"It couldn't be"—Dumphy stopped in his speech, with a certain savage alarm in his looks. Arthur noticed it—and quietly went on.
"Who 'couldn't' it be?"
"Nothing—nobody. I was only thinking if Gabriel or somebody could have told the story to some designing rascal."
"Hardly—in sufficient detail."
"Well," said Dumphy, with his coarse bark-like laugh, "if I've got to pay to see Mrs. Dumphy decently buried, I suppose I can rely upon you to see that it's done without a chance of resurrection. Find out who Starbottle's friend is and how much he or she expects. If I've got to pay for this thing I'll do it now, and get the benefit of absolute silence.So I'll leave it in your hands," and he again rose as if dismissing the subject and his visitor, after his habitual business manner.
"Dumphy," said Arthur, still keeping his own seat, and ignoring the significance of Dumphy's manner. "There are two professions that suffer from a want of frankness in the men who seek their services. Those professions are Medicine and the Law. I can understand why a man seeks to deceive his physician, because he is humbugging himself; but I can't see why he is not frank to his lawyer! You are no exception to the rule. You are now concealing fromme, whose aid you have sought, some very important reason why you wish to have this whole affair hidden beneath the snow of Starvation Camp."
"Don't know what you're driving at," said Dumphy. But he sat down again.
"Well, listen to me, and perhaps I can make my meaning clearer. My acquaintance with the late Dr. Devarges began some months before we saw you. During our intimacy he often spoke to me of his scientific discoveries, in which I took some interest, and I remember seeing among his papers frequent records and descriptions of localities in the foot-hills, which he thought bore the indications of great mineral wealth. At that time the Doctor's theories and speculations appeared to me to be visionary, and the records of no value. Nevertheless, when we were shut up in Starvation Camp, and it seemed doubtful if the Doctor would survive his discoveries, at his request I deposited his papers and specimens in a cairn at Monument Point. After the catastrophe, on my return with the relief party to camp, we found that the cairn had been opened by some one and the papers and specimens scattered on the snow. We supposed this to have been the work of Mrs. Brackett, who, in search of food, had broken the cairn, taken out the specimens, anddied from the effects of the poison with which they had been preserved."
He paused and looked at Dumphy, who did not speak.
"Now," continued Arthur, "like all Californians I have followed your various successes with interest and wonder. I have noticed, with the gratification that all your friends experience, the singular good fortune which has distinguished your mining enterprises, and the claims you have located. But I have been cognisant of a fact, unknown I think to any other of your friends, that nearly all of the localities of your successful claims, by a singular coincidence, agree with the memorandums of Dr. Devarges!"
Dumphy sprang to his feet with a savage, brutal laugh. "So," he shouted, coarsely, "that's the game, is it! So it seems I'm lucky in coming to you—no trouble in finding thiswomannow, hey? Well, go on, this is getting interesting; let's hear the rest! What are your propositions, what if I refuse, hey?"
"My first proposition," said Arthur, rising to his feet with a cold wicked light in his grey eyes, "is that you shall instantly take that speech back and beg my pardon! If you refuse, by the living God, I'll throttle you where you stand!"
For one wild moment all the savage animal in Dumphy rose, and he instinctively made a step in the direction of Poinsett. Arthur did not move. Then Mr. Dumphy's practical caution asserted itself. A physical personal struggle with Arthur would bring in witnesses—witnesses perhaps of something more than that personal struggle. If he were victorious, Arthur, unless killed outright, would revenge himself by an exposure. He sank back in his chair again. Had Arthur known the low estimate placed upon his honour by Mr. Dumphy he would have been less complacent in his victory.
"I didn't mean to suspectyou," said Dumphy at last, with a forced smile, "I hope you'll excuse me. I know you're my friend. But you're all wrong about these papers; you are, Poinsett, I swear. I know if the fact were known to outsiders it would look queer if not explained. But whose business is it, anyway, legally, I mean?"
"No one's, unless Devarges has friends or heirs."
"He hadn't any."
"There's that wife!"
"Bah!—she was divorced!"
"Indeed! You told me on our last interview that she really was the widow of Devarges."
"Never mind that now," said Dumphy, impatiently. "Look here! You know as well as I do that no matter how many discoveries Devarges made, they weren't worth a d—n if he hadn't done some work on them—improved or opened them."
"But that is not the point at issue just now," said Arthur. "Nobody is going to contest your claim or sue you for damages. But they might try to convict you of a crime. They might say that breaking into the cairn was burglary, and the taking of the papers theft."
"But how are they going to prove that?"
"No matter. Listen to me, and don't let us drift away from the main point. The question that concerns you is this. An impostor sets up a claim to be your wife; you and I know she is an impostor, and can prove it. She knows that, but knows also that in attempting to prove it you lay yourself open to some grave charges which she doubtless stands ready to make."
"Well, then, the first thing to do is to find outwhoshe is, what she knows, and what she wants, eh?" said Dumphy.
"No," said Arthur, quietly, "the first thing to do is to prove that your wife is really dead, and to do that you must show that Grace Conroy was alive when the body purporting to be hers, but which was really your wife's, was discovered. Once establishthatfact and you destroy the credibility of the Spanish reports, and you need not fear any revelation from that source regarding the missing papers. And that is the only source from which evidence against you can be procured. But when you destroy the validity of that report, you of course destroy the credibility of all concerned in making it. And as I was concerned in making it, of course it won't do for you to putmeon the stand."
Notwithstanding Dumphy's disappointment, he could not help yielding to a sudden respect for the superior rascal who thus cleverly slipped out of responsibility. "But," added Arthur, coolly, "you'll have no difficulty in establishing the fact of Grace's survival by others."
Dumphy thought at once of Ramirez. Here was a man who had seen and conversed with Grace when she had, in the face of the Spanish Commander, indignantly asserted her identity and the falsity of the report. No witness could be more satisfactory and convincing. But to make use of him he must first take Arthur into his confidence; must first expose the conspiracy of Madame Devarges to personate Grace, and his own complicity with the transaction. He hesitated. Nevertheless, he had been lately tortured by a suspicion that the late Madame Devarges was in some way connected with the later conspiracy against himself, and he longed to avail himself of Arthur's superior sagacity, and after a second reflection he concluded to do it. With the same practical conciseness of statement that he had used in relating Colonel Starbottle's interview with himself, he told the story of MadameDevarges' brief personation of Grace Conroy, and its speedy and felicitous ending in Mrs. Conroy. Arthur listened with unmistakable interest and a slowly brightening colour. When Dumphy had concluded he sat for a moment apparently lost in thought.
"Well?" at last said Dumphy, interrogatively and impatiently.
Arthur started. "Well," he said, rising, and replacing his hat with the air of a man who had thoroughly exhausted his subject, "your frankness has saved me a world of trouble."
"How?" said Dumphy.
"There is no necessity for looking any further for your alleged wife. She exists at present as Mrs. Conroy,aliasMadame Devarges,aliasGrace Conroy. Ramirez is your witness. You couldn't have a more willing one."
"Then my suspicions are correct."
"I don't know on what you based them. But here is a woman who has unlimited power over men, particularly over one man, Gabriel!—who alone, of all men but ourselves, knows the facts regarding your desertion of your wife in Starvation Camp, her death, and the placing of Dr. Devarges' private papers by me in the cairn. He knows, too, of your knowledge of the existence of the cairn, its locality, and contents. He knows this because he was in the cabin that night when the Doctor gave me his dying injunctions regarding his property—the night that you—excuse me, Dumphy, but nothing but frankness will save us now—the night that you stood listening at the door and frightened Grace with your wolfish face. Don't speak! she told me all about it! Your presence there that night gained you the information that you have used so profitably; it was your presence that fixed her wavering resolves and sent her away with me."
Both men had become very pale and earnest. Arthur moved toward the door. "I will see you to-morrow, when I will have matured some plan of defence," he said, abstractedly. "We have"—he used the plural of advocacy with a peculiar significance—"Wehave a clever woman to fight who may be more than our match. Meantime, remember that Ramirez is our defence; he is our man, Dumphy, hold fast to him as you would to your life. Good-day."
In another moment he was gone. As the door closed upon him a clerk entered hastily from the outer office. "You said not to disturb you, sir, and here is an important despatch waiting for you from Wingdam."
Mr. Dumphy took it mechanically, opened it, read the first line, and then said hurriedly, "Run after that man, quick!—Stop! Wait a moment. You need not go! There, that will do!"
The clerk hurriedly withdrew into the outer office. Mr. Dumphy went back to his desk again, and once more devoured the following lines:—
"Wingdam, 7th, 6A.M.—Victor Ramirez murdered last night on Conroy's Hill. Gabriel Conroy arrested. Mrs. Conroy missing. Great excitement here; strong feeling against Gabriel. Wait instructions.—Fitch."
"Wingdam, 7th, 6A.M.—Victor Ramirez murdered last night on Conroy's Hill. Gabriel Conroy arrested. Mrs. Conroy missing. Great excitement here; strong feeling against Gabriel. Wait instructions.—Fitch."
At first Mr. Dumphy only heard as an echo beating in his brain, the parting words of Arthur Poinsett, "Ramirez is our defence; hold fast to him as you would your life." And now he was dead—gone; their only witness; killed by Gabriel the plotter! What more was wanted to justify his worst suspicions? What should they do? He must send after Poinsett again; the plan of defence must be changed at once; to-morrow might be too late. Stop!
One of his accusers in prison charged with a capital crime! The other—the real murderer—for Dumphy madeno doubt that Mrs. Conroy was responsible for the deed—a fugitive from justice! What need of any witness now? The blow that crippled these three conspirators had liberated him! For a moment Mr. Dumphy was actually conscious of a paroxysm of gratitude toward some indefinitely Supreme Being—a God of special providence—special to himself! More than this, there was that vague sentiment, common, I fear, to common humanity in such crises, that this Providence was a tacit endorsement of himself. It was the triumph of Virtue (Dumphy) over Vice (Conroyet al.).
But there would be a trial, publicity, and the possible exposure of certain things by a man whom danger might make reckless. And could he count upon Mrs. Conroy's absence or neutrality? He was conscious that her feeling for her husband was stronger than he had supposed, and she might dare everything to save him. What had a woman of that kind to do with such weakness? Why hadn't she managed it so as to kill Gabriel too? There was an evident want of practical completeness in this special Providence that, as a business man, Mr. Dumphy felt he could have regulated. And then he was seized with an idea—a damnable inspiration!—and set himself briskly to write. I regret to say that despite the popular belief in the dramatic character of all villany, Mr. Dumphy at this moment presented only the commonplace spectacle of an absorbed man of business; no lurid light gleamed from his pale blue eyes; no Satanic smile played around the corners of his smoothly shaven mouth; no feverish exclamation stirred his moist, cool lips. He wrote methodically and briskly, without deliberation or undue haste. When he had written half-a-dozen letters he folded and sealed them, and without summoning his clerk, took them himself into the outer office and thence into the large counting-room. The news of the murder had evidently got abroad;the clerks were congregated together, and the sound of eager, interested voices ceased as the great man entered and stood among them.
"Fitch, you and Judson will take the quickest route to One Horse Gulch to-night. Don't waste any time on the road or spare any expense. When you get there deliver these letters, and take your orders from my correspondents. Pick up all the details you can about this affair and let me know. What's your balance at the Gulch, Mr. Peebles? never mind the exact figures!"
"Larger than usual, sir, some heavy deposits!"
"Increase your balance then if there should be any d—d fools who connect the Bank with this matter."
"I suppose," said Mr. Fitch, respectfully, "we're to look after your foreman, Mr. Conroy, sir?"
"You are to take your orders from my correspondent, Mr. Fitch, and not to interfere in any way with public sentiment. We have nothing to do with the private acts of anybody. Justice will probably be done to Conroy. It is time that these outrages upon the reputation of the California miner should be stopped. When the fame of a whole community is prejudiced and business injured by the rowdyism of a single ruffian," said Mr. Dumphy, raising his voice slightly as he discovered the interested and absorbed presence of some of his most respectable customers, "it is time that prompt action should be taken." In fact, he would have left behind him a strong Roman flavour and a general suggestion of Brutus, had he not unfortunately effected an anti-climax by adding, "that's business, sir," as he retired to his private office.
Mr. Jack Hamlin did not lose much time on the road from Wingdam to Sacramento. His rapid driving, his dust bespattered vehicle, and the exhausted condition of his horse on arrival, excited but little comment from those who knew his habits, and for other criticism he had a supreme indifference. He was prudent enough, however, to leave his horse at a stable on the outskirts, and having reconstructed his toilet at a neighbouring hotel, he walked briskly toward the address given him by Maxwell. When he reached the corner of the street and was within a few paces of the massive shining door plate of Madame Eclair'sPensionnat, he stopped with a sudden ejaculation, and after a moment's hesitation, turned on his heel deliberately and began to retrace his steps.
To explain Mr. Hamlin's singular conduct I shall be obliged to disclose a secret of his, which I would fain keep from the fair reader. On receiving Olly's address from Maxwell, Mr. Hamlin had only cursorily glanced at it, and it was only on arriving before the house that he recognised to his horror that it was a boarding-school, with one of whose impulsive inmates he had whiled away his idleness a few months before in a heart-breaking but innocent flirtation, and a soul-subduing but clandestine correspondence, much to the distaste of the correct Principal. To have presented himself there in his proper person would be to have been refused admittance or subjected to a suspicion that would have kept Olly from his hands. For once, Mr. Hamlin severely regretted his infelix reputation among the sex. But he did not turn his back on his enterprise. He retraced his steps only to the main street, visited a barber'sshop and a jeweller's, and reappeared on the street again with a pair of enormous green goggles and all traces of his long distinguishing silken black moustache shaven from his lip. When it is remembered that this rascal was somewhat vain of his personal appearance, the reader will appreciate his earnestness and the extent of his sacrifice.
Nevertheless, he was a little nervous as he was ushered into the formal reception-room of thePensionnat, and waited until his credentials, countersigned by Maxwell, were submitted to Madame Eclair. Mr. Hamlin had no fear of being detected by his real name; in the brief halcyon days of his romance he had been known as Clarence Spifflington,—an ingenious combination of the sentimental and humorous which suited his fancy, and to some extent he felt expressed the character of his affection. Fate was propitious; the servant returned saying that Miss Conroy would be down in a moment, and Mr. Hamlin looked at his watch. Every moment was precious; he was beginning to get impatient when the door opened again and Olly slipped into the room.
She was a pretty child, with a peculiar boyish frankness of glance and manner, and a refinement of feature that fascinated Mr. Hamlin, who, fond as he was of all childhood, had certain masculine preferences for good looks. She seemed to be struggling with a desire to laugh when she entered, and when Jack turned towards her with extended hands she held up her own warningly, and closing the door behind her cautiously, said, in a demure whisper—
"She'll come down as soon as she can slip past Madame's door."
"Who?" asked Jack.
"Sophy."
"Who's Sophy?" asked Jack, seriously. He had never known the name of his Dulcinea. In the dim epistolatoryregion of sentiment she had existed only as "The Blue Moselle," so called from the cerulean hue of her favourite raiment, and occasionally, in moments of familiar endearment, as "Mosey."
"Come, now, pretend you don't know, will you?" said Olly, evading the kiss which Jack always had ready for childhood. "If I was her, I wouldn't have anything to say to you after that!" she added, with that ostentatious chivalry of the sex towards each other, in the presence of their common enemy. "Why, she saw you from the window when you first came this morning, when you went back again and shaved off your moustache; she knew you. And you don't know her! It's mean, ain't it?—they'll grow again, won't they?"—Miss Olly referred to the mustachios and not the affections!
Jack was astonished and alarmed. In his anxiety to evade or placate the duenna, he had never thought of her charge—his sweetheart. Here was a dilemma! "Oh yes!" said Jack hastily, with a well simulated expression of arch affection, "Sophy—of course—that's my little game! But I've got a note for you too, my dear," and he handed Olly the few lines that Gabriel had hastily scrawled. He watched her keenly, almost breathlessly, as she read them. To his utter bewilderment she laid the note down indifferently and said, "That's like Gabe—the old simpleton!"
"But you're goin' to do what he says," asked Mr. Hamlin, "ain't you?"
"No," said Olly, promptly, "I ain't! Why, Lord! Mr. Hamlin, you don't know that man; why, he does this sort o' thing every week!" Perceiving Jack stare, she went on, "Why, only last week, didn't he send to me to meet him out on the corner of the street, and he my own brother, instead o' comin' here, ez he hez a right to do. Go to him at Wingdam? No! ketch me!"
"But suppose he can't come," continued Mr. Hamlin.
"Why can't he come? I tell you, it's just foolishness and the meanest kind o' bashfulness. Jes because there happened to be a young lady here from San Francisco, Rosey Ringround, who was a little took with the old fool. If he could come to Wingdam, why couldn't he come here,—that's what I want to know?"
"Will you let me see that note?" asked Hamlin.
Olly handed him the note, with the remark, "He don't spell well—and he won't let me teach him—the old Muggins!"
Hamlin took it and read as follows:—
"Dear Olly,—If it don't run a fowl uv yer lessings and the Maddam's willin' and the young laddies, Brother Gab's waitin' fer ye at Wingdam, so no more from your affeshtunate brother,Gab."
"Dear Olly,—If it don't run a fowl uv yer lessings and the Maddam's willin' and the young laddies, Brother Gab's waitin' fer ye at Wingdam, so no more from your affeshtunate brother,Gab."
Mr. Hamlin was in a quandary. It never had been part of his plan to let Olly know the importance of her journey. Mr. Maxwell's injunctions to bring her "quietly," his own fears of an outburst that might bring a questioning and sympathetic school about his ears, and lastly, and not the least potently, his own desire to enjoy Olly's company in the long ride to One Horse Gulch without the preoccupation of grief, with his own comfortable conviction that he could eventually bring Gabriel out of this "fix" without Olly knowing anything about it, all this forbade his telling her the truth. But here was a coil he had not thought of. Howbeit, Mr. Hamlin was quick at expedients.
"Then you think Sophy can see me," he added, with a sudden interest.
"Of course she will!" said Olly, archly. "It was right smart in you to get acquainted with Gabe and set him up to writing that, though it's just like him. He's that soft that anybody could get round him. But there she is now,Mr. Hamlin; that's her step on the stairs. And I don't suppose you two hez any need of me now."
And she slipped out of the room, as demurely as she had entered, at the same moment that a tall, slim, and somewhat sensational young lady in blue came flying in.
I can, in justice to Mr. Hamlin, whose secrets have been perhaps needlessly violated in the progress of this story, do no less than pass over as sacred, and perhaps wholly irrelevant to the issue, the interview that took place between himself and Miss Sophy. That he succeeded in convincing that young woman of his unaltered loyalty, that he explained his long silence as the result of a torturing doubt of the permanence of her own affection, that his presence at that moment was the successful culmination of a long-matured and desperate plan to see her once more and learn the truth from her own lips, I am sure that no member of my own disgraceful sex will question, and I trust no member of a too fond and confiding sex will doubt. That some bitterness was felt by Mr. Hamlin, who was conscious of certain irregularities during this long interval, and some tears shed by Miss Sophy, who was equally conscious of more or less aberration of her own magnetic instincts during his absence, I think will be self-evident to the largely comprehending reader. Howbeit, at the end of ten tender yet tranquillising minutes Mr. Hamlin remarked, in low thrilling tones—
"By the aid of a few confiding friends, and playin' it rather low on them, I got that note to the Conroy girl, but the game's up, and we might as well pass in our checks now, if she goes back on us, and passes out, which I reckon's her little game. If what you say is true, Sophy, and you do sometimes look back to the past, and things is generally on the square, you'll go for that Olly and fetchher, for if I go back without that child, and throw up my hand, it's just tampering with the holiest affections and playing it mighty rough on as white a man as ever you saw, Sophy, to say nothing of your reputation, and everybody ready to buck agin us who has ten cents to chip in on. You must make her go back with me and put things on a specie basis."
In spite of the mixed character of Mr. Hamlin's metaphor, his eloquence was so convincing and effective that Miss Sophy at once proceeded with considerable indignation to insist upon Olly's withdrawing her refusal.
"If this is the way you are going to act, you horrid little thing! after all that me and him's trusted you, I'd like to see the girl in school that will ever tellyouanything again, that's all!" a threat so appalling that Olly, who did not stop to consider that this confidence was very recent and had been forced upon her, assented without further delay, exhibited Gabriel's letter to Madame Eclair, and having received that lady's gracious permission to visit her brother, was in half an hour in company with Mr. Hamlin on the road.
Once free from the trammelling fascinations of Sophy and the more dangerous espionage of Madame Eclair, and with the object of his mission accomplished, Mr. Hamlin recovered his natural spirits, and became so hilarious that Olly, who attributed this exaltation to his interview with Sophy, felt constrained to make some disparaging remarks about that young lady, partly by way of getting even with her for her recent interference, and partly in obedience tosome well known but unexplained law of the sex. To her great surprise, however, Mr. Hamlin's spirits were in no way damped, nor did he make any attempt to defend his Lalage. Nevertheless, he listened attentively, and when she had concluded he looked suddenly down upon her chip hat and thick yellow tresses, and said—
"Ever been in the Southern country, Olly?"
"No," returned the child.
"Never down about San Antonio, visiting friends or relations?"
"No," said Olly, decidedly.
Mr. Hamlin was silent for some time, giving his exclusive attention to his horse, who was evincing a disposition to "break" into a gallop. When he had brought the animal back into a trot again he continued—
"There'sa woman! Olly."
"Down in San Antonio?" asked Olly.
Mr. Hamlin nodded.
"Purty?" continued the child.
"It ain't the word," responded Mr. Hamlin, seriously. "Purty ain't the word."
"As purty as Sophy?" continued Olly, a little mischievously.
"Sophy be hanged!" Mr. Hamlin here quickly pulled up himself and horse, both being inclined to an exuberance startling to the youth and sex of the third party. "That is—I mean something in a different suit entirely."
Here he again hesitated, doubtful of his slang.
"I see," quoth Olly; "diamonds—Sophy's in spades."
The gambler (in sudden and awful admiration), "Diamonds—you've just struck it! but what doyouknow 'bout cards?"
Olly,pomposaménte, "Everything! Tell our fortunes by 'em—we girls! I'm in hearts—Sophy's in spades—you'rein clubs! Do you know," in a thrilling whisper, "only last night I had a letter, a journey, a death, and a gentleman in clubs, dark complected—that's you."
Mr. Hamlin—a good deal more at ease through this revelation of the universal power of the four suits—"Speakin' of women, I suppose down there (indicating the school) you occasionally hear of angels. What's their general complexion?"
Olly, dubiously, "In the pictures?"
Hamlin, "Yes;" with a leading question, "sorter dark complected sometimes, hey?"
Olly, positively, "Never! always white."
Jack, "Always white?"
Olly, "Yes, and flabby!"
They rode along for some time silently. Presently Mr. Hamlin broke into a song, a popular song, one verse of which Olly supplied with such deftness of execution and melodiousness of pipe that Mr. Hamlin instantly suggested a duet, and so over the dead and barren wastes of the Sacramento plains they fell to singing, often barbarously, sometimes melodiously, but never self-consciously, wherein, I take it, they approximated to the birds and better class of poets, so that rough teamsters, rude packers, and weary wayfarers were often touched, as with the birds and poets aforesaid, to admiration and tenderness; and when they stopped for supper at a wayside station, and Jack Hamlin displayed that readiness of resource, audacity of manner and address, and perfect and natural obliviousness to the criticism of propriety or the limitations of precedent, and when, moreover, the results of all this was a much better supper than perhaps a more reputable companion could have procured, she thought she had never known a more engaging person than this Knave of Clubs.
When they were fairly on the road again, Olly began toexhibit some curiosity regarding her brother, and asked some few questions about Gabriel's family, which disclosed the fact that Jack's acquaintance with Gabriel was comparatively recent.
"Then you never saw July at all?" asked Olly.
"July," queried Jack, reflectively; "what's she like?"
"I don't know whether she's a heart or a spade," said Olly, as thoughtfully.
Jack was silent for some moments, and then after a pause, to Olly's intense astonishment, proceeded to sketch, in a few vigorous phrases, the external characteristics of Mrs. Conroy.
"Why, you said you never saw her!" ejaculated Olly.
"No more I did," responded the gambler, with a quick laugh; "this is only a little bluff."
It had grown cold with the brief twilight and the coming on of night. For some time the black, unchanging outlines of the distant Coast Range were sharplysilhouettedagainst a pale, ashen sky, that at last faded utterly, leaving a few stars behind as emblems of the burnt-out sunset. The red road presently lost its calm and even outline in the swiftly gathering shadows, or to Olly's fancy was stopped by shapeless masses of rock or giant-like trunks of trees that in turn seemed to give way before the skilful hand and persistent will of her driver. At times a chill exhalation from a roadside ditch came to Olly like the damp breath of an open grave, and the child shivered even beneath the thick travelling shawl of Mr. Hamlin, with which she was enwrapped. Whereat Jack at once produced a flask and prevailed upon Olly to drink something that set her coughing, but which that astute and experienced child at once recognised as whisky. Mr. Hamlin, to her surprise, however, did not himself partake, a fact which she at once pointed out to him.
"At an early age, Olly," said Mr. Hamlin, with infinite gravity, "I promised an infirm and aged relative never to indulge in spirituous liquors, except on a physician's prescription. I carry this flask subject to the doctor's orders. Never having ordered me to drink any, I don't."
As it was too dark for the child to observe Mr. Hamlin's eyes, which, after the fashion of her sex, she consulted much oftener than his speech for his real meaning, and was as often deceived, she said nothing, and Mr. Hamlin relapsed into silence. At the end of five minutes he said—
"Shewas a woman, Olly—you bet!"
Olly, with great tact and discernment, instantly referring back to Mr. Hamlin's discourse of an hour before, queried, "That girl in the Southern country?"
"Yes," said Mr. Hamlin.
"Tell me all about her," said Olly—"all you know."
"That ain't much," mused Hamlin, with a slight sigh. "Ah, Olly,shecould sing!"
"With the piano?" said Olly, a little superciliously.
"With the organ," said Hamlin.
Olly, whose sole idea of this instrument was of the itinerant barrel variety, yawned slightly, and with a very perceptible lack of interest said that she hoped she would see her some time when she came up that way and was "going 'round."
Mr. Hamlin did not laugh, but after a few minutes' rapid driving, began to explain to Olly with great earnestness the character of a church organ.
"I used to play once, Olly, in a church. They did say that I used sometimes to fetch that congregation, jest snatch 'em bald-headed, Olly, but it's a long time ago! There was one hymn in particular that I used to run on consid'rable—one o' them Masses o' Mozart—one that I heardhersing, Olly; it went something like this;" andJack proceeded to lift his voice in the praise of Our Lady of Sorrows, with a serene unconsciousness to his surroundings, and utter absorption in his theme that would have become the most enthusiastic acolyte. The springs creaked, the wheels rattled, the mare broke, plunged, and recovered herself, the slight vehicle swayed from side to side, Olly's hat bruised and flattened itself against his shoulder, and still Mr. Hamlin sang. When he had finished he looked down at Olly. She was asleep!
Jack was an artist and an enthusiast, but not unreasonable nor unforgiving. "It's the whisky," he murmured to himself, in an apologetic recitation to the air he had just been singing. He changed the reins to his other hand with infinite caution and gentleness, slowly passed his disengaged arm round the swaying little figure, until he had drawn the chip hat and the golden tresses down upon his breast and shoulder. In this attitude, scarcely moving a muscle lest he should waken the sleeping child, at midnight he came upon the twinkling lights of Fiddletown. Here he procured a fresh horse, dispensing with an ostler and harnessing the animal himself, with such noiseless skill and quickness that Olly, propped up in the buggy with pillows and blankets borrowed from the Fiddletown hostelry, slept through it all, nor wakened even after they were again upon the road, and had begun the long ascent of the Wingdam turnpike.
It wanted but an hour of daybreak when he reached the summit, and even then he only slackened his pace when his wheels sank to their hubs in the beaten dust of the stage road. The darkness of that early hour was intensified by the gloom of the heavy pine woods through which the red road threaded its difficult and devious way. It was very still. Hamlin could hardly hear the dead, muffled plunge of his own horse in the dusty track before him, andyet once or twice he stopped to listen. His quick ear detected the sound of voices and the jingle of Mexican spurs, apparently approaching behind him. Mr. Hamlin knew that he had not passed any horseman and was for a moment puzzled. But then he recalled the fact that a few hundred yards beyond, the road was intersected by the "cut-off" to One Horse Gulch, which, after running parallel with the Wingdam turnpike for half a mile, crossed it in the forest. The voices were on that road going the same way. Mr. Hamlin pushed on his horse to the crossing, and hidden by the darkness and the trunks of the giant pines, pulled up to let the strangers precede him. In a few moments the voices were abreast of him and stationary. The horsemen had apparently halted.
"Here seems to be a road," said a voice quite audibly.
"All right, then," returned another, "it's the 'cut-off. We'll save an hour, sure."
A third voice here struck in potentially, "Keep the stage road. If Joe Hall gets wind of what's up, he'll run his man down to Sacramento for safe keeping. If he does he'll take this road—it's the only one—sabe?—we can't miss him!"
Jack Hamlin leaned forward breathlessly in his seat.
"But it's an hour longer this way," growled the second voice. "The boys will wait," responded the previous speaker. There was a laugh, a jingling of spurs, and the invisible procession moved slowly forward in the darkness.
Mr. Hamlin did not stir a muscle until the voices failed before him in the distance. Then he cast a quick glance at the child; she still slept quietly, undisturbed by the halt or those ominous voices which had brought so sudden a colour into her companion's cheek and so baleful a light in his dark eyes. Yet for a moment Mr. Hamlin hesitated. To go forward to Wingdam now would necessitate hisfollowing cautiously in the rear of the Lynchers, and so prevent his giving a timely alarm. To strike across to One Horse Gulch by the "cut-off" would lose him the chance of meeting the Sheriff and his prisoner, had they been forewarned and were escaping in time. But for the impediment of the unconscious little figure beside him, he would have risked a dash through the party ahead of him. But that was not to be thought of now. He must follow them to Wingdam, leave the child, and trust to luck to reach One Horse Gulch before them. If they delayed a moment at Wingdam it could be done. A feeling of yearning tenderness and pity succeeded the slight impatience with which he had a moment before regarded his encumbering charge. He held her in his arms, scarcely daring to breathe lest he should waken her—hoping that she might sleep until they reached Wingdam, and that leaving her with his faithful henchman "Pete," he might get away before she was aroused to embarrassing inquiry. Mr. Hamlin had a man's dread of scenes with even so small a specimen of the sex, and for once in his life he felt doubtful of his own readiness, and feared lest in his excitement he might reveal the imminent danger of her brother. Perhaps he was never before so conscious of that danger; perhaps he was never before so interested in the life of any one. He began to see things with Olly's eyes—to look upon events with reference toherfeelings rather than his own; if she had sobbed and cried this sympathetic rascal really believed that he would have cried too. Such was the unconscious and sincere flattery of admiration. He was relieved, when with the first streaks of dawn, his mare wearily clattered over the scattered river pebbles and "tailings" that paved the outskirts of Wingdam. He was still more relieved when the Three Voices of the Night, now faintly visible as three armedhorsemen, drew up before the verandah of the Wingdam Hotel, dismounted, and passed into the bar-room. And he was perfectly content, when a moment later he lifted the still sleeping Olly in his arms and bore her swiftly yet cautiously to his room. To awaken the sleeping Pete on the floor above, and drag him half-dressed and bewildered into the presence of the unconscious child, as she lay on Jack Hamlin's own bed, half buried in a heap of shawls and rugs, was only the work of another moment.
"Why, Mars Jack! Bress de Lord—it's a chile!" said Pete, recoiling in sacred awe and astonishment.
"Hold your jaw!" said Jack, in a fierce whisper, "you'll waken her! Listen to me, you chattering idiot. Don't waken her, if you want to keep the bones in your creaking old skeleton whole enough for the doctors to buy. Let her sleep as long as she can. If she wakes up and asks after me, tell her I'm gone for her brother. Do you hear? Give her anything she asks for—except—the truth! What are you doing, you old fool?"
Pete was carefully removing the mountain of shawls and blankets that Jack had piled upon Olly. "'Fore God, Mars Jack—you's smuddering dat chile!" was his only response. Nevertheless Jack was satisfied with a certain vague tenderness in his manipulation, and said curtly, "Get me a horse!"
"It ain't to be did, Mars Jack; de stables is all gone—cleaned! Dey's a rush over to One Horse Gulch, all day!"
"There are three horses at the door," said Jack, with wicked significance.
"For de love of God, Mars Jack, don't ye do dat!" ejaculated Pete, in unfeigned and tremulous alarm. "Dey don't take dem kind o' jokes yer worth a cent—dey'd be doin' somefin' awful to ye, sah—shuah's yer born!"
But Jack, with the child lying there peaceably in his own bed, and the Three Voices growing husky in the bar-room below, regained all his old audacity. "I haven't made up my mind," continued Jack, coolly, "which of the three I'll take, but you'll find out from the owner when I do! Tell him that Mr. Jack Hamlin left his compliments and a mare and buggy for him. You can say that if he keeps the mare from breaking and gives her her head down hill, she can do her mile inside of 2.45. Hush! not a word! Bye-bye." He turned, lifted the shawl from the fresh cheek of the sleeping Olly, kissed her, and shaking his fist at Pete, vanished.
For a few moments the negro listened breathlessly. And then there came the sharp, quick clatter of hoofs from the rocky road below, and he sank dejectedly at the foot of the bed. "He's gone—done it! Lord save us! but it's a hangin' matter yer!" And even as he spoke Mr. Jack Hamlin, mounted on the fleet mustang that had been ridden by the Potential Voice, with his audacious face against the red sunrise and his right shoulder squarely advanced, was butting away the morning mists that rolled slowly along the river road to One Horse Gulch.
Mr. Dumphy's confidence in himself was so greatly restored that several business enterprises of great pith and moment, whose currents for the past few days had been turned awry, and so "lost the name of action," were taken up by him with great vigour and corresponding joy to the humbler business associates who had asked him just to lend hisname to that project, and make "a big thing of it." He had just given his royal sanction and a cheque to an Association for the Encouragement of Immigration, by the distribution through the sister States of one million seductive pamphlets, setting forth the various resources and advantages of California for the farmer, and proving that one hundred and fifty dollars spent for a passage thither was equal to the price of a farm; he had also assisted in sending the eloquent Mr. Blowhard and the persuasive Mr. Windygust to present these facts orally to the benighted dwellers of the East, and had secured the services of two eminent Californian statisticians to demonstrate the fact, that more people were killed by lightning and frozen to death in the streets of New York in a single year than were ever killed by railroad accidents or human violence in California during the past three centuries; he had that day conceived the "truly magnificent plan" of bringing the waters of Lake Tahoe to San Francisco by ditches, thereby enabling the citizens to keep the turf in their door-yards green through the summer. He had started two banks, a stage line, and a watering place, whose climate and springs were declared healthful by edict, and were aggressively advertised; and he had just projected a small suburban town that should bear his name. He had returned from this place in high spirits with a company of friends in the morning after this interview with Poinsett. There was certainly no trace of the depression of that day in his manner.
It was a foggy morning, following a clear, still night—an atmospheric condition not unusual at that season of the year to attract Mr. Dumphy's attention, yet he was conscious on reaching his office of an undue oppressiveness in the air that indisposed him to exertion, and caused him to remove his coat and cravat. Then he fell to work upon his morning'smail, and speedily forgot the weather. There was a letter from Mrs. Sepulvida, disclosing the fact that, owing to the sudden and unaccountable drying up of the springs on the lower plains, large numbers of her cattle had died of thirst and were still perishing. This was of serious import to Mr. Dumphy, who had advanced money on this perishable stock, and he instantly made a memorandum to check this sudden freak of Nature, which he at once attributed to feminine carelessness of management. Further on Mrs. Sepulvida inquired particularly as to the condition of the Conroy mine, and displayed a disposition characteristic of her sex, to realise at once on her investment. Her letter ended thus: "But I shall probably see you in San Francisco. Pepe says that this morning the markings on the beach showed the rise of a tide or wave during the night higher than any ever known since one thousand eight hundred. I do not feel safe so near the beach, and shall rebuild in the spring." Mr. Dumphy smiled grimly to himself. He had at one time envied Poinsett. But here was the woman he was engaged to marry, careless, improvident, with a vast estate, and on the eve of financial disaster through her carelessness, and yet actually about to take a journey of two hundred miles because of some foolish, womanish whim or superstition. It would be a fine thing if this man, to whom good fortune fell without any effort on his part—this easy, elegant supercilious Arthur Poinsett, who was even indifferent to that good fortune, should find himself tricked and deceived! should have to apply to him, Dumphy, for advice and assistance! And this, too, after his own advice and assistance regarding the claims of Colonel Starbottle's client had been futile. The revenge would be complete. Mr. Dumphy rubbed his hands in prospective satisfaction.
When, a few moments later, Colonel Starbottle's card wasput into his hand Mr. Dumphy's satisfaction was complete. This was the day that the gallant Colonel was to call for an answer; it was evident that Arthur had not seen him, nor had he made the discovery of Starbottle's unknown client. The opportunity of vanquishing this man without the aid or even knowledge of Poinsett was now before him. By way of preparing himself for the encounter, as well as punishing the Colonel, he purposely delayed the interview, and for full five minutes kept his visitor cooling his heels in the outer office.
He was seated at his desk, ostentatiously preoccupied, when Colonel Starbottle was at last admitted. He did not raise his head when the door opened, nor in fact until the Colonel, stepping lightly forward, walked to Dumphy's side, and deliberately unhooking his cane from its accustomed rest on his arm, laid it, pronouncedly, on the desk before him. The Colonel's face was empurpled, the Colonel's chest was efflorescent and bursting, the Colonel had the general effect of being about to boil over the top button of his coat, but his manner was jauntily and daintily precise.
"One moment!—a single moment, sir!" he said, with husky politeness. "Before proceeding to business—er—we will devote a single moment to the necessary explanations of—er—er—a gentleman. The kyard now lying before you, sir, was handed ten minutes ago to one of your subordinates. I wish to inquire, sir, if it was then delivered to you?"
"Yes," said Mr. Dumphy, impatiently.
Colonel Starbottle leaned over Mr. Dumphy's desk and coolly rung his bell. Mr. Dumphy's clerk instantly appeared at the door. "I wish—" said the Colonel, addressing himself to the astounded employé as he stood loftily over Mr. Dumphy's chair—"I have—er—in fact sent for you, to withdraw the offensive epithets I addressed to you, and thethreats—of er—of er—personal violence! The offence—is not, yours—but—er—rests with your employer, for whose apology I am—er—now waiting. Nevertheless I am ready, sir, to hold myself at your service—that is—er—of course—after my responsibility—er—with your master—er—ceases!"
Mr. Dumphy, who in the presence of Colonel Starbottle felt his former awkwardness return, signed with a forced smile to his embarrassed clerk to withdraw, and said hastily, but with an assumption of easy familiarity, "Sorry, Colonel, sorry, but I was very busy, and am now. No offence. All a mistake, you know! business man and business hours," and Mr. Dumphy leaned back in his chair, and emitted his rare cachinnatory bark.
"Glad to hear it, sir, I accept your apology," said the Colonel, recovering his good humour and his profanity together, "hang me, if I didn't think it was another affair like that I had with old Maje Tolliver, of Georgia. Called on him in Washington in '48 during session. Boy took up my kyard. Waited ten minutes, no reply! Then sent friend, poor Jeff Boomerang, dead now, killed in New Orleans by Ben Pastor—with challenge. Hang me, sir, after the second shot, Maje sends for me, lying thar with hole in both lungs, gasping for breath. 'It's all a blunder, Star,' he says, 'boy never brought kyard. Horsewhip the nigger for me, Star, for I reckon I won't live to do it,' and died like a gentleman, blank me!"
"What have you got to propose?" said Mr. Dumphy, hastily, seeing an opportunity to stop the flow of the Colonel's recollections.
"According to my memory, at our last interview over the social glass in your own house, I think something was said of a proposition coming from you. That is—er," continued the Colonel, loftily, "I hold myself responsible for the mistake, if any."
It had been Mr. Dumphy's first intention to assume the roughly offensive; to curtly inform Colonel Starbottle of the flight of his confederate, and dare him to do his worst. But for certain vague reasons he changed his plan of tactics. He drew his chair closer to the Colonel, and clapping his hand familiarly on his shoulder, began—
"You're a man of the world, Starbottle, so am I.Sabe?You're a gentleman—so am I," he continued, hastily. "But I'm a business man, and you're not.Sabe?Let's understand each other. No offence, you know, but in the way of business. This woman, claiming to be my wife, don't exist—it's all right, you know, I understand. I don't blameyou, but you've been deceived, and all that sort of thing. I've got the proofs. Now as a man of the world and a gentleman and a business man, when I say the game's up! you'll understand me. Look at that—there!" He thrust into Starbottle's hand the telegram of the preceding day, "There! the man's hung by this time—lynched! The woman's gone!"
Colonel Starbottle read the telegram without any perceptible dismay or astonishment.
"Conroy! Conroy!—don't know the man. There was a McConroy, of St. Jo, but I don't think it's the same. No, sir! This ain't like him, sir! Don't seem to be a duel, unless he'd posted the man to kill on sight—murder's an ugly word to use to gentlemen. D—n me, sir, I don't know but he could hold the man responsible who sent that despatch. It's offensive, sir—very!"
"And you don't know Mrs. Conroy?" continued Mr. Dumphy, fixing his eyes on Colonel Starbottle's face.
"Mrs. Conroy! The wife of the superintendent—one of the most beautiful women! Good Ged, sir, I do! And I'm dev'lish sorry for her. But what's this got to do with our affair? Oh! I see, Ged!"—the Colonel suddenlychuckled, drew out his handkerchief, and waved it in the air with deprecatory gallantry, "gossip, sir, all gossip. People will talk! A fine woman! Blank me, if she was inclined to show some attention to Colonel Starbottle—Ged, sir, it was no more than other women have. You comprehend, Dumphy? Ged, sir, so the story's got round, eh?—husband's jealous—killed wrong man! Folks think she's run off with Colonel Starbottle, ha! ha! No, sir," he continued, suddenly dropping into an attitude of dignified severity. "You can say that Colonel Starbottle branded the story as a lie, sir! That whatever might have been the foolish indiscretion of a susceptible sex, Colonel Starbottle will defend the reputation of that lady, sir, with his life—with his life!"
Absurd and ridiculous as this sudden diversion of Colonel Starbottle from the point at issue had become, Dumphy could not doubt his sincerity, nor the now self-evident fact that Mrs. Conroy wasnothis visitor's mysterious client! Mr. Dumphy felt that his suddenly built up theory was demolished and his hope with it. He was still at the mercy of this conceited braggart and the invisible power behind him—whoever or whatever it might be. Mr. Dumphy was not inclined to superstition, but he began to experience a strange awe of his unknown persecutor, and resolved at any risk to discover who it was. Could it be really his wife?—had not the supercilious Poinsett been himself tricked—or was he not now trying to trick him, Dumphy? Couldn't Starbottle be bribed to expose at least the name of his client? He would try it.
"I said just now you had been deceived in this woman who represents herself to be my wife. I find I have been mistaken in the person, who I believe imposed upon you, and it is possible that I may be otherwise wrong. My wife may be alive. I am willing to admitit. Bring her here to-morrow and I will accept it as a fact."
"You forget that she refuses to see you again," said Colonel Starbottle, "until she has established her claim by process of law."
"That's so! that's all right, old fellow;weunderstand each other. Now, suppose that we business men—as a business maxim, you know—always prefer to deal with principals. Now suppose we even go so far as to do that and yet pay an agent's commission, perhaps—you understand me—even abonus. Good! That's business! You understand that as a gentleman and a man of the world. Now, I say, bring me your principal—fetch along that woman, and I'll make it all right withyou. Stop! I know what you're going to say; you're bound by honour and all that—I understand your position as a gentleman, and respect it. Then let me know where I can find her! Understand—you sha'n't be compromised as bringing about the interview in any way. I'll see that you're protected in your commissions from your client; and for my part—if a cheque for five thousand dollars will satisfy you of my desire to do the right thing in this matter, it's at your service."
The Colonel rose to his feet and applied himself apparently to the single and silent inflation of his chest, for the space of a minute. When the upper buttons of his coat seemed to be on the point of flying off with a report, he suddenly extended his hand and grasped Dumphy's with fervour. "Permit me," he said, in a voice husky with emotion, "to congratulate myself on dealing with a gentleman and a man of honour. Your sentiments, sir, I don't care if I do say it, do you credit! I am proud, sir," continued the Colonel, warmly, "to have made your acquaintance! But I regret to say, sir, that I cannot give you theinformation you require. I do not myself know the name or address of my client."
The look of half-contemptuous satisfaction which had irradiated Dumphy's face at the beginning of this speech, changed to one of angry suspicion at its close. "That's a d——d queer oversight of yours," he ejaculated, with an expression as nearly insulting as he dared to make it. Colonel Starbottle did not apparently notice the manner of his speech, but drawing his chair close beside Dumphy, he laid his hand upon his arm.
"Your confidence as a man of honour and a gentleman," he began, "demands equal confidence and frankness on my part, and Culp. Starbottle of Virginia is not the, man to withhold it! When I state that I donotknow the name and address of my client, I believe, sir, there is no one now living, who will—er—er—require or—er—deem it necessary for me to repeat the assertion! Certainly not, sir," added the Colonel, lightly waving his hand, "the gentleman who has just honoured me with his confidence and invited mine—I thank you, sir," he continued, as Mr. Dumphy made a hasty motion of assent, "and will go on."
"It is not necessary for me to name the party who first put me in possession of the facts. You will take my word as a gentleman—er—that it is some one unknown to you, of unimportant position, though of strict respectability, and one who acted only as the agent of my real client. When the case was handed over to me there was also put into my possession a sealed envelope containing the name of my client and principal witness. My injunctions were not to open it until all negotiations had failed and it was necessary to institute legal proceedings. That envelope I have here. You perceive it is unopened!"
Mr. Dumphy unconsciously reached out his hand. With a gesture of polite deprecation Colonel Starbottle evadedit, and placing the letter on the table before him, continued, "It is unnecessary to say that—er—there being in my judgment no immediate necessity for the beginning of a suit—the injunctions still restrain me, and I shall not open the letter. If, however, I accidentally mislay it on this table and it is returned to me to-morrow, sealed as before, I believe, sir, as a gentleman and a man of honour I violate no pledge."
"I see," said Mr. Dumphy, with a short laugh.
"Excuse me, if I venture to require another condition, merely as a form among men of honour. Write as I dictate." Mr. Dumphy took up a pen. Colonel Starbottle placed one hand on his honourable breast and began slowly and meditatively to pace the length of the room with the air of a second measuring the distance for his principal. "Are you ready?"
"Go on," said Dumphy, impatiently.
"I hereby pledge myself—er—er—that in the event of any disclosure by me—er—of confidential communications from Colonel Starbottle to me, I shall hold myself ready to afford him the usual honourable satisfaction—er—common among gentlemen, at such times or places, and with such weapons as he may choose, without further formality of challenge, and that—er—er—failing in that I do thereby proclaim myself, without posting, a liar, poltroon, and dastard."
In the full pre-occupation of his dignified composition, and possibly from an inability to look down over the increased exaggeration of his swelling breast, Colonel Starbottle did not observe the contemptuous smile which curled the lip of his amanuensis. Howbeit Mr. Dumphy signed the document and handed it to him. Colonel Starbottle put it in his pocket. Nevertheless he lingered by Mr. Dumphy's side.
"The—er—er—cheque," said the Colonel, with a slight cough, "had better be to your order, endorsed by you—to spare any criticism hereafter."
Mr. Dumphy hesitated a moment. He would have preferred as a matter of business to have first known the contents of the envelope, but with a slight smile he dashed off the cheque and handed it to the Colonel. "If—er—it would not be too much trouble," said the Colonel, jauntily, "for the same reason just mentioned, would you give that—er—piece of paper to one of your clerks to draw the money for me?"
Mr. Dumphy impatiently, with his eyes on the envelope, rang his bell and handed the cheque to the clerk, while Colonel Starbottle, with an air of abstraction, walked discreetly to the window.
For the rest of Colonel Starbottle's life he never ceased to deplore this last act of caution, and regret that he had not put the cheque in his pocket. For as he walked to the window the floor suddenly appeared to rise beneath his feet and as suddenly sank again, and he was thrown violently against the mantelpiece. He felt sick and giddy. With a terrible apprehension of apoplexy in his whirling brain, he turned toward his companion, who had risen from his seat and was supporting himself by his swinging desk with a panic-stricken face and a pallor equal to his own. In another moment a bookcase toppled with a crash to the floor, a loud outcry arose from the outer offices, and amidst the sounds of rushing feet, the breaking of glass, and the creaking of timber, the two men dashed with a common instinct to the door. It opened two inches and remained fixed. With the howl of a caged wild beast Dumphy threw himself against the rattling glass of the window that opened on the level of the street. In another instant Colonel Starbottle was beside him on the side-walk,and the next they were separated, unconsciously, uncaringly, as if they had been the merest strangers in contact in a crowd. The business that had brought them together, the unfinished, incomplete, absorbing interests of a moment ago were forgotten—were buried in the oblivion of another existence, which had no sympathy with this, whose only instinct was to fly—where, they knew not!
The middle of the broad street was filled with a crowd of breathless, pallid, death-stricken men who had lost all sense but the common instinct of animals. There were hysterical men, who laughed loudly without a cause, and talked incessantly of what they knew not. There were dumb, paralysed men, who stood helplessly and hopelessly beneath cornices and chimneys that toppled over and crushed them. There were automatic men, who flying, carried with them the work on which they were engaged—one whose hands were full of bills and papers, another who held his ledger under his arm. There were men who had forgotten the ordinary instincts of decency—some half-dressed. There were men who rushed from the fear of death into its presence; two were picked up, one who had jumped through a skylight, another who had blindly leaped from a fourth-story window. There were brave men who trembled like children; there was one whose life had been spent in scenes of daring and danger, who cowered paralysed in the corner of the room from which a few inches of plastering had fallen. There were hopeful men who believed that the danger was over, and having passed, would, by some mysterious law, never recur; there were others who shook their heads and said that the next shock would be fatal. There were crowds around the dust that arose from fallen chimneys and cornices, around runaway horses that had dashed as madly as their drivers against lamp-posts, around telegraph and newspaper offices eagerto know the extent of the disaster. Along the remoter avenues and cross-streets dwellings were deserted, people sat upon their doorsteps or in chairs upon the sidewalks, fearful of the houses they had built with their own hands, and doubtful even of this blue arch above them that smiled so deceitfully; of those far-reaching fields beyond, which they had cut into lots and bartered and sold, and which now seemed to suddenly rise against them, or slip and wither away from their very feet. It seemed so outrageous that this dull, patient earth, whose homeliness they had adorned and improved, and which, whatever their other fortune or vicissitudes, at least had been their sure inheritance, should have become so faithless. Small wonder that the owner of a little house, which had sunk on the reclaimed water front, stooped in the speechless and solemn absurdity of his wrath to shake his clenched fist in the face of the Great Mother.
The real damage to life and property had been so slight and in such pronounced contrast to the prevailing terror, that half an hour later only a sense of the ludicrous remained with the greater masses of the people. Mr. Dumphy, like all practical, unimaginative men, was among the first to recover his presence of mind with the passing of the immediate danger. People took confidence when this great man, who had so much to lose, after sharply remanding his clerks and everybody else back to business, re-entered his office. He strode at once to his desk. But the envelope was gone! He looked hurriedly among his papers—on the floor—by the broken window—but in vain.
Mr. Dumphy instantly rang his bell. The clerk appeared.
"Was that draft paid?"
"No, sir; we were counting the money when"——
"Stop it!—return the draft to me."
The young man was confiding to his confrères his suspicions of a probable "run" on the bank as indicated by Mr. Dumphy's caution, when he was again summoned by Mr. Dumphy.
"Go to Mr. Poinsett's office and ask him to come here at once."
In a few moments the clerk returned out of breath.
"Mr. Poinsett left a quarter of an hour ago, sir, for San Antonio."
"San Antonio?"
"Yes, sir—they say there's bad news from the Mission."
The day following the discovery of the murder of Victor Ramirez was one of the intensest excitement in One Horse Gulch. It was not that killing was rare in that pastoral community—foul murder had been done there upon the bodies of various citizens of more or less respectability, and the victim in the present instance was a stranger and a man who awakened no personal sympathy; but the suspicion that swiftly and instantly attached to two such important people as Mr. and Mrs. Conroy, already objects of severe criticism, was sufficient to exalt this particular crime above all others in thrilling interest. For two days business was practically suspended.
The discovery of the murder was made by Sal, who stumbled upon the body of the unfortunate Victor early the next morning during a walk on Conroy's Hill, manifestly in search of the missing man, who had not returned to the hotel that night. A few flippant souls, misunderstanding Miss Clark's interest in the stranger, asserted thathe had committed suicide to escape her attentions, but all jocular hypothesis ceased when it became known that Gabriel and his wife had fled. Then came the report that Gabriel had been seen by a passing miner early in the day "shoving" the stranger along the trail, with his hand on his collar, and exchanging severe words. Then the willing testimony of Miss Clark that she had seen Mrs. Conroy in secret converse with Victor before the murder; then the unwilling evidence of the Chinaman who had overtaken Gabriel with the letter, but who heard the sounds of quarrelling and cries for help in the bushes after his departure; but this evidence was excluded from the inquest, by virtue of the famous Californian law that a Pagan was of necessity a liar, and that truth only resided in the breast of the Christian Caucasian, and was excluded from the general public for its incompatibility with Gabriel's subsequent flight, and the fact that the Chinaman, being a fool, was probably mistaken in the hour. Then there was the testimony of the tunnel-men to Gabriel's appearance on the hill that night. There was only one important proof not submitted to the public or the authorities—Mrs. Conroy's note—picked up by Sal, handed to Mrs. Markle, and given by her to Lawyer Maxwell. The knowledge of this document was restricted to the few already known to the reader.
A dozen or more theories of the motive of the deed at different hours of the day occupied and disturbed the public mind. That Gabriel had come upon a lover of his wife in the act of eloping with her, and had slain him out of hand, was the first. That Gabriel had decoyed the man to an interview by simulating his wife's handwriting, and then worked his revenge on his body, was accepted later as showing the necessary deliberation to constitute murder. That Gabriel and his wife had conjointly takenthis method to rid themselves of a former lover who threatened exposure, was a still later theory. Towards evening, when One Horse Gulch had really leisure to put its heads together, it was generally understood that Gabriel and Mrs. Conroy had put out of their way a dangerous and necessarily rightful claimant to that mine which Gabriel had pretended to discover. This opinion was for some time—say two hours—the favourite one, agreeing as it did with the popular opinion of Gabriel's inability to discover a mine himself, and was only modified by another theory that Victor was not the real claimant, but a dangerous witness that the Conroys had found it necessary to dispose of. And when, possibly from some unguarded expression of Lawyer Maxwell, it was reported that Gabriel Conroy was an impostor under an assumed name, all further speculation was deemed unnecessary. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict against "John Doe, alias Gabriel Conroy," and One Horse Gulch added this injury of false pretence to other grievances complained of. One or two cases of horse-stealing and sluice-robbing in the neighbourhood were indefinitely but strongly connected with this discovery. If I am thus particular in citing these evidences of the various gradations of belief in the guilt of the accused, it is because they were peculiar to One Horse Gulch, and of course never obtained in more civilised communities.
It is scarcely necessary to say that one person in One Horse Gulch never wavered in her opinion of Gabriel's innocence, nor that that person was Mrs. Markle. That he was the victim of a vile conspiracy—that Mrs. Conroy was the real culprit, and had diabolically contrived to fasten the guilt upon her husband, Mrs. Markle not only believed herself, but absolutely contrived to make Lawyer Maxwell and Sal believe also. More than that, it had undoubtedly great power in restraining Sal's evidence before the inquest,which that impulsive and sympathetic young woman persisted in delivering behind a black veil and in a suit of the deepest mourning that could be hastily improvised in One Horse Gulch.
"Miss Clark's evidence," said theSilveropolis Messenger, "although broken by sobs and occasional expressions of indignation against the murderer, strongly impressed the jury as the natural eloquence of one connected with the tenderest ties to the unfortunate victim. It is said that she was an old acquaintance of Ramirez, who was visiting her in the hope of inducing her to consent to a happy termination of a life-long courtship, when the dastard hand of the murderer changed the bridal wreath to the veil of mourning. From expressions that dropped from the witness's lips, although restrained by natural modesty, it would not be strange if jealousy were shown to be one of the impelling causes. It is said that previous to his marriage the alleged Gabriel Conroy was a frequent visitor at the house of Miss Clark."