THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN AND OTHER STORIES

By Bret Harte

CONTENTS

I. THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN

II. AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG

III. THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY

IV. A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT

V. VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION

THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN. 

CHAPTER I. 

A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN. 

They lived on the verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far abovethe surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearestvalley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. Therush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base werelost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines thathalf way climbed its flanks spent their fury below the summit; for, atvariance with most meteorological speculation, an eternal calm seemedto invest this serene altitude. The few Alpine flowers seldomthrilled their petals to a passing breeze; rain and snow fell alikeperpendicularly, heavily, and monotonously over the granite bowldersscattered along its brown expanse. Although by actual measurement aninconsiderable elevation of the Sierran range, and a mere shoulder ofthe nearest white-faced peak that glimmered in the west, it seemedto lie so near the quiet, passionless stars, that at night it caughtsomething of their calm remoteness. 

The articulate utterance of such a locality should have been a whisper;a laugh or exclamation was discordant; and the ordinary tones of thehuman voice on the night of the 15th of May, 1868, had a grotesqueincongruity. 

In the thick darkness that clothed the mountain that night, the humanfigure would have been lost, or confounded with the outlines of outlyingbowlders, which at such times took upon themselves the vague semblanceof men and animals. Hence the voices in the following colloquy seemedthe more grotesque and incongruous from being the apparent expressionof an upright monolith, ten feet high, on the right, and another mass ofgranite, that, reclining, peeped over the verge. 

"Hello!"

"Hello yourself!"

"You're late. "

"I lost the trail, and climbed up the slide. "

Here followed a stumble, the clatter of stones down the mountain-side, and an oath so very human and undignified that it at once relieved thebowlders of any complicity of expression. The voices, too, were closetogether now, and unexpectedly in quite another locality. 

"Anything up?"

"Looey Napoleon's declared war agin Germany. "

"Sho-o-o!"

Notwithstanding this exclamation, the interest of the latter speaker wasevidently only polite and perfunctory. What, indeed, were the politicalconvulsions of the Old World to the dwellers on this serene, isolatedeminence of the New?

"I reckon it's so, " continued the first voice. "French Pete and thatthar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptiedtheir six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls inhis leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in hisshirt-buzzum, and hez caved in. "

This concise, local corroboration of the conflict of remote nations, however confirmatory, did not appear to excite any further interest. Even the last speaker, now that he was in this calm, dispassionateatmosphere, seemed to lose his own concern in his tidings, and to haveabandoned every thing of a sensational and lower-worldly character inthe pines below. There were a few moments of absolute silence, and thenanother stumble. But now the voices of both speakers were quite patientand philosophical. 

"Hold on, and I'll strike a light, " said the second speaker. "I broughta lantern along, but I didn't light up. I kem out afore sundown, and youknow how it allers is up yer. I didn't want it, and didn't keer to lightup. I forgot you're always a little dazed and strange-like when youfirst come up. "

There was a crackle, a flash, and presently a steady glow, which thesurrounding darkness seemed to resent. The faces of the two men thusrevealed were singularly alike. The same thin, narrow outline of jaw andtemple; the same dark, grave eyes; the same brown growth of curly beardand mustache, which concealed the mouth, and hid what might have beenany individual idiosyncrasy of thought or expression, --showed them tobe brothers, or better known as the "Twins of Table Mountain. " A certainanimation in the face of the second speaker, --the first-comer, --acertain light in his eye, might have at first distinguished him; buteven this faded out in the steady glow of the lantern, and had novalue as a permanent distinction, for, by the time they had reachedthe western verge of the mountain, the two faces had settled into ahomogeneous calmness and melancholy. 

The vague horizon of darkness, that a few feet from the lantern stillencompassed them, gave no indication of their progress, until their feetactually trod the rude planks and thatch that formed the roof of theirhabitation; for their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and halfclung, like a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity thatterminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for thewindlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone andgravel, which were the only indications of human labor in that stonyfield, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And, when they descended a dozen well-worn steps to the door of their cabin, they left the summit, as before, lonely, silent, motionless, its longlevel uninterrupted, basking in the cold light of the stars. 

The simile of a "nest" as applied to the cabin of the brothers was nomere figure of speech as the light of the lantern first flashed upon it. The narrow ledge before the door was strewn with feathers. A suggestionthat it might be the home and haunt of predatory birds was promptlychecked by the spectacle of the nailed-up carcasses of a dozen hawksagainst the walls, and the outspread wings of an extended eagleemblazoning the gable above the door, like an armorial bearing. Withinthe cabin the walls and chimney-piece were dazzlingly bedecked with theparty-colored wings of jays, yellow-birds, woodpeckers, kingfishers, andthe poly-tinted wood-duck. Yet in that dry, highly-rarefied atmosphere, there was not the slightest suggestion of odor or decay. 

The first speaker hung the lantern upon a hook that dangled from therafters, and, going to the broad chimney, kicked the half-dead embersinto a sudden resentful blaze. He then opened a rude cupboard, and, without looking around, called, "Ruth!"

The second speaker turned his head from the open doorway where he wasleaning, as if listening to something in the darkness, and answeredabstractedly, --

"Rand!"

"I don't believe you have touched grub to-day!"

Ruth grunted out some indifferent reply. 

"Thar hezen't been a slice cut off that bacon since I left, " continuedRand, bringing a side of bacon and some biscuits from the cupboard, andapplying himself to the discussion of them at the table. "You're gettin'off yer feet, Ruth. What's up?"

Ruth replied by taking an uninvited seat beside him, and resting hischin on the palms of his hands. He did not eat, but simply transferredhis inattention from the door to the table. 

"You're workin' too many hours in the shaft, " continued Rand. "You'realways up to some such d--n fool business when I'm not yer. "

"I dipped a little west to-day, " Ruth went on, without heeding thebrotherly remonstrance, "and struck quartz and pyrites. "

"Thet's you!--allers dippin' west or east for quartz and the color, instead of keeping on plumb down to the 'cement'!"*

 * The local name for gold-bearing alluvial drift, --the bed of a prehistoric river. 

"We've been three years digging for cement, " said Ruth, more inabstraction than in reproach, --"three years!"

"And we may be three years more, --may be only three days. Why, youcouldn't be more impatient if--if--if you lived in a valley. "

Delivering this tremendous comparison as an unanswerable climax, Randapplied himself once more to his repast. Ruth, after a moment's pause, without speaking or looking up, disengaged his hand from under his chin, and slid it along, palm uppermost, on the table beside his brother. Thereupon Rand slowly reached forward his left hand, the right beingengaged in conveying victual to his mouth, and laid it on his brother'spalm. The act was evidently an habitual, half mechanical one; for ina few moments the hands were as gently disengaged, without comment orexpression. At last Rand leaned back in his chair, laid down his knifeand fork, and, complacently loosening the belt that held his revolver, threw it and the weapon on his bed. Taking out his pipe, and chippingsome tobacco on the table, he said carelessly, "I came a piece throughthe woods with Mornie just now. "

The face that Ruth turned upon his brother was very distinct in itsexpression at that moment, and quite belied the popular theory thatthe twins could not be told apart. "Thet gal, " continued Rand, withoutlooking up, "is either flighty, or--or suthin', " he added in vaguedisgust, pushing the table from him as if it were the lady in question. "Don't tell me!"

Ruth's eyes quickly sought his brother's, and were as quickly averted, as he asked hurriedly, "How?"

"What gets me, " continued Rand in a petulant non sequitur, "is that YOU, my own twin-brother, never lets on about her comin' yer, permiskus like, when I ain't yer, and you and her gallivantin' and promanadin', andswoppin' sentiments and mottoes. "

Ruth tried to contradict his blushing face with a laugh of worldlyindifference. 

"She came up yer on a sort of pasear. "

"Oh, yes!--a short cut to the creek, " interpolated Rand satirically. 

"Last Tuesday or Wednesday, " continued Ruth, with affectedforgetfulness. 

"Oh, in course, Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday! You've so many folksclimbing up this yer mountain to call on ye, " continued the ironicalRand, "that you disremember; only you remembered enough not to tell me. SHE did. She took me for you, or pretended to. "

The color dropped from Ruth's cheek. 

"Took you for me?" he asked, with an awkward laugh. 

"Yes, " sneered Rand; "chirped and chattered away about OUR picnic, OURnose-gays, and lord knows what! Said she'd keep them blue-jay's wings, and wear 'em in her hat. Spouted poetry, too, --the same sort o' rot youget off now and then. "

Ruth laughed again, but rather ostentatiously and nervously. 

"Ruth, look yer!"

Ruth faced his brother. 

"What's your little game? Do you mean to say you don't know what thetgal is? Do you mean to say you don't know thet she's the laughing-stockof the Ferry; thet her father's a d----d old fool, and her mother's adrunkard and worse; thet she's got any right to be hanging round yer?You can't mean to marry her, even if you kalkilate to turn me out to doit, for she wouldn't live alone with ye up here. 'Tain't her kind. Andif I thought you was thinking of--"

"What?" said Ruth, turning upon his brother quickly. 

"Oh, thet's right! holler; swear and yell, and break things, do! Tearround!" continued Rand, kicking his boots off in a corner, "just becauseI ask you a civil question. That's brotherly, " he added, jerking hischair away against the side of the cabin, "ain't it?"

"She's not to blame because her mother drinks, and her father's ashyster, " said Ruth earnestly and strongly. "The men who make her thelaughing-stock of the Ferry tried to make her something worse, andfailed, and take this sneak's revenge on her. 'Laughing-stock!' Yes, they knew she could turn the tables on them. "

"Of course; go on! She's better than me. I know I'm a fratricide, that'swhat I am, " said Rand, throwing himself on the upper of the two berthsthat formed the bedstead of the cabin. 

"I've seen her three times, " continued Ruth. 

"And you've known me twenty years, " interrupted his brother. 

Ruth turned on his heel, and walked towards the door. 

"That's right; go on! Why don't you get the chalk?"

Ruth made no reply. Rand descended from the bed, and, taking a piece ofchalk from the shelf, drew a line on the floor, dividing the cabin intwo equal parts. 

"You can have the east half, " he said, as he climbed slowly back intobed. 

This mysterious rite was the usual termination of a quarrel between thetwins. Each man kept his half of the cabin until the feud was forgotten. It was the mark of silence and separation, over which no words ofrecrimination, argument, or even explanation, were delivered, untilit was effaced by one or the other. This was considered equivalent toapology or reconciliation, which each were equally bound in honor toaccept. 

It may be remarked that the floor was much whiter at this line ofdemarcation, and under the fresh chalk-line appeared the faint evidencesof one recently effaced. 

Without apparently heeding this potential ceremony, Ruth remainedleaning against the doorway, looking upon the night, the bulk of whoseprofundity and blackness seemed to be gathered below him. The vaultabove was serene and tranquil, with a few large far-spaced stars; theabyss beneath, untroubled by sight or sound. Stepping out upon theledge, he leaned far over the shelf that sustained their cabin, and listened. A faint rhythmical roll, rising and falling in longundulations against the invisible horizon, to his accustomed ears toldhim the wind was blowing among the pines in the valley. Yet, minglingwith this familiar sound, his ear, now morbidly acute, seemed to detecta stranger inarticulate murmur, as of confused and excited voices, swelling up from the mysterious depths to the stars above, and againswallowed up in the gulfs of silence below. He was roused from aconsideration of this phenomenon by a faint glow towards the east, whichat last brightened, until the dark outline of the distant walls of thevalley stood out against the sky. Were his other senses participating inthe delusion of his ears? for with the brightening light came the faintodor of burning timber. 

His face grew anxious as he gazed. At last he rose, and re-entered thecabin. His eyes fell upon the faint chalk-mark, and, taking his softfelt hat from his head, with a few practical sweeps of the brim hebrushed away the ominous record of their late estrangement. Going to thebed whereon Rand lay stretched, open-eyed, he would have laid his handupon his arm lightly; but the brother's fingers sought and clasped hisown. "Get up, " he said quietly; "there's a strange fire in the Canyonhead that I can't make out. "

Rand slowly clambered from his shelf, and hand in hand the brothersstood upon the ledge. "It's a right smart chance beyond the Ferry, and apiece beyond the Mill, too, " said Rand, shading his eyes with his hand, from force of habit. "It's in the woods where--" He would have addedwhere he met Mornie; but it was a point of honor with the twins, afterreconciliation, not to allude to any topic of their recent disagreement. 

Ruth dropped his brother's hand. "It doesn't smell like the woods, " hesaid slowly. 

"Smell!" repeated Rand incredulously. "Why, it's twenty miles in abee-line yonder. Smell, indeed!"

Ruth was silent, but presently fell to listening again with his formerabstraction. "You don't hear anything, do you?" he asked after a pause. 

"It's blowin' in the pines on the river, " said Rand shortly. 

"You don't hear anything else?"

"No. "

"Nothing like--like--like--"

Rand, who had been listening with an intensity that distorted the leftside of his face, interrupted him impatiently. 

"Like what?"

"Like a woman sobbin'?"

"Ruth, " said Rand, suddenly looking up in his brother's face, "what'sgone of you?"

Ruth laughed. "The fire's out, " he said, abruptly re-entering the cabin. "I'm goin' to turn in. "

Rand, following his brother half reproachfully, saw him divest himselfof his clothing, and roll himself in the blankets of his bed. 

"Good-night, Randy!"

Rand hesitated. He would have liked to ask his brother another question;but there was clearly nothing to be done but follow his example. 

"Good-night, Ruthy!" he said, and put out the light. As he did so, theglow in the eastern horizon faded, too, and darkness seemed to well upfrom the depths below, and, flowing in the open door, wrapped them indeeper slumber. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE CLOUDS GATHER. 

Twelve months had elapsed since the quarrel and reconciliation, duringwhich interval no reference was made by either of the brothers to thecause which had provoked it. Rand was at work in the shaft, Ruth havingthat morning undertaken the replenishment of the larder with gamefrom the wooded skirt of the mountain. Rand had taken advantage of hisbrother's absence to "prospect" in the "drift, "--a proceeding utterly atvariance with his previous condemnation of all such speculative essay;but Rand, despite his assumption of a superior practical nature, was notabove certain local superstitions. Having that morning put on his grayflannel shirt wrong side out, --an abstraction recognized among theminers as the sure forerunner of divination and treasure-discovery, --hecould not forego that opportunity of trying his luck, withouthazarding a dangerous example. He was also conscious of feeling"chipper, "--another local expression for buoyancy of spirit, not commonto men who work fifty feet below the surface, without the stimulus ofair and sunshine, and not to be overlooked as an important factor infortunate adventure. Nevertheless, noon came without the discovery ofany treasure. He had attacked the walls on either side of the lateral"drift" skilfully, so as to expose their quality without destroyingtheir cohesive integrity, but had found nothing. Once or twice, returning to the shaft for rest and air, its grim silence had seemed tohim pervaded with some vague echo of cheerful holiday voices above. Thisset him to thinking of his brother's equally extravagant fancy ofthe wailing voices in the air on the night of the fire, and of hisattributing it to a lover's abstraction. 

"I laid it to his being struck after that gal; and yet, " Rand continuedto himself, "here's me, who haven't been foolin' round no gal, and dogmy skin if I didn't think I heard one singin' up thar!" He put his footon the lower round of the ladder, paused, and slowly ascended a dozensteps. Here he paused again. All at once the whole shaft was filled withthe musical vibrations of a woman's song. Seizing the rope that hungidly from the windlass, he half climbed, half swung himself, to thesurface. 

The voice was there; but the sudden transition to the dazzling levelbefore him at first blinded his eyes, so that he took in only by degreesthe unwonted spectacle of the singer, --a pretty girl, standing on tiptoeon a bowlder not a dozen yards from him, utterly absorbed in tying agayly-striped neckerchief, evidently taken from her own plump throat, tothe halliards of a freshly-cut hickory-pole newly reared as a flag-staffbeside her. The hickory-pole, the halliards, the fluttering scarf, the young lady herself, were all glaring innovations on the familiarlandscape; but Rand, with his hand still on the rope, silently anddemurely enjoyed it. 

For the better understanding of the general reader, who does not live onan isolated mountain, it may be observed that the young lady's positionon the rock exhibited some study of POSE, and a certain exaggeration ofattitude, that betrayed the habit of an audience; also that her voicehad an artificial accent that was not wholly unconscious, even in thislofty solitude. Yet the very next moment, when she turned, and caughtRand's eye fixed upon her, she started naturally, colored slightly, uttered that feminine adjuration, "Good Lord! gracious! goodness me!"which is seldom used in reference to its effect upon the hearer, andskipped instantly from the bowlder to the ground. Here, however, shealighted in a POSE, brought the right heel of her neatly-fitting leftboot closely into the hollowed side of her right instep, at the samemoment deftly caught her flying skirt, whipped it around her ankles, and, slightly raising it behind, permitted the chaste display of an inchor two of frilled white petticoat. The most irreverent critic of the sexwill, I think, admit that it has some movements that are automatic. 

"Hope I didn't disturb ye, " said Rand, pointing to the flag-staff. 

The young lady slightly turned her head. "No, " she said; "but I didn'tknow anybody was here, of course. Our PARTY"--she emphasized the word, and accompanied it with a look toward the further extremity of theplateau, to show she was not alone--"our party climbed this ridge, and put up this pole as a sign to show they did it. " The ridiculousself-complacency of this record in the face of a man who was evidentlya dweller on the mountain apparently struck her for the first time. "Wedidn't know, " she stammered, looking at the shaft from which Rand hademerged, "that--that--" She stopped, and, glancing again towards thedistant range where her friends had disappeared, began to edge away. 

"They can't be far off, " interposed Rand quietly, as if it were the mostnatural thing in the world for the lady to be there. "Table Mountainain't as big as all that. Don't you be scared! So you thought nobodylived up here?"

She turned upon him a pair of honest hazel eyes, which not onlycontradicted the somewhat meretricious smartness of her dress, but wasutterly inconsistent with the palpable artificial color of her hair, --anobvious imitation of a certain popular fashion then known in artisticcircles as the "British Blonde, "--and began to ostentatiously resume apair of lemon-colored kid gloves. Having, as it were, thus indicated herstanding and respectability, and put an immeasurable distance betweenherself and her bold interlocutor, she said impressively, "Weevidently made a mistake: I will rejoin our party, who will, of course, apologize. "

"What's your hurry?" said the imperturbable Rand, disengaging himselffrom the rope, and walking towards her. "As long as you're up here, youmight stop a spell. "

"I have no wish to intrude; that is, our party certainly has not, "continued the young lady, pulling the tight gloves, and smoothing theplump, almost bursting fingers, with an affectation of fashionable ease. 

"Oh! I haven't any thing to do just now, " said Rand, "and it's aboutgrub time, I reckon. Yes, I live here, Ruth and me, --right here. "

The young woman glanced at the shaft. 

"No, not down there, " said Rand, following her eye, with a laugh. "Comehere, and I'll show you. "

A strong desire to keep up an appearance of genteel reserve, and anequally strong inclination to enjoy the adventurous company of thisgood-looking, hearty young fellow, made her hesitate. Perhaps sheregretted having undertaken a role of such dignity at the beginning: shecould have been so perfectly natural with this perfectly natural man, whereas any relaxation now might increase his familiarity. And yet shewas not without a vague suspicion that her dignity and her gloveswere alike thrown away on him, --a fact made the more evident whenRand stepped to her side, and, without any apparent consciousness ofdisrespect or gallantry, laid his large hand, half persuasively, halffraternally, upon her shoulder, and said, "Oh, come along, do!"

The simple act either exceeded the limits of her forbearance, or decidedthe course of her subsequent behavior. She instantly stepped back asingle pace, and drew her left foot slowly and deliberately after her;then she fixed her eyes and uplifted eyebrows upon the daring hand, and, taking it by the ends of her thumb and forefinger, lifted it, anddropped it in mid-air. She then folded her arms. It was the indignantgesture with which "Alice, " the Pride of Dumballin Village, received theloathsome advances of the bloated aristocrat, Sir Parkyns Parkyn, andhad at Marysville, a few nights before, brought down the house. 

This effect was, I think, however, lost upon Rand. The slight color thatrose to his cheek as he looked down upon his clay-soiled hands was dueto the belief that he had really contaminated her outward superfineperson. But his color quickly passed: his frank, boyish smile returned, as he said, "It'll rub off. Lord, don't mind that! Thar, now--come on!"

The young woman bit her lip. Then nature triumphed; and she laughed, although a little scornfully. And then Providence assisted her with thesudden presentation of two figures, a man and woman, slowly climbing upover the mountain verge, not far from them. With a cry of "There's Sol, now!" she forgot her dignity and her confusion, and ran towards them. 

Rand stood looking after her neat figure, less concerned in the adventof the strangers than in her sudden caprice. He was not so young andinexperienced but that he noted certain ambiguities in her dress andmanner: he was by no means impressed by her dignity. But he could nothelp watching her as she appeared to be volubly recounting her lateinterview to her companions; and, still unconscious of any improprietyor obtrusiveness, he lounged down lazily towards her. Her humor hadevidently changed; for she turned an honest, pleased face upon him, asshe girlishly attempted to drag the strangers forward. 

The man was plump and short; unlike the natives of the locality, he wasclosely cropped and shaven, as if to keep down the strong blue-blacknessof his beard and hair, which nevertheless asserted itself over his roundcheeks and upper lip like a tattooing of Indian ink. The woman at hisside was reserved and indistinctive, with that appearance of being anunenthusiastic family servant peculiar to some men's wives. When Randwas within a few feet of him, he started, struck a theatrical attitude, and, shading his eyes with his hand, cried, "What, do me eyes deceiveme!" burst into a hearty laugh, darted forward, seized Rand's hand, andshook it briskly. 

"Pinkney, Pinkney, my boy! how are you? And this is your little 'prop'?your quarter-section, your country-seat, that we've been trespassing on, eh? A nice little spot, cool, sequestered, remote, --a trifle unimproved;carriage-road as yet unfinished. Ha, ha! But to think of our makinga discovery of this inaccessible mountain, climbing it, sir, for twomortal hours, christening it 'Sol's Peak, ' getting up a flag-pole, unfurling our standard to the breeze, sir, and then, by Gad, winding upby finding Pinkney, the festive Pinkney, living on it at home!"

Completely surprised, but still perfectly good-humored, Rand shook thestranger's right hand warmly, and received on his broad shoulders awelcoming thwack from the left, without question. "She don't mind herfriends making free with ME evidently, " said Rand to himself, as hetried to suggest that fact to the young lady in a meaning glance. 

The stranger noted his glance, and suddenly passed his hand thoughtfullyover his shaven cheeks. "No, " he said--"yes, surely, I forget--yes, Isee; of course you don't! Rosy, " turning to his wife, "of course Pinkneydoesn't know Phemie, eh?"

"No, nor ME either, Sol, " said that lady warningly. 

"Certainly!" continued Sol. "It's his misfortune. You weren't with meat Gold Hill. --Allow me, " he said, turning to Rand, "to present Mrs. SolSaunders, wife of the undersigned, and Miss Euphemia Neville, otherwiseknown as the 'Marysville Pet, ' the best variety actress known on theprovincial boards. Played Ophelia at Marysville, Friday; domestic dramaat Gold Hill, Saturday; Sunday night, four songs in character, differentdress each time, and a clog-dance. The best clog-dance on the PacificSlope, " he added in a stage aside. "The minstrels are crazy to get herin 'Frisco. But money can't buy her--prefers the legitimate drama tothis sort of thing. " Here he took a few steps of a jig, to which the"Marysville Pet" beat time with her feet, and concluded with a laughand a wink--the combined expression of an artist's admiration for herability, and a man of the world's scepticism of feminine ambition. 

Miss Euphemia responded to the formal introduction by extending her handfrankly with a re-assuring smile to Rand, and an utter obliviousness ofher former hauteur. Rand shook it warmly, and then dropped carelessly ona rock beside them. 

"And you never told me you lived up here in the attic, you rascal!"continued Sol with a laugh. 

"No, " replied Rand simply. "How could I? I never saw you before, that Iremember. "

Miss Euphemia stared at Sol. Mrs. Sol looked up in her lord's face, andfolded her arms in a resigned expression. Sol rose to his feet again, and shaded his eyes with his hand, but this time quite seriously, andgazed at Rand's smiling face. 

"Good Lord! Do you mean to say your name isn't Pinkney?" he asked, witha half embarrassed laugh. 

"It IS Pinkney, " said Rand; "but I never met you before. "

"Didn't you come to see a young lady that joined my troupe at Gold Hilllast month, and say you'd meet me at Keeler's Ferry in a day or two?"

"No-o-o, " said Rand, with a good-humored laugh. "I haven't left thismountain for two months. "

He might have added more; but his attention was directed to MissEuphemia, who during this short dialogue, having stuffed alternately herhandkerchief, the corner of her mantle, and her gloves, into her mouth, restrained herself no longer, but gave way to an uncontrollable fitof laughter. "O Sol!" she gasped explanatorily, as she threw herselfalternately against him, Mrs. Sol, and a bowlder, "you'll kill me yet!O Lord! first we take possession of this man's property, then we claimHIM. " The contemplation of this humorous climax affected her so thatshe was fain at last to walk away, and confide the rest of her speech tospace. 

Sol joined in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whisperedsomething in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysteriousand demure. "I owe you an apology, " he said, turning to Rand, but in avoice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear:"I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance--only a mere resemblance, as I look at you now--led me astray. Of course you don't know any younglady in the profession?"

"Of course he doesn't, Sol, " said Miss Euphemia. "I could have told youthat. He didn't even know ME!"

The voice and mock-heroic attitude of the speaker was enough to relievethe general embarrassment with a laugh. Rand, now pleasantly consciousof only Miss Euphemia's presence, again offered the hospitality of hiscabin, with the polite recognition of her friends in the sentence, "andyou might as well come along too. "

"But won't we incommode the lady of the house?" said Mrs. Sol politely. 

"What lady of the house"? said Rand almost angrily. 

"Why, Ruth, you know!"

It was Rand's turn to become hilarious. "Ruth, " he said, "is shortfor Rutherford, my brother. " His laugh, however, was echoed only byEuphemia. 

"Then you have a brother?" said Mrs. Sol benignly. 

"Yes, " said Rand: "he will be here soon. " A sudden thought dropped thecolor from his cheek. "Look here, " he said, turning impulsively uponSol. "I have a brother, a twin-brother. It couldn't be HIM--"

Sol was conscious of a significant feminine pressure on his right arm. He was equal to the emergency. "I think not, " he said dubiously, "unlessyour brother's hair is much darker than yours. Yes! now I look at you, yours is brown. He has a mole on his right cheek hasn't he?"

The red came quickly back to Rand's boyish face. He laughed. "No, sir:my brother's hair is, if any thing, a shade lighter than mine, and narymole. Come along!"

And leading the way, Rand disclosed the narrow steps winding down to theshelf on which the cabin hung. "Be careful, " said Rand, taking the nowunresisting hand of the "Marysville Pet" as they descended: "a step thatway, and down you go two thousand feet on the top of a pine-tree. "

But the girl's slight cry of alarm was presently changed to one ofunaffected pleasure as they stood on the rocky platform. "It isn't ahouse: it's a NEST, and the loveliest!" said Euphemia breathlessly. 

"It's a scene, a perfect scene, sir!" said Sol, enraptured. "I shalltake the liberty of bringing my scene-painter to sketch it some day. It would do for 'The Mountaineer's Bride' superbly, or, " continuedthe little man, warming through the blue-black border of his face withprofessional enthusiasm, "it's enough to make a play itself. 'The Cot onthe Crags. ' Last scene--moonlight--the struggle on the ledge! The Ladyof the Crags throws herself from the beetling heights!--A shriek fromthe depths--a woman's wail!"

"Dry up!" sharply interrupted Rand, to whom this speech recalled hisbrother's half-forgotten strangeness. "Look at the prospect. "

In the full noon of a cloudless day, beneath them a tumultuous sea ofpines surged, heaved, rode in giant crests, stretched and lost itselfin the ghostly, snow-peaked horizon. The thronging woods choked everydefile, swept every crest, filled every valley with its dark-greentilting spears, and left only Table Mountain sunlit and bare. Here andthere were profound olive depths, over which the gray hawk hung lazily, and into which blue jays dipped. A faint, dull yellowish streak markedan occasional watercourse; a deeper reddish ribbon, the mountain roadand its overhanging murky cloud of dust. 

"Is it quite safe here?" asked Mrs. Sol, eying the little cabin. "I meanfrom storms?"

"It never blows up here, " replied Rand, "and nothing happens. "

"It must be lovely, " said Euphemia, clasping her hands. 

"It IS that, " said Rand proudly. "It's four years since Ruth and I tookup this yer claim, and raised this shanty. In that four years we haven'tleft it alone a night, or cared to. It's only big enough for two, andthem two must be brothers. It wouldn't do for mere pardners to live herealone, --they couldn't do it. It wouldn't be exactly the thing for manand wife to shut themselves up here alone. But Ruth and me knoweach other's ways, and here we'll stay until we've made a pile. Wesometimes--one of us--takes a pasear to the Ferry to buy provisions; butwe're glad to crawl up to the back of old 'Table' at night. "

"You're quite out of the world here, then?" suggested Mrs. Sol. 

"That's it, just it! We're out of the world, --out of rows, out ofliquor, out of cards, out of bad company, out of temptation. Cussednessand foolishness hez got to follow us up here to find us, and there's toomany ready to climb down to them things to tempt 'em to come up to us. "

There was a little boyish conceit in his tone, as he stood there, notaltogether unbecoming his fresh color and simplicity. Yet, when hiseyes met those of Miss Euphemia, he colored, he hardly knew why, and theyoung lady herself blushed rosily. 

When the neat cabin, with its decorated walls, and squirrel and wild-catskins, was duly admired, the luncheon-basket of the Saunders party wasre-enforced by provisions from Rand's larder, and spread upon theledge; the dimensions of the cabin not admitting four. Under the potentinfluence of a bottle, Sol became hilarious and professional. The "Pet"was induced to favor the company with a recitation, and, under the pleaof teaching Rand, to perform the clog-dance with both gentlemen. Thenthere was an interval, in which Rand and Euphemia wandered a little waydown the mountain-side to gather laurel, leaving Mr. Sol to his siestaon a rock, and Mrs. Sol to take some knitting from the basket, and sitbeside him. 

When Rand and his companion had disappeared, Mrs. Sol nudged hersleeping partner. "Do you think that WAS the brother?"

Sol yawned. "Sure of it. They're as like as two peas, in looks. "

"Why didn't you tell him so, then?"

"Will you tell me, my dear, why you stopped me when I began?"

"Because something was said about Ruth being here; and I supposed Ruthwas a woman, and perhaps Pinkney's wife, and knew you'd be putting yourfoot in it by talking of that other woman. I supposed it was for fear ofthat he denied knowing you. "

"Well, when HE--this Rand--told me he had a twin-brother, he looked sofrightened that I knew he knew nothing of his brother's doings with thatwoman, and I threw him off the scent. He's a good fellow, but awfullygreen, and I didn't want to worry him with tales. I like him, and Ithink Phemie does too. "

"Nonsense! He's a conceited prig! Did you hear his sermon on the worldand its temptations? I wonder if he thought temptation had come up tohim in the person of us professionals out on a picnic. I think it waspositively rude. "

"My dear woman, you're always seeing slights and insults. I tell youhe's taken a shine to Phemie; and he's as good as four seats and abouquet to that child next Wednesday evening, to say nothing of theeclat of getting this St. Simeon--what do you call him?--Stalactites?"

"Stylites, " suggested Mrs. Sol. 

"Stylites, off from his pillar here. I'll have a paragraph in the paper, that the hermit crabs of Table Mountain--"

"Don't be a fool, Sol!"

"The hermit twins of Table Mountain bespoke the chaste performance. "

"One of them being the protector of the well-known MornieNixon, " responded Mrs. Sol, viciously accenting the name with herknitting-needles. 

"Rosy, you're unjust. You're prejudiced by the reports of the town. Mr. Pinkney's interest in her may be a purely artistic one, althoughmistaken. She'll never make a good variety-actress: she's too heavy. And the boys don't give her a fair show. No woman can make a debut in myversion of 'Somnambula, ' and have the front row in the pit say to her inthe sleepwalking scene, 'You're out rather late, Mornie. Kinder forgotto put on your things, didn't you? Mother sick, I suppose, and you'regoin' for more gin? Hurry along, or you'll ketch it when ye get home. 'Why, you couldn't do it yourself, Rosy!"

To which Mrs. Sol's illogical climax was, that, "bad as Rutherford mightbe, this Sunday-school superintendent, Rand, was worse. "

Rand and his companion returned late, but in high spirits. There wasan unnecessary effusiveness in the way in which Euphemia kissedMrs. Sol, --the one woman present, who UNDERSTOOD, and was to bepropitiated, --which did not tend to increase Mrs. Sol's good humor. She had her basket packed all ready for departure; and even the earnestsolicitation of Rand, that they would defer their going until sunset, produced no effect. 

"Mr. Rand--Mr. Pinkney, I mean--says the sunsets here are so lovely, "pleaded Euphemia. 

"There is a rehearsal at seven o'clock, and we have no time to lose, "said Mrs. Sol significantly. 

"I forgot to say, " said the "Marysville Pet" timidly, glancing at Mrs. Sol, "that Mr. Rand says he will bring his brother on Wednesday night, and wants four seats in front, so as not to be crowded. "

Sol shook the young man's hand warmly. "You'll not regret it, sir: it'sa surprising, a remarkable performance. "

"I'd like to go a piece down the mountain with you, " said Rand, withevident sincerity, looking at Miss Euphemia; "but Ruth isn't here yet, and we make a rule never to leave the place alone. I'll show you theslide: it's the quickest way to go down. If you meet any one who lookslike me, and talks like me, call him 'Ruth, ' and tell him I'm waitin'for him yer. "

Miss Phemia, the last to go, standing on the verge of the declivity, here remarked, with a dangerous smile, that, if she met any one whobore that resemblance, she might be tempted to keep him with her, --aplayfulness that brought the ready color to Rand's cheek. When sheadded to this the greater audacity of kissing her hand to him, theyoung hermit actually turned away in sheer embarrassment. When he lookedaround again, she was gone, and for the first time in his experience themountain seemed barren and lonely. 

The too sympathetic reader who would rashly deduce from this any newlyawakened sentiment in the virgin heart of Rand would quite misapprehendthat peculiar young man. That singular mixture of boyish inexperienceand mature doubt and disbelief, which was partly the result of histemperament, and partly of his cloistered life on the mountain, made himregard his late companions, now that they were gone, and his intimacywith them, with remorseful distrust. The mountain was barren and lonely, because it was no longer HIS. It had become a part of the great world, which four years ago he and his brother had put aside, and in which, astwo self-devoted men, they walked alone. More than that, he believedhe had acquired some understanding of the temptations that assailedhis brother, and the poor little vanities of the "Marysville Pet" weretransformed into the blandishments of a Circe. Rand, who would havesuccumbed to a wicked, superior woman, believed he was a saint inwithstanding the foolish weakness of a simple one. 

He did not resume his work that day. He paced the mountain, anxiouslyawaiting his brother's return, and eager to relate his experiences. Hewould go with him to the dramatic entertainment; from his example andwisdom, Ruth should learn how easily temptation might be overcome. But, first of all, there should be the fullest exchange of confidencesand explanations. The old rule should be rescinded for once, the olddiscussion in regard to Mornie re-opened, and Rand, having convinced hisbrother of error, would generously extend his forgiveness. 

The sun sank redly. Lingering long upon the ledge before their cabin, itat last slipped away almost imperceptibly, leaving Rand still wrapped inrevery. Darkness, the smoke of distant fires in the woods, and the faintevening incense of the pines, crept slowly up; but Ruth came not. Themoon rose, a silver gleam on the farther ridge; and Rand, becominguneasy at his brother's prolonged absence, resolved to break anothercustom, and leave the summit, to seek him on the trail. He buckled onhis revolvers, seized his gun, when a cry from the depths arrested him. He leaned over the ledge, and listened. Again the cry arose, and thistime more distinctly. He held his breath: the blood settled around hisheart in superstitious terror. It was the wailing voice of a woman. 

"Ruth, Ruth! for God's sake come and help me!"

The blood flew back hotly to Rand's cheek. It was Mornie's voice. Byleaning over the ledge, he could distinguish something moving along thealmost precipitous face of the cliff, where an abandoned trail, longsince broken off and disrupted by the fall of a portion of the ledge, stopped abruptly a hundred feet below him. Rand knew the trail, adangerous one always: in its present condition a single mis-stepwould be fatal. Would she make that mis-step? He shook off a horribletemptation that seemed to be sealing his lips, and paralyzing hislimbs, and almost screamed to her, "Drop on your face, hang on to thechaparral, and don't move!"

In another instant, with a coil of rope around his arm, he was dashingdown the almost perpendicular "slide. " When he had nearly reached thelevel of the abandoned trail, he fastened one end of the rope to ajutting splinter of granite, and began to "lay out, " and work hisway laterally along the face of the mountain. Presently he struck theregular trail at the point from which the woman must have diverged. 

"It is Rand, " she said, without lifting her head. 

"It is, " replied Rand coldly. "Pass the rope under your arms, and I'llget you back to the trail. "

"Where is Ruth?" she demanded again, without moving. She was trembling, but with excitement rather than fear. 

"I don't know, " returned Rand impatiently. "Come! the ledge is alreadycrumbling beneath our feet. "

"Let it crumble!" said the woman passionately. 

Rand surveyed her with profound disgust, then passed the rope around herwaist, and half lifted, half swung her from her feet. In a few momentsshe began to mechanically help herself, and permitted him to guide herto a place of safety. That reached, she sank down again. 

The rising moon shone full upon her face and figure. Through his growingindignation Rand was still impressed and even startled with the changethe few last months had wrought upon her. In place of the silly, fanciful, half-hysterical hoyden whom he had known, a matured woman, strong in passionate self-will, fascinating in a kind of wild, savagebeauty, looked up at him as if to read his very soul. 

"What are you staring at?" she said finally. "Why don't you help me on?"

"Where do you want to go?" said Rand quietly. 

"Where! Up there!"--she pointed savagely to the top of themountain, --"to HIM! Where else should I go?" she said, with a bitterlaugh. 

"I've told you he wasn't there, " said Rand roughly. "He hasn'treturned. "

"I'll wait for him--do you hear?--wait for him; stay there till hecomes. If you won't help me, I'll go alone. "

She made a step forward but faltered, staggered, and was obliged to leanagainst the mountain for support. Stains of travel were on her dress;lines of fatigue and pain, and traces of burning passionate tears, wereon her face; her black hair flowed from beneath her gaudy bonnet; and, shamed out of his brutality, Rand placed his strong arm round her waist, and half carrying, half supporting her, began the ascent. Her headdropped wearily on his shoulder; her arm encircled his neck; her hair, as if caressingly, lay across his breast and hands; her grateful eyeswere close to his; her breath was upon his cheek: and yet his onlyconsciousness was of the possibly ludicrous figure he might present tohis brother, should he meet him with Mornie Nixon in his arms. Not aword was spoken by either till they reached the summit. Relieved atfinding his brother still absent, he turned not unkindly toward thehelpless figure on his arm. "I don't see what makes Ruth so late, " hesaid. "He's always here by sundown. Perhaps--"

"Perhaps he knows I'm here, " said Mornie, with a bitter laugh. 

"I didn't say that, " said Rand, "and I don't think it. What I meantwas, he might have met a party that was picnicking here to-day, --Sol. Saunders and wife, and Miss Euphemia--"

Mornie flung his arm away from her with a passionate gesture. "THEYhere!--picnicking HERE!--those people HERE!"

"Yes, " said Rand, unconsciously a little ashamed. "They came hereaccidentally. "

Mornie's quick passion had subsided: she had sunk again wearily andhelplessly on a rock beside him. "I suppose, " she said, with a weaklaugh--"I suppose, they talked of ME. I suppose they told you how, withtheir lies and fair promises, they tricked me out, and set me before anaudience of brutes and laughing hyenas to make merry over. Did they tellyou of the insults that I received?--how the sins of my parents wereflung at me instead of bouquets? Did they tell you they could havespared me this, but they wanted the few extra dollars taken in at thedoor? No!"

"They said nothing of the kind, " replied Rand surlily. 

"Then you must have stopped them. You were horrified enough to know thatI had dared to take the only honest way left me to make a living. I knowyou, Randolph Pinkney! You'd rather see Joaquin Muriatta, the Mexicanbandit, standing before you to-night with a revolver, than the helpless, shamed, miserable Mornie Nixon. And you can't help yourself, unless youthrow me over the cliff. Perhaps you'd better, " she said, with a bitterlaugh that faded from her lips as she leaned, pale and breathless, against the bowlder. 

"Ruth will tell you--" began Rand. 

"D--n Ruth!"

Rand turned away. 

"Stop!" she said suddenly, staggering to her feet. "I'm sick--for allI know, dying. God grant that it may be so! But, if you are a man, youwill help me to your cabin--to some place where I can lie down NOW, andbe at rest. I'm very, very tired. "

She paused. She would have fallen again; but Rand, seeing more in herface than her voice interpreted to his sullen ears, took her sullenlyin his arms, and carried her to the cabin. Her eyes glanced around thebright party-colored walls, and a faint smile came to her lips as sheput aside her bonnet, adorned with a companion pinion of the brightwings that covered it. 

"Which is Ruth's bed?" she asked. 

Rand pointed to it. 

"Lay me there!"

Rand would have hesitated, but, with another look at her face, complied. 

She lay quite still a moment. Presently she said, "Give me some brandyor whiskey!"

Rand was silent and confused. 

"I forgot, " she added half bitterly. "I know you have not that commonestand cheapest of vices. "

She lay quite still again. Suddenly she raised herself partly on herelbow, and in a strong, firm voice, said, "Rand!"

"Yes, Mornie. "

"If you are wise and practical, as you assume to be, you will do what Iask you without a question. If you do it AT ONCE, you may save yourselfand Ruth some trouble, some mortification, and perhaps some remorse andsorrow. Do you hear me?"

"Yes. "

"Go to the nearest doctor, and bring him here with you. "

"But YOU!"

Her voice was strong, confident, steady, and patient. "You can safelyleave me until then. "

In another moment Rand was plunging down the "slide. " But it was pastmidnight when he struggled over the last bowlder up the ascent, draggingthe half-exhausted medical wisdom of Brown's Ferry on his arm. 

"I've been gone long, doctor, " said Rand feverishly, "and she looked SOdeath-like when I left. If we should be too late!"

The doctor stopped suddenly, lifted his head, and pricked his ears likea hound on a peculiar scent. "We ARE too late, " he said, with a slightprofessional laugh. 

Indignant and horrified, Rand turned upon him. 

"Listen, " said the doctor, lifting his hand. 

Rand listened, so intently that he heard the familiar moan of the riverbelow; but the great stony field lay silent before him. And then, borneacross its bare barren bosom, like its own articulation, came faintlythe feeble wail of a new-born babe. 

III. 

STORM. 

The doctor hurried ahead in the darkness. Rand, who had stoppedparalyzed at the ominous sound, started forward again mechanically; butas the cry arose again more distinctly, and the full significance ofthe doctor's words came to him, he faltered, stopped, and, with cheeksburning with shame and helpless indignation, sank upon a stone besidethe shaft, and, burying his face in his hands, fairly gave way to aburst of boyish tears. Yet even then the recollection that he had notcried since, years ago, his mother's dying hands had joined his andRuth's childish fingers together, stung him fiercely, and dried histears in angry heat upon his cheeks. 

How long he sat there, he remembered not; what he thought, he recallednot. But the wildest and most extravagant plans and resolves availed himnothing in the face of this forever desecrated home, and this shamefulculmination of his ambitious life on the mountain. Once he thought offlight; but the reflection that he would still abandon his brother toshame, perhaps a self-contented shame, checked him hopelessly. Could heavert the future? He MUST; but how? Yet he could only sit and stare intothe darkness in dumb abstraction. 

Sitting there, his eyes fell upon a peculiar object in a crevice ofthe ledge beside the shaft. It was the tin pail containing his dinner, which, according to their custom, it was the duty of the brother whostaid above ground to prepare and place for the brother who workedbelow. Ruth must, consequently, have put it there before he left thatmorning, and Rand had overlooked it while sharing the repast of thestrangers at noon. At the sight of this dumb witness of their mutualcares and labors, Rand sighed, half in brotherly sorrow, half in aselfish sense of injury done him. 

He took up the pail mechanically, removed its cover, and--started; foron top of the carefully bestowed provisions lay a little note, addressedto him in Ruth's peculiar scrawl. 

He opened it with feverish hands, held it in the light of the peacefulmoon, and read as follows:

DEAR, DEAR BROTHER, --When you read this, I shall be far away. I gobecause I shall not stay to disgrace you, and because the girl that Ibrought trouble upon has gone away too, to hide her disgrace and mine;and where she goes, Rand, I ought to follow her, and, please God, Iwill! I am not as wise or as good as you are, but it seems the best Ican do; and God bless you, dear old Randy, boy! Times and times againI've wanted to tell you all, and reckoned to do so; but whether you wassitting before me in the cabin, or working beside me in the drift, Icouldn't get to look upon your honest face, dear brother, and say whatthings I'd been keeping from you so long. I'll stay away until I've donewhat I ought to do, and if you can say, "Come, Ruth, " I will come; but, until you can say it, the mountain is yours, Randy, boy, the mine isyours, the cabin is yours, ALL is yours. Rub out the old chalk-marks, Rand, as I rub them out here in my--[A few words here were blurred andindistinct, as if the moon had suddenly become dim-eyed too]. God blessyou, brother!

P. S. --You know I mean Mornie all the time. It's she I'm going to seek;but don't you think so bad of her as you do, I am so much worse thanshe. I wanted to tell you that all along, but I didn't dare. She's runaway from the Ferry half crazy; said she was going to Sacramento, andI am going there to find her alive or dead. Forgive me, brother! Don'tthrow this down right away; hold it in your hand a moment, Randy, boy, and try hard to think it's my hand in yours. And so good-by, and Godbless you, old Randy!

From your loving brother, RUTH. 

A deep sense of relief overpowered every other feeling in Rand's breast. It was clear that Ruth had not yet discovered the truth of Mornie'sflight: he was on his way to Sacramento, and before he could return, Mornie could be removed. Once despatched in some other direction, withRuth once more returned and under his brother's guidance, the separationcould be made easy and final. There was evidently no marriage as yet;and now, the fear of an immediate meeting over, there should be none. For Rand had already feared this; had recalled the few infelicitousrelations, legal and illegal, which were common to the adjoiningcamp, --the flagrantly miserable life of the husband of a San Franciscoanonyma who lived in style at the Ferry, the shameful carousals and moreshameful quarrels of the Frenchman and Mexican woman who "kept house"at "the Crossing, " the awful spectacle of the three half-bred Indianchildren who played before the cabin of a fellow miner and townsman. Thank Heaven, the Eagle's Nest on Table Mountain should never be pointedat from the valley as another--

A heavy hand upon his arm brought him trembling to his feet. He turned, and met the half-anxious, half-contemptuous glance of the doctor. 

"I'm sorry to disturb you, " he said dryly; "but it's about time you orsomebody else put in an appearance at that cabin. Luckily for HER, she'sone woman in a thousand; has had her wits about her better than somefolks I know, and has left me little to do but make her comfortable. Butshe's gone through too much, --fought her little fight too gallantly, --isaltogether too much of a trump to be played off upon now. So rise upout of that, young man, pick up your scattered faculties, and fetch awoman--some sensible creature of her own sex--to look after her; for, without wishing to be personal, I'm d----d if I trust her to the likesof you. "

There was no mistaking Dr. Duchesne' s voice and manner; and Randwas affected by it, as most people were throughout the valley of theStanislaus. But he turned upon him his frank and boyish face, and saidsimply, "But I don't know any woman, or where to get one. "

The doctor looked at him again. "Well, I'll find you some one, " he said, softening. 

"Thank you!" said Rand. 

The doctor was disappearing. With an effort Rand recalled him. "Onemoment, doctor. " He hesitated, and his cheeks were glowing. "You'llplease say nothing about this down there"--he pointed to thevalley--"for a time. And you'll say to the woman you send--"

Dr. Duchesne, whose resolute lips were sealed upon the secrets of halfTuolumne County, interrupted him scornfully. "I cannot answer for thewoman--you must talk to her yourself. As for me, generally I keepmy professional visits to myself; but--" he laid his hand on Rand'sarm--"if I find out you're putting on any airs to that poor creature, if, on my next visit, her lips or her pulse tell me you haven't beenacting on the square to her, I'll drop a hint to drunken old Nixon wherehis daughter is hidden. I reckon she could stand his brutality betterthan yours. Good-night!"

In another moment he was gone. Rand, who had held back his quick tongue, feeling himself in the power of this man, once more alone, sank on arock, and buried his face in his hands. Recalling himself in a moment, he rose, wiped his hot eyelids, and staggered toward the cabin. It wasquite still now. He paused on the topmost step, and listened: therewas no sound from the ledge, or the Eagle's Nest that clung to it. Halftimidly he descended the winding steps, and paused before the doorof the cabin. "Mornie, " he said, in a dry, metallic voice, whoseonly indication of the presence of sickness was in the lowness of itspitch, --"Mornie!" There was no reply. "Mornie, " he repeated impatiently, "it's me, --Rand. If you want anything, you're to call me. I am justoutside. " Still no answer came from the silent cabin. He pushed open thedoor gently, hesitated, and stepped over the threshold. 

A change in the interior of the cabin within the last few hours showeda new presence. The guns, shovels, picks, and blankets had disappeared;the two chairs were drawn against the wall, the table placed by thebedside. The swinging-lantern was shaded towards the bed, --the object ofRand's attention. On that bed, his brother's bed, lay a helpless woman, pale from the long black hair that matted her damp forehead, and clungto her hollow cheeks. Her face was turned to the wall, so that thesoftened light fell upon her profile, which to Rand at that momentseemed even noble and strong. But the next moment his eye fell upon theshoulder and arm that lay nearest to him, and the little bundle, swathedin flannel, that it clasped to her breast. His brow grew dark ashe gazed. The sleeping woman moved. Perhaps it was an instinctiveconsciousness of his presence; perhaps it was only the current ofcold air from the opened door: but she shuddered slightly, and, stillunconscious, drew the child as if away from HIM, and nearer to herbreast. The shamed blood rushed to Rand's face; and saying half aloud, "I'm not going to take your precious babe away from you, " he turned inhalf-boyish pettishness away. Nevertheless he came back again shortly tothe bedside, and gazed upon them both. She certainly did look altogethermore ladylike, and less aggressive, lying there so still: sickness, thatcheap refining process of some natures, was not unbecoming to her. Butthis bundle! A boyish curiosity, stronger than even his strong objectionto the whole episode, was steadily impelling him to lift the blanketfrom it. "I suppose she'd waken if I did, " said Rand; "but I'd like toknow what right the doctor had to wrap it up in my best flannel shirt. "This fresh grievance, the fruit of his curiosity, sent him away again tomeditate on the ledge. After a few moments he returned again, opened thecupboard at the foot of the bed softly, took thence a piece of chalk, and scrawled in large letters upon the door of the cupboard, "If youwant anything, sing out: I'm just outside. --RAND. " This done, he took ablanket and bear-skin from the corner, and walked to the door. But herehe paused, looked back at the inscription (evidently not satisfied withit), returned, took up the chalk, added a line, but rubbed it outagain, repeated this operation a few times until he produced the politepostscript, --"Hope you'll be better soon. " Then he retreated to theledge, spread the bear-skin beside the door, and, rolling himself ina blanket, lit his pipe for his night-long vigil. But Rand, althougha martyr, a philosopher, and a moralist, was young. In less than tenminutes the pipe dropped from his lips, and he was asleep. 

He awoke with a strange sense of heat and suffocation, and withdifficulty shook off his covering. Rubbing his eyes, he discovered thatan extra blanket had in some mysterious way been added in the night; andbeneath his head was a pillow he had no recollection of placing therewhen he went to sleep. By degrees the events of the past night forcedthemselves upon his benumbed faculties, and he sat up. The sun wasriding high; the door of the cabin was open. Stretching himself, hestaggered to his feet, and looked in through the yawning crack at thehinges. He rubbed his eyes again. Was he still asleep, and followed bya dream of yesterday? For there, even in the very attitude he rememberedto have seen her sitting at her luncheon on the previous day, with herknitting on her lap, sat Mrs. Sol Saunders! What did it mean? or had shereally been sitting there ever since, and all the events that followedonly a dream?

A hand was laid upon his arm; and, turning, he saw the murky black eyesand Indian-inked beard of Sol beside him. That gentleman put his fingeron his lips with a theatrical gesture, and then, slowly retreating inthe well-known manner of the buried Majesty of Denmark, waved him, likeanother Hamlet, to a remoter part of the ledge. This reached, he graspedRand warmly by the hand, shook it heartily, and said, "It's all right, my boy; all right!"

"But--" began Rand. The hot blood flowed to his cheeks: he stammered, and stopped short. 

"It's all right, I say! Don't you mind! We'll pull you through. "

"But, Mrs. Sol! what does she--"

"Rosey has taken the matter in hand, sir; and when that woman takes amatter in hand, whether it's a baby or a rehearsal, sir, she makes itbuzz. "

"But how did she know?" stammered Rand. 

"How? Well, sir, the scene opened something like this, " said Solprofessionally. "Curtain rises on me and Mrs. Sol. Domesticinterior: practicable chairs, table, books, newspapers. Enter Dr. Duchesne, --eccentric character part, very popular with theboys, --tells off-hand affecting story of strange woman--one 'moreunfortunate'--having baby in Eagle's Nest, lonely place on 'peaksof Snowdon, ' midnight; eagles screaming, you know, and far downunfathomable depths; only attendant, cold-blooded ruffian, evidentlyfather of child, with sinister designs on child and mother. "

"He didn't say THAT!" said Rand, with an agonized smile. 

"Order! Sit down in front!" continued Sol easily. "Mrs. Sol--highlyinterested, a mother herself--demands name of place. 'Table Mountain. 'No; it cannot be--it is! Excitement. Mystery! Rosey rises tooccasion--comes to front: 'Some one must go; I--I--will go myself!'Myself, coming to center: 'Not alone, dearest; I--I will accompany you!'A shriek at right upper center. Enter the 'Marysville Pet. ' 'Ihave heard all. 'Tis a base calumny. It cannot be HE--Randolph!Never!'--'Dare you accompany us will!' Tableau. 

"Is Miss Euphemia--here?" gasped Rand, practical even in hisembarrassment. 

"Or-r-rder! Scene second. Summit of mountain--moonlight Peaks of Snowdonin distance. Right--lonely cabin. Enter slowly up defile, Sol, Mrs. Sol, the 'Pet. ' Advance slowly to cabin. Suppressed shriek from the'Pet, ' who rushes to recumbent figure--Left--discovered lying besidecabin-door. ''Tis he! Hist! he sleeps!' Throws blanket over him, andretires up stage--so. " Here Sol achieved a vile imitation of the "Pet's"most enchanting stage-manner. "Mrs. Sol advances--Center--throws opendoor. Shriek! ''Tis Mornie, the lost found!' The 'Pet' advances: 'Andthe father is?'--'Not Rand!' The 'Pet' kneeling: 'Just Heaven, I thankthee!' No, it is--'"

"Hush!" said Rand appealingly, looking toward the cabin. 

"Hush it is!" said the actor good-naturedly. "But it's all right, Mr. Rand: we'll pull you through. "

Later in the morning, Rand learned that Mornie's ill-fated connectionwith the Star Variety Troupe had been a source of anxiety to Mrs. Sol, and she had reproached herself for the girl's infelicitous debut. 

"But, Lord bless you, Mr. Rand!" said Sol, "it was all in the way ofbusiness. She came to us--was fresh and new. Her chance, looking atit professionally, was as good as any amateur's; but what with herrelations here, and her bein' known, she didn't take. We lost money onher! It's natural she should feel a little ugly. We all do when we getsorter kicked back onto ourselves, and find we can't stand alone. Why, you wouldn't believe it, " he continued, with a moist twinkle of hisblack eyes; "but the night I lost my little Rosey, of diphtheria in GoldHill, the child was down on the bills for a comic song; and I had todrag Mrs. Sol on, cut up as she was, and filled up with that much of OldBourbon to keep her nerves stiff, so she could do an old gag with meto gain time, and make up the 'variety. ' Why, sir, when I came to thefront, I was ugly! And when one of the boys in the front row sang out, 'Don't expose that poor child to the night air, Sol, '--meaning Mrs. Sol, --I acted ugly. No, sir, it's human nature; and it was quite naturalthat Mornie, when she caught sight o' Mrs. Sol's face last night, shouldrise up and cuss us both. Lord, if she'd only acted like that! But theold lady got her quiet at last; and, as I said before, it's all right, and we'll pull her through. But don't YOU thank us: it's a little matterbetwixt us and Mornie. We've got everything fixed, so that Mrs. Sol canstay right along. We'll pull Mornie through, and get her away from this, and her baby too, as soon as we can. You won't get mad if I tell yousomething?" said Sol, with a half-apologetic laugh. "Mrs. Sol wasrather down on you the other day, hated you on sight, and preferredyour brother to you; but when she found he'd run off and left YOU, you, --don't mind my sayin', --a 'mere boy, ' to take what oughter beHIS place, why, she just wheeled round agin' him. I suppose hegot flustered, and couldn't face the music. Never left a word ofexplanation? Well, it wasn't exactly square, though I tell the old womanit's human nature. He might have dropped a hint where he was goin'. Well, there, I won't say a word more agin' him. I know how you feel. Hush it is. "

It was the firm conviction of the simple-minded Sol that no one knewthe various natural indications of human passion better than himself. Perhaps it was one of the fallacies of his profession that theexpression of all human passion was limited to certain conventionalsigns and sounds. Consequently, when Rand colored violently, becameconfused, stammered, and at last turned hastily away, the good-heartedfellow instantly recognized the unfailing evidence of modesty andinnocence embarrassed by recognition. As for Rand, I fear his shamewas only momentary. Confirmed in the belief of his ulterior wisdom andvirtue, his first embarrassment over, he was not displeased with thishalfway tribute, and really believed that the time would come whenMr. Sol should eventually praise his sagacity and reservation, and acknowledge that he was something more than a mere boy. He, nevertheless, shrank from meeting Mornie that morning, and was glad thatthe presence of Mrs. Sol relieved him from that duty. 

The day passed uneventfully. Rand busied himself in his usualavocations, and constructed a temporary shelter for himself and Solbeside the shaft, besides rudely shaping a few necessary articles offurniture for Mrs. Sol. 

"It will be a little spell yet afore Mornie's able to be moved, "suggested Sol, "and you might as well be comfortable. "

Rand sighed at this prospect, yet presently forgot himself in thegood humor of his companion, whose admiration for himself he began topatronizingly admit. There was no sense of degradation in accepting thefriendship of this man who had traveled so far, seen so much, and yet, as a practical man of the world, Rand felt was so inferior to himself. The absence of Miss Euphemia, who had early left the mountain, was asource of odd, half-definite relief. Indeed, when he closed his eyes torest that night, it was with a sense that the reality of his situationwas not as bad as he had feared. Once only, the figure of hisbrother--haggard, weary, and footsore, on his hopeless quest, wanderingin lonely trails and lonelier settlements--came across his fancy; butwith it came the greater fear of his return, and the pathetic figure wasbanished. "And, besides, he's in Sacramento by this time, and likeas not forgotten us all, " he muttered; and, twining this poppy andmandragora around his pillow, he fell asleep. 

His spirits had quite returned the next morning, and once or twice hefound himself singing while at work in the shaft. The fear that Ruthmight return to the mountain before he could get rid of Mornie, andthe slight anxiety that had grown upon him to know something of hisbrother's movements, and to be able to govern them as he wished, causedhim to hit upon the plan of constructing an ingenious advertisement tobe published in the San Francisco journals, wherein the missing Ruthshould be advised that news of his quest should be communicated to himby "a friend, " through the same medium, after an interval of two weeks. Full of this amiable intention, he returned to the surface to dinner. Here, to his momentary confusion, he met Miss Euphemia, who, in absenceof Sol, was assisting Mrs. Sol in the details of the household. 

If the honest frankness with which that young lady greeted him was notenough to relieve his embarrassment, he would have forgotten it inthe utterly new and changed aspect she presented. Her extravagantwalking-costume of the previous day was replaced by some bright calico, a little white apron, and a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which seemed toRand, in some odd fashion, to restore her original girlish simplicity. The change was certainly not unbecoming to her. If her waist was notas tightly pinched, a la mode, there still was an honest, youthfulplumpness about it; her step was freer for the absence of her high-heelboots; and even the hand she extended to Rand, if not quite so small asin her tight gloves, and a little brown from exposure, was magnetic inits strong, kindly grasp. There was perhaps a slight suggestion of thepractical Mr. Sol in her wholesome presence; and Rand could not helpwondering if Mrs. Sol had ever been a Gold Hill "Pet" before hermarriage with Mr. Sol. The young girl noticed his curious glance. 

"You never saw me in my rehearsal dress before, " she said, with a laugh. "But I'm not 'company' to-day, and didn't put on my best harness toknock round in. I suppose I look dreadful. "

"I don't think you look bad, " said Rand simply. 

"Thank you, " said Euphemia, with a laugh and a courtesy. "But this isn'tgetting the dinner. "

As part of that operation evidently was the taking-off of her hat, the putting-up of some thick blond locks that had escaped, and therolling-up of her sleeves over a pair of strong, rounded arms, Randlingered near her. All trace of the "Pet's" previous professionalcoquetry was gone, --perhaps it was only replaced by a more natural one;but as she looked up, and caught sight of Rand's interested face, shelaughed again, and colored a little. Slight as was the blush, it wassufficient to kindle a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks, which wasso utterly unexpected to him that he turned on his heel in confusion. "Ireckon she thinks I'm soft and silly, like Ruth, " he soliloquized, and, determining not to look at her again, betook himself to a distant andcontemplative pipe. In vain did Miss Euphemia address herself to theostentatious getting of the dinner in full view of him; in vain didshe bring the coffee-pot away from the fire, and nearer Rand, with theapparent intention of examining its contents in a better light; in vain, while wiping a plate, did she, absorbed in the distant prospect, walkto the verge of the mountain, and become statuesque and forgetful. Thesulky young gentleman took no outward notice of her. 

Mrs. Sol's attendance upon Mornie prevented her leaving the cabin, andRand and Miss Euphemia dined in the open air alone. The ridiculousnessof keeping up a formal attitude to his solitary companion caused Randto relax; but, to his astonishment, the "Pet" seemed to have becomecorrespondingly distant and formal. After a few moments of discomfort, Rand, who had eaten little, arose, and "believed he would go back towork. "

"Ah, yes!" said the "Pet, " with an indifferent air, "I suppose you must. Well, good-by, Mr. Pinkney. "

Rand turned. "YOU are not going?" he asked, in some uneasiness. 

"I'VE got some work to do too, " returned Miss Euphemia a little curtly. 

"But, " said the practical Rand, "I thought you allowed that you werefixed to stay until to-morrow?"

But here Miss Euphemia, with rising color and slight acerbity of voice, was not aware that she was "fixed to stay" anywhere, least of all whenshe was in the way. More than that, she MUST say--although perhaps itmade no difference, and she ought not to say it--that she was not inthe habit of intruding upon gentlemen who plainly gave her to understandthat her company was not desirable. She did not know why she saidthis--of course it could make no difference to anybody who didn't, ofcourse, care--but she only wanted to say that she only came herebecause her dear friend, her adopted mother, --and a better woman neverbreathed, --had come, and had asked her to stay. Of course, Mrs. Sol wasan intruder herself--Mr. Sol was an intruder--they were all intruders:she only wondered that Mr. Pinkney had borne with them so long. She knewit was an awful thing to be here, taking care of a poor--poor, helplesswoman; but perhaps Mr. Rand's BROTHER might forgive them, if hecouldn't. But no matter, she would go--Mr. Sol would go--ALL would go;and then, perhaps, Mr, Rand--

She stopped breathless; she stopped with the corner of her apron againsther tearful hazel eyes; she stopped with--what was more remarkable thanall--Rand's arm actually around her waist, and his astonished, alarmedface within a few inches of her own. 

"Why, Miss Euphemia, Phemie, my dear girl! I never meant anything likeTHAT, " said Rand earnestly. "I really didn't now! Come now!"

"You never once spoke to me when I sat down, " said Miss Euphemia, feeblyendeavoring to withdraw from Rand's grasp. 

"I really didn't! Oh, come now, look here! I didn't! Don't! There's adear--THERE!"

This last conclusive exposition was a kiss. Miss Euphemia was not quickenough to release herself from his arms. He anticipated that act a fullhalf-second, and had dropped his own, pale and breathless. 

The girl recovered herself first. "There, I declare, I'm forgetting Mrs. Sol's coffee!" she exclaimed hastily, and, snatching up the coffee-pot, disappeared. When she returned, Rand was gone. Miss Euphemia busiedherself demurely in clearing up the dishes, with the tail of hereye sweeping the horizon of the summit level around her. But no Randappeared. Presently she began to laugh quietly to herself. This occurredseveral times during her occupation, which was somewhat prolonged. Theresult of this meditative hilarity was summed up in a somewhat graveand thoughtful deduction as she walked slowly back to the cabin: "I dobelieve I'm the first woman that that boy ever kissed. "

Miss Euphemia staid that day and the next, and Rand forgot hisembarrassment. By what means I know not, Miss Euphemia managed torestore Rand's confidence in himself and in her, and in a little rambleon the mountain-side got him to relate, albeit somewhat reluctantly, theparticulars of his rescue of Mornie from her dangerous position on thebroken trail. 

"And, if you hadn't got there as soon as you did, she'd have fallen?"asked the "Pet. "

"I reckon, " returned Rand gloomily: "she was sorter dazed and crazedlike. "

"And you saved her life?"

"I suppose so, if you put it that way, " said Rand sulkily. 

"But how did you get her up the mountain again?"

"Oh! I got her up, " returned Rand moodily. 

"But how? Really, Mr. Rand, you don't know how interesting this is. It'sas good as a play, " said the "Pet, " with a little excited laugh. 

"Oh, I carried her up!"

"In your arms?"

"Y-e-e-s. "

Miss Euphemia paused, and bit off the stalk of a flower, made a wryface, and threw it away from her in disgust. 

Then she dug a few tiny holes in the earth with her parasol, and buriedbits of the flower-stalk in them, as if they had been tender memories. "I suppose you knew Mornie very well?" she asked. 

"I used to run across her in the woods, " responded Rand shortly, "a yearago. I didn't know her so well then as--" He stopped. 

"As what? As NOW?" asked the "Pet" abruptly. Rand, who was coloringover his narrow escape from a topic which a delicate kindness of Sol hadexcluded from their intercourse on the mountain, stammered, "as YOU do, I meant. "

The "Pet" tossed her head a little. "Oh! I don't know her at all--exceptthrough Sol. "

Rand stared hard at this. The "Pet, " who was looking at him intently, said, "Show me the place where you saw Mornie clinging that night. "

"It's dangerous, " suggested Rand. 

"You mean I'd be afraid! Try me! I don't believe she was SO dreadfullyfrightened!"

"Why?" asked Rand, in astonishment. 

"Oh--because--"

Rand sat down in vague wonderment. 

"Show it to me, " continued the "Pet, " "or--I'll find it ALONE!"

Thus challenged, he rose, and, after a few moments' climbing, stood withher upon the trail. "You see that thorn-bush where the rock has fallenaway. It was just there. It is not safe to go farther. No, really! MissEuphemia! Please don't! It's almost certain death!"

But the giddy girl had darted past him, and, face to the wall ofthe cliff, was creeping along the dangerous path. Rand followedmechanically. Once or twice the trail crumbled beneath her feet; butshe clung to a projecting root of chaparral, and laughed. She had almostreached her elected goal, when, slipping, the treacherous chaparral sheclung to yielded in her grasp, and Rand, with a cry, sprung forward. 

But the next instant she quickly transferred her hold to a cleft inthe cliff, and was safe. Not so her companion. The soil beneath him, loosened by the impulse of his spring, slipped away: he was falling withit, when she caught him sharply with her disengaged hand, and togetherthey scrambled to a more secure footing. 

"I could have reached it alone, " said the "Pet, " "if you'd left mealone. "

"Thank Heaven, we're saved!" said Rand gravely. 

"AND WITHOUT A ROPE, " said Miss Euphemia significantly. 

Rand did not understand her. But, as they slowly returned to the summit, he stammered out the always difficult thanks of a man who has beenphysically helped by one of the weaker sex. Miss Euphemia was quick tosee her error. 

"I might have made you lose your footing by catching at you, " she saidmeekly. "But I was so frightened for you, and could not help it. "

The superior animal, thoroughly bamboozled, thereupon complimented heron her dexterity. 

"Oh, that's nothing!" she said, with a sigh. "I used to do theflying-trapeze business with papa when I was a child, and I've notforgotten it. " With this and other confidences of her early life, inwhich Rand betrayed considerable interest, they beguiled the tediousascent. "I ought to have made you carry me up, " said the lady, with alittle laugh, when they reached the summit; "but you haven't known me aslong as you have Mornie, have you?" With this mysterious speech she badeRand "good-night, " and hurried off to the cabin. 

And so a week passed by, --the week so dreaded by Rand, yet passed sopleasantly, that at times it seemed as if that dread were only a trickof his fancy, or as if the circumstances that surrounded him weredifferent from what he believed them to be. On the seventh day thedoctor had staid longer than usual; and Rand, who had been sitting withEuphemia on the ledge by the shaft, watching the sunset, had barelytime to withdraw his hand from hers, as Mrs. Sol, a trifle pale andwearied-looking, approached him. 

"I don't like to trouble you, " she said, --indeed, they had seldomtroubled him with the details of Mornie's convalescence, or even herneeds and requirements, --"but the doctor is alarmed about Mornie, andshe has asked to see you. I think you'd better go in and speak to her. You know, " continued Mrs. Sol delicately, "you haven't been in theresince the night she was taken sick, and maybe a new face might do hergood. "

The guilty blood flew to Rand's face as he stammered, "I thought I'd bein the way. I didn't believe she cared much to see me. Is she worse?"

"The doctor is looking very anxious, " said Mrs. Sol simply. 

The blood returned from Rand's face, and settled around his heart. Heturned very pale. He had consoled himself always for his complicityin Ruth's absence, that he was taking good care of Mornie, or--whatis considered by most selfish natures an equivalent--permitting orencouraging some one else to "take good care of her;" but here wasa contingency utterly unforeseen. It did not occur to him that this"taking good care" of her could result in anything but a perfectsolution of her troubles, or that there could be any future to hercondition but one of recovery. But what if she should die? A suddenand helpless sense of his responsibility to Ruth, to HER, brought himtrembling to his feet. 

He hurried to the cabin, where Mrs. Sol left him with a word of caution:"You'll find her changed and quiet, --very quiet. If I was you, Iwouldn't say anything to bring back her old self. "

The change which Rand saw was so great, the face that was turned to himso quiet, that, with a new fear upon him, he would have preferred thesavage eyes and reckless mien of the old Mornie whom he hated. With hishabitual impulsiveness he tried to say something that should expressthat fact not unkindly, but faltered, and awkwardly sank into the chairby her bedside. 

"I don't wonder you stare at me now, " she said in a far-off voice. "Itseems to you strange to see me lying here so quiet. You are thinking howwild I was when I came here that night. I must have been crazy, I think. I dreamed that I said dreadful things to you; but you must forgive me, and not mind it. I was crazy then. " She stopped, and folded the blanketbetween her thin fingers. "I didn't ask you to come here to tell youthat, or to remind you of it; but--but when I was crazy, I said so manyworse, dreadful things of HIM; and you--YOU will be left behind to tellhim of it. "

Rand was vaguely murmuring something to the effect that "he knew shedidn't mean anything, " that "she musn't think of it again, " that "he'dforgotten all about it, " when she stopped him with a tired gesture. 

"Perhaps I was wrong to think, that, after I am gone, you would care totell him anything. Perhaps I'm wrong to think of it at all, or to carewhat he will think of me, except for the sake of the child--his child, Rand--that I must leave behind me. He will know that IT never abusedhim. No, God bless its sweet heart! IT never was wild and wicked andhateful, like its cruel, crazy mother. And he will love it; and you, perhaps, will love it too--just a little, Rand! Look at it!" She triedto raise the helpless bundle beside her in her arms, but failed. "Youmust lean over, " she said faintly to Rand. "It looks like him, doesn'tit?"

Rand, with wondering, embarrassed eyes, tried to see some resemblance, in the little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face of his brother, which even then was haunting him from some mysterious distance. Hekissed the child's forehead, but even then so vaguely and perfunctorily, that the mother sighed, and drew it closer to her breast. 

"The doctor says, " she continued in a calmer voice, "that I'm not doingas well as I ought to. I don't think, " she faltered, with something ofher old bitter laugh, "that I'm ever doing as well as I ought to, andperhaps it's not strange now that I don't. And he says that, in caseanything happens to me, I ought to look ahead. I have looked ahead. It's a dark look ahead, Rand--a horror of blackness, without kind faces, without the baby, without--without HIM!"

She turned her face away, and laid it on the bundle by her side. It wasso quiet in the cabin, that, through the open door beyond, the faint, rhythmical moan of the pines below was distinctly heard. 

"I know it's foolish; but that is what 'looking ahead' always meant tome, " she said, with a sigh. "But, since the doctor has been gone, I'vetalked to Mrs. Sol, and find it's for the best. And I look ahead, andsee more clearly. I look ahead, and see my disgrace removed far awayfrom HIM and you. I look ahead, and see you and HE living togetherhappily, as you did before I came between you. I look ahead, and seemy past life forgotten, my faults forgiven; and I think I see you bothloving my baby, and perhaps loving me a little for its sake. Thank you, Rand, thank you!"

For Rand's hand had caught hers beside the pillow, and he was standingover her, whiter than she. Something in the pressure of his handemboldened her to go on, and even lent a certain strength to her voice. 

"When it comes to THAT, Rand, you'll not let these people take the babyaway. You'll keep it HERE with you until HE comes. And something tellsme that he will come when I am gone. You'll keep it here in the pure airand sunlight of the mountain, and out of those wicked depths below; andwhen I am gone, and they are gone, and only you and Ruth and babyare here, maybe you'll think that it came to you in a cloud on themountain, --a cloud that lingered only long enough to drop its burden, and faded, leaving the sunlight and dew behind. What is it, Rand? Whatare you looking at?"

"I was thinking, " said Rand in a strange altered voice, "that I musttrouble you to let me take down those duds and furbelows that hang onthe wall, so that I can get at some traps of mine behind them. " Hetook some articles from the wall, replaced the dresses of Mrs. Sol, andanswered Mornie's look of inquiry. 

"I was only getting at my purse and my revolver, " he said, showing them. "I've got to get some stores at the Ferry by daylight. "

Mornie sighed. "I'm giving you great trouble, Rand, I know; but it won'tbe for long. "

He muttered something, took her hand again, and bade her "good-night. "When he reached the door, he looked back. The light was shining fullupon her face as she lay there, with her babe on her breast, bravely"looking ahead. "

IV. 

THE CLOUDS PASS. 

It was early morning at the Ferry. The "up coach" had passed, withlights unextinguished, and the "outsides" still asleep. The ferryman hadgone up to the Ferry Mansion House, swinging his lantern, and had foundthe sleepy-looking "all night" bar-keeper on the point of withdrawingfor the day on a mattress under the bar. An Indian half-breed, porterof the Mansion House, was washing out the stains of recent nocturnaldissipation from the bar-room and veranda; a few birds were twitteringon the cotton-woods beside the river; a bolder few had alighted uponthe veranda, and were trying to reconcile the existence of so muchlemon-peel and cigar-stumps with their ideas of a beneficent Creator. A faint earthly freshness and perfume rose along the river banks. Deepshadow still lay upon the opposite shore; but in the distance, fourmiles away, Morning along the level crest of Table Mountain walked withrosy tread. 

The sleepy bar-keeper was that morning doomed to disappointment; forscarcely had the coach passed, when steps were heard upon the veranda, and a weary, dusty traveller threw his blanket and knapsack to theporter, and then dropped into a vacant arm-chair, with his eyes fixedon the distant crest of Table Mountain. He remained motionless for sometime, until the bar-keeper, who had already concocted the conventionalwelcome of the Mansion House, appeared with it in a glass, put it uponthe table, glanced at the stranger, and then, thoroughly awake, criedout, --

"Ruth Pinkney--or I'm a Chinaman!"

The stranger lifted his eyes wearily. Hollow circles were around theirorbits; haggard lines were in his checks. But it was Ruth. 

He took the glass, and drained it at a single draught. "Yes, " he saidabsently, "Ruth Pinkney, " and fixed his eyes again on the distant rosycrest. 

"On your way up home?" suggested the bar-keeper, following the directionof Ruth's eyes. 

"Perhaps. "

"Been upon a pasear, hain't yer? Been havin' a little tear roundSacramento, --seein' the sights?"

Ruth smiled bitterly. "Yes. "

The bar-keeper lingered, ostentatiously wiping a glass. But Ruth againbecame abstracted in the mountain, and the barkeeper turned away. 

How pure and clear that summit looked to him! how restful and steadfastwith serenity and calm! how unlike his own feverish, dusty, travel-wornself! A week had elapsed since he had last looked upon it, --a week ofdisappointment, of anxious fears, of doubts, of wild imaginings, ofutter helplessness. In his hopeless quest of the missing Mornie, hehad, in fancy, seen this serene eminence haunting his remorseful, passion-stricken soul. And now, without a clew to guide him to herunknown hiding-place, he was back again, to face the brother whom he haddeceived, with only the confession of his own weakness. Hard as it wasto lose forever the fierce, reproachful glances of the woman he loved, it was still harder, to a man of Ruth's temperament, to look againupon the face of the brother he feared. A hand laid upon his shoulderstartled him. It was the bar-keeper. 

"If it's a fair question, Ruth Pinkney, I'd like to ask ye how long yekalkilate to hang around the Ferry to-day. "

"Why?" demanded Ruth haughtily. 

"Because, whatever you've been and done, I want ye to have a squareshow. Ole Nixon has been cavoortin' round yer the last two days, swearin' to kill you on sight for runnin' off with his darter. Sabe?Now, let me ax ye two questions. FIRST, Are you heeled?"

Ruth responded to this dialectical inquiry affirmatively by putting hishand on his revolver. 

"Good! Now, SECOND, Have you got the gal along here with you?"

"No, " responded Ruth in a hollow voice. 

"That's better yet, " said the man, without heeding the tone ofthe reply. "A woman--and especially THE woman in a row of thiskind--handicaps a man awful. " He paused, and took up the empty glass. "Look yer, Ruth Pinkney, I'm a square man, and I'll be square with you. So I'll just tell you you've got the demdest odds agin' ye. Pr'aps yeknow it, and don't keer. Well, the boys around yer are all sidin' withthe old man Nixon. It's the first time the old rip ever had a hand inhis favor: so the boys will see fair play for Nixon, and agin' YOU. ButI reckon you don't mind him!"

"So little, I shall never pull trigger on him, " said Ruth gravely. 

The bar-keeper stared, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, thar'sthat Kanaka Joe, who used to be sorter sweet on Mornie, --he's an uglydevil, --he's helpin' the old man. "

The sad look faded from Ruth's eyes suddenly. A certain wild Berserkerrage--a taint of the blood, inherited from heaven knows what Old-Worldancestry, which had made the twin-brothers' Southwestern eccentricitiesrespected in the settlement--glowed in its place. The barkeeper notedit, and augured a lively future for the day's festivities. But it fadedagain; and Ruth, as he rose, turned hesitatingly towards him. 

"Have you seen my brother Rand lately?"

"Nary. "

"He hasn't been here, or about the Ferry?"

"Nary time. "

"You haven't heard, " said Ruth, with a faint attempt at a smile, "ifhe's been around here asking after me, --sorter looking me up, you know?"

"Not much, " returned the bar-keeper deliberately. "Ez far ez I knowRand, --that ar brother o' yours, --he's one of yer high-toned chaps ezdoesn't drink, thinks bar-rooms is pizen, and ain't the sort to comeround yer, and sling yarns with me. "

Ruth rose; but the hand that he placed upon the table, albeit a powerfulone, trembled so that it was with difficulty he resumed his knapsack. When he did so, his bent figure, stooping shoulders, and haggard face, made him appear another man from the one who had sat down. There was aslight touch of apologetic deference and humility in his manner as hepaid his reckoning, and slowly and hesitatingly began to descend thesteps. 

The bar-keeper looked after him thoughtfully. "Well, dog my skin!"he ejaculated to himself, "ef I hadn't seen that man--that same RuthPinkney--straddle a friend's body in this yer very room, and dare awhole crowd to come on, I'd swar that he hadn't any grit in him. Thar'ssomething up!"

But here Ruth reached the last step, and turned again. 

"If you see old man Nixon, say I'm in town; if you see that ------------" (I regret to say that I cannot repeat his exact, and briefcharacterization of the present condition and natal antecedents ofKanaka Joe), "say I'm looking out for him, " and was gone. 

He wandered down the road, towards the one long, straggling street ofthe settlement. The few people who met him at that early hour greetedhim with a kind of constrained civility; certain cautious souls hurriedby without seeing him; all turned and looked after him; and a fewfollowed him at a respectful distance. A somewhat notorious practicaljoker and recognized wag at the Ferry apparently awaited his coming withsomething of invitation and expectation, but, catching sight of Ruth'shaggard face and blazing eyes, became instantly practical, and by nomeans jocular in his greeting. At the top of the hill, Ruth turned tolook once more upon the distant mountain, now again a mere cloud-lineon the horizon. In the firm belief that he would never again see the sunrise upon it, he turned aside into a hazel-thicket, and, tearing out afew leaves from his pocket-book, wrote two letters, --one to Rand, andone to Mornie, but which, as they were never delivered, shall not burdenthis brief chronicle of that eventful day. For, while transcribing them, he was startled by the sounds of a dozen pistol-shots in the directionof the hotel he had recently quitted. Something in the mere soundprovoked the old hereditary fighting instinct, and sent him to his feetwith a bound, and a slight distension of the nostrils, and sniffing ofthe air, not unknown to certain men who become half intoxicated bythe smell of powder. He quickly folded his letters, and addressedthem carefully, and, taking off his knapsack and blanket, methodicallyarranged them under a tree, with the letters on top. Then he examinedthe lock of his revolver, and then, with the step of a man ten yearsyounger, leaped into the road. He had scarcely done so when he wasseized, and by sheer force dragged into a blacksmith's shop at theroadside. He turned his savage face and drawn weapon upon his assailant, but was surprised to meet the anxious eyes of the bar-keeper of theMansion House. 

"Don't be a d----d fool, " said the man quickly. "Thar's fifty agin' youdown thar. But why in h-ll didn't you wipe out old Nixon when you hadsuch a good chance?"

"Wipe out old Nixon?" repeated Ruth. 

"Yes; just now, when you had him covered. "

"What!"

The bar-keeper turned quickly upon Ruth, stared at him, and thensuddenly burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, I've knowed you two weretwins, but damn me if I ever thought I'd be sold like this!" And heagain burst into a roar of laughter. 

"What do you mean?" demanded Ruth savagely. 

"What do I mean?" returned the barkeeper. "Why, I mean this. I mean thatyour brother Rand, as you call him, he'z bin--for a young feller, anda pious feller--doin' about the tallest kind o' fightin' to-day that'sbeen done at the Ferry. He laid out that ar Kanaka Joe and two of hischums. He was pitched into on your quarrel, and he took it up for youlike a little man. I managed to drag him off, up yer in the hazel-bushfor safety, and out you pops, and I thought you was him. He can't befar away. Halloo! There they're comin'; and thar's the doctor, trying tokeep them back!"

A crowd of angry, excited faces, filled the road suddenly; but beforethem Dr. Duchesne, mounted, and with a pistol in his hand, opposed theirfurther progress. 

"Back in the bush!" whispered the barkeeper. "Now's your time!"

But Ruth stirred not. "Go you back, " he said in a low voice, "find Rand, and take him away. I will fill his place here. " He drew his revolver, and stepped into the road. 

A shout, a report, and the spatter of red dust from a bullet near hisfeet, told him he was recognized. He stirred not; but another shout, anda cry, "There they are--BOTH of 'em!" made him turn. 

His brother Rand, with a smile on his lip and fire in his eye, stood byhis side. Neither spoke. Then Rand, quietly, as of old, slipped his handinto his brother's strong palm. Two or three bullets sang by them;a splinter flew from the blacksmith's shed: but the brothers, hardgripping each other's hands, and looking into each other's faces with aquiet joy, stood there calm and imperturbable. 

There was a momentary pause. The voice of Dr. Duchesne rose above thecrowd. 

"Keep back, I say! keep back! Or hear me!--for five years I've workedamong you, and mended and patched the holes you've drilled througheach other's carcasses--Keep back, I say!--or the next man that pullstrigger, or steps forward, will get a hole from me that no surgeon canstop. I'm sick of your bungling ball practice! Keep back!--or, by theliving Jingo, I'll show you where a man's vitals are!"

There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and for a moment the twinswere forgotten in this audacious speech and coolly impertinent presence. 

"That's right! Now let that infernal old hypocritical drunkard, MatNixon, step to the front. "

The crowd parted right and left, and half pushed, half dragged Nixonbefore him. 

"Gentlemen, " said the doctor, "this is the man who has just shot at RandPinkney for hiding his daughter. Now, I tell you, gentlemen, and I tellhim, that for the last week his daughter, Mornie Nixon, has been undermy care as a patient, and my protection as a friend. If there's anybodyto be shot, the job must begin with me!"

There was another laugh, and a cry of "Bully for old Sawbones!" Ruthstarted convulsively, and Rand answered his look with a confirmingpressure of his hand. 

"That isn't all, gentlemen: this drunken brute has just shot at agentleman whose only offence, to my knowledge, is, that he has, for thelast week, treated her with a brother's kindness, has taken her into hisown home, and cared for her wants as if she were his own sister. "

Ruth's hand again grasped his brother's. Rand colored and hung his head. 

"There's more yet, gentlemen. I tell you that that girl, Mornie Nixon, has, to my knowledge, been treated like a lady, has been cared for asshe never was cared for in her father's house, and, while that fatherhas been proclaiming her shame in every bar-room at the Ferry, has hadthe sympathy and care, night and day, of two of the most accomplishedladies of the Ferry, --Mrs. Sol Saunders, gentlemen, and Miss Euphemia. "

There was a shout of approbation from the crowd. Nixon would haveslipped away, but the doctor stopped him. 

"Not yet! I've one thing more to say. I've to tell you, gentlemen, on myprofessional word of honor, that, besides being an old hypocrite, thissame old Mat Nixon is the ungrateful, unnatural GRANDFATHER of the firstboy born in the district. "

A wild huzza greeted the doctor's climax. By a common consent the crowdturned toward the Twins, who, grasping each other's hands, stood apart. The doctor nodded his head. The next moment the Twins were surrounded, and lifted in the arms of the laughing throng, and borne in triumph tothe bar-room of the Mansion House. 

"Gentlemen, " said the bar-keeper, "call for what you like: the MansionHouse treats to-day in honor of its being the first time that RandPinkney has been admitted to the bar. "

*****

It was agreed, that, as her condition was still precarious, the newsshould be broken to her gradually and indirectly. The indefatigableSol had a professional idea, which was not displeasing to the Twins. Itbeing a lovely summer afternoon, the couch of Mornie was lifted out onthe ledge, and she lay there basking in the sunlight, drinking in thepure air, and looking bravely ahead in the daylight as she had in thedarkness, for her couch commanded a view of the mountain flank. And, lying there, she dreamed a pleasant dream, and in her dream saw Randreturning up the mountain-trail. She was half conscious that he had goodnews for her; and, when he at last reached her bedside, he began gentlyand kindly to tell his news. But she heard him not, or rather in herdream was most occupied with his ways and manners, which seemed unlikehim, yet inexpressibly sweet and tender. The tears were fast coming inher eyes, when he suddenly dropped on his knees beside her, threw awayRand's disguising hat and coat, and clasped her in his arms. And by thatshe KNEW it was Ruth. 

But what they said; what hurried words of mutual explanation andforgiveness passed between them; what bitter yet tender recollectionsof hidden fears and doubts, now forever chased away in the rain of tearsand joyous sunshine of that mountain-top, were then whispered;whatever of this little chronicle that to the reader seems strange andinconsistent (as all human record must ever be strange and imperfect, except to the actors) was then made clear, --was never divulged by them, and must remain with them forever. The rest of the party had withdrawn, and they were alone. But when Mornie turned, and placed the baby in itsfather's arms, they were so isolated in their happiness, that the lowerworld beneath them might have swung and drifted away, and left thatmountain-top the beginning and creation of a better planet. 

*****

"You know all about it now, " said Sol the next day, explaining theprevious episodes of this history to Ruth: "you've got the whole plotbefore you. It dragged a little in the second act, for the actorsweren't up in their parts. But for an amateur performance, on the whole, it wasn't bad. "

"I don't know, I'm sure, " said Rand impulsively, "how we'd have got onwithout Euphemia. It's too bad she couldn't be here to-day. "

"She wanted to come, " said Sol; "but the gentleman she's engaged to cameup from Marysville last night. "

"Gentleman--engaged!" repeated Rand, white and red by turns. 

"Well, yes. I say, 'gentleman, ' although he's in the variety profession. She always said, " said Sol, quietly looking at Rand, "that she'd nevermarry OUT of it. "

AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG. 

The first intimation given of the eccentricity of the testator was, Ithink, in the spring of 1854. He was at that time in possession of aconsiderable property, heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a wife ofsome attraction, on whose affections another friend held an encumberinglien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or caused to bedug, a deep trap before the front-door of his dwelling, into which a fewfriends, in the course of the evening, casually and familiarly dropped. This circumstance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence ofa certain humor in the man, which might eventually get into literature, although his wife's lover--a man of quick discernment, whose leg wasbroken by the fall--took other views. It was some weeks later, that, while dining with certain other friends of his wife, he excusedhimself from the table to quietly re-appear at the front-window with athree-quarter inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream of water projected atthe assembled company. An attempt was made to take public cognizance ofthis; but a majority of the citizens of Red Dog, who were not at dinner, decided that a man had a right to choose his own methods of divertinghis company. Nevertheless, there were some hints of his insanity; hiswife recalled other acts clearly attributable to dementia; the crippledlover argued from his own experience that the integrity of her limbscould only be secured by leaving her husband's house; and the mortgagee, fearing a further damage to his property, foreclosed. But here the causeof all this anxiety took matters into his own hands, and disappeared. 

When we next heard from him, he had, in some mysterious way, beenrelieved alike of his wife and property, and was living aloneat Rockville fifty miles away, and editing a newspaper. But thatoriginality he had displayed when dealing with the problems of his ownprivate life, when applied to politics in the columns of "The RockvilleVanguard" was singularly unsuccessful. An amusing exaggeration, purporting to be an exact account of the manner in which the opposingcandidate had murdered his Chinese laundryman, was, I regret tosay, answered only by assault and battery. A gratuitous and purelyimaginative description of a great religious revival in Calaveras, inwhich the sheriff of the county--a notoriously profane sceptic--wasalleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the withdrawalof the county advertising from the paper. In the midst of this practicalconfusion he suddenly died. It was then discovered, as a crowningproof of his absurdity, that he had left a will, bequeathing his entireeffects to a freckle-faced maid-servant at the Rockville Hotel. But thatabsurdity became serious when it was also discovered that among theseeffects were a thousand shares in the Rising Sun Mining Company, which aday or two after his demise, and while people were still laughing athis grotesque benefaction, suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity. Three millions of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of theestate thus wantonly sacrificed. For it is only fair to state, as ajust tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young and thrivingsettlement, that there was not probably a single citizen who did notfeel himself better able to control the deceased humorist's property. Some had expressed a doubt of their ability to support a family; othershad felt perhaps too keenly the deep responsibility resting upon themwhen chosen from the panel as jurors, and had evaded their publicduties; a few had declined office and a low salary: but no one shrankfrom the possibility of having been called upon to assume the functionsof Peggy Moffat, the heiress. 

The will was contested, --first by the widow, who it now appeared hadnever been legally divorced from the deceased; next by four of hiscousins, who awoke, only too late, to a consciousness of his moraland pecuniary worth. But the humble legatee--a singularly plain, unpretending, uneducated Western girl--exhibited a dogged pertinacityin claiming her rights. She rejected all compromises. A rough sense ofjustice in the community, while doubting her ability to take care of thewhole fortune, suggested that she ought to be content with three hundredthousand dollars. "She's bound to throw even THAT away on some dernedskunk of a man, natoorally; but three millions is too much to give achap for makin' her onhappy. It's offerin' a temptation to cussedness. "The only opposing voice to this counsel came from the sardonic lips ofMr. Jack Hamlin. "Suppose, " suggested that gentleman, turning abruptlyon the speaker, --"suppose, when you won twenty thousand dollars of melast Friday night--suppose that, instead of handing you over the moneyas I did--suppose I'd got up on my hind-legs, and said, 'Look yer, BillWethersbee, you're a d----d fool. If I give ye that twenty thousand, you'll throw it away in the first skin-game in 'Frisco, and hand it overto the first short-card sharp you'll meet. There's a thousand, --enoughfor you to fling away, --take it and get!' Suppose what I'd said to youwas the frozen truth, and you know'd it, would that have been the squarething to play on you?" But here Wethersbee quickly pointed out theinefficiency of the comparison by stating that HE had won the moneyfairly with a STAKE. "And how do you know, " demanded Hamlin savagely, bending his black eyes on the astounded casuist, --"how do you know thatthe gal hezn't put down a stake?" The man stammered an unintelligiblereply. The gambler laid his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder. "Lookyer, old man, " he said, "every gal stakes her WHOLE pile, --you can betyour life on that, --whatever's her little game. If she took to keerdsinstead of her feelings, if she'd put up 'chips' instead o' body andsoul, she'd bust every bank 'twixt this and 'Frisco! You hear me?"

Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite as sentimentally, to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal wisdom of San Francisco, retained by the widow and relatives, took occasion, in a privateinterview with Peggy, to point out that she stood in the quasi-criminalattitude of having unlawfully practised upon the affections of an insaneelderly gentleman, with a view of getting possession of his property, and suggested to her that no vestige of her moral character would remainafter the trial, if she persisted in forcing her claims to that issue. It is said that Peggy, on hearing this, stopped washing the plate shehad in her hands, and, twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed hersmall pale blue eyes at the lawyer. 

"And ez that the kind o' chirpin these critters keep up?"

"I regret to say, my dear young lady, " responded the lawyer, "that theworld is censorious. I must add, " he continued, with engaging frankness, "that we professional lawyers are apt to study the opinion of the world, and that such will be the theory of--our side. "

"Then, " said Peggy stoutly, "ez I allow I've got to go into court todefend my character, I might as well pack in them three millions too. "

There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech a wish anddesire to "bust the crust" of her traducers, and, remarking that "thatwas the kind of hairpin" she was, closed the conversation with anunfortunate accident to the plate, that left a severe contusion on thelegal brow of her companion. But this story, popular in the bar-roomsand gulches, lacked confirmation in higher circles. Better authenticatedwas the legend related of an interview with her own lawyer. Thatgentleman had pointed out to her the advantage of being able to showsome reasonable cause for the singular generosity of the testator. 

"Although, " he continued, "the law does not go back of the will forreason or cause for its provisions, it would be a strong point with thejudge and jury--particularly if the theory of insanity were set up--forus to show that the act was logical and natural. Of course you have--Ispeak confidently, Miss Moffat--certain ideas of your own why the lateMr. Byways was so singularly generous to you. "

"No, I haven't, " said Peg decidedly. 

"Think again. Had he not expressed to you--you understand that this isconfidential between us, although I protest, my dear young lady, thatI see no reason why it should not be made public--had he not givenutterance to sentiments of a nature consistent with some futurematrimonial relations?" But here Miss Peg's large mouth, which had beenslowly relaxing over her irregular teeth, stopped him. 

"If you mean he wanted to marry me--No!"

"I see. But were there any conditions--of course you know the law takesno cognizance of any not expressed in the will; but still, for the sakeof mere corroboration of the bequest--do you know of any conditions onwhich he gave you the property?"

"You mean did he want anything in return?"

"Exactly, my dear young lady. "

Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta color, on the other alighter cherry, while her nose was purple, and her forehead an Indianred. To add to the effect of this awkward and discomposing dramaticexhibition of embarrassment, she began to wipe her hands on her dress, and sat silent. 

"I understand, " said the lawyer hastily. "No matter--the conditions WEREfulfilled. "

"No!" said Peg amazedly. "How could they be until he was dead?"

It was the lawyer's turn to color and grow embarrassed. 

"He DID say something, and make some conditions, " continued Peg, with acertain firmness through her awkwardness; "but that's nobody's businessbut mine and his'n. And it's no call o' yours or theirs. "

"But, my dear Miss Moffat, if these very conditions were proofs of hisright mind, you surely would not object to make them known, if only toenable you to put yourself in a condition to carry them out. "

"But, " said Peg cunningly, "s'pose you and the Court didn't think 'emsatisfactory? S'pose you thought 'em QUEER? Eh?"

With this helpless limitation on the part of the defence, the case cameto trial. Everybody remembers it, --how for six weeks it was the dailyfood of Calaveras County; how for six weeks the intellectual and moraland spiritual competency of Mr. James Byways to dispose of his propertywas discussed with learned and formal obscurity in the court, and withunlettered and independent prejudice by camp-fires and in bar-rooms. Atthe end of that time, when it was logically established that at leastnine-tenths of the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, andeverybody else's reason seemed to totter on its throne, an exhaustedjury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg in the court-room. It wasnot a prepossessing presence at any time; but the excitement, and aninjudicious attempt to ornament herself, brought her defects into aglaring relief that was almost unreal. Every freckle on her facestood out and asserted itself singly; her pale blue eyes, that gave noindication of her force of character, were weak and wandering, orstared blankly at the judge; her over-sized head, broad at the base, terminating in the scantiest possible light-colored braid in the middleof her narrow shoulders, was as hard and uninteresting as the woodenspheres that topped the railing against which she sat. 

The jury, who for six weeks had had her described to them by theplaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped the failingreason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There was something soappallingly gratuitous in her plainness, that it was felt that threemillions was scarcely a compensation for it. "Ef that money was give toher, she earned it SURE, boys: it wasn't no softness of the old man, "said the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she hadcleared her character: when they re-entered the room with their verdict, it was known that she had been awarded three millions damages for itsdefamation. 

She got the money. But those who had confidently expected to seeher squander it were disappointed: on the contrary, it was presentlywhispered that she was exceedingly penurious. That admirable woman, Mrs. Stiver of Red Dog, who accompanied her to San Francisco to assist her inmaking purchases, was loud in her indignation. "She cares more for twobits than I do for five dollars. She wouldn't buy anything at the 'Cityof Paris, ' because it was 'too expensive, ' and at last rigged herselfout, a perfect guy, at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And afterall the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time and experienceto her, she never so much as made Jane a single present. " Popularopinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's attention as purely speculative, was not shocked at this unprofitable denouement; but when Peg refused togive anything to clear the mortgage off the new Presbyterian Church, andeven declined to take shares in the Union Ditch, considered by manyas an equally sacred and safe investment, she began to lose favor. Nevertheless, she seemed to be as regardless of public opinion as shehad been before the trial; took a small house, in which she lived withan old woman who had once been a fellow-servant, on apparently terms ofperfect equality, and looked after her money. I wish I could say thatshe did this discreetly; but the fact is, she blundered. The same doggedpersistency she had displayed in claiming her rights was visible inher unsuccessful ventures. She sunk two hundred thousand dollars ina worn-out shaft originally projected by the deceased testator; sheprolonged the miserable existence of "The Rockville Vanguard" long afterit had ceased to interest even its enemies; she kept the doors ofthe Rockville Hotel open when its custom had departed; she lost theco-operation and favor of a fellow-capitalist through a triflingmisunderstanding in which she was derelict and impenitent; she had threelawsuits on her hands that could have been settled for a trifle. I notethese defects to show that she was by no means a heroine. I quote heraffair with Jack Folinsbee to show she was scarcely the average woman. 

That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the outskirts of Red Dogin a cyclone of dissipation which left him a stranded but still ratherinteresting wreck in a ruinous cabin not far from Peg Moffat's virginbower. Pale, crippled from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous fromsympathetic emotion more or less developed by stimulants, he lingeredlanguidly, with much time on his hands, and only a few neighbors. Inthis fascinating kind of general deshabille of morals, dress, and theemotions, he appeared before Peg Moffat. More than that, he occasionallylimped with her through the settlement. The critical eye of Red Dog tookin the singular pair, --Jack, voluble, suffering, apparently overcome byremorse, conscience, vituperation, and disease; and Peg, open-mouthed, high-colored, awkward, yet delighted; and the critical eye of Red Dog, seeing this, winked meaningly at Rockville. No one knew what passedbetween them; but all observed that one summer day Jack drove down themain street of Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress of that townbeside him. Jack, albeit a trifle shaky, held the reins with somethingof his old dash; and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet withpearl-colored ribbons a shade darker than her hair, holding in hershort, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, absolutely glowedcrimson in distressful gratification over the dash-board. So these twofared on, out of the busy settlement, into the woods, against the rosysunset. Possibly it was not a pretty picture: nevertheless, as the dimaisles of the solemn pines opened to receive them, miners leaned upontheir spades, and mechanics stopped in their toil to look after them. The critical eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, perhaps from thefact that it had itself once been young and dissipated, took on a kindlymoisture as it gazed. 

The moon was high when they returned. Those who had waited tocongratulate Jack on this near prospect of a favorable change in hisfortunes were chagrined to find, that, having seen the lady safe home, he had himself departed from Red Dog. Nothing was to be gained from Peg, who, on the next day and ensuing days, kept the even tenor of her way, sunk a thousand or two more in unsuccessful speculation, and made nochange in her habits of personal economy. Weeks passed without anyapparent sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known definitelyuntil Jack, a month later, turned up in Sacramento, with a billiard-cuein his hand, and a heart overcharged with indignant emotion. "I don'tmind saying to you, gentlemen, in confidence, " said Jack to a circle ofsympathizing players, --"I don't mind telling you regarding this thing, that I was as soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tallow-haired gal, as if she'd been--a--a--an actress. And I don't mind saying, gentlemen, that, as far as I understand women, she was just as soft on me. Youkin laugh; but it's so. One day I took her out buggy-riding, --in style, too, --and out on the road I offered to do the square thing, just as ifshe'd been a lady, --offered to marry her then and there. And what didshe do?" said Jack with a hysterical laugh. "Why, blank it all! OFFEREDME TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK ALLOWANCE--PAY TO BE STOPPED WHEN I WASN'TAT HOME!" The roar of laughter that greeted this frank confession wasbroken by a quiet voice asking, "And what did YOU say?"--"Say?" screamedJack, "I just told her to go to ---- with her money. "--"They say, "continued the quiet voice, "that you asked her for the loan of twohundred and fifty dollars to get you to Sacramento--and that you gotit. "--"Who says so roared Jack. Show me the blank liar. " There was adead silence. Then the possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. Jack Hamlin, languidly reached under the table, took the chalk, and, rubbing the endof his billiard-cue, began with gentle gravity: "It was an old friend ofmine in Sacramento, a man with a wooden leg, a game eye, three fingerson his right hand, and a consumptive cough. Being unable, naturally, to back himself, he leaves things to me. So, for the sake of argument, "continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down his cue, and fixing his wickedblack eyes on the speaker, "say it's ME!"

I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did not tendto increase Peg's popularity in a community where recklessness andgenerosity condoned for the absence of all the other virtues; and it ispossible, also, that Red Dog was no more free from prejudice than othermore civilized but equally disappointed matchmakers. Likewise, duringthe following year, she made several more foolish ventures, and lostheavily. In fact, a feverish desire to increase her store at almost anyrisk seemed to possess her. At last it was announced that she intendedto reopen the infelix Rockville Hotel, and keep it herself. 

Wild as this scheme appeared in theory, when put into practicaloperation there seemed to be some chance of success. Much, doubtless, was owing to her practical knowledge of hotel-keeping, but more toher rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of millions, she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the beds, and labored likea common menial. Visitors were attracted by this novel spectacle. Theincome of the house increased as their respect for the hostess lessened. No anecdote of her avarice was too extravagant for current belief. Itwas even alleged that she had been known to carry the luggage of gueststo their rooms, that she might anticipate the usual porter's gratuity. She denied herself the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorlyclad, she was ill-fed--but the hotel was making money. 

A few hinted of insanity; others shook their heads, and said a curse wasentailed on the property. It was believed, also, from her appearance, that she could not long survive this tax on her energies, and alreadythere was discussion as to the probable final disposition of herproperty. 

It was the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able to set theworld right on this and other questions regarding her. 

A stormy December evening had set in when he chanced to be a guest ofthe Rockville Hotel. He had, during the past week, been engaged in theprosecution of his noble profession at Red Dog, and had, in the graphiclanguage of a coadjutor, "cleared out the town, except his fare in thepockets of the stage-driver. " "The Red Dog Standard" had bewailed hisdeparture in playful obituary verse, beginning, "Dearest Johnny, thouhast left us, " wherein the rhymes "bereft us" and "deplore" carrieda vague allusion to "a thousand dollars more. " A quiet contentmentnaturally suffused his personality, and he was more than usually lazyand deliberate in his speech. At midnight, when he was about to retire, he was a little surprised, however, by a tap on his door, followed bythe presence of Mistress Peg Moffat, heiress, and landlady of Rockvillehotel. 

Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous defence of Peg, had no liking for her. His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeliness; his habits of thoughtand life were all antagonistic to what he had heard of her niggardlinessand greed. As she stood there, in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolentwith the day's cuisine, crimson with embarrassment and the recent heatof the kitchen range, she certainly was not an alluring apparition. Happily for the lateness of the hour, her loneliness, and the infelixreputation of the man before her, she was at least a safe one. And Ifear the very consciousness of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment. 

"I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin, " she began, takingan unoffered seat on the end of his portmanteau, "or I shouldn't hevintruded. But it's the only time I can ketch you, or you me; for I'mdown in the kitchen from sunup till now. "

She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind, which was rattlingthe windows, and spreading a film of rain against the opaque darknesswithout. Then, smoothing her wrapper over her knees, she remarked, as ifopening a desultory conversation, "Thar's a power of rain outside. "

Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological observation was ayawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he began to remove it. 

"I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a favor, " continued Peg, with ahard, awkward laugh, "partik'ly seein' ez folks allowed you'd sorter bina friend o' mine, and hed stood up for me at times when you hedn't anypartikler call to do it. I hevn't" she continued, looking down on herlap, and following with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown, --"Ihevn't so many friends ez slings a kind word for me these times thatI disremember them. " Her under lip quivered a little here; and, aftervainly hunting for a forgotten handkerchief, she finally lifted the hemof her gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but left the tears still inher eyes as she raised them to the man, Mr. Hamlin, who had by this timedivested himself of his coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, andlooked at her. 

"Like ez not thar'll be high water on the North Fork, ef this rain keepson, " said Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward the window. 

The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to unbutton his waistcoatagain. 

"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr. --about--Jack Folinsbee, " began Pegagain hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is mighty low. And he's losin'a heap o' money here and thar, and mostly to YOU. You cleaned him out oftwo thousand dollars last night--all he had. "

"Well?" said the gambler coldly. 

"Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye to let up alittle on him, " said Peg, with an affected laugh. "You kin do it. Don'tlet him play with ye. "

"Mistress Margaret Moffat, " said Jack, with lazy deliberation, takingoff his watch, and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're that much stuckafter Jack Folinsbee, YOU kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin. You're a rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or breakhimself for good and all; but don't keep him forlin' round me in hopesto make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat--it don't pay!"

A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or resented thegambler's slang, and the miserable truths that underlaid it. But shecomprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly silent. 

"Ef you'll take my advice, " continued Jack, placing his watch and chainunder his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cravat, "you'll quit thisyer forlin', marry that chap, and hand over to him the money and themoney-makin' that's killin' you. He'll get rid of it soon enough. Idon't say this because I expect to git it; for, when he's got thatmuch of a raise, he'll make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to somefirst-class sport THERE. I don't say, neither, that you mayn't be inluck enough to reform him. I don't say, neither--and it's a derned sightmore likely!--that you mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die aforehe gits rid of your money. But I do say you'll make him happy NOW; and, ez I reckon you're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever sawany woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's either. "

The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. "But that's WHY I can't givehim the money--and he won't marry me without it. "

Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his waistcoat. "Can't--give--him--the--money?" he repeated slowly. 

"No. "

"Why?"

"Because--because I LOVE him. "

Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down patiently on the bed. Peg arose, and awkwardly drew the portmanteau a little nearer to him. 

"When Jim Byways left me this yer property, " she began, lookingcautiously around, "he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ezwaz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I madehim in this very room, Mr. Hamlin, --this very room, and on that very bedyou're sittin' on, in which he died. "

Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He rose hastily fromthe bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if thediscontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-enforcing his lastinjunction. 

"I don't know if you remember him, " said Peg feverishly, "he was a manez hed suffered. All that he loved--wife, fammerly, friends--had goneback on him. He tried to make light of it afore folks; but with me, being a poor gal, he let himself out. I never told anybody this. I don'tknow why he told ME; I don't know, " continued Peg, with a sniffle, "whyhe wanted to make me unhappy too. But he made me promise, that, if heleft me his fortune, I'd NEVER, NEVER--so help me God!--never share itwith any man or woman that I LOVED; I didn't think it would be hard tokeep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin; for I was very poor, and hedn't afriend nor a living bein' that was kind to me, but HIM. "

"But you've as good as broken your promise already, " said Hamlin. "You've given Jack money, as I know. "

"Only what I made myself. Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin. When Jack proposedto me, I offered him about what I kalkilated I could earn myself. Whenhe went away, and was sick and in trouble, I came here and took thishotel. I knew that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me, please. I DID work hard, and DID make it pay--without takin' one cent ofthe fortin'. And all I made, workin' by night and day, I gave to him. Idid, Mr. Hamlin. I ain't so hard to him as you think, though I might bekinder, I know. "

Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed his coat, watch, hat, andovercoat. When he was completely dressed again, he turned to Peg. "Doyou mean to say that you've been givin' all the money you made here tothis A 1 first-class cherubim?"

"Yes; but he didn't know where I got it. O Mr. Hamlin! he didn't knowthat. "

"Do I understand you, that he's bin buckin agin Faro with the money thatyou raised on hash? And YOU makin' the hash?"

"But he didn't know that, he wouldn't hev took it if I'd told him. "

"No, he'd hev died fust!" said Mr. Hamlin gravely. "Why, he's thatsensitive--is Jack Folinsbee--that it nearly kills him to take moneyeven of ME. But where does this angel reside when he isn't fightin' thetiger, and is, so to speak, visible to the naked eye?"

"He--he--stops here, " said Peg, with an awkward blush. 

"I see. Might I ask the number of his room--or should I be a--disturbinghim in his meditations?" continued Jack Hamlin, with grave politeness. 

"Oh! then you'll promise? And you'll talk to him, and make HIM promise?"

"Of course, " said Hamlin quietly. 

"And you'll remember he's sick--very sick? His room's No. 44, at the endof the hall. Perhaps I'd better go with you?"

"I'll find it. "

"And you won't be too hard on him?"

"I'll be a father to him, " said Hamlin demurely, as he opened the doorand stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a moment, and then turned, and gravely held out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He did not seemquite in earnest; and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicatednothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next moment was gone. 

He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, anda querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered withoutfurther ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of staledissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed, extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instantstartled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; therewas palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverishbreath. 

"What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously. 

"I am, and I want YOU to get up too. "

"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up. " He reached his shaking handtowards a glass half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid;but Mr. Hamlin stayed it. 

"Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you lost?"

"Yes. "

"Well, get up, and marry that woman down stairs. "

Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically. 

"She won't give it to me. "

"No; but I will. "

"YOU?"

"Yes. "

Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, trembling and withdifficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed him narrowly, and then badehim lie down again. "To-morrow will do, " he said, "and then--"

"If I don't--"

"If you don't, " responded Hamlin, "why, I'll just wade in and CUT YOUOUT!"

But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that possible act of disloyalty;for, in the night, the already hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbeetook flight on the wings of the south-east storm. When or how ithappened, nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the nearprospect of matrimony, or whether an overdose of anodyne, had hastenedhis end, was never known. I only know, that, when they came to awakenhim the next morning, the best that was left of him--a face stillbeautiful and boy-like--looked up coldly at the tearful eyes of PegMoffat. "It serves me right, it's a judgment, " she said in a low whisperto Jack Hamlin; "for God knew that I'd broken my word, and willed all myproperty to him. "

She did not long survive him. Whether Mr. Hamlin ever clothed withaction the suggestion indicated in his speech to the lamented Jack thatnight, is not of record. He was always her friend, and on her demisebecame her executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a distantrelation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so passed out of the control ofRed Dog forever. 

THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY

It was growing quite dark in the telegraph-office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne County, California. The office, a box-like enclosure, wasseparated from the public room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin partition;and the operator, who was also news and express agent at Cottonwood, had closed his window, and was lounging by his news-stand preparatoryto going home. Without, the first monotonous rain of the season wasdripping from the porches of the hotel in the waning light of a Decemberday. The operator, accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness, was fast becoming bored. 

The tread of mud-muffled boots on the veranda, and the entrance of twomen, offered a momentary excitement. He recognized in the strangers twoprominent citizens of Cottonwood; and their manner bespoke business. Oneof them proceeded to the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it to theother interrogatively. 

"That's about the way the thing p'ints, " responded his companionassentingly. 

"I reckoned it only squar to use his dientical words?"

"That's so. "

The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch. 

"How soon can you shove her through?"

The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length ofthe despatch. 

"Now, " he answered promptly. 

"And she gets there?"

"To-night. But there's no delivery until to-morrow. "

"Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left herefor delivery. "

The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay forexpedition, replied that he would lay this proposition with thedespatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and readit--and re-read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy, --haddoubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages, --butnevertheless, when he finished, he raised his eyes inquiringly to hiscustomer. That gentleman, who enjoyed a reputation for equal spontaneityof temper and revolver, met his gaze a little impatiently. The operatorhad recourse to a trick. Under the pretence of misunderstanding themessage, he obliged the sender to repeat it aloud for the sake ofaccuracy, and even suggested a few verbal alterations, ostensiblyto insure correctness, but really to extract further information. Nevertheless, the man doggedly persisted in a literal transcript of hismessage. The operator went to his instrument hesitatingly. 

"I suppose, " he added half-questioningly, "there ain't no chance ofa mistake. This address is Rightbody, that rich old Bostonian thateverybody knows. There ain't but one?"

"That's the address, " responded the first speaker coolly. 

"Didn't know the old chap had investments out here, " suggested theoperator, lingering at his instrument. 

"No more did I, " was the insufficient reply. 

For some few moments nothing was heard but the click of the instrument, as the operator worked the key, with the usual appearance of impartingconfidence to a somewhat reluctant hearer who preferred to talk himself. The two men stood by, watching his motions with the usual awe ofthe unprofessional. When he had finished, they laid before him twogold-pieces. As the operator took them up, he could not help saying, --

"The old man went off kinder sudden, didn't he? Had no time to write?"

"Not sudden for that kind o' man, " was the exasperating reply. 

But the speaker was not to be disconcerted. "If there is an answer--" hebegan. 

"There ain't any, " replied the first speaker quietly. 

"Why?"

"Because the man ez sent the message is dead. "

"But it's signed by you two. "

"On'y ez witnesses--eh?" appealed the first speaker to his comrade. 

"On'y ez witnesses, " responded the other. 

The operator shrugged his shoulders. The business concluded, the firstspeaker slightly relaxed. He nodded to the operator, and turned to thebar-room with a pleasing social impulse. When their glasses were setdown empty, the first speaker, with a cheerful condemnation of the hardtimes and the weather, apparently dismissed all previous proceedingsfrom his mind, and lounged out with his companion. At the corner of thestreet they stopped. 

"Well, that job's done, " said the first speaker, by way of relieving theslight social embarrassment of parting. 

"Thet's so, " responded his companion, and shook his hand. 

They parted. A gust of wind swept through the pines, and struck a faintAeolian cry from the wires above their heads; and the rain and thedarkness again slowly settled upon Cottonwood. 

The message lagged a little at San Francisco, laid over half an hourat Chicago, and fought longitude the whole way; so that it was pastmidnight when the "all night" operator took it from the wires at Boston. But it was freighted with a mandate from the San Francisco office; anda messenger was procured, who sped with it through dark snow-boundstreets, between the high walls of close-shuttered rayless houses, toa certain formal square ghostly with snow-covered statues. Here heascended the broad steps of a reserved and solid-looking mansion, andpulled a bronze bell-knob, that somewhere within those chaste recesses, after an apparent reflective pause, coldly communicated the fact that astranger was waiting without--as he ought. Despite the lateness of thehour, there was a slight glow from the windows, clearly not enoughto warm the messenger with indications of a festivity within, but yetbespeaking, as it were, some prolonged though subdued excitement. Thesober servant who took the despatch, and receipted for it as gravely asif witnessing a last will and testament, respectfully paused beforethe entrance of the drawing-room. The sound of measured and rhetoricalspeech, through which the occasional catarrhal cough of the New-Englandcoast struggled, as the only effort of nature not wholly repressed, camefrom its heavily-curtained recesses; for the occasion of the evening hadbeen the reception and entertainment of various distinguished persons, and, as had been epigrammatically expressed by one of the guests, "thehistory of the country" was taking its leave in phrases more or lessmemorable and characteristic. Some of these valedictory axioms wereclever, some witty, a few profound, but always left as a genteelcontribution to the entertainer. Some had been already prepared, and, like a card, had served and identified the guest at other mansions. 

The last guest departed, the last carriage rolled away, when the servantventured to indicate the existence of the despatch to his master, who was standing on the hearth-rug in an attitude of weariedself-righteousness. He took it, opened it, read it, re-read it, andsaid, --

"There must be some mistake! It is not for me. Call the boy, Waters. "

Waters, who was perfectly aware that the boy had left, neverthelessobediently walked towards the hall-door, but was recalled by his master. 

"No matter--at present!"

"It's nothing serious, William?" asked Mrs. Rightbody, with languidwifely concern. 

"No, nothing. Is there a light in my study?"

"Yes. But, before you go, can you give me a moment or two?"

Mr. Rightbody turned a little impatiently towards his wife. She hadthrown herself languidly on the sofa; her hair was slightly disarranged, and part of a slippered foot was visible. She might have been afinely-formed woman; but even her careless deshabille left the generalimpression that she was severely flannelled throughout, and that anyostentation of womanly charm was under vigorous sanitary SURVEILLANCE. 

"Mrs. Marvin told me to-night that her son made no secret of his seriousattachment for our Alice, and that, if I was satisfied, Mr. Marvin wouldbe glad to confer with you at once. "

The information did not seem to absorb Mr. Rightbody's wanderingattention, but rather increased his impatience. He said hastily, that hewould speak of that to-morrow; and partly by way of reprisal, and partlyto dismiss the subject, added--

"Positively James must pay some attention to the register and thethermometer. It was over 70 degrees to-night, and the ventilatingdraught was closed in the drawing-room. "

"That was because Professor Ammon sat near it, and the old gentleman'stonsils are so sensitive. "

"He ought to know from Dr. Dyer Doit that systematic and regularexposure to draughts stimulates the mucous membrane; while fixed airover 60 degrees invariably--"

"I am afraid, William, " interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, with feminineadroitness, adopting her husband's topic with a view of therebydirecting him from it, --"I'm afraid that people do not yet appreciatethe substitution of bouillon for punch and ices. I observed that Mr. Spondee declined it, and, I fancied, looked disappointed. The fibrineand wheat in liqueur-glasses passed quite unnoticed too. "

"And yet each half-drachm contained the half-digested substance ofa pound of beef. I'm surprised at Spondee!" continued Mr. Rightbodyaggrievedly. "Exhausting his brain and nerve force by the highestcreative efforts of the Muse, he prefers perfumed and diluted alcoholflavored with carbonic acid gas. Even Mrs. Faringway admitted to methat the sudden lowering of the temperature of the stomach by theintroduction of ice--"

"Yes; but she took a lemon ice at the last Dorothea Reception, and askedme if I had observed that the lower animals refused their food at atemperature over 60 degrees. "

Mr. Rightbody again moved impatiently towards the door. Mrs. Rightbodyeyed him curiously. 

"You will not write, I hope? Dr. Keppler told me to-night that yourcerebral symptoms interdicted any prolonged mental strain. "

"I must consult a few papers, " responded Mr. Rightbody curtly, as heentered his library. 

It was a richly-furnished apartment, morbidly severe in its decorations, which were symptomatic of a gloomy dyspepsia of art, then quiteprevalent. A few curios, very ugly, but providentially equally rare, were scattered about. There were various bronzes, marbles, and casts, all requiring explanation, and so fulfilling their purpose of promotingconversation, and exhibiting the erudition of their owner. There weresouvenirs of travel with a history, old bric-a-brac with a pedigree, but little or nothing that challenged attention for itself alone. In allcases the superiority of the owner to his possessions was admitted. Asa natural result, nobody ever lingered there, the servants avoided theroom, and no child was ever known to play in it. 

Mr. Rightbody turned up the gas, and from a cabinet of drawers, precisely labelled, drew a package of letters. These he carefullyexamined. All were discolored, and made dignified by age; but some, intheir original freshness, must have appeared trifling, and inconsistentwith any correspondent of Mr. Rightbody. Nevertheless, that gentlemanspent some moments in carefully perusing them, occasionally referringto the telegram in his hand. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Mr. Rightbody started, made a half-unconscious movement to return theletters to the drawer, turned the telegram face downwards, and then, somewhat harshly, stammered, --

"Eh? Who's there? Come in. "

"I beg your pardon, papa, " said a very pretty girl, entering, without, however, the slightest trace of apology or awe in her manner, and takinga chair with the self-possession and familiarity of an habitue of theroom; "but I knew it was not your habit to write late, so I supposed youwere not busy. I am on my way to bed. "

She was so very pretty, and withal so utterly unconscious of it, orperhaps so consciously superior to it, that one was provoked into amore critical examination of her face. But this only resulted in areiteration of her beauty, and perhaps the added facts that her darkeyes were very womanly, her rich complexion eloquent, and her chiselledlips fell enough to be passionate or capricious, notwithstanding thattheir general effect suggested neither caprice, womanly weakness, norpassion. 

With the instinct of an embarrassed man, Mr. Rightbody touched the topiche would have preferred to avoid. 

"I suppose we must talk over to-morrow, " he hesitated, "this matter ofyours and Mr. Marvin's? Mrs. Marvin has formally spoken to your mother. "

Miss Alice lifted her bright eyes intelligently, but not joyfully;and the color of action, rather than embarrassment, rose to her roundcheeks. 

"Yes, HE said she would, " she answered simply. 

"At present, " continued Mr. Rightbody still awkwardly, "I see noobjection to the proposed arrangement. "

Miss Alice opened her round eyes at this. 

"Why, papa, I thought it had been all settled long ago! Mamma knew it, you knew it. Last July, mamma and you talked it over. "

"Yes, yes, " returned her father, fumbling his papers; "that is--well, wewill talk of it to-morrow. " In fact, Mr. Rightbody HAD intended togive the affair a proper attitude of seriousness and solemnity by dueprecision of speech, and some apposite reflections, when he shouldimpart the news to his daughter, but felt himself unable to do it now. "I am glad, Alice, " he said at last, "that you have quite forgotten yourprevious whims and fancies. You see WE are right. "

"Oh! I dare say, papa, if I'm to be married at all, that Mr. Marvin isin every way suitable. "

Mr. Rightbody looked at his daughter narrowly. There was not theslightest impatience nor bitterness in her manner: it was as wellregulated as the sentiment she expressed. 

"Mr. Marvin is--" he began. 

"I know what Mr. Marvin IS, " interrupted Miss Alice; "and he haspromised me that I shall be allowed to go on with my studies the same asbefore. I shall graduate with my class; and, if I prefer to practise myprofession, I can do so in two years after our marriage. "

"In two years?" queried Mr. Rightbody curiously. 

"Yes. You see, in case we should have a child, that would give me timeenough to wean it. "

Mr. Rightbody looked at this flesh of his flesh, pretty and palpableflesh as it was; but, being confronted as equally with the brain of hisbrain, all he could do was to say meekly, --

"Yes, certainly. We will see about all that to-morrow. "

Miss Alice rose. Something in the free, unfettered swing of her arms asshe rested them lightly, after a half yawn, on her lithe hips, suggestedhis next speech, although still distrait and impatient. 

"You continue your exercise with the health-lift yet, I see. "

"Yes, papa; but I had to give up the flannels. I don't see how mammacould wear them. But my dresses are high-necked, and by bathing Itoughen my skin. See!" she added, as, with a child-like unconsciousness, she unfastened two or three buttons of her gown, and exposed the whitesurface of her throat and neck to her father, "I can defy a chill. "

Mr. Rightbody, with something akin to a genuine playful, paternal laugh, leaned forward and kissed her forehead. 

"It's getting late, Ally, " he said parentally, but not dictatorially. "Go to bed. "

"I took a nap of three hours this afternoon, " said Miss Alice, witha dazzling smile, "to anticipate this dissipation. Good-night, papa. To-morrow, then. "

"To-morrow, " repeated Mr. Rightbody, with his eyes still fixed upon thegirl vaguely. "Good-night. "

Miss Alice tripped from the room, possibly a trifle the morelight-heartedly that she had parted from her father in one of his raremoments of illogical human weakness. And perhaps it was well for thepoor girl that she kept this single remembrance of him, when, I fear, inafter-years, his methods, his reasoning, and indeed all he had tried toimpress upon her childhood, had faded from her memory. 

For, when she had left, Mr. Rightbody fell again to the examination ofhis old letters. This was quite absorbing; so much so, that he did notnotice the footsteps of Mrs. Rightbody, on the staircase as she passedto her chamber, nor that she had paused on the landing to look throughthe glass half-door on her husband, as he sat there with the lettersbeside him, and the telegram opened before him. Had she waited amoment later, she would have seen him rise, and walk to the sofa with adisturbed air and a slight confusion; so that, on reaching it, he seemedto hesitate to lie down, although pale and evidently faint. Had shestill waited, she would have seen him rise again with an agonizedeffort, stagger to the table, fumblingly refold and replace the papersin the cabinet, and lock it, and, although now but half-conscious, holdthe telegram over the gas-flame till it was consumed. 

For, had she waited until this moment, she would have flownunhesitatingly to his aid, as, this act completed, he staggered again, reached his hand toward the bell, but vainly, and then fell prone uponthe sofa. 

But alas! no providential nor accidental hand was raised to save him, or anticipate the progress of this story. And when, half an hour later, Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed, and more indignant at his violation ofthe doctor's rules, appeared upon the threshold, Mr. Rightbody lay uponthe sofa, dead!

With bustle, with thronging feet, with the irruption of strangers, anda hurrying to and fro, but, more than all, with an impulse and emotionunknown to the mansion when its owner was in life, Mrs. Rightbodystrove to call back the vanished life, but in vain. The highest medicalintelligence, called from its bed at this strange hour, saw only thedemonstration of its theories made a year before. Mr. Rightbody wasdead--without doubt, without mystery, even as a correct man shoulddie--logically, and indorsed by the highest medical authority. 

But even in the confusion, Mrs. Rightbody managed to speed a messengerto the telegraph-office for a copy of the despatch received by Mr. Rightbody, but now missing. 

In the solitude of her own room, and without a confidant, she read thesewords:--

 "[Copy. ]

 "To MR. ADAMS RIGHTBODY, BOSTON, MASS. 

 "Joshua Silsbie died suddenly this morning. His last request was that you should remember your sacred compact with him of thirty years ago. (Signed) "SEVENTY-FOUR. "SEVENTY-FIVE. "

In the darkened home, and amid the formal condolements of their friendswho had called to gaze upon the scarcely cold features of their lateassociate, Mrs. Rightbody managed to send another despatch. It wasaddressed to "Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five, " Cottonwood. In a few hoursshe received the following enigmatical response:--

"A horse-thief named Josh Silsbie was lynched yesterday morning by theVigilantes at Deadwood. "

PART II. 

The spring of 1874 was retarded in the California sierras; so much so, that certain Eastern tourists who had early ventured into the YoSemite Valley found themselves, one May morning, snow-bound against thetempestuous shoulders of El Capitan. So furious was the onset of thewind at the Upper Merced Canyon, that even so respectable a lady as Mrs. Rightbody was fain to cling to the neck of her guide to keep her seatin the saddle; while Miss Alice, scorning all masculine assistance, was hurled, a lovely chaos, against the snowy wall of the chasm. Mrs. Rightbody screamed; Miss Alice raged under her breath, but scrambled toher feet again in silence. 

"I told you so!" said Mrs. Rightbody, in an indignant whisper, asher daughter again ranged beside her. "I warned you especially, Alice--that--that--"

"What?" interrupted Miss Alice curtly. 

"That you would need your chemiloons and high boots, " said Mrs. Rightbody, in a regretful undertone, slightly increasing her distancefrom the guides. 

Miss Alice shrugged her pretty shoulders scornfully, but ignored hermother's implication. 

"You were particularly warned against going into the valley at thisseason, " she only replied grimly. 

Mrs. Rightbody raised her eyes impatiently. 

"You know how anxious I was to discover your poor father's strangecorrespondent, Alice. You have no consideration. "

"But when YOU HAVE discovered him--what then?" queried Miss Alice. 

"What then?"

"Yes. My belief is, that you will find the telegram only a mere businesscipher, and all this quest mere nonsense. "

"Alice! Why, YOU yourself thought your father's conduct that night verystrange. Have you forgotten?"

The young lady had NOT, but, for some far-reaching feminine reason, chose to ignore it at that moment, when her late tumble in the snow wasstill fresh in her mind. 

"And this woman, whoever she may be--" continued Mrs. Rightbody. 

"How do you know there's a woman in the case?" interrupted Miss Alice, wickedly I fear. 

"How do--I--know--there's a woman?" slowly ejaculated Mrs. Rightbody, floundering in the snow and the unexpected possibility of such aridiculous question. But here her guide flew to her assistance, andestopped further speech. And, indeed, a grave problem was before them. 

The road that led to their single place of refuge--a cabin, half hotel, half trading-post, scarce a mile away--skirted the base of the rockydome, and passed perilously near the precipitous wall of thevalley. There was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more tothis terrace-like passage; and the guides paused for a moment ofconsultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the terrified questioning ofMrs. Rightbody, or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. Theelder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous: the younger wasdark-bearded, slight, and serious. 

"Ef you kin git young Bunker Hill to let you tote her on your shoulders, I'll git the Madam to hang on to me, " came to Mrs. Rightbody's horrifiedears as the expression of her particular companion. 

"Freeze to the old gal, and don't reckon on me if the daughter starts into play it alone, " was the enigmatical response of the younger guide. 

Miss Alice overheard both propositions; and, before the two men returnedto their side, that high-spirited young lady had urged her horse downthe declivity. 

Alas! at this moment a gust of whirling snow swept down upon her. Therewas a flounder, a mis-step, a fatal strain on the wrong rein, a fall, a few plucky but unavailing struggles, and both horse and rider slidignominiously down toward the rocky shelf. Mrs. Rightbody screamed. Miss Alice, from a confused debris of snow and ice, uplifted a vexed andcoloring face to the younger guide, a little the more angrily, perhaps, that she saw a shade of impatience on his face. 

"Don't move, but tie one end of the 'lass' under your arms, and throw methe other, " he said quietly. 

"What do you mean by 'lass'--the lasso?" asked Miss Alice disgustedly. 

"Yes, ma'am. "

"Then why don't you say so?"

"O Alice!" reproachfully interpolated Mrs. Rightbody, encircled by theelder guide's stalwart arm. 

Miss Alice deigned no reply, but drew the loop of the lasso over hershoulders, and let it drop to her round waist. Then she essayed tothrow the other end to her guide. Dismal failure! The first fling nearlyknocked her off the ledge; the second went all wild against therocky wall; the third caught in a thorn-bush, twenty feet below hercompanion's feet. Miss Alice's arm sunk helplessly to her side, at whichsignal of unqualified surrender, the younger guide threw himself halfway down the slope, worked his way to the thorn-bush, hung for a momentperilously over the parapet, secured the lasso, and then began to pullaway at his lovely burden. Miss Alice was no dead weight, however, butsteadily half-scrambled on her hands and knees to within a foot or twoof her rescuer. At this too familiar proximity, she stood up, and leaneda little stiffly against the line, causing the guide to give an extrapull, which had the lamentable effect of landing her almost in his arms. 

As it was, her intelligent forehead struck his nose sharply, and Iregret to add, treating of a romantic situation, caused that somewhatprominent sign and token of a hero to bleed freely. Miss Alice instantlyclapped a handful of snow over his nostrils. 

"Now elevate your right arm, " she said commandingly. 

He did as he was bidden, but sulkily. 

"That compresses the artery. "

No man, with a pretty woman's hand and a handful of snow over his mouthand nose, could effectively utter a heroic sentence, nor, with his armelevated stiffly over his head, assume a heroic attitude. But, when hismouth was free again, he said half-sulkily, half-apologetically, --

"I might have known a girl couldn't throw worth a cent. "

"Why?" demanded Miss Alice sharply. 

"Because--why--because--you see--they haven't got the experience, " hestammered feebly. 

"Nonsense! they haven't the CLAVICLE--that's all! It's because I'm awoman, and smaller in the collar-bone, that I haven't the play of thefore-arm which you have. See!" She squared her shoulders slightly, andturned the blaze of her dark eyes full on his. "Experience, indeed! Agirl can learn anything a boy can. "

Apprehension took the place of ill-humor in her hearer. He turned hiseyes hastily away, and glanced above him. The elder guide had goneforward to catch Miss Alice's horse, which, relieved of his rider, wasfloundering toward the trail. Mrs. Rightbody was nowhere to be seen. Andthese two were still twenty feet below the trail!

There was an awkward pause. 

"Shall I put you up the same way?" he queried. Miss Alice looked athis nose, and hesitated. "Or will you take my hand?" he added in surlyimpatience. To his surprise, Miss Alice took his hand, and they beganthe ascent together. 

But the way was difficult and dangerous. Once or twice her feet slippedon the smoothly-worn rock beneath; and she confessed to an inwardthankfulness when her uncertain feminine hand-grip was exchanged for hisstrong arm around her waist. Not that he was ungentle; but Miss Aliceangrily felt that he had once or twice exercised his superior masculinefunctions in a rough way; and yet the next moment she would haveprobably rejected the idea that she had even noticed it. There was nodoubt, however, that he WAS a little surly. 

A fierce scramble finally brought them back in safety to the trail;but in the action Miss Alice's shoulder, striking a projecting bowlder, wrung from her a feminine cry of pain, her first sign of womanlyweakness. The guide stopped instantly. 

"I am afraid I hurt you?"

She raised her brown lashes, a trifle moist from suffering, looked inhis eyes, and dropped her own. Why, she could not tell. And yet he hadcertainly a kind face, despite its seriousness; and a fine face, albeitunshorn and weather-beaten. Her own eyes had never been so near to anyman's before, save her lover's; and yet she had never seen so much ineven his. She slipped her hand away, not with any reference to him, but rather to ponder over this singular experience, and somehow feltuncomfortable thereat. 

Nor was he less so. It was but a few days ago that he had accepted thecharge of this young woman from the elder guide, who was the recognizedescort of the Rightbody party, having been a former correspondent of herfather's. He had been hired like any other guide, but had undertakenthe task with that chivalrous enthusiasm which the average Californianalways extends to the sex so rare to him. But the illusion had passed;and he had dropped into a sulky, practical sense of his situation, perhaps fraught with less danger to himself. Only when appealed to byhis manhood or her weakness, he had forgotten his wounded vanity. 

He strode moodily ahead, dutifully breaking the path for her in thedirection of the distant canyon, where Mrs. Rightbody and her friendawaited them. Miss Alice was first to speak. In this trackless, uncharted terra incognita of the passions, it is always the woman whosteps out to lead the way. 

"You know this place very well. I suppose you have lived here long?"

"Yes. "

"You were not born here--no?"

A long pause. 

"I observe they call you 'Stanislaus Joe. ' Of course that is not yourreal name?" (Mem. --Miss Alice had never called him ANYTHING, usuallyprefacing any request with a languid, "O-er-er, please, mister-er-a!"explicit enough for his station. )

"No. "

Miss Alice (trotting after him, and bawling in his ear). --"WHAT name didyou say?"

The Man (doggedly). --"I don't know. " Nevertheless, when they reached thecabin, after an half-hour's buffeting with the storm, Miss Alice appliedherself to her mother's escort, Mr. Ryder. 

"What's the name of the man who takes care of my horse?"

"Stanislaus Joe, " responded Mr. Ryder. 

"Is that all?"

"No. Sometimes he's called Joe Stanislaus. "

Miss Alice (satirically). --"I suppose it's the custom here to send youngladies out with gentlemen who hide their names under an alias?"

Mr. Ryder (greatly perplexed). --"Why, dear me, Miss Alice, you allers'peared to me as a gal as was able to take keer--"

Miss Alice (interrupting with a wounded, dove-like timidity). --"Oh, never mind, please!"

The cabin offered but scanty accommodation to the tourists; which fact, when indignantly presented by Mrs. Rightbody, was explained by thegood-humored Ryder from the circumstance that the usual hotel was only aslight affair of boards, cloth, and paper, put up during the season, andpartly dismantled in the fall. "You couldn't be kept warm enough there, "he added. Nevertheless Miss Alice noticed that both Mr. Ryder andStanislaus Joe retired there with their pipes, after having prepared theladies' supper, with the assistance of an Indian woman, who apparentlyemerged from the earth at the coming of the party, and disappeared asmysteriously. 

The stars came out brightly before they slept; and the next morninga clear, unwinking sun beamed with almost summer power through theshutterless window of their cabin, and ironically disclosed the detailsof its rude interior. Two or three mangy, half-eaten buffalo-robes, a bearskin, some suspicious-looking blankets, rifles and saddles, deal-tables, and barrels, made up its scant inventory. A strip of fadedcalico hung before a recess near the chimney, but so blackened bysmoke and age that even feminine curiosity respected its secret. Mrs. Rightbody was in high spirits, and informed her daughter that she was atlast on the track of her husband's unknown correspondent. "Seventy-Fourand Seventy-Five represent two members of the Vigilance Committee, mydear, and Mr. Ryder will assist me to find them. "

"Mr. Ryder!" ejaculated Miss Alice, in scornful astonishment. 

"Alice, " said Mrs. Rightbody, with a suspicious assumption of suddendefence, "you injure yourself, you injure me, by this exclusiveattitude. Mr. Ryder is a friend of your father's, an exceedinglywell-informed gentleman. I have not, of course, imparted to him theextent of my suspicions. But he can help me to what I must and willknow. You might treat him a little more civilly--or, at least, a littlebetter than you do his servant, your guide. Mr. Ryder is a gentleman, and not a paid courier. "

Miss Alice was suddenly attentive. When she spoke again, she asked, "Why do you not find out something about this Silsbie--who died--or washung--or something of that kind?"

"Child!" said Mrs. Rightbody, "don't you see there was no Silsbie, or, if there was, he was simply the confidant of that--woman?"

A knock at the door, announcing the presence of Mr. Ryder and StanislausJoe with the horses, checked Mrs. Rightbody's speech. As the animalswere being packed, Mrs. Rightbody for a moment withdrew in confidentialconversation with Mr. Ryder, and, to the young lady's still greaterannoyance, left her alone with Stanislaus Joe. Miss Alice was not ingood temper, but she felt it necessary to say something. 

"I hope the hotel offers better quarters for travellers than this insummer, " she began. 

"It does. "

"Then this does not belong to it?"

"No, ma'am. "

"Who lives here, then?"

"I do. "

"I beg your pardon, " stammered Miss Alice, "I thought you lived where wehired--where we met you--in--in--You must excuse me. "

"I'm not a regular guide; but as times were hard, and I was out of grub, I took the job. "

"Out of grub!" "job!" And SHE was the "job. " What would Henry Marvinsay? It would nearly kill him. She began herself to feel a littlefrightened, and walked towards the door. 

"One moment, miss!"

The young girl hesitated. The man's tone was surly, and yet indicated acertain kind of half-pathetic grievance. HER curiosity got the better ofher prudence, and she turned back. 

"This morning, " he began hastily, "when we were coming down the valley, you picked me up twice. "

"I picked YOU up?" repeated the astonished Alice. 

"Yes, CONTRADICTED me: that's what I mean, --once when you said thoserocks were volcanic, once when you said the flower you picked was apoppy. I didn't let on at the time, for it wasn't my say; but all thewhile you were talking I might have laid for you--"

"I don't understand you, " said Alice haughtily. 

"I might have entrapped you before folks. But I only want you to knowthat I'M right, and here are the books to show it. "

He drew aside the dingy calico curtain, revealed a small shelf ofbulky books, took down two large volumes, --one of botany, oneof geology, --nervously sought his text, and put them in Alice'soutstretched hands. 

"I had no intention--" she began, half-proudly, half-embarrassedly. 

"Am I right, miss?" he interrupted. 

"I presume you are, if you say so. "

"That's all, ma'am. Thank you!"

Before the girl had time to reply, he was gone. When he again returned, it was with her horse, and Mrs. Rightbody and Ryder were awaiting her. But Miss Alice noticed that his own horse was missing. 

"Are you not going with us?" she asked. 

"No, ma'am. "

"Oh, indeed!"

Miss Alice felt her speech was a feeble conventionalism; but it was allshe could say. She, however, DID something. Hitherto it had been herhabit to systematically reject his assistance in mounting to her seat. Now she awaited him. As he approached, she smiled, and put out herlittle foot. He instantly stooped; she placed it in his hand, rosewith a spring, and for one supreme moment Stanislaus Joe held herunresistingly in his arms. The next moment she was in the saddle; butin that brief interval of sixty seconds she had uttered a volume in asingle sentence, --

"I hope you will forgive me!"

He muttered a reply, and turned his face aside quickly as if to hide it. 

Miss Alice cantered forward with a smile, but pulled her hat down overher eyes as she joined her mother. She was blushing. 

PART III. 

Mr. Ryder was as good as his word. A day or two later he entered Mrs. Rightbody's parlor at the Chrysopolis Hotel in Stockton, with theinformation that he had seen the mysterious senders of the despatch, andthat they were now in the office of the hotel waiting her pleasure. Mr. Ryder further informed her that these gentlemen had only stipulated thatthey should not reveal their real names, and that they be introduced toher simply as the respective "Seventy-Four" and "Seventy-Five" who hadsigned the despatch sent to the late Mr. Rightbody. 

Mrs. Rightbody at first demurred to this; but, on the assurance from Mr. Ryder that this was the only condition on which an interview would begranted, finally consented. 

"You will find them square men, even if they are a little rough, ma'am. But, if you'd like me to be present, I'll stop; though I reckon, ifye'd calkilated on that, you'd have had me take care o' your business byproxy, and not come yourself three thousand miles to do it. "

Mrs. Rightbody believed it better to see them alone. 

"All right, ma'am. I'll hang round out here; and ef ye should happen tohave a ticklin' in your throat, and a bad spell o' coughin', I'll dropin, careless like, to see if you don't want them drops. Sabe?"

And with an exceedingly arch wink, and a slight familiar tap on Mrs. Rightbody's shoulder, which might have caused the late Mr. Rightbody toburst his sepulchre, he withdrew. 

A very timid, hesitating tap on the door was followed by the entrance oftwo men, both of whom, in general size, strength, and uncouthness, were ludicrously inconsistent with their diffident announcement. They proceeded in Indian file to the centre of the room, faced Mrs. Rightbody, acknowledged her deep courtesy by a strong shake of the hand, and, drawing two chairs opposite to her, sat down side by side. 

"I presume I have the pleasure of addressing--" began Mrs. Rightbody. 

The man directly opposite Mrs. Rightbody turned to the otherinquiringly. 

The other man nodded his head, and replied, --

"Seventy-Four. "

"Seventy-Five, " promptly followed the other. 

Mrs. Rightbody paused, a little confused. 

"I have sent for you, " she began again, "to learn something more ofthe circumstances under which you gentlemen sent a despatch to my latehusband. "

"The circumstances, " replied Seventy-Four quietly, with a side-glance athis companion, "panned out about in this yer style. We hung a man namedJosh Silsbie, down at Deadwood, for hoss-stealin'. When I say WE, Ispeak for Seventy-Five yer as is present, as well as representin', so tospeak, seventy-two other gents as is scattered. We hung Josh Silsbie onsquar, pretty squar, evidence. Afore he was strung up, Seventy-Five yeraxed him, accordin' to custom, ef ther was enny thing he had to say, or enny request that he allowed to make of us. He turns to Seventy-Fiveyer, and--"

Here he paused suddenly, looking at his companion. 

"He sez, sez he, " began Seventy-Five, taking up the narrative, --"he sez, 'Kin I write a letter?' sez he. Sez I, 'Not much, ole man: ye've gotno time. ' Sez he, 'Kin I send a despatch by telegraph?' I sez, 'Heaveahead. ' He sez, --these is his dientikal words, --'Send to Adam Rightbody, Boston. Tell him to remember his sacred compack with me thirty yearsago. '"

"'His sacred compack with me thirty years ago, '" echoedSeventy-Four, --"his dientikal words. "

"What was the compact?" asked Mrs. Rightbody anxiously. 

Seventy-Four looked at Seventy-Five, and then both arose, and retiredto the corner of the parlor, where they engaged in a slow but whispereddeliberation. Presently they returned, and sat down again. 

"We allow, " said Seventy-Four, quietly but decidedly, "that YOU knowwhat that sacred compact was. "

Mrs. Rightbody lost her temper and her truthfulness together. "Ofcourse, " she said hurriedly, "I know. But do you mean to say that yougave this poor man no further chance to explain before you murderedhim?"

Seventy-Four and Seventy-Five both rose again slowly, and retired. When they returned again, and sat down, Seventy-Five, who by this time, through some subtile magnetism, Mrs. Rightbody began to recognize as thesuperior power, said gravely, --

"We wish to say, regarding this yer murder, that Seventy-Four and meis equally responsible; that we reckon also to represent, so tospeak, seventy-two other gentlemen as is scattered; that we are ready, Seventy-Four and me, to take and holt that responsibility, now and atany time, afore every man or men as kin be fetched agin us. We wish tosay that this yer say of ours holds good yer in Californy, or in anypart of these United States. "

"Or in Canady, " suggested Seventy-Four. 

"Or in Canady. We wouldn't agree to cross the water, or go to furrinparts, unless absolutely necessary. We leaves the chise of weppings toyour principal, ma'am, or being a lady, ma'am, and interested, toany one you may fetch to act for him. An advertisement in any of theSacramento papers, or a playcard or handbill stuck unto a tree nearDeadwood, saying that Seventy-Four or Seventy-Five will communicate withthis yer principal or agent of yours, will fetch us--allers. "

Mrs. Rightbody, a little alarmed and desperate, saw her blunder. "I meannothing of the kind, " she said hastily. "I only expected that you mighthave some further details of this interview with Silsbie; that perhapsyou could tell me--" a bold, bright thought crossed Mrs. Rightbody'smind--"something more about HER. "

The two men looked at each other. 

"I suppose your society have no objection to giving me information aboutHER, " said Mrs. Rightbody eagerly. 

Another quiet conversation in the corner, and the return of both men. 

"We want to say that we've no objection. "

Mrs. Rightbody's heart beat high. Her boldness had made her penetrationgood. Yet she felt she must not alarm the men heedlessly. 

"Will you inform me to what extent Mr. Rightbody, my late husband, wasinterested in her?"

This time it seemed an age to Mrs. Rightbody before the men returnedfrom their solemn consultation in the corner. She could both hearand feel that their discussion was more animated than their previousconferences. She was a little mortified, however, when they sat down, tohear Seventy-Four say slowly, --

"We wish to say that we don't allow to say HOW much. "

"Do you not think that the 'sacred compact' between Mr. Rightbody andMr. Silsbie referred to her?"

"We reckon it do. "

Mrs. Rightbody, flushed and animated, would have given worlds had herdaughter been present to hear this undoubted confirmation of her theory. Yet she felt a little nervous and uncomfortable even on this thresholdof discovery. 

"Is she here now?"

"She's in Tuolumne, " said Seventy-Four. 

"A little better looked arter than formerly, " added Seventy-Five. 

"I see. Then Mr. Silsbie ENTICED her away?"

"Well, ma'am, it WAS allowed as she runned away. But it wasn't proved, and it generally wasn't her style. "

Mrs. Rightbody trifled with her next question. 

"She was pretty, of course?"

The eyes of both men brightened. 

"She was THAT!" said Seventy-Four emphatically. 

"It would have done you good to see her!" added Seventy-Five. 

Mrs. Rightbody inwardly doubted it; but, before she could ask anotherquestion, the two men again retired to the corner for consultation. Whenthey came back, there was a shade more of kindliness and confidence intheir manner; and Seventy-Four opened his mind more freely. 

"We wish to say, ma'am, looking at the thing, by and large, in afar-minded way, that, ez YOU seem interested, and ez Mr. Rightbody wasinterested, and was, according to all accounts, deceived and led away bySilsbie, that we don't mind listening to any proposition YOU might make, as a lady--allowin' you was ekally interested. "

"I understand, " said Mrs. Rightbody quickly. "And you will furnish mewith any papers?"

The two men again consulted. 

"We wish to say, ma'am, that we think she's got papers, but--"

"I MUST have them, you understand, " interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, "at anyprice. 

"We was about to say, ma'am, " said Seventy-Four slowly, "that, considerin' all things, --and you being a lady--you kin have HER, papers, pedigree, and guaranty, for twelve hundred dollars. "

It has been alleged that Mrs. Rightbody asked only one question more, and then fainted. It is known, however, that by the next day itwas understood in Deadwood that Mrs. Rightbody had confessed to theVigilance Committee that her husband, a celebrated Boston millionaire, anxious to gain possession of Abner Springer's well-known sorrel mare, had incited the unfortunate Josh Silsbie to steal it; and that finally, failing in this, the widow of the deceased Boston millionaire was now inpersonal negotiation with the owners. 

Howbeit, Miss Alice, returning home that afternoon, found her motherwith a violent headache. 

"We will leave here by the next steamer, " said Mrs. Rightbody languidly. "Mr. Ryder has promised to accompany us. "

"But, mother--"

"The climate, Alice, is over-rated. My nerves are already sufferingfrom it. The associations are unfit for you, and Mr. Marvin is naturallyimpatient. "

Miss Alice colored slightly. 

"But your quest, mother?"

"I've abandoned it. "

"But I have not, " said Alice quietly. "Do you remember my guide at theYo Semite, --Stanislaus Joe? Well, Stanislaus Joe is--who do you think?"

Mrs. Rightbody was languidly indifferent. 

"Well, Stanislaus Joe is the son of Joshua Silsbie. "

Mrs. Rightbody sat upright in astonishment

"Yes. But mother, he knows nothing of what we know. His father treatedhim shamefully, and set him cruelly adrift years ago; and, when he washung, the poor fellow, in sheer disgrace, changed his name. "

"But, if he knows nothing of his father's compact, of what interest isthis?"

"Oh, nothing! Only I thought it might lead to something. "

Mrs. Rightbody suspected that "something, " and asked sharply, "And prayhow did YOU find it out? You did not speak of it in the valley. "

"Oh! I didn't find it out till to-day, " said Miss Alice, walking to thewindow. "He happened to be here, and--told me. "

PART IV. 

If Mrs. Rightbody's friends had been astounded by her singular andunexpected pilgrimage to California so soon after her husband's decease, they were still more astounded by the information, a year later, thatshe was engaged to be married to a Mr. Ryder, of whom only the scanthistory was known, that he was a Californian, and former correspondentof her husband. It was undeniable that the man was wealthy, andevidently no mere adventurer; it was rumored that he was courageous andmanly: but even those who delighted in his odd humor were shocked at hisgrammar and slang. 

It was said that Mr. Marvin had but one interview with his father-in-lawelect, and returned so supremely disgusted, that the match was brokenoff. The horse-stealing story, more or less garbled, found its waythrough lips that pretended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it. Onlyone member of the Rightbody family--and a new one--saved them from utterostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder, the adopted son of the prospectivehead of the household, whose culture, manners, and general elegance, fascinated and thrilled Boston with a new sensation. It seemed to manythat Miss Alice should, in the vicinity of this rare exotic, forget herformer enthusiasm for a professional life; but the young man was pitiedby society, and various plans for diverting him from any mesalliancewith the Rightbody family were concocted. 

It was a wintry night, and the second anniversary of Mr. Rightbody'sdeath, that a light was burning in his library. But the dead man's chairwas occupied by young Mr. Ryder, adopted son of the new proprietor ofthe mansion; and before him stood Alice, with her dark eyes fixed on thetable. 

"There must have been something in it, Joe, believe me. Did you neverhear your father speak of mine?"

"Never. "

"But you say he was college-bred, and born a gentleman, and in his youthhe must have had many friends. "

"Alice, " said the young man gravely, "when I have done something toredeem my name, and wear it again before these people, before YOU, itwould be well to revive the past. But till then--"

But Alice was not to be put down. "I remember, " she went on, scarcelyheeding him, "that, when I came in that night, papa was reading aletter, and seemed to be disconcerted. "

"A letter?"

"Yes; but, " added Alice, with a sigh, "when we found him hereinsensible, there was no letter on his person. He must have destroyedit. "

"Did you ever look among his papers? If found, it might be a clew. "

The young man glanced toward the cabinet. Alice read his eyes, andanswered, --

"Oh, dear, no! The cabinet contained only his papers, all perfectlyarranged, --you know how methodical were his habits, --and some oldbusiness and private letters, all carefully put away. "

"Let us see them, " said the young man, rising. 

They opened drawer after drawer; files upon files of letters andbusiness papers, accurately folded and filed. Suddenly Alice uttered alittle cry, and picked up a quaint ivory paper-knife lying at the bottomof a drawer. 

"It was missing the next day, and never could be found: he must havemislaid it here. This is the drawer, " said Alice eagerly. 

Here was a clew. But the lower part of the drawer was filled withold letters, not labelled, yet neatly arranged in files. Suddenly hestopped, and said, "Put them back, Alice, at once. "

"Why?"

"Some of these letters are in my father's handwriting. "

"The more reason why I should see them, " said the girl imperatively. "Here, you take part, and I'll take part, and we'll get throughquicker. "

There was a certain decision and independence in her manner which he hadlearned to respect. He took the letters, and in silence read themwith her. They were old college letters, so filled with boyish dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and utopian theories, that I fear neither ofthese young people even recognized their parents in the dead ashes ofthe past. They were both grave, until Alice uttered a little hystericalcry, and dropped her face in her hands. Joe was instantly beside her. 

"It's nothing, Joe, nothing. Don't read it, please; please, don't. It'sso funny! it's so very queer!"

But Joe had, after a slight, half-playful struggle, taken the letterfrom the girl. Then he read aloud the words written by his father thirtyyears ago. 

"I thank you, dear friend, for all you say about my wife and boy. Ithank you for reminding me of our boyish compact. He will be readyto fulfil it, I know, if he loves those his father loves, even if youshould marry years later. I am glad for your sake, for both our sakes, that it is a boy. Heaven send you a good wife, dear Adams, and adaughter, to make my son equally happy. "

Joe Silsbie looked down, took the half-laughing, half-tearful face inhis hands, kissed her forehead, and, with tears in his grave eyes, said, "Amen!"

*****

I am inclined to think that this sentiment was echoed heartily by Mrs. Rightbody's former acquaintances, when, a year later, Miss Alice wasunited to a professional gentleman of honor and renown, yet who wasknown to be the son of a convicted horse-thief. A few remembered theprevious Californian story, and found corroboration therefor; but amajority believed it a just reward to Miss Alice for her conduct to Mr. Marvin, and, as Miss Alice cheerfully accepted it in that light, I donot see why I may not end my story with happiness to all concerned. 

A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT. 

It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner;and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach atMr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatorytable d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten alate breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover, preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on enteringthe garden-like court and cloister-like counting-house of "Von Becheret, Sons, Uncles, and Cousins, " to find the comptoir deserted even by theporter, and was furious at the maidservant, who offered the sacredshibboleth "Mittagsessen" as a reasonable explanation of the solitude. "A country, " said Mr. Clinch to himself, "that stops business at mid-dayto go to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business-men, isplayed out. "

He stepped from the silent building into the equally silent KronprinzenStrasse. Not a soul to be seen anywhere. Rows on rows of two-storied, gray-stuccoed buildings that might be dwellings, or might be offices, all showing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a floweror a curtain that belied the legended "Comptoir, " or "Direction, " overtheir portals. Mr. Clinch thought of Boston and State Street, of NewYork and Wall Street, and became coldly contemptuous. 

Yet there was clearly nothing to do but to walk down the formal rows ofchestnuts that lined the broad Strasse, and then walk back again. At thecorner of the first cross-street he was struck with the fact that twomen who were standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to be asinconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as were theactors on a stage to the painted canvas thoroughfares before which theystrutted. Mr. Clinch usually had no fancies, had no eye for quaintness;besides, this was not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepotfor silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tourist, but asa purchaser. The guidebooks had ignored Sammtstadt, and he was toogood an American to waste time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities. Besides, he had been here once before, --an entire day!

One o'clock. Still a full hour and a half before his friend wouldreturn to business. What should he do? The Verein where he had oncebeen entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with itsostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch wasnot artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affrontput upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turneddisgustedly away. Born near a "lake" larger than the German Ocean, he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under thatalluring title; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he could scarcecontain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve feet high. "A country, "said Mr. Clinch, "that--" but here he remembered that he had once seenin a park in his native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster, on a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech. 

He turned into the principal allee of the town. There was a long whitebuilding at one end, --the Bahnhof: at the other end he remembered adye-house. He had, a year ago, met its hospitable proprietor: he wouldcall upon him now. 

But the same solitude confronted him as he passed the porter's lodgebeside the gateway. The counting-house, half villa, half factory, musthave convoked its humanity in some out-of-the-way refectory, for thehalls and passages were tenantless. For the first time he began to beimpressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the surroundings; hefound himself also recalling something he had read when a boy, aboutan enchanted palace whose inhabitants awoke on the arrival ofa long-predestined Prince. To assure himself of the absoluteridiculousness of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-cardof its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own personality ina letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea from his mind, he loungedon again through a rustic lane that might have led to a farmhouse, yetwas still, absurdly enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossinga ditch by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and anothercauseway, and then found himself idly contemplating a massive, ivy-clad, venerable brick wall. As a mere wall it might not have attracted hisattention; but it seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in theside-wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying himselfof this fact, he passed on before the dwelling, but was amazed to seethe wall reappear on the other side exactly the same--old, ivy-grown, sturdy, uncompromising, and ridiculous. 

Could it actually be a part of the house? He turned back, and repassedthe front of the building. The entrance door was hospitably open. Therewas a hall and a staircase, but--by all that was preposterous!--theywere built OVER and AROUND the central brick intrusion. The wallactually ran through the house! "A country, " said Mr. Clinch to himself, "where they build their houses over ruins to accommodate them, or savethe trouble of removal, is, --" but a very pleasant voice addressing himhere stopped his usual hasty conclusion. 

"Guten Morgen!"

Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet of what appearedto be a garden on the roof of the house was a young girl, red-cheeked, bright-eyed, blond-haired. The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow; itwas part of the new impression he was receiving, that it seemed to bein some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. His hat was inhis hand as he answered, --

"Guten Morgen!"

"Was the Herr seeking anything?"

"The Herr was only waiting a longtime-coming friend, and had strayedhere to speak with the before-known proprietor. "

"So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at present afterdinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?"

The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. Hewas thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at theopen door, and bade him enter. 

Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but, passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. "It isold, very old, " said the girl: "it was here when I came. "

"That was not very long ago, " said Mr. Clinch gallantly. 

"No; but my grandfather found it here too. "

"And built over it?"

"Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick. "

Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence ofsuch modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in theireffects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances. 

"But there was not then what you call--this--ni--nitro-glycerine. "

"But since then?"

The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. "My great-grandfatherdid not take it away when he built the house: why should we?"

"Oh!"

They had passed through a hall and dining-room, and suddenly steppedout of a window upon a gravelled terrace. From this a few stone stepsdescended to another terrace, on which trees and shrubs were growing;and yet, looking over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road sometwenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and part of, thesecond story of the house. Had an earthquake lifted the adjacentground? or had the house burrowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to hiscompanion, who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audibly, and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle and fragrantheifer. 

"How was all this done?"

The maiden did not know. "It was always here. "

Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite forgotten his impatience. Possibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the girl, who, but for herready color, did not seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it was thepeaceful repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall thatsubdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fashioned chairon the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with notaltogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and glassesfrom a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of amajority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge of wine andwomen. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him, he would haveinvoiced as a fair sample of the middle-class German woman, --healthy, comfort-loving, home-abiding, the very genius of domesticity. Even inher virgin outlines the future wholesome matron was already forecast, from the curves of her broad hips, to the flat lines of her back andshoulders. Of the wine he was to judge later. THAT required an even moresubtle and unimpassioned intellect. 

She placed two bottles before him on the table, --one, the traditionallong-necked, amber-colored Rheinflasche; the other, an old, quaint, discolored, amphorax-patterned glass jug. The first she opened. 

"This, " she said, pointing to the other, "cannot be opened. "

Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the opened bottle, a good qualityof Niersteiner. With his intellect thus clarified, he glanced at theother. 

"It is from my great-grandfather. It is old as the wall. "

Mr. Clinch examined the bottle attentively. It seemed to have no cork. Formed of some obsolete, opaque glass, its twisted neck was apparentlyhermetically sealed by the same material. The maiden smiled, as shesaid, --

"It cannot be opened now without breaking the bottle. It is not goodluck to do so. My grandfather and my father would not. "

But Mr. Clinch was still examining the bottle. Its neck was flattenedtowards the mouth; but a close inspection showed it was closed by someequally hard cement, but not glass. 

"If I can open it without breaking the bottle, have I your permission?"

A mischievous glance rested on Mr. Clinch, as the maiden answered, --

"I shall not object; but for what will you do it?"

"To taste it, to try it. "

"You are not afraid?"

There was just enough obvious admiration of Mr. Clinch's audacity in themaiden's manner to impel him to any risk. His only answer was to takefrom his pocket a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottlefirmly in one hand, he passed his thumb and the steel twice or thricearound it. A faint rasping, scratching sound was all the wondering girlheard. Then, with a sudden, dexterous twist of his thumb and finger, toher utter astonishment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut off, inher hand. 

"There's a better and more modern bottle than you had before, " he said, pointing to the cleanly-divided neck, "and any cork will fit it now. "

But the girl regarded him with anxiety. "And you still wish to taste thewine?"

"With your permission, yes!"

He looked up in her eyes. There was permission: there was somethingmore, that was flattering to his vanity. He took the wine-glass, and, slowly and in silence, filled it from the mysterious flask. 

The wine fell into the glass clearly, transparently, heavily, butstill and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no cheap ebullition, no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so clear, that, but for a faintamber-tinting, the glass seemed empty. There was no aroma, no etherealdiffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it wasfrom nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from thestill goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinchand his companion both insensibly shivered. 

But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the glass to his lips. As hedid so, he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a picture before him, thesunlit terrace, the pretty girl in the foreground, --an amused spectatorof his sacrilegious act, --the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the grass-grownditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the chestnuts, and thedistant poplars that marked the Rhine. 

The wine was delicious; perhaps a TRIFLE, only a trifle, heady. He wasconscious of a slight exaltation. There was also a smile upon the girl'slip and a roguish twinkle in her eye as she looked at him. 

"Do you find the wine to your taste?" she asked. 

"Fair enough, I warrant, " said Mr. Clinch with ponderous gallantry; "butmethinks 'tis nothing compared with the nectar that grows on those rubylips. Nay, by St. Ursula, I swear it!"

No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous speech passed the lips of theunfortunate man than he would have given worlds to have recalled it. Heknew that he must be intoxicated; that the sentiment and language wereutterly unlike him, he was miserably aware; that he did not even knowexactly what it meant, he was also hopelessly conscious. Yet feeling allthis, --feeling, too, the shame of appearing before her as a man who hadlost his senses through a single glass of wine, --nevertheless he roseawkwardly, seized her hand, and by sheer force drew her towards him, andkissed her. With an exclamation that was half a cry and half a laugh, she fled from him, leaving him alone and bewildered on the terrace. 

For a moment Mr. Clinch supported himself against the open window, leaning his throbbing head on the cold glass. Shame, mortification, anhysterical half-consciousness of his utter ridiculousness, and yet anodd, undefined terror of something, by turns possessed him. Was he everbefore guilty of such perfect folly? Had he ever before made such aspectacle of himself? Was it possible that he, Mr. James Clinch, thecoolest head at a late supper, --he, the American, who had repeatedlydrunk Frenchmen and Englishmen under the table--could be transformedinto a sentimental, stagey idiot by a single glass of wine? He wasconscious, too, of asking himself these very questions in a stilted sortof rhetoric, and with a rising brutality of anger that was new tohim. And then everything swam before him, and he seemed to lose allconsciousness. 

But only for an instant. With a strong effort of his will he againrecalled himself, his situation, his surroundings, and, above all, hisappointment. He rose to his feet, hurriedly descended the terrace-steps, and, before he well knew how, found himself again on the road. Oncethere, his faculties returned in full vigor; he was again himself. He strode briskly forward toward the ditch he had crossed only a fewmoments before, but was suddenly stopped. It was filled with water. Helooked up and down. It was clearly the same ditch; but a flowing streamthirty feet wide now separated him from the other bank. 

The appearance of this unlooked-for obstacle made Mr. Clinch doubt thefull restoration of his faculties. He stepped to the brink of the floodto bathe his head in the stream, and wash away the last vestiges of hispotations. But as he approached the placid depths, and knelt down heagain started back, and this time with a full conviction of his ownmadness; for reflected from its mirror-like surface was a figure hecould scarcely call his own, although here and there some trace of hisformer self remained. 

His close-cropped hair, trimmed a la mode, had given way to long, curling locks that dropped upon his shoulders. His neat mustache wasfrightfully prolonged, and curled up at the ends stiffly. His Piccadillycollar had changed shape and texture, and reached--a mass of lace--to apoint midway of his breast! His boots, --why had he not noticed his bootsbefore?--these triumphs of his Parisian bootmaker, were lost in hideousleathern cases that reached half way up his thighs. In place of hisformer high silk hat, there lay upon the ground beside him the awfulthing he had just taken off, --a mass of thickened felt, flap, feather, and buckle that weighed at least a stone. 

A single terrible idea now took possession of him. He had been "sold, ""taken in, " "done for. " He saw it all. In a state of intoxication hehad lost his way, had been dragged into some vile den, stripped of hisclothes and valuables, and turned adrift upon the quiet town in thisshameless masquerade. How should he keep his appointment? how informthe police of this outrage upon a stranger and an American citizen? howestablish his identity? Had they spared his papers? He felt feverishlyin his breast. Ah!--his watch? Yes, a watch--heavy, jewelled, enamelled--and, by all that was ridiculous, FIVE OTHERS! He ran hishands into his capacious trunk hose. What was this? Brooches, chains, finger-rings, --one large episcopal one, --ear-rings, and a handfulof battered gold and silver coins. His papers, his memorandums, hispassport--all proofs of his identity--were gone! In their place was theunmistakable omnium gatherum of an accomplished knight of the road. Notonly was his personality, but his character, gone forever. 

It was a part of Mr. Clinch's singular experience that this last strokeof ill fortune seemed to revive in him something of the brutal instincthe had felt a moment before. He turned eagerly about with the intentionof calling some one--the first person he met--to account. But the housethat he had just quitted was gone. The wall! Ah, there it was, nolonger purposeless, intrusive, and ivy-clad, but part of the buttressof another massive wall that rose into battlements above him. Mr. Clinchturned again hopelessly toward Sammtstadt. There was the fringe ofpoplars on the Rhine, there were the outlying fields lit by the samemeridian sun; but the characteristic chimneys of Sammtstadt were gone. Mr. Clinch was hopelessly lost. 

The sound of a horn breaking the stillness recalled his senses. He nowfor the first time perceived that a little distance below him, partlyhidden in the trees, was a queer, tower-shaped structure with chainsand pulleys, that in some strange way recalled his boyish reading. A drawbridge and portcullis! And on the battlement a figure in amasquerading dress as absurd as his own, flourishing a banner andtrumpet, and trying to attract his attention. 

"Was wollen Sie?"

"I want to see the proprietor, " said Mr. Clinch, choking back his rage. 

There was a pause, and the figure turned apparently to consult withsome one behind the battlements. After a moment he reappeared, and in aperfunctory monotone, with an occasional breathing spell on the trumpet, began, --

"You do give warranty as a good knight and true, as well as by the bonesof the blessed St. Ursula, that you bear no ill will, secret enmity, wicked misprise or conspiracy, against the body of our noble lordand master Von Kolnsche? And you bring with you no ambush, siege, orsurprise of retainers, neither secret warrant nor lettres de cachet, norcarry on your knightly person poisoned dagger, magic ring, witch-powder, nor enchanted bullet, and that you have entered into no unhallowedalliance with the Prince of Darkness, gnomes, hexies, dragons, Undines, Loreleis, nor the like?"

"Come down out of that, you d----d old fool!" roared Mr. Clinch, nowperfectly beside himself with rage, --"come down, and let me in!"

As Mr. Clinch shouted out the last words, confused cries of recognitionand welcome, not unmixed with some consternation, rose from thebattlements: "Ach Gott!" "Mutter Gott--it is he! It is Jann, DerWanderer. It is himself. " The chains rattled, the ponderous drawbridgecreaked and dropped; and across it a medley of motley figures rushedpellmell. But, foremost among them, the very maiden whom he had left notten minutes before flew into his arms, and with a cry of joyful greetingsank upon his breast. Mr. Clinch looked down upon the fair head and longbraids. It certainly was the same maiden, his cruel enchantress; butwhere did she get those absurd garments?

"Willkommen, " said a stout figure, advancing with some authority, andseizing his disengaged hand, "where hast thou been so long?"

Mr. Clinch, by no means placated, coldly dropped the extended hand. It was NOT the proprietor he had known. But there was a singularresemblance in his face to some one of Mr. Clinch's own kin; but who, he could not remember. "May I take the liberty of asking your name?" heasked coldly. 

The figure grinned. "Surely; but, if thou standest upon punctilio, itis for ME to ask thine, most noble Freiherr, " said he, winking upon hisretainers. "Whom have I the honor of entertaining?"

"My name is Clinch, --James Clinch of Chicago, Ill. "

A shout of laughter followed. In the midst of his rage and mortificationMr. Clinch fancied he saw a shade of pain and annoyance flit across theface of the maiden. He was puzzled, but pressed her hand, in spite ofhis late experiences, reassuringly. She made a gesture of silence tohim, and then slipped away in the crowd. 

"Schames K'l'n'sche von Schekargo, " mimicked the figure, to theunspeakable delight of his retainers. "So! THAT is the latest Frenchstyle. Holy St. Ursula! Hark ye, nephew! I am not a travelled man. Sincethe Crusades we simple Rhine gentlemen have staid at home. But I callmyself Kolnsche of Koln, at your service. "

"Very likely you are right, " said Mr. Clinch hotly, disregarding thecaution of his fair companion; "but, whoever YOU are, I am a strangerentitled to protection. I have been robbed. "

If Mr. Clinch had uttered an exquisite joke instead of a very angrystatement, it could not have been more hilariously received. He paused, grew confused, and then went on hesitatingly, --

"In place of my papers and credentials I find only these. " And heproduced the jewelry from his pockets. 

Another shout of laughter and clapping of hands followed this secondspeech; and the baron, with a wink at his retainers, prolonged thegeneral mirth by saying, "By the way, nephew, there is little doubt butthere has been robbery--somewhere. "

"It was done, " continued Mr. Clinch, hurrying to make an end of hisexplanation, "while I was inadvertently overcome with liquor, --druggedliquor. "

The laughter here was so uproarious that the baron, albeit with tearsof laughter in his own eyes, made a peremptory gesture of silence. Thegesture was peculiar to the baron, efficacious and simple. It consistedmerely in knocking down the nearest laugher. Having thus restoredtranquillity, he strode forward, and took Mr. Clinch by the hand. "BySt. Adolph, I did doubt thee a moment ago, nephew; but this last frankconfession of thine shows me I did thee wrong. Willkommen zu Hause, Jann, drunk or sober, willcommen zu Cracowen. "

More and more mystified, but convinced of the folly of any furtherexplanation, Mr. Clinch took the extended hand of his alleged uncle, andpermitted himself to be led into the castle. They passed into a largebanqueting-hall adorned with armor and implements of the chase. Mr. Clinch could not help noticing, that, although the appointments wereliberal and picturesque, the ventilation was bad, and the smoke from thehuge chimney made the air murky. The oaken tables, massive in carvingand rich in color, were unmistakably greasy; and Mr. Clinch slipped ona piece of meat that one of the dozen half-wild dogs who were occupyingthe room was tearing on the floor. The dog, yelping, ran between thelegs of a retainer, precipitating him upon the baron, who instantly, with the "equal foot" of fate, kicked him and the dog into a corner. 

"And whence came you last?" asked the baron, disregarding the littlecontretemps, and throwing himself heavily on an oaken settle, whilehe pushed a queer, uncomfortable-looking stool, with legs like aSiamese-twin-connected double X, towards his companion. 

Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself up to fate, answeredmechanically, --

"Paris. "

The baron winked his eye with unutterable, elderly wickedness. "AchGott! it is nothing to what it was when I was your age. Ah! there wasManon, --Sieur Manon we used to call her. I suppose she's getting oldnow. How goes on the feud between the students and the citizens? Eh? Didyou go to the bal in la Cite?"

Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those Justice-Shallow-like reminiscencesby an uneasy exclamation. He was thinking of the maiden who haddisappeared so suddenly. The baron misinterpreted his nervousness. "Whatho, within there!--Max, Wolfgang, --lazy rascals! Bring some wine. "

At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started to his feet. "Not for me! Bringme none of your body-and-soul-destroying poison! I've enough of it!"

The baron stared. The servitors stared also. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Mr. Clinch, recalling himself slowly; "but Ifear that Rhine wine does not agree with me. "

The baron grinned. Perceiving, however, that the three servitors grinnedalso, he kicked two of them into obscurity, and felled the third tothe floor with his fist. "Hark ye, nephew, " he said, turning to theastonished Clinch, "give over this nonsense! By the mitre of BishopHatto, thou art as big a fool as he!"

"Hatto, " repeated Clinch mechanically. "What! he of the Mouse Tower?"

"Ay, of the Mouse Tower!" sneered the baron. "I see you know the story. "

"Why am I like him?" asked Mr. Clinch in amazement. 

The baron grinned. "HE punished the Rhenish wine as thou dost, withoutjudgment. He had--"

"The jim-jams, " said Mr. Clinch mechanically again. 

The baron frowned. "I know not what gibberish thou sayest by 'jim-jams';but he had, like thee, the wildest fantasies and imaginings; saw snakes, toads, rats, in his boots, but principally rats; said they pursued him, came to his room, his bed--ach Gott!"

"Oh!" said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden return to his firmer self and hisnative inquiring habits; "then THAT is the fact about Bishop Hatto ofthe story?"

"His enemies made it the subject of a vile slander of an old friend ofmine, " said the baron; "and those cursed poets, who believe everything, and then persuade others to do so, --may the Devil fly away withthem!--kept it up. "

Here were facts quite to Mr. Clinch's sceptical mind. He forgot himselfand his surroundings. 

"And that story of the Drachenfels?" he asked insinuatingly, --"thedragon, you know. Was he too--"

The baron grinned. "A boar transformed by the drunken brains of theBauers of the Siebengebirge. Ach Gott! Ottefried had many a hearty laughover it; and it did him, as thou knowest, good service with the nervousmother of the silly maiden. "

"And the seven sisters of Schonberg?" asked Mr. Clinch persuasively. 

"'Schonberg! Seven sisters!' What of them?" demanded the baron sharply. 

"Why, you know, --the maidens who were so coy to their suitors, and--don't you remember?--jumped into the Rhine to avoid them. "

"'Coy? Jumped into the Rhine to avoid suitors'?" roared the baron, purple with rage. "Hark ye, nephew! I like not this jesting. Thouknowest I married one of the Schonberg girls, as did thy father. How'coy' they were is neither here nor there; but mayhap WE might tellanother story. Thy father, as weak a fellow as thou art where apetticoat is concerned, could not as a gentleman do other than he did. And THIS is his reward? Ach Gott! 'Coy!' And THIS, I warrant, is the waythe story is delivered in Paris. "

Mr. Clinch would have answered that this was the way he read it in aguidebook, but checked himself at the hopelessness of the explanation. Besides, he was on the eve of historic information; he was, as it were, interviewing the past; and, whether he would ever be able to profit bythe opportunity or not, he could not bear to lose it. "And how about theLorelei--is she, too, a fiction?" he asked glibly. 

"It was said, " observed the baron sardonically, "that when thoudisappeared with the gamekeeper's daughter at Obercassel--Heaven knowswhere!--thou wast swallowed up in a whirlpool with some creature. AchGott! I believe it! But a truce to this balderdash. And so thou wantestto know of the 'coy' sisters of Schoenberg? Hark ye, Jann, that cousinof thine is a Schonberg. Call you her 'coy'? Did I not see thy greeting?Eh? By St. Adolph, knowing thee as she does to be robber and thief, callyou her greeting 'coy'?"

Furious as Mr. Clinch inwardly became under these epithets, he felt thathis explanation would hardly relieve the maiden from deceit, or himselffrom weakness. But out of his very perplexity and turmoil a bright ideawas born. He turned to the baron, --

"Then you have no faith in the Rhine legends?"

The baron only replied with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. 

"But what if I told you a new one?"

"You?"

"Yes; a part of my experience?"

The baron was curious. It was early in the afternoon, just after dinner. He might be worse bored. 

"I've only one condition, " added Mr. Clinch: "the young lady--I mean, ofcourse, my cousin--must hear it too. "

"Oh, ay! I see. Of course--the old trick! Well, call the jade. But markye, Sir Nephew, no enchanted maidens and knights. Keep to thyself. Be asthou art, vagabond Jann Kolnische, knight of the road. --What ho there, scoundrels! Call the Lady Wilhemina. "

It was the first time Mr. Clinch had heard his fair friend's name; butit was not, evidently, the first time she had seen him, as the verydecided wink the gentle maiden dropped him testified. Nevertheless, with hands lightly clasped together, and downcast eyes, she stood beforethem. 

Mr. Clinch began. Without heeding the baron's scornful grin, hegraphically described his meeting, two years before, with a Lorelei, herusual pressing invitation, and his subsequent plunge into the Rhine. 

"I am free to confess, " added Mr. Clinch, with an affecting glance toWilhelmina, "that I was not enamoured of the graces of the lady, but wasactuated by my desire to travel, and explore hitherto unknown regions. Iwished to travel, to visit--"

"Paris, " interrupted the baron sarcastically. 

"America, " continued Mr. Clinch. 

"What?"--"America. "

"'Tis a gnome-like sounding name, this Meriker. Go on, nephew: tell usof Meriker. "

With the characteristic fluency of his nation, Mr. Clinch described hislanding on those enchanted shores, viz, the Rhine Whirlpool and HellGate, East River, New York. He described the railways, tram-ways, telegraphs, hotels, phonograph, and telephone. An occasional oath brokefrom the baron, but he listened attentively; and in a few moments Mr. Clinch had the raconteur's satisfaction of seeing the vast hall slowlyfilling with open-eyed and open-mouthed retainers hanging upon hiswords. Mr. Clinch went on to describe his astonishment at meeting onthese very shores some of his own blood and kin. "In fact, " said Mr. Clinch, "here were a race calling themselves 'Clinch, ' but all claimingto have descended from Kolnische. "

"And how?" sneered the baron. 

"Through James Kolnische and Wilhelmina his wife, " returned Mr. Clinchboldly. "They emigrated from Koln and Crefeld to Philadelphia, wherethere is a quarter named Crefeld. " Mr. Clinch felt himself shaky as tohis chronology, but wisely remembered that it was a chronology of thefuture to his hearers, and they could not detect an anachronism. Withhis eyes fixed upon those of the gentle Wilhelmina, Mr. Clinch nowproceeded to describe his return to his fatherland, but his astonishmentat finding the very face of the country changed, and a city standingon those fields he had played in as a boy; and how he had wanderedhopelessly on, until he at last sat wearily down in a humble cottagebuilt upon the ruins of a lordly castle. "So utterly travel-worn andweak had I become, " said Mr. Clinch, with adroitly simulated pathos, "that a single glass of wine offered me by the simple cottage maidenaffected me like a prolonged debauch. "

A long-drawn snore was all that followed this affecting climax. Thebaron was asleep; the retainers were also asleep. Only one pair of eyesremained open, --arch, luminous, blue, --Wilhelmina's. 

"There is a subterranean passage below us to Linn. Let us fly!" shewhispered. 

"But why?"

"They always do it in the legends, " she murmured modestly. 

"But your father?"

"He sleeps. Do you not hear him?"

Certainly somebody was snoring. But, oddly enough, it seemed to beWilhelmina. Mr. Clinch suggested this to her. 

"Fool, it is yourself!"

Mr. Clinch, struck with the idea, stopped to consider. She was right. Itcertainly WAS himself. 

With a struggle he awoke. The sun was shining. The maiden was looking athim. But the castle--the castle was gone!

"You have slept well, " said the maiden archly. "Everybody does afterdinner at Sammtstadt. Father has just awakened, and is coming. "

Mr. Clinch stared at the maiden, at the terrace, at the sky, at thedistant chimneys of Sammtstadt, at the more distant Rhine, at the tablebefore him, and finally at the empty glass. The maiden smiled. "Tellme, " said Mr. Clinch, looking in her eyes, "is there a secret passageunderground between this place and the Castle of Linn?"

"An underground passage?"

"Ay--whence the daughter of the house fled with a stranger knight. "

"They say there is, " said the maiden, with a gentle blush. 

"Can you show it to me?"

She hesitated. "Papa is coming: I'll ask him. "

I presume she did. At least the Herr Consul at Sammtstadt informs me ofa marriage-certificate issued to one Clinch of Chicago, and Kolnische ofKoln; and there is an amusing story extant in the Verein at Sammtstadt, of an American connoisseur of Rhine wines, who mistook a flask of Cognacand rock-candy, used for "craftily qualifying" lower grades of wine tothe American standard, for the rarest Rudesheimerberg. 

VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION

Outside of my window, two narrow perpendicular mirrors, parallelwith the casement, project into the street, yet with a certainunobtrusiveness of angle that enables them to reflect the people whopass, without any reciprocal disclosure of their own. The men and womenhurrying by not only do not know they are observed, but, what is worse, do not even see their own reflection in this hypocritical plane, andare consequently unable, through its aid, to correct any carelessnessof garb, gait, or demeanor. At first this seems to be taking an unfairadvantage of the human animal, who invariably assumes an attitudewhen he is conscious of being under human focus. But I observe that myneighbors' windows, right and left, have a similar apparatus, that thiscustom is evidently a local one, and the locality is German. Beingan American stranger, I am quite willing to leave the morality of thetransaction with the locality, and adapt myself to the custom: indeed, I had thought of offering it, figuratively, as an excuse for anyunfairness of observation I might make in these pages. But my Germanmirrors reflect without prejudice, selection, or comment; and theAmerican eye, I fear, is but mortal, and like all mortal eyes, figuratively as well as in that literal fact noted by an eminentscientific authority, infinitely inferior to the work of the best Germanopticians. 

And this leads me to my first observation, namely, that a majority ofthose who pass my mirror have weak eyes, and have already invoked theaid of the optician. Why are these people, physically in all else somuch stronger than my countrymen, deficient in eyesight? Or, to omit thepassing testimony of my Spion, and take my own personal experience, whydoes my young friend Max, brightest of all schoolboys, who alreadywears the cap that denotes the highest class, --why does he shock me bysuddenly drawing forth a pair of spectacles, that upon his fresh, rosyface would be an obvious mocking imitation of the Herr Papa--if Germanchildren could ever, by any possibility, be irreverent? Or why does theFraulein Marie, his sister, pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenlyveil her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette in the midst of our polyglotconversation? Is it to evade the direct, admiring glance of theimpulsive American? Dare I say NO? Dare I say that that frank, clear, honest, earnest return of the eye, which has on the Continent mostunfairly brought my fair countrywomen under criticism, is quite ascommon to her more carefully-guarded, tradition-hedged German sisters?No, it is not that. Is it any thing in these emerald and opal tintedskies, which seem so unreal to the American eye, and for the first timeexplain what seemed the unreality of German art? in these mysterious yetrestful Rhine fogs, which prolong the twilight, and hang the curtainof romance even over mid-day? Surely not. Is it not rather, O HerrProfessor profound in analogy and philosophy!--is it not ratherthis abominable black-letter, this elsewhere-discarded, uncouth, slowly-decaying text known as the German Alphabet, that plucks out thebright eyes of youth, and bristles the gateways of your language with achevaux de frise of splintered rubbish? Why must I hesitate whether itis an accident of the printer's press, or the poor quality of the paper, that makes this letter a "k" or a "t"? Why must I halt in an emotion ora thought because "s" and "f" are so nearly alike? Is it not enough thatI, an impulsive American, accustomed to do a thing first, and reflectupon it afterwards, must grope my way through a blind alley ofsubstantives and adjectives, only to find the verb of action in anobscure corner, without ruining my eyesight in the groping?

But I dismiss these abstract reflections for a fresh and activeresentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has passed my Spion, harnessed to a small barrow-like cart, and tugging painfully at aburden so ludicrously disproportionate to his size, that it would seem aburlesque, but for the poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps it is becauseI have the barbarian's fondness for dogs, and for their lawless, gentle, loving uselessness, that I rebel against this unnatural servitude. Itseems as monstrous as if a child were put between the shafts, and madeto carry burdens; and I have come to regard those men and women, who inthe weakest perfunctory way affect to aid the poor brute by layingidle hands on the barrow behind, as I would unnatural parents. Pegasus harnessed to the Thracian herdsman's plough was no more of adesecration. I fancy the poor dog seems to feel the monstrosity of theperformance, and, in sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries toassume it is PLAY; and I have seen a little "colley" running along, barking, and endeavoring to leap and gambol in the shafts, before a loadthat any one out of this locality would have thought the direst cruelty. Nor do the older or more powerful dogs seem to become accustomed toit. When his cruel taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly the dog, either by sitting down in his harness, or crawling over the shafts, orby some unmistakable dog-like trick, utterly scatters any such delusionof even the habit of servitude. The few of his race who do not work inthis ducal city seem to have lost their democratic canine sympathies, and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with whichyonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loseseven the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff lookalike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said thathe was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance tothe contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my attentionby his persistent barking. Whether he did this, as the plough-boywhistled, "for want of thought, " or whether it was a running protestagainst his occupation, I could not determine, until one day I noticed, that, in barking, he slightly threw up his neck and shoulders, and thatthe two-wheeled barrow-like vehicle behind him, having its weight evenlypoised on the wheels by the trucks in the hands of its driver, enabledhim by this movement to cunningly throw the center of gravity and thegreater weight on the man, --a fact which that less sagacious brute neverdiscerned. Perhaps I am using a strong expression regarding his driver. It may be that the purely animal wants of the dog, in the way of food, care, and shelter, are more bountifully supplied in servitude than infreedom; becoming a valuable and useful property, he may be cared forand protected as such (an odd recollection that this argument had beenused forcibly in regard to human slavery in my own country strikes mehere); but his picturesqueness and poetry are gone, and I cannothelp thinking that the people who have lost this gentle, sympathetic, characteristic figure from their domestic life and surroundings have notacquired an equal gain through his harsh labors. 

To the American eye there is, throughout the length and breadth ofthis foreign city, no more notable and striking object than the averageGerman house-servant. It is not that she has passed my Spion a dozentimes within the last hour, --for here she is messenger, porter, andcommissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook, --but that she is alwaysa phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be abused inhis own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence is asrefreshing and grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable andregular. When I add that with the novelty of being well served iscombined the satisfaction of knowing that you have in your household anintelligent being who reads and writes with fluency, and yet does notabstract your books, nor criticise your literary composition; who iscleanly clad, and neat in her person, without the suspicion of havingborrowed her mistress's dresses; who may be good-looking without theleast imputation of coquetry or addition to her followers; who isobedient without servility, polite without flattery, willing and repletewith supererogatory performance, without the expectation of immediatepecuniary return, what wonder that the American householder translatedinto German life feels himself in a new Eden of domestic possibilitiesunrealized in any other country, and begins to believe in a present andfuture of domestic happiness! What wonder that the American bachelorliving in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal futureremoved, and rushes madly into love--and housekeeping! What wonder thatI, a long-suffering and patient master, who have been served by thereticent but too imitative Chinaman; who have been "Massa" to thechildlike but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of thebrotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, andhave been proudly disregarded by the American aborigine, only in duetime to meet the fate of my countrymen at the hands of Bridget theCelt, --what wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing thepraises of my German handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen, whereverthou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with thattightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in bluepolka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mineerrands, --errands which Bridget o'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or, undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child, in thy early risings and in thy later sittings, at thy festive boardoverflowing with Essig and Fett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen, in thefulness of thy Bier, and in thy nightly suffocations beneath mountainousand multitudinous feathers! Good, honest, simple-minded, cheerful, duty-loving Lenchen! Have not thy brothers, strong and dutiful as thou, lent their gravity and earnestness to sweeten and strengthen the fierceyouth of the Republic beyond the seas? and shall not thy childreninherit the broad prairies that still wait for them, and discover thefatness thereof, and send a portion transmuted in glittering shekelsback to thee?

Almost as notable are the children whose round faces have as frequentlybeen reflected in my Spion. Whether it is only a fancy of mine thatthe average German retains longer than any other race his childishsimplicity and unconsciousness, or whether it is because I am moreaccustomed to the extreme self-assertion and early maturity of Americanchildren, I know not; but I am inclined to believe that among noother people is childhood as perennial, and to be studied in suchcharacteristic and quaint and simple phases as here. The picturesquenessof Spanish and Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of the pantomimeand the conscious attitudinizing of the Latin races. German children arenot exuberant or volatile: they are serious, --a seriousness, however, not to be confounded with the grave reflectiveness of age, but only theabstract wonderment of childhood; for all those who have made a lovingstudy of the young human animal will, I think, admit that its dominantexpression is GRAVITY, and not playfulness, and will be satisfiedthat he erred pitifully who first ascribed "light-heartedness" and"thoughtlessness" as part of its phenomena. These little creatures Imeet upon the street, --whether in quaint wooden shoes and short woollenpetticoats, or neatly booted and furred, with school knapsacks jauntilyborne upon little square shoulders, --all carry likewise in their roundchubby faces their profound wonderment and astonishment at the big busyworld into which they have so lately strayed. If I stop to speak withthis little maid who scarcely reaches to the top-boots of yonder cavalryofficer, there is less of bashful self-consciousness in her sweet littleface than of grave wonder at the foreign accent and strange ways ofthis new figure obtruded upon her limited horizon. She answers honestly, frankly, prettily, but gravely. There is a remote possibility that Imight bite; and, with this suspicion plainly indicated in her roundblue eyes, she quietly slips her little red hand from mine, and movessolemnly away. I remember once to have stopped in the street with a faircountrywoman of mine to interrogate a little figure in sabots, --theone quaint object in the long, formal perspective of narrow, graybastard-Italian facaded houses of a Rhenish German Strasse. The sweetlittle figure wore a dark-blue woollen petticoat that came to its knees;gray woollen stockings covered the shapely little limbs below; andits very blonde hair, the color of a bright dandelion, was tied in apathetic little knot at the back of its round head, and garnished withan absurd green ribbon. Now, although this gentlewoman's sympathies werecatholic and universal, unfortunately their expression was limited toher own mother-tongue. She could not help pouring out upon the child thematernal love that was in her own womanly breast, nor could she withholdthe "baby-talk" through which it was expressed. But, alas! it was inEnglish. Hence ensued a colloquy, tender and extravagant on the part ofthe elder, grave and wondering on the part of the child. But the ladyhad a natural feminine desire for reciprocity, particularly in thepresence of our emotion-scorning sex, and as a last resource she emptiedthe small silver of her purse into the lap of the coy maiden. It wasa declaration of love, susceptible of translation at the nearestcake-shop. But the little maid, whose dress and manner certainly did notbetray an habitual disregard of gifts of this kind, looked at the cointhoughtfully, but not regretfully. Some innate sense of duty, equallystrong with that of being polite to strangers, filled her consciousness. With the utterly unexpected remark that her father 'did not allow herto take money', the queer little figure moved away, leaving the twoAmericans covered with mortification. The rare American child who couldhave done this would have done it with an attitude. This little Germanbourgeoise did it naturally. I do not intend to rush to the deductionthat German children of the lower classes habitually refuse pecuniarygratuities: indeed, I remember to have wickedly suggested to mycompanion, that, to avoid impoverishment in a foreign land, she shouldnot repeat the story nor the experiment. But I simply offer it as afact, and to an American, at home or abroad, a novel one. 

I owe to these little figures another experience quite as strange. It was at the close of a dull winter's day, --a day from which allout-of-door festivity seemed to be naturally excluded: there was abaleful promise of snow in the air and a dismal reminiscence of it underfoot, when suddenly, in striking contrast with the dreadful bleaknessof the street, a half dozen children, masked and bedizened with cheapribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed across my Spion. I was quickto understand the phenomenon. It was the Carnival season. Only the nightbefore I had been to the great opening masquerade, --a famous affair, forwhich this art-loving city is noted, and to which strangers are drawnfrom all parts of the Continent. I remember to have wondered ifthe pleasure-loving German in America had not broken some of hisconventional shackles in emigration; for certainly I had found theCarnival balls of the "Lieder Kranz Society" in New York, althoughdecorous and fashionable to the American taste, to be wild dissipationscompared with the practical seriousness of this native performance, andI hailed the presence of these children in the open street as a promiseof some extravagance, real, untrammelled, and characteristic. I seizedmy hat and--OVERCOAT, --a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that hadwhisked by, and followed the vanishing figures round the corner. Herethey were re-enforced by a dozen men and women, fantastically, but notexpensively arrayed, looking not unlike the supernumeraries of someprovincial opera troupe. Following the crowd, which already began topour in from the side-streets, in a few moments I was in the broad, grove-like allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders. 

I remember to have been told that this was a characteristic annualcelebration of the lower classes, anticipated with eagerness, andachieved with difficulty, indeed, often only through the alternative ofpawning clothing and furniture to provide the means for this ephemeraltransformation. I remember being warned, also, that the buffoonery wascoarse, and some of the slang hardly fit for "ears polite. " But I amafraid that I was not shocked at the prodigality of these poor people, who purchased a holiday on such hard conditions; and, as to thecoarseness of the performance, I felt that I certainly might go wherethese children could. 

At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly composed ofyoung girls of ages varying from nine to eighteen. Their costumes--ifwhat was often only the addition of a broad, bright-colored stripe tothe hem of a short dress could be called a COSTUME--were plain, andseemed to indicate no particular historical epoch or character. Ageneral suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was dominant inall the costumes. Everybody was closely masked. All carried a short, gayly-striped baton of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when strucksharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator or sister-masker, emitted a clattering, rasping sound. To wander hand in hand down thisbroad allee, to strike almost mechanically, and often monotonously, at each other with their batons, seemed to be the extent of that wilddissipation. The crowd thickened. Young men with false noses, hideousmasks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in uniform, crowdedpast each other, up and down the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche, and exchanging blows with each other, but always with the same slowseriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performancethe effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps adozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative ofnothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at theirown voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-cappedshoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observehim seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away. Nevertheless, the solemn beating of Pritschen over each other's backswent on. I remember that I was followed the whole length of the allee bya little girl scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt andblack mask, who from time to time struck me over the shoulders with aregularity and sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible tome; the more so, as I could not help thinking that it was not half asamusing to herself. Once only did the ordinary brusque gallantry of theCarnival spirit show itself. A man with an enormous pair of horns, likea half-civilized satyr, suddenly seized a young girl and endeavored tokiss her. A slight struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in thegirl's face and manner the confusion and embarrassment of one whowas obliged to overlook, or seem to accept, a familiarity that wasdistasteful, rather than be laughed at for prudishness or ignorance. Butthe incident was exceptional. Indeed, it was particularly notable to myAmerican eyes to find such decorum where there might easily have beenthe greatest license. I am afraid that an American mob of this classwould have scarcely been as orderly and civil under the circumstances. They might have shown more humor; but there would have probably beenmore effrontery: they might have been more exuberant; they wouldcertainly have been drunker. I did not notice a single masqueraderunduly excited by liquor: there was not a word or motion from thelighter sex that could have been construed into an impropriety. Therewas something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety andexcitement out of these dull materials; to fight against the blacknessof that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, withthese painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness of their povertywith these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or rather, consistent with my idea of them. There was incongruity deeper than theirbizarre externals; a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in theiraction, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, thatrightly or wrongly impressed me. When the increasing gloom of theevening made their figures undistinguishable, I turned into the firstcross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent young friend with thePritsche, I fancied she looked as relieved as myself. If, however, Iwas mistaken; if that child's pathway through life be strewn with rosyrecollections of the unresisting back of the stranger American; if anyburden, O Gretchen! laid upon thy young shoulders, be lighter for thetrifling one thou didst lay upon mine, --know, then, that I, too, amcontent. 

And so, day by day, has my Spion reflected the various changing formsof life before it. It has seen the first flush of spring in the broadallee, when the shadows of tiny leaflets overhead were beginning tochecker the cool, square flagstones. It has seen the glare and fulnessof summer sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold through theair, the gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter. It has seen children in their queer, wicker baby-carriages, old men andwomen, and occasionally that grim usher of death, in sable cloak andcocked hat, --a baleful figure for the wandering invalid tourist tomeet, --who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals thelast melancholy procession. I well remember my first meeting with thisominous functionary. It was an early autumnal morning; so early, thatthe long formal perspective of the allee, and the decorous, smoothvanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted houses, were unrelieved by asingle human figure. Suddenly a tall black spectre, as theatrical andas unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned the corner from across-street, and moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, fallingfrom its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side like sablewings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-likefeather, covered a passionless face; and its eyes, looking neither leftnor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as Iwas to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistaking hisfunctions as the grim messenger, knocking "with equal foot" on everydoor; and, indeed, so perfectly did he act and look his role, that therewas nothing ludicrous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial expressionand dignity of bearing were perfect; the whole man seemed saturated withthe accepted sentiment of his office. Recalling the half-confusedand half-conscious ostentatious hypocrisy of the American sexton, theshameless absurdities of the English mutes and mourners, I could nothelp feeling, that, if it were demanded that Grief and Fate should bepersonified, it were better that it should be well done. And it isone observation of my Spion, that this sincerity and belief is thecharacteristic of all Continental functionaries. 

It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is reallycharacteristic of the people, and the few observations I have made Ioffer only as an illustration of the impressions made upon two-thirds ofAmerican strangers in the larger towns of Germany. Assimilation goes onmore rapidly than we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend Karl, fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging later down the alleewith the blase listlessness of a full-blown militaire, so I have seenAmerican and English residents gradually lose their peculiarities, andmelt and merge into the general mass. Returning to my Spion aftera flying trip through Belgium and France, as I look down the longperspective of the Strasse, I am conscious of recalling the same styleof architecture and humanity at Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and Paris, andam inclined to believe that, even as I would have met, in a journey ofthe same distance through a parallel of the same latitude in America, agreater diversity of type and character, and a more distinct flavor oflocality, even so would I have met a more heterogeneous and picturesquedisplay from a club window on Fifth Avenue, New York, or MontgomeryStreet, San Francisco.