A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

By Bret Harte

CONTENTS

A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE

THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT

A MAECENAS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

CHAPTER I

"Come in, " said the editor. 

The door of the editorial room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began tocreak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain andunfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritation theeditor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm of his chairwith a certain youthful dexterity. With one hand gripping its back, the other still grasping a proof-slip, and his pencil in his mouth, hestared at the intruder. 

The stranger, despite his hesitating entrance, did not seem in the leastdisconcerted. He was a tall man, looking even taller by reason of thelong formless overcoat he wore, known as a "duster, " and by a longstraight beard that depended from his chin, which he combed with tworeflective fingers as he contemplated the editor. The red dust whichstill lay in the creases of his garment and in the curves of his softfelt hat, and left a dusty circle like a precipitated halo around hisfeet, proclaimed him, if not a countryman, a recent inland importationby coach. "Busy?" he said, in a grave but pleasant voice. "I kin wait. Don't mind ME. Go on. "

The editor indicated a chair with his disengaged hand and plunged againinto his proof-slips. The stranger surveyed the scant furniture andappointments of the office with a look of grave curiosity, and then, taking a chair, fixed an earnest, penetrating gaze on the editor'sprofile. The editor felt it, and, without looking up, said--

"Well, go on. "

"But you're busy. I kin wait. "

"I shall not be less busy this morning. I can listen. "

"I want you to give me the name of a certain person who writes in yourmagazine. "

The editor's eye glanced at the second right-hand drawer of his desk. It did not contain the names of his contributors, but what in thetraditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent, --a revolver. He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. But he laid aside hisproofs, and, with a slight darkening of his youthful, discontented face, said, "What do you want to know for?"

The question was so evidently unexpected that the stranger's facecolored slightly, and he hesitated. The editor meanwhile, withouttaking his eyes from the man, mentally ran over the contents of the lastmagazine. They had been of a singularly peaceful character. There seemedto be nothing to justify homicide on his part or the stranger's. Yetthere was no knowing, and his questioner's bucolic appearance by nomeans precluded an assault. Indeed, it had been a legend of the officethat a predecessor had suffered vicariously from a geological hammercovertly introduced into a scientific controversy by an irate professor. 

"As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct of the magazine, "continued the young editor, with mature severity, "we do not give up thenames of our contributors. If you do not agree with their opinions"--

"But I DO, " said the stranger, with his former composure, "and I reckonthat's why I want to know who wrote those verses called 'Underbrush, 'signed 'White Violet, ' in your last number. They're pow'ful pretty. "

The editor flushed slightly, and glanced instinctively around for anyunexpected witness of his ludicrous mistake. The fear of ridicule wasuppermost in his mind, and he was more relieved at his mistake not beingoverheard than at its groundlessness. 

"The verses ARE pretty, " he said, recovering himself, with a criticalair, "and I am glad you like them. But even then, you know, I could notgive you the lady's name without her permission. I will write to her andask it, if you like. "

The actual fact was that the verses had been sent to him anonymouslyfrom a remote village in the Coast Range, --the address being thepost-office and the signature initials. 

The stranger looked disturbed. "Then she ain't about here anywhere?" hesaid, with a vague gesture. "She don't belong to the office?"

The young editor beamed with tolerant superiority: "No, I am sorry tosay. "

"I should like to have got to see her and kinder asked her afew questions, " continued the stranger, with the same reflectiveseriousness. "You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o' them verses, --andthey kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they?--it wasn't the chyce o'words, --and I reckon they allus hit the idee in the centre shot everytime, --it wasn't the idees and moral she sort o' drew out o' what shewas tellin', --but it was the straight thing itself, --the truth!"

"The truth?" repeated the editor. 

"Yes, sir. I've bin there. I've seen all that she's seen in thebrush--the little flicks and checkers o' light and shadder down inthe brown dust that you wonder how it ever got through the dark of thewoods, and that allus seems to slip away like a snake or a lizard if yougrope. I've heard all that she's heard there--the creepin', the sighin', and the whisperin' through the bracken and the ground-vines of all thatlives there. "

"You seem to be a poet yourself, " said the editor, with a patronizingsmile. 

"I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino, " returned the stranger, with sublimenaivete. "Got a mill there. You see, sightin' standin' timber andselectin' from the gen'ral show of the trees in the ground and the layof roots hez sorter made me take notice. " He paused. "Then, " he added, somewhat despondingly, "you don't know who she is?"

"No, " said the editor, reflectively; "not even if it is really a WOMANwho writes. "

"Eh?"

"Well, you see, 'White Violet' may as well be the nom de plume of a manas of a woman, especially if adopted for the purpose of mystification. The handwriting, I remember, WAS more boyish than feminine. "

"No, " returned the stranger doggedly, "it wasn't no MAN. There's ideasand words there that only come from a woman: baby-talk to the birds, youknow, and a kind of fearsome keer of bugs and creepin' things that don'tcome to a man who wears boots and trousers. Well, " he added, with areturn to his previous air of resigned disappointment, "I suppose youdon't even know what she's like?"

"No, " responded the editor, cheerfully. Then, following an ideasuggested by the odd mingling of sentiment and shrewd perception inthe man before him, he added: "Probably not at all like anything youimagine. She may be a mother with three or four children; or an old maidwho keeps a boarding-house; or a wrinkled school-mistress; or a chitof a school-girl. I've had some fair verses from a red-haired girl offourteen at the Seminary, " he concluded with professional coolness. 

The stranger regarded him with the naive wonder of an inexperiencedman. Having paid this tribute to his superior knowledge, he regained hisprevious air of grave perception. "I reckon she ain't none of them. ButI'm keepin' you from your work. Good-by. My name's Bowers--Jim Bowers, of Mendocino. If you're up my way, give me a call. And if you do writeto this yer 'White Violet, ' and she's willin', send me her address. "

He shook the editor's hand warmly--even in its literal significanceof imparting a good deal of his own earnest caloric to the editor'sfingers--and left the room. His footfall echoed along the passage anddied out, and with it, I fear, all impression of his visit from theeditor's mind, as he plunged again into the silent task before him. 

Presently he was conscious of a melodious humming and a light leisurelystep at the entrance of the hall. They continued on in an easy harmonyand unaffected as the passage of a bird. Both were pleasant and bothfamiliar to the editor. They belonged to Jack Hamlin, by vocation agambler, by taste a musician, on his way from his apartments onthe upper floor, where he had just risen, to drop into his friend'seditorial room and glance over the exchanges, as was his habit beforebreakfast. 

The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious of a faint odor ofscented soap, a sensation of freshness and cleanliness, the impressionof a soft hand like a woman's on his shoulder and, like a woman's, momentarily and playfully caressing, the passage of a graceful shadowacross his desk, and the next moment Jack Hamlin was ostentatiouslydusting a chair with an open newspaper preparatory to sitting down. 

"You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if he can't keep thingscleaner, " he said, suspending his melody to eye grimly the dust whichMr. Bowers had shaken from his departing feet. 

The editor did not look up until he had finished revising a difficultparagraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortably settled himself ona cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference to his surroundings, hadsubdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft, and heartbreaking whistle ashe unfolded a newspaper. Clean and faultless in his appearance, he hadthe rare gift of being able to get up at two in the afternoon withmuch of the dewy freshness and all of the moral superiority of an earlyriser. 

"You ought to have been here just now, Jack, " said the editor. 

"Not a row, old man, eh?" inquired Jack, with a faint accession ofinterest. 

"No, " said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents of theprevious interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration which was partof his nature. But Jack did not smile. 

"You ought to have booted him out of the ranch on sight, " he said. "Whatright had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?--at least a ladyas far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzy with frumpled hairtrying to rope in a greenhorn with a string of words and phrases, "concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equally cynical distrust of thesex and of literature. 

"That's about what I told him, " said the editor. 

"That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him, " returned Jack. "Youought to have stuck up for that woman as if she'd been your own mother. Lord! you fellows don't know how to run a magazine. You ought to let MEsit on that chair and tackle your customers. "

"What would you have done, Jack?" asked the editor, much amused tofind that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinary humanweakness of offering advice as to editorial conduct. 

"Done?" reflected Jack. "Well, first, sonny, I shouldn't keep a revolverin a drawer that I had to OPEN to get at. "

"But what would you have said?"

"I should simply have asked him what was the price of lumber atMendocino, " said Jack, sweetly, "and when he told me, I should have saidthat the samples he was offering out of his own head wouldn't suit. Yousee, you don't want any trifling in such matters. You write well enough, my boy, " continued he, turning over his paper, "but what you're lackingin is editorial dignity. But go on with your work. Don't mind me. "

Thus admonished, the editor again bent over his desk, and his friendsoftly took up his suspended song. The editor had not proceeded far inhis corrections when Jack's voice again broke the silence. 

"Where are those d----d verses, anyway?"

Without looking up, the editor waved his pencil towards an uncut copy ofthe "Excelsior Magazine" lying on the table. 

"You don't suppose I'm going to READ them, do you?" said Jack, aggrievedly. "Why don't you say what they're about? That's your businessas editor. "

But that functionary, now wholly lost and wandering in the non-sequiturof an involved passage in the proof before him, only waved an impatientremonstrance with his pencil and knit his brows. Jack, with a sigh, tookup the magazine. 

A long silence followed, broken only by the hurried rustling of sheetsof copy and an occasional exasperated start from the editor. The sunwas already beginning to slant a dusty beam across his desk; Jack'swhistling had long since ceased. Presently, with an exclamation ofrelief, the editor laid aside the last proof-sheet and looked up. 

Jack Hamlin had closed the magazine, but with one hand thrown over theback of the sofa he was still holding it, his slim forefinger betweenits leaves to keep the place, and his handsome profile and darklashes lifted towards the window. The editor, smiling at this unwontedabstraction, said quietly, --

"Well, what do you think of them?"

Jack rose, laid the magazine down, settled his white waistcoat with bothhands, and lounged towards his friend with audacious but slightlyveiled and shining eyes. "They sort of sing themselves to you, " he said, quietly, leaning beside the editor's desk, and looking down upon him. After a pause he said, "Then you don't know what she's like?"

"That's what Mr. Bowers asked me, " remarked the editor. 

"D--n Bowers!"

"I suppose you also wish me to write and ask for permission to give youher address?" said the editor, with great gravity. 

"No, " said Jack, coolly. "I propose to give it to YOU within a week, andyou will pay me with a breakfast. I should like to have it said that Iwas once a paid contributor to literature. If I don't give it to you, I'll stand you a dinner, that's all. "

"Done!" said the editor. "And you know nothing of her now?"

"No, " said Jack, promptly. "Nor you?"

"No more than I have told you. "

"That'll do. So long!" And Jack, carefully adjusting his glossy hat overhis curls at an ominously wicked angle, sauntered lightly from the room. The editor, glancing after his handsome figure and hearing him takeup his pretermitted whistle as he passed out, began to think that thecontingent dinner was by no means an inevitable prospect. 

Howbeit, he plunged once more into his monotonous duties. But thefreshness of the day seemed to have departed with Jack, and thelater interruptions of foreman and publisher were of a more practicalcharacter. It was not until the post arrived that the superscription onone of the letters caught his eye, and revived his former interest. It was the same hand as that of his unknown contributor'smanuscript--ill-formed and boyish. He opened the envelope. It containedanother poem with the same signature, but also a note--much longer thanthe brief lines that accompanied the first contribution--was scrawledupon a separate piece of paper. This the editor opened first, and readthe following, with an amazement that for the moment dominated all othersense:--

MR. EDITOR, --I see you have got my poetry in. But I don't see thespondulix that oughter follow. Perhaps you don't know where to send it. Then I'll tell you. Send the money to Lock Box 47, Green Springs P. O. , per Wells Fargo's Express, and I'll get it there, on account of myparents not knowing. We're very high-toned, and they would think it'slow making poetry for papers. Send amount usually paid for poetry inyour papers. Or may be you think I make poetry for nothing? That's whereyou slip up!

Yours truly, WHITE VIOLET. 

P. S. --If you don't pay for poetry, send this back. It's as good as whatyou did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me? that's me--allthe time. 

WHITE VIOLET. 

The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for some corroborationof what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder. But no! The few linesthat he hurriedly read breathed the same atmosphere of intellectualrepose, gentleness, and imagination as the first contribution. And yetthey were in the same handwriting as the singular missive, and both wereidentical with the previous manuscript. 

Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No;they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the useof certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He hadbefore noticed the apparent incongruity of the handwriting and the text, and it was possible that for the purposes of disguise the poet mighthave employed an amanuensis. But how could he reconcile the incongruityof the mercenary and slangy purport of the missive itself with themental habit of its author? Was it possible that these inconsistentqualities existed in the one individual? He smiled grimly as he thoughtof his visitor Bowers and his friend Jack. He was startled as heremembered the purely imaginative picture he had himself given to theseriously interested Bowers of the possible incongruous personality ofthe poetess. 

Was he quite fair in keeping this from Jack? Was it really honorable, inview of their wager? It is to be feared that a very human enjoyment ofJack's possible discomfiture quite as much as any chivalrous friendshipimpelled the editor to ring eventually for the office-boy. 

"See if Mr. Hamlin is in his rooms. "

The editor then sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows:--

DEAR MADAM, --You are as right as you are generous in supposing thatonly ignorance of your address prevented the manager from previouslyremitting the honorarium for your beautiful verses. He now begs to sendit to you in the manner you have indicated. As the verses have attracteddeserved attention, I have been applied to for your address. Shouldyou care to submit it to me to be used at my discretion, I shall feelhonored by your confidence. But this is a matter left entirely to yourown kindness and better judgment. Meantime, I take pleasure in accepting"White Violet's" present contribution, and remain, dear madam, yourobedient servant, THE EDITOR. 

The boy returned as he was folding the letter. Mr. Hamlin was not onlyNOT in his rooms, but, according to his negro servant Pete, had lefttown an hour ago for a few days in the country. 

"Did he say where?" asked the editor, quickly. 

"No, sir: he didn't know. "

"Very well. Take this to the manager. " He addressed the letter, and, scrawling a few hieroglyphics on a memorandum-tag, tore it off, andhanded it with the letter to the boy. 

An hour later he stood in the manager's office. "The next number ispretty well made up, " he said, carelessly, "and I think of taking a dayor two off. "

"Certainly, " said the manager. "It will do you good. Where do you thinkyou'll go?"

"I haven't quite made up my mind. "

CHAPTER II

"Hullo!" said Jack Hamlin. 

He had halted his mare at the edge of an abrupt chasm. It did not appearto be fifty feet across, yet its depth must have been nearly twohundred to where the hidden mountain-stream, of which it was the banks, alternately slipped, tumbled, and fell with murmuring and monotonousregularity. One or two pine-trees growing on the opposite edge, loosenedat the roots, had tilted their straight shafts like spears over theabyss, and the top of one, resting on the upper branches of a sycamore afew yards from him, served as an aerial bridge for the passage of a boyof fourteen to whom Mr. Hamlin's challenge was addressed. 

The boy stopped midway in his perilous transit, and, looking down uponthe horseman, responded, coolly, "Hullo, yourself!"

"Is that the only way across this infernal hole, or the one you preferfor exercise?" continued Hamlin, gravely. 

The boy sat down on a bough, allowing his bare feet to dangle over thedizzy depths, and critically examined his questioner. Jack had on thisoccasion modified his usual correct conventional attire by a tastefulcombination of a vaquero's costume, and, in loose white bullion-fringedtrousers, red sash, jacket, and sombrero, looked infinitely more dashingand picturesque than his original. Nevertheless, the boy did not reply. Mr. Hamlin's pride in his usual ascendency over women, children, horses, and all unreasoning animals was deeply nettled. He smiled, however, andsaid, quietly, --

"Come here, George Washington. I want to talk to you. "

Without rejecting this august yet impossible title, the boy presentlylifted his feet, and carelessly resumed his passage across thechasm until, reaching the sycamore, he began to let himself downsquirrel-wise, leap by leap, with an occasional trapeze swinging frombough to bough, dropping at last easily to the ground. Here he appearedto be rather good-looking, albeit the sun and air had worked a miracleof brown tan and freckles on his exposed surfaces, until the mottling ofhis oval cheeks looked like a polished bird's egg. Indeed, it struck Mr. Hamlin that he was as intensely a part of that sylvan seclusion asthe hidden brook that murmured, the brown velvet shadows that lay liketrappings on the white flanks of his horse, the quivering heat, and thestinging spice of bay. Mr. Hamlin had vague ideas of dryads and fauns, but at that moment would have bet something on the chances of theirsurvival. 

"I did not hear what you said just now, general, " he remarked, withgreat elegance of manner, "but I know from your reputation that it couldnot be a lie. I therefore gather that there IS another way across. "

The boy smiled; rather, his very short upper lip apparently vanishedcompletely over his white teeth, and his very black eyes, which showed agreat deal of the white around them, danced in their orbits. 

"But YOU couldn't find it, " he said, slyly. 

"No more could you find the half-dollar I dropped just now, unless Ihelped you. "

Mr. Hamlin, by way of illustration, leaned deeply over his left stirrup, and pointed to the ground. At the same moment a bright half-dollarabsolutely appeared to glitter in the herbage at the point of hisfinger. It was a trick that had always brought great pleasure and profitto his young friends, and some loss and discomfiture of wager to hisolder ones. 

The boy picked up the coin: "There's a dip and a level crossing about amile over yer, "--he pointed, --"but it's through the woods, and they'rethat high with thick bresh. "

"With what?"

"Bresh, " repeated the boy; "THAT, "--pointing to a few fronds of brackengrowing in the shadow of the sycamore. 

"Oh! underbrush?"

"Yes; I said 'bresh, '" returned the boy, doggedly. "YOU might getthrough, ef you war spry, but not your hoss. Where do you want to go, anyway?"

"Do you know, George, " said Mr. Hamlin, lazily throwing his rightleg over the horn of his saddle for greater ease and deliberation inreplying, "it's very odd, but that's just what I'D like to know. Now, what would YOU, in your broad statesmanlike views of things generally, advise?"

Quite convinced of the stranger's mental unsoundness, the boy glancedagain at his half-dollar, as if to make sure of its integrity, pocketedit doubtfully, and turned away. 

"Where are you going?" said Hamlin, resuming his seat with the agilityof a circus-rider, and spurring forward. 

"To Green Springs, where I live, two miles over the ridge on the farslope, "--indicating the direction. 

"Ah!" said Jack, with thoughtful gravity. "Well, kindly give my love toyour sister, will you?"

"George Washington didn't have no sister, " said the boy, cunningly. 

"Can I have been mistaken?" said Hamlin, lifting his hand to hisforehead with grieved accents. "Then it seems YOU have. Kindly give hermy love. "

"Which one?" asked the boy, with a swift glance of mischief. "I've gotfour. "

"The one that's like you, " returned Hamlin, with prompt exactitude. "Now, where's the 'bresh' you spoke of?"

"Keep along the edge until you come to the log-slide. Foller that, andit'll lead you into the woods. But ye won't go far, I tell ye. When youhave to turn back, instead o' comin' back here, you kin take the trailthat goes round the woods, and that'll bring ye out into the stage roadag'in near the post-office at the Green Springs crossin' and the newhotel. That'll be war ye'll turn up, I reckon, " he added, reflectively. "Fellers that come yer gunnin' and fishin' gin'rally do, " he concluded, with a half-inquisitive air. 

"Ah?" said Mr. Hamlin, quietly shedding the inquiry. "Green SpringsHotel is where the stage stops, eh?"

"Yes, and at the post-office, " said the boy. "She'll be along heresoon, " he added. 

"If you mean the Santa Cruz stage, " said Hamlin, "she's here already. Ipassed her on the ridge half an hour ago. "

The boy gave a sudden start, and a quick uneasy expression passed overhis face. "Go 'long with ye!" he said, with a forced smile: "it ain'ther time yet. "

"But I SAW her, " repeated Hamlin, much amused. "Are you expectingcompany? Hullo! Where are you off to? Come back. "

But his companion had already vanished in the thicket with theundeliberate and impulsive act of an animal. There was a momentaryrustle in the alders fifty feet away, and then all was silent. Thehidden brook took up its monotonous murmur, the tapping of a distantwoodpecker became suddenly audible, and Mr. Hamlin was again alone. 

"Wonder whether he's got parents in the stage, and has been playingtruant here, " he mused, lazily. "Looked as if he'd been up to somedevilment, or more like as if he was primed for it. If he'd been alittle older, I'd have bet he was in league with some road-agents towatch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I was beginningto get some talk out of him. " He paused, looked at his watch, andstraightened himself in his stirrups. "Four o'clock. I reckon I might aswell try the woods and what that imp calls the 'bresh;' I may strike ashanty or a native by the way. "

With this determination, Mr. Hamlin urged his horse along the fainttrail by the brink of the watercourse which the boy had just indicated. He had no definite end in view beyond the one that had brought him theday before to that locality--his quest of the unknown poetess. His cluewould have seemed to ordinary humanity the faintest. He had merelynoted the provincial name of a certain plant mentioned in the poem, andlearned that its habitat was limited to the southern local range; whileits peculiar nomenclature was clearly of French Creole or Gulf Stateorigin. This gave him a large though sparsely-populated areafor locality, while it suggested a settlement of Louisianians orMississippians near the Summit, of whom, through their native gamblingproclivities, he was professionally cognizant. But he mainly trustedFortune. Secure in his faith in the feminine character of that goddess, he relied a great deal on her well-known weakness for scamps of hisquality. 

It was not long before he came to the "slide"--a lightly-cut or shallowditch. It descended slightly in a course that was far from straight, attimes diverging to avoid the obstacles of trees or boulders, at timesshaving them so closely as to leave smooth abrasions along their sidesmade by the grinding passage of long logs down the incline. The trackitself was slippery from this, and preoccupied all Hamlin's skill as ahorseman, even to the point of stopping his usual careless whistle. At the end of half an hour the track became level again, and he wasconfronted with a singular phenomenon. 

He had entered the wood, and the trail seemed to cleave through afar-stretching, motionless sea of ferns that flowed on either side tothe height of his horse's flanks. The straight shafts of the trees roselike columns from their hidden bases and were lost again in a roofof impenetrable leafage, leaving a clear space of fifty feet between, through which the surrounding horizon of sky was perfectly visible. All the light that entered this vast sylvan hall came from the sides;nothing permeated from above; nothing radiated from below; the heightof the crest on which the wood was placed gave it this lateralillumination, but gave it also the profound isolation of some templeraised by long-forgotten hands. In spite of the height of these clearshafts, they seemed dwarfed by the expanse of the wood, and in thefarthest perspective the base of ferns and the capital of foliageappeared almost to meet. As the boy had warned him, the slide had turnedaside, skirting the wood to follow the incline, and presently the littletrail he now followed vanished utterly, leaving him and his horse adriftbreast-high in this green and yellow sea of fronds. But Mr. Hamlin, imperious of obstacles, and touched by some curiosity, continued toadvance lazily, taking the bearings of a larger red-wood in the centreof the grove for his objective point. The elastic mass gave way beforehim, brushing his knees or combing his horse's flanks with wide-spreadelfin fingers, and closing up behind him as he passed, as if toobliterate any track by which he might return. Yet his usual luck didnot desert him here. Being on horseback, he found that he could detectwhat had been invisible to the boy and probably to all pedestrians, namely, that the growth was not equally dense, that there were certainthinner and more open spaces that he could take advantage of by morecircuitous progression, always, however, keeping the bearings of thecentral tree. This he at last reached, and halted his panting horse. Here a new idea which had been haunting him since he entered the woodtook fuller possession of him. He had seen or known all this before!There was a strange familiarity either in these objects or in theimpression or spell they left upon him. He remembered the verses! Yes, this was the "underbrush" which the poetess had described: the gloomabove and below, the light that seemed blown through it like the wind, the suggestion of hidden life beneath this tangled luxuriance, which shealone had penetrated, --all this was here. But, more than that, here wasthe atmosphere that she had breathed into the plaintive melody of herverse. It did not necessarily follow that Mr. Hamlin's translation ofher sentiment was the correct one, or that the ideas her verses hadprovoked in his mind were at all what had been hers: in his easysusceptibility he was simply thrown into a corresponding mood ofemotion and relieved himself with song. One of the verses he had alreadyassociated in his mind with the rhythm of an old plantation melody, andit struck his fancy to take advantage of the solitude to try its effect. Humming to himself, at first softly, he at last grew bolder, and let hisvoice drift away through the stark pillars of the sylvan colonnade tillit seemed to suffuse and fill it with no more effort than the lightwhich strayed in on either side. Sitting thus, his hat thrown a littleback from his clustering curls, the white neck and shoulders of hishorse uplifting him above the crested mass of fern, his red sash the onefleck of color in their olive depths, I am afraid he looked muchmore like the real minstrel of the grove than the unknown poetess whotransfigured it. But this, as has been already indicated, was JackHamlin's peculiar gift. Even as he had previously outshone the vaqueroin his borrowed dress, he now silenced and supplanted a few flutteringblue-jays--rightful tenants of the wood--with a more graceful and airypresence and a far sweeter voice. 

The open horizon towards the west had taken a warmer color from thealready slanting sun when Mr. Hamlin, having rested his horse, turnedto that direction. He had noticed that the wood was thinner there, and, pushing forward, he was presently rewarded by the sound of far-offwheels, and knew he must be near the high-road that the boy had spokenof. Having given up his previous intention of crossing the stream, thereseemed nothing better for him to do than to follow the truant's adviceand take the road back to Green Springs. Yet he was loath to leave thewood, halting on its verge, and turning to look back into its charmedrecesses. Once or twice--perhaps because he recalled the words of thepoem--that yellowish sea of ferns had seemed instinct with hidden life, and he had even fancied, here and there, a swaying of its plumed crests. Howbeit, he still lingered long enough for the open sunlight into whichhe had obtruded to point out the bravery of his handsome figure. Thenhe wheeled his horse, the light glanced from polished double bit andbridle-fripperies, caught his red sash and bullion buttons, struck aparting flash from his silver spurs, and he was gone!

For a moment the light streamed unbrokenly through the wood. And thenit could be seen that the yellow mass of undergrowth HAD moved with thepassage of another figure than his own. For ever since he had enteredthe shade, a woman, shawled in a vague, shapeless fashion, had watchedhim wonderingly, eagerly, excitedly, gliding from tree to tree as headvanced, or else dropping breathlessly below the fronds of fern whenceshe gazed at him as between parted fingers. When he wheeled she had runopenly to the west, albeit with hidden face and still clinging shawl, and taken a last look at his retreating figure. And then, with a faintbut lingering sigh, she drew back into the shadow of the wood again andvanished also. 

CHAPTER III

At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hamlin reined in his mare. He had justobserved in the distant shadows of a by-lane that intersected his roadthe vanishing flutter of two light print dresses. Without a moment'shesitation he lightly swerved out of the high-road and followed theretreating figures. 

As he neared them, they seemed to be two slim young girls, evidentlyso preoccupied with the rustic amusement of edging each other off thegrassy border into the dust of the track that they did not perceivehis approach. Little shrieks, slight scufflings, and interjections of"Cynthy! you limb!" "Quit that, Eunice, now!" and "I just call thatreal mean!" apparently drowned the sound of his canter in the soft dust. Checking his speed to a gentle trot, and pressing his horse close besidethe opposite fence, he passed them with gravely uplifted hat and aserious, preoccupied air. But in that single, seemingly conventionalglance, Mr. Hamlin had seen that they were both pretty, and that one hadthe short upper lip of his errant little guide. A hundred yards fartheron he halted, as if irresolutely, gazed doubtfully ahead of him, andthen turned back. An expression of innocent--almost childlike--concernwas clouding the rascal's face. It was well, as the two girls had drawnclosely together, having been apparently surprised in the midst of aglowing eulogium of this glorious passing vision by its sudden return. At his nearer approach, the one with the short upper lip hid thatpiquant feature and the rest of her rosy face behind the other'sshoulder, which was suddenly and significantly opposed to the advanceof this handsome intruder, with a certain dignity, half real, halfaffected, but wholly charming. The protectress appeared--possibly fromher defensive attitude--the superior of her companion. 

Audacious as Jack was to his own sex, he had early learned thatsuch rare but discomposing graces as he possessed required a certainapologetic attitude when presented to women, and that it was only aplain man who could be always complacently self-confident in theirpresence. There was, consequently, a hesitating lowering of thishypocrite's brown eyelashes as he said, in almost pained accents, --

"Excuse me, but I fear I've taken the wrong road. I'm going to GreenSprings. "

"I reckon you've taken the wrong road, wherever you're going, " returnedthe young lady, having apparently made up her mind to resent each ofJack's perfections as a separate impertinence: "this is a PRIVATE road. "She drew herself fairly up here, although gurgled at in the ear andpinched in the arm by her companion. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Jack, meekly. "I see I'm trespassing on yourgrounds. I'm very sorry. Thank you for telling me. I should have gone ona mile or two farther, I suppose, until I came to your house, " he added, innocently. 

"A mile or two! You'd have run chock ag'in' our gate in another minit, "said the short-lipped one, eagerly. But a sharp nudge from her companionsent her back again into cover, where she waited expectantly for anothercrushing retort from her protector. 

But, alas! it did not come. One cannot be always witty, and Jack lookeddistressed. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the pause. 

"It was so stupid in me, as I think your brother"--looking atShort-lip--"very carefully told me the road. "

The two girls darted quick glances at each other. "Oh, Bawb!" said thefirst speaker, in wearied accents, --"THAT limb! He don't keer. "

"But he DID care, " said Hamlin, quietly, "and gave me a good deal ofinformation. Thanks to him, I was able to see that ferny wood that's sofamous--about two miles up the road. You know--the one that there's apoem written about!"

The shot told! Short-lip burst into a display of dazzling little teethand caught the other girl convulsively by the shoulders. The superiorgirl bent her pretty brows, and said, "Eunice, what's gone of ye? Quitthat!" but, as Hamlin thought, paled slightly. 

"Of course, " said Hamlin, quickly, "you know--the poem everybody'stalking about. Dear me! let me see! how does it go?" The rascal knit hisbrows, said, "Ah, yes, " and then murmured the verse he had lately sungquite as musically. 

Short-lip was shamelessly exalted and excited. Really she could scarcelybelieve it! She already heard herself relating the whole occurrence. Here was the most beautiful young man she had ever seen--an entirestranger--talking to them in the most beautiful and natural way, right in the lane, and reciting poetry to her sister! It was like anovel--only more so. She thought that Cynthia, on the other hand, lookeddistressed, and--she must say it--"silly. "

All of which Jack noted, and was wise. He had got all he wanted--atpresent. He gathered up his reins. 

"Thank you so much, and your brother, too, Miss Cynthia, " he said, without looking up. Then, adding, with a parting glance and smile, "Butdon't tell Bob how stupid I was, " he swiftly departed. 

In half an hour he was at the Green Springs Hotel. As he rode into thestable yard, he noticed that the coach had only just arrived, havingbeen detained by a land-slip on the Summit road. With the recollectionof Bob fresh in his mind, he glanced at the loungers at the stageoffice. The boy was not there, but a moment later Jack detected himamong the waiting crowd at the post-office opposite. With a view offollowing up his inquiries, he crossed the road as the boy entered thevestibule of the post-office. He arrived in time to see him unlock oneof a row of numbered letter-boxes rented by subscribers, which occupieda partition by the window, and take out a small package and a letter. But in that brief glance Mr. Hamlin detected the printed address of the"Excelsior Magazine" on the wrapper. It was enough. Luck was certainlywith him. 

He had time to get rid of the wicked sparkle that had lit his dark eyes, and to lounge carelessly towards the boy as the latter broke open thepackage, and then hurriedly concealed it in his jacket-pocket, andstarted for the door. Mr. Hamlin quickly followed him, unperceived, and, as he stepped into the street, gently tapped him on the shoulder. Theboy turned and faced him quickly. But Mr. Hamlin's eyes showed nothingbut lazy good-humor. 

"Hullo, Bob. Where are you going?"

The boy again looked up suspiciously at this revelation of his name. 

"Home, " he said, briefly. 

"Oh, over yonder, " said Hamlin, calmly. "I don't mind walking with youas far as the lane. "

He saw the boy's eyes glance furtively towards an alley that ran besidethe blacksmith's shop a few rods ahead, and was convinced that heintended to evade him there. Slipping his arm carelessly in the youth's, he concluded to open fire at once. 

"Bob, " he said, with irresistible gravity, "I did not know when I metyou this morning that I had the honor of addressing a poet--none otherthan the famous author of 'Underbrush. '"

The boy started back, and endeavored to withdraw his arm, but Mr. Hamlintightened his hold, without, however, changing his careless expression. 

"You see, " he continued, "the editor is a friend of mine, and, beingafraid this package might not get into the right hands--as you didn'tgive your name--he deputized me to come here and see that it was allsquare. As you're rather young, for all you're so gifted, I reckon I'dbetter go home with you, and take a receipt from your parents. That'sabout square, I think?"

The consternation of the boy was so evident and so far beyond Mr. Hamlin's expectation that he instantly halted him, gazed into hisshifting eyes, and gave a long whistle. 

"Who said it was for ME? Wot you talkin' about? Lemme go!" gasped theboy, with the short intermittent breath of mingled fear and passion. 

"Bob, " said Mr. Hamlin, in a singularly colorless voice which was veryrare with him, and an expression quite unlike his own, "what is yourlittle game?"

The boy looked down in dogged silence. 

"Out with it! Who are you playing this on?"

"It's all among my own folks; it's nothin' to YOU, " said the boy, suddenly beginning to struggle violently, as if inspired by thisextenuating fact. 

"Among your own folks, eh? White Violet and the rest, eh? But SHE'S notin it?"

No reply. 

"Hand me over that package. I'll give it back to you again. "

The boy handed it to Mr. Hamlin. He read the letter, and found theinclosure contained a twenty-dollar gold-piece. A half-supercilioussmile passed over his face at this revelation of the inadequateemoluments of literature and the trifling inducements to crime. Indeed, I fear the affair began to take a less serious moral complexion in hiseyes. 

"Then White Violet--your sister Cynthia, you know, " continued Mr. Hamlin, in easy parenthesis--"wrote for this?" holding the coincontemplatively in his fingers, "and you calculated to nab it yourself?"

The quick searching glance with which Bob received the name of hissister, Mr. Hamlin attributed only to his natural surprise thatthis stranger should be on such familiar terms with her; but the boyresponded immediately and bluntly:--

"No! SHE didn't write for it. She didn't want nobody to know who shewas. Nobody wrote for it but me. Nobody KNEW FOLKS WAS PAID FOR PO'TRYBUT ME. I found it out from a feller. I wrote for it. I wasn't goin' tolet that skunk of an editor have it himself!"

"And you thought YOU would take it, " said Hamlin, his voice resumingits old tone. "Well, George--I mean Bob, your conduct was praiseworthy, although your intentions were bad. Still, twenty dollars is rathertoo much for your trouble. Suppose we say five and call it square?" Hehanded the astonished boy five dollars. "Now, George Washington, " hecontinued, taking four other twenty-dollar pieces from his pocket, andadding them to the inclosure, which he carefully refolded, "I'm going togive you another chance to live up to your reputation. You'll take thatpackage, and hand it to White Violet, and say you found it, just asit is, in the lock-box. I'll keep the letter, for it would knock youendways if it was seen, and I'll make it all right with the editor. But, as I've got to tell him that I've seen White Violet myself, and knowshe's got it, I expect YOU to manage in some way to have me see her. I'll manage the rest of it; and I won't blow on you, either. You'llcome back to the hotel, and tell me what you've done. And now, George, "concluded Mr. Hamlin, succeeding at last in fixing the boy's evasive eyewith a peculiar look, "it may be just as well for you to understandthat I know every nook and corner of this place, that I've already beenthrough that underbrush you spoke of once this morning, and that I'vegot a mare that can go wherever YOU can, and a d----d sight quicker!"

"I'll give the package to White Violet, " said the boy, doggedly. 

"And you'll come back to the hotel?"

The boy hesitated, and then said, "I'll come back. "

"All right, then. Adios, general. "

Bob disappeared around the corner of a cross-road at a rapid trot, andMr. Hamlin turned into the hotel. 

"Smart little chap that!" he said to the barkeeper. 

"You bet!" returned the man, who, having recognized Mr. Hamlin, wasdelighted at the prospect of conversing with a gentleman of suchdecidedly dangerous reputation. "But he's been allowed to run a littlewild since old man Delatour died, and the widder's got enough to do, Ireckon, lookin' arter her four gals, and takin' keer of old Delatour'sranch over yonder. I guess it's pretty hard sleddin' for her sometimesto get clo'es and grub for the famerly, without follerin' Bob around. "

"Sharp girls, too, I reckon; one of them writes things for themagazines, doesn't she?--Cynthia, eh?" said Mr. Hamlin, carelessly. 

Evidently this fact was not a notorious one to the barkeeper. He, however, said, "Dunno; mabbee; her father was eddicated, and the widderDelatour, too, though she's sorter queer, I've heard tell. Lord!Mr. Hamlin, YOU oughter remember old man Delatour! From Opelousas, Louisiany, you know! High old sport French style, frilledbosom--open-handed, and us'ter buck ag'in' faro awful! Why, he droppeda heap o' money to YOU over in San Jose two years ago at poker! You mustremember him!"

The slightest possible flush passed over Mr. Hamlin's brow under theshadow of his hat, but did not get lower than his eyes. He suddenly HADrecalled the spendthrift Delatour perfectly, and as quickly regrettednow that he had not doubled the honorarium he had just sent to hisportionless daughter. But he only said, coolly, "No, " and then, raisinghis pale face and audacious eyes, continued in his laziest and mostinsulting manner, "no: the fact is, my mind is just now preoccupied inwondering if the gas is leaking anywhere, and if anything is ever servedover this bar except elegant conversation. When the gentleman who mixesdrinks comes back, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell him to send awhisky sour to Mr. Jack Hamlin in the parlor. Meantime, you can turn offyour soda fountain: I don't want any fizz in mine. "

Having thus quite recovered himself, Mr. Hamlin lounged gracefullyacross the hall into the parlor. As he did so, a darkish young man, witha slim boyish figure, a thin face, and a discontented expression, rose from an armchair, held out his hand, and, with a saturnine smile, said:--

"Jack!"

"Fred!"

The two men remained gazing at each other with a half-amused, half-guarded expression. Mr. Hamlin was first to begin. "I didn't thinkYOU'D be such a fool as to try on this kind of thing, Fred, " he said, half seriously. 

"Yes, but it was to keep you from being a much bigger one that I huntedyou up, " said the editor, mischievously. "Read that. I got it an hourafter you left. " And he placed a little triumphantly in Jack's hand theletter he had received from White Violet. 

Mr. Hamlin read it with an unmoved face, and then laid his two handson the editor's shoulders. "Yes, my young friend, and you sat down andwrote her a pretty letter and sent her twenty dollars--which, permit meto say, was d----d poor pay! But that isn't your fault, I reckon: it'sthe meanness of your proprietors. "

"But it isn't the question, either, just now, Jack, however you havebeen able to answer it. Do you mean to say seriously that you want toknow anything more of a woman who could write such a letter?"

"I don't know, " said Jack, cheerfully. "She might be a devilish sightfunnier than if she hadn't written it--which is the fact. "

"You mean to say SHE didn't write it?"

"Yes. "

"Who did, then?"

"Her brother Bob. "

After a moment's scrutiny of his friend's bewildered face, Mr. Hamlinbriefly related his adventures, from the moment of his meeting Bob atthe mountain-stream to the barkeeper's gossiping comment and sequel. "Therefore, " he concluded, "the author of 'Underbrush' is Miss CynthiaDelatour, one of four daughters of a widow who lives two miles fromhere at the crossing. I shall see her this evening and make sure;but to-morrow morning you will pay me the breakfast you owe me. She'sgood-looking, but I can't say I fancy the poetic style: it's a littletoo high-toned for me. However, I love my love with a C, because she isyour Contributor; I hate her with a C, because of her Connections; I mether by Chance and treated her with Civility; her name is Cynthia, andshe lives on a Cross-road. "

"But you surely don't expect you will ever see Bob, again!" said theeditor, impatiently. "You have trusted him with enough to start him forthe Sandwich Islands, to say nothing of the ruinous precedent you haveestablished in his mind of the value of poetry. I am surprised thata man of your knowledge of the world would have faith in that imp thesecond time. "

"My knowledge of the world, " returned Mr. Hamlin, sententiously, "tellsme that's the only way you can trust anybody. ONCE doesn't make a habit, nor show a character. I could see by his bungling that he had nevertried this on before. Just now the temptation to wipe out his punishmentby doing the square thing, and coming back a sort of hero, is strongerthan any other. 'Tisn't everybody that gets that chance, " he added, withan odd laugh. 

Nevertheless, three hours passed without bringing Bob. The two men hadgone to the billiard-room, when a waiter brought a note, which hehanded to Mr. Hamlin with some apologetic hesitation. It bore nosuperscription, but had been brought by a boy who described Mr. Hamlinperfectly, and requested that the note should be handed to him with theremark that "Bob had come back. "

"And is he there now?" asked Mr. Hamlin, holding the letter unopened inhis hand. 

"No, sir; he run right off. "

The editor laughed, but Mr. Hamlin, having perused the note, put awayhis cue. "Come into my room, " he said. 

The editor followed, and Mr. Hamlin laid the note before him on thetable. "Bob's all right, " he said, "for I'll bet a thousand dollars thatnote is genuine. "

It was delicately written, in a cultivated feminine hand, utterly unlikethe scrawl that had first excited the editor's curiosity, and ran asfollows:--

He who brought me the bounty of your friend--for I cannot call arecompense so far above my deserts by any other name--gives me also tounderstand that you wished for an interview. I cannot believe that thisis mere idle curiosity, or that you have any motive that is not kindlyand honorable, but I feel that I must beg and pray you not to seek toremove the veil behind which I have chosen to hide myself and mypoor efforts from identification. I THINK I know you--I KNOW Iknow myself--well enough to believe it would give neither of us anyhappiness. You will say to your generous friend that he has alreadygiven the Unknown more comfort and hope than could come from anypersonal compliment or publicity, and you will yourself believe that youhave all unconsciously brightened a sad woman's fancy with a Dream and aVision that before today had been unknown to

WHITE VIOLET. 

"Have you read it?" asked Mr. Hamlin. 

"Yes. "

"Then you don't want to see it any more, or even remember you ever sawit, " said Mr. Hamlin, carefully tearing the note into small pieces andletting them drift from the windows like blown blossoms. 

"But, I say, Jack! look here; I don't understand! You say you havealready seen this woman, and yet"--

"I HAVEN'T seen her, " said Jack, composedly, turning from the window. 

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you and I, Fred, are going to drop this fooling right hereand leave this place for Frisco by first stage to-morrow, and--that Iowe you that dinner. "

CHAPTER IV

When the stage for San Francisco rolled away the next morning with Mr. Hamlin and the editor, the latter might have recognized in the occupantof a dust-covered buggy that was coming leisurely towards them the tallfigure, long beard, and straight duster of his late visitor, Mr. JamesBowers. For Mr. Bowers was on the same quest that the others had justabandoned. Like Mr. Hamlin, he had been left to his own resources, butMr. Bowers's resources were a life-long experience and technical skill;he too had noted the topographical indications of the poem, and hisknowledge of the sylva of Upper California pointed as unerringly as Mr. Hamlin's luck to the cryptogamous haunts of the Summit. Such abnormalgrowths were indicative of certain localities only, but, as they werenot remunerative from a pecuniary point of view, were to be avoided bythe sagacious woodman. It was clear, therefore, that Mr. Bowers'svisit to Green Springs was not professional, and that he did not evenfiguratively accept the omen. 

He baited and rested his horse at the hotel, where his bucolic exterior, however, did not elicit that attention which had been accorded to Mr. Hamlin's charming insolence or the editor's cultivated manner. But heglanced over a township map on the walls of the reading-room, and tooknote of the names of the owners of different lots, farms, and ranches, passing that of Delatour with the others. Then he drove leisurely in thedirection of the woods, and, reaching them, tied his horse to a youngsapling in the shade, and entered their domain with a shambling butfamiliar woodman's step. 

It is not the purpose of this brief chronicle to follow Mr. Bowers inhis professional diagnosis of the locality. He recognized Nature in oneof her moods of wasteful extravagance, --a waste that his experiencedeye could tell was also sapping the vitality of those outwardly robustshafts that rose around him. He knew, without testing them, that half ofthese fair-seeming columns were hollow and rotten at the core; he coulddetect the chill odor of decay through the hot balsamic spices stirredby the wind that streamed through their long aisles, --like incensemingling with the exhalations of a crypt. He stopped now and then topart the heavy fronds down to their roots in the dank moss, seeingagain, as he had told the editor, the weird SECOND twilight throughtheir miniature stems, and the microcosm of life that filled it. But, even while paying this tribute to the accuracy of the unknown poetess, he was, like his predecessor, haunted more strongly by the atmosphereand melody of her verse. Its spell was upon him, too. Unlike Mr. Hamlin, he did not sing. He only halted once or twice, silently combing hisstraight narrow beard with his three fingers, until the action seemedto draw down the lines of his face into limitless dejection, and aninscrutable melancholy filled his small gray eyes. The few birds whichhad hailed Mr. Hamlin as their successful rival fled away before thegrotesque and angular half-length of Mr. Bowers, as if the wind hadblown in a scarecrow from the distant farms. 

Suddenly he observed the figure of a woman, with her back towards him, leaning motionless against a tree, and apparently gazing intently in thedirection of Green Springs. He had approached so near to her that itwas singular she had not heard him. Mr. Bowers was a bashful man in thepresence of the other sex. He felt exceedingly embarrassed; if he couldhave gone away without attracting her attention he would have done so. Neither could he remain silent, a tacit spy of her meditation. He hadrecourse to a polite but singularly artificial cough. 

To his surprise, she gave a faint cry, turned quickly towards him, andthen shrank back and lapsed quite helpless against the tree. Her evidentdistress overcame his bashfulness. He ran towards her. 

"I'm sorry I frighted ye, ma'am, but I was afraid I might skeer ye moreif I lay low, and said nothin'. "

Even then, if she had been some fair young country girl, he would haverelapsed after this speech into his former bashfulness. But the face andfigure she turned towards him were neither young nor fair: a woman pastforty, with gray threads and splashes in her brushed-back hair, whichwas turned over her ears in two curls like frayed strands of rope. Herforehead was rather high than broad, her nose large but well-shaped, and her eyes full but so singularly light in color as to seem almostsightless. The short upper lip of her large mouth displayed her teethin an habitual smile, which was in turn so flatly contradicted by everyother line of her careworn face that it seemed gratuitously artificial. Her figure was hidden by a shapeless garment that partook equally of theshawl, cloak, and wrapper. 

"I am very foolish, " she began, in a voice and accent that at onceasserted a cultivated woman, "but I so seldom meet anybody here that avoice quite startled me. That, and the heat, " she went on, wiping herface, into which the color was returning violently--"for I seldom go outas early as this--I suppose affected me. "

Mr. Bowers had that innate Far-Western reverence for womanhood whichI fancy challenges the most polished politeness. He remained patient, undemonstrative, self-effacing, and respectful before her, his angulararm slightly but not obtrusively advanced, the offer of protection beingin the act rather than in any spoken word, and requiring no response. 

"Like as not, ma'am, " he said, cheerfully looking everywhere but in herburning face. "The sun IS pow'ful hot at this time o' day; I felt itmyself comin' yer, and, though the damp of this timber kinder sets itback, it's likely to come out ag'in. Ye can't check it no more than thesap in that choked limb thar"--he pointed ostentatiously where a fallenpine had been caught in the bent and twisted arm of another, but whichstill put out a few green tassels beyond the point of impact. "Do youlive far from here, ma'am?" he added. 

"Only as far as the first turning below the hill. "

"I've got my buggy here, and I'm goin' that way, and I can jist set yedown thar cool and comfortable. Ef, " he continued, in the same assuringtone, without waiting for a reply, "ye'll jist take a good grip ofmy arm thar, " curving his wrist and hand behind him like a shepherd'scrook, "I'll go first, and break away the brush for ye. "

She obeyed mechanically, and they fared on through the thick ferns inthis fashion for some moments, he looking ahead, occasionally droppinga word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing at her face. When they reached the buggy he lifted her into it carefully, --andperpendicularly, it struck her afterwards, very much as if she had beena transplanted sapling with bared and sensitive roots, --and then gravelytook his place beside her. 

"Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am, " he said, gathering up thereins, "I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around. My nameis Bowers, of Mendocino; I reckon there ain't much that grows in theway o' standin' timber on the Pacific Slope that I don't know and can'tlocate, though I DO say it. I've got ez big a mill, and ez big a run inmy district, ez there is anywhere. Ef you're ever up my way, you ask forBowers--Jim Bowers--and that's ME. "

There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation betweenstrangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each other'sfoibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superior woman, naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped would reassure herthat she was not compromising herself in accepting his civility, and sosatisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On the other hand, the womanregained her self-possession by this exhibition of Mr. Bowers's vanity, and, revived by the refreshing breeze caused by the rapid motion of thebuggy along the road, thanked him graciously. 

"I suppose there are many strangers at the Green Springs Hotel, " shesaid, after a pause. 

"I didn't get to see 'em, as I only put up my hoss there, " he replied. "But I know the stage took some away this mornin': it seemed pretty wellloaded up when I passed it. "

The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as a possiblereturn of her former nervous weakness. Her attention must at once bedistracted at any cost--even conversation. 

"Perhaps, " he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, "I'm a-talkin'to Mrs. McFadden?"

"No, " said the woman, abstractedly. 

"Then it must be Mrs. Delatour? There are only two township lots on thatcrossroad. "

"My name IS Delatour, " she said, somewhat wearily. 

Mr. Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at all anxious toknow her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggest that there wasnothing more to say. He would, of course, have preferred to ask herif she had read the poetry about the Underbrush, and if she knew thepoetess, and what she thought of it; but the fact that she appearedto be an "eddicated" woman made him sensitive of displaying technicalignorance in his manner of talking about it. She might ask him if it was"subjective" or "objective"--two words he had heard used at the DebatingSociety at Mendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?"For a few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiativein conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as ifappreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some reliefin monotonous expression, talked mechanically, deliberately, butunostentatiously about herself. So colorless was her intonation that attimes it did not seem as if she was talking to him, but repeating someconversation she had held with another. 

She had lived there ever since she had been in California. Her husbandhad bought the Spanish title to the property when they first married. The property at his death was found to be greatly involved; she had beenobliged to part with much of it to support her children--four girls anda boy. She had been compelled to withdraw the girls from the convent atSanta Clara to help about the house; the boy was too young--she feared, too shiftless--to do anything. The farm did not pay; the land was poor;she knew nothing about farming; she had been brought up in New Orleans, where her father had been a judge, and she didn't understand countrylife. Of course she had been married too young--as all girls were. Lately she had thought of selling off and moving to San Francisco, whereshe would open a boarding-house or a school for young ladies. He couldadvise her, perhaps, of some good opportunity. Her own girls were farenough advanced to assist her in teaching; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spoke French and Spanish fluently. 

As Mr. Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in the feminineAmerican indictment of life generally, he was not perhaps greatly moved. But in the last sentence he thought he saw an opening to return to hismain object, and, looking up cautiously, said:--

"And mebbe write po'try now and then?" To his great discomfiture, theonly effect of this suggestion was to check his companion's speech forsome moments and apparently throw her back into her former abstraction. Yet, after a long pause, as they were turning into the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject:--

"I only hope that, whatever my daughters may do, they won't marryyoung. "

The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presently camein view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the prevailinginefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp to shamelessstretching, scratching, and slumber. Their places were taken on theveranda by two negro servants, two girls respectively of eight andeleven, and a boy of fourteen, who remained silently staring. As Mr. Bowers had accepted the widow's polite invitation to enter, she wascompelled, albeit in an equally dazed and helpless way, to issue somepreliminary orders:--

"Now, Chloe--I mean aunt Dinah--do take Eunice--I mean Victorine andUna--away, and--you know--tidy them; and you, Sarah--it's Sarah, isn'tit?--lay some refreshment in the parlor for this gentleman. And, Bob, tell your sister Cynthia to come here with Eunice. " As Bob stillremained staring at Mr. Bowers, she added, in weary explanation, "Mr. Bowers brought me over from the Summit woods in his buggy--it was sohot. There--shake hands and thank him, and run away--do!"

They crossed a broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere the samelook of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, and premature decay;most of the furniture was mismatched and misplaced; many of the roomshad changed their original functions or doubled them; a smell of cookingcame from the library, on whose shelves, mingled with books, weredresses and household linen, and through the door of a room into whichMrs. Delatour retired to remove her duster Mr. Bowers caught a glimpseof a bed, and of a table covered with books and papers, at which atall, fair girl was writing. In a few moments Mrs. Delatour returned, accompanied by this girl, and Eunice, her short-lipped sister. Bob, whojoined the party seated around Mr. Bowers and a table set with cake, adecanter, and glasses, completed the group. Emboldened by the presenceof the tall Cynthia and his glimpse of her previous literary attitude, Mr. Bowers resolved to make one more attempt. 

"I suppose these yer young ladies sometimes go to the wood, too?" As hiseye rested on Cynthia, she replied:--

"Oh, yes. "

"I reckon on account of the purty shadows down in the brush, and thesoft light, eh? and all that?" he continued, with a playful manner but aserious accession of color. 

"Why, the woods belong to us. It's mar's property!" broke in Eunice witha flash of teeth. 

"Well, Lordy, I wanter know!" said Mr. Bowers, in some astonishment. "Why, that's right in my line, too! I've been sightin' timber all alonghere, and that's how I dropped in on yer mar. " Then, seeing a look ofeagerness light up the faces of Bob and Eunice, he was encouraged tomake the most of his opportunity. "Why, ma'am, " he went on, cheerfully, "I reckon you're holdin' that wood at a pretty stiff figger, now. "

"Why?" asked Mrs. Delatour, simply. 

Mr. Bowers delivered a wink at Bob and Eunice, who were still watchinghim with anxiety. "Well, not on account of the actool timber, for thebest of it ain't sound, " he said, "but on account of its bein' famous!Everybody that reads that pow'ful pretty poem about it in the 'ExcelsiorMagazine' wants to see it. Why, it would pay the Green Springshotel-keeper to buy it up for his customers. But I s'pose you reckon tokeep it--along with the poetess--in your famerly?"

Although Mr. Bowers long considered this speech as the happiest and mostbrilliant effort of his life, its immediate effect was not, perhaps, all that could be desired. The widow turned upon him a restrained anddarkening face. Cynthia half rose with an appealing "Oh, mar!" and Boband Eunice, having apparently pinched each other to the last stage ofendurance, retired precipitately from the room in a prolonged giggle. 

"I have not yet thought of disposing of the Summit woods, Mr. Bowers, "said Mrs. Delatour, coldly, "but if I should do so, I will consult you. You must excuse the children, who see so little company, they are quiteunmanageable when strangers are present. Cynthia, WILL you see if theservants have looked after Mr. Bowers's horse? You know Bob is not to betrusted. "

There was clearly nothing else for Mr. Bowers to do but to take hisleave, which he did respectfully, if not altogether hopefully. But whenhe had reached the lane, his horse shied from the unwonted spectacle ofBob, swinging his hat, and apparently awaiting him, from the fork of awayside sapling. 

"Hol' up, mister. Look here!"

Mr. Bowers pulled up. Bob dropped into the road, and, after a backwardglance over his shoulder, said:--

"Drive 'longside the fence in the shadder. " As Mr. Bowers obeyed, Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, halfmysterious. "You wanter buy them Summit woods, mister?"

"Well, per'aps, sonny. Why?" smiled Mr. Bowers. 

"Coz I'll tell ye suthin'. Don't you be fooled into allowin' thatCynthia wrote that po'try. She didn't--no more'n Eunice nor me. Markinder let ye think it, 'cos she don't want folks to think SHE did it. But mar wrote that po'try herself; wrote it out o' them thar woods--allby herself. Thar's a heap more po'try thar, you bet, and jist as good. And she's the one that kin write it--you hear me? That's my mar, everytime! You buy that thar wood, and get mar to run it for po'try, andyou'll make your pile, sure! I ain't lyin'. You'd better look spry:thar's another feller snoopin' 'round yere--only he barked up the wrongtree, and thought it was Cynthia, jist as you did. "

"Another feller?" repeated the astonished Bowers. 

"Yes; a rig'lar sport. He was orful keen on that po'try, too, you bet. So you'd better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in. Mar got ahundred dollars for that pome, from that editor feller and his pardner. I reckon that's the rig'lar price, eh?" he added, with a suddensuspicious caution. 

"I reckon so, " replied Mr. Bowers, blankly. "But--look here, Bob! Do youmean to say it was your mother--your MOTHER, Bob, who wrote that poem?Are you sure?"

"D'ye think I'm lyin'?" said Bob, scornfully. "Don't I know? Don't Icopy 'em out plain for her, so as folks won't know her handwrite? Go'way! you're loony!" Then, possibly doubting if this latter expressionwere strictly diplomatic with the business in hand, he added, inhalf-reproach, half-apology, "Don't ye see I don't want ye to be fooledinto losin' yer chance o' buying up that Summit wood? It's the coldtruth I'm tellin' ye. "

Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedly was atfirst, --and even self-deceived, --he recognized in a flash the grim factthat the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition of the sad-facedwoman in the wood--her distressed manner, that to his inexperiencedmind now took upon itself the agitated trembling of disturbed mysticinspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse succeeded his first shock ofdisappointment. 

"Well, are ye going to buy the woods?" said Bob, eying him grimly. "Ye'dbetter say. "

Mr. Bowers started. "I shouldn't wonder, Bob, " he said, with a smile, gathering up his reins. "Anyhow, I'm comin' back to see your mother thisafternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the first chance for me. "

He drove away, leaving the youthful diplomatist standing with his barefeet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentleman amused himselfby a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then a smile of scornfulsuperiority, mingled perhaps with a sense of previous slights andunappreciation, drew back his little upper lip, and brightened hismottled cheek. 

"I'd like ter know, " he said, darkly, "what this yer God-forsakenfamerly would do without ME!"

CHAPTER V

It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually kept totheir tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the poetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldom alluded toby either. Yet in that period White Violet had sent two othercontributions, and on each occasion Mr. Hamlin had insisted uponincreasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift. In vain theeditor pointed out the danger of this form of munificence; Mr. Hamlinretorted by saying that if he refused he would appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object to taking the credit of this liberality. "As to the risks, " concluded Jack, sententiously, "I'll take them; andas far as you're concerned, you certainly get the worth of your money. "

Indeed, if popularity was an indiction, this had become suddenly true. For the poetess's third contribution, without changing its stronglocal color and individuality, had been an unexpected outburst of humanpassion--a love-song, that touched those to whom the subtler meditativegraces of the poetess had been unknown. Many people had listened to thisimpassioned but despairing cry from some remote and charmed solitude, who had never read poetry before, who translated it into their ownlimited vocabulary and more limited experience, and were inexpressiblyaffected to find that they, too, understood it; it was caught up andechoed by the feverish, adventurous, and unsatisfied life that filledthat day and time. Even the editor was surprised and frightened. Likemost cultivated men, he distrusted popularity: like all men who believein their own individual judgment, he doubted collective wisdom. Yetnow that his protegee had been accepted by others, he questioned thatjudgment and became her critic. It struck him that her sudden outburstwas strained; it seemed to him that in this mere contortion of passionthe sibyl's robe had become rudely disarranged. He spoke to Hamlin, andeven approached the tabooed subject. 

"Did you see anything that suggested this sort of business in--in--thatwoman--I mean in--your pilgrimage, Jack?"

"No, " responded Jack, gravely. "But it's easy to see she's got holdof some hay-footed fellow up there in the mountains with straws in hishair, and is playing him for all he's worth. You won't get much morepoetry out of her, I reckon. "

Is was not long after this conversation that one afternoon, when theeditor was alone, Mr. James Bowers entered the editorial room with muchof the hesitation and irresolution of his previous visit. As the editorhad not only forgotten him, but even, dissociated him with the poetess, Mr. Bowers was fain to meet his unresponsive eye and manner with someexplanation. 

"Ye disremember my comin' here, Mr. Editor, to ask you the name o' thelady who called herself 'White Violet, ' and how you allowed you couldn'tgive it, but would write and ask for it?"

Mr. Editor, leaning back in his chair, now remembered the occurrence, but was distressed to add that the situation remained unchanged, andthat he had received no such permission. 

"Never mind THAT, my lad, " said Mr. Bowers, gravely, waving his hand. "Iunderstand all that; but, ez I've known the lady ever since, and am nowvisiting her at her house on the Summit, I reckon it don't make muchmatter. "

It was quite characteristic of Mr. Bowers's smileless earnestness thathe made no ostentation of this dramatic retort, nor of the undisguisedstupefaction of the editor. 

"Do you mean to say that you have met White Violet, the author of thesepoems?" repeated the editor. 

"Which her name is Delatour, --the widder Delatour, --ez she has herselfgive me permission to tell you, " continued Mr. Bowers, with a certainabstracted and automatic precision that dissipated any suggestion ofmalice in the reversed situation. 

"Delatour!--a widow!" repeated the editor. 

"With five children, " continued Mr. Bowers. Then, with unalterablegravity, he briefly gave an outline of her condition and thecircumstances of his acquaintance with her. 

"But I reckoned YOU might have known suthin' o' this; though she neverlet on you did, " he concluded, eying the editor with troubled curiosity. 

The editor did not think it necessary to implicate Mr. Hamlin. He said, briefly, "I? Oh, no!"

"Of course, YOU might not have seen her?" said Mr. Bowers, keeping thesame grave, troubled gaze on the editor. 

"Of course not, " said the editor, somewhat impatient under the singularscrutiny of Mr. Bowers; "and I'm very anxious to know how she looks. Tell me, what is she like?"

"She is a fine, pow'ful, eddicated woman, " said Mr. Bowers, with slowdeliberation. "Yes, sir, --a pow'ful woman, havin' grand ideas of herown, and holdin' to 'em. " He had withdrawn his eyes from the editor, andapparently addressed the ceiling in confidence. 

"But what does she look like, Mr. Bowers?" said the editor, smiling. 

"Well, sir, she looks--LIKE--IT! Yes, "--with deliberate caution, --"Ishould say, just like it. "

After a pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialize thisravishing description, he said, gently, "Are you busy just now?"

"Not very. What can I do for you?"

"Well, not much for ME, I reckon, " he returned, with a deeperrespiration, that was his nearest approach to a sigh, "but suthin'perhaps for yourself and--another. Are you married?"

"No, " said the editor, promptly. 

"Nor engaged to any--young lady?"--with great politeness. 

"No. "

"Well, mebbe you think it a queer thing for me to say, --mebbe you reckonyou KNOW it ez well ez anybody, --but it's my opinion that White Violetis in love with you. "

"With me?" ejaculated the editor, in a hopeless astonishment that atlast gave way to an incredulous and irresistible laugh. 

A slight touch of pain passed over Mr. Bowers's dejected face, but leftthe deep outlines set with a rude dignity. "It's SO, " he said, slowly, "though, as a young man and a gay feller, ye may think it's funny. "

"No, not funny, but a terrible blunder, Mr. Bowers, for I give you myword I know nothing of the lady and have never set eyes upon her. "

"No, but she has on YOU. I can't say, " continued Mr. Bowers, withsublime naivete, "that I'd ever recognize you from her description, buta woman o' that kind don't see with her eyes like you and me, but withall her senses to onct, and a heap more that ain't senses as we know'em. The same eyes that seed down through the brush and ferns in theSummit woods, the same ears that heerd the music of the wind trailin'through the pines, don't see you with my eyes or hear you with my ears. And when she paints you, it's nat'ril for a woman with that pow'ful mindand grand idees to dip her brush into her heart's blood for warmth andcolor. Yer smilin', young man. Well, go on and smile at me, my lad, butnot at her. For you don't know her. When you know her story as I do, when you know she was made a wife afore she ever knew what it was to bea young woman, when you know that the man she married never understoodthe kind o' critter he was tied to no more than ef he'd been a steeryoked to a Morgan colt, when ye know she had children growin' up aroundher afore she had given over bein' a sort of child herself, when yeknow she worked and slaved for that man and those children about thehouse--her heart, her soul, and all her pow'ful mind bein' all the timein the woods along with the flickering leaves and the shadders, --whenye mind she couldn't get the small ways o' the ranch because she had thebig ways o' Natur' that made it, --then you'll understand her. "

Impressed by the sincerity of his visitor's manner, touched by theunexpected poetry of his appeal, and yet keenly alive to the absurdityof an incomprehensible blunder somewhere committed, the editor gaspedalmost hysterically, --

"But why should all this make her in love with ME?"

"Because ye are both gifted, " returned Mr. Bowers, with sad butunconquerable conviction; "because ye're both, so to speak, in a lineo' idees and business that draws ye together, --to lean on each other andtrust each other ez pardners. Not that YE are ezakly her ekal, " he wenton, with a return to his previous exasperating naivete, "though I'veheerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're still young, but in matterso' this kind there is allers one ez hez to be looked up to bythe other, --and gin'rally the wrong one. She looks up to you, Mr. Editor, --it's part of her po'try, --ez she looks down inter the brushand sees more than is plain to you and me. Not, " he continued, with acourteously deprecating wave of the hand, "ez you hain't bin kind toher--mebbe TOO kind. For thar's the purty letter you writ her, thar'sthe perlite, easy, captivatin' way you had with her gals andthat boy--hold on!"--as the editor made a gesture of despairingrenunciation, --"I ain't sayin' you ain't right in keepin' it toyourself, --and thar's the extry money you sent her every time. Stop! sheknows it was EXTRY, for she made a p'int o' gettin' me to find out themarket price o' po'try in papers and magazines, and she reckons you'vebin payin' her four hundred per cent. Above them figgers--hold on! Iain't sayin' it ain't free and liberal in you, and I'd have done thesame thing; yet SHE thinks"--

But the editor had risen hastily to his feet with flushing cheeks. 

"One moment, Mr. Bowers, " he said, hurriedly. "This is the most dreadfulblunder of all. The gift is not mine. It was the spontaneous offeringof another who really admired our friend's work, --a gentleman who"--Hestopped suddenly. 

The sound of a familiar voice, lightly humming, was borne along thepassage; the light tread of a familiar foot was approaching. The editorturned quickly towards the open door, --so quickly that Mr. Bowers wasfain to turn also. 

For a charming instant the figure of Jack Hamlin, handsome, careless, and confident, was framed in the doorway. His dark eyes, with theirhabitual scorn of his average fellow-man, swept superciliously overMr. Bowers, and rested for an instant with caressing familiarity on theeditor. 

"Well, sonny, any news from the old girl at the Summit?"

"No-o, " hastily stammered the editor, with a half-hysterical laugh. "No, Jack. Excuse me a moment. "

"All right; busy, I see. Hasta manana. "

The picture vanished, the frame was empty. 

"You see, " continued the editor, turning to Mr. Bowers, "there has beena mistake. I"--but he stopped suddenly at the ashen face of Mr. Bowers, still fixed in the direction of the vanished figure. 

"Are you ill?"

Mr. Bowers did not reply, but slowly withdrew his eyes, and turned themheavily on the editor. Then, drawing a longer, deeper breath, he pickedup his soft felt hat, and, moulding it into shape in his hands as ifpreparing to put it on, he moistened his dry, grayish lips, and said, gently:--

"Friend o' yours?"

"Yes, " said the editor--"Jack Hamlin. Of course, you know him?"

"Yes. "

Mr. Bowers here put his hat on his head, and, after a pause, turnedround slowly once or twice, as if he had forgotten it, and was stillseeking it. Finally he succeeded in finding the editor's hand, and shookit, albeit his own trembled slightly. Then he said:--

"I reckon you're right. There's bin a mistake. I see it now. Good-by. If you're ever up my way, drop in and see me. " He then walked to thedoorway, passed out, and seemed to melt into the afternoon shadows ofthe hall. 

He never again entered the office of the "Excelsior Magazine, " neitherwas any further contribution ever received from White Violet. To apolite entreaty from the editor, addressed first to "White Violet"and then to Mrs. Delatour, there was no response. The thought of Mr. Hamlin's cynical prophecy disturbed him, but that gentleman, preoccupiedin filling some professional engagements in Sacramento, gave him nochance to acquire further explanations as to the past or the future. Theyouthful editor was at first in despair and filled with a vague remorseof some unfulfilled duty. But, to his surprise, the readers of themagazine seemed to survive their talented contributor, and the feverishlife that had been thrilled by her song, in two months had apparentlyforgotten her. Nor was her voice lifted from any alien quarter; thedomestic and foreign press that had echoed her lays seemed to respond nolonger to her utterance. 

It is possible that some readers of these pages may remember a previouschronicle by the same historian wherein it was recorded that thevolatile spirit of Mr. Hamlin, slightly assisted by circumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of the Blessed Fisherman, sometwo years later. As the editor stood beside the body of his friend onthe morning of the funeral, he noticed among the flowers laid upon hisbier by loving hands a wreath of white violets. Touched and disturbedby a memory long since forgotten, he was further embarrassed, as thecortege dispersed in the Mission graveyard, by the apparition of thetall figure of Mr. James Bowers from behind a monumental column. Theeditor turned to him quickly. 

"I am glad to see you here, " he said, awkwardly, and he knew notwhy; then, after a pause, "I trust you can give me some news of Mrs. Delatour. I wrote to her nearly two years ago, but had no response. "

"Thar's bin no Mrs. Delatour for two years, " said Mr. Bowers, contemplatively stroking his beard; "and mebbe that's why. She's bin fortwo years Mrs. Bowers. "

"I congratulate you, " said the editor; "but I hope there still remainsa White Violet, and that, for the sake of literature, she has not givenup"--

"Mrs. Bowers, " interrupted Mr. Bowers, with singular deliberation, "found that makin' po'try and tendin' to the cares of a growin'-upfamerly was irritatin' to the narves. They didn't jibe, so to speak. What Mrs. Bowers wanted--and what, po'try or no po'try, I've bin tryin'to give her--was Rest! She's bin havin' it comfor'bly up at my ranchat Mendocino, with her children and me. Yes, sir"--his eye wanderedaccidentally to the new-made grave--"you'll excuse my sayin' it to a manin your profession, but it's what most folks will find is a heap betterthan readin' or writin' or actin' po'try--and that's Rest!"

THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE

CHAPTER I

It had grown dark on Burnt Ridge. Seen from below, the whole serratedcrest that had glittered in the sunset as if its interstices were eatenby consuming fires, now, closed up its ranks of blackened shafts andbecame again harsh and sombre chevaux de frise against the sky. A faintglow still lingered over the red valley road, as if it were its ownreflection, rather than any light from beyond the darkened ridge. Nightwas already creeping up out of remote canyons and along the furrowedflanks of the mountain, or settling on the nearer woods with the soundof home-coming and innumerable wings. At a point where the road began toencroach upon the mountain-side in its slow winding ascent the darknesshad become so real that a young girl cantering along the rising terracefound difficulty in guiding her horse, with eyes still dazzled by thesunset fires. 

In spite of her precautions, the animal suddenly shied at some objectin the obscured roadway, and nearly unseated her. The accident disclosednot only the fact that she was riding in a man's saddle, but also a footand ankle that her ordinary walking-dress was too short to hide. It wasevident that her equestrian exercise was extempore, and that at thathour and on that road she had not expected to meet company. But she wasapparently a good horsewoman, for the mischance which might have throwna less practical or more timid rider seemed of little moment to her. With a strong hand and determined gesture she wheeled her frightenedhorse back into the track, and rode him directly at the object. But hereshe herself slightly recoiled, for it was the body of a man lying in theroad. 

As she leaned forward over her horse's shoulder, she could see by thedim light that he was a miner, and that, though motionless, he wasbreathing stertorously. Drunk, no doubt!--an accident of the localityalarming only to her horse. But although she cantered impatientlyforward, she had not proceeded a hundred yards before she stoppedreflectively, and trotted back again. He had not moved. She could nowsee that his head and shoulders were covered with broken clods of earthand gravel, and smaller fragments lay at his side. A dozen feet abovehim on the hillside there was a foot trail which ran parallel with thebridle-road, and occasionally overhung it. It seemed possible that hemight have fallen from the trail and been stunned. 

Dismounting, she succeeded in dragging him to a safer position by thebank. The act discovered his face, which was young, and unknown to her. Wiping it with the silk handkerchief which was loosely slung around hisneck after the fashion of his class, she gave a quick feminine glancearound her and then approached her own and rather handsome face near hislips. There was no odor of alcohol in the thick and heavy respiration. Mounting again, she rode forward at an accelerated pace, and in twentyminutes had reached a higher tableland of the mountain, a clearedopening in the forest that showed signs of careful cultivation, anda large, rambling, yet picturesque-looking dwelling, whose unpaintedred-wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open aswinging gate, she entered the inclosure as a brown-faced man, dressedas a vaquero, came towards her as if to assist her to alight. But shehad already leaped to the ground and thrown him the reins. 

"Miguel, " she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyishcontralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down theroad as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the rightbank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring himup here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to knowwho he is and where to take him. "

The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in disappointed expectationof some other command. "And your brother, senora, he has not himselfarrived. "

A light shadow of impatience crossed her face. "No, " she said, bluntly. "Come, be quick. "

She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already agaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was awaiting herwith his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and his lips movingquerulously. 

"Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tendto your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own flesh andblood, " he said aggrievedly. "That's all YOU care!"

"There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel to lookafter him, " returned the girl, with a certain contemptuous resignation. 

"Oh, yes!" struck in another voice, which seemed to belong to the femaleof the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in age and temper, "and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a squirrel on the fence, and either of 'em was more important to you than your own brother. "

"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message, " continuedthe young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner. "No one had anynews of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't expect any. "

"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the old man, sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself, and I wouldif I was master here, instead of me and your mother bein' the dust ofthe yearth beneath your feet. "

The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing anold woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her resentmentand a large Bible which she held clasped against her shawled bosomat the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up her large hatand slightly shook the red dust from her skirts as she continued herexplanation, in the same deep voice, with a certain monotony of logicand possibly of purpose and practice also. 

"You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is no more tobe depended upon than the wind that blows. It's three years since he hasbeen promising to come, and even getting money to come, and yet he hasnever showed his face, though he has been a dozen times within fivemiles of this house. He doesn't come because he doesn't want to come. Asto YOUR going over to the stage-office, I went there myself at the lastmoment to save you the mortification of asking questions of strangersthat they know have been a dozen times answered already. "

There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn byrepetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for one instanther two more emotional relatives quailed before it; but only for amoment. 

"That's right!" shrilled the old woman. "Go on and abuse your ownbrother. It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortune yet andshame you before the father and mother you despise. "

The young girl remained standing by the window, motionless andapparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usual punishment. But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and some incoherent snuffling, at which the younger went away. Whether she recognized in her mother'stears the ordinary deliquescence of emotion, or whether, as a womanherself, she knew that this mere feminine conventionality could notpossibly be directed at her, and that the actual conflict between themhad ceased, she passed slowly on to an inner hall, leaving the malevictim, her unfortunate father, to succumb, as he always did sooner orlater, to their influence. Crossing the hall, which was decorated with afew elk horns, Indian trophies, and mountain pelts, she entered anotherroom, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief. 

The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singular combination ofmasculine business occupations and feminine taste and adornment. A deskcovered with papers, a shelf displaying a ledger and account-books, another containing works of reference, a table with a vase of flowersand a lady's riding-whip upon it, a map of California flanked on eitherside by an embroidered silken workbag and an oval mirror decked withgrasses, a calendar and interest-table hanging below two school-girlcrayons of classic heads with the legend, "Josephine Forsythfecit, "--were part of its incongruous accessories. The young girlwent to her desk, but presently moved and turned towards the windowthoughtfully. The last gleam had died from the steel-blue sky; afew lights like star points began to prick out the lower valley. Theexpression of monotonous restraint and endurance had not yet faded fromher face. 

Yet she had been accustomed to scenes like the one she had just passedthough since her girlhood. Five years ago, Alexander Forsyth, her uncle, had brought her to this spot--then a mere log cabin on the hillside--asa refuge from the impoverished and shiftless home of his elder brotherThomas and his ill-tempered wife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason ofhis more dominant character and business capacity, had prospered untilhe became a rich and influential ranch owner. Notwithstanding herfather's jealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture thatfollowed between the brothers, Josephine retained her position in theheart and home of her uncle without espousing the cause of either; andher father was too prudent not to recognize the near and prospectiveadvantages of such a mediator. Accustomed to her parents' extravagantdenunciations, and her uncle's more repressed but practical contempt ofthem, the unfortunate girl early developed a cynical disbelief in thevirtues of kinship in the abstract, and a philosophical resignation toits effects upon her personally. Believing that her father and unclefairly represented the fraternal principle, she was quite prepared forthe early defection and distrust of her vagabond and dissipated brotherStephen, and accepted it calmly. True to an odd standard of justice, which she had erected from the crumbling ruins of her own domesticlife, she was tolerant of everything but human perfection. This quality, however fatal to her higher growth, had given her a peculiar capacityfor business which endeared her to her uncle. Familiar with thestrong passions and prejudices of men, she had none of those femininemeannesses, a wholesome distrust of which had kept her uncle a bachelor. It was not strange, therefore, that when he died two years ago it wasfound that he had left her his entire property, real and personal, limited only by a single condition. She was to undertake the vocationof a "sole trader, " and carry on the business under the name of "J. Forsyth. " If she married, the estate and property was to be helddistinct from her husband's, inalienable under the "Married Woman'sProperty Act, " and subject during her life only to her own control andpersonal responsibilities as a trader. 

The intense disgust and discomfiture of her parents, who had expected tomore actively participate in their brother's fortune, may be imagined. But it was not equal to their fury when Josephine, instead of providingfor them a separate maintenance out of her abundance, simply offered totransfer them and her brother to her own house on a domestic but nota business equality. There being no alternative but their formerprecarious shiftless life in their "played-out" claim in the valley, they wisely consented, reserving the sacred right of daily protest andobjurgation. In the economy of Burnt Ridge Ranch they alone took it uponthemselves to represent the shattered domestic altar and its outragedLares and Penates. And so conscientiously did they perform their taskas even occasionally to impede the business visitor to the ranch, and tocause some of the more practical neighbors seriously to doubt the younggirl's commercial wisdom. But she was firm. Whether she thought herparents a necessity of respectable domesticity, or whether she regardedtheir presence in the light of a penitential atonement for some previousdisregard of them, no one knew. Public opinion inclined to the latter. 

The black line of ridge faded out with her abstraction, and sheturned from the window and lit the lamp on her desk. The yellow lightilluminated her face and figure. In their womanly graces there was notrace of what some people believed to be a masculine character, excepta singularly frank look of critical inquiry and patient attention in herdark eyes. Her long brown hair was somewhat rigidly twisted into a knoton the top of her head, as if more for security than ornament. Brownwas also the prevailing tint of her eyebrows, thickly-set eyelashes, andeyes, and was even suggested in the slight sallowness of her complexion. But her lips were well-cut and fresh-colored and her hands and feetsmall and finely formed. She would have passed for a pretty girl, hadshe not suggested something more. 

She sat down, and began to examine a pile of papers before her with thatconcentration and attention to detail which was characteristic of hereyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her penholderbetween her lips, in the semblance of a pout that was pleasant enough tosee. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels struck her with the senseof something forgotten, and she put down her work quickly and stood uplistening. The sound of rough voices and her father's querulous accentswas broken upon by a cultivated and more familiar utterance: "All right;I'll speak to her at once. Wait there, " and the door opened to thewell-known physician of Burnt Ridge, Dr. Duchesne. 

"Look here, " he said, with an abruptness that was only saved from beingbrusque by a softer intonation and a reassuring smile, "I met Miguelhelping an accident into your buggy. Your orders, eh?"

"Oh, yes, " said Josephine, quietly. "A man I saw on the road. "

"Well, it's a bad case, and wants prompt attention. And as your house isthe nearest I came with him here. "

"Certainly, " she said gravely. "Take him to the second roombeyond--Steve's room--it's ready, " she explained to two dusky shadows inthe hall behind the doctor. 

"And look here, " said the doctor, partly closing the door behind himand regarding her with critical eyes, "you always said you'd like to seesome of my queer cases. Well, this is one--a serious one, too; in fact, it's just touch and go with him. There's a piece of the bone pressingon the brain no bigger than that, but as much as if all Burnt Ridge wasatop of him! I'm going to lift it. I want somebody here to stand by, some one who can lend a hand with a sponge, eh?--some one who isn'tgoing to faint or scream, or even shake a hair's-breadth, eh?"

The color rose quickly to the girl's cheek, and her eyes kindled. "I'llcome, " she said thoughtfully. "Who is he?"

The doctor stared slightly at the unessential query. "Don't know, --oneof the river miners, I reckon. It's an urgent case. I'll go and geteverything ready. You'd better, " he added, with an ominous glance ather gray frock, "put something over your dress. " The suggestion made hergrave, but did not alter her color. 

A moment later she entered the room. It was the one that had always beenset apart for her brother: the very bed on which the unconscious manlay had been arranged that morning with her own hands. Something ofthis passed through her mind as she saw that the doctor had wheeled itbeneath the strong light in the centre of the room, stripped itsouter coverings with professional thoughtfulness, and rearranged themattresses. But it did not seem like the same room. There was a pungentodor in the air from some freshly-opened phial; an almost feminineneatness and luxury in an open morocco case like a jewel box on thetable, shining with spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of herown servants, the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with themingled curiosity and blase experience of one accustomed to smashed andlacerated digits. At first she did not look at the central unconsciousfigure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have beenvicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces thatlooked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled before thebared white neck and shoulders displayed above the quilt, until, forcingherself to look upon the face half-concealed by bandages and the headfrom which the dark tangles of hair had been ruthlessly sheared, shebegan to share the doctor's unconcern in his personality. What matteredwho or what HE was? It was--a case!

The operation began. With the same earnest intelligence that she hadpreviously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the doctor'swhispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was conscious of asingular curiosity that, far from being mean or ignoble, seemed to lifther not only above the ordinary weaknesses of her own sex, but made hersuperior to the men around her. Almost before she knew it, the operationwas over, and she regarded with equal curiosity the ostentatioussolicitude with which the doctor seemed to be wiping his fatefulinstrument that bore an odd resemblance to a silver-handled centre-bit. The stertorous breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainterbut more natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. Thedoctor's hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of thesufferer. A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish facehad cleared; life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dulleyes participated in the glow. Dr. Duchesne with a sudden gesture wavedaside his companions, but not before Josephine had bent her head eagerlyforward. 

"He is coming to, " she said. 

At the sound of that deep clear voice--the first to break the hush ofthe room--the dull eyes leaped up, and the head turned in its direction. The lips moved and uttered a single rapid sentence. The girl recoiled. 

"You're all right now, " said the doctor, cheerfully, intent only uponthe form before him. 

The lips moved again, but this time feebly and vacantly; the eyes werestaring vaguely around. 

"What's matter? What's all about?" said the man, thickly. 

"You've had a fall. Think a moment. Where do you live?"

Again the lips moved, but this time only to emit a confused, incoherentmurmur. Dr. Duchesne looked grave, but recovered himself quickly. 

"That will do. Leave him alone now, " he said brusquely to the others. 

But Josephine lingered. 

"He spoke well enough just now, " she said eagerly. "Did you hear what hesaid?"

"Not exactly, " said the doctor, abstractedly, gazing at the man. 

"He said, 'You'll have to kill me first, '" said Josephine, slowly. 

"Humph;" said the doctor, passing his hand backwards and forwards beforethe man's eyes to note any change in the staring pupils. 

"Yes, " continued Josephine, gravely. "I suppose, " she added, cautiously, "he was thinking of the operation--of what you had just done to him?"

"What I had done to him? Oh, yes!"

CHAPTER II

Before noon the next day it was known throughout Burnt Ridge Valley thatDr. Duchesne had performed a difficult operation upon an unknown man, who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and carried to BurntRidge Ranch. But although the unfortunate man's life was saved by theoperation, he had only momentarily recovered consciousness--relapsinginto a semi-idiotic state, which effectively stopped the discoveryof any clue to his friends or his identity. As it was evidently anACCIDENT, which, in that rude community--and even in some more civilizedones--conveyed a vague impression of some contributary incapacity on thepart of the victim, or some Providential interference of a retributivecharacter, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It isunnecessary to say that Mr. And Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves andJosephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied fromthe first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted tohave a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranch, they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy betweenJosephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, ashe had already in the spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THEVERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen--eh?" said Mrs. Forsyth. "Tell me that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggyto bring him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh? Looks mightycurious, don't it?" she muttered darkly to the old man. But althoughthat gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely havesubmitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price ofinsuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt others were base enoughto do it; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions. 

Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further. Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment atthe incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's life, but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for thediagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable progress. Itwas a most interesting case. He would watch it carefully, and as soonas the patient could be removed would take him to the county hospital, where, under his own eyes, the poor fellow would have the benefit ofthe latest science and the highest specialists. Physically, he was doingremarkably well; indeed, he must have been a fine young chap, free fromblood taint or vicious complication, whose flesh had healed like aninfant's. It should be recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs. Forsyth first learnt that a SILVER PLATE let into the artful stranger'sskull was an adjunct of the healing process! Convinced that thisinfamous extravagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and wasonly the beginning of other assimilations of the Forsyths' metallicsubstance; that the plate was probably polished and burnished witha fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into thepossession and adornment of a perfect stranger, her rage knew no bounds. He or his friends ought to be made to pay for it or work it out! In vainit was declared that a few dollars were all that was found in the man'spocket, and that no memoranda gave any indication of his name, friends, or history beyond the suggestion that he came from a distance. This wasclearly a part of the conspiracy! Even Josephine's practical goodsense was obliged to take note of this singular absence of all recordregarding him, and the apparent obliteration of everything that might beresponsible for his ultimate fate. 

Homeless, friendless, helpless, and even nameless, the unfortunate manof twenty-five was thus left to the tender mercies of the mistress ofBurnt Ridge Ranch, as if he had been a new-born foundling laid at herdoor. But this mere claim of weakness was not all; it was supplementedby a singular personal appeal to Josephine's nature. From the time thathe turned his head towards her voice on that fateful night, his eyes hadalways followed her around the room with a wondering, yearning, caninehalf-intelligence. Without being able to convince herself that heunderstood her better than his regular attendant furnished by thedoctor, she could not fail to see that he obeyed her implicitly, andthat whenever any difficulty arose between him and his nurse she wasalways appealed to. Her pride in this proof of her practical sovereigntyWAS flattered; and when Doctor Duchesne finally admitted that althoughthe patient was now physically able to be removed to the hospital, yethe would lose in the change that very strong factor which Josephine hadbecome in his mental recovery, the young girl as frankly suggested thathe should stay as long as there was any hope of restoring his reason. Doctor Duchesne was delighted. With all his enthusiasm for science, hehad a professional distrust of some of its disciples, and perhaps wasnot sorry to keep this most interesting case in his own hands. Tohim her suggestion was only a womanly kindness, tempered with womanlycuriosity. But the astonishment and stupefaction of her parents at thisevident corroboration of suspicions they had as yet only half believedwas tinged with superstitious dread. Had she fallen in love with thishelpless stranger? or, more awful to contemplate, was he really nostranger, but a surreptitious lover thus strategically brought under herroof? For once they refrained from open criticism. The very magnitude oftheir suspicions left them dumb. 

It was thus that the virgin Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge Ranch was left togaze untrammeled upon her pale and handsome guest, whose silken, bearded lips and sad, childlike eyes might have suggested a more ExaltedSufferer in their absence of any suggestion of a grosser materialmanhood. But even this imaginative appeal did not enter into herfeelings. She felt for her good-looking, helpless patient a profoundand honest pity. I do not know whether she had ever heard that "pity wasakin to love. " She would probably have resented that utterly untenableand atrocious commonplace. There was no suggestion, real or illusive, of any previous masterful quality in the man which might have made hispresent dependent condition picturesque by contrast. He had come to herhandicapped by an unromantic accident and a practical want of energy andintellect. He would have to touch her interest anew if, indeed, hewould ever succeed in dispelling the old impression. His beauty, in acommunity of picturesquely handsome men, had little weight with her, except to accent the contrast with their fuller manhood. 

Her life had given her no illusions in regard to the other sex. She hadfound them, however, more congenial and safer companions than women, andmore accessible to her own sense of justice and honor. In return, theyhad respected and admired rather than loved her, in spite of her womanlygraces. If she had at times contemplated eventual marriage, it was onlyas a possible practical partnership in her business; but as she lived ina country where men thought it dishonorable and a proof of incompetencyto rise by their wives' superior fortune, she had been free from thatkind of mercenary persecution, even from men who might have worshipedher in hopeless and silent honor. 

For this reason, there was nothing in the situation that suggesteda single compromising speculation in the minds of the neighbors, ordisturbed her own tranquillity. There seemed to be nothing in the futureexcept a possible relief to her curiosity. Some day the unfortunateman's reason would be restored, and he would tell his simple history. Perhaps he might explain what was in his mind when he turned to herthe first evening with that singular sentence which had often recurredstrangely to her, she knew not why. It did not strike her until laterthat it was because it had been the solitary indication of an energy andcapacity that seemed unlike him. Nevertheless, after that explanation, she would have been quite willing to have shaken hands with him andparted. 

And yet--for there was an unexpressed remainder in her thought--shewas never entirely free or uninfluenced in his presence. The flickeringvacancy of his sad eyes sometimes became fixed with a resoluteimmobility under the gentle questioning with which she had sought todraw out his faculties, that both piqued and exasperated her. He couldsay "Yes" and "No, " as she thought intelligently, but he could not uttera coherent sentence nor write a word, except like a child in imitationof his copy. She taught him to repeat after her the names of theinanimate objects in the room, then the names of the doctor, hisattendant, the servant, and, finally, her own under her Christianprenomen, with frontier familiarity; but when she pointed to himself hewaited for HER to name him! In vain she tried him with all the masculinenames she knew; his was not one of them, or he would not or could notspeak it. For at times she rejected the professional dictum of thedoctor that the faculty of memory was wholly paralyzed or held inabeyance, even to the half-automatic recollection of his letters, yetshe inconsistently began to teach him the alphabet with the same method, and--in her sublime unconsciousness of his manhood--with thesame discipline as if he were a very child. When he had recoveredsufficiently to leave his room, she would lead him to the porch beforeher window, and make him contented and happy by allowing him to watchher at work at her desk, occasionally answering his wondering eyes witha word, or stirring his faculties with a question. I grieve to saythat her parents had taken advantage of this publicity and his supposedhelpless condition to show their disgust of his assumption, to theextreme of making faces at him--an act which he resented with such afurious glare that they retreated hurriedly to their own veranda. Afresh though somewhat inconsistent grievance was added to their previousindictment of him: "If we ain't found dead in our bed with our throatscut by that woman's crazy husband" (they had settled by this time thatthere had been a clandestine marriage), "we'll be lucky, " groaned Mrs. Forsyth. 

Meantime, the mountain summer waxed to its fullness of fire andfruition. There were days when the crowded forest seemed choked andimpeded with its own foliage, and pungent and stifling with its ownrank maturity; when the long hillside ranks of wild oats, thickset andimpassable, filled the air with the heated dust of germination. In thisquickening irritation of life it would be strange if the unfortunateman's torpid intellect was not helped in its awakening, and he wasallowed to ramble at will over the ranch; but with the instinct of adomestic animal he always returned to the house, and sat in the porch, where Josephine usually found him awaiting her when she herself returnedfrom a visit to the mill. Coming thence one day she espied him on themountain-side leaning against a projecting ledge in an attitude so raptand immovable that she felt compelled to approach him. He appeared tobe dumbly absorbed in the prospect, which might have intoxicated a sanermind. 

Half veiled by the heat that rose quiveringly from the fiery canyonbelow, the domain of Burnt Ridge stretched away before him, until, lifted in successive terraces hearsed and plumed with pines, it was atlast lost in the ghostly snow-peaks. But the practical Josephine seizedthe opportunity to try once more to awaken the slumbering memory of herpupil. Following his gaze with signs and questions, she sought to drawfrom him some indication of familiar recollection of certain points ofthe map thus unrolled behind him. But in vain. She even pointed out thefateful shadow of the overhanging ledge on the road where she had pickedhim up--there was no response in his abstracted eyes. She bit her lips;she was becoming irritated again. Then it occurred to her that, insteadof appealing to his hopeless memory, she had better trust to someunreflective automatic instinct independent of it, and she put thequestion a little forward: "When you leave us, where will you go fromhere?" He stirred slightly, and turned towards her. She repeated herquery slowly and patiently, with signs and gestures recognized betweenthem. A faint glow of intelligence struggled into his eyes: he liftedhis arm slowly, and pointed. 

"Ah! those white peaks--the Sierras?" she asked, eagerly. No reply. "Beyond them?"

"Yes. "

"The States?" No reply. "Further still?"

He remained so patiently quiet and still pointing that she leanedforward, and, following with her eyes the direction of his hand, sawthat he was pointing to the sky!

Then a great quiet fell upon them. The whole mountain-side seemed to herto be hushed, as if to allow her to grasp and realize for the first timethe pathos of the ruined life at her side, which IT had known so long, but which she had never felt till now. The tears came to her eyes; inher swift revulsion of feeling she caught the thin uplifted hand betweenher own. It seemed to her that he was about to raise them to his lips, but she withdrew them hastily, and moved away. She had a strange fearthat if he had kissed them, it might seem as if some dumb animal hadtouched them--or--IT MIGHT NOT. The next day she felt a consciousnessof this in his presence, and a wish that he was well-cured and away. Shedetermined to consult Dr. Duchesne on the subject when he next called. 

But the doctor, secure in the welfare of his patient, had not visitedhim lately, and she found herself presently absorbed in the business ofthe ranch, which at this season was particularly trying. There had alsobeen a quarrel between Dick Shipley, her mill foreman, and Miguel, herablest and most trusted vaquero, and in her strict sense of impartialjustice she was obliged to side on the merits of the case with Shipleyagainst her oldest retainer. This troubled her, as she knew that withthe Mexican nature, fidelity and loyalty were not unmixed with quick andunreasoning jealousy. For this reason she was somewhat watchful of thetwo men when work was over, and there was a chance of their beingthrown together. Once or twice she had remained up late to meet Miguelreturning from the posada at San Ramon, filled with aguardiente and arecollection of his wrongs, and to see him safely bestowed before sheherself retired. It was on one of those occasions, however, that shelearned that Dick Shipley, hearing that Miguel had disparaged him freelyat the posada, had broken the discipline of the ranch, and absentedhimself the same night that Miguel "had leave, " with a view of facinghis antagonist on his own ground. To prevent this, the fearless girl atonce secretly set out alone to overtake and bring back the delinquent. 

For two or three hours the house was thus left to the sole occupancy ofMr. And Mrs. Forsyth and the invalid--a fact only dimly suspected by thelatter, who had become vaguely conscious of Josephine's anxiety, and hadnoticed the absence of light and movement in her room. For this reason, therefore, having risen again and mechanically taken his seat in theporch to await her return, he was startled by hearing HER voice in theshadow of the lower porch, accompanied by a hurried tapping against thedoor of the old couple. The half-reasoning man arose, and would havemoved towards it, but suddenly he stopped rigidly, with white and partedlips and vacantly distended eyeballs. 

Meantime the voice and muffled tapping had brought the tremulous fingersof old Forsyth to the door-latch. He opened the door partly; a slightfigure that had been lurking in the shadow of the porch pushed rapidlythrough the opening. There was a faint outcry quickly hushed, and thedoor closed again. The rays of a single candle showed the two old peoplehysterically clasping in their arms the figure that had entered--aslight but vicious-looking young fellow of five-and-twenty. 

"There, d--n it!" he said impatiently, in a voice whose rich depth waslike Josephine's, but whose querulous action was that of the two oldpeople before him, "let me go, and quit that, I didn't come here to bestrangled! I want some money--money, you hear! Devilish quick, too, forI've got to be off again before daylight. So look sharp, will you?"

"But, Stevy dear, when you didn't come that time three months ago, butwrote from Los Angeles, you said you'd made a strike at last, and"--

"What are you talking about?" he interrupted violently. "That was justmy lyin' to keep you from worryin' me. Three months ago--three monthsago! Why, you must have been crazy to have swallowed it; I hadn't acent. "

"Nor have we, " said the old woman, shrilly. "That hellish sister ofyours still keeps us like beggars. Our only hope was you, our own boy. And now you only come to--to go again. "

"But SHE has money; SHE'S doing well, and SHE shall give it to me, "he went on, angrily. "She can't bully me with her business airs andmorality. Who else has got a right to share, if it is not her ownbrother?"

Alas for the fatuousness of human malevolence! Had the unhappy couplerelated only the simple facts they knew about the new guest of BurntRidge Ranch, and the manner of his introduction, they might have sparedwhat followed. 

But the old woman broke into a vindictive cry: "Who else, Steve--whoelse? Why, the slut has brought a MAN here--a sneaking, deceitful, underhanded, crazy lover!"

"Oh, has she?" said the young man, fiercely, yet secretly pleased atthis promising evidence of his sister's human weakness. "Where is she?I'll go to her. She's in her room, I suppose, " and before they couldrestrain him, he had thrown off their impeding embraces and dartedacross the hall. 

The two old people stared doubtfully at each other. For even thispowerful ally, whose strength, however, they were by no means sureof, might succumb before the determined Josephine! Prudence demanded amiddle course. "Ain't they brother and sister?" said the old man, withan air of virtuous toleration. "Let 'em fight it out. "

The young man impatiently entered the room he remembered to have beenhis sister's. By the light of the moon that streamed upon the windowhe could see she was not there. He passed hurriedly to the door of herbedroom; it was open; the room was empty, the bed unturned. She was notin the house--she had gone to the mill. Ah! What was that they had said?An infamous thought passed through the scoundrel's mind. Then, in whathe half believed was an access of virtuous fury, he began by the dimlight to rummage in the drawers of the desk for such loose coin orvaluables as, in the perfect security of the ranch, were often leftunguarded. Suddenly he heard a heavy footstep on the threshold, andturned. 

An awful vision--a recollection, so unexpected, so ghostlike in thatweird light that he thought he was losing his senses--stood before him. It moved forwards with staring eyeballs and white and open lips fromwhich a horrible inarticulate sound issued that was the speech of noliving man! With a single desperate, almost superhuman effort StephenForsyth bounded aside, leaped from the window, and ran like a madmanfrom the house. Then the apparition trembled, collapsed, and sank in anundistinguishable heap to the ground. 

When Josephine Forsyth returned an hour later with her mill foreman, shewas startled to find her helpless patient in a fit on the floor of herroom. With the assistance of her now converted and penitent employee, she had the unfortunate man conveyed to his room--but not until she hadthoughtfully rearranged the disorder of her desk and closed the opendrawers without attracting Dick Shipley's attention. In the morning, hearing that the patient was still in the semiconscious exhaustion ofhis late attack, but without seeing him, she sent for Dr. Duchesne. Thedoctor arrived while she was absent at the mill, where, after a carefulexamination of his patient, he sought her with some little excitement. 

"Well?" she said, with eager gravity. 

"Well, it looks as if your wish would be gratified. Your friend hashad an epileptic fit, but the physical shock has started his mentalmachinery again. He has recovered his faculties; his memory isreturning: he thinks and speaks coherently; he is as sane as you and I. "

"And"--said Josephine, questioning the doctor's knitted eyebrows. 

"I am not yet sure whether it was the result of some shock he doesn'tremember; or an irritation of the brain, which would indicate that theoperation had not been successful and that there was still some physicalpressure or obstruction there--in which case he would be subject tothese attacks all his life. "

"Do you think his reason came before the fit or after?" asked the girl, anxiously. 

"I couldn't say. Had anything happened?"

"I was away, and found him on the floor on my return, " she answered, half uneasily. After a pause she said, "Then he has told you his nameand all about himself?"

"Yes, it's nothing at all! He was a stranger just arrived from theStates, going to the mines--the old story; had no near relations, ofcourse; wasn't missed or asked after; remembers walking along the ridgeand falling over; name, John Baxter, of Maine. " He paused, and relaxinginto a slight smile, added, "I haven't spoiled your romance, have I?"

"No, " she said, with an answering smile. Then as the doctor walkedbriskly away she slightly knitted her pretty brows, hung her head, patted the ground with her little foot beyond the hem of her gown, andsaid to herself, "The man was lying to him. "

CHAPTER III

On her return to the house, Josephine apparently contented herself withreceiving the bulletin of the stranger's condition from the servant, forshe did not enter his room. She had obtained no theory of last night'sincident from her parents, who, beyond a querulous agitation that wasquickened by the news of his return to reason, refrained from even thatinsidious comment which she half feared would follow. When anotherday passed without her seeing him, she nevertheless was conscious of alittle embarrassment when his attendant brought her the request thatshe would give him a moment's speech in the porch, whither he had beenremoved. 

She found him physically weaker; indeed, so much so that she was fain, even in her embarrassment, to assist him back to the bench from whichhe had ceremoniously risen. But she was so struck with the change inhis face and manner, a change so virile and masterful, in spite of itsgentle sadness of manner, that she recoiled with a slight timidity as ifhe had been a stranger, although she was also conscious that he seemedto be more at his ease than she was. He began in a low exhausted voice, but before he had finished his first sentence, she felt herself in thepresence of a superior. 

"My thanks come very late, Miss Forsyth, " he said, with a faint smile, "but no one knows better than yourself the reason why, or can betterunderstand that they mean that the burden you have so generously takenon yourself is about to be lifted. I know all, Miss Forsyth. Sinceyesterday I have learned how much I owe you, even my life I believe, though I am afraid I must tell you in the same breath that THAT is oflittle worth to any one. You have kindly helped and interested yourselfin a poor stranger who turns out to be a nobody, without friends, without romance, and without even mystery. You found me lying in theroad down yonder, after a stupid accident that might have happened toany other careless tramp, and which scarcely gave me a claim to a bedin the county hospital, much less under this kindly roof. It was not myfault, as you know, that all this did not come out sooner; but while itdoesn't lessen your generosity, it doesn't lessen my debt, and althoughI cannot hope to ever repay you, I can at least keep the score fromrunning on. Pardon my speaking so bluntly, but my excuse for speaking atall was to say 'Good-by' and 'God bless you. ' Dr. Duchesne has promisedto give me a lift on my way in his buggy when he goes. "

There was a slight touch of consciousness in his voice in spite of itssadness, which struck the young girl as a weak and even ungentlemanlynote in his otherwise self-abnegating and undemonstrative attitude. Ifhe was a common tramp, he wouldn't talk in that way, and if he wasn't, why did he lie? Her practical good sense here asserted itself. 

"But you are far from strong yet; in fact, the doctor says you mighthave a relapse at any moment, and you have--that is, you SEEM to have nomoney, " she said gravely. 

"That's true, " he said, quickly. "I remember I was quite played out whenI entered the settlement, and I think I had parted from even some littletrifles I carried with me. I am afraid I was a poor find to those whopicked me up, and you ought to have taken warning. But the doctor hasoffered to lend me enough to take me to San Francisco, if only to give afair trial to the machine he has set once more a-going. "

"Then you have friends in San Francisco?" said the young girl quickly. "Those who know you? Why not write to them first, and tell them you arehere?"

"I don't think your postmaster here would be preoccupied with lettersfor John Baxter, if I did, " he said, quietly. "But here is the doctorwaiting. Good-by. "

He stood looking at her in a peculiar, yet half-resigned way, and heldout his hand. For a moment she hesitated. Had he been less independentand strong, she would have refused to let him go--have offered himsome slight employment at the ranch; for oddly enough, in spite of thesuspicion that he was concealing something, she felt that she would havetrusted him, and he would have been a help to her. But he was not onlydetermined, but SHE was all the time conscious that he was a totallydifferent man from the one she had taken care of, and merely ordinaryprudence demanded that she should know something more of him first. Shegave him her hand constrainedly; he pressed it warmly. 

Dr. Duchesne drove up, helped him into the buggy, smiled a good-naturedbut half-perfunctory assurance that he would look after "her patient, "and drove away. 

The whole thing was over, but so unexpectedly, so suddenly, sounromantically, so unsatisfactorily, that, although her common sensetold her that it was perfectly natural, proper, business-like, andreasonable, and, above all, final and complete, she did not know whetherto laugh or be angry. Yet this was her parting from the man who had buta few days ago moved her to tears with a single hopeless gesture. Well, this would teach her what to expect. Well, what had she expected?Nothing!

Yet for the rest of the day she was unreasonably irritable, and, if theconjointure be not paradoxical, severely practical, and inhumanlyjust. Falling foul of some presumption of Miguel's, based upon hisprescriptive rights through long service on the estate, with therecollection of her severity towards his antagonist in her mind, sherated that trusted retainer with such pitiless equity and unfemininelogic that his hot Latin blood chilled in his veins, and he stood lividon the road. Then, informing Dick Shipley with equally relentless calmthat she might feel it necessary to change ALL her foremen unlessthey could agree in harmony, she sought the dignified seclusion ofher castle. But her respected parents, whose triumphant relief at thestranger's departure had emboldened them to await her return in theirporch with bended bows of invective and lifted javelins of aggression, recoiled before the resistless helm of this cold-browed Minerva, whogalloped contemptuously past them. 

Nevertheless, she sat late that night at her desk. The cold moon lookeddown upon her window, and lit up the empty porch where her silent guesthad mutely watched her. For a moment she regretted that he had recoveredhis reason, excusing herself on the practical ground that he would neverhave known his dependence, and he would have been better cared forby her. She felt restless and uneasy. This slight divergence from thepractical groove in which her life had been set had disturbed her inmany other things, and given her the first views of the narrowness ofit. 

Suddenly she heard a step in the porch. The lateness of the hour, perhaps some other reason, seemed to startle her, and she half rose. The next moment the figure of Miguel appeared at the doorway, and witha quick, hurried look around him, and at the open window, he approachedher. He was evidently under great excitement, his hollow shavencheek looked like a waxen effigy in the mission church; his yellow, tobacco-stained eye glittered like phosphorescent amber, his lankgray hair was damp and perspiring; but more striking than this was theevident restraint he had put upon himself, pressing his broad-brimmedsombrero with both of his trembling yellow hands against his breast. Theyoung girl cast a hurried glance at the open window and at the gun whichstood in the corner, and then confronted him with clear and steady eyes, but a paler cheek. 

Ah, he began in Spanish, which he himself had taught her as a child, it was a strange thing, his coming there to-night; but, then, mother ofGod! it was a strange, a terrible thing that she had done to him--oldMiguel, her uncle's servant: he that had known her as a muchacha; hethat had lived all his life at the ranch--ay, and whose fathers beforehim had lived there all THEIR lives and driven the cattle over the veryspot where she now stood, before the thieving Americans came here! Buthe would be calm; yes, the senora should find him calm, even as shewas when she told him to go. He would not speak. No, he--Miguel--wouldcontain himself; yes, he HAD mastered himself, but could he restrainothers? Ah, yes, OTHERS--that was it. Could he keep Manuel and Pepe andDominguez from talking to the milkman--that leaking sieve, that gabblingbrute of a Shipley, for whose sake she had cast off her old servant thatvery day?

She looked at him with cold astonishment, but without fear. Was he drunkwith aguardiente, or had his jealousy turned his brain? He continuedgasping, but still pressing his hat against his breast. 

Ah, he saw it all! Yes, it was to-day, the day he left. Yes, she hadthought it safe to cast Miguel off now--now that HE was gone!

Without in the least understanding him, the color had leaped to hercheek, and the consciousness of it made her furious. 

"How dare you?" she said, passionately. "What has that stranger to dowith my affairs or your insolence?"

He stopped and gazed at her with a certain admiring loyalty. "Ah! so, "he said, with a deep breath, "the senora is the niece of her uncle. Shedoes well not to fear HIM--a dog, "--with a slight shrug, --"who is morethan repaid by the senora's condescension. HE dare not speak!"

"Who dare not speak? Are you mad?" She stopped with a sudden terribleinstinct of apprehension. "Miguel, " she said in her deepest voice, "answer me, I command you! Do you know anything of this man?"

It was Miguel's turn to recoil from his mistress. "Ah, my God! is itpossible the senora has not suspect?"

"Suspect!" said Josephine, haughtily, albeit her proud heart was beatingquickly. "I SUSPECT nothing. I command you to tell me what you KNOW. "

Miguel turned with a rapid gesture and closed the door. Then, drawingher away from the window, he said in a hurried whisper, --

"I know that that man has not the name of Baxter! I know that he hasthe name of Randolph, a young gambler, who have won a large sum atSacramento, and, fearing to be robbed by those he won of, have walkto himself through the road in disguise of a miner. I know that yourbrother Esteban have decoyed him here, and have fallen on him. "

"Stop!" said the young girl, her eyes, which had been fixed with theagony of conviction, suddenly flashing with the energy of despair. "Andyou call yourself the servant of my uncle, and dare say this of hisnephew?"

"Yes, senora, " broke out the old man, passionately. "It is because I amthe servant of your uncle that I, and I ALONE, dare say it to you! Itis because I perjured my soul, and have perjured my soul to deny itelsewhere, that I now dare to say it! It is because I, your servant, knew it from one of my countrymen, who was of the gang, --because I, Miguel, knew that your brother was not far away that night, and becauseI, whom you would dismiss, have picked up this pocket-book of Randolph'sand your brother's ring which he have dropped, and I have found beneaththe body of the man you sent me to fetch. "

He drew a packet from his bosom, and tossed it on the desk before her. 

"And why have you not told me this before?" said Josephine, passionately. 

Miguel shrugged his shoulders. 

"What good? Possibly this dog Randolph would die. Possibly he wouldlive--as a lunatic. Possibly would happen what has happened! The senorais beautiful. The American has eyes. If the Dona Josephine's beautyshall finish what the silly Don Esteban's arm have begun--what matter?"

"Stop!" cried Josephine, pressing her hands across her shuddering eyes. Then, uncovering her white and set face, she said rapidly, "Saddle myhorse and your own at once. Then take your choice! Come with me andrepeat all that you have said in the presence of that man, or leave thisranch forever. For if I live I shall go to him tonight, and tell thewhole story. "

The old man cast a single glance at his mistress, shrugged hisshoulders, and, without a word, left the room. But in ten minutes theywere on their way to the county town. 

Day was breaking over the distant Burnt Ridge--a faint, ghostly level, like a funeral pall, in the dim horizon--as they drew up before thegaunt, white-painted pile of the hospital building. Josephine uttereda cry. Dr. Duchesne's buggy was before the door. On its very thresholdthey met the doctor, dark and irritated. "Then you heard the news?" hesaid, quickly. 

Josephine turned her white face to the doctor's. "What news?" she asked, in a voice that seemed strangely deep and resonant. 

"The poor fellow had another attack last night, and died of exhaustionabout an hour ago. I was too late to save him. "

"Did he say anything? Was he conscious?" asked the girl, hoarsely. 

"No; incoherent! Now I think of it, he harped on the same string as hedid the night of the operation. What was it he said? you remember. "

"'You'll have to kill me first, '" repeated Josephine, in a chokingvoice. 

"Yes; something about his dying before he'd tell. Well, he came back toit before he went off--they often do. You seem a little hoarse with yourmorning ride. You should take care of that voice of yours. By the way, it's a good deal like your brother's. "

*****

The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge never married. 

THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT

CHAPTER I

It was an enormous wheat-field in the Santa Clara valley, stretching tothe horizon line unbroken. The meridian sun shone upon it without glintor shadow; but at times, when a stronger gust of the trade winds passedover it, there was a quick slanting impression of the whole surface thatwas, however, as unlike a billow as itself was unlike a sea. Even whena lighter zephyr played down its long level, the agitation wassuperficial, and seemed only to momentarily lift a veil of greenishmist that hung above its immovable depths. Occasional puffs of dustalternately rose and fell along an imaginary line across the field, as if a current of air were passing through it, but were otherwiseinexplicable. 

Suddenly a faint shout, apparently somewhere in the vicinity of theline, brought out a perfectly clear response, followed by the audiblemurmur of voices, which it was impossible to localize. Yet the wholefield was so devoid of any suggestion of human life or motion thatit seemed rather as if the vast expanse itself had become suddenlyarticulate and intelligible. 

"Wot say?"

"Wheel off. "

"Whare?"

"In the road. "

One of the voices here indicated itself in the direction of the line ofdust, and said, "Comin', " and a man stepped out from the wheat into abroad and dusty avenue. 

With his presence three things became apparent. 

First, that the puffs of dust indicated the existence of the invisibleavenue through the unlimited and unfenced field of grain; secondly, thatthe stalks of wheat on either side of it were so tall as to actuallyhide a passing vehicle; and thirdly, that a vehicle had just passed, hadlost a wheel, and been dragged partly into the grain by its frightenedhorse, which a dusty man was trying to restrain and pacify. 

The horse, given up to equine hysterics, and evidently convinced thatthe ordinary buggy behind him had been changed into some dangerous andappalling creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himselfof it. The man who had stepped out of the depths of the wheat quicklycrossed the road, unhitched the traces, drew back the vehicle, and, glancing at the traveler's dusty and disordered clothes, said, with curtsympathy:--

"Spilt, too; but not hurt, eh?"

"No, neither of us. I went over with the buggy when the wheel cramped, but SHE jumped clear. "

He made a gesture indicating the presence of another. The man turnedquickly. There was a second figure, a young girl standing beside thegrain from which he had emerged, embracing a few stalks of wheat withone arm and a hand in which she still held her parasol, while shegrasped her gathered skirts with the other, and trying to find a securefoothold for her two neat narrow slippers on a crumbling cake of adobeabove the fathomless dust of the roadway. Her face, although annoyedand discontented, was pretty, and her light dress and slim figure weresuggestive of a certain superior condition. 

The man's manner at once softened with Western courtesy. He swunghis broad-brimmed hat from his head, and bent his body with theceremoniousness of the country ball-room. "I reckon the lady had bettercome up to the shanty out o' the dust and sun till we kin help you getthese things fixed, " he said to the driver. "I'll send round by the roadfor your hoss, and have one of mine fetch up your wagon. "

"Is it far?" asked the girl, slightly acknowledging his salutation, without waiting for her companion to reply. 

"Only a step this way, " he answered, motioning to the field of wheatbeside her. 

"What in THERE? I never could go in there, " she said, decidedly. 

"It's a heap shorter than by the road, and not so dusty. I'll go withyou, and pilot you. "

The young girl cast a vexed look at her companion as the probable causeof all this trouble, and shook her head. But at the same moment onelittle foot slipped from the adobe into the dust again. She instantlyclambered back with a little feminine shriek, and ejaculated: "Well, of all things!" and then, fixing her blue annoyed eyes on the stranger, asked impatiently, "Why couldn't I go there by the road 'n the wagon? Icould manage to hold on and keep in. "

"Because I reckon you'd find it too pow'ful hot waitin' here till we gotround to ye. "

There was no doubt it was very hot; the radiation from the bakingroadway beating up under her parasol, and pricking her cheekbones andeyeballs like needles. She gave a fastidious little shudder, furled herparasol, gathered her skirts still tighter, faced about, and said, "Goon, then. " The man slipped backwards into the ranks of stalks, partingthem with one hand, and holding out the other as if to lead her. Butshe evaded the invitation by holding her tightly-drawn skirt with bothhands, and bending her head forward as if she had not noticed it. Thenext moment the road, and even the whole outer world, disappeared behindthem, and they seemed floating in a choking green translucent mist. 

But the effect was only momentary; a few steps further she found thatshe could walk with little difficulty between the ranks of stalks, whichwere regularly spaced, and the resemblance now changed to that of a longpillared conservatory of greenish glass, that touched all objects withits pervading hue. She also found that the close air above her headwas continually freshened by the interchange of currents of lowertemperature from below, --as if the whole vast field had a circulation ofits own, --and that the adobe beneath her feet was gratefully cool toher tread. There was no dust, as he had said; what had at first halfsuffocated her seemed to be some stimulating aroma of creation thatfilled the narrow green aisles, and now imparted a strange vigor andexcitement to her as she walked along. Meantime her guide was notconversationally idle. Now, no doubt, she had never seen anything likethis before? It was ordinary wheat, only it was grown on adobe soil--therichest in the valley. These stalks, she could see herself, were ten andtwelve feet high. That was the trouble, they all ran too much to stalk, though the grain yield was "suthen' pow'ful. " She could tell that toher friends, for he reckoned she was the only young lady that had everwalked under such a growth. Perhaps she was new to Californy? He thoughtso from the start. Well, this was Californy, and this was not the leastof the ways it could "lay over" every other country on God's yearth. Many folks thought it was the gold and the climate, but she could seefor herself what it could do with wheat. He wondered if her brother hadever told, her of it? No, the stranger wasn't her brother. Nor cousin, nor company? No; only the hired driver from a San Jose hotel, who wastakin' her over to Major Randolph's. Yes, he knew the old major; theranch was a pretty place, nigh unto three miles further on. Now that heknew the driver was no relation of hers he didn't mind telling her thatthe buggy was a "rather old consarn, " and the driver didn't know hisbusiness. Yes, it might be fixed up so as to take her over to themajor's; there was one of their own men--a young fellow--who could doanything that COULD be done with wood and iron, --a reg'lar genius!--andHE'D tackle it. It might take an hour, but she'd find it quite coolwaiting in the shanty. It was a rough place, for they only camped outthere during the season to look after the crop, and lived at their ownhomes the rest of the time. Was she going to stay long at the major's?He noticed she had not brought her trunk with her. Had she known themajor's wife long? Perhaps she thought of settling in the neighborhood?

All this naive, good-humored questioning--so often cruelly misunderstoodas mere vulgar curiosity, but as often the courteous instinct of simpleunaffected people to entertain the stranger by inviting him to talk ofwhat concerns himself rather than their own selves--was nevertheless, I fear, met only by monosyllables from the young lady or an impatientquestion in return. She scarcely raised her eyes to the broadjean-shirted back that preceded her through the grain until theman abruptly ceased talking, and his manner, without losing itshalf-paternal courtesy, became graver. She was beginning to be consciousof her incivility, and was trying to think of something to say, whenhe exclaimed with a slight air of relief, "Here we are!" and the shantysuddenly appeared before them. 

It certainly was very rough--a mere shell of unpainted boards thatscarcely rose above the level of the surrounding grain, and a few yardsdistant was invisible. Its slightly sloping roof, already warped andshrunken into long fissures that permitted glimpses of the steel-bluesky above, was evidently intended only as a shelter from the cloudlesssun in those two months of rainless days and dewless nights when it wasinhabited. Through the open doors and windows she could see a row of"bunks, " or rude sleeping berths against the walls, furnished withcoarse mattresses and blankets. As the young girl halted, the manwith an instinct of delicacy hurried forward, entered the shanty, anddragging a rude bench to the doorway, placed it so that she could sitbeneath the shade of the roof, yet with her back to these domesticrevelations. Two or three men, who had been apparently lounging there, rose quietly, and unobtrusively withdrew. Her guide brought her a tincup of deliciously cool water, exchanged a few hurried words with hiscompanions, and then disappeared with them, leaving her alone. 

Her first sense of relief from their company was, I fear, stronger thanany other feeling. After a hurried glance around the deserted apartment, she arose, shook out her dress and mantle, and then going into thedarkest corner supported herself with one hand against the wall whilewith the other she drew off, one by one, her slippers from her slim, striped-stockinged feet, shook and blew out the dust that had penetratedwithin, and put them on again. Then, perceiving a triangular fragmentof looking-glass nailed against the wall, she settled the strings of herbonnet by the aid of its reflection, patted the fringe of brown hair onher forehead with her separated five fingers as if playing an imaginarytune on her brow, and came back with maidenly abstraction to thedoorway. 

Everything was quiet, and her seclusion seemed unbroken. A smile playedfor an instant in the soft shadows of her eyes and mouth as she recalledthe abrupt withdrawal of the men. Then her mouth straightened and herbrows slightly bent. It was certainly very unmannerly in them to go offin that way. "Good heavens! couldn't they have stayed around withouttalking? Surely it didn't require four men to go and bring up thatwagon!" She picked up her parasol from the bench with an impatientlittle jerk. Then she held out her ungloved hand into the hot sunshinebeyond the door with the gesture she would have used had it beenraining, and withdrew it as quickly--her hand quite scorched inthe burning rays. Nevertheless, after another impatient pause shedesperately put up her parasol and stepped from the shanty. 

Presently she was conscious of a faint sound of hammering not far away. Perhaps there was another shed, but hidden, like everything else, inthis monotonous, ridiculous grain. Some stalks, however, were troddendown and broken around the shanty; she could move more easily and seewhere she was going. To her delight, a few steps further brought herinto a current of the trade-wind and a cooler atmosphere. And a shortdistance beyond them, certainly, was the shed from which the hammeringproceeded. She approached it boldly. 

It was simply a roof upheld by rude uprights and crossbeams, and opento the breeze that swept through it. At one end was a small blacksmith'sforge, some machinery, and what appeared to be part of a smallsteam-engine. Midway of the shed was a closet or cupboard fastened witha large padlock. Occupying its whole length on the other side was awork-bench, and at the further end stood the workman she had heard. 

He was apparently only a year or two older than herself, and clad inblue jean overalls, blackened and smeared with oil and coal-dust. Evenhis youthful face, which he turned towards her, had a black smudgerunning across it and almost obliterating a small auburn moustache. Thelook of surprise that he gave her, however, quickly passed; he remainedpatiently and in a half-preoccupied way, holding his hammer in hishand, as she advanced. This was evidently the young fellow who could "doanything that could be done with wood and iron. "

She was very sorry to disturb him, but could he tell her how long itwould be before the wagon could be brought up and mended? He could notsay that until he himself saw what was to be done; if it was only amatter of the wheel he could fix it up in a few moments; if, as he hadbeen told, it was a case of twisted or bent axle, it would take longer, but it would be here very soon. Ah, then, would he let her wait here, asshe was very anxious to know at once, and it was much cooler than in theshed? Certainly; he would go over and bring her a bench. But here shebegged he wouldn't trouble himself, she could sit anywhere comfortably. 

The lower end of the work-bench was covered with clean and odorousshavings; she lightly brushed them aside and, with a youthful movement, swung herself to a seat upon it, supporting herself on one hand asshe leaned towards him. She could thus see that his eyes were of alight-yellowish brown, like clarified honey, with a singular look ofclear concentration in them, which, however, was the same whether turnedupon his work, the surrounding grain, or upon her. This, and his sublimeunconsciousness of the smudge across his face and his blackened hands, made her wonder if the man who could do everything with wood and ironwas above doing anything with water. She had half a mind to tell him ofit, particularly as she noticed also that his throat below the lineof sunburn disclosed by his open collar was quite white, and his grimyhands well made. She was wondering whether he would be affronted if shesaid in her politest way, "I beg your pardon, but do you know youhave quite accidentally got something on your face, " and offer herhandkerchief, which, of course, he would decline, when her eye fell onthe steam-engine. 

"How odd! Do you use that on the farm?"

"No, "--he smiled here, the smudge accenting it and setting off his whiteteeth in a Christy Minstrel fashion that exasperated her--no, althoughit COULD be used, and had been. But it was his first effort, made twoyears ago, when he was younger and more inexperienced. It was a ratherrough thing, she could see--but he had to make it at odd times withwhat iron he could pick up or pay for, and at different forges where heworked. 

She begged his pardon--where--

WHERE HE WORKED. 

Ah, then he was the machinist or engineer here?

No, he worked here just like the others, only he was allowed to put up aforge while the grain was green, and have his bench in consideration ofthe odd jobs he could do in the way of mending tools, etc. There wasa heap of mending and welding to do--she had no idea how quicklyagricultural machines got out of order! He had done much of his work onthe steam-engine on moonlit nights. Yes; she had no idea how perfectlyclear and light it was here in the valley on such nights; although ofcourse the shadows were very dark, and when he dropped a screw or a nutit was difficult to find. He had worked there because it saved timeand because it didn't cost anything, and he had nobody to look on orinterfere with him. No, it was not lonely; the coyotes and wild catssometimes came very near, but were always more surprised and frightenedthan he was; and once a horseman who had strayed off the distant roadyonder mistook him for an animal and shot at him twice. 

He told all this with such freedom from embarrassment and with suchapparent unconsciousness of the blue eyes that were following him, andthe light, graceful figure, --which was so near his own that in someof his gestures his grimy hands almost touched its delicategarments, --that, accustomed as she was to a certain masculine aberrationin her presence, she was greatly amused by his naive acceptance of heras an equal. Suddenly, looking frankly in her face, he said:

"I'll show you a secret, if you care to see it. "

Nothing would please her more. 

He glanced hurriedly around, took a key from his pocket, and unlockedthe padlock that secured the closet she had noticed. Then, reachingwithin, with infinite care he brought out a small mechanical model. 

"There's an invention of my own. A reaper and thresher combined. I'mgoing to have it patented and have a big one made from this model. Thiswill work, as you see. "

He then explained to her with great precision how as it moved over thefield the double operation was performed by the same motive power. Thatit would be a saving of a certain amount of labor and time which shecould not remember. She did not understand a word of his explanations;she saw only a clean and pretty but complicated toy that under themanipulation of his grimy fingers rattled a number of frail-like stavesand worked a number of wheels and drums, yet there was no indication ofher ignorance in her sparkling eyes and smiling, breathless attitude. Perhaps she was interested in his own absorption; the revelation ofhis preoccupation with this model struck her as if he had made hera confidante of some boyish passion for one of her own sex, and sheregarded him with the same sympathizing superiority. 

"You will make a fortune out of it, " she said pleasantly. 

Well, he might make enough to be able to go on with some otherinventions he had in his mind. They cost money and time, no matter howcareful one was. 

This was another interesting revelation to the young girl. He not onlydid not seem to care for the profit his devotion brought him, but evenhis one beloved ideal might be displaced by another. So like a man, after all!

Her reflections were broken upon by the sound of voices. The young mancarefully replaced the model in its closet with a parting glance as ifhe was closing a shrine, and said, "There comes the wagon. " The younggirl turned to face the men who were dragging it from the road, withthe half-complacent air of having been victorious over their late rudeabandonment, but they did not seem to notice it or to be surprisedat her companion, who quickly stepped forward and examined the brokenvehicle with workmanlike deliberation. 

"I hope you will be able to do something with it, " she said sweetly, appealing directly to him. "I should thank you SO MUCH. "

He did not reply. Presently he looked up to the man who had brought herto the shanty, and said, "The axle's strained, but it's safe for five orsix miles more of this road. I'll put the wheel on easily. " He paused, and without glancing at her, continued, "You might send her on by thecart. "

"Pray don't trouble yourselves, " interrupted the young girl, with a pinkuprising in her cheeks; "I shall be quite satisfied with the buggy asit stands. Send her on in the cart, indeed! Really, they were a rudeset--ALL of them. "

Without taking the slightest notice of her remark, the man repliedgravely to the young mechanic, "Yes, but we'll be wanting the cartbefore it can get back from taking her. "

"Her" again. "I assure you the buggy will serve perfectly well--ifthis--gentleman--will only be kind enough to put on the wheel again, "she returned hotly. 

The young mechanic at once set to work. The young girl walked apartsilently until the wheel was restored to its axle. But to her surprise adifferent horse was led forward to be harnessed. 

"We thought your horse wasn't safe in case of another accident, " saidthe first man, with the same smileless consideration. "This one wouldn'tcut up if he was harnessed to an earthquake or a worse driver thanyou've got. "

It occurred to her instantly that the more obvious remedy of sendinganother driver had been already discussed and rejected by them. Yet, when her own driver appeared a moment afterwards, she ascended to herseat with some dignity and a slight increase of color. 

"I am very much obliged to you all, " she said, without glancing at theyoung inventor. 

"Don't mention it, miss. "

"Good afternoon. "

"Good afternoon. " They all took off their hats with the same formalgravity as the horse moved forward, but turned back to their work againbefore she was out of the field. 

CHAPTER II

The ranch of Major Randolph lay on a rich falda of the Coast Range, andoverlooked the great wheat plains that the young girl had just left. The house of wood and adobe, buried to its first story in rose-treesand passion vines, was large and commodious. Yet it contained only themajor, his wife, her son and daughter, and the few occasional visitorsfrom San Francisco whom he entertained, and she tolerated. 

For the major's household was not entirely harmonious. While a younginfantry subaltern at a Gulf station, he had been attracted by thepiquant foreign accent and dramatic gestures of a French Creole widow, and--believing them, in the first flush of his youthful passion morethan an offset to the encumbrance of her two children who, with thememory of various marital infidelities were all her late husband hadleft her--had proposed, been accepted, and promptly married to her. Before he obtained his captaincy, she had partly lost her accent, andthose dramatic gestures, which had accented the passion of their briefcourtship, began to intensify domestic altercation and the burstsof idle jealousy to which she was subject. Whether she was revengingherself on her second husband for the faults of her first is not known, but it was certain that she brought an unhallowed knowledge of theweaknesses, cheap cynicism, and vanity of a foreign predecessor, to sitin judgment upon the simple-minded and chivalrous American soldier whohad succeeded him, and who was, in fact, the most loyal of husbands. Thenatural result of her skepticism was an espionage and criticism of thewives of the major's brother officers that compelled a frequent changeof quarters. When to this was finally added a racial divergence andantipathy, the public disparagement of the customs and education of herfemale colleagues, and the sudden insistence of a foreign and Frenchdominance in her household beyond any ordinary Creole justification, Randolph, presumably to avoid later international complications, resigned while he was as yet a major. Luckily his latest banishment toan extreme Western outpost had placed him in California during the floodof a speculation epoch. He purchased a valuable Spanish grant to threeleagues of land for little over a three months' pay. Following thatyearning which compels retired ship-captains and rovers of all degreesto buy a farm in their old days, the major, professionally and sociallyinured to border strife, sought surcease and Arcadian repose inranching. 

It was here that Mrs. Randolph, late relict of the late ScipionL'Hommadieu, devoted herself to bringing up her children after theextremest of French methods, and in resurrecting a "de" from her ownfamily to give a distinct and aristocratic character to their name. The"de Fontanges l'Hommadieu" were, however, only known to their neighbors, after the Western fashion, by their stepfather's name, --when they wereknown at all--which was seldom. For the boy was unpleasantly conceitedas a precocious worldling, and the girl as unpleasantly complacent inher role of ingenue. The household was completely dominated by Mrs. Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, she attended all the functions of theadjacent mission, and the shadow of a black soutane at twilight glidingthrough the wild oat-fields behind the ranch had often been mistaken fora coyote. The peace-loving major did not object to a piety which, whileit left his own conscience free, imparted a respectable religious air tohis household, and kept him from the equally distasteful approaches ofthe Puritanism of his neighbors, and was blissfully unconscious that hewas strengthening the antagonistic foreign element in his family with analien church. 

Meantime, as the repaired buggy was slowly making its way towards hishouse, Major Randolph entered his wife's boudoir with a letter which theSan Francisco post had just brought him. A look of embarrassment on hisgood-humored face strengthened the hard lines of hers; she felt somemomentary weakness of her natural enemy, and prepared to give battle. 

"I'm afraid here's something of a muddle, Josephine, " he began with adeprecating smile. "Mallory, who was coming down here with his daughter, you know"--

"This is the first intimation I have had that anything has been settledupon, " interrupted the lady, with appalling deliberation. 

"However, my dear, you know I told you last week that he thought ofbringing her here while he went South on business. You know, being awidower, he has no one to leave her with. "

"And I suppose it is the American fashion to intrust one's daughters toany old boon companions?"

"Mallory is an old friend, " interrupted the major, impatiently. "Heknows I'm married, and although he has never seen YOU, he is quitewilling to leave his daughter here. "

"Thank you!"

"Come, you know what I mean. The man naturally believes that my wifewill be a proper chaperone for his daughter. But that is not the presentquestion. He intended to call here; I expected to take you over to SanJose to see her and all that, you know; but the fact of it is--thatis--it seems from this letter that--he's been called away sooner than heexpected, and that--well--hang it! the girl is actually on her way herenow. "

"Alone?"

"I suppose so. You know one thinks nothing of that here. "

"Or any other propriety, for that matter. "

"For heaven's sake, Josephine, don't be ridiculous! Of course it'sstupid her coming in this way, and Mallory ought to have broughther--but she's coming, and we must receive her. By Jove! Here she isnow!" he added, starting up after a hurried glance through the window. "But what kind of a d----d turn-out is that, anyhow?"

It certainly was an odd-looking conveyance that had entered the gates, and was now slowly coming up the drive towards the house. A largedraught horse harnessed to a dust-covered buggy, whose strainedfore-axle, bent by the last mile of heavy road, had slanted the topsof the fore-wheels towards each other at an alarming angle. The light, graceful dress and elegant parasol of the young girl, who occupied halfof its single seat, looked ludicrously pronounced by the side of theslouching figure and grimy duster of the driver, who occupied the otherhalf. 

Mrs. Randolph gave a gritty laugh. "I thought you said she was alone. Isthat an escort she has picked up, American fashion, on the road?"

"That's her hired driver, no doubt. Hang it! she can't drive here byherself, " retorted the major, impatiently, hurrying to the door and downthe staircase. But he was instantly followed by his wife. She had noidea of permitting a possible understanding to be exchanged in theirfirst greeting. The late M. L'Hommadieu had been able to impart a wholeplan of intrigue in a single word and glance. 

Happily, Rose Mallory, already in the hall, in a few words detailed theaccident that had befallen her, to the honest sympathy of the major andthe coldly-polite concern of Mrs. Randolph, who, in deliberately chosensentences, managed to convey to the young girl the conviction thataccidents of any kind to young ladies were to be regarded as onlya shade removed from indiscretions. Rose was impressed, and evenflattered, by the fastidiousness of this foreign-appearing woman, andafter the fashion of youthful natures, accorded to her the respect dueto recognized authority. When to this authority, which was evident, sheadded a depreciation of the major, I fear that some common instinctof feminine tyranny responded in Rose's breast, and that on the verythreshold of the honest soldier's home she tacitly agreed with the wifeto look down upon him. Mrs. Randolph departed to inform her son anddaughter of their guest's arrival. As a matter of fact, however, theyhad already observed her approach to the house through the slits oftheir drawn window-blinds, and those even narrower prejudices andlimited comprehensions which their education had fostered. The girl, Adele, had only grasped the fact that Rose had come to their house infine clothes, alone with a man, in a broken-down vehicle, and was movedto easy mirth and righteous wonder. The young man, Emile, had agreedwith her, with the mental reservation that the guest was pretty, andmust eventually fall in love with him. They both, however, welcomed herwith a trained politeness and a superficial attention that, while theindifference of her own countrymen in the wheat-field was still fresh inher recollection, struck her with grateful contrast; the major's quietand unobtrusive kindliness naturally made less impression, or wasaccepted as a matter of course. 

"Well, " said the major, cheerfully but tentatively, to his wife whenthey were alone again, "she seems a nice girl, after all; and a gooddeal of pluck and character, by Jove! to push on in that broken buggyrather than linger or come in a farm cart, eh?"

"She was alone in that wheat-field, " said Mrs. Randolph, with grimdeliberation, "for half an hour; she confesses it herself--TALKING WITHA YOUNG MAN!"

"Yes, but the others had gone for the buggy. And, in the name of Heaven, what would you have her do--hide herself in the grain?" said the major, desperately. "Besides, " he added, with a recklessness he afterwardsregretted, "that mechanical chap they've got there is really intelligentand worth talking to. "

"I have no doubt SHE thought so, " said Mrs. Randolph, with a mirthlesssmile. "In fact, I have observed that the American freedom generallymeans doing what you WANT to do. Indeed, I wonder she didn't bring himwith her! Only I beg, major, that you will not again, in the presenceof my daughter, --and I may even say, of my son, --talk lightly of thesolitary meetings of young ladies with mechanics, even though theirfaces were smutty, and their clothes covered with oil. "

The major here muttered something about there being less danger in ayoung lady listening to the intelligence of a coarsely-dressed laborerthan to the compliments of a rose-scented fop, but Mrs. Randolph walkedout of the room before he finished the evident platitude. 

That night Rose Mallory retired to her room in a state ofsell-satisfaction that she even felt was to a certain extent a virtue. She was delighted with her reception and with her hostess and family. It was strange her father had not spoken more of MRS. Randolph, who wasclearly the superior of his old friend. What fine manners they all had, so different from other people she had known! There was quite an OldWorld civilization about them; really, it was like going abroad! Shewould make the most of her opportunity and profit by her visit. Shewould begin by improving her French; they spoke it perfectly, and withsuch a pure accent. She would correct certain errors she was consciousof in her own manners, and copy Mrs. Randolph as much as possible. Certainly, there was a great deal to be said of Mrs. Randolph's wayof looking at things. Now she thought of it calmly, there WAS too muchinformality and freedom in American ways! There was not enough respectdue to position and circumstances. Take those men in the wheat-field, for example. Yet here she found it difficult to formulate an indictmentagainst them for "freedom. " She would like to go there some day with theRandolphs and let them see what company manners were! She was thoroughlyconvinced now that her father had done wrong in sending her alone; itcertainly was most disrespectful to them and careless of him (she hadquite forgotten that she had herself proposed to her father to go alonerather than wait at the hotel), and she must have looked very ridiculousin her fine clothes and the broken-down buggy. When her trunk came byexpress to-morrow she would look out something more sober. She mustremember that she was in a Catholic and religious household now. Ah, yes! how very fine it was to see that priest at dinner in his soutane, sitting down like one of the family, and making them all seem like apicture of some historical and aristocratic romance! And then they wereactually "de Fontanges l'Hommadieu. " How different he was from thatshabby Methodist minister who used to come to see her father in a blackcravat with a hideous bow! Really there was something to say for areligion that contained so much picturesque refinement; and for herpart--but that will do. I beg to say that I am not writing of anyparticular snob or feminine monstrosity, but of a very charmingcreature, who was quite able to say her prayers afterwards like a goodgirl, and lay her pretty cheek upon her pillow without a blush. 

She opened her window and looked out. The moon, a great silver dome, was uplifting itself from a bluish-gray level, which she knew was thedistant plain of wheat. Somewhere in its midst appeared a dull star, at times brightening as if blown upon or drawn upwards in a comet-liketrail. By some odd instinct she felt that it was the solitary forgeof the young inventor, and pictured him standing before it with hisabstracted hazel eyes and a face more begrimed in the moonlight thanever. When DID he wash himself? Perhaps not until Sunday. How lonely itmust be out there! She slightly shivered and turned from the window. As she did so, it seemed to her that something knocked against her doorfrom without. Opening it quickly, she was almost certain that the soundof a rustling skirt retreated along the passage. It was very late;perhaps she had disturbed the house by shutting her window. No doubtit was the motherly interest of Mrs. Randolph that impelled her tocome softly and look after her; and for once her simple surmises werecorrect. For not only the inspecting eyes of her hostess, but theamatory glances of the youthful Emile, had been fastened upon her windowuntil the light disappeared, and even the Holy Mission Church of SanJose had assured itself of the dear child's safety with a large andsupple ear at her keyhole. 

The next morning Major Randolph took her with Adele in a light carioleover the ranch. Although his domain was nearly as large as the adjoiningwheat plain, it was not, like that, monopolized by one enormouscharacteristic yield, but embraced a more diversified product. Therewere acres and acres of potatoes in rows of endless and varyingsuccession; there were miles of wild oats and barley, which overtoppedthem as they drove in narrow lanes of dry and dusty monotony; there wereorchards of pears, apricots, peaches, and nectarines, and vineyards ofgrapes, so comparatively dwarfed in height that they scarcely reachedto the level of their eyes, yet laden and breaking beneath the weight oftheir ludicrously disproportionate fruit. What seemed to be a vast greenplateau covered with tiny patches, that headed the northern edge ofthe prospect, was an enormous bed of strawberry plants. But everywhere, crossing the track, bounding the fields, orchards, and vineyards, intersecting the paths of the whole domain, were narrow irrigating ductsand channels of running water. 

"Those, " said the major, poetically, "are the veins and arteries ofthe ranch. Come with me now, and I'll show you its pulsating heart. "Descending from the wagon into pedestrian prose again, he led Rose ahundred yards further to a shed that covered a wonderful artesian well. In the centre of a basin a column of water rose regularly with the evenflow and volume of a brook. "It is one of the largest in the State, "said the major, "and is the life of all that grows here during sixmonths of the year. "

Pleased as the young girl was with those evidences of the prosperity andposition of her host, she was struck, however, with the fact that thefarm-laborers, wine-growers, nurserymen, and all field hands scatteredon the vast estate were apparently of the same independent, unpastoral, and unprofessional character as the men of the wheat-field. There wereno cottages or farm buildings that she could see, nor any apparentconnection between the household and the estate; far from suggestingtenantry or retainers, the men who were working in the fields glancedat them as they passed with the indifference of strangers, or replied tothe major's greetings or questionings with perfect equality of manner, or even businesslike reserve and caution. Her host explained that theranch was worked by a company "on shares;" that those laborers were, infact, the bulk of the company; and that he, the major, only furnishedthe land, the seed, and the implements. "That man who was driving thelong roller, and with whom you were indignant because he wouldn't getout of our way, is the president of the company. "

"That needn't make him so uncivil, " said Rose, poutingly, "for if itcomes to that you're the LANDLORD, " she added triumphantly. 

"No, " said the major, good-humoredly. "I am simply the man driving thelighter and more easily-managed team for pleasure, and he's the mandriving the heavier and more difficult machine for work. It's for me toget out of his way; and looked at in the light of my being THE LANDLORDit is still worse, for as we're working 'on shares' I'm interrupting HISwork, and reducing HIS profits merely because I choose to sacrifice myown. "

I need not say that those atrociously leveling sentiments were receivedby the young ladies with that feminine scorn which is only qualifiedby misconception. Rose, who, under the influence of her hostess, had avague impression that they sounded something like the French Revolution, and that Adele must feel like the Princess Elizabeth, rushed to herrelief like a good girl. "But, major, now, YOU'RE a gentleman, and ifYOU had been driving that roller, you know you would have turned out forus. "

"I don't know about that, " said the major, mischievously; "but if Ihad, I should have known that the other fellow who accepted it wasn't agentleman. "

But Rose, having sufficiently shown her partisanship in the discussion, after the feminine fashion, did not care particularly for the logicalresult. After a moment's silence she resumed: "And the wheat ranchbelow--is that carried on in the same way?"

"Yes. But their landlord is a bank, who advances not only the land, butthe money to work it, and doesn't ride around in a buggy with a coupleof charmingly distracting young ladies. "

"And do they all share alike?" continued Rose, ignoring the pleasantry, "big and little--that young inventor with the rest?"

She stopped. She felt the ingenue's usually complacent eyes suddenlyfixed upon her with an unhallowed precocity, and as quickly withdrawn. Without knowing why, she felt embarrassed, and changed the subject. 

The next day they drove to the Convent of Santa Clara and the MissionCollege of San Jose. Their welcome at both places seemed to Rose to be amingling of caste greeting and spiritual zeal, and the austere seclusionand reserve of those cloisters repeated that suggestion of an Old Worldcivilization that had already fascinated the young Western girl. Theymade other excursions in the vicinity, but did not extend it to a visitto their few neighbors. With their reserved and exclusive ideas thisfact did not strike Rose as peculiar, but on a later shoppingexpedition to the town of San Jose, a certain reticence and aggressivesensitiveness on the part of the shopkeepers and tradespeople towardsthe Randolphs produced an unpleasant impression on her mind. She couldnot help noticing, too, that after the first stare of astonishment whichgreeted her appearance with her hostess, she herself was included inthe antagonism. With her youthful prepossession for her friends, thisdistinction she regarded as flattering and aristocratic, and I fear sheaccented it still more by discussing with Mrs. Randolph the meritsof the shopkeepers' wares in schoolgirl French before them. She wasunfortunate enough, however, to do this in the shop of a polyglotGerman. 

"Oxcoos me, mees, " he said gravely, --"but dot lady speeks Engeleesh sogoot mit yourselluf, and ven you dells to her dot silk is hallf gottonin English, she onderstand you mooch better, and it don't make nodingsto me. " The laugh which would have followed from her own countrywomendid not, however, break upon the trained faces of the "de Fontangesl'Hommadieus, " yet while Rose would have joined in it, albeit alittle ruefully, she felt for the first time mortified at their civilinsincerity. 

At the end of two weeks, Major Randolph received a letter from Mr. Mallory. When he had read it, he turned to his wife: "He thanks you, " hesaid, "for your kindness to his daughter, and explains that his suddendeparture was owing to the necessity of his taking advantage of a greatopportunity for speculation that had offered. " As Mrs. Randolph turnedaway with a slight shrug of the shoulders, the major continued: "But youhaven't heard all! That opportunity was the securing of a half interestin a cinnabar lode in Sonora, which has already gone up a hundredthousand dollars in his hands! By Jove! a man can afford to drop alittle social ceremony on those terms--eh, Josephine?" he concluded witha triumphant chuckle. 

"He's as likely to lose his hundred thousand to-morrow, while hismanners will remain, " said Mrs. Randolph. "I've no faith in these suddenCalifornia fortunes!"

"You're wrong as regards Mallory, for he's as careful as he is lucky. Hedon't throw money away for appearance sake, or he'd have a rich home forthat daughter. He could afford it. "

Mrs. Randolph was silent. "She is his only daughter, I believe, " shecontinued presently. 

"Yes--he has no other kith or kin, " returned the major. 

"She seems to be very much impressed by Emile, " said Mrs. Randolph. 

Major Randolph faced his wife quickly. 

"In the name of all that's ridiculous, my dear, you are not alreadythinking of"--he gasped. 

"I should be very loth to give MY sanction to anything of the kind, knowing the difference of her birth, education, and religion, --althoughthe latter I believe she would readily change, " said Mrs. Randolph, severely. "But when you speak of MY already thinking of 'such things, 'do you suppose that your friend, Mr. Mallory, didn't consider all thatwhen he sent that girl here?"

"Never, " said the major, vehemently, "and if it entered his head now, byJove, he'd take her away to-morrow--always supposing I didn't anticipatehim by sending her off myself. "

Mrs. Randolph uttered her mirthless laugh. "And you suppose the girlwould go? Really, major, you don't seem to understand this boastedliberty of your own countrywoman. What does she care for her father'scontrol? Why, she'd make him do just what SHE wanted. But, " she addedwith an expression of dignity, "perhaps we had better not discuss thisuntil we know something of Emile's feelings in the matter. That is theonly question that concerns us. " With this she swept out of the room, leaving the major at first speechless with honest indignation, andthen after the fashion of all guileless natures, a little uneasy andsuspicious of his own guilelessness. For a day or two after, he foundhimself, not without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when inEmile's presence, but he could distinguish nothing more than the franksatisfaction she showed equally to the others. Yet he found himselfregretting even that, so subtle was the contagion of his wife'ssuspicions. 

CHAPTER III

It had been a warm morning; an unusual mist, which the sun had notdissipated, had crept on from the great grain-fields beyond, and hungaround the house charged with a dry, dusty closeness that seemed to bequite independent of the sun's rays, and more like a heated exhalationor emanation of the soil itself. In its acrid irritation Rose thoughtshe could detect the breath of the wheat as on the day she hadplunged into its pale, green shadows. By the afternoon this mist haddisappeared, apparently in the same mysterious manner, but not scatteredby the usual trade-wind, which--another unusual circumstance--that daywas not forthcoming. There was a breathlessness in the air like thehush of listening expectancy, which filled the young girl with a vaguerestlessness, and seemed to even affect a scattered company of crowsin the field beyond the house, which rose suddenly with startled butaimless wings, and then dropped vacantly among the grain again. 

Major Randolph was inspecting a distant part of the ranch, Mrs. Randolphwas presumably engaged in her boudoir, and Rose was sitting betweenAdele and Emile before the piano in the drawing-room, listlesslyturning over the leaves of some music. There had been an odd mingling ofeagerness and abstraction in the usual attentions of the young man thatmorning, and a certain nervous affectation in his manner of twisting theends of a small black moustache, which resembled his mother's eyebrows, that had affected Rose with a half-amused, half-uneasy consciousness, but which she had, however, referred to the restlessness produced by theweather. It occurred to her also that the vacuously amiable Adele hadonce or twice regarded her with the same precocious, childlike curiosityand infantine cunning she had once before exhibited. All this did not, however, abate her admiration for both--perhaps particularly for thispicturesquely gentlemanly young fellow, with his gentle audacitiesof compliment, his caressing attentions, and his unfailing and equaladdress. And when, discovering that she had mislaid her fan for thefifth time that morning, he started up with equal and undiminished fireto go again and fetch it, the look of grateful pleasure and pleadingperplexity in her pretty eyes might have turned a less conceited brainthan his. 

"But you don't know where it is!"

"I shall find it by instinct. "

"You are spoiling me--you two. " The parenthesis was a hesitatingaddition, but she continued, with fresh sincerity, "I shall be quitehelpless when I leave here--if I am ever able to go by myself. "

"Don't ever go, then. "

"But just now I want my fan; it is so close everywhere to-day. "

"I fly, mademoiselle. "

He started to the door. 

She called after him:--

"Let me help your instinct, then; I had it last in the major's study. "

"That was where I was going. "

He disappeared. Rose got up and moved uneasily towards the window. "Howqueer and quiet it looks outside. It's really too bad that he should besent after that fan again. He'll never find it. " She resumed her placeat the piano, Adele following her with round, expectant eyes. After apause she started up again. "I'll go and fetch it myself, " she said, with a half-embarrassed laugh, and ran to the door. 

Scarcely understanding her own nervousness, but finding relief in rapidmovement, Rose flew lightly up the staircase. The major's study, whereshe had been writing letters, during his absence, that morning, was atthe further end of a long passage, and near her own bedroom, the door ofwhich, as she passed, she noticed, half-abstractedly, was open, but shecontinued on and hurriedly entered the study. At the same moment Emile, with a smile on his face, turned towards her with the fan in his hand. 

"Oh, you've found it, " she said, with nervous eagerness. "I was soafraid you'd have all your trouble for nothing. "

She extended her hand, with a half-breathless smile, for the fan, but hecaught her outstretched little palm in his own, and held it. 

"Ah! but you are not going to leave us, are you?"

In a flash of consciousness she understood him, and, as it seemed toher, her own nervousness, and all, and everything. And with it came aswift appreciation of all it meant to her and her future. To bealways with him and like him, a part of this refined and restfulseclusion--akin to all that had so attracted her in this house; not tobe obliged to educate herself up to it, but to be in it on equal termsat once; to know that it was no wild, foolish youthful fancy, but awise, thoughtful, and prudent resolve, that her father would understandand her friends respect: these were the thoughts that crowded quicklyupon her, more like an explanation of her feelings than a revelation, inthe brief second that he held her hand. It was not, perhaps, love asshe had dreamed it, and even BELIEVED it, before. She was not ashamedor embarrassed; she even felt, with a slight pride, that she was notblushing. She raised her eyes frankly. What she WOULD have said she didnot know, for the door, which he had closed behind her, began to shakeviolently. 

It was not the fear of some angry intrusion or interference surely thatmade him drop her hand instantly. It was not--her second thought--theidea that some one had fallen in a fit against it that blanched his facewith abject and unreasoning terror! It must have been something elsethat caused him to utter an inarticulate cry and dash out of the roomand down the stairs like a madman! What had happened?

In her own self-possession she knew that all this was passing rapidly, that it was not the door now that was still shaking, for it had swungalmost shut again--but it was the windows, the book-shelves, the floorbeneath her feet, that were all shaking. She heard a hurried scrambling, the trampling of feet below, and the quick rustling of a skirt in thepassage, as if some one had precipitately fled from her room. Yet no onehad called to her--even HE had said nothing. Whatever had happened theyclearly had not cared for her to know. 

The jarring and rattling ceased as suddenly, but the house seemed silentand empty. She moved to the door, which had now swung open a few inches, but to her astonishment it was fixed in that position, and she could notpass. As yet she had been free from any personal fear, and even now itwas with a half smile at her imprisonment in the major's study, that sherang the bell and turned to the window. A man, whom she recognizedas one of the ranch laborers, was standing a hundred feet away in thegarden, looking curiously at the house. He saw her face as she tried toraise the sash, uttered an exclamation, and ran forward. But before shecould understand what he said, the sash began to rattle in her hand, thejarring recommenced, the floor shook beneath her feet, a hideous soundof grinding seemed to come from the walls, a thin seam of dust-likesmoke broke from the ceiling, and with the noise of falling plaster adozen books followed each other from the shelves, in what in the frantichurry of that moment seemed a grimly deliberate succession; a picturehanging against the wall, to her dazed wonder, swung forward, andappeared to stand at right angles from it; she felt herself reelingagainst the furniture; a deadly nausea overtook her; as she glanceddespairingly towards the window, the outlying fields beyond the gardenseemed to be undulating like a sea. For the first time she raised hervoice, not in fear, but in a pathetic little cry of apology for herawkwardness in tumbling about and not being able to grapple this newexperience, and then she found herself near the door, which had oncemore swung free. She grasped it eagerly, and darted out of the studyinto the deserted passage. Here some instinct made her follow the lineof the wall, rather than the shaking balusters of the corridor andstaircase, but before she reached the bottom she heard a shout, andthe farm laborer she had seen coming towards her seized her by the arm, dragged her to the open doorway of the drawing-room, and halted beneathits arch in the wall. Another thrill, but lighter than before, passedthrough the building, then all was still again. 

"It's over; I reckon that's all just now, " said the man, coolly. "It'squite safe to cut and run for the garden now, through this window. " Hehalf led, half lifted her through the French window to the veranda andthe ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly forward a hundredfeet from the house, stopping at last beneath a large post oak wherethere was a rustic seat into which she sank. "You're safe now, Ireckon, " he said grimly. 

She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a coolbreeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran. She could see a quantity ofrubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of zinc gutterwere perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the further cluster ofchimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the ground and among thebattered down beams of the end of the veranda--but that was all. Shelifted her now whitened face to the man, and with the apologetic smilestill lingering on her lips, asked:--

"What does it all mean? What has happened?"

The man stared at her. "D'ye mean to say ye don't know?"

"How could I? They must have all left the house as soon as it began. Iwas talking to--to M. L'Hommadieu, and he suddenly left. "

The man brought his face angrily down within an inch of her own. "D'yemean to say that them d----d French half-breeds stampeded and left yerthere alone?"

She was still too much stupefied by the reaction to fully comprehendhis meaning, and repeated feebly with her smile still faintly lingering:"But you don't tell me WHAT it was?"

"An earthquake, " said the man, roughly, "and if it had lasted tenseconds longer it would have shook the whole shanty down and left youunder it. Yer kin tell that to them, if they don't know it, but from theway they made tracks to the fields, I reckon they did. They're comingnow. "

Without another word he turned away half surlily, half defiantly, passing scarce fifty yards away Mrs. Randolph and her daughter, who werehastening towards their guest. 

"Oh, here you are!" said Mrs. Randolph, with the nearest approach toeffusion that Rose had yet seen in her manner. "We were wondering whereyou had run to, and were getting quite concerned. Emile was looking foryou everywhere. "

The recollection of his blank and abject face, his vague outcry andblind fright, came back to Rose with a shock that sent a flash ofsympathetic shame to her face. The ingenious Adele noticed it, anddutifully pinched her mother's arm. 

"Emile?" echoed Rose faintly--"looking for ME?"

Mother and daughter exchanged glances. 

"Yes, " said Mrs. Randolph, cheerfully, "he says he started to run withyou, but you got ahead and slipped out of the garden door--or somethingof the kind, " she added, with the air of making light of Rose's girlishfears. "You know one scarcely knows what one does at such times, andit must have been frightfully strange to YOU--and he's been quitedistracted, lest you should have wandered away. Adele, run and tell himMiss Mallory has been here under the oak all the time. "

Rose started--and then fell hopelessly back in her seat. Perhaps it WAStrue! Perhaps he had not rushed off with that awful face and without aword. Perhaps she herself had been half-frightened out of her reason. In the simple, weak kindness of her nature it seemed less dreadful tobelieve that the fault was partly her own. 

"And you went back into the house to look for us when all was over, "said Mrs. Randolph, fixing her black, beady, magnetic eyes on Rose, "andthat stupid yokel Zake brought you out again. He needn't have clutchedyour arm so closely, my dear, --I must speak to the major about hisexcessive familiarity--but I suppose I shall be told that that isAmerican freedom. I call it 'a liberty. '"

It struck Rose that she had not even thanked the man--in the same flashthat she remembered something dreadful that he had said. She covered herface with her hands and tried to recall herself. 

Mrs. Randolph gently tapped her shoulder with a mixture of maternalphilosophy and discipline, and continued: "Of course, it's an upset--andyou're confused still. That's nothing. They say, dear, it's perfectlywell known that no two people's recollections of these things ever arethe same. It's really ridiculous the contradictory stories one hears. Isn't it, Emile?"

Rose felt that the young man had joined them and was looking at her. Inthe fear that she should still see some trace of the startled, selfishanimal in his face, she did not dare to raise her eyes to his, butlooked at his mother. Mrs. Randolph was standing then, collected butimpatient. 

"It's all over now, " said Emile, in his usual voice, "and except thechimneys and some fallen plaster there's really no damage done. ButI'm afraid they have caught it pretty badly at the mission, and at SanFrancisco in those tall, flashy, rattle-trap buildings they're puttingup. I've just sent off one of the men for news. "

Her father was in San Francisco by that time; and she had never thoughtof him! In her quick remorse she now forgot all else and rose to herfeet. 

"I must telegraph to my father at once, " she said hurriedly; "he isthere. "

"You had better wait until the messenger returns and hear his news, "said Emile. "If the shock was only a slight one in San Francisco, yourfather might not understand you, and would be alarmed. "

She could see his face now--there was no record of the past expressionupon it, but he was watching her eagerly. Mrs. Randolph and Adele hadmoved away to speak to the servants. Emile drew nearer. 

"You surely will not desert us now?" he said in a low voice. 

"Please don't, " she said vaguely. "I'm so worried, " and, pushing quicklypast him, she hurriedly rejoined the two women. 

They were superintending the erection of a long tent or marquee in thegarden, hastily extemporized from the awnings of the veranda and othercloth. Mrs. Randolph explained that, although all danger was over, therewas the possibility of the recurrence of lighter shocks during the dayand night, and that they would all feel much more secure and comfortableto camp out for the next twenty-four hours in the open air. 

"Only imagine you're picnicking, and you'll enjoy it as most peopleusually enjoy those horrid al fresco entertainments. I don't believethere's the slightest real necessity for it, but, " she added in a lowervoice, "the Irish and Chinese servants are so demoralized now, theywouldn't stay indoors with us. It's a common practice here, I believe, for a day or two after the shock, and it gives time to put things rightagain and clear up. The old, one-storied, Spanish houses with wallsthree feet thick, and built round a courtyard or patio, were much safer. It's only when the Americans try to improve upon the old order of thingswith their pinchbeck shams and stucco that Providence interferes likethis to punish them. "

It was the fact, however, that Rose was more impressed by what seemed toher the absolute indifference of Providence in the matter, and the coolresumption by Nature of her ordinary conditions. The sky above theirheads was as rigidly blue as ever, and as smilingly monotonous; thedistant prospect, with its clear, well-known silhouettes, had notchanged; the crows swung on lazy, deliberate wings over the grain asbefore; and the trade-wind was again blowing in its quiet persistency. And yet she knew that something had happened that would never again makeher enjoyment of the prospect the same--that nothing would ever be asit was yesterday. I think at first she referred only to the material andlarger phenomena, and did not confound this revelation of the insecurityof the universe with her experience of man. Yet the fact also remainedthat to the conservative, correct, and, as she believed, securecondition to which she had been approximating, all her relations wererudely shaken and upset. It really seemed to this simple-minded youngwoman that the revolutionary disturbance of settled conditions mighthave as Providential an origin as the "Divine Right" of which she hadheard so much. 

CHAPTER IV

In her desire to be alone and to evade the now significant attentionsof Emile, she took advantage of the bustle that followed the hurriedtransfer of furniture and articles from the house to escape through thegarden to the outlying fields. Striking into one of the dusty lanes thatshe remembered, she wandered on for half an hour until her progress andmeditation were suddenly arrested. She had come upon a long chasm orcrack in the soil, full twenty feet wide and as many in depth, crossingher path at right angles. She did not remember having seen it before;the track of wheels went up to its precipitous edge; she could seethe track on the other side, but the hiatus remained, unbridged anduncovered. It was not there yesterday. She glanced right and left; thefissure seemed to extend, like a moat or ditch, from the distant road tothe upland between her and the great wheat valley below, from which shewas shut off. An odd sense of being in some way a prisoner confrontedher. She drew back with an impatient start, and perhaps her first realsense of indignation. A voice behind her, which she at once recognized, scarcely restored her calmness. 

"You can't get across there, miss. "

She turned. It was the young inventor from the wheat ranch, on horsebackand with a clean face. He had just ridden out of the grain on the sameside of the chasm as herself. 

"But you seem to have got over, " she said bluntly. 

"Yes, but it was further up the field. I reckoned that the split mightbe deeper but not so broad in the rock outcrop over there than in theadobe here. I found it so and jumped it. "

He looked as if he might--alert, intelligent, and self-contained. Helingered a moment, and then continued:--

"I'm afraid you must have been badly shaken and a little frightened upthere before the chimneys came down?"

"No, " she was glad to say briefly, and she believed truthfully, "I wasn'tfrightened. I didn't even know it was an earthquake. "

"Ah!" he reflected, "that was because you were a stranger. It'sodd--they're all like that. I suppose it's because nobody really expectsor believes in the unlooked-for thing, and yet that's the thing thatalways happens. And then, of course, that other affair, which really isserious, startled you the more. "

She felt herself ridiculously and angrily blushing. "I don't know whatyou mean, " she said icily. "What other affair?"

"Why, the well. "

"The well?" she repeated vacantly. 

"Yes; the artesian well has stopped. Didn't the major tell you?"

"No, " said the girl. "He was away; I haven't seen him yet. "

"Well, the flow of water has ceased completely. That's what I'm herefor. The major sent for me, and I've been to examine it. "

"And is that stoppage so very important?" she said dubiously. 

It was his turn to look at her wonderingly. 

"If it's LOST entirely, it means ruin for the ranch, " he said sharply. He wheeled his horse, nodded gravely, and trotted off. 

Major Randolph's figure of the "life-blood of the ranch" flashed acrossher suddenly. She knew nothing of irrigation or the costly appliancesby which the Californian agriculturist opposed the long summer droughts. She only vaguely guessed that the dreadful earthquake had struck at theprosperity of those people whom only a few hours ago she had been proudto call her friends. The underlying goodness of her nature was touched. Should she let a momentary fault--if it were not really, after all, only a misunderstanding--rise between her and them at such a moment? Sheturned and hurried quickly towards the house. 

Hastening onward, she found time, however, to wonder also whythese common men--she now included even the young inventor in thatcategory--were all so rude and uncivil to HER! She had never beforebeen treated in this way; she had always been rather embarrassed by theadmiring attentions of young men (clerks and collegians) in her Atlantichome, and, of professional men (merchants and stockbrokers) in SanFrancisco. It was true that they were not as continually devoted to herand to the nice art and etiquette of pleasing as Emile, --they had otherthings to think about, being in business and not being GENTLEMEN, --butthen they were greatly superior to these clowns, who took no notice ofher, and rode off without lingering or formal leave-taking when theirselfish affairs were concluded. It must be the contact of the vulgarearth--this wretched, cracking, material, and yet ungovernable andlawless earth--that so depraved them. She felt she would like to saythis to some one--not her father, for he wouldn't listen to her, nor tothe major, who would laughingly argue with her, but to Mrs. Randolph, who would understand her, and perhaps say it some day in her ownsharp, sneering way to these very clowns. With those gentle sentimentsirradiating her blue eyes, and putting a pink flush upon her faircheeks, Rose reached the garden with the intention of rushingsympathetically into Mrs. Randolph's arms. But it suddenly occurredto her that she would be obliged to state how she became aware of thismisfortune, and with it came an instinctive aversion to speak of hermeeting with the inventor. She would wait until Mrs. Randolph told her. But although that lady was engaged in a low-voiced discussion in Frenchwith Emile and Adele, which instantly ceased at her approach, there wasno allusion made to the new calamity. "You need not telegraph to yourfather, " she said as Rose approached, "he has already telegraphed to youfor news; as you were out, and the messenger was waiting an answer, weopened the dispatch, and sent one, telling him that you were all right, and that he need not hurry here on your account. So you are satisfied, I hope. " A few hours ago this would have been true, and Rose would haveprobably seen in the action of her hostess only a flattering motherlysupervision; there was, in fact, still a lingering trace of trust in hermind yet she was conscious that she would have preferred to answer thedispatch herself, and to have let her father come. To a girl broughtup with a belief in the right of individual independence of thought andaction, there was something in Mrs. Randolph's practical ignoring ofthat right which startled her in spite of her new conservatism, while, as the daughter of a business man, her instincts revolted against Mrs. Randolph's unbusiness-like action with the telegram, however vulgar andunrefined she may have begun to consider a life of business. Theresult was a certain constraint and embarrassment in her manner, which, however, had the laudable effect of limiting Emile's attention tosignificant glances, and was no doubt variously interpreted by theothers. But she satisfied her conscience by determining to make aconfidence of her sympathy to the major on the first opportunity. 

This she presently found when the others were preoccupied; the majorgreeting her with a somewhat careworn face, but a voice whose habitualkindness was unchanged. When he had condoled with her on the terrifyingphenomenon that had marred her visit to the ranch, --and she could nothelp impatiently noticing that he too seemed to have accepted his wife'stheory that she had been half deliriously frightened, --he regretted thather father had not concluded to come down to the ranch, as his practicaladvice would have been invaluable in this emergency. She was about toeagerly explain why, when it occurred to her that Mrs. Randolph had onlygiven him a suppressed version of the telegram, and that she would bebetraying her, or again taking sides in this partisan divided home. With some hesitation she at last alluded to the accident to the artesianwell. The major did not ask her how she had heard of it; it was a badbusiness, he thought, but it might not be a total loss. The water mayhave been only diverted by the shock and might be found again at thelower level, or in some lateral fissure. He had sent hurriedly for TomBent--that clever young engineer at the wheat ranch, who was alwaysstudying up these things with his inventions--and that was his opinion. No, Tom was not a well-digger, but it was generally known that he had"located" one or two, and had long ago advised the tapping of that flowby a second boring, in case of just such an emergency. He was comingagain to-morrow. By the way, he had asked how the young lady visitorwas, and hoped she had not been alarmed by the earthquake!

Rose felt herself again blushing, and, what was more singular, with anunexpected and it seemed to her ridiculous pleasure, although outwardlyshe appeared to ignore the civility completely. And she had nointention of being so easily placated. If this young man thought by mereperfunctory civilities to her HOST to make up for his clownishness toHER, he was mistaken. She would let him see it when he called to-morrow. She quickly turned the subject by assuring the major of her sympathy andher intention of sending for her father. For the rest of the afternoonand during their al fresco dinner she solved the difficulty of herstrained relations with Mrs. Randolph and Emile by conversing chieflywith the major, tacitly avoiding, however, any allusion to this Mr. Bent. But Mrs. Randolph was less careful. 

"You don't really mean to say, major, " she began in her dryest, grittiest manner, "that instead of sending to San Francisco for someskilled master-mechanic, you are going to listen to the vagaries of aconceited, half-educated farm-laborer, and employ him? You might as wellcall in some of those wizards or water-witches at once. " But the major, like many other well-managed husbands who are good-humoredly contentto suffer in the sunshine of prosperity, had no idea of doing so inadversity, and the prospect of being obliged to go back to youthfulstruggles had recalled some of the independence of that period. Helooked up quietly, and said:--

"If his conclusions are as clear and satisfactory to-morrow as they wereto-day, I shall certainly try to secure his services. "

"Then I can only say I would prefer the water-witch. He at leastwould not represent a class of neighbors who have made themselvessystematically uncivil and disagreeable to us. "

"I am afraid, Josephine, we have not tried to make ourselvesparticularly agreeable to THEM, " said the major. 

"If that can only be done by admitting their equality, I prefer theyshould remain uncivil. Only let it be understood, major, that if youchoose to take this Tom-the-ploughboy to mend your well, you will atleast keep him there while he is on the property. "

With what retort the major would have kept up this conjugal discussion, already beginning to be awkward to the discreet visitor, is not known, as it was suddenly stopped by a bullet from the rosebud lips of theingenuous Adele. 

"Why, he's very handsome when his face is clean, and his hands are smalland not at all hard. And he doesn't talk the least bit queer or common. "

There was a dead silence. "And pray where did YOU see him, and what doyou know about his hands?" asked Mrs. Randolph, in her most desiccatedvoice. "Or has the major already presented you to him? I shouldn't besurprised. "

"No, but"--hesitated the young girl, with a certain mouse-likeaudacity, --"when you sent me to look after Miss Mallory, I came up tohim just after he had spoken to her, and he stopped to ask me how we allwere, and if Miss Mallory was really frightened by the earthquake, andhe shook hands for good afternoon--that's all. "

"And who taught you to converse with common strangers and shake handswith them?" continued Mrs. Randolph, with narrowing lips. 

"Nobody, mamma; but I thought if Miss Mallory, who is a young lady, could speak to him, so could I, who am not out yet. "

"We won't discuss this any further at present, " said Mrs. Randolph, stiffly, as the major smiled grimly at Rose. "The earthquake seems tohave shaken down in this house more than the chimneys. "

It certainly had shaken all power of sleep from the eyes of Rose whenthe household at last dispersed to lie down in their clothes onthe mattresses which had been arranged under the awnings. She wascontinually starting up from confused dreams of the ground shaking underher, or she seemed to be standing on the brink of some dreadful abysslike the great chasm on the grain-field, when it began to tremble andcrumble beneath her feet. It was near morning when, unable to endureit any longer, she managed without disturbing the sleeping Adele, who occupied the same curtained recess with her, to slip out fromthe awning. Wrapped in a thick shawl, she made her way through theencompassing trees and bushes of the garden that had seemed to imprisonand suffocate her, to the edge of the grain-field, where she couldbreathe the fresh air beneath an open, starlit sky. There was no moonand the darkness favored her; she had no fears that weighed against thehorror of seclusion with her own fancies. Besides, they were campingOUT of the house, and if she chose to sit up or walk about, no one couldthink it strange. She wished her father were here that she might havesome one of her own kin to talk to, yet she knew not what to say to himif he had come. She wanted somebody to sympathize with her feelings, --orrather, perhaps, some one to combat and even ridicule the uneasinessthat had lately come over her. She knew what her father would say, --"Doyou want to go, or do you want to stay here? Do you like these people, or do you not?" She remembered the one or two glowing and enthusiasticaccounts she had written him of her visit here, and felt herselfblushing again. What would he think of Mrs. Randolph's opening andanswering the telegram? Wouldn't he find out from the major if she hadgarbled the sense of his dispatch?

Away to the right, in the midst of the distant and invisiblewheat-field, there was the same intermittent star, which like a living, breathing thing seemed to dilate in glowing respiration, as she had seenit the first night of her visit. Mr. Bent's forge! It must be nearlydaylight now; the poor fellow had been up all night, or else wasstealing this early march on the day. She recalled Adele's suddeneulogium of him. The first natural smile that had come to her lips sincethe earthquake broke up her nervous restraint, and sent her back morelike her old self to her couch. 

But she had not proceeded far towards the tent, when she heard the soundof low voices approaching her. It was the major and his wife, who, likeherself, had evidently been unable to sleep, and were up betimes. A newinstinct of secretiveness, which she felt was partly the effect of herartificial surrounding, checked her first natural instinct to call tothem, and she drew back deeper in the shadow to let them pass. But toher great discomfiture the major in a conversational emphasis stoppeddirectly in front of her. 

"You are wrong, I tell you, a thousand times wrong. The girl is simplyupset by this earthquake. It's a great pity her father didn't comeinstead of telegraphing. And by Jove, rather than hear any more ofthis, I'll send for him myself, " said the major, in an energetic butsuppressed voice. 

"And the girl won't thank you, and you'll be a fool for your pains, "returned Mrs. Randolph, with dry persistency. 

"But according to your own ideas of propriety, Mallory ought to be thefirst one to be consulted--and by me, too. "

"Not in this case. Of course, before any actual engagement is on, youcan speak of Emile's attentions. "

"But suppose Mallory has other views. Suppose he declines the honor. Theman is no fool. "

"Thank you. But for that very reason he must. Listen to me, major; if hedoesn't care to please his daughter for her own sake, he will have todo so for the sake of decency. Yes, I tell you, she has thoroughlycompromised herself--quite enough, if it is ever known, to spoil anyother engagement her father may make. Why, ask Adele! The day of theearthquake she ABSOLUTELY had the audacity to send him out of the roomupstairs into your study for her fan, and then follow him up therealone. The servants knew it. I knew it, for I was in her room at thetime with Father Antonio. The earthquake made it plain to everybody. Decline it! No. Mr. Mallory will think twice about it before he doesthat. What's that? Who's there?"

There was a sudden rustle in the bushes like the passage of somefrightened animal--and then all was still again. 

CHAPTER V

The sun, an hour high, but only just topping the greenish crests of thewheat, was streaming like the morning breeze through the open length ofTom Bent's workshed. An exaggerated and prolonged shadow of the younginventor himself at work beside his bench was stretching itself far intothe broken-down ranks of stalks towards the invisible road, and fallingat the very feet of Rose Mallory as she emerged from them. 

She was very pale, very quiet, and very determined. The traveling mantlethrown over her shoulders was dusty, the ribbons that tied her hat underher round chin had become unloosed. She advanced, walking down the lineof shadow directly towards him. 

"I am afraid I will have to trouble you once more, " she said with afaint smile, which did not, however, reach her perplexed eyes. "Couldyou give me any kind of a conveyance that would take me to San Jose atonce?"

The young man had started at the rustling of her dress in the shavings, and turned eagerly. The faintest indication of a loss of interest wasvisible for an instant in his face, but it quickly passed into a smileof recognition. Yet she felt that he had neither noticed any change inher appearance, nor experienced any wonder at seeing her there at thathour. 

"I did not take a buggy from the house, " she went on quickly, "for Ileft early, and did not want to disturb them. In fact, they don't knowthat I am gone. I was worried at not hearing news from my father in SanFrancisco since the earthquake, and I thought I would run down to SanJose to inquire without putting them to any trouble. Anything will dothat you have ready, if I can take it at once. "

Still without exhibiting the least surprise, Bent nodded affirmatively, put down his tools, begged her to wait a moment, and ran off in thedirection of the cabin. As he disappeared behind the wheat, she lapsedquite suddenly against the work bench, but recovered herself a momentlater, leaning with her back against it, her hands grasping it on eitherside, and her knit brows and determined little face turned towards theroad. Then she stood erect again, shook the dust out of her skirts, lifted her veil, wiped her cheeks and brow with the corner of a smallhandkerchief, and began walking up and down the length of the shed asBent reappeared. 

He was accompanied by the man who had first led her through the wheat. He gazed upon her with apparently all the curiosity and concern that theother had lacked. 

"You want to get to San Jose as quick as you can?" he saidinterrogatively. 

"Yes, " she said quickly, "if you can help me. "

"You walked all the way from the major's here?" he continued, withouttaking his eyes from her face. 

"Yes, " she answered with an affectation of carelessness she had notshown to Bent. "But I started very early, it was cool and pleasant, anddidn't seem far. "

"I'll put you down in San Jose inside the hour. You shall have my horseand trotting sulky, and I'll drive you myself. Will that do?"

She looked at him wonderingly. She had not forgotten his previousrestraint and gravity, but now his face seemed to have relaxed with somehumorous satisfaction. She felt herself coloring slightly, but whetherwith shame or relief she could not tell. 

"I shall be so much obliged to you, " she replied hesitatingly, "and sowill my father, I know. "

"I reckon, " said the man with the same look of amused conjecture; then, with a quick, assuring nod, he turned away, and dived into the wheatagain. 

"You're all right now, Miss Mallory, " said Bent, complacently. "Dawsonwill fix it. He's got a good horse, and he's a good driver, too. " Hepaused, and then added pleasantly, "I suppose they're all well up at thehouse?"

It was so evident that his remark carried no personal meaning to herselfthat she was obliged to answer carelessly, "Oh, yes. "

"I suppose you see a good deal of Miss Randolph--Miss Adele, I thinkyou call her?" he remarked tentatively, and with a certain boyishenthusiasm, which she had never conceived possible to his nature. 

"Yes, " she replied a little dryly, "she is the only young lady there. "She stopped, remembering Adele's naive description of the man beforeher, and said abruptly, "You know her, then?"

"A little, " replied the young man, modestly. "I see her pretty oftenwhen I am passing the upper end of the ranch. She's very well broughtup, and her manners are very refined--don't you think so?--and yet she'sjust as simple and natural as a country girl. There's a great dealin education after all, isn't there?" he went on confidentially, "andalthough"--he lowered his voice and looked cautiously around him--"Ibelieve that some of us here don't fancy her mother much, there's nodoubt that Mrs. Randolph knows how to bring up her children. Some peoplethink that kind of education is all artificial, and don't believe in it, but I do!"

With the consciousness that she was running away from these people andthe shameful disclosure she had heard last night--with the recollectionof Adele's scandalous interpretation of her most innocent actions andher sudden and complete revulsion against all that she had previouslyadmired in that household, to hear this man who had seemed to her aliving protest against their ideas and principles, now expressing themand holding them up for emulation, almost took her breath away. 

"I suppose that means you intend to fix Major Randolph's well for him?"she said dryly. 

"Yes, " he returned without noticing her manner; "and I think I can findthat water again. I've been studying it up all night, and do you knowwhat I'm going to do? I am going to make the earthquake that lost ithelp me to find it again. " He paused, and looked at her with a smileand a return of his former enthusiasm. "Do you remember the crack in theadobe field that stopped you yesterday?"

"Yes, " said the girl, with a slight shiver. 

"I told you then that the same crack was a split in the rock outcropfurther up the plain, and was deeper. I am satisfied now, from what Ihave seen, that it is really a rupture of the whole strata all the waydown. That's the one weak point that the imprisoned water is sure tofind, and that's where the borer will tap it--in the new well that theearthquake itself has sunk. "

It seemed to her now that she understood his explanation perfectly, andshe wondered the more that he had been so mistaken in his estimate ofAdele. She turned away a little impatiently and looked anxiously towardsthe point where Dawson had disappeared. Bent followed her eyes. 

"He'll be here in a moment, Miss Mallory. He has to drive slowly throughthe grain, but I hear the wheels. " He stopped, and his voice took up itsprevious note of boyish hesitation. "By the way--I'll--I'll be going upto the Rancho this afternoon to see the major. Have you any message forMrs. Randolph--or for--for Miss Adele?"

"No"--said Rose, hesitatingly, "and--and"--

"I see, " interrupted Bent, carelessly. "You don't want anything saidabout your coming here. I won't. "

It struck her that he seemed to have no ulterior meaning in thesuggestion. But before she could make any reply, Dawson reappeared, driving a handsome mare harnessed to a light, spider-like vehicle. Hehad also assumed, evidently in great haste, a black frock coat buttonedover his waistcoatless and cravatless shirt, and a tall black hat thatalready seemed to be cracking in the sunlight. He drove up, at onceassisted her to the narrow perch beside him, and with a nod to Bentdrove off. His breathless expedition relieved the leave-taking of theseyoung people of any ceremony. 

"I suppose, " said Mr. Dawson, giving a half glance over his shoulder asthey struck into the dusty highway, --"I suppose you don't care to seeanybody before you get to San Jose?"

"No-o-o, " said Rose, timidly. 

"And I reckon you wouldn't mind my racin' a bit if anybody kem up?"

"No. "

"The mare's sort o' fastidious about takin' anybody's dust. "

"Is she?" said Rose, with a faint smile. 

"Awful, " responded her companion; "and the queerest thing of all is, shecan't bear to have any one behind her, either. "

He leaned forward with his expression of humorous enjoyment of somelatent joke and did something with the reins--Rose never could clearlyunderstand what, though it seemed to her that he simply lifted them withostentatious lightness; but the mare suddenly seemed to LENGTHEN herselfand lose her height, and the stalks of wheat on either side of the dustytrack began to melt into each other, and then slipped like a flash intoone long, continuous, shimmering green hedge. So perfect was the mare'saction that the girl was scarcely conscious of any increased effort; soharmonious the whole movement that the light skeleton wagon seemed onlya prolonged process of that long, slim body and free, collarless neck, both straight as the thin shafts on each side and straighter than thedelicate ribbon-like traces which, in what seemed a mere affectation ofconscious power, hung at times almost limp between the whiffle-tree andthe narrow breast band which was all that confined the animal's powerfulfore-quarters. So superb was the reach of its long easy stride that Rosecould scarcely see any undulations in the brown shining back on whichshe could have placed her foot, nor felt the soft beat of the delicatehoofs that took the dust so firmly and yet so lightly. 

The rapidity of motion which kept them both with heads bent forward andseemed to force back any utterance that rose to their lips spared Rosethe obligation of conversation, and her companion was equally reticent. But it was evident to her that he half suspected she was running awayfrom the Randolphs, and that she wished to avoid the embarrassment ofbeing overtaken even in persuasive pursuit. It was not possible thathe knew the cause of her flight, and yet she could not account forhis evident desire to befriend her, nor, above all, for his apparentlyhumorous enjoyment of the situation. Had he taken it gravely, she mighthave been tempted to partly confide in him and ask his advice. Was shedoing right, after all? Ought she not to have stayed long enough tospeak her mind to Mrs. Randolph and demand to be sent home? No! She hadnot only shrunk from repeating the infamous slander she had overheard, but she had a terrible fear that if she had done so, Mrs. Randolph wascapable of denying it, or even charging her of being still under theinfluence of the earthquake shock and of walking in her sleep. No! Shecould not trust her--she could trust no one there. Had not even themajor listened to those infamous lies? Had she not seen that he washelpless in the hands of this cabal in his own household?--a cabal thatshe herself had thoughtlessly joined against him. 

They had reached the first slight ascent. Her companion drew out hiswatch, looked at it with satisfaction, and changed the position of hishands on the reins. Without being able to detect the difference, shefelt they were slackening speed. She turned inquiringly towards him; henodded his head, with a half smile and a gesture to her to look ahead. The spires of San Jose were already faintly uplifting from the distantfringe of oaks. 

So soon! In fifteen minutes she would be there--and THEN! She rememberedsuddenly she had not yet determined what to do. Should she go on at onceto San Francisco, or telegraph to her father and await him at San Jose?In either case a new fear of the precipitancy of her action and theinadequacy of her reasons had sprung up in her mind. Would her fatherunderstand her? Would he underrate the cause and be mortified at theinsult she had given the family of his old friend, or, more dreadfulstill, would he exaggerate her wrongs and seek a personal quarrel withthe major. He was a man of quick temper, and had the Western ideas ofredress. Perhaps even now she was precipitating a duel between them. Hercheeks grew wan again, her breath came quickly, tears gathered in hereyes. Oh, she was a dreadful girl, she knew it; she was an utterlymiserable one, and she knew that too!

The reins were tightened. The pace lessened and at last fell to a walk. Conscious of her telltale eyes and troubled face, she dared not turn toher companion to ask him why, but glanced across the fields. 

"When you first came I didn't get to know your name, Miss Mallory, but Ireckon I know your father. "

Her father! What made him say that? She wanted to speak, but shefelt she could not. In another moment, if he went on, she must doSOMETHING--she would cry!

"I reckon you'll be wanting to go to the hotel first, anyway?"

There!--she knew it! He WOULD keep on! And now she had burst into tears. 

The mare was still walking slowly; the man was lazily bending forwardover the shafts as if nothing had occurred. Then suddenly, illogically, and without a moment's warning, the pride that had sustained hercrumbled and became as the dust of the road. 

She burst out and told him--this stranger!--this man she haddisliked!--all and EVERYTHING. How she had felt, how she had beendeceived, and what she had overheard!

"I thought as much, " said her companion, quietly, "and that's why I sentfor your father. "

"You sent for my father!--when?--where?" echoed Rose, in astonishment. 

"Yesterday. He was to come to-day, and if we don't find him at the hotelit will be because he has already started to come here by the upper andlonger road. But you leave it to ME, and don't you say anything to himof this now. If he's at the hotel, I'll say I drove you down there toshow off the mare. Sabe? If he isn't, I'll leave you there and come backhere to find him. I've got something to tell him that will set YOU allright. " He smiled grimly, lifted the reins, the mare started forwardagain, and the vehicle and its occupants disappeared in a vanishing dustcloud. 

CHAPTER VI

It was nearly noon when Mr. Dawson finished rubbing down his sweatingmare in the little stable shed among the wheat. He had left Rose at thehotel, for they found Mr. Mallory had previously started by a circuitousroute for the wheat ranch. He had resumed not only his working clothesbut his working expression. He was now superintending the unloading ofa wain of stores and implements when the light carryall of the Randolphsrolled into the field. It contained only Mrs. Randolph and the driver. A slight look of intelligence passed between the latter and the nearestone of Dawson's companions, succeeded, however, by a dull look of stupidvacancy on the faces of all the others, including Dawson. Mrs. Randolphnoticed it, and was forewarned. She reflected that no human beings everlooked NATURALLY as stupid as that and were able to work. She smiledsarcastically, and then began with dry distinctness and narrowing lips. 

"Miss Mallory, a young lady visiting us, went out for an early walk thismorning and has not returned. It is possible she may have lost her wayamong your wheat. Have you seen anything of her?"

Dawson raised his eyes from his work and glanced slowly around at hiscompanions, as if taking the heavy sense of the assembly. One or twoshook their heads mechanically, and returned to their suspended labor. He said, coolly:--

"Nobody here seems to. "

She felt that they were lying. She was only a woman against five men. She was only a petty domestic tyrant; she might have been a larger one. But she had all the courage of that possibility. 

"Major Randolph and my son are away, " she went on, drawing herselferect. "But I know that the major will pay liberally if these men willsearch the field, besides making it all right with your--EMPLOYERS--forthe loss of time. "

Dawson uttered a single word in a low voice to the man nearest him, who apparently communicated it to the others, for the four men stoppedunloading, and moved away one after the other--even the driver joiningin the exodus. Mrs. Randolph smiled sarcastically; it was plain thatthese people, with all their boasted independence, were quite amenableto pecuniary considerations. Nevertheless, as Dawson remained lookingquietly at her, she said:--

"Then I suppose they've concluded to go and see?"

"No; I've sent them away so that they couldn't HEAR. "

"Hear what?"

"What I've got to say to you. "

She looked at him suddenly. Then she said, with a disdainfulglance around her: "I see I am helpless here, and--thanks to yourtrickery--alone. Have a care, sir; I warn you that you will have toanswer to Major Randolph for any insolence. "

"I reckon you won't tell Major Randolph what I have to say to you, " hereturned coolly. 

Her lips were nearly a grayish hue, but she said scornfully: "And whynot? Do you know who you are talking to?"

The man came lazily forward to the carryall, carelessly brushed asidethe slack reins, and resting his elbows on the horse's back, laid hischin on his hands, as he looked up in the woman's face. 

"Yes; I know who I'm talking to, " he said coolly. "But as the majordon't, I reckon you won't tell him. "

"Stand away from that horse!" she said, her whole face taking thegrayish color of her lips, but her black eyes growing smaller andbrighter. "Hand me those reins, and let me pass! What canaille are youto stop me?"

"I thought so, " returned the man, without altering his position; "youdon't know ME. You never saw ME before. Well, I'm Jim Dawson, the nephewof L'Hommadieu, YOUR OLD MASTER!"

She gripped the iron rail of the seat as if to leap from it, but checkedherself suddenly and leaned back, with a set smile on her mouth thatseemed stamped there. It was remarkable that with that smile she flungaway her old affectation of superciliousness for an older and ruderaudacity, and that not only the expression, but the type of her faceappeared to have changed. 

"I don't say, " continued the man quietly, "that he didn't MARRY youbefore he died. But you know as well as I do that the laws of his Statedidn't recognize the marriage of a master with his octoroon slave! Andyou know as well as I do that even if he had freed you, he couldn'tchange your blood. Why, if I'd been willing to stay at Avoyelles to be anigger-driver like him, the plantation of 'de Fontanges'--whose nameyou have taken--would have been left to me. If YOU had stayed there, you might have been my property instead of YOUR owning a square man likeRandolph. You didn't think of that when you came here, did you?" he saidcomposedly. 

"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, dropping rapidly into a different accent, with her white teeth and fixed mirthless smile, "so it is a claim forPROPERTY, eh? You're wanting money--you? Tres bien, you forget we arein California, where one does not own a slave. And you have a fine storythere, my poor friend. Very pretty, but very hard to prove, m'sieu. Andthese peasants are in it, eh, working it on shares like the farm, eh?"

"Well, " said Dawson, slightly changing his position, and passing hishand over the horse's neck with a half-wearied contempt, "one of thesemen is from Plaquemine, and the other from Coupee. They know all thel'Hommadieus' history. And they know a streak of the tar brush when theysee it. They took your measure when they came here last year, and sizedyou up fairly. So had I, for the matter of that, when I FIRST saw you. And we compared notes. But the major is a square man, for all he is yourhusband, and we reckoned he had a big enough contract on his hands totake care of you and l'Hommadieu's half-breeds, and so"--he tossed thereins contemptuously aside--"we kept this to ourselves. "

"And now you want--what--eh?"

"We want an end to this foolery, " he broke out roughly, stepping backfrom the vehicle, and facing her suddenly, with his first angry gesture. "We want an end to these airs and grimaces, and all this dandy niggerbusiness; we want an end to this 'cake-walking' through the wheat, andflouting of the honest labor of your betters. We want you and your 'deFontanges' to climb down. And we want an end to this roping-in of whitefolks to suit your little game; we want an end to your trying to mixyour nigger blood with any one here, and we intend to stop it. We drawthe line at the major. "

Lashed as she had been by those words apparently out of all semblance ofher former social arrogance, a lower and more stubborn resistance seemedto have sprung up in her, as she sat sideways, watching him with her setsmile and contracting eyes. 

"Ah, " she said dryly, "so SHE IS HERE. I thought so. Which of you is it, eh? It's a good spec--Mallory's a rich man. She's not particular. "

The man had stopped as if listening, his head turned towards the road. Then he turned carelessly, and facing her again, waved his hand with agesture of tired dismissal, and said, "Go! You'll find your driver overthere by the tool-shed. He has heard nothing yet--but I've given youfair warning. Go!"

He walked slowly back towards the shed, as the woman, snatching upthe reins, drove violently off in the direction where the men haddisappeared. But she turned aside, ignoring her waiting driver in herwild and reckless abandonment of all her old conventional attitudes, andlashing her horse forward with the same set smile on her face, the sameodd relaxation of figure, and the same squaring of her elbows. 

Avoiding the main road, she pushed into a narrow track that intersectedanother nearer the scene of the accident to Rose's buggy three weeksbefore. She had nearly passed it when she was hailed by a strange voice, and looking up, perceived a horseman floundering in the mazes of thewheat to one side of the track. Whatever mean thought of her past lifeshe was flying from, whatever mean purpose she was flying to, she pulledup suddenly, and as suddenly resumed her erect, aggressive stiffness. The stranger was a middle-aged man; in dress and appearance a dweller ofcities. He lifted his hat as he perceived the occupant of the wagon tobe a lady. 

"I beg your pardon, but I fear I've lost my way in trying to make ashort cut to the Excelsior Company's Ranch. "

"You are in it now, " said Mrs. Randolph, quickly. 

"Thank you, but where can I find the farmhouse?"

"There is none, " she returned, with her old superciliousness, "unlessyou choose to give that name to the shanties and sheds where thelaborers and servants live, near the road. "

The stranger looked puzzled. "I'm looking for a Mr. Dawson, " he saidreflectively, "but I may have made some mistake. Do you know MajorRandolph's house hereabouts?"

"I do. I am Mrs. Randolph, " she said stiffly. 

The stranger's brow cleared, and he smiled pleasantly. "Then this is afortunate meeting, " he said, raising his hat again as he reined in hishorse beside the wagon, "for I am Mr. Mallory, and I was looking forwardto the pleasure of presenting myself to you an hour or two later. Thefact is, an old acquaintance, Mr. Dawson, telegraphed me yesterday tomeet him here on urgent business, and I felt obliged to go there first. "

Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a sudden gratified intelligence, buther manner seemed rather to increase than abate its grim precision. 

"Our meeting this morning, Mr. Mallory, is both fortunate andunfortunate, for I regret to say that your daughter, who has not beenquite herself since the earthquake, was missing early this morning andhas not yet been found, though we have searched everywhere. Understandme, " she said, as the stranger started, "I have no fear for her PERSONALsafety, I am only concerned for any INDISCRETION that she may commit inthe presence of these strangers whose company she would seem to preferto ours. "

"But I don't understand you, madam, " said Mallory, sternly; "you arespeaking of my daughter, and"--

"Excuse me, Mr. Mallory, " said Mrs. Randolph, lifting her hand withher driest deprecation and her most desiccating smile, "I'm not passingjudgment or criticism. I am of a foreign race, and consequently do notunderstand the freedom of American young ladies, and their familiaritywith the opposite sex. I make no charges, I only wish to assure you thatshe will no doubt be found in the company and under the protection ofher own countrymen. There is, " she added with ironical distinctness, "ayoung mechanic, or field hand, or 'quack well-doctor, ' whom she seems toadmire, and with whom she appears to be on equal terms. "

Mallory regarded her for a moment fixedly, and then his sternnessrelaxed to a mischievously complacent smile. "That must be young Bent, of whom I've heard, " he said with unabated cheerfulness. "And I don'tknow but what she may be with him, after all. For now I think of it, achuckle-headed fellow, of whom a moment ago I inquired the way to yourhouse, told me I'd better ask the young man and young woman who were'philandering through the wheat' yonder. Suppose we look for them. Fromwhat I've heard of Bent he's too much wrapped up in his inventions forflirtation, but it would be a good joke to stumble upon them. "

Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a mingling of gratified malice andundisguised contempt for the fatuous father beside her. But before shecould accept or decline the challenge, it had become useless. A murmurof youthful voices struck her ear, and she suddenly stood upright andtransfixed in the carriage. For lounging down slowly towards them outof the dim green aisles of the arbored wheat, lost in themselves and theshimmering veil of their seclusion, came the engineer, Thomas Bent, andon his arm, gazing ingenuously into his face, the figure of Adele, --herown perfect daughter. 

"I don't think, my dear, " said Mr. Mallory, as the anxious Rose flewinto his arms on his return to San Jose, a few hours later, "that itwill be necessary for you to go back again to Major Randolph's before weleave. I have said 'Good-by' for you and thanked them, and your trunksare packed and will be sent here. The fact is, my dear, you see thisaffair of the earthquake and the disaster to the artesian well haveupset all their arrangements, and I am afraid that my little girl wouldbe only in their way just now. "

"And you have seen Mr. Dawson--and you know why he sent for you?" askedthe young girl, with nervous eagerness. 

"Ah, yes, " said Mr. Mallory thoughtfully, "THAT was really important. You see, my child, " he continued, taking her hand in one of his own andpatting the back of it gently with the other, "we think, Dawson and I, of taking over the major's ranch and incorporating it with the Excelsiorin one, to be worked on shares like the Excelsior; and as Mrs. Randolphis very anxious to return to the Atlantic States with her children, itis quite possible. Mrs. Randolph, as you have possibly noticed, " Mr. Mallory went on, still patting his daughter's hand, "does not feelentirely at home here, and will consequently leave the major free torearrange, by himself, the ranch on the new basis. In fact, as thechange must be made before the crops come in, she talks of going nextweek. But if you like the place, Rose, I've no doubt the major andDawson will always find room for you and me when we run down there for alittle fresh air. "

"And did you have all that in your mind, papa, when you came down here, and was that what you and Mr. Dawson wanted to talk about?" said theastonished Rose. 

"Mainly, my dear, mainly. You see I'm a capitalist now, and thereal value of capital is to know how and when to apply it to certainconditions. "

"And this Mr. --Mr. Bent--do you think--he will go on and find the water, papa?" said Rose, hesitatingly. 

"Ah! Bent--Tom Bent--oh, yes, " said Mallory, with great heartiness. "Capital fellow, Bent! and mighty ingenious! Glad you met him! Well, "thoughtfully but still heartily, "he may not find it exactly where heexpected, but he'll find it or something better. We can't part with him, and he has promised Dawson to stay. We'll utilize HIM, you may be sure. "

It would seem that they did, and from certain interviews andconversations that took place between Mr. Bent and Miss Mallory ona later visit, it would also appear that her father had exerciseda discreet reticence in regard to a certain experiment of the younginventor, of which he had been an accidental witness. 

A MAECENAS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

CHAPTER I

As Mr. Robert Rushbrook, known to an imaginative press as the "Maecenasof the Pacific Slope, " drove up to his country seat, equally referredto as a "palatial villa, " he cast a quick but practical look at thepillared pretensions of that enormous shell of wood and paint andplaster. The statement, also a reportorial one, that its site, theCanyon of Los Osos, "some three years ago was disturbed only by thepassing tread of bear and wild-cat, " had lost some of its freshness as apicturesque apology, and already successive improvements on the originalbuilding seemingly cast the older part of the structure back to a hoaryantiquity. To many it stood as a symbol of everything Robert Rushbrookdid or had done--an improvement of all previous performances; it waslike his own life--an exciting though irritating state of transition tosomething better. Yet the visible architectural result, as here shown, was scarcely harmonious; indeed, some of his friends--and Maecenas hadmany--professed to classify the various improvements by the successivefortunate ventures in their owner's financial career, which had ledto new additions, under the names, of "The Comstock Lode Period, " "TheUnion Pacific Renaissance, " "The Great Wheat Corner, " and "Water FrontGable Style, " a humorous trifling that did not, however, prevent a fewwho were artists from accepting Maecenas's liberal compensation fortheir services in giving shape to those ideas. 

Relinquishing to a groom his fast-trotting team, the second relay in histwo hours' drive from San Francisco, he leaped to the ground to meet thearchitect, already awaiting his orders in the courtyard. With his eyesstill fixed upon the irregular building before him, he mingled hisgreeting and his directions. 

"Look here, Barker, we'll have a wing thrown out here, and ahundred-foot ballroom. Something to hold a crowd; something that can beused for music--sabe?--a concert, or a show. "

"Have you thought of any style, Mr. Rushbrook?" suggested the architect. 

"No, " said Rushbrook; "I've been thinking of the time--thirty days, andeverything to be in. You'll stop to dinner. I'll have you sit near JackSomers. You can talk style to him. Say I told you. "

"You wish it completed in thirty days?" repeated the architect, dubiously. 

"Well, I shouldn't mind if it were less. You can begin at once. There'sa telegraph in the house. Patrick will take any message, and you cansend up to San Francisco and fix things before dinner. "

Before the man could reply, Rushbrook was already giving a hurriedinterview to the gardener and others on his way to the front porch. Inanother moment he had entered his own hall, --a wonderful temple of whiteand silver plaster, formal, yet friable like the sugared erection of awedding cake, --where his major-domo awaited him. 

"Well, who's here?" asked Rushbrook, still advancing towards hisapartments. 

"Dinner is set for thirty, sir, " said the functionary, keeping stepdemurely with his master, "but Mr. Appleby takes ten over to SanMateo, and some may sleep there. The char-a-banc is still out and fivesaddle-horses, to a picnic in Green Canyon, and I can't positively say, but I should think you might count on seeing about forty-five guestsbefore you go to town to-morrow. The opera troupe seem to have notexactly understood the invitation, sir. "

"How? I gave it myself. "

"The chorus and supernumeraries thought themselves invited too, sir, andhave come, I believe, sir. At least Signora Pegrelli and Madame Denisesaid so, and that they would speak to you about it, but that meantime Icould put them up anywhere. "

"And you made no distinction, of course?"

"No, sir, I put them in the corresponding rooms opposite, sir. I don'tthink the prima donnas like it. "

"Ah!"

"Yes, sir. "

Whatever was in their minds, the two men never changed their steady, practical gravity of manner. The major-domo's appeared to be a subduedimitation of his master's, worn, as he might have worn his master'sclothes, had he accepted, or Mr. Rushbrook permitted, such adegradation. By this time they had reached the door of Mr. Rushbrook'sroom, and the man paused. "I didn't include some guests of Mr. Leyton's, sir, that he brought over here to show around the place, but he told meto tell you he would take them away again, or leave them, as you liked. They're some Eastern strangers stopping with him. "

"All right, " said Rushbrook, quietly, as he entered his own apartment. It was decorated as garishly as the hall, as staring and vivid in color, but wholesomely new and clean for all its paint, veneering, and plaster. It was filled with heterogeneous splendor--all new and well kept, yetwith so much of the attitude of the show-room still lingering aboutit that one almost expected to see the various articles of furnitureticketed with their prices. A luxurious bed, with satin hangings andIndian carved posts, standing ostentatiously in a corner, kept up thisresemblance, for in a curtained recess stood a worn camp bedstead, Rushbrook's real couch, Spartan in its simplicity. 

Mr. Rushbrook drew his watch from his pocket, and deliberately divestedhimself of his boots, coat, waistcoat, and cravat. Then rolling himselfin a fleecy, blanket-like rug with something of the habitual dexterityof a frontiersman, he threw himself on his couch, closed his eyes, and went instantly to sleep. Lying there, he appeared to be a mancomfortably middle-aged, with thick iron-gray hair that might havecurled had he encouraged such inclination; a skin roughened and darkenedby external hardships and exposure, but free from taint of inner viceor excess, and indistinctive features redeemed by a singularly handsomemouth. As the lower part of the face was partly hidden by a dense butclosely-cropped beard, it is probable that the delicate outlines of hislips had gained something from their framing. 

He slept, through what seemed to be the unnatural stillness of the largehouse, --a quiet that might have come from the lingering influence ofthe still virgin solitude around it, as if Nature had forgotten theintrusion, or were stealthily retaking her own; and later, through therattle of returning wheels or the sound of voices, which were, however, promptly absorbed in that deep and masterful silence which was theunabdicating genius of the canyon. For it was remarkable that eventhe various artists, musicians, orators, and poets whom Maecenas hadgathered in his cool business fashion under that roof, all seemed tobecome, by contrast with surrounding Nature, as new and artificial asthe house, and as powerless to assert themselves against its influence. 

He was still sleeping when James re-entered the room, but awoke promptlyat the sound of his voice. In a few moments he had rearranged hisscarcely disordered toilette, and stepped out refreshed and observantinto the hall. The guests were still absent from that part of thebuilding, and he walked leisurely past the carelessly opened doorsof the rooms they had left. Everywhere he met the same glaringornamentation and color, the same garishness of treatment, the sameinharmonious extravagance of furniture, and everywhere the same troubledacceptance of it by the inmates, or the same sense of temporary andrestricted tenancy. Dresses were hung over cheval glasses; clothes piledup on chairs to avoid the use of doubtful and over ornamented wardrobes, and in some cases more practical guests had apparently encamped in acorner of their apartment. A gentleman from Siskyou--sole proprietor ofa mill patent now being considered by Maecenas--had confined himself toa rocking-chair and clothes-horse as being trustworthy and familiar; abolder spirit from Yreka--in treaty for capital to start an independentjournal devoted to Maecenas's interests--had got a good deal out of, andindeed all he had INTO, a Louis XVI. Armoire; while a young painter fromSacramento had simply retired into his adjoining bath-room, leaving theglories of his bedroom untarnished. Suddenly he paused. 

He had turned into a smaller passage in order to make a shorter cutthrough one of the deserted suites of apartments that should bring himto that part of the building where he designed to make his projectedimprovement, when his feet were arrested on the threshold of asitting-room. Although it contained the same decoration and furnitureas the other rooms, it looked totally different! It was tasteful, luxurious, comfortable, and habitable. The furniture seemed to havefallen into harmonious position; even the staring decorations of thewalls and ceiling were toned down by sprays of laurel and red-stainedmanzanito boughs with their berries, apparently fresh plucked from thenear canyon. But he was more unexpectedly impressed to see that the roomwas at that moment occupied by a tall, handsome girl, who had pausedto take breath, with her hand still on the heavy centre-table she wasmoving. Standing there, graceful, glowing, and animated, she looked theliving genius of the recreated apartment. 

CHAPTER II

Mr. Rushbrook glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. "Excuse me, " hesaid, with respectful business brevity, "but I thought every one wasout, " and he stepped backward quickly. 

"I've only just come, " she said without embarrassment, "and would youmind, as you ARE here, giving me a lift with this table?"

"Certainly, " replied Rushbrook, and under the young girl's direction themillionaire moved the table to one side. 

During the operation he was trying to determine which of hisunrecognized guests the fair occupant was. Possibly one of the Leytonparty, that James had spoken of as impending. 

"Then you have changed all the furniture, and put up these things?" heasked, pointing to the laurel. 

"Yes, the room was really something TOO awful. It looks better now, don't you think?"

"A hundred per cent. , " said Rushbrook, promptly. "Look here, I'll tellyou what you've done. You've set the furniture TO WORK! It was simplylying still--with no return to anybody on the investment. "

The young girl opened her gray eyes at this, and then smiled. Theintruder seemed to be characteristic of California. As for Rushbrook, heregretted that he did not know her better, he would at once have askedher to rearrange all the rooms, and have managed in some way liberallyto reward her for it. A girl like that had no nonsense about her. 

"Yes, " she said, "I wonder Mr. Rushbrook don't look at it in that way. It is a shame that all these pretty things--and you know they are reallygood and valuable--shouldn't show what they are. But I suppose everybodyhere accepts the fact that this man simply buys them because they arevaluable, and nobody interferes, and is content to humor him, laugh athim, and feel superior. It don't strike me as quite fair, does it you?"

Rushbrook was pleased. Without the vanity that would be either annoyedat this revelation of his reputation, or gratified at her defense of it, he was simply glad to discover that she had not recognized him as herhost, and could continue the conversation unreservedly. "Have youseen the ladies' boudoir?" he asked. "You know, the room fitted withknick-knacks and pretty things--some of 'em bought from old collectionsin Europe, by fellows who knew what they were but perhaps, " he added, looking into her eyes for the first time, "didn't know exactly whatladies cared for. "

"I merely glanced in there when I first came, for there was such a queerlot of women--I'm told he isn't very particular in that way--that Ididn't stay. "

"And you didn't think THEY might be just as valuable and good as some ofthe furniture, if they could have been pulled around and put into shape, or set in a corner, eh?"

The young girl smiled; she thought her fellow-guest rather amusing, nonethe less so, perhaps, for catching up her own ideas, but neverthelessshe slightly shrugged her shoulders with that hopeless skepticism whichwomen reserve for their own sex. "Some of them looked as if they hadbeen pulled around, as you say, and hadn't been improved by it. "

"There's no one there now, " said Rushbrook, with practical directness;"come and take a look at it. " She complied without hesitation, walkingby his side, tall, easy, and self-possessed, apparently acceptingwithout self-consciousness his half paternal, half comrade-likeinformality. The boudoir was a large room, repeating on a bigger scalethe incongruousness and ill fitting splendor of the others. When shehad of her own accord recognized and pointed out the more admirablearticles, he said, gravely looking at his watch, "We've just about sevenminutes yet; if you'd like to pull and haul these things around, I'llhelp you. "

The young girl smiled. "I'm quite content with what I've done in my ownroom, where I have no one's taste to consult but my own. I hardly knowhow Mr. Rushbrook, or his lady friends, might like my operating here. "Then recognizing with feminine tact the snub that might seem implied inher refusal, she said quickly, "Tell me something about our host--butfirst look! isn't that pretty?"

She had stopped before the window that looked upon the dim blue abyss ofthe canyon, and was leaning out to gaze upon it. Rushbrook joined her. 

"There isn't much to be changed down THERE, is there?" he said, halfinterrogatively. 

"No, not unless Mr. Rushbrook took it into his head to roof it in, andsomebody was ready with a contract to do it. But what do you know ofhim? Remember, I'm quite a stranger here. "

"You came with Charley Leyton?"

"With MRS. Leyton's party, " said the young girl, with a half-smilingemphasis. "But it seems that we don't know whether Mr. Rushbrook wantsus here or not till he comes. And the drollest thing about it is thatthey're all so perfectly frank in saying so. "

"Charley and he are old friends, and you'll do well to trust to theirjudgment. "

This was hardly the kind of response that the handsome and cleversociety girl before him had been in the habit of receiving, but itamused her. Her fellow-guest was decidedly original. But he hadn'ttold her about Rushbrook, and it struck her that his opinion would beindependent, at least. She reminded him of it. 

"Look here, " said Rushbrook, "you'll meet a man here to-night--or he'llbe sure to meet YOU--who'll tell you all about Rushbrook. He's a smartchap, knows everybody and talks well. His name is Jack Somers; he isa great ladies' man. He can talk to you about these sort of things, too, "--indicating the furniture with a half tolerant, half contemptuousgesture, that struck her as inconsistent with what seemed to be hisprevious interest, --"just as well as he can talk of people. Been inEurope, too. "

The young girl's eye brightened with a quick vivacity at the name, but amoment after became reflective and slightly embarrassed. "I know him--Imet him at Mr. Leyton's. He has already talked of Mr. Rushbrook, but, "she added, avoiding any conclusion, with a pretty pout, "I'd liketo have the opinion of others. Yours, now, I fancy would be quiteindependent. "

"You stick to what Jack Somers has said, good or bad, and you won'tbe far wrong, " he said assuringly. He stopped; his quick ear had heardapproaching voices; he returned to her and held out his hand. As itseemed to her that in California everybody shook hands with everybodyelse on the slightest occasions, sometimes to save further conversation, she gave him her own. He shook it, less forcibly than she had feared, and abruptly left her. For a moment she was piqued at this superior andsomewhat brusque way of ignoring her request, but reflecting that itmight be the awkwardness of an untrained man, she dismissed it from hermind. The voices of her friends in the already resounding passages alsorecalled her to the fact that she had been wandering about the housewith a stranger, and she rejoined them a little self-consciously. 

"Well, my dear, " said Mrs. Leyton, gayly, "it seems we are to stay. Leyton says Rushbrook won't hear of our going. "

"Does that mean that your husband takes the whole opera troupe over toyour house in exchange?"

"Don't be satirical, but congratulate yourself on your opportunity ofseeing an awfully funny gathering. I wouldn't have you miss it for theworld. It's the most characteristic thing out. "

"Characteristic of what?"

"Of Rushbrook, of course. Nobody else would conceive of getting togethersuch a lot of queer people. "

"But don't it strike you that we're a part of the lot?"

"Perhaps, " returned the lively Mrs. Leyton. "No doubt that's the reasonwhy Jack Somers is coming over, and is so anxious that YOU should stay. I can't imagine why else he should rave about Miss Grace Nevil as hedoes. Come, Grace, no New York or Philadelphia airs, here! Consider youruncle's interests with this capitalist, to say nothing of ours. Becauseyou're a millionaire and have been accustomed to riches from your birth, don't turn up your nose at our unpampered appetites. Besides, JackSomers is Rushbrook's particular friend, and he may think yourcriticisms unkind. "

"But IS Mr. Somers such a great friend of Mr. Rushbrook's?" asked GraceNevil. 

"Why, of course. Rushbrook consults him about all these things; giveshim carte blanche to invite whom he likes and order what he likes, andtrusts his taste and judgment implicitly. "

"Then this gathering is Mr. Somers's selection?"

"How preposterous you are, Grace. Of course not. Only Somers's IDEA ofwhat is pleasing to Rushbrook, gotten up with a taste and discretionall his own. You know Somers is a gentleman, educated at WestPoint--traveled all over Europe--you might have met him there; andRushbrook--well, you have only to see him to know what HE is. Don't youunderstand?"

A slight seriousness; the same shadow that once before darkened thegirl's charming face gave way to a mischievous knitting of her brows asshe said naively, "No. "

CHAPTER III

Grace Nevil had quite recovered her equanimity when the indispensableMr. Somers, handsome, well-bred, and self-restrained, approached herlater in the crowded drawing-room. Blended with his subdued personaladmiration was a certain ostentation of respect--as of a tribute toa distinguished guest--that struck her. "I am to have the pleasure oftaking you in, Miss Nevil, " he said. "It's my one compensation for thedreadful responsibility just thrust upon me. Our host has been suddenlycalled away, and I am left to take his place. "

Miss Nevil was slightly startled. Nevertheless, she smiled graciously. "From what I hear this is no new function of yours; that is, if therereally IS a Mr. Rushbrook. I am inclined to think him a myth. "

"You make me wish he were, " retorted Somers, gallantly; "but as Icouldn't reign at all, except in his stead, I shall look to you to lendyour rightful grace to my borrowed dignity. "

The more general announcement to the company was received with a fewperfidious regrets from the more polite, but with only amused surpriseby the majority. Indeed, many considered it "characteristic"--"so likeBob Rushbrook, " and a few enthusiastic friends looked upon it as acrowning and intentional stroke of humor. It remained, however, for thegentleman from Siskyou to give the incident a subtlety that struck MissNevil's fancy. "It reminds me, " he said in her hearing, "of ole KernelFrisbee, of Robertson County, one of the purlitest men I ever struck. When he knew a feller was very dry, he'd jest set the decanter aforehim, and managed to be called outer the room on bus'ness. Now, BobRushbrook's about as white a man as that. He's jest the feller, who, knowing you and me might feel kinder restrained about indulging ourappetites afore him, kinder drops out easy, and leaves us alone. "And she was impressed by an instinct that the speaker really felt thedelicacy he spoke of, and that it left no sense of inferiority behind. 

The dinner, served in a large, brilliantly-lit saloon, that in floraldecoration and gilded columns suggested an ingenious blending of asteamboat table d'hote and "harvest home, " was perfect in its cuisine, even if somewhat extravagant in its proportions. 

"I should be glad to receive the salary that Rushbrook pays his chef, and still happier to know how to earn it as fairly, " said Somers to hisfair companion. 

"But is his skill entirely appreciated here?" she asked. 

"Perfectly, " responded Somers. "Our friend from Siskyou over thereappreciates that 'pate' which he cannot name as well as I do. Rushbrookhimself is the only exception, yet I fancy that even HIS simplicity andregularity in feeding is as much a matter of business with him asany defect in his earlier education. In his eyes, his chef's greatestqualification is his promptness and fertility. Have you noticed thatornament before you?" pointing to an elaborate confection. "It bearsyour initials, you see. It was conceived and executed since youarrived--rather, I should say, since it was known that you would honorus with your company. The greatest difficulty encountered was to findout what your initials were. "

"And I suppose, " mischievously added the young girl to heracknowledgments, "that the same fertile mind which conceived the designeventually provided the initials?"

"That is our secret, " responded Somers, with affected gravity. 

The wines were of characteristic expensiveness, and provoked the samegeneral comment. Rushbrook seldom drank wine; Somers had selectedit. But the barbaric opulence of the entertainment culminated in theCalifornian fruits, piled in pyramids on silver dishes, gorgeous andunreal in their size and painted beauty, and the two Divas smiled overa basket of grapes and peaches as outrageous in dimensions and glaringcolor as any pasteboard banquet at which they had professionallyassisted. As the courses succeeded each other, under the exaltation ofwine, conversation became more general as regarded participation, butmore local and private as regarded the subject, until Miss Nevil couldno longer follow it. The interests of that one, the hopes of another, the claims of a third, in affairs that were otherwise uninteresting, were all discussed with singular youthfulness of trust that to heralone seemed remarkable. Not that she lacked entertainment from theconversation of her clever companion, whose confidences and criticismswere very pleasant to her; but she had a gentlewoman's instinct that hetalked to her too much, and more than was consistent with his dutiesas the general host. She looked around the table for her singularacquaintance of an hour before, but she had not seen him since. Shewould have spoken about him to Somers, but she had an instinctiveidea that the latter would be antipathetic, in spite of the stranger'sflattering commendation. So she found herself again following Somers'scynical but good-humored description of the various guests, and, Ifear, seeing with his eyes, listening with his ears, and occasionallyparticipating in his superior attitude. The "fearful joy" she had foundin the novelty of the situation and the originality of the actors seemednow quite right from this critical point of view. So she learned how theguest with the long hair was an unknown painter, to whom Rushbrook hadgiven a commission for three hundred yards of painted canvas, to be cutup and framed as occasion and space required, in Rushbrook's newhotel in San Francisco; how the gray-bearded foreigner near him was anaccomplished bibliophile who was furnishing Mr. Rushbrook's library fromspoils of foreign collections, and had suffered unheard-of agonies fromthe millionaire's insisting upon a handsome uniform binding that shoulddeprive certain precious but musty tomes of their crumbling, worm-eatencoverings; how the very gentle, clerical-looking stranger, mildest of anoisy, disputing crowd at the other table, was a notorious duelist anddead shot; how the only gentleman at the table who retained a flannelshirt and high boots was not a late-coming mountaineer, but a well-knownEnglish baronet on his travels; how the man who told a somewhat floridand emphatic anecdote was a popular Eastern clergyman; how the onequerulous, discontented face in a laughing group was the famous humoristwho had just convulsed it; and how a pale, handsome young fellow, whoate and drank sparingly and disregarded the coquettish advances of theprettiest Diva with the cold abstraction of a student, was a notoriousroue and gambler. But there was a sudden and unlooked-for change ofcriticism and critic. 

The festivity had reached that stage when the guests were more or lessaccessible to emotion, and more or less touched by the astounding factthat every one was enjoying himself. This phenomenon, which is apt toburst into song or dance among other races, is constrained to voiceitself in an Anglo-Saxon gathering by some explanation, apology, ormoral--known as an after-dinner speech. Thus it was that the gentlemanfrom Siskyou, who had been from time to time casting glances at Somersand his fair companion at the head of the table, now rose to his feet, albeit unsteadily, pushed back his chair, and began:--

"'Pears to me, ladies and gentlemen, and feller pardners, that onan occasion like this, suthin' oughter be said of the man who got itup--whose money paid for it, and who ain't here to speak for himself, except by deputy. Yet you all know that's Bob Rushbrook's style--heain't here, because he's full of some other plan or improvements--andit's like him to start suthin' of this kind, give it its aim andpurpose, and then stand aside to let somebody else run it for him. Thereain't no man livin' ez hez, so to speak, more fast horses ready saddledfor riding, and more fast men ready spurred to ride 'em, --whether to winhis races or run his errands. There ain't no man livin' ez knows betterhow to make other men's games his, or his game seem to be other men's. And from Jack Somers smilin' over there, ez knows where to get the bestwine that Bob pays for, and knows how to run this yer show for Bob, at Bob's expense--we're all contented. Ladies and gentlemen, we're allcontented. We stand, so to speak, on the cards he's dealt us. What maybe his little game, it ain't for us to say; but whatever it is, WE'RE INIT. Gentlemen and ladies, we'll drink Bob's health!"

There was a somewhat sensational pause, followed by good-naturedlaughter and applause, in which Somers joined; yet not without a certainconstraint that did not escape the quick sympathy of the shocked andunsmiling Miss Nevil. It was with a feeling of relief that she caughtthe chaperoning eye of Mrs. Leyton, who was entreating her in the usualmysterious signal to the other ladies to rise and follow her. When shereached the drawing-room, a little behind the others, she was somewhatsurprised to observe that the stranger whom she had missed during theevening was approaching her with Mrs. Leyton. 

"Mr. Rushbrook returned sooner than he expected, but unfortunately, as he always retires early, he has only time to say 'goodnight' to youbefore he goes. "

For an instant Grace Nevil was more angry than disconcerted. Then camethe conviction that she was stupid not to have suspected the truthbefore. Who else would that brusque stranger develop into but this rudehost? She bowed formally. 

Mr. Rushbrook looked at her with the faintest smile on his handsomemouth. "Well, Miss Nevil, I hope Jack Somers satisfied your curiosity?"

With a sudden recollection of the Siskyou gentleman's speech, and aswift suspicion that in some way she had been made use of with theothers by this forceful-looking man before her, she answered pertly:--

"Yes; but there was a speech by a gentleman from Siskyou that struck meas being nearer to the purpose. "

"That's so, --I heard it as I came in, " said Mr. Rushbrook, calmly. "Idon't know but you're right. "

CHAPTER IV

Six months had passed. The Villa of Maecenas was closed at Los OsosCanyon, and the southwest trade-winds were slanting the rains of the wetseason against its shut windows and barred doors. Within that hollow, deserted shell, its aspect--save for a single exception--was unchanged;the furniture and decorations preserved their eternal youth undimmedby time; the rigidly-arranged rooms, now closed to life and light, developed more than ever their resemblance to a furniture warehouse. The single exception was the room which Grace Nevil had rearranged forherself; and that, oddly enough, was stripped and bare--even to itspaper and mouldings. 

In other respects, the sealed treasures of Rushbrook's villa, far fromprovoking any sentimentality, seemed only to give truth to the currentrumor that it was merely waiting to be transformed into a gorgeouswatering-place hotel under Rushbrook's direction; that, with its newball-room changed into an elaborate dining-hall, it would undergo stillfurther improvement, the inevitable end and object of all Rushbrook'senterprise; and that its former proprietor had already begun anothervilla whose magnificence should eclipse the last. There certainlyappeared to be no limit to the millionaire's success in all that hepersonally undertook, or in his fortunate complicity with the enterpriseand invention of others. His name was associated with the oldestand safest schemes, as well as the newest and boldest--with an equalguarantee of security. A few, it was true, looked doubtingly upon this"one man power, " but could not refute the fact that others had largelybenefited by association with him, and that he shared his profits witha royal hand. Some objected on higher grounds to his brutalizingthe influence of wealth by his material and extravagantly practicalprocesses, instead of the gentler suggestions of education and personalexample, and were impelled to point out the fact that he and hispatronage were vulgar. It was felt, however, by those who received hisbenefits, that a proper sense of this inferiority was all that ethicsdemanded of them. One could still accept Rushbrook's barbaric gifts byhumorously recognizing the fact that he didn't know any better, and thatit pleased him, as long as they resented any higher pretensions. 

The rain-beaten windows of Rushbrook's town house, however, werecheerfully lit that December evening. Mr. Rushbrook seldom dinedalone; in fact, it was popularly alleged that very often the unfinishedbusiness of the day was concluded over his bountiful and perfect board. He was dressing as James entered the room. 

"Mr. Leyton is in your study, sir; he will stay to dinner. "

"All right. "

"I think, sir, " added James, with respectful suggestiveness, "he wantsto talk. At least, sir, he asked me if you would likely come downstairsbefore your company arrived. "

"Ah! Well, tell the others I'm dining on BUSINESS, and set dinner fortwo in the blue room. "

"Yes, sir. "

Meanwhile, Mr. Leyton--a man of Rushbrook's age, but not so fresh andvigorous-looking--had thrown himself in a chair beside the study fire, after a glance around the handsome and familiar room. For the house hadbelonged to a brother millionaire; it had changed hands with certainshares of "Water Front, "--as some of Rushbrook's dealings had the truebarbaric absence of money detail, --and was elegantly and tastefullyfurnished. The cuckoo had, however, already laid a few characteristiceggs in this adopted nest, and a white marble statue of a nude andill-fed Virtue, sent over by Rushbrook's Paris agent, and unpackedthat morning, stood in one corner, and materially brought down thetemperature. A Japanese praying-throne of pure ivory, and, above it, afew yards of improper, colored exposure by an old master, equalized eachother. 

"And what is all this affair about the dinner?" suddenly asked atartly-pitched female voice with a foreign accent. 

Mr. Leyton turned quickly, and was just conscious of a faint shriek, therustle of a skirt, and the swift vanishing of a woman's figure from thedoorway. Mr. Leyton turned red. Rushbrook lived en garcon, with femininepossibilities; Leyton was a married man and a deacon. The incidentwhich, to a man of the world, would have brought only a smile, fired theinexperienced Leyton with those exaggerated ideas and intense credulityregarding vice common to some very good men. He walked on tip-toe to thedoor, and peered into the passage. At that moment Rushbrook entered fromthe opposite door of the room. 

"Well, " said Rushbrook, with his usual practical directness, "what doyou think of her?"

Leyton, still flushed, and with eyebrows slightly knit, said, awkwardly, that he had scarcely seen her. 

"She cost me already ten thousand dollars, and I suppose I'll haveto eventually fix up a separate room for her somewhere, " continuedRushhrook. 

"I should certainly advise it, " said Leyton, quickly, "for really, Rushbrook, you know that something is due to the respectable people whocome here, and any of them are likely to see"--

"Ah!" interrupted Rushbrook, seriously, "you think she hasn't got onclothes enough. Why, look here, old man--she's one of the Virtues, andthat's the rig in which they always travel. She's a 'Temperance' or a'Charity' or a 'Resignation, ' or something of that kind. You'll find hername there in French somewhere at the foot of the marble. "

Leyton saw his mistake, but felt--as others sometimes felt--a doubtwhether this smileless man was not inwardly laughing at him. He replied, with a keen, rapid glance at his host:--

"I was referring to some woman who stood in that doorway just now, andaddressed me rather familiarly, thinking it was you. "

"Oh, the Signora, " said Rushbrook, with undisturbed directness; "well, you saw her at Los Osos last summer. Likely she DID think you were me. "

The cool ignoring of any ulterior thought in Leyton's objection forcedthe guest to be equally practical in his reply. 

"Yes, but the fact is that Miss Nevil had talked of coming here with methis evening to see you on her own affairs, and it wouldn't have beenexactly the thing for her to meet that woman. "

"She wouldn't, " said Rushbrook, promptly; "nor would YOU, if you hadgone into the parlor as Miss Nevil would have done. But look here! Ifthat's the reason why you didn't bring her, send for her at once; mycoachman can take a card from you; the brougham's all ready to fetchher, and there you are. She'll see only you and me. " He was alreadymoving towards the bell, when Leyton stopped him. 

"No matter now. I can tell you her business, I fancy; and in fact, Icame here to speak of it, quite independently of her. "

"That won't do, Leyton, " interrupted Rushbrook, with crisp decision. "One or the other interview is unnecessary; it wastes time, and isn'tbusiness. Better have her present, even if she don't say a word. "

"Yes, but not in this matter, " responded Leyton; "it's about Somers. Youknow he's been very attentive to her ever since her uncle left her hereto recruit her health, and I think she fancies him. Well, although she'sindependent and her own mistress, as you know, Mrs. Leyton and I aresomewhat responsible for her acquaintance with Somers, --and for thatmatter so are you; and as my wife thinks it means a marriage, we oughtto know something more positive about Somers's prospects. Now, all wereally know is that he's a great friend of yours; that you trust a gooddeal to him; that he manages your social affairs; that you treat himas a son or nephew, and it's generally believed that he's as good asprovided for by you--eh? Did you speak?"

"No, " said Rushbrook, quietly regarding the statue as if taking itsmeasurement for a suitable apartment for it. "Go on. "

"Well, " said Leyton, a little impatiently, "that's the belief everybodyhas, and you've not contradicted it. And on that we've taken theresponsibility of not interfering with Somers's attentions. "

"Well?" said Rushbrook, interrogatively. 

"Well, " replied Leyton, emphatically, "you see I must ask you positivelyif you HAVE done anything, or are you going to do anything for him?"

"Well, " replied Rushbrook, with exasperating coolness, "what do you callthis marriage?"

"I don't understand you, " said Leyton. 

"Look here, Leyton, " said Rushbrook, suddenly and abruptly facing him;"Jack Somers has brains, knowledge of society, tact, accomplishments, and good looks: that's HIS capital as much as mine is money. I employhim: that's his advertisement, recommendation, and credit. Now, on thestrength of this, as you say, Miss Nevil is willing to invest in him; Idon't see what more can be done. "

"But if her uncle don't think it enough?"

"She's independent, and has money for both. "

"But if she thinks she's been deceived, and changes her mind?"

"Leyton, you don't know Miss Nevil. Whatever that girl undertakes she'sweighed fully, and goes through with. If she's trusted him enough tomarry him, money won't stop her; if she thinks she's been deceived, YOU'LL never know it. "

The enthusiasm and conviction were so unlike Rushbrook's usual cynicaltoleration of the sex that Leyton stared at him. 

"That's odd, " he returned. "That's what she says of you. "

"Of ME; you mean Somers?"

"No, of YOU. Come, Rushbrook, don't pretend you don't know thatMiss Nevil is a great partisan of yours, swears by you, says you'remisunderstood by people, and, what's infernally odd in a woman who don'tbelong to the class you fancy, don't talk of your habits. That's why shewants to consult you about Somers, I suppose, and that's why, knowingyou might influence her, I came here first to warn you. "

"And I've told you that whatever I might say or do wouldn't influenceher. So we'll drop the subject. "

"Not yet; for you're bound to see Miss Nevil sooner or later. Now, ifshe knows that you've done nothing for this man, your friend and herlover, won't she be justified in thinking that you would have a reasonfor it?"

"Yes. I should give it. "

"What reason?"

"That I knew she'd be more contented to have him speculate with HERmoney than mine. "

"Then you think that he isn't a business man?"

"I think that she thinks so, or she wouldn't marry him; it's part of theattraction. But come, James has been for five minutes discreetly waitingoutside the door to tell us dinner is ready, and the coast clear of allother company. But look here, " he said, suddenly stopping, with his armin Leyton's, "you're through your talk, I suppose; perhaps you'd ratherwe'd dine with the Signora and the others than alone?"

For an instant Leyton thrilled with the fascination of what he firmlybelieved was a guilty temptation. Rushbrook, perceiving his hesitation, added:--

"By the way, Somers is of the party, and one or two others you know. "

Mr. Leyton opened his eyes widely at this; either the temptation hadpassed, or the idea of being seen in doubtful company by a younger manwas distasteful, for he hurriedly disclaimed any preference. "But, " headded with half-significant politeness, "perhaps I'm keeping YOU fromthem?"

"It makes not the slightest difference to me, " calmly returnedRushbrook, with such evident truthfulness that Leyton was both convincedand chagrined. 

Preceded by the grave and ubiquitous James, they crossed the large hall, and entered through a smaller passage a charming apartment hungwith blue damask, which might have been a boudoir, study, or smallreception-room, yet had the air of never having been anythingcontinuously. It would seem that Rushbrook's habit of "camping out" indifferent parts of his mansion obtained here as at Los Osos, and withthe exception of a small closet which contained his Spartan bed, therooms were used separately or in suites, as occasion or his friendsrequired. It is recorded that an Eastern guest, newly arrived withletters to Rushbrook, after a tedious journey, expressed himself pleasedwith this same blue room, in which he had sumptuously dined with hishost, and subsequently fell asleep in his chair. Without disturbing hisguest, Rushbrook had the table removed, a bed, washstand, and bureaubrought in, the sleeping man delicately laid upon the former, and leftto awaken to an Arabian night's realization of his wish. 

CHAPTER V

James had barely disposed of his master and Mr. Leyton, and left themto the ministrations of two of his underlings, before he was confrontedwith one of those difficult problems that it was part of his functionsto solve. The porter informed him that a young lady had just driven upin a carriage ostensibly to see Mr. Rushbrook, and James, descending tothe outer vestibule, found himself face to face with Miss GraceNevil. Happily, that young lady, with her usual tact, spared him someembarrassment. 

"Oh! James, " she said sweetly, "do you think that I could see Mr. Rushbrook for a few moments IF I WAITED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY? Youunderstand, I don't wish to disturb him or his company by beingregularly announced. "

The young girl's practical intelligence appeared to increase the usualrespect which James had always shown her. "I understand, miss. " Hethought for a moment, and said: "Would you mind, then, following mewhere you could wait quietly and alone?" As she quickly assented, hepreceded her up the staircase, past the study and drawing-room, whichhe did not enter, and stopped before a small door at the end of thepassage. Then, handing her a key which he took from his pocket, he said:"This is the only room in the house that is strictly reserved for Mr. Rushbrook, and even he rarely uses it. You can wait here without anybodyknowing it until I can communicate with him and bring you to his studyunobserved. And, " he hesitated, "if you wouldn't mind locking the doorwhen you are in, miss, you would be more secure, and I will knock when Icome for you. "

Grace Nevil smiled at the man's prudence, and entered the room. Butto her great surprise, she had scarcely shut the door when she wasinstantly struck with a singular memory which the apartment recalled. It was exactly like the room she had altered in Rushbrook's villa at LosOsos! More than that, on close examination it proved to be the very samefurniture, arranged as she remembered to have arranged it, even to theflowers and grasses, now, alas! faded and withered on the walls. Therecould be no mistake. There was the open ebony escritoire with thesatin blotter open, and its leaves still bearing the marks of her ownhandwriting. So complete to her mind was the idea of her own tenancy inthis bachelor's mansion, that she looked around with a half indignantalarm for the photograph or portrait of herself that might furtherindicate it. But there was no other exposition. The only thing that hadbeen added was a gilt legend on the satin case of the blotter, --"LosOsos, August 20, 186-, " the day she had occupied the room. 

She was pleased, astonished, but more than all, disturbed. The only manwho might claim a right to this figurative possession of her tastesand habits was the one whom she had quietly, reflectively, andunderstandingly half accepted as her lover, and on whose account she hadcome to consult Rushbrook. But Somers was not a sentimentalist; infact, as a young girl, forced by her independent position to somewhatcritically scrutinize masculine weaknesses, this had always been a pointin his favor; yet even if he had joined with his friend Rushbrook toperpetuate the memory of their first acquaintanceship, his taste merelywould not have selected a chambre de garcon in Mr. Rushbrook's home forits exhibition. Her conception of the opposite characters of the two menwas singularly distinct and real, and this momentary confusion of themwas disagreeable to her woman's sense. But at this moment James came torelease her and conduct her to Rushbrook's study, where he would joinher at once. Everything had been arranged as she had wished. 

Even a more practical man than Rushbrook might have lingered over thepicture of the tall, graceful figure of Miss Nevil, quietly enthroned ina large armchair by the fire, her scarlet, satin-lined cloak thrown overits back, and her chin resting on her hand. But the millionairewalked directly towards her with his usual frankness of conscious butrestrained power, and she felt, as she always did, perfectly at herease in his presence. Even as she took his outstretched hand, itsstraightforward grasp seemed to endow her with its own confidence. 

"You'll excuse my coming here so abruptly, " she smiled, "but I wantedto get before Mr. Leyton, who, I believe, wishes to see you on the samebusiness as myself. "

"He is here already, and dining with me, " said Rushbrook. 

"Ah! does he know I am here?" asked the girl, quietly. 

"No; as he said you had thought of coming with him and didn't, Ipresumed you didn't care to have him know you had come alone. "

"Not exactly that, Mr. Rushbrook, " she said, fixing her beautiful eyeson him in bright and trustful confidence, "but I happen to have a fullerknowledge of this business than he has, and yet, as it is not altogethermy own secret, I was not permitted to divulge it to him. Nor would Itell it to you, only I cannot bear that you should think that Ihad anything to do with this wretched inquisition into Mr. Somers'sprospects. Knowing as well as you do how perfectly independent I am, youwould think it strange, wouldn't you? But you would think it stillmore surprising when you found out that I and my uncle already know howliberally and generously you had provided for Mr. Somers in the future. "

"How I had provided for Mr. Somers in the future?" repeated Mr. Rushbrook, looking at the fire, "eh?"

"Yes, " said the young girl, indifferently, "how you were to put him into succeed you in the Water Front Trust, and all that. He told it tome and my uncle at the outset of our acquaintance, confidentially, ofcourse, and I dare say with an honorable delicacy that was like him, but--I suppose now you will think me foolish--all the while I'd ratherhe had not. "

"You'd rather he had not, " repeated Mr. Rushbrook, slowly. 

"Yes, " continued Grace, leaning forward with her rounded elbows on herknees, and her slim, arched feet on the fender. "Now you are goingto laugh at me, Mr. Rushbrook, but all this seemed to me to spoil anyspontaneous feeling I might have towards him, and limit my independencein a thing that should be a matter of free will alone. It seemed toomuch like a business proposition! There, my kind friend!" she added, looking up and trying to read his face with a half girlish pout, followed, however, by a maturer sigh, "I'm bothering you with a woman'sfoolishness instead of talking business. And"--another sigh--"I supposeit IS business for my uncle, who has, it seems, bought into this Truston these possible contingencies, has, perhaps, been asking questionsof Mr. Leyton. But I don't want you to think that I approve of them, oradvise your answering them. But you are not listening. "

"I had forgotten something, " said Rushbrook, with an odd preoccupation. "Excuse me a moment--I will return at once. "

He left the room quite as abstractedly, and when he reached the passage, he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as he walkeddeliberately to the end window, where, with his arms folded behind hisback, he remained looking out into the street. A passer-by, glancingup, might have said he had seen the pale, stern ghost of Mr. Rushbrook, framed like a stony portrait in the window. But he presently turnedaway, and re-entered the room, going up to Grace, who was still sittingby the fire, in his usual strong and direct fashion. 

"Well! Now let me see what you want. I think this would do. "

He took a seat at his open desk, and rapidly wrote a few lines. 

"There, " he continued, "when you write to your uncle, inclose that. "

Grace took it, and read:--

DEAR MISS NEVIL, --Pray assure your uncle from me that I am quiteready to guarantee, in any form that he may require, the undertakingrepresented to him by Mr. John Somers. Yours very truly, ROBERT RUSHBROOK. 

A quick flush mounted to the young girl's cheeks. "But this is aSECURITY, Mr. Rushbrook, " she said proudly, handing him back the paper, "and my uncle does not require that. Nor shall I insult him or you bysending it. "

"It is BUSINESS, Miss Nevil, " said Rushbrook, gravely. He stopped, andfixed his eyes upon her animated face and sparkling eyes. "You can sendit to him or not, as you like. But"--a rare smile came to his handsomemouth--"as this is a letter to YOU, you must not insult ME by notaccepting it. "

Replying to his smile rather than the words that accompanied it, MissNevil smiled, too. Nevertheless, she was uneasy and disturbed. Theinterview, whatever she might have vaguely expected from it, hadresolved itself simply into a business indorsement of her lover, whichshe had not sought, and which gave her no satisfaction. Yet there wasthe same potent and indefinably protecting presence before her which shehad sought, but whose omniscience and whose help she seemed to have lostthe spell and courage to put to the test. He relieved her in his abruptbut not unkindly fashion. "Well, when is it to be?"

"It?"

"Your marriage. "

"Oh, not for some time. There's no hurry. "

It might have struck the practical Mr. Rushbrook that, even consideredas a desirable business affair, the prospective completion ofthis contract provoked neither frank satisfaction nor conventionaldissimulation on the part of the young lady, for he regarded her calmbut slightly wearied expression fixedly. But he only said: "Then I shallsay nothing of this interview to Mr. Leyton?"

"As you please. It really matters little. Indeed, I suppose I was ratherfoolish in coming at all, and wasting your valuable time for nothing. "

She had risen, as if taking his last question in the significance of aparting suggestion, and was straightening her tall figure, preparatoryto putting on her cloak. As she reached it, he stepped forward, andlifted it from the chair to assist her. The act was so unprecedented, asMr. Rushbrook never indulged in those minor masculine courtesies, thatshe was momentarily as confused as a younger girl at the gallantry of ayounger man. In their previous friendship he had seldom drawn near herexcept to shake her hand--a circumstance that had always recurred to herwhen his free and familiar life had been the subject of gossip. But shenow had a more frightened consciousness that her nerves were strangelyresponding to his powerful propinquity, and she involuntarily contractedher pretty shoulders as he gently laid the cloak upon them. Yet evenwhen the act was completed, she had a superstitious instinct that thesignificance of this rare courtesy was that it was final, and thathe had helped her to interpose something that shut him out from herforever. 

She was turning away with a heightened color, when the sound of light, hurried footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress was heard in thehall. A swift recollection of her companion's infelicitous reputationnow returned to her, and Grace Nevil, with a slight stiffening of herwhole frame, became coldly herself again. Mr. Rushbrook betrayed neithersurprise nor agitation. Begging her to wait a moment until he couldarrange for her to pass to her carriage unnoticed, he left the room. 

Yet it seemed that the cause of the disturbance was unsuspected by Mr. Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton, although left to the consolation of cigars andliquors in the blue room, had become slightly weary of his companion'sprolonged absence. Satisfied in his mind that Rushbrook had joinedthe gayer party, and that he was even now paying gallant court to theSignora, he became again curious and uneasy. At last the unmistakablesound of whispering voices in the passage got the better of his sense ofcourtesy as a guest, and he rose from his seat, and slightly opened thedoor. As he did so the figures of a man and woman, conversing in earnestwhispers, passed the opening. The man's arm was round the woman'swaist; the woman was--as he had suspected--the one who had stood in thedoorway, the Signora--but--the man was NOT Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton drewback this time in unaffected horror. It was none other than Jack Somers!

Some warning instinct must at that moment have struck the woman, forwith a stifled cry she disengaged herself from Somers's arm, and dashedrapidly down the hall. Somers, evidently unaware of the cause, stoodirresolute for a moment, and then more silently but swiftly disappearedinto a side corridor as if to intercept her. It was the rapid passage ofthe Signora that had attracted the attention of Grace and Rushbrook inthe study, and it was the moment after it that Mr. Rushbrook left. 

CHAPTER VI

Vaguely uneasy, and still perplexed with her previous agitation, as Mr. Rushbrook closed the door behind him, Grace, following some feminineinstinct rather than any definite reason, walked to the door and placedher hand upon the lock to prevent any intrusion until he returned. Her caution seemed to be justified a moment later, for a heavier butstealthier footstep halted outside. The handle of the door was turned, but she resisted it with the fullest strength of her small hand until avoice, which startled her, called in a hurried whisper:--

"Open quick, 'tis I. "

She stepped back quickly, flung the door open, and beheld Somers on thethreshold!

The astonishment, agitation, and above all, the awkward confusion ofthis usually self-possessed and ready man, was so unlike him, and withalso painful, that Grace hurried to put an end to it, and for an instantforgot her own surprise at seeing him. She smiled assuringly, andextended her hand. 

"Grace--Miss Nevil--I beg your pardon--I didn't imagine"--he began witha forced laugh. "I mean, of course--I cannot--but"--He stopped, and thenassuming a peculiar expression, said: "But what are YOU doing here?"

At any other moment the girl would have resented the tone, which wasas new to her as his previous agitation, but in her presentself-consciousness her situation seemed to require some explanation. "I came here, " she said, "to see Mr. Rushbrook on business. Yourbusiness--OUR business, " she added, with a charming smile, using for thefirst time the pronoun that seemed to indicate their unity and interest, and yet fully aware of a vague insincerity in doing so. 

"Our BUSINESS?" he repeated, ignoring her gentler meaning with a changedemphasis and a look of suspicion. 

"Yes, " said Grace, a little impatiently. "Mr. Leyton thought he oughtto write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr. Rushbrook, and"--

"You came here to inquire?" said the young man, sharply. 

"I came here to stop any inquiry, " said Grace, indignantly. "I camehere to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr. Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!"

"With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?"

Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she mighthave felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion andhorror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in hiswhite and frightened face. Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's coldcomposure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to herin a flash of shameful intelligence. Somers had lied! The insufferablemeanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility haddefeated its purpose--a lie that implied the basest suspicion of herown independence and truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainlybefore her as his guilty face. 

"Forgive my speaking so rudely, " he said with a forced smile and attemptto recover his self-control, "but you have ruined me unless you denythat I told you anything. It was a joke--an extravagance that I hadforgotten; at least, it was a confidence between you and me that youhave foolishly violated. Say that you misunderstood me--that it was afancy of your own. Say anything--he trusts you--he'll believe anythingyou say. "

"He HAS believed me, " said Grace, almost fiercely, turning upon him withthe paper that Rushbrook had given her in her outstretched hand. "Readthat!"

He read it. Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up hisformer frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme momenthave forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face changed, hishandsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile returned, his gracefulconfidence came back--he stood before her the elegant, courtly, andaccomplished gentleman she had known. He returned her the paper, andadvancing with extended hand, said triumphantly:--

"Superb! Splendid! No one but a woman could think of that! And only onewoman achieve it. You have tricked the great Rushbrook. You are indeedworthy of being a financier's wife!"

"No, " she said passionately, tearing up the paper and throwing it at hisfeet; "not as YOU understand it--and never YOURS! You have debased andpolluted everything connected with it, as you would have debased andpolluted ME. Out of my presence that you are insulting--out of the roomof the man whose magnanimity you cannot understand!"

The destruction of the guarantee apparently stung him more than thewords that accompanied it. He did not relapse again into his formershamefaced terror, but as a malignant glitter came into his eyes, heregained his coolness. 

"It may not be so difficult for others to understand, Miss Nevil, " hesaid, with polished insolence, "and as Bob Rushbrook's generosity topretty women is already a matter of suspicion, perhaps you are wise todestroy that record of it. "

"Coward!" said Grace, "stand aside and let me pass!" She swept by himto the door. But it opened upon Rushbrook's re-entrance. He stood foran instant glancing at the pair, and then on the fragments of the paperthat strewed the floor. Then, still holding the door in his hand, hesaid quietly:--

"One moment before you go, Miss Nevil. If this is the result of anymisunderstanding as to the presence of another woman here, in companywith Mr. Somers, it is only fair to him to say that that woman is hereas a friend of MINE, not of his, and I alone am responsible. "

Grace halted, and turned the cold steel of her proud eyes on the twomen. As they rested on Rushbrook they quivered slightly. "I can alreadybear witness, " she said coldly, "to the generosity of Mr. Rushbrook ina matter which then touched me. But there certainly is no necessityfor him to show it now in a matter in which I have not the slightestconcern. "

As she swept out of the room and was received in the respectable shadowof the waiting James, Rushbrook turned to Somers. 

"And I'M afraid it won't do--for Leyton saw you, " he said curtly. "Now, then, shut that door, for you and I, Jack Somers, have a word to say toeach other. "

What that word was, and how it was said and received, is not a part ofthis record. But it is told that it was the beginning of that mightyIliad, still remembered of men, which shook the financial camps of SanFrancisco, and divided them into bitter contending parties. For when itbecame known the next day that Somers had suddenly abandoned Rushbrook, and carried over to a powerful foreign capitalist the secret methods, and even, it was believed, the LUCK of his late employer, it was certainthat there would be war to the knife, and that it was no longer astruggle of rival enterprise, but of vindictive men. 

CHAPTER VII

For a year the battle between the Somers faction and the giant butsolitary Rushbrook raged fiercely, with varying success. I grieve to saythat the proteges and parasites of Maecenas deserted him in a body; nay, they openly alleged that it was the true artistic nature and refinementof Somers that had always attracted them, and that a man like Rushbrook, who bought pictures by the yard, --equally of the unknown strugglingartist and the famous masters, --was no true patron of Art. Rushbrookmade no attempt to recover his lost prestige, and once, when squeezedinto a tight "corner, " and forced to realize on his treasures, he putthem up at auction and the people called them "daubs;" their rageknew no bounds. It was then that an unfettered press discovered thatRushbrook never was a Maecenas at all, grimly deprecated his assumptionof that title, and even doubted if he were truly a millionaire. It wasat this time that a few stood by him--notably, the mill inventor fromSiskyou, grown plethoric with success, but eventually ground between theupper and nether millstone of the Somers and Rushbrook party. Miss Nevilhad returned to the Atlantic States with Mrs. Leyton. While rumorshad played freely with the relations of Somers and the Signora as thepossible cause of the rupture between him and Rushbrook, no mention hadever been made of the name of Miss Nevil. 

It was raining heavily one afternoon, when Mr. Rushbrook drove from hisoffice to his San Francisco house. The fierce struggle in which he wasengaged left him little time for hospitality, and for the last two weekshis house had been comparatively deserted. He passed through theempty rooms, changed in little except the absence of some valuablemonstrosities which had gone to replenish his capital. When he reachedhis bedroom, he paused a moment at the open door. 

"James!"

"Yes, sir, " said James, appearing out of the shadow. 

"What are you waiting for?"

"I thought you might be wanting something, sir. "

"You were waiting there this morning; you were in the ante-room of mystudy while I was writing. You were outside the blue room while I satat breakfast. You were at my elbow in the drawing-room late last night. Now, James, " continued Mr. Rushbrook, with his usual grave directness, "I don't intend to commit suicide; I can't afford it, so keep your timeand your rest for yourself--you want it--that's a good fellow. "

"Yes, sir. "

"James!"

"Yes, sir. "

Rushbrook extended his hand. There was that faint, rare smile on hishandsome mouth, for which James would at any time have laid down hislife. But he only silently grasped his master's hand, and the twomen remained looking into each other's eyes without a word. Then Mr. Rushbrook entered his room, lay down, and went to sleep, and Jamesvanished in the shadow. 

At the end of an hour Mr. Rushbrook awoke refreshed, and even James, whocame to call him, appeared to have brightened in the interval. "I haveordered a fire, sir, in the reserved room, the one fitted up from LosOsos, as your study has had no chance of being cleaned these two weeks. It will be a change for you, sir. I hope you'll excuse my not waking youto consult you about it. "

Rushbrook remained so silent that James, fancying he had not heard him, was about to repeat himself when his master said quickly, "Very well, come for me there when dinner is ready, " and entered the passage leadingto the room. James did not follow him, and when Mr. Rushbrook, openingthe door, started back with an exclamation, no one but the inmate heardthe word that rose to his lips. 

For there, seated before the glow of the blazing fire, was Miss GraceNevil. She had evidently just arrived, for her mantle was barelyloosened around her neck, and upon the fringe of brown hair between herbonnet and her broad, low forehead a few drops of rain still sparkled. As she lifted her long lashes quickly towards the door, it seemed asif they, too, had caught a little of that moisture. Rushbrook movedimpatiently forward, and then stopped. Grace rose unhesitatingly to herfeet, and met him half-way with frankly outstretched hands. "First ofall, " she said, with a half nervous laugh, "don't scold James; it's allmy fault; I forbade him to announce me, lest you should drive me away, for I heard that during this excitement you came here for rest, and sawno one. Even the intrusion into this room is all my own. I confess nowthat I saw it the last night I was here; I was anxious to know if it wasunchanged, and made James bring me here. I did not understand it then. Ido now--and--thank you. "

Her face must have shown that she was conscious that he was stillholding her hand, for he suddenly released it. With a heightened colorand a half girlish naivete, that was the more charming for its contrastwith her tall figure and air of thoroughbred repose, she turned back toher chair, and lightly motioned him to take the one before her. "I amhere on BUSINESS; otherwise I should not have dared to look in upon youat all. "

She stopped, drew off her gloves with a provoking deliberation, whichwas none the less fascinating that it implied a demure consciousness ofinducing some impatience in the breast of her companion, stretched themout carefully by the fingers, laid them down neatly on the table, placed her elbows on her knees, slightly clasped her hands together, andbending forward, lifted her honest, handsome eyes to the man before her. 

"Mr. Rushbrook, I have got between four and five hundred thousanddollars that I have no use for; I can control securities which can beconverted, if necessary, into a hundred thousand more in ten days. I amfree and my own mistress. It is generally considered that I know what Iam about--you admitted as much when I was your pupil. I have come hereto place this sum in your hands, at your free disposal. You know why andfor what purpose. "

"But what do you know of my affairs?" asked Rushbrook, quickly. 

"Everything, and I know YOU, which is better. Call it an investment ifyou like--for I know you will succeed--and let me share your profits. Call it--if you please--restitution, for I am the miserable cause ofyour rupture with that man. Or call it revenge if you like, " she saidwith a faint smile, "and let me fight at your side against our commonenemy! Please, Mr. Rushbrook, don't deny me this. I have come threethousand miles for it; I could have sent it to you--or written--but Ifeared you would not understand it. You are smiling--you will take it?"

"I cannot, " said Rushbrook, gravely. 

"Then you force me to go into the Stock Market myself, and fight foryou, and, unaided by YOUR genius, perhaps lose it without benefitingyou. "

Rushbrook did not reply. 

"At least, then, tell me why you 'cannot. '"

Rushbrook rose, and looking into her face, said quietly with his olddirectness:--

"Because I love you, Miss Nevil. "

A sudden instinct to rise and move away, a greater one to remain andhear him speak again, and a still greater one to keep back the bloodthat she felt was returning all too quickly to her cheek after the firstshock, kept her silent. But she dropped her eyes. 

"I loved you ever since I first saw you at Los Osos, " he went onquickly; "I said to myself even then, that if there was a woman thatwould fill my life, and make me what she wished me to be, it was you. Ieven fancied that day that you understood me better than any woman, oreven any man, that I had ever met before. I loved you through all thatmiserable business with that man, even when my failure to make you happywith another brought me no nearer to you. I have loved you always. Ishall love you always. I love you more for this foolish kindness thatbrings YOU beneath my roof once more, and gives me a chance to speak myheart to you, if only once and for the last time, than all the fortunethat you could put at my disposal. But I could not accept what you wouldoffer me from any woman who was not my wife--and I could not marryany woman that did not love me. I am perhaps past the age when I couldinspire a young girl's affection; but I have not reached the age when Iwould accept anything less. " He stopped abruptly. Grace did not lookup. There was a tear glistening upon her long eyelashes, albeit a faintsmile played upon her lips. 

"Do you call this business, Mr. Rushbrook?" she said softly. 

"Business?"

"To assume a proposal declined before it has been offered. "

"Grace--my darling--tell me--is it possible?"

It was too late for her to rise now, as his hands held both hers, andhis handsome mouth was smiling level with her own. So it really seemedto a dispassionate spectator that it WAS possible, and before she hadleft the room, it even appeared to be the most probable thing in theworld. 

*****

The union of Grace Nevil and Robert Rushbrook was recorded by localhistory as the crown to his victory over the Ring. But only he and hiswife knew that it was the cause.