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Sally Dows

Bret Harte

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Title: Sally Dows

Author: Bret Harte

July, 2001 [Etext #2705]

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SALLY DOWS

by Bret Harte

CONTENTS

SALLY DOWS

THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER

THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUCKEYE CAMP

THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA

SALLY DOWS.

PROLOGUE.

THE LAST GUN AT SNAKE RIVER.

What had been in the cool gray of that summer morning a dewy

country lane, marked only by a few wagon tracks that never

encroached upon its grassy border, and indented only by the faint

footprints of a crossing fox or coon, was now, before high noon,

already crushed, beaten down, and trampled out of all semblance of

its former graciousness. The heavy springless jolt of gun-carriage

and caisson had cut deeply through the middle track; the hoofs of

crowding cavalry had struck down and shredded the wayside vines and

bushes to bury them under a cloud of following dust, and the short,

plunging double-quick of infantry had trodden out this hideous ruin

into one dusty level chaos. Along that rudely widened highway

useless muskets, torn accoutrements, knapsacks, caps, and articles

of clothing were scattered, with here and there the larger wrecks

of broken-down wagons, roughly thrown aside into the ditch to make

way for the living current. For two hours the greater part of an

army corps had passed and repassed that way, but, coming or going,

always with faces turned eagerly towards an open slope on the right

which ran parallel to the lane. And yet nothing was to be seen

there. For two hours a gray and bluish cloud, rent and shaken with

explosion after explosion, but always closing and thickening after

each discharge, was all that had met their eyes. Nevertheless,

into this ominous cloud solid moving masses of men in gray or blue

had that morning melted away, or emerged from it only as scattered

fragments that crept, crawled, ran, or clung together in groups, to

be followed, and overtaken in the rolling vapor.

But for the last half hour the desolated track had stretched empty

and deserted. While there was no cessation of the rattling,

crackling, and detonations on the fateful slope beyond, it had

still been silent. Once or twice it had been crossed by timid,

hurrying wings, and frightened and hesitating little feet, or later

by skulkers and stragglers from the main column who were tempted to

enter it from the hedges and bushes where they had been creeping

and hiding. Suddenly a prolonged yell from the hidden slope

beyond--the nearest sound that had yet been heard from that ominous

distance--sent them to cover again. It was followed by the furious

galloping of horses in the lane, and a handsome, red-capped

officer, accompanied by an orderly, dashed down the track, wheeled,

leaped the hedge, rode out on the slope and halted. In another

instant a cloud of dust came whirling down the lane after him. Out

of it strained the heavy shoulders and tightened chain-traces of

six frantic horses dragging the swaying gun that in this tempest of

motion alone seemed passive and helpless with an awful foreknowledge

of its power. As in obedience to a signal from the officer they

crashed through the hedge after him, a sudden jolt threw an

artilleryman from the limber before the wheel. A driver glanced

back on the tense chain and hesitated. "Go on!" yelled the

prostrate man, and the wheel went over him. Another and another gun

followed out of the dust cloud, until the whole battery had deployed

on the slope. Before the drifting dust had fairly settled, the

falling back of the panting horses with their drivers gave a

momentary glimpse of the nearest gun already in position and of the

four erect figures beside it. The yell that seemed to have evoked

this sudden apparition again sounded nearer; a blinding flash broke

from the gun, which was instantly hidden by the closing group around

it, and a deafening crash with the high ringing of metal ran down

the lane. A column of white, woolly smoke arose as another flash

broke beside it. This was quickly followed by another and another,

with a response from the gun first fired, until the whole slope

shook and thundered. And the smoke, no longer white and woolly,

but darkening and thickening as with unburnt grains of gunpowder,

mingled into the one ominous vapor, and driving along the lane hid

even the slope from view.

The yelling had ceased, but the grinding and rattling heard through

the detonation of cannon came nearer still, and suddenly there was

a shower of leaves and twigs from the lower branches of a chestnut-

tree near the broken hedge. As the smoke thinned again a rising

and falling medley of flapping hats, tossing horses' heads and

shining steel appeared for an instant, advancing tumultuously up

the slope. But the apparition was as instantly cloven by flame

from the two nearest guns, and went down in a gush of smoke and

roar of sound. So level was the delivery and so close the impact

that a space seemed suddenly cleared between, in which the whirling

of the shattered remnants of the charging cavalry was distinctly

seen, and the shouts and oaths of the inextricably struggling mass

became plain and articulate. Then a gunner serving the nearest

piece suddenly dropped his swab and seized a carbine, for out of

the whirling confusion before them a single rider was seen

galloping furiously towards the gun.

The red-capped young officer rode forward and knocked up the

gunner's weapon with his sword. For in that rapid glance he had

seen that the rider's reins were hanging loosely on the neck of his

horse, who was still dashing forwards with the frantic impetus of

the charge, and that the youthful figure of the rider, wearing the

stripes of a lieutenant,--although still erect, exercised no

control over the animal. The face was boyish, blond, and ghastly;

the eyes were set and glassy. It seemed as if Death itself were

charging the gun.

Within a few feet of it the horse swerved before a brandished

rammer, and striking the cheeks of the gun-carriage pitched his

inanimate rider across the gun. The hot blood of the dead man

smoked on the hotter brass with the reek of the shambles, and be-

spattered the hand of the gunner who still mechanically served the

vent. As they lifted the dead body down the order came to "cease

firing." For the yells from below had ceased too; the rattling and

grinding were receding with the smoke farther to the left. The

ominous central cloud parted for a brief moment and showed the

unexpected sun glittering down the slope upon a near and peaceful

river.

The young artillery officer had dismounted and was now gently

examining the dead man. His breast had been crushed by a fragment

of shell; he must have died instantly. The same missile had cut

the chain of a locket which slipped from his opened coat. The

officer picked it up with a strange feeling--perhaps because he was

conscious himself of wearing a similar one, perhaps because it

might give him some clue to the man's identity. It contained only

the photograph of a pretty girl, a tendril of fair hair, and the

word "Sally." In the breast-pocket was a sealed letter with the

inscription, "For Miss Sally Dows. To be delivered if I fall by

the mudsill's hand." A faint smile came over the officer's face;

he was about to hand the articles to a sergeant, but changed his

mind and put them in his pocket.

Meantime the lane and woods beyond, and even the slope itself, were

crowding with supports and waiting troops. His own battery was

still unlimbered, waiting orders. There was a slight commotion in

the lane.

"Very well done, captain. Smartly taken and gallantly held."

It was the voice of a general officer passing with his staff.

There was a note of pleasant relief in its tone, and the middle-

aged, care-drawn face of its owner was relaxed in a paternal smile.

The young captain flushed with pleasure.

"And you seem to have had close work too," added the general,

pointing to the dead man.

The young officer hurriedly explained. The general nodded,

saluted, and passed on. But a youthful aide airily lingered.

"The old man's feeling good, Courtland," he said. "We've rolled

'em up all along the line. It's all over now. In point of fact, I

reckon you've fired the last round in this particular fratricidal

engagement."

The last round! Courtland remained silent, looking abstractedly at

the man it had crushed and broken at his feet.

"And I shouldn't wonder if you got your gold-leaf for to-day's

work. But who's your sunny Southern friend here?" he added,

following his companion's eyes.

Courtland repeated his story a little more seriously, which,

however, failed to subdue the young aide's levity. "So he

concluded to stop over," he interrupted cheerfully. "But," looking

at the letter and photograph, "I say--look here! 'Sally Dows?'

Why, there was another man picked up yesterday with a letter to the

same girl! Doc Murphy has it. And, by Jove! the same picture

too!--eh? I say, Sally must have gathered in the boys, and raked

down the whole pile! Look here, Courty! you might get Doc Murphy's

letter and hunt her up when this cruel war is over. Say you're

'fulfilling a sacred trust!' See? Good idea, old man! Ta-ta!"

and he trotted quickly after his superior.

Courtland remained with the letter and photograph in his hand,

gazing abstractedly after him. The smoke had rolled quite away

from the fields on the left, but still hung heavily down the south

on the heels of the flying cavalry. A long bugle call swelled up

musically from below. The freed sun caught the white flags of two

field hospitals in the woods and glanced tranquilly on the broad,

cypress-fringed, lazy-flowing, and cruel but beautiful Southern

river, which had all unseen crept so smilingly that morning through

the very heart of the battle.

CHAPTER I.

The two o'clock express from Redlands to Forestville, Georgia, had

been proceeding with the languid placidity of the river whose banks

it skirted for more than two hours. But, unlike the river, it had

stopped frequently; sometimes at recognized stations and villages,

sometimes at the apparition of straw-hatted and linen-coated

natives in the solitude of pine woods, where, after a decent

interval of cheery conversation with the conductor and engineer, it

either took the stranger on board, or relieved him of his parcel,

letter, basket, or even the verbal message with which he was

charged. Much of the way lay through pine-barren and swampy woods

which had never been cleared or cultivated; much through decayed

settlements and ruined villages that had remained unchanged since

the War of the Rebellion, now three years past. There were

vestiges of the severity of a former military occupation; the

blackened timbers of railway bridges still unrepaired; and along

the line of a certain memorable march, sections of iron rails taken

from the torn-up track, roasted in bonfires and bent while red-hot

around the trunks of trees, were still to be seen. These mementos

of defeat seemed to excite neither revenge nor the energy to remove

them; the dull apathy which had succeeded the days of hysterical

passion and convulsion still lingered; even the slow improvement

that could be detected was marked by the languor of convalescence.

The helplessness of a race, hitherto dependent upon certain

barbaric conditions or political place and power, unskilled in

invention, and suddenly confronted with the necessity of personal

labor, was visible everywhere. Eyes that but three short years

before had turned vindictively to the North, now gazed wistfully to

that quarter for help and direction. They scanned eagerly the

faces of their energetic and prosperous neighbors--and quondam

foes--upon the verandas of Southern hotels and the decks of

Southern steamboats, and were even now watching from a group in the

woods the windows of the halted train, where the faces appeared of

two men of manifestly different types, but still alien to the

country in dress, features, and accent.

Two negroes were slowly loading the engine tender from a woodpile.

The rich brown smoke of the turpentine knots was filling the train

with its stinging fragrance. The elder of the two Northern

passengers, with sharp New England angles in his face, impatiently

glanced at his watch.

"Of all created shiftlessness, this beats everything! Why couldn't

we have taken in enough wood to last the ten miles farther to the

terminus when we last stopped? And why in thunder, with all this

firing up, can't we go faster?"

The younger passenger, whose quiet, well-bred face seemed to

indicate more discipline of character, smiled.

"If you really wish to know and as we've only ten miles farther to

go--I'll show you WHY. Come with me."

He led the way through the car to the platform and leaped down.

Then he pointed significantly to the rails below them. His

companion started. The metal was scaling off in thin strips from

the rails, and in some places its thickness had been reduced a

quarter of an inch, while in others the projecting edges were torn

off, or hanging in iron shreds, so that the wheels actually ran on

the narrow central strip. It seemed marvelous that the train could

keep the track.

"NOW you know why we don't go more than five miles an hour, and--

are thankful that we don't," said the young traveler quietly.

"But this is disgraceful!--criminal!" ejaculated the other

nervously.

"Not at their rate of speed," returned the younger man. "The crime

would be in going faster. And now you can understand why a good

deal of the other progress in this State is obliged to go as slowly

over their equally decaying and rotten foundations. You can't rush

things here as we do in the North."

The other passenger shrugged his shoulders as they remounted the

platform, and the train moved on. It was not the first time that

the two fellow-travelers had differed, although their mission was a

common one. The elder, Mr. Cyrus Drummond, was the vice-president

of a large Northern land and mill company, which had bought

extensive tracts of land in Georgia, and the younger, Colonel

Courtland, was the consulting surveyor and engineer for the

company. Drummond's opinions were a good deal affected by

sectional prejudice, and a self-satisfied and righteous ignorance

of the actual conditions and limitations of the people with whom he

was to deal; while the younger man, who had served through the war

with distinction, retained a soldier's respect and esteem for his

late antagonists, with a conscientious and thoughtful observation

of their character. Although he had resigned from the army, the

fact that he had previously graduated at West Point with high

honors had given him preferment in this technical appointment, and

his knowledge of the country and its people made him a valuable

counselor. And it was a fact that the country people had preferred

this soldier with whom they had once personally grappled to the

capitalist they had never known during the struggle.

The train rolled slowly through the woods, so slowly that the

fragrant pine smoke from the engine still hung round the windows of

the cars. Gradually the "clearings" became larger; they saw the

distant white wooden colonnades of some planter's house, looking

still opulent and pretentious, although the fence of its inclosure

had broken gaps, and the gate sagged on its single hinge.

Mr. Drummond sniffed at this damning record of neglect and

indifference. "Even if they were ruined, they might still have

spent a few cents for nails and slats to enable them to look decent

before folks, and not parade their poverty before their neighbors,"

he said.

"But that's just where you misunderstand them, Drummond," said

Courtland, smiling. "They have no reason to keep up an attitude

towards their neighbors, who still know them as 'Squire' so-and-so,

'Colonel' this and that, and the 'Judge,'--owners of their vast but

crippled estates. They are not ashamed of being poor, which is an

accident."

"But they are of working, which is DELIBERATION," interrupted

Drummond. "They are ashamed to mend their fences themselves, now

that they have no slaves to do it for them."

"I doubt very much if some of them know how to drive a nail, for

the matter of that," said Courtland, still good-humoredly, "but

that's the fault of a system older than themselves, which the

founders of the Republic retained. We cannot give them experience

in their new condition in one day, and in fact, Drummond, I am very

much afraid that for our purposes--and I honestly believe for THEIR

good--we must help to keep them for the present as they are."

"Perhaps," said Drummond sarcastically, "you would like to

reinstate slavery?"

"No. But I should like to reinstate the MASTER. And not for HIS

sake alone, but for freedom's sake and OURS. To be plain: since I

have taken up this matter for the company, I have satisfied myself

from personal observation that the negro--even more than his

master--cannot handle his new condition. He is accustomed to his

old traditional task-master, and I doubt if he will work fairly for

any other--particularly for those who don't understand him. Don't

mistake me: I don't propose to go back to the whip; to that brutal

institution, the irresponsible overseer; to the buying and selling,

and separation of the family, nor any of the old wrongs; but I

propose to make the old master OUR OVERSEER, and responsible to US.

He is not a fool, and has already learned that it is more profitable

to pay wages to his old slaves and have the power of dismissal, like

any other employer, than be obliged, under the old system of

enforced labor and life servitude, to undergo the cost of maintaining

incompetence and idleness. The old sentiment of slave-owning has

disappeared before natural common-sense and selfishness. I am

satisfied that by some such process as this utilizing of the old

master and the new freedom we will be better able to cultivate our

lands than by buying up their estates, and setting the old owners

adrift, with a little money in their pockets, as an idle,

discontented class to revive old political dogmas, and foment new

issues, or perhaps set up a dangerous opposition to us.

"You don't mean to say that those infernal niggers would give the

preference to their old oppressors?"

"Dollar for dollar in wages--yes! And why shouldn't they? Their

old masters understand them better--and treat them generally

better. They know our interest in them is only an abstract

sentiment, not a real liking. We show it at every turn. But we

are nearing Redlands, and Major Reed will, I have no doubt,

corroborate my impressions. He insists upon our staying at his

house, although the poor old fellow, I imagine, can ill afford to

entertain company. But he will be offended if we refuse."

"He is a friend of yours, then?" asked Drummond.

"I fought against his division at Stony Creek," said Courtland

grimly. "He never tires of talking of it to me--so I suppose I

am."

A few moments later the train glided beside the Redlands platform.

As the two travelers descended a hand was laid on Courtland's

shoulder, and a stout figure in the blackest and shiniest of alpaca

jackets, and the whitest and broadest of Panama hats, welcomed him.

"Glad to see yo', cun'nel. I reckoned I'd waltz over and bring

along the boy," pointing to a grizzled negro servant of sixty who

was bowing before them, "to tote yo'r things over instead of using

a hack. I haven't run much on horseflesh since the wah--ha! ha!

What I didn't use up for remounts I reckon yo'r commissary gobbled

up with the other live stock, eh?" He laughed heartily, as if the

recollections were purely humorous, and again clapped Courtland on

the back.

"Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Drummond, Major Reed," said

Courtland, smiling.

"Yo' were in the wah, sir?"

"No--I"--returned Drummond, hesitating, he knew not why, and angry

at his own embarrassment.

"Mr. Drummond, the vice-president of the company," interposed

Courtland cheerfully, "was engaged in furnishing to us the sinews

of war."

Major Reed bowed a little more formally. "Most of us heah, sir,

were in the wah some time or other, and if you gentlemen will honah

me by joining in a social glass at the hotel across the way, I'll

introduce you to Captain Prendergast, who left a leg at Fair Oaks."

Drummond would have declined, but a significant pressure on his arm

from Courtland changed his determination. He followed them to the

hotel and into the presence of the one-legged warrior (who turned

out to be the landlord and barkeeper), to whom Courtland was

hilariously introduced by Major Reed as "the man, sir, who had

pounded my division for three hours at Stony Creek!"

Major Reed's house was but a few minutes' walk down the dusty lane,

and was presently heralded by the baying of three or four foxhounds

and foreshadowed by a dilapidated condition of picket-fence and

stuccoed gate front. Beyond it stretched the wooden Doric columns

of the usual Southern mansion, dimly seen through the broad leaves

of the horse-chestnut-trees that shaded it. There were the usual

listless black shadows haunting the veranda and outer offices--

former slaves and still attached house-servants, arrested like

lizards in breathless attitudes at the approach of strange

footsteps, and still holding the brush, broom, duster, or home

implement they had been lazily using, in their fixed hands. From

the doorway of the detached kitchen, connected by a gallery to the

wing of the mansion, "Aunt Martha," the cook, gazed also, with a

saucepan clasped to her bosom, and her revolving hand with the

scrubbing cloth in it apparently stopped on a dead centre.

Drummond, whose gorge had risen at these evidences of hopeless

incapacity and utter shiftlessness, was not relieved by the

presence of Mrs. Reed--a soured, disappointed woman of forty, who

still carried in her small dark eyes and thin handsome lips

something of the bitterness and antagonism of the typical "Southern

rights" woman; nor of her two daughters, Octavia and Augusta, whose

languid atrabiliousness seemed a part of the mourning they still

wore. The optimistic gallantry and good fellowship of the major

appeared the more remarkable by contrast with his cypress-shadowed

family and their venomous possibilities. Perhaps there might have

been a light vein of Southern insincerity in his good humor.

"Paw," said Miss Octavia, with gloomy confidence to Courtland, but

with a pretty curl of the hereditary lip, "is about the only

'reconstructed' one of the entire family. We don't make 'em much

about yer. But I'd advise yo' friend, Mr. Drummond, if he's coming

here carpet-bagging, not to trust too much to paw's 'reconstruction.'

It won't wash." But when Courtland hastened to assure her that

Drummond was not a "carpet-bagger," was not only free from any of

the political intrigue implied under that baleful title, but was a

wealthy Northern capitalist simply seeking investment, the young

lady was scarcely more hopeful. "I suppose he reckons to pay paw

for those niggers yo' stole?" she suggested with gloomy sarcasm.

"No," said Courtland, smiling; "but what if he reckoned to pay

those niggers for working for your father and him?"

"If paw is going into trading business with him; if Major Reed--a

So'th'n gentleman--is going to keep shop, he ain't such a fool as

to believe niggers will work when they ain't obliged to. THAT'S

been tried over at Mirandy Dows's, not five miles from here, and

the niggers are half the time hangin' round here takin' holiday.

She put up new quarters for 'em, and tried to make 'em eat together

at a long table like those low-down folks up North, and did away

with their cabins and their melon patches, and allowed it would get

'em out of lying round too much, and wanted 'em to work over-time

and get mo' pay. And the result was that she and her niece, and a

lot of poor whites, Irish and Scotch, that she had to pick up

''long the river,' do all the work. And her niece Sally was mo'

than half Union woman during the wah, and up to all No'th'n tricks

and dodges, and swearin' by them; and yet, for all that--the thing

won't work."

"But isn't that partly the reason? Isn't her failure a great deal

due to this lack of sympathy from her neighbors? Discontent is

easily sown, and the negro is still weighted down by superstition;

the Fifteenth Amendment did not quite knock off ALL his chains."

"Yes, but that is nothing to HER. For if there ever was a person

in this world who reckoned she was just born to manage everything

and everybody, it is Sally Dows!"

"Sally Dows!" repeated Courtland, with a slight start.

"Yes, Sally Dows, of Pineville."

"You say she was half Union, but did she have any relations or--

or--friends--in the war--on your side? Any--who--were killed in

battle?"

"They were all killed, I reckon," returned Miss Reed darkly.

"There was her cousin, Jule Jeffcourt, shot in the cemetery with

her beau, who, they say, was Sally's too; there were Chet Brooks

and Joyce Masterton, who were both gone on her and both killed too;

and there was old Captain Dows himself, who never lifted his head

again after Richmond was taken, and drank himself to death. It

wasn't considered healthy to be Miss Sally's relations in those

times, or to be even wantin' to be one."

Colonel Courtland did not reply. The face of the dead young

officer coming towards him out of the blue smoke rose as vividly as

on that memorable day. The picture and letter he had taken from

the dead man's breast, which he had retained ever since; the

romantic and fruitless quest he had made for the fair original in

after days; and the strange and fateful interest in her which had

grown up in his heart since then, he now knew had only been lulled

to sleep in the busy preoccupation of the last six months, for it

all came back to him with redoubled force. His present mission and

its practical object, his honest zeal in its pursuit, and the

cautious skill and experience he had brought to it, all seemed to

be suddenly displaced by this romantic and unreal fantasy. Oddly

enough it appeared now to be the only reality in his life, the rest

was an incoherent, purposeless dream.

"Is--is--Miss Sally married?" he asked, collecting himself with an

effort.

"Married? Yes, to that farm of her aunt's! I reckon that's the

only thing she cares for."

Courtland looked up, recovering his usual cheerful calm. "Well, I

think that after luncheon I'll pay my respects to her family. From

what you have just told me the farm is certainly an experiment

worth seeing. I suppose your father will have no objection to give

me a letter to Miss Dows?"

CHAPTER II.

Nevertheless, as Colonel Courtland rode deliberately towards Dows'

Folly, as the new experiment was locally called, although he had

not abated his romantic enthusiasm in the least, he was not sorry

that he was able to visit it under a practical pretext. It was

rather late now to seek out Miss Sally Dows with the avowed intent

of bringing her a letter from an admirer who had been dead three

years, and whose memory she had probably buried. Neither was it

tactful to recall a sentiment which might have been a weakness of

which she was ashamed. Yet, clear-headed and logical as Courtland

was in his ordinary affairs, he was nevertheless not entirely free

from that peculiar superstition which surrounds every man's

romance. He believed there was something more than a mere

coincidence in his unexpectedly finding himself in such favorable

conditions for making her acquaintance. For the rest--if there was

any rest--he would simply trust to fate. And so, believing himself

a cool, sagacious reasoner, but being actually, as far as Miss Dows

was concerned, as blind, fatuous, and unreasoning as any of her

previous admirers, he rode complacently forward until he reached

the lane that led to the Dows plantation.

Here a better kept roadway and fence, whose careful repair would

have delighted Drummond, seemed to augur well for the new

enterprise. Presently, even the old-fashioned local form of the

fence, a slanting zigzag, gave way to the more direct line of post

and rail in the Northern fashion. Beyond it presently appeared a

long low frontage of modern buildings which, to Courtland's

surprise, were entirely new in structure and design. There was no

reminiscence of the usual Southern porticoed gable or columned

veranda. Yet it was not Northern either. The factory-like outline

of facade was partly hidden in Cherokee rose and jessamine.

A long roofed gallery connected the buildings and became a veranda

to one. A broad, well-rolled gravel drive led from the open gate

to the newest building, which seemed to be the office; a smaller

path diverged from it to the corner house, which, despite its

severe simplicity, had a more residential appearance. Unlike

Reed's house, there were no lounging servants or field hands to be

seen; they were evidently attending to their respective duties.

Dismounting, Courtland tied his horse to a post at the office door

and took the smaller path to the corner house.

The door was open to the fragrant afternoon breeze wafted through

the rose and jessamine. So also was a side door opening from the

hall into a long parlor or sitting-room that ran the whole width of

the house. Courtland entered it. It was prettily furnished, but

everything had the air of freshness and of being uncharacteristically

new. It was empty, but a faint hammering was audible on the rear

wall of the house, through the two open French windows at the back,

curtained with trailing vines, which gave upon a sunlit courtyard.

Courtland walked to the window. Just before it, on the ground,

stood a small light ladder, which he gently put aside to gain a

better view of the courtyard as he put on his hat, and stepped out

of the open window.

In this attitude he suddenly felt his hat tipped from his head,

followed almost instantaneously by a falling slipper, and the

distinct impression of a very small foot on the crown of his head.

An indescribable sensation passed over him. He hurriedly stepped

back into the room, just as a small striped-stockinged foot was as

hastily drawn up above the top of the window with the feminine

exclamation, "Good gracious me!"

Lingering for an instant, only to assure himself that the fair

speaker had secured her foothold and was in no danger of falling,

Courtland snatched up his hat, which had providentially fallen

inside the room, and retreated ingloriously to the other end of the

parlor. The voice came again from the window, and struck him as

being very sweet and clear:--

"Sophy, is that YOU?"

Courtland discreetly retired to the hall. To his great relief a

voice from the outside answered, "Whar, Miss Sally?"

"What did yo' move the ladder for? Yo' might have killed me."

"Fo' God, Miss Sally, I didn't move no ladder!"

"Don't tell me, but go down and get my slipper. And bring up some

more nails."

Courtland waited silently in the hall. In a few moments he heard a

heavy footstep outside the rear window. This was his opportunity.

Re-entering the parlor somewhat ostentatiously, he confronted a

tall negro girl who was passing through the room carrying a tiny

slipper in her hand. "Excuse me," he said politely, "but I could

not find any one to announce me. Is Miss Dows at home?"

The girl instantly whipped the slipper behind her. "Is yo' wanting

Miss Mirandy Dows," she asked with great dignity, "oah Miss Sally

Dows--her niece? Miss Mirandy's bin gone to Atlanta for a week."

"I have a letter for Miss Miranda, but I shall be very glad if Miss

Sally Dows will receive me, returned Courtland, handing the letter

and his card to the girl.

She received it with a still greater access of dignity and marked

deliberation. "It's clean gone outer my mind, sah, ef Miss Sally

is in de resumption of visitahs at dis houah. In fac', sah," she

continued, with intensified gravity and an exaggeration of

thoughtfulness as the sounds of Miss Sally's hammering came

shamelessly from the wall, "I doahn know exac'ly ef she's engaged

playin' de harp, practicin' de languages, or paintin' in oil and

watah colors, o' givin' audiences to offishals from de Court House.

It might be de houah for de one or de odder. But I'll communicate

wid her, sah, in de budwoh on de uppah flo'." She backed

dexterously, so as to keep the slipper behind her, but with no

diminution of dignity, out of a side door. In another moment the

hammering ceased, followed by the sound of rapid whispering

without; a few tiny twigs and leaves slowly rustled to the ground,

and then there was complete silence. He ventured to walk to the

fateful window again.

Presently he heard a faint rustle at the other end of the room, and

he turned. A sudden tremulousness swept along his pulses, and then

they seemed to pause; he drew a deep breath that was almost a sigh,

and remained motionless.

He had no preconceived idea of falling in love with Miss Sally at

first sight, nor had he dreamed such a thing possible. Even the

girlish face that he had seen in the locket, although it had

stirred him with a singular emotion, had not suggested that. And

the ideal he had evolved from it was never a potent presence. But

the exquisitely pretty face and figure before him, although it

might have been painted from his own fancy of her, was still

something more and something unexpected. All that had gone before

had never prepared him for the beautiful girl who now stood there.

It was a poor explanation to say that Miss Sally was four or five

years older than her picture, and that later experiences, enlarged

capacity, a different life, and new ambition had impressed her

youthful face with a refined mobility; it was a weird fancy to

imagine that the blood of those who had died for her had in some

vague, mysterious way imparted an actual fascination to her, and he

dismissed it. But even the most familiar spectator, like Sophy,

could see that Miss Sally had the softest pink complexion, the

silkiest hair, that looked as the floss of the Indian corn might

look if curled, or golden spider threads if materialized, and eyes

that were in bright gray harmony with both; that the frock of India

muslin, albeit home-made, fitted her figure perfectly, from the

azure bows on her shoulders to the ribbon around her waist; and

that the hem of its billowy skirt showed a foot which had the

reputation of being the smallest foot south of Mason and Dixon's

Line! But it was something more intangible than this which kept

Courtland breathless and silent.

"I'm not Miss Miranda Dows," said the vision with a frankness that

was half childlike and half practical, as she extended a little

hand, "but I can talk 'fahm' with yo' about as well as aunty, and I

reckon from what Major Reed says heah," holding up the letter

between her fingers, "as long as yo' get the persimmons yo' don't

mind what kind o' pole yo' knock 'em down with."

The voice that carried this speech was so fresh, clear, and sweet

that I am afraid Courtland thought little of its bluntness or its

conventional transgressions. But it brought him his own tongue

quite unemotionally and quietly. "I don't know what was in that

note, Miss Dows, but I can hardly believe that Major Reed ever put

my present felicity quite in that way."

Miss Sally laughed. Then with a charming exaggeration she waved

her little hand towards the sofa.

"There! Yo' naturally wanted a little room for that, co'nnle, but

now that yo' 've got it off,--and mighty pooty it was, too,--yo'

can sit down." And with that she sank down at one end of the sofa,

prettily drew aside a white billow of skirt so as to leave ample

room for Courtland at the other, and clasping her fingers over her

knees, looked demurely expectant.

"But let me hope that I am not disturbing you unseasonably," said

Courtland, catching sight of the fateful little slipper beneath her

skirt, and remembering the window. "I was so preoccupied in

thinking of your aunt as the business manager of these estates that

I quite forget that she might have a lady's hours for receiving."

"We haven't got any company hours," said Miss Sally, "and we

haven't just now any servants for company manners, for we're short-

handed in the fields and barns. When yo' came I was nailing up the

laths for the vines outside, because we couldn't spare carpenters

from the factory. But," she added, with a faint accession of

mischief in her voice, "yo' came to talk about the fahm?"

"Yes," said Courtland, rising, "but not to interrupt the work on

it. Will you let me help you nail up the laths on the wall? I

have some experience that way, and we can talk as we work. Do

oblige me!"

The young girl looked at him brightly.

"Well, now, there's nothing mean about THAT. Yo' mean it for

sure?"

"Perfectly. I shall feel so much less as if I was enjoying your

company under false pretenses."

"Yo' just wait here, then."

She jumped from the sofa, ran out of the room, and returned

presently, tying the string of a long striped cotton blouse--

evidently an extra one of Sophy's--behind her back as she returned.

It was gathered under her oval chin by a tape also tied behind her,

while her fair hair was tucked under the usual red bandana

handkerchief of the negro housemaid. It is scarcely necessary to

add that the effect was bewitching.

"But," said Miss Sally, eying her guest's smartly fitting frock-

coat, "yo' 'll spoil yo'r pooty clothes, sure! Take off yo'r coat--

don't mind me--and work in yo'r shirtsleeves."

Courtland obediently flung aside his coat and followed his active

hostess through the French window to the platform outside. Above

them a wooden ledge or cornice, projecting several inches, ran the

whole length of the building. It was on this that Miss Sally had

evidently found a foothold while she was nailing up a trellis-work

of laths between it and the windows of the second floor. Courtland

found the ladder, mounted to the ledge, followed by the young girl,

who smilingly waived his proffered hand to help her up, and the two

gravely set to work. But in the intervals of hammering and tying

up the vines Miss Sally's tongue was not idle. Her talk was as

fresh, as quaint, as original as herself, and yet so practical and

to the purpose of Courtland's visit as to excuse his delight in it

and her own fascinating propinquity. Whether she stopped to take a

nail from between her pretty lips when she spoke to him, or whether

holding on perilously with one hand to the trellis while she

gesticulated with the hammer, pointing out the divisions of the

plantation from her coign of vantage, he thought she was as clear

and convincing to his intellect as she was distracting to his

senses.

She told him how the war had broken up their old home in Pineville,

sending her father to serve in the Confederate councils of

Richmond, and leaving her aunt and herself to manage the property

alone; how the estate had been devastated, the house destroyed, and

how they had barely time to remove a few valuables; how, although

SHE had always been opposed to secession and the war, she had not

gone North, preferring to stay with her people, and take with them

the punishment of the folly she had foreseen. How after the war

and her father's death she and her aunt had determined to

"reconstruct THEMSELVES" after their own fashion on this bit of

property, which had survived their fortunes because it had always

been considered valueless and unprofitable for negro labor. How

at first they had undergone serious difficulty, through the

incompetence and ignorance of the freed laborer, and the equal

apathy and prejudice of their neighbors. How they had gradually

succeeded with the adoption of new methods and ideas that she

herself had conceived, which she now briefly and clearly stated.

Courtland listened with a new, breathless, and almost superstitious

interest: they were HIS OWN THEORIES--perfected and demonstrated!

"But you must have had capital for this?"

Ah, yes! that was where they were fortunate. There were some

French cousins with whom she had once stayed in Paris, who advanced

enough to stock the estate. There were some English friends of her

father's, old blockade runners, who had taken shares, provided them

with more capital, and imported some skilled laborers and a kind of

steward or agent to represent them. But they were getting on, and

perhaps it was better for their reputation with their neighbors

that they had not been BEHOLDEN to the "No'th." Seeing a cloud

pass over Courtland's face, the young lady added with an affected

sigh, and the first touch of feminine coquetry which had invaded

their wholesome camaraderie:--

"Yo' ought to have found us out BEFORE, co'nnle."

For an impulsive moment Courtland felt like telling her then and

there the story of his romantic quest; but the reflection that they

were standing on a narrow ledge with no room for the emotions, and

that Miss Sally had just put a nail in her mouth and a start might

be dangerous, checked him. To this may be added a new jealousy of

her previous experiences, which he had not felt before.

Nevertheless, he managed to say with some effusion:--

"But I hope we are not too late NOW. I think my principals are

quite ready and able to buy up any English or French investor now

or to come."

"Yo' might try yo' hand on that one," said Miss Sally, pointing to

a young fellow who had just emerged from the office and was

crossing the courtyard. "He's the English agent."

He was square-shouldered and round-headed, fresh and clean looking

in his white flannels, but with an air of being utterly distinct

and alien to everything around him, and mentally and morally

irreconcilable to it. As he passed the house he glanced shyly at

it; his eye brightened and his manner became self-conscious as he

caught sight of the young girl, but changed again when he saw her

companion. Courtland likewise was conscious of a certain

uneasiness; it was one thing to be helping Miss Sally ALONE, but

certainly another thing to be doing so under the eye of a stranger;

and I am afraid that he met the stony observation of the Englishman

with an equally cold stare. Miss Sally alone retained her languid

ease and self-possession. She called out, "Wait a moment, Mr.

Champney," slipped lightly down the ladder, and leaning against it

with one foot on its lowest rung awaited his approach.

"I reckoned yo' might be passing by," she said, as he came forward.

"Co'nnle Courtland," with an explanatory wave of the hammer towards

her companion, who remained erect and slightly stiffened on the

cornice, "is no relation to those figures along the frieze of the

Redlands Court House, but a No'th'n officer, a friend of Major

Reed's, who's come down here to look after So'th'n property for

some No'th'n capitalists. Mr. Champney," she continued, turning

and lifting her eyes to Courtland as she indicated Champney with

her hammer, "when he isn't talking English, seeing English,

thinking English, dressing English, and wondering why God didn't

make everything English, is trying to do the same for HIS folks.

Mr. Champney, Co'nnle Courtland. Co'nnle Courtland, Mr. Champney!"

The two men bowed formally. "And now, Co'nnle, if yo'll come down,

Mr. Champney will show yo' round the fahm. When yo' 've got

through yo'll find me here at work."

Courtland would have preferred, and half looked for her company

and commentary on this round of inspection, but he concealed his

disappointment and descended. It did not exactly please him that

Champney seemed relieved, and appeared to accept him as a bona fide

stranger who could not possibly interfere with any confidential

relations that he might have with Miss Sally. Nevertheless, he met

the Englishman's offer to accompany him with polite gratitude, and

they left the house together.

In less than an hour they returned. It had not even taken that

time for Courtland to discover that the real improvements and the

new methods had originated with Miss Sally; that she was virtually

the controlling influence there, and that she was probably retarded

rather than assisted by the old-fashioned and traditional

conservatism of the company of which Champney was steward. It was

equally plain, however, that the young fellow was dimly conscious

of this, and was frankly communicative about it.

"You see, over there they work things in a different way, and, by

Jove! they can't understand that there is any other, don't you

know? They're always wigging me as if I could help it, although

I've tried to explain the nigger business, and all that, don't you

know? They want Miss Dows to refer her plans to me, and expect me

to report on them, and then they'll submit them to the Board and

wait for its decision. Fancy Miss Dows doing that! But, by Jove!

they can't conceive of her AT ALL over there, don't you know?"

"Which Miss Dows do you mean?" asked Courtland dryly.

"Miss Sally, of course," said the young fellow briskly. "SHE

manages everything--her aunt included. She can make those niggers

work when no one else can, a word or smile from her is enough. She

can make terms with dealers and contractors--her own terms, too--

when they won't look at MY figures. By Jove! she even gets points

out of those traveling agents and inventors, don't you know, who

come along the road with patents and samples. She got one of those

lightning-rod and wire-fence men to show her how to put up an arbor

for her trailing roses. Why, when I first saw YOU up on the

cornice, I thought you were some other chap that she'd asked--don't

you know--that is, at first, of course!--you know what I mean--ha,

by Jove!--before we were introduced, don't you know."

"I think I OFFERED to help Miss Dows," said Courtland with a

quickness that he at once regretted.

"So did HE, don't you know? Miss Sally does not ASK anybody.

Don't you see? a fellow don't like to stand by and see a young lady

like her doing such work." Vaguely aware of some infelicity in his

speech, he awkwardly turned the subject: "I don't think I shall

stay here long, myself."

"You expect to return to England?" asked Courtland.

"Oh, no! But I shall go out of the company's service and try my

own hand. There's a good bit of land about three miles from here

that's in the market, and I think I could make something out of it.

A fellow ought to settle down and be his own master," he answered

tentatively, "eh?"

"But how will Miss Dows be able to spare you?" asked Courtland,

uneasily conscious that he was assuming an indifference.

"Oh, I'm not much use to her, don't you know--at least not HERE.

But I might, if I had my own land and if we were neighbors. I told

you SHE runs the place, no matter who's here, or whose money is

invested."

"I presume you are speaking now of young Miss Dows?" said Courtland

dryly.

"Miss Sally--of course--always," said Champney simply. "She runs

the shop."

"Were there not some French investors--relations of Miss Dows?

Does anybody represent THEM?" asked Courtland pointedly.

Yet he was not quite prepared for the naive change in his

companion's face. "No. There was a sort of French cousin who used

to be a good deal to the fore, don't you know? But I rather fancy

he didn't come here to look after the PROPERTY," returned Champney

with a quick laugh. "I think the aunt must have written to his

friends, for they 'called him off,' and I don't think Miss Sally

broke her heart about him. She's not that sort of girl--eh? She

could have her pick of the State if she went in for that sort of

thing--eh?"

Although this was exactly what Courtland was thinking, it pleased

him to answer in a distrait sort of fashion, "Certainly, I should

think so," and to relapse into an apparently business abstraction.

"I think I won't go in," continued Champney as they neared the

house again. "I suppose you'll have something more to say to Miss

Dows. If there's anything else you want of ME, come to the office.

But SHE'LL know. And--er--er--if you're--er--staying long in this

part of the country, ride over and look me up, don't you know? and

have a smoke and a julep; I have a boy who knows how to mix them,

and I've some old brandy sent me from the other side. Good-by."

More awkward in his kindliness than in his simple business

confidences, but apparently equally honest in both, he shook

Courtland's hand and walked away. Courtland turned towards the

house. He had seen the farm and its improvements; he had found

some of his own ideas practically discounted; clearly there was

nothing left for him to do but to thank his hostess and take his

leave. But he felt far more uneasy than when he had arrived; and

there was a singular sense of incompleteness in his visit that he

could not entirely account for. His conversation with Champney had

complicated--he knew not why--his previous theories of Miss Dows,

and although he was half conscious that this had nothing to do with

the business that brought him there, he tried to think that it had.

If Miss Sally was really--a--a--distracting element to contiguous

man, it was certainly something to be considered in a matter of

business of which she would take a managerial part. It was true

that Champney had said she was "not that sort of girl," but this

was the testimony of one who was clearly under her influence. He

entered the house through the open French window. The parlor was

deserted. He walked through the front hall and porch; no one was

there. He lingered a few moments, a slight chagrin beginning to

mingle with his uneasiness. She might have been on the lookout for

him. She or Sophy must have seen him returning. He would ring for

Sophy, and leave his thanks and regrets for her mistress. He

looked for a bell, touched it, but on being confronted with Sophy,

changed his mind and asked to SEE Miss Dows. In the interval

between her departure and the appearance of Miss Sally he resolved

to do the very thing which he had dismissed from his thoughts but

an hour before as ill-timed and doubtful. He had the photograph

and letter in his pocket; he would make them his excuse for

personally taking leave of her.

She entered with her fair eyebrows lifted in a pretty surprise.

"I declare to goodness, I thought yo' 'd ridden over to the red

barn and gone home from there. I got through my work on the vines

earlier than I thought. One of Judge Garret's nephews dropped in

in time to help me with the last row. Yo' needn't have troubled

yo'self to send up for me for mere company manners, but Sophy says

yo' looked sort of 'anxious and particular' when yo' asked for me--

so I suppose yo' want to see me for something."

Mentally objurgating Sophy, and with an unpleasant impression in

his mind of the unknown neighbor who had been helping Miss Sally in

his place, he nevertheless tried to collect himself gallantly.

"I don't know what my expression conveyed to Sophy," he said with a

smile, "but I trust that what I have to tell you may be interesting

enough to make you forget my second intrusion." He paused, and

still smiling continued: "For more than three years, Miss Dows, you

have more or less occupied my thoughts; and although we have

actually met to-day only for the first time, I have during that

time carried your image with me constantly. Even this meeting,

which was only the result of an accident, I had been seeking for

three years. I find you here under your own peaceful vine and fig-

tree, and yet three years ago you came to me out of the thunder-

cloud of battle."

"My good gracious!" said Miss Sally.

She had been clasping her knee with her linked fingers, but

separated them and leaned backward on the sofa with affected

consternation, but an expression of growing amusement in her bright

eyes. Courtland saw the mistake of his tone, but it was too late

to change it now. He handed her the locket and the letter, and

briefly, and perhaps a little more seriously, recounted the

incident that had put him in possession of them. But he entirely

suppressed the more dramatic and ghastly details, and his own

superstition and strange prepossession towards her.

Miss Sally took the articles without a tremor, or the least

deepening or paling of the delicate, faint suffusion of her cheek.

When she had glanced over the letter, which appeared to be brief,

she said, with smiling, half-pitying tranquillity:--

"Yes!--it WAS that poor Chet Brooks, sure! I heard that he was

killed at Snake River. It was just like him to rush in and get

killed the first pop! And all for nothing, too,--pure foolishness!"

Shocked, yet relieved, but uneasy under both sensations, Courtland

went on blindly:

"But he was not the only one, Miss Dows. There was another man

picked up who also had your picture."

"Yes--Joyce Masterton. They sent it to me. But you didn't kill

HIM, too?"

"I don't know that I personally killed either," he said a little

coldly. He paused, and continued with a gravity which he could not

help feeling very inconsistent and even ludicrous: "They were brave

men, Miss Dows."

"To have worn my picture?" said Miss Sally brightly.

"To have THOUGHT they had so much to live for, and yet to have

willingly laid down their lives for what they believed was right."

"Yo' didn't go huntin' me for three years to tell ME, a So'th'n

girl, that So'th'n men know how to fight, did yo', co'nnle?"

returned the young lady, with the slightest lifting of her head and

drooping of her blue-veined lids in a divine hauteur. "They were

always ready enough for that, even among themselves. It was much

easier for these pooah boys to fight a thing out than think it out,

or work it out. Yo' folks in the No'th learned to do all three;

that's where you got the grip on us. Yo' look surprised, co'nnle."

"I didn't expect you would look at it--quite in--in--that way,"

said Courtland awkwardly.

"I am sorry I disappointed yo' after yo' 'd taken such a heap o'

trouble," returned the young lady with a puzzling assumption of

humility as she rose and smoothed out her skirts, "but I couldn't

know exactly what yo' might be expecting after three years; if I

HAD, I might have put on mo'ning." She stopped and adjusted a

straying tendril of her hair with the sharp corner of the dead

man's letter. "But I thank yo', all the same, co'nnle. It was

real good in yo' to think of toting these things over here." And

she held out her hand frankly.

Courtland took it with the sickening consciousness that for the

last five minutes he had been an unconscionable ass. He could not

prolong the interview after she had so significantly risen. If he

had only taken his leave and kept the letter and locket for a later

visit, perhaps when they were older friends! It was too late now.

He bent over her hand for a moment, again thanked her for her

courtesy, and withdrew. A moment later she heard the receding beat

of his horse's hoofs on the road.

She opened the drawer of a brass-handled cabinet, and after a

moment's critical survey of her picture in the dead man's locket,

tossed it and the letter into the recesses of the drawer. Then she

stopped, removed her little slipper from her foot, looked at THAT,

too, thoughtfully, and called "Sophy!"

"Miss Sally?" said the girl, reappearing at the door.

"Are you sure you did not move that ladder?"

"I 'clare to goodness, Miss Sally, I never teched it!"

Miss Sally directed a critical glance at her handmaiden's red-

coifed head. "No," she said to herself softly, "it felt nicer than

wool, anyway!"

CHAPTER III.

In spite of the awkward termination of his visit,--or perhaps

BECAUSE of it,--Courtland called again at the plantation within the

week. But this time he was accompanied by Drummond, and was

received by Miss Miranda Dows, a tall, aquiline-nosed spinster of

fifty, whose old-time politeness had become slightly affected, and

whose old beliefs had given way to a half-cynical acceptance of new

facts. Mr. Drummond, delighted with the farm and its management,

was no less fascinated by Miss Sally, while Courtland was now

discreet enough to divide his attentions between her and her aunt,

with the result that he was far from participating in Champney's

conviction of Miss Miranda's unimportance. To the freedmen she

still represented the old implacable task-mistress, and it was

evident that they superstitiously believed that she still retained

a vague power of overriding the Fourteenth Amendment at her

pleasure, and was only to be restrained by the mediation of the

good-humored and sensible Miss Sally. Courtland was quick to

see the value of this influence in the transition state of the

freedmen, and pointed it out to his principal. Drummond's previous

doubts and skepticism, already weakened by Miss Sally's fascinations,

vanished entirely at this prospect of beneficially utilizing these

lingering evils of slavery. He was convinced, he was even

enthusiastic. The foreign investors were men to be bought out; the

estate improved and enlarged by the company, and the fair owners

retained in the management and control. Like most prejudiced men,

Drummond's conversion was sudden and extreme, and, being a practical

man, was at once acted upon. At a second and third interview the

preliminaries were arranged, and in three weeks from Courtland's

first visit, the Dows' plantation and part of Major Reed's were

merged in the "Drummond Syndicate," and placed beyond financial

uncertainty. Courtland remained to represent the company as

superintendent at Redlands, and with the transfer of the English

investments Champney retired, as he had suggested, to a smaller

venture of his own, on a plantation a few miles distant which the

company had been unable to secure.

During this interval Courtland had frequent interviews with Miss

Sally, and easy and unrestrained access to her presence. He had

never again erred on the side of romance or emotion; he had never

again referred to the infelix letter and photograph; and, without

being obliged to confine himself strictly to business affairs, he

had maintained an even, quiet, neighborly intercourse with her.

Much of this was the result of his own self-control and soldierly

training, and gave little indication of the deeper feeling that he

was conscious lay beneath it. At times he caught the young girl's

eyes fixed upon him with a mischievous curiosity. A strange thrill

went through him; there are few situations so subtle and dangerous

as the accidental confidences and understandings of two young

people of opposite sex, even though the question of any sentimental

inclination be still in abeyance. Courtland knew that Miss Sally

remembered the too serious attitude he had taken towards her past.

She might laugh at it, and even resent it, but she KNEW it,

remembered it, knew that HE did, and this precious knowledge was

confined to themselves. It was in their minds when there was a

pause in their more practical and conventional conversation, and

was even revealed in the excessive care which Miss Sally later took

to avert at the right moment her mischievously smiling eyes. Once

she went farther. Courtland had just finished explaining to her a

plan for substituting small farm buildings for the usual half-

cultivated garden-patches dear to the negro field-hand, and had

laid down the drawings on the table in the office, when the young

lady, leaning against it with her hands behind her, fixed her

bright gray eyes on his serious face.

"I vow and protest, co'nnle," she said, dropping into one of the

quaint survivals of an old-time phraseology peculiar to her people,

"I never allowed yo' could just give yo'self up to business, soul

and body, as yo' do, when I first met yo' that day."

"Why, what did you think me?" he asked quickly.

Miss Sally, who had a Southern aptitude for gesture, took one

little hand from behind her, twirled it above her head with a

pretty air of disposing of some airy nothing in a presumably

masculine fashion, and said, "Oh, THAT."

"I am afraid I did not impress you then as a very practical man,"

he said, with a faint color.

"I thought you roosted rather high, co'nnle, to pick up many worms

in the mo'ning. But," she added with a dazzling smile, "I reckon

from what yo' said about the photograph, yo' thought I wasn't

exactly what yo' believed I ought to be, either."

He would have liked to tell her then and there that he would have

been content if those bright, beautiful eyes had never kindled with

anything but love or womanly aspiration; that that soft, lazy,

caressing voice had never been lifted beyond the fireside or

domestic circle; that the sunny, tendriled hair and pink ears had

never inclined to anything but whispered admiration; and that the

graceful, lithe, erect figure, so independent and self-contained,

had been satisfied to lean only upon his arm for support. He was

conscious that this had been in his mind when he first saw her; he

was equally conscious that she was more bewilderingly fascinating

to him in her present inaccessible intelligence and practicality.

"I confess," he said, looking into her eyes with a vague smile, "I

did not expect you would be so forgetful of some one who had

evidently cared for you."

"Meaning Mr. Chet Brooks, or Mr. Joyce Masterton, or both. That's

like most yo' men, co'nnle. Yo' reckon because a girl pleases yo'

she ought to be grateful all her life--and yo'rs, too! Yo' think

different now! But yo' needn't act up to it quite so much." She

made a little deprecating gesture with her disengaged hand as if to

ward off any retaliating gallantry. "I ain't speaking for myself,

co'nnle. Yo' and me are good enough friends. But the girls round

here think yo' 're a trifle too much taken up with rice and

niggers. And looking at it even in yo'r light, co'nnle, it ain't

BUSINESS. Yo' want to keep straight with Major Reed, so it would

be just as well to square the major's woman folks. Tavy and Gussie

Reed ain't exactly poisonous, co'nnle, and yo' might see one or the

other home from church next Sunday. The Sunday after that, just to

show yo' ain't particular, and that yo' go in for being a regular

beau, yo' might walk home with ME. Don't be frightened--I've got a

better gown than this. It's a new one, just come home from

Louisville, and I'll wear it for the occasion."

He did not dare to say that the quaint frock she was then wearing--

a plain "checked" household gingham used for children's pinafores,

with its ribbons of the same pattern, gathered in bows at the smart

apron pockets--had become a part of her beauty, for he was already

hopelessly conscious that she was lovely in anything, and he might

be impelled to say so. He thanked her gravely and earnestly, but

without gallantry or effusion, and had the satisfaction of seeing

the mischief in her eyes increase in proportion to his seriousness,

and heard her say with affected concern: "Bear up, co'nnle! Don't

let it worry yo' till the time comes," and took his leave.

On the following Sunday he was present at the Redlands Episcopal

Church, and after the service stood with outward composure but some

inward chafing among the gallant youth who, after the local

fashion, had ranged themselves outside the doors of the building.

He was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Champney, evidently as much

out of place as himself, but less self-contained, waiting in the

crowd of expectant cavaliers. Although convinced that the young

Englishman had come only to see Miss Sally, he was glad to share

his awkward isolation with another stranger, and greeted him

pleasantly. The Dows' pew, being nearer to the entrance than the

Reeds', gave up its occupants first. Colonel Courtland lifted his

hat to Miss Miranda and her niece at the same moment that Champney

moved forward and ranged himself beside them. Miss Sally, catching

Courtland's eye, showed the whites of her own in a backward glance

of mischievous significance to indicate the following Reeds. When

they approached, Courtland joined them, and finding himself beside

Miss Octavia entered into conversation. Apparently the suppressed

passion and sardonic melancholy of that dark-eyed young lady

spurred him to a lighter, gayer humor even in proportion as Miss

Sally's good-natured levity and sunny practicality always made him

serious. They presently fell to the rear with other couples, and

were soon quite alone.

A little haughty, but tall and erect in her well-preserved black

grenadine dress, which gave her the appearance of a youthful but

implacable widow, Miss Reed declared she had not seen the co'nnle

for "a coon's age," and certainly had not expected to have the

honor of his company as long as there were niggers to be elevated

or painted to look like white men. She hoped that he and paw and

Sally Dows were happy! They hadn't yet got so far as to put up a

nigger preacher in the place of Mr. Symes, their rector, but she

understood that there was some talk of running Hannibal Johnson--

Miss Dows' coachman--for county judge next year! No! she had not

heard that the co'nnle HIMSELF had thought of running for the

office! He might laugh at her as much as he liked--he seemed to be

in better spirits than when she first saw him--only she would like

to know if it was "No'th'n style" to laugh coming home from church?

Of course if it WAS she would have to adopt it with the Fourteenth

Amendment. But, just now, she noticed the folks were staring at

them, and Miss Sally Dows had turned round to look. Nevertheless,

Miss Octavia's sallow cheek nearest the colonel--the sunny side--

had taken a faint brunette's flush, and the corners of her proud

mouth were slightly lifted.

"But, candidly, Miss Reed, don't you think that you would prefer to

have old Hannibal, whom you know, as county judge, than a stranger

and a Northern man like ME?"

Miss Reed's dark eyes glanced sideways at the handsome face and

elegant figure beside her. Something like a saucy smile struggled

to her thin lips.

"There mightn't be much to choose, Co'nnle."

"I admit it. We should both acknowledge our mistress, and be like

wax in her hands."

"Yo' ought to make that pooty speech to Sally Dows, she's generally

mistress around here. But," she added, suddenly fixing her eyes on

him, "how does it happen that yo' ain't walking with her instead of

that Englishman? Yo' know that it's as plain as day that he took

that land over there just to be near her, when he was no longer

agent."

But Courtland was always master of himself and quite at ease

regarding Miss Sally when not in that lady's presence. "You

forget," he said smilingly, "that I'm still a stranger and knew

little of the local gossip; and if I did know it, I am afraid we

didn't bargain to buy up with the LAND Mr. Champney's personal

interest in the LANDLADY."

"Yo' 'd have had your hands full, for I reckon she's pooty heavily

mortgaged in that fashion, already," returned Miss Reed with mere

badinage than spitefulness in the suggestion. "And Mr. Champney

was run pooty close by a French cousin of hers when he was here.

Yo' haven't got any French books to lend me, co'nnle--have yo'?

Paw says you read a heap of French, and I find it mighty hard to

keep up MY practice since I left the Convent at St. Louis, for paw

don't knew what sort of books to order, and I reckon he makes awful

mistakes sometimes."

The conversation here turning upon polite literature, it appeared

that Miss Octavia's French reading, through a shy, proud innocence

and an imperfect knowledge of the wicked subtleties of the

language, was somewhat broad and unconventional for a young lady.

Courtland promised to send her some books, and even ventured to

suggest some American and English novels not intensely "No'th'n"

nor "metaphysical"--according to the accepted Southern beliefs. A

new respect and pitying interest in this sullen, solitary girl,

cramped by tradition, and bruised rather than enlightened by sad

experiences, came over him. He found himself talking quite

confidentially to the lifted head, arched eyebrows, and aquiline

nose beside him, and even thinking what a handsome high-bred

BROTHER she might have been to some one. When they had reached the

house, in compliance with the familiar custom, he sat down on one

of the lower steps of the veranda, while she, shaking out her

skirt, took a seat a step or two above him. This enabled him,

after the languid local fashion, to lean on his elbow and gaze up

into the eyes of the young lady, while she with equal languor

looked down upon him. But in the present instance Miss Reed leaned

forward suddenly, and darting a sharp quick glance into his very

consciousness said:--

"And yo' mean to say, co'nnle, there's nothing between yo' and

Sally Dows?"

Courtland neither flushed, trembled, grew confused, nor prevaricated.

"We are good friends, I think," he replied quietly, without evasion

or hesitation.

Miss Reed looked at him thoughtfully, "I reckon that is so--and no

more. And that's why yo' 've been so lucky in everything," she

said slowly.

"I don't think I quite understand," returned Courtland, smiling.

"Is this a paradox--or a consolation?"

"It's the TRUTH," said Miss Reed gravely. "Those who try to be

anything more to Sally Dows lose their luck."

"That is--are rejected by her. Is she really so relentless?"

continued Courtland gayly.

"I mean that they lose their luck in everything. Something is sure

to happen. And SHE can't help it either."

"Is this a Sibylline warning, Miss Reed?"

"No. It's nigger superstition. It came from Mammy Judy, Sally's

old nurse. It's part of their regular Hoo-doo. She bewitched Miss

Sally when she was a baby, so that everybody is bound to HER as

long as they care for her, and she isn't bound to THEM in any way.

All their luck goes to her as soon as the spell is on them," she

added darkly.

"I think I know the rest," returned Courtland with still greater

solemnity. "You gather the buds of the witch-hazel in April when

the moon is full. You then pluck three hairs from the young lady's

right eyebrow when she isn't looking"--

"Yo' can laugh, co'nnle, for yo' 're lucky--because yo' 're free."

"I'm not so sure of that," he said gallantly, "for I ought to be

riding at this moment over to the Infirmary to visit my Sunday

sick. If being made to pleasantly forget one's time and duty is a

sign of witchcraft I am afraid Mammy Judy's enchantments were not

confined to only one Southern young lady."

The sound of quick footsteps on the gravel path caused them both to

look up. A surly looking young fellow, ostentatiously booted and

spurred, and carrying a heavy rawhide riding-whip in his swinging

hand, was approaching them. Deliberately, yet with uneasy self-

consciousness, ignoring the presence of Courtland, he nodded

abruptly to Miss Reed, ascended the steps, brushed past them both

without pausing, and entered the house.

"Is that yo'r manners, Mr. Tom?" called the young lady after him, a

slight flush rising to her sallow cheek. The young man muttered

something from the hall which Courtland did not catch. "It's

Cousin Tom Higbee," she explained half disdainfully. "He's had

some ugliness with his horse, I reckon; but paw ought to teach him

how to behave. And--I don't think he likes No'th'n men," she added

gravely.

Courtland, who had kept his temper with his full understanding of

the intruder's meaning, smiled as he took Miss Reed's hand in

parting. "That's quite enough explanation, and I don't know why it

shouldn't be even an apology."

Yet the incident left little impression on him as he strolled back

to Redlands. It was not the first time he had tasted the dregs of

former sectional hatred in incivility and discourtesy, but as it

seldom came from his old personal antagonists--the soldiers--and

was confined to the callow youth, previous non-combatants and

politicians, he could afford to overlook it. He did not see Miss

Sally during the following week.

CHAPTER IV.

On the next Sunday he was early at church. But he had perhaps

accented the occasion by driving there in a light buggy behind a

fast thoroughbred, possibly selected more to the taste of a smart

cavalry officer than an agricultural superintendent. He was

already in a side pew, his eyes dreamily fixed on the prayer-book

ledge before him, when there was a rustle at the church door, and a

thrill of curiosity and admiration passed over the expectant

congregation. It was the entrance of the Dows party, Miss Sally

well to the fore. She was in her new clothes, the latest fashion

in Louisville, the latest but two in Paris and New York.

It was over twenty years ago. I shall not imperil the effect of

that lovely vision by recalling to the eye of to-day a fashion of

yesterday. Enough, that it enabled her to set her sweet face and

vapory golden hair in a horseshoe frame of delicate flowers, and to

lift her oval chin out of a bewildering mist of tulle. Nor did a

certain light polonaise conceal the outlines of her charming

figure. Even those who were constrained to whisper to each other

that "Miss Sally" must "be now going on twenty-five," did so

because she still carried the slender graces of seventeen. The

organ swelled as if to welcome her; as she took her seat a ray of

sunlight, that would have been cruel and searching to any other

complexion, drifted across the faint pink of her cheeks, and

nestling in her nebulous hair became itself transfigured. A few

stained-glass Virtues on the windows did not come out of this

effulgence as triumphantly, and it was small wonder that the

devotional eyes of the worshipers wandered from them to the face

of Sally Dows.

When the service was over, as the congregation filed slowly into

the aisle, Courtland slipped mutely behind her. As she reached the

porch he said in an undertone:

"I brought my horse and buggy. I thought you might possibly allow

me to drive"-- But he was stopped by a distressful knitting of her

golden brows. "No," she said quickly, but firmly, "you must not--

it won't do." As Courtland hesitated in momentary perplexity, she

smiled sweetly: "We'll walk round by the cemetery, if you like; it

will take about as long as a drive." Courtland vanished, gave

hurried instructions and a dollar to a lounging negro, and rejoined

Miss Sally as the delighted and proud freedman drove out of the

gate. Miss Sally heaved a slight sigh as the gallant equipage

passed. "It was a mighty pooty turnout, co'nnle, and I'd have just

admired to go, but it would have been rather hard on the other

folks. There's the Reeds and Maxwells and Robertsons that are too

pooah to keep blood horses, and too proud to ride behind anything

else. It wouldn't be the right thing for us to go whirling by,

scattering our dust over them." There was something so subtly

pleasant in this implied partnership of responsibility, that

Courtland forgot the abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact

that prompted it. Nevertheless, here a spell seemed to fall upon

his usually ready speech. Now that they were together for the

first time in a distinctly social fashion, he found himself

vacantly, meaninglessly silent, content to walk beside this

charming, summery presence, brushed by its delicate draperies,

and inhaling its freshness. Presently it spoke.

"It would take more than a thousand feet of lumber to patch up the

cowsheds beyond the Moseley pasture, and an entirely new building

with an improved dairy would require only about two thousand more.

All the old material would come in good for fencing, and could be

used with the new post and rails. Don't yo' think it would be

better to have an out-and-out new building?"

"Yes, certainly," returned Courtland a little confusedly. He had

not calculated upon this practical conversation, and was the more

disconcerted as they were passing some of the other couples, who

had purposely lingered to overhear them.

"And," continued the young girl brightly, "the freight question is

getting to be a pretty serious one. Aunt Miranda holds some shares

in the Briggsville branch line, and thinks something could be done

with the directors for a new tariff of charges if she put a

pressure on them; Tyler says that there was some talk of their

reducing it one sixteenth per cent. before we move this year's

crop."

Courtland glanced quickly at his companion's face. It was grave,

but there was the faintest wrinkling of the corner of the eyelid

nearest him. "Had we not better leave these serious questions

until to-morrow?" he said, smiling.

Miss Sally opened her eyes demurely. "Why, yo' seemed SO quiet, I

reckoned yo' must be full of business this morning; but if yo'

prefer company talk, we'll change the subject. They say that yo'

and Miss Reed didn't have much trouble to find one last Sunday.

She don't usually talk much, but she keeps up a power of thinking.

I should reckon," she added, suddenly eying him critically, "that

yo' and she might have a heap o' things to say to each other.

She's a good deal in yo' fashion, co'nnle, she don't forget, but"--

more slowly--"I don't know that THAT'S altogether the best thing

for YO'!"

Courtland lifted his eyes with affected consternation. "If this is

in the light of another mysterious warning, Miss Dows, I warn you

that my intellect is already tottering with them. Last Sunday Miss

Reed thrilled me for an hour with superstition and Cassandra-like

prophecy. Don't things ever happen accidentally here, and without

warning?"

"I mean," returned the young lady with her usual practical

directness, "that Tave Reed remembers a good many horrid things

about the wah that she ought to forget, but don't. But," she

continued, looking at him curiously, "she allows she was mighty cut

up by her cousin's manner to yo'."

"I am afraid that Miss Reed was more annoyed than I was," said

Courtland. "I should be very sorry if she attached any importance

to it," he added earnestly.

"And YO' don't?" continued Miss Sally.

"No. Why should I?" She noticed, however, that he had slightly

drawn himself up a little more erect, and she smiled as he

continued, "I dare say I should feel as he does if I were in his

place."

"But YO' wouldn't do anything underhanded," she said quietly. As

he glanced at her quickly she added dryly: "Don't trust too much to

people always acting in yo' fashion, co'nnle. And don't think too

much nor too little of what yo' hear here. Yo' 're just the kind

of man to make a good many silly enemies, and as many foolish

friends. And I don't know which will give yo' the most trouble.

Only don't yo' underrate EITHER, or hold yo' head so high, yo'

don't see what's crawlin' around yo'. That's why, in a copperhead

swamp, a horse is bitten oftener than a hog."

She smiled, yet with knitted brows and such a pretty affectation of

concern for her companion that he suddenly took heart.

"I wish I had ONE friend I could call my own," he said boldly,

looking straight into her eyes. "I'd care little for other

friends, and fear no enemies."

"Yo' 're right, co'nnle," she said, ostentatiously slanting her

parasol in a marvelous simulation of hiding a purely imaginative

blush on a cheek that was perfectly infantine in its unchanged

pink; "company talk is much pootier than what we've been saying.

And--meaning me--for I reckon yo' wouldn't say that of any other

girl but the one yo' 're walking with--what's the matter with me?"

He could not help smiling, though he hesitated. "Nothing! but

others have been disappointed."

"And that bothers YO'?"

"I mean I have as yet had no right to put your feelings to any

test, while"--

"Poor Chet had, yo' were going to say! Well, here we are at the

cemetery! I reckoned yo' were bound to get back to the dead again

before we'd gone far, and that's why I thought we might take the

cemetery on our way. It may put me in a more proper frame of mind

to please yo'."

As he raised his eyes he could not repress a slight start. He had

not noticed before that they had passed through a small gateway on

diverging from the road, and was quite unprepared to find himself

on the edge of a gentle slope leading to a beautiful valley, and

before him a long vista of tombs, white head-stones and low

crosses, edged by drooping cypress and trailing feathery vines.

Some vines had fallen and been caught in long loops from bough to

bough, like funeral garlands, and here and there the tops of

isolated palmettos lifted a cluster of hearse-like plumes. Yet in

spite of this dominance of sombre but graceful shadow, the drooping

delicacy of dark-tasseled foliage and leafy fringes, and the waving

mourning veils of gray, translucent moss, a glorious vivifying

Southern sun smiled and glittered everywhere as through tears. The

balm of bay, southernwood, pine, and syringa breathed through the

long alleys; the stimulating scent of roses moved with every

zephyr, and the closer odors of jessamine, honeysuckle, and orange

flowers hung heavily in the hollows. It seemed to Courtland like

the mourning of beautiful and youthful widowhood, seductive even in

its dissembling trappings, provocative in the contrast of its own

still strong virility. Everywhere the grass grew thick and

luxuriant; the quick earth was teeming with the germination of the

dead below.

They moved slowly along side by side, speaking only of the beauty

of the spot and the glory of that summer day, which seemed to have

completed its perfection here. Perhaps from the heat, the

overpowering perfume, or some unsuspected sentiment, the young lady

became presently as silent and preoccupied as her companion. She

began to linger and loiter behind, hovering like a butterfly over

some flowering shrub or clustered sheaf of lilies, until,

encountered suddenly in her floating draperies, she might have been

taken for a somewhat early and far too becoming ghost. It seemed

to him, also, that her bright eyes were slightly shadowed by a

gentle thoughtfulness. He moved close to her side with an

irresistible impulse of tenderness, but she turned suddenly, and

saying, "Come!" moved at a quicker pace down a narrow side path.

Courtland followed. He had not gone far before he noticed that

the graves seemed to fall into regular lines, the emblems became

cheaper and more common; wooden head and foot stones of one

monotonous pattern took the place of carved freestone or marble,

and he knew that they had reached that part of the cemetery

reserved for those who had fallen in the war. The long lines drawn

with military precision stretched through the little valley, and

again up the opposite hill in an odd semblance of hollow squares,

ranks, and columns. A vague recollection of the fateful slope of

Snake River came over him. It was intensified as Miss Sally, who

was still preceding him, suddenly stopped before an isolated mound

bearing a broken marble shaft and a pedestal with the inscription,

"Chester Brooks." A few withered garlands and immortelles were

lying at its base, but encircling the broken shaft was a perfectly

fresh, unfaded wreath.

"You never told me he was buried here!" said Courtland quickly,

half shocked at the unexpected revelation. "Was he from this

State?"

"No, but his regiment was," said Miss Sally, eying the wreath

critically.

"And this wreath, is it from you?" continued Courtland gently.

"Yes, I thought yo' 'd like to see something fresh and pooty,

instead of those stale ones."

"And were they also from you?" he asked even more gently.

"Dear no! They were left over from last anniversary day by some of

the veterans. That's the only one I put there--that is--I got Mr.

Champney to leave it here on his way to his house. He lives just

yonder, yo' know."

It was impossible to resist this invincible naivete. Courtland bit

his lip as the vision arose before him of this still more naif

English admirer bringing hither, at Miss Sally's bidding, the

tribute which she wished to place on the grave of an old lover to

please a THIRD man. Meantime, she had put her two little hands

behind her back in the simulated attitude of "a good girl," and was

saying half smilingly, and he even thought half wistfully:--

"Are yo' satisfied?"

"Perfectly."

"Then let's go away. It's mighty hot here."

They turned away, and descending the slope again re-entered the

thicker shade of the main avenue. Here they seemed to have left

the sterner aspect of Death. They walked slowly; the air was heavy

with the hot incense of flowers; the road sinking a little left a

grassy bank on one side. Here Miss Sally halted and listlessly

seated herself, motioning Courtland to do the same. He obeyed

eagerly. The incident of the wreath had troubled him, albeit with

contending sensations. She had given it to please HIM; why should

HE question the manner, or torment himself with any retrospective

thought? He would have given worlds to have been able to accept it

lightly or gallantly,--with any other girl he could; but he knew he

was trembling on the verge of a passionate declaration; the

magnitude of the stake was too great to be imperiled by a levity of

which she was more a mistress than himself, and he knew that his

sentiment had failed to impress her. His pride kept him from

appealing to her strangely practical nature, although he had

recognized and accepted it, and had even begun to believe it an

essential part of the strong fascination she had over him. But

being neither a coward nor a weak, hesitating idealist, when he

deliberately took his seat beside her he as deliberately made up

his mind to accept his fate, whatever it might be, then and there.

Perhaps there was something of this in his face. "I thought yo'

were looking a little white, co'nnle," she said quietly, "and I

reckoned we might sit down a spell, and then take it slowly home.

Yo' ain't accustomed to the So'th'n sun, and the air in the hollow

WAS swampy." As he made a slight gesture of denial, she went on

with a pretty sisterly superiority: "That's the way of yo' No'th'n

men. Yo' think yo' can do everything just as if yo' were reared to

it, and yo' never make allowance for different climates, different

blood, and different customs. That's where yo' slip up."

But he was already leaning towards her with his dark earnest eyes

fixed upon her in a way she could no longer mistake. "At the risk

of slipping up again, Miss Dows," he said gently, dropping into her

dialect with utterly unconscious flattery, "I am going to ask you

to teach me everything YOU wish, to be all that YOU demand--which

would be far better. You have said we were good friends; I want

you to let me hope to be more. I want you to overlook my

deficiencies and the differences of my race and let me meet you on

the only level where I can claim to be the equal of your own

people--that of loving you. Give me only the same chance you gave

the other poor fellow who sleeps yonder--the same chance you gave

the luckier man who carried the wreath for you to put upon his

grave."

She had listened with delicately knitted brows, the faintest touch

of color, and a half-laughing, half-superior disapprobation. When

he had finished, she uttered a plaintive little sigh. "Yo'

oughtn't to have said that, co'nnle, but yo' and me are too good

friends to let even THAT stand between us. And to prove it to yo'

I'm going to forget it right away--and so are yo'."

"But I cannot," he said quickly; "if I could I should be unworthy

of even your friendship. If you must reject it, do not make me

feel the shame of thinking you believe me capable of wanton

trifling. I know that this avowal is abrupt to you, but it is not

to me. You have known me only for three months, but these three

months have been to me the realization of three years' dreaming!"

As she remained looking at him with bright, curious eyes, but still

shaking her fair head distressedly, he moved nearer and caught her

hand in the little pale lilac thread glove that was, nevertheless,

too wide for her small fingers, and said appealingly: "But why

should YOU forget it? Why must it be a forbidden topic? What is

the barrier? Are you no longer free? Speak, Miss Dows--give me

some hope. Miss Dows!--Sally!"

She had drawn herself away, distressed, protesting, her fair head

turned aside, until with a slight twist and narrowing of her hand

she succeeded in slipping it from the glove which she left a

prisoner in his eager clasp. "There! Yo' can keep the glove,

co'nnle," she said, breathing quickly. "Sit down! This is not the

place nor the weather for husking frolics! Well!--yo' want to know

WHY yo' mustn't speak to me in that way. Be still, and I'll tell

yo'."

She smoothed down the folds of her frock, sitting sideways on the

bank, one little foot touching the road. "Yo' mustn't speak that

way to me," she went on slowly, "because it's as much as yo'

company's wo'th, as much as OUR property's wo'th, as much maybe as

yo' life's wo'th! Don't lift yo' comb, co'nnle; if you don't care

for THAT, others may. Sit still, I tell yo'! Well, yo' come here

from the No'th to run this property for money--that's square and

fair business; THAT any fool here can understand--it's No'th'n

style; it don't interfere with these fools' family affairs; it

don't bring into their blood any No'th'n taint; it don't divide

their clannishness; it don't separate father and son, sister and

brother; and even if yo' got a foothold here and settled down, they

know they can always outvote yo' five to one! But let these same

fools know that yo' 're courtin' a So'th'n girl known to be 'Union'

during the wah, that girl who has laughed at their foolishness; let

them even THINK that he wants that girl to mix up the family and

the race and the property for him, and there ain't a young or old

fool that believes in So'th'n isolation as the price of So'th'n

salvation that wouldn't rise against yo'! There isn't one that

wouldn't make shipwreck of yo'r syndicate and yo'r capital and the

prosperity of Redlands for the next four years to come, and think

they were doing right! They began to suspect yo' from the first!

They suspected yo' when yo' never went anywhere, but stuck close to

the fahm and me. That's why I wanted yo' to show yourself among

the girls; they wouldn't have minded yo' flirting with them with

the chance of yo' breaking yo' heart over Tave Reed or Lympy

Morris! They're fools enough to believe that a snub or a jilt from

a So'th'n girl would pay them back for a lost battle or a ruined

plantation!"

For the first time Miss Sally saw Courtland's calm blood fly to his

cheek and kindle in his eye. "You surely do not expect ME to

tolerate this blind and insolent interference!" he said, rising to

his feet.

She lifted her ungloved hand in deprecation. "Sit still, co'nnle.

Yo' 've been a soldier, and yo' know what duty is. Well! what's

yo' duty to yo' company?"

"It neither includes my private affairs nor regulates the beating

of my heart. I will resign."

"And leave me and Aunt Miranda and the plantation?"

"No! The company will find another superintendent to look after

your aunt's affairs and carry out our plans. And you, Sally--you

will let me find you a home and fortune North? There is work for

me there; there is room for you among my people."

She shook her head slowly with a sweet but superior smile. "No,

co'nnle! I didn't believe in the wah, but the least I could do was

to stand by my folks and share the punishment that I knew was

coming from it. I despise this foolishness as much as yo', but I

can't run away from it. Come, co'nnle, I won't ask yo' to forget

this; mo', I'll even believe yo' MEANT it, but yo' 'll promise me

yo' won't speak of it again as long as yo' are with the company and

Aunt Miranda and me! There mustn't be more--there mustn't even

SEEM to be more--between us."

"But then I may hope?" he said, eagerly grasping her hand.

"I promise nothing, for yo' must not even have THAT excuse for

speaking of this again, either from anything I do or may seem to

do." She stopped, released her hand, as her eyes were suddenly

fixed on the distance. Then she said with a slight smile, but

without the least embarrassment or impatience: "There's Mr.

Champney coming here now. I reckon he's looking to see if that

wreath is safe."

Courtland looked up quickly. He could see the straw hat of the

young Englishman just above the myrtle bushes in a path intersecting

the avenue. A faint shadow crossed his face. "Let me know one

thing more," he said hurriedly. "I know I have no right to ask the

question, but has--has--has Mr. Champney anything to do with your

decision?"

She smiled brightly. "Yo' asked just now if yo' could have the

same chance he and Chet Brooks had. Well, poor Chet is dead, and

Mr. Champney--well!--wait and see." She lifted her voice and

called, "Mr. Champney!" The young fellow came briskly towards

them; his face betrayed a slight surprise, but no discomfiture, as

he recognized her companion.

"Oh, Mr. Champney," said Miss Sally plaintively, "I've lost my

glove somewhere near pooah Brooks's tomb in the hollow. Won't you

go and fetch it, and come back here to take me home? The co'nnle

has got to go and see his sick niggers in the hospital." Champney

lifted his hat, nodded genially to Courtland, and disappeared below

the cypresses on the slope. "Yo' mustn't be mad," she said,

turning in explanation to her companion, "but we have been here too

long already, and it's better that I should be seen coming home

with him than yo'."

"Then this sectional interference does not touch him?" said

Courtland bitterly.

"No. He's an Englishman; his father was a known friend of the

Confederacy, and bought their cotton bonds."

She stopped, gazing into Courtland's face with a pretty vague

impatience and a slight pouting of her lip.

"Co'nnle!"

"Miss Sally."

"Yo' say yo' had known me for three years before yo' saw me. Well,

we met once before we ever spoke to each other!"

Courtland looked in her laughing eyes with admiring wonder.

"When?" he asked.

"The first day yo' came! Yo' moved the ladder when I was on the

cornice, and I walked all ever yo' head. And, like a gentleman,

yo' never said a word about it. I reckon I stood on yo' head for

five minutes."

"Not as long as that," said Courtland laughing, "if I remember

rightly."

"Yes," said Miss Sally with dancing eyes. "I, a So'th'n girl,

actually set my foot on the head of a No'th'n scum of a co'nnle!

My!"

"Let that satisfy your friends then."

"No! I want to apologize. Sit down, co'nnle."

"But, Miss Sally"--

"Sit down, quick!"

He did so, seating himself sideways on the bank. Miss Sally stood

beside him.

"Take off yo' hat, sir."

He obeyed smilingly. Miss Sally suddenly slipped behind him. He

felt the soft touch of her small hands on his shoulders; warm

breath stirred the roots of his hair, and then--the light pressure

on his scalp of what seemed the lips of a child.

He leaped to his feet, yet before he could turn completely round--a

difficulty the young lady had evidently calculated upon--he was too

late! The floating draperies of the artful and shameless Miss

Sally were already disappearing among the tombs in the direction of

the hollow.

CHAPTER V.

The house occupied by the manager of the Drummond Syndicate in

Redlands--the former residence of a local lawyer and justice of the

peace--was not large, but had an imposing portico of wooden Doric

columns, which extended to the roof and fronted the main street.

The all-pervading creeper closely covered it; the sidewalk before

it was shaded by a row of broad-leaved ailantus. The front room,

with French windows opening on the portico, was used by Colonel

Courtland as a general office; beyond this a sitting-room and

dining-room overlooked the old-fashioned garden with its detached

kitchen and inevitable negro cabin. It was a close evening; there

were dark clouds coming up in the direction of the turnpike road,

but the leaves of the ailantus hung heavy and motionless in the

hush of an impending storm. The sparks of lazily floating

fireflies softly expanded and went out in the gloom of the black

foliage, or in the dark recesses of the office, whose windows were

widely open, and whose lights Courtland had extinguished when he

brought his armchair to the portico for coolness. One of these

sparks beyond the fence, although alternately glowing and paling,

was still so persistent and stationary that Courtland leaned

forward to watch it more closely, at which it disappeared, and a

voice from the street said:--

"Is that you, Courtland?"

"Yes. Come in, won't you?"

The voice was Champney's, and the light was from his cigar. As he

opened the gate and came slowly up the steps of the portico the

usual hesitation of his manner seemed to have increased. A long

sigh trilled the limp leaves of the ailantus and as quickly

subsided. A few heavy perpendicular raindrops crashed and

spattered through the foliage like molten lead.

"You've just escaped the shower," said Courtland pleasantly. He

had not seen Champney since they parted in the cemetery six weeks

before.

"Yes!--I--I thought I'd like to have a little talk with you,

Courtland," said Champney. He hesitated a moment before the

proffered chair, and then added, with a cautious glance towards the

street, "Hadn't we better go inside?"

"As you like. But you'll find it wofully hot. We're quite alone

here; there's nobody in the house, and this shower will drive any

loungers from the street." He was quite frank, although their

relations to each other in regard to Miss Sally were still so

undefined as to scarcely invite his confidence.

Howbeit Champney took the proffered chair and the glass of julep

which Courtland brought him.

"You remember my speaking to you of Dumont?" he said hesitatingly,

"Miss Dows' French cousin, you know? Well--he's coming here: he's

got property here--those three houses opposite the Court House.

From what I hear, he's come over with a lot of new-fangled French

ideas on the nigger question--rot about equality and fraternity,

don't you know--and the highest education and highest offices for

them. You know what the feeling is here already? You know what

happened at the last election at Coolidgeville--how the whites

wouldn't let the niggers go to the polls and the jolly row that was

kicked up over it? Well, it looks as if that sort of thing might

happen HERE, don't you know, if Miss Dows takes up these ideas."

"But I've reason to suppose--I mean," said Courtland correcting

himself with some deliberation, "that any one who knows Miss Dows'

opinions knows that these are not her views. Why should she take

them up?"

"Because she takes HIM up," returned Champney hurriedly; "and even

if she didn't believe in them herself, she'd have to share the

responsibility with him in the eyes of every unreconstructed rowdy

like Tom Higbee and the rest of them. They'd make short work of

her niggers all the same."

"But I don't see why she should be made responsible for the

opinions of her cousin, nor do I exactly knew what 'taking him up'

means," returned Courtland quietly.

Champney moistened his dry lips with the julep and uttered a

nervous laugh. "Suppose we say her husband--for that's what his

coming back here means. Everybody knows that; you would, too, if

you ever talked with her about anything but business."

A bright flash of lightning that lit up the faces of the two men

would have revealed Champney's flushed features and Courtland's

lack of color had they been looking at each other. But they were

not, and the long reverberating crash of thunder which followed

prevented any audible reply from Courtland, and covered his

agitation.

For without fully accepting Champney's conclusions he was cruelly

shocked at the young man's utterance of them. He had scrupulously

respected the wishes of Miss Sally and had faithfully--although

never hopelessly--held back any expression of his own love since

their conversation in the cemetery. But while his native

truthfulness and sense of honor had overlooked the seeming

insincerity of her attitude towards Champney, he had never

justified his own tacit participation in it, and the concealment of

his own pretensions before his possible rival. It was true that

she had forbidden him to openly enter the lists with her admirers,

but Champney's innocent assumption of his indifference to her and

his consequent half confidences added poignancy to his story.

There seemed to be only one way to extricate himself, and that was

by a quarrel. Whether he did or did not believe Champney's story,

whether it was only the jealous exaggeration of a rival, or Miss

Sally was actually deceiving them both, his position had become

intolerable.

"I must remind you, Champney," he said, with freezing deliberation,

"that Miss Miranda Dows and her niece now represent the Drummond

Company equally with myself, and that you cannot expect me to

listen to any reflections upon the way they choose to administer

their part in its affairs, either now, or to come. Still less do I

care to discuss the idle gossip which can affect only the PRIVATE

interests of these ladies, with which neither you nor I have any

right to interfere."

But the naivete of the young Englishman was as invincible as Miss

Sally's own, and as fatal to Courtland's attitude. "Of course I

haven't any RIGHT, you know," he said, calmly ignoring the severe

preamble of his companion's speech, "but I say! hang it all! even

if a fellow has no chance HIMSELF, he don't like to see a girl

throw herself and her property away on a man like that."

"One moment, Champney," said Courtland, under the infection of his

guest's simplicity, abandoning his former superior attitude. "You

say you have no chance. Do you want me to understand that you are

regularly a suitor of Miss Dows?"

"Y-e-e-s," said the young fellow, but with the hesitation of

conscientiousness rather than evasion. "That is--you know I WAS.

But don't you see, it couldn't be. It wouldn't do, you know. If

those clannish neighbors of hers--that Southern set--suspected that

Miss Sally was courted by an Englishman, don't you know--a poacher

on their preserves--it would be all up with her position on the

property and her influence over them. I don't mind telling you

that's one reason why I left the company and took that other

plantation. But even that didn't work; they had their suspicions

excited already."

"Did Miss Dows give that as a reason for declining your suit?"

asked Courtland slowly.

"Yes. You know what a straightforward girl she is. She didn't

come no rot about 'not expecting anything of the kind,' or about

'being a sister to me,' and all that, for, by Jove! she's always

more like a fellow's sister, don't you know, than his girl. Of

course, it was hard lines for me, but I suppose she was about

right." He stopped, and then added with a kind of gentle

persistency: "YOU think she was about right, don't you?"

With what was passing in Courtland's mind the question seemed so

bitterly ironical that at first he leaned half angrily forward, in

an unconscious attempt to catch the speaker's expression in the

darkness. "I should hardly venture to give an opinion," he said,

after a pause. "Miss Dows' relations with her neighbors are so

very peculiar. And from what you tell me of her cousin it would

seem that her desire to placate them is not always to be depended

upon."

"I'm not finding fault with HER, you know," said Champney hastily.

"I'm not such a beastly cad as that; I wouldn't have spoken of my

affairs at all, but you asked, you know. I only thought, if she

was going to get herself into trouble on account of that Frenchman,

you might talk to her--she'd listen to you, because she'd know you

only did it out of business reasons. And they're really business

reasons, you know. I suppose you don't think much of my business

capacity, colonel, and you wouldn't go much on my judgment--

especially now; but I've been here longer than you and"--he lowered

his voice slightly and dragged his chair nearer Courtland--"I don't

like the looks of things here. There's some devilment plotting

among those rascals. They're only awaiting an opportunity; a

single flash would be enough to set them in a blaze, even if the

fire wasn't lit and smouldering already like a spark in a bale of

cotton. I'd cut the whole thing and clear out if I didn't think it

would make it harder for Miss Dows, who would be left alone."

"You're a good fellow, Champney," said Courtland, laying his hand

on the young man's shoulder with a sudden impulse, "and I forgive

you for overlooking any concern that I might have. Indeed," he

added, with an odd seriousness and a half sigh, "it's not strange

that you should. But I must remind you that the Dowses are

strictly the agents and tenants of the company I represent, and

that their rights and property under that tenancy shall not be

interfered with by others as long as I am here. I have no right,

however," he added gravely, "to keep Miss Dows from imperiling them

by her social relations."

Champney rose and shook hands with him awkwardly. "The shower

seems to be holding up," he said, "and I'll toddle along before it

starts afresh. Good-night! I say--you didn't mind my coming to

you this way, did you? By Jove! I thought you were a little stand-

offish at first. But you know what I meant?"

"Perfectly, and I thank you." They shook hands again. Champney

stepped from the portico, and, reaching the gate, seemed to vanish

as he had come, out of the darkness.

The storm was not yet over; the air had again become close and

suffocating. Courtland remained brooding in his chair. Whether he

could accept Champney's news as true or not, he felt that he must

end this suspense at once. A half-guilty consciousness that he was

thinking more of it in reference to his own passion than his duty

to the company did not render his meditations less unpleasant. Yet

while he could not reconcile Miss Sally's confidences in the

cemetery concerning the indifference of her people to Champney's

attentions with what Champney had just told him of the reasons she

had given HIM for declining them, I am afraid he was not shocked by

her peculiar ethics. A lover seldom finds fault with his mistress

for deceiving his rival, and is as little apt to consider the

logical deduction that she could deceive him also, as Othello was

to accept Brabantio's warning, The masculine sense of honor which

might have resented the friendship of a man capable of such

treachery did not hesitate to accept the love of a woman under the

same conditions. Perhaps there was an implied compliment in thus

allowing her to take the sole ethical responsibility, which few

women would resist.

In the midst of this gloomy abstraction Courtland suddenly raised

his head and listened.

"Cato."

"Yes, sah."

There was a sound of heavy footsteps in the hall coming from the

rear of the house, and presently a darker bulk appeared in the

shadowed doorway. It was his principal overseer--a strong and

superior negro, selected by his fellow-freedmen from among their

number in accordance with Courtland's new regime.

"Did you come here from the plantation or the town?"

"The town, sah."

"I think you had better keep out of the town in the evenings for

the present," said Courtland in a tone of quiet but positive

authority.

"Are dey goin' to bring back de ole 'patter rollers,'* sah?" asked

the man with a slight sneer.

* The "patrol" or local police who formerly had the surveillance of

slaves.

"I don't know," returned Courtland calmly, ignoring his overseer's

manner. "But if they did you must comply with the local regulations

unless they conflict with the Federal laws, when you must appeal to

the Federal authorities. I prefer you should avoid any trouble

until you are sure."

"I reckon they won't try any games on me," said the negro with a

short laugh.

Courtland looked at him intently.

"I thought as much! You're carrying arms, Cato! Hand them over."

The overseer hesitated for a moment, and then unstrapped a revolver

from his belt, and handed it to Courtland.

"Now how many of you are in the habit of going round the town armed

like this?"

"Only de men who've been insulted, sah."

"And how have YOU been insulted?"

"Marse Tom Highee down in de market reckoned it was high time fancy

niggers was drov into de swamp, and I allowed that loafers and

beggars had better roost high when workin' folks was around, and

Marse Tom said he'd cut my haht out."

"And do you think your carrying a revolver will prevent him and his

friends performing that operation if you provoked them?"

"You said we was to pertect ourse'fs, sah," returned the negro

gloomily. "What foh den did you drill us to use dem rifles in de

armory?"

"To defend yourselves TOGETHER under orders if attacked, not to

singly threaten with them in a street row. Together, you would

stand some chance against those men; separately they could eat you

up, Cato."

"I wouldn't trust too much to some of dem niggers standing

together, sah," said Gate darkly. "Dey'd run before de old

masters--if they didn't run to 'em. Shuah!"

A fear of this kind had crossed Courtland's mind before, but he

made no present comment. "I found two of the armory rifles in the

men's cabins yesterday," he resumed quietly. "See that it does not

occur again! They must not be taken from the armory except to

defend it."

"Yes, sah."

There was a moment of silence. Then it was broken by a sudden gust

that swept through the columns of the portico, stirring the vines.

The broad leaves of the ailantus began to rustle; an ominous

pattering followed; the rain had recommenced. And as Courtland

rose and walked towards the open window its blank panes and the

interior of the office were suddenly illuminated by a gleam of

returning lightning.

He entered the office, bidding Cato follow, and lit the lamp above

his desk. The negro remained standing gloomily but respectfully by

the window.

"Cato, do you know anything of Mr. Dumont--Miss Dows' cousin?"

The negro's white teeth suddenly flashed in the lamplight. "Ya!

ha! I reckon, sah."

"Then he's a great friend of your people?"

"I don't know about dat, sah. But he's a pow'ful enemy of de Reeds

and de Higbees!"

"On account of his views, of course?"

"'Deed no!" said Cato with an astounded air. "Jess on account of

de vendetta!"

"The vendetta?"

"Yes, sah. De old blood quo'll of de families. It's been goin' on

over fifty years, sah. De granfader, fader, and brudder of de

Higbees was killed by de granfader, fader, and brudder of de

Doomonts. De Reeds chipped in when all de Higbees was played out,

fo' dey was relations, but dey was chawed up by some of de Dowses,

first cousins to de Doomonts."

"What? Are the Dows in this vendetta?"

"No, sah. No mo'. Dey's bin no man in de family since Miss

Sally's fader died--dat's let de Dows out fo' ever. De las'

shootin' was done by Marse Jack Doomont, who crippled Marse Tom

Higbee's brudder Jo, and den skipped to Europe. Dey say he's come

back, and is lying low over at Atlanty. Dar'll be lively times of

he comes here to see Miss Sally."

"But he may have changed his ideas while living abroad, where this

sort of thing is simple murder."

The negro shook his head grimly. "Den he wouldn't come, sah. No,

sah. He knows dat Tom Higbee's bound to go fo' him or leave de

place, and Marse Jack wouldn't mind settlin' HIM too as well as his

brudder, for de scores is agin' de Doomonts yet. And Marse Jack

ain't no slouch wid a scatter gun."

At any other time the imminence of this survival of a lawless

barbarism of which he had heard so much would have impressed

Courtland; now he was only interested in it on account of the

inconceivable position in which it left Miss Sally. Had she

anything to do with this baleful cousin's return, or was she only

to be a helpless victim of it?

A white, dazzling, and bewildering flash of lightning suddenly lit

up the room, the porch, the dripping ailantus, and the flooded

street beyond. It was followed presently by a crash of thunder,

with what seemed to be a second fainter flash of lightning, or

rather as if the first flash had suddenly ignited some inflammable

substance. With the long reverberation of the thunder still

shaking the house, Courtland slipped quickly out of the window and

passed down to the gate.

"Did it strike anything, sah?" said the startled negro, as

Courtland returned.

"Not that I can see," said his employer shortly. "Go inside, and

call Zoe and her daughter from the cabin and bring them in the

hall. Stay till I come. Go!--I'll shut the windows myself."

"It must have struck somewhere, sah, shuah! Deh's a pow'ful smell

of sulphur right here," said the negro as he left the room.

Courtland thought so too, but it was a kind of sulphur that he had

smelled before--on the battlefield! For when the door was closed

behind his overseer he took the lamp to the opposite wall and

examined it carefully. There was the distinct hole made by a

bullet which had missed Cato's head at the open window by an inch.

CHAPTER VI.

In an instant Courtland had regained complete possession of

himself. His distracting passion--how distracting he had never

before realized--was gone! His clear sight--no longer distorted by

sentiment--had come back; he saw everything in its just proportion--

his duty, the plantation, the helpless freedman threatened by

lawless fury; the two women--no longer his one tantalizing vision,

but now only a passing detail of the work before him. He saw them

through no aberrating mist of tenderness or expediency--but with

the single directness of the man of action.

The shot had clearly been intended for Cato. Even if it were an

act of mere personal revenge, it showed a confidence and security

in the would-be assassin that betokened cooperation and an

organized plan. He had availed himself of the thunderstorm, the

flash and long reverberating roll of sound--an artifice not unknown

to border ambush--to confuse discovery at the instant. Yet the

attack might be only an isolated one; or it might be the beginning

of a general raid upon the Syndicate's freedmen. If the former he

could protect Cato from its repetition by guarding him in the

office until he could be conveyed to a place of safety; if the

latter, he must at once collect the negroes at their quarters, and

take Cato with him. He resolved upon the latter course. The

quarters were half a mile from the Dows' dwelling--which was two

miles away.

He sat down and wrote a few lines to Miss Dows stating that, in

view of some threatened disturbances in the town, he thought it

advisable to keep the negroes in their quarters, whither he was

himself going. He sent her his housekeeper and the child, as they

had both better remain in a place of security until he returned to

town. He gave the note to Zoe, bidding her hasten by the back

garden across the fields. Then he turned to Cato.

"I am going with you to the quarters tonight," he said quietly,

"and you can carry your pistol back to the armory yourself." He

handed him the weapon. The negro received it gratefully, but

suddenly cast a searching glance at his employer. Courtland's

face, however, betrayed no change. When Zoe had gone, he continued

tranquilly, "We will go by the back way through the woods." As the

negro started slightly, Courtland continued in the same even tone:

"The sulphur you smelled just now, Cato, was the smoke of a gun

fired at YOU from the street. I don't propose that the shot shall

be repeated under the same advantages."

The negro became violently agitated. "It was dat sneakin' hound,

Tom Higbee," he said huskily.

Courtland looked at him sharply. "Then there was something more

than WORDS passed between him and you, Cato. What happened? Come,

speak out!"

"He lashed me with his whip, and I gib him one right under the

yeah, and drupped him," said Cato, recovering his courage with his

anger at the recollection. "I had a right to defend myse'f, sah."

"Yes, and I hope you'll be able to do it, now," said Courtland

calmly, his face giving no sign of his conviction that Cato's fate

was doomed by that single retaliating blow, "but you'll be safer at

the quarters." He passed into his bedroom, took a revolver from

his bedhead and a derringer from the drawer, both of which he

quickly slipped beneath his buttoned coat, and returned.

"When we are in the fields, clear of the house, keep close by my

side, and even try to keep step with me. What you have to say, say

NOW; there must be no talking to betray our position--we must go

silently, and you'll have enough to do to exercise your eyes and

ears. I shall stand between you and any attack, but I expect you

to obey orders without hesitation." He opened the back door,

motioned to Cato to pass out, followed him, locked the door behind

them, and taking the negro's arm walked beside the low palings to

the end of the garden, where they climbed the fence and stood upon

the open field beyond.

Unfortunately, it had grown lighter with the breaking of the heavy

clouds, and gusty gleams of moonlight chased each other over the

field, or struck a glitter from standing rain-pools between the

little hillocks. To cross the open field and gain the fringe of

woods on the other side was the nearest way to the quarters, but

for the moment was the most exposed course; to follow the hedge to

the bottom of the field and the boundary fence and then cross at

right angles, in its shadow, would be safer, but they would lose

valuable time. Believing that Cato's vengeful assailant was still

hovering near with his comrades, Courtland cast a quick glance down

the shadowy line of Osage hedge beside them. Suddenly Cato grasped

his arm and pointed in the same direction, where the boundary fence

he had noticed--a barrier of rough palings--crossed the field.

With the moon low on the other side of it, it was a mere black

silhouette, broken only by bright silver openings and gaps along

its surface that indicated the moonlit field beyond. At first

Courtland saw nothing else. Then he was struck by the fact that

these openings became successively and regularly eclipsed, as with

the passing of some opaque object behind them. It was a file of

men on the other side of the fence, keeping in its shelter as they

crossed the field towards his house. Roughly calculating from the

passing obscurations, there must have been twelve or fifteen in

all.

He could no longer doubt their combined intentions, nor hesitate

how to meet them. He must at once make for the quarters with Cato,

even if he had to cross that open field before them. He knew that

they would avoid injuring him personally, in the fear of possible

Federal and political complications, and he resolved to use that

fear to insure Cato's safety. Placing his hands on the negro's

shoulders, he shoved him forwards, falling into a "lock step" so

close behind him that it became impossible for the most expert

marksman to fire at one without imperiling the other's life. When

half way across the field he noticed that the shadows seen through

the openings of the fence had paused. The ambushed men had

evidently seen the double apparition, understood it, and, as he

expected, dared not fire. He reached the other side with Cato in

safety, but not before he saw the fateful shadows again moving, and

this time in their own direction. They were evidently intending to

pursue them. But once within the woods Courtland knew that his

chances were equal. He breathed more freely. Cato, now less

agitated, had even regained something of his former emotional

combativeness which Courtland had checked. Although far from

confident of his henchman's prowess in an emergency, the prospect

of getting him safe into the quarters seemed brighter.

It was necessary, also, to trust to his superior wood-craft and

knowledge of the locality, and Courtland still walking between him

and his pursuers and covering his retreat allowed him to lead the

way. It lay over ground that was beginning to slope gently; the

underbrush was presently exchanged for springy moss, the character

of the trees changed, the black trunks of cypresses made the gloom

thicker. Trailing vines and parasites brushed their faces, a

current of damp air seemed to flow just above the soil in which

their lower limbs moved sluggishly as through stagnant water. As

yet there was no indication of pursuit. But Courtland felt that it

was not abandoned. Indeed, he had barely time to check an

exclamation from the negro, before the dull gallop of horse-hoofs

in the open ahead of them was plain to them both. It was a second

party of their pursuers, mounted, who had evidently been sent to

prevent their final egress from the woods, while those they had

just evaded were no doubt slowly and silently following them on

foot. They were to be caught between two fires!

"What is there to the left of us?" whispered Courtland quickly.

"De swamp."

Courtland set his teeth together. His dull-witted companion had

evidently walked them both into the trap! Nevertheless, his

resolve was quickly made. He could already see through the

thinning fringe of timber the figures of the mounted men in the

moonlight.

"This should be the boundary line of the plantation? This field

beside us is ours?" he said interrogatively.

"Yes," returned the negro, "but de quarters is a mile furder."

"Good! Stay here until I come back or call you; I'm going to talk

to these fellows. But if you value your life, don't YOU speak nor

stir."

He strode quickly through the intervening trees and stepped out

into the moonlight. A suppressed shout greeted him, and half a

dozen mounted men, masked and carrying rifles, rode down towards

him, but he remained quietly waiting there, and as the nearest

approached him, he made a step forward and cried, "Halt!"

The men pulled up sharply and mechanically at that ring of military

imperiousness.

"What are you doing here?" said Courtland.

"We reckon that's OUR business, co'nnle."

"It's mine, when you're on property that I control."

The man hesitated and looked interrogatively towards his fellows.

"I allow you've got us there, co'nnle," he said at last with the

lazy insolence of conscious power, but I don't mind telling you

we're wanting a nigger about the size of your Cato. We hain't got

anything agin YOU, co'nnle; we don't want to interfere with YOUR

property, and YOUR ways, but we don't calculate to have strangers

interfere with OUR ways and OUR customs. Trot out your nigger--you

No'th'n folks don't call HIM 'property,' you know--and we'll clear

off your land."

"And may I ask what you want of Cato?" said Courtland quietly.

"To show him that all the Federal law in h-ll won't protect him

when he strikes a white man!" burst out one of the masked figures,

riding forward.

"Then you compel me to show YOU," said Courtland immovably, "what

any Federal citizen may do in the defense of Federal law. For I'll

kill the first man that attempts to lay hands upon him on my

property. Some of you, who have already tried to assassinate him

in cold blood, I have met before in less dishonorable warfare than

this, and THEY know I am able to keep my word."

There was a moment's silence; the barrel of the revolver he was

holding at his side glistened for an instant in the moonlight, but

he did not move. The two men rode up to the first speaker and

exchanged words. A light laugh followed, and the first speaker

turned again to Courtland with a mocking politeness.

"Very well, co'nnle, if that's your opinion, and you allow we can't

follow our game over your property, why, we reckon we'll have to

give way TO THOSE WHO CAN. Sorry to have troubled YOU. Good-

night."

He lifted his hat ironically, waved it to his followers, and the

next moment the whole party were galloping furiously towards the

high road.

For the first time that evening a nervous sense of apprehension

passed over Courtland. The impending of some unknown danger is

always more terrible to a brave man than the most overwhelming odds

that he can see and realize. He felt instinctively that they had

uttered no vague bravado to cover up their defeat; there was still

some advantage on which they confidently reckoned--but what? Was

it only a reference to the other party tracking them through the

woods on which their enemies now solely relied? He regained Cato

quickly; the white teeth of the foolishly confident negro were

already flashing his imagined triumph to his employer. Courtland's

heart grew sick as he saw it.

"We're not out of the woods yet, Cato," he said dryly; "nor are

they. Keep your eyes and ears open, and attend to me. How long

can we keep in the cover of these woods, and still push on in the

direction of the quarters?"

"There's a way roun' de edge o' de swamp, sah, but we'd have to go

back a spell to find it."

"Go on!"

"And dar's moccasins and copperheads lying round here in de trail!

Dey don't go for us ginerally--but," be hesitated, "white men don't

stand much show."

"Good! Then it is as bad for those who are chasing us as for me.

That will do. Lead on."

They retraced their steps cautiously, until the negro turned into a

lighter by-way. A strange mephitic odor seemed to come from sodden

leaves and mosses that began to ooze under their feet. They had

picked their way in silence for some minutes; the stunted willows

and cypress standing farther and farther apart, and the openings

with clumps of sedge were frequent. Courtland was beginning to

fear this exposure of his follower, and had moved up beside him,

when suddenly the negro caught his arm, and trembled violently.

His lips were parted over his teeth, the whites of his eyes

glistened, he seemed gasping and speechless with fear.

"What's the matter, Cato?" said Courtland glancing instinctively at

the ground beneath. "Speak, man!--have you been bitten?"

The word seemed to wring an agonized cry from the miserable man.

"Bitten! No; but don't you hear 'em coming, sah! God Almighty!

don't you hear dat?"

"What?"

"De dogs! de houns!--DE BLOODHOUNS! Dey've set 'em loose on me!"

It was true! A faint baying in the distance was now distinctly

audible to Courtland. He knew now plainly the full, cruel purport

of the leader's speech,--those who could go anywhere were tracking

their game!

Every trace of manhood had vanished from the negro's cowering

frame. Courtland laid his hand assuringly, appealingly, and then

savagely on his shoulder.

"Come! Enough of this! I am here, and will stand by you, whatever

comes. These dogs are no more to be feared than the others. Rouse

yourself, man, and at least help ME make a fight of it."

"No! no!" screamed the terrified man. "Lemme go! Lemme go back to

de Massas! Tell 'em I'll come! Tell 'em to call de houns off me,

and I'll go quiet! Lemme go!" He struggled violently in his

companion's grasp.

In all Courtland's self-control, habits of coolness, and

discipline, it is to be feared there was still something of the old

Berserker temper. His face was white, his eyes blazed in the

darkness; only his voice kept that level distinctness which made it

for a moment more terrible than even the baying of the tracking

hounds to the negro's ear. "Cato," he said, "attempt to run now,

and, by God! I'll save the dogs the trouble of grappling your

living carcass! Come here! Up that tree with you!" pointing to a

swamp magnolia. "Don't move as long as I can stand here, and when

I'm down--but not till then--save yourself--the best you can."

He half helped, half dragged, the now passive African to the

solitary tree; as the bay of a single hound came nearer, the negro

convulsively scrambled from Courtland's knee and shoulder to the

fork of branches a dozen feet from the ground. Courtland drew his

revolver, and, stepping back a few yards into the open, awaited the

attack.

It came unexpectedly from behind. A sudden yelp of panting cruelty

and frenzied anticipation at Courtland's back caused him to change

front quickly, and the dripping fangs and snaky boa-like neck of a

gray weird shadow passed him. With an awful supernaturalness of

instinct, it kept on in an unerring line to the fateful tree. But

that dread directness of scent was Courtland's opportunity. His

revolver flashed out in an aim as unerring. The brute, pierced

through neck and brain, dashed on against the tree in his impetus,

and then rolled over against it in a quivering bulk. Again another

bay coming from the same direction told Courtland that his pursuers

had outflanked him, and the whole pack were crossing the swamp.

But he was prepared; again the same weird shadow, as spectral and

monstrous as a dream, dashed out into the brief light of the open,

but this time it was stopped, and rolled over convulsively before

it had crossed. Flushed, with the fire of fight in his veins,

Courtland turned almost furiously from the fallen brutes at his

feet to meet the onset of the more cowardly hunters whom he knew

were at his heels. At that moment it would have fared ill with the

foremost. No longer the calculating steward and diplomatic

manager, no longer the cool-headed arbiter of conflicting

interests, he was ready to meet them, not only with the intrepid

instincts of a soldier, but with an aroused partisan fury equal to

their own. To his surprise no one followed; the baying of a third

hound seemed to be silenced and checked; the silence was broken

only by the sound of distant disputing voices and the uneasy

trampling of hoofs. This was followed by two or three rifle shots

in the distance, but not either in the direction of the quarters

nor the Dows' dwelling-house. There evidently was some interruption

in the pursuit,--a diversion of some kind had taken place,--but what

he knew not. He could think of no one who might have interfered on

his behalf, and the shouting and wrangling seemed to be carried on

in the accents of the one sectional party. He called cautiously to

Cato. The negro did not reply. He crossed to the tree and shook it

impatiently. Its boughs were empty; Cato was gone! The miserable

negro must have taken advantage of the first diversion in his favor

to escape. But where, and how, there was nothing left to indicate.

As Courtland had taken little note of the trail, he had no idea of

his own whereabouts. He knew he must return to the fringe of

cypress to be able to cross the open field and gain the negro

quarters, where it was still possible that Cato had fled. Taking a

general direction from the few stars visible above the opening, he

began to retrace his steps. But he had no longer the negro's

woodcraft to guide him. At times his feet were caught in trailing

vines which seemed to coil around his ankles with ominous

suggestiveness; at times the yielding soil beneath his tread showed

his perilous proximity to the swamp, as well as the fact that he

was beginning to incline towards that dread circle which is the

hopeless instinct of all lost and straying humanity. Luckily the

edge of the swamp was more open, and he would be enabled to correct

his changed course again by the position of the stars. But he was

becoming chilled and exhausted by these fruitless efforts, and at

length, after a more devious and prolonged detour, which brought

him back to the swamp again, he resolved to skirt its edge in

search of some other mode of issuance. Beyond him, the light

seemed stronger, as of a more extended opening or clearing, and

there was even a superficial gleam from the end of the swamp

itself, as if from some ignis fatuus or the glancing of a pool of

unbroken water. A few rods farther brought him to it and a full

view of the unencumbered expanse. Beyond him, far across the

swamp, he could see a hillside bathed in the moonlight with

symmetrical lines of small white squares dotting its slopes and

stretching down into a valley of gleaming shafts, pyramids, and

tombs. It was the cemetery; the white squares on the hillside were

the soldiers' graves. And among them even at that distance,

uplifting solemnly, like a reproachful phantom, was the broken

shaft above the dust of Chester Brooks.

With the view of that fateful spot, which he had not seen since his

last meeting there with Sally Dows, a flood of recollection rushed

upon him. In the white mist that hung low along the farther edge

of the swamp he fancied he could see again the battery smoke

through which the ghostly figure of the dead rider had charged his

gun three years before; in the vapory white plumes of a funereal

plant in the long avenue he was reminded of the light figure of

Miss Sally as she appeared at their last meeting. In another

moment, in his already dazed condition, he might have succumbed to

some sensuous memory of her former fascinations, but he threw it

off savagely now, with a quick and bitter recalling of her deceit

and his own weakness. Turning his back upon the scene with a half-

superstitious tremor, he plunged once more into the trackless

covert. But he was conscious that his eyesight was gradually

growing dim and his strength falling. He was obliged from time to

time to stop and rally his sluggish senses, that seemed to grow

heavier under some deadly exhalation that flowed around him. He

even seemed to hear familiar voices,--but that must be delusion.

At last he stumbled. Throwing out an arm to protect himself, he

came heavily down upon the ooze, striking a dull, half-elastic root

that seemed--it must have been another delusion--to move beneath

him, and even--so confused were his senses now--to strike back

angrily upon his prostrate arm. A sharp pain ran from his elbow to

shoulder and for a moment stung him to full consciousness again.

There were voices surely,--the voices of their former pursuers! If

they were seeking to revenge themselves upon him for Cato's escape,

he was ready for them. He cocked his revolver and stood erect. A

torch flashed through the wood. But even at that moment a film

came over his eyes; he staggered and fell.

An interval of helpless semi-consciousness ensued. He felt himself

lifted by strong arms and carried forward, his arm hanging

uselessly at his side. The dank odor of the wood was presently

exchanged for the free air of the open field; the flaming pine-knot

torches were extinguished in the bright moonlight. People pressed

around him, but so indistinctly he could not recognize them. All

his consciousness seemed centred in the burning, throbbing pain of

his arm. He felt himself laid upon the gravel; the sleeve cut from

his shoulder, the cool sensation of the hot and bursting skin bared

to the night air, and then a soft, cool, and indescribable pressure

upon a wound he had not felt before. A voice followed,--high,

lazily petulant, and familiar to him, and yet one he strove in vain

to recall.

"De Lawdy-Gawd save us, Miss Sally! Wot yo' doin' dah? Chile!

Chile! Yo' 'll kill yo'se'f, shuah!"

The pressure continued, strange and potent even through his pain,

and was then withdrawn. And a voice that thrilled him said:--

"It's the only thing to save him! Hush, ye chattering black crow!

Say anything about this to a living soul, and I'll have yo'

flogged! Now trot out the whiskey bottle and pour it down him."

CHAPTER VII.

When Courtland's eyes opened again, he was in bed in his own room

at Redlands, with the vivid morning sun occasionally lighting up

the wall whenever the closely drawn curtains were lightly blown

aside by the freshening breeze. The whole events of the night

might have been a dream but for the insupportable languor which

numbed his senses, and the torpor of his arm, that, swollen and

discolored, lay outside the coverlet on a pillow before him.

Cloths that had been wrung out in iced water were replaced upon it

from time to time by Sophy, Miss Dows' housekeeper, who, seated

near his bedhead, was lazily fanning him. Their eyes met.

"Broken?" he said interrogatively, with a faint return of his old

deliberate manner, glancing at his helpless arm.

"Deedy no, cunnle! Snake bite," responded the negress.

"Snake bite!" repeated Courtland with languid interest, "what

snake?"

"Moccasin o' copperhead--if you doun know yo'se'f which," she

replied. "But it's all right now, honey! De pizen's draw'd out

and clean gone. Wot yer feels now is de whiskey. De whiskey

STAYS, sah. It gets into de lubrications of de skin, sah, and has

to be abso'bed."

Some faint chord of memory was touched by the girl's peculiar

vocabulary.

"Ah," said Courtland quickly, "you're Miss Dows' Sophy. Then you

can tell me"--

"Nuffin, sah absomlutely nuffin!" interrupted the girl, shaking her

head with impressive official dignity. "It's done gone fo'bid by

de doctor! Yo' 're to lie dar and shut yo'r eye, honey," she

added, for the moment reverting unconsciously to the native

maternal tenderness of her race, "and yo' 're not to bodder yo'se'f

ef school keeps o' not. De medical man say distinctly, sah," she

concluded, sternly recalling her duty again, "no conversation wid

de patient."

But Courtland had winning ways with all dependents. "But you will

answer me ONE question, Sophy, and I'll not ask another. Has"--he

hesitated in his still uncertainty as to the actuality of his

experience and its probable extent--"has--Cato--escaped?"

"If yo' mean dat sassy, bull-nigger oberseer of yo'se, cunnle, HE'S

safe, yo' bet!" returned Sophy sharply. "Safe in his own quo'tahs

night afo' las', after braggin' about the bloodhaowns he killed;

and safe ober the county line yes'day moan'in, after kicking up all

dis rumpus. If dar is a sassy, highfalutin' nigger I jiss 'spises--

its dat black nigger Cato o' yo'se! Now,"--relenting--"yo' jiss

wink yo' eye, honey, and don't excite yo'se'f about sach black

trash; drap off to sleep comfor'ble. Fo' you do'an get annuder

word out o' Sophy, shuah!"

As if in obedience, Courtland closed his eyes. But even in his

weak state he was conscious of the blood coming into his cheek at

Sophy's relentless criticism of the man for whom he had just

periled his life and position. Much of it he felt was true; but

how far had he been a dupe in his quixotic defense of a quarrelsome

blusterer and cowardly bully? Yet there was the unmistakable shot

and cold-blooded attempt at Cato's assassination! And there were

the bloodhounds sent to track the unfortunate man! That was no

dream--but a brutal inexcusable fact!

The medical practitioner of Redlands he remembered was conservative,

old-fashioned, and diplomatic. But his sympathies had been

broadened by some army experiences, and Courtland trusted to some

soldierly and frank exposition of the matter from him. Nevertheless,

Dr. Maynard was first healer, and, like Sophy, professionally

cautious. The colonel had better not talk about it now. It was

already two days old; the colonel had been nearly forty-eight hours

in bed. It was a regrettable affair, but the natural climax of

long-continued political and racial irritation--and not without

GREAT provocation! Assassination was a strong word; could Colonel

Courtland swear that Cato was actually AIMED AT, or was it not

merely a demonstration to frighten a bullying negro? It might have

been necessary to teach him a lesson--which the colonel by this time

ought to know could only be taught to these inferior races by FEAR.

The bloodhounds! Ah, yes!--well, the bloodhounds were, in fact,

only a part of that wholesome discipline. Surely Colonel Courtland

was not so foolish as to believe that, even in the old slave-holding

days, planters sent dogs after runaways to mangle and destroy THEIR

OWN PROPERTY? They might as well, at once, let them escape! No,

sir! They were used only to frighten and drive the niggers out of

swamps, brakes, and hiding-places--as no nigger had ever dared to

face 'em. Cato might lie as much as he liked, but everybody knew

WHO it was that killed Major Reed's hounds. Nobody blamed the

colonel for it,--not even Major Reed,--but if the colonel had lived

a little longer in the South, he'd have known it wasn't necessary to

do that in self-preservation, as the hounds would never have gone

for a white man. But that was not a matter for the colonel to bother

about NOW. He was doing well; he had slept nearly thirty hours;

there was no fever, he must continue to doze off the exhaustion of

his powerful stimulant, and he, the doctor, would return later in

the afternoon.

Perhaps it was his very inability to grasp in that exhausted state

the full comprehension of the doctor's meaning, perhaps because the

physical benumbing of his brain was stronger than any mental

excitement, but he slept again until the doctor reappeared.

"You're doing well enough now, colonel," said the physician, after

a brief examination of his patient, "and I think we can afford to

wake you up a bit, and even let you move your arm. You're luckier

than poor Tom Higbee, who won't be able to set his leg to the floor

for three weeks to come. I haven't got all the buckshot out of it

yet that Jack Dumont put there the other night."

Courtland started slightly. Jack Dumont! That was the name of

Sally Dows cousin of whom Champney had spoken! He had resolutely

put aside from his returning memory the hazy recollection of the

young girl's voice--the last thing he had heard that night--and the

mystery that seemed to surround it. But there was no delusion in

this cousin--his rival, and that of the equally deceived Champney.

He controlled himself and repeated coldly:--

"Jack Dumont!"

"Yes. But of course you knew nothing of all that, while you were

off in the swamp there. Yet, by Jingo! it was Dumont's shooting

Higbee that helped YOU to get off your nigger a darned sight more

than YOUR killing the dogs."

"I don't understand," returned Courtland coldly.

"Well, you see, Dumont, who had taken up No'th'n principles, I

reckon, more to goad the Higbees and please Sally Dows than from

any conviction, came over here that night. Whether he suspected

anything was up, or wanted to dare Higbee for bedevilment, or was

only dancing attendance on Miss Sally, no one knows. But he rode

slap into Highee's party, called out, 'If you're out hunting, Tom,

here's a chance for your score!' meaning their old vendetta feud,

and brings his shot-gun up to his shoulder. Higbee wasn't quick

enough, Dumont lets fly, drops Higbee, and then gallops off chased

by the Reeds to avenge Higbee, and followed by the whole crowd to

see the fun, which was a little better than nigger-driving. And

that let you and Cato out, colonel."

"And Dumont?"

"Got clean away to Foxboro' Station, leaving another score on his

side for the Reeds and Higbees to wipe out as best they can. You

No'th'n men don't believe in these sort of things, colonel, but

taken as a straight dash and hit o' raiding, that stroke of Sally

Dows' cousin was mighty fine!"

Courtland controlled himself with difficulty. The doctor had

spoken truly. The hero of this miserable affair was HER cousin--

HIS RIVAL! And to him--perhaps influenced by some pitying appeal

of Miss Sally for the man she had deceived--Courtland owed his

life! He instinctively drew a quick, sharp breath.

"Are you in pain?"

"Not at all. When can I get up?"

"Perhaps to-morrow."

"And this arm?"

"Better not use it for a week or two." He stopped, and, glancing

paternally at the younger man, added gravely but kindly: "If you'll

take my unprofessional advice, Colonel Courtland, you'll let this

matter simmer down. It won't hurt you and your affairs here that

folks have had a taste of your quality, and the nigger a lesson

that his fellows won't forget."

"I thank you," returned Courtland coldly; "but I think I already

understand my duty to the company I represent and the Government I

have served."

"Possibly, colonel," said the doctor quietly; "but you'll let an

older man remind you and the Government that you can't change the

habits or relations of two distinct races in a few years. Your

friend, Miss Sally Dows--although not quite in my way of thinking--

has never attempted THAT."

"I am fully aware that Miss Dows possesses diplomatic accomplishments

and graces that I cannot lay claim to," returned Courtland bitterly.

The doctor lifted his eyebrows slightly and changed the subject.

When he had gone, Courtland called for writing materials. He had

already made up his mind, and one course alone seemed proper to

him. He wrote to the president of the company, detailing the

circumstances that had just occurred, admitting the alleged

provocation given by his overseer, but pointing out the terrorism

of a mob-law which rendered his own discipline impossible. He

asked that the matter be reported to Washington, and some measures

taken for the protection of the freedmen, in the mean time he

begged to tender his own resignation, but he would stay until his

successor was appointed, or the safety of his employees secured.

Until then, he should act upon his own responsibility and according

to his judgment. He made no personal charges, mentioned no names,

asked for no exemplary prosecution or trial of the offenders, but

only demanded a safeguard against a repetition of the offense. His

next letter, although less formal and official, was more difficult.

It was addressed to the commandant of the nearest Federal barracks,

who was an old friend and former companion-in-arms. He alluded to

some conversation they had previously exchanged in regard to the

presence of a small detachment of troops at Redlands during the

elections, which Courtland at the time, however, had diplomatically

opposed. He suggested it now as a matter of public expediency and

prevention. When he had sealed the letters, not caring to expose

them to the espionage of the local postmaster or his ordinary

servants, he intrusted them to one of Miss Sally's own henchmen, to

be posted at the next office, at Bitter Creek Station, ten miles

distant.

Unfortunately, this duty accomplished, the reaction consequent on

his still weak physical condition threw him back upon himself and

his memory. He had resolutely refused to think of Miss Sally; he

had been able to withstand the suggestions of her in the presence

of her handmaid--supposed to be potent in nursing and herb-lore--

whom she had detached to wait upon him, and he had returned

politely formal acknowledgments to her inquiries. He had

determined to continue this personal avoidance as far as possible

until he was relieved, on the ground of that BUSINESS expediency

which these events had made necessary. She would see that he was

only accepting the arguments with which she had met his previous

advances. Briefly, he had recourse to that hopeless logic by which

a man proves to himself that he has no reason for loving a certain

woman, and is as incontestably convinced by the same process that

he has. And in the midst of it he weakly fell asleep, and dreamed

that he and Miss Sally were walking in the cemetery; that a hideous

snake concealed among some lilies, over which the young girl was

bending, had uplifted its triangular head to strike. That he

seized it by the neck, struggled with it until he was nearly

exhausted, when it suddenly collapsed and shrunk, leaving in his

palm the limp, crushed, and delicately perfumed little thread glove

which he remembered to have once slipped from her hand.

When he awoke, that perfume seemed to be still in the air, distinct

from the fresh but homelier scents of the garden which stole

through the window. A sense of delicious coolness came with the

afternoon breeze, that faintly trilled the slanting slats of the

blind with a slumberous humming as of bees. The golden glory of a

sinking southern sun was penciling the cheap paper on the wall with

leafy tracery and glowing arabesques. But more than that, the calm

of some potent influence--or some unseen presence--was upon him,

which he feared a movement might dispel. The chair at the foot of

his bed was empty. Sophy had gone out. He did not turn his head

to look further; his languid eyes falling aimlessly upon the carpet

at his bedside suddenly dilated. For they fell also on the

"smallest foot in the State."

He started to his elbow, but a soft hand was laid gently yet firmly

upon his shoulder, and with a faint rustle of muslin skirts Miss

Sally rose from an unseen chair at the head of his bed, and stood

beside him.

"Don't stir, co'nnle, I didn't sit where I could look in yo'r face

for fear of waking yo'. But I'll change seats now." She moved to

the chair which Sophy had vacated, drew it slightly nearer the bed,

and sat down.

"It was very kind of you--to come," said Courtland hesitatingly, as

with a strong effort he drew his eyes away from the fascinating

vision, and regained a certain cold composure, "but I am afraid my

illness has been greatly magnified. I really am quite well enough

to be up and about my business, if the doctor would permit it. But

I shall certainly manage to attend to my duty to-morrow, and I hope

to be at your service.

"Meaning that yo' don't care to see me NOW, co'nnle," she said

lightly, with a faint twinkle in her wise, sweet eyes. "I thought

of that, but as my business wouldn't wait, I brought it to yo'."

She took from the folds of her gown a letter. To his utter

amazement it was the one he had given his overseer to post to the

commandant that morning. To his greater indignation the seal was

broken.

"Who has dared?" he demanded, half rising.

Her little hand was thrust out half deprecatingly. "No one yo' can

fight, co'nnle; only ME. I don't generally open other folks'

letters, and I wouldn't have done it for MYSELF; I did for yo'."

"For me?"

"For yo'. I reckoned what yo' MIGHT do, and I told Sam to bring ME

the letters first. I didn't mind what yo' wrote to the company--

for they'll take care of yo', and their own eggs are all in the

same basket. I didn't open THAT one, but I did THIS when I saw the

address. It was as I expected, and yo' 'd given yo'self away! For

if yo' had those soldiers down here, yo' 'd have a row, sure!

Don't move, co'nnle, YO' may not care for that, it's in YO'R line.

But folks will say that the soldiers weren't sent to prevent

RIOTING, but that Co'nnle Courtland was using his old comrades to

keep order on his property at Gov'ment expense. Hol' on! Hol' on!

co'nnle," said the little figure, rising and waving its pretty arms

with a mischievous simulation of terrified deprecation. "Don't

shoot! Of course yo' didn't mean THAT, but that's about the way

that So'th'n men will put it to yo'r Gov'ment. For," she

continued, more gently, yet with the shrewdest twinkle in her gray

eyes, "if yo' really thought the niggers might need Federal

protection, yo' 'd have let ME write to the commandant to send an

escort--not to YO, but to CATO--that HE might be able to come back

in safety. Yo' 'd have had yo'r soldiers; I'd have had back my

nigger, which"--demurely--"yo' don't seem to worry yo'self much

about, co'nnle; and there isn't a So'th'n man would have objected.

But," still more demurely, and affectedly smoothing out her crisp

skirt with her little hands, "yo' haven't been troubling me much

with yo'r counsel lately."

A swift and utterly new comprehension swept over Courtland. For

the first time in his knowledge of her he suddenly grasped what

was, perhaps, the true conception of her character. Looking at her

clearly now, he understood the meaning of those pliant graces, so

unaffected and yet always controlled by the reasoning of an

unbiased intellect; her frank speech and plausible intonations!

Before him stood the true-born daughter of a long race of

politicians! All that he had heard of their dexterity, tact, and

expediency rose here incarnate, with the added grace of womanhood.

A strange sense of relief--perhaps a dawning of hope--stole over

him.

"But how will this insure Cato's safety hereafter, or give

protection to the others?" he said, fixing his eyes upon her.

"The future won't concern YO' much, co'nnle, if as yo' say here

yo'r resignation is sent in, and yo'r successor appointed," she

replied, with more gravity than she had previously shown.

"But you do not think I will leave YOU in this uncertainty," he

said passionately. He stopped suddenly, his brow darkened. "I

forgot," he added coldly, "you will be well protected. Your--

COUSIN--will give you the counsel of race--and--closer ties."

To his infinite astonishment, Miss Sally leaned forward in her

chair and buried her laughing face in both of her hands. When her

dimples had become again visible, she said with an effort, "Don't

yo' think, co'nnle, that as a peacemaker my cousin was even a

bigger failure than yo'self?"

"I don't understand," stammered Courtland.

"Don't yo' think," she continued, wiping her eyes demurely, "that

if a young woman about my size, who had got perfectly tired and

sick of all this fuss made about yo', because yo' were a No'th'n

man, managing niggers--if that young woman wanted to show her

people what sort of a radical and abolitionist a SO'TH'N man of

their own sort might become, she'd have sent for Jack Dumont as a

sample? Eh? Only, I declare to goodness, I never reckoned that he

and Higbee would revive the tomfooling of the vendetta, and take to

shootin' each other at once."

"And your sending for your cousin was only a feint to protect me?"

said Courtland faintly.

"Perhaps he didn't have to be SENT for, co'nnle," she said, with a

slight touch of coquetry. "Suppose we say, I LET HIM COME. He'd

be hanging round, for he has property here, and wanted to get me to

take it up with mine in the company. I knew what his new views and

ideas were, and I thought I'd better consult Champney--who, being a

foreigner, and an older resident than yo', was quite neutral. He

didn't happen to tell YO' anything about it--did he, co'nnle?" she

added with a grave mouth, but an indescribable twinkle in her eyes.

Courtland's face darkened. "He did--and he further told me, Miss

Dows, that he himself was your suitor, and that you had refused him

because of the objections of your people."

She raised her eyes to his swiftly and dropped them.

"And yo' think I ought to have accepted him?" she said slowly.

"No! but--you know--you told me"--he began hurriedly. But she had

already risen, and was shaking out the folds of her dress.

"We're not talking BUSINESS co'nnle--and business was my only

excuse for coming here, and taking Sophy's place. I'll send her in

to yo', now."

"But, Miss Dows!--Miss Sally!"

She stopped--hesitated--a singular weakness for so self-contained a

nature--and then slowly produced from her pocket a second letter--

the one that Courtland had directed to the company. "I didn't read

THIS letter, as I just told yo' co'nnle, for I reckon I know what's

in it, but I thought I'd bring it with me too, in case YO' CHANGED

YO'R MIND."

He raised himself on his pillow as she turned quickly away; but in

that single vanishing glimpse of her bright face he saw what

neither he nor any one else had ever seen upon the face of Sally

Dows--a burning blush!

"Miss Sally!" He almost leaped from the bed, but she was gone.

There was another rustle at the door--the entrance of Sophy.

"Call her back, Sophy, quick!" he said.

The negress shook her turbaned head. "Not much, honey! When Miss

Sally say she goes--she done gone, shuah!"

"But, Sophy!" Perhaps something in the significant face of the

girl tempted him; perhaps it was only an impulse of his forgotten

youth. "Sophy!" appealingly--"tell me!--is Miss Sally engaged to

her cousin?"

"Wat dat?" said Sophy in indignant scorn. "Miss Sally engaged to

dat Dumont! What fo'? Yo' 're crazy! No!"

"Nor Champney? Tell me, Sophy, has she a LOVER?"

For a moment the whites of Sophy's eyes were uplifted in speechless

scorn. "Yo' ask dat! Yo' lyin' dar wid dat snake-bit arm! Yo'

lyin' dar, and Miss Sally--who has only to whistle to call de fust

quality in de State raoun her--coming and going here wid you, and

trotting on yo'r arrants--and yo' ask dat! Yes! she has a lover,

and what's me', she CAN'T HELP IT; and yo' 're her lover; and

what's me', YO' can't help it either! And yo' can't back out of it

now--bo'fe of yo'--nebber! Fo' yo' 're hers, and she's yo'rs--fo'

ebber. For she sucked yo' blood."

"What!" gasped Courtland, aghast at what he believed to be the

sudden insanity of the negress.

"Yes! Whar's yo'r eyes? whar's yo'r years? who's yo' dat yo'

didn't see nor heah nuffin? When dey dragged yo' outer de swamp

dat night--wid de snake-bite freshen yo'r arm--didn't SHE, dat poh

chile!--dat same Miss Sally--frow herself down on yo', and put dat

baby mouf of hers to de wound and suck out de pizen and sabe de

life ob yo' at de risk ob her own? Say? And if dey's any troof in

Hoodoo, don't dat make yo' one blood and one soul! Go way, white

man! I'm sick of yo'. Stop dar! Lie down dar! Hol' on, co'nnle,

for massy's sake. Well, dar--I'll call her back!"

And she did!

"Look here--don't you know--it rather took me by surprise," said

Champney, a few days later, with a hearty grip of the colonel's

uninjured hand; "but I don't bear malice, old fellow, and, by Jove!

it was SUCH a sensible, all-round, business-like choice for the

girl to make that no wonder we never thought of it before. Hang it

all, you see a fellow was always so certain it would be something

out of the way and detrimental, don't you know, that would take the

fancy of a girl like that--somebody like that cousin of hers or

Higbee, or even ME, by Jove that we never thought of looking beyond

our noses--never thought of the BUSINESS! And YOU all the time so

cold and silent and matter-of-fact about it! But I congratulate

you! You've got the business down on a safe basis now, and what's

more, you've got the one woman who can run it."

They say he was a true prophet. At least the Syndicate affairs

prospered, and in course of time even the Reeds and the Higbees

participated in the benefits. There were no more racial

disturbances; only the districts polled a peaceful and SMALLER

Democratic majority at the next election. There were not wanting

those who alleged that Colonel Courtland had simply become MRS.

COURTLAND'S SUPERINTENDENT; that she had absorbed him as she had

every one who had come under her influence, and that she would not

rest until she had made him a Senator (to represent Mrs. Courtland)

in the councils of the nation. But when I last dined with them in

Washington, ten years ago, I found them both very happy and

comfortable, and I remember that Mrs. Courtland's remarks upon

Federal and State interests, the proper education of young girls,

and the management of the family, were eminently wise and practical.

THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER.

PART I.

On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay a line of bluffs

terminates in a promontory, at whose base, formed by the crumbling

debris of the cliff above, there is a narrow stretch of beach, salt

meadow, and scrub oak. The abrupt wall of rock behind it seems to

isolate it as completely from the mainland as the sea before it

separates it from the opposite shore. In spite of its contiguity

to San Francisco,--opposite also, but hidden by the sharp re-

entering curve of coast,--the locality was wild, uncultivated, and

unfrequented. A solitary fisherman's cabin half hidden in the

rocks was the only trace of habitation. White drifts of sea-gulls

and pelican across the face of the cliff, gray clouds of sandpipers

rising from the beach, the dripping flight of ducks over the salt

meadows, and the occasional splash of a seal from the rocks, were

the only signs of life that could be seen from the decks of passing

ships. And yet the fisherman's cabin was occupied by Zephas Bunker

and his young wife, and he had succeeded in wresting from the hard

soil pasturage for a cow and goats, while his lateen-sailed

fishing-boat occasionally rode quietly in the sheltered cove below.

Three years ago Zephas Bunker, an ex-whaler, had found himself

stranded on a San Francisco wharf and had "hired out" to a small

Petaluma farmer. At the end of a year he had acquired little taste

for the farmer's business, but considerable for the farmer's

youthful daughter, who, equally weary of small agriculture, had

consented to elope with him in order to escape it. They were

married at Oakland; he put his scant earnings into a fishing-boat,

discovered the site for his cabin, and brought his bride thither.

The novelty of the change pleased her, although perhaps it was but

little advance on her previous humble position. Yet she preferred

her present freedom to the bare restricted home life of her past;

the perpetual presence of the restless sea was a relief to the old

monotony of the wheat field and its isolated drudgery. For Mary's

youthful fancy, thinly sustained in childhood by the lightest

literary food, had neither been stimulated nor disillusioned by her

marriage. That practical experience which is usually the end of

girlish romance had left her still a child in sentiment. The long

absences of her husband in his fishing-boat kept her from wearying

of or even knowing his older and unequal companionship; it gave her

a freedom her girlhood had never known, yet added a protection that

suited her still childish dependency, while it tickled her pride

with its equality. When not engaged in her easy household duties

in her three-roomed cottage, or the care of her rocky garden patch,

she found time enough to indulge her fancy over the mysterious haze

that wrapped the invisible city so near and yet unknown to her; in

the sails that slipped in and out of the Golden Gate, but of whose

destination she knew nothing; and in the long smoke trail of the

mail steamer which had yet brought her no message. Like all

dwellers by the sea, her face and her thoughts were more frequently

turned towards it; and as with them, it also seemed to her that

whatever change was coming into her life would come across that

vast unknown expanse. But it was here that Mrs. Bunker was

mistaken.

It had been a sparkling summer morning. The waves were running

before the dry northwest trade winds with crystalline but colorless

brilliancy. Sheltered by the high, northerly bluff, the house and

its garden were exposed to the untempered heat of the cloudless sun

refracted from the rocky wall behind it. Some tarpaulin and ropes

lying among the rocks were sticky and odorous; the scrub oaks and

manzanita bushes gave out the aroma of baking wood; occasionally a

faint pot-pourri fragrance from the hot wild roses and beach grass

was blown along the shore; even the lingering odors of Bunker's

vocation, and of Mrs. Bunker's cooking, were idealized and refined

by the saline breath of the sea at the doors and windows. Mrs.

Bunker, in the dazzling sun, bending over her peas and lettuces

with a small hoe, felt the comfort of her brown holland sunbonnet.

Secure in her isolation, she unbuttoned the neck of her gown for

air, and did not put up the strand of black hair that had escaped

over her shoulder. It was very hot in the lee of the bluff, and

very quiet in that still air. So quiet that she heard two distinct

reports, following each other quickly, but very faint and far.

She glanced mechanically towards the sea. Two merchant-men in

midstream were shaking out their wings for a long flight, a pilot

boat and coasting schooner were rounding the point, but there was

no smoke from their decks. She bent over her work again, and in

another moment had forgotten it. But the heat, with the dazzling

reflection from the cliff, forced her to suspend her gardening, and

stroll along the beach to the extreme limit of her domain. Here

she looked after the cow that had also strayed away through the

tangled bush for coolness. The goats, impervious to temperature,

were basking in inaccessible fastnesses on the cliff itself that

made her eyes ache to climb. Over an hour passed, she was

returning, and had neared her house, when she was suddenly startled

to see the figure of a man between her and the cliff. He was

engaged in brushing his dusty clothes with a handkerchief, and

although he saw her coming, and even moved slowly towards her,

continued his occupation with a half-impatient, half-abstracted

air. Her feminine perception was struck with the circumstance that

he was in deep black, with scarcely a gleam of white showing even

at his throat, and that he wore a tall black hat. Without knowing

anything of social customs, it seemed to her that his dress was

inconsistent with his appearance there.

"Good-morning," he said, lifting his hat with a preoccupied air.

"Do you live here?"

"Yes," she said wonderingly.

"Anybody else?"

"My husband."

"I mean any other people? Are there any other houses?" he said

with a slight impatience.

"No."

He looked at her and then towards the sea. "I expect some friends

who are coming for me in a boat. I suppose they can land easily

here?"

"Didn't you yourself land here just now?" she said quickly.

He half hesitated, and then, as if scorning an equivocation, made a

hasty gesture over her shoulder and said bluntly, "No, I came over

the cliff."

"Down the cliff?" she repeated incredulously.

"Yes," he said, glancing at his clothes; "it was a rough scramble,

but the goats showed me the way."

"And you were up on the bluff all the time?" she went on curiously.

"Yes. You see--I"--he stopped suddenly at what seemed to be the

beginning of a prearranged and plausible explanation, as if

impatient of its weakness or hypocrisy, and said briefly, "Yes, I

was there."

Like most women, more observant of his face and figure, she did not

miss this lack of explanation. He was a very good-looking man of

middle age, with a thin, proud, high-bred face, which in a country

of bearded men had the further distinction of being smoothly

shaven. She had never seen any one like him before. She thought

he looked like an illustration of some novel she had read, but also

somewhat melancholy, worn, and tired.

"Won't you come in and rest yourself?" she said, motioning to the

cabin.

"Thank you," he said, still half absently. "Perhaps I'd better.

It may be some time yet before they come."

She led the way to the cabin, entered the living room--a plainly

furnished little apartment between the bedroom and the kitchen--

pointed to a large bamboo armchair, and placed a bottle of whiskey

and some water on the table before him. He thanked her again very

gently, poured out some spirits in his glass, and mixed it with

water. But when she glanced towards him again he had apparently

risen without tasting it, and going to the door was standing there

with his hand in the breast of his buttoned frock coat, gazing

silently towards the sea. There was something vaguely historical

in his attitude--or what she thought might be historical--as of

somebody of great importance who had halted on the eve of some

great event at the door of her humble cabin.

His apparent unconsciousness of her and of his surroundings, his

preoccupation with something far beyond her ken, far from piquing

her, only excited her interest the more. And then there was such

an odd sadness in his eyes.

"Are you anxious for your folks' coming?" she said at last,

following his outlook.

"I--oh no!" he returned, quickly recalling himself, "they'll be

sure to come--sooner or later. No fear of that," he added, half

smilingly, half wearily.

Mrs. Bunker passed into the kitchen, where, while apparently

attending to her household duties, she could still observe her

singular guest. Left alone, he seated himself mechanically in the

chair, and gazed fixedly at the fireplace. He remained a long time

so quiet and unmoved, in spite of the marked ostentatious clatter

Mrs. Bunker found it necessary to make with her dishes, that an

odd fancy that he was scarcely a human visitant began to take

possession of her. Yet she was not frightened. She remembered

distinctly afterwards that, far from having any concern for

herself, she was only moved by a strange and vague admiration of

him.

But her prolonged scrutiny was not without effect. Suddenly he

raised his dark eyes, and she felt them pierce the obscurity of her

kitchen with a quick, suspicious, impatient penetration, which as

they met hers gave way, however, to a look that she thought was

gently reproachful. Then he rose, stretched himself to his full

height, and approaching the kitchen door leaned listlessly against

the door-post.

"I don't suppose you are ever lonely here?"

"No, sir."

"Of course not. You have yourself and husband. Nobody interferes

with you. You are contented and happy together."

Mrs. Bunker did not say, what was the fact, that she had never

before connected the sole companionship of her husband with her

happiness. Perhaps it had never occurred to her until that moment

how little it had to do with it. She only smiled gratefully at the

change in her guest's abstraction.

"Do you often go to San Francisco?" he continued.

"I have never been there at all. Some day I expect we will go

there to live."

"I wouldn't advise you to," he said, looking at her gravely. "I

don't think it will pay you. You'll never be happy there as here.

You'll never have the independence and freedom you have here.

You'll never be your own mistress again. But how does it happen

you never were in San Francisco?" he said suddenly.

If he would not talk of himself, here at least was a chance for

Mrs. Bunker to say something. She related how her family had

emigrated from Kansas across the plains and had taken up a

"location" at Contra Costa. How she didn't care for it, and how

she came to marry the seafaring man who brought her here--all with

great simplicity and frankness and as unreservedly as to a superior

being--albeit his attention wandered at times, and a rare but

melancholy smile that he had apparently evoked to meet her

conversational advances became fixed occasionally. Even his dark

eyes, which had obliged Mrs. Bunker to put up her hair and button

her collar, rested upon her without seeing her.

"Then your husband's name is Bunker?" he said when she paused at

last. "That's one of those Nantucket Quaker names--sailors and

whalers for generations--and yours, you say, was MacEwan. Well,

Mrs. Bunker, YOUR family came from Kentucky to Kansas only lately,

though I suppose your father calls himself a Free-States man. You

ought to know something of farming and cattle, for your ancestors

were old Scotch Covenanters who emigrated a hundred years ago, and

were great stock raisers."

All this seemed only the natural omniscience of a superior being.

And Mrs. Bunker perhaps was not pained to learn that her husband's

family was of a lower degree than her own. But the stranger's

knowledge did not end there. He talked of her husband's business--

he explained the vast fishing resources of the bay and coast. He

showed her how the large colony of Italian fishermen were inimical

to the interests of California and to her husband--particularly as

a native American trader. He told her of the volcanic changes of

the bay and coast line, of the formation of the rocky ledge on

which she lived. He pointed out to her its value to the Government

for defensive purposes, and how it naturally commanded the entrance

of the Golden Gate far better than Fort Point, and that it ought to

be in its hands. If the Federal Government did not buy it of her

husband, certainly the State of California should. And here he

fell into an abstraction as deep and as gloomy as before. He

walked to the window, paced the floor with his hand in his breast,

went to the door, and finally stepped out of the cabin, moving

along the ledge of rocks to the shore, where he stood motionless.

Mrs. Bunker had listened to him with parted lips and eyes of

eloquent admiration. She had never before heard anyone talk like

THAT--she had not believed it possible that any one could have such

knowledge. Perhaps she could not understand all he said, but she

would try to remember it after he had gone. She could only think

now how kind it was of him that in all this mystery of his coming,

and in the singular sadness that was oppressing him, he should try

to interest her. And thus looking at him, and wondering, an idea

came to her.

She went into her bedroom and took down her husband's heavy pilot

overcoat and sou'wester, and handed them to her guest.

"You'd better put them on if you're going to stand there," she

said.

"But I am not cold," he said wonderingly.

"But you might be SEEN," she said simply. It was the first

suggestion that had passed between them that his presence there was

a secret. He looked at her intently, then he smiled and said, "I

think you're right, for many reasons," put the pilot coat over his

frock coat, removed his hat with the gesture of a bow, handed it to

her, and placed the sou'wester in its stead. Then for an instant

he hesitated as if about to speak, but Mrs. Bunker, with a delicacy

that she could not herself comprehend at the moment, hurried back

to the cabin without giving him an opportunity.

Nor did she again intrude upon his meditations. Hidden in his

disguise, which to her eyes did not, however, seem to conceal his

characteristic figure, he wandered for nearly an hour under the

bluff and along the shore, returning at last almost mechanically to

the cabin, where, oblivious of his surroundings, he reseated

himself in silence by the table with his cheek resting on his hand.

Presently, her quick, experienced ear detected the sound of oars in

their row-locks; she could plainly see from her kitchen window a

small boat with two strangers seated at the stern being pulled to

the shore. With the same strange instinct of delicacy, she

determined not to go out lest her presence might embarrass her

guest's reception of his friends. But as she turned towards the

living room she found he had already risen and was removing his hat

and pilot coat. She was struck, however, by the circumstance that

not only did he exhibit no feeling of relief at his deliverance,

but that a half-cynical, half-savage expression had taken the place

of his former melancholy. As he went to the door, the two gentlemen

hastily clambered up the rocks to greet him.

"Jim reckoned it was you hangin' round the rocks, but I couldn't

tell at that distance. Seemed you borrowed a hat and coat. Well--

it's all fixed, and we've no time to lose. There's a coasting

steamer just dropping down below the Heads, and it will take you

aboard. But I can tell you you've kicked up a h-ll of a row over

there." He stopped, evidently at some sign from her guest. The

rest of the man's speech followed in a hurried whisper, which was

stopped again by the voice she knew. "No. Certainly not." The

next moment his tall figure was darkening the door of the kitchen;

his hand was outstretched. "Good-by, Mrs. Bunker, and many thanks

for your hospitality. My friends here," he turned grimly to the

men behind him, "think I ought to ask you to keep this a secret

even from your husband. I DON'T! They also think that I ought to

offer you money for your kindness. I DON'T! But if you will honor

me by keeping this ring in remembrance of it"--he took a heavy seal

ring from his finger--"it's the only bit of jewelry I have about

me--I'll be very glad. Good-by!" She felt for a moment the firm,

soft pressure of his long, thin fingers around her own, and then--

he was gone. The sound of retreating oars grew fainter and fainter

and was lost. The same reserve of delicacy which now appeared to

her as a duty kept her from going to the window to watch the

destination of the boat. No, he should go as he came, without her

supervision or knowledge.

Nor did she feel lonely afterwards. On the contrary, the silence

and solitude of the isolated domain had a new charm. They kept the

memory of her experience intact, and enabled her to refill it with

his presence. She could see his tall figure again pausing before

her cabin, without the incongruous association of another

personality; she could hear his voice again, unmingled with one

more familiar. For the first time, the regular absence of her

husband seemed an essential good fortune instead of an accident of

their life. For the experience belonged to HER, and not to him and

her together. He could not understand it; he would have acted

differently and spoiled it. She should not tell him anything of

it, in spite of the stranger's suggestion, which, of course, he had

only made because he didn't know Zephas as well as she did. For

Mrs. Bunker was getting on rapidly; it was her first admission of

the conjugal knowledge that one's husband is inferior to the

outside estimate of him. The next step--the belief that he was

deceiving HER as he was THEM--would be comparatively easy.

Nor should she show him the ring. The stranger had certainly never

said anything about that! It was a heavy ring, with a helmeted

head carved on its red carnelian stone, and what looked like

strange letters around it. It fitted her third finger perfectly;

but HIS fingers were small, and he had taken it from his little

finger. She should keep it herself. Of course, if it had been

money, she would have given it to Zephas; but the stranger knew

that she wouldn't take money. How firmly he had said that "I

don't!" She felt the warm blood fly to her fresh young face at the

thought of it. He had understood her. She might be living in a

poor cabin, doing all the housework herself, and her husband only a

fisherman, but he had treated her like a lady.

And so the afternoon passed. The outlying fog began to roll in at

the Golden Gate, obliterating the headland and stretching a fleecy

bar across the channel as if shutting out from vulgar eyes the way

that he had gone. Night fell, but Zephas had not yet come. This

was unusual, for he was generally as regular as the afternoon

"trades" which blew him there. There was nothing to detain him in

this weather and at this season. She began to be vaguely uneasy;

then a little angry at this new development of his incompatibility.

Then it occurred to her, for the first time in her wifehood, to

think what she would do if he were lost. Yet, in spite of some

pain, terror, and perplexity at the possibility, her dominant

thought was that she would be a free woman to order her life as she

liked.

It was after ten before his lateen sail flapped in the little cove.

She was waiting to receive him on the shore. His good-humored

hirsute face was slightly apologetic in expression, but flushed and

disturbed with some new excitement to which an extra glass or two

of spirits had apparently added intensity. The contrast between

his evident indulgence and the previous abstemiousness of her late

guest struck her unpleasantly. "Well--I declare," she said

indignantly, "so THAT'S what kept you!"

"No," he said quickly; "there's been awful times over in 'Frisco!

Everybody just wild, and the Vigilance Committee in session. Jo

Henderson's killed! Shot by Wynyard Marion in a duel! He'll be

lynched, sure as a gun, if they ketch him."

"But I thought men who fought duels always went free."

"Yes, but this ain't no common duel; they say the whole thing was

planned beforehand by them Southern fire-eaters to get rid o'

Henderson because he's a Northern man and anti-slavery, and that

they picked out Colonel Marion to do it because he was a dead shot.

They got him to insult Henderson, so he was bound to challenge

Marion, and that giv' Marion the chyce of weppings. It was a

reg'lar put up job to kill him."

"And what's all this to do with you?" she asked, with irritation.

"Hold on, won't you! and I'll tell you. I was pickin' up nets off

Saucelito about noon, when I was hailed by one of them Vigilance

tugs, and they set me to stand off and on the shore and watch that

Marion didn't get away, while they were scoutin' inland. Ye see

THE DUEL TOOK PLACE JUST OVER THE BLUFF THERE--BEHIND YE--and they

allowed that Marion had struck away north for Mendocino to take

ship there. For after overhaulin' his second's boat, they found

out that they had come away from Saucelito ALONE. But they sent a

tug around by sea to Mendocino to head him off there, while they're

closin' in around him inland. They're bound to catch him sooner or

later. But you ain't listenin', Mollie?"

She was--in every fibre--but with her head turned towards the

window, and the invisible Golden Gate through which the fugitive

had escaped. For she saw it all now--that glorious vision--her

high-bred, handsome guest and Wynyard Marion were one and the same

person. And this rough, commonplace man before her--her own

husband--had been basely set to capture him!

PART II.

During that evening and the next Mrs. Bunker, without betraying her

secret, or exciting the least suspicion on the part of her husband,

managed to extract from him not only a rough description of Marion

which tallied with her own impressions, but a short history of his

career. He was a famous politician who had held high office in the

South; he was an accomplished lawyer; he had served in the army; he

was a fiery speaker; he had a singular command of men. He was

unmarried, but there were queer stories of his relations with some

of the wives of prominent officials, and there was no doubt that he

used them in some of his political intrigues. He, Zephas, would

bet something that it was a woman who had helped him off! Did she

speak?

Yes, she had spoken. It made her sick to sit there and hear such

stories! Because a man did not agree with some people in politics

it was perfectly awful to think how they would abuse him and take

away his character! Men were so awfully jealous, too; if another

man happened to be superior and fine-looking there wasn't anything

bad enough for them to say about him! No! she wasn't a slavery

sympathizer either, and hadn't anything to do with man politics,

although she was a Southern woman, and the MacEwans had come from

Kentucky and owned slaves. Of course, he, Zephas, whose ancestors

were Cape Cod Quakers and had always been sailors, couldn't

understand. She did not know what he meant by saying "what a long

tail our cat's got," but if he meant to call her a cat, and was

going to use such language to her, he had better have stayed in San

Francisco with his Vigilance friends. And perhaps it would have

been better if he had stayed there before he took her away from her

parents at Martinez. Then she wouldn't have been left on a desert

rock without any chance of seeing the world, or ever making any

friends or acquaintances!

It was their first quarrel. Discreetly made up by Mrs. Bunker in

some alarm at betraying herself; honestly forgiven by Zephas in a

rude, remorseful consciousness of her limited life. One or two

nights later, when he returned, it was with a mingled air of

mystery and satisfaction. "Well, Mollie," he said cheerfully, "it

looks as if your pets were not as bad as I thought them."

"My pets!" repeated Mrs. Bunker, with a faint rising of color.

"Well, I call these Southern Chivs your pets, Mollie, because you

stuck up for them so the other night. But never mind that now.

What do you suppose has happened? Jim Rider, you know, the

Southern banker and speculator, who's a regular big Injin among the

'Chivs,' he sent Cap Simmons down to the wharf while I was

unloadin' to come up and see him. Well, I went, and what do y'u

think? He told me he was gettin' up an American Fishin' Company,

and wanted me to take charge of a first-class schooner on shares.

Said he heard of me afore, and knew I was an American and a white

man, and just the chap ez could knock them Eytalians outer the

market."

"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Bunker quickly, but emphatically, "the

fishing interest ought to be American and protected by the State,

with regular charters and treaties."

"I say, Mollie," said her astonished but admiring husband, "you've

been readin' the papers or listenin' to stump speakin' sure."

"Go on," returned Mrs. Bunker impatiently, "and say what happened

next."

"Well," returned Zephas, "I first thought, you see, that it had

suthin' to do with that Marion business, particklerly ez folks

allowed he was hidin' somewhere yet, and they wanted me to run him

off. So I thought Rider might as well know that I wasn't to be

bribed, so I ups and tells him how I'd been lyin' off Saucelito the

other day workin' for the other side agin him. With that he

laughs, says he didn't want any better friends than me, but that I

must be livin' in the backwoods not to know that Wynyard Marion had

escaped, and was then at sea on his way to Mexico or Central

America. Then we agreed to terms, and the long and short of it is,

Mollie, that I'm to have the schooner with a hundred and fifty

dollars a month, and ten per cent. shares after a year! Looks like

biz, eh, Mollie, old girl? but you don't seem pleased."

She had put aside the arm with which he was drawing her to him, and

had turned her white face away to the window. So HE had gone--this

stranger--this one friend of her life--she would never see him

again, and all that would ever come of it was this pecuniary

benefit to her husband, who had done nothing. He would not even

offer her money, but he had managed to pay his debt to her in this

way that their vulgar poverty would appreciate. And this was the

end of her dream!

"You don't seem to take it in, Mollie," continued the surprised

Zephas. "It means a house in 'Frisco and a little cabin for you on

the schooner when you like."

"I don't want it! I won't have it! I shall stay here," she burst

out with a half-passionate, half-childish cry, and ran into her

bedroom, leaving the astonished Zephas helpless in his awkward

consternation.

"By Gum! I must take her to 'Frisco right off, or she'll be havin'

the high strikes here alone. I oughter knowed it would come to

this!" But although he consulted "Cap" Simmons the next day, who

informed him it was all woman's ways when "struck," and advised him

to pay out all the line he could at such delicate moments, she had

no recurrence of the outbreak. On the contrary, for days and weeks

following she seemed calmer, older, and more "growed up;" although

she resisted changing her seashore dwelling for San Francisco, she

accompanied him on one or two of his "deep sea" trips down the

coast, and seemed happier on their southern limits. She had taken

to reading the political papers and speeches, and some cheap

American histories. Captain Bunker's crew, profoundly convinced

that their skipper's wife was a "woman's rights" fanatic, with the

baleful qualities of "sea lawyer" superadded, marveled at his

bringing her.

It was on returning home from one of these trips that they touched

briefly at San Francisco, where the Secretary of the Fishing

Company came on board. Mrs. Bunker was startled to recognize in

him one of the two gentlemen who had taken Mr. Marion off in the

boat, but as he did not appear to recognize her even after an

awkward introduction by her husband, she would have recovered her

equanimity but for a singular incident. As her husband turned

momentarily away, the Secretary, with a significant gesture,

slipped a letter into her hand. She felt the blood rush to her

face as, with a smile, he moved away to follow her husband. She

came down to the little cabin and impatiently tore open the

envelope, which bore no address. A small folded note contained the

following lines:--

"I never intended to burden you with my confidence, but the

discretion, tact, and courage you displayed on our first meeting,

and what I know of your loyalty since, have prompted me to trust

myself again to your kindness, even though you are now aware whom

you have helped, and the risks you ran. My friends wish to

communicate with me and to forward to me, from time to time,

certain papers of importance, which, owing to the tyrannical

espionage of the Government, would be discovered and stopped in

passing through the express or post-office. These papers will be

left at your house, but here I must trust entirely to your wit and

judgment as to the way in which they should be delivered to my

agent at the nearest Mexican port. To facilitate your action, your

husband will receive directions to pursue his course as far south

as Todos Santos, where a boat will be ready to take charge of them

when he is sighted. I know I am asking a great favor, but I have

such confidence in you that I do not even ask you to commit

yourself to a reply to this. If it can be done I know that you

will do it; if it cannot, I will understand and appreciate the

reason why. I will only ask you that when you are ready to receive

the papers you will fly a small red pennant from the little

flagstaff among the rocks. Believe me, your friend and grateful

debtor,

"W. M."

Mrs. Bunker cast a hasty glance around her, and pressed the letter

to her lips. It was a sudden consummation of her vaguest, half-

formed wishes, the realization of her wildest dreams! To be the

confidante of the gallant but melancholy hero in his lonely exile

and persecution was to satisfy all the unformulated romantic

fancies of her girlish reading; to be later, perhaps, the Flora

Macdonald of a middle-aged Prince Charlie did not, however, evoke

any ludicrous associations in her mind. Her feminine fancy exalted

the escaped duelist and alleged assassin into a social martyr. His

actual small political intrigues and ignoble aims of office seemed

to her little different from those aspirations of royalty which she

had read about--as perhaps they were. Indeed, it is to be feared

that in foolish little Mrs. Bunker, Wynyard Marion had found the

old feminine adoration of pretension and privilege which every

rascal has taken advantage of since the flood.

Howbeit, the next morning after she had returned and Zephas had

sailed away, she flew a red bandana handkerchief on the little

flagstaff before the house. A few hours later, a boat appeared

mysteriously from around the Point. Its only occupant--a common

sailor--asked her name, and handed her a sealed package. Mrs.

Bunker's invention had already been at work. She had created an

aunt in Mexico, for whom she had, with some ostentation, made some

small purchases while in San Francisco. When her husband spoke of

going as far south as Todos Santos, she begged him to deliver the

parcel to her aunt's messenger, and even addressed it boldly to

her. Inside the outer wrapper she wrote a note to Marion, which,

with a new and amazing diffidence, she composed and altered a dozen

times, at last addressing the following in a large, school-girl

hand: "Sir, I obey your commands to the last. Whatever your

oppressors or enemies may do, you can always rely and trust upon

She who in deepest sympathy signs herself ever, Mollie Rosalie

MacEwan." The substitution of her maiden name in full seemed in

her simplicity to be a delicate exclusion of her husband from the

affair, and a certain disguise of herself to alien eyes. The

superscription, "To Mrs. Marion MacEwan from Mollie Bunker, to be

called for by hand at Todos Santos," also struck her as a marvel of

ingenuity. The package was safely and punctually delivered by

Zephas, who brought back a small packet directed to her, which on

private examination proved to contain a letter addressed to "J. E.

Kirby, to be called for," with the hurried line: "A thousand

thanks, W. M." Mrs. Bunker drew a long, quick breath. He might

have written more; he might have--but the wish remained still

unformulated. The next day she ran up a signal; the same boat and

solitary rower appeared around the Point, and took the package. A

week later, when her husband was ready for sea, she again hoisted

her signal. It brought a return package for Mexico, which she

inclosed and readdressed, and gave to her husband. The recurrence

of this incident apparently struck a bright idea from the simple

Zephas.

"Look here, Mollie, why don't you come YOURSELF and see your aunt.

I can't go into port without a license, and them port charges cost

a heap o' red tape, for they've got a Filibuster scare on down

there just now, but you can go ashore in the boat and I'll get

permission from the Secretary to stand off and wait for you there

for twenty-four hours." Mrs. Bunker flushed and paled at the

thought. She could see him! The letter would be sufficient

excuse, the distrust suggested by her husband would give color to

her delivering it in person. There was perhaps a brief twinge of

conscience in taking this advantage of Zephas' kindness, but the

next moment, with that peculiar logic known only to the sex, she

made the unfortunate man's suggestion a condonation of her deceit.

SHE hadn't asked to go; HE had offered to take her. He had only

himself to thank.

Meantime the political excitement in which she had become a

partisan without understanding or even conviction, presently

culminated with the Presidential campaign and the election of

Abraham Lincoln. The intrigues of Southern statesmen were revealed

in open expression, and echoed in California by those citizens of

Southern birth and extraction who had long, held place, power, and

opinion there. There were rumors of secession, of California

joining the South, or of her founding an independent Pacific

Empire. A note from "J. E. Kirby" informed Mrs. Bunker that she

was to carefully retain any correspondence that might be in her

hands until further orders, almost at the same time that Zephas as

regretfully told her that his projected Southern trip had been

suspended. Mrs. Bunker was disappointed, and yet, in some singular

conditions of her feelings, felt relieved that her meeting with

Marion was postponed. It is to be feared that some dim conviction,

unworthy a partisan, that in the magnitude of political events her

own petty personality might be overlooked by her hero tended

somewhat to her resignation.

Meanwhile the seasons had changed. The winter rains had set in;

the trade winds had shifted to the southeast, and the cottage,

although strengthened, enlarged, and made more comfortable through

the good fortunes of the Bunkers, was no longer sheltered by the

cliff, but was exposed to the full strength of the Pacific gales.

There were long nights when she could hear the rain fall monotonously

on the shingles, or startle her with a short, sharp reveille en the

windows; there were brief days of flying clouds and drifting

sunshine, and intervals of dull gray shadow, when the heaving white

breakers beyond the Gate slowly lifted themselves and sank before

her like wraiths of warning. At such times, in her accepted

solitude, Mrs. Bunker gave herself up to strange moods and singular

visions; the more audacious and more striking it seemed to her from

their very remoteness, and the difficulty she was beginning to have

in materializing them. The actual personality of Wynyard Marion, as

she knew it in her one interview, had become very shadowy and faint

in the months that passed, yet when the days were heavy she

sometimes saw herself standing by his side in some vague tropical

surroundings, and hailed by the multitude as the faithful wife and

consort of the great Leader, President, Emperor--she knew not what!

Exactly how this was to be managed, and the manner of Zephas'

effacement from the scene, never troubled her childish fancy, and,

it is but fair to say, her woman's conscience. In the logic before

alluded to, it seemed to her that all ethical responsibility for her

actions rested with the husband who had unduly married her. Nor

were those visions always roseate. In the wild declamation of that

exciting epoch which filled the newspapers there was talk of short

shrift with traitors. So there were days when the sudden onset of a

squall of hail against her window caused her to start as if she had

heard the sharp fusillade of that file of muskets of which she had

sometimes read in history.

One day she had a singular fright. She had heard the sound of oars

falling with a precision and regularity unknown to her. She was

startled to see the approach of a large eight-oared barge rowed by

men in uniform, with two officers wrapped in cloaks in the stern

sheets, and before them the glitter of musket barrels. The two

officers appeared to be conversing earnestly, and occasionally

pointing to the shore and the bluff above. For an instant she

trembled, and then an instinct of revolt and resistance followed.

She hurriedly removed the ring, which she usually wore when alone,

from her finger, slipped it with the packet under the mattress of

her bed, and prepared with blazing eyes to face the intruders. But

when the boat was beached, the two officers, with scarcely a glance

towards the cottage, proceeded leisurely along the shore. Relieved,

yet it must be confessed a little piqued at their indifference, she

snatched up her hat and sallied forth to confront them.

"I suppose you don't know that this is private property?" she said

sharply.

The group halted and turned towards her. The orderly, who was

following, turned his face aside and smiled. The younger officer

demurely lifted his cap. The elder, gray, handsome, in a general's

uniform, after a moment's half-astounded, half-amused scrutiny of

the little figure, gravely raised his gauntleted fingers in a

military salute.

"I beg your pardon, madam, but I am afraid we never even thought of

that. We are making a preliminary survey for the Government with a

possible view of fortifying the bluff. It is very doubtful if you

will be disturbed in any rights you may have, but if you are, the

Government will not fail to make it good to you." He turned

carelessly to the aide beside him. "I suppose the bluff is quite

inaccessible from here?"

"I don't know about that, general. They say that Marion, after he

killed Henderson, escaped down this way," said the young man.

"Indeed, what good was that? How did he get away from here?"

"They say that Mrs. Fairfax was hanging round in a boat, waiting

for him. The story of the escape is all out now."

They moved away with a slight perfunctory bow to Mrs. Bunker, only

the younger officer noting that the pert, pretty little Western

woman wasn't as sharp and snappy to his superior as she had at

first promised to be.

She turned back to the cottage astounded, angry, and vaguely

alarmed. Who was this Mrs. Fairfax who had usurped her fame and

solitary devotion? There was no woman in the boat that took him

off; it was equally well known that he went in the ship alone. If

they had heard that some woman was with him here--why should they

have supposed it was Mrs. Fairfax? Zephas might know something--

but he was away. The thought haunted her that day and the next.

On the third came a more startling incident.

She had been wandering along the edge of her domain in a state of

restlessness which had driven her from the monotony of the house

when she heard the barking of the big Newfoundland dog which Zephas

had lately bought for protection and company. She looked up and

saw the boat and its solitary rower at the landing. She ran

quickly to the house to bring the packet. As she entered she

started back in amazement. For the sitting-room was already in

possession of a woman who was seated calmly by the table.

The stranger turned on Mrs. Bunker that frankly insolent glance and

deliberate examination which only one woman can give another. In

that glance Mrs. Bunker felt herself in the presence of a superior,

even if her own eyes had not told her that in beauty, attire, and

bearing the intruder was of a type and condition far beyond her

own, or even that of any she had known. It was the more crushing

that there also seemed to be in this haughty woman the same

incongruousness and sharp contrast to the plain and homely

surroundings of the cottage that she remembered in HIM.

"Yo' aw Mrs. Bunker, I believe," she said in languid Southern

accents. "How de doh?"

"I am Mrs. Bunker," said Mrs. Bunker shortly.

"And so this is where Cunnle Marion stopped when he waited fo' the

boat to take him off," said the stranger, glancing lazily around,

and delaying with smiling insolence the explanation she knew Mrs.

Bunker was expecting. "The cunnle said it was a pooh enough place,

but I don't see it. I reckon, however, he was too worried to judge

and glad enough to get off. Yo' ought to have made him talk--he

generally don't want much prompting to talk to women, if they're

pooty."

"He didn't seem in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Bunker indignantly.

The next moment she saw her error, even before the cruel, handsome

smile of her unbidden guest revealed it.

"I thought so," she said lazily; "this IS the place and here's

where the cunnle stayed. Only yo' oughtn't have given him and

yo'self away to the first stranger quite so easy. The cunnle might

have taught yo' THAT the two or three hours he was with yo'."

"What do you want with me?" demanded Mrs. Bunker angrily.

"I want a letter yo' have for me from Cunnle Marion."

"I have nothing for you," said Mrs. Bunker. "I don't know who you

are."

"You ought to, considering you've been acting as messenger between

the cunnle and me," said the lady coolly.

"That's not true," said Mrs. Bunker hotly, to combat an inward

sinking.

The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door and

called still lazily, "O Pedro!"

The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the

cottage threshold.

"Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom you

took mine?"

"Si, senora."

"They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker sullenly.

"How was I to know they were for Mrs. Kirby?"

"Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kirby, and myself are all the same. You don't

suppose the cunnle would give my real name and address? Did you

address yo'r packet to HIS real name or to some one else. Did you

let your husband know who they were for?"

Oddly, a sickening sense of the meanness of all these deceits and

subterfuges suddenly came over Mrs. Bunker. Without replying she

went to her bedroom and returned with Colonel Marion's last letter,

which she tossed into her visitor's lap.

"Thank yo', Mrs. Bunker. I'll be sure to tell the cunnle how

careful yo' were not to give up his correspondence to everybody.

It'll please him mo' than to hear yo' are wearing his ring--which

everybody knows--before people."

"He gave it to me--he--he knew I wouldn't take money," said Mrs.

Bunker indignantly.

"He didn't have any to give," said the lady slowly, as she removed

the envelope from her letter and looked up with a dazzling but

cruel smile. "A So'th'n gentleman don't fill up his pockets when

he goes out to fight. He don't tuck his maw's Bible in his breast-

pocket, clap his dear auntie's locket big as a cheese plate over

his heart, nor let his sole leather cigyar case that his gyrl gave

him lie round him in spots when he goes out to take another

gentleman's fire. He leaves that to Yanks!"

"Did you come here to insult my husband?" said Mrs. Bunker in the

rage of desperation.

"To insult yo' husband! Well--I came here to get a letter that his

wife received from his political and natural enemy and--perhaps I

DID!" With a side glance at Mrs. Bunker's crimson cheek she added

carelessly, "I have nothing against Captain Bunker; he's a

straightforward man and must go with his kind. He helped those

hounds of Vigilantes because he believes in them. We couldn't

bribe him if we wanted to. And we don't."

If she only knew something of this woman's relations to Marion--

which she only instinctively suspected--and could retaliate upon

her, Mrs. Bunker felt she would have given up her life at that

moment.

"Colonel Marion seems to find plenty that he can bribe," she said

roughly, "and I've yet to know who YOU are to sit in judgment on

them. You've got your letter, take it and go! When he wants to

send you another through me, somebody else must come for it, not

you. That's all!"

She drew back as if to let the intruder pass, but the lady, without

moving a muscle, finished the reading of her letter, then stood up

quietly and began carefully to draw her handsome cloak over her

shoulders. "Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker," she said,

arranging the velvet collar under her white oval chin. "Well, I'm

a So'th'n woman from Figinya, and I'm Figinyan first, last, and all

the time." She shook out her sleeves and the folds of her cloak.

"I believe in State rights and slavery--if you know what that

means. I hate the North, I hate the East, I hate the West. I hate

this nigger Government, I'd kill that man Lincoln quicker than

lightning!" She began to draw down the fingers of her gloves,

holding her shapely hands upright before her. "I'm hard and fast

to the Cause. I gave up house and niggers for it." She began to

button her gloves at the wrist with some difficulty, tightly

setting together her beautiful lips as she did so. "I gave up my

husband for it, and I went to the man who loved it better and had

risked more for it than ever he had. Cunnle Marion's my friend.

I'm Mrs. Fairfax, Josephine Hardee that was; HIS disciple and

follower. Well, maybe those puritanical No'th'n folks might give

it another name!"

She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold paused,

as Colonel Marion had, and came back to Mrs. Bunker with an

outstretched hand. "I don't see that yo' and me need quo'll. I

didn't come here for that. I came here to see yo'r husband, and

seeing YO' I thought it was only right to talk squarely to yo', as

yo' understand I WOULDN'T talk to yo'r husband. Mrs. Bunker, I

want yo'r husband to take me away--I want him to take me to the

cunnle. If I tried to go in any other way I'd be watched, spied

upon and followed, and only lead those hounds on his track. I

don't expect yo' to ASK yo' husband for me, but only not to

interfere when I do."

There was a touch of unexpected weakness in her voice and a look of

pain in her eyes which was not unlike what Mrs. Bunker had seen and

pitied in Marion. But they were the eyes of a woman who had

humbled her, and Mrs. Bunker would have been unworthy her sex if

she had not felt a cruel enjoyment in it. Yet the dominance of the

stranger was still so strong that she did not dare to refuse the

proffered hand. She, however, slipped the ring from her finger and

laid it in Mrs. Fairfax's palm.

"You can take that with you," she said, with a desperate attempt to

imitate the other's previous indifference. "I shouldn't like to

deprive you and YOUR FRIEND of the opportunity of making use of it

again. As for MY husband, I shall say nothing of you to him as

long as you say nothing to him of me--which I suppose is what you

mean."

The insolent look came back to Mrs. Fairfax's face. "I reckon yo'

're right," she said quietly, putting the ring in her pocket as she

fixed her dark eyes on Mrs. Bunker, "and the ring may be of use

again. Good-by, Mrs. Bunker."

She waved her hand carelessly, and turning away passed out of the

house. A moment later the boat and its two occupants pushed from

the shore, and disappeared round the Point.

Then Mrs. Bunker looked round the room, and down upon her empty

finger, and knew that it was the end of her dream. It was all over

now--indeed, with the picture of that proud, insolent woman before

her she wondered if it had ever begun. This was the woman she had

allowed herself to think SHE might be. This was the woman HE was

thinking of when he sat there; this was the Mrs. Fairfax the

officers had spoken of, and who had made her--Mrs. Bunker--the go-

between for their love-making! All the work that she had done for

him, the deceit she had practiced on her husband, was to bring him

and this woman together! And they both knew it, and had no doubt

laughed at her and her pretensions!

It was with a burning cheek that she thought how she had intended

to go to Marion, and imagined herself arriving perhaps to find that

shameless woman already there. In her vague unformulated longings

she had never before realized the degradation into which her

foolish romance might lead her. She saw it now; that humiliating

moral lesson we are all apt to experience in the accidental display

of our own particular vices in the person we hate, she had just

felt in Mrs. Fairfax's presence. With it came the paralyzing fear

of her husband's discovery of her secret. Secure as she had been

in her dull belief that he had in some way wronged her by marrying

her, she for the first time began to doubt if this condoned the

deceit she had practiced on him. The tribute Mrs. Fairfax had paid

him--this appreciation of his integrity and honesty by an enemy and

a woman like herself--troubled her, frightened her, and filled her

with her first jealousy! What if this woman should tell him all;

what if she should make use of him as Marion had of her! Zephas

was a strong Northern partisan, but was he proof against the

guileful charms of such a devil? She had never thought before of

questioning his fidelity to her; she suddenly remembered now some

rough pleasantries of Captain Simmons in regard to the inconstancy

of his calling. No! there was but one thing for her to do: she

would make a clean breast to him; she would tell him everything she

had done except the fatal fancy that compelled her to it! She

began to look for his coming now with alternate hope and fear--with

unabated impatience! The night that he should have arrived passed

slowly; morning came, but not Zephas. When the mist had lifted she

ran impatiently to the rocks and gazed anxiously towards the lower

bay. There were a few gray sails scarce distinguishable above the

grayer water--but they were not his. She glanced half mechanically

seaward, and her eyes became suddenly fixed. There was no mistake!

She knew the rig!--she could see the familiar white lap-streak as

the vessel careened on the starboard tack--it was her husband's

schooner slowly creeping out of the Golden Gate!

PART III.

Her first wild impulse was to run to the cove, for the little

dingey always moored there, and to desperately attempt to overtake

him. But the swift consciousness of its impossibility was followed

by a dull, bewildering torpor, that kept her motionless, helplessly

following the vessel with straining eyes, as if they could evoke

some response from its decks. She was so lost in this occupation

that she did not see that a pilot-boat nearly abreast of the cove

had put out a two-oared gig, which was pulling quickly for the

rocks. When she saw it, she trembled with the instinct that it

brought her intelligence. She was right; it was a brief note from

her husband, informing her that he had been hurriedly dispatched on

a short sea cruise; that in order to catch the tide he had not time

to go ashore at the bluff, but he would explain everything on his

return. Her relief was only partial; she was already experienced

enough in his vocation to know that the excuse was a feeble one.

He could easily have "fetched" the bluff in tacking out of the Gate

and have signaled to her to board him in her own boat. The next

day she locked up her house, rowed round the Point to the

Embarcadero, where the Bay steamboats occasionally touched and took

up passengers to San Francisco. Captain Simmons had not seen her

husband this last trip; indeed, did not know that he had gone out

of the Bay. Mrs. Bunker was seized with a desperate idea. She

called upon the Secretary of the Fishing Trust. That gentle man

was business-like, but neither expansive nor communicative. Her

husband had NOT been ordered out to sea by them; she ought to know

that Captain Bunker was now his own master, choosing his own

fishing grounds, and his own times and seasons. He was not aware

of any secret service for the Company in which Captain Bunker was

engaged. He hoped Mrs. Bunker would distinctly remember that the

little matter of the duel to which she referred was an old bygone

affair, and never anything but a personal matter, in which the

Fishery had no concern whatever, and in which HE certainly should

not again engage. He would advise Mrs. Bunker, if she valued her

own good, and especially her husband's, to speedily forget all

about it. These were ugly times, as it was. If Mrs. Bunker's

services had not been properly rewarded or considered it was

certainly a great shame, but really HE could not be expected to

make it good. Certain parties had cost him trouble enough already.

Besides, really, she must see that his position between her

husband, whom he respected, and a certain other party was a

delicate one. But Mrs. Bunker heard no more. She turned and ran

down the staircase, carrying with her a burning cheek and blazing

eye that somewhat startled the complacent official.

She did not remember how she got home again. She had a vague

recollection of passing through the crowded streets, wondering if

the people knew that she was an outcast, deserted by her husband,

deceived by her ideal hero, repudiated by her friends! Men had

gathered in knots before the newspaper offices, excited and

gesticulating over the bulletin boards that had such strange

legends as "The Crisis," "Details of an Alleged Conspiracy to

Overthrow the Government," "The Assassin of Henderson to the Fore

Again," "Rumored Arrests on the Mexican Frontier." Sometimes she

thought she understood the drift of them; even fancied they were

the outcome of her visit--as if her very presence carried treachery

and suspicion with it--but generally they only struck her benumbed

sense as a dull, meaningless echo of something that had happened

long ago. When she reached her house, late that night, the

familiar solitude of shore and sea gave her a momentary relief, but

with it came the terrible conviction that she had forfeited her

right to it, that when her husband came back it would be hers no

longer, and that with their meeting she would know it no more. For

through all her childish vacillation and imaginings she managed to

cling to one steadfast resolution. She would tell him EVERYTHING,

and know the worst. Perhaps he would never come; perhaps she

should not be alive to meet him.

And so the days and nights slowly passed. The solitude which her

previous empty deceit had enabled her to fill with such charming

visions now in her awakened remorse seemed only to protract her

misery. Had she been a more experienced, though even a more

guilty, woman she would have suffered less. Without sympathy or

counsel, without even the faintest knowledge of the world or its

standards of morality to guide her, she accepted her isolation and

friendlessness as a necessary part of her wrongdoing. Her only

criterion was her enemy--Mrs. Fairfax--and SHE could seek her

relief by joining her lover; but Mrs. Bunker knew now that she

herself had never had one--and was alone! Mrs. Fairfax had broken

openly with her husband; but SHE had DECEIVED hers, and the

experience and reckoning were still to come. In her miserable

confession it was not strange that this half child, half woman,

sometimes looked towards that gray sea, eternally waiting for her,--

that sea which had taken everything from her and given her nothing

in return,--for an obliterating and perhaps exonerating death!

The third day of her waiting isolation was broken upon by another

intrusion. The morning had been threatening, with an opaque,

motionless, livid arch above, which had taken the place of the

usual flying scud and shaded cloud masses of the rainy season. The

whole outlying ocean, too, beyond the bar, appeared nearer, and

even seemed to be lifted higher than the Bay itself, and was lit

every now and then with wonderful clearness by long flashes of

breaking foam like summer lightning. She knew that this meant a

southwester, and began, with a certain mechanical deliberation, to

set her little domain in order against the coming gale. She drove

the cows to the rude shed among the scrub oaks, she collected the

goats and young kids in the corral, and replenished the stock of

fuel from the woodpile. She was quite hidden in the shrubbery when

she saw a boat making slow headway against the wind towards the

little cove where but a moment before she had drawn up the dingey

beyond the reach of breaking seas. It was a whaleboat from

Saucelito containing a few men. As they neared the landing she

recognized in the man who seemed to be directing the boat the

second friend of Colonel Marion--the man who had come with the

Secretary to take him off, but whom she had never seen again. In

her present horror of that memory she remained hidden, determined

at all hazards to avoid a meeting. When they had landed, one of

the men halted accidentally before the shrubbery where she was

concealed as he caught his first view of the cottage, which had

been invisible from the point they had rounded.

"Look here, Bragg," he said, turning to Marion's friend, in a voice

which was distinctly audible to Mrs. Bunker. "What are we to say

to these people?"

"There's only one," returned the other. "The man's at sea. His

wife's here. She's all right."

"You said she was one of us?"

"After a fashion. She's the woman who helped Marion when he was

here. I reckon he made it square with her from the beginning, for

she forwarded letters from him since. But you can tell her as much

or as little as you find necessary when you see her."

"Yes, but we must settle that NOW," said Bragg sharply, "and I

propose to tell her NOTHING. I'm against having any more

petticoats mixed up with our affairs. I propose to make an

examination of the place without bothering our heads about her."

"But we must give some reason for coming here, and we must ask her

to keep dark, or we'll have her blabbing to the first person she

meets," urged the other.

"She's not likely to see anybody before night, when the brig will

be in and the men and guns landed. Move on, and let Jim take

soundings off the cove, while I look along the shore. It's just as

well that there's a house here, and a little cover like this"--

pointing to the shrubbery--"to keep the men from making too much of

a show until after the earthworks are up. There are sharp eyes

over at the Fort."

"There don't seem to be any one in the house now," returned the

other after a moment's scrutiny of the cottage, "or the woman would

surely come out at the barking of the dog, even if she hadn't seen

us. Likely she's gone to Saucelito."

"So much the better. Just as well that she should know nothing

until it happens. Afterwards we'll settle with the husband for the

price of possession; he has only a squatter's rights. Come along;

we'll have bad weather before we get back round the Point again,

but so much the better, for it will keep off any inquisitive

longshore cruisers."

They moved away. But Mrs. Bunker, stung through her benumbed and

brooding consciousness, and made desperate by this repeated

revelation of her former weakness, had heard enough to make her

feverish to hear more. She knew the intricacies of the shrubbery

thoroughly. She knew every foot of shade and cover of the

clearing, and creeping like a cat from bush to bush she managed,

without being discovered, to keep the party in sight and hearing

all the time. It required no great discernment, even for an

inexperienced woman like herself, at the end of an hour, to gather

their real purpose. It was to prepare for the secret landing of an

armed force, disguised as laborers, who, under the outward show of

quarrying in the bluff, were to throw up breastworks, and fortify

the craggy shelf. The landing was fixed for that night, and was to

be effected by a vessel now cruising outside the Heads.

She understood it all now. She remembered Marion's speech about

the importance of the bluff for military purposes; she remembered

the visit of the officers from the Fort opposite. The strangers

were stealing a march upon the Government, and by night would be in

possession. It was perhaps an evidence of her newly awakened and

larger comprehension that she took no thought of her loss of home

and property,--perhaps there was little to draw her to it now,--but

was conscious only of a more terrible catastrophe--a catastrophe to

which she was partly accessory, of which any other woman would have

warned her husband--or at least those officers of the Fort whose

business it was to-- Ah, yes! the officers of the Fort--only just

opposite to her! She trembled, and yet flushed with an

inspiration. It was not too late yet--why not warn them NOW?

But how? A message sent by Saucelito and the steamboat to San

Francisco--the usual way--would not reach them tonight. To go

herself, rowing directly across in the dingey, would be the only

security of success. If she could do it? It was a long pull--the

sea was getting up--but she would try.

She waited until the last man had stepped into the boat, in nervous

dread of some one remaining. Then, when the boat had vanished

round the Point again, she ran back to the cottage, arrayed herself

in her husband's pilot coat, hat, and boots, and launched the

dingey. It was a heavy, slow, but luckily a stanch and seaworthy

boat. It was not until she was well off shore that she began to

feel the full fury of the wind and waves, and knew the difficulty

and danger of her undertaking. She had decided that her shortest

and most direct course was within a few points of the wind, but the

quartering of the waves on the broad bluff bows of the boat tended

to throw it to leeward, a movement that, while it retarded her

forward progress, no doubt saved the little craft from swamping.

Again, the feebleness and shortness of her stroke, which never

impelled her through a rising wave, but rather lifted her half way

up its face, prevented the boat from taking much water, while her

steadfast gaze, fixed only on the slowly retreating shore, kept her

steering free from any fatal nervous vacillation, which the sight

of the threatening seas on her bow might have produced. Preserved

through her very weakness, ignorance, and simplicity of purpose,

the dingey had all the security of a drifting boat, yet retained a

certain gentle but persistent guidance. In this feminine fashion

she made enough headway to carry her abreast of the Point, where

she met the reflux current sweeping round it that carried her well

along into the channel, now sluggish with the turn of the tide.

After half an hour's pulling, she was delighted to find herself

again in a reverse current, abreast of her cottage, but steadily

increasing her distance from it. She was, in fact, on the extreme

outer edge of a vast whirlpool formed by the force of the gale on a

curving lee shore, and was being carried to her destination in a

semicircle around that bay which she never could have crossed. She

was moving now in a line with the shore and the Fort, whose

flagstaff, above its green, square, and white quarters, she could

see distinctly, and whose lower water battery and landing seemed to

stretch out from the rocks scarcely a mile ahead. Protected by the

shore from the fury of the wind, and even of the sea, her progress

was also steadily accelerated by the velocity of the current,

mingling with the ebbing tide. A sudden fear seized her. She

turned the boat's head towards the shore, but it was swept quickly

round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at

her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the

trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize

it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to

drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she

could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that seemed blown and

scattered above her head; she even thought she could see some men

in blue uniforms moving along the little pier. She was passing it;

another fruitless effort to regain her ground, but she was swept

along steadily towards the Gate, the whitening bar, and the open

sea.

She knew now what it all meant. This was what she had come for;

this was the end! Beyond, only a little beyond, just a few moments

longer to wait, and then, out there among the breakers was the rest

that she had longed for but had not dared to seek. It was not her

fault; they could not blame HER. He would come back and never know

what had happened--nor even know how she had tried to atone for her

deceit. And he would find his house in possession of--of--those

devils! No! No! she must not die yet, at least not until she had

warned the Fort. She seized the oars again with frenzied strength;

the boat had stopped under the unwonted strain, staggered, tried to

rise in an uplifted sea, took part of it over her bow, struck down

Mrs. Bunker under half a ton of blue water that wrested the oars

from her paralyzed hands like playthings, swept them over the

gunwale, and left her lying senseless in the bottom of the boat.

. . . . . .

"Hold har-rd--or you'll run her down."

"Now then, Riley,--look alive,--is it slapin' ye are!"

"Hold yer jaw, Flanigan, and stand ready with the boat-hook. Now

then, hold har-rd!"

The sudden jarring and tilting of the water-logged boat, a sound of

rasping timbers, the swarming of men in shirtsleeves and blue

trousers around her, seemed to rouse her momentarily, but she again

fainted away.

When she struggled back to consciousness once more she was wrapped

in a soldier's jacket, her head pillowed on the shirt-sleeve of an

artillery corporal in the stern sheets of that eight-oared

government barge she had remembered. But the only officer was a

bareheaded, boyish lieutenant, and the rowers were an athletic but

unseamanlike crew of mingled artillerymen and infantry.

"And where did ye drift from, darlint?"

Mrs. Bunker bridled feebly at the epithet.

"I didn't drift. I was going to the Fort."

"The Fort, is it?"

"Yes. I want to see the general."

"Wadn't the liftenant do ye? Or shure there's the adjutant; he's a

foine man."

"Silence, Flanigan," said the young officer sharply. Then turning

to Mrs. Bunker he said, "Don't mind HIM, but let his wife take you

to the canteen, when we get in, and get you some dry clothes."

But Mrs. Bunker, spurred to convalescence at the indignity,

protested stiffly, and demanded on her arrival to be led at once to

the general's quarters. A few officers, who had been attracted to

the pier by the rescue, acceded to her demand.

She recognized the gray-haired, handsome man who had come ashore

at her house. With a touch of indignation at her treatment, she

briefly told her story. But the general listened coldly and

gravely with his eyes fixed upon her face.

"You say you recognized in the leader of the party a man you had

seen before. Under what circumstances?"

Mrs. Bunker hesitated with burning cheeks. "He came to take

Colonel Marion from our place."

"When you were hiding him,--yes, we've heard the story. Now, Mrs.

Bunker, may I ask you what you, as a Southern sympathizer, expect

to gain by telling me this story?"

But here Mrs. Bunker burst out. "I am not a Southern sympathizer!

Never! Never! Never! I'm a Union woman,--wife of a Northern man.

I helped that man before I knew who he was. Any Christian,

Northerner or Southerner, would have done the same!"

Her sincerity and passion were equally unmistakable. The general

rose, opened the door of the adjoining room, said a few words to an

orderly on duty, and returned. "What you are asking of me, Mrs.

Bunker, is almost as extravagant and unprecedented as your story.

You must understand, as well as your husband, that if I land a

force on your property it will be to TAKE POSSESSION of it in the

name of the Government, for Government purposes."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Bunker eagerly; "I know that. I am willing;

Zephas will be willing."

"And," continued the general, fixing his eyes on her face, "you

will also understand that I may be compelled to detain you here as

a hostage for the safety of my men."

"Oh no! no! please!" said Mrs. Bunker, springing up with an

imploring feminine gesture; "I am expecting my husband. He may

be coming back at any moment; I must be there to see him FIRST!

Please let me go back, sir, with your men; put me anywhere ashore

between them and those men that are coming. Lock me up; keep me a

prisoner in my own home; do anything else if you think I am

deceiving you; but don't keep me here to miss him when he comes!"

"But you can see him later," said the general.

"But I must see him FIRST," said Mrs. Bunker desperately. "I must

see him first, for--for--HE KNOWS NOTHING OF THIS. He knows

nothing of my helping Colonel Marion; he knows nothing of--how

foolish I have been, and--he must not know it from others! There!"

It was out at last. She was sobbing now, but her pride was gone.

She felt relieved, and did not even notice the presence of two or

three other officers, who had entered the room, exchanged a few

hurried words with their superior, and were gazing at her in

astonishment.

The general's brow relaxed, and he smiled. "Very well, Mrs.

Bunker; it shall be as you like, then. You shall go and meet your

husband with Captain Jennings here,"--indicating one of the

officers,--"who will take charge of you and the party."

"And," said Mrs. Bunker, looking imploringly through her wet but

pretty lashes at the officer, "he won't say anything to Zephas,

either?"

"Not a syllable," said Captain Jennings gravely. "But while the

tug is getting ready, general, hadn't Mrs. Bunker better go to Mrs.

Flanigan?"

"I think not," said the general, with a significant look at the

officer as he gallantly offered his arm to the astonished Mrs.

Bunker, "if she will allow me the pleasure of taking her to my

wife."

There was an equally marked respect in the manner of the men and

officers as Mrs. Bunker finally stepped on board the steam tug that

was to convey the party across the turbulent bay. But she heeded

it not, neither did she take any concern of the still furious gale,

the difficult landing, the preternatural activity of the band of

sappers, who seemed to work magic with their picks and shovels, the

shelter tents that arose swiftly around her, the sheds and bush

inclosures that were evoked from the very ground beneath her feet;

the wonderful skill, order, and discipline that in a few hours

converted her straggling dominion into a formal camp, even to the

sentinel, who was already calmly pacing the rocks by the landing as

if he had being doing it for years! Only one thing thrilled her--

the sudden outburst, fluttering and snapping of the national flag

from her little flagstaff. He would see it--and perhaps be

pleased!

And indeed it seemed as if the men had caught the infection of her

anxiety, for when her strained eyes could no longer pierce the

murky twilight settling over the Gate, one came running to her to

say that the lookout had just discovered through his glass a close-

reefed schooner running in before the wind. It was her husband,

and scarcely an hour after night had shut in the schooner had

rounded to off the Point, dropped her boat, and sped away to

anchorage. And then Mrs. Bunker, running bareheaded down the

rocks, breaking in upon the hurried explanation of the officer of

the guard, threw herself upon her husband's breast, and sobbed and

laughed as if her heart would break!

Nor did she scarcely hear his hurried comment to the officer and

unconscious corroboration of her story: how a brig had raced them

from the Gate, was heading for the bar, but suddenly sheered off

and put away to sea again, as if from some signal from the

headland. "Yes--the bluff," interrupted Captain Jennings bitterly,

"I thought of that, but the old man said it was more diplomatic

just now to PREVENT an attempt than even to successfully resist

it."

But when they were alone again in their little cottage, and Zephas'

honest eyes--with no trace of evil knowledge or suspicion in their

homely, neutral lightness--were looking into hers with his usual

simple trustfulness, Mrs. Bunker trembled, whimpered, and--I grieve

to say--basely funked her boasted confession. But here the Deity

which protects feminine weakness intervened with the usual miracle.

As he gazed at his wife's troubled face, an apologetic cloud came

over his rugged but open brow, and a smile of awkward deprecating

embarrassment suffused his eyes. "I declare to goodness, Mollie,

but I must tell you suthin, although I guess I didn't kalkilate to

say a word about it. But, darn it all, I can't keep it in. No!

Lookin' inter that innercent face o' yourn"--pressing her flushing

cheeks between his cool brown hands--"and gazing inter them two

truthful eyes"--they blinked at this moment with a divine modesty--

"and thinkin' of what you've just did for your kentry--like them

revolutionary women o' '76--I feel like a darned swab of a traitor

myself. Well! what I want ter tell you is this: Ye know, or ye've

heard me tell o' that Mrs. Fairfax, as left her husband for that

fire-eatin' Marion, and stuck to him through thick and thin, and

stood watch and watch with him in this howlin' Southern rumpus

they're kickin' up all along the coast, as if she was a man

herself. Well, jes as I hauled up at the wharf at 'Frisco, she

comes aboard.

"'You're Cap Bunker?' she says.

"'That's me, ma'am,' I says.

"'You're a Northern man and you go with your kind,' sez she; 'but

you're a white man, and thar's no cur blood in you.' But you ain't

listenin', Mollie; you're dead tired, lass,"--with a commiserating

look at her now whitening face,--"and I'll haul in line and wait.

Well, to cut it short, she wanted me to take her down the coast a

bit to where she could join Marion. She said she'd been shook by

his friends, followed by spies--and, blame my skin, Mollie, ef that

proud woman didn't break down and CRY like a baby. Now, Mollie,

what got ME in all this, was that them Chivalry folks--ez was

always jawin' about their 'Southern dames' and their 'Ladye fairs,'

and always runnin' that kind of bilge water outer their scuppers

whenever they careened over on a fair wind--was jes the kind to

throw off on a woman when they didn't want her, and I kinder

thought I'd like HER to see the difference betwixt the latitude o'

Charleston and Cape Cod. So I told her I didn't want the jewelry

and dimons she offered me, but if she would come down to the wharf,

after dark, I'd smuggle her aboard, and I'd allow to the men that

she was YOUR AUNTIE ez I was givin' a free passage to! Lord! dear!

think o' me takin' the name o' Mollie Bunker's aunt in vain for

that sort o' woman! Think o' me," continued Captain Bunker with a

tentative chuckle, "sort o' pretendin' to hand yo'r auntie to

Kernel Marion for--for his lady love! I don't wonder ye's half

frighted and half laffin'," he added, as his wife uttered a

hysterical cry; "it WAS awful! But it worked, and I got her off,

and wot's more I got her shipped to Mazatlan, where she'll join

Marion, and the two are goin' back to Virginy, where I guess they

won't trouble Californy again. Ye know now, deary," he went on,

speaking with difficulty through Mrs. Bunker's clinging arms and

fast dripping tears, "why I didn't heave to to say 'good-by.' But

it's all over now--I've made a clean breast of it, Mollie--and

don't you cry!"

But it was NOT all over. For a moment later Captain Bunker began

to fumble in his waistcoat pocket with the one hand that was not

clasping his wife's waist. "One thing more, Mollie; when I left

her and refused to take any of her dimons, she put a queer sort o'

ring into my hand, and told me with a kind o' mischievious,

bedevilin' smile, that I must keep it to remember her by. Here it

is--why, Mollie lass! are you crazy?"

She had snatched it from his fingers and was running swiftly from

the cottage out into the tempestuous night. He followed closely,

until she reached the edge of the rocks. And only then, in the

struggling, fast-flying moonlight, she raised a passionate hand,

and threw it far into the sea!

As he led her back to the cottage she said she was jealous, and

honest Captain Bunker, with his arm around her, felt himself the

happiest man in the world!

. . . . . .

From that day the flag flew regularly over the rocky shelf, and, in

time, bugles and morning drumbeats were wafted from it to the decks

of passing ships. For the Federal Government had adjudged the land

for its own use, paid Captain Bunker a handsome sum for its

possession, and had discreetly hidden the little cottage of Mrs.

Bunker and its history forever behind bastion and casemate.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUCKEYE CAMP

PART I.

The tiny lights that had been far scattered and intermittent as

fireflies all along the dark stream at last dropped out one by one,

leaving only the three windows of "Parks' Emporium" to pierce the

profoundly wooded banks of the South Fork. So all-pervading was

the darkness that the mere opening of the "Emporium" front door

shot out an illuminating shaft which revealed the whole length of

the little main street of "Buckeye," while the simple passing of a

single figure before one of the windows momentarily eclipsed a

third of the settlement. This undue pre-eminence given to the only

three citizens of Buckeye who were still up at ten o 'clock seemed

to be hardly justified by their outward appearance, which was that

of ordinary long-bearded and long-booted river bar miners. Two sat

upon the counter with their hands upon their knees, the third

leaned beside the open window.

It was very quiet. The faint, far barking of a dog, or an

occasional subdued murmur from the river shallows, audible only

when the wind rose slightly, helped to intensify their solitude.

So supreme had it become that when the man at the window at last

continued his conversation meditatively, with his face towards it,

he seemed to be taking all Nature into his confidence.

"The worst thing about it is, that the only way we can keep her out

of the settlement is by the same illegal methods which we deplore

in other camps. We have always boasted that Buckeye could get

along without Vigilance Committees or Regulators."

"Yes, and that was because we started it on the principle of

original selection, which we are only proposing to continue,"

replied one of the men on the counter. "So there's nothing wrong

about our sending a deputation to wait upon her, to protest against

her settling here, and give her our reasons."

"Yes, only it has all the impudence without the pluck of the

Regulators. You demand what you are afraid to enforce. Come,

Parks, you know she has all the rights on her side. Look at it

squarely. She proposes to open a store and sell liquor and cigars,

which she serves herself, in the broken-down tienda which was

regularly given to her people by the Spanish grantee of the land

we're squatting on. It's not her fault but ours if we've adopted a

line of rules, which don't agree with hers, to govern the settlers

on HER land, nor should she be compelled to follow them. Nor

because we justify OUR squatting here, on the ground that the

Spanish grant isn't confirmed yet, can we forbid her squatting

under the same right."

"But look at the moral question, Brace. Consider the example; the

influence of such a shop, kept by such a woman, on the community!

We have the right to protect ourselves--the majority."

"That's the way the lynchers talk," returned Brace. "And I'm not

so sure about there being any moral question yet. You are assuming

too much. There is no reason why she shouldn't run the tienda as

decently--barring the liquor sale, which, however, is legal, and

for which she can get a license--as a man could, and without

interfering with our morals."

"Then what is the use of our rules?"

"They were made for those who consented to adopt them, as we all

did. They still bind US, and if we don't choose to buy her liquor

or cigars that will dispose of her and her tienda much more

effectually than your protest. It's a pity she's a lone

unprotected woman. Now if she only had a husband"--

"She carries a dagger in her garter."

This apparently irrelevant remark came from the man who had not yet

spoken, but who had been listening with the languid unconcern of

one who, relinquishing the labor of argument to others, had

consented to abide by their decision. It was met with a scornful

smile from each of the disputants, perhaps even by an added shrug

of the shoulders from the woman's previous defender! HE was

evidently not to be taken in by extraneous sentiment. Nevertheless,

both listened as the speaker, slowly feeling his knees as if they

were his way to a difficult subject, continued with the same

suggestion of stating general fact, but waiving any argument

himself. "Clarkson of Angels allows she's got a free, gaudy,

picter-covered style with the boys, but that she can be gilt-edged

when she wants to. Rowley Meade--him ez hed his skelp pulled over

his eyes at one stroke, foolin' with a she bear over on Black

Mountain--allows it would be rather monotonous in him attemptin' any

familiarities with her. Bulstrode's brother, ez was in Marysville,

said there was a woman--like to her, but not her--ez made it lively

for the boys with a game called 'Little Monte,' and he dropped a

hundred dollars there afore he came away. They do say that about

seven men got shot in Marysville on account o' this one, or from

some oneasiness that happened at her shop. But then," he went on

slowly and deferentially as the faces of the two others were lowered

and became fixed, "SHE says she tired o' drunken rowdies,--there's a

sameness about 'em, and it don't sell her pipes and cigars, and

that's WHY she's coming here. Thompson over at Dry Creek sez that

THAT'S where our reputation is playin' us! 'We've got her as a

reward o' virtoo, and be d----d to us.' But," cautiously, "Thompson

ain't drawed a sober breath since Christmas."

The three men looked in each other's faces in silence. The same

thought occurred to each; the profane Thompson was right, and the

woman's advent was the logical sequence of their own ethics. Two

years previously, the Buckeye Company had found gold on the South

Fork, and had taken up claims. Composed mainly of careful,

provident, and thoughtful men,--some of cultivation and

refinement,--they had adopted a certain orderly discipline for

their own guidance solely, which, however, commended itself to

later settlers, already weary of the lawlessness and reckless

freedom which usually attended the inception of mining settlements.

Consequently the birth of Buckeye was accompanied with no dangerous

travail; its infancy was free from the diseases of adolescent

communities. The settlers, without any express prohibition, had

tacitly dispensed with gambling and drinking saloons; following the

unwritten law of example, had laid aside their revolvers, and

mingled together peacefully when their labors were ended, without

a single peremptory regulation against drinking and playing, or

carrying lethal weapons. Nor had there been any test of fitness or

qualification for citizenship through previous virtue. There were

one or two gamblers, a skillful duelist, and men who still drank

whiskey who had voluntarily sought the camp. Of some such

antecedents was the last speaker. Probably with two wives

elsewhere, and a possible homicidal record, he had modestly held

aloof from obtrusive argument.

"Well, we must have a meeting and put the question squarely to the

boys to-morrow," said Parks, gazing thoughtfully from the window.

The remark was followed by another long silence. Beyond, in the

darkness, Buckeye, unconscious of the momentous question awaiting

its decision, slept on peacefully.

"I brought the keg of whiskey and brandy from Red Gulch to-day that

Doctor Duchesne spoke of," he resumed presently. "You know he said

we ought to have some in common stock that he could always rely

upon in emergencies, and for use after the tule fever. I didn't

agree with him, and told him how I had brought Sam Denver through

an attack with quinine and arrowroot, but he laughed and wanted to

know if we'd 'resolved' that everybody should hereafter have the

Denver constitution. That's the trouble with those old army

surgeons,--they never can get over the 'heroics' of their past.

Why he told Parson Jennings that he'd rather treat a man for jim-

jams than one that was dying for want of stimulants. However, the

liquor is here, and one of the things we must settle tomorrow is

the question if it ought not to be issued only on Duchesne's

prescription. When I made that point to him squarely, he grinned

again, and wanted to know if I calculated to put the same

restriction on the sale of patent medicines and drugs generally."

"'N powder 'n shot," contributed the indifferent man.

"Perhaps you'd better take a look at the liquor, Saunders," said

Parks, dismissing the ethical question. "YOU know more about it

than we do. It ought to be the best."

Saunders went behind the counter, drew out two demijohns, and,

possibly from the force of habit, selected THREE mugs from the

crockery and poured some whiskey into each, before he could check

himself.

"Perhaps we had better compare tastes," said Brace blandly. They

all sipped their liquor slowly and in silence. The decision was

favorable. "Better try some with water to see how it mixes," said

Saunders, lazily filling the glasses with a practiced hand. This

required more deliberation, and they drew their chairs to the table

and sat down. A slight relaxation stole over the thoughtful faces

of Brace and Parks, a gentle perspiration came over the latter's

brow, but the features and expression of Saunders never changed.

The conversation took a broader range; politics and philosophy

entered into it; literature and poetry were discussed by Parks and

Brace, Saunders still retaining the air of a dispassionate

observer, ready to be convinced, but abstaining from argument--and

occasionally replenishing the glasses. There was felt to be no

inconsistency between their present attitude and their previous

conversation; rather it proved to them that gentlemen could

occasionally indulge in a social glass together without frequenting

a liquor saloon. This was stated with some degree of effusion by

Parks and assented to with singular enthusiasm by Brace; Saunders

nodding. It was also observed with great penetration by Brace that

in having really GOOD, specially selected liquor like that, the

great danger of the intoshikat'n 'fx--he corrected himself with

great deliberation, "the intoxicating effects"--of adulterated

liquors sold in drinking saloons was obviated. Mr. Brace thought

also that the vitiated quality of the close air of a crowded saloon

had a great deal to do with it--the excess of carbon--hic--he

begged their pardon--carbonic acid gas undoubtedly rendered people

"slupid and steepy." "But here, from the open window," he walked

dreamily to it and leaned out admiringly towards the dark landscape

that softly slumbered without, "one could drink in only health and

poetry."

"Wot's that?" said Saunders, looking up.

"I said health and poetry," returned Brace with some dignity. "I

repeat"--

"No. I mean wot's that noise? Listen."

They listened so breathlessly that the soft murmur of the river

seemed to flow in upon them. But above it quite distinctly came

the regular muffled beat of horse-hoofs in the thick dust and the

occasional rattle of wheels over rocky irregularities. But still

very far and faint, and fading like the noises in a dream. Brace

drew a long breath; Parks smiled and softly closed his eyes. But

Saunders remained listening.

"That was over OUR road, near the turnpike!" he said musingly.

"That's queer; thar ain't any of the boys away to-night, and that's

a wagon. It's some one comin' here. Hark to that! There it is

again."

It was the same sound but more distinct and nearer, and then was

lost again.

"They're dragging through the river sand that's just abreast o'

Mallory's. Stopped there, I reckon. No! pushin' on again. Hear

'em grinding along the gravel over Hamilton's trailin's? Stopped

agin--that's before Somerville's shanty. What's gone o' them now?

Maybe they've lost the trail and got onto Gray's slide through the

woods. It's no use lookin'; ye couldn't see anything in this

nigger dark. Hol' on! If they're comin' through the woods, ye'll

hear 'em again jest off here. Yes! by thunder! here they are."

This time the clatter and horse-hoofs were before them, at the very

door. A man's voice cried, "Whoa!" and there was a sudden bound on

the veranda. The door opened; for an instant the entrance appeared

to be filled with a mass of dazzling white flounces, and a figure

which from waist to crown was impenetrably wrapped and swathed in

black lace. Somewhere beneath its folds a soft Spanish, yet

somewhat childish voice cried, "Tente. Hol' on," turned and

vanished. This was succeeded by the apparition of a silent,

swarthy Mexican, who dropped a small trunk at their feet and

vanished also. Then the white-flounced and black-laced figure

reappeared as the departing wagon rattled away, glided to the

centre of the room, placed on the trunk a small foot, whose low-

quartered black satin slipper seemed to be held only by the toe,

threw back with both hands the black lace mantilla, which was

pinned by a rose over her little right ear, and with her hands

slightly extended and waving softly said, "Mira caballeros! 'Ere

we are again, boys! Viva! Aow ees your mother? Aow ees that for

high? Behold me! just from Pike!"

Parks and Brace, who had partly risen, fell back hopelessly in

their chairs again and gazed at the figure with a feeble smile of

vacuous pain and politeness. At which it advanced, lowered its

black eyes mischievously over the table and the men who sat there,

poured out a glass of the liquor, and said: "I look towards you,

boys! Don't errise. You are just a leetle weary, eh? A leetle.

Oh yes! a leetle tired of crookin' your elbow--eh? Don't care if

the school keep!--eh? Don't want any pie! Want to go 'ome, eh?"

But here Mr. Parks rose with slight difficulty, but unflinching

dignity, and leaned impressively over the table, "May I ashk--may I

be permitted to arsk, madam, to what we may owe the pleasure of

thish--of this--visit?"

Her face and attitude instantly changed. Her arms dropped and

caught up the mantilla with a quick but not ungraceful sweep, and

in apparently a single movement she was draped, wrapped, and

muffled from waist to crown as before. With a slight inclination

of her head, she said in quite another voice: "Si, senor. I have

arrive here because in your whole great town of Booki there is not

so much as one"--she held up a small brown finger--"as much as ONE

leetle light or fire like thees; be-cause in this grand pueblo

there is not one peoples who have not already sleep in his bed but

thees! Bueno! I have arrive all the same like a leetle bird, like

the small fly arrive to the light! not to YOU--only to THE LIGHT!

I go not to my casa for she is dark, and tonight she have nothing

to make the fire or bed. I go not to the 'otel--there is not ONE"--

the brown finger again uplifted--"'otel in Booki! I make the

'otel--the Fonda--in my hoose manana--to-morrow! Tonight I and

Sanchicha make the bed for us 'ere. Sanchicha, she stands herself

now over in the street. We have mooch sorrow we have to make the

caballeros mooch tr-rouble to make disposition of his house. But

what will you?"

There was another awkward silence, and then Saunders, who had been

examining the intruder with languid criticism, removed his pipe

from his mouth and said quietly:--

"That's the woman you're looking for--Jovita Mendez!"

PART II.

The rest of that interview has not been recorded. Suffice it that

a few minutes later Parks, Brace, and Saunders left the Emporium,

and passed the night in the latter's cabin, leaving the Emporium

in possession of Miss Mendez and her peon servant; that at the

earliest dawn the two women and their baggage were transferred to

the old adobe house, where, however, a Mexican workman had already

arrived, and with a basketful of red tiles was making it habitable.

Buckeye, which was popularly supposed to sleep with one eye on the

river, and always first repaired there in the morning to wash and

work, was only awake to the knowledge of the invasion at noon. The

meeting so confidently spoken of the night before had NOT been

called. Messrs. Parks and Brace were suffering from headaches--

undoubtedly a touch of tule chill. Saunders, at work with his

partner in Eagle Bar, was as usual generous with apparently

irrelevant facts on all subjects--but that of the strangers. It

would seem as if the self-constituted Committee of Safety had done

nothing.

And nothing whatever seemed to happen! Thompson of Angels, smoking

a meditative pipe at noon on the trail noticed the repairing of the

old adobe house, casually spoke of it on his return to his work,

without apparent concern or exciting any comment. The two

Billinger brothers saw Jovita Mendez at the door of her house an

hour later, were themselves seen conversing with her by Jim Barker,

but on returning to their claim, neither they nor Barker exhibited

any insurrectionary excitement. Later on, Shuttleworth was found

in possession of two bundles of freshly rolled corn-husk cigarettes,

and promised to get his partner some the next day, but that

gentleman anticipated him. By nightfall nearly all Buckeye had

passed in procession before the little house without exhibiting any

indignation or protest. That night, however, it seemed as if the

events for which the Committee was waiting were really impending.

The adult female population of Buckeye consisted of seven

women--wives of miners. That they would submit tamely to the

introduction of a young, pretty, and presumably dangerous member of

their own sex was not to be supposed. But whatever protest they

made did not pass beyond their conjugal seclusion, and was

apparently not supported by their husbands. Two or three of them,

under the pretext of sympathy of sex, secured interviews with the

fair intruder, the result of which was not, however, generally

known. But a few days later Mrs. "Bob" Carpenter--a somewhat

brick-dusty blonde--was observed wearing some black netting and a

heavily flounced skirt, and Mrs. Shuttleworth in her next visit to

Fiddletown wore her Paisley shawl affixed to her chestnut hair by a

bunch of dog-roses, and wrapped like a plaid around her waist. The

seven ladies of Buckeye, who had never before met, except on

domestic errands to each other's houses or on Sunday attendance at

the "First Methodist Church" at Fiddletown, now took to walking

together, or in their husbands' company, along the upper bank of the

river--the one boulevard of Buckeye. The third day after Miss

Mendez' arrival they felt the necessity of immediate shopping

expeditions to Fiddletown. This operation had hitherto been

confined to certain periods, and restricted to the laying in of

stores of rough household stuffs; but it now apparently included a

wider range and more ostentatious quality. Parks' Emporium no

longer satisfied them, and this unexpected phase of the situation

was practically brought home to the proprietor in the necessity of

extending the more inoffensive and peaceful part of his stock. And

when, towards the end of the week, a cartload of pretty fixtures,

mirrors, and furniture arrived at the tienda, there was a renewed

demand at the Emporium for articles not in stock, and the consequent

diverting of custom to Fiddletown. Buckeye found itself face to

face with a hitherto undreamt of and preposterous proposition. It

seemed that the advent of the strange woman, without having yet

produced any appreciable effect upon the men, had already

insidiously inveigled the adult female population into ostentatious

extravagance.

At the end of a week the little adobe house was not only rendered

habitable, but was even made picturesque by clean white curtains at

its barred windows, and some bright, half-Moorish coloring of beams

and rafters. Nearly the whole ground floor was given up to the

saloon of the tienda, which consisted of a small counter at one

side, containing bottles and glasses, and another, flanking it,

with glass cases, containing cigars, pipes, and tobacco, while the

centre of the room was given up to four or five small restaurant

tables. The staff of Jovita was no longer limited to Sanchicha,

but had been augmented by a little old man of indefinite antiquity

who resembled an Aztec idol, and an equally old Mexican, who looked

not unlike a brown-tinted and veined tobacco leaf himself, and

might have stood for a sign. But the genius of the place, its

omnipresent and all-pervading goddess, was Jovita! Smiling,

joyous, indefatigable in suavity and attention; all-embracing in

her courtesies; frank of speech and eye; quick at repartee and

deftly handling the slang of the day and the locality with a

childlike appreciation and an infantine accent that seemed to

redeem it from vulgarity or unfeminine boldness! Few could resist

the volatile infection of her presence. A smile was the only

tribute she exacted, and good-humor the rule laid down for her

guests. If it occasionally required some mental agility to respond

to her banter, a Californian gathering was, however, seldom lacking

in humor. Yet she was always the principal performer to an

admiring audience. Perhaps there was security in this multitude

of admirers; perhaps there was a saving grace in this humorous

trifling. The passions are apt to be serious and solitary, and

Jovita evaded them with a jest,--which, if not always delicate or

witty, was effective in securing the laughter of the majority and

the jealousy of none.

At the end of the week another peculiarity was noticed. There was

a perceptible increase of the Mexican population, who had always

hitherto avoided Buckeye. On Sunday an Irish priest from El Pasto

said mass in a patched-up corner of the old Mission ruin opposite

Rollinson's Ford. A few lounging "Excelsior" boys were equally

astonished to see Jovita's red rose crest and black mantilla glide

by, and followed her unvarying smile and jesting salutation up to

the shadow of the crumbling portal. At vespers nearly all Buckeye,

hitherto virtuously skeptical and good-humoredly secure in Works

without Faith, made a point of attending; it was alleged by some to

see if Jovita's glossy Indian-inky eyes would suffer aberration in

her devotions. But the rose-crested head was never lifted from the

well-worn prayer-book or the brown hands which held a certain poor

little cheap rosary like a child's string of battered copper coins.

Buckeye lounged by the wall through the service with respectful

tolerance and uneasy shifting legs, and came away. But the

apparently simple event did not end there. It was unconsciously

charged with a tremendous import to the settlement. For it was

discovered the next day by Mrs. "Bob" Carpenter and Nan

Shuttleworth that the Methodist Church at Fiddletown was too far

away, and Buckeye ought to have a preacher of its own. Seats were

fitted up in the loft of Carpenter's store-house, where the

Reverend Henry McCorkle held divine service, and instituted a Bible

class. At the end of two weeks it appeared that Jovita's invasion--

which was to bring dissipation and ruin to Buckeye--had indirectly

brought two churches! A chilling doubt like a cold mist settled

along the river. As the two rival processions passed on the third

Sunday, Jo Bateman, who had been in the habit of reclining on that

day in his shirtsleeves under a tree, with a novel in his hand,

looked gloomily after them. Then knocking the ashes from his pipe,

he rose, shook hands with his partners, said apologetically that he

had lately got into the habit of RESPECTING THE SABBATH, and was

too old to change again, and so shook the red dust of Buckeye from

his feet and departed.

As yet there had not been the slightest evidence of disorderly

conduct on the part of the fair proprietress of the tienda, nor her

customers, nor any drunkenness or riotous disturbance that could

be at all attributed to her presence. There was, it is true,

considerable hilarity, smoking, and some gambling there until a

late hour, but this could not be said to interfere with the rest

and comfort of other people. A clue to the mystery of so

extraordinary a propriety was given by Jovita herself. One day she

walked into Parks' Emporium and demanded an interview with the

proprietor.

"You have made the rules for thees Booki?"

"Yes--that is--I and my friends have."

"And when one shall not have mind the rule--when one have say, 'No!

damn the rule,' what shall you make to him? Shall you aprison

him?"

Mr. Parks hastened to say with a superior, yet engaging smile that

it never had been necessary, as the rules were obligatory upon the

honor and consent of all--and were never broken. "Except," he

added, still more engagingly, "she would remember, in her case--

with their consent."

"And your caballeros break not the rules?"

"No."

"Then they shall not break the rules of me--at MY TIENDA! Look! I

have made the rule that I shall not have a caballero drunk at my

house; I have made the rule that I shall not sell him the

aguardiente when he have too mooch. I have made the rule that when

he gamble too mooch, when he put up too mooch money, I say 'No!' I

will not that he shall! I make one more rule: that he shall not

quarrel nor fight in my house. When he quarrel and fight, I say

'Go! Vamos! Get out!'"

"And very good rules they are too, Miss Mendez."

Jovita fixed her shining black eyes on the smiling Parks. "And

when he say, 'No, nevarre, damn the rules!' When he come drunk,

remain drunk, play high and fight, YOU will not poonish him? YOU

will not take him out?"

"Well, you see, the fact is, I have not the power."

"Are you not the Alcalde?"

"No. There is a Justice of the Peace at Fiddletown, but even he

could do nothing to enforce your rules. But if anything should

happen, you can make a complaint to him."

"Bueno. You have not the power; I have. I make not the complaint

to Fiddletown. I make the complaint to Jose Perez, to Manuel, to

Antonio, to Sanchicha--she is a strong one! I say 'Chook him out.'

They chook him out! they remove him! He does not r-r-remain.

Enough. Bueno. Gracias, senor, good-a-by!"

She was gone. For the next four days Parks was in a state of some

anxiety--but it appeared unnecessarily so. Whether the interview

had become known along the river did not transpire, but there

seemed to be no reason for Miss Mendez to enforce her rules. It

was said that once, when Thompson of Angels was a little too noisy,

he had been quietly conducted by his friends from the tienda

without the intervention of Jose. The frequenters of the saloon

became its police.

Yet the event--long protracted--came at last! It was a dry,

feverish, breezeless afternoon, when the short, echoless explosion

of a revolver puffed out on the river, followed by another,

delivered so rapidly that they seemed rolled into one. There was

no mistaking that significant repetition. ONE shot might have been

an accident; TWO meant intention. The men dropped their picks and

shovels and ran--ran as they never before ran in Buckeye--ran

mechanically, blindly groping at their belts and pockets for the

weapons that hung there no longer; ran aimlessly, as to purpose,

but following instinctively with hurried breath and quivering

nostrils the cruel scent of powder and blood. Ran until, reaching

the tienda, the foremost stumbled over the body of Shuttleworth;

came upon the half-sitting, half-leaning figure of Saunders against

its adobe wall! The doors were barred and closed, and even as the

crowd charged furiously forward, a window was sharply shut above,

in their very face.

"Stand back, gentlemen! Lift him up. What's the row? What is it,

Saunders? Who did it? Speak, man!"

But Saunders, who was still supporting himself against the wall,

only looked at them with a singular and half-apologetic smile, and

then leaned forward as if to catch the eye of Shuttleworth, who was

recovering consciousness in the uplifted arms of his companions.

But neither spoke.

"It's some d----d Greaser inside!" said Thompson, with sudden

ferocity. "Some of her cursed crew! Break down the doors, boys!"

"Stop!"

It was the voice of Shuttleworth, speaking with an effort. He was

hard hit, somewhere in the groin; pain and blood were coming with

consciousness and movement, and his face was ghastly. Yet there

was the same singular smile of embarrassment which Saunders had

worn, and a touch of invincible disgust in his voice as he

stammered quickly, "Don't be d----d fools! It's no one in THERE.

It's only me and HIM! He'll tell you that. Won't you, Saunders?"

"Yes," said Saunders, leaning anxiously forward, with a brightening

face. "D--n it all--can't you see? It's only--only us."

"You and me, that's all," repeated Shuttleworth, with a feverish

laugh. "Only our d----d foolishness! Think of it, boys! He gave

me the lie, and I drew!"

"Both of us full, you know--reg'lar beasts," said Saunders, sinking

back against the wall. "Kick me, somebody, and finish me off."

"I don't see any weapons here," said Brace gravely, examining the

ground.

"They're inside," said Shuttleworth with tremulous haste. "We

began it in there--just like hogs, you know! Didn't we, Saunders?"

bitterly.

"You bet," said Saunders faintly. "Reg'lar swine."

Parks looked graver still, and as he passed a handkerchief around

the wounded man's thigh, said: "But I don't see where you got your

pistols, and how you got out here."

"Clinched, you know; sorter rolled over out here--and--and--oh,

d--n it--don't talk!"

"He means," said Shuttleworth still feebly, "that we--we--grabbed

ANOTHER MAN'S six-shooter and--and--he that is--and they--he--he

and me grabbed each other, and--don't you see--?" but here,

becoming more involved and much weaker, he discreetly fainted away.

And that was all Buckeye ever knew of the affair! For they refused

to speak of it again, and Dr. Duchesne gravely forbade any further

interrogation. Both men's revolvers were found undischarged in

their holsters, hanging in their respective cabins. The balls

which were afterwards extracted from the two men singularly

disappeared; Dr. Duchesne asserting with a grim smile that they had

swallowed them.*

* It was a frontier superstition that the ball extracted from a

gunshot wound, if swallowed by the wounded man, prevented

inflammation or any supervening complications.

Nothing could be ascertained of the facts at the tienda, which at

that hour of the day appeared to have been empty of customers, and

was occupied only by Miss Mendez and her retainers. All surmises

as to the real cause of the quarrel and the reason for the

reticence of the two belligerents were suddenly and unexpectedly

stopped by their departure from Buckeye as soon as their condition

permitted, on the alleged opinion of Dr. Duchesne that the air of

the river was dangerous to their convalescence. The momentary

indignation against the tienda which the two combatants had

checked, eventually subsided altogether. After all, the fight had

taken place OUTSIDE; it was not even proven that the provocation

had been given AT the tienda! Its popularity was undiminished.

PART III.

It was the end of the rainy season, and a wet night. Brace and

Parks were looking from the window over the swollen river, with

faces quite as troubled as the stream below. Nor was the prospect

any longer the same. In the past two years Buckeye had grown into

a city. They could now count a half dozen church spires from the

window of the three-storied brick building which had taken the

place of the old wooden Emporium, but they could also count the

brilliantly lit windows of an equal number of saloons and gambling-

houses which glittered through the rain, or, to use the words of a

local critic, "Shone seven nights in the week to the Gospel shops'

ONE!" A difficulty had arisen which the two men had never dreamed

of, and a struggle had taken place between the two rival powers,

which was developing a degree of virulence and intolerance on both

sides that boded no good to Buckeye. The disease which its infancy

had escaped had attacked its adult growth with greater violence.

The new American saloons which competed with Jovita Mendez' Spanish

venture had substituted a brutal masculine sincerity for her veiled

feminine methods. There was higher play, deeper drinking, darker

passion. Yet the opposition, after the fashion of most reformers,

were casting back to the origin of the trouble in Jovita, and were

confounding principles and growth. "If it had not been for her the

rule would never have been broken." "If there was to be a cleaning

out of the gambling houses, she must go first!"

The sounds of a harp and a violin played in the nearest saloon

struggled up to them with the opening and shutting of its swinging

baize inner doors. There was boisterous chanting from certain

belated revelers in the next street which had no such remission.

The brawling of the stream below seemed to be echoed in the uneasy

streets; the quiet of the old days had departed with the sedate,

encompassing woods that no longer fringed the river bank; the

restful calm of Nature had receded before the dusty outskirts of

the town.

"It's mighty unfortunate, too," said Brace moodily, "that

Shuttleworth and Saunders, who haven't been in the place since

their row, have come over from Fiddletown to-day, and are banging

around town. They haven't said anything that I know of, but their

PRESENCE is quite enough to revive the old feeling against her

shop. The Committee," he added bitterly, "will be sure to say that

not only the first gambling, but the first shooting in Buckeye took

place there. If they get up that story again--no matter how quiet

SHE has become since--no matter what YOU may say as mayor--it will

go hard with her. What's that now?"

They listened breathlessly. Above the brawling of the river, the

twanging of the harp-player, and the receding shouts of the

revelers, they could hear the hollow wooden sidewalks resounding

with the dull, monotonous trampling of closely following feet.

Parks rose with a white face.

"Brace!"

"Yes!"

"Will you stand by me--and HER?"

"Stand by YOU AND HER? Eh? What? Good God! Parks!--you don't

mean to say you--it's gone as far as THAT?"

"Will you or won't you?"

The sound of the trampling had changed to a shuffling on the

pavement below, and then footsteps began to ascend the stairs.

Brace held out his hand quickly and grasped that of Parks as

the door opened to half a dozen men. They were evidently the

ringleaders of the crowd below. There was no hesitation or

doubt in their manner; the unswerving directness which always

characterized those illegal demonstrations lent it something of

dignity. Nevertheless, Carpenter, the spokesman, flushed slightly

before Parks' white, determined face.

"Come, Parks, you know what we're after," he said bluntly. "We

didn't come here to parley. We knew YOUR sentiments and what YOU

think is your duty. We know what we consider OURS--and so do you.

But we're here to give you a chance, either as mayor, or, if you

prefer it, as the oldest citizen here, to take a hand in our

business to-night. We're not ashamed of what we're going to do,

and we're willing to abide by it; so there's no reason why we

shouldn't speak aboveboard of it to you. We even invite you to

take part in our last 'call' tonight at the Hall."

"Go!" whispered Brace quickly, "YOU'LL GAIN TIME!"

Parks' face changed, and he turned to Carpenter. "Enough," he said

gravely. "I reserve what I have to say of these proceedings till I

join you there." He stopped, whispered a few words to Brace, and

then disappeared as the men descended the stairs, and, joining the

crowd on the pavement, proceeded silently towards the Town Hall.

There was nothing in the appearance of that decorous procession to

indicate its unlawful character or the recklessness with which it

was charged.

There were thirty or forty men already seated in the Hall. The

meeting was brief and to the point. The gambling saloons were to

be "cleaned out" that night, the tables and appliances thrown into

the street and burnt, the doors closed, and the gamblers were to be

conducted to the outskirts of the town and forbidden to enter it

again on pain of death.

"Does this yer refer to Jovita Mendez' saloon?" asked a voice.

To their surprise the voice was not Parks' but Shuttleworth's. It

was also a matter to be noted that he stood a little forward of the

crowd, and that there was a corresponding movement of a dozen or

more men from Fiddletown who apparently were part of the meeting.

The chairman (No. 10) said there was to be no exception, and

certainly not for the originator of disorder in Buckeye! He was

surprised that the question should be asked by No. 72, who was an

old resident of Buckeye, and who, with No. 73, had suffered from

the character of that woman's saloon.

"That's jest it," said Shuttleworth, "and ez I reckon that SAUNDERS

AND ME did all the disorder there was, and had to turn ourselves

out o' town on account of it, I don't see jest where SHE could come

into this affair. Only," he turned and looked around him, "in one

way! And that way, gentlemen, would be for her to come here and

boot one half o' this kempany out o' town, and shoot the other

half! You hear me!--that's so!" He stopped, tugged a moment at

his cravat and loosened his shirt-collar as if it impeded his

utterance, and went on. "I've got to say suthin' to you gentlemen

about me and Saunders and this woman; I've got to say suthin'

that's hard for a white man to say, and him a married man, too--

I've got to say that me and Saunders never had no QU'OLL, never had

NO FIGHT at her shop: I've got to say that me and Saunders got shot

by Jovita Mendez for INSULTIN' HER--for tryin' to treat her as if

she was the common dirt of the turnpike--and served us right! I've

got to say that Saunders and me made a bet that for all her airs

she wasn't no better than she might be, and we went there drunk to

try her--and that we got left, with two shots into us like hounds

as we were! That's so!--wasn't it, Saunders?"

"With two shots inter us like hounds ez we were," repeated Saunders

with deliberate precision.

"And I've got to say suthin' more, gen'lemen," continued

Shuttleworth, now entirely removing his coat and vest, and

apparently shaking himself free from any extraneous trammels. "I've

got to say this--I've got to say that thar ain't a man in Buckeye,

from Dirty Dick over yon to the mayor of this town, ez hasn't tried

the same thing on and got left--got left, without shootin' maybe,

more's the pity, but got left all the same! And I've got to say,"

lifting his voice, "THAT EF THAT'S WHAT YOU CALL DISORDERLINESS IN

HER--if that's what yo'r turnin' this woman out o' town for--why"--

He stopped, absolutely breathless and gasping. For there was a

momentary shock of surprise and shame, and then he was overborne

by peal after peal of inextinguishable laughter. But it was the

laughter that precipitated doubt, enlightened justice, cleared

confusion, and--saved them!

In vain a few struggled to remind them that the question of the

OTHER saloons was still unaffected. It was lost in the motion

enthusiastically put and carried that the Committee should

instantly accompany Saunders and Shuttleworth to Jovita's saloon to

make an apology in their presence. Five minutes later they halted

hilariously before its door. But it was closed, dark, and silent!

Their sudden onset and alarm brought Sanchicha to the half-opened

door. "Ah, yes! the Senorita? Bueno! She had just left for

Fiddletown with the Senor Parks, the honorable mayor. They had

been married only a few moments before by the Reverend Mr. McCorkle!"

THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA.

PART I.

It was bitterly cold. When night fell over Lakeville, Wisconsin,

the sunset, which had flickered rather than glowed in the western

sky, took upon itself a still more boreal tremulousness, until at

last it seemed to fade away in cold blue shivers to the zenith.

Nothing else stirred; in the crisp still air the evening smoke of

chimneys rose threadlike and vanished. The stars were early, pale,

and pitiless; when the later moonlight fell, it appeared only to

whiten the stiffened earth like snow, except where it made a dull,

pewter-like film over the three frozen lakes which encompassed the

town.

The site of the town itself was rarely beautiful, and its pioneers

and founders had carried out the suggestions they had found there

with loving taste and intelligence.

Themselves old voyageurs, trappers, and traders, they still loved

Nature too well to exclude her from the restful homes they had

achieved after years of toiling face to face with her. So a strip

of primeval forest on the one side, and rolling level prairie on

the other, still came up to the base of the hill, whereon they

had built certain solid houses, which a second generation had

beautified and improved with modern taste, but which still retained

their old honesty of foundation and wholesome rustic space. These

yet stood among the old trees, military squares, and broad sloping

avenues of the town. Seen from the railway by day, the regularity

of streets and blocks was hidden by environing trees; there

remained only a picturesque lifting of rustic gardens, brown roofs,

gables, spires, and cupolas above the mirroring lake: seen from the

railway this bitter night, the invisible terraces and streets were

now pricked out by symmetrical lines and curves of sparkling

lights, which glittered through the leafless boughs and seemed to

encircle the hill like a diadem.

Central in the chiefest square, and yet preserving its old lordly

isolation in a wooded garden, the homestead of Enoch Lane stood

with all its modern additions and improvements. Already these

included not only the latest phases of decoration, but various

treasures brought by the second generation from Europe, which they

were wont to visit, but from which they always contentedly returned

to their little provincial town. Whether there was some instinctive

yearning, like the stirred sap of great forests, in their wholesome

pioneer blood, or whether there was some occult fascination in the

pretty town-crested hill itself, it was still certain that the

richest inhabitants always preferred to live in Lakeville. Even the

young, who left it to seek their fortune elsewhere, came back to

enjoy their success under the sylvan vaults of this vast ancestral

roof. And that was why, this 22d of December, 1870, the whole

household of Gabriel Lane was awaiting the arrival from California

of his brother, Sylvester Lane, at the old homestead which he had

left twenty years ago.

"And you don't know how he looks?" said Kitty Lane to her father.

"I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly hair, fair

skin, and blushes when you speak to him."

"Papa!"

"Eh?--Oh, well, he USED to. You see that was twenty-five years

ago, when he left here for boarding-school. He ran away from

there, as I told you; went to sea, and finally brought up at San

Francisco."

"And you haven't had any picture, or photograph of him, since?"

"No--that is--I say!--you haven't, any of you, got a picture of

Sylvester, have you?" he turned in a vague parenthetical appeal to

the company of relatives and friends collected in the drawing-room

after dinner.

"Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!"

But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan Marckland say

that Edward Bingham had told her that he was in California when

"Uncle Sylvester" had been nearly hanged by a Vigilance Committee

for protecting a horse thief or a gambler, or some such person.

This was felt to be ineffective as a personal description.

"He's sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come

back," said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness.

"He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad

shoulders," said Marie du Page.

There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who

was also a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and

Kitty quickly said,--

"But YOU'VE never seen him?"

"No--but--" She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her

spirited head sideways, in a pretty deprecatory way, with elevated

eyebrows and an expression intended to show the otherwise

untranslatable character of her impression. But it showed quite

as pleasantly the other fact, that she was the daughter of a

foreigner, an old French military explorer, and that she had

retained even in Anglo-Saxon Lakeville some of the Gallic

animation.

"Well, how many of you girls are going with me to meet him at the

station?" said Gabriel, dismissing with masculine promptness the

lesser question. "It's time to be off."

"I'd like to go," said Kitty, "and so would Cousin Jane; but

really, papa, you see if YOU don't know him, and WE don't either,

and you've got to satisfy yourself that it's the right man, and

then introduce YOURSELF and then us--and all this on the platform

before everybody--it makes it rather embarrassing for us. And

then, as he's your younger brother and we're supposed to be his

affectionate nieces, you know, it would make HIM feel SO

ridiculous!"

"And if he were to KISS you," said Marie tragically, "and then turn

out not to be him!"

"So," continued Kitty, "you'd better take Cousin John, who was more

in Uncle Sylvester's time, to represent the Past of the family, and

perhaps Mr. Gunn"--

"To represent the future, I suppose?" interrupted Gabriel in a

wicked whisper.

"To represent a name that most men of the world in New York and San

Francisco know," went on Kitty, without a blush. "It would make

recognition and introduction easier. And take an extra fur with

you, dear--not for HIM but for yourself. I suppose he's lived so

much in the open air as to laugh at our coddling."

"I don't know about that," said her father thoughtfully; "the last

telegram I have from him, en route, says he's half frozen, and

wants a close carriage sent to the station."

"Of course," said Marie impatiently, "you forget the poor creature

comes from burning canyons and hot golden sands and perpetual

sunshine."

"Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I've prepared his

room," and as her father left the drawing-room Kitty carried off

her old schoolfellow upstairs.

The room selected for the coming Sylvester had been one of the

elaborate guest-chambers, but was now stripped of its more

luxurious furniture and arranged with picturesque yet rural

extravagance. A few rare buffalo, bear, and panther skins were

disposed over the bare floor, and even displayed gracefully over

some elaborately rustic chairs. The handsome French bedstead had

been displaced for a small wrought-iron ascetic-looking couch

covered with a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket. The fireplace

had been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearth extended so

as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-covered hickory

logs to take its place. The walls were covered with trophies of

the chase, buck-horns and deer-heads, and a number of Indian arrows

stood in a sheaf in the corners beside a few modern guns and

rifles.

"Perfectly lovely," said Marie, "but"--with a slight shiver of her

expressive shoulders--"a little cold and outdoorish, eh?"

"Nonsense," returned Kitty dictatorially, "and if he IS cold, he

can easily light those logs. They always build their open fires

under a tree. Why, even Mr. Gunn used to do that when he was

camping out in the Adirondacks last summer. I call it perfectly

comfortable and SO natural." Nevertheless, they had both tucked

their chilly hands under the fleecy shawls they had snatched from

the hall for this hyperborean expedition.

"You have taken much pains for him, Kaitee," said Marie, with her

faintest foreign intonation. "You will like this strange uncle--

you?"

"He is a wonderful man, Marie; he's been everywhere, seen everything,

and done everything out there. He's fought duels, been captured by

Indians and tied to a stake to be tortured. He's been leader of a

Vigilance Committee, and they say that he has often shot and killed

men himself. I'm afraid he's been rather wicked, you know. He's

lived alone in the woods like a hermit without seeing a soul, and

then, again, he's been a chief among the Indians, with Heaven knows

how many Indian wives! They called him 'The Pale-faced Thunderbolt,'

my dear, and 'The Young Man who Swallows the Lightning,' or

something like that."

"And what can he want here?" asked Marie.

"To see us, my dear," said Kitty loftily; "and then, too, he has to

settle something about HIS share of the property; for you know

grandpa left a share of it to him. Not that he's ever bothered

himself about it, for he's rich,--a kind of Monte Cristo, you

know,--with a gold mine and an island off the coast, to say nothing

of a whole county that he owns, that is called after him, and

millions of wild cattle that he rides among and lassos! It's

dreadfully hard to do. You know you take a long rope with a

slipknot, and you throw it around your head so, and"--

"Hark!" said Marie, with a dramatic start, and her finger on her

small mouth, "he comes!"

There was the clear roll of wheels along the smooth, frozen

carriage sweep towards the house, the sharp crisp click of hoofs on

stone, the opening of heavy doors, the sudden sparkling invasion of

frigid air, the uplifting of voices in greeting,--but all familiar!

There were Gabriel Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of

Cousin Jane and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the

grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who had

joined the party at the station; but certainly the accents of no

STRANGER. Had he come? Yes, for his name was just then called,

and the quick ear of Marie had detected a light, lounging, alien

footstep cross the cold strip of marble vestibule. The two girls

exchanged a rapid glance; each looked into the mirror, and then

interrogatively at the other, nodded their heads affirmatively, and

descended to the drawing-room. A group had already drawn round the

fire, and a small central figure, who, with its back turned towards

them, was still enwrapped in an enormous overcoat of rich fur, was

engaged in presenting an alternate small varnished leather boot to

the warmth of the grate. As they entered the room the heavy fur

was yielded up with apparent reluctance, and revealed to the

astonished girls a man of ordinary stature with a slight and

elegant figure set off by a traveling suit of irreproachable cut.

His light reddish-yellow hair, mustache, and sunburned cheek, which

seemed all of one color and outline, made it impossible to detect

the gray of the one or the hollowness of the other, and gave no

indication of his age. Yet there was clearly no mistake. Here was

Gabriel Lane seizing their nervously cold fingers and presenting

them to their "Uncle Sylvester."

Far from attempting to kiss Kitty, the stranger for an instant

seemed oblivious of the little hand she offered him in the half-

preoccupied bow he gave her. But Marie was not so easily passed

over, and, with her audacious face challenging his, he abstractedly

imparted to the shake of her hand something of the fervor that he

should have shown his relative. And, then, still warming his feet

on the fender, he seemed to have forgotten them both.

"Accustomed as you have been, sir," said the Reverend Mr. Dexter,

seizing upon an awkward silence, and accenting it laboriously,

"perhaps I should say INURED as you have been to the exciting and

stirring incidents of a lawless and adventurous community, you

doubtless find in a pastoral, yet cultivated and refined, seclusion

like Lakeville a degree of"--

"Oh, several degrees," said Uncle Sylvester, blandly flicking bits

of buffalo hair from his well-fitting trousers; "it's colder, you

know--much colder."

"I was referring to a less material contrast," continued Mr.

Dexter, with a resigned smile; "yet, as to the mere question of

cold, I am told, sir, that in California there are certain severe

regions of altitude--although the mean temperature"--

"I suppose out in California you fellows would say our temperature

was a darned sight MEANER, eh?" broke in Amos Gunn, with a

confidential glance at the others, as if offering a humorous

diversion suited to the Californian taste. Uncle Sylvester did

not, however, smile. Gazing critically at Gunn, he said

thoughtfully: "I think not; I've even known men killed for saying

less than that," and turned to the clergyman. "You are quite

right; some of the higher passes are very cold. I was lost in one

of them in '56 with a small party. We were seventy miles from any

settlement, we had had nothing to eat for thirty-six hours; our

campfire, melting the snow, sank twelve feet below the surface."

The circle closed eagerly around him, Marie, Kitty, and Cousin Jane

pressing forward with excited faces; even the clergyman assumed an

expression of profound interest. "A man by the name of Thompson, I

think," continued Uncle Sylvester, thoughtfully gazing at the fire,

"was frozen a few yards away. Towards morning, having been fifty-

eight hours without food, our last drop of whiskey exhausted, and

the fire extinguished, we found"--

"Yes, yes!" said half a dozen voices.

"We found," continued Uncle Sylvester, rubbing his hands cheerfully,

"we found it--exceedingly cold. Yes--EXCEEDINGLY cold!"

There was a dead silence.

"But you escaped!" said Kitty breathlessly.

"I think so. I think we all escaped--that is, except Thompson, if

his name WAS Thompson; it might have been Parker," continued Uncle

Sylvester, gazing with a certain languid astonishment on the eager

faces around him.

"But HOW did you escape?"

"Oh, somehow! I don't remember exactly. I don't think," he went

on reflectively, "that we had to eat Thompson--if it was HIM--at

least not then. No"--with a faint effort of recollection--"that

would have been another affair. Yes," assuringly to the eager,

frightened eyes of Cousin Jane, "you are quite right, that was

something altogether different. Dear me; one quite mixes up these

things. Eh?"

A servant had entered, and after a hurried colloquy with Gabriel,

the latter turned to Uncle Sylvester--

"Excuse me, but I think there must be some mistake! We brought up

your luggage with you--two trunks--in the station wagon. A man has

just arrived with three more, which he says are yours."

"There should be five in all, I think," said Uncle Sylvester

thoughtfully.

"Maybe there are, sir, I didn't count exactly," said the servant.

"All right," said Uncle Sylvester cheerfully, turning to his

brother. "You can put them in my room or on the landing, except

two marked 'L' in a triangle. They contain some things I picked up

for you and the girls. We'll look them over in the morning. And,

if you don't mind, I'll excuse myself now and go to bed."

"But it's only half past ten," said Gabriel remonstratingly. "You

don't, surely, go to bed at half past ten?"

"I do when I travel. Travel is SO exhausting. Good-night! Don't

let anybody disturb themselves to come with me."

He bowed languidly to the company, and disappeared with a yawn

gracefully disguised into a parting smile.

"Well!" said Cousin Jane, drawing a long breath.

"I don't believe it's your Uncle Sylvester at all!" said Marie

vivaciously. "It's some trick that Gabriel is playing upon us.

And he's not even a good actor--he forgets his part."

"And, then, five trunks for one single man! Heavens! what can he

have in them" said Cousin Emma.

"Perhaps his confederates, to spring out upon us at night, after

everybody's asleep."

"Are you sure you remembered him, papa?" said Kitty sotto voce.

"Certainly. And, my dear child, he knows all the family history as

well as you do; and"--continued her father with a slight laugh that

did not, however, conceal a certain seriousness that was new to

him--"I only wish I understood as much about the property as he

does. By the way, Amos," he broke off suddenly, turning to the

young man, "he seemed to know your people."

"Most men in the financial world do," said Gunn a little

superciliously.

"Yes; but he asked me if you hadn't a relative of some kind in

Southern California or Mexico."

A slight flush--so slight that only the keen, vivaciously observant

eyes of Marie noticed it--passed over the young man's face.

"I believe it is a known fact that our branch of the family never

emigrated from their native town," he said emphatically. "The

Gunns were rather peculiar and particular in that respect."

"Then there were no offshoots from the old STOCK," said Gabriel.

Nevertheless, this pet joke of Gabriel's did not dissipate the

constraint and disappointment left upon the company by Uncle

Sylvester's unsatisfying performance and early withdrawal, and they

separated soon after, Kitty and Marie being glad to escape upstairs

together. On the landing they met two of the Irish housemaids in a

state of agitated exhaustion. It appeared that the "sthrange

gintleman" had requested that his bed be remade from bedclothes

and bedding ALWAYS CARRIED WITH HIM IN HIS TRUNKS! From their

apologetic tone it was evident that he had liberally rewarded them.

"Shure, Miss," protested Norah, in deprecation of Kitty's flashing

eye, "there's thim that's lived among shnakes and poysin riptiles

and faverous disayses that's particklar av the beds and sheets they

lie on. Hisht! Howly Mother! it's something else he's wanting

now!"

The door of Uncle Sylvester's room had slowly opened, and a blue

pyjama'd sleeve appeared, carefully depositing the sheaf of bows

and arrows outside the door. "I say, Norah, or Bridget there, some

of you take those infernal things away. And look out, will you,

for the arrowheads are deadly poison. The fool who got 'em didn't

know they were African, and not Indian at all! And hold on!" The

hand vanished, and presently reappeared holding two rifles. "And

take these away, too! They're loaded, capped, and NOT on the half-

cock! A jar, a fall, the slightest shock is enough to send them

off!"

"I'm dreadfully sorry that you should find it so uncomfortable in

our house, Uncle Sylvester," said Kitty, with a flushed cheek and

vibrating voice.

"Oh, it's you--is it?" said Uncle Sylvester's voice cheerfully. "I

thought it was Bridget out there. No, I don't intend to find it

uncomfortable. That's why I'm putting these things outside. But,

for Heaven's sake, don't YOU touch them. Leave that to the

ineffable ass who put them there. Good-night!"

The door closed; the whispering voices of the girls faded from the

corridor; the lights were lowered in the central hall, only the red

Cyclopean eye of an enormous columnar stove, like a lighthouse,

gleamed through the darkness. Outside, the silent night sparkled,

glistened, and finally paled. Towards morning, having invested the

sturdy wooden outer walls of the house and filmed with delicate

tracery every available inch of window pane, it seemed stealthily

to invade the house itself, stilling and chilling it as it drew

closer around its central heart of warmth and life. Only once the

frigid stillness was broken by the opening of a door and steps

along the corridor. This was preceded by an acrid smell of burning

bark.

It was subtle enough to permeate the upper floor and the bedroom

of Marie du Page, who was that night a light and nervous sleeper.

Peering from her door, she could see, on the lower corridor, the

extraordinary spectacle of Uncle Sylvester, robed in a gorgeous

Japanese dressing-gown of quilted satin trimmed with the fur of

the blue fox, candle in hand, leisurely examining the wall of the

passage. Presently, drawing out a footrule from his pocket, he

actually began to measure it! Miss Du Page saw no more. Hurriedly

closing her door, she locked and bolted it, firmly convinced that

Gabriel Lane was harboring in the guise of Uncle Sylvester a

somnambulist, a maniac, or an impostor.

PART II.

"It doesn't seem as if Uncle Sylvester was any the more comfortable

for having his own private bedding with him," said Kitty Lane,

entering Marie's room early the next morning. "Bridget found him

curled up in his furs like a cat asleep on the drawing-room sofa

this morning."

Marie started; she remembered her last night's vision. But some

instinct--she knew not what--kept her from revealing it at this

moment. She only said a little ironically:--

"Perhaps he missed the wild freedom of his barbaric life in a small

bedroom."

"No. Bridget says he said something about being smoked out of his

room by a ridiculous wood fire. The idea! As if a man brought up

in the woods couldn't stand a little smoke. No--that's his excuse!

Marie!--do you know what I firmly believe?"

"No," said Marie quickly.

"I firmly believe that poor man is ashamed of his past rough life,

and does everything he can to forget it. That's why he affects

those ultra-civilized and effeminate ways, and goes to the other

extreme, as people always do."

"Then you think he's really reformed, and isn't likely to take an

impulse to rob and murder anybody again?"

"Why, Marie, what nonsense!"

Nevertheless, Uncle Sylvester appeared quite fresh and cheerful at

breakfast. It seemed that he had lit the fire before undressing,

but the green logs were piled so far into the room that the smoke

nearly suffocated him. Fearful of alarming the house by letting

the smoke escape through the door, he opened the window, and when

it had partly dispersed, sought refuge himself from the arctic air

of his bedroom in the drawing-room. So far the act did not seem

inconsistent with his sanity, or even intelligence and consideration

for others. But Marie fixed upon him a pair of black, audacious

eyes.

"Did you ever walk in your sleep, Mr. Lane?"

"No; but"--thoughtfully breaking an egg--"I have ridden, I think."

"In your sleep? Oh, do tell us all about it!" said Cousins Jane

and Emma in chorus.

Uncle Sylvester cast a resigned glance out of the window. "Oh,

yes--certainly; it isn't much. You see at one time I was in the

habit of making long monotonous journeys, and they were often

exhausting, and," he added, becoming wearied as if at the

recollection, "always dreadfully tiresome. As the trail was

sometimes very uncertain and dangerous, I rode a very surefooted

mule that could go anywhere where there was space big enough to set

her small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down the slope of a

mountain towards a narrow valley and river that were crossed by an

old, abandoned flume, of which nothing was now left but the upright

trestle-work and long horizontal string-piece. As the trail was

very difficult and the mule's pace was slow, I found myself dozing

at times, and at last I must have fallen asleep. I think I must

have been awakened by a singular regularity in the movement of the

mule--or else it was the monotony of step that had put me to sleep

and the cessation of it awakened me. You see, at first I was not

certain that I wasn't really dreaming. For the trail seemed to

have disappeared; the wall of rock on one side had vanished also,

and there appeared to be nothing ahead of me but the opposite

hillside."

Uncle Sylvester stopped to look out of the window at a passing

carriage. Then he went on. "The moon came out, and I saw what had

happened. The mule, either of her own free will, or obeying some

movement I had given the reins in my sleep, had swerved from the

trail, got on top of the flume, and was actually walking across the

valley on the narrow string-piece, a foot wide, half a mile long,

and sixty feet from the ground. I knew," he continued, examining

his napkin thoughtfully, "that she was perfectly surefooted, and

that if I kept quiet she could make the passage, but I suddenly

remembered that midway there was a break and gap of twenty feet in

the continuous line, and that the string-piece was too narrow to

allow her to turn round and retrace her steps."

"Good heavens!" said Cousin Jane.

"I beg your pardon?" said Uncle Sylvester politely.

"I only said, 'Good heavens!' Well?" she added impatiently.

"Well?" repeated Uncle Sylvester vaguely. "Oh, that's all. I only

wanted to explain what I meant by saying I had ridden in my sleep."

"But," said Cousin Jane, leaning across the table with grim

deliberation and emphasizing each word with the handle of her

knife, "how--did--you--and--that--mule get down?"

"Oh, with slings and ropes, you know--so," demonstrating by placing

his napkin-ring in a sling made of his napkin.

"And I suppose you carried the slings and ropes with you in your

five trunks!" gasped Cousin Jane.

"No. Fellows on the river brought 'em in the morning. Mighty spry

chaps, those river miners."

"Very!" said Cousin Jane.

Breakfast over, they were not surprised that their sybaritic guest

excused himself from an inspection of the town in the frigid

morning air, and declined joining a skating party to the lake

on the ground that he could keep warmer indoors with half the

exertion. An hour later found him standing before the fire in

Gabriel Lane's study, looking languidly down on his elder brother.

"Then, as far as I can see," he said quietly, "you have made ducks

and drakes of your share of the property, and that virtually you

are in the hands of this man Gunn and his father."

"You're putting it too strongly," said Gabriel deprecatingly. "In

the first place, my investments with Gunn's firm are by no means

failures, and they only hold as security a mortgage on the forest

land below the hill. It's scarcely worth the money. I would have

sold it long ago, but it had been a fancy of father's to keep it

wild land for the sake of old times and the healthiness of the

town."

"There used to be a log cabin there, where the old man had a habit

of camping out whenever he felt cramped by civilization up here,

wasn't there?" said Uncle Sylvester meditatively.

"Yes," said Gabriel impatiently; "it's still there--but to return

to Mr. Gunn. He has taken a fancy to Kitty, and even if I could

not lift the mortgage, there's some possibility that the land would

still remain in the family."

"I think I'll drive over this afternoon and take a look at the old

shanty if this infernal weather lets up."

"Yes; but just now, my dear Sylvester, let us attend to business.

I want to show you those investments."

"Oh, certainly; trot 'em out," said his brother, plucking up a

simulation of interest as he took a seat at the table.

From a drawer of his desk Gabriel brought out a bundle of

prospectuses and laid them before Uncle Sylvester.

A languid smile of recognition lit up the latter's face. "Ah!

yes," he said, glancing at them. "The old lot: 'Carmelita,' 'Santa

Maria,' and 'Preciosa!' Just as I imagined--and yet who'd have

thought of seeing them HERE! A good deal rouged and powdered, Miss

Carmelita, since I first knew you! Considerably bolstered up by

miraculous testimony to your powers, my dear Santa Maria, since

the day I found you out, to my cost! And you too, Preciosa!--a

precious lot of money I dropped on you in the old days!"

"You are joking," said Gabriel, with an uneasy smile. "You don't

mean to imply that this stock is old and worthless?"

"There isn't a capital in America or Europe where for the last five

years it hasn't been floated with a new character each time. My

dear Gabriel, that stock isn't worth the paper it is printed on."

"But it is impossible that an experienced financier like Gunn could

be deceived!"

"I'm sorry to hear THAT."

"Come, Sylvester! confess you've taken a prejudice against Gunn

from your sudden dislike of his son! And what have you against

him?"

"I couldn't say exactly," said Uncle Sylvester reflectively. "It

may be his eyes, or only his cravat! But," rising cheerfully and

placing his hand lightly on his brother's shoulder, "don't YOU

worry yourself about that stock, old man; I'LL see that somebody

else has the worry and you the cash. And as to the land and--

Kitty--well, you hold on to them both until you find out which the

young man is really after."

"And then?" said Gabriel, with a smile.

"Don't give him either! But, I say, haven't we had enough business

this morning? Let's talk of something else. Who's the French

girl?"

"Marie? She's the daughter of Jules du Page--don't you remember?--

father's friend. When Jules died, it was always thought that

father, who had half adopted her as a child, would leave her some

legacy. But you know that father died without making a will, and

that--rich as he was--his actual assets were far less than we had

reason to expect. Kitty, who felt the disappointment as keenly as

her friend, I believe would have divided her own share with her.

It's odd, by the way, that father could have been so deceived in

the amount of his capital, or how he got rid of his money in a way

that we knew nothing of. Do you know, Sylvester, I've sometimes

suspected"--

"What?" said Uncle Sylvester suddenly.

The bored languor of his face had abruptly vanished. Every muscle

was alert; his gray eyes glittered.

"That he advanced money to Du Page, who lost it, or that they

speculated together," returned Gabriel, who, following Uncle

Sylvester's voice only, had not noticed the change of expression.

"That would seem to be a weakness of the Lane family," said Uncle

Sylvester grimly, with a return of his former carelessness. "But

that is not YOUR own opinion--that's a suggestion of some one

else?"

"Well," said Gabriel, with a laugh and a slight addition of color,

"it WAS Gunn's theory. As a man of the world and a practical

financier, you know."

"And you've talked with HIM about it?"

"Yes. It was a matter of general wonder years ago."

"Very likely--but, just now, don't you think we've had enough

financial talk?" said Uncle Sylvester, with a bored contraction of

his eyebrows. "Come," looking around the room, "you've changed the

interior of the old house."

"Yes. Unfortunately, just after father's death it was put in the

hands of a local architect or builder, one of father's old friends,

but not a very skillful workman, who made changes while the family

were away. That's why your present bedroom, which was father's old

study, had a slice taken off it to make the corridor larger, and

why the big chimney and hearthstone are still there, although the

fireplace is modernized. That was Flint's stupidity."

"Whose stupidity?" asked Uncle Sylvester, trimming his nails.

"Flint's--the old architect."

"Why didn't you make him change it back again?"

"He left Lakeville shortly after, and I brought an architect from

St. Louis after I returned from Europe. But nothing could be done

to your room without taking down the chimney, so it remained as

Flint left it."

"That reminds me, Gabriel, I'm afraid I spoke rather cavalierly to

Kitty, last night, about the arrangements of the room. The fact

is, I've taken a fancy to it, and should like to fit it up myself.

Have I your permission?"

"Certainly, my dear Sylvester."

"I've some knickknacks in my trunks, and I'll do it at once."

"As you like."

"And you'll see that I am not disturbed; and you'll explain it to

Kitty, with my apologies?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm off."

Gabriel glanced at his brother with a perplexed smile. Here was

the bored traveler, explorer, gold-seeker, soldier of fortune,

actually as pleased as a girl over the prospect of arranging his

room! He called after him, "Sylvester!"

"Yes."

"I say, if you could, you know, just try to interest these people

to-night with some of your adventures--something told SERIOUSLY,

you know, as if you really were in earnest--I'd be awfully obliged

to you. The fact is,--you'll excuse me,--but they think you don't

come up to your reputation."

"They want a story?"

"Yes,--one of your experiences."

"I'll give them one. Ta-ta!"

For the rest of the day Uncle Sylvester was invisible, although his

active presence in his room was betrayed by the sound of hammering

and moving of furniture. As the remainder of the party were

skating on the lake, this eccentricity was not remarked except by

one,--Marie du Page,--who on pretense of a slight cold had stayed

at home. But with her suspicions of the former night, she had

determined to watch the singular relative of her friend. Added

to a natural loyalty to the Lanes, she was moved by a certain

curiosity and fascination towards this incomprehensible man.

The house was very quiet when she stole out of her room and passed

softly along the corridor; she examined the wall carefully to

discover anything that might have excited the visitor's attention.

There were a few large engravings hanging there; could he have

designed to replace them by some others? Suddenly she was struck

with the distinct conviction that the wall of the corridor did not

coincide with the wall of his room as represented by the line of

the door. There was certainly a space between the two walls

unaccounted for. This was undoubtedly what had attracted HIS

attention; but what BUSINESS was it of his?

She reflected that she had seen in the wall of the conservatory an

old closed staircase, now used as shelves for dried herbs and

seeds, which she had been told was the old-time communication

between the garden and Grandfather Lane's study,--the room now

occupied by the stranger. Perhaps it led still farther, and thus

accounted for the space. Determined to satisfy herself, she

noiselessly descended to the conservatory. There, surely, was the

staircase,--a narrow flight of wooden steps encumbered with

packages of herbs,--losing itself in upper darkness. By the aid of

a candle she managed to grope and pick her way up step by step.

Then she paused. The staircase had abruptly ended on the level of

the study, now cut off from it by the new partition. She was in a

stifling inclosure, formed by the walls, scarcely eighteen inches

wide. It was made narrower by a singular excrescence on the old

wall, which seemed to have been a bricked closet, now half

destroyed and in ruins. She turned to descend, when a strange

sound from Uncle Sylvester's room struck her ear. It was the sound

of tapping on the floor close to the partition, within a foot of

where she was standing. At the same moment there was a decided

movement of the plank of the flooring beneath the partition: it

began to slide slowly, and then was gradually withdrawn into the

room. With prompt presence of mind, she instantly extinguished her

candle and drew herself breathlessly against the partition.

When the plank was entirely withdrawn, a ray of light slipped

through the opening, revealing the bare rafters of the floor, and a

hand and arm inserted under the partition, groping as if towards

the bricked closet. As the fingers of the exploring hand were

widely extended, Marie had no difficulty in recognizing on one of

them a peculiar signet ring which Uncle Sylvester wore. A swift

impulse seized her. To the audacious Marie impulse and action were

the same thing. Bending stealthily over the aperture, she suddenly

snatched the ring from the extended finger. The hand was quickly

withdrawn with a start and uncontrolled exclamation, and she

availed herself of that instant to glide rapidly down the stairs.

She regained her room stealthily, having the satisfaction a moment

later of hearing Uncle Sylvester's door open and the sound of his

footsteps in the corridor. But he was evidently unable to discover

any outer ingress to the inclosure, or believed the loss of his

ring an accident, for he presently returned. Meantime, what was

she to do?

Tell Kitty of her discovery, and show the ring? No--not yet!

Oddly enough, now that she had the ring, taken from his wicked

finger in the very act, she found it as difficult as ever to

believe in his burglarious design. She must wait. The mischief--

if there had been mischief--was done; the breaking in of the

bricked closet was, from the appearance of the ruins, a bygone act.

Could it have been some youthful escapade of Uncle Sylvester's, the

scene of which he was revisiting as criminals are compelled to do?

And had there been anything taken from the closet--or was its

destruction a part of the changes in the old house? How could she

find out without asking Kitty? There was one way. She remembered

that Mr. Gunn had once shown a great deal of interest to Kitty

about the old homestead, and even of old Mr. Lane's woodland cabin.

She would ask HIM. It was a friendly act, for Kitty had not of

late been very kind to him.

The opportunity presented itself at dusk, as Mr. Gunn, somewhat

abstracted, stood apart at the drawing-room window. Marie hoped

he had enjoyed himself while skating; her stupid cold had kept her

indoors. She had amused herself rambling about the old homestead;

it was such a queer place, so full of old nooks and corners and

unaccountable spaces. Just the place, she would think, where old

treasures might have been stored. Eh?

Mr. Gunn had not spoken--he had only coughed. But in the darkness

his eyes were fixed angrily on her face. Without observing it, she

went on. She knew he was interested in the old house; she had

heard him talk to Kitty about it: had Kitty ever said anything

about some old secret hoarding place?

No, certainly not! And she was mistaken, he never was interested

in the house! He could not understand what had put that idea in

her head! Unless it was this ridiculous, shady stranger in the

guise of an uncle whom they had got there. It was like his

affectation!

"Oh, dear, no," said Marie, with unmistakable truthfulness, "HE did

not say anything. But," with sudden inconsistent aggression, "is

THAT the way you speak to Kitty of her uncle?"

Really he didn't know--he was joking only, and he was afraid he

must just now ask her to excuse him. He had received letters that

made it possible that he might be called suddenly to New York at

any moment. Marie stared. It was evident that he had proposed to

Kitty and been rejected! But she was no nearer her discovery.

Nor was there the least revelation in the calm, half-bored,

yet good-humored presence of the wicked uncle at dinner. So

indifferent did he seem, not only to his own villainy but even to

the loss it had entailed, that she had a wild impulse to take the

ring from her pocket and display it on her own finger before him

then and there. But the conviction that he would in some way be

equal to the occasion prevented her. The dinner passed off with

some constraint, no doubt emanating from the conscious Kitty and

Gunn. Nevertheless, when they had returned to the drawing-room,

Gabriel rubbed his hands expectantly.

"I prevailed on Sylvester this morning to promise to tell us some

of his experiences--something COMPLETE and satisfactory this time.

Eh?"

Uncle Sylvester, warming his cold blood before the fire, looked

momentarily forgetful and--disappointing. Cousins Jane and Emma

shrugged their shoulders.

"Eh," said Uncle Sylvester absently, "er--er--oh yes! Well" (more

cheerfully), "about what, eh?"

"Let it be," said Marie pointedly, fixing her black magnetic eyes

on the wicked stranger, "let it be something about the DISCOVERY of

gold, or a buried TREASURE HOARD, or a robbery."

To her intense disgust Uncle Sylvester, far from being discomfited

or confused, actually looked pleased, and his gray eyes thawed

slightly.

"Certainly," he said. "Well, then! Down on the San Joaquin River

there was an old chap--one of the earliest settlers--in fact, he'd

come on from Oregon before the gold discovery. His name, dear

me!"--continued Uncle Sylvester, with an effort of memory and

apparently beginning already to lose his interest in the story--

"was--er--Flint."

As Uncle Sylvester paused here, Cousin Jane broke in impatiently.

"Well, that's not an uncommon name. There was an old carpenter

here in your father's time who was called Flint."

"Yes," said Uncle Sylvester languidly. "But there is, or was,

something uncommon about it--and that's the point of the story, for

in the old time Flint and Gunn were of the same stock."

"Is this a Californian joke?" said Gunn, with a forced smile on his

flushed face. "If so, spare me, for it's an old one."

"It's much older HISTORY, Mr. Gunn," said Uncle Sylvester blandly,

"which I remember from a boy. When the first Flint traded near

Sault Sainte Marie, the Canadian voyageurs literally translated his

name into Pierre a Fusil, and he went by that name always. But

when the English superseded the French in numbers and language the

name was literally translated back again into 'Peter Gunn,' which

his descendants bear."

"A labored form of the old joke," said Gunn, turning contemptuously

away.

"But the story," said Cousins Jane and Emma. "The story of the

gold discovery--never mind the names."

"Excuse me," said Uncle Sylvester, placing his hand in the breast

of his coat with a delightful exaggeration of offended dignity.

"But, doubts having been cast upon my preliminary statement, I fear

I must decline proceeding further." Nevertheless, he smiled

unblushingly at Miss Du Page as he followed Gunn from the room.

The next morning those who had noticed the strained relations of

Miss Kitty and Mr. Gunn were not surprised that the latter was

recalled on pressing business to New York by the first train; but

it was a matter of some astonishment to Gabriel Lane and Marie du

Page that Uncle Sylvester should have been up early, and actually

accompanied that gentleman as far as the station! Indeed, the

languid explorer and gold-seeker exhibited remarkable activity,

and, clad in a rough tourist suit, announced, over the breakfast-

table, his intention of taking a long tramp through the woods,

which he had not revisited since a boy. To this end he had even

provided himself with a small knapsack, and for once realized

Kitty's ideal of his character.

"Don't go too far," said Gabriel, "for, although the cold has

moderated, the barometer is falling fast, and there is every

appearance of snow. Take care you are not caught in one of our

blizzards."

"But YOU are all going on the lake to skate!" protested Uncle

Sylvester.

"Yes; for the very reason that it may be our last chance; but

should it snow we shall be nearer home than you may be."

Nevertheless, when it came on to snow, as Gabriel had predicted,

the skating party was by no means so near home as he had imagined.

A shrewd keenness and some stimulating electric condition of the

atmosphere had tempted the young people far out on the lake, and

they had ignored the first fall of fine grayish granulations that

swept along the icy surface like little puffs of dust or smoke.

Then the fall grew thicker, the gray sky contracted, the hurrying

flakes, dashed against them by a fierce northwester, were larger,

heavier, and seemed an almost palpable force that held them back.

Their skates, already clogged with drift, were beginning to be

useless. The bare wind-swept spaces were becoming rarer; they

could only stumble on blindly towards the nearest shore. Nor when

they reached it were they yet safe; they could scarcely stand

against the still increasing storm that was fast obliterating the

banks and stretch of meadow beyond. Their only hope of shelter was

the range of woods that joined the hill. Holding hands in single

file, the little party, consisting of Kitty, Marie, and Cousins

Jane and Emma--stout-hearted Gabriel leading and Cousin John

bringing up the rear--at last succeeded in reaching it, and were

rejoiced to find themselves near old Lane's half-ruined cabin. To

their added joy and astonishment, whiffs of whirling smoke were

issuing from the crumbling chimney. They ran to the crazy door,

pushed aside its weak fastening, and found--Uncle Sylvester calmly

enjoying a pipe before a blazing fire. A small pickaxe and crowbar

were lying upon a mound of freshly turned earth beside the chimney,

where the rotten flooring had been torn up.

The tumultuous entrance of the skating party required no explanation;

but when congratulations had been exchanged, the wet snow shaken

off, and they had drawn round the fire, curious eyes were cast upon

the solitary occupant and the pile of earth and debris before him.

"I believe," said Gabriel laughingly, "that you have been so bored

here that you have actually played at gold-hunting for amusement."

Uncle Sylvester took the pipe from his mouth and nodded.

"It's a common diversion of yours," said Marie audaciously.

Uncle Sylvester smiled sweetly.

"And have you been successful THIS TIME?" asked Marie.

"I got the color."

"Eh?"

Uncle Sylvester rose and placed himself with his back to the fire,

gently surveying the assembled group.

"I was interrupted in a story of gold-digging last evening," he

said blandly. "How far had I got?"

"You were down on the San Joaquin River in the spring of '50, with

a chap named Flint," chorused Cousins Jane and Emma promptly.

"Ah! yes," said Uncle Sylvester. "Well, in those days there was a

scarcity of money in the diggings. Gold dust there was in plenty,

but no COIN. You can fancy it was a bother to weigh out a pinch of

dust every time you wanted a drink of whiskey or a pound of flour;

but there was no other legal tender. Pretty soon, however, a lot

of gold and silver pieces found their way into circulation in our

camp and the camps around us. They were foreign--old French and

English coins. Here's one of them that I kept." He took from his

pocket a gold coin and handed it to Gabriel.

Lane rose to his feet with an exclamation:

"Why, this is like the louis-d'or that grandfather saved through

the war and gave to father."

Uncle Sylvester took the coin back, placed it in his left eye, like

a monocle, and winked gravely at the company.

"It is the SAME!" he went on quietly. "I was interested, for I had

a good memory, and I remembered that, as a boy, grandfather had

shown me one of those coins and told me he was keeping them for old

Jules du Page, who didn't believe in banks and bank-notes. Well, I

traced them to a trader called Flint, who was shipping gold dust

from Stockton to Peter Gunn & Sons, in New York."

"To whom?" asked Gabriel quickly.

"Old Gunn--the father of your friend!" said Uncle Sylvester

blandly. "We talked the matter over on our way to the station this

morning. Well, to return. Flint only said that he had got them

from a man called Thompson, who had got them from somebody else in

exchange for goods. A year or two afterwards this same Thompson

happened to be frozen up with me in Starvation Camp. When he

thought he was dying he confessed that he had been bribed by Flint

to say what he had said, but that he believed the coins were

stolen. Meantime, Flint had disappeared. Other things claimed my

attention. I had quite forgotten him, until one night, five years

afterwards, I blundered into a deserted mining-camp, by falling

asleep on my mule, who carried me across a broken flume, but--I

think I told you that story already."

"You never finished it," said Cousin Jane sharply.

"Let me do so now, then. I was really saved by some Indians, who

took me for a spirit up aloft there in the moonlight and spread the

alarm. The first white man they brought me was a wretched drunkard

known to the boys as 'Old Fusil,' or 'Fusel Oil,' who went into

delirium tremens at the sight of me. Well, who do you suppose he

turned out to be? Flint! Flint played out and ruined! Cast off

and discarded by his relations in New York--the foundation of whose

fortunes he had laid by the villainy they had accepted and condoned.

For Flint, as the carpenter of the old homestead, had discovered the

existence of a bricked closet in the wall of father's study,

partitioned it off so that he could break into it without detection

and rifle it at his leisure, and who had thus carried off that part

of grandfather's hoard which father had concealed there. He knew it

could never be missed by the descendants. But, through haste or

ignorance, he DID NOT TOUCH THE PAPERS and documents also hidden

there. And THEY told of the existence of grandfather's second

cache, or hiding-place, beneath this hearth, and were left for me to

discover."

He coolly relit his pipe, fixed his eyes on Marie without

apparently paying attention to the breathless scrutiny of the

others, and went on: "Flint, alias Pierre a Fusil, alias Gunn, died

a maniac. I resolved to test the truth of his story. I came here.

I knew the old homestead, as a boy who had wandered over every part

of it, far better than you, Gabriel, or any one. The elder Gunn

had only heard of it through the criminal disclosure of his

relative, and only wished to absorb it through his son in time, and

thus obliterate all trace of Flint's outrage. I recognized the

room perfectly--thanks to our dear Kitty, who had taken up the

carpet, which thus disclosed the loose plank before the closet that

was hidden by the partition. Under pretext of rearranging the

room--for which Kitty will forgive me--I spent the day behind a

locked door, making my way through the partition. There I found

the rifled closet, but the papers intact. They contained a full

description of the sum taken by Flint, and also of a larger sum

buried in a cask beside this chimney. I had just finished

unearthing it a few moments before you came. I had at first hoped

to offer it to the family as a Christmas gift to-morrow, but"-- He

stopped and sucked slowly at his pipe.

"We anticipated you," said Gabriel laughing.

"No," said Uncle Sylvester coolly. "But because it don't happen to

belong to YOU at all! According to the paper I have in my pocket,

which is about as legal a document as I ever saw, it is father's

free gift to Miss Marie du Page."

Kitty threw her arms around her white and breathless friend with

a joyful cry, and honest Gabriel's face shone with unselfish

gratification.

"For yourself, my dear Gabriel, you must be satisfied with the fact

that Messrs. Peter Gunn & Sons will take back your wildcat stock at

the price you paid for it. It is the price they pay for their

share in this little transaction, as I had the honor of pointing

out to Mr. Gunn on our way to the station this morning."

"Then you think that young Mr. Gunn knew that Flint was his

relation, and that he had stolen father's money," said Kitty, "and

that Mr. Gunn only wanted to"-- She stopped, with flashing eyes.

"I think he would have liked to have made an arrangement, my dear,

that would keep the secret and the property in the family," said

Uncle Sylvester. "But I don't think he suspected the existence of

the second treasure here."

"And then, sir," said Cousin Jane, "it appears that all these

wretched, unsatisfactory scraps of stories you were telling us were

nothing after all but"--

"My way of telling THIS one," said Uncle Sylvester.

As the others were eagerly gathering around the unearthed treasure,

Marie approached him timidly, all her audacity gone, tears in her

eyes, and his ring held hesitatingly between her fingers. "How can

I thank you--and how CAN you ever forgive me?"

"Well," said Uncle Sylvester, gazing at her critically, "you might

keep the ring to think over it."

End of this Project Gutenberg etext of Sally Dows.

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