
and a collation.  You could accompany us there if you cared.  Our
friends and Tappington's would be so glad to see you, and Dr. Stout
would be delighted to make your acquaintance."

"Certainly!" said Herbert, delighted and yet astounded.  "Then," he
added in a lower voice, "your mother no longer believes me so
dreadfully culpable?"

"Oh no," said Cherry in a hurried whisper, glancing up and down the
passage; "I've been talking to her about it, and she is satisfied
that it is all a jealous trick and slander of these neighbors.
Why, I told her that they had even said that I was that mysterious
woman; that I came that way to you because she had forbidden my
seeing you openly."

"What!  You dared say that?"

"Yes don't you see?  Suppose they said they HAD seen me coming in
last night--THAT answers it," she said triumphantly.

"Oh, it does?" he said vacantly.

"Perfectly.  So you see she's convinced that she ought to put you
on the same footing as Tappington, before everybody; and then there
won't be any trouble.  You'll come, won't you?  It won't be so VERY
good.  And then, I've told mother that as there have been so many
street-fights, and so much talk about the Vigilance Committee
lately, I ought to have somebody for an escort when I am coming
home.  And if you're known, you see, as one of US, there'll be no
harm in your meeting me."

"Thank you," he said, extending his hand gratefully.

Her fingers rested a moment in his.  "Where did you put it?" she
said demurely.

"It?  Oh! IT'S all safe," he said quickly, but somewhat vaguely.

"But I don't call the upper drawer of your bureau safe," she
returned poutingly, "where EVERYBODY can go.  So you'll find it NOW
inside the harmonium, on the keyboard."

"Oh, thank you."

"It's quite natural to have left it there ACCIDENTALLY--isn't it?"
she said imploringly, assisted by all her dimples.  Alas! she had
forgotten that he was still holding her hand.  Consequently, she
had not time to snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little
cry, before it had been pressed two or three times to his lips.  A
little ashamed of his own boldness, Herbert remained for a few
moments in the doorway listening, and looking uneasily down the
dark passage.  Presently a slight sound came over the fanlight of
Cherry's room.  Could he believe his ears?  The saint-like Cherry--
no doubt tutored, for example's sake, by the perfect Tappington--
was softly whistling.

In this simple fashion the first pages of this little idyl were
quietly turned.  The book might have been closed or laid aside even
then.  But it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet;
and presently it actually became a prudential necessity for her to
have a masculine escort when she walked out.  For a growing state
of lawlessness and crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the
Vigilance Committee, and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men,
reverting to the first principles of social safety, sprang to arms,
assembled at their quarters, or patrolled the streets.  In another
hour the city of San Francisco was in the hands of a mob--the most
peaceful, orderly, well organized, and temperate the world had ever
known, and yet in conception as lawless, autocratic, and imperious
as the conditions it opposed.


IV.


Herbert, enrolled in the same section with his employer and one or
two fellow-clerks, had participated in the meetings of the
committee with the light-heartedness and irresponsibility of youth,
regretting only the loss of his usual walk with Cherry and the
hours that kept him from her house.  He was returning from a
protracted meeting one night, when the number of arrests and
searching for proscribed and suspected characters had been so large
as to induce fears of organized resistance and rescue, and on
reaching the foot of the hill found it already so late, that to
avoid disturbing the family he resolved to enter his room directly
by the door in the side street.  On inserting his key in the lock
it met with some resisting obstacle, which, however, yielded and
apparently dropped on the mat inside.  Opening the door and
stepping into the perfectly dark apartment, he trod upon this
object, which proved to be another key.  The family must have
procured it for their convenience during his absence, and after
locking the door had carelessly left it in the lock.  It was lucky
that it had yielded so readily.

The fire had gone out.  He closed the door and lit the gas, and
after taking off his overcoat moved to the door leading into the
passage to listen if anybody was still stirring.  To his utter
astonishment he found it locked.  What was more remarkable--the key
was also INSIDE!  An inexplicable feeling took possession of him.
He glanced suddenly around the room, and then his eye fell upon the
bed.  Lying there, stretched at full length, was the recumbent
figure of a man.

He was apparently in the profound sleep of utter exhaustion.  The
attitude of his limbs and the order of his dress--of which only his
collar and cravat had been loosened--showed that sleep must have
overtaken him almost instantly.  In fact, the bed was scarcely
disturbed beyond the actual impress of his figure.  He seemed to be
a handsome, matured man of about forty; his dark straight hair was
a little thinned over the temples, although his long heavy
moustache was still youthful and virgin.  His clothes, which were
elegantly cut and of finer material than that in ordinary use, the
delicacy and neatness of his linen, the whiteness of his hands,
and, more particularly, a certain dissipated pallor of complexion
and lines of recklessness on the brow and cheek, indicated to
Herbert that the man before him was one of that desperate and
suspected class--some of whose proscribed members he had been
hunting--the professional gambler!

Possibly the magnetism of Herbert's intent and astonished gaze
affected him.  He moved slightly, half opened his eyes, said
"Halloo, Tap," rubbed them again, wholly opened them, fixed them
with a lazy stare on Herbert, and said:

"Now, who the devil are you?"

"I think I have the right to ask that question, considering that
this is my room," said Herbert sharply.

"YOUR room?"

"Yes!"

The stranger half raised himself on his elbow, glanced round the
room, settled himself slowly back on the pillows, with his hands
clasped lightly behind his head, dropped his eyelids, smiled, and
said:

"Rats!"

"What?" demanded Herbert, with a resentful sense of sacrilege to
Cherry's virgin slang.

"Well, old rats then!  D'ye think I don't know this shebang?  Look
here, Johnny, what are you putting on all this side for, eh?
What's your little game?  Where's Tappington?"

"If you mean Mr. Brooks, the son of this house, who formerly lived
in this room," replied Herbert, with a formal precision intended to
show a doubt of the stranger's knowledge of Tappington, "you ought
to know that he has left town."

"Left town!" echoed the stranger, raising himself again.  "Oh, I
see! getting rather too warm for him here?  Humph! I ought to have
thought of that.  Well, you know, he DID take mighty big risks,
anyway!"  He was silent a moment, with his brows knit and a rather
dangerous expression in his handsome face.  "So some d--d hound
gave him away--eh?"

"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing Mr. Brooks except by reputation,
as the respected son of the lady upon whose house you have just
intruded," said Herbert frigidly, yet with a creeping consciousness
of some unpleasant revelation.

The stranger stared at him for a moment, again looked carefully
round the room, and then suddenly dropped his head back on the
pillow, and with his white hands over his eyes and mouth tried to
restrain a spasm of silent laughter.  After an effort he succeeded,
wiped his moist eyes, and sat up.

"So you didn't know Tappington, eh?" he said, lazily buttoning his
collar.

"No."

"No more do I."

He retied his cravat, yawned, rose, shook himself perfectly neat
again, and going to Herbert's dressing-table quietly took up a
brush and began to lightly brush himself, occasionally turning to
the window to glance out.  Presently he turned to Herbert and said:

"Well, Johnny, what's your name?"

"I am Herbert Bly, of Carstone's Bank."

"So, and a member of this same Vigilance Committee, I reckon," he
continued.

"Yes."

"Well, Mr. Bly, I owe you an apology for coming here, and some
thanks for the only sleep I've had in forty-eight hours.  I struck
this old shebang at about ten o'clock, and it's now two, so I
reckon I've put in about four hours' square sleep.  Now, look
here."  He beckoned Herbert towards the window.  "Do you see those
three men standing under that gaslight?  Well, they're part of a
gang of Vigilantes who've hunted me to the hill, and are waiting to
see me come out of the bushes, where they reckon I'm hiding.  Go to
them and say that I'm here!  Tell them you've got Gentleman George--
George Dornton, the man they've been hunting for a week--in this
room.  I promise you I won't stir, nor kick up a row, when they've
come.  Do it, and Carstone, if he's a square man, will raise your
salary for it, and promote you."  He yawned slightly, and then
slowly looking around him, drew the easy-chair towards him and
dropped comfortably in it, gazing at the astounded and motionless
Herbert with a lazy smile.

"You're wondering what my little game is, Johnny, ain't you?  Well,
I'll tell you.  What with being hunted from pillar to post, putting
my old pards to no end of trouble, and then slipping up on it
whenever I think I've got a sure thing like this,"--he cast an
almost affectionate glance at the bed,--"I've come to the
conclusion that it's played out, and I might as well hand in my
checks.  It's only a question of my being RUN OUT of 'Frisco, or
hiding until I can SLIP OUT myself; and I've reckoned I might as
well give them the trouble and expense of transportation.  And if I
can put a good thing in your way in doing it--why, it will sort of
make things square with you for the fuss I've given you."

Even in the stupefaction and helplessness of knowing that the man
before him was the notorious duellist and gambler George Dornton,
one of the first marked for deportation by the Vigilance Committee,
Herbert recognized all he had heard of his invincible coolness,
courage, and almost philosophic fatalism.  For an instant his
youthful imagination checked even his indignation.  When he
recovered himself, he said, with rising color and boyish vehemence:

"Whoever YOU may be, I am neither a police officer nor a spy.  You
have no right to insult me by supposing that I would profit by the
mistake that made you my guest, or that I would refuse you the
sanctuary of the roof that covers your insult as well as your
blunder."

The stranger gazed at him with an amused expression, and then rose
and stretched out his hand.

"Shake, Mr. Bly!  You're the only man that ever kicked George
Dornton when he deserved it.  Good-night!"  He took his hat and
walked to the door.

"Stop!" said Herbert impulsively; "the night is already far gone;
go back and finish your sleep."

"You mean it?"

"I do."

The stranger turned, walked back to the bed, unfastening his coat
and collar as he did so, and laid himself down in the attitude of a
moment before.

"I will call you in the morning," continued Herbert.  "By that
time,"--he hesitated,--"by that time your pursuers may have given
up their search.  One word more.  You will be frank with me?"

"Go on."

"Tappington and you are--friends?"

"Well--yes."

"His mother and sister know nothing of this?"

"I reckon he didn't boast of it.  I didn't.  Is that all?"
sleepily.

"Yes."

"Don't YOU worry about HIM.  Good-night."

"Good-night."

But even at that moment George Dornton had dropped off in a quiet,
peaceful sleep.

Bly turned down the light, and, drawing his easy-chair to the
window, dropped into it in bewildering reflection.  This then was
the secret--unknown to mother and daughter--unsuspected by all!
This was the double life of Tappington, half revealed in his
flirtation with the neighbors, in the hidden cards behind the
books, in the mysterious visitor--still unaccounted for--and now
wholly exploded by this sleeping confederate, for whom, somehow,
Herbert felt the greatest sympathy!  What was to be done?  What
should he say to Cherry--to her mother--to Mr. Carstone?  Yet he
had felt he had done right.  From time to time he turned to the
motionless recumbent shadow on the bed and listened to its slow and
peaceful respiration.  Apart from that undefinable attraction which
all original natures have for each other, the thrice-blessed
mystery of protection of the helpless, for the first time in his
life, seemed to dawn upon him through that night.

Nevertheless, the actual dawn came slowly.  Twice he nodded and
awoke quickly with a start.  The third time it was day.  The
street-lamps were extinguished, and with them the moving, restless
watchers seemed also to have vanished.  Suddenly a formal
deliberate rapping at the door leading to the hall startled him to
his feet.

It must be Ellen.  So much the better; he could quickly get rid of
her.  He glanced at the bed; Dornton slept on undisturbed.  He
unlocked the door cautiously, and instinctively fell back before
the erect, shawled, and decorous figure of Mrs. Brooks.  But an
utterly new resolution and excitement had supplanted the habitual
resignation of her handsome features, and given them an angry
sparkle of expression.

Recollecting himself, he instantly stepped forward into the
passage, drawing to the door behind him, as she, with equal
celerity, opposed it with her hand.

"Mr. Bly," she said deliberately, "Ellen has just told me that your
voice has been heard in conversation with some one in this room
late last night.  Up to this moment I have foolishly allowed my
daughter to persuade me that certain infamous scandals regarding
your conduct here were false.  I must ask you as a gentleman to let
me pass now and satisfy myself."

"But, my dear madam, one moment.  Let me first explain--I beg"--
stammered Herbert with a half-hysterical laugh.  "I assure you a
gentleman friend"--

But she had pushed him aside and entered precipitately.  With a
quick feminine glance round the room she turned to the bed, and
then halted in overwhelming confusion.

"It's a friend," said Herbert in a hasty whisper.  "A friend of
mine who returned with me late, and whom, on account of the
disturbed state of the streets, I induced to stay here all night.
He was so tired that I have not had the heart to disturb him yet."

"Oh, pray don't!--I beg"--said Mrs. Brooks with a certain youthful
vivacity, but still gazing at the stranger's handsome features as
she slowly retreated.  "Not for worlds!"

Herbert was relieved; she was actually blushing.

"You see, it was quite unpremeditated, I assure you.  We came in
together," whispered Herbert, leading her to the door, "and I"--

"Don't believe a word of it, madam," said a lazy voice from the
bed, as the stranger leisurely raised himself upright, putting the
last finishing touch to his cravat as he shook himself neat again.
"I'm an utter stranger to him, and he knows it.  He found me here,
biding from the Vigilantes, who were chasing me on the hill.  I got
in at that door, which happened to be unlocked.  He let me stay
because he was a gentleman--and--I wasn't.  I beg your pardon,
madam, for having interrupted him before you; but it was a little
rough to have him lie on MY account when he wasn't the kind of man
to lie on his OWN.  You'll forgive him--won't you, please?--and, as
I'm taking myself off now, perhaps you'll overlook MY intrusion
too."

It was impossible to convey the lazy frankness of this speech, the
charming smile with which it was accompanied, or the easy yet
deferential manner with which, taking up his hat, he bowed to Mrs.
Brooks as he advanced toward the door.

"But," said Mrs. Brooks, hurriedly glancing from Herbert to the
stranger, "it must be the Vigilantes who are now hanging about the
street.  Ellen saw them from her window, and thought they were YOUR
friends, Mr. Bly.  This gentleman--your friend"--she had become a
little confused in her novel excitement--"really ought not to go
out now.  It would be madness."

"If you wouldn't mind his remaining a little longer, it certainly
would be safer," said Herbert, with wondering gratitude.

"I certainly shouldn't consent to his leaving my house now," said
Mrs. Brooks with dignity; "and if you wouldn't mind calling Cherry
here, Mr. Bly--she's in the dining-room--and then showing yourself
for a moment in the street and finding out what they wanted, it
would be the best thing to do."

Herbert flew downstairs; in a few hurried words he gave the same
explanation to the astounded Cherry that he had given to her
mother, with the mischievous addition that Mrs. Brooks's unjust
suspicions had precipitated her into becoming an amicable
accomplice, and then ran out into the street.  Here he ascertained
from one of the Vigilantes, whom he knew, that they were really
seeking Dornton; but that, concluding that the fugitive had already
escaped to the wharves, they expected to withdraw their
surveillance at noon.  Somewhat relieved, he hastened back, to find
the stranger calmly seated on the sofa in the parlor with the same
air of frank indifference, lazily relating the incidents of his
flight to the two women, who were listening with every expression
of sympathy and interest.  "Poor fellow!" said Cherry, taking the
astonished Bly aside into the hall, "I don't believe he's half as
bad as THEY said he is--or as even HE makes himself out to be.  But
DID you notice mother?"

Herbert, a little dazed, and, it must be confessed, a trifle uneasy
at this ready acceptance of the stranger, abstractedly said he had
not.

"Why, it's the most ridiculous thing.  She's actually going round
WITHOUT HER SHAWL, and doesn't seem to know it."


V.


When Herbert finally reached the bank that morning he was still in
a state of doubt and perplexity.  He had parted with his grateful
visitor, whose safety in a few hours seemed assured, but without
the least further revelation or actual allusion to anything
antecedent to his selecting Tappington's room as refuge.  More than
that, Herbert was convinced from his manner that he had no
intention of making a confidant of Mrs. Brooks, and this convinced
him that Dornton's previous relations with Tappington were not only
utterly inconsistent with that young man's decorous reputation, but
were unsuspected by the family.  The stranger's familiar knowledge
of the room, his mysterious allusions to the "risks" Tappington had
taken, and his sudden silence on the discovery of Bly's ignorance
of the whole affair all pointed to some secret that, innocent or
not, was more or less perilous, not only to the son but to the
mother and sister.  Of the latter's ignorance he had no doubt--but
had he any right to enlighten them?  Admitting that Tappington had
deceived them with the others, would they thank him for opening
their eyes to it?  If they had already a suspicion, would they care
to know that it was shared by him?  Halting between his frankness
and his delicacy, the final thought that in his budding relations
with the daughter it might seem a cruel bid for her confidence, or
a revenge for their distrust of him, inclined him to silence.  But
an unforeseen occurrence took the matter from his hands.  At noon
he was told that Mr. Carstone wished to see him in his private
room!

Satisfied that his complicity with Dornton's escape was discovered,
the unfortunate Herbert presented himself, pale but self-possessed,
before his employer.  That brief man of business bade him be
seated, and standing himself before the fireplace, looked down
curiously, but not unkindly, upon his employee.

"Mr. Bly, the bank does not usually interfere with the private
affairs of its employees, but for certain reasons which I prefer to
explain to you later, I must ask you to give me a straightforward
answer to one or two questions.  I may say that they have nothing
to do with your relations to the bank, which are to us perfectly
satisfactory."

More than ever convinced that Mr. Carstone was about to speak of
his visitor, Herbert signified his willingness to reply.

"You have been seen a great deal with Miss Brooks lately--on the
street and elsewhere--acting as her escort, and evidently on terms
of intimacy.  To do you both justice, neither of you seemed to have
made it a secret or avoided observation; but I must ask you
directly if it is with her mother's permission?"

Considerably relieved, but wondering what was coming, Herbert
answered, with boyish frankness, that it was.

"Are you--engaged to the young lady?"

"No, sir."

"Are you--well, Mr. Bly--briefly, are you what is called 'in love'
with her?" asked the banker, with a certain brusque hurrying over
of a sentiment evidently incompatible with their present business
surroundings.

Herbert blushed.  It was the first time he had heard the question
voiced, even by himself.

"I am," he said resolutely.

"And you wish to marry her?"

"If I dared ask her to accept a young man with no position as yet,"
stammered Herbert.

"People don't usually consider a young man in Carstone's Bank of no
position," said the banker dryly; "and I wish for your sake THAT
were the only impediment.  For I am compelled to reveal to you a
secret."  He paused, and folding his arms, looked fixedly down upon
his clerk.  "Mr. Bly, Tappington Brooks, the brother of your
sweetheart, was a defaulter and embezzler from this bank!"

Herbert sat dumfounded and motionless.

"Understand two things," continued Mr. Carstone quickly.  "First,
that no purer or better women exist than Miss Brooks and her
mother.  Secondly, that they know nothing of this, and that only
myself and one other man are in possession of the secret."

He slightly changed his position, and went on more deliberately.
"Six weeks ago Tappington sat in that chair where you are sitting
now, a convicted hypocrite and thief.  Luckily for him, although
his guilt was plain, and the whole secret of his double life
revealed to me, a sum of money advanced in pity by one of his
gambling confederates had made his accounts good and saved him from
suspicion in the eyes of his fellow-clerks and my partners.  At
first he tried to fight me on that point; then he blustered and
said his mother could have refunded the money; and asked me what
was a paltry five thousand dollars!  I told him, Mr. Bly, that it
might be five years of his youth in state prison; that it might be
five years of sorrow and shame for his mother and sister; that it
might be an everlasting stain on the name of his dead father--my
friend.  He talked of killing himself: I told him he was a cowardly
fool.  He asked me to give him up to the authorities: I told him I
intended to take the law in my own hands and give him another
chance; and then he broke down.  I transferred him that very day,
without giving him time to communicate with anybody, to our branch
office at Portland, with a letter explaining his position to our
agent, and the injunction that for six months he should be under
strict surveillance.  I myself undertook to explain his sudden
departure to Mrs. Brooks, and obliged him to write to her from time
to time."  He paused, and then continued: "So far I believe my plan
has been successful: the secret has been kept; he has broken with
the evil associates that ruined him here--to the best of my
knowledge he has had no communication with them since; even a
certain woman here who shared his vicious hidden life has abandoned
him."

"Are you sure?" asked Herbert involuntarily, as he recalled his
mysterious visitor.

"I believe the Vigilance Committee has considered it a public duty
to deport her and her confederates beyond the State," returned
Carstone dryly.

Another idea flashed upon Herbert.  "And the gambler who advanced
the money to save Tappington?" he said breathlessly.

"Wasn't such a hound as the rest of his kind, if report says true,"
answered Carstone.  "He was well known here as George Dornton--
Gentleman George--a man capable of better things.  But he was
before your time, Mr. Bly--YOU don't know him."

Herbert didn't deem it a felicitous moment to correct his employer,
and Mr. Carstone continued: "I have now told you what I thought it
was my duty to tell you.  I must leave YOU to judge how far it
affects your relations with Miss Brooks."

Herbert did not hesitate.  "I should be very sorry, sir, to seem to
undervalue your consideration or disregard your warning; but I am
afraid that even if you had been less merciful to Tappington, and
he were now a convicted felon, I should change neither my feelings
nor my intentions to his sister."

"And you would still marry her?" said Carstone sternly; "YOU, an
employee of the bank, would set the example of allying yourself
with one who had robbed it?"

"I--am afraid I would, sir," said Herbert slowly.

"Even if it were a question of your remaining here?" said Carstone
grimly.

Poor Herbert already saw himself dismissed and again taking up his
weary quest for employment; but, nevertheless, he answered stoutly:

"Yes, sir."

"And nothing will prevent you marrying Miss Brooks?"

"Nothing--save my inability to support her."

"Then," said Mr. Carstone, with a peculiar light in his eyes, "it
only remains for the bank to mark its opinion of your conduct by
INCREASING YOUR SALARY TO ENABLE YOU TO DO SO!  Shake hands, Mr.
Bly," he said, laughing.  "I think you'll do to tie to--and I
believe the young lady will be of the same opinion.  But not a word
to either her or her mother in regard to what you have heard.  And
now I may tell you something more.  I am not without hope of
Tappington's future, nor--d--n it!--without some excuse for his
fault, sir.  He was artificially brought up.  When my old friend
died, Mrs. Brooks, still a handsome woman, like all her sex
wouldn't rest until she had another devotion, and wrapped herself
and her children up in the Church.  Theology may be all right for
grown people, but it's apt to make children artificial; and
Tappington was pious before he was fairly good.  He drew on a
religious credit before he had a moral capital behind it.  He was
brought up with no knowledge of the world, and when he went into
it--it captured him.  I don't say there are not saints born into
the world occasionally; but for every one you'll find a lot of
promiscuous human nature.  My old friend Josh Brooks had a heap of
it, and it wouldn't be strange if some was left in his children,
and burst through their straight-lacing in a queer way.  That's
all!  Good-morning, Mr. Bly.  Forget what I've told you for six
months, and then I shouldn't wonder if Tappington was on hand to
give his sister away.

       .       .       .       .       .       .       .

Mr. Carstone's prophecy was but half realized.  At the end of six
months Herbert Bly's discretion and devotion were duly rewarded by
Cherry's hand.  But Tappington did NOT give her away.  That saintly
prodigal passed his period of probation with exemplary rectitude,
but, either from a dread of old temptation, or some unexplained
reason, he preferred to remain in Portland, and his fastidious nest
on Telegraph Hill knew him no more.  The key of the little door on
the side street passed, naturally, into the keeping of Mrs. Bly.

Whether the secret of Tappington's double life was ever revealed to
the two women is not known to the chronicler.  Mrs. Bly is reported
to have said that the climate of Oregon was more suited to her
brother's delicate constitution than the damp fogs of San
Francisco, and that his tastes were always opposed to the mere
frivolity of metropolitan society.  The only possible reason for
supposing that the mother may have become cognizant of her son's
youthful errors was in the occasional visits to the house of the
handsome George Dornton, who, in the social revolution that
followed the brief reign of the Vigilance Committee,
characteristically returned as a dashing stockbroker, and the fact
that Mrs. Brooks seemed to have discarded her ascetic shawl
forever.  But as all this was contemporaneous with the absurd
rumor, that owing to the loneliness induced by the marriage of her
daughter she contemplated a similar change in her own condition, it
is deemed unworthy the serious consideration of this veracious
chronicle.



CAPTAIN JIM'S FRIEND.


I.


Hardly one of us, I think, really believed in the auriferous
probabilities of Eureka Gulch.  Following a little stream, we had
one day drifted into it, very much as we imagined the river gold
might have done in remoter ages, with the difference that WE
remained there, while the river gold to all appearances had not.
At first it was tacitly agreed to ignore this fact, and we made the
most of the charming locality, with its rare watercourse that lost
itself in tangled depths of manzanita and alder, its laurel-choked
pass, its flower-strewn hillside, and its summit crested with
rocking pines.

"You see," said the optimistic Rowley, water's the main thing after
all.  If we happen to strike river gold, thar's the stream for
washing it; if we happen to drop into quartz--and that thar rock
looks mighty likely--thar ain't a more natural-born site for a mill
than that right bank, with water enough to run fifty stamps.  That
hillside is an original dump for your tailings, and a ready found
inclined road for your trucks, fresh from the hands of Providence;
and that road we're kalkilatin' to build to the turnpike will run
just easy along that ridge."

Later, when we were forced to accept the fact that finding gold was
really the primary object of a gold-mining company, we still
remained there, excusing our youthful laziness and incertitude by
brilliant and effective sarcasms upon the unremunerative
attractions of the gulch.  Nevertheless, when Captain Jim,
returning one day from the nearest settlement and post-office,
twenty miles away, burst upon us with "Well, the hull thing'll be
settled now, boys; Lacy Bassett is coming down yer to look round,"
we felt considerably relieved.

And yet, perhaps, we had as little reason for it as we had for
remaining there.  There was no warrant for any belief in the
special divining power of the unknown Lacy Bassett, except Captain
Jim's extravagant faith in his general superiority, and even that
had always been a source of amused skepticism to the camp.  We were
already impatiently familiar with the opinions of this unseen
oracle; he was always impending in Captain Jim's speech as a
fragrant memory or an unquestioned authority.  When Captain Jim
began, "Ez Lacy was one day tellin' me," or, "Ez Lacy Bassett
allows," or more formally, when strangers were present, "Ez a
partickler friend o' mine, Lacy Bassett--maybe ez you know him--
sez," the youthful and lighter members of the Eureka Mining Company
glanced at each other in furtive enjoyment.  Nevertheless no one
looked more eagerly forward to the arrival of this apocryphal sage
than these indolent skeptics.  It was at least an excitement; they
were equally ready to accept his condemnation of the locality or
his justification of their original selection.

He came.  He was received by the Eureka Mining Company lying on
their backs on the grassy site of the prospective quartz mill, not
far from the equally hypothetical "slide" to the gulch.  He came by
the future stage road--at present a thickset jungle of scrub-oaks
and ferns.  He was accompanied by Captain Jim, who had gone to meet
him on the trail, and for a few moments all critical inspection of
himself was withheld by the extraordinary effect he seemed to have
upon the faculties of his introducer.

Anything like the absolute prepossession of Captain Jim by this
stranger we had never imagined.  He approached us running a little
ahead of his guest, and now and then returning assuringly to his
side with the expression of a devoted Newfoundland dog, which in
fluffiness he generally resembled.  And now, even after the
introduction was over, when he made a point of standing aside in an
affectation of carelessness, with his hands in his pockets, the
simulation was so apparent, and his consciousness and absorption in
his friend so obvious, that it was a relief to us to recall him
into the conversation.

As to our own first impressions of the stranger, they were probably
correct.  We all disliked him; we thought him conceited, self-
opinionated, selfish, and untrustworthy.  But later, reflecting
that this was possibly the result of Captain Jim's over-praise, and
finding none of these qualities as yet offensively opposed to our
own selfishness and conceit, we were induced, like many others, to
forget our first impressions.  We could easily correct him if he
attempted to impose upon US, as he evidently had upon Captain Jim.
Believing, after the fashion of most humanity, that there was
something about US particularly awe-inspiring and edifying to vice
or weakness of any kind, we good-humoredly yielded to the cheap
fascination of this showy, self-saturated, over-dressed, and
underbred stranger.  Even the epithet of "blower" as applied to him
by Rowley had its mitigations; in that Trajan community a bully was
not necessarily a coward, nor florid demonstration always a
weakness.

His condemnation of the gulch was sweeping, original, and striking.
He laughed to scorn our half-hearted theory of a gold deposit in
the bed and bars of our favorite stream.  We were not to look for
auriferous alluvium in the bed of any present existing stream, but
in the "cement" or dried-up bed of the original prehistoric rivers
that formerly ran parallel with the present bed, and which--he
demonstrated with the stem of Pickney's pipe in the red dust--could
be found by sinking shafts at right angles with the stream.  The
theory was to us, at that time, novel and attractive.  It was true
that the scientific explanation, although full and gratuitous,
sounded vague and incoherent.  It was true that the geological
terms were not always correct, and their pronunciation defective,
but we accepted such extraordinary discoveries as "ignus fatuus
rock," "splendiferous drift," "mica twist" (recalling a popular
species of tobacco), "iron pirates," and "discomposed quartz" as
part of what he not inaptly called a "tautological formation," and
were happy.  Nor was our contentment marred by the fact that the
well-known scientific authority with whom the stranger had been
intimate,--to the point of "sleeping together" during a survey,--
and whom he described as a bent old man with spectacles, must have
aged considerably since one of our party saw him three years before
as a keen young fellow of twenty-five.  Inaccuracies like those
were only the carelessness of genius.  "That's my opinion,
gentlemen," he concluded, negligently rising, and with pointed
preoccupation whipping the dust of Eureka Gulch from his clothes
with his handkerchief, "but of course it ain't nothin' to me."

Captain Jim, who had followed every word with deep and trustful
absorption, here repeated, "It ain't nothing to him, boys," with a
confidential implication of the gratuitous blessing we had
received, and then added, with loyal encouragement to him, "It
ain't nothing to you, Lacy, in course," and laid his hand on his
shoulder with infinite tenderness.

We, however, endeavored to make it something to Mr. Lacy Bassett.
He was spontaneously offered a share in the company and a part of
Captain Jim's tent.  He accepted both after a few deprecating and
muttered asides to Captain Jim, which the latter afterwards
explained to us was the giving up of several other important
enterprises for our sake.  When he finally strolled away with
Rowley to look over the gulch, Captain Jim reluctantly tore himself
away from him only for the pleasure of reiterating his praise to us
as if in strictest confidence and as an entirely novel proceeding.

"You see, boys, I didn't like to say it afore HIM, we bein' old
friends; but, between us, that young feller ez worth thousands to
the camp.  Mebbee," he continued with grave naivete, "I ain't said
much about him afore, mebbee, bein' old friends and accustomed to
him--you know how it is, boys,--I haven't appreciated him as much
ez I ought, and ez you do.  In fact, I don't ezakly remember how I
kem to ask him down yer.  It came to me suddent, one day only a
week ago Friday night, thar under that buckeye; I was thinkin' o'
one of his sayins, and sez I--thar's Lacy, if he was here he'd set
the hull thing right.  It was the ghost of a chance my findin' him
free, but I did.  And there HE is, and yer WE are settled!  Ye
noticed how he just knocked the bottom outer our plans to work.  Ye
noticed that quick sort o' sneerin' smile o' his, didn't ye--that's
Lacy!  I've seen him knock over a heap o' things without sayin'
anythin'--with jist that smile."

It occurred to us that we might have some difficulty in utilizing
this smile in our present affairs, and that we should have probably
preferred something more assuring, but Captain Jim's faith was
contagious.

"What is he, anyway?" asked Joe Walker lazily.

"Eh!" echoed Captain Jim in astonishment.  "What is Lacy Bassett?"

"Yes, what is he?" repeated Walker.

"Wot IS--he?"

"Yes."

"I've knowed him now goin' as four year," said Captain Jim with
slow reflective contentment.  "Let's see.  It was in the fall o'
'54 I first met him, and he's allus been the same ez you see him
now."

"But what is his business or profession?  What does he do?"

Captain Jim looked reproachfully at his questioner.

"Do?" he repeated, turning to the rest of us as if disdaining a
direct reply.  "Do?--why, wot he's doin' now.  He's allus the same,
allus Lacy Bassett."

Howbeit, we went to work the next day under the superintendence of
the stranger with youthful and enthusiastic energy, and began the
sinking of a shaft at once.  To do Captain Jim's friend justice,
for the first few weeks he did not shirk a fair share of the actual
labor, replacing his objectionable and unsuitable finery with a
suit of serviceable working clothes got together by general
contribution of the camp, and assuring us of a fact we afterwards
had cause to remember, that "he brought nothing but himself into
Eureka Gulch."  It may be added that he certainly had not brought
money there, as Captain Jim advanced the small amounts necessary
for his purchases in the distant settlement, and for the still
smaller sums he lost at cards, which he played with characteristic
self-sufficiency.

Meantime the work in the shaft progressed slowly but regularly.
Even when the novelty had worn off and the excitement of
anticipation grew fainter, I am afraid that we clung to this new
form of occupation as an apology for remaining there; for the
fascinations of our vagabond and unconventional life were more
potent than we dreamed of.  We were slowly fettered by our very
freedom; there was a strange spell in this very boundlessness of
our license that kept us from even the desire of change; in the
wild and lawless arms of nature herself we found an embrace as
clinging, as hopeless and restraining, as the civilization from
which we had fled.  We were quite content after a few hours' work
in the shaft to lie on our backs on the hillside staring at the
unwinking sky, or to wander with a gun through the virgin forest in
search of game scarcely less vagabond than ourselves.  We indulged
in the most extravagant and dreamy speculations of the fortune we
should eventually discover in the shaft, and believed that we were
practical.  We broke our "saleratus bread" with appetites
unimpaired by restlessness or anxiety; we went to sleep under the
grave and sedate stars with a serene consciousness of having fairly
earned our rest; we awoke the next morning with unabated
trustfulness, and a sweet obliviousness of even the hypothetical
fortunes we had perhaps won or lost at cards overnight.  We paid no
heed to the fact that our little capital was slowly sinking with
the shaft, and that the rainy season--wherein not only "no man
could work," but even such play as ours was impossible--was
momentarily impending.

In the midst of this, one day Lacy Bassett suddenly emerged from
the shaft before his "shift" of labor was over with every sign of
disgust and rage in his face and inarticulate with apparent
passion.  In vain we gathered round him in concern; in vain Captain
Jim regarded him with almost feminine sympathy, as he flung away
his pick and dashed his hat to the ground.

"What's up, Lacy, old pard?  What's gone o' you?" said Captain Jim
tenderly.

"Look!" gasped Lacy at last, when every eye was on him, holding up
a small fragment of rock before us and the next moment grinding it
under his heel in rage.  "Look!  To think that I've been fooled
agin by this blanked fossiliferous trap--blank it!  To think that
after me and Professor Parker was once caught jist in this way up
on the Stanislaus at the bottom of a hundred-foot shaft by this
rotten trap--that yer I am--bluffed agin!"

There was a dead silence; we looked at each other blankly.

"But, Bassett," said Walker, picking up a part of the fragment,
"we've been finding this kind of stuff for the last two weeks."

"But how?" returned Lacy, turning upon him almost fiercely.  "Did
ye find it superposed on quartz, or did you find it NOT superposed
on quartz?  Did you find it in volcanic drift, or did ye find it in
old red-sandstone or coarse illuvion?  Tell me that, and then ye
kin talk.  But this yer blank fossiliferous trap, instead o' being
superposed on top, is superposed on the bottom.  And that means"--

"What?" we all asked eagerly.

"Why--blank it all--that this yer convulsion of nature, this
prehistoric volcanic earthquake, instead of acting laterally and
chuckin' the stream to one side, has been revolutionary and turned
the old river-bed bottom-side up, and yer d--d cement hez got half
the globe atop of it!  Ye might strike it from China, but nowhere
else."

We continued to look at one another, the older members with
darkening faces, the younger with a strong inclination to laugh.
Captain Jim, who had been concerned only in his friend's emotion,
and who was hanging with undisguised satisfaction on these final
convincing proofs of his superior geological knowledge, murmured
approvingly and confidingly, "He's right, boys!  Thar ain't another
man livin' ez could give you the law and gospil like that!  Ye can
tie to what he says.  That's Lacy all over."

Two weeks passed.  We had gathered, damp and disconsolate, in the
only available shelter of the camp.  For the long summer had ended
unexpectedly to us; we had one day found ourselves caught like the
improvident insect of the child's fable with gauzy and unseasonable
wings wet and bedraggled in the first rains, homeless and hopeless.
The scientific Lacy, who lately spent most of his time as a bar-
room oracle in the settlement, was away, and from our dripping
canvas we could see Captain Jim returning from a visit to him,
slowly plodding along the trail towards us.

"It's no use, boys," said Rowley, summarizing the result of our
conference, "we must speak out to him, and if nobody else cares to
do it I will.  I don't know why we should be more mealy-mouthed
than they are at the settlement.  They don't hesitate to call
Bassett a dead-beat, whatever Captain Jim says to the contrary."

The unfortunate Captain Jim had halted irresolutely before the
gloomy faces in the shelter.  Whether he felt instinctively some
forewarning of what was coming I cannot say.  There was a certain
dog-like consciousness in his eye and a half-backward glance over
his shoulder as if he were not quite certain that Lacy was not
following.  The rain had somewhat subdued his characteristic
fluffiness, and he cowered with a kind of sleek storm-beaten
despondency over the smoking fire of green wood before our tent.

Nevertheless, Rowley opened upon him with a directness and decision
that astonished us.  He pointed out briefly that Lacy Bassett had
been known to us only through Captain Jim's introduction.  That he
had been originally invited there on Captain Jim's own account, and
that his later connection with the company had been wholly the
result of Captain Jim's statements.  That, far from being any aid
or assistance to them, Bassett had beguiled them by apocryphal
knowledge and sham scientific theories into an expensive and
gigantic piece of folly.  That, in addition to this, they had just
discovered that he had also been using the credit of the company
for his own individual expenses at the settlement while they were
working on his d--d fool shaft--all of which had brought them to
the verge of bankruptcy.  That, as a result, they were forced now
to demand his resignation--not only on their general account, but
for Captain Jim's sake--believing firmly, as they did, that he had
been as grossly deceived in his friendship for Lacy Bassett as THEY
were in their business relations with him.

Instead of being mollified by this, Captain Jim, to our greater
astonishment, suddenly turned upon the speaker, bristling with his
old canine suggestion.

"There!  I said so!  Go on!  I'd have sworn to it afore you opened
your lips.  I knowed it the day you sneaked around and wanted to
know wot his business was!  I said to myself, Cap, look out for
that sneakin' hound Rowley, he's no friend o' Lacy's.  And the day
Lacy so far demeaned himself as to give ye that splendid
explanation o' things, I watched ye; ye didn't think it, but I
watched ye.  Ye can't fool me!  I saw ye lookin' at Walker there,
and I said to myself, Wot's the use, Lacy, wot's the use o' your
slingin' them words to such as THEM?  Wot do THEY know?  It's just
their pure jealousy and ignorance.  Ef you'd come down yer, and
lazed around with us and fallen into our common ways, you'd ha'
been ez good a man ez the next.  But no, it ain't your style, Lacy,
you're accustomed to high-toned men like Professor Parker, and you
can't help showing it.  No wonder you took to avoidin' us; no
wonder I've had to foller you over the Burnt Wood Crossin' time and
again, to get to see ye.  I see it all now: ye can't stand the
kempany I brought ye to!  Ye had to wipe the slum gullion of Eureka
Gulch off your hands, Lacy"--  He stopped, gasped for breath, and
then lifted his voice more savagely, "And now, what's this?  Wot's
this hogwash? this yer lyin' slander about his gettin' things on
the kempany's credit?  Eh, speak up, some of ye!"

We were so utterly shocked and stupefied at the degradation of this
sudden and unexpected outburst from a man usually so honorable,
gentle, self-sacrificing, and forgiving, that we forgot the cause
of it and could only stare at each other.  What was this cheap
stranger, with his shallow swindling tricks, to the ignoble change
he had worked upon the man before us.  Rowley and Walker, both
fearless fighters and quick to resent an insult, only averted their
saddened faces and turned aside without a word.

"Ye dussen't say it!  Well, hark to me then," he continued with
white and feverish lips.  "I put him up to helpin' himself.  I told
him to use the kempany's name for credit.  Ye kin put that down to
ME.  And when ye talk of HIS resigning, I want ye to understand
that I resign outer this rotten kempany and TAKE HIM WITH ME!  Ef
all the gold yer lookin' for was piled up in that shaft from its
bottom in hell to its top in the gulch, it ain't enough to keep me
here away from him!  Ye kin take all my share--all MY rights yer
above ground and below it--all I carry,"--he threw his buckskin
purse and revolver on the ground,--"and pay yourselves what you
reckon you've lost through HIM.  But you and me is quits from to-
day."

He strode away before a restraining voice or hand could reach him.
His dripping figure seemed to melt into the rain beneath the
thickening shadows of the pines, and the next moment he was gone.
From that day forward Eureka Gulch knew him no more.  And the camp
itself somehow melted away during the rainy season, even as he had
done.


II.


Three years had passed.  The pioneer stage-coach was sweeping down
the long descent to the pastoral valley of Gilead, and I was
looking towards the village with some pardonable interest and
anxiety.  For I carried in my pocket my letters of promotion from
the box seat of the coach--where I had performed the functions of
treasure messenger for the Excelsior Express Company--to the
resident agency of that company in the bucolic hamlet before me.
The few dusty right-angled streets, with their rigid and staringly
new shops and dwellings, the stern formality of one or two obelisk-
like meeting-house spires, the illimitable outlying plains of wheat
and wild oats beyond, with their monotony scarcely broken by
skeleton stockades, corrals, and barrack-looking farm buildings,
were all certainly unlike the unkempt freedom of the mountain
fastnesses in which I had lately lived and moved.  Yuba Bill, the
driver, whose usual expression of humorous discontent deepened into
scorn as he gathered up his reins as if to charge the village and
recklessly sweep it from his path, indicated a huge, rambling,
obtrusively glazed, and capital-lettered building with a
contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed.  "Ef you're
kalkilatin' we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken.
That's wot they call a TEMPERANCE HOUSE--wot means a place where
the licker ye get underhand is only a trifle worse than the hash ye
get above-board.  I suppose it's part o' one o' the mysteries o'
Providence that wharever you find a dusty hole like this--that's
naturally THIRSTY--ye run agin a 'temperance' house.  But never YOU
mind!  I shouldn't wonder if thar was a demijohn o' whiskey in the
closet of your back office, kept thar by the feller you're
relievin'--who was a white man and knew the ropes."

A few minutes later, when my brief installation was over, we DID
find the demijohn in the place indicated.  As Yuba Bill wiped his
mouth with the back of his heavy buckskin glove, he turned to me
not unkindly.  "I don't like to set ye agin Gile-ad, which is a
scrip-too-rural place, and a God-fearin' place, and a nice dry
place, and a place ez I've heard tell whar they grow beans and
pertatoes and garden sass; but afore three weeks is over, old pard,
you'll be howlin' to get back on that box seat with me, whar you
uster sit, and be ready to take your chances agin, like a little
man, to get drilled through with buckshot from road agents.  You
hear me!  I'll give you three weeks, sonny, just three weeks, to
get your butes full o' hayseed and straws in yer har; and I'll find
ye wadin' the North Fork at high water to get out o' this."  He
shook my hand with grim tenderness, removing his glove--a rare
favor--to give me the pressure of his large, soft, protecting palm,
and strode away.  The next moment he was shaking the white dust of
Gilead from his scornful chariot-wheels.

In the hope of familiarizing myself with the local interests of the
community, I took up a copy of the "Gilead Guardian" which lay on
my desk, forgetting for the moment the usual custom of the country
press to displace local news for long editorials on foreign
subjects and national politics.  I found, to my disappointment,
that the "Guardian" exhibited more than the usual dearth of
domestic intelligence, although it was singularly oracular on "The
State of Europe," and "Jeffersonian Democracy."  A certain cheap
assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, a colloquial familiarity, even in
the impersonal plural, and a series of inaccuracies and blunders
here and there, struck some old chord in my memory.  I was mutely
wondering where and when I had become personally familiar with
rhetoric like that, when the door of the office opened and a man
entered.  I was surprised to recognize Captain Jim.

I had not seen him since he had indignantly left us, three years
before, in Eureka Gulch.  The circumstances of his defection were
certainly not conducive to any voluntary renewal of friendship on
either side; and although, even as a former member of the Eureka
Mining Company, I was not conscious of retaining any sense of
injury, yet the whole occurrence flashed back upon me with awkward
distinctness.  To my relief, however, he greeted me with his old
cordiality; to my amusement he added to it a suggestion of the
large forgiveness of conscious rectitude and amiable toleration.  I
thought, however, I detected, as he glanced at the paper which was
still in my hand and then back again at my face, the same uneasy
canine resemblance I remembered of old.  He had changed but little
in appearance; perhaps he was a trifle stouter, more mature, and
slower in his movements.  If I may return to my canine
illustration, his grayer, dustier, and more wiry ensemble gave me
the impression that certain pastoral and agricultural conditions
had varied his type, and he looked more like a shepherd's dog in
whose brown eyes there was an abiding consciousness of the care of
straying sheep, and possibly of one black one in particular.

He had, he told me, abandoned mining and taken up farming on a
rather large scale.  He had prospered.  He had other interests at
stake, "A flour-mill with some improvements--and--and"--here his
eyes wandered to the "Guardian" again, and he asked me somewhat
abruptly what I thought of the paper.  Something impelled me to
restrain my previous fuller criticism, and I contented myself by
saying briefly that I thought it rather ambitious for the locality.
"That's the word," he said with a look of gratified relief,
"'ambitious'--you've just hit it.  And what's the matter with thet?
Ye kan't expect a high-toned man to write down to the level of
every karpin' hound, ken ye now?  That's what he says to me"--  He
stopped half confused, and then added abruptly: "That's one o' my
investments."

"Why, Captain Jim, I never suspected that you"--

"Oh, I don't WRITE it," he interrupted hastily.  "I only furnish
the money and the advertising, and run it gin'rally, you know; and
I'm responsible for it.  And I select the eddyter--and"--he
continued, with a return of the same uneasy wistful look--"thar's
suthin' in thet, you know, eh?"

I was beginning to be perplexed.  The memory evoked by the style of
the editorial writing and the presence of Captain Jim was assuming
a suspicious relationship to each other.  "And who's your editor?"
I asked.

"Oh, he's--he's--er--Lacy Bassett," he replied, blinking his eyes
with a hopeless assumption of carelessness.  "Let's see!  Oh yes!
You knowed Lacy down there at Eureka.  I disremembered it till now.
Yes, sir!" he repeated suddenly and almost rudely, as if to
preclude any adverse criticism, "he's the eddyter!"

To my surprise he was quite white and tremulous with nervousness.
I was very sorry for him, and as I really cared very little for the
half-forgotten escapade of his friend except so far as it seemed to
render HIM sensitive, I shook his hand again heartily and began to
talk of our old life in the gulch--avoiding as far as possible any
allusion to Lacy Bassett.  His face brightened; his old simple
cordiality and trustfulness returned, but unfortunately with it his
old disposition to refer to Bassett.  "Yes, they waz high old
times, and ez I waz sayin' to Lacy on'y yesterday, there is a kind
o' freedom 'bout that sort o' life that runs civilization and
noospapers mighty hard, however high-toned they is.  Not but what
Lacy ain't right," he added quickly, "when he sez that the
opposition the 'Guardian' gets here comes from ignorant low-down
fellers ez wos brought up in played-out camps, and can't tell a
gentleman and a scholar and a scientific man when they sees him.
No!  So I sez to Lacy, 'Never you mind, it's high time they did,
and they've got to do it and to swaller the "Guardian," if I sink
double the money I've already put into the paper.'"

I was not long in discovering from other sources that the
"Guardian" was not popular with the more intelligent readers of
Gilead, and that Captain Jim's extravagant estimate of his friend
was by no means indorsed by the community.  But criticism took a
humorous turn even in that practical settlement, and it appeared
that Lacy Bassett's vanity, assumption, and ignorance were an
unfailing and weekly joy to the critical, in spite of the vague
distrust they induced in the more homely-witted, and the dull
acquiescence of that minority who accepted the paper for its
respectable exterior and advertisements.  I was somewhat grieved,
however, to find that Captain Jim shared equally with his friend in
this general verdict of incompetency, and that some of the most
outrageous blunders were put down to HIM.  But I was not prepared
to believe that Lacy had directly or by innuendo helped the public
to this opinion.

Whether through accident or design on his part, Lacy Bassett did
not personally obtrude himself upon my remembrance until a month
later.  One dazzling afternoon, when the dust and heat had driven
the pride of Gilead's manhood into the surreptitious shadows of the
temperance hotel's back room, and had even cleared the express
office of its loungers, and left me alone with darkened windows in
the private office, the outer door opened and Captain Jim's friend
entered as part of that garish glitter I had shut out.  To do the
scamp strict justice, however, he was somewhat subdued in his dress
and manner, and, possibly through some gentle chastening of epigram
and revolver since I had seen him last, was less aggressive and
exaggerated.  I had the impression, from certain odors wafted
through the apartment and a peculiar physical exaltation that was
inconsistent with his evident moral hesitancy, that he had prepared
himself for the interview by a previous visit to the hidden
fountains of the temperance hotel.

"We don't seem to have run agin each other since you've been here,"
he said with an assurance that was nevertheless a trifle forced
"but I reckon we're both busy men, and there's a heap too much
loafing goin' on in Gilead.  Captain Jim told me he met you the day
you arrived; said you just cottoned to the 'Guardian' at once and
thought it a deal too good for Gilead; eh?  Oh, well, jest ez
likely he DIDN'T say it--it was only his gassin'.  He's a queer
man--is Captain Jim."

I replied somewhat sharply that I considered him a very honest man,
a very simple man, and a very loyal man.

"That's all very well," said Bassett, twirling his cane with a
patronizing smile, "but, as his friend, don't you find him
considerable of a darned fool?"

I could not help retorting that I thought HE had found that hardly
an objection.

"YOU think so," he said querulously, apparently ignoring everything
but the practical fact,--"and maybe others do; but that's where
you're mistaken.  It don't pay.  It may pay HIM to be runnin' me as
his particular friend, to be quotin' me here and there, to be
gettin' credit of knowin' me and my friends and ownin' me--by Gosh!
but I don't see where the benefit to ME comes in.  Eh?  Take your
own case down there at Eureka Gulch; didn't he send for me just to
show me up to you fellers?  Did I want to have anything to do with
the Eureka Company?  Didn't he set me up to give my opinion about
that shaft just to show off what I knew about science and all that?
And what did he get me to join the company for?  Was it for you?
No!  Was it for me?  No!  It was just to keep me there for HIMSELF,
and kinder pit me agin you fellers and crow over you!  Now that
ain't my style!  It may be HIS--it may be honest and simple and
loyal, as you say, and it may be all right for him to get me to run
up accounts at the settlement and then throw off on me--but it
ain't my style.  I suppose he let on that I did that.  No?  He
didn't?  Well then, why did he want to run me off with him, and out
the whole concern in an underhand way and make me leave with nary a
character behind me, eh?  Now, I never said anything about this
before--did I?  It ain't like me.  I wouldn't have said anything
about it now, only you talked about MY being benefited by his
darned foolishness.  Much I've made outer HIM."

Despicable, false, and disloyal as this was, perhaps it was the
crowning meanness of such confidences that his very weakness seemed
only a reflection of Captain Jim's own, and appeared in some
strange way to degrade his friend as much as himself.  The
simplicity of his vanity and selfishness was only equalled by the
simplicity of Captain Jim's admiration of it.  It was a part of my
youthful inexperience of humanity that I was not above the common
fallacy of believing that a man is "known by the company he keeps,"
and that he is in a manner responsible for its weakness; it was a
part of that humanity that I felt no surprise in being more amused
than shocked by this revelation.  It seemed a good joke on Captain
Jim!

"Of course YOU kin laugh at his darned foolishness; but, by Gosh,
it ain't a laughing matter to me!"

"But surely he's given you a good position on the 'Guardian,'" I
urged.  "That was disinterested, certainly."

"Was it?  I call that the cheekiest thing yet.  When he found he
couldn't make enough of me in private life, he totes me out in
public as HIS editor--the man who runs HIS paper!  And has his name
in print as the proprietor, the only chance he'd ever get of being
before the public.  And don't know the whole town is laughing at
him!"

"That may be because they think HE writes some of the articles," I
suggested.

Again the insinuation glanced harmlessly from his vanity.  "That
couldn't be, because I do all the work, and it ain't his style," he
said with naive discontent.  "And it's always the highest style,
done to please him, though between you and me it's sorter castin'
pearls before swine--this 'Frisco editing--and the public would be
just as satisfied with anything I could rattle off that was peart
and sassy,--something spicy or personal.  I'm willing to climb down
and do it, for there's nothin' stuck-up about me, you know; but
that darned fool Captain Jim has got the big head about the style
of the paper, and darned if I don't think he's afraid if there's a
lettin' down, people may think it's him!  Ez if!  Why, you know as
well as me that there's a sort of snap I could give these things
that would show it was me and no slouch did them, in a minute."

I had my doubts about the elegance or playfulness of Mr. Bassett's
trifling, but from some paragraphs that appeared in the next issue
of the "Guardian" I judged that he had won over Captain Jim--if
indeed that gentleman's alleged objections were not entirely the
outcome of Bassett's fancy.  The social paragraphs themselves were
clumsy and vulgar.  A dull-witted account of a select party at
Parson Baxter's, with a point-blank compliment to Polly Baxter his
daughter, might have made her pretty cheek burn but for her evident
prepossession for the meretricious scamp, its writer.  But even
this horse-play seemed more natural than the utterly artificial
editorials with their pinchbeck glitter and cheap erudition; and
thus far it appeared harmless.

I grieve to say that these appearances were deceptive.  One
afternoon, as I was returning from a business visit to the
outskirts of the village, I was amazed on reentering the main
street to find a crowd collected around the "Guardian" office,
gazing at the broken glass of its windows and a quantity of type
scattered on the ground.  But my attention was at that moment more
urgently attracted by a similar group around my own office, who,
however, seemed more cautious, and were holding timorously aloof
from the entrance.  As I ran rapidly towards them, a few called
out, "Look out--he's in there!" while others made way to let me
pass.  With the impression of fire or robbery in my mind, I entered
precipitately, only to find Yuba Bill calmly leaning back in an
arm-chair with his feet on the back of another, a glass of whiskey
from my demijohn in one hand and a huge cigar in his mouth.  Across
his lap lay a stumpy shotgun which I at once recognized as "the
Left Bower," whose usual place was at his feet on the box during
his journeys.  He looked cool and collected, although there were
one or two splashes of printer's ink on his shirt and trousers, and
from the appearance of my lavatory and towel he had evidently been
removing similar stains from his hands.  Putting his gun aside and
grasping my hand warmly without rising, he began with even more
than his usual lazy imperturbability:

"Well, how's Gilead lookin' to-day?"

It struck me as looking rather disturbed, but, as I was still too
bewildered to reply, he continued lazily:

"Ez you didn't hunt me up, I allowed you might hev got kinder
petrified and dried up down yer, and I reckoned to run down and
rattle round a bit and make things lively for ye.  I've jist
cleared out a newspaper office over thar.  They call it the
'Guardi-an,' though it didn't seem to offer much pertection to them
fellers ez was in it.  In fact, it wasn't ez much a fight ez it
orter hev been.  It was rather monotonous for me."

"But what's the row, Bill?  What has happened?" I asked excitedly.

"Nothin' to speak of, I tell ye," replied Yuba Bill reflectively.
"I jest meandered into that shop over there, and I sez, 'I want ter
see the man ez runs this yer mill o' literatoor an' progress.'
Thar waz two infants sittin' on high chairs havin' some innocent
little game o' pickin' pieces o' lead outer pill-boxes like, and as
soon ez they seed me one of 'em crawled under his desk and the
other scooted outer the back door.  Bimeby the door opens again,
and a fluffy coyote-lookin' feller comes in and allows that HE is
responsible for that yer paper.  When I saw the kind of animal he
was, and that he hadn't any weppings, I jist laid the Left Bower
down on the floor.  Then I sez, 'You allowed in your paper that I
oughter hev a little sevility knocked inter me, and I'm here to hev
it done.  You ken begin it now.'  With that I reached for him, and
we waltzed oncet or twicet around the room, and then I put him up
on the mantelpiece and on them desks and little boxes, and took him
down again, and kinder wiped the floor with him gin'rally, until
the first thing I knowed he was outside the winder on the sidewalk.
On'y blamed if I didn't forget to open the winder.  Ef it hadn't
been for that, it would hev been all quiet and peaceful-like, and
nobody hev knowed it.  But the sash being in the way, it sorter
created a disturbance and unpleasantness OUTSIDE."

"But what was it all about?" I repeated.  "What had he done to
you?"

"Ye'll find it in that paper," he said, indicating a copy of the
"Guardian" that lay on my table with a lazy nod of his head.
"P'r'aps you don't read it?  No more do I.  But Joe Bilson sez to
me yesterday: 'Bill,' sez he, 'they're goin' for ye in the
"Guardian."'  'Wot's that?' sez I.  'Hark to this,' sez he, and
reads out that bit that you'll find there."

I had opened the paper, and he pointed to a paragraph.  "There it
is.  Pooty, ain't it?"  I read with amazement as follows:--


"If the Pioneer Stage Company want to keep up with the times, and
not degenerate into the old style 'one hoss' road-wagon business,
they'd better make some reform on the line.  They might begin by
shipping off some of the old-time whiskey-guzzling drivers who are
too high and mighty to do anything but handle the ribbons, and are
above speaking to a passenger unless he's a favorite or one of
their set.  Over-praise for an occasional scrimmage with road
agents, and flattery from Eastern greenhorns, have given them the
big head.  If the fool-killer were let loose on the line with a big
club, and knocked a little civility into their heads, it wouldn't
be a bad thing, and would be a particular relief to the passengers
for Gilead who have to take the stage from Simpson's Bar."


"That's my stage," said Yuba Bill quietly, when I had ended; "and
that's ME."

"But it's impossible," I said eagerly.  "That insult was never
written by Captain Jim."

"Captain Jim," repeated Yuba Bill reflectively.  "Captain Jim,--
yes, that was the name o' the man I was playin' with.  Shortish
hairy feller, suthin' between a big coyote and the old-style hair-
trunk.  Fought pretty well for a hay-footed man from Gil-e-ad."

"But you've whipped the wrong man, Bill," I said.  "Think again!
Have you had any quarrel lately?--run against any newspaper man?"
The recollection had flashed upon me that Lacy Bassett had lately
returned from a visit to Stockton.

Yuba Bill regarded his boots on the other arm-chair for a few
moments in profound meditation.  "There was a sort o' gaudy
insect," he began presently, "suthin' halfway betwixt a boss-fly
and a devil's darnin'-needle, ez crawled up onter the box seat with
me last week, and buzzed!  Now I think on it, he talked high-
faluten' o' the inflooence of the press and sech.  I may hev said
'shoo' to him when he was hummin' the loudest.  I mout hev flicked
him off oncet or twicet with my whip.  It must be him.  Gosh!" he
said suddenly, rising and lifting his heavy hand to his forehead,
"now I think agin he was the feller ez crawled under the desk when
the fight was goin' on, and stayed there.  Yes, sir, that was HIM.
His face looked sorter familiar, but I didn't know him moultin'
with his feathers off."  He turned upon me with the first
expression of trouble and anxiety I had ever seen him wear.  "Yes,
sir, that's him.  And I've kem--me, Yuba Bill!--kem MYSELF, a
matter of twenty miles, totin' a GUN--a gun, by Gosh!--to fight
that--that--that potatar-bug!"  He walked to the window, turned,
walked back again, finished his whiskey with a single gulp, and
laid his hand almost despondingly on my shoulder.  "Look ye, old--
old fell, you and me's ole friends.  Don't give me away.  Don't let
on a word o' this to any one!  Say I kem down yer howlin' drunk on
a gen'ral tear!  Say I mistook that newspaper office for a cigar-
shop, and--got licked by the boss!  Say anythin' you like, 'cept
that I took a gun down yer to chase a fly that had settled onter
me.  Keep the Left Bower in yer back office till I send for it.  Ef
you've got a back door somewhere handy where I can slip outer this
without bein' seen I'd be thankful."

As this desponding suggestion appeared to me as the wisest thing
for him to do in the then threatening state of affairs outside,--
which, had he suspected it, he would have stayed to face,--I
quickly opened a door into a courtyard that communicated through an
alley with a side street.  Here we shook hands and parted; his last
dejected ejaculation being, "That potatobug!"  Later I ascertained
that Captain Jim had retired to his ranch some four miles distant.
He was not seriously hurt, but looked, to use the words of my
informant, "ez ef he'd been hugged by a playful b'ar."  As the
"Guardian" made its appearance the next week without the slightest
allusion to the fracas, I did not deem it necessary to divulge the
real facts.  When I called to inquire about Captain Jim's
condition, he himself, however, volunteered an explanation.

"I don't mind tellin' you, ez an old friend o' mine and Lacy's,
that the secret of that there attack on me and the 'Guardian' was
perlitikal.  Yes, sir!  There was a powerful orginization in the
interest o' Halkins for assemblyman ez didn't like our high-toned
editorials on caucus corruption, and hired a bully to kem down here
and suppress us.  Why, this yer Lacy spotted the idea to oncet; yer
know how keen be is."

"Was Lacy present?" I asked as carelessly as I could.

Captain Jim glanced his eyes over his shoulder quite in his old
furtive canine fashion, and then blinked them at me rapidly.  "He
war!  And if it warn't for HIS pluck and HIS science and HIS
strength, I don't know whar I'D hev been now!  Howsomever, it's all
right.  I've had a fair offer to sell the 'Guardian' over at
Simpson's Bar, and it's time I quit throwin' away the work of a man
like Lacy Bassett upon it.  And between you and me, I've got an
idea and suthin' better to put his talens into."


III.


It was not long before it became evident that the "talens" of Mr.
Lacy Bassett, as indicated by Captain Jim, were to grasp at a seat
in the state legislature.  An editorial in the "Simpson's Bar
Clarion" boldly advocated his pretensions.  At first it was
believed that the article emanated from the gifted pen of Lacy
himself, but the style was so unmistakably that of Colonel
Starbottle, an eminent political "war-horse" of the district, that
a graver truth was at once suggested, namely, that the "Guardian"
had simply been transferred to Simpson's Bar, and merged into the
"Clarion" solely on this condition.  At least it was recognized
that it was the hand of Captain Jim which guided the editorial
fingers of the colonel, and Captain Jim's money that distended the
pockets of that gallant political leader.

Howbeit Lacy Bassett was never elected; in fact he was only for one
brief moment a candidate.  It was related that upon his first
ascending the platform at Simpson's Bar a voice in the audience
said lazily, "Come down!"  That voice was Yuba Bill's.  A slight
confusion ensued, in which Yuba Bill whispered a few words in the
colonel's ear.  After a moment's hesitation the "war-horse" came
forward, and in his loftiest manner regretted that the candidate
had withdrawn.  The next issue of the "Clarion" proclaimed with no
uncertain sound that a base conspiracy gotten up by the former
proprietor of the "Guardian" to undermine the prestige of the Great
Express Company had been ruthlessly exposed, and the candidate on
learning it HIMSELF for the first time, withdrew his name from the
canvass, as became a high-toned gentleman.  Public opinion,
ignoring Lacy Bassett completely, unhesitatingly denounced Captain
Jim.

During this period I had paid but little heed to Lacy Bassett's
social movements, or the successes which would naturally attend
such a character with the susceptible sex.  I had heard that he was
engaged to Polly Baxter, but that they had quarrelled in
consequence of his flirtations with others, especially a Mrs.
Sweeny, a profusely ornamented but reputationless widow.  Captain
Jim had often alluded with a certain respectful pride and delicacy
to Polly's ardent appreciation of his friend, and had more than
half hinted with the same reverential mystery to their matrimonial
union later, and his intention of "doing the square thing" for the
young couple.  But it was presently noticed that these allusions
became less frequent during Lacy's amorous aberrations, and an
occasional depression and unusual reticence marked Captain Jim's
manner when the subject was discussed in his presence.  He seemed
to endeavor to make up for his friend's defection by a kind of
personal homage to Polly, and not unfrequently accompanied her to
church or to singing-class.  I have a vivid recollection of meeting
him one afternoon crossing the fields with her, and looking into
her face with that same wistful, absorbed, and uneasy canine
expression that I had hitherto supposed he had reserved for Lacy
alone.  I do not know whether Polly was averse to the speechless
devotion of these yearning brown eyes; her manner was animated and
the pretty cheek that was nearest me mantled as I passed; but I was
struck for the first time with the idea that Captain Jim loved her!
I was surprised to have that fancy corroborated in the remark of
another wayfarer whom I met, to the effect, "That now that Bassett
was out o' the running it looked ez if Captain Jim was makin' up
for time!"  Was it possible that Captain Jim had always loved her?
I did not at first know whether to be pained or pleased for his
sake.  But I concluded that whether the unworthy Bassett had at
last found a RIVAL in Captain Jim or in the girl herself, it was a
displacement that was for Captain Jim's welfare.  But as I was
about leaving Gilead for a month's transfer to the San Francisco
office, I had no opportunity to learn more from the confidences of
Captain Jim.

I was ascending the principal staircase of my San Francisco hotel
one rainy afternoon, when I was pointedly recalled to Gilead by the
passing glitter of Mrs. Sweeny's jewelry and the sudden vanishing
behind her of a gentleman who seemed to be accompanying her.  A few
moments after I had entered my room I heard a tap at my door, and
opened it upon Lacy Bassett.  I thought he looked a little confused
and agitated.  Nevertheless, with an assumption of cordiality and
ease he said, "It appears we're neighbors.  That's my room next to
yours."  He pointed to the next room, which I then remembered was a
sitting-room en suite with my own, and communicating with it by a
second door, which was always locked.  It had not been occupied
since my tenancy.  As I suppose my face did not show any
extravagant delight at the news of his contiguity, he added,
hastily, "There's a transom over the door, and I thought I'd tell
you you kin hear everything from the one room to the other."

I thanked him, and told him dryly that, as I had no secrets to
divulge and none that I cared to hear, it made no difference to me.
As this seemed to increase his confusion and he still hesitated
before the door, I asked him if Captain Jim was with him.

"No," he said quickly.  "I haven't seen him for a month, and don't
want to.  Look here, I want to talk to you a bit about him."  He
walked into the room, and closed the door behind him.  "I want to
tell you that me and Captain Jim is played!  All this runnin' o' me
and interferin' with me is played!  I'm tired of it.  You kin tell
him so from me."

"Then you have quarrelled?"

"Yes.  As much as any man can quarrel with a darned fool who can't
take a hint."

"One moment.  Have you quarrelled about Polly Baxter?"

"Yes," he answered querulously.  "Of course I have.  What does he
mean by interfering?

"Now listen to me, Mr. Bassett," I interrupted.  "I have no desire
to concern myself in your association with Captain Jim, but since
you persist in dragging me into it, you must allow me to speak
plainly.  From all that I can ascertain you have no serious
intentions of marrying Polly Baxter.  You have come here from
Gilead to follow Mrs. Sweeny, whom I saw you with a moment ago.
Now, why do you not frankly give up Miss Baxter to Captain Jim, who
will make her a good husband, and go your own way with Mrs. Sweeny?
If you really wish to break off your connection with Captain Jim,
that's the only way to do it."

His face, which had exhibited the weakest and most pitiable
consciousness at the mention of Mrs. Sweeny, changed to an
expression of absolute stupefaction as I concluded.

"Wot stuff are you tryin' to fool me with?" he said at last
roughly.

"I mean," I replied sharply, "that this double game of yours is
disgraceful.  Your association with Mrs. Sweeny demands the
withdrawal of any claim you have upon Miss Baxter at once.  If you
have no respect for Captain Jim's friendship, you must at least
show common decency to her."

He burst into a half-relieved, half-hysteric laugh.  "Are you
crazy?" gasped he.  "Why, Captain Jim's just huntin' ME down to
make ME marry Polly.  That's just what the row's about.  That's
just what he's interferin' for--just to carry out his darned fool
ideas o' gettin' a wife for me; just his vanity to say HE'S made
the match.  It's ME that he wants to marry to that Baxter girl--not
himself.  He's too cursed selfish for that."

I suppose I was not different from ordinary humanity, for in my
unexpected discomfiture I despised Captain Jim quite as much as I
did the man before me.  Reiterating my remark that I had no desire
to mix myself further in their quarrels, I got rid of him with as
little ceremony as possible.  But a few minutes later, when the
farcical side of the situation struck me, my irritation was
somewhat mollified, without however increasing my respect for
either of the actors.  The whole affair had assumed a triviality
that was simply amusing, nothing more, and I even looked forward to
a meeting with Captain Jim and HIS exposition of the matter--which
I knew would follow--with pleasurable anticipation.  But I was
mistaken.

One afternoon, when I was watching the slanting volleys of rain
driven by a strong southwester against the windows of the hotel
reading-room, I was struck by the erratic movements of a dripping
figure outside that seemed to be hesitating over the entrance to
the hotel.  At times furtively penetrating the porch as far as the
vestibule, and again shyly recoiling from it, its manner was so
strongly suggestive of some timid animal that I found myself
suddenly reminded of Captain Jim and the memorable evening of his
exodus from Eureka Gulch.  As the figure chanced to glance up to
the window where I stood I saw to my astonishment that it WAS
Captain Jim himself, but so changed and haggard that I scarcely
knew him.  I instantly ran out into the hall and vestibule, but
when I reached the porch he had disappeared.  Either he had seen me
and wished to avoid me, or he had encountered the object of his
quest, which I at once concluded must be Lacy Bassett.  I was so
much impressed and worried by his appearance and manner, that, in
this belief, I overcame my aversion to meeting Bassett, and even
sought him through the public rooms and lobbies in the hope of
finding Captain Jim with him.  But in vain; possibly he had
succeeded in escaping his relentless friend.

As the wind and rain increased at nightfall and grew into a
tempestuous night, with deserted streets and swollen waterways, I
did not go out again, but retired early, inexplicably haunted by
the changed and brooding face of Captain Jim.  Even in my dreams he
pursued me in his favorite likeness of a wistful, anxious, and
uneasy hound, who, on my turning to caress him familiarly, snapped
at me viciously, and appeared to have suddenly developed a snarling
rabid fury.  I seemed to be awakened at last by the sound of his
voice.  For an instant I believed the delusion a part of my dream.
But I was mistaken; I was lying broad awake, and the voice clearly
had come from the next room, and was distinctly audible over the
transom.

"I've had enough of it," he said, "and I'm givin' ye now--this
night--yer last chance.  Quit this hotel and that woman, and go
back to Gilead and marry Polly.  Don't do it and I'll kill ye, ez
sure ez you sit there gapin' in that chair.  If I can't get ye to
fight me like a man,--and I'll spit in yer face or put some insult
onto you afore that woman, afore everybody, ez would make a bigger
skunk nor you turn,--I'll hunt ye down and kill ye in your tracks."

There was a querulous murmur of interruption in Lacy's voice, but
whether of defiance or appeal I could not distinguish.  Captain
Jim's voice again rose, dogged and distinct.

"Ef YOU kill me it's all the same, and I don't say that I won't
thank ye.  This yer world is too crowded for yer and me, Lacy
Bassett.  I've believed in ye, trusted in ye, lied for ye, and
fought for ye.  From the time I took ye up--a feller-passenger to
'Fresco--believin' there wor the makin's of a man in ye, to now,
you fooled me,--fooled me afore the Eureka boys; fooled me afore
Gilead; fooled me afore HER; fooled me afore God!  It's got to end
here.  Ye've got to take the curse of that foolishness off o' me!
You've got to do one single thing that's like the man I took ye
for, or you've got to die.  Times waz when I'd have wished it for
your account--that's gone, Lacy Bassett!  You've got to do it for
ME.  You've got to do it so I don't see 'd--d fool' writ in the
eyes of every man ez looks at me."

He had apparently risen and walked towards the door.  His voice
sounded from another part of the room.

"I'll give ye till to-morrow mornin' to do suthin' to lift this
curse off o' me.  Ef you refoose, then, by the living God, I'll
slap yer face in the dinin'-room, or in the office afore them all!
You hear me!"

There was a pause, and then a quick sharp explosion that seemed to
fill and expand both rooms until the windows were almost lifted
from their casements, a hysterical inarticulate cry from Lacy, the
violent opening of a door, hurried voices, and the tramping of many
feet in the passage.  I sprang out of bed, partly dressed myself,
and ran into the hall.  But by that time I found a crowd of guests
and servants around the next door, some grasping Bassett, who was
white and trembling, and others kneeling by Captain Jim, who was
half lying in the doorway against the wall.

"He heard it all," Bassett gasped hysterically, pointing to me.
"HE knows that this man wanted to kill me."

Before I could reply, Captain Jim partly raised himself with a
convulsive effort.  Wiping away the blood that, oozing from his
lips, already showed the desperate character of his internal wound,
he said in a husky and hurried voice: "It's all right, boys!  It's
my fault.  It was ME who done it.  I went for him in a mean
underhanded way jest now, when he hadn't a weppin nor any show to
defend himself.  We gripped.  He got a holt o' my derringer--you
see that's MY pistol there, I swear it--and turned it agin me in
self-defense, and sarved me right.  I swear to God, gentlemen, it's
so!"  Catching sight of my face, he looked at me, I fancied half
imploringly and half triumphantly, and added, "I might hev knowed
it!  I allers allowed Lacy Bassett was game!--game, gentlemen--and
he was.  If it's my last word, I say it--he was game!"

And with this devoted falsehood upon his lips and something of the
old canine instinct in his failing heart, as his head sank back he
seemed to turn it towards Bassett, as if to stretch himself out at
his feet.  Then the light failed from his yearning upward glance,
and the curse of foolishness was lifted from him forever.

So conclusive were the facts, that the coroner's jury did not deem
it necessary to detain Mr. Bassett for a single moment after the
inquest.  But he returned to Gilead, married Polly Baxter, and
probably on the strength of having "killed his man," was unopposed
on the platform next year, and triumphantly elected to the
legislature!