Read The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories Page 7

  Hank's Woman

  I

  Many fish were still in the pool; and though luck seemed to have leftme, still I stood at the end of the point, casting and casting my vainline, while the Virginian lay and watched. Noonday's extreme brightnesshad left the river and the plain in cooling shadow, but spread andglowed over the yet undimmed mountains. Westward, the Tetons liftedtheir peaks pale and keen as steel through the high, radiant air. Deepdown between the blue gashes of their canons the sun sank long shafts oflight, and the glazed laps of their snow-fields shone separate and whiteupon their lofty vastness, like handkerchiefs laid out to dry. Opposite,above the valley, rose that other range, the Continental Divide, notsharp, but long and ample. It was bare in some high places, and belowthese it stretched everywhere, high and low, in brown and yellow parks,or in purple miles of pine a world of serene undulations, a great sweetcountry of silence.

  A passing band of antelope stood herded suddenly together at sight ofus; then a little breeze blew for a moment from us to them, andthey drifted like phantoms away, and were lost in the levels of thesage-brush.

  "If humans could do like that," said the Virginian, watching them go.

  "Run, you mean?" said I.

  "Tell a foe by the smell of him," explained the cow-puncher; "at fiftyyards--or a mile."

  "Yes," I said; "men would be hard to catch."

  "A woman needs it most," he murmured. He lay down again in his loungingsprawl, with his grave eyes intently fixed upon my fly-casting.

  The gradual day mounted up the hills farther from the floor of earth.Warm airs eddied in its wake slowly, stirring the scents of the plaintogether. I looked at the Southerner; and there was no guessing whathis thoughts might be at work upon behind that drowsy glance. Then for amoment a trout rose, but only to look and whip down again into the poolthat wedged its calm into the riffle from below.

  "Second thoughts," mused the Virginian; and as the trout came no more,"Second thoughts," he repeated; "and even a fish will have them soonerthan folks has them in this mighty hasty country." And he rolled overinto a new position of ease.

  At whom or what was he aiming these shafts of truth? Or did he moralizemerely because health and the weather had steeped him in that serenitywhich lifts us among the spheres? Well, sometimes he went on from thesebeginnings and told me wonderful things.

  "I reckon," said he, presently, "that knowing when to change your mindwould be pretty near knowledge enough for plain people."

  Since my acquaintance with him--this was the second summer of it--I hadcome to understand him enough to know that he was unfathomable. Still,for a moment it crossed my thoughts that perhaps now he was discoursingabout himself. He had allowed a jealous foreman to fall out with him atSunk Creek ranch in the spring, during Judge Henry's absence. The man,having a brief authority, parted with him. The Southerner had chosenthat this should be the means of ultimately getting the foremandismissed and himself recalled. It was strategic. As he put it to me:"When I am gone, it will be right easy for the Judge to see which ofus two he wants. And I'll not have done any talking." All of which dulybefell in the autumn as he had planned: the foreman was sent off,his assistant promoted, and the Virginian again hired. But this wasmeanwhile. He was indulging himself in a several months' drifting, andwhile thus drifting he had written to me. That is how we two came to beon our way from the railroad to hunt the elk and the mountain-sheep,and were pausing to fish where Buffalo Fork joins its waters with SnakeRiver. In those days the antelope still ran there in hundreds, theYellowstone Park was a new thing, and mankind lived very far away. Sincemeeting me with the horses in Idaho the Virginian had been silent, evenfor him. So now I stood casting my fly, and trusting that he was nottroubled with second thoughts over his strategy.

  "Have yu' studded much about marriage?" he now inquired. His seriouseyes met mine as he lay stretched along the ground.

  "Not much," I said; "not very much."

  "Let's swim," he said. "They have changed their minds."

  Forthwith we shook off our boots and dropped our few clothes, andheedless of what fish we might now drive away, we went into the cool,slow, deep breadth of backwater which the bend makes just there. Ashe came up near me, shaking his head of black hair, the cowpuncher wassmiling a little.

  "Not that any number of baths," he remarked, "would conceal a man'sobjectionableness from an antelope--not even a she-one."

  Then he went under water, and came up again a long way off.

  We dried before the fire, without haste. To need no clothes is betterthan purple and fine linen. Then he tossed the flap-jacks, and I servedthe trout, and after this we lay on our backs upon a buffalo-hide tosmoke and watch the Tetons grow more solemn, as the large stars openedout over the sky.

  "I don't care if I never go home," said I.

  The Virginian nodded. "It gives all the peace o' being asleep with allthe pleasure o' feeling the widest kind of awake," said he. "Yu' mightsay the whole year's strength flows hearty in every waggle of yourthumb." We lay still for a while. "How many things surprise yu' anymore?" he next asked.

  I began considering; but his silence had at length worked round tospeech.

  "Inventions, of course," said he, "these hyeh telephones an' truck yu'see so much about in the papers--but I ain't speaking o' such thingsof the brain. It is just the common things I mean. The things that alivin', noticin' man is liable to see and maybe sample for himself. Howmany o' them kind can surprise yu' still?"

  I still considered.

  "Most everything surprised me onced," the cow-puncher continued, in hisgentle Southern voice. "I must have been a mighty green boy. Till Iwas fourteen or fifteen I expect I was astonished by ten o'clock everymorning. But a man begins to ketch on to folks and things after a while.I don't consideh that when--that afteh a man is, say twenty-five, it iscreditable he should get astonished too easy. And so yu've not examinedyourself that-away?"

  I had not.

  "Well, there's two things anyway--I know them for sure--that I expectwill always get me--don't care if I live to thirty-five, or forty-five,or eighty. And one's the ways lightning can strike." He paused. Thenhe got up and kicked the fire, and stood by it, staring at me. "And theother is the people that other people will marry."

  He stopped again; and I said nothing.

  "The people that other people will marry," he repeated. "That willsurprise me till I die."

  "If my sympathy--" I began.

  But the brief sound that he gave was answer enough, and more than enoughcure for my levity.

  "No," said he, reflectively; "not any such thing as a fam'ly for me,yet. Never, it may be. Not till I can't help it. And that woman hasnot come along so far. But I have been sorry for a woman lately. I keepthinking what she will do. For she will have to do something. Do yu'know Austrians? Are they quick in their feelings, like I-talians? Orare they apt to be sluggish, same as Norwegians and them otherDutch-speakin' races?"

  I told him what little I knew about Austrians.

  "This woman is the first I have ever saw of 'em," he continued. "Ofcourse men will stampede into marriage in this hyeh Western country,where a woman is a scanty thing. It ain't what Hank has done thatsurprises me. And it is not on him that the sorrow will fall. For she isgood. She is very good. Do yu' remember little black Hank? From Texas heclaims he is. He was working on the main ditch over at Sunk Creek lastsummer when that Em'ly hen was around. Well, seh, yu' would not havepleasured in his company. And this year Hank is placer-mining on GalenaCreek, where we'll likely go for sheep. There's Honey Wiggin and a youngfello' named Lin McLean, and some others along with the outfit. ButHank's woman will not look at any of them, though the McLean boy is alikely hand. I have seen that; for I have done a right smart o' businessthat-a-way myself, here and there. She will mend their clothes for them,and she will cook lunches for them any time o' day, and her conduct gavethem hopes at the start. But I reckon Austrians have good religion."

  "No better than Americans," said I.

/>   But the Virginian shook his head. "Better'n what I've saw any Americanshave. Of course I am not judging a whole nation by one citizen, andespecially her a woman. And of course in them big Austrian towns thefolks has shook their virtuous sayin's loose from their daily doin's,same as we have. I expect selling yourself brings the quickest returnsto man or woman all the world over. But I am speakin' not of towns, butof the back country, where folks don't just merely arrive on the cyars,but come into the world the natural way, and grow up slow. Onced a weekanyway they see the bunch of old grave-stones that marks their fam'ly.Their blood and name are knowed about in the neighborhood, and it's notoften one of such will sell themselves. But their religion ain't to themlike this woman's. They can be rip-snortin' or'tn'ary in ways. Now sheis getting naught but hindrance and temptation and meanness from herhusband and every livin' thing around her--yet she keeps right along,nor does she mostly bear any signs in her face. She has cert'nly comefrom where they are used to believing in God and a hereafter mightyhard, and all day long. She has got one o' them crucifixes, and Hankcan't make her quit prayin' to it. But what is she going to do?"

  "He will probably leave her," I said.

  "Yes," said the Virginian--"leave her. Alone; her money all spent;knowin' maybe twenty words of English; and thousands of miles awayfrom everything she can understand. For our words and ways is all alikestrange to her."

  "Then why did he want such a person?" I exclaimed.

  There was surprise in the grave glance which the cow-puncher gave me."Why, any man would," he answered. "I wanted her myself, till I foundshe was good."

  I looked at this son of the wilderness, standing thoughtful and splendidby the fire, and unconscious of his own religion that had unexpectedlyshone forth in these last words. But I said nothing; for words toointimate, especially words of esteem, put him invariably to silence.

  "I had forgot to mention her looks to yu'." he pursued, simply. "She isfit for a man." He stopped again.

  "Then there was her wages that Hank saw paid to her," he resumed. "Andso marriage was but a little thing to Hank--agaynst such a heap ofadvantages. As for her idea in takin' such as him--maybe it was that hewas small and she was big; tall and big. Or maybe it was just his whiteteeth. Them ridiculous reasons will bring a woman to a man, haven'tyu' noticed? But maybe it was just her sorrowful, helpless state, leftstranded as she was, and him keeping himself near her and sober for aweek.

  "I had been seein' this hyeh Yellowstone Park, takin' in its geysers,and this and that, for my enjoyment; and when I found what they claimedabout its strange sights to be pretty near so, I landed up at GalenaCreek to watch the boys prospectin'. Honey Wiggin, yu' know, and McLean,and the rest. And so they got me to go down with Hank to Gardner forflour and sugar and truck, which we had to wait for. We lay around theMammoth Springs and Gardner for three days, playin' cyards with friends.And I got plumb interested in them tourists. For I had partly forgotabout Eastern people. And hyeh they came fresh every day to remind a manof the great size of his country. Most always they would talk to yu' ifyu' gave 'em the chance; and I did. I have come mighty nigh regrettin'that I did not keep a tally of the questions them folks asked me. Andas they seemed genu-winely anxious to believe anything at all, and theworser the thing the believinger they'd grow, why I--well, there's timeswhen I have got to lie to keep in good health.

  "So I fooled and I fooled. And one noon I was on the front poach of thebig hotel they have opened at the Mammoth Springs for tourists, and thehotel kid, bein' on the watchout, he sees the dust comin' up the hill,and he yells out, 'Stage!'

  "Yu've not saw that hotel yet, seh? Well, when the kid says 'Stage,' theconsequences is most sudden. About as conspicuous, yu' may say, as whenOld Faithful Geyser lets loose. Yu' see, one batch o' tourists pullsout right after breakfast for Norris Basin, leavin' things empty andyawnin'. By noon the whole hotel outfit has been slumberin' in itschairs steady for three hours. Maybe yu' might hear a fly buzz, butmaybe not. Everything's liable to be restin', barrin' the kid. He'sa-watchin' out. Then he sees the dust, and he says 'Stage!' and ittouches the folks off like a hot pokeh. The Syndicate manager he lopesto a lookin'glass, and then organizes himself behind the book; and theyoung photograph chap bounces out o' his private door like one o' themcuckoo clocks; and the fossil man claws his specimens and curiositiesinto shape, and the porters line up same as parade, and away goes thepiano and fiddles up-stairs. It is mighty conspicuous. So Hank he comerennin' out from somewheres too, and the stage drives up.

  "Then out gets a tall woman, and I noticed her yello' hair. She waskind o' dumb-eyed, yet fine to see. I reckon Hank noticed her too, rightaway. And right away her trouble begins. For she was a lady's maid, andher lady was out of the stage and roundin' her up quick. And it's'Where have you put the keys, Willomene?' The lady was rich and stinkin'lookin', and had come from New Yawk in her husband's private cyar.

  "Well, Willomene fussed around in her pockets, and them keys was notthere. So she started explaining in tanglefoot English to her lady howher lady must have took them from her before leavin' the cyar. But thelady seemed to relish hustlin' herself into a rage. She got tolerableconspicuous, too. And after a heap o' words, 'You are discharged,' shesays; and off she struts. Soon her husband came out to Willomene, stillstandin' like statuary, and he pays her a good sum of cash, and he goesaway, and she keeps a standing yet for a spell. Then all of a suddenshe says something I reckon was 'O, Jesus,' and sits down and starts acryin'.

  "I would like to have given her comfort. But we all stood around on thehotel poach, and the right thing would not come into my haid. Then thebaggage-wagon came in from Cinnabar, and they had picked the keys up onthe road between Cinnabar and Gardner. So the lady and her toilet wasrescued, but that did no good to Willomene. They stood her trunk downalong with the rest--a brass-nailed little old concern--and there wasWillomene out of a job and afoot a long, long ways from her own range;and so she kept sitting, and onced in a while she'd cry some more. Wegot her a room in the cheap hotel where the Park drivers sleeps whenthey're in at the Springs, and she acted grateful like, thanking theboys in her tanglefoot English. Next mawnin' her folks druv off in aprivate team to Norris Basin, and she seemed dazed. For I talked withher then, and questioned her as to her wishes, but she could not saywhat she wished, nor if it was East or West she would go; and I reckonshe was too stricken to have wishes.

  "Our stuff for Galena Creek delayed on the railroad, and I got to knowher, and then I quit givin' Hank cause for jealousy. I kept myself withthe boys, and I played more cyards, while Hank he sca'cely played atall. One night I came on them--Hank and Willomene--walkin' among thepines where the road goes down the hill. Yu' should have saw that pairo' lovers. Her big shape was plain and kind o' steadfast in the moon,and alongside of her little black Hank! And there it was. Of course itain't nothing to be surprised at that a mean and triflin' man tries toseem what he is not when he wants to please a good woman. But why doesshe get fooled, when it's so plain to other folks that are not givin'it any special thought? All the rest of the men and women at the Mammothunderstood Hank. They knowed he was a worthless proposition. And Icert'nly relied on his gettin' back to his whiskey and openin' her eyesthat way. But he did not. I met them next evening again by the LibertyCap. Supposin' I'd been her brother or her mother, what use was it mewarning her? Brothers and mothers don't get believed.

  "The railroad brought the stuff for Galena Creek, and Hank wouldnot look at it on account of his courtin'. I took it alone myself byYancey's and the second bridge and Miller Creek to the camp, norI didn't tell Willomene good-bye, for I had got disgusted at herblindness."

  The Virginian shifted his position, and jerked his overalls to a morecomfortable fit. Then he continued:

  "They was married the Tuesday after at Livingston, and Hank musthave been pow'ful pleased at himself. For he gave Willomene a weddingpresent, with the balance of his cash, spending his last nickel onbuying her a red-tailed parrot they had for sale at the First Nationa
lBank. The son-of-a-gun hollad so freely at the bank, the presidentawde'd the cashier to get shed of the out-ragious bird, or he wouldwring its neck.

  "So Hank and Willomene stayed a week up in Livingston on her money, andthen he fetched her back to Gardner, and bought their grub, and brideand groom came up to the camp we had on Galena Creek.

  "She had never slep' out before. She had never been on a hawss, neither.And she mighty near rolled off down into Pitchstone Canyon, comin' up bythe cut-off trail. Why, seh, I would not willingly take you through thatplace, except yu' promised me yu' would lead your hawss when I saidto. But Hank takes the woman he had married, and he takes heavy-loadedpack-hawsses. 'Tis the first time such a thing has been known of in thecountry. Yu' remember them big tall grass-topped mountains over in theHoodoo country, and how they descends slam down through the cross-timberthat yu' can't scatcely work through afoot, till they pitches over intolots an' lots o' little canyons, with maybe two inches of water runnin'in the bottom? All that is East Fork water, and over the divide isClark's Fork, or Stinkin' Water, if yu' take the country yondeh to thesoutheast. But any place yu' go is them undesirable steep slopes, andthe cut-off trail takes along about the worst in the business.

  "Well, Hank he got his outfit over it somehow, and, gentlemen, hush!but yu'd ought t've seen him and that poor girl pull into our camp. Yu'dcert'nly never have conjectured them two was a weddin' journey. He wasleadin', but skewed around in his saddle to jaw back at Willomene forriding so ignorant. Suppose it was a thing she was responsible for, yu'dnot have talked to her that-a-way even in private; and hyeh was thecamp a-lookin', and a-listenin', and some of us ashamed. She was settingstraddleways like a mountain, and between him and her went the threepackanimals, plumb shiverin' played out, and the flour--they had twohundred pounds--tilted over hellwards, with the red-tailed parrotshoutin' landslides in his cage tied on top o' the leanin' sacks.

  "It was that mean to see, that shameless and unkind, that even athoughtless kid like the McLean boy felt offended, and favorable to somesort of remonstrance. 'The son-of-a--!' he said to me. 'The son-of-a--!If he don't stop, let's stop him.' And I reckon we might have.

  "But Hank he quit. 'Twas plain to see he'd got a genu-wine scare comin'through Pitchstone Canyon, and it turned him sour, so he'd hardly talkto us, but just mumbled 'How!' kind o' gruff, when the boys come up tocongratulate him as to his marriage.

  "But Willomene, she says when she saw me, 'Oh, I am so glad!' and weshook hands right friendly. And I wished I'd told her good-bye thatday at the Mammoth. For she bore no spite, and maybe I had forgot herfeelings in thinkin' of my own. I had talked to her down at theMammoth at first, yu' know, and she said a word about old friends.Our friendship was three weeks old that day, but I expect her newexperiences looked like years to her. And she told me how near she cometo gettin' killed.

  "Yu' ain't ever been over that trail, seh? Yu' cert'nly must seePitchstone Canyon. But we'll not go there with packs. And we will getoff our hawsses a good ways back. For many animals feels that there'ssomething the matter with that place, and they act very strange aboutit.

  "The Grand Canyon is grand, and makes yu' feel good to look at it, anda geyser is grand and all right, too. But this hyeh Pitchstone hole,if Willomene had went down into that--well, I'll tell yu', that you mayjudge.

  "She seen the trail a-drawin' nearer and nearer the aidge, between thetimber and the jumpin'-off place, and she seen how them little loosestones and the crumble stuff would slide and slide away under thehawss's feet. She could hear the stuff rattlin' continually from hissteps, and when she turned her haid to look, she seen it goin' downclose beside her, but into what it went she could not see. Only, therewas a queer steam would come up now and agayn, and her hawss trembled.So she tried to get off and walk without sayin' nothin' to Hank. He kep'on ahaid, and her hawss she had pulled up started to follo' as she washalf off him, and that gave her a tumble, but there was an old crookeddead tree. It growed right out o' the aidge. There she hung.

  "Down below is a little green water tricklin', green as the stuff thatgets on brass, and tricklin' along over soft cream-colored formation,like pie. And it ain't so far to fall but what a man might not betoo much hurt for crawlin' out. But there ain't no crawlin' out o'Pitchstone Canyon, they say. Down in there is caves that yu' cannot see.'Tis them that coughs up the stream now and agayn. With the wind yu'can smell 'em a mile away, and in the night I have been layin' quiet andheard 'em. Not that it's a big noise, even when a man is close up.It's a fluffy kind of a sigh. But it sounds as if some awful thingwas a-makin' it deep down in the guts of the world. They claim there'spoison air comes out o' the caves and lays low along the water. Theyclaim if a bear or an elk strays in from below, and the caves sets uptheir coughin', which they don't regular every day, the animals die. Ihave seen it come in two seconds. And when it comes that-a-way risin'upon yu' with that fluffy kind of a sigh, yu' feel mighty lonesome, seh.

  "So Hank he happened to look back and see Willomene hangin' at the aidgeo' them black rocks. And his scare made him mad. And his mad stayedwith him till they come into camp. She looked around, and when she seenHank's tent that him and her was to sleep in she showed surprise. And heshowed surprise when he see the bread she cooked.

  "'What kind of a Dutch woman are yu',' says he, strainin' for a joke,'if yu' can't use a Dutch-oven?'

  "'You say to me you have a house to live in,' says Willomene. 'Where isthat house?'

  "'I did not figure on gettin' a woman when I left camp,' says Hank,grinnin', but not pleasant, 'or I'd have hurried up with the shack I'm abuildin'.'

  "He was buildin' one. When I left Galena Creek and come away from thatcountry to meet you, the house was finished enough for the couple tomove in. I hefted her brass-nailed trunk up the hill from their tentmyself, and I watched her take out her crucifix. But she would not letme help her with that. She'd not let me touch it. She'd fixed it upagaynst the wall her own self her own way. But she accepted some flowersI picked, and set them in a can front of the crucifix. Then Hank he comein, and seein', says to me, 'Are you one of the kind that squats beforethem silly dolls?' 'I would tell yu', I answered him; 'but it would notinter-est yu'.' And I cleared out, and left him and Willomene to begintheir housekeepin'.

  "Already they had quit havin' much to say to each other down in theirtent. The only steady talkin' done in that house was done by the parrot.I've never saw any go ahaid of that bird. I have told yu' about Hank,and how when he'd come home and see her prayin' to that crucifix he'dalways get riled up. He would mention it freely to the boys. Not thatshe neglected him, yu' know. She done her part, workin' mighty hard, forshe was a willin' woman. But he could not make her quit her religion;and Willomene she had got to bein' very silent before I come away. Sheused to talk to me some at first, but she dropped it. I don't knowwhy. I expect maybe it was hard for her to have us that close in camp,witnessin' her troubles every day, and she a foreigner. I reckon if shegot any comfort, it would be when we was off prospectin' or huntin', andshe could shut the cabin door and be alone."

  The Virginian stopped for a moment.

  "It will soon be a month since I left Galena Creek," he resumed. "But Icannot get the business out o' my haid. I keep a studyin' over it."

  His talk was done. He had unburdened his mind. Night lay deep and quietaround us, with no sound far or near, save Buffalo Fork plashing overits riffle.

  II

  We left Snake River. We went up Pacific Creek, and through Two OceanPass, and down among the watery willow-bottoms and beaverdams of theUpper Yellowstone. We fished; we enjoyed existence along the lake. Thenwe went over Pelican Creek trail and came steeply down into the giantcountry of grasstopped mountains. At dawn and dusk the elk had begun tocall across the stillness. And one morning in the Hoodoo country,where we were looking for sheep, we came round a jut of the strange,organ-pipe formation upon a longlegged boy of about nineteen, alsohunting.

  "Still hyeh?" said the Virginian, without emotion.

 
"I guess so," returned the boy, equally matter-of-fact. "Yu' seem to bearound yourself," he added.

  They might have been next-door neighbors, meeting in a town street forthe second time in the same day.

  The Virginian made me known to Mr. Lin McLean, who gave me a brief nod.

  "Any luck?" he inquired, but not of me.

  "Oh," drawled the Virginian, "luck enough."

  Knowing the ways of the country, I said no word. It was bootless tointerrupt their own methods of getting at what was really in both theirminds.

  The boy fixed his wide-open hazel eyes upon me. "Fine weather," hementioned.

  "Very fine," said I.

  "I seen your horses a while ago," he said. "Camp far from here?" heasked the Virginian.

  "Not specially. Stay and eat with us. We've got elk meat."

  "That's what I'm after for camp," said McLean. "All of us is out on ahunt to-day--except him."

  "How many are yu' now?"

  "The whole six."

  "Makin' money?"

  "Oh, some days the gold washes out good in the pan, and others it's thatfine it'll float off without settlin'."

  "So Hank ain't huntin' to-day?"

  "Huntin'! We left him layin' out in that clump o'brush below theircabin. Been drinkin' all night."

  The Virginian broke off a piece of the Hoodoo mud-rock from the weirderoded pillar that we stood beside. He threw it into a bank of lastyear's snow. We all watched it as if it were important. Up through themountain silence pierced the long quivering whistle of a bull-elk. Itwas like an unearthly singer practising an unearthly scale.

  "First time she heard that," said McLean, "she was scared."

  "Nothin' maybe to resemble it in Austria," said the Virginian.

  "That's so," said McLean. "That's so, you bet! Nothin' just like Hankover there, neither."

  "Well, flesh is mostly flesh in all lands, I reckon," said theVirginian. "I expect yu' can be drunk and disorderly in every language.But an Austrian Hank would be liable to respect her crucifix."

  "That's so!"

  "He ain't made her quit it yet?"

  "Not him. But he's got meaner."

  "Drunk this mawnin', yu' say?"

  "That's his most harmless condition now."

  "Nobody's in camp but them two? Her and him alone?"

  "Oh, he dassent touch her."

  "Who did he tell that to?"

  "Oh, the camp is backin' her. The camp has explained that to him severaltimes, you bet! And what's more, she has got the upper hand of himherself. She has him beat."

  "How beat?"

  "She has downed him with her eye. Just by endurin' him peacefully; andwith her eye. I've saw it. Things changed some after yu' pulled out. Wehad a good crowd still, and it was pleasant, and not too lively nor yettoo slow. And Willomene, she come more among us. She'd not stay shutin-doors, like she done at first. I'd have like to've showed her how topunish Hank."

  "Afteh she had downed yu' with her eye?" inquired the Virginian.

  Young McLean reddened, and threw a furtive look upon me, the stranger,the outsider. "Oh, well," he said, "I done nothing onusual. But that'sall different now. All of us likes her and respects her, and makesallowances for her bein' Dutch. Yu' can't help but respect her. And sheshows she knows."

  "I reckon maybe she knows how to deal with Hank," said the Virginian.

  "Shucks!" said McLean, scornfully. "And her so big and him so puny! She'dought to lift him off the earth with one arm and lam him with a baste ortwo with the other, and he'd improve."

  "Maybe that's why she don't," mused the Virginian, slowly; "becauseshe is so big. Big in the spirit, I mean. She'd not stoop to hislevel. Don't yu' see she is kind o' way up above him and camp andeverything--just her and her crucifix?"

  "Her and her crucifix!" repeated young Lin McLean, staring at thisinterpretation, which was beyond his lively understanding. "Her and hercrucifix. Turruble lonesome company! Well, them are things yu' don'tknow about. I kind o' laughed myself the first time I seen her at it.Hank, he says to me soft, 'Come here, Lin,' and I peeped in where shewas a-prayin'. She seen us two, but she didn't quit. So I quit, and Hankcame with me, sayin' tough words about it. Yes, them are things yu'sure don't know about. What's the matter with you camping with us boystonight?"

  We had been going to visit them the next day. We made it to-day,instead. And Mr. McLean helped us with our packs, and we carried ourwelcome in the shape of elk meat. So we turned our faces down thegrass-topped mountains towards Galena Creek. Once, far through anopen gap away below us, we sighted the cabin with the help of ourfield-glasses.

  "Pity we can't make out Hank sleepin' in that brush," said McLean.

  "He has probably gone into the cabin by now," said I.

  "Not him! He prefers the brush all day when he's that drunk, you bet!"

  "Afraid of her?"

  "Well--oneasy in her presence. Not that she's liable to be in therenow. She don't stay inside nowadays so much. She's been comin' roundthe ditch, silent-like but friendly. And she'll watch us workin' for aspell, and then she's apt to move off alone into the woods, singin' themDutch songs of hern that ain't got no toon. I've met her walkin' thatway, tall and earnest, lots of times. But she don't want your company,though she'll patch your overalls and give yu' lunch always. Nor shewon't take pay."

  Thus we proceeded down from the open summits into the close pines;and while we made our way among the cross-timber and over the littlestreams, McLean told us of various days and nights at the camp, and howHank had come to venting his cowardice upon his wife's faith.

  "Why, he informed her one day when he was goin' take his dust to town,that if he come back and found that thing in the house, he'd do it upfor her. 'So yu' better pack off your wooden dummy somewheres,' says he.And she just looked at him kind o' stone-like and solemn. For she don'tcare for his words no more.

  "And while he was away she'd have us all in to supper up at the shack,and look at us eatin' while she'd walk around puttin' grub on yourplate. Day time she'd come around the ditch, watchin' for a while, andmove off slow, singin' her Dutch songs. And when Hank comes back fromspendin' his dust, he sees the crucifix same as always, and he says,'Didn't I tell yu' to take that down?' 'You did,' says Willomene,lookin' at him very quiet. And he quit.

  "And Honey Wiggin says to him, 'Hank, leave her alone.' And Hank, bein'all trembly from spreein' in town, he says, 'You're all agin me!' likeas if he were a baby."

  "I should think you would run him out of camp," said I.

  "Well, we've studied over that some," McLean answered. "But what's to bedone with Willomene?"

  I did not know. None of us seemed to know.

  "The boys got together night before last," continued McLean, "and afterholdin' a unanimous meetin', we visited her and spoke to her about goin'back to her home. She was slow in corrallin' our idea on account of herbein' no English scholar. But when she did, after three of us takin'their turn at puttin' the proposition to her, she would not acceptany of our dust. And though she started to thank us the handsomest sheknowed how, it seemed to grieve her, for she cried. So we thought we'dbetter get out. She's tried to tell us the name of her home, but yu'can't pronounce such outlandishness."

  As we went down the mountains, we talked of other things, but alwayscame back to this; and we were turning it over still when the sun haddeparted from the narrow cleft that we were following, and shone onlyon the distant grassy tops which rose round us into an upper world oflight.

  "We'll all soon have to move out of this camp, anyway," said McLean,unstrapping his coat from his saddle and drawing it on. "It gets chillnow in the afternoons. D' yu' see the quakin'-asps all turned yello',and the leaves keeps fallin' without no wind to blow 'em down? We'reliable to get snowed in on short notice in this mountain country. If thewater goes to freeze on us we'll have to quit workin'. There's camp."

  We had rounded a corner, and once more sighted the cabin. I suppose itmay have been still half a mile away, upon the further s
ide of a ravineinto which our little valley opened. But field-glasses were not needednow to make out the cabin clearly, windows and door. Smoke rose from it;for supper-time was nearing, and we stopped to survey the scene. As wewere looking, another hunter joined us, coming from the deep woods tothe edge of the pines where we were standing. This was Honey Wiggin. Hehad killed a deer, and he surmised that all the boys would be back soon.Others had met luck besides himself; he had left one dressing an elkover the next ridge. Nobody seemed to have got in yet, from appearances.Didn't the camp look lonesome?

  "There's somebody, though," said McLean.

  The Virginian took the glasses. "I reckon--yes, that's Hank. The coldhas woke him up, and he's comin' in out o' the brush."

  Each of us took the glasses in turn; and I watched the figure go up thehill to the door of the cabin. It seemed to pause and diverge to thewindow. At the window it stood still, head bent, looking in. Then itreturned quickly to the door. It was too far to discern, even throughthe glasses, what the figure was doing. Whether the door was locked,whether he was knocking or fumbling with a key, or whether he spokethrough the door to the person within--I cannot tell what it was thatcame through the glasses straight to my nerves, so that I jumped at asudden sound; and it was only the distant shrill call of an elk. I washanding the glasses to the Virginian for him to see when the figureopened the door and disappeared in the dark interior. As I watched thesquare of darkness which the door's opening made, something seemed tohappen there--or else it was a spark, a flash, in my own straining eyes.

  But at that same instant the Virginian dashed forward upon his horse,leaving the glasses in my hand. And with the contagion of his act therest of us followed him, leaving the pack animals to follow us as theyshould choose.

  "Look!" cried McLean. "He's not shot her."

  I saw the tall figure of a woman rush out of the door and pass quicklyround the house.

  "He's missed her!" cried McLean, again. "She's savin' herself."

  But the man's figure did not appear in pursuit. Instead of this,the woman returned as quickly as she had gone, and entered the darkinterior.

  "She had something," said Wiggin. "What would that be?"

  "Maybe it's all right, after all," said McLean. "She went out to getwood."

  The rough steepness of our trail had brought us down to a walk, andas we continued to press forward at this pace as fast as we could, wecompared a few notes. McLean did not think he saw any flash. Wigginthought that he had heard a sound, but it was at the moment when theVirginian's horse had noisily started away.

  Our trail had now taken us down where we could no longer look across andsee the cabin. And the half-mile proved a long one over this ground. Atlength we reached and crossed the rocky ford, overtaking the Virginianthere.

  "These hawsses," said he, "are played out. We'll climb up to camp afoot.And just keep behind me for the present."

  We obeyed our natural leader, and made ready for whatever we might begoing into. We passed up the steep bank and came again in sight of thedoor. It was still wide open. We stood, and felt a sort of silence whichthe approach of two new-comers could not break. They joined us. Theyhad been coming home from hunting, and had plainly heard a shot here.We stood for a moment more after learning this, and then one of themen called out the names of Hank and Willomene. Again we--or I atleast--felt that same silence, which to my disturbed imagination seemedto be rising round us as mists rise from water.

  "There's nobody in there," stated the Virginian. "Nobody that's alive,"he added. And he crossed the cabin and walked into the door.

  Though he made no gesture, I saw astonishment pass through his body, ashe stopped still; and all of us came after him. There hung the crucifix,with a round hole through the middle of it. One of the men went to itand took it down; and behind it, sunk in the log, was the bullet. Thecabin was but a single room, and every object that it contained could beseen at a glance; nor was there hiding-room for anything. On the floorlay the axe from the wood-pile; but I will not tell of its appearance.So he had shot her crucifix, her Rock of Ages, the thing which enabledher to bear her life, and that lifted her above life; and she--but therewas the axe to show what she had done then. Was this cabin really empty?I looked more slowly about, half dreading to find that I had overlookedsomething. But it was as the Virginian had said; nobody was there.

  As we were wondering, there was a noise above our heads, and I was notthe only one who started and stared. It was the parrot; and we stoodaway in a circle, looking up at his cage. Crouching flat on the floor ofthe cage, his wings huddled tight to his body, he was swinging his headfrom side to side; and when he saw that we watched him, he began a lowcroaking and monotonous utterance, which never changed, but remainedrapid and continuous. I heard McLean whisper to the Virginian, "You bethe knows."

  The Virginian stepped to the door, and then he bent to the graveland beckoned us to come and see. Among the recent footprints at thethreshold the man's boot-heel was plain, as well as the woman's broadtread. But while the man's steps led into the cabin, they did not leadaway from it. We tracked his course just as we had seen it through theglasses: up the hill from the brush to the window, and then to the door.But he had never walked out again. Yet in the cabin he was not; we toreup the half-floor that it had. There was no use to dig in the earth. Andall the while that we were at this search the parrot remained crouchedin the bottom of his cage, his black eye fixed upon our movements.

  "She has carried him," said the Virginian. "We must follow upWillomene."

  The latest heavy set of footprints led us from the door along the ditch,where they sank deep in the softer soil; then they turned off sharplyinto the mountains.

  "This is the cut-off trail," said McLean to me. "The same he brought herin by."

  The tracks were very clear, and evidently had been made by a personmoving slowly. Whatever theories our various minds were now shaping, noone spoke a word to his neighbor, but we went along with a hush over us.

  After some walking, Wiggin suddenly stopped and pointed.

  We had come to the edge of the timber, where a narrow black canyonbegan, and ahead of us the trail drew near a slanting ledge, where thefooting was of small loose stones. I recognized the odor, the volcanicwhiff, that so often prowls and meets one in the lonely woods of thatregion, but at first I failed to make out what had set us all running.

  "Is he looking down into the hole himself?" some one asked; and thenI did see a figure, the figure I had looked at through the glasses,leaning strangely over the edge of Pitchstone Canyon, as if indeed hewas peering to watch what might be in the bottom.

  We came near. But those eyes were sightless, and in the skull the storyof the axe was carved. By a piece of his clothing he was hooked in thetwisted roots of a dead tree, and hung there at the extreme verge. Iwent to look over, and Lin McLean caught me as I staggered at the sightI saw. He would have lost his own foothold in saving me had not one ofthe others held him from above.

  She was there below; Hank's woman, brought from Austria to the NewWorld. The vision of that brown bundle lying in the water will neverleave me, I think. She had carried the body to this point; but had sheintended this end? Or was some part of it an accident? Had she meant totake him with her? Had she meant to stay behind herself? No word camefrom these dead to answer us. But as we stood speaking there, a giantpuff of breath rose up to us between the black walls.

  "There's that fluffy sigh I told yu' about," said the Virginian.

  "He's talkin' to her! I tell yu' he's talkin' to her!" burst out McLean,suddenly, in such a voice that we stared as he pointed at the man in thetree. "See him lean over! He's sayin', 'I have yu' beat after all.'" AndMcLean fell to whimpering.

  Wiggin took the boy's arm kindly and walked him along the trail. He didnot seem twenty yet. Life had not shown this side of itself to him soplainly before.

  "Let's get out of here," said the Virginian.

  It seemed one more pitiful straw that the lonely bundle should beleft i
n such a vault of doom, with no last touches of care from itsfellow-beings, and no heap of kind earth to hide it. But whether theplace is deadly or not, man dares not venture into it. So they took Hankfrom the tree that night, and early next morning they buried him nearcamp on the top of a little mound.

  But the thought of Willomene lying in Pitchstone Canyon had kept sleepfrom me through that whole night, nor did I wish to attend Hank'sburial. I rose very early, while the sunshine had still a long way tocome down to us from the mountain-tops, and I walked back along thecut-off trail. I was moved to look once more upon that frightful place.And as I came to the edge of the timber, there was the Virginian. He didnot expect any one. He had set up the crucifix as near the dead tree asit could be firmly planted.

  "It belongs to her, anyway," he explained.

  Some lines of verse came into my memory, and with a change or two Iwrote them as deep as I could with my pencil upon a small board that hesmoothed for me.

  "Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves theyhover, And with flowers and leaves do cover The friendless bodies ofunburied men. Call to this funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, andthe mole To rear her hillocks that shall keep her warm.

  "That kind o' quaint language reminds me of a play I seen onced in SayntPaul," said the Virginian. "About young Prince Henry."

  I told him that another poet was the author.

  "They are both good writers," said the Virginian. And as he wasfinishing the monument that we had made, young Lin McLean joined us.He was a little ashamed of the feelings that he had shown yesterday, alittle anxious to cover those feelings with brass.

  "Well," he said, taking an offish, man-of-the-world tone, "all this fussjust because a woman believed in God."

  "You have put it down wrong," said the Virginian; "it's just because aman didn't."

  Padre Ignazio

  At Santa Ysabel del Mar the season was at one of its moments when theair hangs quiet over land and sea. The old breezes had gone; the newones were not yet risen. The flowers in the mission garden opened wide,for no wind came by day or night to shake the loose petals from theirstems. Along the basking, silent, many-colored shore gathered andlingered the crisp odors of the mountains. The dust floated golden andmotionless long after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific laylike a floor of sapphire, on which to walk beyond the setting sun intothe East. One white sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had beenfrom dawn till afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and thepadre had hoped that it might be his ship. But it had slowly passed.Now from an arch in his garden cloisters he was watching the last of it.Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The padre put hisglasses in his lap. For a short while he read in his breviary, but soonforgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny ridges, then atthe huge blue triangle of sea which the opening of the hills let intosight. "Paradise," he murmured, "need not hold more beauty and peace. ButI think I would exchange all my remaining years of this for one sightagain of Paris or Seville. May God forgive me such a thought!"

  Across the unstirred fragrance of oleanders the bell for vespers beganto ring. Its tones passed over the padre as he watched the sea in hisgarden. They reached his parishioners in their adobe dwellings nearby. The gentle circles of sound floated outward upon the smooth immensesilence--over the vines and pear-trees; down the avenues of the olives;into the planted fields, whence women and children began to return; thenout of the lap of the valley along the yellow uplands, where the menthat rode among the cattle paused, looking down like birds at the mapof their home. Then the sound widened, faint, unbroken, until it metTemptation riding towards the padre from the south, and cheered thesteps of Temptation's jaded horse.

  "For a day, one single day of Paris!" repeated the padre, gazing throughhis cloisters at the empty sea.

  Once in the year the mother-world remembered him. Once in the year abarkentine came sailing with news and tokens from Spain. It was in1685 that a galleon had begun such voyages up to the lower country fromAcapulco, where she loaded the cargo that had come across Tehuantepec onmules from Vera Cruz. By 1768 she had added the new mission of San Diegoto her ports. In the year that we, a thin strip of colonists away overon the Atlantic edge of the continent, declared ourselves an independentnation, that Spanish ship, in the name of Saint Francis, was unloadingthe centuries of her own civilization at the Golden Gate. Then, slowly,as mission after mission was planted along the soft coast wilderness,she made new stops--at Santa Barbara, for instance; and by Point SanLuis for San Luis Obispo, that lay inland a little way up the gorgewhere it opened among the hills. Thus the world reached these placesby water; while on land, through the mountains, a road came to lead tothem, and also to many more that were too distant behind the hillsfor ships to serve--a long, lonely, rough road, punctuated with churchtowers and gardens. For the fathers gradually so stationed theirsettlements that the traveller might each morning ride out from onemission and by evening of a day's fair journey ride into the next. Along, rough road; and in its way pretty to think of now.

  So there, by-and-by, was our continent, with the locomotive whistlingfrom Savannah to Boston along its eastern edge, and on the other thescattered chimes of Spain ringing among the unpeopled mountains. Thusgrew the two sorts of civilization--not equally. We know what hashappened since. To-day the locomotive is whistling also from the GoldenGate to San Diego; but the old mission road goes through the mountainsstill, and on it the steps of vanished Spain are marked with roses, andwhite cloisters, and the crucifix.

  But this was 1855. Only the barkentine brought the world that he lovedto the padre. As for the new world which was making a rude noise to thenorthward, he trusted that it might keep away from Santa Ysabel, and hewaited for the vessel that was overdue with its package containing hissingle worldly indulgence.

  As the little, ancient bronze bell continued its swinging in the tower,its plaintive call reached something in the padre's memory. Withoutknowing, he began to sing. He took up the slow strain not quitecorrectly, and dropped it, and took it up again, always in cadence withthe bell:

  [Musical Score Appears Here]

  At length he heard himself, and glancing at the belfry, smiled a little."It is a pretty tune," he said, "and it always made me sorry for poorFra Diavolo. Auber himself confessed to me that he had made it sadand put the hermitage bell to go with it because he too was grieved athaving to kill his villain, and wanted him to die, if possible, in areligious frame of mind. And Auber touched glasses with me and said--howwell I remember it!--'Is it the good Lord, or is it merely the devil,that makes me always have a weakness for rascals?' I told him it was thedevil. I was not a priest then. I could not be so sure with my answernow." And then Padre Ignazio repeated Auber's remark in French: "'Est-cele bon Dieu, on est-ce bien le diable, qui me fait tonjours aimer lescoquins?' I don't know! I don't know! I wonder if Auber has composedanything lately? I wonder who is singing Zerlina now?"

  He cast a farewell look at the ocean, and took his steps between themonastic herbs and the oleanders to the sacristy. "At least," he said,"if we cannot carry with us into exile the friends and the places thatwe have loved, music will go where we go, even to such an end of theworld as this. Felipe!" he called to his organist. "Can they sing themusic I taught them for the Dixit Dominus to-night?"

  "Yes, father, surely."

  "Then we will have that. And, Felipe--" The padre crossed the chancel tothe small shabby organ. "Rise, my child, and listen. Here is somethingyou can learn. Why, see now if you cannot learn it with a singlehearing."

  The swarthy boy of sixteen stood watching his master's fingers, delicateand white, as they played. So of his own accord he had begun to watchthem when a child of six; and the padre had taken the wild, half-scared,spellbound creature and made a musician of him.

  "There, Felipe!" he said now. "Can you do it? Slower, and more softly,muchacho. It is about the death of a man, and it should go with ourbell."

  The boy listened. "Then the
father has played it a tone too low," saidhe; "for our bell rings the note of sol, or something very near it, asthe father must surely know." He placed the melody in the right key--aneasy thing for him; but the padre was delighted.

  "Ah, my Felipe," he exclaimed, "what could you and I not do if we had abetter organ! Only a little better! See! above this row of keys would bea second row, and many more stops. Then we would make such music as hasnever been heard in California yet. But my people are so poor and sofew! And some day I shall have passed from them, and it will be toolate."

  "Perhaps," ventured Felipe, "the Americanos--"

  "They care nothing for us, Felipe. They are not of our religion--or ofany religion, from what I can hear. Don't forget my Dixit Dominus."And the padre retired once more to the sacristy, while the horse thatcarried Temptation came over the hill.

  The hour of service drew near; and as he waited, the padre once againstepped out for a look at the ocean; but the blue triangle of water laylike a picture in its frame of land, empty as the sky. "I think, fromthe color, though," said he, "that a little more wind must have begunout there."

  The bell rang a last short summons to prayer. Along the road from thesouth a young rider, leading one pack-animal, ambled into the missionand dismounted. Church was not so much in his thoughts as food and, indue time after that, a bed; but the doors stood open, and as everybodywas going into them, more variety was to be gained by joining thiscompany than by waiting outside alone until they should return fromtheir devotions. So he seated himself at the back, and after a brief,jaunty glance at the sunburnt, shaggy congregation, made himself ascomfortable as might be. He had not seen a face worth keeping his eyesopen for. The simple choir and simple fold gathered for even-song, andpaid him no attention on their part--a rough American bound for themines was no longer anything but an object of aversion to them.

  The padre, of course, had been instantly aware of the stranger'spresence. For this is the sixth sense with vicars of every creed andheresy; and if the parish is lonely and the worshippers few and seldomvarying, a newcomer will gleam out like a new book to be read. And atrained priest learns to read shrewdly the faces of those who assembleto worship under his guidance. But American vagrants, with no thoughtssave of gold-digging, and an overweening illiterate jargon for theirspeech, had long ceased to interest this priest, even in his starvationfor company and talk from the outside world; and therefore after theintoning, he sat with his homesick thoughts unchanged, to draw both painand enjoyment from the music that he had set to the Dixit Dominus. Helistened to the tender chorus that opens "William Tell"; and as theLatin psalm proceeded, pictures of the past rose between him and thealtar. One after another came these strains which he had taken from theoperas famous in their day, until at length the padre was murmuring tosome music seldom long out of his heart--not the Latin verse which thechoir sang, but the original French words:

  "Ah, voile man envie, Voila mon seul desir: Rendez moi ma patrie, Ou laissez moi mourir."

  Which may be rendered:

  But one wish I implore, One wish is all my cry: Give back my native land once more, Give back, or let me die.

  Then it happened that he saw the stranger in the back of the churchagain, and forgot his Dixit Dominus straightway. The face of the youngman was no longer hidden by the slouching position he had at firsttaken. "I only noticed his clothes before," thought the padre.Restlessness was plain upon the handsome brow, and in the mouth therewas violence; but Padre Ignazio liked the eyes. "He is not saying anyprayers," he surmised, presently. "I doubt if he has said any for a longwhile. And he knows my music. He is of educated people. He cannot beAmerican. And now--yes, he has taken--I think it must be a flower, fromhis pocket. I shall have him to dine with me." And vespers ended withrosy clouds of eagerness drifting across the padre's brain.

  But the stranger made his own beginning. As the priest came from thechurch, the rebellious young figure was waiting. "Your organist tellsme," he said, impetuously, "that it is you who--"

  "May I ask with whom I have the great pleasure of speaking?" said thepadre, putting formality to the front and his pleasure out of sight.

  The stranger reddened, and became aware of the padre's features, mouldedby refinement and the world. "I beg your lenience," said he, with agraceful and confident utterance, as of equal to equal. "My name isGaston Villere, and it was time I should be reminded of my manners."

  The padre's hand waved a polite negative.

  "Indeed yes, padre. But your music has astonished me to pieces. If youcarried such associations as--Ah! the days and the nights!" he brokeoff. "To come down a California mountain," he resumed, "and find Parisat the bottom! 'The Huguenots,' Rossini, Herold--I was waiting for 'IlTrovatore."'

  "Is that something new?" said the padre, eagerly.

  The young man gave an exclamation. "The whole world is ringing with it,"he said.

  "But Santa Ysabel del Mar is a long way from the whole world," saidPadre Ignazio.

  "Indeed it would not appear to be so," returned young Gaston. "I thinkthe Comedie Francaise must be round the corner."

  A thrill went through the priest at the theatre's name. "And have youbeen long in America?" he asked.

  "Why, always--except two years of foreign travel after college."

  "An American!" said the surprised padre, with perhaps a flavor ofdisappointment in his voice. "But no Americans who have yet come thisway have been--have been"--he veiled the too blunt expression of histhought--"have been familiar with 'The Huguenots,'" he finished, makinga slight bow.

  Villere took his under-meaning. "I come from New Orleans," he returned."And in New Orleans there live many of us who can recognize a--who canrecognize good music wherever we meet it." And he made a slight bow inhis turn.

  The padre laughed outright with pleasure, and laid his hand upon theyoung man's arm. "You have no intention of going away tomorrow, Itrust?" said he.

  "With your leave," answered Gaston, "I will have such an intention nolonger."

  It was with the air and gait of mutual understanding that the two nowwalked on together towards the padre's door. The guest was twenty-five,the host sixty.

  "And have you been in America long?" inquired Gaston.

  "Twenty years."

  "And at Santa Ysabel how long?"

  "Twenty years."

  "I should have thought," said Gaston, looking lightly at the emptymountains, "that now and again you might have wished to travel."

  "Were I your age," murmured Padre Ignazio, "it might be so."

  The evening had now ripened to the long after-glow of sunset. The seawas the purple of grapes, and wine colored hues flowed among the highshoulders of the mountains.

  "I have seen a sight like this," said Gaston, "between Granada andMalaga."

  "So you know Spain!" said the padre.

  Often he had thought of this resemblance, but never heard it told tohim before. The courtly proprietor of San Fernando, and the otherpatriarchal rancheros with whom he occasionally exchanged visits acrossthe wilderness, knew hospitality and inherited gentle manners, sendingto Europe for silks and laces to give their daughters; but their eyeshad not looked upon Granada, and their ears had never listened to"William Tell."

  "It is quite singular," pursued Gaston, "how one nook in the world willsuddenly remind you of another nook that may be thousands of miles away.One morning, behind the Quai Voltaire, an old yellow house with rustybalconies made me almost homesick for New Orleans."

  "The Quai Voltaire!" said the padre.

  "I heard Rachel in 'Valerie' that night," the young man went on."Did you know that she could sing too? She sang several verses by anastonishing little Jew musician that has come up over there."

  The padre gazed down at his blithe guest. "To see somebody, somebody,once again," he said, "is very pleasant to a hermit."

  "It cannot be more p
leasant than arriving at an oasis," returned Gaston.

  They had delayed on the threshold to look at the beauty of the evening,and now the priest watched his parishioners come and go. "How can onemake companions--" he began; then, checking himself, he said: "Theirsouls are as sacred and immortal as mine, and God helps me to helpthem. But in this world it is not immortal souls that we choose forcompanions; it is kindred tastes, intelligences, and--and so I and mybooks are growing old together, you see," he added, more lightly. "Youwill find my volumes as behind the times as myself."

  He had fallen into talk more intimate than he wished; and while theguest was uttering something polite about the nobility of missionarywork, he placed him in an easy-chair and sought aguardiente for hisimmediate refreshment. Since the year's beginning there had been noguest for him to bring into his rooms, or to sit beside him in the highseats at table, set apart for the gente fina.

  Such another library was not then in California; and though GastonVillere, in leaving Harvard College, had shut Horace and Sophoclesforever at the earliest instant possible under academic requirements, heknew the Greek and Latin names that he now saw as well as he knew thoseof Shakespeare, Dante, Moliere, and Cervantes. These were here also; norcould it be precisely said of them, either, that they made a part of theyoung man's daily reading. As he surveyed the padre's august shelves,it was with a touch of the florid Southern gravity which his Northerneducation had not wholly schooled out of him that he said:

  "I fear that I am no scholar, sir. But I know what writers everygentleman ought to respect."

  The subtle padre bowed gravely to this compliment.

  It was when his eyes caught sight of the music that the young man feltagain at ease, and his vivacity returned to him. Leaving his chair, hebegan enthusiastically to examine the tall piles that filled one side ofthe room. The volumes lay richly everywhere, making a pleasantdisorder; and as perfume comes out of a flower, memories of singers andchandeliers rose bright from the printed names. "Norma," "Tancredi,""Don Pasquale," "La Vestale"--dim lights in the fashions ofto-day--sparkled upon the exploring Gaston, conjuring the radianthalls of Europe before him. "'The Barber of Seville!'" he presentlyexclaimed. "And I happened to hear it in Seville."

  But Seville's name brought over the padre a new rush of home thoughts."Is not Andalusia beautiful?" he said. "Did you see it in April, whenthe flowers come?"

  "Yes," said Gaston, among the music. "I was at Cordova then."

  "Ah, Cordova!" murmured the padre.

  "'Semiramide!'" cried Gaston, lighting upon that opera. "That was aweek! I should like to live it over, every day and night of it!"

  "Did you reach Malaga from Marseilles or Gibraltar?" said the padre,wistfully.

  "From Marseilles. Down from Paris through the Rhone Valley, you know."

  "Then you saw Provence! And did you go, perhaps, from Avignon to Nismesby the Pont du Gard? There is a place I have made here--a little, littleplace--with olive-trees. And now they have grown, and it looks somethinglike that country, if you stand in a particular position. I will takeyou there to-morrow. I think you will understand what I mean."

  "Another resemblance!" said the volatile and happy Gaston. "We both seemto have an eye for them. But, believe me, padre, I could never stay hereplanting olives. I should go back and see the original ones--and thenI'd hasten up to Paris." And, with a volume of Meyerbeer open in hishand, Gaston hummed: "'Robert, Robert, toi que j'aime.' Why, padre,I think that your library contains none of the masses and all of theoperas in the world!"

  "I will make you a little confession," said Padre Ignazio, "and then youshall give me a little absolution."

  "With a penance," said Gaston. "You must play over some of these thingsto me."

  "I suppose that I could not permit myself this indulgence," began thepadre, pointing to his operas; "and teach these to my choir, if thepeople had any worldly associations with the music. But I have reasonedthat the music cannot do them harm--"

  The ringing of a bell here interrupted him. "In fifteen minutes," hesaid, "our poor meal will be ready for you." The good padre wasnot quite sincere when he spoke of a poor meal. While getting theaguardiente for his guest he had given orders, and he knew how well suchorders could be carried out. He lived alone, and generally supped simplyenough, but not even the ample table at San Fernando could surpass hisown on occasions. And this was for him an occasion indeed!

  "Your half-breeds will think I am one of themselves," said Gaston,showing his dusty clothes. "I am not fit to be seated with you." He,too, was not more sincere than his host. In his pack, which an Indianhad brought from his horse, he carried some garments of civilization.And presently, after fresh water and not a little painstaking with brushand scarf, there came back to the padre a young guest whose elegance andbearing and ease of the great world were to the exiled priest as sweetas was his traveled conversation.

  They repaired to the hall and took their seats at the head of the longtable. For the stately Spanish centuries of custom lived at Santa Ysabeldel Mar, inviolate, feudal, remote.

  They were the only persons of quality present; and between themselvesand the gente de razon a space intervened. Behind the padre's chairstood an Indian to wait upon him, and another stood behind the chair ofGaston Villere. Each of these servants wore one single white garment,and offered the many dishes to the gente fina and refilled theirglasses. At the lower end of the table a general attendant waited uponthe mesclados--the half-breeds. There was meat with spices, and roastedquail, with various cakes and other preparations of grain; also theblack fresh olives, and grapes, with several sorts of figs and plums,and preserved fruits, and white and red wine--the white fifty yearsold. Beneath the quiet shining of candles, fresh-cut flowers leaned fromvessels of old Mexican and Spanish make.

  There at one end of this feast sat the wild, pastoral, gaudy company,speaking little over their food; and there at the other the pale padre,questioning his visitor about Rachel. The mere name of a street wouldbring memories crowding to his lips; and when his guest would tell himof a new play, he was ready with old quotations from the same author.Alfred de Vigny they had, and Victor Hugo, whom the padre disliked. Longafter the dulce, or sweet dish, when it was the custom for the vaquerosand the rest of the retainers to rise and leave the gente fina tothemselves, the host sat on in the empty hall, fondly telling the guestof his bygone Paris, and fondly learning of the Paris that was to-day.And thus the two lingered, exchanging their fervors, while the candleswaned, and the long-haired Indians stood silent behind the chairs.

  "But we must go to my piano," the host exclaimed. For at length they hadcome to a lusty difference of opinion. The padre, with ears criticallydeaf, and with smiling, unconvinced eyes, was shaking his head, whileyoung Gaston sang "Trovatore" at him, and beat upon the table with afork.

  "Come and convert me, then," said Padre Ignazio, and he led the way."Donizetti I have always admitted. There, at least, is refinement.If the world has taken to this Verdi, with his street-band music--Butthere, now! Sit down and convert me. Only don't crush my poor littleErard with Verdi's hoofs. I brought it when I came. It is behind thetimes too. And, oh, my dear boy, our organ is still worse. So old, soold! To get a proper one I would sacrifice even this piano of mine in amoment--only the tinkling thing is not worth a sou to anybody except itsmaster. But there! Are you quite comfortable?" And having seen to hisguest's needs, and placed spirits and cigars and an ash-tray within hisreach, the padre sat himself luxuriously in his chair to hear and exposethe false doctrine of "Il Trovatore."

  By midnight all of the opera that Gaston could recall had been playedand sung twice. The convert sat in his chair no longer, but stoodsinging by the piano. The potent swing and flow of tunes, the torrid,copious inspiration of the South, mastered him. "Verdi has grown," hecried. "Verdi has become a giant." And he swayed to the beat of themelodies, and waved an enthusiastic arm. He demanded every crumb. Whydid not Gaston remember it all? But if the barkentine would arrive andbring the whole music,
then they would have it right! And he made Gastonteach him what words he knew."'Non ti scordar,"' he sang--"'non tiscordar di me.' That is genius. But one sees how the world; moves whenone is out of it. 'A nostri monti ritorneremo'; home to our mountains.Ah, yes, there is genius again." And the exile sighed and his spiritwent to distant places, while Gaston continued brilliantly with themusic of the final scene.

  Then the host remembered his guest. "I am ashamed of my selfishness," hesaid. "It is already to-morrow."

  "I have sat later in less good company," answered the pleasant Gaston."And I shall sleep all the sounder for making a convert."

  "You have dispensed roadside alms," said the padre, smiling. "And thatshould win excellent dreams."

  Thus, with courtesies more elaborate than the world has time for at thepresent day, they bade each other good-night and parted, bearing theirlate candles along the quiet halls of the mission. To young Gaston inhis bed easy sleep came without waiting, and no dreams at all. Outsidehis open window was the quiet, serene darkness, where the stars shoneclear, and tranquil perfumes hung in the cloisters. And while the guestlay sleeping all night in unchanged position like a child, up and downbetween the oleanders went Padre Ignazio, walking until dawn.

  Day showed the ocean's surface no longer glassy, but lying like a mirrorbreathed upon; and there between the short headlands came a sail,gray and plain against the flat water. The priest watched through hisglasses, and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of thebarkentine. The message from his world was at hand, yet to-day hescarcely cared so much. Sitting in his garden yesterday he could neverhave imagined such a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentineas usual. Books, music, pale paper, and print--this was all that wascoming to him, and some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice oflife had been speaking with him face to face, and in his spirit, deepdown, the love of the world was restlessly answering that call. YoungGaston showed more eagerness than the padre over this arrival of thevessel that might be bringing "Trovatore" in the nick of time. Now hewould have the chance, before he took his leave, to help rehearse thenew music with the choir. He would be a missionary too. A perfectly newexperience.

  "And you still forgive Verdi the sins of his youth?" he said to hishost. "I wonder if you could forgive mine?"

  "Verdi has left his behind him," retorted the padre.

  "But I am only twenty-five," explained Gaston, pathetically.

  "Ah, don't go away soon!" pleaded the exile. It was the plainest burstthat had escaped him, and he felt instant shame.

  But Gaston was too much elated with the enjoyment of each new day tounderstand. The shafts of another's pain might scarcely pierce thebright armor of his gayety. He mistook the priest's exclamation foranxiety about his own happy soul.

  "Stay here under your care?" he said. "It would do me no good, padre.Temptation sticks closer to me than a brother!" and he gave that laughof his which disarmed severer judges than his host. "By next week Ishould have introduced some sin or other into your beautiful Garden ofIgnorance here. It will be much safer for your flock if I go and jointhe other serpents at San Francisco."

  Soon after breakfast the padre had his two mules saddled, and he and hisguest set forth down the hills together to the shore. And beneath thespell and confidence of pleasant, slow riding, and the loveliness ofeverything, the young man talked freely of himself.

  "And, seriously," said he, "if I missed nothing else at Santa Ysabel, Ishould long to hear the birds. At home our gardens are full of them, andone smells the jasmine, and they sing and sing! When our ship fromthe Isthmus put into San Diego, I decided to go on by land and seeCalifornia. Then, after the first days, I began to miss something. Allthat beauty seemed empty, in a way. And suddenly I found it was thebirds. For these little scampering quail are nothing. There seems a sortof death in the air where no birds ever sing."

  "You will not find any birds at San Francisco," said the padre.

  "I shall find life!" exclaimed Gaston. "And my fortune at the mines, Ihope. I am not a bad fellow, father. You can easily guess all the thingsthat I do. I have never, to my knowledge, harmed any one. I did not eventry to kill my adversary in an affair of honor. I gave him a mere fleshwound, and by this time he must be quite recovered. He was my friend.But as he came between me--"

  Gaston stopped; and the padre, looking keenly at him, saw the violencethat he had noticed in church pass like a flame over the young man'shandsome face.

  "There's nothing dishonorable," said Gaston, answering the priest'slook.

  "I have not thought so, my son."

  "I did what every gentleman would do," said Gaston.

  "And that is often wrong!" cried the padre. "But I'm not yourconfessor."

  "I've nothing to confess," said Gaston, frankly. "I left New Orleans atonce, and have travelled an innocent journey straight to you. And when Imake my fortune I shall be in a position to return and--"

  "Claim the pressed flower!" put in the padre, laughing.

  "Ah, you remember how those things are!" said Gaston; and he laughedalso and blushed.

  "Yes," said the padre, looking at the anchored barkentine, "I rememberhow those things are." And for a while the vessel and its cargo and thelanded men and various business and conversations occupied them. But thefreight for the mission once seen to, there was not much else to hangabout here for.

  The barkentine was only a coaster like many others which now had begunto fill the sea a little more of late years, and presently host andguest were riding homeward. And guessing at the two men from theiroutsides, any one would have got them precisely wrong; for within theturbulent young figure of Gaston dwelt a spirit that could not be moreat ease, while revolt was steadily smouldering beneath the schooled andplacid mask of the padre.

  Yet still the strangeness of his being at such a place came back asa marvel into the young man's lively mind. Twenty years in prison, hethought, and hardly aware of it! And he glanced at the silent priest.A man so evidently fond of music, of theatres, of the world, to whompressed flowers had meant something once--and now contented to bleachupon these wastes! Not even desirous of a brief holiday, but findingan old organ and some old operas enough recreation! "It is his age, Isuppose," thought Gaston. And then the notion of himself when he shouldbe sixty occurred to him, and he spoke.

  "Do you know, I do not believe," said he, "that I should ever reach suchcontentment as yours."

  "Perhaps you will," said Padre Ignazio, in a low voice.

  "Never!" declared the youth. "It comes only to the few, I am sure."

  "Yes. Only to the few," murmured the padre.

  "I am certain that it must be a great possession," Gaston continued;"and yet--and yet--dear me! life is a splendid thing!"

  "There are several sorts of it," said the padre.

  "Only one for me!" cried Gaston. "Action, men, women, things--to bethere, to be known, to play a part, to sit in the front seats; to havepeople tell each other, 'There goes Gaston Villere!' and to deserveone's prominence. Why, if I were Padre of Santa Ysabel del Mar fortwenty years--no! for one year--do you know what I should have done?Some day it would have been too much for me. I should have left thesesavages to a pastor nearer their own level, and I should have riddendown this canyon upon my mule, and stepped on board the barkentine, andgone back to my proper sphere. You will understand, sir, that I am farfrom venturing to make any personal comment. I am only thinking what aworld of difference lies between men's natures who can feel alike as wedo upon so many subjects. Why, not since leaving New Orleans have Imet any one with whom I could talk, except of the weather and the bruteinterests common to us all. That such a one as you should be here islike a dream."

  "But it is not a dream," said the padre.

  "And, sir--pardon me if I do say this--are you not wasted at SantaYsabel del Mar? I have seen the priests at the other missions Theyare--the sort of good men that I expected. But are you needed to savesuch souls as these?"

  "There is no aristocracy of souls," said
the padre, almost whisperingnow.

  "But the body and the mind!" cried Gaston. "My God, are they nothing? Doyou think that they are given to us for nothing but a trap? You cannotteach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about allthe cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society thebrightest of us grow numb? You have held out. But will it be for long?Do you not owe yourself to the saving of higher game henceforth? Are nottwenty years of mesclados enough? No, no!" finished young Gaston, hotwith his unforeseen eloquence; "I should ride down some morning and takethe barkentine."

  Padre Ignazio was silent for a space.

  "I have not offended you?" said the young man.

  "No. Anything but that. You are surprised that I should--choose--to stayhere. Perhaps you may have wondered how I came to be here at all?"

  "I had not intended any impertinent--"

  "Oh no. Put such an idea out of your head, my son. You may remember thatI was going to make you a confession about my operas. Let us sit down inthis shade."

  So they picketed the mules near the stream and sat down.

  "You have seen," began Padre Ignazio, "what sort of a man I--was once.Indeed, it seems very strange to myself that you should have been herenot twenty-four hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has comeno one else at all"--the padre paused a moment and mastered theunsteadiness that he had felt approaching in his voice--"there has beenno one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I hadno thought of being a priest. My parents destined me for a diplomaticcareer. There was plenty of money and--and all the rest of it; for byinheritance came to me the acquaintance of many people whose namesyou would be likely to have heard of. Cities, people of fashion,artists--the whole of it was my element and my choice; and by-and-by Imarried, not only where it was desirable, but where I loved. Thenfor the first time Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and Iunderstood many things that had been only words to me hitherto. Lookingback, it seemed to me that I had never done anything except for myselfall my days. I left the world. In due time I became a priest and livedin my own country. But my worldly experience and my secular educationhad given to my opinions a turn too liberal for the place where my workwas laid. I was soon advised concerning this by those in authority overme. And since they could not change me and I could not change them,yet wished to work and to teach, the New World was suggested, and Ivolunteered to give the rest of my life to missions. It was soon foundthat some one was needed here, and for this little place I sailed, andto these humble people I have dedicated my service. They are pastoralcreatures of the soil. Their vineyard and cattle days are apt to be likethe sun and storm around them--strong alike in their evil and intheir good. All their years they live as children--children with men'spassions given to them like deadly weapons, unable to measure the harmtheir impulses may bring. Hence, even in their crimes, their hearts willgenerally open soon to the one great key of love, while civilizationmakes locks which that key cannot always fit at the first turn. Andcoming to know this," said Padre Ignazio, fixing his eyes steadily uponGaston, "you will understand how great a privilege it is to help suchpeople, and hour the sense of something accomplished--under God--shouldbring contentment with renunciation."

  "Yes," said Gaston Villere. Then, thinking of himself, "I can understandit in a man like you."

  "Do not speak of me at all!" exclaimed the padre, almost passionately."But pray Heaven that you may find the thing yourself some day--contentment with renunciation--and never let it go."

  "Amen!" said Gaston, strangely moved.

  "That is the whole of my story," the priest continued, with no moreof the recent stress in his voice. "And now I have talked to you aboutmyself quite enough. But you must have my confession." He had nowresumed entirely his half-playful tone. "I was just a little mistaken,you see too self-reliant, perhaps--when I supposed, in my firstmissionary ardor, that I could get on without any remembrance of theworld at all. I found that I could not. And so I have taught the oldoperas to my choir--such parts of them as are within our compass andsuitable for worship. And certain of my friends still alive at home aregood enough to remember this taste of mine, and to send me each yearsome of the new music that I should never hear of otherwise. Then westudy these things also. And although our organ is a miserable affair,Felipe manages very cleverly to make it do. And while the voices aresinging these operas, especially the old ones, what harm is thereif sometimes the priest is thinking of something else? So there's myconfession! And now, whether 'Trovatore' has come or not, I shallnot allow you to leave us until you have taught all you know of it toFelipe."

  The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pagesPadre Ignazio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could betaken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoonFelipe and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l'error t' ingombra"without slip or falter.

  Those were strange rehearsals of "Il Trovatore" upon this Californiashore. For the padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fastor too slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, thelittle Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden.There, in the cloisters among the oleanders, in the presence of the tallyellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the "Miserere" was slowlylearned. The Mexicans and Indians gathered, swarthy and black-haired,around the tinkling instrument that Felipe played; and presiding overthem were young Gaston and the pale padre, walking up and down thepaths, beating time, or singing now one part and now another. And so itwas that the wild cattle on the uplands would hear "Trovatore" hummed bya passing vaquero, while the same melody was filling the streets of thefar-off world.

  For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; andthough not a word of the sort came from him, his host could read SanFrancisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man couldnot have stayed here for twenty years! And the padre forbore urging hisguest to extend his visit.

  "But the world is small," the guest declared at parting. "Some day itwill not be able to spare you any longer. And then we are sure to meet.And you shall hear from me soon, at any rate."

  Again, as upon the first evening, the two exchanged a few courtesies,more graceful and particular than we, who have not time, and fight noduels, find worth a man's while at the present day. For duels are gone,which is a very good thing, and with them a certain careful politeness,which is a pity; but that is the way in the general profit and loss. Soyoung Gaston rode northward out of the mission, back to the world andhis fortune; and the padre stood watching the dust after the rider hadpassed from sight. Then he went into his room with a drawn face. Butappearances at least had been kept up to the end; the youth would neverknow of the old man's discontent.

  Temptation had arrived with Gaston, but was going to make a longer stayat Santa Ysabel del Mar. Yet it was something like a week before thepriest knew what guest he had in his house now. The guest was not alwayspresent--made himself scarce quite often.

  Sail away on the barkentine? That was a wild notion, to be sure,although fit enough to enter the brain of such a young scapegrace. Thepadre shook his head and smiled affectionately when he thought of GastonVillere. The youth's handsome, reckless countenance would come beforehim, and he repeated Auber's old remark, "Is it the good Lord, or is itmerely the devil, that always makes me have a weakness for rascals?"

  Sail away on the barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people here--ofFelipe! In what words should he tell the boy to go on industriously withhis music? No, this could not be imagined. The mere parting alone wouldmake it forever impossible that he should think of such a thing. "Andthen," he said to himself each new morning, when he looked out at theocean, "I have given my life to them. One does not take back a gift."

  Pictures of his departure began to shine and melt in his drifting fancy.He saw himself explaining to Felipe that now his presence was wantedelsewhere; that there would come a successor to take care of SantaYsabel--a younger man, more useful, and able to visit sick peopl
e at adistance. "For I am old now. I should not be long here in any case." Hestopped and pressed his hands together; he had caught his temptation inthe very act. Now he sat staring at his temptation's face, close to him,while there in the triangle two ships went sailing by.

  One morning Felipe told him that the barkentine was here on its returnvoyage south. "Indeed?" said the padre, coldly. "The things are ready togo, I think." For the vessel called for mail and certain boxes thatthe mission sent away. Felipe left the room, in wonder at the padre'smanner. But the priest was laughing alone inside to see how little itwas to him where the barkentine was, or whether it should be comingor going. But in the afternoon, at his piano, he found himself saying,"Other ships call here, at any rate." And then for the first time heprayed to be delivered from his thoughts. Yet presently he left his seatand looked out of the window for a sight of the barkentine; but it wasgone.

  The season of the wine-making passed, and the putting up of allthe fruits that the mission fields grew. Lotions and medicines weredistilled from the garden herbs. Perfume was manufactured from thepetals of the flowers and certain spices, and presents of it despatchedto San Fernando and Ventura, and to friends at other places; for thepadre had a special receipt. As the time ran on, two or three visitorspassed a night with him; and presently there was a word at variousmissions that Padre Ignazio had begun to show his years. At Santa Ysabeldel Mar they whispered, "The padre is getting sick." Yet he rode a greatdeal over the hills by himself, and down the canyon very often, stoppingwhere he had sat with Gaston, to sit alone and look up and down, now atthe hills above, and now at the ocean below. Among his parishionershe had certain troubles to soothe, certain wounds to heal; a home fromwhich he was able to drive jealousy; a girl whom he bade her lover setright. But all said, "The padre is sick." And Felipe told them thatthe music seemed nothing to him any more; he never asked for his DixitDominus nowadays. Then for a short time he was really in bed, feverishwith the two voices that spoke to him without ceasing. "You have givenyour life," said one voice. "And therefore," said the other, "haveearned the right to go home and die." "You are winning better rewards inthe service of God," said the first voice. "God can be served in otherplaces than this," answered the second. As he lay listening he sawSeville again, and the trees of Aranhal, where he had been born. Thewind was blowing through them; and in their branches he could hear thenightingales. "Empty! Empty!" he said, aloud. "He was right about thebirds. Death does live in the air where they never sing." And he lay fortwo days and nights hearing the wind and the nightingales in the treesof Aranhal. But Felipe, watching, heard only the padre crying throughthe hours: "Empty! Empty!"

  Then the wind in the trees died down, and the padre could get out ofbed, and soon could be in the garden. But the voices within him stilltalked all the while as he sat watching the sails when they passedbetween the headlands. Their words, falling forever the same way, beathis spirit sore, like bruised flesh. If he could only change what theysaid, he could rest.

  "Has the padre any mail for Santa Barbara?" said Felipe. "The ship boundsouthward should be here to-morrow."

  "I will attend to it," said the priest, not moving. And Felipe stoleaway.

  At Felipe's words the voices had stopped, a clock done striking.Silence, strained like expectation, filled the padre's soul. But inplace of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees atAranhal; then would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while ahouseful of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all thepanorama rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the eveningthe padre sat at his Erard playing "Trovatore." Later, in his sleeplessbed he lay, saying now a then: "To die at home! Surely I may grantedat least this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were notspeaking any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful tohim than their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and helay watching its gray grow warm into color, us suddenly he sprang fromhis bed and looked the sea. The southbound ship was coming. People wereon board who in a few weeks would be sailing the Atlantic, while hewould stand here looking out of the same window. "Merciful God!" hecried, sinking on knees. "Heavenly Father, Thou seest this evil in myheart. Thou knowest that my weak hand cannot pluck it out. My strengthis breaking, and still Thou makest my burden heavier than I can bear."He stopped, breathless and trembling. The same visions were flittingacross his closed eyes; the same silence gaped like a dry crater in hissoul. "There is no help in earth or heaven," he said, very quietly; andhe dressed himself.

  It was so early still that none but a few of the Indians were stirring,and one of them saddled the padre's mule. Felipe was not yet awake, andfor a moment it came in the priest's mind to open the boy's door softly,look at him once more, and come away. But this he did not do, noreven take a farewell glance at the church and organ. He bade nothingfarewell, but, turning his back upon his room and his garden, rode downthe caution.

  The vessel lay at anchor, and some one had landed from her and wastalking with other men on the shore. Seeing the priest slowly coming,this stranger approached to meet him.

  "You are connected with the mission here?" he inquired.

  "I--am."

  "Perhaps it is with you that Gaston Villere stopped?"

  "The young man from New Orleans? Yes. I am Padre Ignazio."

  "Then you will save me a journey. I promised him to deliver these intoyour own hands."

  The stranger gave them to him.

  "A bag of gold-dust," he explained, "and a letter. I wrote it from hisdictation while he was dying. He lived scarcely an hour afterwards."

  The stranger bowed his head at the stricken cry which his news elicitedfrom the priest, who, after a few moments vain effort to speak, openedthe letter and read:

  "MY DEAR FRIEND,--It is through no man's fault but mine that I have cometo this. I have had plenty of luck, and lately have been counting thedays until I should return home. But last night heavy news from NewOrleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under thefirst smart and humiliation of broken faith I was rendered desperate,and picked a needless quarrel. Thank God, it is I who have thepunishment. My dear friend, as I lie here, leaving a world that no manever loved more, I have come to understand you. For you and your missionhave been much in my thoughts. It is strange how good can be done, notat the time when it is intended, but afterwards; and you have done thisgood to me. I say over your words, Contentment with renunciation, andbelieve that at this last hour I have gained something like what youwould wish me to feel. For I do not think that I desire it otherwisenow. My life would never have been of service, I am afraid. You are thelast person in this world who has spoken serious words to me, and I wantyou to know that now at length I value the peace of Santa Ysabel as Icould never have done but for seeing your wisdom and goodness. You spokeof a new organ for your church. Take the gold-dust that will reach youwith this, and do what you will with it. Let me at least in dying havehelped some one. And since there is no aristocracy in souls--you saidthat to me; do you remember?--perhaps you will say a mass for thisdeparting soul of mine. I only wish, since my body must go undergroundin a strange country, that it might have been at Santa Ysabel del Mar,where your feet would often pass."

  "'At Santa Ysabel del Mar, where your feet would often pass.'" Thepriest repeated this final sentence aloud, without being aware of it.

  "Those are the last words he ever spoke," said the stranger, "exceptbidding good-bye to me."

  "You knew him well, then?"

  "No; not until after he was hurt. I'm the man he quarrelled with."

  The priest looked at the ship that would sail onward this afternoon.Then a smile of great beauty passed over his face, and he addressed thestranger. "I thank you," said he. "You will never know what you havedone for me."

  "It is nothing," answered the stranger, awkwardly. "He told me you setgreat store on a new organ."

  Padre Ignazio turned away from the ship and rode back through thegorge. When he reached the shady place where o
nce he had sat with GastonVillere, he dismounted and again sat there, alone by the stream, formany hours. Long rides and outings had been lately so much his custom,that no one thought twice of his absence; and when he returned to themission in the afternoon, the Indian took his mule, and he went to hisseat in the garden. But it was with another look that he watched thesea; and presently the sail moved across the blue triangle, and soon ithad rounded the headland. Gaston's first coming was in the padre'smind; and as the vespers bell began to ring in the cloistered silence, afragment of Auber's plaintive tune passed like a sigh across his memory:

  [Musical Score Appears Here]

  But for the repose of Gaston's soul they sang all that he had taughtthem of "Il Trovatore."

  Thus it happened that Padre Ignazio never went home, but remainedcheerful master of the desires to do so that sometimes visited him,until the day came when he was called altogether away from this world,and "passed beyond these voices, where is peace."

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