SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

BY

JOAQUIN MILLER, AUTHOR OF "SONGS OF THE SIERRAS, ""THE DANITES IN THE SIERRAS, " ETC. 

CHICAGO:JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 1881. 

COPYRIGHT. 

JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. A. D. 1881. 

_All rights of Dramatization reserved to the Author. _

TO

WHITELAW REID. 

CONTENTS. 

 PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 7

MOUNT SHASTA 17

TWENTY CARATS FINE 49

MAN-HUNTERS 81

THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER 108

THE CAPTURE 122

THE ESCAPE 150

SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

 _With vast foundations seamed and knit, And wrought and bound by golden bars, Sierra's peaks serenely sit And challenge heaven's sentry-stars. _

Why this book? Because last year, in the heart of the Sierras, I sawwomen and children chained together and marched down from their cool, healthy homes to degradation and death on the Reservation. At the sideof this long, chained line, urged on and kept in order by bayonets, rodea young officer, splendid in gold and brass, and newly burnished, fromthat now famous charity-school on the Hudson. These women and childrenwere guilty of no crime; they were not even accused of wrong. But theirfathers and brothers lay dead in battle-harness, on the mountainheights and in the lava beds; and these few silent survivors, likeIsrael of old, were being led into captivity--but, unlike the chosenchildren, never to return to the beloved heart of their mountains. 

Do you doubt these statements about the treatment of the Indians? Thenread this, from the man--the fiend in the form of man--who for years, and until recently, had charge of all the Indians in the United States:

 "From reports and testimony before me, I find that Indians removed to the Reservation or Indian Territory, die off so rapidly that the race must soon become extinct if they are so removed. _In this connection, I recommend the early removal of all the Indians to the Indian Territory. _"

The above coarse attempt at second-hand wit is quoted from memory. Butif the exact words are not given, the substance is there; and, indeed, the idea and expression is not at all new. 

I know if you contemplate the Indian from the railroad platform, as youcross the plains, you will almost conclude, from the dreadful specimensthere seen, that the Indian Commissioner was not so widely out of theway in that brutal desire. But the real Indian is not there. The SpecialCorrespondent will not find him, though he travel ten thousand miles. Heis in the mountains, a free man yet; not a beggar, not a thief, but thebrightest, bravest, truest man alive. Every few years, the soldiers findhim; and they do not despise him when found. Think of Captain Jack, withhis sixty braves, holding the whole army at bay for half a year! Thinkof Chief Joseph, to whose valor and virtues the brave and brilliantsoldiers sent to fight him bear immortal testimony. Seamed with scars ofbattle, and bloody from the fight of the deadly day and the nightpreceding; his wife dying from a bullet; his boy lying dead at his feet;his command decimated; bullets flying thick as hail; this Indian walkedright into the camp of his enemy, gun in hand, and then--not like abeaten man, not like a captive, but like a king--demanded to know theterms upon which his few remaining people could be allowed to live. Whena brave man beats a brave man in battle, he likes to treat him well--aswitness Grant and Lee; and so Generals Howard and Miles made fair termswith the conquered chief. The action of the Government which followedmakes one sick at heart. Let us in charity call it _imbecility_. Butbefore whose door shall we lay the dead? Months after the surrender, this brave but now heart-broken chief, cried out:

 "Give my people water, or they will die. This is mud and slime that we have to drink here on this Reservation. More than half are dead already. Give us the water of our mountains. And will you not give us back just one mountain too? There are not many of us left now. We will not want much now. Give us back just one mountain, so that these women and children may live. Take all the valleys. But you cannot plow the mountains. Give us back just one little mountain, with cool, clear water, and then these children can live. "

And think of Standing Bear and his people, taken by fraud and force fromtheir lands to the Indian Territory Reservation, and after the usualhardships and wrongs incident to such removals, with no hope from aGovernment which neither kept its promises nor listened to theirappeals, setting out to try to get back to Omaha. Think of these men, stealing away in the night, leaving their little children, their wivesand parents, prostrate, dying, destitute! They were told that they couldnot leave--that they must stay there; that they would be followed andshot if they attempted to go away. They had no money; they had no food. They were sick and faint. They were on foot, and but poorly clad. Yetthey struggled on through the snow day after day, week after week, leaving a bloody trail where they passed; leaving their dead in the snowwhere they passed. And this awful journey lasted for more than fiftydays! And what happened to these poor Indians after that fearfuljourney? They did not go to the white man for help. They did not go backto their old homes. They troubled no one. They went to a neighboringfriendly tribe. This tribe gave them a little land, and they instantlywent to work to make homes and prepare a place for the few of theirnumber still alive whom they had left behind. Then came the order fromWashington, and the Chief was arrested while plowing in the field. In aspeech made by him after the arrest, and when he was about to be takenback, the Chief said:

 "I wanted to go back to my old place north. I wanted to save myself and my tribe. I built a good stable. I raised cattle and hogs and all kinds of stock. I broke land. All these things I lost by some bad man. Any one knows to take a man from a cold climate and put him in the hot sun, down in the south, it would kill him. We refused to go down there. We afterwards went down to see our friends, and see how they liked it. Brothers, I come home now. I took my brothers and friends and came back here. We went to work. I had hold of the handles of my plow. Eight days ago I was at work on my farm, which the Omahas gave me. I had sowed some spring wheat, and wished to sow some more. I was living peaceably with all men. I have never committed any crime. I was arrested and brought back as a prisoner. Does your law do that? I have been told, since the great war all men were free men, and that no man can be made a prisoner unless he does wrong. I have done no wrong, and yet I am here a prisoner. Have you a law for white men, and a different law for those who are not white?

 "I have been going around for three years. I have lost all my property. My constant thought is, 'What man has done this?' Of course I know I cannot say 'no. ' Whatever they say I must do, I must do it. I know you have an order to send me to the Indian Territory, and we must obey it. "

Afterwards, speaking of the terrible days at the Reservation, thisIndian said to an officer:

 "We counted our dead for awhile, but when all my children and half the tribe were dead, we did not take any notice of anything much. When my son was dying, he begged me to take his bones back to the old home, if ever I got away. In that little box are the bones of my son; I have tried to take them back to be buried with our fathers. "

I may here add, that in the meantime the brother of this Indian, who wasleft in charge of the tribe, was accused of trying to get away also. Heprotested his innocence, but the agent had him arrested and broughtbefore him. Then he ordered him to be ironed. The proud, free savagebegged not to be put in irons, but the brutal agent persisted. TheIndian resisted, _and was shot dead on the spot_. 

Think of the Cheyennes last year. They, too, had tried to escape fromthe Reservation, and reach their homes through the deep snow. This wastheir only offense. No man had ever accused them of any other crime thanthis love of their native haunts, this longing for home. They were dyingthere on the Reservation; more than half had already died. And now, whentaken, they refused to go back. The officer attempted to starve theminto submission. They were shut up in a pen without food, naked, starving, the snow whistling through the pen, children freezing to deathin their mother's arms! But they would not submit. Knowing now that theymust die, they determined to die in action rather than freeze andstarve, like beasts in a pen. At a concerted signal, they attempted tobreak through the soldiers and reach the open plain. An old man wascarried on the back of his tottering son; a mounted soldier pursuedthem, and hacked father and son to pieces with the same sabre-cuts. Amother was seen flying over the snow with two children clinging abouther neck. The wretched savages separated and ran in all directions. Butthe mounted men cut them down in the snow. No one asked, or even wouldaccept, quarter. They fought with sticks, stones, fists, their teeth, like wild beasts. They wanted to die. One little group escaped to aravine. There they were found killing each other with a sort of knifemade from an old piece of hoop. 

And yet you believe man-hunting is over in America!

It is impossible to write with composure or evenness on this subject. One wants to rise up and crush things. 

I have mentioned two tribes near at hand, whose histories are notunfamiliar to the public ear. But what if I should recite the wrongs oftribes far away--far beyond the Rocky Mountains--where the Indian Agenthas to answer to no one? You would not believe one-tenth part told you. The terrible stories of the Cheyennes and the Poncas are very mildchapters in the history of our Indian policy. 

Under the stars and stripes, these scenes are repeated year after year;and they will be continued until they are made impossible by thecivilization and sense of justice which righted that other though farless terrible wrong. 

As that greatest man has said, "We are making history in America. " Thisis a conspicuous fact, that no one who would be remembered in thiscentury should forget. We are making dreadful history, dreadfully fast. How terrible it will all read when the writer and reader of these linesare long since forgotten! Ages may roll by. We may build a city overevery dead tribe's bones. We may bury the last Indian deep as theeternal gulf. But these records will remain, and will rise up intestimony against us to the last day of our race. 

 J. M. 

CHAPTER I. 

MOUNT SHASTA. 

 _To lord all Godland! lift the brow Familiar to the moon, to top The universal world, to prop The hollow heavens up, to vow Stern constancy with stars, to keep Eternal watch while eons sleep; To tower proudly up and touch God's purple garment-hems that sweep The cold blue north! Oh, this were much!_

 _Where storm-born shadows hide and hunt I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, And loved thy vast face, white as truth; I stood where thunderbolts were wont To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, And heard dark mountains rock and roll; I saw the lightning's gleaming rod Reach forth and write on heaven's scroll The awful autograph of God!_

And what a mighty heart these Sierras have! Kissing the purple of heavennow, and now in their awful deeps hiding the shrinking form of darknessfrom the sun. 

The shaggy monsters that prowl there, the mountains of gold that liewaiting there, the mystery and the splendor! Oh keep with me, my friend, for a little while in the Sierras; breathe their balm and health, seetheir sublimity, feel their might and their majesty; step upward, as onstepping stairs to heaven; and my word for it, you will be none theworse. 

In a canyon here, deep, deep, away down in the darkness, where nightseems to have an abiding place, where the sun sifts through thepine-tops timidly, where the loftiest trees tip-toe up and seem tostrive to reach out of the edge of the chasm, there gurgles a littlemuddy stream among the boulders, about the miners' legs, as they bendtheir backs wearily and toil for gold. 

Here the smoke curls up from a low log cabin; there a squirrel barks anut on the roof of a ruined and deserted miner's home, and away upyonder, where the deep gorge is so narrow you can almost leap across it, the wild beasts prowl as if it were really night, and great owls beattheir wings against the boughs of the dense wood in everlastingdarkness. But high over gorge and wilderness, gleaming against the coldblue sky, towers Mount Shasta, the monarch of the Sierras. 

Here, where the canyon debouches into the little valley, once stood apopulous mining camp; and a little further on, where the sun fell infull splendor, a few farms of a primitive kind, tended by broken-downold miners, lay. 

The old glory of the camp was gone, and only a few battered and crippledmen were left. It was as if there had been a great battle of the giants, and the victorious and successful had gone away with all the fruits ofvictory, and left the wounded, the helpless, the half-hearted behind. The mining camp at the mouth of the great canyon had been worked out, sofar as the placer mines went, and these few broken men who remained, asa rule, were turning their attention to other things. Here one hadplanted a little garden on the hillside, on a spot that had once been agraveyard. There, an old lawyer had grown grape-vines all over and aboutthe door and chimney of his cabin, till men said it looked like aspider-web. 

But old Forty-nine only bored deeper and deeper into the spur of themountain, and paid but little attention to any of the changes that wenton around him. He had been working in that tunnel alone for nearlytwenty-five years. He was a man with a history--men said a murderer. Heshunned men, and men shunned him. Was he rich? He professed to be verypoor; men said he must be worth a million. Would a man work ontwenty-five years in one tunnel, and all alone, for nothing? But ifrich, why did he remain?

Still further down, and quite on the edge of the valley, stood anothercabin. And this was quite overgrown with vines, and was quite hiddenaway in a growth of pines that gathered over it. Then there was anundergrowth of fruit trees that grew inside the fence and about thelonely porch. On this porch had sat, for years and years, a tawny, silent old woman. She was sickly--had neither wealth, wit norbeauty--and so, so far as the world went, was left quite alone. 

But there was another and an all-sufficient reason why neither man orwoman came that way. She was an Indian. Do not imagine this a wildIndian woman. Indian she was; but remember, the Catholics had more thanhalf civilized nearly all the native Californians long before weundertook to kill them. 

This Indian woman would have been called by strangers a Mexican woman. She was very religious, and had imbued her boy with all her beautifulfaith and simple piety. 

I know that the spectacle of an old Indian woman and her "half-breed"son, represented as the morality and religion of a camp made up of"civilized" Saxons, will seem somewhat novel to you. But I knew thisIndian boy and his mother well, and know every foot of the ground Iintend to go over, and every fact I propose to narrate. And if you arenot prepared to receive this as truth, I prefer you to close this pageright here. 

To make a moment's digression, with your permission, let me statebriefly and frankly, once for all, that the only really religious, unquestioning and absolutely devout Christians I ever met in America arethe Indians. I know of no other people so faithful and so blindly trueto their belief, outside of the peasantry of Italy. Be their beautifulfaith born of ignorance or what, I do not say. I simply assert that itexists. There is no devotion so true as that of a converted Indian. Maybe it is the devotion of idolatry, the faith of superstition. But Irepeat, it is sincere. And let me further say, it seems to me whateveris worth believing at all, is worth believing utterly and entirely--justas these simple children of the wilderness believe, without doubt orquestion. 

I know nothing so beautiful--may I say picturesque?--as the UmmatillaIndians of Oregon at worship on Sunday. Not a man, woman or child of allthe tribe absent. Not one voice silent when the hymns are given out, inall that vast, gaily colored and singular assemblage. 

This is the tribe of which the white settlers asked and receivedprotection last year when the Shoshonees ravaged the country, beat offthe soldiers, and slew some of the settlers. And yet there is a billbefore Congress to-day to take away the few remaining acres from thistribe and open up the place to white settlers. Indeed, it seems thatevery member of Congress from Oregon has just this one mission; for thefirst, and almost the only thing he does while there, is to introduceand urge the passage of this bill, whereby the red man is to be turnedout of his well-tilled fields, and the white man turned into them. 

In truth, these very fields have long been staked off and claimed bybold, bad white men, who hover about the borders of this Reservation, waiting for the long-promised law which is to take this land from theowners and give it to them. They nominate their members of Congress onhis pledge and bond, and constant promise, to take this land from theIndian. They vote for and elect the only member of Congress from thisState on that promise, certain that their absolute ownership of thisgraveyard of the Indian is only a question of time. Year by year thegraveyard grows broader; the fields grow narrower; they grow less innumber; for now and then an Indian is found wandering away from theReservation to his former hunting-grounds and ancient graves of hisfathers. He seldom comes back. Sometimes his murderers troublethemselves to throw the body in the brush or some gorge or canyon. Butmost frequently it is left where it falls. To say that all the people orthe best people of this brave young State approve of this, would beunfair--untrue. Yet this does not save the Indian, who is doing his bestto fit into the new order of things around him. He is shot down, andneither grand or petit jury can be found to punish his murderer. 

But to the story. This little piece of land where the old Indian womanhad lived and brought up her boy, was rich and valuable. It wastherefore coveted by the white man. At first men had said: "She will diesoon; the boy will then sell the hut for a song, gamble off the money, and then go the way of all who are stained with the dark and tawny bloodof the savage--death in a ditch from some unknown rifle, or death by thefever in the new Reservation. " But the old woman still lived on; and theboy, by his industry, sobriety, duty and devotion to his mother, put toshame the very best among the new generation of white men in themountains. The singular manhood of John Logan was the subject of remarkby all who knew him. With the few true men on this savage edge of theworld it made him fast friends; with the many outlaws and evil naturesit made him the subject of envy and bitter hatred. 

What power behind this boy had lifted him up and led him on? Surely noIndian woman, wholly unlettered in the ways of the white man, good andtrue as she may have been, had brought him up to this high place onwhich he now stood. Who was his father? and what strong hand had reachedout all these years and kept his mother there in that little hut withher boy, while her tribe perished or passed away to the hated andhorrible Reservation down toward the sea?

Who was his father? The Camp had asked this a thousand times. The boyhimself had looked into the deep, pathetic eyes of his mother, and askedthe question in his heart for many and many a year; but he never openedhis lips to ask her. It was too sad, too sacred a subject, and he wouldnot ask of her what she would not freely give. And now she lay dyingthere alone on the porch, as her boy stopped to talk with the twochildren, "the babes in the wood, " and her secret hidden in her ownheart. 

And who were the "babes in the wood?" Little waifs, fugitives, hidingfrom the man-hunters. As a rule in early days, when the settlers killedoff the adult Indians in their forays, they took the children andbrought them up in slavery. But the girl--the eldest, stronger andlither of these two dark little creatures--darting, hiding, stealingabout this ruined old camp, was so wild and spirited, even from thefirst, that no one wanted her. And then she was dangerously bright, andabove all, she did not quite look the Indian; men doubted if she reallywere an Indian or no, sometimes. But I remember hearing oldLeather-Nose, as he sat on a barrel one night in the grocery, andsquirted amber at the back-log, say: "I guess, by gol, she's Injun:She's devilish enough. She don't look the Injun, I know; but its thecussedness that makes me know she's Injun. "

"And when did she come to the camp?" asked a respectable stranger. 

"Don't know. That's it. Nobody don't know, and nobody don't care, Iguess. "

"Well, don't you know where she came from? Children don't come down, youknow, like rain or snow. There were about fifty little children left inthe Mountain-meadow massacre. They are somewhere. These may be some ofthem. Don't you know who brought them here, or how they came?" asked thehonest stranger, leaning forward and looking into the faces of thewrinkled and hairy old miners. 

An old miner turned his quid again and again, and at last feeling scantinterest in the ragged little sister who led her little brother about bythe hand, and stood between him and peril as she kept theirliberty--drily answered, along with his fellows, as follows: "Some saidan old Indian that died had her; but I don't know. Forty-nine knows mostabout her. When he's short of grub, and that's pretty often now, Iguess, why she has to do the best she can. "

"O, it was a sick looking thing at first. Why, it wasn't that high, andwas all hair and bones, " growled out an old gray miner, in reply to theman. 

"Yes; and don't you know when we called it the 'baby, ' and it used tobeg around about the cabins? The poor little barefooted brat. "

"Yes, and when the 'baby' nearly starved, and eat some raw turnips thatmade it sick. "

"Yes, and got the colic--"

"Yes, and Gambler Jake got on his mule and started for the doctor. "

"Yes, an' got in a poker game at Mariposa, and didn't get back for fourdays. "

"Yes, and the doctor didn't come; and so the baby got well. "

"Yes, just so, just so. " And old Col. Billy bobbed his head, and fell tothinking of other days. 

This little piece of land where the old Indian woman had lived so long, and about which she had built a fence, was very valuable indeed. Valleyland was scarce here in the mountains; and there was a young orchard, the only thing of the kind in the country. And then the roads forkedthere, and two little rivers ran together there, and that meant that atown would spring up there as the country became settled, farms opened, and the Indians were swept away. Evil-minded men are never withoutresources. The laws are made to restrain such men; but on the borderthere is no law enforced. So you see how powerful are the wicked there;how powerless the weak, though never so well disposed. 

In the far West, if an Indian is in your way, you have only to reporthim to the Agent of the Indian Reservation. That is all you have to do. He disappears, or dies. This Indian Agent is only too anxious to fill uphis wasting ranks of Indians. They are dying every day. And if they allshould die, sooner or later the fact may be known at Washington, and inthe course of a few years the Reservation and office would be abolishedtogether. And then each additional Indian contributes greatly to theAgent's income, for each Indian must be fed and clothed--or at least, the Agent is permitted to draw clothing, blankets and food for everyIndian brought upon the Reservation. As to the Indians receiving thesethings, that is quite another affair. 

Well, here were men wanting this land. Down yonder, far away to thescorching South, at the edge of the level alkali lands, in a tule swamp, where the Indians taken from the mountains were penned up and dying likesheep in a corral, was a bold, enterprising Indian Agent who wasgathering in, under orders of his Government, all the Indians ofNorthern California. He could appoint a hundred deputies, and authorizethem to bring in the Indians wherever found. 

The two children--"the babes in the wood"--had been taken to theReservation; but being bold and active, they contrived to soon escapeand return to the mountains. Men whispered that the girl owed her escapeto the great and growing favor in which she was held by one of thedeputy agents, who, with his partner, a rough and coarse-grained man, had their homes in this camp. The cabin of these two deputy agents, Dosson and Emens, stood not far from that of old Forty-Nine. But so faras I can remember, the old man and the newly appointed deputy agents hadalways been at enmity. 

This Dosson was certainly a bad man. He was in every sense of the word adesperado, and so was his partner; just the men most wanted by the headagent at the Reservation to capture and bring in Indians. 

But whether this girl owed her escape or not to this ruffian, Dosson, certain it is that on her return she avoided his cabin, and when not inthe woods, hovered about that of old Forty-Nine. This enraged Dossonbeyond degree. To add to his anger, she now began to show a particularpreference for John Logan. The idea of having an Indian for a rival wasmore than this ignorant and brutal Deputy Agent could well bear, and heset to work at once to rid himself of the object of his hatred. 

The hard and merciless man-hunter almost shouted with delight at a newidea which now came upon him with the light and suddeness of arevelation. He ran at once to his partner, and told him of hisdetermination. 

Then these two men sat down and talked a long time together. They mademarks in the sand with sticks. They set up little stakes in the sand, and seemed delighted as they reached their heads out and looked downfrom the mouth of their tunnel toward the Indian farm. 

That night these two men stole down together, and set up stakes and madecorner marks about John Logan's land while he slept, and then rolledthemselves in their blankets, and spent the night inside the limits oftheir new location. Having done this, and sent a notice of theirpre-emption to the Surveyor General, to be filed as their declaration ofclaim to the little farm with the orchard, they entered complaintagainst John Logan, and so sat down to await results. 

Meantime, this old woman sat alone, with a great dog by her side, sickand desolate, waiting her sun of life to set, piously waiting, darkbrowed, thoughtful; while her tall handsome boy, meek, obedient, withthe awful curse of Cain upon his brow, the mark of Indian blood, wastoiling on up in the canyon alone. 

You had better be a negro--you had better be ten times a negro, were itpossible--than be one-tenth part an Indian in the West. The Indian willhave little to do with one who is part Indian. And as for the white man, unless the Indian is willing to be his slave, do him homage and service, he would sooner take a leper in his house or to his heart. 

Up and above the Indian woman's house, in the dense wood and on the spurof the mountain, wound an old Indian trail. Along this trail, above thehidden house, stole two little creatures--tawny, sunburnt, ragged, wretched, yet full of affection for each other. These were the twowretched children escaped from the Reservation. They were now beingharbored by old Forty-nine. For this he was liable to be arrested andpunished. Knowing this, he kept his gun loaded and standing in thecorner of his cabin, where the children slept at night. 

How strange that this one man, the most despised and miserable, shouldbe the only one to reach a hand to help these little waifs of the woods!And who knew or who cared from where they came? They did not look theIndian, though they acted it to perfection. They would run away and hidefrom the face of man. Yet the girl, under the passionate California sun, was almost blossoming into womanhood. They were called brother andsister. God knows if they were or no. Break up tribes, families, asthese had been broken up--fire into a flock of young quails all day--andwho knows how soon or where the few that escape may gather togetheragain, or if they will know each other when they meet, years after inthe woods?

Children are so impressionable. They had heard some one in the camp callthe old Indian woman who sat forever on the porch in the dense foliage, with the big dog beside her, a witch. They did not know what thatmeant. But they knew it was something dreadful, and they shunned andabhorred her accordingly. Yet the girl knew John Logan, her tallhandsome son, well, and liked him, too. 

As they stole along the dim old Indian trail, their necks were stretchedtoward the old Indian woman's hut below. They were as noiseless as twopanthers. At last the girl stopped, stood still, pointed and half pushedthe boy before and in through the thicket, past an occasional lonelycabin, toward the widow's woody home. 

This old woman had long been ailing. She was now very ill. You aresurprised to learn of sickness in the heart of the Sierras? I tell youthat if you were to wash down mountains and uproot forests in themoon--were such a thing possible--the ague would seize hold of youand shake you for it. Nature is revengeful. But to return to thewilderness. 

What a wilderness this was! Only here and there, at long intervals, alittle cabin down in the deep, dense wood; these cabins scattered as ifthe hand of some mighty sower had reached out over the wilderness, andhad sown and strown them there, to take root and grow to some greatharvest of civilization. The narrow Indian trail wound along, almostentirely hidden by overhanging woods--a trail that turned and twisted atevery little obstacle; here it was the prostrate form of some patriarchtree, or here it curved and cork-screwed in and out through mightyforest-kings, that stood like comrades in ranks of battle. 

Where did this little Indian trail lead to? Where did it begin? How manya love-tale had been told in the shadow of those mighty trees thatreached their long, strong arms out over the heads of all passers-by, ina sort of priestly benediction?

Where did the Indian trail lead to? To the West. But leaves were strewnthick along it now. The Indian had gone, to come back no more. Ever tothe West points the Indian's path. Ever down to the great gold shore ofthe vast west sea leads the Indian's path. And there the waves sweep inand obliterate his foot-prints forever. 

The two half-wild children who had disappeared down the dim trail a fewmoments before, now suddenly re-appear. They are eager and excited. This boy cannot be above ten years old; yet he looks old as a man. Thegirl may be twelve, fifteen, or even sixteen. Age at such a period is amatter of either blood or climate. She has a shock of unkempt hair; shewears a tattered dress of as many colors as Jacob's coat. She has onetoeless boot on one foot; on the other she wears a shoe so big that itmight hold both her feet. Down over this shoe rolls a large red woolenstocking, leaving her shapely little ankle bleeding frombrier-scratches. In her hand she swings a large, coarse straw hat by itsbroad red ribbons. Her every limb is full of force and fire; her voiceis firm and resolute, but not rapid. Hers is a splendid energy, needingbut proper direction. 

Her brother, who puffs and pants at her side, is named Johnny; but thewild West, which has a habit of naming things because they look it, hasdubbed him "Stumps, " since he is short and fat. He is half-clad in apair of tattered pants, a great straw hat, and a full, stuffy, checkshirt, which is held in subjection by a pair of hand-made woolensuspenders--the work of his sister. 

Both are out of breath--both are looking back wildly; but Stumps huddlesup again and again close under his sister's arm, as if he fears he mightbe followed, and looks to her for protection. She draws him close toher, and then looking back, and then down into his upturned face, saysbreathlessly:

"Stumps! Oh, Stumps, did you get 'em, Stumps?"

The boy shrinks closer to his sister, and again looking back, and thenseeing for a certainty that he is not followed, he grows bolder andsays:

"Git 'em, Carats? Look there! And that 'un is your'n, Carats; and youcan have both of 'em if you want 'em, for I don't feel hungry now, Carats, " and here he hitches up his pants, and wipes his nose on hissleeve. 

"Why, Stumps, don't you feel hungry now?" Then suddenly beholding twoupheld ruddy peaches, she catches her breath, and says: "Oh, oh!" andshe starts back and throws up her hands. "Oh, the pretty, prettypeaches!"

"Here, take 'em both, Carrie--I ain't hungry now. "

"No, I don't want but one, Stumps--one 's enough. Why, how you tore yourpants; and your shin 's a bleeding, too. Why, poor Stumps!"

Stumps, looking back, cries:

"Shoo! Thar war a dog--yes, thar war a dog! And what do you think! Shoo!I thought I heard somethin' a comin'. Carats, old Miss Logan, the Injunwoman, seed me!"

"Why, Stumps! No?"

"Yes, she did. When I clim' the fence, and slid down that sapling in theyard, there she laid on the porch on her shuck-bed a-shaking with theager. And, Carats, she was a-looking right straight at me--yes, she was;so help me, she was. "

"Why, Stumps; and what did she do! Didn't she holler, and say 'Seek 'em, Bose?'"

"Carats, she didn't; and that's what's the matter--and that's why Idon't want to eat any peaches, Carats. Carats, I wish she had--I do, Ido, so help me. Let's not eat 'em--let's take 'em back--Carrie, sisterCarrie, let's take 'em back. "

Carrie thoughtfully and tenderly gazes in his face. 

"Let's take 'em to old Forty-nine, Johnny. There ain't nothing he caneat, you know; an' then he's been a-shakin' since melon-time, --an'Johnny, I don't think we are very good to him, anyhow. "

Stumps, scratching his bleeding shin with his foot, exclaims:

"I've barked my shin, and I've tore'd my pants, an' I don't care! But Iwon't take him a peach that I've stoled. Why, what would he think, Carats? He'd die dead, he would, if he thought I'd stoled them peachesfrom the poor old sick Injun woman; yes he would, Carats. "

"Johnny, I'll tell him we found 'em, " as Stumps looks doubtingly at her, "tell him we found 'em in a tree, Stumps. Yes tell him we found 'em awayup in the top of a cedar tree. "

"But I don't want to tell no lie, nor do nothin' bad no more, and I wantto go home, I do. "

"Well, Stumps--Johnny, brother Johnny, what will we do with them? Wecan't stand here all day. I want to go home, too. Oh, this hateful, hateful peach! I want to go right off!" and the girl, hiding her facein her hands, begins to weep. 

"Oh, sister Carrie--sister, don't, don't; sister, don't, don't!"

"Then let's eat 'em. "

"I don't like peaches. "

"I don't like peaches either!" cries Carrie, throwing back her hair, wiping her eyes, and trying to be bright and cheerful. "I never couldeat peaches. I like pine-nuts, and cowcumbers, and tomatuses, and--pine-nuts. Oh, I'm very fond of pine-nuts. I like pine-nutsroasted, and tomatuses, an' I like chestnuts raw, an' tomatuses. Don'tyou like pine-nuts and tomatuses, Johnny, and cowcumbers. "

"I don't like nothin' any more. "

"Then, Johnny, take 'em back. "

"I--I--I take 'em back by myself? I take 'em back, an' hear old Bosegrowl, and look into her holler eyes?" Here the boy shudders, andlooking around timidly, he creeps closer to his sister and says, as heagain gazes back in the direction of the Indian woman's cabin: "I'd beafraid she might be dead, Carats, an' there'd be nobody to hold thedog. Oh, I see her holler eyes looking at me all the time. If she'donly let the dog come. Confound her! If she'd only let the dog come!"

"Oh, Johnny, Johnny--brother Johnny, come, lets go home! Shoo! There'ssomebody coming. It's John Logan, coming home from his work. "

As the girl speaks, John Logan, the sick woman's son, a strong handsomeman, only brown as if browned by the sun, with a pick on his shoulderand a gold-pan slanting under his arm, comes whistling along the trail. Seeing the children, he stops and says:

"Why, children, good evening! What are you running away for? Come, comenow, don't be so shy, my little neighbors, and don't give the trail allto me because I happen to be a man, and the strongest. Come, Johnny, give me your hand. There! an honest, chubby little fist it is. Why, whathave you got in your other hand? Been gathering nuts, hey? You littlesquirrel! Give me a nut, won't you. "

Carrie approaches, dives her hand into her ragged pocket and reaches theman a heaped handful of nuts. 

"There, if you'll have nuts I'll bring you nuts; I'll bring you lots ofnuts, I will; I'll bring you a bushel of nuts, an'--some tomatuses. "

"Oh, you are too kind. But now I must hasten home to mother. Come, shakehands again, and say good-bye. " The girl gives her left hand. "No yourright hand. "

Carrie is bothered, and slips the peach in her left hand behind, and, with a lifted face, full of glow and enthusiasm, says:

"I'll bring you a whole bag full of nuts, I will, " and she reaches himher hand eagerly. 

"Oh Carrie, I have a nice little surprise for you, and if you won't tellI'll let you into the secret. You won't tell?"

He comes close to her, sits down his gold-pan, and resting his pick onthe ground, with his two hands on the top of the handle, leans towardher and looks into her innocent uplifted face. 

The girl's eyes brighten, and she seems to grow tall and beautiful underhis earnest gaze. 

"I won't tell, sir. Oh, please to trust me, sir--I won't tell, Mr. JohnLogan!"

The boy eagerly comes forward also. 

"I won't tell, neither. I won't tell neither; so help me!"

"Well, then, come close to me, Johnny, come close up here, and look inmy face--there! Why, I declare the pleasure I now have, telling youthis, is more than gold! And I need money sadly enough. "

"You're awful poor, ain't you?" asked Stumps, hitching up his pants. 

"Been workin' all day and ain't got much in the pan, " says Carrie, looking sidewise at the few colors of gold in the bottom edge of thepan. 

"Ah, yes, Carrie. Look at my hands--hard and rough as the bark of atree; but I don't mind that, Carrie, I was born here, I was born poor, Ishall live poor and die poor. But I don't mind it, Carrie. I have mymother to love and look after, and while she lives I am content. "

The girl looks at the woods, looks at the man, and then once more at thewoods, and at last in her helplessness to solve the problem, falls toeating nuts, as usual; while the man continues, as if talking tohimself:

"This is the peace of Paradise; and see the burning bush! Now I canwell understand that Moses saw the face of God in the bush of fire. "

"Oh, " the girl says to herself, "if he only would be cross! If he onlywould say something rough to us! If he only would cuss. "

She resolves to say or do something to break the spell. She askseagerly:

"Are you going to give something to Stumps and me?--I mean Johnny andme?"

"Yes, yes, to-morrow evening, after my work is done. And now I am goingto tell you and Johnny what it is. It ain't much; it's the least littlething in the world; but I don't deserve any credit for even that--it'smy poor dear old mother's idea. She has laid there, day after day, onthe porch, and she has been thinking, not all the time of her ownsickness and sorrow, but of others, as well; and she has thought much ofyou. "

The boy stands far aside, and at mention of this he jerks himself into aknot, his head drops down between his shoulders, his mouth puckers up, and he exclaims "Oh, hoka!"

"Thought of me?" says Carrie. 

"Of you, Carrie. And listen; I must tell you a little story. When I wasa very young man, and killed my first grizzly bear, I bought a littlepeach-tree and planted it in the corner of the yard, as people sometimesplant trees to remember things. Well, my mother, she had the ague thatday powerful, for it was after melon-time, and she sat on the porch andshook, and shook, and shook, and watched me plant it, and when I gotdone, my mother she cried. I don't know why she cried, Carrie, but shedid. She cried and she cried, and when I went up to her, and put my armsaround her neck and kissed her, she only cried the more, for she wassort of hysteric-like, you know, and she said she knew she'd never liveto eat any fruit off of that tree. "

Carrie stops eating nuts a moment. 

"But she will--she will get well, Mr. John Logan--she will get well, won't she?"

"Ah, indeed, I believe she will get well, but whether she ever getsright well or not, she certainly will live to eat peaches from thattree. Carrie, we've talked it all over, and what do you think? Why, nowlisten, I will tell you. This tree that I planted, and that my poor sickmother was afraid she would not live to eat the fruit from--this treewas a peach tree. "

Carrie again takes out a handful of nuts from her pocket, as if shewould like to eat them. She looks at them a second, throws them away, and hastens to one side. 

"I want to go home, " cries Stumps. "I don't like peaches, Mr. JohnLogan. I don't--I don't--so help me, " and the boy jerks at his pantswildly. 

John Logan turns to him kindly. "Why, you never had a peach in yourlittle hand in your life. " Then turning to Carrie: "Yes, Carrie, therehas grown this year, high up in the sun on that tree, side by side, two--and only two--red, ripe peaches. Why, children, don't run away!Wait one moment, and I will go a little way with you. As I was about tosay, these two peaches are at last ripe. I own I was the least bitafraid, even after I saw them there on that bough one Summer morning, that even then my mother might die before they became fully ripe. Butnow they are ripe, and this evening I shall pull them. And to-morrow, after my day's work is done, my sick mother shall eat one, and you twoshall eat the other. "

Carrie puts up her hand and backs away. 

"Don't--don't--don't call me Carrie; call meCarats--Carats--Carats--like the others do!"

"Why, Carrie! What in the world is the matter with you?"

"If a body steals, Mr. John Logan--if a body steals--what had a bodybetter do?"

"Why, the Preacher says a body should confess--confess it, feel sorry, and be forgiven. "

"I can't--I can't confess, and I can't be forgiven!"

John Logan starts!

"You--you, Carrie; is it you? Then you have already confessed, and Hewill forgive you!"

"But such stealing as this nobody--nothing--can forgive, " falling on herknees. "I--I made my little brother steal your peaches!"

"You!--you made him steal my two peaches that I wanted for my sickmother? You--_you_, Carrie?"

Stumps rushed forward. 

"No--No! I done it myself! I done it all myself--I did, so help me!"

"But I made him do it!" cries Carrie. "I am the biggest, and I knewbetter--I knew better. But we couldn't eat 'em. Here they are--oh I amso glad we couldn't eat 'em!" And they fall on their knees at his feettogether; four little hands reach out the peaches to him eagerly, earnestly, as if in prayer to Heaven. 

The man takes their little hands, and, choking with tears, says, in avoice full of pathos and pity, and uncovering his head, with liftedface, as he remembers something of the story the good Priest so oftenread to his mother: "and there was more joy in Heaven over the one thatwas found, than over the ninety-and-nine that went not astray. "

CHAPTER II. 

TWENTY CARATS FINE. 

 _A land that man has newly trod, A land that only God has known, Through all the soundless cycles flown. Yet perfect blossoms bless the sod, And perfect birds illume the trees, And perfect unheard harmonies Pour out eternally to God. _

 _A thousand miles of mighty wood Where thunder-storms stride fire-shod; A thousand flowers every rod, A stately tree on every rood; Ten thousand leaves on every tree, And each a miracle to me; And yet there be men who question God!_

At just what time these two waifs of the woods appeared in camp evenForty-nine could not tell. They were first seen with the Indian womanwho went about among the miners, picking up bread and bits of coin bydancing, singing and telling fortunes. These two Indian women weregreat liars, and rogues altogether. I need not add that they were partlycivilized. 

The little girl had been taught to dance and sing, and was quite asource of revenue to the two Indian women, who had perhaps bought orstolen the children. As for the boy--poor stunted, starved littlething--he hung on to his sister's tattered dress all the time with hislittle red hand, wherever she went and whatever she did. He was hershadow; and he was at that time little more than a shadow in any way. 

Sometimes men pitied the little girl, and gave very liberally. Theytried to find out something about her past life; for although she wasquite the color of the Indian, she had regular features, and at timesher poor pinched face was positively beautiful. The two children lookedas if they had been literally stunted in their growth from starvationand hardship. 

Once a good-hearted old miner had bribed the squaws to let the childrencome to his cabin and get something to eat. They came, and while theywere gorging themselves, the boy sitting close up to the girl all thetime, and looking about and back over his shoulder and holding on toher dress, this man questioned her about her life and history. She didnot like to talk; indeed, she talked with difficulty at first, and herfew English words fell from her lips in broken bits and in strangeconfusion. But at length she began to speak more clearly as sheproceeded with her story, and became excited in its narration. Then shewould stop and seem to forget it all. Then she went on, as if she wastelling a dream. Then there would be another long pause, and confusion, and she would stammer on in the most wild and incoherent fashion, tillthe old miner became quite impatient, and thought her as big an imposteras the Indian woman whom she called her mother. He finally gave themeach a loaf of bread, and told them they could go back to their lodge. This lodge consisted of a few poles set up in wigwam fashion, andcovered with skins and old blankets and birch. A foul, ugly place itwas, but in this wigwam lived two Indian women and these two children. 

Men, or rather beasts--no, beasts are decent creatures; well then, monsters, full of bad rum, would prowl about this wretched lodge atnight, and their howls, mixed with those of the savages, whom they hadmade also drunk, kept up a state of things frightful to think of inconnection with these two sensitive, starving little waifs of the woods. 

Who were they, and where did they come from? Sometimes these childrenwould start up and fly from the lodge at night, and hide away in thebrush like hunted things, and only steal back at morning when all wasstill. At such times the girl would wrap her little brother (if he washer brother) in her own scant rags, and hold him in her arms as heslept. 

One night, while some strange Indians were lodging there, a still moreterrible scene transpired in this dreadful little den than had yet beenconceived. The two children fled as usual into the darkness, back intothe deep woods. Shots were heard, and then a death-yell that echoed farup and down the canyon. Then there were cries, shrieks of women, as ifthey were being seized and borne away. Fainter and fainter grew theircries; further and further, down on the high ledge of the canyon in thedarkness, into the deep wood, they seemed to be borne. And at last theircries died away altogether. 

The next morning a dead Indian was found at the door of the empty lodge. But the women and the children were nowhere to be seen. Some said theIndian Agent's men had come to take the Indians away, and that the manresisting had been shot, while the women and children were taken to theReservation, where they belonged. But there was a darker story, and toldunder the breath, and not spoken loud. Let it be told under the breath, and briefly here, also. Some drunken wretches had shot the Indians, carried the women down to the dark woods above the deep swollen river, and then, after the most awful orgies ever chronicled, murdered them andsunk their bodies in the muddy river. 

It was nearly a week after that the two children stole down from thewooded hill-side into the trail, where old Forty-nine found them on hisreturn from work. They were so weak they could not speak or cry out forhelp. They could only reach their little hands and implore help, as, timid and frightened, they tottered towards this first human being theyhad dared to face for a whole week. 

The strong man hesitated a moment; they looked so frightful he wanted toescape from their presence. But his grand, noble nature came to thesurface in a second; and dropping his pick and pan in the trail, hecaught up the two children, and in a moment more was, with one in eacharm, rushing down the trail to his cabin. He met some men, and passedothers. They all looked at him with wonder. One even laughed at him. 

And it is hard to comprehend this. There were good men--good in ameasure; men who would have gallantly died to save a woman--men who weretrue men on points of honor; yet men who could not think of even beingcivil to an Indian, or any one with a bit of Indian blood in his veins. Is our government responsible for this? I do not say so. I only knowthat it exists; a hatred, a prejudice, more deeply seated andunreasonable than ever was that of the old slave-dealer for the blackman. 

Forty-nine did not return to his tunnel the next day, nor yet the next. This cabin, wretched as it became in after years when he had falleninto evil habits, had then plenty to eat, and there the starved littlebeings ate as they had never eaten before. 

At first the little boy would steal and hide away bread while he ate atthe table. The first night, after eating all he could, he slept withboth his pockets full and a chunk up his sleeve besides. 

This boy was never a favorite. He was so weak, so dependent on hissister. It seemed as if he had been at one time frightened almost todeath, and had never quite gotten over it. And so Forty-nine took mostkindly to the girl, and they were soon fast friends. Yet ever and alwaysher shadow, the little boy, whom Forty-nine named Johnny, kept at herside--as I have said before; his little red hand reached out andclutching at her tattered dress. 

After a few weeks the girl began to tell strange, wild stories to theold man. But observing that Forty-nine doubted these, as the other manhad, she called them dreams, and so would tell him these wild andterrible dreams of the desert, of blood, of murder and massacre, tillthe old man himself, as the girl shrank up to him in terror, becamealmost frightened. He did not like to hear these dreams, and she soonlearned not to repeat them. 

One evening a passing miner stopped, placed a broad hand on eitherdoor-jamb, and putting his great head in at the open door, asked how thelittle "copper-colored pets" got on. 

"Pard, " answered Forty-nine, kindly, and with a nod of the head backtoward the children playing in the corner, "they are not coppers; no, they are not. I tell you that girl is not copper, but gold. Yes she is, Pard; she is twenty carats. "

"Twenty carats gold! Well, Twenty Carats, come here! Come here, Carats, "called out the big head at the door. 

The girl came forward, and a big hand fell down from the door-jamb onher bushy head of hair, and the man was pleased as he looked down intothe uplifted face. And so he called her "Carats, " and that became hername. 

Other passing miners stopped to look in at the open door where the bighead had looked and talked to the timid girl, and misunderstanding thename, they called her Carrie; and Carrie she was called ever afterwards. 

But the boy who had been so thin, soon grew so fat and chubby that someone named him "Stumps. " There was no good trying to get rid of thatname. He looked as though his name ought to be Stumps, and Stumps itwas, in spite of the persistent efforts of old Forty-nine to keep thename in use which he had given him. And this was all that Forty-nine orany one could tell of these two children. 

And now, how beautiful Carrie had grown by the time the leaves turnedbrown! Often Dosson saw her hovering about the cabin of old Forty-nine, flitting through the woods with her brother, or walking leisurely withLogan on the hill down the dim old Indian trail. 

Mother Nature has her golden wedding once a year, and all the world isinvited. She has many gala days, too, besides, and she celebrates themwith songs and dances of delight. In the full bosomed, teeming, jocundSpring, I have seen the trees lean together and rustle their leaves inwhisperings of love. I have seen them reach their long strong arms toeach other, and intertwine them as if in fond affection, as the bland, warm winds, coming up from the South, blew over them and warmed theirhearts of oak--old trees, too, gnarled and knotted--old fellows that hadbobbed their heads together through many and many a Spring; that hadleaned their lofty and storm-stained tops together through many and manya Winter; that had stood, like mighty soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, infriendships knit through many centuries. The birds sing and flutter, flyin and out of the dark deep canopies of green, build nests, and makelove in myriads. How the squirrels run and chatter and frisk, and flyfrom branch to branch, with their bushy tails tossing in the warm wind!Under foot, ten thousand tall strange flowers and weeds and longspindled grasses grow, and reach up and up, as if to try to touch thesunlight above the tops of the oak and ash and pine and fir and cedarand maple and cherry and sycamore and spruce and tamarack, and all thesethat grow in common confusion here and shut out the sun from the earthas perfectly as if all things dwelt forever in cloudland. 

The cabin of old Forty-nine was very modest; it hid away in the canyonas if it did not wish to be seen at all. And it was right; for verily itwas scarcely presentable. It was an old cabin, too, almost as old aslittle "Carats, " if indeed any one could tell how old she was. But it, unlike herself, seemed to be growing tired and weary of the world. Shehad been growing up as it had been growing down. The moss was gatheringall over the round, rough logs on the outside, and the weeds and wildvines each year grew still more ambitious to get quite to the top of thecabin, and peep down into the mysterious crater of a chimney thatforever smoked in a mournful and monotonous sort of way, as if watcherswere there--Vestal virgins, who dared not let their fires perish, onpenalty of death. 

"Drunken, wretched, cracked and crazy old Forty-nine, " the camp said, "he can never build a new cabin, for he can't stay sober long enough tocut down a tree. " And the camp told the ugly truth. 

"Why don't Forty-nine build a new cabin?" asked Gar Dosson one day, ashe passed that way, with a string of fish in his hand and a coon on hisback. 

"Poor dear Forty-nine's got the shakes so he can't get time. It takeshim all the time to shake, and it takes all his money to buy his agermedicine. Poor dear old Forty-nine!" and the girl seemed to get a cinderor something in her eye. *****

As the sun settled low, one afternoon, and cast long, creeping shadowsover the flowery land--shadows that lay upon and crept along the ground, as if they were weary of the day, and would like to lie there and sleep, and sleep, forever--the stealthy step of a man was heard approaching theold cabin. There was something of the tiger in the man's movements, andit was clear that his mission, whatever it was, was not a mission ofpeace. *****

The man stands out in the clearing of the land before the cabin, andpeers right and left up the trail and down the trail, and then leans andlistens. Then he takes a glance back over his shoulder at his companionand follower, Gar Dosson, and being sure that he too is on the alert andclose on his heels, he steps forward. Again the man leans and listens, but seeing no signs of life and hearing no sound, he straightens up, walks close to the cabin, and calls out:

"Hello, the house!" at the same time he looks to the priming of his gun, and then fixes his eye on the door as it slowly opens. He drops thebreech hastily to the ground as the face of Carrie peers forth. 

"Beg pardon, Carrie, my girl! Is it only you miss? Beg pardon--but weare lookin' for a gentleman--a young gentleman, John Logan. "

The man is terribly embarrassed as the girl looks him straight in theface, and his companion falls back into the woods until almost hiddenfrom view. 

"Well, and why do you come here, skulking like Indians?"

The man falls back; but recovering, he says, over his shoulder, as heturns to go:

"Yes, skulking around your cabin, like that other Injun, John Logan!"

The man jerks the coon-skin cap up on his left ear as he says this, and, tossing his head, steps back into the thick woods and is gone. 

Later in the evening, John Logan, gun in hand, passes slowly anddreamily down the trail, close to old Forty-nine's cabin. Stumps andCarrie are at play in the wood close at hand, and come forth at a bound. 

"Booh!" cries Carrie, darting around from behind a tree. "Booh! Mr. JohnLogan, " continues the girl, and then with her two dimpled brown handsshe throws back the glorious storm of black abundant hair, that all thetime tumbles about her beautiful face. 

"Why, Carrie, is that you? and Stumps, too? I am glad to see you. I--Iwas feeling awful lonesome. "

"Been down to Squire Fields' again, haven't you?"

The girl has reached one hand out against a tree, and half leaning on itswings her right foot to and fro. John Logan starts just a little, looksat her, sighs, sets the breech of his gun on the ground, and as his eyesturn to hers, she sees he is very sad. 

"Yes, Carrie, I--I am lonesome at my cabin since--since mother died. Allthe time, Carrie, I see her as I saw her that night, when I got home, sitting there on the porch, looking straight out at the gate, waitingfor me, her hand on the dog's head, as if to hold him. "

As he says this, poor little Stumps stands up close against a tree, draws his head down, and pulls up his shoulders. 

"Yes, her long bony fingers resting on his head, holding him--and thefaithful dog never moving for fear he would disturb her--for she wasdead. "

"Oh, Mr. John Logan, don't tell me about it--don't!" and the girl'sapron is again raised to her face as she shudders. 

"Poor old woman with the holler eyes, " says Stumps to himself, in a tonethat is scarcely audible. 

"But there, never mind. " The strong, handsome fellow brushes a tearaside, and taking up his gun again, tries to be cheerful, and shake offthe care that encompasses him. 

"And you got lonesome, and went down to see Sylvia Fields, didn't you?"

Again the girl's foot swings, and she looks askance from under her dark, heavy hair, at John Logan. 

"Carrie, listen to me. Ever since I can remember, my mother waited andwatched for my coming at my cabin door. But now, only think how lonelyit is to live there. I can't go away. I have no fortune, no friends, nopeople. What would people say to me and of me out in the great world?Well, I went to Squire Fields, and I had a long talk with Sylvia. "

The girl starts, and almost chokes. 

"Been to see Sylvia Fields!" and with her booted foot she kicks the barkof a tree with all her might. "Had a long talk with her!" Then shewhirls around, plunges her hand in her pocket, and swings her dress andsays, as she pouts out her mouth, "Oh, I feel just awful!"

John Logan approaches her. 

"Why, Carrie, what's the matter?"

Carrie still swings herself, and turns her back to the man as she says, half savagely, "I don't know what's the matter, and I don't care what's the matter; butI feel just awful, I do! I feel just like the dickens!"

"But, Carrie, you ought to be very, very happy, with all this beautifulscenery, and the sweet air in your hair and on your rosy face. And thenwhat a lady you have grown to be! Now don't look cross at me like that!You ought to be as happy as a bird. "

"But I ain't happy; I ain't happy a bit, I ain't!" Then, after a pauseshe continues:

"I don't like that Gar Dosson. He was here looking for you. "

"Here? Looking for me?"

"Yes, and he called old Forty-nine Old Blossom-nose. I just hate him. "

"Oh, well, Carrie, you know Forty-nine does drink dreadfully, and youknow he has got a dreadful red face. "

"Mr. John Logan, " cries Carrie, hotly, "Forty-nine don't drinkdreadfully. He don't drink dreadfully at all. He does take something forhis ager, but he don't drink. "

"Well, his face is dreadful red, anyway, " answers John Logan. 

Carrie, swinging her foot and thoughtfully looking up at the trees, says, after a pause:

"Do the trees drink? Do the trees and the bushes drink, John Logan?Their faces get awfully red in the fall, too. "

"Carrie, you are cross to-day. "

Carrie, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her dress as if she wouldshake it off her, snaps: "I ain't cross. "

"Yes, you are, " and the tawny man comes up to her and speaks in a kindlytone: "But come. Many a pleasant walk we have had in these woodstogether, and many a pleasant time we will have together still. "

"We won't!"

"Ah, but we will! Come, you must not be so cross!"

The girl leans her forehead against the tree on her lifted arm, andswings her other foot. She looks down at the rounded ankle, and says, almost savagely, to herself; "She's got bigger feet than I have. She'sgot nearly twice as big feet, she has. "

John Logan looks at the girl with a profound tenderness, as she standsthere, pouting and swinging her foot. He attempts to approach her, butshe still holds her brow bowed to the tree upon her arm, and seems notto see him. He shoulders his gun and walks past her, and says, kindly, "Good-bye, Carrie. "

But the girl's eyes are following him, although she would not be willingto admit it, even to herself. As he is about to disappear, she thrustsher hand madly through her hair, and pulls it down all in a heap. Stilllooking at him under her brows, still swinging her foot wildly, shesays:

"Do you think red hair is so awful ugly?"

And what a wondrous glory of hair it was! It was so intensely black; andthen it had that singular fringe of fire, or touch of Titian color, which seen in the sunset made it almost red. 

The man stops, turns, comes back a step or two, as she continues:

"I do--I do! Oh, I wish to Moses I had tow hair, I do, like SylviaFields. "

The man is standing close beside her now. He is looking down into herface and she feels his presence. The foot does not swing so violentlynow, and the girl has cautiously, and, as she believes, unseen, liftedthe edge of her tattered sleeve to her eyes. "Why Carrie, your hair isnot red. " And he speaks very tenderly. "Carrie, you are going to bebeautiful. You are beautiful now. You are very beautiful!"

Carrie is not so angry now. The foot stops altogether, and she lifts herface and says:

"No I ain't--I ain't beautiful! Don't you try to humbug me. I am ugly, and I know it! For, last winter, when I went down to the grocery tofetch Forty-nine--he'd gone down there to get medicine for his ager, Mr. John Logan--I heard a man say, 'She is ugly as a mud fence. ' Oh, I wentfor him! I made the fur fly! But that didn't make me pretty. I was uglyall the same. No, I'm not pretty--I'm ugly, and I know it!"

"Oh, no, you're not. You are beautiful, and getting lovelier every day. "Carrie softens and approaches him. 

"Am I, John Logan? And you really don't think red hair is the ugliestthing in the world?"

"Do I really not think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world? Why, Carrie?"

Carrie, starting back, looks in his face and says, bitterly: "You do. You do think red hair is the ugliest thing in all this born world, and Ijust dare you to deny it. Sylvia Fields--she's got white hair, she has, and you like white hair, you do. I despise her; I despise her so muchthat I almost choke. "

"Why, now, Carrie, what makes you despise Sylvia Fields?"

"I don't know; I don't know why I despise her, but I do. I despise herwith all my might and soul and body. And I tell you, Mr. John Logan, that"--here the lips begin to quiver, and she is about to burst intotears--"I tell you, Mr. John Logan, that I do hope she likes ripebananas; and I do hope that if she does like ripe bananas, that whenbananas come to camp this fall, that she will take a ripe banana and tryfor to suck it; and I do hope she will suck a ripe banana down herthroat, and get choked to death on it, I do. "

"Oh, Carrie, this is very wicked!" cries John Logan, reproachfully, "andI must leave you if you talk that way. Good-bye, " and the man shouldershis gun and again turns away. 

"Well, do you think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world? Do you?Do you now?"

"Carrie, don't you know I love the beautiful, red woods of autumn?"

It is the May-day of the maiden's life; the May shower is over again, and the girl lifts her beautiful face, and says lightly, almost laughingthrough her tears, "And, oh, you did like the red bush, didn't you, Mr. John Logan? And, oh, you did say that Moses saw the face of God in the burning bush, didn't you, Mr. John Logan?"

"I want you to tell me a story, I do, " interposes Stumps. The boy hadstood there a long time, first on one foot, then on the other, swinginghis squirrel, pouting out his mouth, and waiting. 

"Yes, tell us a story, " urges Carrie. 

"Oh, yes, tell us a story about a coon--no, about a panther--no, a bear. Oh, yes, about a bear! about a bear!" cries the boy, "about a bear!"

"Poor, half-wild children!" sighs John Logan. "Nothing to divert them, their little minds go out, curiously seeking something new and strange, just, I fancy as older and abler people's do in larger ways. Yes, I willtell you a story about a bear. And let us sit down; my long walk hastired my legs;" and he looks about for a resting place. 

"Oh, here, this mossy log!" cries Stumps; "it's as soft as silk. Youwill sit there, and I here, and sister there. "

John Logan leans his gun against a tree, hanging his pouch on the gun. 

"Yes, I will sit here--and you, Carrie?"

"Here. Oh, John Logan, I just fit in. "

One of Logan's arms falls loosely around Carrie, the other more looselyaround Stumps. 

"Yes, it's a nice fit, Carrie--couldn't be better if cut out by atailor. "

Carrie, swinging her feet, and looking in his face, very happy, exclaims:

"Oh, John Logan! Don't hold me too tight--you might hurt me!"

Stumps laughs. "He don't hold me tight enough to hurt me a bit. " Thenlooking up in his face, says, "I want a bear story, I do. "

"Well, I will tell you a story out of the Bible. Once upon a time therewas a great, good man--a very good and a very earnest man. Well, thisvery good old man, who was very bald headed, took a walk one evening;and the very good old man passed by a lot of very bad boys. And thesevery bad boys saw the very bald head of the very good man and theysaid, 'Go up, old bald head! Go up, old bald head!' And it made thisgood man very mad; and he turned, and he called a she-bear out of thewoods, and she ate up about forty. "

"Oh!" cries Stumps, aghast. 

"Oh!" adds Carrie. "And he wasn't a very good man. He might have been avery bald-headed man, but he wasn't a very good man to have her eat allthe children, Mr. John Logan. "

Stumps, nursing his squirrel, with his head on one side, says:

"Well, I don't believe it, no how--I don't! What was his name--the old, bald-head?"

"His name was Elijah, sir. "

"Elijah! The bald-headed Elijah! Oh, I do believe it, then; for I knowwhen Forty-nine and the curly-headed grocery-keeper were playing poker, at ten cents ante and pass the buck--when Forty-nine went down to gethis ager medicine, sister--Forty-nine, he went a blind; and thecurly-headed grocery-keeper he straddled it, and then Forty-nine seedhim, he did. And so help me! he raked in the pot on a Jack full. Andthen the curly-headed grocery-keeper jumped up, and struck his fist onthe table, and he said, 'By the bald-headed Elijah!'"

Carrie nestles closer, and in a half whisper, mutters, "I believe I'm getting a little chilly. "

Stumps hears this, and says, "Why, Carrie, I'm just a sweatin', and--"

"Shoo! What noise was that? There is some one stealing through thebush!"

John Logan, as he spoke, rose up softly and cautiously, and half bentforward as he put the two children aside and reached his gun. He lookedat the cap, ran an eye along the barrel, and then twisted his belt aboutso that a pistol was just visible beneath his coat. The man had had anintimation of trouble. Indeed, his gun had been at hand all this time, but he did not care to frighten the two happy waifs of the woods withany thought of what might happen to him, and even to them. 

These children had but one thing to dread. There was but one terribleword to them in the language. It was not hunger, not starvation, --no, not even death. It was the _Reservation_! That one word meant to them, as it means to all who are liable to be carried there, captivity, slavery, degradation, and finally death, in its most dreadful form. 

And why should it be so dreaded? Make the case your own, if you are alover of liberty, and you can understand. 

Statistics show that more than three-fourths of all Indians removed toReservations of late years, die before becoming accustomed to the neworder of things. 

Yet Indians do not really fear death. But they do dread captivity. Theyare so fond of their roving life, their vast liberty--room! An Indian istoo brave to commit suicide, save in the most rare and desperate cases. But his heart breaks from home-sickness, and he dies there in despair. And then to see his helpless little children die, one by one, with theburning fever, which always overtakes the poor captives!

"How many of us died? I do not know. We counted them at first. But whenthere were dead women and children in every house and not men enough tobury them, I did not count any more, " said one of the survivors whenquestioned. 

In earlier times, some of these Reservations were well chosen--the oneon the Ummatilla, Oregon, for example. But of late years it would seemas if the most deadly locations had been selected. Perhaps this isthought best by those in authority, as the land is soon wanted by thewhites if it is at all fit for their use. And the Indians in such casesare sooner or later made to move on. 

This particular Reservation in California, however, never has been andnever will be required or used by any man, except for a grave. 

Why, in the name of humanity, such things are left to the choice anddiscretion of strangers, new men, men who know nothing about Indians andcare nothing for them, except so far as they can coin their blood, isincomprehensible. It is a crime. Way out yonder, in the heart of aburning plain, by the side of an alkali lake that fairly reeked withmalaria, where even reptiles died, where wild fowl never were found; aplace that even beasts knew better than to frequent, without wood orwater, save stunted sage and juniper and slimy alkali, in the veryvalley of death--this Reservation had been established. 

"Ah, just the place. A place where we can use our cavalry when theyattempt to escape, " said the young sprig of an officer, when some menwith a spark of humanity dared to protest. 

And that was the reason for removing it so far from the sweet, pure airand water of the Sierras, and setting these poor captives down in thevalley of death. 

When they try to escape! Did it never occur to the United States to makea Reservation pleasant and healthy enough for an Indian to be contentin? My word for it, if you will give him a place fit to live in, he willbe willing to make his home there. 

I know nothing in history so dark and dreadful as the story of theIndians in this dreaded and deadly Reservation of the valley. TheIndians surrendered on condition that they should be taken to good homesand taught the ways of the white man. Once in the white man's power, thechains began to tighten, tighten at every step. Once there, they weredivided into lots, families torn apart, and put to work under guard;men stood over them with loaded muskets. The land was full of malaria. These men of the mountains began to sicken, to die; to die bydegrees, --to die, as the hot weather came on, by hundreds. At last a fewof the strongest, the few still able to stand, broke away and foundtheir way back to the mountains. They were like living skeletons, skinand bone only, hollow-eyed and horrible to look upon. Toward the last, these poor Indians had crawled on their hands and knees to get back. They were followed by the soldiers, and taken wherever they could befound; taken back to certain death. One, a young man, still possessed ofa little strength, fought with sticks and stones with all his might ashe lay in the trail where he had fallen in his flight. He lifted his twobony hands between the foe and his dying old father. The two were takenand chained together. That night the young man with an old pair ofscissors, which he had borrowed on pretense of wanting to trim his hair, killed the old man by pushing one of the points into his heart. Youcould see by the marks of blood on the young man's hand next morning, that he had felt more than once to see if the old man was quite dead. Then he drove the point of the scissors in his own heart, and crawledupon the old man's body, embraced it and died there. And yet all thishad been done so quietly that the two guards who marched back and forthonly a few feet distant, did not know till next morning that anything ofthe kind had been. Sometimes these wretches would beg, and even steal, on their way back from the dreadful Reservation. They were frightful, terrible, at such times. They sometimes stood far off outside the gate, and begged with outstretched hands. Their appearances were so againstthem, hungry, dying; and then this traditional hatred of four hundredyears. 

But this is too much digression. John Logan knew all the wrongs of hispeople only too well. He sympathized with them. And this meant his ownruin. A few Indians had made their way back of late, and John Logan hadharbored them while the authorities were in pursuit. This was enough. Anorder had been sent to bring in John Logan. 

He knew of this, and that was why he now stood all alert and on fire, as these two men came stealing through the bush and straight for him. Should he fire? To shoot, to shoot at, to even point a gun at a whiteman, is death to the Indian. A slave of the South had been ten-fold moresafe in striking his master in the old days of slavery, than is anIndian on the border in defending his person against a white man. 

The two children, like frightened pheasants, when the old one givessigns of danger, darted down behind him, quick as thought, still asdeath. Their desperate and destitute existence in that savage land hadmade them savages in their cunning and caution. They said no word, madeno sign. Their eyes were fixed on his every step and motion. He signaledthem back. They darted like squirrels behind trees, and up and onthrough the thicket, toward the steep and inaccessible bluffs above. Thetwo men saw the retreating children. They wanted Carrie. They dartedforward; one of them jerked out and held up a paper in the face of JohnLogan. 

"We want you at the Reservation. Come!"

Phin Emens stood full before Logan. He shook the paper in his face. Theman did not move. Carrie was fast climbing up the mountain. She wasabout to escape. Gar Dosson was furious. He attempted to pass, to climbthe mountain, and to get at the girl. Still Logan kept himself betweenas he slowly retreated. 

"Stand aside, and let me get that girl. I must take _her_, too!" shoutedDosson. Still Logan kept the man back. And now the children had escaped. Wild with rage, Dosson caught Logan by the shoulder and shouted, "Come!"With a blow that might have felled an ox, the Indian brought the man tothe ground. Then, grasping his rifle in his right hand, he dartedthrough the thicket after the retreating children, up the mountain, while Phin Emens stooped over his fallen friend. 

CHAPTER III. 

MAN-HUNTERS. 

 "_He caused the dry land to appear. _" --BIBLE. 

 _The mountains from that fearful first Named day were God's own house. Behold, 'Twas here dread Sinai's thunders burst And showed His face. 'Twas here of old His prophets dwelt. Lo, it was here The Christ did come when death drew near. _

 _Give me God's wondrous upper world That makes familiar with the moon These stony altars they have hurled Oppression back, have kept the boon Of liberty. Behold, how free The mountains stand, and eternally. _

Success makes us selfish. The history of the world chronicles noprosperity like that of ours; and so, thinking of only ourselves and oursuccess, we forget others. It is easy, indeed, to forget the misery ofothers; and we hate to be told of it, too. 

On a high mountain side overlooking the valley, hung a little camp likea bird's nest. It was hidden there in the densest wood, yet it lookedout over the whole land. No bird, indeed no mother of her young, everchose a deeper or wilder retreat, or a place more utterly apart from thepaths and approaches of mankind. 

Certainly the little party had stood in imminent peril of capture, andhad prized freedom dearly indeed, to climb these crags and confront thevery snow-peaks in their effort to make certain their safety. 

And a little party, too, it must have been; for you could have passedwithin ten feet of the camp and not discovered it by day. And by night?Well, certainly by night no man would peril his life by an uncertainfooting on the high cliffs here, only partly concealed by the thickgrowth of chaparral, topt by tall fir and pine and cedar and tamarack. And so a little fire was allowed to burn at night, for it was near thesnow and always cold. And it was this fire, perhaps, that first betrayedthe presence of the fugitives to the man-hunters. 

Very poor and wretched were they, too. If they had had more blanketsthey might not have so needed the fire. So poor were they, in fact, thatyou might have stood in the very heart of the little camp and notdiscovered any property at all without looking twice. A little heap ofashes in the center sending up a half-smothered smoke, two or threeloose California lion-skins, thrown here and there over the rocks, apair of moccasins or two, a tomahawk--and that was almost all. Nocooking utensils had they--for what had they to cook? No eatingutensils--for what had they to eat?

Great gnarled and knotty trees clung to the mountain side beyond, and alittle to the left a long, thin cataract, which, from the valley farbelow, looked like a snowy plume, came pitching down through the treetops. It had just been let loose from the hand of God--this sheen ofshining water. Back and beyond all this, a peak of snow, a great pyramidand shining shaft of snow, with a crown of clouds, pierced heaven. 

Stealthily, and on tip-toe, two armed men, both deeply disguised ingreat black beards, and in good clothes, stepped into this empty littlecamp. Bending low, looking right, looking left, guns in hand and handon trigger, they stopped in the centre of the little camp, and lookedcautiously up, down, and all around. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, they looked in each others' eyes, straightened up, and, standing theirguns against a tree, breathed more freely in the gray twilight. Wicked, beastly-looking men were they, as they stood there loosening theircollars, taking in their breath as if they had just had a hard climb, and looking about cautiously; hard, cruel and cunning, they seemed as ifthey partook something of the ferocity of the wild beasts that prowledthere at night. 

These two large animal-looking men were armed with pistols also. But atthe belt of each hung and clanked and rattled something more terriblethan any implement of death. 

These were manacles! Irons! Chains for human hands!

Did it never occur to you as a little remarkable, that man only forgeschains and manacles for his fellow-man? A cage will do for a wild beast, cattle are put in pens, bears in a pit, but man must be chained. Mencarry these manacles with them only when they set out to take theirfellow-man. These two men were man-hunters. 

Standing there, manacles in hand, half beast and half devil, they werein the employment of the United States. They were sent to take JohnLogan, Carrie and Johnny, to the Reservation--the place most hated, dreaded, abhorred of all earthly places, the Reservation! Back of thesetwo men lay a deeper, a more damning motive for the capture of the girlthan the United States was really responsible for; for the girl, as wehave seen, was very beautiful. This rare wild flower had now almostmatured in the hot summer sun just past. But remember, it was all beingdone in the name of and under the direction of, and, in fact, by, theUnited States Government. 

To say nothing of the desire of agents and their deputies to capture andpossess beautiful girls, it is very important to any Indian agent thateach victim, even though he be half or three-quarters, or even entirely, white, be kept on the Reservation; for every captive is so much money inthe hands of the Indian agent. He must have Indians, as said before, toreport to the Government in order to draw blankets, provisions, clothes, and farming utensils for them. True, the Indians do not get atithe of these things, but he must be on the Reservation roll-call inorder that the agent may draw them in his name. 

This agency had become remarkably thin of Indians. The mountain Indians, accustomed to pure water and fresh air, could not live long in the hot, fever-stricken valley. They died by hundreds. And then, as if utterlyregardless of the profits of the agents of the Reservation, they hungthemselves in their prison-pens, with their own chains. Two, father andson, killed themselves with the same knife one night while chainedtogether. 

There was just a little bit of the old Roman in these liberty-lovingnatures, it seemed to me. See the father giving himself the death-wound, and then handing the knife to his son! The two chained apart, but stillable to grasp each other's hands; grasping hands and dying so! Veryantique that, it seems to me, in its savage valor--love of liberty, andlofty contempt of death. But then it was only Indians, and happened sorecently. 

It is true, Gar Dosson wanted revenge and the girl; and the two menwanted the little farm. Yet do not forget that back of all this lay thatgranite and immovable mountain of fact, that other propelling principleto compel them on to the hunt, the order, the sanction--the gold--of thegovernment. Let it be told with bowed head, with eyes to the ground, andcheeks crimson with shame! Think of one of these hunted human beings--abeautiful young girl, just at that sweet and tender, almost holy periodof life, the verge of womanhood, when every man of the land should startup with a noble impulse to throw the arm of protection about her!

"Shoo! they must be close about, " began the shorter of the two ruffians, reaching back for his gun, as if he had heard something. 

"No. Didn't you see that squirrel shucking a hazel nut on that rockthere, just afore we came in?" said the other. 

"A bushy-tailed gray? Yes, seed him scamper up a saplin. "

"Wal, don't you know that if they had a bin hereabouts, a squirrelwouldn't a sot down there to shuck a nut?"

"Right! You've been among Injins so long that you know more about themthan they do themselves. "

"Wal, what I don't know about an Injin no one don't know. They've gonefor grub, and will come back at sun-down. "

"Come back here at sun-down?"

"Don't you see the skins there? Whar kin they sleep? They'll come aforedark, for even an Injin can't climb these rocks after dark. And when thegal's in camp, and that feller fixed--eh? eh?" And he tapped and rattledthe manacles. 

"Eh? eh? old Toppy?" and the two men poked each other in the ribs, andlooked the very villains that they were. 

"But let's see what they've got here. Two tiger-skins, an old moccasinand a tomahawk;" he looked at the handle and read the name, JOHN LOGAN;"Guess I'll hide that, " said the agent, as he kicked the skins about, and then stuck the tomahawk up under his belt. "Guess that's about all. "

"Guess that's about all!" sneered the other; "that's about all you knowabout Injuns. Allers got your nose to the ground, too. Look here!" Andthe man, who had been walking about and looking up in the trees, heredrew down a bundle from the boughs of a fir. 

"Well, I'll swar! ef you can't find things where a coon dog couldn't!"

"Find things!" exclaimed the other, as he prepared to examine thecontents of the bundle; "all you've got to do is to look into a fir-treein an Injun's camp. You see, bugs and things won't climb a fir gum;nothing but a red-bellied squirrel will go up a fir gum, for fear ofsticking in the wax; and even a squirrel won't, if there is a stringtied around, for fear of a trap. Wal, there is the string. So you see anInjun's _cache_ is as safe up a fir-tree as under lock and key. Ah, they're awful short of grub. Look thar! Been gnawing that bone, andthey've put that away for their suppers, I swar!"

"Wal, the grub is short, eh? They'll be rather thin, I'm thinking. "

The other did not notice this remark, but throwing the bundle aside, herose up and went back to the tree. 

"By the beardy Moses! Look thar!" and the man looked about as if halffrightened, and then held up a bottle. 

"Whisky?" asked the other, springing eagerly forward. 

"No, " answered the man, contemptuously, after smelling the bottle. 

"Water, eh?" queried the other, with disgust. 

"Wine! And look here. Do you know what that means? It means a white man!Yes, it does. No Injin ever left a cork in a bottle. Now, you looksharp. There will be a white man to tackle. "

"Wal, I guess he won't be much of a white man, or he'd have whisky. "

"Shoo! I heard a bird fly down the canyon. Somebody's a comin' up thar. "

"We better git, eh?" said the other, getting his gun; "lay for 'em. "

"Lay low and watch our chance. Maybe we'll come in on 'em friendly like, if there's white men. We're cattle men, you know; men hunting cattle, "says the other, getting his gun and leading off behind the crags in therear. "Leave me to do the talking. I'll tell a thing, and you'll swearto it. Wait, let's see, " and he approaches the edge of the rocks, and, leaning over, looked below. 

"See 'em?"

"Shoo! Look down there. The gal! She's a fawn. She's as pretty as atiger-lily. Ah, my beauty!"

The other man stood up, shook his head thoughtfully, and seemed tohesitate. The watcher still kept peering down; then he turned and said:"The white man is old Forty-nine. He comes a bobbin' and a limpin' alongwith a keg on his back, and a climbin' up the mountain sidewise, like acrab. "

"Whoop! I have it. It's wine, and they'll get drunk. Forty-nine will getdrunk, don't you see, and then?"

"You're a wise 'un! Shake!" And they grasped hands. 

"You bet! Now this is the little game. The gal and Logan, and the boy, will get here long first. Well, now, maybe we will go for the gal andthe boy. But if we don't, we just lay low till all get sot down, and atthat keg the old man's got, and then we just come in. Cattle-men, backin the mountains, eh?"

"That's the game. But here they come! Shoo!" and with his finger to hislip the leader stole behind the rocks, both looking back over theirshoulders, as Carrie entered the camp. 

Her pretty face was flushed from exertion, and brown as a berry wherenot protected by the shock of black hair. She swung a broad straw hat inher hand, and tossed her head as if she had never worn and never wouldwear any other covering for it than that so bountifully supplied bynature. She danced gaily, and swung her hat as she flew about the littlecamp, and called at her chubby cherub of a brother over her shoulder. Atlast, puffing and blowing, and wiping his forehead, he entered camp andthrew himself on one of the rocks. 

"Why, you ain't tired, are you Johnny?"

"Oh, oh, oh, --no, I--I--I ain't tired a bit!" and he wiped his brow, andpuffed and blowed, in spite of all his efforts to restrain himself. 

"Why you like to climb the mountains, Johnny. Don't you know you saidyou liked to climb the mountains better than to eat?"

"Oh, yes, yes--I--I like to climb a mountain. That is, I like to climbone mountain at a time. But when there are two or three mountains allpiled up on top of one another, Oh, oh, oh!"

"Oh, Johnny! You to go to bragging about climbing mountains! You can'tclimb mountains!" And again the girl, with shoes that would hardly holdtogether, a dress in ribbons, and a face not unfamiliar with the dirt ofthe earth, danced back and forth before him and sung snatches of amountain song. "Oh, I'm so happy up here, Johnny. I always sing like abird up here. " Then, looking in his face, she saw that he was verythoughtful; and stepping back, and then forward, she said: "Why, whatmakes you so serious? They won't never come up here, will they, Johnny?Not even if somebody at the Reservation wanted me awful bad, andsomebody gave somebody lots of money to take me back, they couldn'tnever come up here, could they, Johnny?" And the girl looked eagerlyabout. 

"Oh, no, Carrie, you are safe here. Why, you are as safe here as in afort. "

"This mountain is God's fort, John Logan says, Johnny. It is for theeagles to live in and the free people to fly to; for my people to climbup out of danger and talk to the Great Spirit that inhabits it. " Thegirl clasped her hands and looked up reverently as she said this. "Butcome, now, Johnny, don't be serious, and I will sing you the nicest songI know till Forty-nine comes up the mountain; and I will dance for you, Johnny, and I will do all that a little girl can do to make you glad andhappy as I am, Johnny. "

Here John Logan came up the hill, and the girl stopped and said, veryseriously, "And you are right sure, John Logan, nobody will get after usagain?--nobody follow us away up here, jam up, nearly against Heaven?"

Here the two men looked out. 

"No, Carrie, nobody will ever climb this high for you, --nobody, except_somebody_ that loves you very much, and loves you very truly. "

"Injins might, but white men won't, I guess; too stiff in the jints!"

And again the girl whirled and danced about, as if she had not heardone word he said. Yet she had heard every word, and heeded, too, for hereyes sparkled, and she danced even lighter than before; for her heartwas light, and the wretched little outcast was--for a rare thing in hermiserable life--very, very happy. 

"I ain't stiff in the jints, am I, Johnny?" and she tapped her ankles. 

"Carrie, sing me that other song of yours, and that will make my heartlighter, " said Johnny. 

"Why, Johnny, we haven't even got the clouds to overshadow us here;we're above the clouds, and everything else. But I'll sing for you if Ican only make you glad as you was before they got after us. " Andthrowing back her hair and twisting herself about, looking back over hershoulder and laughing, looking down at her ragged feet, and makingfaces, she began. 

Like the song of a bird, her voice rang out on the coming night; for itwas now full twilight, and the leaves quivered overhead; and far up anddown the mountains the melody floated in a strange, sweet strain, andwith a touch of tenderness that moved her companions to tears. Loganstood aside, looking down for Forty-nine a moment, then went to bringwood for the fire. 

As her song ended, Carrie turned to the boy; but in doing so her eyesrested on the empty bottle left by the side of a stone spread with atiger skin, by the two men. The boy had his head down, as if stilllistening, and did not observe her. She stopped suddenly, started back, looked to see if observed by her brother, and seeing that he was stillabsorbed she advanced, took up the bottle and held it up, glancing backand up the tree. 

"Somebody's been here! Somebody's been here, and it's been white men;the bottle's empty. "

She hastily hid the bottle, and stepping back and looking up where herlittle store had been hidden, she only put her finger to her lip, shookher head on seeing what had happened, and then went and stood by herlittle brother. Very thoughtful and full of care was she now. All hermerriment had gone. She stood there as one suddenly grown old. 

"Oh, thank you, Carrie. It's a pretty song. But what can keepForty-nine so long?"

The boy rose as he said this, and turning aside looked down the mountaininto the gathering darkness. The girl stood close beside him, as ifafraid. 

"He is coming. Far down, I hear Forty-nine's boots on the bowlders. "

"Oh, I'm so glad! And I'm so glad he's got pistols!" said the girl, eagerly. The two men, who had stepped out, looked at each other as shesaid this and made signs. 

"Why, Carrie, are you afraid here! You are all of a tremble!" said theboy, as she clung close to him, when they turned back. 

"Johnny, " said the girl eagerly, almost wildly, as she looked around, "if men were to come to take us to that Reservation, what would you do?"

"What would I do? I would kill 'em! Kill 'em dead, Carrie. I would holdyou to my heart so, with this arm, and with this I would draw my pistolso, and kill 'em dead. "

The two heads of the man-hunters disappeared behind the rocks. The boypushed back the girl's black, tumbled stream of hair from her brow, andkissing her very tenderly, he went aside and sat down; for he was very, very weary. 

A twilight squirrel stole out from the thicket into the clearing andthen darted back as if it saw something only partly concealed beyond. The two children saw this, and looked at each other half alarmed. Thenthe girl, as if to calm the boy--who had grown almost a man in the pastfew weeks--began to talk and chatter as if she had seen nothing, suspected nothing. 

"When the Winter comes, Johnny, we can't stay here; we would starve. "

"Carrie, do the birds starve? Do the squirrels starve? What did God makeus for if we are to starve?"

All this time the two men had been stealing out from their hiding-place, as if resolved to pounce upon and seize the girl before Forty-ninearrived. The leader had signaled and made signs to his companion backthere in the gloaming, for they dared not speak lest they should beheard; and now they advanced stealthily, guns in hand, and now theyfell back to wait a better chance; and just as they were about tospring upon the two from behind, the snowy white head of old Forty-nineblossomed above the rocks, and his red face, like a great openingflower, beamed in upon the little party, while the good-natured old manpuffed and blowed as he fanned himself with his hat and sat down his kegof provisions. And still he puffed and blowed, as if he would neveragain be able to get his breath. The two men stole back. 

"And Forty-nine likes to climb the mountains too, don't he? Good for hishealth. See, what a color he's got! And see how fat he is! Good for yourhealth, ain't it, papa Forty-nine?"

But the good old miner was too hot and puffy to answer, as the merrylittle girl danced with delight around him. 

"Why, it makes you blow, don't it? Strange how a little hill like thatcould make a man blow, " said Johnny, winking at Carrie. 

But old Forty-nine only drew a long, thin wild flower through his hand, and looked up now and then to the girl. He beckoned her to approach, and she came dancing across to where he sat. 

"It's a sad looking flower, and it's a small one. But, my girl, thesmallest flower is a miracle. And, Carrie, sometimes the sweetestflowers grows closest to the ground. "

The man handed her the flower, and was again silent. His face had for amoment been almost beautiful. Here Logan came up with a little wood. 

"Oh, John Logan, what a pretty flower for your button-hole!" and thefond girl bounded across and eagerly placed it in the young man'sbreast. 

The old man on the keg saw this, and his face grew dark. His handstwisted nervously, and he could hardly keep his seat on his keg. Then hehitched up his pants right and left, sat down more resolutely on the kegthan before, but said nothing for a long time. 

At last the old man hitched about on his keg, and said sharply, over hisshoulder: "I saw a track, a boot-track, coming up. On the watch, there!"

The others looked about as if alarmed. It was now dark. Suddenly the twomen appeared, looking right and left, and smiling villainously. Theycame as if they had followed Forty-nine, and not from behind the rocks, where they had been secreted. 

"Good evenin', sir! good evenin', sir! Going to rain, eh? Heard itthunder, and thought best to get shelter. Cattle-men--we're cattle-men, pard and I. Seed your camp-fire, and as it was thunderin, ' we came rightin. All right, boss? All right, eh? All right?" And the man, cap inhand, bowed from one to the other, as not knowing who was the leader, orwhom he should address. 

"All right, " answered Logan. "You're very welcome. Stand your gunsthere. You're as welcome under these trees as the birds--eh, Forty-nine?"

But Forty-nine was now silent and thoughtful. He was still breathless, and he only puffed and blowed his answer, and sat down on his keg againwith all his might. 

"You must be hungry, " said the girl kindly, approaching the men. 

"Heaps of provisions, " puffed Forty-nine, and again he half arose andthen sat down on his keg, tighter and harder, if possible, than before. 

"Thank you, gents, thank you. It's hungry we are--eh, pard?"

"We'll have a spread right off, " answered the good hearted Logan, nowspreading a rock, which served for a table, with the food; when heobserved the two men look at the girl and make signs. He looked straightand hard at the man-hunters for a moment, and seeing them exchangeglances and nod their ill-looking heads at each other he suddenlydropped his handful of things and started forward. He caught the leaderby the shoulder, and whirling him about as he stood there with hiscompanion leering at the girl, he cried out:

"Hunting cattle, are you? What's your brand? What's the brand of yourcattle, I say? I know every brand in Shasta. Now what is your brand?"

Johnny had strode up angrily toward the two men, and followed them up asthey retreated. Old Forty-nine, who now was on the alert, and had hissleeves rolled up almost to his elbows from the first, had not beenindifferent, but was reaching his tremendous fist towards theretreating nose of Dosson. Yet it was too dark to distinguish friendfrom foe. 

"Why, we are not rich men, stranger. We are poor men, and have but fewcattle, and so, so we have no brand--eh? pardner--eh?"

"No. We got no brand. Poor men, poor men. "

"We are poor men, with a few cattle that have gone astray. We arehungry, tired poor men, that have lost their way in the night. Poor menthat's hungry, and now you want to drive us out into the storm. "

"Oh, Forty-nine, --John Logan, --they're poor hungry men!" interposedCarrie. 

"There, there's my hand!" cried impulsive, honest old Forty-nine. "That's enough. You're hungry. Sit down there. And quick, Carrie, pourus the California wine. Here's a gourd, there's a yeast powder can, andthere's a tin cup. Thank you. Here's to you. Ah, that sets a fellow allright. It warms the heart; and, I beg your pardon--it's mean to besuspicious. Here, fill us up again. Ah, that's gone just to the spot!Eh, fellows?"

"To the right spot! Keep him a drinkin', and the others, too, "whispered Dosson to Emens. 

"That's the game!" And the two villains winked at each other, andslapped Forty-nine on the back, and laughed, and pretended to be thebest friend he had in the world. 

The two men now sat at the table, and Carrie and Johnny bustled aboutand helped them as they ate and drank. Meantime Logan went for more woodto make a light. 

"And here's the bread, and here's the meat, and--and--that's about allthere is, " said the girl at last. Then she stood by and with alarm sawthe men swallow the last mouthful, and feel about over the table andlook up to her for more in the dark. 

"All there is? All gone?"

"Yes, and to-morrow, Johnny?"

"To-morrow, Carrie?" called out Forty-nine, who was now almost drunk:"We've had a good supper, let to-morrow take care of itself. Eh! Letto-morrow take care of itself! That's my motto--hic--divide the troublesof the year up into three hundred and sixty-five parts, and take thepieces one at a time. Live one day at a time. That's my philosophy. " Andthe poor old man, Forty-nine, held his hat high in the air, and beganto hiccough and hold his neck unsteadily. 

The girl saw this with alarm. As if by accident she placed herselfbetween the men and their guns. Meantime, the two men were trying invain to get at the pistols of Forty-nine. They would almost succeed, andthen, just as they were about to get hold of them, the drunken man wouldroll over to the other side or change position. All the time Carrie keptwishing so devoutly that Logan would come. 

"Take a drink, " said one of the men to the girl, reaching out his cup, after glancing at his companion. But the girl only shook her head, andstepped further back. "Thought you said she was civilized?" "She, she iscivilized; but isn't quite civilized enough to get drunk yet, "hiccoughed Forty-nine, as he battered his tin-cup on the table, andagain foiled the hand just reached for his pistol. The boy saw this, andstole back through the dark behind his sister. To remove the cap andtouch his tongue to the tubes of the guns was the work only of a second, and again he was back by the side of the men. Eagerly all the time thegirl kept looking over her shoulders into the dark, deep woods, forLogan. The thunder rolled, and it began to grow very dark. She went upto Forty-nine, on pretense of helping him to more wine, and whisperedsharply in his ear. 

The old man only stared at her in helpless wonder. His head rolled fromone side to the other like that of an idiot. His wits were utterly underwater. 

And now, as the darkness thickened and the men's actions could hardly beobserved, one of them pushed the drunken man over, clutched his pistols, and the two sprang up together. 

"I've got 'em, Gar, " cried Emens, and the two started back for theirguns. The girl stood in the way, and Dosson threw his massive body uponher and bore her to the earth, while the other, awkwardly holding thetwo pistols in one hand, groped in the dark for their guns. 

The storm began to beat terribly. The mountains fairly trembled from therolling thunder. As the man was about to clutch the guns, he felt ratherthan saw that a tall figure stood between. That instant a flash oflightning showed John Logan standing there, the boy by his side, and twougly pistols thrust forward. The man-hunters were unmasked in the fierylight of heaven, and Logan knew them for the first time. 

"I will not kill you. " He said this with look and action that was grandand terrible. "Take your guns and go! Out into the storm! If God canspare you, I can spare you. Go!"

And by the lightning's light, the two men, with two ugly pistol-nozzlesin their faces, took their guns and groped and backed down the mountaininto the darkness, where they belonged. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 

 "_For the Right! as God has given Man to see the Maiden Right!" For the Right, through thickest night, Till the man-brute Wrong be driven From high places; till the Right Shall lift like some grand beacon light. _

 _For the Right! Love, Right and duty; Lift the world up, though you fall Heaped with dead before the wall; God can find a soul of beauty Where it falls, as gems of worth Are found by miners dark in earth. _

Old Forty-nine had not cast his life and lot with John Logan at all. Yetthis singular and contradictory old man stood ready to lay down hisseemingly worthless life at a moment's notice for this boy whom he hadalmost brought up from childhood. But he was not living with him in themountains. He had done all he could to protect him, to shelter and feedhim, all the time. But now the pursuit was so hot and desperate that theold man, in his sober moments--rare enough, I admit--began to doubt ifit would be possible to save this young man much longer from theclutches of the Agents. Indeed, it was only by the sweet persuasion ofCarrie that he had this time been induced to go with her and Johnny upon the spur of the mountain, and there meet John Logan with someprovisions. From there he was persuaded to go with him to hishiding-place, high up the mountain, where we left him in the lastchapter. 

But the poor old man's head was soon under water again, as we have seen. That keg of California wine and the few bits of bread and meat, which sosuddenly disappeared in the hands of Dosson and Emens, were all hehappened to have in the cabin when the two children came in at dusk. Butthese he had snatched up at once and ran with them to Logan. 

But the next morning, when his head was once more above water, and hehad been told all that had happened, he pulled his long white beard tothe right and to left, and at last rose up and took the two children andled them back down the steep and stupendous mountain to his cabin. Heknew that John Logan was now a doomed man. Had he been alone, had therebeen no one but himself and this hunted man, he would have stayed by hisside. As it was, it made the old man a year older to decide. And it waslike tearing his heart out by the roots, when he rose up, choking withagony, grasped Logan's hand, bade him farewell, and led the childrenhurriedly away. Once, twice, the old man stopped and turned suddenlyabout, and looked sharply and almost savagely up the mountains, as if toreturn. And then, each time he sighed, shook his head, and hurried ondown the hill. He held tightly on to the little brown hands of thechildren, as if he feared that they, too, like himself, might let theirbetter natures master them, and so turn back and join the desolate andhunted man. 

That evening, after the old man had returned from his tunnel, and whilehe prepared a meager meal from a few potatoes and a heel of bacon foundback in the corner of a shelf, and so hard that even the wood-rats hadrefused to eat it, a passing fellow-miner put his heavy head andshoulders in at the half open cabin and shouted out that a barn had beenburned in the valley, a house fired into, and the tomahawk of John Loganfound hard by. The children glanced at each other by the low fire-light. But old Forty-nine only went on with his work as the head withdrew andpassed on, but he said never a word. He was very thoughtful all theevening. He was now perfectly certain that his course had been the wiseone, the only prudent one in fact. Logan he knew was now beyond help. Hemust use all his art and address to keep the children from furtherperil. He made them promise to remain in his cabin, to never attempt toreach Logan. He told them that their presence with him would onlygreatly embarrass him in his flight; that they might be followed if theyattempted to reach him, and that he and they would then be taken andsent to the Reservation together. But he told them further--and theirblack eyes flashed like fire as he spoke in a voice tremulous withemotion and earnestness--that if ever Logan came to that cabin hungry, or for help of any kind, they should help him with every means in theirpower. 

And so the old man went back to work in his tunnel; and as the autumnwore away and winter drew on, the children kept close about the littleold cabin, waiting, waiting, waiting; looking up toward the now white, cold mountain, yet obeying Forty-nine to the letter. 

Meantime the man-hunt went on; although the children knew nothing for along time of the deadly energy with which it was conducted. 

What a strange place for two bright, budding children was this old, oldcabin, with its old, old man, and its dark and miserable interior! Howpeople shunned the lonely old place, and how it sank down into the earthand among the weeds and willows, and long strong yellow tangled grass, as if it wanted to be shunned!

On a dirty old shelf near the fire-place lay a torn and tattered book. It was thumbed and thrumbed all to pieces from long and patient use. When the wind blew through the chinks of the cabin, this old book seemedto have life. It fluttered there like a wounded bird. Its leavesliterally whispered. This old book was a Bible. 

More houses had been burned in the little valley, and the crime laid toJohn Logan. He had now been proclaimed an outlaw in effect by everysettler. Those two men had made him so odious that many settlers hadvowed to shoot him on sight. Dosson at last went before a magistrate andswore that John Logan had shot at him while in the performance of hisduty as a sub-agent of the Reservation. By this means he procured awarrant for his arrest by the civil authorities, to be placed in thehands of the newly elected sheriff of the newly organized and sparselysettled country. Things looked desperate indeed. To add to the agony ofthe crisis, a sharp and bitter winter now wrapped the whole world insnow and ice. It was no longer possible for any one to subsist in themountains, or survive at all without fire and fire-arms. These thehunted man did not dare use. They were witnesses that would betray hispresence, and must not be thought of. 

All this time the old man and the children could do nothing. Thechildren hovered over the fire in the wretched old cabin. And what acold, cheerless place it was!

But if the interior of this old cabin was gloomy, that of the old tunnelwas simply terrible. Yet in this dark and dreadful place the old man hadspent nearly a quarter of a century. 

I wonder if the glad, gay world knows where it gets its gold? Does thatfair woman, or well-clad, well-fed man, know anything about the life ofthe gold-hunter? When the gold is brought to the light and given to thecommerce of the world, we see it shining in the sun. It is now a part ofthe wealth of the nation. But do not forget that every piece of gold youtouch or see, or stand credited with at your bank, cost some brave manblood, life!

This old Forty-nine, years before, when the camp was young, had found apiece of gold-bearing quartz in a ledge on the top of a high, sharpridge, that pointed down into the canyon. This was before quartz mininghad been thought of. But the shrewd, thoughtful man saw that from thissource came all the gold in the placer. He could see that it was fromthis vein that all the fine gold in the camp had been fed. He resolvedto strike at the fountain head. It was by accident he had made hisdiscovery. The high, sharp and narrow ridge was densely timbered, andnow that the miners had settled in the canyon below, the annual fireswould not be allowed to sweep over the country, and the woods would soonbe almost impenetrable. So argued Forty-nine. For all his mind was benton keeping his secret till he could pierce the mountains from thecanyon-level below, and strike the ledge in the heart of the greathigh-backed ridge, where he felt certain the gold must lay in greatheaps and flakes and wedges. And so it was with a full heart and astrong arm that he had begun his low, dark tunnel--all alone at thebottom of the ridge. 

He had begun his tunnel in a secluded place, under a tuft of dense wood, on the steep hillside. He made the mouth of the tunnel very low andnarrow. At first he wheeled out the dirt in his wheelbarrow only whenthe water in the canyon was high enough to carry off the earth which heexcavated. He worked very hard and kept very sober for a long time. Dayafter day he expected to strike the ledge. 

But day after day, week after week, month after month, stole awaybetween his fingers, and still no sign of the ledge. A year went by. Then he struck a hard wall of granite. This required drills, fuse-powder, and all the appliance of the quarry. He had to stop worknow and then and wash in the fast failing placers, to get money enoughto continue his tunnel. Besides, he now could make only a few inchesheadway each week. Sometimes he would be a whole month making the lengthof his pick-handle. 

All this was discouraging. The man began to grow heart-sick. Who wasthere at home waiting and waiting all this time? No one in the campcould say. In fact, no one in the camp knew any thing at all about thissilent man, who seemed so superior to them all; and as the camp knewnothing at all of the man, either his past or his present, as is usuallythe case, it made a history of its own for him. And you may be certainit was not at all complimentary to this exclusive and silent man of thetunnel. 

Two, three, four, five years passed. The camp had declined; miners hadeither gone back to the States, gone to new mines, or gone up on thelittle hill out of the canyon to rest together; and yet this man held onto his tunnel. He was a little bit bent now from long stooping, waiting, toiling, and there were ugly crows-feet about his eyes--eyes that hadgrown dim and blood-shot from the five years glare of the single candlein that tunnel. 

And the man was not so exclusive now. The tunnel was now no secret. Itwas spoken of now with derision, only to be laughed at. 

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten years! The man has grown old. He is bentand gray. But his faith, which the few remaining miners call a madness, is still unbroken. Yet it is not in human nature to endure all thisagony of suspense, all this hope deferred from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and still be human. The man has, in somesense, become a brute. He now is seen to reel and totter to his cabin, late at night oftentimes. He has at last fallen into the habit of thecamp. He can drink, gamble, carouse, as late as the latest. 

Now and then, it is true, he has his sober spells, and all the good ofhis great nature is to the surface. Now he takes up a map and diagramwhich is hidden under the broad stone of the hearth, and examines it, measures and makes calculations by the hour at night, when all the campis, or ought to be, asleep. 

Maybe it is the placing and displacing of this great stone that hasgiven rise to the story in the camp that the old man is not so poor ashe pretends. Maybe some of the rough men who hang about the camp havewatched him through the chink-holes in the wretched cabin some night, and decided that it is gold which he keeps concealed under the greathearthstone. 

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years! The man's hair islong and hangs in strings. It is growing gray, almost white. Some menhave been trying to get into the bent old man's cabin at night to findthe buried treasure. The old man's double-barreled shot-gun has barkedin their faces; and there has been a thinly attended funeral. The campis low, miserable. The tide is out. Wrecks of rockers, toms, sluices, flumes, derricks, battered pans, tom-irons, cradles, old cabin, strewthe sandy strand. 

This last act has left the old man utterly alone; yet he is seen evenmore frequently than before at the "Deadfall. " Is he trying to forgetthat man had died at his hand?

Now and then you see him leading a tawny boy about, and talking in alow, tender way of better things than his life and appearance wouldindicate. The man is still on the down grade. And yet how long he hasbeen on this decline! One would say he should be at the bottom by thistime. 

When we reflect how very far a man can fall, we can estimate somethingof the height in which he stands when fresh from his Maker's hand. 

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one years! Theiron-gray hair is white as the snow on the mountain-tops that environhim. The tall man is bent as a tree is bent when the winter snow liesheavily on its branches. The tawny boy is grown a man now. This is JohnLogan, the fugitive. The two homeless children have long since taken hisplace. 

And still the pick clangs on in that dark, damp tunnel that is alwaysdripping, dripping, dripping, where it looks out at the glaring day, asif in eternal tears for the wasted life within. Yet now there is hope. 

New life has been infused into this old camp of late years. The tide isflowing in. The placer mines have perished and passed into history. Butthere is a new industry discovered. It is quartz mining--the very thingthat this old man has given his life to establish. And it is this thathas kept the old man up, alive, for the past few years. He is nowcertain that he will strike it yet. 

Is there some one waiting still, far away? We do not know. He does notknow now. Years and years ago, utterly discouraged, yet mechanicallykeeping on, he ceased to write. 

But now these two new lives here have ran into his. If he could onlystrike it now! If he could only strike it for them!

It is mid-winter. The three are almost starving. Old Forty-nine has beenprudent, cautious, careful of the two helpless waifs thrown into hishands. Could he, old, broken, destitute, friendless, stand up boldlybetween the man-hunters and these children? Impossible. And so it isthat Dosson and Emens are not strangers at the old man's cabin now, hateful as is their presence there to all. They are allowed to come andgo. And Dosson pays court to Carrie. They ply the old man with drink. The poor, broken, brave old miner, still dreams and hopes that he willstrike it yet--and then! Sometimes he starts up in his sleep and strikesout with his bony hands--as if to expel them from his cabin and keepCarrie safe, sacred, pure. Then he sinks back with a groan, and Carriebends over him and her great eyes fill with tears. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CAPTURE. 

 _O, the mockery of pity! Weep with fragrant handkerchief, In pompous luxury of grief, Selfish, hollow-hearted city?_

 _O these money-getting times! What's a heart for? What's a hand, But to seize and shake the land, Till it tremble for its crimes?_

Midnight, and the mighty trees knock their naked arms together, andcreak and cry wildly in the wind. In Forty-nine's cabin, by a flickeringlog-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind howls horribly, the door creaks, and the fire snaps wickedly; the wind roars--now the roar of a far-offsea, and now it smites the cabin in shocks, and sifts and shakes thesnow through the shingle. The girl draws her tattered blanket tighterabout her, and sits a little closer to the fire. Now there is a sudden, savage gust of wind, wilder, fiercer than before, and a sheet of snowsifts in through a crack in the door, and dances over the floor. 

"What a storm!" exclaims the girl, as she rises up, looks about, andthen takes the blanket from her shoulders and stuffs it in the crack bythe door. 

She listens, looks about again, and then, going up to the little glasstacked beside the fire-place, carefully arranges her splendid hair thatdroops down over her shoulders in the careless, perfect fashion ofEvangeline. 

"Heaven help any one who is out in this storm to-night!"

Then she takes another stick from the corner and places it on the fire. 

"Forty-nine will be here soon, and Johnny; Johnny with news abouthim--about poor John Logan. "

She shakes her head and clasps her hands. 

"It is nearly half a year since that night. They can't take him--theydare not take him. They are hunting him--hunting him in thisstorm--hunting him as if he were a wild beast. He hides with the cattlein the sheds, with the very hogs in their pens. They come upon himthere; he starts from his sleep and dashes away, while they follow, andtrack him by the blood of his feet in the snow. Oh, how terrible it is!I must not think of it; I will go mad. "

She turns to the door and listens. She draws back the ragged curtainsfrom the window and tries to look out into the storm. She can hear andsee nothing, and she walks back again to the fire. "I must set themtheir supper. " As she says this, she goes to a little cupboard and takesa piece of bread, puts it on a plate and sets it on the table. Then sheplaces two plates and two cups of water. "They will be here soon, andthey must have their suppers. Oh, that grocery!" She shudders as shesays this. "And Johnny will bring me news of him--of John Logan. What'sthat?"

She springs to the door, lifts the latch, and Stumps steals in, brushingthe snow from his neck and shoulders. He has a club in his hand, andlooks back and about him as he shuts the door. 

"Oh, sister, its awful! I tell you its too awful!"

"Brother--brother! What has happened? What is awful? What is it, Johnny? And he, John Logan?"

"He's been there!" The boy shivers and points in a half-frightenedmanner toward the little hill. "Yes, he has; he's been up on the hill byhis mother's grave; and he's been to 'Squire Field's house--yes, he has;and he couldn't get in, for they had a big dog tied to the gate, and nowthey have got another dog tied to the gate. Yes, and they tracked himall around by the blood in the snow!"

"Oh brother! don't, don't!"

"Don't be afraid, sister; he has gone away now. Oh, if he would only goaway and stay away--far away, and they couldn't catch him, I'd be justas glad as I could be! Yes, I would; so help me, I would. "

"And he has been up there, and in this storm!"

She speaks this to herself, as she goes to the window and attempts tolook out. 

"Poor, poor John Logan!" sighs the boy. "I wish his mother was alive; Ido, so help me. She was a good woman, she was; she didn't sick Bose onme, she didn't. "

As the boy says this he stands his club in the corner, and looks withhis sister for a moment sadly into the fire, and then suddenly says:

"I'm hungry. Sister, ain't you got something to eat. Forty-nine, he'sdown to the grocery, and Phin Emens he's down to the grocery, too, andhe swears awfully about John Logan, and he says it's the Injun that's inhim that makes him so bad. Do you think it's the Injun that's in him, sister?"

As the boy says this, the girl turns silently to the little table andpushes it toward him. 

"There, Johnny, that's all there is. You must leave some forForty-nine. "

"Poor, poor John Logan!"

He eats greedily for a moment, then stops suddenly and looks into thefire. 

Carrie, also looking into the fire, murmurs:

"And Sylvia Fields let them tie a dog there to keep him away! I wouldhave killed that dog first. If John Logan should come here, I would openthat door--I would open that door to him!"--There is a dark andterrified face at the window--"And I would give him bread to eat, andlet him sit by this fire and get warm!"

"And I would, too--so help me, I would!" The boy pushes back his bread, and rises and goes up to his sister. "Yes, I would. I don't care whatPhin Emens, or anybody says; for his mother didn't sick 'Bose' at me, she didn't!"

The pale and pitiful face at the window begins to brighten. There issnow in the long matted black locks that fall to his shoulders. Fornearly half a year this man has fled from his fellow-man, a huntedgrizzly, a hunted tiger of the jungle. 

What wonder that his step is stealthy as he lifts the latch and enters?What wonder that his eyes have an uncommon glare as he looks around, looks back over his shoulder as he shuts the door noiselessly behindhim? What wonder that his clothes hang in shreds about him, and his feetand legs are bound in thongs; that his arms are almost bare; that hisbloodless face is half hidden in black and shaggy beard?

"Carrie, I have come to you. Yours is the only door that will open to menow. "

"John Logan!" She starts; the boy, too, utters a low, stifled cry. Thenthey draw near the miserable man. For they are bred of the woods, andhave nerves of iron, and they know the need and the power of silence, too. 

"_You_ here, John Logan?" Carrie whispers, with a shudder. 

"Ay, I am here--starving, dying!"

The boy takes up the bread he had dropped, and places it on the tablebefore Logan. The hunted outcast sits down wearily and begins to eatwith the greediness of a starved beast. The girl timidly brushes thesnow from his hair, and takes a pin from her breast and begins to pin upa great rent in his shirt that shows his naked shoulder. 

The boy is glad and full of heart, and of indescribable delight that hehas given his bread to the starving man. He stands up, brightly, withhis back to the fire for a moment, and then goes back and brushes offthe snow from the man's matted hair, then back to the fire. 

"I'm awful glad to see you eat, Mr. John Logan, " says Stumps; "I wishthere was more, I do, " and he rocks on his foot and wags his head fromshoulder to shoulder gleefully. "It ain't much--it ain't much, Mr. JohnLogan; but it is all there is. "

"All there is, and they were eating it. " The man says this aside tohimself, and he hides his face for a moment, as if he would conceal atear. Then, after a time he seems to recover himself, and he lays thebread down on the table, tenderly, silently, carefully indeed, as if itwere the most delicate and precious thing on earth. Then, lifting hisface, looks at them with an effort to be cheerful, and says:

"I--I forgot; I--I am not hungry. I have had my dinner. I--I, oh yes; Ihave been eating a great deal. Oh, no, no, no; I'm not hungry--nothungry!"

As the man says this he rises and stands between the others at the fire. He puts his hands over their heads, and looks alternately in theiruplifted faces. There is a long silence. "Carrie, they have tied a dogto that door, over yonder. "

"There is no dog tied to this door, John Logan. "

Low and tender with love, yet very firm and earnest is her voice. Andher eyes are lifted to his. He looks down into her soul, and there is anunderstanding between them. There is a conversation of the eyes toorefined for words; too subtle, too sweet, too swift for words. 

They stand together but a moment there, soul flowing into soul andtiding forth, and to and fro; but it was as if they had talked togetherfor hours. He leans his head, kisses her lifted and unresisting lips, and says, "God bless you, " and that is all. 

It is her first kiss, the imprint, the mint-mark on this virgin gold. This maiden of a moment since, is a woman now. 

"Do you know that they are after you?" The girl says this in a sort ofwild whisper, as she looks toward the door. 

"Do I know that they are after me? Father in Heaven, who should know itbetter than I?" The man throws up his arms, and totters back and fallsinto a seat from very weakness. "Do I know that they are after me? Formore than half a year I have fled; night and day, and day and night Ihave fled, hidden away; starting up at midnight from down among thecattle, where I had crept to keep warm; and then on, on and on, out intothe snow, the storm, over the frozen ground, to the deep canyon and darkwoods, where, naked and bleeding, I disputed with the bear for his bedin the hollow tree. "

The boy springs to the door. Is it the storm that is tugging andrattling at the latch?

But the girl seems to see, to heed, to hear only John Logan. Sheclutches his hand in both her own and covers it with kisses and withtears. 

"John Logan, I pity you! I--I--" she had almost said, "I love you. "

"Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven for one true heart, and one true hand whenall the world is against me! Carrie, I could die now content. Thebitterness of my heart passes away, and the wild, mad nature that mademe an Ishmaelite, with every man's hand against me, and my hand againstall, is gone. I am another being. I could die now content;" and he bowshis head. 

"But you must not, you shall not die! You must go--go far away; whyhover about this place?"

"I do not know. But yonder lies the only being who ever befriended me;and somehow I get lonesome when I get far away from her grave. And I goround and round, like the sun around the world, and come back to where Istarted from. "

"But you must go--go far away--go now. "

"Do you know what you are saying? I was never outside of this. All wouldbe strange. I would be lost, lost there. And then, do you not imaginethey are waiting for me there--everywhere? Look at my face! This tingeof Indian blood, that all men abhor and fear, and call treacherous andbloody. Across my brow at my birth was drawn a brand that marks meforever--a brand--a brand as if it were the brand of Cain. "

The man bows his head, and turns away. 

Slowly and timidly Carrie approaches him, and she lays her hand on hisarm and looks in his face. The boy still watches by the door. 

"But you will fly from here?"

His arm drops over her hair, down to her shoulder, and he draws her tohis breast, as she looks up tenderly in his face, and pleads:

"You will go now--at once? For you will die here. "

"Ah, I will die here. " He says this with a calm and doggeddetermination. "Carrie, I have one wish, one request--only one. I knowyou are weak and helpless yourself, and can't do much, and I ought notto ask you to do anything. "

Stumps has left the door as he hears the man mention that there issomething to be done, and stands by their side. 

"Whatever it is you ask, John Logan, we will do it--we will do it. "

The girl says this with a firmness that convinces him that it will bedone. 

"We will do it! we will do it! so help me, we will do it!" blubbersStumps. 

"What is it, John Logan, we can do?"

"I will not fly from here. " He looks down tenderly into their faces. Then he lifts his face. It is dark and terrible, and his lips are setwith resolution. "I will die here. It may be to-night, it may beto-morrow. It may be as I turn to go out at that door they will sendtheir bullets through my heart; it may be while I kneel in the snow atmy mother's grave. But, sooner or later, it will come--it will come!"

"But please, John Logan, what is it we can do?"

Her voice is tremulous, and her eyes stream with tears. 

"Carrie, I am a man--a strong man--and ought not to ask anything of ahelpless girl. But I have no other friend. I have had no friends. Allthe days of my life have been dark and lonely. And now I am about todie, Carrie, I want you to see that I am buried by my mother yonder. Iam so weary, and I could rest there. And then she, poor broken-heartedmother, she might not be so lonesome then. Do you promise?"

"I do promise!" and the boy echoes this scarcely audible but determinedanswer. 

"Thank you--thank you! And now good night. I must be going, lest I drawsuspicion on you. Good night, good night; God bless you, Carrie!"

He presses her to his heart, hastily embraces her, and tearing himselfaway, stoops and kisses the boy as he passes to the door. Drawing histattered shirt closer about his shoulders, and turning his face as if toconceal his emotion, he lays his hand upon the latch to suddenly dartforth. 

Two dark figures pass the window, and in a moment more the latch-stringis clutched by a rough, unsteady hand from without. 

"Here, here!" cries the girl, as she springs back to the dingy curtainthat divides off a portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! in here!Quick! quick!" as she draws the curtain aside, and lets it fall over theretreating fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. The former isdrunk, and therefore dignified and silent. His companion is drunk, andtherefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats a man's real nature nearlyto the surface. 

Forty-nine lifts his hat, bows politely and respectfully to thechildren, brushes his hat with his elbow as he meanders across the floorto the peg in the wall, but cannot quite trust himself to speak. 

"Hullo, Carats!" cries Gar Dosson, as he chucks her under the chin. "Knowed I was coming, didn't you? Got yourself fixed up. Pretty, ain'tshe?" and he winks a blood-shot eye toward Stumps. "And when is it goingto be my Carats? Pretty soon, now, eh?" and he walks, or rather totters, aside. 

"Umph! I have got 'em again, Carrie. Fly around and get us something toeat. Fly around, Carrie, fly around! Oh, I've got the shakes again!"groans Forty-nine. 

"Poor old boy!" and she brushes the snow from his beard and his tatteredcoat. "Why, Forty-nine, you're shaking like a leaf. "

"He's drunk--that's what's the matter with him. " Gar Dosson growls thisout between his teeth as he sets his gun in the corner. 

"He's not drunk! Its the ager!" retorts Stumps fiercely. 

Gar Dosson, glaring at the boy, steadies himself on his right leg, anddiving deep in his left hand pocket, draws forth a large bill or poster. With both hands he manages to spread this out, and swaggering up to thewall near the window he hangs it on two pegs that are there to receivecoats or hats. 

"Look at that!" and he crookedly points with his crooked fingers at thelarge letters, and reads: "One thousand dollars (hic) dollars rewardfor the capture of John Logan! What do you say to that, Carats? That's afine fellow to have for a lover, now, ain't it?--a waluable lover, now, ain't it? Worth a thousand dollars! Oh, don't I wish he was a-hangingaround here now! Wouldn't I sell him, and get a thousand dollars, eh?Yes, I would. I just want that thousand dollars. And I'm the man that'sgoing to get it, too! Eh, old Blossom-nose?" Forty-nine jerks back hisdignified head as the bully gesticulates violently. 

"You will, will you? Well, may-be you will (hic), but if you get a centof that money (hic) for catching that man you don't enter that dooragain; no, you don't lift that latch-string again as long as oldForty-nine has a fist to lift!" and he thrusts his doubled hand hardinto the boaster's face. 

"Good for you!" cries Carrie. "Dear, good, brave old Forty-nine; I likeyou--I love you!" and the girl embraces him, while the boy flourisheshis club at the back of the bully. 

"No, don't you hit a man when he's down, sah, " continues Forty-nine. "That's the true doctrine of a gentleman--the true doctrine of agentleman, sah. " He flourishes his hand, totters forward, totters back, and hesitates--"The true doctrine of a gentleman, sah. The little horsein the horse-race, sah--the bottom dog in the dog-fight, sah. The--"

And the poor old man totters back and falls helplessly in the great, home-made chair near the corner, where stands the gun. His head is underwater. 

"The true doctrines of a gentleman, " snaps Dosson; and he throws out abig hand toward the drooping head. "Old Blossom-nose!" Then turning toCarrie. "The sheriff's a coming; he gave me that 'ere bill--yes, he did. He's down to the grocery, now. He's going around to all the cabins, anda-swearing 'em in a book, that they don't know nothing about John Logan. The sheriff, he's a comin' here, Carats, right off. "

There is a rift in the curtain, and the pitiful face of the fugitivepeers forth. 

"The sheriff coming here!" He turns, feels the wall, and tries the logswith his hands. Not a door, not a window. Solid as the solid earth. 

"Coming here? But what is he coming here for?" demands Carrie. 

"Coming here to find out what you know about John Logan. Oh, he's closeafter him. "

"Close after me!" gasps Logan. The man feels for something to lay handupon by which to defend himself. "I will not be taken alive; I will diehere!" He clutches at last, above the bed, a gun. "Saved, saved!" Heholds it tenderly, as if a child, or something dearly loved. He takes itto the light and looks at the lock; he blows in the barrel; hemournfully shakes his head. "It is not loaded! Well, no matter; I canbut die, " and he clubs the gun and prepares for mortal battle. 

"Oh, come, Carats, " cries Gar Dosson, "let's have a little frolic beforethe sheriff comes--a kiss, eh? Come, my beauty!"

The rough man has all this time been stealing up, as nearly as he couldto the girl, and now throws his arm about her neck. 

"Shall I brain him--be a murderer, indeed?"

All the Indian is again aroused, and John Logan seems more terrible, andmore determined to save her than to defend his own life. 

"Stand back!" shouts the Girl to Dosson. She attempts to throw him off, but his powerful arm is about her neck. "Forty-nine! Help!" but the oldman is unconscious. John Logan is about to start from his corner. 

"Take that, you brute! and that!" and Stumps whirls his club andthunders against the ribs of the ruffian. 

"You devil! you brat! what do you mean?"

Mad with disappointment and pain, he throws the girl from him, and turnsupon the boy. He clutches him by the back of the neck as he starts toescape, and bears him to the ground. 

"Look 'ere, do you know what I'm going to do with you? I'm going tobreak your back across my knee! yes, I am!" and he glares aboutterribly. 

Carrie shrinks back to the side of Forty-nine. 

"Oh! Help! He will murder him! He will kill him!"

"No, I won't murder you, you brat, but I'll chuck you out in that snowand let you cool off, while I have your sister all to myself. Come here;give me your ear!" and the great, strong ruffian seizes his ear andfairly carries him along by it toward the door. "Give me your ear!"

"Oh, sister, sister! He will kill me!" howls Stumps. 

"Forty-nine! save us! We will be murdered!"

"Come, I say, give me your ear!" thunders the brute, as he fairly drawsthe boy still toward the door. 

"Stop that, or die!"

The frenzied girl, failing to arouse Forty-nine, has caught up the gunfrom the corner, and brought the muzzle to the ruffian's breast. Hetotters back, and throws up his arms. 

"Go back there and sit down, or I will kill you!"

"Give me your ear! Come!" roars Stumps. It is now his turn. "Give meyour ear!" He reaches up and takes that red organ in his hand, andnearly wrenches it from the brute's head, as he leads him back, withmany twists and gyrations, slowly to a low seat at the other side of thecabin. 

Still holding the gun in level, and in dangerous proximity to the man'sbreast, Carrie cries:

"Now if you attempt to move you are a dead man!" "Give me your ear!" andStumps wrenches it again, as he sits the man firmly on his low stool, with his red face making mad distortions from the pain. "John Logan, come!" calls the girl. "No, don't you start, Gar Dosson. Don't you lifta finger; if you do, you die!"

The curtains are parted, and John Logan starts forth. "Go, go! There'snot a moment to lose. The sheriff will be here; they are coming! Quick!Go at once! I hear--I hear them coming!"

The man springs to the door; the latch is lifted; a moment more and hewill be free--safe, at least for the night. Out into the friendlydarkness, where man and beast, where pursuer and pursued, are equal, andequally helpless. 

There is a crushing of snow, a stamping of feet, and one, two, three, four, five--five forms hurriedly pass the window. The latch is lifted, and as John Logan again darts back under cover, the party, brushing thesnow from their coats and grizzled beards, hastily enter the cabin. 

"Fly around, Carrie, fly around! fix yourself up!" The fresh gust ofwind and storm from the door just opened, fans the glimmering spark ofconsciousness into sudden flame, and Forty-nine springs up, perfectlyerect, perfectly dignified. "Fly around, Carrie, fly around; fixyourself up. The sheriff is coming--fly around!"

The girl drops the gun in the corner where she had found it, and standsbefore Forty-nine, smoothing down her apron, and letting her eyes fallon the floor timidly and in a childlike way, as if these little hands ofhers had never known a harder task than their present employment ofsmoothing down her apron. 

Dosson springs up before the sheriff. He rubs his eyes, and he looksabout as if he had just been startled from some bad, ugly dream. Hewonders, indeed, if he has seen John Logan at all. Again he rubs hiseyes, and then, looking at his knuckle, says, in a deep, gutturalfashion, to himself, "Jim-jams, by gol! I thought I'd seed John Logan!"

"Ah, Forty-nine, " says the sheriff, "sorry to disturb you, and yourMiss; and good evening to you, sir; and good evening to you;" and thehonest sheriff bows to each, and brushes the snow from his fur cap as hespeaks. 

Gar Dosson advances to his partner, Phin Emens, who has just entered, with that stealthy old tiger-step so familiar to them both, and layinghis hand on his shoulder, they move aside. 

"Then it's not the jim-jams, " mutters he. "I've not got 'em, then. "

He stops, pinches himself, looks at his hands, and mutters to himself. Then he lifts his hand to his ear. 

"Look at it again!" Phin Emens looks at the ear. "It's red, ain't it?Oh, it feels red; it feels like fire. Then I've not got 'em, and he ishere. Hist! Come here! We want that thousand dollars all to ourselves. "

He plucks his companion further to one side. They talk and gesticulatetogether, while now and then a big red rough hand is thrust out savagelytoward the curtain. 

"Sorry indeed to disturb you, Miss, " observes the sheriff; "but you see, I've been searching and swearing of 'em all, and its only fair to serveall alike. "

"He is not here. Upon the honor of a gentleman, he is not here, " saysForty-nine, emphatically. 

"He is here!" howls Dosson; and the tremendous man, with the tremendousvoice and tremendous manner, bolts up before the sheriff. "He is here;and I, as an honest man am going to earn a thousand dollars, for thesake of justice. I have found him--found him all by myself; and thesefellers can't have no hand in my find. " And he holds up John Logan'scap, which had been knocked from his head in his hasty retreat to cover, and he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes a step in thatdirection, reaches a hand, lays hold of the curtain, and is about todash it aside. 

"John Logan is there!" shouts Dosson, and again the curtain is clutched. 

Does he dream of what is beyond? If he could only see the panting, breathless wretch that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready tobrain him--waiting, waiting for him to come, even wishing that he onlywould come--he would start back with terror to the other side. 

"He is here! I have found him! Come!"

Carrie, springing forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, graspsa powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with herteeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation:

"Do it, if you dare! This horn is full of powder, and if any man heredares to move that curtain, I'll blow you all into burning hell!" Theman loosens his hold on the curtain, and totters back. He is soberenough to know how terrible is the situation, and he knows her wellenough to believe she will do precisely what she says she will do. "Yes, I will! We will all go to the next world together; and now let us seewho is best ready to die!"

"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine. 

The sheriff and his men have been moving back slowly from the inspiredgirl, standing there by the door of death. 

Gar Dosson at last steals around by the sheriff. "But he is here, Mr. Sheriff, " he says. "I tell you he is here in this house. There! For hereis his cap. I found it. I found him, and I want him and I want thatthousand dollars. Search!"

"And I tell you he is not here!" cries the girl, "and you shall notsearch, 'less--"

And the horn is lifted menacingly over the fire. "Won't you take myword?"

"You shall take _my_ word!" shouts Dosson. 

"I will take your single word, Miss, against a thousand such men. "

And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and is about to go. 

"But he is here! The thousand dollars, Mr. Sheriff!" cries Dosson. 

"Miss, officers sometimes have duties that are more unpleasant to themthan to the parties most concerned. You say he is not here?"

"He is not here, Mr. Sheriff--he is not here!" cries Carrie. 

The sheriff twists his cap on his head. "And you will be sworn, as theothers were?" says the sheriff. "So much the better; and that will bequite satisfactory. Ah, here is the Bible at hand. "

And he takes from the little shelf the tattered book. The girl standsstill as stone, with the engine of death in her hand. The officer bows, smiles, reaches the book with his left hand, lays his cap on the table, and lifts his right hand in the air. Her little fingers reach outfirmly, fearlessly, and rest on the book. Her eyes are looking straightinto his. 

"It may be my duty, Miss, to search the house, after what that 'un hassaid, and, Miss, I expect it is my duty. But, Miss, I is not the man toexpose you before a man as might like to see you exposed. And then thatpoor devil that come back here, Miss, on bleeding feet--crawling backhere on his hands and knees, to die by his mother's grave. "

The voice is tremulous; the hand that is raised in the air comes down. Then lifting it again he says resolutely, "Swear, Miss!"

All are looking--leaning--with the profoundest interest. There is a darkstrange face peering through a rift in the half-opened curtain. "Godbless her! God bless her! She can, and she will!" mutters Forty-nine. 

"She can't!" cries Dosson. "She believes the book and, by gol, shecan't!" The man says this over his shoulder, and in a husky whisper asthe girl seems to pause. 

"Hold your hand on the book, and swear as I shall tell you, " says thesheriff. 

She only holds more firmly to the book; her eyes are fixed more steadilyon his. 

"Say it as I say it. I do solemnly swear--"

"I do solemnly swear--"

"That John Logan--"

"That John Logan--"

"Is not here. "

"Is--"

"Is _here_!" The curtain is thrown back, and the fugitive dashes intotheir midst. The book falls from the sheriff's hand, and there is amurmur of amazement. 

"God bless you, my girl!" And there is the stillness of a Sabbathmorning over all. "God bless you; and God will reward you for this, forI cannot. You have made me another being, Carrie. I have lost my life, but you have saved my soul!" and turning cheerfully to the sheriff hereaches his hands. "Now, sir, I am ready. "

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ESCAPE. 

 _O tranquil moon! O pitying moon! Put forth thy cool, protecting palms, And cool their eyes with cooling alms, Against the burning tears of noon. _

 _O saintly, noiseless-footed nun! O sad-browed patient mother, keep Thy homeless children while they sleep, And kiss them, weeping, every one. _

At first there was a loud demonstration against Logan by the mob, thatalways gathers about where a man is captured by his fellows--the wolvesthat come up when the wounded buffalo falls. There was talk of avigilance committee and of lynching. 

But when the stout, resolute sheriff led the man in chains down thetrail through the deep snow, and turned him over to the officer incharge of a little squad of soldiers at the other side of the valley, noman interfered further. Indeed, Dosson and Emens were too anxious aboutthe promised reward to make any demonstration against this man's lifenow. He was worth to them a thousand dollars. 

A lawyer reading this, will smile here at the loose way in which the lawwas administered there in the outer edge of the world at that time. Hereis a sheriff, with a warrant in his pocket, made returnable to amagistrate. The sheriff arrests the man on this warrant and takes himdirectly to the military authorities, which have been so long seekinghim, utterly unconscious that he is doing aught but the proper thing. And yet, after all, it was the shortest and best course to take. 

I shall not forget the face of the prisoner as we stood beside the trailin the snow, while he was led past down the mouth of the canyon towardthe other side of the valley. It was grand!

Some strangers, standing in the street, spoke of the majesty of theman's bearing. They openly dared to admire his lifted face, and to speakwith derision of his captors as the party passed on. This made the lowelement, out of which mobs are always created, a little bit timid. Possibly it was this that saved the prisoner. But most likely it was theresolute face of the honest sheriff. For, say what you will, there isnothing so cowardly as a mob. Throw what romance you please over theactions of the Vigilantes of California, they were murderers--coarse, cowardly and brutal; murderers, legally and morally, every one of them. It is to be admitted that they did good work at first. But theirexample, followed even down to this day, has been fruitful of thedarkest crimes. 

When Forty-nine awoke next morning from his long drunken slumber, thechildren were not there. Dosson called, arrayed in his best; but Carriewas not to be seen. Forty-nine could give no account of her. This day oftriumph for Dosson did not yield him so much as he had all the nightbefore fancied. He was furious. 

Forty-nine, as usual, after a spree, meekly took up his pick, after abreakfast on a piece of bread and the drawings of coffee grounds thathad been thrice boiled over, and stumbled away towards his tunnel, andwas soon lost in the deeps of the earth. 

You may be certain that this desperate character, just taken after somuch trouble and cost, was securely ironed at the little military campacross the valley. An old log cabin was made a temporary prison, andsoldiers strode up and down on the four sides of it day and night. 

And yet there was hardly need of such heavy irons. True, the soldiersoutside, as they walked up and down at night and shifted their musketsfrom side to side, and slapped their shoulders with their arms and handsto keep from freezing, heard the chains grate and toss and rattle, oftenand often, as if some one was trying to tear and loosen them. But it wasonly the man tossing his arms in delirium as he lay on the fir boughs inthe corner. 

Dosson, after much inquiry, and many day's watching about Forty-nine'scabin, called and was admitted to see the prisoner, who by this time, though weak and worn to a skeleton, was convalescing. The coarse andinsolent intruder started back with dismay. There sat the girl he sohoped and longed to possess, talking to him tenderly, soothing him, giving her life for his. 

Long and brutal would be the story of the agent's endeavors to tear thisgirl away from the bedside of the sufferer--if such a place could becalled a bedside. The girl would not leave John Logan, and the timid boywho sat shivering back in the corner of the cabin, would not leave thegirl. The three were bound together by a chain stronger than that whichbound the wrists of the prisoner; aye, ten thousand times stronger, forman had fashioned the one--God the other. 

Sudden and swift arrives summer in California. The trail was opened tothe Reservation down the mountain, and the officer collected his fewIndians together in a long, single line, all chained to a long heavycable, and prepared to march. About the middle of the chain stood JohnLogan, now strong enough to walk. At the front were placed a fewmiserable, spiritless Indians, who had been found loafing about theminers's cabins--the drunkards, thieves, vagabonds of their tribe, suchas all tribes have, such as we have, citizen-reader--while the rear wasbrought up by a boy and girl, Carrie and Johnny, a pitiful sight!

Do not be surprised. When you have learned to know the absolute, theutterly unlimited power and authority of an Indian Agent or sub-Agent, you have only to ask the capability for villainy he may possess in orderto find the limit of his actions. 

Could you have seen the lofty disdain of this girl for her suitor atthat first and every subsequent meeting, as she kept at the bedside ofJohn Logan, you could have guessed what might follow. The man's love wasturned to rage. He resolved to send her back to the Reservation also. Itis true, the soldiers had learned to respect and to pity her. It istrue, the little Lieutenant said, with a soldierly oath, as she wasbeing chained, that she was whiter than the man who was having it done. Yet the soldiers, and their officer as well, had their orders; and asoldier's duties, as you know, are all bound up in one word. 

As for the wretched boy, he might have escaped. He was a negative sortof a being at best; and no one, save Logan and the girl, either hatedhim or loved him greatly, tender and true as he was. They both imploredhim to slip between the fingers of the soldiers and not go to theReservation. But he would not think of being separated from his sister. Poor, stunted, starved little thing! There were wrinkles about his face;his hands were black, short, and hard, from digging roots from thefrosty ground. It is not probable the lad had ever had enough to eatsince he could remember. And so he was a dwarf, a dwarf in body and insoul; and instead of showing some spirit and standing up now and helpingthe girl, as he should, he leaned on her utterly, and left her to be theman of the two. The little spark of fire that had twice or thriceflashed up in the last few years, seemed now to die out entirely, and hestood there chained, looking back now and then over his shoulder at thesoldiers, looking forward trying to catch a glance from his sister nowand then, but never once making any murmur or complaint. 

It was a hot, sultry day, such as suddenly enters and takes possessionof canyons in the Sierras, when the little party of prisoners weremarched through the little camp at the end of the canyon on their way tothe Reservation. 

And the camp all came out to see, but the camp was silent. It was not apleasant sight. A soldier with a bayonet on his loaded musket walking bythe side of a woman with her hands in chains, is not an inspiringspectacle. With all respect for your superior judgments, Mr. President, Commander-in-Chief, and Captains of the army, I say there is a nobleruse for the army than this. 

Let us hasten on from this subject and this scene. But do not imaginethat the miner, the settler, or even the most hardened about the camp, felt ennobled at this sight. I tell you there was a murmur ofindignation and disgust heard all up and down the canyon. The newer andbetter element of the camp was furious. One man even went so far as towrite a letter to a country paper on the subject. 

But when the editor responded in a heavy leader, and assured the camp ofits deadly peril from these prowling savages, and proclaimed that theIndians were being taken where they would have good medicine, care, foodand clothing, and be educated and taught the arts of agriculture, thecase really did not look so bad; and in less than a week the wholeaffair had been forgotten by all the camp. Aye, all, save oldForty-nine. 

By the express order of sub-Agent Dosson, the old man, who had beendeclared a dangerous character by him, was not permitted to see the girlfrom the first day he discovered that she still clung to Logan. But theold man had worked on and waited. He had kept constantly sober. He wouldsee and would save this girl at all hazards. 

And now, as the sorrowful remnant of a once great tribe was being taken, like Israel into captivity, he rushed forward to meet her, to hold herhands, to press her to his heart, and bid her be strong and hopeful. 

The agent saw the old man and shouted to the officer; the officer calledto the soldiers--the line moved forward, the bayonets crossed the oldman's breast as the prisoners passed on down the mountain, and he sawthe sad, pitiful face no more. 

Keep the picture before you: Chained together in long lines, marchedalways on foot in single file, under the stars and stripes, officers inuniforms, clanking swords--the uniform of the Union, riding bravelyalong the lines! The two men who had done so much to get this desperateIndian out of the way, remained behind to keep possession of his houseand land. They had not even the decency to build a new cabin. They onlybroke down the door, put up a new one with stouter hinges and latch; andthe long-coveted land was theirs. 

As for old Forty-nine, all the light had left the mountain and thevalley now. Carrie, whom he had cared for from the first almost, littleStumps, whom he had found with her, hardly big enough to toddleabout--both were gone. All three gone. John Logan, whom he had taught toread and taught a thousand things at his own cabin-fire in the longsnowy winters--all these gone together. It was as if the sun had gonedown for Forty-nine forever. There was no sun or moon or stars, or anything that shines in the mountains any more for him. His had been adesolate life all the long years he had delved away into the mountain athis tunnel. No man had taken his hand in friendship for many and many ayear. 

The man now nailed up his cabin door--an idle task, perhaps, for meninstinctively avoided it, and the trail of late took a cut across thespur of the hill rather than pass by his door. But somehow the old manfelt that he might not be back soon. And as men had kept away from thatcabin while he was there, he did not feel that they should enter it inhis absence. 

One evening in the hot, sultry summer, old Forty-nine rode down from themountain into the great valley, following the trail taken by the linesof chained captives, and set his face for the Reservation. 

At a risk of repetition, let us look at this Reservation. The governmenthad ordered a United States officer, of the rank of lieutenant, to setapart a Reservation for the Indians on land not acquired and not likelyto be desired by the white settlers, and to gather the Indians togetherthere and keep them there by force, if force should be required. Thisyoung man established a Reservation on the border of a tule lake, shutin by a crescent of low sage-brush hills. The Indian camp was laid outon the very edge of this alkali lake. The crescent of sage-brush hillsof a mile in circuit, reaching back and almost around the Reservation, was mounted at three points by cannon, ready to sweep the camp below. Onthis circuit of hills, healthy and pleasant enough the officers andsoldiers had their quarters. Down in the damp, deadly valley, on theedge of the alkali lake, the newly appointed Indian Agent, with atremendous appropriation to be expended in building houses andestablishing the Indians in their new homes, built the village. It wasmade up of two rows of low, one-story, one-room huts. Two big lamps hungin the one street; and from lamp to lamp before the doors of the littlehuts with earthen floors and turf-covered roofs, paced soldiers nightand day. 

These houses were damp and dismal from the first. Soon they began to bemouldy; fungi and toadstools and the like began to grow up in thecorners and out of the logs. Little shiny reptiles, in the long hotrainy days that followed, and worms and all sorts of hideous vermin, began to creep and crawl through these dreadful dens of death, over thesick and dying Indians. Long slimy, unnamed, and unknown worms crawledup out of the earth, as if they could not wait for the victims to die. 

The Indians were dying off by hundreds. They went to the officers andcomplained. The officers ordered a double guard to be set. And that wasall. 

You marvel that these young lieutenants could be so imperious and cruel?It does seem past belief. But pardon just one paragraph of digressionwhile we recall the conduct of a younger class only last year on theHudson. To me the real question before the courts in the Whitaker caseis not whether this quiet stranger, with a tinge of black man's blood inhis veins, mutilated himself, or no. But the real question is, did theyor did they not, by their determined and persistent persecutions andinsults, drive him in a fit of desperation to do this in the hope ofpulling down ruin on the heads of all? This seems probable to me, and tome is far more monstrous than if they had, in sudden anger, cut hisears, or even cut his throat; and if these young bloods could so treat astranger there, standing at such a manifest disadvantage, what wouldthey not be capable of when they are, for the first time, clothed witha little brief authority, away out on the savage edge of the world?

The water here, as the hot season came on, was something dreadful. Itwas slimy with alkali. Little black worms knotted and twisted themselvestogether at the bottom of the cup, like bunches of witch-wovenhorse-hair. The Indians were dying of malaria. They were burning up withthe fever. And this was the only water these people, who had been usedto the fresh sweet snow-water of the Sierras, could have. 

What could they do? They appealed to the officers. They were answeredwith insult: "You must get used to it. You must get civilized. "

These dying Indians began to fight and quarrel among themselves. Ah, they were very wicked. They were quarrelsome as dogs; almost asquarrelsome as Christians!

This was a small Paris in siege. It was Jerusalem surrounded by Titus. Down there, dying as they were, a savage Simon and a degenerate John, asin Jerusalem of old, led their followers against each other, evenacross their dead that lay unburied in the mouldy death-pens and abouttheir dark and narrow doors, and slew each other as did God's chosenpeople when besieged by the son of Vespasian. 

Then the men in brass and blue turned the cannon loose on the howlingsavages, and shot them into silence and submission. 

John Logan, Carrie and little Stumps, about this time had been broughtwith others from the mountains to the Reservation. Logan insisted onkeeping the two children at his side and under his protection. He waslaughed at by agents, and sub-agents. 

He was kept chained. He was assigned to a strong hut with gratingsacross the window--or rather the little loop-hole which let in thelight. The guards were kept constantly at his door. He was entered onthe books as a very desperate character, a barn-burner, and possiblemurderer. And so night and day he was kept under the constant watch ofthe soldiers with fixed bayonets. True, he was soon too weak to lift hismanacled hands in strife. But nevertheless he was kept chained anddoubly guarded in the little hut with gratings at the loop-hole. 

Would he attempt to escape?

There were many broken fragments of many broken tribes here. Tribes thathad fought each other to the death--fought as Germans and French havefought. And why not, pray? Has not a heathen as good a right to fight aheathen as has a Christian to fight a Christian? The only difference is, we preach and profess peace; they, war. 

Logan was alone in this damp hut and deadly pen. He could hear the trampof the soldiers; he could see the long thin silver beams of the moonreach through the gratings, reach on and on, around and over and acrossthe damp, mouldy floor, as if reaching out, like God's white fingers, totouch his face, to cool his fever, and comfort him. But he could see, hear nothing more. He was so utterly alone! They would send anunfriendly Indian in with his breakfast, foul and unfit for even a wellman, and a tin cup of water in the morning. Soon after the doctor wouldcall around, also. Then he would see no face again till evening, whenmore food and water would be brought. At last the food was brought onlyin the morning. This did not at all affect Logan; for from the firstthe old pan containing his food had been taken away untouched. The manwas certainly dying. The guard and garrison on the hill were waiting forthis desperate character, whose capture had cost so much time and money, to attempt to escape. 

From the first, even in the face of the blunt refusal, John Logan hadbegged for the boy to be brought him. He was certain the little fellowwas dying--dying of desolation and a broken heart. 

About the sixth day, the man chanced to hear from an Indian that the boyhad quite broken down, and, refusing all food, lay moaning in his cornerall the time, and all the time crying for John Logan or Carrie. The mannow entreated more persistently than ever before. He promised the Doctorto eat, to get well, if only the boy could be brought to him and bepermitted to spend his time there. For he knew from what the Doctor saidthat he must soon die if things kept on as they were. The weather wasgrowing hotter and hotter; the water and the food, if possible, morerepulsive than ever. Logan could no longer walk across the pen in whichhe was confined. He was so weak that he could not raise his heavilymanacled hands to his face. 

After the usual diplomacy and delay, the Doctor reported his condition, and also his earnest desire for the boy, to the Indian Agent. 

There was a consultation. Would this crafty and desperate Indian attemptto escape? Was not all this a ruse on his part? Would not the UnitedStates imperil its peace and security if this boy and this man were tobe allowed together? This mighty question oppressed the mind of theagent in charge for a whole day. Then, after the Doctor again urged theprisoner's request--for man and boy both seemed to be dying--this manreluctantly consented. Would Logan now escape after all? Could he everget through these iron bars and past the four soldiers pacing up anddown outside? Would he escape from the Reservation at last?

And now, at the close of the hottest and most dreadful day they hadendured, an old Indian woman, bent almost double, came shuffling in bypermission of the guard, and laid something on a pile of rushes andwillows in a corner of the pen across from where John Logan lay. 

The man heard a noise as of some one breathing heavily, and attempted torise. He could hardly move his head. But in trying to support himself toa sitting posture, he moved his hands, and so rattled his manacles. Thisfrightened the superstitious old woman, and she ran away. She had laid alittle skeleton on the rushes in the corner. 

Logan with great effort managed to sit up and look across into thecorner that was now being slowly illuminated by a beam of bright, whitemoonlight, that stole down the wall toward the little heap lying there, like some holy, white-hooded and noiseless-footed nun. At last he sawthe face. It was that of little Stumps. The man sank back where he lay. The sight was so pitiful, so dreadful to see, that he forgot his ownmisery and was all in tears for the little fellow who lay dying beforehim. He forgot his own fearful condition at the sight, and againattempted to rise and reach the little heap that lay moaning in thecorner. It was impossible; he could not rise. 

And how fared Carrie all this time? Little better than the others. Shewas no longer beautiful. And so she was left, along with a score ormore of other dying and desperate creatures, in another part of theReservation. She was not permitted to see the boy. Least of all was shepermitted to see, or even hear from, John Logan. Day by day she droopedand sank slowly but surely down toward the grave. 

But she did not fear death. She had faced it in all forms before. Andeven now death walked the place night and day, and she was not afraid. She lay down at night with death. She knew no fear at all. Sheconstantly asked for and wanted to see the helpless little boy, in thehope that she might help or cheer him. But no one listened to anythingshe had to say. Once, after a very hot and horrible day, two of hercompanions in captivity were found to be dead. The guard who paced upand down between the huts was told of it. But he said it was too late tohave them carted away that night. And so this girl lay there all nightby the side of the dead, and was not afraid. Nay, she even wished thatshe too, when the cart came in the morning, might be found silent and atpeace. And then she thought of those whom she loved, and reproachedherself for being so selfish as to want to die when she still might beof use to them. 

Let us escape from these dreadful scenes as soon as possible. They arelike a nightmare to me. 

And yet the mind turns back constantly to John Logan lying there; thelittle heap of bones in the corner; the pure white moonlight creepingsoftly down the wall, as if to look into the little fellow's eyes, yetas if half afraid of wakening him. 

Could Logan escape? Chains, double guards, death--all these at his doorholding him back, waiting to take him if he ever passed out at thatdoor. Mould on the floor, mould on the walls, mould on the veryblankets. The man was burning to death with the fever; the boy, too, lying over there. The boy moaned now and then. Once Logan heard him cryfor water. That warm, slimy, wormy water! O, for one, just one draughtof cool, sweet water from the mountains--their dearly loved nativemountains--and die!

The moon rose higher still, round and white and large; and at last, wheeling over the camp of death, seemed to pause in pity and look fullin upon those two dying captives. It seemed to soothe them both. 

The little boy saw the moonbeam on the wall, and was pacified. It lookedlike the face of an old friend. It brought back the old time; the life, the woods, the water--above all, the cool sweet waters of the mountains. He seemed to know where he was. He lay still a long time, and then feltstronger. He called to John Logan. No answer. Then the feeble, pipinglittle voice lifted up and called as loud as it could. No answer still. The boy crawled from off the little pallet and tried to rise. He sankdown on the damp floor, and then tried to crawl to John Logan. He triedto call again, as he began to slowly crawl towards the other corner. Butthe poor little voice was no louder than a whisper. Very weak and verywild, and almost quite delirious, the boy kept on as best he could. Heat last touched the blankets, the breast, and he drew himself up just asthe moon looked down on the pale upturned face. Then, with a moan, awild, pitiful cry, the little fellow fell back on the damp mouldy floor. 

John Logan was dead! Despite the chains, the bars at the window, thedouble guard at the door, the man had escaped at last!

The pitying moon did not hasten to go. It lingered there, reached downalong the damp, mouldy floor to a little form of skin and bone; andthen, as if this moon-beam were the Savior's mantle spreading out tocover the white and stainless soul, it covered the pinched and pitifullittle face. For the boy, too, lay dead. 

Here was the end of two lives that had known only the long dark shadows, only the deep solitude and solemnity of the forest. Like tall weeds thatsometimes shoot up in dark and unfrequented places, and that put forthstrange, sweet flowers, these two lives had sprung up there, put forthafter their fashion the best that is in man, and then perished indarkness, unnamed, unknown. 

Who were they? John Logan, it is now whispered, was the son of anofficer made famous in the war annals of the world. The officer had beenstationed here in early manhood, gave his heart as she believed to adaughter of a brave and powerful chief, whose lands lay near where hewas stationed for a summer, and then? The old, old tale of betrayal anddesertion. The woman was disgraced before her people. And so when theyretreated before the encroachments of the whites, she, being despisedand cast off by her people, remained behind waiting the promised returnof her lover. He? He did not even acknowledge his child. This General, who had taken the lives of a thousand men, had not the moral courage toreach out a hand to this one little waif which he had called intoexistence. 

Do you know, there never was a dog drowned in the pound so base and lowthat he would not fight? Yet this brute-valor is largely admired, evento this day, by Christian people. This man could kill men, could riskhis own life, but he could not give this innocent child his name. 

And so it was, the boy, after he had learned to read, by the help ofForty-nine, and an occasional missionary who sometimes preached to theminers, and spent the pleasant summer months in the mountains--this boy, I say, who at last had heard all the story of his father's weakness andwickedness from Forty-nine's lips disdained to use his name, but choseone famous in the annals of the Indians. And this brief sketch is aboutall there is to tell of the young man who lay dead in chains, in theprison-pen of the Reservation. 

"Civilization kills the Indian, " said the Doctor that morning in hisdaily round, after he had examined the dead bodies. 

"He does not look so desperate, after all, " said an officer, as he heldhis nose with his thumb and finger, and leaned forward to look at thedead Indian, while his other hand held his sword gracefully at his side. And then this officer, after making certain that this desperatecharacter was quite dead, drew forth his cigar-case, struck a light, andclimbing upon his horse, galloped back to his quarters on the hill. 

The Doctor, now left alone, stooped and put back the long silken hairfrom the thin baby-face of the boy, as the body was brought out andbeing carried to the cart made to receive the dead, and remarked that itwas not at all like that of the other Indians. Another young officercame by as the Doctor did this, and his attention was called to thefact. The officer tapped his sword-hilt a little, looked curiously atthe pitiful, pinched little face, and then ordering the soldiers to moveon with their burden, he turned to the Doctor and remarked, as the twowent back together to their quarters on the hill, that "no doubt it wasthe effect of the few days of civilization on the Reservation that hadmade the boy so white; pity he had died so soon; a year on theReservation, and he would have been quite white. "

Unlike other parts of the Union, here the races are much mixed. Creoles, Kanakas, Mexicans, Malays, whites, and blacks, have intermixed with thenatives, till the color line is not clearly drawn. And in one case atleast some orphan children of white parentage were sent to theReservation by parties who wanted their property. Though I do not knowthat the fact of white children being found on a Reservation makes thesufferings of the savages less or their wrongs more outrageous. I onlymention it as a frozen fact. 

Carrie did not know of the desolation which death had made in her life, till old Forty-nine, who arrived too late to attend the burial of hisdead, told her. She did not weep. She did not even answer. She onlyturned her face to the wall as she lay in her wretched bed, burning upwith the fever, but made no sign. There was nothing more for her tobear. She had felt all that human nature can feel. She was dull, dazed, indifferent, now to all that might occur. 

To turn back for the space of a paragraph, I am bound to admit thatthese dying Indians often behaved very foolishly, and, in theirsuperstitions brought much of the fatality upon themselves. For example, they had a horror of the white man's remedies, and refused to take themedicines administered to them. Brought down from the cool, freshmountains, where they lived under the trees in the purest air and in themost beautiful places, they at once fell ready victims to malarialfevers. The white man, by a liberal use of quinine and whisky, as wellas by careful diet, lived very well at the Reservation, and suffered butlittle, yet had he been forced to live in a pen, crowded together likepigs in a sty, with the bad air, on the damp, mouldy ground, he had diedtoo, as fast perhaps as the Indian died. 

The old man could do but little for the dying girl. He was in bad odorwith the officers; they treated him with as little consideration almostas if he too had been a savage. But he was constant at her side; hebrought a lemon which he had begged, on his knees, as it were, and triedto make her a cool drink of the slimy, wormy water. But the girl couldnot drink it. She turned her face once more to the wall, and this time, it seemed, to die. 

One morning, before the sun rose, she recovered her wandering mind andcalled old Forty-nine to her side. She was surely dying; but her mindwas clear, and she understood perfectly all she said or did. Her darkeyes were sunken deep in their places, and her long, sun-browned handswere only skin and bone. They fell down across her heaving littlebreast, as if they were the hands of a skeleton. Little wonder that herpersecutors had turned away with horror, perhaps with fear, from thosedeep, hollow eyes, and the pitiful emaciated frame, that could no longerlift itself where it lay. 

The old man fell down on his knees beside her and reached his faceacross to hers. With great effort she lifted her two naked long, arms, and wound them about the old man's neck. He seemed to know that deathwas near, as he reached his face over hers. Over his cheeks and down hislong white beard the tears ran like rain and fell on her face andbreast. 

"Forty-nine, father! Let me call you father; may I? I never had anyfather but you, " said the girl feebly, as the tears fell fast on herface. 

"Yes, yes, call me father. Call me father, Carrie, my Carrie; my poor, dear, dear little Carrie, --do call me father, for of all the world Ihave only you to love and live for, " sobbed the old man as if his heartwould break. 

"Well, then, father, when I die take me back, take me back to themountains. I want to hear the water--the cool, sweet, clear water, whereI lie; and the wind in the trees--the cool, pure wind in the trees, father. And you know the three trees just above the old cabin on thehill by the water-fall? Bury me, bury me there. Yes, there, where I canhear the cool water all the time, and the wind in the trees. And--andwon't you please cut my name on the tree by the water? My name, Carrie--just Carrie, that's all. I have no other name--just Carrie. Willyou? Will you do this for me?"

"As there is a God--as I live, I will!" and the old man lifted his faceas he bared his head, and looked toward heaven. 

The girl's mind wandered now. She spoke incoherently for a few moments, and then was silent. Her form was convulsed, her breast heaved just alittle, her helpless hands reached about the old man's neck as if theywould hold him from passing from her presence; they fell away, and thenall was still. It was now gray dawn. 

This man's heart was bursting with rage and a savage sorrow. He was nowstung with a sense of awful injustice. His heart was swelling withindignation. He took up the form before him; up in his arms, as if ithad been that of an infant. He threw his handkerchief across the face ashe passed out, stooping low through the dark and narrow doorway, andstrode in great, long and hurried steps down the street and over towardthe hills beyond, where his horse was tethered in the long, browngrass. 

As the old man passed the post on the hill, where the officers sleptunder the protection of loaded cannon, the guard stopped him with hisbayonet. 

"Halt! Where are you going? And what have you there? Come, where are yougoing?"

The old man threw back the handkerchief as the guard approached, and thenew sunlight fell on the girl's face. 

"I am going to bury my dead. "

The guard started back. He almost dropped his gun as he saw that face;then, recovering himself, he bared his head, bowed his face reverently, and motioned the old man on. 

Forty-nine reached his horse in the brown grass, laid his burden down, threw on the saddle, drew the girth with sudden strength and energy, asif for a long and desperate ride. Then resuming his load, tenderly, asif it were a sleeping infant, he vaulted into the saddle and dashed awayfor the Sierras, that lay before him, and lifted like a city of snowytemples, reared to the worship of the Eternal. 

It was a desperate ride for life. The girl's long soft black hair wasin the wind. The air was purer, sweeter here; there was a sense ofliberty, of life, in this ride, right in the face of the rising sun asit streamed down over the snowy summits of the Sierras. Every plunge ofthe strong swift mustang, brought them nearer to home, to hope, to life. The horse seemed to know that now was his day of mighty enterprise. Perhaps he was glad to get away and up and out of that awful valley ofdeath; for he forged ahead as horse never plunged before, with hisstrange double burthen, that had frightened many a better trainedmustang than he. 

At last they began to climb the chapparal hills. Then they touched thehills of pine, and the breath of balsam had a sense of health andhealing in it that only the invalid who is dying for his mountain homecan appreciate. 

The horse was in a foam; the day was hot; the old man was fainting inthe saddle. 

Water! Water at last! Down a steep, mossy crag, hung with brier andblossom, came tumbling, with loud laughter like merry girls at play, alittle mountain stream. Cool as the snow, sweet as the blossom, it fellfoaming in its pebbly bed at the base of the crag, under the deep, coolshadows of the pines. 

The old man threw himself from his horse, and beast and man dranktogether as he held the girl in his arms, where the spray dashed downlike a holy baptismal from the very hand of God upon her hair and face. The hands clutched, the breast heaved a little, the lips moved as if todrink in the cool sweet water. Her eyes feebly opened. And then the oldman bore her back under the pines, and laid her on the soft bed of drysweet-smelling pine-quills. 

Then clasping his hands above her, as he bent his face to hers, heuttered his first prayer--the first for many and many a weary year. Itwas a prayer of thanksgiving, of gratitude. The girl would live; and hewould now have something to live for--to love. 

It had been a strange weird sight, that old man, his long hair in thewind, his strong horse plunging madly ahead, all white with foam, climbing the Sierras as the sun climbed up. The girl lay in his armsbefore him, her long dark hair all down over the horse's neck, tangledin the horse's mane, catching in the brush and the wild vines and leavesthat hung over the trail as they flew past. 

And oftentime back over his shoulder the old man threw his long whitebeard and looked back. He felt, he knew, that he was pursued. He fanciedhe could all the time hear the sound of horses' feet. 

Perhaps if his eyes had been gifted with the vision of the prophets ofold, he would indeed have seen the pursuer. That pursuer was also an oldman, and not much unlike himself; an old man with a scythe--death. Deathfollowing fast from the hot valley of pestilence, where he, death, kept, if possible, closer watch than the Agents, that no Indian ever returnedto his native mountains. But death gave up the pursuit, and turned backfrom the moment the baptismal fountain touched the girl's feveredforehead. At last the old man who held her in his arms, rose up, rode onand down to his cabin in the twilight, all secure from pursuit ofAgents, death, or any one. The girl, quite conscious, opened her eyesand looked around on the tall, nodding pine trees, that stood in long, dusky lines, as if drawn up to welcome her return to the heart of theSierras. 

 * * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including obsolete and variant spellings and otherinconsistencies. Corrections in the text are noted below:

Page 34: Typo corrected; replaced "sieze" with "seize":

 "I tell you that if you were to wash down mountains and uproot forests in the moon--were such a thing possible--the ague would seize... 

Page 56: Added close quote:

 "Pard, " answered Forty-nine, kindly, and with a nod of the head back toward the children playing in the corner, "they are not coppers; no, they are not. I tell you that girl is not copper, but gold. Yes she is, Pard; she is twenty carats. "

Page 81: Added close quote:

 "_He caused the dry land to appear. _" --BIBLE. 

Page 88: Typo corrected; replaced "villians" with "villains":

 "Eh? eh? old Toppy?" and the two men poked each other in the ribs, and looked the very villains that they were. 

Page 164: Typo corrected; replaced "beseiged" with "besieged":

 their dark and narrow doors, and slew each other as did God's chosen people when besieged by the son of Vespasian. 

Page 168: Replaced period with comma at end of sentence after "lay":

 The man sank back where he lay. The sight was so pitiful, so dreadful to see

Page 180: Added close quote:

 "Halt! Where are you going? And what have you there? Come, where are you going?"