A WAIF OF THE PLAINS by Bret Harte CHAPTER I A long level of dull gray that further away became a faint blue, withhere and there darker patches that looked like water. At times an openspace, blackened and burnt in an irregular circle, with a shred ofnewspaper, an old rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyondthese always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground atnight, and rose again in the morning with the first light, but neverotherwise changed its height and distance. A sense of always moving withsome indefinite purpose, but of always returning at night to the sameplace--with the same surroundings, the same people, the same bedclothes, and the same awful black canopy dropped down from above. A chalky tasteof dust on the mouth and lips, a gritty sense of earth on the fingers, and an all-pervading heat and smell of cattle. This was "The Great Plains" as they seemed to two children from thehooded depth of an emigrant wagon, above the swaying heads of toilingoxen, in the summer of 1852. It had appeared so to them for two weeks, always the same and alwayswithout the least sense to them of wonder or monotony. When they viewedit from the road, walking beside the wagon, there was only the teamitself added to the unvarying picture. One of the wagons bore onits canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, "Off toCalifornia!" on the other "Root, Hog, or Die, " but neither of themawoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness orjocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, whooccasionally walked beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn anddepressed as the day wore on, with this past effusive pleasantry. Yet the impressions of the two children differed slightly. The eldest, aboy of eleven, was apparently new to the domestic habits and customs ofa life to which the younger, a girl of seven, was evidently native andfamiliar. The food was coarse and less skillfully prepared than that towhich he had been accustomed. There was a certain freedom and roughnessin their intercourse, a simplicity that bordered almost on rudenessin their domestic arrangements, and a speech that was at times almostuntranslatable to him. He slept in his clothes, wrapped up in blankets;he was conscious that in the matter of cleanliness he was left tohimself to overcome the difficulties of finding water and towels. But itis doubtful if in his youthfulness it affected him more than a novelty. He ate and slept well, and found his life amusing. Only at times therudeness of his companions, or, worse, an indifference that made himfeel his dependency upon them, awoke a vague sense of some wrong thathad been done to him which while it was voiceless to all others andeven uneasily put aside by himself, was still always slumbering in hischildish consciousness. To the party he was known as an orphan put on the train at "St. Jo" bysome relative of his stepmother, to be delivered to another relative atSacramento. As his stepmother had not even taken leave of him, but hadentrusted his departure to the relative with whom he had been latelyliving, it was considered as an act of "riddance, " and accepted as suchby her party, and even vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself. Whatconsideration had been offered for his passage he did not know; he onlyremembered that he had been told "to make himself handy. " This he haddone cheerfully, if at times with the unskillfulness of a novice; but itwas not a peculiar or a menial task in a company where all took part inmanual labor, and where existence seemed to him to bear the charm ofa prolonged picnic. Neither was he subjected to any difference ofaffection or treatment from Mrs. Silsbee, the mother of his littlecompanion, and the wife of the leader of the train. Prematurely old, of ill-health, and harassed with cares, she had no time to waste indiscriminating maternal tenderness for her daughter, but treated thechildren with equal and unbiased querulousness. The rear wagon creaked, swayed, and rolled on slowly and heavily. Thehoofs of the draft-oxen, occasionally striking in the dust with adull report, sent little puffs like smoke on either side of the track. Within, the children were playing "keeping store. " The little girl, asan opulent and extravagant customer, was purchasing of the boy, who satbehind a counter improvised from a nail-keg and the front seat, most ofthe available contents of the wagon, either under their own names or animaginary one as the moment suggested, and paying for them in the easyand liberal currency of dried beans and bits of paper. Change was givenby the expeditious method of tearing the paper into smaller fragments. The diminution of stock was remedied by buying the same article overagain under a different name. Nevertheless, in spite of these favorablecommercial conditions, the market seemed dull. "I can show you a fine quality of sheeting at four cents a yard, doublewidth, " said the boy, rising and leaning on his fingers on the counteras he had seen the shopmen do. "All wool and will wash, " he added, witheasy gravity. "I can buy it cheaper at Jackson's, " said the girl, with the intuitiveduplicity of her bargaining sex. "Very well, " said the boy. "I won't play any more. " "Who cares?" said the girl indifferently. The boy here promptly upsetthe counter; the rolled-up blanket which had deceitfully represented thedesirable sheeting falling on the wagon floor. It apparently suggesteda new idea to the former salesman. "I say! let's play 'damaged stock. 'See, I'll tumble all the things down here right on top o' the others, and sell 'em for less than cost. " The girl looked up. The suggestion was bold, bad, and momentarilyattractive. But she only said "No, " apparently from habit, picked up herdoll, and the boy clambered to the front of the wagon. The incompleteepisode terminated at once with that perfect forgetfulness, indifference, and irresponsibility common to all young animals. Ifeither could have flown away or bounded off finally at that moment, theywould have done so with no more concern for preliminary detail than abird or squirrel. The wagon rolled steadily on. The boy could see thatone of the teamsters had climbed up on the tail-board of the precedingvehicle. The other seemed to be walking in a dusty sleep. "Kla'uns, " said the girl. The boy, without turning his head, responded, "Susy. " "Wot are you going to be?" said the girl. "Goin' to be?" repeated Clarence. "When you is growed, " explained Susy. Clarence hesitated. His settled determination had been to become apirate, merciless yet discriminating. But reading in a bethumbed "Guideto the Plains" that morning of Fort Lamarie and Kit Carson, he haddecided upon the career of a "scout, " as being more accessible andrequiring less water. Yet, out of compassion for Susy's possibleignorance, he said neither, and responded with the American boy's modestconventionality, "President. " It was safe, required no embarrassingdescription, and had been approved by benevolent old gentlemen withtheir hands on his head. "I'm goin' to be a parson's wife, " said Susy, "and keep hens, andhave things giv' to me. Baby clothes, and apples, and apple sass--andmelasses! and more baby clothes! and pork when you kill. " She had thrown herself at the bottom of the wagon, with her back towardshim and her doll in her lap. He could see the curve of her curly head, and beyond, her bare dimpled knees, which were raised, and over whichshe was trying to fold the hem of her brief skirt. "I wouldn't be a President's wife, " she said presently. "You couldn't!" "Could if I wanted to!" "Couldn't!" "Could now!" "Couldn't!" "Why?" Finding it difficult to explain his convictions of her ineligibility, Clarence thought it equally crushing not to give any. There was a longsilence. It was very hot and dusty. The wagon scarcely seemed to move. Clarence gazed at the vignette of the track behind them formed bythe hood of the rear. Presently he rose and walked past her to thetail-board. "Goin' to get down, " he said, putting his legs over. "Maw says 'No, '" said Susy. Clarence did not reply, but dropped to the ground beside the slowlyturning wheels. Without quickening his pace he could easily keep hishand on the tail-board. "Kla'uns. " He looked up. "Take me. " She had already clapped on her sun-bonnet and was standing at the edgeof the tail-board, her little arms extended in such perfect confidenceof being caught that the boy could not resist. He caught her cleverly. They halted a moment and let the lumbering vehicle move away from them, as it swayed from side to side as if laboring in a heavy sea. Theyremained motionless until it had reached nearly a hundred yards, andthen, with a sudden half-real, half-assumed, but altogether delightfultrepidation, ran forward and caught up with it again. This they repeatedtwo or three times until both themselves and the excitement wereexhausted, and they again plodded on hand in hand. Presently Clarenceuttered a cry. "My! Susy--look there!" The rear wagon had once more slipped away from them a considerabledistance. Between it and them, crossing its track, a most extraordinarycreature had halted. At first glance it seemed a dog--a discomfited, shameless, ownerlessoutcast of streets and byways, rather than an honest stray of somedrover's train. It was so gaunt, so dusty, so greasy, so slouching, and so lazy! But as they looked at it more intently they saw that thegrayish hair of its back had a bristly ridge, and there were greatpoisonous-looking dark blotches on its flanks, and that the slouch ofits haunches was a peculiarity of its figure, and not the cowering offear. As it lifted its suspicious head towards them they could see thatits thin lips, too short to cover its white teeth, were curled in aperpetual sneer. "Here, doggie!" said Clarence excitedly. "Good dog! Come. " Susy burst into a triumphant laugh. "Et tain't no dog, silly; it's ercoyote. " Clarence blushed. It wasn't the first time the pioneer's daughter hadshown her superior knowledge. He said quickly, to hide his discomfiture, "I'll ketch him, any way; he's nothin' mor'n a ki yi. " "Ye can't, tho, " said Susy, shaking her sun-bonnet. "He's faster nor ahoss!" Nevertheless, Clarence ran towards him, followed by Susy. When they hadcome within twenty feet of him, the lazy creature, without apparentlythe least effort, took two or three limping bounds to one side, andremained at the same distance as before. They repeated this onset threeor four times with more or less excitement and hilarity, the animalevading them to one side, but never actually retreating before them. Finally, it occurred to them both that although they were not catchinghim they were not driving him away. The consequences of that thoughtwere put into shape by Susy with round-eyed significance. "Kla'uns, he bites. " Clarence picked up a hard sun-baked clod, and, running forward, threwit at the coyote. It was a clever shot, and struck him on his slouchinghaunches. He snapped and gave a short snarling yelp, and vanished. Clarence returned with a victorious air to his companion. But she wasgazing intently in the opposite direction, and for the first time hediscovered that the coyote had been leading them half round a circle. "Kla'uns, " said Susy, with a hysterical little laugh. "Well?" "The wagon's gone. " Clarence started. It was true. Not only their wagon, but the whole trainof oxen and teamsters had utterly disappeared, vanishing as completelyas if they had been caught up in a whirlwind or engulfed in the earth!Even the low cloud of dust that usually marked their distant course byday was nowhere to be seen. The long level plain stretched before themto the setting sun, without a sign or trace of moving life or animation. That great blue crystal bowl, filled with dust and fire by day, withstars and darkness by night, which had always seemed to drop its rimround them everywhere and shut them in, seemed to them now to havebeen lifted to let the train pass out, and then closed down upon themforever. CHAPTER II Their first sensation was one of purely animal freedom. They looked at each other with sparkling eyes and long silent breaths. But this spontaneous outburst of savage nature soon passed. Susy'slittle hand presently reached forward and clutched Clarence's jacket. The boy understood it, and said quickly, -- "They ain't gone far, and they'll stop as soon as they find us gone. " They trotted on a little faster; the sun they had followed every day andthe fresh wagon tracks being their unfailing guides; the keen, cool airof the plains, taking the place of that all-pervading dust and smell ofthe perspiring oxen, invigorating them with its breath. "We ain't skeered a bit, are we?" said Susy. "What's there to be afraid of?" said Clarence scornfully. He said thisnone the less strongly because he suddenly remembered that they had beenoften left alone in the wagon for hours without being looked after, and that their absence might not be noticed until the train stopped toencamp at dusk, two hours later. They were not running very fast, yeteither they were more tired than they knew, or the air was thinner, forthey both seemed to breathe quickly. Suddenly Clarence stopped. "There they are now. " He was pointing to a light cloud of dust in the far-off horizon, fromwhich the black hulk of a wagon emerged for a moment and was lost. Buteven as they gazed the cloud seemed to sink like a fairy mirage to theearth again, the whole train disappeared, and only the empty stretchingtrack returned. They did not know that this seemingly flat and levelplain was really undulatory, and that the vanished train had simplydipped below their view on some further slope even as it had oncebefore. But they knew they were disappointed, and that disappointmentrevealed to them the fact that they had concealed it from each other. The girl was the first to succumb, and burst into a quick spasm ofangry tears. That single act of weakness called out the boy's pride andstrength. There was no longer an equality of suffering; he had becomeher protector; he felt himself responsible for both. Considering her nolonger his equal, he was no longer frank with her. "There's nothin' to boo-boo for, " he said, with a half-affectedbrusqueness. "So quit, now! They'll stop in a minit, and send some oneback for us. Shouldn't wonder if they're doin' it now. " But Susy, with feminine discrimination detecting the hollow ring in hisvoice, here threw herself upon him and began to beat him violently withher little fists. "They ain't! They ain't! They ain't. You know it!How dare you?" Then, exhausted with her struggles, she suddenly threwherself flat on the dry grass, shut her eyes tightly, and clutched atthe stubble. "Get up, " said the boy, with a pale, determined face that seemed to havegot much older. "You leave me be, " said Susy. "Do you want me to go away and leave you?" asked the boy. Susy opened one blue eye furtively in the secure depths of hersun-bonnet, and gazed at his changed face. "Ye-e-s. " He pretended to turn away, but really to look at the height of thesinking sun. "Kla'uns!" "Well?" "Take me. " She was holding up her hands. He lifted her gently in his arms, droppingher head over his shoulder. "Now, " he said cheerfully, "you keep a goodlookout that way, and I this, and we'll soon be there. " The idea seemed to please her. After Clarence had stumbled on for a fewmoments, she said, "Do you see anything, Kla'uns?" "Not yet. " "No more don't I. " This equality of perception apparently satisfied her. Presently she lay more limp in his arms. She was asleep. The sun was sinking lower; it had already touched the edge of thehorizon, and was level with his dazzled and straining eyes. At times itseemed to impede his eager search and task his vision. Haze and blackspots floated across the horizon, and round wafers, like duplicates ofthe sun, glittered back from the dull surface of the plains. Then heresolved to look no more until he had counted fifty, a hundred, but always with the same result, the return of the empty, unendingplains--the disk growing redder as it neared the horizon, the fire itseemed to kindle as it sank, but nothing more. Staggering under his burden, he tried to distract himself by fancyinghow the discovery of their absence would be made. He heard the listless, half-querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervadedthe nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as hehalted beside the wagon, and said, "Come out o' that now, you two, andmighty quick about it. " He heard the command harshly repeated. He sawthe look of irritation on Silsbee's dusty, bearded face, that followedhis hurried glance into the empty wagon. He heard the query, "What'sgone o' them limbs now?" handed from wagon to wagon. He heard a fewoaths; Mrs. Silsbee's high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurriedand discontented detachment of a search party, Silsbee and one of thehired men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, theelder, who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but hecould not fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheldhis pride; under the prospect of sympathy he might have broken down. At last he stumbled, and stopped to keep himself from falling forward onhis face. He could go no further; his breath was spent; he was drippingwith perspiration; his legs were trembling under him; there wasa roaring in his ears; round red disks of the sun were scatteredeverywhere around him like spots of blood. To the right of the trailthere seemed to be a slight mound where he could rest awhile, and yetkeep his watchful survey of the horizon. But on reaching it he foundthat it was only a tangle of taller mesquite grass, into which he sankwith his burden. Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, itoffered a soft couch for Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturallyinto her usual afternoon siesta, and in a measure it shielded her from acold breeze that had sprung up from the west. Utterly exhausted himself, but not daring to yield to the torpor that seemed to be creeping overhim, Clarence half sat, half knelt down beside her, supporting himselfwith one hand, and, partly hidden in the long grass, kept his strainingeyes fixed on the lonely track. The red disk was sinking lower. It seemed to have already crumbled awaya part of the distance with its eating fires. As it sank still lower, it shot out long, luminous rays, diverging fan-like across the plain, as if, in the boy's excited fancy, it too were searching for the lostestrays. And as one long beam seemed to linger over his hiding-place, he even thought that it might serve as a guide to Silsbee and the otherseekers, and was constrained to stagger to his feet, erect in itslight. But it soon sank, and with it Clarence dropped back again to hiscrouching watch. Yet he knew that the daylight was still good for anhour, and with the withdrawal of that mystic sunset glory objects becameeven more distinct and sharply defined than at any other time. And withthe merciful sheathing of that flaming sword which seemed to have swayedbetween him and the vanished train, his eyes already felt a blessedrelief. CHAPTER III With the setting of the sun an ominous silence fell. He could hear thelow breathing of Susy, and even fancied he could hear the beating of hisown heart in that oppressive hush of all nature. For the day's march hadalways been accompanied by the monotonous creaking of wheels and axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment had been always more or lessbroken by the movement of unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or thebreathing of the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would have brokenthe benumbing spell, but it was a part of his growing self-denial nowthat he refrained from waking her even by a whisper. She would awakensoon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do?If that looked-for help would only come now--while she still slept. Forit was part of his boyish fancy that if he could deliver her asleep andundemonstrative of fear and suffering, he would be less blameful, andshe less mindful of her trouble. If it did not come--but he would notthink of that yet! If she was thirsty meantime--well, it might rain, andthere was always the dew which they used to brush off the morning grass;he would take off his shirt and catch it in that, like a shipwreckedmariner. It would be funny, and make her laugh. For himself he would notlaugh; he felt he was getting very old and grown up in this loneliness. It was getting darker--they should be looking into the wagons now. A newdoubt began to assail him. Ought he not, now that he was rested, makethe most of the remaining moments of daylight, and before the glow fadedfrom the west, when he would no longer have any bearings to guide him?But there was always the risk of waking her!--to what? The fear of beingconfronted again with HER fear and of being unable to pacify her, atlast decided him to remain. But he crept softly through the grass, andin the dust of the track traced the four points of the compass, as hecould still determine them by the sunset light, with a large printed Wto indicate the west! This boyish contrivance particularly pleased him. If he had only had a pole, a stick, or even a twig, on which to tie hishandkerchief and erect it above the clump of mesquite as a signal to thesearchers in case they should be overcome by fatigue or sleep, he wouldhave been happy. But the plain was barren of brush or timber; he didnot dream that this omission and the very unobtrusiveness of hishiding-place would be his salvation from a greater danger. With the coming darkness the wind arose and swept the plain with along-drawn sigh. This increased to a murmur, till presently the wholeexpanse--before sunk in awful silence--seemed to awake with vaguecomplaints, incessant sounds, and low moanings. At times he thought heheard the halloaing of distant voices, at times it seemed as a whisperin his own ear. In the silence that followed each blast he fancied hecould detect the creaking of the wagon, the dull thud of the oxen'shoofs, or broken fragments of speech, blown and scattered even as hestrained his ears to listen by the next gust. This tension of the earbegan to confuse his brain, as his eyes had been previously dazzled bythe sunlight, and a strange torpor began to steal over his faculties. Once or twice his head dropped. He awoke with a start. A moving figure had suddenly uplifted itselfbetween him and the horizon! It was not twenty yards away, so clearlyoutlined against the still luminous sky that it seemed even nearer. A human figure, but so disheveled, so fantastic, and yet so mean andpuerile in its extravagance, that it seemed the outcome of a childishdream. It was a mounted figure, but so ludicrously disproportionate tothe pony it bestrode, whose slim legs were stiffly buried in the dust ina breathless halt, that it might have been a straggler from some vulgarwandering circus. A tall hat, crownless and rimless, a castaway ofcivilization, surmounted by a turkey's feather, was on its head; overits shoulders hung a dirty tattered blanket that scarcely covered thetwo painted legs which seemed clothed in soiled yellow hose. In one handit held a gun; the other was bent above its eyes in eager scrutiny ofsome distant point beyond and east of the spot where the children layconcealed. Presently, with a dozen quick noiseless strides of the pony'slegs, the apparition moved to the right, its gaze still fixed on thatmysterious part of the horizon. There was no mistaking it now! Thepainted Hebraic face, the large curved nose, the bony cheek, the broadmouth, the shadowed eyes, the straight long matted locks! It was anIndian! Not the picturesque creature of Clarence's imagination, butstill an Indian! The boy was uneasy, suspicious, antagonistic, butnot afraid. He looked at the heavy animal face with the superiority ofintelligence, at the half-naked figure with the conscious supremacy ofdress, at the lower individuality with the contempt of a higher race. Yet a moment after, when the figure wheeled and disappeared towards theundulating west, a strange chill crept over him. Yet he did not knowthat in this puerile phantom and painted pigmy the awful majesty ofDeath had passed him by. "Mamma!" It was Susy's voice, struggling into consciousness. Perhaps she had beeninstinctively conscious of the boy's sudden fears. "Hush!" He had just turned to the objective point of the Indian's gaze. ThereWAS something! A dark line was moving along with the gathering darkness. For a moment he hardly dared to voice his thoughts even to himself. It was a following train overtaking them from the rear! And from therapidity of its movements a train with horses, hurrying forward toevening camp. He had never dreamt of help from that quarter. Thiswas what the Indian's keen eyes had been watching, and why he had soprecipitately fled. The strange train was now coming up at a round trot. It was evidentlywell appointed with five or six large wagons and several outriders. Inhalf an hour it would be here. Yet he refrained from waking Susy, whohad fallen asleep again; his old superstition of securing her safetyfirst being still uppermost. He took off his jacket to cover hershoulders, and rearranged her nest. Then he glanced again at the comingtrain. But for some unaccountable reason it had changed its direction, and instead of following the track that should have brought it to hisside it had turned off to the left! In ten minutes it would pass abreastof him a mile and a half away! If he woke Susy now, he knew she would behelpless in her terror, and he could not carry her half that distance. He might rush to the train himself and return with help, but he wouldnever leave her alone--in the darkness. Never! If she woke she would dieof fright, perhaps, or wander blindly and aimlessly away. No! The trainwould pass and with it that hope of rescue. Something was in his throat, but he gulped it down and was quiet again albeit he shivered in thenight wind. The train was nearly abreast of him now. He ran out of the tall grass, waving his straw hat above his head in the faint hope of attractingattention. But he did not go far, for he found to his alarm that whenhe turned back again the clump of mesquite was scarcely distinguishablefrom the rest of the plain. This settled all question of his going. Evenif he reached the train and returned with some one, how would he everfind her again in this desolate expanse? He watched the train slowly pass--still mechanically, almost hopelessly, waving his hat as he ran up and down before the mesquite, as if he werewaving a last farewell to his departing hope. Suddenly it appeared tohim that three of the outriders who were preceding the first wagon hadchanged their shape. They were no longer sharp, oblong, black blocksagainst the horizon but had become at first blurred and indistinct, then taller and narrower, until at last they stood out like exclamationpoints against the sky. He continued to wave his hat, they continued togrow taller and narrower. He understood it now--the three transformedblocks were the outriders coming towards him. This is what he had seen-- [Drawing of three black blocks] This is what he saw now-- ! ! ! He ran back to Susy to see if she still slept, for his foolish desireto have her saved unconsciously was stronger than ever now that safetyseemed so near. She was still sleeping, although she had moved slightly. He ran to the front again. The outriders had apparently halted. What were they doing? Why wouldn'tthey come on? Suddenly a blinding flash of light seemed to burst from one of them. Away over his head something whistled like a rushing bird, and spedoff invisible. They had fired a gun; they were signaling tohim--Clarence--like a grown-up man. He would have given his life at thatmoment to have had a gun. But he could only wave his hat frantically. One of the figures here bore away and impetuously darted forward again. He was coming nearer, powerful, gigantic, formidable, as he loomedthrough the darkness. All at once he threw up his arm with a wildgesture to the others; and his voice, manly, frank, and assuring, cameringing before him. "Hold up! Good God! It's no Injun--it's a child!" In another moment he had reined up beside Clarence and leaned over him, bearded, handsome, powerful and protecting. "Hallo! What's all this? What are you doing here?" "Lost from Mr. Silsbee's train, " said Clarence, pointing to the darkenedwest. "Lost?--how long?" "About three hours. I thought they'd come back for us, " said Clarenceapologetically to this big, kindly man. "And you kalkilated to wait here for 'em?" "Yes, yes--I did--till I saw you. " "Then why in thunder didn't you light out straight for us, instead ofhanging round here and drawing us out?" The boy hung his head. He knew his reasons were unchanged, but all atonce they seemed very foolish and unmanly to speak out. "Only that we were on the keen jump for Injins, " continued the stranger, "we wouldn't have seen you at all, and might hev shot you when we did. What possessed you to stay here?" The boy was still silent. "Kla'uns, " said a faint, sleepy voice from themesquite, "take me. " The rifle-shot had awakened Susy. The stranger turned quickly towards the sound. Clarence started andrecalled himself. "There, " he said bitterly, "you've done it now, you'vewakened her! THAT'S why I stayed. I couldn't carry her over there toyou. I couldn't let her walk, for she'd be frightened. I wouldn't wakeher up, for she'd be frightened, and I mightn't find her again. There!"He had made up his mind to be abused, but he was reckless now that shewas safe. The men glanced at each other. "Then, " said the spokesman quietly, "youdidn't strike out for us on account of your sister?" "She ain't my sister, " said Clarence quickly. "She's a little girl. She's Mrs. Silsbee's little girl. We were in the wagon and got down. It's my fault. I helped her down. " The three men reined their horses closely round him, leaning forwardfrom their saddles, with their hands on their knees and their heads onone side. "Then, " said the spokesman gravely, "you just reckoned to stayhere, old man, and take your chances with her rather than run the riskof frightening or leaving her--though it was your one chance of life!" "Yes, " said the boy, scornful of this feeble, grown-up repetition. "Come here. " The boy came doggedly forward. The man pushed back the well-worn strawhat from Clarence's forehead and looked into his lowering face. With hishand still on the boy's head he turned him round to the others, and saidquietly, -- "Suthin of a pup, eh?" "You bet, " they responded. The voice was not unkindly, although the speaker had thrown his lowerjaw forward as if to pronounce the word "pup" with a humorous suggestionof a mastiff. Before Clarence could make up his mind if the epithetwas insulting or not, the man put out his stirruped foot, and, with agesture of invitation, said, "Jump up. " "But Susy, " said Clarence, drawing back. "Look; she's making up to Phil already. " Clarence looked. Susy had crawled out of the mesquite, and with hersun-bonnet hanging down her back, her curls tossed around her face, still flushed with sleep, and Clarence's jacket over her shoulders, wasgazing up with grave satisfaction in the laughing eyes of one of the menwho was with outstretched hands bending over her. Could he believe hissenses? The terror-stricken, willful, unmanageable Susy, whom he wouldhave translated unconsciously to safety without this terrible ordeal ofbeing awakened to the loss of her home and parents at any sacrificeto himself--this ingenuous infant was absolutely throwing herself withevery appearance of forgetfulness into the arms of the first new-comer!Yet his perception of this fact was accompanied by no sense ofingratitude. For her sake he felt relieved, and with a boyish smileof satisfaction and encouragement vaulted into the saddle before thestranger. CHAPTER IV The dash forward to the train, securely held in the saddle by the armsof their deliverers, was a secret joy to the children that seemed onlytoo quickly over. The resistless gallop of the fiery mustangs, the rushof the night wind, the gathering darkness in which the distant wagons, now halted and facing them, looked like domed huts in the horizon--allthese seemed but a delightful and fitting climax to the events of theday. In the sublime forgetfulness of youth, all they had gone throughhad left no embarrassing record behind it; they were willing to repeattheir experiences on the morrow, confident of some equally happy end. And when Clarence, timidly reaching his hand towards the horse-hairreins lightly held by his companion, had them playfully yielded up tohim by that hold and confident rider, the boy felt himself indeed a man. But a greater surprise was in store for them. As they neared the wagons, now formed into a circle with a certain degree of military formality, they could see that the appointments of the strange party were largerand more liberal than their own, or indeed anything they had ever knownof the kind. Forty or fifty horses were tethered within the circle, andthe camp fires were already blazing. Before one of them a large tentwas erected, and through the parted flaps could be seen a table actuallyspread with a white cloth. Was it a school feast, or was this theirordinary household arrangement? Clarence and Susy thought of their owndinners, usually laid on bare boards beneath the sky, or under the lowhood of the wagon in rainy weather, and marveled. And when they finallyhalted, and were lifted from their horses, and passed one wagon fittedup as a bedroom and another as a kitchen, they could only nudge eachother with silent appreciation. But here again the difference alreadynoted in the quality of the sensations of the two children wasobservable. Both were equally and agreeably surprised. But Susy's wonderwas merely the sense of novelty and inexperience, and a slight disbeliefin the actual necessity of what she saw; while Clarence, whether fromsome previous general experience or peculiar temperament, had theconviction that what he saw here was the usual custom, and what he hadknown with the Silsbees was the novelty. The feeling was attended with aslight sense of wounded pride for Susy, as if her enthusiasm had exposedher to ridicule. The man who had carried him, and seemed to be the head of the party, hadalready preceded them to the tent, and presently reappeared with a ladywith whom he had exchanged a dozen hurried words. They seemed to referto him and Susy; but Clarence was too much preoccupied with the factthat the lady was pretty, that her clothes were neat and thoroughlyclean, that her hair was tidy and not rumpled, and that, although shewore an apron, it was as clean as her gown, and even had ribbons on it, to listen to what was said. And when she ran eagerly forward, and witha fascinating smile lifted the astonished Susy in her arms, Clarence, inhis delight for his young charge, quite forgot that she had not noticedhim. The bearded man, who seemed to be the lady's husband, evidentlypointed out the omission, with some additions that Clarence could notcatch; for after saying, with a pretty pout, "Well, why shouldn't he?"she came forward with the same dazzling smile, and laid her small andclean white hand upon his shoulder. "And so you took good care of the dear little thing? She's such anangel, isn't she? and you must love her very much. " Clarence colored with delight. It was true it had never occurred to himto look at Susy in the light of a celestial visitant, and I fear he wasjust then more struck with the fair complimenter than the complimentto his companion, but he was pleased for her sake. He was not yetold enough to be conscious of the sex's belief in its irresistibledomination over mankind at all ages, and that Johnny in his check apronwould be always a hopeless conquest of Jeannette in her pinafore, andthat he ought to have been in love with Susy. Howbeit, the lady suddenly whisked her away to the recesses of her ownwagon, to reappear later, washed, curled, and beribboned like a newdoll, and Clarence was left alone with the husband and another of theparty. "Well, my boy, you haven't told me your name yet. " "Clarence, sir. " "So Susy calls you, but what else?" "Clarence Brant. " "Any relation to Colonel Brant?" asked the second man carelessly. "He was my father, " said the boy, brightening under this faint prospectof recognition in his loneliness. The two men glanced at each other. The leader looked at the boycuriously, and said, -- "Are you the son of Colonel Brant, of Louisville?" "Yes, sir, " said the boy, with a dim stirring of uneasiness in hisheart. "But he's dead now, " he added finally. "Ah, when did he die?" said the man quickly. "Oh, a long time ago. I don't remember him much. I was very little, "said the boy, half apologetically. "Ah, you don't remember him?" "No, " said Clarence shortly. He was beginning to fall back upon thatcertain dogged repetition which in sensitive children arises from theirhopeless inability to express their deeper feelings. He also had aninstinctive consciousness that this want of a knowledge of his fatherwas part of that vague wrong that had been done him. It did not help hisuneasiness that he could see that one of the two men, who turned awaywith a half-laugh, misunderstood or did not believe him. "How did you come with the Silsbees?" asked the first man. Clarence repeated mechanically, with a child's distaste of practicaldetails, how he had lived with an aunt at St. Jo, and how his stepmotherhad procured his passage with the Silsbees to California, where he wasto meet his cousin. All this with a lack of interest and abstractionthat he was miserably conscious told against him, but he was yethelpless to resist. The first man remained thoughtful, and then glanced at Clarence'ssunburnt hands. Presently his large, good-humored smile returned. "Well, I suppose you are hungry?" "Yes, " said Clarence shyly. "But--" "But what?" "I should like to wash myself a little, " he returned hesitatingly, thinking of the clean tent, the clean lady, and Susy's ribbons. "Certainly, " said his friend, with a pleased look. "Come with me. "Instead of leading Clarence to the battered tin basin and bar of yellowsoap which had formed the toilet service of the Silsbee party, hebrought the boy into one of the wagons, where there was a washstand, achina basin, and a cake of scented soap. Standing beside Clarence, hewatched him perform his ablutions with an approving air which ratherembarrassed his protege. Presently he said, almost abruptly, -- "Do you remember your father's house at Louisville?" "Yes, sir; but it was a long time ago. " Clarence remembered it as being very different from his home at St. Joseph's, but from some innate feeling of diffidence he would haveshrunk from describing it in that way. He, however, said he thought itwas a large house. Yet the modest answer only made his new friend lookat him the more keenly. "Your father was Colonel Hamilton Brant, of Louisville, wasn't he?" hesaid, half-confidentially. "Yes, " said Clarence hopelessly. "Well, " said his friend cheerfully, as if dismissing an abstruse problemfrom his mind, "Let's go to supper. " When they reached the tent again, Clarence noticed that the supper waslaid only for his host and wife and the second man--who was familiarlycalled "Harry, " but who spoke of the former always as "Mr. And Mrs. Peyton"--while the remainder of the party, a dozen men, were at a secondcamp fire, and evidently enjoying themselves in a picturesque fashion. Had the boy been allowed to choose, he would have joined them, partlybecause it seemed more "manly, " and partly that he dreaded a renewal ofthe questioning. But here, Susy, sitting bolt upright on an extemporized high stool, happily diverted his attention by pointing to the empty chair besideher. "Kla'uns, " she said suddenly, with her usual clear and appallingfrankness, "they is chickens, and hamanaigs, and hot biksquits, andlasses, and Mister Peyton says I kin have 'em all. " Clarence, who had begun suddenly to feel that he was responsible forSusy's deportment and was balefully conscious that she was holding herplated fork in her chubby fist by its middle, and, from his previousknowledge of her, was likely at any moment to plunge it into the dishbefore her, said softly, -- "Hush!" "Yes, you shall, dear, " said Mrs. Peyton, with tenderly beamingassurance to Susy and a half-reproachful glance at the boy. "Eat whatyou like, darling. " "It's a fork, " whispered the still uneasy Clarence, as Susy now seemedinclined to stir her bowl of milk with it. "'Tain't, now, Kla'uns, it's only a split spoon, " said Susy. But Mrs. Peyton, in her rapt admiration, took small note of theseirregularities, plying the child with food, forgetting her own meal, andonly stopping at times to lift back the forward straying curls on Susy'sshoulders. Mr. Peyton looked on gravely and contentedly. Suddenly theeyes of husband and wife met. "She'd have been nearly as old as this, John, " said Mrs. Peyton, in afaint voice. John Peyton nodded without speaking, and turned his eyes away into thegathering darkness. The man "Harry" also looked abstractedly at hisplate, as if he was saying grace. Clarence wondered who "she" was, andwhy two little tears dropped from Mrs. Peyton's lashes into Susy's milk, and whether Susy might not violently object to it. He did not know untillater that the Peytons had lost their only child, and Susy comfortablydrained this mingled cup of a mother's grief and tenderness withoutsuspicion. "I suppose we'll come up with their train early tomorrow, if some ofthem don't find us to-night, " said Mrs. Peyton, with a long sigh and aregretful glance at Susy. "Perhaps we might travel together for a littlewhile, " she added timidly. Harry laughed, and Mr. Peyton replied gravely, "I am afraid we wouldn'ttravel with them, even for company's sake; and, " he added, in a lowerand graver voice, "it's rather odd the search party hasn't come uponus yet, though I'm keeping Pete and Hank patrolling the trail to meetthem. " "It's heartless--so it is!" said Mrs. Peyton, with sudden indignation. "It would be all very well if it was only this boy, who can take care ofhimself; but to be so careless of a mere baby like this, it's shameful!" For the first time Clarence tasted the cruelty of discrimination. Allthe more keenly that he was beginning to worship, after his boyishfashion, this sweet-faced, clean, and tender-hearted woman. Perhaps Mr. Peyton noticed it, for he came quietly to his aid. "Maybe they knew better than we in what careful hands they had lefther, " he said, with a cheerful nod towards Clarence. "And, again, theymay have been fooled as we were by Injin signs and left the straightroad. " This suggestion instantly recalled to Clarence his vision in themesquite. Should he dare tell them? Would they believe him, or wouldthey laugh at him before her? He hesitated, and at last resolved to tellit privately to the husband. When the meal was ended, and he was madehappy by Mrs. Peyton's laughing acceptance of his offer to help herclear the table and wash the dishes, they all gathered comfortably infront of the tent before the large camp fire. At the other fire the restof the party were playing cards and laughing, but Clarence no longercared to join them. He was quite tranquil in the maternal propinquityof his hostess, albeit a little uneasy as to his reticence about theIndian. "Kla'uns, " said Susy, relieving a momentary pause, in her highest voice, "knows how to speak. Speak, Kla'uns!" It appearing from Clarence's blushing explanation that this gift was notthe ordinary faculty of speech, but a capacity to recite verse, he waspolitely pressed by the company for a performance. "Speak 'em, Kla'uns, the boy what stood unto the burnin' deck, and said, 'The boy, oh, where was he?'" said Susy, comfortably lying down on Mrs. Peyton's lap, and contemplating her bare knees in the air. "It's 'bouta boy, " she added confidentially to Mrs. Peyton, "whose father wouldn'tnever, never stay with him on a burnin' ship, though he said, 'Stay, father, stay, ' ever so much. " With this clear, lucid, and perfectly satisfactory explanation ofMrs. Hemans's "Casabianca, " Clarence began. Unfortunately, his actualrendering of this popular school performance was more an effort ofmemory than anything else, and was illustrated by those wooden gestureswhich a Western schoolmaster had taught him. He described the flamesthat "roared around him, " by indicating with his hand a perfect circle, of which he was the axis; he adjured his father, the late AdmiralCasabianca, by clasping his hands before his chin, as if wanting tobe manacled in an attitude which he was miserably conscious was unlikeanything he himself had ever felt or seen before; he described thatfather "faint in death below, " and "the flag on high, " with onesingle motion. Yet something that the verses had kindled in hisactive imagination, perhaps, rather than an illustration of the versesthemselves, at times brightened his gray eyes, became tremulous inhis youthful voice, and I fear occasionally incoherent on his lips. Attimes, when not conscious of his affected art, the plain and all upon itseemed to him to slip away into the night, the blazing camp fire athis feet to wrap him in a fateful glory, and a vague devotion tosomething--he knew not what--so possessed him that he communicated it, and probably some of his own youthful delight in extravagant voice, tohis hearers, until, when he ceased with a glowing face, he was surprisedto find that the card players had deserted their camp fires and gatheredround the tent. CHAPTER V "You didn't say 'Stay, father, stay, ' enough, Kla'uns, " said Susycritically. Then suddenly starting upright in Mrs. Peyton's lap, shecontinued rapidly, "I kin dance. And sing. I kin dance High Jambooree. " "What's High Jambooree, dear?" asked Mrs. Peyton. "You'll see. Lemme down. " And Susy slipped to the ground. The dance of High Jambooree, evidently of remote mystical Africanorigin, appeared to consist of three small skips to the right andthen to the left, accompanied by the holding up of very short skirts, incessant "teetering" on the toes of small feet, the exhibition ofmuch bare knee and stocking, and a gurgling accompaniment of childishlaughter. Vehemently applauded, it left the little performer breathless, but invincible and ready for fresh conquest. "I kin sing, too, " she gasped hurriedly, as if unwilling that theapplause should lapse. "I kin sing. Oh, dear! Kla'uns, " piteously, "WHATis it I sing?" "Ben Bolt, " suggested Clarence. "Oh, yes. Oh, don't you remember sweet Alers Ben Bolt?" began Susy, inthe same breath and the wrong key. "Sweet Alers, with hair so brown, whowept with delight when you giv'd her a smile, and--" with knitted browsand appealing recitative, "what's er rest of it, Kla'uns?" "Who trembled with fear at your frown?" prompted Clarence. "Who trembled with fear at my frown?" shrilled Susy. "I forget er rest. Wait! I kin sing--" "Praise God, " suggested Clarence. "Yes. " Here Susy, a regular attendant in camp and prayer-meetings, wason firmer ground. Promptly lifting her high treble, yet with a certain acquireddeliberation, she began, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. " Atthe end of the second line the whispering and laughing ceased. A deepvoice to the right, that of the champion poker player, suddenly roseon the swell of the third line. He was instantly followed by a dozenringing voices, and by the time the last line was reached it was givenwith a full chorus, in which the dull chant of teamsters and driversmingled with the soprano of Mrs. Peyton and Susy's childish treble. Again and again it was repeated, with forgetful eyes and abstractedfaces, rising and falling with the night wind and the leap and gleam ofthe camp fires, and fading again like them in the immeasurable mysteryof the darkened plain. In the deep and embarrassing silence that followed, at last the partyhesitatingly broke up, Mrs. Peyton retiring with Susy after offeringthe child to Clarence for a perfunctory "good-night" kiss, an unusualproceeding, which somewhat astonished them both--and Clarence foundhimself near Mr. Peyton. "I think, " said Clarence timidly, "I saw an Injin to-day. " Mr. Peyton bent down towards him. "An Injin--where?" he asked quickly, with the same look of doubting interrogatory with which he had receivedClarence's name and parentage. The boy for a moment regretted having spoken. But with his olddoggedness he particularized his statement. Fortunately, being giftedwith a keen perception, he was able to describe the stranger accurately, and to impart with his description that contempt for its subjectwhich he had felt, and which to his frontier auditor established itstruthfulness. Peyton turned abruptly away, but presently returned withHarry and another man. "You are sure of this?" said Peyton, half-encouragingly. "Yes, sir. " "As sure as you are that your father is Colonel Brant and is dead?" saidHarry, with a light laugh. Tears sprang into the boy's lowering eyes. "I don't lie, " he saiddoggedly. "I believe you, Clarence, " said Peyton quietly. "But why didn't you sayit before?" "I didn't like to say it before Susy and--her!" stammered the boy. "Her?" "Yes, sir--Mrs. Peyton, " said Clarence blushingly. "Oh, " said Harry sarcastically, "how blessed polite we are!" "That'll do. Let up on him, will you?" said Peyton, roughly, to hissubordinate. "The boy knows what he's about. But, " he continued, addressing Clarence, "how was it the Injin didn't see you?" "I was very still on account of not waking Susy, " said Clarence, "and--"He hesitated. "And what?" "He seemed more keen watching what YOU were doing, " said the boy boldly. "That's so, " broke in the second man, who happened to be experienced, "and as he was to wind'ard o' the boy he was off HIS scent and bearings. He was one of their rear scouts; the rest o' them's ahead crossing ourtrack to cut us off. Ye didn't see anything else?" "I saw a coyote first, " said Clarence, greatly encouraged. "Hold on!" said the expert, as Harry turned away with a sneer. "That'sa sign, too. Wolf don't go where wolf hez been, and coyote don't follerInjins--there's no pickin's! How long afore did you see the coyote?" "Just after we left the wagon, " said Clarence. "That's it, " said the man, thoughtfully. "He was driven on ahead, orhanging on their flanks. These Injins are betwixt us and that ar train, or following it. " Peyton made a hurried gesture of warning, as if reminding the speakerof Clarence's presence--a gesture which the boy noticed and wonderedat. Then the conversation of the three men took a lower tone, althoughClarence distinctly heard the concluding opinion of the expert. "It ain't no good now, Mr. Peyton, and you'd be only exposing yourselfon their ground by breakin' camp agin to-night. And you don't knowthat it ain't US they're watchin'. You see, if we hadn't turned off thestraight road when we got that first scare from these yer lost children, we might hev gone on and walked plump into some cursed trap of thosedevils. To my mind, we're just in nigger luck, and with a good watch andmy patrol we're all right to be fixed where we be till daylight. " Mr. Peyton presently turned away, taking Clarence with him. "As we'llbe up early and on the track of your train to-morrow, my boy, you hadbetter turn in now. I've put you up in my wagon, and as I expect to bein the saddle most of the night, I reckon I won't trouble you much. " Heled the way to a second wagon--drawn up beside the one where Susy andMrs. Peyton had retired--which Clarence was surprised to find fittedwith a writing table and desk, a chair, and even a bookshelf containingsome volumes. A long locker, fitted like a lounge, had been made up asa couch for him, with the unwonted luxury of clean white sheets andpillow-cases. A soft matting covered the floor of the heavy wagon bed, which, Mr. Peyton explained, was hung on centre springs to preventjarring. The sides and roof of the vehicle were of lightly paneled wood, instead of the usual hooked canvas frame of the ordinary emigrant wagon, and fitted with a glazed door and movable window for light and air. Clarence wondered why the big, powerful man, who seemed at home onhorseback, should ever care to sit in this office like a merchant ora lawyer; and if this train sold things to the other trains, or tookgoods, like the peddlers, to towns on the route; but there seemed to benothing to sell, and the other wagons were filled with only the goodsrequired by the party. He would have liked to ask Mr. Peyton who HE was, and have questioned HIM as freely as he himself had been questioned. Butas the average adult man never takes into consideration the injusticeof denying to the natural and even necessary curiosity of childhoodthat questioning which he himself is so apt to assume without right, andalmost always without delicacy, Clarence had no recourse. Yet theboy, like all children, was conscious that if he had been afterwardsquestioned about THIS inexplicable experience, he would have beenblamed for his ignorance concerning it. Left to himself presently, andensconced between the sheets, he lay for some moments staring about him. The unwonted comfort of his couch, so different from the stuffy blanketin the hard wagon bed which he had shared with one of the teamsters, andthe novelty, order, and cleanliness of his surroundings, while they weregrateful to his instincts, began in some vague way to depress him. To his loyal nature it seemed a tacit infidelity to his former roughcompanions to be lying here; he had a dim idea that he had lost thatindependence which equal discomfort and equal pleasure among them hadgiven him. There seemed a sense of servitude in accepting this luxurywhich was not his. This set him endeavoring to remember something ofhis father's house, of the large rooms, drafty staircases, and far-offceilings, and the cold formality of a life that seemed made up ofstrange faces; some stranger--his parents; some kinder--the servants;particularly the black nurse who had him in charge. Why did Mr. Peytonask him about it? Why, if it were so important to strangers, had nothis mother told him more of it? And why was she not like this good womanwith the gentle voice who was so kind to--to Susy? And what did theymean by making HIM so miserable? Something rose in his throat, but withan effort he choked it back, and, creeping from the lounge, went softlyto the window, opened it to see if it "would work, " and looked out. Theshrouded camp fires, the stars that glittered but gave no light, the dimmoving bulk of a patrol beyond the circle, all seemed to intensify thedarkness, and changed the current of his thoughts. He remembered whatMr. Peyton had said of him when they first met. "Suthin of a pup, ain'the?" Surely that meant something that was not bad! He crept back to thecouch again. Lying there, still awake, he reflected that he wouldn't be a scout whenhe grew up, but would be something like Mr. Peyton, and have a trainlike this, and invite the Silsbees and Susy to accompany him. For thispurpose, he and Susy, early to-morrow morning, would get permission tocome in here and play at that game. This would familiarize him with thedetails, so that he would be able at any time to take charge of it. Hewas already an authority on the subject of Indians! He had once beenfired at--as an Indian. He would always carry a rifle like that hangingfrom the hooks at the end of the wagon before him, and would eventuallyslay many Indians and keep an account of them in a big book like thaton the desk. Susy would help him, having grown up a lady, and they wouldboth together issue provisions and rations from the door of the wagon tothe gathered crowds. He would be known as the "White Chief, " his Indianname being "Suthin of a Pup. " He would have a circus van attached tothe train, in which he would occasionally perform. He would also haveartillery for protection. There would be a terrific engagement, and hewould rush into the wagon, heated and blackened with gunpowder; andSusy would put down an account of it in a book, and Mrs. Peyton--for shewould be there in some vague capacity--would say, "Really, now, I don'tsee but what we were very lucky in having such a boy as Clarence withus. I begin to understand him better. " And Harry, who, for purposes ofvague poetical retaliation, would also drop in at that moment, wouldmutter and say, "He is certainly the son of Colonel Brant; dear me!" andapologize. And his mother would come in also, in her coldest and mostindifferent manner, in a white ball dress, and start and say, "Goodgracious, how that boy has grown! I am sorry I did not see more ofhim when he was young. " Yet even in the midst of this came a confusingnumbness, and then the side of the wagon seemed to melt away, and hedrifted out again alone into the empty desolate plain from which eventhe sleeping Susy had vanished, and he was left deserted and forgotten. Then all was quiet in the wagon, and only the night wind moving roundit. But lo! the lashes of the sleeping White Chief--the dauntlessleader, the ruthless destroyer of Indians--were wet with glitteringtears! Yet it seemed only a moment afterwards that he awoke with a faintconsciousness of some arrested motion. To his utter consternation, the sun, three hours high, was shining in the wagon, already hot andstifling in its beams. There was the familiar smell and taste of thedirty road in the air about him. There was a faint creaking of boardsand springs, a slight oscillation, and beyond the audible rattle ofharness, as if the train had been under way, the wagon moving, and thenthere had been a sudden halt. They had probably come up with the Silsbeetrain; in a few moments the change would be effected and all of hisstrange experience would be over. He must get up now. Yet, with themorning laziness of the healthy young animal, he curled up a momentlonger in his luxurious couch. How quiet it was! There were far-off voices, but they seemed suppressedand hurried. Through the window he saw one of the teamsters run rapidlypast him with a strange, breathless, preoccupied face, halt a moment atone of the following wagons, and then run back again to the front. Then two of the voices came nearer, with the dull beating of hoofs inthe dust. "Rout out the boy and ask him, " said a half-suppressed, impatient voice, which Clarence at once recognized as the man Harry's. "Hold on till Peyton comes up, " said the second voice, in a low tone;"leave it to him. " "Better find out what they were like, at once, " grumbled Harry. "Wait, stand back, " said Peyton's voice, joining the others; "I'LL askhim. " Clarence looked wonderingly at the door. It opened on Mr. Peyton, dustyand dismounted, with a strange, abstracted look in his face. "How many wagons are in your train, Clarence?" "Three, sir. " "Any marks on them?" "Yes, sir, " said Clarence, eagerly: "'Off to California' and 'Root, Hog, or Die. '" Mr. Peyton's eye seemed to leap up and hold Clarence's with a sudden, strange significance, and then looked down. "How many were you in all?" he continued. "Five, and there was Mrs. Silsbee. " "No other woman?" "No. " "Get up and dress yourself, " he said gravely, "and wait here till Icome back. Keep cool and have your wits about you. " He dropped hisvoice slightly. "Perhaps something's happened that you'll have to showyourself a little man again for, Clarence!" The door closed, and the boy heard the same muffled hoofs and voices dieaway towards the front. He began to dress himself mechanically, almostvacantly, yet conscious always of a vague undercurrent of thrillingexcitement. When he had finished he waited almost breathlessly, feelingthe same beating of his heart that he had felt when he was following thevanished train the day before. At last he could stand the suspense nolonger, and opened the door. Everything was still in the motionlesscaravan, except--it struck him oddly even then--the unconcernedprattling voice of Susy from one of the nearer wagons. Perhaps asudden feeling that this was something that concerned HER, perhaps anirresistible impulse overcame him, but the next moment he had leaped tothe ground, faced about, and was running feverishly to the front. The first thing that met his eyes was the helpless and desolate bulk ofone of the Silsbee wagons a hundred rods away, bereft of oxen and pole, standing alone and motionless against the dazzling sky! Near it was thebroken frame of another wagon, its fore wheels and axles gone, pitchedforward on its knees like an ox under the butcher's sledge. Not far awaythere were the burnt and blackened ruins of a third, around which thewhole party on foot and horseback seemed to be gathered. As the boy ranviolently on, the group opened to make way for two men carrying somehelpless but awful object between them. A terrible instinct madeClarence swerve from it in his headlong course, but he was at the samemoment discovered by the others, and a cry arose of "Go back!" "Stop!""Keep him back!" Heeding it no more than the wind that whistled by him, Clarence made directly for the foremost wagon--the one in which heand Susy had played. A powerful hand caught his shoulder; it was Mr. Peyton's. "Mrs. Silsbee's wagon, " said the boy, with white lips, pointing to it. "Where is she?" "She's missing, " said Peyton, "and one other--the rest are dead. " "She must be there, " said the boy, struggling, and pointing to thewagon; "let me go. " "Clarence, " said Peyton sternly, accenting his grasp upon the boy's arm, "be a man! Look around you. Try and tell us who these are. " There seemed to be one or two heaps of old clothes lying on the ground, and further on, where the men at a command from Peyton had laid downtheir burden, another. In those ragged, dusty heaps of clothes, fromwhich all the majesty of life seemed to have been ruthlessly stampedout, only what was ignoble and grotesque appeared to be left. Therewas nothing terrible in this. The boy moved slowly towards them; and, incredible even to himself, the overpowering fear of them that a momentbefore had overcome him left him as suddenly. He walked from the one tothe other, recognizing them by certain marks and signs, and mentioningname after name. The groups gazed at him curiously; he was consciousthat he scarcely understood himself, still less the same quiet purposethat made him turn towards the furthest wagon. "There's nothing there, " said Peyton; "we've searched it. " But the boy, without replying, continued his way, and the crowd followed him. The deserted wagon, more rude, disorderly, and slovenly than it hadever seemed to him before, was now heaped and tumbled with broken bones, cans, scattered provisions, pots, pans, blankets, and clothing in thefoul confusion of a dust-heap. But in this heterogeneous mingling theboy's quick eye caught sight of a draggled edge of calico. "That's Mrs. Silsbee's dress!" he cried, and leapt into the wagon. At first the men stared at each other, but an instant later a dozenhands were helping him, nervously digging and clearing away the rubbish. Then one man uttered a sudden cry, and fell back with frantic butfurious eyes uplifted against the pitiless, smiling sky above him. "Great God! look here!" It was the yellowish, waxen face of Mrs. Silsbee that had beenuncovered. But to the fancy of the boy it had changed; the old familiarlines of worry, care, and querulousness had given way to a look ofremote peace and statue-like repose. He had often vexed her in heraggressive life; he was touched with remorse at her cold, passionlessapathy now, and pressed timidly forward. Even as he did so, the man, with a quick but warning gesture, hurriedly threw his handkerchiefover the matted locks, as if to shut out something awful from his view. Clarence felt himself drawn back; but not before the white lips of abystander had whispered a single word-- "Scalped, too! by God!" CHAPTER VI Then followed days and weeks that seemed to Clarence as a dream. Atfirst, an interval of hushed and awed restraint when he and Susy werekept apart, a strange and artificial interest taken little note of byhim, but afterwards remembered when others had forgotten it; the burialof Mrs. Silsbee beneath a cairn of stones, with some ceremonies that, simple though they were, seemed to usurp the sacred rights of grief fromhim and Susy, and leave them cold and frightened; days of frequent andincoherent childish outbursts from Susy, growing fainter and rarer astime went on, until they ceased, he knew not when; the haunting by nightof that morning vision of the three or four heaps of ragged clothes onthe ground and a half regret that he had not examined them more closely;a recollection of the awful loneliness and desolation of the broken andabandoned wagon left behind on its knees as if praying mutely when thetrain went on and left it; the trundling behind of the fateful wagonin which Mrs. Silsbee's body had been found, superstitiously shunned byevery one, and when at last turned over to the authorities at an outpostgarrison, seeming to drop the last link from the dragging chain of thepast. The revelation to the children of a new experience in that briefglimpse of the frontier garrison; the handsome officer in uniform andbelted sword, an heroic, vengeful figure to be admired and imitatedhereafter; the sudden importance and respect given to Susy and himselfas "survivors"; the sympathetic questioning and kindly exaggerationsof their experiences, quickly accepted by Susy--all these, looking backupon them afterwards, seemed to have passed in a dream. No less strange and visionary to them seemed the real transitions theynoted from the moving train. How one morning they missed the changeless, motionless, low, dark line along the horizon, and before noon foundthemselves among the rocks and trees and a swiftly rushing river. How there suddenly appeared beside them a few days later a great graycloud-covered ridge of mountains that they were convinced was that samedark line that they had seen so often. How the men laughed at them, andsaid that for the last three days they had been CROSSING that dark line, and that it was HIGHER than the great gray-clouded range before them, which it had always hidden from their view! How Susy firmly believedthat these changes took place in her sleep, when she always "kinder feltthey were crawlin' up, " and how Clarence, in the happy depreciation ofextreme youth, expressed his conviction that they "weren't a bit high, after all. " How the weather became cold, though it was already summer, and at night the camp fire was a necessity, and there was a stove inthe tent with Susy; and yet how all this faded away, and they were againupon a dazzling, burnt, and sun-dried plain! But always as in a dream! More real were the persons who composed the party--whom they seemed tohave always known--and who, in the innocent caprice of children, hadbecome to them more actual than the dead had even been. There was Mr. Peyton, who they now knew owned the train, and who was so rich that he"needn't go to California if he didn't want to, and was going to buya great deal of it if he liked it, " and who was also a lawyer and"policeman"--which was Susy's rendering of "politician"--and was called"Squire" and "Judge" at the frontier outpost, and could order anybody tobe "took up if he wanted to, " and who knew everybody by their Christiannames; and Mrs. Peyton, who had been delicate and was ordered by thedoctor to live in the open air for six months, and "never go into ahouse or a town agin, " and who was going to adopt Susy as soon as herhusband could arrange with Susy's relatives, and draw up the papers! How"Harry" was Henry Benham, Mrs. Peyton's brother, and a kind of partnerof Mr. Peyton. And how the scout's name was Gus Gildersleeve, or the"White Crow, " and how, through his recognized intrepidity, an attackupon their train was no doubt averted. Then there was "Bill, " thestock herder, and "Texas Jim, " the vaquero--the latter marvelous andunprecedented in horsemanship. Such were their companions, asappeared through the gossip of the train and their own inexperiencedconsciousness. To them, they were all astounding and importantpersonages. But, either from boyish curiosity or some sense of beingmisunderstood, Clarence was more attracted by the two individuals of theparty who were least kind to him--namely, Mrs. Peyton and her brotherHarry. I fear that, after the fashion of most children, and somegrown-up people, he thought less of the steady kindness of Mr. Peytonand the others than of the rare tolerance of Harry or the politeconcessions of his sister. Miserably conscious of this at times, hequite convinced himself that if he could only win a word of approbationfrom Harry, or a smile from Mrs. Peyton, he would afterwards revengehimself by "running away. " Whether he would or not, I cannot say. I amwriting of a foolish, growing, impressionable boy of eleven, of whosesentiments nothing could be safely predicted but uncertainty. It was at this time that he became fascinated by another member of theparty whose position had been too humble and unimportant to be includedin the group already noted. Of the same appearance as the otherteamsters in size, habits, and apparel, he had not at first exhibited toClarence any claim to sympathy. But it appeared that he was actuallya youth of only sixteen--a hopeless incorrigible of St. Joseph, whoseparents had prevailed on Peyton to allow him to join the party, by wayof removing him from evil associations and as a method of reform. Ofthis Clarence was at first ignorant, not from any want of frankness onthe part of the youth, for that ingenious young gentleman later informedhim that he had killed three men in St. Louis, two in St. Jo, and thatthe officers of justice were after him. But it was evident that toprecocious habits of drinking, smoking, chewing, and card-playing thisovergrown youth added a strong tendency to exaggeration of statement. Indeed, he was known as "Lying Jim Hooker, " and his various qualitiespresented a problem to Clarence that was attractive and inspiring, doubtful, but always fascinating. With the hoarse voice of earlywickedness and a contempt for ordinary courtesy, he had a round, perfectly good-humored face, and a disposition that when not calledupon to act up to his self-imposed role of reckless wickedness, was notunkindly. It was only a few days after the massacre, and while the children werestill wrapped in the gloomy interest and frightened reticence whichfollowed it, that "Jim Hooker" first characteristically flashed uponClarence's perceptions. Hanging half on and half off the saddle ofan Indian pony, the lank Jim suddenly made his appearance, dashingviolently up and down the track, and around the wagon in which Clarencewas sitting, tugging desperately at the reins, with every indication ofbeing furiously run away with, and retaining his seat only with the mostdauntless courage and skill. Round and round they went, the helplessrider at times hanging by a single stirrup near the ground, and againrecovering himself by--as it seemed to Clarence--almost superhumaneffort. Clarence sat open-mouthed with anxiety and excitement, and yeta few of the other teamsters laughed. Then the voice of Mr. Peyton, fromthe window of his car, said quietly, -- "There, that will do, Jim. Quit it!" The furious horse and rider instantly disappeared. A few moments after, the bewildered Clarence saw the redoubted horseman trotting alongquietly in the dust of the rear, on the same fiery steed, who in thatprosaic light bore an astounding resemblance to an ordinary team horse. Later in the day he sought an explanation from the rider. "You see, " answered Jim gloomily, "thar ain't a galoot in this yer crowdez knows jist WHAT'S in that hoss! And them ez suspecks daren't say! Itwouldn't do for to hev it let out that the Judge hez a Morgan-Mexicanplug that's killed two men afore he got him, and is bound to killanother afore he gets through! Why, on'y the week afore we kem up toyou, that thar hoss bolted with me at camping! Bucked and throwed me, but I kept my holt o' the stirrups with my foot--so! Dragged me a matterof two miles, head down, and me keepin' away rocks with my hand--so!" "Why didn't you loose your foot and let go?" asked Clarencebreathlessly. "YOU might, " said Jim, with deep scorn; "that ain't MY style. I justlaid low till we kem to a steep pitched hill, and goin' down when thehoss was, so to speak, kinder BELOW me, I just turned a hand spring, so, and that landed me onter his back again. " This action, though vividly illustrated by Jim's throwing his hands downlike feet beneath him, and indicating the parabola of a spring inthe air, proving altogether too much for Clarence's mind to grasp, hetimidly turned to a less difficult detail. "What made the horse bolt first, Mr. Hooker?" "Smelt Injins!" said Jim, carelessly expectorating tobacco juice ina curving jet from the side of his mouth--a singularly fascinatingaccomplishment, peculiarly his own, "'n' likely YOUR Injins. " "But, " argued Clarence hesitatingly, "you said it was a weekbefore--and--" "Er Mexican plug kin smell Injins fifty, yes, a hundred miles away, "said Jim, with scornful deliberation; "'n' if Judge Peyton had took myadvice, and hadn't been so mighty feared about the character of his hossgettin' out he'd hev played roots on them Injins afore they tetched ye. But, " he added, with gloomy dejection, "there ain't no sand in this yercrowd, thar ain't no vim, thar ain't nothin'; and thar kan't be ez longez thar's women and babies, and women and baby fixin's, mixed up withit. I'd hev cut the whole blamed gang ef it weren't for one or twothings, " he added darkly. Clarence, impressed by Jim's mysterious manner, for the moment forgothis contemptuous allusion to Mr. Peyton, and the evident implication ofSusy and himself, and asked hurriedly, "What things?" Jim, as if forgetful of the boy's presence in his fitful mood, abstractedly half drew a glittering bowie knife from his bootleg, and then slowly put it back again. "Thar's one or two old scores, " hecontinued, in a low voice, although no one was in hearing distance ofthem, "one or two private accounts, " he went on tragically, avertinghis eyes as if watched by some one, "thet hev to be wiped out with bloodafore I leave. Thar's one or two men TOO MANY alive and breathin' inthis yer crowd. Mebbee it's Gus Gildersleeve; mebbee it's Harry Benham;mebbee, " he added, with a dark yet noble disinterestedness, "it's ME. " "Oh, no, " said Clarence, with polite deprecation. Far from placating the gloomy Jim, this seemed only to awake hissuspicions. "Mebbee, " he said, dancing suddenly away from Clarence, "mebbee you think I'm lyin'. Mebbee you think, because you're ColonelBrant's son, yer kin run ME with this yer train. Mebbee, " he continued, dancing violently back again, "ye kalkilate, because ye run off'n'stampeded a baby, ye kin tote me round too, sonny. Mebbee, " he wenton, executing a double shuffle in the dust and alternately strikinghis hands on the sides of his boots, "mebbee you're spyin' round andreportin' to the Judge. " Firmly convinced that Jim was working himself up by an Indian war-danceto some desperate assault on himself, but resenting the last unjustaccusation, Clarence had recourse to one of his old dogged silences. Happily at this moment an authoritative voice called out, "Now, then, you Jim Hooker!" and the desperate Hooker, as usual, vanished instantly. Nevertheless, he appeared an hour or two later beside the wagon in whichSusy and Clarence were seated, with an expression of satiated vengeanceand remorseful bloodguiltiness in his face, and his hair combed Indianfashion over his eyes. As he generously contented himself with onlypassing a gloomy and disparaging criticism on the game of cards thatthe children were playing, it struck Clarence for the first time that agreat deal of his real wickedness resided in his hair. This set him tothinking that it was strange that Mr. Peyton did not try to reform himwith a pair of scissors, but not until Clarence himself had for atleast four days attempted to imitate Jim by combing his own hair in thatfashion. A few days later, Jim again casually favored him with a confidentialinterview. Clarence had been allowed to bestride one of the team leaderspostillionwise, and was correspondingly elevated, when Jim joined him, on the Mexican plug, which appeared--no doubt a part of its wickedart--heavily docile, and even slightly lame. "How much, " said Jim, in a tone of gloomy confidence, --"how much did youreckon to make by stealin' that gal-baby, sonny?" "Nothing, " replied Clarence with a smile. Perhaps it was an evidence ofthe marked influence that Jim was beginning to exert over him thathe already did not attempt to resent this fascinating implication ofgrownup guilt. "It orter bin a good job, if it warn't revenge, " continued Jim moodily. "No, it wasn't revenge, " said Clarence hurriedly. "Then ye kalkilated ter get er hundred dollars reward ef the old man andold woman hadn't bin scelped afore yet got up to 'em?" said Jim. "That'syour blamed dodgasted luck, eh! Enyhow, you'll make Mrs. Peyton plankdown suthin' if she adopts the babby. Look yer, young feller, " he said, starting suddenly and throwing his face forward, glaring fiendishlythrough his matted side-locks, "d'ye mean ter tell me it wasn't aplant--a skin game--the hull thing?" "A what?" said Clarence. "D'ye mean to say"--it was wonderful how gratuitously husky his voicebecame at this moment--"d'ye mean ter tell me ye didn't set on themInjins to wipe out the Silsbees, so that ye could hev an out-an'-out galORFEN on hand fer Mrs. Peyton ter adopt--eh?" But here Clarence was forced to protest, and strongly, although Jimcontemptuously ignored it. "Don't lie ter me, " he repeated mysteriously, "I'm fly. I'm dark, young fel. We're cahoots in this thing?" And withthis artful suggestion of being in possession of Clarence's guiltysecret he departed in time to elude the usual objurgation of hissuperior, "Phil, " the head teamster. Nor was his baleful fascination exercised entirely on Clarence. Inspite of Mrs. Peyton's jealously affectionate care, Clarence's frequentcompanionship, and the little circle of admiring courtiers that alwayssurrounded Susy, it became evident that this small Eve had been secretlyapproached and tempted by the Satanic Jim. She was found one day tohave a few heron's feathers in her possession with which she adorned hercurls, and at another time was discovered to have rubbed her face andarms with yellow and red ochre, confessedly the free gift of Jim Hooker. It was to Clarence alone that she admitted the significance and purportof these offerings. "Jim gived 'em to me, " she said, "and Jim's a kindof Injin hisself that won't hurt me; and when bad Injins come, they'llthink I'm his Injin baby and run away. And Jim said if I'd just told theInjins when they came to kill papa and mamma, that I b'longed to him, they'd hev runned away. " "But, " said the practical Clarence, "you could not; you know you werewith Mrs. Peyton all the time. " "Kla'uns, " said Susy, shaking her head and fixing her round blue eyeswith calm mendacity on the boy, "don't you tell me. I WAS THERE!" Clarence started back, and nearly fell over the wagon in hopeless dismayat this dreadful revelation of Susy's powers of exaggeration. "But, " hegasped, "you know, Susy, you and me left before--" "Kla'uns, " said Susy calmly, making a little pleat in the skirt of herdress with her small thumb and fingers, "don't you talk to me. I wasthere. I'se a SERIVER! The men at the fort said so! The SERIVERS isallus, allus there, and allus allus knows everythin'. " Clarence was too dumfounded to reply. He had a vague recollectionof having noticed before that Susy was very much fascinated by thereputation given to her at Fort Ridge as a "survivor, " and was tryingin an infantile way to live up to it. This the wicked Jim had evidentlyencouraged. For a day or two Clarence felt a little afraid of her, andmore lonely than ever. It was in this state, and while he was doggedly conscious that hisassociation with Jim did not prepossess Mrs. Peyton or her brother inhis favor, and that the former even believed him responsible for Susy'sunhallowed acquaintance with Jim, that he drifted into one of thoseyouthful escapades on which elders are apt to sit in severe but notalways considerate judgment. Believing, like many other children, thatnobody cared particularly for him, except to RESTRAIN him, discovering, as children do, much sooner than we complacently imagine, that love andpreference have no logical connection with desert or character, Clarencebecame boyishly reckless. But when, one day, it was rumored that a herdof buffalo was in the vicinity, and that the train would be delayed thenext morning in order that a hunt might be organized, by Gildersleeve, Benham, and a few others, Clarence listened willingly to Jim'sproposition that they should secretly follow it. To effect their unhallowed purpose required boldness and duplicity. It was arranged that shortly after the departure of the hunting partyClarence should ask permission to mount and exercise one of the teamhorses--a favor that had been frequently granted him; that in theoutskirts of the camp he should pretend that the horse ran away withhim, and Jim would start in pursuit. The absence of the shooting partywith so large a contingent of horses and men would preclude any furtherdetachment from the camp to assist them. Once clear, they would followthe track of the hunters, and, if discovered by them, would offer thesame excuse, with the addition that they had lost their way to the camp. The plan was successful. The details were carried out with almost tooperfect effect; as it appeared that Jim, in order to give dramaticintensity to the fractiousness of Clarence's horse, had inserted a thornapple under the neck of his saddle, which Clarence only discoveredin time to prevent himself from being unseated. Urged forward byostentatious "Whoas!" and surreptitious cuts in the rear from Jim, pursuer and pursued presently found themselves safely beyond thehalf-dry stream and fringe of alder bushes that skirted the camp. Theywere not followed. Whether the teamsters suspected and winked at thisdesign, or believed that the boys could take care of themselves, and ranno risk of being lost in the proximity of the hunting party, there wasno general alarm. Thus reassured, and having a general idea of the direction of the hunt, the boys pushed hilariously forward. Before them opened a vast expanseof bottom land, slightly sloping on the right to a distant half-filledlagoon, formed by the main river overflow, on whose tributary they hadencamped. The lagoon was partly hidden by straggling timber and "brush, "and beyond that again stretched the unlimitable plains--the pastureof their mighty game. Hither, Jim hoarsely informed his companion, thebuffaloes came to water. A few rods further on, he started dramatically, and, alighting, proceeded to slowly examine the ground. It seemed tobe scattered over with half-circular patches, which he pointed outmysteriously as "buffalo chip. " To Clarence's inexperienced perceptionthe plain bore a singular resemblance to the surface of an ordinaryunromantic cattle pasture that somewhat chilled his heroic fancy. However, the two companions halted and professionally examined theirarms and equipments. These, I grieve to say, though varied, were scarcely full orsatisfactory. The necessities of their flight had restricted Jim to anold double-barreled fowling-piece, which he usually carried slung acrosshis shoulders; an old-fashioned "six-shooter, " whose barrels revolvedoccasionally and unexpectedly, known as "Allen's Pepper Box" on accountof its culinary resemblance; and a bowie-knife. Clarence carried anIndian bow and arrow with which he had been exercising, and a hatchetwhich he had concealed under the flanks of his saddle. To this Jimgenerously added the six-shooter, taking the hatchet in exchange--atransfer that at first delighted Clarence, until, seeing the warlikeand picturesque effect of the hatchet in Jim's belt, he regretted thetransfer. The gun, Jim meantime explained "extry charged, " "chuck up"to the middle with slugs and revolver bullets, could only be fired byhimself, and even then he darkly added, not without danger. This povertyof equipment was, however, compensated by opposite statements fromJim of the extraordinary results obtained by these simple weapons from"fellers I knew:" how HE himself had once brought down a "bull" by abold shot with a revolver through its open bellowing mouth that piercedhis "innards;" how a friend of his--an intimate in fact--now in jail atLouisville for killing a sheriff's deputy, had once found himself aloneand dismounted with a simple clasp-knife and a lariat among a herd ofbuffaloes; how, leaping calmly upon the shaggy shoulders of the biggestbull, he lashed himself with the lariat firmly to its horns, goading itonward with his clasp-knife, and subsisting for days upon the flesh cutfrom its living body, until, abandoned by its fellows and exhaustedby the loss of blood, it finally succumbed to its victor at the veryoutskirts of the camp to which he had artfully driven it! It must beconfessed that this recital somewhat took away Clarence's breath, andhe would have liked to ask a few questions. But they were alone on theprairie, and linked by a common transgression; the glorious sun wascoming up victoriously, the pure, crisp air was intoxicating theirnerves; in the bright forecast of youth everything WAS possible! The surface of the bottom land that they were crossing was here andthere broken up by fissures and "potholes, " and some circumspection intheir progress became necessary. In one of these halts, Clarence wasstruck by a dull, monotonous jarring that sounded like the heavy regularfall of water over a dam. Each time that they slackened their pace thesound would become more audible, and was at last accompanied by thatslight but unmistakable tremor of the earth that betrayed the vicinityof a waterfall. Hesitating over the phenomenon, which seemed to implythat their topography was wrong and that they had blundered from thetrack, they were presently startled by the fact that the sound wasactually APPROACHING them! With a sudden instinct they both gallopedtowards the lagoon. As the timber opened before them Jim uttered a longecstatic shout. "Why, it's THEM!" At a first glance it seemed to Clarence as if the whole plain beyondwas broken up and rolling in tumbling waves or furrows towards them. Asecond glance showed the tossing fronts of a vast herd of buffaloes, andhere and there, darting in and out and among them, or emerging from thecloud of dust behind, wild figures and flashes of fire. With the idea ofwater still in his mind, it seemed as if some tumultuous tidal wave weresweeping unseen towards the lagoon, carrying everything before it. Heturned with eager eyes, in speechless expectancy, to his companion. Alack! that redoubtable hero and mighty hunter was, to all appearances, equally speechless and astonished. It was true that he remained rootedto the saddle, a lank, still heroic figure, alternately grasping hishatchet and gun with a kind of spasmodic regularity. How long he wouldhave continued this would never be known, for the next moment, with adeafening crash, the herd broke through the brush, and, swerving at theright of the lagoon, bore down directly upon them. All further doubt orhesitation on their part was stopped. The farseeing, sagacious Mexicanplug with a terrific snort wheeled and fled furiously with his rider. Moved, no doubt, by touching fidelity, Clarence's humbler team-horseinstantly followed. In a few moments those devoted animals struggledneck to neck in noble emulation. "What are we goin' off this way for?" gasped the simple Clarence. "Peyton and Gildersleeve are back there--and they'll see us, " gasped Jimin reply. It struck Clarence that the buffaloes were much nearer themthan the hunting party, and that the trampling hoofs of a dozen bullswere close behind them, but with another gasp he shouted, "When are we going to hunt 'em?" "Hunt THEM!" screamed Jim, with a hysterical outburst of truth; "why, they're huntin' US--dash it!" Indeed, there was no doubt that their frenzied horses were flying beforethe equally frenzied herd behind them. They gained a momentary advantageby riding into one of the fissures, and out again on the other side, while their pursuers were obliged to make a detour. But in a few minutesthey were overtaken by that part of the herd who had taken the other andnearer side of the lagoon, and were now fairly in the midst of them. Theground shook with their trampling hoofs; their steaming breath, minglingwith the stinging dust that filled the air, half choked and blindedClarence. He was dimly conscious that Jim had wildly thrown his hatchetat a cow buffalo pressing close upon his flanks. As they swept down intoanother gully he saw him raise his fateful gun with utter desperation. Clarence crouched low on his horse's outstretched neck. There was ablinding flash, a single stunning report of both barrels; Jim reeled inone way half out of the saddle, while the smoking gun seemed to leap inanother over his head, and then rider and horse vanished in a chokingcloud of dust and gunpowder. A moment after Clarence's horse stoppedwith a sudden check, and the boy felt himself hurled over its head intothe gully, alighting on something that seemed to be a bounding cushionof curled and twisted hair. It was the shaggy shoulder of an enormousbuffalo! For Jim's desperate random shot and double charge had takeneffect on the near hind leg of a preceding bull, tearing away the fleshand ham-stringing the animal, who had dropped in the gully just in frontof Clarence's horse. Dazed but unhurt, the boy rolled from the lifted fore quarters of thestruggling brute to the ground. When he staggered to his feet again, notonly his horse was gone but the whole herd of buffaloes seemed to havepassed too, and he could hear the shouts of unseen hunters now ahead ofhim. They had evidently overlooked his fall, and the gully had concealedhim. The sides before him were too steep for his aching limbs to climb;the slope by which he and the bull had descended when the collisionoccurred was behind the wounded animal. Clarence was staggering towardsit when the bull, by a supreme effort, lifted itself on three legs, halfturned, and faced him. These events had passed too quickly for the inexperienced boy tohave felt any active fear, or indeed anything but wild excitement andconfusion. But the spectacle of that shaggy and enormous front, thatseemed to fill the whole gully, rising with awful deliberation betweenhim and escape, sent a thrill of terror through his frame. The great, dull, bloodshot eyes glared at him with a dumb, wondering fury; thelarge wet nostrils were so near that their first snort of inarticulaterage made him reel backwards as from a blow. The gully was only anarrow and short fissure or subsidence of the plain; a few paces more ofretreat and he would be at its end, against an almost perpendicularbank fifteen feet high. If he attempted to climb its crumbling sides andfell, there would be those short but terrible horns waiting to impalehim! It seemed too terrible, too cruel! He was so small beside thisovergrown monster. It wasn't fair! The tears started to his eyes, andthen, in a rage at the injustice of Fate, he stood doggedly still withclenched fists. He fixed his gaze with half-hysterical, childish fury onthose lurid eyes; he did not know that, owing to the strange magnifyingpower of the bull's convex pupils, he, Clarence, appeared much biggerthan he really was to the brute's heavy consciousness, the distance fromhim most deceptive, and that it was to this fact that hunters so oftenowed their escape. He only thought of some desperate means of attack. Ah! the six-shooter. It was still in his pocket. He drew it nervously, hopelessly--it looked so small compared with his large enemy! He presented it with flashing eyes, and pulled the trigger. A feebleclick followed, another, and again! Even THIS had mocked him. Hepulled the trigger once more, wildly; there was a sudden explosion, andanother. He stepped back; the balls had apparently flattened themselvesharmlessly on the bull's forehead. He pulled again, hopelessly; therewas another report, a sudden furious bellow, and the enormous brutethrew his head savagely to one side, burying his left horn deep in thecrumbling bank beside him. Again and again he charged the bank, drivinghis left horn home, and bringing down the stones and earth in showers. It was some seconds before Clarence saw in a single glimpse of thatwildly tossing crest the reason of this fury. The blood was pouring fromhis left eye, penetrated by the last bullet; the bull was blinded! Aterrible revulsion of feeling, a sudden sense of remorse that was forthe moment more awful than even his previous fear, overcame him. HEhad done THAT THING! As much to fly from the dreadful spectacle asany instinct of self-preservation, he took advantage of the next madparoxysms of pain and blindness, that always impelled the sufferingbeast towards the left, to slip past him on the right, reach theincline, and scramble wildly up to the plain again. Here he ranconfusedly forward, not knowing whither--only caring to escape thatagonized bellowing, to shut out forever the accusing look of that hugeblood-weltering eye. Suddenly he heard a distant angry shout. To his first hurried glancethe plain had seemed empty, but, looking up, he saw two horsemen rapidlyadvancing with a led horse behind them--his own. With the blessed senseof relief that overtook him now came the fevered desire for sympathyand to tell them all. But as they came nearer he saw that they wereGildersleeve, the scout, and Henry Benham, and that, far from sharingany delight in his deliverance, their faces only exhibited irascibleimpatience. Overcome by this new defeat, the boy stopped, again dumb anddogged. "Now, then, blank it all, WILL you get up and come along, or doyou reckon to keep the train waiting another hour over your blankedfoolishness?" said Gildersleeve savagely. The boy hesitated, and then mounted mechanically, without a word. "'Twould have served 'em right to have gone and left 'em, " mutteredBenham vindictively. For one wild instant Clarence thought of throwing himself from hishorse and bidding them go on and leave him. But before he could put histhought into action the two men were galloping forward, with his horseled by a lariat fastened to the horn of Gildersleeve's saddle. In two hours more they had overtaken the train, already on the march, and were in the midst of the group of outriders. Judge Peyton's face, albeit a trifle perplexed, turned towards Clarence with a kindly, half-tolerant look of welcome. The boy's heart instantly melted withforgiveness. "Well, my boy, let's hear YOUR story. What happened?" Clarence cast a hurried glance around, and saw Jim, with face averted, riding gloomily behind. Then nervously and hurriedly he told how he hadbeen thrown into the gully on the back of the wounded buffalo, and themanner of his escape. An audible titter ran through the cavalcade. Mr. Peyton regarded him gravely. "But how did the buffalo get soconveniently into the gully?" he asked. "Jim Hooker lamed him with a shotgun, and he fell over, " said Clarencetimidly. A roar of Homeric laughter went up from the party. Clarence looked up, stung and startled, but caught a single glimpse of Jim Hooker's facethat made him forget his own mortification. In its hopeless, heart-sick, and utterly beaten dejection--the first and only real expression he hadseen on it--he read the dreadful truth. Jim's REPUTATION had ruined him!The one genuine and striking episode of his life, the one trustworthyaccount he had given of it, had been unanimously accepted as the biggestand most consummate lie of his record! CHAPTER VII With this incident of the hunt closed, to Clarence, the last rememberedepisode of his journey. But he did not know until long after that it hadalso closed to him what might have been the opening of a new career. For it had been Judge Peyton's intention in adopting Susy to include acertain guardianship and protection of the boy, provided he could getthe consent of that vague relation to whom he was consigned. But ithad been pointed out by Mrs. Peyton and her brother that Clarence'sassociation with Jim Hooker had made him a doubtful companion for Susy, and even the Judge himself was forced to admit that the boy's apparenttaste for evil company was inconsistent with his alleged birth andbreeding. Unfortunately, Clarence, in the conviction of being hopelesslymisunderstood, and that dogged acquiescence to fate which was one of hischaracteristics, was too proud to correct the impression by any of thehypocracies of childhood. He had also a cloudy instinct of loyalty toJim in his disgrace, without, however, experiencing either the sympathyof an equal or the zeal of a partisan, but rather--if it could be saidof a boy of his years--with the patronage and protection of a superior. So he accepted without demur the intimation that when the train reachedCalifornia he would be forwarded from Stockton with an outfit and aletter of explanation to Sacramento, it being understood that in theevent of not finding his relative he would return to the Peytons in oneof the southern valleys, where they elected to purchase a tract of land. With this outlook, and the prospect of change, independence, and allthe rich possibilities that to the imagination of youth are included inthem, Clarence had found the days dragging. The halt at Salt Lake, the transit of the dreary Alkali desert, even the wild passage of theSierras, were but a blurred picture in his memory. The sight of eternalsnows and the rolling of endless ranks of pines, the first glimpse of ahillside of wild oats, the spectacle of a rushing yellow river that tohis fancy seemed tinged with gold, were momentary excitements, quicklyforgotten. But when, one morning, halting at the outskirts of astruggling settlement, he found the entire party eagerly gathered arounda passing stranger, who had taken from his saddle-bags a small buckskinpouch to show them a double handful of shining scales of metal, Clarencefelt the first feverish and overmastering thrill of the gold-seekers. Breathlessly he followed the breathless questions and careless replies. The gold had been dug out of a placer only thirty miles away. It mightbe worth, say, a hundred and fifty dollars; it was only HIS share of aweek's work with two partners. It was not much; "the country wasgetting played out with fresh arrivals and greenhorns. " All this fallingcarelessly from the unshaven lips of a dusty, roughly dressed man, witha long-handled shovel and pickaxe strapped on his back, and a frying-pandepending from his saddle. But no panoplied or armed knight ever seemedso heroic or independent a figure to Clarence. What could be finer thanthe noble scorn conveyed in his critical survey of the train, with itscomfortable covered wagons and appliances of civilization? "Ye'll hev toget rid of them ther fixin's if yer goin' in for placer diggin'!" Whata corroboration of Clarence's real thoughts! What a picture ofindependence was this! The picturesque scout, the all-powerful JudgePeyton, the daring young officer, all crumbled on their clayey pedestalsbefore this hero in a red flannel shirt and high-topped boots. To strollaround in the open air all day, and pick up those shining bits of metal, without study, without method or routine--this was really life; to someday come upon that large nugget "you couldn't lift, " that was worth asmuch as the train and horses--such a one as the stranger said was foundthe other day at Sawyer's Bar--this was worth giving up everything for. That rough man, with his smile of careless superiority, was the livinglink between Clarence and the Thousand and One Nights; in him wereAladdin and Sindbad incarnate. Two days later they reached Stockton. Here Clarence, whose single suitof clothes had been reinforced by patching, odds and ends from Peyton'sstores, and an extraordinary costume of army cloth, got up by theregimental tailor at Fort Ridge, was taken to be refitted at a generalfurnishing "emporium. " But alas! in the selection of the clothing forthat adult locality scant provision seemed to have been made for aboy of Clarence's years, and he was with difficulty fitted from anold condemned Government stores with "a boy's" seaman suit and abrass-buttoned pea-jacket. To this outfit Mr. Peyton added a small sumof money for his expenses, and a letter of explanation to his cousin. The stage-coach was to start at noon. It only remained for Clarence totake leave of the party. The final parting with Susy had been discountedon the two previous days with some tears, small frights and clingings, and the expressed determination on the child's part "to go with him;"but in the excitement of the arrival at Stockton it was stillfurther mitigated, and under the influence of a little present fromClarence--his first disbursement of his small capital--had at last takenthe form and promise of merely temporary separation. Nevertheless, whenthe boy's scanty pack was deposited under the stage-coach seat, and hehad been left alone, he ran rapidly back to the train for one momentmore with Susy. Panting and a little frightened, he reached Mrs. Peyton's car. "Goodness! You're not gone yet, " said Mrs. Peyton sharply. "Do you wantto lose the stage?" An instant before, in his loneliness, he might have answered, "Yes. "But under the cruel sting of Mrs. Peyton's evident annoyance at hisreappearance he felt his legs suddenly tremble, and his voice left him. He did not dare to look at Susy. But her voice rose comfortably from thedepths of the wagon where she was sitting. "The stage will be gone away, Kla'uns. " She too! Shame at his foolish weakness sent the yearning blood that hadsettled round his heart flying back into his face. "I was looking for--for--for Jim, ma'am, " he said at last, boldly. He saw a look of disgust pass over Mrs. Peyton's face, and felt amalicious satisfaction as he turned and ran back to the stage. But here, to his surprise, he actually found Jim, whom he really hadn't thoughtof, darkly watching the last strapping of luggage. With a mannercalculated to convey the impression to the other passengers that he wasparting from a brother criminal, probably on his way to a state prison, Jim shook hands gloomily with Clarence, and eyed the other passengersfurtively between his mated locks. "Ef ye hear o' anythin' happenin', ye'll know what's up, " he said, in alow, hoarse, but perfectly audible whisper. "Me and them's bound to partcompany afore long. Tell the fellows at Deadman's Gulch to look out forme at any time. " Although Clarence was not going to Deadman's Gulch, knew nothing of it, and had a faint suspicion that Jim was equally ignorant, yet as one ortwo of the passengers glanced anxiously at the demure, gray-eyed boywho seemed booked for such a baleful destination, he really felt thehalf-delighted, half-frightened consciousness that he was starting inlife under fascinating immoral pretenses. But the forward spring of thefine-spirited horses, the quickened motion, the glittering sunlight, andthe thought that he really was leaving behind him all the shackles ofdependence and custom, and plunging into a life of freedom, droveall else from his mind. He turned at last from this hopeful, blissfulfuture, and began to examine his fellow passengers with boyishcuriosity. Wedged in between two silent men on the front seat, one ofwhom seemed a farmer, and the other, by his black attire, a professionalman, Clarence was finally attracted by a black-mantled, dark-haired, bonnetless woman on the back seat, whose attention seemed to bemonopolized by the jocular gallantries of her companions and the twomen before her in the middle seat. From her position he could see littlemore than her dark eyes, which occasionally seemed to meet his frankcuriosity in an amused sort of way, but he was chiefly struck by thepretty foreign sound of her musical voice, which was unlike anythinghe had ever heard before, and--alas for the inconstancy of youth--muchfiner than Mrs. Peyton's. Presently his farmer companion, casting apatronizing glance on Clarence's pea-jacket and brass buttons, saidcheerily-- "Jest off a voyage, sonny?" "No, sir, " stammered Clarence; "I came across the plains. " "Then I reckon that's the rig-out for the crew of a prairie schooner, eh?" There was a laugh at this which perplexed Clarence. Observing it, the humorist kindly condescended to explain that "prairie schooner" wasthe current slang for an emigrant wagon. "I couldn't, " explained Clarence, naively looking at the dark eyes onthe back seat, "get any clothes at Stockton but these; I suppose thefolks didn't think there'd ever be boys in California. " The simplicity of this speech evidently impressed the others, forthe two men in the middle seats turned at a whisper from the lady andregarded him curiously. Clarence blushed slightly and became silent. Presently the vehicle began to slacken its speed. They were ascendinga hill; on either bank grew huge cottonwoods, from which occasionallydepended a beautiful scarlet vine. "Ah! eet ees pretty, " said the lady, nodding her black-veiled headtowards it. "Eet is good in ze hair. " One of the men made an awkward attempt to clutch a spray from thewindow. A brilliant inspiration flashed upon Clarence. When the stagebegan the ascent of the next hill, following the example of an outsidepassenger, he jumped down to walk. At the top of the hill he rejoinedthe stage, flushed and panting, but carrying a small branch of the vinein his scratched hands. Handing it to the man on the middle seat, hesaid, with grave, boyish politeness--"Please--for the lady. " A slight smile passed over the face of Clarence's neighbors. Thebonnetless woman nodded a pleasant acknowledgment, and coquettishlywound the vine in her glossy hair. The dark man at his side, who hadn'tspoken yet, turned to Clarence dryly. "If you're goin' to keep up this gait, sonny, I reckon ye won't findmuch trouble gettin' a man's suit to fit you by the time you reachSacramento. " Clarence didn't quite understand him, but noticed that a singulargravity seemed to overtake the two jocular men on the middle seat, andthe lady looked out of the window. He came to the conclusion that he hadmade a mistake about alluding to his clothes and his size. He must tryand behave more manly. That opportunity seemed to be offered two hourslater, when the stage stopped at a wayside hotel or restaurant. Two or three passengers had got down to refresh themselves at the bar. His right and left hand neighbors were, however, engaged in a drawlingconversation on the comparative merits of San Francisco sandhilland water lots; the jocular occupants of the middle seat were stillengrossed with the lady. Clarence slipped out of the stage and enteredthe bar-room with some ostentation. The complete ignoring of his personby the barkeeper and his customers, however, somewhat disconcerted him. He hesitated a moment, and then returned gravely to the stage door andopened it. "Would you mind taking a drink with me, sir?" said Clarence politely, addressing the farmer-looking passenger who had been most civil to him. A dead silence followed. The two men on the middle seat faced entirelyaround to gaze at him. "The Commodore asks if you'll take a drink with him, " explained one ofthe men to Clarence's friend with the greatest seriousness. "Eh? Oh, yes, certainly, " returned that gentleman, changing hisastonished expression to one of the deepest gravity, "seeing it's theCommodore. " "And perhaps you and your friend will join, too?" said Clarence timidlyto the passenger who had explained; "and you too, sir?" he added to thedark man. "Really, gentlemen, I don't see how we can refuse, " said the latter, with the greatest formality, and appealing to the others. "A complimentof this kind from our distinguished friend is not to be taken lightly. " "I have observed, sir, that the Commodore's head is level, " returned theother man with equal gravity. Clarence could have wished they had not treated his first hospitableeffort quite so formally, but as they stepped from the coach withunbending faces he led them, a little frightened, into the bar-room. Here, unfortunately, as he was barely able to reach over the counter, the barkeeper would have again overlooked him but for a quick glancefrom the dark man, which seemed to change even the barkeeper'sperfunctory smiling face into supernatural gravity. "The Commodore is standing treat, " said the dark man, with unbrokenseriousness, indicating Clarence, and leaning back with an air ofrespectful formality. "I will take straight whiskey. The Commodore, on account of just changing climate, will, I believe, for the presentcontent himself with lemon soda. " Clarence had previously resolved to take whiskey, like the others, buta little doubtful of the politeness of countermanding his guest'sorder, and perhaps slightly embarrassed by the fact that all the othercustomers seemed to have gathered round him and his party with equallyimmovable faces, he said hurriedly: "Lemon soda for me, please. " "The Commodore, " said the barkeeper with impassive features, as he bentforward and wiped the counter with professional deliberation, "is right. No matter how much a man may be accustomed all his life to liquor, whenhe is changing climate, gentlemen, he says 'Lemon soda for me' all thetime. " "Perhaps, " said Clarence, brightening, "you will join too?" "I shall be proud on this occasion, sir. " "I think, " said the tall man, still as ceremoniously unbending asbefore, "that there can be but one toast here, gentlemen. I give you thehealth of the Commodore. May his shadow never be less. " The health was drunk solemnly. Clarence felt his cheeks tingle andin his excitement drank his own health with the others. Yet he wasdisappointed that there was not more joviality; he wondered if menalways drank together so stiffly. And it occurred to him that it wouldbe expensive. Nevertheless, he had his purse all ready ostentatiouslyin his hand; in fact, the paying for it out of his own money was notthe least manly and independent pleasure he had promised himself. "Howmuch?" he asked, with an affectation of carelessness. The barkeeper cast his eye professionally over the barroom. "I think yousaid treats for the crowd; call it twenty dollars to make even change. " Clarence's heart sank. He had heard already of the exaggerationof California prices. Twenty dollars! It was half his fortune. Nevertheless, with an heroic effort, he controlled himself, and withslightly nervous fingers counted out the money. It struck him, however, as curious, not to say ungentlemanly, that the bystanders craned theirnecks over his shoulder to look at the contents of his purse, althoughsome slight explanation was offered by the tall man. "The Commodore's purse, gentlemen, is really a singular one. Permit me, "he said, taking it from Clarence's hand with great politeness. "It isone of the new pattern, you observe, quite worthy of inspection. " Hehanded it to a man behind him, who in turn handed it to another, whilea chorus of "suthin quite new, " "the latest style, " followed it in itspassage round the room, and indicated to Clarence its whereabouts. It was presently handed back to the barkeeper, who had begged also toinspect it, and who, with an air of scrupulous ceremony insisted uponplacing it himself in Clarence's side pocket, as if it were animportant part of his function. The driver here called "all aboard. "The passengers hurriedly reseated themselves, and the episode abruptlyended. For, to Clarence's surprise, these attentive friends of a momentago at once became interested in the views of a new passenger concerningthe local politics of San Francisco, and he found himself utterlyforgotten. The bonnetless woman had changed her position, and her headwas no longer visible. The disillusion and depression that overcame himsuddenly were as complete as his previous expectations and hopefulnesshad been extravagant. For the first time his utter unimportance inthe world and his inadequacy to this new life around him came upon himcrushingly. The heat and jolting of the stage caused him to fall into a slightslumber and when he awoke he found his two neighbors had just got outat a wayside station. They had evidently not cared to waken him to say"Good-by. " From the conversation of the other passengers he learned thatthe tall man was a well-known gambler, and the one who looked like afarmer was a ship captain who had become a wealthy merchant. Clarencethought he understood now why the latter had asked him if he came off avoyage, and that the nickname of "Commodore" given to him, Clarence, wassome joke intended for the captain's understanding. He missed them, forhe wanted to talk to them about his relative at Sacramento, whom he wasnow so soon to see. At last, between sleeping and waking, the end ofhis journey was unexpectedly reached. It was dark, but, being "steamernight, " the shops and business places were still open, and Mr. Peytonhad arranged that the stage-driver should deliver Clarence at theaddress of his relative in "J Street, "--an address which Clarence hadluckily remembered. But the boy was somewhat discomfited to find thatit was a large office or banking-house. He, however, descended from thestage, and with his small pack in his hand entered the building as thestage drove off, and, addressing one of the busy clerks, asked for "Mr. Jackson Brant. " There was no such person in the office. There never had been any suchperson. The bank had always occupied that building. Was there not somemistake in the number? No; the name, number, and street had been deeplyengrafted in the boy's recollection. Stop! it might be the name of acustomer who had given his address at the bank. The clerk who made thissuggestion disappeared promptly to make inquiries in the counting-room. Clarence, with a rapidly beating heart, awaited him. The clerk returned. There was no such name on the books. Jackson Brant was utterly unknownto every one in the establishment. For an instant the counter against which the boy was leaning seemed toyield with his weight; he was obliged to steady himself with both handsto keep from falling. It was not his disappointment, which was terrible;it was not a thought of his future, which seemed hopeless; it was nothis injured pride at appearing to have willfully deceived Mr. Peyton, which was more dreadful than all else; but it was the sudden, sickeningsense that HE himself had been deceived, tricked, and fooled! For itflashed upon him for the first time that the vague sense of wrong whichhad always haunted him was this--that this was the vile culmination ofa plan to GET RID OF HIM, and that he had been deliberately lost and ledastray by his relatives as helplessly and completely as a useless cat ordog! Perhaps there was something of this in his face, for the clerk, staringat him, bade him sit down for a moment, and again vanished into themysterious interior. Clarence had no conception how long he was absent, or indeed anything but his own breathless thoughts, for he was consciousof wondering afterwards why the clerk was leading him through a door inthe counter into an inner room of many desks, and again through a glassdoor into a smaller office, where a preternaturally busy-looking mansat writing at a desk. Without looking up, but pausing only to apply ablotting-pad to the paper before him, the man said crisply-- "So you've been consigned to some one who don't seem to turn up, andcan't be found, eh? Never mind that, " as Clarence laid Peyton's letterbefore him. "Can't read it now. Well, I suppose you want to be shippedback to Stockton?" "No!" said the boy, recovering his voice with an effort. "Eh, that's business, though. Know anybody here?" "Not a living soul; that's why they sent me, " said the boy, in suddenreckless desperation. He was the more furious that he knew the tearswere standing in his eyes. The idea seemed to strike the man amusingly. "Looks a little like it, don't it?" he said, smiling grimly at the paper before him. "Got anymoney?" "A little. " "How much?" "About twenty dollars, " said Clarence hesitatingly. The man opened adrawer at his side, mechanically, for he did not raise his eyes, andtook out two ten-dollar gold pieces. "I'll go twenty better, " he said, laying them down on the desk. "That'll give you a chance to look around. Come back here, if you don't see your way clear. " He dipped his pen intothe ink with a significant gesture as if closing the interview. Clarence pushed back the coin. "I'm not a beggar, " he said doggedly. The man this time raised his head and surveyed the boy with two keeneyes. "You're not, hey? Well, do I look like one?" "No, " stammered Clarence, as he glanced into the man's haughty eyes. "Yet, if I were in your fix, I'd take that money and be glad to get it. " "If you'll let me pay you back again, " said Clarence, a little ashamed, and considerably frightened at his implied accusation of the man beforehim. "You can, " said the man, bending over his desk again. Clarence took up the money and awkwardly drew out his purse. But it wasthe first time he had touched it since it was returned to him in thebar-room, and it struck him that it was heavy and full--indeed, sofull that on opening it a few coins rolled out on to the floor. The manlooked up abruptly. "I thought you said you had only twenty dollars?" he remarked grimly. "Mr. Peyton gave me forty, " returned Clarence, stupefied and blushing. "I spent twenty dollars for drinks at the bar--and, " he stammered, "I--I--I don't know how the rest came here. " "You spent twenty dollars for DRINKS?" said the man, laying down hispen, and leaning back in his chair to gaze at the boy. "Yes--that is--I treated some gentlemen of the stage, sir, at Davidson'sCrossing. " "Did you treat the whole stage company?" "No, sir, only about four or five--and the bar-keeper. But everything'sso dear in California. I know that. " "Evidently. But it don't seem to make much difference with YOU, " saidthe man, glancing at the purse. "They wanted my purse to look at, " said Clarence hurriedly, "and that'show the thing happened. Somebody put HIS OWN MONEY back into MY purse byaccident. " "Of course, " said the man grimly. "Yes, that's the reason, " said Clarence, a little relieved, but somewhatembarrassed by the man's persistent eyes. "Then, of course, " said the other quietly, "you don't require my twentydollars now. " "But, " returned Clarence hesitatingly, "this isn't MY money. I mustfind out who it belongs to, and give it back again. Perhaps, " he addedtimidly, "I might leave it here with you, and call for it when I findthe man, or send him here. " With the greatest gravity he here separated the surplus from what wasleft of Peyton's gift and the twenty dollars he had just received. Thebalance unaccounted for was forty dollars. He laid it on the desk beforethe man, who, still looking at him, rose and opened the door. "Mr. Reed. " The clerk who had shown Clarence in appeared. "Open an account with--" He stopped and turned interrogatively toClarence. "Clarence Brant, " said Clarence, coloring with excitement. "With Clarence Brant. Take that deposit"--pointing to the money--"andgive him a receipt. " He paused as the clerk retired with a wonderinggaze at the money, looked again at Clarence, said, "I think YOU'LL do, "and reentered the private office, closing the door behind him. I hope it will not be deemed inconceivable that Clarence, only a fewmoments before crushed with bitter disappointment and the hopelessrevelation of his abandonment by his relatives, now felt himself liftedup suddenly into an imaginary height of independence and manhood. He wasleaving the bank, in which he stood a minute before a friendless boy, not as a successful beggar, for this important man had disclaimed theidea, but absolutely as a customer! a depositor! a business man likethe grown-up clients who were thronging the outer office, and before theeyes of the clerk who had pitied him! And he, Clarence, had been spokento by this man, whose name he now recognized as the one that was on thedoor of the building--a man of whom his fellow-passengers had spokenwith admiring envy--a banker famous in all California! Will it be deemedincredible that this imaginative and hopeful boy, forgetting all else, the object of his visit, and even the fact that he considered thismoney was not his own, actually put his hat a little on one side as hestrolled out on his way to the streets and prospective fortune? Two hours later the banker had another visitor. It chanced to be thefarmer-looking man who had been Clarence's fellow-passenger. Evidently aprivileged person, he was at once ushered as "Captain Stevens" into thepresence of the banker. At the end of a familiar business interview thecaptain asked carelessly-- "Any letters for me?" The busy banker pointed with his pen to the letter "S" in a row ofalphabetically labeled pigeon-holes against the wall. The captain, having selected his correspondence, paused with a letter in his hand. "Look here, Carden, there are letters here for some chap called 'JohnSilsbee. ' They were here when I called, ten weeks ago. " "Well?" "That's the name of that Pike County man who was killed by Injins in theplains. The 'Frisco papers had all the particulars last night; may beit's for that fellow. It hasn't got a postmark. Who left it here?" Mr. Carden summoned a clerk. It appeared that the letter had been leftby a certain Brant Fauquier, to be called for. Captain Stevens smiled. "Brant's been too busy dealin' faro to think of'em agin, and since that shootin' affair at Angels' I hear he's skippedto the southern coast somewhere. Cal Johnson, his old chum, was in theup stage from Stockton this afternoon. " "Did you come by the up stage from Stockton this afternoon?" saidCarden, looking up. "Yes, as far as Ten-mile Station--rode the rest of the way here. " "Did you notice a queer little old-fashioned kid--about so high--like arunaway school-boy?" "Did I? By G--d, sir, he treated me to drinks. " Carden jumped from his chair. "Then he wasn't lying!" "No! We let him do it; but we made it good for the little chapafterwards. Hello! What's up?" But Mr. Carden was already in the outer office beside the clerk who hadadmitted Clarence. "You remember that boy Brant who was here?" "Yes, sir. " "Where did he go?" "Don't know, sir. " "Go and find him somewhere and somehow. Go to all the hotels, restaurants, and gin-mills near here, and hunt him up. Take some onewith you, if you can't do it alone. Bring him back here, quick!" It was nearly midnight when the clerk fruitlessly returned. It was thefierce high noon of "steamer nights"; light flashed brilliantly fromshops, counting-houses, drinking-saloons, and gambling-hells. Thestreets were yet full of eager, hurrying feet--swift of fortune, ambition, pleasure, or crime. But from among these deeper harsherfootfalls the echo of the homeless boy's light, innocent tread seemed tohave died out forever. CHAPTER VIII When Clarence was once more in the busy street before the bank, itseemed clear to his boyish mind that, being now cast adrift upon theworld and responsible to no one, there was no reason why he should notat once proceed to the nearest gold mines! The idea of returning toMr. Peyton and Susy, as a disowned and abandoned outcast, was not tobe thought of. He would purchase some kind of an outfit, such as he hadseen the miners carry, and start off as soon as he had got his supper. But although one of his most delightful anticipations had been theunfettered freedom of ordering a meal at a restaurant, on entering thefirst one he found himself the object of so much curiosity, partlyfrom his size and partly from his dress, which the unfortunate boy wasbeginning to suspect was really preposterous, and he turned away with astammered excuse, and did not try another. Further on he found a baker'sshop, where he refreshed himself with some gingerbread and lemon soda. At an adjacent grocery he purchased some herrings, smoked beef, andbiscuits, as future provisions for his "pack" or kit. Then began hisreal quest for an outfit. In an hour he had secured--ostensibly for somefriend, to avoid curious inquiry--a pan, a blanket, a shovel andpick, all of which he deposited at the baker's, his unostentatiousheadquarters, with the exception of a pair of disguising high boots thathalf hid his sailor trousers, which he kept to put on at the last. Evento his inexperience the cost of these articles seemed enormous; whenhis purchases were complete, of his entire capital scarcely four dollarsremained! Yet in the fond illusions of boyhood these rude appointmentsseemed possessed of far more value than the gold he had given inexchange for them, and he had enjoyed a child's delight in testing thetransforming magic of money. Meanwhile, the feverish contact of the crowded street had, strangeto say, increased his loneliness, while the ruder joviality of itsdissipations began to fill him with vague uneasiness. The passingglimpse of dancing halls and gaudily whirled figures that seemed onlyfeminine in their apparel; the shouts and boisterous choruses fromconcert rooms; the groups of drunken roisterers that congregated aroundthe doors of saloons or, hilariously charging down the streets, elbowedhim against the wall, or humorously insisted on his company, discomposedand frightened him. He had known rude companionship before, but itwas serious, practical, and under control. There was something in thisvulgar degradation of intellect and power--qualities that Clarence hadalways boyishly worshiped--which sickened and disillusioned him. Lateron a pistol shot in a crowd beyond, the rush of eager men past him, thedisclosure of a limp and helpless figure against the wall, the closingof the crowd again around it, although it stirred him with a fearfulcuriosity, actually shocked him less hopelessly than their brutishenjoyments and abandonment. It was in one of these rushes that he had been crushed against aswinging door, which, giving way to his pressure, disclosed to hiswondering eyes a long, glitteringly adorned, and brightly lit room, densely filled with a silent, attentive throng in attitudes of decorousabstraction and preoccupation, that even the shouts and tumult at itsvery doors could not disturb. Men of all ranks and conditions, plainlyor elaborately clad, were grouped together under this magic spell ofsilence and attention. The tables before them were covered with cardsand loose heaps of gold and silver. A clicking, the rattling of an ivoryball, and the frequent, formal, lazy reiteration of some unintelligiblesentence was all that he heard. But by a sudden instinct he UNDERSTOODit all. It was a gambling saloon! Encouraged by the decorous stillness, and the fact that everybodyappeared too much engaged to notice him, the boy drew timidly besideone of the tables. It was covered with a number of cards, on which wereplaced certain sums of money. Looking down, Clarence saw that he wasstanding before a card that as yet had nothing on it. A single player athis side looked up, glanced at Clarence curiously, and then placed halfa dozen gold pieces on the vacant card. Absorbed in the general aspectof the room and the players, Clarence did not notice that his neighborwon twice, and even THRICE, upon that card. Becoming aware, however, that the player while gathering in his gains, was smilingly regardinghim he moved in some embarrassment to the other end of the table, wherethere seemed another gap in the crowd. It so chanced that there was alsoanother vacant card. The previous neighbor of Clarence instantly shoveda sum of money across the table on the vacant card and won! At this theother players began to regard Clarence singularly, one or two of thespectators smiled, and the boy, coloring, moved awkwardly away. But hissleeve was caught by the successful player, who, detaining him gently, put three gold pieces into his hand. "That's YOUR share, sonny, " he whispered. "Share--for what?" stammered the astounded Clarence. "For bringing me 'the luck, '" said the man. Clarence stared. "Am I--to--to play with it?" he said, glancing at thecoins and then at the table, in ignorance of the stranger's meaning. "No, no!" said the man hurriedly, "don't do that. You'll lose it, sonny, sure! Don't you see, YOU BRING THE LUCK TO OTHERS, not to yourself. Keepit, old man, and run home!" "I don't want it! I won't have it!" said Clarence with a swiftrecollection of the manipulation of his purse that morning, and a suddendistrust of all mankind. "There!" He turned back to the table and laid the money on the firstvacant card he saw. In another moment, as it seemed to him, it was rakedaway by the dealer. A sense of relief came over him. "There!" said the man, with an awed voice and a strange, fatuous lookin his eye. "What did I tell you? You see, it's allus so! Now, " he addedroughly, "get up and get out o' this, afore you lose the boots and shirtoff ye. " Clarence did not wait for a second command. With another glance roundthe room, he began to make his way through the crowd towards the front. But in that parting glance he caught a glimpse of a woman presiding overa "wheel of fortune" in a corner, whose face seemed familiar. He lookedagain, timidly. In spite of an extraordinary head-dress or crown thatshe wore as the "Goddess of Fortune, " he recognized, twisted in itstinsel, a certain scarlet vine which he had seen before; in spite of thehoarse formula which she was continually repeating, he recognized theforeign accent. It was the woman of the stage-coach! With a sudden dreadthat she might recognize him, and likewise demand his services "forluck, " he turned and fled. Once more in the open air, there came upon him a vague loathingand horror of the restless madness and feverish distraction of thishalf-civilized city. It was the more powerful that it was vague, and theoutcome of some inward instinct. He found himself longing for the pureair and sympathetic loneliness of the plains and wilderness; he began toyearn for the companionship of his humble associates--the teamster, thescout Gildersleeve, and even Jim Hooker. But above all and before allwas the wild desire to get away from these maddening streets andtheir bewildering occupants. He ran back to the baker's, gathered hispurchases together, took advantage of a friendly doorway to strap themon his boyish shoulders, slipped into a side street, and struck out atonce for the outskirts. It had been his first intention to take stage to the nearest miningdistrict, but the diminution of his small capital forbade that outlay, and he decided to walk there by the highroad, of whose general directionhe had informed himself. In half an hour the lights of the flat, struggling city, and their reflection in the shallow, turbid riverbefore it, had sunk well behind him. The air was cool and soft; a yellowmoon swam in the slight haze that rose above the tules; in the distancea few scattered cottonwoods and sycamores marked like sentinels theroad. When he had walked some distance he sat down beneath one of themto make a frugal supper from the dry rations in his pack, but in theabsence of any spring he was forced to quench his thirst with a glass ofwater in a wayside tavern. Here he was good-humoredly offeredsomething stronger, which he declined, and replied to certain curiousinterrogations by saying that he expected to overtake his friends in awagon further on. A new distrust of mankind had begun to make the boyan adept in innocent falsehood, the more deceptive as his careless, cheerful manner, the result of his relief at leaving the city, and hisperfect ease in the loving companionship of night and nature, certainlygave no indication of his homelessness and poverty. It was long past midnight, when, weary in body, but still hopeful andhappy in mind, he turned off the dusty road into a vast rolling expanseof wild oats, with the same sense of security of rest as a traveler tohis inn. Here, completely screened from view by the tall stalks of grainthat rose thickly around him to the height of a man's shoulder, he beatdown a few of them for a bed, on which he deposited his blanket. Placinghis pack for a pillow, he curled himself up in his blanket, and speedilyfell asleep. He awoke at sunrise, refreshed, invigorated, and hungry. But he wasforced to defer his first self-prepared breakfast until he had reachedwater, and a less dangerous place than the wild-oat field to buildhis first camp fire. This he found a mile further on, near some dwarfwillows on the bank of a half-dry stream. Of his various efforts toprepare his first meal, the fire was the most successful; the coffeewas somewhat too substantially thick, and the bacon and herring lackeddefiniteness of quality from having been cooked in the same vessel. In this boyish picnic he missed Susy, and recalled, perhaps a littlebitterly, her coldness at parting. But the novelty of his situation, thebrilliant sunshine and sense of freedom, and the road already awakeningto dusty life with passing teams, dismissed everything but the futurefrom his mind. Readjusting his pack, he stepped on cheerily. At noon hewas overtaken by a teamster, who in return for a match to light his pipegave him a lift of a dozen miles. It is to be feared that Clarence'saccount of himself was equally fanciful with his previous story, andthat the teamster parted from him with a genuine regret, and a hope thathe would soon be overtaken by his friends along the road. "And mind thatyou ain't such a fool agin to let 'em make you tote their dod-blastedtools fur them!" he added unsuspectingly, pointing to Clarence's miningoutfit. Thus saved the heaviest part of the day's journey, for theroad was continually rising from the plains during the last six miles, Clarence was yet able to cover a considerable distance on foot beforehe halted for supper. Here he was again fortunate. An empty lumberteam watering at the same spring, its driver offered to take Clarence'spurchases--for the boy had profited by his late friend's suggestion topersonally detach himself from his equipment--to Buckeye Mills for adollar, which would also include a "shakedown passage" for himself onthe floor of the wagon. "I reckon you've been foolin' away in Sacramentothe money yer parents give yer for return stage fare, eh? Don'tlie, sonny, " he added grimly, as the now artful Clarence smileddiplomatically, "I've been thar myself!" Luckily, the excuse that he was"tired and sleepy" prevented further dangerous questioning, and the boywas soon really in deep slumber on the wagon floor. He awoke betimes to find himself already in the mountains. BuckeyeMills was a straggling settlement, and Clarence prudently stopped anyembarrassing inquiry from his friend by dropping off the wagon withhis equipment as they entered it, and hurriedly saying "Good-by" from acrossroad through the woods. He had learned that the nearest mining campwas five miles away, and its direction was indicated by a long wooden"flume, " or water-way, that alternately appeared and disappeared on theflank of the mountain opposite. The cooler and drier air, the gratefulshadow of pine and bay, and the spicy balsamic odors that everywheregreeted him, thrilled and exhilarated him. The trail plunging sometimesinto an undisturbed forest, he started the birds before him like aflight of arrows through its dim recesses; at times he hung breathlesslyover the blue depths of canyons where the same forests were repeated athousand feet below. Towards noon he struck into a rude road--evidentlythe thoroughfare of the locality--and was surprised to find that it, as well as the adjacent soil wherever disturbed, was a deep Indian red. Everywhere, along its sides, powdering the banks and boles of trees withits ruddy stain, in mounds and hillocks of piled dirt on the road, orin liquid paint-like pools, when a trickling stream had formed a gutteracross it, there was always the same deep sanguinary color. Once ortwice it became more vivid in contrast with the white teeth of quartzthat peeped through it from the hillside or crossed the road in crumbledstrata. One of those pieces Clarence picked up with a quickening pulse. It was veined and streaked with shining mica and tiny glittering cubesof mineral that LOOKED like gold! The road now began to descend towards a winding stream, shrunken bydrought and ditching, that glared dazzingly in the sunlight from itswhite bars of sand, or glistened in shining sheets and channels. Alongits banks, and even encroaching upon its bed, were scattered a few mudcabins, strange-looking wooden troughs and gutters, and here and there, glancing through the leaves, the white canvas of tents. The stumps offelled trees and blackened spaces, as of recent fires, marked the streamon either side. A sudden sense of disappointment overcame Clarence. Itlooked vulgar, common, and worse than all--FAMILIAR. It was like theunlovely outskirts of a dozen other prosaic settlements he had seen inless romantic localities. In that muddy red stream, pouring out of awooden gutter, in which three or four bearded, slouching, half-nakedfigures were raking like chiffonniers, there was nothing to suggestthe royal metal. Yet he was so absorbed in gazing at the scene, and hadwalked so rapidly during the past few minutes, that he was startled, onturning a sharp corner of the road, to come abruptly upon an outlyingdwelling. It was a nondescript building, half canvas and half boards. The interiorseen through the open door was fitted up with side shelves, acounter carelessly piled with provisions, groceries, clothing, andhardware--with no attempt at display or even ordinary selection--and atable, on which stood a demijohn and three or four dirty glasses. Tworoughly dressed men, whose long, matted beards and hair left only theireyes and lips visible in the tangled hirsute wilderness below theirslouched hats, were leaning against the opposite sides of the doorway, smoking. Almost thrown against them in the rapid momentum of hisdescent, Clarence halted violently. "Well, sonny, you needn't capsize the shanty, " said the first man, without taking his pipe from his lips. "If yer looking fur yer ma, she and yer Aunt Jane hev jest gone over toParson Doolittle's to take tea, " observed the second man lazily. "Sheallowed that you'd wait. " "I'm--I'm--going to--to the mines, " explained Clarence, with somehesitation. "I suppose this is the way. " The two men took their pipes from their lips, looked at each other, completely wiped every vestige of expression from their faces with theback of their hands, turned their eyes into the interior of the cabin, and said, "Will yer come yer, now WILL yer?" Thus adjured, half a dozenmen, also bearded and carrying pipes in their mouths, straggled out ofthe shanty, and, filing in front of it, squatted down, with their backsagainst the boards, and gazed comfortably at the boy. Clarence began tofeel uneasy. "I'll give, " said one, taking out his pipe and grimly eying Clarence, "ahundred dollars for him as he stands. " "And seein' as he's got that bran-new rig-out o' tools, " said another, "I'll give a hundred and fifty--and the drinks. I've been, " he addedapologetically, "wantin' sunthin' like this a long time. " "Well, gen'lemen, " said the man who had first spoken to him, "lookin'at him by and large; takin' in, so to speak, the gin'ral gait of him insingle harness; bearin' in mind the perfect freshness of him, and thecoolness and size of his cheek--the easy downyness, previousness, andutter don't-care-a-damnativeness of his coming yer, I think two hundredain't too much for him, and we'll call it a bargain. " Clarence's previous experience of this grim, smileless Californian chaffwas not calculated to restore his confidence. He drew away from thecabin, and repeated doggedly, "I asked you if this was the way to themines. " "It ARE the mines, and these yere are the miners, " said the firstspeaker gravely. "Permit me to interdoose 'em. This yere's Shasta Jim, this yere's Shotcard Billy, this is Nasty Bob, and this SlumgullionDick. This yere's the Dook o' Chatham Street, the Livin' Skeleton, andme!" "May we ask, fair young sir, " said the Living Skeleton, who, however, seemed in fairly robust condition, "whence came ye on the wings of themorning, and whose Marble Halls ye hev left desolate?" "I came across the plains, and got into Stockton two days ago on Mr. Peyton's train, " said Clarence, indignantly, seeing no reason now toconceal anything. "I came to Sacramento to find my cousin, who isn'tliving there any more. I don't see anything funny in THAT! I came hereto the mines to dig gold--because---because Mr. Silsbee, the man who wasto bring me here and might have found my cousin for me, was killed byIndians. " "Hold up, sonny. Let me help ye, " said the first speaker, rising to hisfeet. "YOU didn't get killed by Injins because you got lost out of atrain with Silsbee's infant darter. Peyton picked you up while you wastakin' care of her, and two days arter you kem up to the broken-downSilsbee wagons, with all the folks lyin' there slartered. " "Yes, sir, " said Clarence, breathlessly with astonishment. "And, " continued the man, putting his hand gravely to his head as ifto assist his memory, "when you was all alone on the plains with thatlittle child you saw one of those redskins, as near to you as I be, watchin' the train, and you didn't breathe or move while he was there?" "Yes, sir, " said Clarence eagerly. "And you was shot at by Peyton, he thinkin' you was an Injun in themesquite grass? And you once shot a buffalo that had been pitched withyou down a gully--all by yourself?" "Yes, " said Clarence, crimson with wonder and pleasure. "You know me, then?" "Well, ye-e-es, " said the man gravely, parting his mustache with hisfingers. "You see, YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. " "Before! Me?" repeated the astounded Clarence. "Yes, before. Last night. You was taller then, and hadn't cut your hair. You cursed a good deal more than you do now. You drank a man's shareof whiskey, and you borrowed fifty dollars to get to Sacramento with. Ireckon you haven't got it about you now, eh?" Clarence's brain reeled in utter confusion and hopeless terror. Was he going crazy, or had these cruel men learned his story fromhis faithless friends, and this was a part of the plot? He staggeredforward, but the men had risen and quickly encircled him, as if toprevent his escape. In vague and helpless desperation he gasped-- "What place is this?" "Folks call it Deadman's Gulch. " Deadman's Gulch! A flash of intelligence lit up the boy's blindconfusion. Deadman's Gulch! Could it have been Jim Hooker who had reallyrun away, and had taken his name? He turned half-imploringly to thefirst speaker. "Wasn't he older than me, and bigger? Didn't he have a smooth, roundface and little eyes? Didn't he talk hoarse? Didn't he--" He stoppedhopelessly. "Yes; oh, he wasn't a bit like you, " said the man musingly. "Ye see, that's the h-ll of it! You're altogether TOO MANY and TOO VARIOUS furthis camp. " "I don't know who's been here before, or what they have said, " saidClarence desperately, yet even in that desperation retaining the doggedloyalty to his old playmate, which was part of his nature. "I don'tknow, and I don't care--there! I'm Clarence Brant of Kentucky; I startedin Silsbee's train from St. Jo, and I'm going to the mines, and youcan't stop me!" The man who had first spoken started, looked keenly at Clarence, andthen turned to the others. The gentleman known as the living skeletonhad obtruded his huge bulk in front of the boy, and, gazing at him, saidreflectively, "Darned if it don't look like one of Brant's pups--sure!" "Air ye any relation to Kernel Hamilton Brant of Looeyville?" asked thefirst speaker. Again that old question! Poor Clarence hesitated, despairingly. Washe to go through the same cross-examination he had undergone with thePeytons? "Yes, " he said doggedly, "I am--but he's dead, and you knowit. " "Dead--of course. " "Sartin. " "He's dead. " "The Kernel's planted, " saidthe men in chorus. "Well, yes, " reflected the Living Skeleton ostentatiously, as one whospoke from experience. "Ham Brant's about as bony now as they make 'em. " "You bet! About the dustiest, deadest corpse you kin turn out, "corroborated Slumgullion Dick, nodding his head gloomily to the others;"in point o' fack, es a corpse, about the last one I should keer to gohuntin' fur. " "The Kernel's tech 'ud be cold and clammy, " concluded the Duke ofChatham Street, who had not yet spoken, "sure. But what did yer mammysay about it? Is she gettin' married agin? Did SHE send ye here?" It seemed to Clarence that the Duke of Chatham Street here received akick from his companions; but the boy repeated doggedly-- "I came to Sacramento to find my cousin, Jackson Brant; but he wasn'tthere. " "Jackson Brant!" echoed the first speaker, glancing at the others. "Didyour mother say he was your cousin?" "Yes, " said Clarence wearily. "Good-by. " "Hullo, sonny, where are you going?" "To dig gold, " said the boy. "And you know you can't prevent me, if itisn't on your claim. I know the law. " He had heard Mr. Peyton discussit at Stockton, and he fancied that the men, who were whispering amongthemselves, looked kinder than before, and as if they were no longer"acting" to him. The first speaker laid his hand on his shoulder, andsaid, "All right, come with me, and I'll show you where to dig. " "Who are you?" said Clarence. "You called yourself only 'me. '" "Well, you can call me Flynn--Tom Flynn. " "And you'll show me where I can dig--myself?" "I will. " "Do you know, " said Clarence timidly, yet with a half-conscious smile, "that I--I kinder bring luck?" The man looked down upon him, and said gravely, but, as it struckClarence, with a new kind of gravity, "I believe you. " "Yes, " said Clarence eagerly, as they walked along together, "I broughtluck to a man in Sacramento the other day. " And he related with greatearnestness his experience in the gambling saloon. Not content withthat--the sealed fountains of his childish deep being broken up bysome mysterious sympathy--he spoke of his hospitable exploit with thepassengers at the wayside bar, of the finding of his Fortunatus purseand his deposit at the bank. Whether that characteristic old-fashionedreticence which had been such an important factor for good or ill inhis future had suddenly deserted him, or whether some extraordinaryprepossession in his companion had affected him, he did not know; butby the time the pair had reached the hillside Flynn was in possessionof all the boy's history. On one point only was his reserve unshaken. Conscious although he was of Jim Hooker's duplicity, he affected totreat it as a comrade's joke. They halted at last in the middle of an apparently fertile hillside. Clarence shifted his shovel from his shoulders, unslung his pan, andlooked at Flynn. "Dig anywhere here, where you like, " said his companioncarelessly, "and you'll be sure to find the color. Fill your pan withthe dirt, go to that sluice, and let the water run in on the top of thepan--workin' it round so, " he added, illustrating a rotary motion withthe vessel. "Keep doing that until all the soil is washed out of it, andyou have only the black sand at the bottom. Then work that the same wayuntil you see the color. Don't be afraid of washing the gold out of thepan--you couldn't do it if you tried. There, I'll leave you here, andyou wait till I come back. " With another grave nod and something like asmile in the only visible part of his bearded face--his eyes--he stroderapidly away. Clarence did not lose time. Selecting a spot where the grass was lessthick, he broke through the soil and turned up two or three spadefuls ofred soil. When he had filled the pan and raised it to his shoulder, hewas astounded at its weight. He did not know that it was due to the redprecipitate of iron that gave it its color. Staggering along with hisburden to the running sluice, which looked like an open wooden gutter, at the foot of the hill, he began to carefully carry out Flynn'sdirection. The first dip of the pan in the running water carried offhalf the contents of the pan in liquid paint-like ooze. For a moment hegave way to boyish satisfaction in the sight and touch of this unctuoussolution, and dabbled his fingers in it. A few moments more of rinsingand he came to the sediment of fine black sand that was beneath it. Another plunge and swilling of water in the pan, and--could he believehis eyes!--a few yellow tiny scales, scarcely larger than pins' heads, glittered among the sand. He poured it off. But his companion was right;the lighter sand shifted from side to side with the water, but theglittering points remained adhering by their own tiny specific gravityto the smooth surface of the bottom. It was "the color"--gold! Clarence's heart seemed to give a great leap within him. A vision ofwealth, of independence, of power, sprang before his dazzled eyes, and--a hand lightly touched him on the shoulder. He started. In his complete preoccupation and excitement, he had notheard the clatter of horse-hoofs, and to his amazement Flynn was alreadybeside him, mounted, and leading a second horse. "You kin ride?" he said shortly. "Yes" stammered Clarence; "but--" "BUT--we've only got two hours to reach Buckeye Mills in time to catchthe down stage. Drop all that, jump up, and come with me!" "But I've just found gold, " said the boy excitedly. "And I've just found your--cousin. Come!" He spurred his horse across Clarence's scattered implements, halfhelped, half lifted, the boy into the saddle of the second horse, and, with a cut of his riata over the animal's haunches, the next moment theywere both galloping furiously away. CHAPTER IX Torn suddenly from his prospective future, but too much dominated by theman beside him to protest, Clarence was silent until a rise in the road, a few minutes later, partly abated their headlong speed, and gave himchance to recover his breath and courage. "Where is my cousin?" he asked. "In the Southern county, two hundred miles from here. " "Are we going to him?" "Yes. " They rode furiously forward again. It was nearly half an hour beforethey came to a longer ascent. Clarence could see that Flynn was fromtime to time examining him curiously under his slouched hat. Thissomewhat embarrassed him, but in his singular confidence in the man nodistrust mingled with it. "Ye never saw your--cousin?" he asked. "No, " said Clarence; "nor he me. I don't think he knew me much, any way. "How old mout ye be, Clarence?" "Eleven. " "Well, as you're suthin of a pup"--Clarence started, and recalledPeyton's first criticism of him--"I reckon to tell ye suthin. Ye ain'tgoin' to be skeert, or afeard, or lose yer sand, I kalkilate, forskunkin' ain't in your breed. Well, wot ef I told ye that thishyer--thish yer--COUSIN o' yours was the biggest devil onhung; that he'djust killed a man, and had to lite out elsewhere, and THET'S why hedidn't show up in Sacramento--what if I told you that?" Clarence felt that this was somehow a little too much. He was perfectlytruthful, and lifting his frank eyes to Flynn, he said, "I should think you were talking a good deal like Jim Hooker!" His companion stared, and suddenly reined up his horse; then, burstinginto a shout of laughter, he galloped ahead, from time to time shakinghis head, slapping his legs, and making the dim woods ring with hisboisterous mirth. Then as suddenly becoming thoughtful again, he rode onrapidly for half an hour, only speaking to Clarence to urge him forward, and assisting his progress by lashing the haunches of his horse. Luckily, the boy was a good rider--a fact which Flynn seemed tothoroughly appreciate--or he would have been unseated a dozen times. At last the straggling sheds of Buckeye Mills came into softer purpleview on the opposite mountain. Then laying his hand on Clarence'sshoulder as he reined in at his side, Flynn broke the silence. "There, boy, " he said, wiping the mirthful tears from his eyes. "I wasonly foolin'--only tryin' yer grit! This yer cousin I'm taking you to beas quiet and soft-spoken and as old-fashioned ez you be. Why, he'sthat wrapped up in books and study that he lives alone in a big adoberancherie among a lot o' Spanish, and he don't keer to see his owncountrymen! Why, he's even changed his name, and calles himself Don JuanRobinson! But he's very rich; he owns three leagues of land and heaps ofcattle and horses, and, " glancing approvingly at Clarence's seat in thesaddle, "I reckon you'll hev plenty of fun thar. " "But, " hesitated Clarence, to whom this proposal seemed only arepetition of Peyton's charitable offer, "I think I'd better stay hereand dig gold--WITH YOU. " "And I think you'd better not, " said the man, with a gravity that wasvery like a settled determination. "But my cousin never came for me to Sacramento--nor sent, nor evenwrote, " persisted Clarence indignantly. "Not to YOU, boy; but he wrote to the man whom he reckoned would bringyou there--Jack Silsbee--and left it in the care of the bank. AndSilsbee, being dead, didn't come for the letter; and as you didn't askfor it when you came, and didn't even mention Silsbee's name, that sameletter was sent back to your cousin through me, because the bank thoughtwe knew his whereabouts. It came to the gulch by an express rider, whilst you were prospectin' on the hillside. Rememberin' your story, Itook the liberty of opening it, and found out that your cousin had toldSilsbee to bring you straight to him. So I'm only doin' now what Silsbeewould have done. " Any momentary doubt or suspicion that might have risen in Clarence'smind vanished as he met his companion's steady and masterful eye. Even his disappointment was forgotten in the charm of this new-foundfriendship and protection. And as its outset had been marked byan unusual burst of confidence on Clarence's part, the boy, in hisgratitude, now felt something of the timid shyness of a deeper feeling, and once more became reticent. They were in time to snatch a hasty meal at Buckeye Mills before thestage arrived, and Clarence noticed that his friend, despite his roughdress and lawless aspect, provoked a marked degree of respect from thosehe met--in which, perhaps, a wholesome fear was mingled. It is certainthat the two best places in the stage were given up to them withoutprotest, and that a careless, almost supercilious invitation to drinkfrom Flynn was responded to with singular alacrity by all, includingeven two fastidiously dressed and previously reserved passengers. Iam afraid that Clarence enjoyed this proof of his friend's singulardominance with a boyish pride, and, conscious of the curious eyes of thepassengers, directed occasionally to himself, was somewhat ostentatiousin his familiarity with this bearded autocrat. At noon the next day they left the stage at a wayside road station, andFlynn briefly informed Clarence that they must again take horses. Thisat first seemed difficult in that out-of-the-way settlement, wherethey alone had stopped, but a whisper from the driver in the ear ofthe station-master produced a couple of fiery mustangs, with the sameaccompaniment of cautious awe and mystery. For the next two days theytraveled on horseback, resting by night at the lodgings of one or otherof Flynn's friends in the outskirts of a large town, where they arrivedin the darkness, and left before day. To any one more experiencedthan the simple-minded boy it would have been evident that Flynn waspurposely avoiding the more traveled roads and conveyances; and whenthey changed horses again the next day's ride was through an apparentlyunbroken wilderness of scattered wood and rolling plain. Yet toClarence, with his pantheistic reliance and joyous sympathy with nature, the change was filled with exhilarating pleasure. The vast seas oftossing wild oats, the hillside still variegated with strange flowers, the virgin freshness of untrodden woods and leafy aisles, whose floorsof moss or bark were undisturbed by human footprint, were a keen delightand novelty. More than this, his quick eye, trained perceptions, andfrontier knowledge now stood him in good stead. His intuitive sense ofdistance, instincts of woodcraft, and his unerring detection of thosesigns, landmarks, and guideposts of nature, undistinguishable to aughtbut birds and beasts and some children, were now of the greatest serviceto his less favored companion. In this part of their strange pilgrimageit was the boy who took the lead. Flynn, who during the past two daysseemed to have fallen into a mood of watchful reserve, nodded hisapprobation. "This sort of thing's yer best holt, boy, " he said. "Menand cities ain't your little game. " At the next stopping-place Clarence had a surprise. They had againentered a town at nightfall, and lodged with another friend of Flynn'sin rooms which from vague sounds appeared to be over a gambling saloon. Clarence woke late in the morning, and, descending into the street tomount for the day's journey, was startled to find that Flynn was not onthe other horse, but that a well-dressed and handsome stranger had takenhis place. But a laugh, and the familiar command, "Jump up, boy, "made him look again. It WAS Flynn, but completely shaven of beard andmustache, closely clipped of hair, and in a fastidiously cut suit ofblack! "Then you didn't know me?" said Flynn. "Not till you spoke, " replied Clarence. "So much the better, " said his friend sententiously, as he put spurs tohis horse. But as they cantered through the street, Clarence, who hadalready become accustomed to the stranger's hirsute adornment, felt alittle more awe of him. The profile of the mouth and chin now exposed tohis sidelong glance was hard and stern, and slightly saturnine. Althoughunable at the time to identify it with anybody he had ever known, itseemed to the imaginative boy to be vaguely connected with some sadexperience. But the eyes were thoughtful and kindly, and the boy laterbelieved that if he had been more familiar with the face he would haveloved it better. For it was the last and only day he was to see it, as, late that afternoon, after a dusty ride along more traveled highways, they reached their journey's end. It was a low-walled house, with red-tiled roofs showing against the darkgreen of venerable pear and fig trees, and a square court-yard in thecentre, where they had dismounted. A few words in Spanish from Flynn toone of the lounging peons admitted them to a wooden corridor, and thenceto a long, low room, which to Clarence's eyes seemed literally piledwith books and engravings. Here Flynn hurriedly bade him stay while hesought the host in another part of the building. But Clarence did notmiss him; indeed, it may be feared, he forgot even the object of theirjourney in the new sensations that suddenly thronged upon him, and theboyish vista of the future that they seemed to open. He was dazedand intoxicated. He had never seen so many books before; he had neverconceived of such lovely pictures. And yet in some vague way he thoughthe must have dreamt of them at some time. He had mounted a chair, andwas gazing spellbound at an engraving of a sea-fight when he heardFlynn's voice. His friend had quietly reentered the room, in company with an oldish, half-foreign-looking man, evidently his relation. With no helpingrecollection, with no means of comparison beyond a vague idea that hiscousin might look like himself, Clarence stood hopelessly before him. Hehad already made up his mind that he would have to go through theusual cross-questioning in regard to his father and family; he had evenforlornly thought of inventing some innocent details to fill out hisimperfect and unsatisfactory recollection. But, glancing up, he wassurprised to find that his elderly cousin was as embarrassed as he was, Flynn, as usual, masterfully interposed. "Of course ye don't remember each other, and thar ain't much that eitherof you knows about family matters, I reckon, " he said grimly; "and asyour cousin calls himself Don Juan Robinson, " he added to Clarence, "it's just as well that you let 'Jackson Brant' slide. I know him betterthan you, but you'll get used to him, and he to you, soon enough. Atleast, you'd better, " he concluded, with his singular gravity. As he turned as if to leave the room with Clarence's embarrassedrelative--much to that gentleman's apparent relief--the boy looked up atthe latter and said timidly-- "May I look at those books?" His cousin stopped, and glanced at him with the first expression ofinterest he had shown. "Ah, you read; you like books?" "Yes, " said Clarence. As his cousin remained still looking at himthoughtfully, he added, "My hands are pretty clean, but I can wash themfirst, if you like. " "You may look at them, " said Don Juan smilingly; "and as they areold books you can wash your hands afterwards. " And, turning to Flynnsuddenly, with an air of relief, "I tell you what I'll do--I'll teachhim Spanish!" They left the room together, and Clarence turned eagerly to theshelves. They were old books, some indeed very old, queerly bound, andworm-eaten. Some were in foreign languages, but others in clear, boldEnglish type, with quaint wood-cuts and illustrations. One seemed tobe a chronicle of battles and sieges, with pictured representations ofcombatants spitted with arrows, cleanly lopped off in limb, or toppledover distinctly by visible cannon-shot. He was deep in its perusal whenhe heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the court-yard and the voiceof Flynn. He ran to the window, and was astonished to see his friendalready on horseback, taking leave of his host. For one instant Clarence felt one of those sudden revulsions of feelingcommon to his age, but which he had always timidly hidden under doggeddemeanor. Flynn, his only friend! Flynn, his only boyish confidant!Flynn, his latest hero, was going away and forsaking him without aword of parting! It was true that he had only agreed to take him to hisguardian, but still Flynn need not have left him without a word of hopeor encouragement! With any one else Clarence would probably have takenrefuge in his usual Indian stoicism, but the same feeling that hadimpelled him to offer Flynn his boyish confidences on their firstmeeting now overpowered him. He dropped his book, ran out into thecorridor, and made his way to the court-yard, just as Flynn galloped outfrom the arch. But the boy uttered a despairing shout that reached the rider. He drewrein, wheeled, halted, and sat facing Clarence impatiently. To addto Clarence's embarrassment his cousin had lingered in the corridor, attracted by the interruption, and a peon, lounging in the archway, obsequiously approached Flynn's bridle-rein. But the rider waved himoff, and, turning sternly to Clarence, said:-- "What's the matter now?" "Nothing, " said Clarence, striving to keep back the hot tears that rosein his eyes. "But you were going away without saying 'good-by. ' You'vebeen very kind to me, and--and--I want to thank you!" A deep flush crossed Flynn's face. Then glancing suspiciously towardsthe corridor, he said hurriedly, -- "Did HE send you?" "No, I came myself. I heard you going. " "All right. Good-by. " He leaned forward as if about to take Clarence'soutstretched hand, checked himself suddenly with a grim smile, andtaking from his pocket a gold coin handed it to the boy. Clarence took it, tossed it with a proud gesture to the waiting peon, who caught it thankfully, drew back a step from Flynn, and saying, withwhite cheeks, "I only wanted to say good-by, " dropped his hot eyes tothe ground. But it did not seem to be his own voice that had spoken, norhis own self that had prompted the act. There was a quick interchange of glances between the departing guest andhis late host, in which Flynn's eyes flashed with an odd, admiring fire, but when Clarence raised his head again he was gone. And as the boyturned back with a broken heart towards the corridor, his cousin laidhis hand upon his shoulder. "Muy hidalgamente, Clarence, " he said pleasantly. "Yes, we shall makesomething of you!" CHAPTER X Then followed to Clarence three uneventful years. During that intervalhe learnt that Jackson Brant, or Don Juan Robinson--for the tie ofkinship was the least factor in their relations to each other, and afterthe departure of Flynn was tacitly ignored by both--was more Spanishthan American. An early residence in Lower California, marriage with arich Mexican widow, whose dying childless left him sole heir, and somestrange restraining idiosyncrasy of temperament had quite denationalizedhim. A bookish recluse, somewhat superfastidious towards his owncountrymen, the more Clarence knew him the more singular appearedhis acquaintance with Flynn; but as he did not exhibit morecommunicativeness on this point than upon their own kinship, Clarencefinally concluded that it was due to the dominant character of hisformer friend, and thought no more about it. He entered upon the newlife at El Refugio with no disturbing past. Quickly adapting himself tothe lazy freedom of this hacienda existence, he spent the morningson horseback ranging the hills among his cousin's cattle, and theafternoons and evenings busied among his cousin's books with equallylawless and undisciplined independence. The easy-going Don Juan, it istrue, attempted to make good his rash promise to teach the boy Spanish, and actually set him a few tasks; but in a few weeks the quick-wittedClarence acquired such a colloquial proficiency from his casualacquaintance with vaqueros and small traders that he was glad toleave the matter in his young kinsman's hands. Again, by one of thoseillogical sequences which make a lifelong reputation depend upon asingle trivial act, Clarence's social status was settled forever at ElRefugio Rancho by his picturesque diversion of Flynn's parting gift. Thegrateful peon to whom the boy had scornfully tossed the coin repeatedthe act, gesture, and spirit of the scene to his companion, and DonJuan's unknown and youthful relation was at once recognized as hijode la familia, and undeniably a hidalgo born and bred. But in themore vivid imagination of feminine El Refugio the incident reached itshighest poetic form. "It is true, Mother of God, " said Chucha of theMill; "it was Domingo who himself relates it as it were the Creed. Whenthe American escort had arrived with the young gentleman, this escort, look you, being not of the same quality, he is departing again without aword of permission. Comes to him at this moment my little hidalgo. 'Youhave yourself forgotten to take from me your demission, ' he said. Thisescort, thinking to make his peace with a mere muchacho, gives to him agold piece of twenty pesos. The little hidalgo has taken it SO, andwith the words, 'Ah! you would make of me your almoner to my cousin'speople, ' has given it at the moment to Domingo, and with a grace andfire admirable. " But it is certain that Clarence's singular simplicityand truthfulness, a faculty of being picturesquely indolent in a waythat suggested a dreamy abstraction of mind rather than any vulgartendency to bodily ease and comfort, and possibly the fact that he wasa good horseman, made him a popular hero at El Refugio. At the end ofthree years Don Juan found that this inexperienced and apparently idleboy of fourteen knew more of the practical ruling of the rancho than hedid himself; also that this unlettered young rustic had devoured nearlyall the books in his library with boyish recklessness of digestion. He found, too, that in spite of his singular independence of action, Clarence was possessed of an invincible loyalty of principle, and that, asking no sentimental affection, and indeed yielding none, he was, without presuming on his relationship, devoted to his cousin's interest. It seemed that from being a glancing ray of sunshine in the house, evasive but never obtrusive, he had become a daily necessity of comfortand security to his benefactor. Clarence was, however, astonished, when, one morning, Don Juan, with thesame embarrassed manner he had shown at their first meeting, suddenlyasked him, "what business he expected to follow. " It seemed the moresingular, as the speaker, like most abstracted men, had hitherto alwaysstudiously ignored the future, in their daily intercourse. Yet thismight have been either the habit of security or the caution ofdoubt. Whatever it was, it was some sudden disturbance of Don Juan'sequanimity, as disconcerting to himself as it was to Clarence. Soconscious was the boy of this that, without replying to his cousin'squestion, but striving in vain to recall some delinquency of his own, heasked, with his usual boyish directness-- "Has anything happened? Have I done anything wrong?" "No, no, " returned Don Juan hurriedly. "But, you see, it's time thatyou should think of your future--or at least prepare for it. I meanyou ought to have some more regular education. You will have to go toschool. It's too bad, " he added fretfully, with a certain impatientforgetfulness of Clarence's presence, and as if following his ownthought. "Just as you are becoming of service to me, and justifyingyour ridiculous position here--and all this d--d nonsense that's gonebefore--I mean, of course, Clarence, " he interrupted himself, catchingsight of the boy's whitening cheek and darkening eye, "I mean, youknow--this ridiculousness of my keeping you from school at your age, andtrying to teach you myself--don't you see. " "You think it is--ridiculous, " repeated Clarence, with doggedpersistency. "I mean I am ridiculous, " said Don Juan hastily. "There! there! let'ssay no more about it. To-morrow we'll ride over to San Jose and see theFather Secretary at the Jesuits' College about your entering at once. It's a good school, and you'll always be near the rancho!" And so theinterview ended. I am afraid that Clarence's first idea was to run away. There arefew experiences more crushing to an ingenuous nature than the suddenrevelation of the aspect in which it is regarded by others. Theunfortunate Clarence, conscious only of his loyalty to his cousin'sinterest and what he believed were the duties of his position, awoke tofind that position "ridiculous. " In an afternoon's gloomy ride throughthe lonely hills, and later in the sleepless solitude of his room atnight, he concluded that his cousin was right. He would go to school;he would study hard--so hard that in a little, a very little while, hecould make a living for himself. He awoke contented. It was the blessingof youth that this resolve and execution seemed as one and the samething. The next day found him installed as a pupil and boarder in the college. Don Juan's position and Spanish predilections naturally made hisrelation acceptable to the faculty; but Clarence could not helpperceiving that Father Sobriente, the Principal, regarded him at timeswith a thoughtful curiosity that made him suspect that his cousin hadespecially bespoken that attention, and that he occasionally questionedhim on his antecedents in a way that made him dread a renewal of theold questioning about his progenitor. For the rest, he was a polished, cultivated man; yet, in the characteristic, material criticism of youth, I am afraid that Clarence chiefly identified him as a priest with largehands, whose soft palms seemed to be cushioned with kindness, and whoseequally large feet, encased in extraordinary shapeless shoes of undyedleather, seemed to tread down noiselessly--rather than to ostentatiouslycrush--the obstacles that beset the path of the young student. In thecloistered galleries of the court-yard Clarence sometimes felt himselfborne down by the protecting weight of this paternal hand; in themidnight silence of the dormitory he fancied he was often consciousof the soft browsing tread and snuffly muffled breathing of hiselephantine-footed mentor. His relations with his school-fellows were at first far from pleasant. Whether they suspected favoritism; whether they resented that old andunsympathetic manner which sprang from his habits of association withhis elders; or whether they rested their objections on the broadergrounds of his being a stranger, I do not know, but they presentlypassed from cruel sneers to physical opposition. It was then found thatthis gentle and reserved youth had retained certain objectionable, rude, direct, rustic qualities of fist and foot, and that, violating all rulesand disdaining the pomp and circumstance of school-boy warfare, of whichhe knew nothing, he simply thrashed a few of his equals out of hand, with or without ceremony, as the occasion or the insult happened. Inthis emergency one of the seniors was selected to teach this youthfulsavage his proper position. A challenge was given, and accepted byClarence with a feverish alacrity that surprised himself as much as hisadversary. This was a youth of eighteen, his superior in size and skill. The first blow bathed Clarence's face in his own blood. But thesanguinary chrism, to the alarm of the spectators, effected aninstantaneous and unhallowed change in the boy. Instantly closing withhis adversary, he sprang at his throat like an animal, and lockinghis arm around his neck began to strangle him. Blind to the blows thatrained upon him, he eventually bore his staggering enemy by sheer onsetand surprise to the earth. Amidst the general alarm, the strength ofhalf a dozen hastily summoned teachers was necessary to unlock his hold. Even then he struggled to renew the conflict. But his adversaryhad disappeared, and from that day forward Clarence was never againmolested. Seated before Father Sobriente in the infirmary, with swollen andbandaged face, and eyes that still seemed to see everything in the murkylight of his own blood, Clarence felt the soft weight of the father'shand upon his knee. "My son, " said the priest gently, "you are not of our religion, or Ishould claim as a right to ask a question of your own heart at thismoment. But as to a good friend, Claro, a good friend, " he continued, patting the boy's knee, "you will tell me, old Father Sobriente, frankly and truthfully, as is your habit, one little thing. Were you notafraid?" "No, " said Clarence doggedly. "I'll lick him again to-morrow. " "Softly, my son! It was not of HIM I speak, but of something moreterrible and awful. Were you not afraid of--of--" he paused, andsuddenly darting his clear eyes into the very depths of Clarence's soul, added--"of YOURSELF?" The boy started, shuddered, and burst into tears. "So, so, " said the priest gently, "we have found our real enemy. Good!Now, by the grace of God, my little warrior, we shall fight HIM andconquer. " Whether Clarence profited by this lesson, or whether this briefexhibition of his quality prevented any repetition of the cause, theepisode was soon forgotten. As his school-fellows had never been hisassociates or confidants, it mattered little to him whether they fearedor respected him, or were hypocritically obsequious, after the fashionof the weaker. His studies, at all events, profited by this lack ofdistraction. Already his two years of desultory and omnivorous readinghad given him a facile familiarity with many things, which lefthim utterly free of the timidity, awkwardness, or non-interest of abeginner. His usually reserved manner, which had been lack of expressionrather than of conviction, had deceived his tutors. The audacity of amind that had never been dominated by others, and owed no allegiance toprecedent, made his merely superficial progress something marvelous. At the end of the first year he was a phenomenal scholar, who seemedcapable of anything. Nevertheless, Father Sobriente had an interviewwith Don Juan, and as a result Clarence was slightly kept back in hisstudies, a little more freedom from the rules was conceded to him, andhe was even encouraged to take some diversion. Of such was theprivilege to visit the neighboring town of Santa Clara unrestricted andunattended. He had always been liberally furnished with pocket-money, for which, in his companionless state and Spartan habits, he had asingular and unboyish contempt. Nevertheless, he always appeared dressedwith scrupulous neatness, and was rather distinguished-looking in hisolder reserve and melancholy self-reliance. Lounging one afternoon along the Alameda, a leafy avenue set out by theearly Mission Fathers between the village of San Jose and the conventof Santa Clara, he saw a double file of young girls from the conventapproaching, on their usual promenade. A view of this processionbeing the fondest ambition of the San Jose collegian, and especiallyinterdicted and circumvented by the good Fathers attending the collegeexcursions, Clarence felt for it the profound indifference of a boy who, in the intermediate temperate zone of fifteen years, thinks that heis no longer young and romantic! He was passing them with a carelessglance, when a pair of deep violet eyes caught his own under the broadshade of a coquettishly beribboned hat, even as it had once looked athim from the depths of a calico sunbonnet. Susy! He started, and wouldhave spoken; but with a quick little gesture of caution and a meaningglance at the two nuns who walked at the head and foot of the file, she indicated him to follow. He did so at a respectful distance, albeitwondering. A little further on Susy dropped her handkerchief, and wasobliged to dart out and run back to the end of the file to recover it. But she gave another swift glance of her blue eyes as she snatched it upand demurely ran back to her place. The procession passed on, but whenClarence reached the spot where she had paused he saw a three-corneredbit of paper lying in the grass. He was too discreet to pick it up whilethe girls were still in sight, but continued on, returning to it later. It contained a few words in a schoolgirl's hand, hastily scrawled inpencil: "Come to the south wall near the big pear-tree at six. " Delighted as Clarence felt, he was at the same time embarrassed. Hecould not understand the necessity of this mysterious rendezvous. He knew that if she was a scholar she was under certain conventualrestraints; but with the privileges of his position and friendship withhis teachers, he believed that Father Sobriente would easily procure himan interview with this old play-fellow, of whom he had often spoken, and who was, with himself, the sole survivor of his tragical past. Andtrusted as he was by Sobriente, there was something in this clandestinethough innocent rendezvous that went against his loyalty. Nevertheless, he kept the appointment, and at the stated time was at the south wallof the convent, over which the gnarled boughs of the distinguishingpear-tree hung. Hard by in the wall was a grated wicket door that seemedunused. Would she appear among the boughs or on the edge of the wall? Eitherwould be like the old Susy. But to his surprise he heard the soundof the key turning in the lock. The grated door suddenly swung on itshinges, and Susy slipped out. Grasping his hand, she said, "Let's run, Clarence, " and before he could reply she started off with him at a rapidpace. Down the lane they flew--very much, as it seemed to Clarence'sfancy, as they had flown from the old emigrant wagon on the prairie, four years before. He glanced at the fluttering, fairy-like figurebeside him. She had grown taller and more graceful; she was dressed inexquisite taste, with a minuteness of luxurious detail that bespokethe spoilt child; but there was the same prodigal outburst of rippling, golden hair down her back and shoulders, violet eyes, capricious littlemouth, and the same delicate hands and feet he had remembered. He wouldhave preferred a more deliberate survey, but with a shake of her headand an hysteric little laugh she only said, "Run, Clarence, run, " andagain darted forward. Arriving at the cross-street, they turned thecorner, and halted breathlessly. "But you're not running away from school, Susy, are you?" said Clarenceanxiously. "Only a little bit. Just enough to get ahead of the other girls, " shesaid, rearranging her brown curls and tilted hat. "You see, Clarence, "she condescended to explain, with a sudden assumption of oldersuperiority, "mother's here at the hotel all this week, and I'm allowedto go home every night, like a day scholar. Only there's three orfour other girls that go out at the same time with me, and one of theSisters, and to-day I got ahead of 'em just to see YOU. " "But" began Clarence. "Oh, it's all right; the other girls knew it, and helped me. They don'tstart out for half an hour yet, and they'll say I've just run ahead, andwhen they and the Sister get to the hotel I'll be there already--don'tyou see?" "Yes, " said Clarence dubiously. "And we'll go to an ice-cream saloon now, shan't we? There's a nice onenear the hotel. I've got some money, " she added quickly, as Clarencelooked embarrassed. "So have I, " said Clarence, with a faint accession of color. "Let's go!"She had relinquished his hand to smooth out her frock, and they werewalking side by side at a more moderate pace. "But, " he continued, clinging to his first idea with masculine persistence, and anxious toassure his companion of his power, of his position, "I'm in the college, and Father Sobriente, who knows your lady superior, is a good friendof mine and gives me privileges; and--and--when he knows that you andI used to play together--why, he'll fix it that we may see each otherwhenever we want. " "Oh, you silly!" said Susy. "WHAT!--when you're--" "When I'm WHAT?" The young girl shot a violet blue ray from under her broad hat. "Why--when we're grown up now?" Then with a certain precision, "Why, they're VERY particular about young gentlemen! Why, Clarence, if theysuspected that you and I were--" Another violet ray from under the hatcompleted this unfinished sentence. Pleased and yet confused, Clarence looked straight ahead with deepeningcolor. "Why, " continued Susy, "Mary Rogers, that was walking with me, thought you were ever so old--and a distinguished Spaniard! And I, "she said abruptly--"haven't I grown? Tell me, Clarence, " with her oldappealing impatience, "haven't I grown? Do tell me!" "Very much, " said Clarence. "And isn't this frock pretty--it's only my second best--but I've aprettier one with lace all down in front; but isn't this one pretty, Clarence, tell me?" Clarence thought the frock and its fair owner perfection, and saidso. Whereat Susy, as if suddenly aware of the presence of passers-by, assumed an air of severe propriety, dropped her hands by her side, andwith an affected conscientiousness walked on, a little further fromClarence's side, until they reached the ice-cream saloon. "Get a table near the back, Clarence, " she said, in a confidentialwhisper, "where they can't see us--and strawberry, you know, for thelemon and vanilla here are just horrid!" They took their seats in a kind of rustic arbor in the rear of the shop, which gave them the appearance of two youthful but somewhat over-dressedand over-conscious shepherds. There was an interval of slightawkwardness, which Susy endeavored to displace. "There has been, " sheremarked, with easy conversational lightness, "quite an excitement aboutour French teacher being changed. The girls in our class think it mostdisgraceful. " And this was all she could say after a separation of four years!Clarence was desperate, but as yet idealess and voiceless. At last, withan effort over his spoon, he gasped a floating recollection: "Do youstill like flapjacks, Susy?" "Oh, yes, " with a laugh, "but we don't have them now. " "And Mose" (a black pointer, who used to yelp when Susy sang), "does hestill sing with you?" "Oh, HE'S been lost ever so long, " said Susy composedly; "but I've gota Newfoundland and a spaniel and a black pony;" and here, with a rapidinventory of her other personal effects, she drifted into some desultorydetails of the devotion of her adopted parents, whom she nowreadily spoke of as "papa" and "mamma, " with evidently no disturbingrecollection of the dead. From which it appeared that the Peytons werevery rich, and, in addition to their possessions in the lower country, owned a rancho in Santa Clara and a house in San Francisco. Like allchildren, her strongest impressions were the most recent. In the vainhope to lead her back to this material yesterday, he said-- "You remember Jim Hooker?" "Oh, HE ran away, when you left. But just think of it! The other day, when papa and I went into a big restaurant in San Francisco, who shouldbe there WAITING on the table--yes, Clarence, a real waiter--but JimHooker! Papa spoke to him; but of course, " with a slight elevation ofher pretty chin, "I couldn't, you know; fancy--a waiter!" The story of how Jim Hooker had personated him stopped short uponClarence's lips. He could not bring himself now to add that revelationto the contempt of his small companion, which, in spite of its naivete, somewhat grated on his sensibilities. "Clarence, " she said, suddenly turning towards him mysteriously, andindicating the shopman and his assistants, "I really believe thesepeople suspect us. " "Of what?" said the practical Clarence. "Don't be silly! Don't you see how they are staring?" Clarence was really unable to detect the least curiosity on the part ofthe shopman, or that any one exhibited the slightest concern in him orhis companion. But he felt a return of the embarrassed pleasure he wasconscious of a moment before. "Then you're living with your father?" said Susy, changing the subject. "You mean my COUSIN, " said Clarence, smiling. "You know my father diedlong before I ever knew you. " "Yes; that's what YOU used to say, Clarence, but papa says it isn'tso. " But seeing the boy's wondering eyes fixed on her with a troubledexpression, she added quickly, "Oh, then, he IS your cousin!" "Well, I think I ought to know, " said Clarence, with a smile, that was, however, far from comfortable, and a quick return of his old unpleasantrecollections of the Peytons. "Why, I was brought to him by one of hisfriends. " And Clarence gave a rapid boyish summary of his journey fromSacramento, and Flynn's discovery of the letter addressed to Silsbee. But before he had concluded he was conscious that Susy was by no meansinterested in these details, nor in the least affected by thepassing allusion to her dead father and his relation to Clarence'smisadventures. With her rounded chin in her hand, she was slowlyexamining his face, with a certain mischievous yet demure abstraction. "I tell you what, Clarence, " she said, when he had finished, "youought to make your cousin get you one of those sombreros, and a nicegold-braided serape. They'd just suit you. And then--then you could rideup and down the Alameda when we are going by. " "But I'm coming to see you at--at your house, and at the convent, " hesaid eagerly. "Father Sobriente and my cousin will fix it all right. " But Susy shook her head, with superior wisdom. "No; they must never knowour secret!--neither papa nor mamma, especially mamma. And they mustn'tknow that we've met again--AFTER THESE YEARS!" It is impossible todescribe the deep significance which Susy's blue eyes gave to thisexpression. After a pause she went on-- "No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless Mary Rogers helps. Sheis my best, my ONLIEST friend, and older than I; having had troubleherself, and being expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speakto her about Suzette--that's my name now; I was rechristened SuzetteAlexandra Peyton by mamma. And now, Clarence, " dropping her voice andglancing shyly around the saloon, "you may kiss me just once under myhat, for good-by. " She adroitly slanted her broad-brimmed hat towardsthe front of the shop, and in its shadow advanced her fresh young cheekto Clarence. Coloring and laughing, the boy pressed his lips to it twice. Then Susyarose, with the faintest affectation of a sigh, shook out her skirt, drew on her gloves with the greatest gravity, and saying, "Don't followme further than the door--they're coming now, " walked with superciliousdignity past the preoccupied proprietor and waiters to the entrance. Here she said, with marked civility, "Good-afternoon, Mr. Brant, " andtripped away towards the hotel. Clarence lingered for a moment to lookafter the lithe and elegant little figure, with its shining undulationsof hair that fell over the back and shoulders of her white frock like agolden mantle, and then turned away in the opposite direction. He walked home in a state, as it seemed to him, of absurd perplexity. There were many reasons why his encounter with Susy should have been ofunmixed pleasure. She had remembered him of her own free will, and, inspite of the change in her fortune, had made the first advances. Herdoubts about her future interviews had affected him but little; stillless, I fear, did he think of the other changes in her character anddisposition, for he was of that age when they added only a piquancy andfascination to her--as of one who, in spite of her weakness of nature, was still devoted to him! But he was painfully conscious that thismeeting had revived in him all the fears, vague uneasiness, and senseof wrong that had haunted his first boyhood, and which he thought he hadburied at El Refugio four years ago. Susy's allusion to his father andthe reiteration of Peyton's skepticism awoke in his older intellect thefirst feeling of suspicion that was compatible with his open nature. Was this recurring reticence and mystery due to any act of his father's?But, looking back upon it in after-years, he concluded that the incidentof that day was a premonition rather than a recollection. CHAPTER XI When he reached the college the Angelus had long since rung. In thecorridor he met one of the Fathers, who, instead of questioning him, returned his salutation with a grave gentleness that struck him. Hehad turned into Father Sobriente's quiet study with the intention ofreporting himself, when he was disturbed to find him in consultationwith three or four of the faculty, who seemed to be thrown into someslight confusion by his entrance. Clarence was about to retire hurriedlywhen Father Sobriente, breaking up the council with a significant glanceat the others, called him back. Confused and embarrassed, with a dreadof something impending, the boy tried to avert it by a hurried accountof his meeting with Susy, and his hopes of Father Sobriente's counseland assistance. Taking upon himself the idea of suggesting Susy'sescapade, he confessed the fault. The old man gazed into his frank eyeswith a thoughtful, half-compassionate smile. "I was just thinkingof giving you a holiday with--with Don Juan Robinson. " The unusualsubstitution of this final title for the habitual "your cousin" struckClarence uneasily. "But we will speak of that later. Sit down, my son;I am not busy. We shall talk a little. Father Pedro says you aregetting on fluently with your translations. That is excellent, my son, excellent. " Clarence's face beamed with relief and pleasure. His vague fears beganto dissipate. "And you translate even from dictation! Good! We have an hour to spare, and you shall give to me a specimen of your skill. Eh? Good! I will walkhere and dictate to you in my poor English, and you shall sit there andrender it to me in your good Spanish. Eh? So we shall amuse and instructourselves. " Clarence smiled. These sporadic moments of instruction and admonitionwere not unusual to the good Father. He cheerfully seated himself atthe Padre's table before a blank sheet of paper, with a pen in his hand. Father Sobriente paced the apartment, with his usual heavy but noiselesstread. To his surprise, the good priest, after an exhaustive pinch ofsnuff, blew his nose, and began, in his most lugubrious style of pulpitexhortation:-- "It has been written that the sins of the father shall be visited uponthe children, and the unthinking and worldly have sought refuge fromthis law by declaring it harsh and cruel. Miserable and blind! For do wenot see that the wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vaingloryis willing to risk punishment to HIMSELF--and believes it to becourage--must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equalsuffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer for? Inthe spectacle of these innocents struggling against disgrace, perhapsdisease, poverty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defyingspirit? Let us imagine, Clarence. " "Sir?" said the literal Clarence, pausing in his exercise. "I mean, " continued the priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtfulman picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the lawsof God and society--keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge hecalled 'honor, ' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge ofhuman weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody--a gambler by profession, an outlaw among men, an outcast from the Church; voluntarily abandoningfriends and family, --the wife he should have cherished, the son heshould have reared and educated--for the gratification of his deadlypassions. Yet imagine that man suddenly confronted with the thoughtof that heritage of shame and disgust which he had brought upon hisinnocent offspring--to whom he cannot give even his own desperaterecklessness to sustain its vicarious suffering. What must be thefeelings of a parent--" "Father Sobriente, " said Clarence softly. To the boy's surprise, scarcely had he spoken when the soft protectingpalm of the priest was already upon his shoulder, and the snuffy butkindly upper lip, trembling with some strange emotion, close beside hischeek. "What is it, Clarence?" he said hurriedly. "Speak, my son, without fear!You would ask--" "I only wanted to know if 'padre' takes a masculine verb here, " repliedClarence naively. Father Sobriente blew his nose violently. "Truly--though used for eithergender, by the context masculine, " he responded gravely. "Ah, " he added, leaning over Clarence, and scanning his work hastily, "Good, very good!And now, possibly, " he continued, passing his hand like a damp spongeover his heated brow, "we shall reverse our exercise. I shall deliverto you in Spanish what you shall render back in English, eh? And--let usconsider--we shall make something more familiar and narrative, eh?" To this Clarence, somewhat bored by these present solemn abstractions, assented gladly, and took up his pen. Father Sobriente, resuming hisnoiseless pacing, began: "On the fertile plains of Guadalajara lived a certain caballero, possessed of flocks and lands, and a wife and son. But, being alsopossessed of a fiery and roving nature, he did not value them as he didperilous adventure, feats of arms, and sanguinary encounters. To thismay be added riotous excesses, gambling and drunkenness, which in timedecreased his patrimony, even as his rebellious and quarrelsome spirithad alienated his family and neighbors. His wife, borne down by shameand sorrow, died while her son was still an infant. In a fit of equalremorse and recklessness the caballero married again within the year. But the new wife was of a temper and bearing as bitter as her consort. Violent quarrels ensued between them, ending in the husband abandoninghis wife and son, and leaving St. Louis--I should say Guadalajara--forever. Joining some adventurers in a foreign land, under an assumed name, he pursued his reckless course, until, by one or two acts of outlawry, he made his return to civilization impossible. The deserted wife andstep-mother of his child coldly accepted the situation, forbidding hisname to be spoken again in her presence, announced that he was dead, andkept the knowledge of his existence from his own son, whom she placedunder the charge of her sister. But the sister managed to secretlycommunicate with the outlawed father, and, under a pretext, arrangedbetween them, of sending the boy to another relation, actuallydispatched the innocent child to his unworthy parent. Perhaps stirred byremorse, the infamous man--" "Stop!" said Clarence suddenly. He had thrown down his pen, and was standing erect and rigid before theFather. "You are trying to tell me something, Father Sobriente, " he said, withan effort. "Speak out, I implore you. I can stand anything but thismystery. I am no longer a child. I have a right to know all. This thatyou are telling me is no fable--I see it in your face, Father Sobriente;it is the story of--of--" "Your father, Clarence!" said the priest, in a trembling voice. The boy drew back, with a white face. "My father!" he repeated. "Living, or dead?" "Living, when you first left your home, " said the old man hurriedly, seizing Clarence's hand, "for it was he who in the name of your cousinsent for you. Living--yes, while you were here, for it was he who forthe past three years stood in the shadow of this assumed cousin, DonJuan, and at last sent you to this school. Living, Clarence, yes; butliving under a name and reputation that would have blasted you! Andnow DEAD--dead in Mexico, shot as an insurgent and in a still desperatecareer! May God have mercy on his soul!" "Dead!" repeated Clarence, trembling, "only now?" "The news of the insurrection and his fate came only an hour since, "continued the Padre quickly; "his complicity with it and his identitywere known only to Don Juan. He would have spared you any knowledge ofthe truth, even as this dead man would; but I and my brothers thoughtotherwise. I have broken it to you badly, my son, but forgive me?" An hysterical laugh broke from Clarence and the priest recoiled beforehim. "Forgive YOU! What was this man to me?" he said, with boyishvehemence. "He never LOVED me! He deserted me; he made my life a lie. He never sought me, came near me, or stretched a hand to me that I couldtake?" "Hush! hush!" said the priest, with a horrified look, laying his hugehand upon the boy's shoulder and bearing him down to his seat. "You knownot what you say. Think--think, Clarence! Was there none of all thosewho have befriended you--who were kind to you in your wanderings--towhom your heart turned unconsciously? Think, Clarence! You yourselfhave spoken to me of such a one. Let your heart speak again, for hissake--for the sake of the dead. " A gentler light suffused the boy's eyes, and he started. Catchingconvulsively at his companion's sleeve, he said in an eager, boyishwhisper, "There was one, a wicked, desperate man, whom they allfeared--Flynn, who brought me from the mines. Yes, I thought that hewas my cousin's loyal friend--more than all the rest; and I told himeverything--all, that I never told the man I thought my cousin, oranyone, or even you; and I think, I think, Father, I liked him bestof all. I thought since it was wrong, " he continued, with a tremblingsmile, "for I was foolishly fond even of the way the others feared him, he that I feared not, and who was so kind to me. Yet he, too, left mewithout a word, and when I would have followed him--" But the boy brokedown, and buried his face in his hands. "No, no, " said Father Sobriente, with eager persistence, "that was hisfoolish pride to spare you the knowledge of your kinship with one sofeared, and part of the blind and mistaken penance he had laid uponhimself. For even at that moment of your boyish indignation, he neverwas so fond of you as then. Yes, my poor boy, this man, to whom God ledyour wandering feet at Deadman's Gulch; the man who brought you here, and by some secret hold--I know not what--on Don Juan's past, persuadedhim to assume to be your relation; this man Flynn, this Jackson Brantthe gambler, this Hamilton Brant the outlaw--WAS YOUR FATHER! Ah, yes! Weep on, my son; each tear of love and forgiveness from thee hathvicarious power to wash away his sin. " With a single sweep of his protecting hand he drew Clarence towardshis breast, until the boy slowly sank upon his knees at his feet. Then, lifting his eyes towards the ceiling, he said softly in an older tongue, "And THOU, too, unhappy and perturbed spirit, rest!" * * * * * It was nearly dawn when the good Padre wiped the last tears fromClarence's clearer eyes. "And now, my son, " he said, with a gentlesmile, as he rose to his feet, "let us not forget the living. Althoughyour step-mother has, through her own act, no legal claim upon you, farbe it from me to indicate your attitude towards her. Enough that YOU areindependent. " He turned, and, opening a drawer in his secretaire, tookout a bank-book, and placed it in the hands of the wondering boy. "It was HIS wish, Clarence, that even after his death you should neverhave to prove your kinship to claim your rights. Taking advantage ofthe boyish deposit you had left with Mr. Carden at the bank, with hisconnivance and in your name he added to it, month by month and year byyear; Mr. Carden cheerfully accepting the trust and management of thefund. The seed thus sown has produced a thousandfold, Clarence, beyondall expectations. You are not only free, my son, but of yourself and inwhatever name you choose--your own master. " "I shall keep my father's name, " said the boy simply. "Amen!" said Father Sobriente. Here closes the chronicle of Clarence Brant's boyhood. How he sustainedhis name and independence in after years, and who, of those alreadymentioned in these pages, helped him to make or mar it, may be a matterfor future record.