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_The woman ... stood before him_]
BRET HARTE'S WRITINGS
FRONTIER STORIES
CONTENTS:
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE
FOUND AT BLAZING STAR
IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS
AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL
A BLUE-GRASS PENELOPE
LEFT OUT ON LONE STAR MOUNTAIN
A SHIP OF '49
FLIP: A CALIFORNIA ROMANCE.
CHAPTER I.
Just where the red track of the Los Gatos road streams on and upwardlike the sinuous trail of a fiery rocket until it is extinguished inthe blue shadows of the Coast Range, there is an embayed terrace nearthe summit, hedged by dwarf firs. At every bend of the heat-laden roadthe eye rested upon it wistfully; all along the flank of the mountain,which seemed to pant and quiver in the oven-like air, through risingdust, the slow creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tiredsprings, and the muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promiseof sheltered coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxiousfaces yearned toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stage-coaches,from lagging teams far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of"mountain schooners," and from scorching saddles that seemed to weighdown the scrambling, sweating animals beneath. But it would seem thatthe hope was vain, the promise illusive. When the terrace was reachedit appeared not only to have caught and gathered all the heat of thevalley below, but to have evolved a fire of its own from some hiddencrater-like source unknown. Nevertheless, instead of prostrating andenervating man and beast, it was said to have induced the wildestexaltation. The heated air was filled and stifling with resinousexhalations. The delirious spices of balm, bay, spruce, juniper, yerbabuena, wild syringa, and strange aromatic herbs as yet unclassified,distilled and evaporated in that mighty heat, and seemed to fire with amidsummer madness all who breathed their fumes. They stung, smarted,stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and foot-sorehorses became furious and ungovernable under their influence; weariedteamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in theascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extendedtheir vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation.It is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description andcondensed its virtues in a single phrase: "Gin and ginger." Thisfelicitous epithet, flung out in a generous comparison with hisfavorite drink, "rum and gum," clung to it ever after.
Such was the current comment on this vale of spices. Like most humancriticism it was hasty and superficial. No one yet had been known tohave penetrated deeply its mysterious recesses. It was still far belowthe summit and its wayside inn. It had escaped the intruding foot ofhunter and prospector; and the inquisitive patrol of the countysurveyor had only skirted its boundary. It remained for Mr. LanceHarriott to complete its exploration. His reasons for so doing weresimple. He had made the journey thither underneath the stage-coach, andclinging to its axle. He had chosen this hazardous mode of conveyanceat night, as the coach crept by his place of concealment in the waysidebrush, to elude the sheriff of Monterey County and his posse, who wereafter him. He had not made himself known to his fellow-passengers, asthey already knew him as a gambler, an outlaw, and a desperado; hedeemed it unwise to present himself in his newer reputation of a manwho had just slain a brother gambler in a quarrel, and for whom areward was offered. He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirledpast the brushing branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, ascarcely distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of theroad. Then, more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands andknees into the steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatterof harness and the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he beenfollowed, it would have been difficult to detect in that inert mass ofrags any semblance to a known form or figure. A hideous, reddish maskof dust and clay obliterated his face; his hands were shapeless stumpsexaggerated in his trailing sleeves. And when he rose, staggering likea drunken man, and plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, acloud of dust followed him, and pieces and patches of his frayed androtten garments clung to the impeding branches. Twice he fell, but,maddened and upheld by the smarting spices and stimulating aroma of theair, he kept on his course.
Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once, when he stopped andleaned exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr hecould not yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in thedistance before him. Again the deep stillness was moved with a faintsighing rustle, and he knew he must be nearing the edge of the thicket.The spell of silence thus broken was followed by a fainter, moremusical interruption--the glassy tinkle of water! A step further hisfoot trembled on the verge of a slight ravine, still closely canopiedby the interlacing boughs overhead. A tiny stream that he could havedammed with his hand yet lingered in this parched red gash in thehillside and trickled into a deep, irregular, well-like cavity, thatagain overflowed and sent its slight surplus on. It had been theluxurious retreat of many a spotted trout; it was to be the bath ofLance Harriott. Without a moment's hesitation, without removing asingle garment, he slipped cautiously into it, as if fearful of losinga single drop. His head disappeared from the level of the bank; thesolitude was again unbroken. Only two objects remained upon the edge ofthe ravine,--his revolver and tobacco pouch.
A few minutes elapsed. A fearless blue-jay alighted on the bank andmade a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of agopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave wayto a red squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between thepouch and the revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination.Then there was a splash, a grunt, a sudden dispersion of animatednature, and the head of Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above the bank. Itwas a startling transformation. Not only that he had, by this wholesaleprocess, washed himself and his light "drill" garments entirely clean,but that he had, apparently by the same operation, morally cleansed_himself_, and left every stain and ugly blot of his late misdeeds andreputation in his bath. His face, albeit scratched here and there, wasrosy, round, shining with irrepressible good-humor and youthful levity.His large blue eyes were infantine in their innocent surprise andthoughtlessness. Dripping yet with water, and panting, he rested hiselbows lazily on the bank, and became instantly absorbed with a boy'sdelight in the movements of the gopher, who, after the first alarm,returned cautiously to abduct the tobacco pouch. If any familiar hadfailed to detect Lance Harriott in this hideous masquerade of dust andgrime and tatters, still less would any passing stranger haverecognized in this blonde faun the possible outcast and murderer. Andwhen with a swirl of his spattering sleeve he drove back the gopher ina shower of spray and leaped to the bank, he seemed to have acceptedhis felonious hiding-place as a mere picnicking bower.
A slight breeze was unmistakably permeating the wood from the west.Looking in that direction, Lance imagined that the shadow was lessdark, and although the undergrowth was denser, he struck off carelesslytoward it. As he went on, the wood became lighter and lighter;branches, and presently leaves, were painted against the vivid blue ofthe sky. He knew he must be near the summit, stopped, felt for hisrevolver, and then lightly put the few remaining branches aside.
The full glare of the noonday sun at first blinded him. When he couldsee more clearly, he found himself on the open western slope of themountain, which in the Coast Range was seldom wooded. The spicedthicket stretched between him and the summit, and again between him andthe stage road that plunges from the terrace, like forked lightninginto the valley below. He could command all the approaches withoutbeing seen. Not that this seemed to occupy his thoughts or cause hi
many anxiety. His first act was to disencumber himself of his tatteredcoat; he then filled and lighted his pipe, and stretched himselffull-length on the open hillside, as if to bleach in the fierce sun.While smoking he carelessly perused the fragment of a newspaper whichhad enveloped his tobacco, and being struck with some amusingparagraph, read it half aloud again to some imaginary auditor,emphasizing its humor with an hilarious slap upon his leg.
Possibly from the relaxation of fatigue and the bath, which had becomea vapor one as he alternately rolled and dried himself in the bakinggrass, his eyes closed dreamily. He was awakened by the sound ofvoices. They were distant; they were vague; they approached no nearer.He rolled himself to the verge of the first precipitous grassy descent.There was another bank or plateau below him, and then a confused depthof olive shadows, pierced here and there by the spiked helmets ofpines. There was no trace of habitation, yet the voices were those ofsome monotonous occupation, and Lance distinctly heard through them theclick of crockery and the ring of some household utensil. It appearedto be the interjectional, half listless, half perfunctory, domesticdialogue of an old man and a girl, of which the words wereunintelligible. Their voices indicated the solitude of the mountain,but without sadness; they were mysterious without being awe-inspiring.They might have uttered the dreariest commonplaces, but, in their vastisolation, they seemed musical and eloquent. Lance drew his firstsigh,--they had suggested dinner.
Careless as his nature was, he was too cautious to risk detection inbroad daylight. He contented himself for the present with endeavoringto locate that particular part of the depths from which the voicesseemed to rise. It was more difficult, however, to select some otherway of penetrating it than by the stage road. "They're bound to have afire or show a light when it's dark," he reasoned, and, satisfied withthat reflection, lay down again. Presently he began to amuse himself bytossing some silver coins in the air. Then his attention was directedto a spur of the Coast Range which had been sharply silhouetted againstthe cloudless western sky. Something intensely white, something sosmall that it was scarcely larger than the silver coin in his hand, wasappearing in a slight cleft of the range.
While he looked it gradually filled and obliterated the cleft. Inanother moment the whole serrated line of mountain had disappeared. Thedense, dazzling white, encompassing host began to pour over and downevery ravine and pass of the coast. Lance recognized the sea-fog, andknew that scarcely twenty miles away lay the ocean--and safety! Thedrooping sun was now caught and hidden in its soft embraces. A suddenchill breathed over the mountain. He shivered, rose, and plunged againfor very warmth into the spice-laden thicket. The heated balsamic airbegan to affect him like a powerful sedative; his hunger was forgottenin the languor of fatigue: he slumbered. When he awoke it was dark. Hegroped his way through the thicket. A few stars were shining directlyabove him, but beyond and below, everything was lost in the soft,white, fleecy veil of fog. Whatever light or fire might have betokenedhuman habitation was hidden. To push on blindly would be madness; hecould only wait for morning. It suited the outcast's lazy philosophy.He crept back again to his bed in the hollow and slept. In thatprofound silence and shadow, shut out from human association andsympathy by the ghostly fog, what torturing visions conjured up byremorse and fear should have pursued him? What spirit passed beforehim, or slowly shaped itself out of the infinite blackness of the wood?None. As he slipped gently into that blackness he remembered with aslight regret, some biscuits that were dropped from the coach by acareless luncheon-consuming passenger. That pang over, he slept assweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, as a child.
CHAPTER II.
He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses. Hisfirst instinct was that of all young animals: he seized a few of theyoung, tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that crept over hismossy pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half berry-like flavorthat seemed to soothe the cravings of his appetite. The languor ofsleep being still upon him, he lazily watched the quivering of asunbeam that was caught in the canopying boughs above. Then he dozedagain. Hovering between sleeping and waking, he became conscious of aslight movement among the dead leaves on the bank beside the hollow inwhich he lay. The movement appeared to be intelligent, and directedtoward his revolver, which glittered on the bank. Amused at thisevident return of his larcenious friend of the previous day, he layperfectly still. The movement and rustle continued, and it now seemedlong and undulating. Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he wasintensely, keenly awake. It was not a snake, but the hand of a humanarm, half hidden in the moss, groping for the weapon. In that flash ofperception he saw that it was small, bare, and deeply freckled. In aninstant he grasped it firmly, and rose to his feet, dragging to his ownlevel as he did so, the struggling figure of a young girl.
"Leave me go!" she said, more ashamed than frightened.
Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight andlithe, with a boyish flatness of breast and back. Her flushed face andbare throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown freckles, likegrains of spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were large and gray,presented the singular spectacle of being also freckled,--at least theywere shot through in pupil and cornea with tiny spots like powderedallspice. Her hair was even more remarkable in its tawny deer-skincolor, full of lighter shades, and bleached to the faintest of blondeson the crown of her head, as if by the action of the sun. She hadevidently outgrown her dress, which was made for a smaller child, andthe too brief skirt disclosed a bare, freckled, and sandy desert ofshapely limb, for which the darned stockings were equally too scant.Lance let his grasp slip from her thin wrist to her hand, and then witha good-humored gesture tossed it lightly back to her.
She did not retreat, but continued looking at him in a half-surlyembarrassment.
"I ain't a bit frightened," she said; "I'm not going to runaway,--don't you fear."
"Glad to hear it," said Lance, with unmistakable satisfaction, "but whydid you go for my revolver?"
She flushed again and was silent. Presently she began to kick the earthat the roots of the tree, and said, as if confidentially to her foot:
"I wanted to get hold of it before you did."
"You did?--and why?"
"Oh, you know why."
Every tooth in Lance's head showed that he did, perfectly. But he wasdiscreetly silent.
"I didn't know what you were hiding there for," she went on, stilladdressing the tree, "and," looking at him sideways under her whitelashes, "I didn't see your face."
This subtle compliment was the first suggestion of her artful sex. Itactually sent the blood into the careless rascal's face, and for amoment confused him. He coughed. "So you thought you'd freeze on tothat six-shooter of mine until you saw my hand?"
She nodded. Then she picked up a broken hazel branch, fitted it intothe small of her back, threw her tanned bare arms over the ends of it,and expanded her chest and her biceps at the same moment. This simpleaction was supposed to convey an impression at once of ease andmuscular force.
"Perhaps you'd like to take it now," said Lance, handing her thepistol.
"I've seen six-shooters before now," said the girl, evading theproffered weapon and its suggestion. "Dad has one, and my brother hadtwo derringers before he was half as big as me."
She stopped to observe in her companion the effect of this capacity ofher family to bear arms. Lance only regarded her amusedly. Presentlyshe again spoke abruptly:
"What made you eat that grass, just now?"
"Grass!" echoed Lance.
"Yes, there," pointing to the yerba buena.
Lance laughed. "I was hungry. Look!" he said, gayly tossing some silverinto the air. "Do you think you could get me some breakfast for that,and have enough left to buy something for yourself?"
The girl eyed the money and the man with half-bashful curiosity.
"I reckon Dad might give ye suthing if he had a mind ter, though ez arule he's down on tramps ever since they run off his chickens. Ye mighttry."
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sp; "But I want _you_ to try. You can bring it to me here."
The girl retreated a step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that wasa charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: "So you_are_ hidin', are ye?"
"That's just it. Your head's level. I am," laughed Lance unconcernedly.
"Yur ain't one o' the McCarthy gang--are ye?"
Mr. Lance Harriott felt a momentary moral exaltation in declaringtruthfully that he was not one of a notorious band of mountainfreebooters known in the district under that name.
"Nor ye ain't one of them chicken lifters that raided Henderson'sranch? We don't go much on that kind o' cattle yer."
"No," said Lance, cheerfully.
"Nor ye ain't that chap ez beat his wife unto death at Santa Clara?"
Lance honestly scorned the imputation. Such conjugal ill treatment ashe had indulged in had not been physical, and had been with other men'swives.
There was a moment's further hesitation on the part of the girl. Thenshe said shortly:
"Well, then, I reckon you kin come along with me."
"Where?" asked Lance.
"To the ranch," she replied simply.
"Then you won't bring me anything to eat here?"
"What for? You kin get it down there." Lance hesitated. "I tell youit's all right," she continued. "I'll make it all right with Dad."
"But suppose I reckon I'd rather stay here," persisted Lance, with aperfect consciousness, however, of affectation in his caution.
"Stay away then," said the girl coolly; "only as Dad perempted this yerwoods"--
"_Pre_-empted," suggested Lance.
"Per-empted or pre-emp-ted, as you like," continued the girlscornfully,--"ez he's got a holt on this yer woods, ye might ez wellsee him down thar ez here. For here he's like to come any minit. Youcan bet your life on that."
She must have read Lance's amusement in his eyes, for she again droppedher own with a frown of brusque embarrassment. "Come along, then; I'myour man," said Lance, gayly, extending his hand.
She would not accept it, eying it, however, furtively, like a horseabout to shy. "Hand me your pistol first," she said.
He handed it to her with an assumption of gayety. She received it onher part with unfeigned seriousness, and threw it over her shoulderlike a gun. This combined action of the child and heroine, it is quiteunnecessary to say, afforded Lance undiluted joy.
"You go first," she said.
Lance stepped promptly out, with a broad grin. "Looks kinder as if Iwas a pris'ner, don't it?" he suggested.
"Go on, and don't fool," she replied.
The two fared onward through the wood. For one moment he entertainedthe facetious idea of appearing to rush frantically away, "just to seewhat the girl would do," but abandoned it. "It's an even thing if shewouldn't spot me the first pop," he reflected admiringly.
When they had reached the open hillside, Lance stopped inquiringly."This way," she said, pointing toward the summit, and in quite anopposite direction to the valley where he had heard the voices, one ofwhich he now recognized as hers. They skirted the thicket for a fewmoments, and then turned sharply into a trail which began to dip towarda ravine leading to the valley.
"Why do you have to go all the way round?" he asked.
"_We_ don't," the girl replied with emphasis; "there's a shorter cut."
"Where?"
"That's telling," she answered shortly.
"What's your name?" asked Lance, after a steep scramble and a drop intothe ravine.
"Flip."
"What?"
"Flip."
"I mean your first name,--your front name."
"Flip."
"Flip! Oh, short for Felipa!"
"It ain't Flipper,--it's Flip." And she relapsed into silence.
"You don't ask me mine?" suggested Lance.
She did not vouchsafe a reply.
"Then you don't want to know?"
"Maybe Dad will. You can lie to _him_."
This direct answer apparently sustained the agreeable homicide for somemoments. He moved onward, silently exuding admiration.
"Only," added Flip, with a sudden caution, "you'd better agree withme."
The trail here turned again abruptly and reentered the canon. Lancelooked up, and noticed they were almost directly beneath the baythicket and the plateau that towered far above them. The trail hereshowed signs of clearing, and the way was marked by felled trees andstumps of pines.
"What does your father do here?" he finally asked. Flip remainedsilent, swinging the revolver. Lance repeated his question.
"Burns charcoal and makes diamonds," said Flip, looking at him from thecorners of her eyes.
"Makes diamonds?" echoed Lance.
Flip nodded her head.
"Many of 'em?" he continued carelessly.
"Lots. But they're not big," she returned, with a sidelong glance.
"Oh, they're not big?" said Lance gravely.
They had by this time reached a small staked inclosure, whence thesudden fluttering and cackle of poultry welcomed the return of theevident mistress of this sylvan retreat. It was scarcely imposing.Further on, a cooking stove under a tree, a saddle and bridle, a fewhousehold implements scattered about, indicated the "ranch." Like mostpioneer clearings, it was simply a disorganized raid upon nature thathad left behind a desolate battlefield strewn with waste and decay. Thefallen trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered limbs, the rudelytorn-up soil, were made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition withthe wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles,battered hats, soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and thecrowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirthanging from a branch. The wildest defile, the densest thicket, themost virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this firstfootprint of man. The only redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouacwas the cabin itself. Built of the half-cylindrical strips of pinebark, and thatched with the same material, it had a certain picturesquerusticity. But this was an accident of economy rather than taste, forwhich Flip apologized by saying that the bark of the pine was "no good"for charcoal.
"I reckon dad's in the woods," she added, pausing before the open doorof the cabin. "Oh, Dad!" Her voice, clear and high, seemed to fill thewhole long canon, and echoed from the green plateau above. Themonotonous strokes of an axe were suddenly intermitted, and somewherefrom the depths of the close-set pines a voice answered "Flip." Therewas a pause of a few moments, with some muttering, stumbling, andcrackling in the underbrush, and then the appearance of "Dad."
Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled toassign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Perfunctorybut incomplete washings of his hands and face, after charcoal burning,had gradually ground into his skin a grayish slate-pencil pallor,grotesquely relieved at the edges, where the washing had left off, witha border of a darker color. He looked like an overworked Christyminstrel with the briefest of intervals between his performances. Therewere black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out ofunglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, alreadygrotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodicexperiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice ofLance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence entirely onhis daughter.
"Well! what's up now? Yer ye are calling me from work an hour beforenoon. Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore it's 'Dad!'and 'Oh, Dad!'"
To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue with anair of supreme indifference, and when "Dad" had relapsed into anunintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-frightenedmuttering, she said coolly,--
"Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger somebreakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them SanFrancisco sports out here trout-fishing in the branch. He's got adriftfrom his party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out lastnight in the Gin and Ginger Woods."
"
That's just it; it's allers suthin like that," screamed the old man,dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but withoutlooking at Lance. "Why in blazes don't he go up to that there blamedhotel on the summit? Why in thunder"--But here he caught his daughter'slarge, freckled eyes full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice fellinto a tone of whining entreaty. "Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing itrather low down on the old man, this yer running in o' tramps anddesarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders andravin' lunatics, on this yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister," he saidabruptly, turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had alreadytaken an active part in the conversation,--"I put it as a gentlemanyourself, and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square thing?"
Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun. "That's just it! D'yereckon, being a sportin' man and a A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz downinter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to lethis partners get the laugh onter him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to showhis head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go'long. Dad, you're talking silly!"
The old man weakened. He feebly trailed his axe between his legs to astump and sat down, wiping his forehead with his sleeve, and impartingto it the appearance of a slate with a difficult sum partly rubbed out.He looked despairingly at Lance. "In course," he said, with a deepsigh, "you naturally ain't got any money. In course you left yourpocketbook, containing fifty dollars, under a stone, and can't find it.In course," he continued, as he observed Lance put his hand to hispocket, "you've only got a blank check on Wells, Fargo & Co. for ahundred dollars, and you'd like me to give you the difference?"
Amused as Lance evidently was at this, his absolute admiration for Flipabsorbed everything else. With his eyes fixed upon the girl, he brieflyassured the old man that he would pay for everything he wanted. He didthis with a manner quite different from the careless, easy attitude hehad assumed toward Flip; at least the quickwitted girl noticed it, andwondered if he was angry. It was quite true that ever since his eye hadfallen upon another of his own sex, its glance had been less frank andcareless. Certain traits of possible impatience, which might developinto man-slaying, were coming to the fore. Yet a word or a gesture ofFlip's was sufficient to change that manner, and when, with the fretfulassistance of her father, she had prepared a somewhat sketchy andprimitive repast, he questioned the old man about diamond-making. Theeye of Dad kindled.
"I want ter know how ye knew I was making diamonds," he asked, with acertain bashful pettishness not unlike his daughter's.
"Heard it in 'Frisco," replied Lance, with glib mendacity, glancing atthe girl.
"I reckon they're gettin' sort of skeert down there--them jewelers,"chuckled Dad, "yet it's in nater that their figgers will have to comedown. It's only a question of the price of charcoal. I suppose theydidn't tell you how I made the discovery?"
Lance would have stopped the old man's narrative by saying that he knewthe story, but he wished to see how far Flip lent herself to herfather's delusion.
"Ye see, one night about two years ago I had a pit o' charcoal burningout there, and tho' it had been a-smouldering and a-smoking anda-blazing for nigh unto a month, somehow it didn't charcoal worth acent. And yet, dog my skin, but the heat o' that er pit was suthinhidyus and frightful; ye couldn't stand within a hundred yards of it,and they could feel it on the stage road three miles over yon, t'otherside the mountain. There was nights when me and Flip had to take ourblankets up the ravine and camp out all night, and the back of this yerhut shriveled up like that bacon. It was about as nigh on to hell asany sample ye kin get here. Now, mebbe you think I built that air fire?Mebbe you'll allow the heat was just the nat'ral burning of that pit?"
"Certainly," said Lance, trying to see Flip's eyes, which wereresolutely averted.
"Thet's whar you'd be lyin'! That yar heat kem out of the bowels of theyearth,--kem up like out of a chimbley or a blast, and kep up that yarfire. And when she cools down a month after, and I got to strip her,there was a hole in the yearth, and a spring o' bilin', scaldin' waterpourin' out of it ez big as your waist. And right in the middle of itwas this yer." He rose with the instinct of a skillful _raconteur_, andwhisked from under his bunk a chamois leather bag, which he emptied onthe table before them. It contained a small fragment of native rockcrystal, half-fused upon a petrified bit of pine. It was so glaringlytruthful, so really what it purported to be, that the most unscientificwoodman or pioneer would have understood it at a glance. Lance raisedhis mirthful eyes to Flip.
"It was cooled suddint,--stunted by the water," said the girl, eagerly.She stopped, and as abruptly turned away her eyes and her reddenedface.
"That's it, that's just it," continued the old man. "Thar's Flip, thar,knows it; she ain't no fool!" Lance did not speak, but turned a hard,unsympathizing look upon the old man, and rose almost roughly. The oldman clutched his coat. "That's it, ye see. The carbon's just turning todi'mens. And stunted. And why? 'Cos the heat wasn't kep up long enough.Mebbe yer think I stopped thar? That ain't me. Thar's a pit out yar inthe woods ez hez been burning six months; it hain't, in course, got theadvantages o' the old one, for it's nat'ral heat. But I'm keeping thatheat up. I've got a hole where I kin watch it every four hours. Whenthe time comes, I'm thar! Don't you see? That's me! that's DavidFairley,--that's the old man,--you bet!"
"That's so," said Lance, curtly. "And now, Mr. Fairley, if you'll handme over a coat or jacket till I can get past these fogs on the Montereyroad, I won't keep you from your diamond pit." He threw down a handfulof silver on the table.
"Ther's a deerskin jacket yer," said the old man, "that one o' themvaqueros left for the price of a bottle of whiskey."
"I reckon it wouldn't suit the stranger," said Flip, dubiouslyproducing a much-worn, slashed, and braided vaquero's jacket. But itdid suit Lance, who found it warm, and also had suddenly found acertain satisfaction in opposing Flip. When he had put it on, andnodded coldly to the old man, and carelessly to Flip, he walked to thedoor.
"If you're going to take the Monterey road, I can show you a short cutto it," said Flip, with a certain kind of shy civility.
The paternal Fairley groaned. "That's it; let the chickens and theranch go to thunder, as long as there's a stranger to trapse roundwith; go on!"
Lance would have made some savage reply, but Flip interrupted. "Youknow yourself, Dad, it's a blind trail, and as that 'ere constable thatkem out here hunting French Pete, couldn't find it, and had to go roundby the canon, like ez not the stranger would lose his way, and have tocome back!" This dangerous prospect silenced the old man, and Flip andLance stepped into the road together. They walked on for some momentswithout speaking. Suddenly Lance turned upon his companion.
"You did n't swallow all that rot about the diamond, did you?" heasked, crossly.
Flip ran a little ahead, as if to avoid a reply.
"You don't mean to say that's the sort of hog wash the old man servesout to you regularly?" continued Lance, becoming more slangy in his illtemper.
"I don't know that it's any consarn o' yours what I think," repliedFlip, hopping from boulder to boulder, as they crossed the bed of a drywatercourse.
"And I suppose you've piloted round and dry-nussed every tramp anddead-beat you've met since you came here," continued Lance, withunmistakable ill humor. "How many have you helped over this road?"
"It's a year since there was a Chinaman chased by some Irishmen fromthe Crossing into the brush about yer, and he was too afeered to comeout, and nigh most starved to death in thar. I had to drag him out andstart him on the mountain, for you couldn't get him back to the road.He was the last one but _you_."
"Do you reckon it's the right thing for a girl like you to run aboutwith trash of this kind, and mix herself up with all sorts of roughsand bad company?" said Lance.
Flip stopped short. "Look! if you're goin' to talk like Dad, I'll goback."
The ridiculousness of such a resemblance struck him more keenly than aconsciousness of h
is own ingratitude. He hastened to assure Flip thathe was joking. When he had made his peace they fell into talk again,Lance becoming unselfish enough to inquire into one or two factsconcerning her life which did not immediately affect him. Her motherhad died on the plains when she was a baby, and her brother had runaway from home at twelve. She fully expected to see him again, andthought he might sometime stray into their canon. "That is why, then,you take so much stock in tramps," said Lance.
You expect to recognize _him_?"
"Well," replied Flip, gravely, "there is suthing in _that_, and there'ssuthing in _this_: some o' these chaps might run across brother and dohim a good turn for the sake of me."
"Like me, for instance?" suggested Lance.
"Like you. You'd do him a good turn, wouldn't you?"
"You bet!" said Lance, with a sudden emotion that quite startled him;"only don't you go to throwing yourself round promiscuously." He washalf conscious of an irritating sense of jealousy, as he asked if anyof her _proteges_ had ever returned.
"No," said Flip, "no one ever did. It shows," she added with sublimesimplicity, "I had done 'em good, and they could get on alone. Don'tit?"
"It does," responded Lance grimly. "Have you any other friends thatcome?"
"Only the Postmaster at the Crossing."
"The Postmaster?"
"Yes: he's reckonin' to marry me next year, if I'm big enough."
"And what do you reckon?" asked Lance earnestly.
Flip began a series of distortions with her shoulders, ran on ahead,picked up a few pebbles and threw them into the wood, glanced back atLance with swimming mottled eyes, that seemed a piquant incarnation ofeverything suggestive and tantalizing, and said:
"That's telling."
They had by this time reached the spot where they were to separate."Look," said Flip, pointing to a faint deflection of their path, whichseemed, however, to lose itself in the underbrush a dozen yards away,"ther's your trail. It gets plainer and broader the further you get on,but you must use your eyes here, and get to know it well afore you getinto the fog. Good-by."
"Good-by." Lance took her hand and drew her beside him. She was stillredolent of the spices of the thicket, and to the young man's excitedfancy seemed at that moment to personify the perfume and intoxicationof her native woods. Half laughingly, half earnestly, he tried to kissher: she struggled for some time strongly, but at the last momentyielded, with a slight return and the exchange of a subtle fire thatthrilled him, and left him standing confused and astounded as she ranaway. He watched her lithe, nymph-like figure disappear in thecheckered shadows of the wood, and then he turned briskly down thehalf-hidden trail. His eyesight was keen, he made good progress, andwas soon well on his way toward the distant ridge.
But Flip's return had not been as rapid. When she reached the wood shecrept to its beetling verge, and looking across the canon watchedLance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows andsinuosities of the ascent. When he reached the ridge the outlying fogcrept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped himfrom her gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her alternate foot on astump, and took a long pull at her too-brief stockings. When she hadpulled down her skirt and endeavored once more to renew the intimacythat had existed in previous years between the edge of her petticoatand the top of her stockings, she sighed again, and went home.
CHAPTER III.
For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along theMonterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range withafternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountaincrest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances ofthe morning sun. For six months that white veil which had once hiddenLance Harriott in its folds returned without him. For that amiableoutlaw no longer needed disguise or hiding-place. The swift wave ofpursuit that had dashed him on the summit had fallen back, and the nextday was broken and scattered. Before the week had passed, a regularjudicial inquiry relieved his crime of premeditation, and showed it tobe a rude duel of two armed and equally desperate men. From a securevantage in a sea-coast town Lance challenged a trial by his peers, and,as an already prejudged man escaping from his executioners, obtained achange of venue. Regular justice, seated by the calm Pacific, found theaction of an interior, irregular jury rash and hasty. Lance wasliberated on bail.
The Postmaster at Fisher's Crossing had just received the weekly mailand express from San Francisco, and was engaged in examining it. Itconsisted of five letters and two parcels. Of these, three of theletters and the two parcels were directed to Flip. It was not the firsttime during the last six months that this extraordinary event hadoccurred, and the curiosity of the Crossing was duly excited. As Fliphad never called personally for the letters or parcels, but had sentone of her wild, irregular scouts or henchmen to bring them, and as shewas seldom seen at the Crossing or on the stage road, that curiositywas never satisfied. The disappointment to the Postmaster--a man pastthe middle age--partook of a sentimental nature. He looked at theletters and parcels; he looked at his watch; it was yet early, he couldreturn by noon. He again examined the addresses; they were in the samehandwriting as the previous letters. His mind was made up, he woulddeliver them himself. The poetic, soulful side of his mission wasdelicately indicated by a pale blue necktie, a clean shirt, and a smallpackage of ginger-nuts, of which Flip was extravagantly fond.
The common road to Fairley's Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a pointbelow the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually lefthis beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here thatthe Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure ofan elegantly dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently ather ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her glovedfingers, the other slowly swung a riding-whip. Was it a picnic of somepeople from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough tojustify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lostsight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip was stillto be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all hisenergies, he was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly verticalwhen he turned into the canon, and saw the bark roof of the cabinbeyond. At almost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting,in the road before him.
"You've got something for me," she said, pointing to the parcel andletter. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanicallyyielded them up, and as instantly regretted it. "They're paid for,"continued Flip, observing his hesitation.
"That's so," stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his lastchance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; "but I thought ezit's a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see thatit was all right afore ye receipted for it."
"I'll risk it," said Flip, coolly, "and if it ain't right I'll let yeknow."
As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmasterwas driven to other conversation. "We ain't had the pleasure of seeingyou down at the Crossing for a month o' Sundays," he began, with airyyet pronounced gallantry. "Some folks let on you was keepin' companywith some feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little tooset up for the Crossing." The individual here mentioned being thecounty butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flipby making a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enterthe canon for "orders," Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. "ThenI allowed how ez you might have company," he continued; "I reckonthere's some city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart,fash'n'ble gal cavorting round. Hed no end o' style and fancy fixin's.That's my kind, I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o' gal," hecontinued, in the firm belief that he had awakened Flip's jealousy, ashe glanced at her well-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenlyfixed on his own.
"Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she replied coolly, shoulderingher parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for hisextra-official act.
"But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and
Ginger Woods,"he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; "if you'll take a_pasear_ there with me."
Flip's only response was to walk on toward the cabin, whence, with avague complimentary suggestion of "drop-in' in to pass the time o' day"with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.
The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companionrequired no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed tothe extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, duringwhich Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had thatinfelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerateunimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently becameconvinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor ofFlip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post whenhe might bring them himself did not strike the official. On thecontrary, he believed it to be a masterstroke of cunning. Fired byjealousy and Flip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using thatfacile form of cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.
Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, sheplunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like aknapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straightline through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of ananimal, climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering likea bird from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soonreached that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster hadseen the fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed,she crept through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall andbasin that had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot boresigns of later and more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefullyremoved some bark and brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drewforth various folded garments, it was evident she used it as a sylvandressing-room. Here she opened the parcel; it contained a small anddelicate shawl of yellow China crepe. Flip instantly threw it over hershoulders and stepped hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then shebegan to pass backward and forward before the trunk of a tree. At firstnothing was visible on the tree, but a closer inspection showed a largepane of ordinary window glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It wasplaced at such a cunning angle against the darkness of the forestopening that it made a soft and mysterious mirror, not unlike a ClaudeLorraine glass, wherein not only the passing figure of the young girlwas seen, but the dazzling green and gold of the hillside, and thefar-off silhouetted crests of the Coast Range.
But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When shereturned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large pieceof yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These shedeposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood toassure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot hadinvaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began toundress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to thecircumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gentlymoving band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays andinextricably mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvanobscurity, veiled alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Withinthese hallowed precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and fallingwater, and at times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a rayof sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outlineof a childish bosom.
When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of thewood, she was completely transformed.
It was the figure that had appeared to the Postmaster; the slight,erect, graceful form of a young woman modishly attired. It was Flip,but Flip made taller by the lengthened skirt and clinging habilimentsof fashion. Flip freckled, but, through the cunning of a relief ofyellow color in her gown, her piquant brown-shot face and eyesbrightened and intensified until she seemed like a spicy odor madevisible. I cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's mysterious_modiste_ was infallible, or that the taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, herpatron, was fastidious; enough that it was picturesque, and perhaps notmore glaring and extravagant than the color in which Spring herself hadonce clothed the sere hillside where Flip was now seated. The phantommirror in the tree fork caught and held her with the sky, the greenleaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness of her surroundings, andthe wind gently tossed her hair and the gay ribbons of her gypsy hat.Suddenly she started. Some remote sound in the trail below, inaudibleto any ear less fine than hers, arrested her breathing. She roseswiftly and darted into cover.
Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginningto creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderellaappeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock hadstruck--the spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail even themagic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from the tree-top to theground, and became a piece of common glass.
CHAPTER IV.
The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on thefacial aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary processesof thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead, had produceda high light in the middle and a corresponding deepening of shadow atthe sides, until it bore the appearance of a perfect sphere. It wasthis forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully as became a deceivedcomrade, menacingly as became an outraged parent in the presence of athird party and--a Postmaster.
"Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters, eh?"he began. Flip sent one swift, withering look of contempt at thePostmaster, who at once becoming invertebrate and groveling, mumbledthat he must "get on" to the Crossing, and rose to go. But the old man,who had counted on his presence for moral support, and was clearlybeginning to hate him for precipitating this scene with his daughter,whom he feared, violently protested.
"Sit down, can't ye? Don't you see you're a witness?" he screamedhysterically.
It was a fatal suggestion. "Witness," repeated Flip, scornfully.
"Yes, a witness! He gave ye letters and bundles."
"Weren't they directed to me?" asked Flip.
"Yes," said the Postmaster, hesitatingly; "in course, yes."
"Do _you_ lay claim to them?" she said, turning to her father.
"No," responded the old man.
"Do you?" sharply, to the Postmaster.
"No," he replied.
"Then," said Flip, coolly, "if you're not claimin' 'em for yourself,and you hear father say they ain't his, I reckon the less you have tosay about 'em the better."
"Thar's suthin' in that," said the old man, shamelessly abandoning thePostmaster.
"Then why don't she say who sent 'em, and what they are like," said thePostmaster, "if there's nothing in it?"
"Yes," echoed Dad. "Flip, why don't you?"
Without answering the direct question, Flip turned upon her father.
"Maybe you forget how you used to row and tear round here becausetramps and such like came to the ranch for suthin', and I gave it to'em? Maybe you'll quit tearin' round and letting yourself be made afool of now by that man, just because one of those tramps gets up andsends us some presents back in turn?"
"'Twasn't me, Flip," said the old man, deprecatingly, but glaring atthe astonished Postmaster. "'Twasn't my doin'. I allus said if you castyour bread on the waters it would come back to you by return mail. Thefact is, the Gov'ment is getting too high-handed! Some o' these bloatedofficials had better climb down before next leckshen."
"Maybe," continued Flip to her father, without looking at herdiscomfited visitor, "ye'd better find out whether one of thoseofficials comes up to this yer ranch to steal away a gal about my ownsize, or to get points about diamond-making. I reckon he don't travelround to find out who writes all the letters that go through the PostOffice."
The Postmaster had seemingly miscalculated the old man's infirm temper,and the daughter's skillful use of it. He was unprepared for Flip'sboldness and audacity, and when he saw that both barrels of theaccusation had taken effect on the charcoal-burner, w
ho was rising withepileptic rage, he fairly turned and fled. The old man would havefollowed him with objurgation beyond the door, but for the restraininghand of Flip.
Baffled and beaten, nevertheless Fate was not wholly unkind to theretreating suitor. Near the Gin and Ginger Woods he picked up a letterwhich had fallen from Flip's packet. He recognized the writing, and didnot scruple to read it. It was not a love epistle,--at least, not sucha one as he would have written,--it did not give the address nor thename of the correspondent; but he read the following with greedyeyes:--
"Perhaps it's just as well that you don't rig yourself out for thebenefit of those dead-beats at the Crossing, or any tramp that mighthang round the ranch. Keep all your style for me when I come. I can'ttell you when, it's mighty uncertain before the rainy season. But I'mcoming soon. Don't go back on your promise about lettin' up on thetramps, and being a little more high-toned. And don't you give 'em somuch. It's true I sent you hats _twice_. I clean forgot all about thefirst; but _I_ wouldn't have given a ten-dollar hat to a nigger womanwho had a sick baby because I had an extra hat. I'd have let that babyslide. I forgot to ask whether the skirt is worn separately; I must seethat dressmaker sharp about it; but I think you'll want something onbesides a jacket and skirt; at least, it looks like it up here. I don'tthink you could manage a piano down there without the old man knowingit, and raisin' the devil generally. I promised you I'd let up on him.Mind you keep all your promises to me. I'm glad you're gettin' on withthe six-shooter; tin cans are good at fifteen yards, but try it onsuthin' that _moves_! I forgot to say that I am on the track of yourbig brother. It's a three years' old track, and he was in Arizona. Thefriend who told me didn't expatiate much on what he did there, but Ireckon they had a high old time. If he's above the earth I'll find him,you bet. The yerba buena and the southern wood came all right,--theysmelt like you. Say, Flip, do you remember the _last_--the _verylast_--thing that happened when you said 'good-by' on the trail? Don'tlet me ever find out that you've let anybody else kiss"--
But here the virtuous indignation of the Postmaster found vent in anoath. He threw the letter away. He retained of it only two facts,--Flip_had_ a brother who was missing; she had a lover present in the flesh.
How much of the substance of this and previous letters Flip hadconfided to her father I cannot say. If she suppressed anything it wasprobably that which affected Lance's secret alone, and it was doubtfulhow much of that she herself knew. In her own affairs she was frankwithout being communicative, and never lost her shy obstinacy even withher father. Governing the old man as completely as she did, sheappeared most embarrassed when she was most dominant; she had her ownway without lifting her voice or her eyes; she seemed oppressed by_mauvaise honte_ when she was most triumphant; she would end adiscussion with a shy murmur addressed to herself, or a single gestureof self-consciousness.
The disclosure of her strange relations with an unknown man, and theexchange of presents and confidences, seemed to suddenly awake Fairleyto a vague, uneasy sense of some unfulfilled duties as a parent. Thefirst effect of this on his weak nature was a peevish antagonism to thecause of it. He had long, fretful monologues on the vanity ofdiamond-making, if accompanied with "pestering" by "interlopers;" onthe wickedness of concealment and conspiracy, and their effects oncharcoal-burning; on the nurturing of spies and "adders" in the familycircle, and on the seditiousness of dark and mysterious councils inwhich a gray-haired father was left out. It was true that a word orlook from Flip generally brought these monologues to an inglorious andabrupt termination, but they were none the less lugubrious as long asthey lasted. In time they were succeeded by an affectation of contriteapology and self-depreciation. "Don't go out o' the way to ask the oldman," he would say, referring to the quantity of bacon to be ordered;"it's nat'ral a young gal should have her own advisers." The state ofthe flour-barrel would also produce a like self-abasement. "Unlessye're already in correspondence about more flour, ye might take theopinion o' the first tramp ye meet ez to whether Santa Cruz Mills is agood brand, but don't ask the old man." If Flip was in conversationwith the butcher, Fairley would obtrusively retire with the hope "hewasn't intrudin' on their secrets."
These phases of her father's weakness were not frequent enough toexcite her alarm, but she could not help noticing they were accompaniedwith a seriousness unusual to him. He began to be tremulously watchfulof her, returning often from work at an earlier hour, and lingering bythe cabin in the morning. He brought absurd and useless presents forher, and presented them with a nervous anxiety, poorly concealed by anassumption of careless, paternal generosity. "Suthin' I picked up atthe Crossin' for ye to-day," he would say, airily, and retire to watchthe effect of a pair of shoes two sizes too large, or a fur cap inSeptember. He would have hired a cheap parlor organ for her, but forthe apparently unexpected revelation that she couldn't play. He hadreceived the news of a clue to his long-lost son without emotion, butlately he seemed to look upon it as a foregone conclusion, and one thatnecessarily solved the question of companionship for Flip. "In course,when you've got your own flesh and blood with ye, ye can't go foolin'around with strangers." These autumnal blossoms of affection, I fear,came too late for any effect upon Flip, precociously matured by herfather's indifference and selfishness. But she was good-humored, and,seeing him seriously concerned, gave him more of her time, even visitedhim in the sacred seclusion of the "diamond pit," and listened withfar-off eyes to his fitful indictment of all things outside his grimylaboratory. Much of this patient indifference came with a capriciouschange in her own habits; she no longer indulged in the rehearsal ofdress, she packed away her most treasured garments, and her leafyboudoir knew her no more. She sometimes walked on the hillside, andoften followed the trail she had taken with Lance when she led him tothe ranch. She once or twice extended her walk to the spot where shehad parted from him, and as often came shyly away, her eyes downcastand her face warm with color. Perhaps because these experiences andsome mysterious instinct of maturing womanhood had left a story in hereyes, which her two adorers, the Postmaster and the butcher, read withpassion, she became famous without knowing it. Extravagant stories ofher fascinations brought strangers into the valley. The effect upon herfather may be imagined. Lance could not have desired a more effectiveguardian than he proved to be in this emergency. Those who had beentold of this hidden pearl were surprised to find it so jealouslyprotected.
CHAPTER V.
The long, parched summer had drawn to its dusty close. Much of it wasalready blown abroad and dissipated on trail and turnpike, or crackledin harsh, unelastic fibres on hillside and meadow. Some of it haddisappeared in the palpable smoke by day and fiery crests by night ofburning forests. The besieging fogs on the Coast Range daily thinnedtheir hosts, and at last vanished. The wind changed from northwest tosouthwest. The salt breath of the sea was on the summit. And then oneday the staring, unchanged sky was faintly touched with remotemysterious clouds, and grew tremulous in expression. The next morningdawned upon a newer face in the heavens, on changed woods, on alteredoutlines, on vanished crests, on forgotten distances. It was raining!
Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intenseblue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pinesand redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemedto be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharpwaves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenlyoverflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hiddenfrom the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken bythe impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversedFlip's retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.
The storm drove Fairley from his couch early. The falling of a largetree across the trail, and the sudden overflow of a small stream besideit, hastened his steps.
But he was doomed to encounter what was to him a more disagreeableobject--a human figure. By the bedraggled drapery that flapped andfluttered in the wind, by the long, unkempt hair that hid t
he face andeyes, and by the grotesquely misplaced bonnet, the old man recognizedone of his old trespassers--an Indian squaw.
"Clear out 'er that! Come, make tracks, will ye?" the old man screamed;but here the wind stopped his voice, and drove him against ahazel-bush.
"Me heap sick," answered the squaw, shivering through her muddy shawl.
"I'll make ye a heap sicker if ye don't vamose the ranch," continuedFairley, advancing.
"Me wantee Wangee girl. Wangee girl give me heap grub," said the squaw,without moving.
"You bet your life," groaned the old man to himself. Nevertheless anidea struck him. "Ye ain't brought no presents, hev ye?" he askedcautiously. "Ye ain't got no pooty things for poor Wangee girl?" hecontinued insinuatingly.
"Me got heap _cache_ nuts and berries," said the squaw.
"Oh, in course! in course! That's just it," screamed Fairley; "you'vegot 'em _cached_ only two mile from yer, and you'll go and get 'em fora half dollar, cash down."
"Me bring Wangee girl to _cache_," replied the Indian, pointing to thewood. "Honest Injin."
Another bright idea struck Mr. Fairley; but it required someelaboration. Hurrying the squaw with him through the pelting rain, hereached the shelter of the corral. Vainly the shivering aborigine drewher tightly bandaged papoose closer to her square, flat breast, andlooked longingly toward the cabin; the old man backed her against thepalisade. Here he cautiously imparted his dark intentions to employ herto keep watch and ward over the ranch, and especially over its youngmistress--"clear out all the tramps 'ceptin' yourself, and I'll keep yein grub and rum." Many and deliberate repetitions of this offer invarious forms at last seemed to affect the squaw; she nodded violently,and echoed the last word "rum." "Now," she added. The old manhesitated; she was in possession of his secret; he groaned, and,promising an immediate installment of liquor, led her to the cabin.
The door was so securely fastened against the impact of the storm thatsome moments elapsed before the bar was drawn, and the old man hadbecome impatient and profane. When it was partly opened by Flip hehastily slipped in, dragging the squaw after him, and cast one singlesuspicious glance around the rude apartment which served as asitting-room. Flip had apparently been writing. A small inkstand wasstill on the board table, but her paper had evidently been concealedbefore she allowed them to enter. The squaw instantly squatted beforethe adobe hearth, warmed her bundled baby, and left the ceremony ofintroduction to her companion. Flip regarded the two with calmpreoccupation and indifference. The only thing that touched herinterest was the old squaw's draggled skirt and limp neckerchief. Theywere Flip's own, long since abandoned and cast off in the Gin andGinger Woods. "Secrets again," whined Fairley, still eying Flipfurtively. "Secrets again, in course--in course--jiss so. Secrets thatmust be kep from the ole man. Dark doin's by one's own flesh and blood.Go on! go on! Don't mind me." Flip did not reply. She had even lost theinterest in her old dress. Perhaps it had only touched some note inunison with her revery.
"Can't ye get the poor critter some whiskey?" he queried, fretfully."Ye used to be peart enuff before." As Flip turned to the corner tolift the demijohn, Fairley took occasion to kick the squaw with hisfoot, and indicate by extravagant pantomime that the bargain was not tobe alluded to before the girl. Flip poured out some whiskey in a tincup, and, approaching the squaw, handed it to her. "It's like ez not,"continued Fairley to his daughter, but looking at the squaw, "thatshe'll be huntin' the woods off and on, and kinder looking after thelast pit near the _Madronos_; ye'll give her grub and licker ez shelikes. Well, d'ye hear, Flip? Are ye moonin' agin with yer secrets?What's gone with ye?"
If the child were dreaming, it was a delicious dream. Her magnetic eyeswere suffused by a strange light, as though the eye itself had blushed;her full pulse showed itself more in the rounding outline of her cheekthan in any deepening of color; indeed, if there was any heightening oftint, it was in her freckles, which fairly glistened like tinyspangles. Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slightly bent, but hervoice was low and clear and thoughtful as ever.
"One o' the big pines above the _Madrono_ pit has blown over into therun," she said. "It's choked up the water, and it's risin' fast. Likeez not it's pourin' over into the pit by this time."
The old man rose with a fretful cry. "And why in blazes didn't you sayso first?" he screamed, catching up his axe and rushing to the door.
"Ye didn't give me a chance," said Flip, raising her eyes for the firsttime. With an impatient imprecation, Fairley darted by her and rushedinto the wood. In an instant she had shut the door and bolted it. Inthe same instant the squaw arose, dashed the long hair not only fromher eyes but from her head, tore away her shawl and blanket, andrevealed the square shoulders of Lance Harriott! Flip remained leaningagainst the door; but the young man in rising dropped the bandagedpapoose, which rolled from his lap into the fire. Flip, with a cry,sprang toward it; but Lance caught her by the waist with one arm, aswith the other he dragged the bundle from the flames.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, gayly, "it's only"--
"What?" said Flip, trying to disengage herself.
"My coat and trousers."
Flip laughed, which encouraged Lance to another attempt to kiss her.She evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying,"There's father."
"But he's gone to clear away that tree," suggested Lance.
One of Flip's significant silences followed.
"Oh, I see," he laughed. "That was a plan to get him away! Ah!" She hadreleased herself.
"Why did you come like that?" she said, pointing to his wig andblanket.
"To see if you'd know me," he responded.
"No," said Flip, dropping her eyes. "It's to keep other people fromknowing you. You're hidin' agin."
"I am," returned Lance; "but," he interrupted, "it's only the same oldthing."
"But you wrote from Monterey that it was all over," she persisted.
"So it would have been," he said gloomily, "but for some dog down herewho is hunting up an old scent. I'll spot him yet, and"--He stoppedsuddenly, with such utter abstraction of hatred in his fixed andglittering eyes that she almost feared him. She laid her hand quiteunconsciously on his arm. He grasped it; his face changed.
"I couldn't wait any longer to see you, Flip, so I came here anyway,"he went on. "I thought to hang round and get a chance to speak to youfirst, when I fell afoul of the old man. He didn't know me, and tumbledright in my little game. Why, do you believe he wants to hire me for mygrub and liquor, to act as a sort of sentry over you and the ranch?"And here he related with great gusto the substance of his interview. "Ireckon as he's that suspicious," he concluded, "I'd better play it outnow as I've begun, only it's mighty hard I can't see you here beforethe fire in your fancy toggery, Flip, but must dodge in and out of thewet underbrush in these yer duds of yours that I picked up in the oldplace in the Gin and Ginger Woods."
"Then you came here just to see me?" asked Flip.
"I did."
"For only that?"
"Only that."
Flip dropped her eyes. Lance had got his other arm around her waist,but her resisting little hand was still potent.
"Listen," she said at last without looking up, but apparently talkingto the intruding arm, "when Dad comes I'll get him to send you to watchthe diamond pit. It isn't far; it's warm, and"--
"What?"
"I'll come, after a bit, and see you. Quit foolin' now. If you'd onlyhave come here like yourself--like--like--a white man."
"The old man," interrupted Lance, "would have just passed me on to thesummit. I couldn't have played the lost fisherman on him at this timeof year."
"Ye could have been stopped at the Crossing by high water, you silly,"said the girl. "It was." This grammatical obscurity referred to thestage-coach.
"Yes, but I might have been tracked to this cabin. And look here,Flip," he said, suddenly straightening himself, and lifting the girl'sface to a level with his own, "I don't want you to lie any more for me.It ain't r
ight."
"All right. Ye needn't go to the pit, then, and I won't come."
"Flip!"
"And here's Dad coming. Quick!"
Lance chose to put his own interpretation on this last adjuration. Theresisting little hand was now lying quite limp on his shoulder. He drewher brown, bright face near his own, felt her spiced breath on hislips, his cheeks, his hot eyelids, his swimming eyes, kissed her,hurriedly replaced his wig and blanket, and dropped beside the firewith the tremulous laugh of youth and innocent first passion. Flip hadwithdrawn to the window, and was looking out upon the rocking pines.
"He don't seem to be coming," said Lance, with a half-shy laugh.
"No," responded Flip demurely, pressing her hot oval cheek against thewet panes; "I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure," she added, lookingresolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needletoward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, "you're _sure_you'd like me to come to you?"
"Sure, Flip?"
"Hush!" said Flip, as this reassuring query of reproachful astonishmentappeared about to be emphasized by a forward amatory dash of Lance's;"hush! he's coming this time, sure."
It was, indeed, Fairley, exceedingly wet, exceedingly bedraggled,exceedingly sponged out as to color, and exceedingly profane. Itappeared that there was, indeed, a tree that had fallen in the "run,"but that, far from diverting the overflow into the pit, it hadestablished "back water," which had forced another outlet. All thismight have been detected at once by any human intellect not distractedby correspondence with strangers, and enfeebled by habitually scorningthe intellect of its own progenitor. This reckless selfishness hadfurther only resulted in giving "rheumatics" to that progenitor, whonow required the external administration of opodeldoc to his limbs, andthe internal administration of whiskey. Having thus spoken, Mr.Fairley, with great promptitude and infantine simplicity, at once baredtwo legs of entirely different colors and mutely waited for hisdaughter to rub them. If Flip did this all unconsciously, and with themechanical dexterity of previous habit, it was because she did notquite understand the savage eyes and impatient gestures of Lance in hisencompassing wig and blanket, and because it helped her to voice herthought.
"Ye'll never be able to take yer watch at the diamond pit to-night,Dad," she said; "and I've been reck'nin' you might set the squaw thereinstead. I can show her what to do."
But to Flip's momentary discomfiture, her father promptly objected."Mebbe I've got suthin' else for her to do. Mebbe I may have mysecrets, too--eh?" he said, with dark significance, at the same timeadministering a significant nudge to Lance, which kept up the youngman's exasperation. "No, she'll rest yer a bit just now. I'll set herto watchin' suthin' else, like as not, when I want her." Flip fell intoone of her suggestive silences. Lance watched her earnestly, mollifiedby a single furtive glance from her significant eyes; the rain dashedagainst the windows, and occasionally spattered and hissed in thehearth of the broad chimney, and Mr. David Fairley, somewhat assuagedby the internal administration of whiskey, grew more loquacious. Thegenius of incongruity and inconsistency which generally ruled hisconduct came out with freshened vigor under the gentle stimulation ofspirit. "On an evening like this," he began, comfortably settlinghimself on the floor beside the chimney, "ye might rig yerself out inthem new duds and fancy fixin's that that Sacramento shrimp sent ye,and let your own flesh and blood see ye. If that's too much to do foryour old dad, ye might do it to please that digger squaw as a Christianact." Whether in the hidden depths of the old man's consciousness therewas a feeling of paternal vanity in showing this wretched aborigine thevalue and importance of the treasure she was about to guard, I cannotsay. Flip darted an interrogatory look at Lance, who nodded a quietassent, and she flew into the inner room. She did not linger on thedetails of her toilet, but reappeared almost the next moment in her newfinery, buttoning the neck of her gown as she entered the room, andchastely stopping at the window to characteristically pull up herstocking. The peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness;she played with the black and gold beads of a handsomenecklace--Lance's last gift--as the merest child might; her unbuckledshoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of showing her admiration anddevotion by insisting upon buckling it, and gave Lance, under thatdisguise, an opportunity of covertly kissing the little foot and anklein the shadow of the chimney; an event which provoked slight hystericalsymptoms in Flip and caused her to sit suddenly down in spite of theremonstrances of her parent. "Ef you can't quit gigglin' and squirmin'like an Injin baby yourself, ye'd better get rid o' them duds," heejaculated with peevish scorn.
Yet, under this perfunctory rebuke, his weak vanity could not behidden, and he enjoyed the evident admiration of a creature, whom hebelieved to be half-witted and degraded, all the more keenly because itdid not make him jealous. She could not take Flip from him. Renderedgarrulous by liquor, he went to voice his contempt for those who mightattempt it. Taking advantage of his daughter's absence to resume herhomely garments, he whispered confidentially to Lance:
"Ye see these yer fine dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps Fliplets on they are. Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain'tpresents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain,conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to getcustomers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'mto do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play'em off as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin'hisself off on Flip as a fancy buck! Not ez long ez the old man's here,you bet!" Thoroughly carried away by his fancied wrongs, it was perhapsfortunate that he did not observe the flashing eyes of Lance behind hislank and lustreless wig; but seeing only the figure of Lance as he hadconjured him, he went on: "That's why I want you to hang around her.Hang around her ontil my boy--him that's comin' home on a visit--getshere, and I reckon he'll clear out that yar Sacramento counter-jumper.Only let me get a sight o' him afore Flip does. Eh? D'ye hear? Dog myskin if I don't believe the d----d Injin's drunk." It was fortunatethat at that moment Flip reappeared, and, dropping on the hearthbetween her father and the infuriated Lance, let her hand slip in hiswith a warning pressure. The light touch momentarily recalled him tohimself and her, but not until the quick-witted girl had revealed toher, in one startled wave of consciousness, the full extent of Lance'sinfirmity of temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came asense of responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coyblossom of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled byapproaching shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated.Every moment of Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that mightspring from his suppressed white lips; beyond and above the suspicionshis sudden withdrawal might awaken in her father's breast, she wasdimly conscious of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. Shelistened to the furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores besidetheir cabin, and thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharpfusillade of rain upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rushof leaping mountain torrents at their very feet, and fancied it wasthere. She suddenly sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to thepane, saw through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swayingbranches the scintillating intermittent flames of torches moving on thetrail above, and _knew_ it was there!
In an instant she was collected and calm. "Dad," she said, in herordinary indifferent tone, "there's torches movin; up toward thediamond pit. Likely it's tramps. I'll take the squaw and see." Andbefore the old man could stagger to his feet she had dragged Lance withher into the road.
CHAPTER VI.
The wind charged down upon them, slamming the door at their backs,extinguishing the broad shaft of light that had momentarily shot outinto the darkness, and swept them a dozen yards away. Gaining the leeof a madrono tree, Lance opened his blanketed arms, enfolded the girl,and felt her for one brief moment tremble and nestle in his bosom likesome frightened animal. "Well," he said, gayly, "what next?" Fliprecovered herself. "You're safe now anywhere outside the house. But
didyou expect them to-night?" Lance shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?""Hush!" returned the girl; "they're coming this way."
The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line. Thetrail had been found; they were coming nearer. Flip breathed quickly;the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew hertightly beside him. He had forgotten the storm that raged around them,the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleevewith a slight laugh. "Why, it's Kennedy and Bijah!"
"Who's Kennedy and Bijah?" asked Lance, curtly.
"Kennedy's the Postmaster and Bijah's the Butcher."
"What do they want?" continued Lance.
"Me," said Flip, coyly.
"You?"
"Yes; let's run away."
Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerringwoodcraft down the ravine. The sound of voices and even the tumult ofthe storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smartedLance's lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath himgradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank,quivered and faded with the spent breath of the gale as it penetratedtheir retreat. "The pit," whispered Flip; "it's safe on the otherside," she added, cautiously skirting the orbit of the great eye, andleading him to a sheltered nest of bark and sawdust. It was warm andodorous. Nevertheless, they both deemed it necessary to enwrapthemselves in the single blanket. The eye beamed fitfully upon them,occasionally a wave of lambent tremulousness passed across it; itsweirdness was an excuse for their drawing nearer each other in playfulterror.
"Flip."
"Well?"
"What did the other two want? To see you, _too_?"
"Likely," said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry. "There's beena lot of strangers yer, off and on."
"Perhaps you'd like to go back and see them?"
"Do you want me to?"
Lance's reply was a kiss. Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy. "Looks alittle as if I were running away, don't it?" he suggested.
"No," said Flip; "they think you're only a squaw; it's me they'reafter." Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech. A strangeand irritating sensation had been creeping over him--it was his firstexperience of shame and remorse. "I reckon I'll go back and see," hesaid, rising abruptly.
Flip was silent. She was thinking. Believing that the men were seekingher only, she knew that their intention would be directed from hercompanion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and shedreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.
"Go," she said; "tell Dad something's wrong in the diamond pit, and sayI'm watching it for him here."
"And you?"
"I'll go there and wait for him. If he can't get rid of them, and theyfollow him there, I'll come back here and meet you. Anyhow, I'll manageto have Dad wait there a spell."
She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail. Hewas surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire,was only a hundred yards away. "Go in the back way, by the shed. Don'tgo in the room, nor near the light, if you can. Don't talk inside, butcall or beckon to Dad. Remember," she said, with a laugh, "you'rekeeping watch of me for him. Pull your hair down on your eyes, so."This operation, like most feminine embellishments of the masculinetoilet, was attended by a kiss, and Flip, stepping back into theshadow, vanished in the storm.
Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. Hepicked up his draggled skirt and drew a bowie-knife from his boot. Fromhis bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as hefelt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained theshed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack ofthe rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A singlevoice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted hisears. A name was mentioned--his own! His angry hand was on the latch.One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instantanother name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from the latchand the blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his handswiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture ofmingled rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door,pressed his hot temples against the crack.
"Do I know Lance Harriott?" said the voice. "Do I know the d--druffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles fromthe Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yerat this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the sameman as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name he went by in Sonora?And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d--d old fool, it was BobFairley--YOUR SON!"
The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
"What are ye talkin' about?" interrupted the first speaker. I tell youI _know_. Look at these pictures. I found 'em on his body. Look at 'em.Pictures of you and your girl. Pr'aps you'll deny them. Pr'aps you'lltell me I lie when I tell you he told me he was your son; told me howhe ran away from you; how you were livin' somewhere in the mountainsmakin' gold, or suthin' else, outer charcoal. He told me who he was asa secret. He never let on he told it to any one else. And when I foundthat the man who killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin' here, hadbeen sendin' spies all around to find out all about your son, had beenfoolin' you, and tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, Iknew that _he_ knew it too."
"LIAR!"
The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of thedemoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks ofhair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled theroom. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. Theman who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner. Butthe movement was his last; a blinding flash and shattering reportinterposed between him and his weapon. The impulse carried him forwardheadlong into the fire, that hissed and spluttered with his blood, andLance Harriott, with his smoking pistol, strode past him to the door.Already far down the trail there were hurried voices, the crack andcrackling of impending branches growing fainter and fainter in thedistance. Lance turned back to the solitary living figure--the old man.
Yet he might have been dead too, he sat so rigid and motionless, hisfixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him onthe table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken insome remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognizedas Flip.
"Tell me," said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table,"was Bob Ridley your son?"
"My son," echoed the old man in a strange, far-off voice, withoutturning his eyes from the corpse,--"my son--is--is--is there!" pointingto the dead man. "Hush! Didn't he tell you so? Didn't you hear him sayit? Dead--dead--shot--shot!"
"Silence! are you crazy, man?" interposed Lance, tremblingly; "that isnot Bob Ridley, but a dog, a coward, a liar, gone to his reckoning.Hear me! If your son _was_ Bob Ridley, I swear to God I never knew it,now or--or--_then_. Do you hear me? Tell me! Do you believe me? Speak!You shall speak!"
He laid his hand almost menacingly on the old man's shoulder. Fairleyslowly raised his head. Lance fell back with a groan of horror. Theweak lips were wreathed with a feeble imploring smile, but the eyeswherein the fretful, peevish, suspicious spirit had dwelt were blankand tenantless; the flickering intellect that had lit them was blownout and vanished.
Lance walked toward the door and remained motionless for a moment,gazing into the night. When he turned back again toward the fire hisface was as colorless as the dead man's on the hearth; the fire ofpassion was gone from his beaten eyes; his step was hesitating andslow. He went up to the table.
"I say, old man," he said, with a strange smile and an odd, prematuresuggestion of the infinite weariness of death in his voice, "youwouldn't mind giving me this, would you?" and he took up the picture ofFlip. The old man nodded repeatedly. "Thank you," said Lance. He wentto the door, paused a moment, and returned. "Good-by, old man," hesaid, holding out his hand. Fairley took it with a childish smile."He's dead," said the old man softly, h
olding Lance's hand, butpointing to the hearth. "Yes," said Lance, with the faintest of smileson the palest of faces. "You feel sorry for any one that's dead, don'tyou?" Fairley nodded again. Lance looked at him with eyes as remote ashis own, shook his head, and turned away. When he reached the door helaid his revolver carefully, and, indeed, somewhat ostentatiously, upona chair. But when he stepped from the threshold he stopped a moment inthe light of the open door to examine the lock of a small derringerwhich he drew from his pocket. He then shut the door carefully, andwith the same slow, hesitating step, felt his way into the night.
He had but one idea in his mind, to find some lonely spot; some spotwhere the footsteps of man would never penetrate, some spot that wouldyield him rest, sleep, obliteration, forgetfulness, and, above all,where _he_ would be forgotten. He had seen such places; surely therewere many,--where bones were picked up of dead men who had faded fromthe earth and had left no other record. If he could only keep hissenses now he might find such a spot, but he must be careful, for herlittle feet went everywhere, and she must never see him again alive ordead. And in the midst of his thoughts, and the darkness, and thestorm, he heard a voice at his side, "Lance, how long you have been!"
* * * * *
Left to himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation ofthe dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like anavalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door andbroken chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over thefloor, filled the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose witha feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon by some dominant memory,groped under the bed until he found his buckskin bag and his preciouscrystal, and fled precipitately from the room. Lifted by this secondshock from his apathy, he returned to the fixed idea of his life,--thediscovery and creation of the diamond,--and forgot all else. The feeblegrasp that his shaken intellect kept of the events of the nightrelaxed, the disguised Lance, the story of his son, the murder, slippedinto nothingness; there remained only the one idea, his nightly watchby the diamond pit. The instinct of long habit was stronger than thedarkness or the onset of the storm, and he kept his tottering way overstream and fallen timber until he reached the spot. A sudden tremorseemed to shake the lambent flame that had lured him on. He thought heheard the sound of voices; there were signs of recentdisturbance,--footprints in the sawdust! With a cry of rage andsuspicion, Fairley slipped into the pit and sprang toward the nearestopening. To his frenzied fancy it had been tampered with, his secretdiscovered, the fruit of his long labors stolen from him that verynight. With superhuman strength he began to open the pit, scatteringthe half-charred logs right and left, and giving vent to thesuffocating gases that rose from the now incandescent charcoal. Attimes the fury of the gale would drive it back and hold it against thesides of the pit, leaving the opening free; at times, following theblind instinct of habit, the demented man would fall upon his face andbury his nose and mouth in the wet bark and sawdust. At last, theparoxysm past, he sank back again into his old apathetic attitude ofwatching, the attitude he had so often kept beside his sylvan crucible.In this attitude and in silence he waited for the dawn.
It came with a hush in the storm; it came with blue openings in thebroken up and tumbled heavens; it came with stars that glistened first,and then paled, and at last sank drowning in those deep cerulean lakes;it came with those cerulean lakes broadening into vaster seas, whoseshores expanded at last into one illimitable ocean, cerulean no more,but flecked with crimson and opal dyes; it came with the lightly liftedmisty curtain of the day, torn and rent on crag and pine-top, butalways lifting, lifting. It came with the sparkle of emerald in thegrasses, and the flash of diamonds in every spray, with a whisper inthe awakening woods, and voices in the traveled roads and trails.
The sound of these voices stopped before the pit, and seemed tointerrogate the old man. He came, and, putting his finger on his lips,made a sign of caution. When three or four men had descended he badethem follow him, saying, weakly and disjointedly, but persistently: "Myboy--my son Robert--came home--came home at last--here with Flip--bothof them--come and see!"
He had reached a little niche or nest in the hillside, and stopped, andsuddenly drew aside a blanket. Beneath it, side by side, lay Flip andLance, dead, with their cold hands clasped in each other's.
"Suffocated!" said two or three, turning with horror toward the brokenup and still smouldering pit.
"Asleep!" said the old man. "Asleep! I've seen 'em lying that way whenthey were babies together. Don't tell me! Don't say I don't know my ownflesh and blood! So! so! So, my pretty ones!" He stooped and kissedthem. Then, drawing the blanket over them gently, he rose and saidsoftly, "Good night!"