Victor winced slightly, but did not speak.
"I saw Mr. Dumphy in San Francisco. He showed me some papers that he said he had found in a place of deposit which Dr. Devarges had evidently wished preserved. One was a record of a Spanish grant, others indicated some valuable discoveries. He referred me to the Mission and Presidio of San Ysabel that had sent out the relief party for further information. He was a trader—a mere man of business—it was a question of money with him; he agreed to assist me for apercentage! Is it not so?"
Victor raised his dark eyes to hers, and nodded.
"I came to the Mission. I sawyou—the Secretary of the former Comandante—the only one left who remembered the expedition, and the custodian of the Presidio records. You showed me the only copy of the report;you, too, would have been cold and business-like, until I told you my story. You seemed interested. You told me about the young girl, this mysterious Grace Conroy, whose name appearedamong the dead, who you said you thought was an impostor! Did you not?"
Victor nodded.
"You told me of her agony on reading the report! Of her fainting, of the discovery of her condition by the women, of the Comandante's pity, of her mysterious disappearance, of the Comandante's reticence, of your own suspicions of the birth of a child! Did you not, Victor?"
He endeavoured to take her hand. Without altering her gentle manner, she withdrew her hand quietly, and went on—
"And then you told me of your finding that paper on the floor where they loosened her dress—the paper you now hold in your hand. You told me of your reasons for concealing and withholding it. And then, Victor, you proposed to me a plan to secure my own again—to personate this girl—to out-imposture this imposture. You did not ask me for a percentage! You did not seek to make money out of my needs; you asked only for my love! Well, well! perhaps I was a fool, a weak woman. It was a tempting bribe; possibly I listened more to the promptings of my heart than my interest. I promised you my hand and my fortune when we succeeded. You come to me now, and ask to be relieved of that obligation. No! no! you have said enough."
The now frightened man had seized her by the hand, and thrown himself on his knees before her in passionate contrition; but, with a powerful effort, she had wrested herself free.
"No, no!" she continued, in the same deprecatory voice. "Go to this brother, whom the chief end of your labours seems to have been to discover. Go to him now. Restore to him the paper you hold in your hand. Say that you stole it from his sister, whom you suspected to havebeen an impostor, and that you knew to be the mother of an illegitimate child! Say that in doing this, you took the last hope from the wronged and cast-off wife who came thousands of miles to claim something from the man who should have supported her. Say this, and that brother, if he is the good and kind man you represent him to be, he will rise up and bless you! You have only to tell him further, that this paper cannot be of any use to him, as this property legally belongs to his sister's child, if living. You have only to hand him the report which declares both of his sisters to be dead, and leaves his own identity in doubt, to show him what a blessing has fallen upon him."
"Forgive me," gasped Victor, with a painful blending of shame and awesome admiration of the woman before him; "forgive me, Julie! I am a coward! a slave! an ingrate! I will do anything, Julie; anything you say."
Madame Devarges was too sagacious to press her victory further; perhaps she was too cautious to exasperate the already incautiously demonstrative man before her. She said "Hush," and permitted him at the same time, as if unconsciously, to draw her beside him.
"Listen, Victor. What have you to fear from this man?" she asked, after a pause. "What would his evidence weigh against me, when he is in unlawful possession of my property, my legally declared properly, if I choose to deny his relationship? Who will identity him as Gabriel Conroy, when his only surviving relative dare not come forward to recognise him; when, if she did, you could swear that she came to you under another name? What would this brother's self-interested evidence amount to opposed to yours, that I was the Grace Conroy who came to the Mission, to the proof of my identity offered by one of the survivors, Peter Dumphy?"
"Dumphy!" echoed Ramirez, in amazement.
"Yes, Dumphy!" repeated Madame Devarges. "Whenhe found that, as the divorced wife of Dr. Devarges, I could make no legal claim, and I told him of your plan, he offered himself as witness of my identity. Ah, Victor! I have not been idle while you have found only obstacles."
"Forgive me!" He caught and kissed her hands passionately. "I fly now. Good-bye."
"Where are you going?" she asked, rising.
"To 'One Horse Gulch,'" he answered.
"No! Sit down. Listen. You must go to San Francisco, and inform Dumphy of your discovery. It will be necessary, perhaps, to have a lawyer; but we must first see how strong we stand. You must find out the whereabouts of this girl Grace, at once. Go to San Francisco, see Dumphy, and return to me here!"
"But you are alone here, and unprotected. These men!"
The quick suspicions of a jealous nature flashed in his eyes.
"Believe me, they are less dangerous to our plans than women! Do you not trust me, Victor?" she said, with a dazzling smile.
He would have thrown himself at her feet, but she restrained him with an arch look at the wall, and a precautionary uplifted finger.
"Good; go now. Stay. This Gabriel—is he married?"
"No."
"Good-bye."
The door closed upon his dark, eager face, and he was gone. A moment later there was a sharp ringing of the bell of No. 92, the next room to that occupied by Mme. Devarges.
The truculent porter knocked at the door, and entered this room respectfully. There was no suspicion attached to the character ofitsoccupant.Hewas well known as Mr. Jack Hamlin, a gambler.
"Why the devil did you keep me waiting?" said Jack,reaching from the bed, and wrathfully clutching his boot-jack.
The man murmured some apology.
"Bring me some hot water."
The porter was about to hurriedly withdraw, when Jack stopped him with an oath.
"You've been long enough coming without shooting off like that. Who was that man that just left the next room?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Find out, and let me know."
He flung a gold piece at the man, beat up his pillow, and turned his face to the wall. The porter still lingered, and Jack faced sharply round.
"Not gone yet? What the devil"——
"Beg your pardon, sir; do you know anything about her?"
"No," said Jack, raising himself on his elbow; "but if I catch you hanging round that door, as you were five minutes ago, I'll"——.
Here Mr. Hamlin dropped his voice, and intimated that he would forcibly dislodge certain vital and necessary organs from the porter's body.
"Go."
After the door closed again, Mr. Hamlin lay silent for an hour. At the end of that time he got up and began to dress himself slowly, singing softly to himself the while, as was his invariable custom, in that sweet tenor for which he was famous. When he had thus warbled through his toilet, replacing a small ivory-handled pistol in his waistcoat-pocket to one of his most heart-breaking notes, he put his hat on his handsome head, perhaps a trifle more on one side than usual, and stepped into the hall. As he sharply shut his door and locked it, the slight concussion of the thin partitions caused the door of his fair neighbour's room to startajar, and Mr. Hamlin, looking up mechanically, saw the lady standing by the bureau, with her handkerchief to her eyes. Mr. Hamlin instantly stopped his warbling, and walked gravely downstairs. At the foot of the steps he met the porter. The man touched his hat.
"He doesn't belong here, sir."
"Who doesn't belong here?" asked Mr. Hamlin, coldly.
"That man."
"What man?"
"The man you asked about."
Mr. Hamlin quietly took out a cigar, lit it, and after one or two puffs, looked fixedly in the man's eyes, and said—
"I haven't asked you about any man."
"I thought, sir"——
"You shouldn't begin to drink so early in the day, Michael," said Mr. Hamlin, quietly, without withdrawing his black eyes from the man's face. "You can't stand it on an empty stomach. Take my advice and wait till after dinner."
Olly's allusion to Mrs. Markle and her criticism had recurred to Gabriel more or less uneasily through the night, and as he rose betimes the next morning and stood by the table on which lay his handiwork, a grim doubt of his proficiency in that branch of domestic economy began to oppress him.
"Like as not I ain't doin' my duty to that child," he said softly to himself, as he picked up the garments one by one, and deposited them beside the bedside of the still sleeping Olly. "Them clothes are—leavin' out the strength and sayin' nothin' o' durability as material—a trifle old-fashioned and onbecomin'. Not as you requires anything o' thekind, bless your pooty face," he said, apostrophising the dewy curls and slumber-flushed cheek of the unconscious child; "but mebbe it does sorter provoke remarks from the other children. And the settlement's gettin' crowded. Three new families in six months is rather too—too——" considered Gabriel, hesitating for a word; "rather too popylating! And Mrs. Markle"—Gabriel flushed even in the stillness and solitude of his own cabin—"to think of that little gal, not nine years old, speaking o' that widder in that way. It beats everything. And to think I've kept clar of that sort o' thing jest on Olly's account, jest that she shouldn't have any woman around to boss her."
Nevertheless, when he and Olly sat down to their frugal breakfast, he was uneasily conscious of several oddities of her dress, not before noticeable, and even some peculiarities of manner.
"Ez a gineral thing, Olly," he pointed out with cautious generalisation, "ez a gineral thing, in perlite society, young gals don't sit down a-straddle of their chairs, and don't reach down every five minnits to heave away at their boot-straps."
"As a general thing, Gabe, girls don't wear boots," said Olly, leaning forward to dip her bread in the frying-pan.
Artfully evading the question whether high india-rubber boots were an indispensable feature of a girl's clothing, Gabriel continued with easy indifference—"I think I'll drop in on Mrs. Markle on my way to the Gulch this morning."
He glanced under his eyelids at as much of his sister's face as was visible behind the slice of bread she was consuming.
"Take me with you, Gabe?"
"No," said Gabriel, "you must stay here and do up the house; and mind you keep out o' the woods until yourwork's done. Besides," he added, loftily, "I've got some business with Mrs. Markle."
"Oh, Gabe!" said Olly, shining all over her face with gravy and archness.
"I'd like to know what's the matter with you, Olly," said Gabriel, with dignified composure.
"Ain't you ashamed, Gabe?"
Gabriel did not stop to reply, but rose, gathered up his tools, and took his hat from the corner. He walked to the door, but suddenly turned and came back to Olly.
"Olly," he said, taking her face in both hands, after his old fashion, "ef anything at any time should happen to me, I want ye to think, my darling, ez I always did my best for you, Olly, for you. Wotever I did was always for the best."
Olly thought instantly of the river.
"You ain't goin' into deep water to-day, Gabe, are you?" she asked, with a slight premonitory quiver of her short upper lip.
"Pooty deep for me, Olly; but," he added, hastily, with a glance at her alarmed face, "don't you mind, I'll come out all safe. Good-bye." He kissed her tenderly. She ran her fingers through his sandy curls, deftly smoothed his beard, and reknotted his neckerchief.
"You oughter hev put on your other shirt, Gabe; that ain't clean; and you a-goin' to Mrs. Markle's! Let me get your straw hat, Gabe. Wait." She ran in behind the screen, but when she returned he was gone.
It had been raining the night before, but on the earth beneath there was a dewy freshness, and in the sky above the beauty of cloud scenery—a beauty rare to California except during the rainy season. Gabriel, although not usually affected by meteorological influences, nor peculiarly susceptible to the charms of Nature, felt that the morning was a fine one, and was for that reason, I imagine, morethan usually accessible to the blandishments of the fair. From admiring a tree, a flower, or a gleam of sunshine, to the entertainment of a dangerous sentimentalism in regard to the other sex, is, I fear, but a facile step to some natures, whose only safety is in continuous practicality. Wherefore, Gabriel, as he approached the cottage of Mrs. Markle, was induced to look from Nature up to—Nature's goddess—Mrs. Markle, as her strong bright face appeared above the dishes she was washing by the kitchen window. And here occurred one of those feminine inconsistencies that are charming to the average man, but are occasionally inefficient with an exceptional character. Mrs. Markle, who had always been exceedingly genial, gentle, and natural with Gabriel during his shyness, seeing him coming with a certain fell intent of cheerfulness in his face, instantly assumed an aggressive manner, which, for the sake of its probable warning to the rest of her sex, I venture to transcribe.
"Ef you want to see me, Gabriel Conroy," said Mrs. Markle, stopping to wipe the suds from her brown but handsomely shaped arms, "you must come up to the sink, for I can't leave the dishes. Joe Markle always used to say to me, 'Sue, when you've got work to do, you don't let your mind wander round much on anything else.' Sal, bring a cheer here for Gabriel—he don't come often enough to stand up for a change. We're hard-working women, you and me, Sal, and we don't get time to be sick—and sick folks is about the only kind as Mr. Conroy cares to see."
Thoroughly astonished as Gabriel was with this sarcastic reception, there was still a certain relief that it brought to him. "Olly was wrong," he said to himself; "that woman only thinks of washing dishes and lookin' after her boarders. Ef she was allus like this—and would leave a man alone, never foolin' around him, but kinder standin' off and 'tendin' strictlyto the business of the house, why, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to marry her. But like as not she'd change—you can't trust them critters. Howsomever I can set Olly's mind at rest."
Happily unconscious of the heresies that were being entertained by the silent man before her, Mrs. Markle briskly continued her washing and her monologue, occasionally sprinkling Gabriel with the overflow of each.
"When I say hard-workin' women, Sal," said Mrs. Markle, still addressing a gaunt female companion, whose sole functions were confined to chuckling at Gabriel over the dishes she was wiping, and standing with her back to her mistress—"when I say hard-workin' women, Sal, I don't forget ez there are men ez is capable of doin' all that, and more—men ez looks down on you and me." Here Mistress Markle broke a plate, and then, after a pause, sighed, faced around with a little colour in her cheek and a sharp snap in her black eyes, and declared that she was "that narvous" this morning that she couldn't go on.
There was an embarrassing silence. Luckily for Gabriel, at this moment the gaunt Sal picked up the dropped thread of conversation, and with her back to her mistress, and profoundly ignoring his presence, addressed herself to the wall.
"Narvous you well may be, Susan, and you slavin' for forty boarders, with transitory meals for travellers, and nobody to help you. If you was flat on your back with rheumatiz, ez you well might be, perhaps you might get a hand. A death in the family might be of sarvice to you in callin' round you friends az couldn't otherwise leave their business. That cough that little Manty had on to her for the last five weeks would frighten some mothers into a narvous consumption."
Gabriel at this moment had a vivid and guilty recollectionof noticing Manty Markle wading in the ditch below the house as he entered, and of having observed her with the interest of possible paternal relationship. That relationship seemed so preposterous and indefensible on all moral grounds, now that he began to feel himself in the light of an impostor, and was proportionally embarrassed. His confusion was shown in a manner peculiarly characteristic of himself. Drawing a small pocket comb from his pocket, he began combing out his sandy curls, softly, with a perplexed smile on his face. The widow had often noticed this action, divined its cause, and accepted it as a tribute. She began to relent. By some occult feminine sympathy, this relenting was indicated by the other woman.
"You're out of sorts this morning, Susan, 'nd if ye'll take a fool's advice, ye'll jest quit work, and make yourself comfortable in the settin'-room, and kinder pass the time o' day with Gabriel; onless he's after waitin' to pick up some hints about housework. I never could work with a man around. I'll do up the dishes ef you'll excuse my kempany, which two is and three's none. Yer give me this apron. You don't hev time, I declare, Sue, to tidy yourself up. And your hair's comin' down."
The gaunt Sal, having recognised Gabriel's presence to this extent, attempted to reorganise Mrs. Markle's coiffure, but was playfully put aside by that lady, with the remark, that "she had too much to do to think of them things."
"And it's only a mop, anyway," she added, with severe self-depreciation; "let it alone, will you, Sal! Thar! I told you; now you've done it." And she had. The infamous Sal, by some deft trick well known to her deceitful sex, had suddenly tumbled the whole wealth of Mrs. Markle's black mane over her plump shoulders. Mrs. Markle, with a laugh, would have flown to the chaste recesses of the sitting-room; but Sal, like a true artist, restrained her, untilthe full effect of this poetic picture should be impressed upon the unsuspecting Gabriel's memory.
"Mop, indeed!" said Sal. "It's well that many folks is of many minds, and self-praise is open disgrace; but when a man like Lawyer Maxwell sez to me only yesterday sittin' at this very table, lookin' kinder up at you, Sue, as you was passin' soup, unconscious like, and one o' 'em braids droppin' down, and jest missin' the plate, when Lawyer Maxwell sez to me, 'Sal, thar's many a fine lady in Frisco ez would give her pile to have Susan Markle's hair'"——
But here Sal was interrupted by the bashful escape of Mrs. Markle to the sitting-room. "Ye don't know whether Lawyer Maxwell has any bisness up this way, Gabriel, do ye?" said Sal, resuming her work.
"No," said the unconscious Gabriel, happily as oblivious of the artful drift of the question as he had been of the dangerous suggestiveness of Mrs. Markle's hair.
"Because hedoeskinder pass here more frequent than he used, and hez taken ez menny ez five meals in one day. I declare, I thought that was him when you kem just now! I don't think thet Sue notices it, not keering much for that kind of build in a man," continued Sal, glancing at Gabriel's passively powerful shoulders, and the placid strength of his long limbs. "How do you think Sue's looking now—ez a friend interested in the family—how does she look to you?"
Gabriel hastened to assure Sal of the healthful appearance of Mrs. Markle, but only extracted from his gaunt companion a long sigh and a shake of the head.
"It's deceitful, Gabriel! No one knows what that poor critter goes through. Her mind's kinder onsettled o' late, and in that onsettled state, she breaks things. You see her break that plate just now? Well, perhaps I oughtn't to say it—but you being a friend and in confidence, for she'd kill me, being a proud kind o' nater, suthin' like my own, andit may not amount to nothin' arter all—but I kin always tell when you've been around by the breakages. You was here, let's see, the week afore last, and there wasn't cups enough left to go round that night for supper!"
"Maybe it's chills," said the horror-stricken Gabriel, his worst fears realised, rising from his chair; "I've got some Indian cholagogue over to the cabin, and I'll jest run over and get it, or send it back." Intent only upon retreat, he would have shamelessly flown; but Sal intercepted him with a face of mysterious awe.
"Ef she should kem in here and find you gone, Gabriel, in that weak state of hers—narvous you may call it, but so it is—I wouldn't be answerable for that poor critter's life. Ef she should think you'd gone, arter what has happened, arter what has passed between you and her to-day, it would jest kill her."
"But what has passed?" said Gabriel, in vague alarm.
"It ain't for me," said the gaunt Sal, loftily, "to pass my opinion on other folks' conduct, or to let on what this means, or what thet means, or to give my say about people callin' on other people, and broken crockery, hair combs"—Gabriel winced—"and people ez is too nice and keerful to open their mouths afore folks! It ain't for me to get up and say that, when a woman is ever so little out of sorts, and a man is so far gone ez he allows to rush off like a madman to get her medicines, what ez or what ezn't in it. I keep my own counsel, and thet's my way. Many's the time Sue hez said to me: 'Ef thar ever was a woman ez knowed how to lock herself up and throw away the key, it's you, Sal.' And there you are, ma'am, and it's high time ez plain help like me stopped talkin' while ladies and gentlemen exchanged the time o' day."
It is hardly necessary to say that the latter part of this speech was addressed to the widow, who at that momentappeared at the door of the sitting-room, in a new calico gown that showed her plump figure to advantage, or that the gaunt Sal intended to indicate the serious character of the performance by a show of increased respect to the actors.
"I hope I ain't intrudin' on your conversation," said the widow, archly, stopping, with a show of consideration, on the threshold. "Ef you and Sal ain't done private matters yet—I'll wait."
"I don't think ez Gabriel hez anything more to say thet you shouldn't hear, Mrs. Markle," said Sal, strongly implying a recent confidential disclosure from Gabriel, which delicacy to Gabriel alone prevented her from giving. "But it ain't for me to hear confidence in matters of the feelin's."
It is difficult to say whether Mrs. Markle's archness, or Sal's woeful perspicuity, was most alarming to Gabriel. He rose; he would have flown, even with the terrible contingency of Mrs. Markle's hysterics before his eyes; he would have faced even that forcible opposition from Sal of which he fully believed her capable, but that a dreadful suspicion that he was already hopelessly involved, that something would yet transpire that would enable him to explain himself, and perhaps an awful fascination of his very danger, turned his irresolute feet into Mrs. Markle's sitting-room. Mrs. Markle offered him a chair; he sank helplessly into it, while, from the other room, Sal, violently clattering her dishes, burst into shrill song, so palpably done for the purpose of assuring the bashful couple of her inability to overhear their tender confidences, that Gabriel coloured to the roots of his hair.
That evening Gabriel returned from his work in the gulch more than usually grave. To Olly's inquiries he replied shortly and evasively. It was not, however, Gabriel's custom to remain uncommunicative on evendisagreeable topics, and Olly bided her time. It came after their frugal supper was over—which, unlike the morning meal, passed without any fastidious criticism on Gabriel's part—and Olly had drawn a small box, her favourite seat, between her brother's legs, and rested the back of her head comfortably against his waistcoat. When Gabriel had lighted his pipe at the solitary candle, he gave one or two preliminary puffs, and then, taking his pipe from his mouth, said gently, "Olly, it can't be done."
"What can't be done, Gabe?" queried the artful Olly, with a swift preconception of the answer, expanding her little mouth into a thoughtful smile.
"Thet thing."—"What thing, Gabe?"
"This yer marryin' o' Mrs. Markle," said Gabriel, with an assumption of easy, business-like indifference.
"Why?" asked Olly.
"She wouldn't hev me."
"What?" said Olly, facing swiftly round.
Gabriel evaded his sister's eyes, and looking in the fire, repeated slowly, but with great firmness—
"No; not fur—fur—fur a gift!"
"She's a mean, stuck-up, horrid old thing!" said Olly, fiercely. "I'd jest like to—why, there ain't a man az kin compare with you, Gabe! Like her impudence!"
Gabriel waved his pipe in the air deprecatingly, yet with such an evident air of cheerful resignation, that Olly faced upon him again suspiciously, and asked—"What did she say?"
"She said," replied Gabe, slowly, "thet her heart was given to another. I think she struck into poetry, and said—
"'My heart it is another's,And it never can be thine.
"Thet is, I think so. I disremember her special remark,Olly; but you know women allers spout poetry at sech times. Ennyhow, that's about the way the spring panned out."
"Who was it?" said Olly, suddenly.
"She didn't let on who," said Gabriel, uneasily. "I didn't think it the square thing to inquire."
"Well," said Olly.
Gabriel looked down still more embarrassed, and shifted his position. "Well," he repeated.
"What didyousay?" said Olly.—"Then?"
"No, afore. How did you do it, Gabe?" said Olly, comfortably fixing her chin in her hands, and looking up in her brother's face.
"Oh, the usual way!" said Gabriel, with a motion of his pipe, to indicate vague and glittering generalities of courtship.
"But how? Gabe, tell me all about it."
"Well," said Gabriel, looking up at the roof, "wimmen is bashful ez a general thing, and thar's about only one way ez a man can get at 'em, and that ez, by being kinder keerless and bold. Ye see, Olly, when I kem inter the house, I sorter jest chucked Sal under the chin—thet way, you know—and then went up and put my arm around the widder's waist, and kissed her two or three times, you know, jest to be sociable and familiar like."
"And to think, Gabe, thet after all that she wouldn't hev ye," said Olly.
"Not at any price," said Gabriel, positively.
"The disgustin' creature!" said Olly, "I'd jest like to ketch that Manty hangin' round yer after that!" she continued, savagely, with a vicious shake of her little fist. "And just to think, only to-day we give her her pick o' them pups!"
"Hush, Olly, ye mustn't do anythin' o' the sort," saidGabriel, hastily. "Ye must never let on to any one anything. It's confidence, Olly, confidence, ez these sort o' things allus is—atween you and me. Besides," he went on, reassuringly, "that's nothin'. Lord, afore a man's married he hez to go through this kind o' thing a dozen times. It's expected. There was a man as I once knowed," continued Gabriel, with shameless mendacity, "ez went through it fifty tunes, and he was a better man nor me, and could shake a thousand dollars in the face of any woman. Why, bless your eyes, Olly, some men jest likes it—it's excitement—like perspectin'."
"But what did you say, Gabe?" said Olly, returning with fresh curiosity to the central fact, and ignoring the Pleasures of Rejection as expounded by Gabriel.
"Well, I just up, and sez this: Susan Markle, sez I, the case is just this. Here's Olly and me up there on the hill, and jess you and Manty down there on the Gulch, and mountings wild and valleys deep two loving hearts do now divide, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be one family and one house, and that family and that house mine. And it's for you to say when. And then I kinder slung in a little more poetry, and sorter fooled around with that ring," said Gabriel, showing a heavy plain gold ring on his powerful little finger, "and jest kissed her agin, and chucked Sally under the chin, and that's all."
"And she wouldn't hev ye, Gabe," said Olly, thoughtfully, "after all that? Well, who wants her to? I don't."
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Olly," said Gabriel. "But ye mustn't let on a word of it to her. She talks o' coming up on the hill to build, and wants to buy that part of the old claim where I perspected last summer, so's to be near us, and look arter you. And, Olly," continued Gabriel, gravely, "ef she comes round yer foolin' around me ez she used to do, ye mustn't mind that—it's women's ways."
"I'd like to catch her at it," said Olly.
Gabriel looked at Olly with a guilty satisfaction, and drew her toward him. "And now that it's all over, Olly," said he, "it's all the better ez it is. You and me'll get along together ez comfortable as we kin. I talked with some of the boys the other day about sendin' for a schoolmarm from Marysville, and Mrs. Markle thinks it's a good idee. And you'll go to school, Olly. I'll run up to Marysville next week and get you some better clothes, and we'll be just ez happy ez ever. And then some day, Olly, afore you know it—them things come always suddent—I'll jest make a strike outer that ledge, and we'll be rich. Thar's money in that ledge, Olly, I've allus allowed that. And then we'll go—you and me—to San Francisco, and we'll hev a big house, and I'll jest invite a lot of little girls, the best they is in Frisco, to play with you, and you'll hev all the teachers you want, and women ez will be glad to look arter ye. And then maybe I might make it up with Mrs. Markle"——
"Never!" said Olly, passionately.
"Never it is!" said the artful Gabriel, with a glow of pleasure in his eyes, and a slight stirring of remorse in his breast. "But it's time that small gals like you was abed."
Thus admonished, Olly retired behind the screen, taking the solitary candle, and leaving her brother smoking his pipe by the light of the slowly dying fire. But Olly did not go to sleep, and half an hour later, peering out of the screen, she saw her brother still sitting by the fire, his pipe extinguished, and his head resting on his hand. She went up to him so softly that she startled him, shaking a drop of water on the hand that she suddenly threw round his neck.
"You ain't worrying about that woman, Gabe?"
"No," said Gabriel, with a laugh.
Olly looked down at her hand. Gabriel looked up at the roof. "There's a leak thar that's got to be stopped to-morrow. Go to bed, Olly, or you'll take your death."
Notwithstanding his assumed ease and a certain relief, which was real, Gabriel was far from being satisfied with the result of his visit to Mrs. Markle. Whatever may have actually occurred, not known to the reader except through Gabriel's own disclosure to Olly, Gabriel's manner hardly bore out the boldness and conclusiveness of his statement. For a day or two afterwards he resented any allusion to the subject from Olly, but on the third day he held a conversation with one of the Eureka Bar miners, which seemed to bear some remote reference to his experience.
"Thar's a good deal said lately in the papers," began Gabriel, cautiously, "in regard to breach o' promise trials. Lookin' at it, by and large, thar don't seem to be much show for a fellow ez hez been in enny ways kind to a gal, is thar?"
The person addressed, whom rumour declared to have sought One Horse Gulch as a place of refuge from his wife, remarked with an oath that women were blank fools anyway, and that on general principles they were not to be trusted.
"But thar must be a kind o' gin'ral law on the subject," urged Gabriel. "Now what would be your opinion if you was on a jury onto a case like this? It happened to a friend o' mine in Frisco," said Gabriel, with a marked parenthesis, "a man ez you don't know. Thar was a woman—we'll say a widder—ez had been kinder hangin' roundhim off and on for two or three year, and he hadn't allowed anything to her about marryin'. One day he goes down thar to her house, kinder easy-like, jest to pass the time o' day, and be sociable"——
"That's bad," interrupted the cynic.
"Yes," said Gabriel, doubtingly, "p'r'aps it does look bad, but you see he didn't mean anythin'."
"Well?" said the adviser.
"Well! thet's all," said Gabriel.
"All!" exclaimed his companion, indignantly.
"Yes, all. Now this woman kinder allows she'll bring a suit agin him to make him marry her."
"My opinion is," said the adviser, bluntly, "my opinion is, that the man was a fool, and didn't tell ye the truth nuther, and I'd give damages agin him, for being such a fool."
This opinion was so crushing to Gabriel that he turned hopelessly away. Nevertheless, in his present state of mind, he could not refrain from pushing his inquiries further, and in a general conversation which took place at Briggs's store, in the afternoon, among a group of smokers, Gabriel artfully introduced the subject of courtship and marriage.
"Thar's different ways of getting at the feelin's of a woman," said the oracular Johnson, after a graphic statement of his own method of ensnaring the affections of a former sweetheart, "thar's different ways jest as thar's different men and women in the world. One man's way won't do with some wimmen. But thar's one way ez is pretty sure to fetch 'em allers. That is, to play off indifferent—to never let on ye like 'em! To kinder look arter them in a gin'ral sort o' way, pretty much as Gabe thar looks arter the sick!—but not to say anythin' particler. To make them understand that they've got to do all the courtin', ef thar's enny to be done. What's the matter, Gabe, ye ain't goin'?"
Gabriel, who had risen in great uneasiness, muttered something about "its being time to go home," and then sat down again, looking at Johnson in fearful fascination.
"That kind o' thing is pretty sure to fetch almost enny woman," continued Johnson, "and a man ez does it orter be looked arter. It orter be put down by law. It's tamperin', don't yer see, with the holiest affections. Sich a man orter be spotted wharever found."
"But mebbe the man don't mean anythin'—mebbe it's jest his way," suggested Gabriel, ruefully, looking around in the faces of the party, "mebbe he don't take to wimmen and marriage nat'ral, and it's jest his way."
"Way be blowed!" said the irate Johnson, scornfully. "Ketch him, indeed! It's jest the artfullest kind o' artfulness. It's jest begging on a full hand."
Gabriel rose slowly, and, resisting any further attempts to detain him, walked to the door, and, after a remark on the threatening nature of the weather, delivered in a manner calculated to impress his audience with his general indifference to the subject then under discussion, melted dejectedly away into the driving rain that had all day swept over One Horse Gulch, and converted its one long narrow street into a ditch of turbulent yellow water.
"Thet Gabe seems to be out o' sorts to-day," said Johnson. "I heerd Lawyer Maxwell asking arter him this morning; I reckon thar's suthin' up! Gabe ain't a bad sort of chap. Hezen't got enny too muchsabeabout him, but he's mighty good at looking arter sick folks, and thet kind o' man's a power o' use in this camp. Hope thar ain't anything ez will interfere with his sphere o' usefulness."
"May be a woman scrape," suggested Briggs. "He seemed sort o' bound up in what you was saying about women jest now. Thar is folks round yer," said Briggs, dropping his voice and looking about him, "ez believesthat that yer Olly, which he lets on to be his sister, to be actooally his own child. No man would tote round a child like that, and jest bind himself up in her, and give up wimmen and whisky, and keerds, and kempeny, ef it wasn't his own. Thet ain't like brothers in my part of the country."
"It's a mighty queer story he tells, ennyways—all this yer stuff about Starvation Camp and escapin'," suggested another. "I never did, somehow, take enny stock in that."
"Well, it's his own look out," concluded Johnson. "It's nothin' to me. Ef I've been any service to him pintin' out sick people, and kinder makin' suggestions here and thar, how he should look arter them, he's welcome to it. I don't go back on my record, if he hez got into trouble."
"And I'm sure," said Briggs, "if I did allow him to come in here and look arter thet sick Mexican, it ain't for me to be expected to look after his moril character too." But here the entrance of a customer put a stop to further criticism.
Meanwhile the unfortunate subject of this discussion, by clinging close to the walls of houses, had avoided the keen blast that descended from the mountain, and had at last reached the little trail that led through the gulch to his cabin on the opposite hill-side. Here Gabriel hesitated. To follow that trail would lead him past the boarding-house of Mrs. Markle. In the light of the baleful counsel he had just received, to place himself as soon again in the way of danger seemed to him to be only a provocation of fate. That the widow and Sal might swoop down upon him as he passed, and compel him to enter; that the spectacle of his passing without a visit might superinduce instant hysterics on the part of the widow, appeared to his terror-stricken fancy as almost a certainty. The only other way home was by a circuitous road along the ridge of the hill, at leastthree miles farther. Gabriel did not hesitate long, but began promptly to ascend the hill. This was no easy task in the face of a strong gale and torrents of beating rain, but the overcoming of physical difficulties by the exercise of his all conquering muscles, and the fact that he was doing something, relieved his mind of its absurd terrors. When he had reached the summit he noticed for the first time the full power of those subtle agencies that had been silently at work during the last week's steady rain. A thin trickling mountain rill where he had two weeks before slaked his thirst during a ramble with Olly, was now transformed into a roaring cataract; the brook that they had leaped across was now a swollen river. There were slowly widening pools in the valleys, darkly glancing sheets of water on the distant plains, and a monotonous rush and gurgle always in the air. It was half an hour later, and two miles farther on his rough road, that he came in view of the narrow precipitous gorge through which the Wingdam stage passed on its way from Marysville. As he approached nearer he could see that the little mountain stream which ran beside the stage road had already slightly encroached upon the road-bed, and that here and there the stage road itself was lost in drifts of standing water. "It will be pretty rough drivin' up that cañon," said Gabriel to himself as he thought of the incoming Wingdam stage, now nearly due; "mighty onpleasant and risky with narvous leaders, but thar's worse things than that in this yer world," he meditated, as his mind reverted again to Mrs. Markle, "and ef I could change places with Yuba Bill, and get on that box and Olly inside—I'd do it!"
But just then the reservoir of the Wingdam ditch came in view on the hill beside him, and with it a revelation that in a twinkling displaced Mrs. Markle, and seemed almost to change the man's entire nature! What was it? Apparently nothing to the eye of the ordinary traveller. The damwas full, and through a cut-off the overplus water was escaping with a roar. Nothing more? Yes—to an experienced eye the escaping water was not abating the quantity in the dam. Was that all? No! Halfway down the rudely constructedadobebank of the dam, the water was slowly oozing and trickling through a slowly-widening crevice, over the rocks above the gorge and stage road below! The wall of the dam was giving way! To tear off coat and all impeding garments, to leap from rock to rock, and boulder to boulder, hanging on by slippery chimisal and the decayed roots of trees; to reach at the risk of life and limb the cañon below, and then to run at the highest speed to warn the incoming stage of the danger before it should enter the narrow gorge, was only the resolve and action of a brave man. But to do this without the smallest waste of strength that ought to be preserved, to do this with the greatest economy of force, to do this with the agility and skill of a mountaineer, and the reserved power of a giant; to do this with a will so simple, direct, and unhesitating, that the action appeared to have been planned and rehearsed days before, instead of being the resolution of the instant,—this belonged to Gabriel Conroy! And to have seen him settle into a long swinging trot, and to have observed his calm, grave, earnest, but unexcited face, and quiet, steadfast eye, you would have believed him some healthy giant simply exercising himself.
He had not gone half a mile before his quick ear caught a dull sound and roar of advancing water. Yet even then he only slightly increased his steady stride, as if he had been quickened and followed by his trainer rather than by approaching Death. At the same moment there was a quick rattle and clatter in the road ahead—a halt, and turning back, for Gabriel's warning shout had run before him like a bullet. But it was too late. The roaring water behind himstruck him and bore him down, and the next instant swept the coach and horses a confused, struggling, black mass, against the rocky walls of the cañon. And then it was that the immense reserved strength of Gabriel came into play. Set upon by the almost irresistible volume of water, he did not waste his power in useless opposition, but allowed himself to be swept hither and thither until he touched a branch of chimisal that depended from the cañon side. Seizing it with one sudden and mighty effort, he raised himself above the sweep and suction of the boiling flood. The coach was gone; where it had stood a few black figures struggled, swirled, and circled. One of them was a woman. In an instant Gabriel plunged into the yellow water. A few strokes brought him to her side; in another moment he had encircled her waist with his powerful arm and lifted her head above the surface, when he was seized by two despairing arms from the other side. Gabriel did not shake them off. "Take hold of me lower down and I'll help ye both," he shouted, as he struck out with his only free arm for the chimisal. He reached it; drew himself up so that he could grasp it with his teeth, and then, hanging on by his jaw, raised his two clinging companions beside him. They had barely grasped it, when another ominous roar was heard below, and another wall of yellow water swept swiftly up the cañon. The chimisal began to yield to their weight. Gabriel dug his fingers into the soil about its roots, clutched the jagged edges of a rock beneath, and threw his arm about the woman, pressing her closely to the face of the wall. As the wave swept over them, there was a sudden despairing cry, a splash, and the man was gone. Only Gabriel and the woman remained. They were safe, but for the moment only. Gabriel's left hand grasping an insecure projection, was all that sustained their united weight. Gabriel, for the first time, looked down upon the woman. Then he said hesitatingly—
"Kin ye hold yourself a minnit?"—"Yes."
Even at that critical moment some occult quality of sweetness in her voice thrilled him.
"Lock your hands together hard, and sling 'em over my neck." She did so. Gabriel freed his right hand. He scarcely felt the weight thus suddenly thrown upon his shoulders, but cautiously groped for a projection on the rock above. He found it, raised himself by a supreme effort, until he secured a foothold in the hole left by the uprooted chimisal bush. Here he paused.
"Kin ye hang on a minnit longer?"
"Go on," she said.
Gabriel went on. He found another projection, and another, and gradually at last reached a ledge a foot wide, near the top of the cliff. Here he paused. It was the woman's turn to speak.
"Can you climb to the top?" she asked.
"Yes—if you"——
"Go on," she said, simply.
Gabriel continued the ascent cautiously. In a few minutes he had reached the top. Here her hands suddenly relaxed their grasp; she would have slipped to the ground had not Gabriel caught her by the waist, lifted her in his arms, and borne her to a spot where a fallen pine-tree had carpeted and cushioned the damp ground with its withered tassels. Here he laid her down with that exquisite delicacy and tenderness of touch which was so habitual to him in his treatment of all helplessness as to be almost unconscious. But she thanked him, with such a graceful revelation of small white teeth, and such a singular look out of her dark grey eyes, that he could not help looking at her again. She was a small light-haired woman, tastefully and neatly dressed, and of a type and class unknown to him. But for her smile, he would not have thought her pretty. But even with thatsmile on her face, she presently paled and fainted. At the same moment Gabriel heard the sound of voices, and, looking up, saw two of the passengers, who had evidently escaped by climbing the cliff, coming towards them. And then—I know not how to tell it—but a sudden and awe-inspiring sense of his ambiguous and peculiar situation took possession of him. What would they think of it? Would they believe his statement? A sickening recollection of the late conversation at Brigg's returned to him; the indignant faces of the gaunt Sal and the plump Mrs. Markle were before him; even the questioning eyes of little Olly seemed to pierce his inmost soul, and alas! this hero, the victorious giant, turned and fled.
When Gabriel reached his home it was after dark, and Olly was anxiously waiting to receive him.
"You're wet all through, you awful Gabe, and covered with mud into the bargain. Go and change your clothes, or you'll get your death, as sure as you're a born sinner!"
The tone and manner in which this was uttered was something unusual with Olly, but Gabriel was too glad to escape further questioning to criticise or rebuke it. But when he had reappeared from behind the screen with dry clothes, he was surprised to observe by the light of the newly-lit candle that Olly herself had undergone since morning a decided change in her external appearance. Not to speak alone of an unusual cleanliness of face and hands, and a certain attempt at confining her yellow curls with a vivid pink ribbon, there was an unwonted neatness in her attire, and some essay at adornment in a faded thread-lace collar which she hadfound among her mother's "things" in the family bag, and a purple neck-ribbon.
"It seems to me," said the delighted Gabriel, "that somebody else hez been dressin' up and makin' a toylit, sence I've been away. Hev you been in the ditches agin, Olly?"
"No," said Olly, with some dignity of manner, as she busied herself in setting the table for supper.
"But I reckon I never seen ye look so peart afore, Olly; who's been here?" he added, with a sudden alarm.
"Nobody," said Olly; "I reckon some folks kin get along and look decent without the help of other folks, leastways of Susan Markle."
At this barbed arrow Gabriel winced slightly. "See yer, Olly," said Gabriel, "ye mustn't talk thet way about thet woman. You're only a chile—and ef yer brother did let on to ye, in confidence, certing things ez a brother may say to his sister, ye oughtn't say anythin' about it."
"Say anythin'!" echoed Olly, scornfully; "do you think I'd ever let on to thet woman ennything? Ketch me!"
Gabriel looked up at his sister in awful admiration, and felt at the depths of his conscience-stricken and self-deprecatory nature that he didn't deserve so brave a little defender. For a moment he resolved to tell her the truth, but a fear of Olly's scorn and a desire to bask in the sunshine of her active sympathy withheld him. "Besides," he added to himself, in a single flash of self-satisfaction, "this yer thing may be the makin' o' thet gal yet. Look at thet collar, Gabriel! look at thet hair, Gabriel! all your truth-tellin' never fetched outer thet purty child what thet one yarn did."
Nevertheless, as Gabriel sat down to his supper he was still haunted by the ominous advice and counsel he had heard that day. When Olly had finished her meal, he noticed that she had forborne, evidently at great personalsacrifice, to sop the frying-pan with her bread. He turned to her gravely—
"Ef you wus ever asked, Olly, ef I had been sweet upon Mrs. Markle, wot would ye say?"
"Say," said Olly savagely, "I'd say that if there ever was a woman ez had run arter a man with less call to do it—it was Mrs. Markle—that same old disgustin' Susan Markle. Thet's wot I'd say, and I'd say it—to her face! Gabe, see here!"
"Well," said the delighted Gabriel.
"Ef that school-ma'am comes up here, do you jest make up to her!"
"Olly!" ejaculated the alarmed Gabriel.
"You jest go for her! You jest do for her what you did for that Susan Markle. And jest you do it, if you can, Gabe—when Mrs. Markle's around—or afore little Manty—she'll go and tell her mother—she tells her everything. I've heerd, Gabe, that some o' them school-ma'ams is nice."
In his desire to please Olly, Gabriel would have imparted to her the story of his adventure in the cañon, but a vague fear that Olly might demand from him an instant offer of his hand and heart to the woman he had saved, checked the disclosure. And the next moment there was a rap at the door of the cabin.
"I forgot to say, Gabe, that Lawyer Maxwell was here to-day to see ye," said Olly, "and I bet you thet's him. If he wants you to nuss anybody, Gabe, don't ye do it! You got enough to do to look arter me!"
Gabriel rose with a perplexed face and opened the door. A tall dark man, with a beard heavily streaked with grey, entered. There was something in his manner and dress, although both conformed to local prejudices and customs, that denoted a type of man a little above the average social condition of One Horse Gulch. Unlike Gabriel's previousevening visitor, he did not glance around him, but fixed a pair of keen, half-humorous, half-interrogating grey eyes upon his host's face, and kept them there. The habitual expression of his features was serious, except for a certain half-nervous twitching at the left corner of his mouth, which continued usually, until he stopped and passed his hand softly across it. The impression always left on the spectator was, that he had wiped away a smile, as some people do a tear.
"I don't think I ever before met you, Gabriel," he said, advancing and offering his hand. "My name is Maxwell. I think you've heard of me. I have come for a little talk on a matter of business."
The blank dismay of Gabriel's face did not escape him, nor the gesture with which he motioned to Olly to retire.
"It's quite evident," he said to himself, "that the child knows nothing of this, or is unprepared. I have taken him by surprise."
"If I mistake not, Gabriel," said Maxwell aloud, "your little—er—girl—is as much concerned in this matter as yourself. Why not let her remain?"
"No, no;" said Gabriel, now feeling perfectly convinced in the depths of his conscience-stricken soul that Maxwell was here as the legal adviser of the indignant Mrs. Markle. "No! Olly, run out and get some chips in the wood-house agin to-morrow morning's fire. Run!"
Olly ran. Maxwell cast a look after the child, wiped his mouth, and leaning his elbow on the table, fixed his eyes on Gabriel. "I have called to-night, Gabriel, to see if we can arrange a certain matter without trouble, and even—as I am employed against you—with as little talk as possible. To be frank, I am entrusted with the papers in a legal proceeding against you. Now, see here! is it necessary for me to say what these proceedings are? Is it even necessary for me to give the name of my client?"
Gabriel dropped his eyes, but even then the frank honesty of his nature spoke for him. He raised his head and said simply—"No!"
Lawyer Maxwell was for a moment staggered, but only for a moment. "Good," he said thoughtfully; "you are frank. Let me ask you now if, to avoid legal proceedings, publicity, and scandal—and allow me to add, the almost absolute certainty of losing in any suit that might be brought against you—would you be willing to abandon this house and claim at once, allowing it to go for damages in the past? If you would, I think I could accept it for such. I think I could promise that even this question of a closer relationship would not come up. Briefly,shemight keep her name, andyoumight keep yours, and you would remain to each other as strangers. What do you say?"
Gabriel rose quickly and took the lawyer's hands with a tremulous grasp. "You're a kind man, Mr. Maxwell," he said, shaking the lawyer's hand vigorously; "a good man. It's a bad business, and you've made the best of it. Ef you'd been my own lawyer instead o' hers, you couldn't hev treated me better. I'll leave here at once. I've been thinking o' doing it ever since this yer thing troubled me; but I'll go to-morrow. Ye can hev the house, and all it contains. If I had anything else in a way of a fee to offer ye, I'd do it. She kin hev the house and all that they is of it. And then nothing will be said?"
"Not a word," said Maxwell, examining Gabriel curiously.
"No talk—nothin' in the newspapers?" continued Gabriel.
"Your conduct toward her and your attitude in this whole affair will be kept a profound secret, unless you happen to betray it yourself and that is my one reason for advising you to leave here."
"I'll do it—to-morrow," said Gabriel, rubbing his hands. "Wouldn't you like to have me sign some bit o' paper?"
"No, no," said the lawyer, wiping his mouth with his hand, and looking at Gabriel as if he belonged to some entirely new species. "Let me advise you, as a friend, to sign no paper that might be brought against you hereafter. Your simple abandonment of the claim and house is sufficient for our purposes. I will make out no papers in the case until Thursday; by that time I expect to find no one to serve them on. You understand?"
Gabriel nodded, and wrung the lawyer's hand warmly.
Maxwell walked toward the door, still keeping his glance fixed on Gabriel's clear, honest eyes. On the threshold he paused, and leaning against it, wiped his mouth with a slow gesture, and said—"From all I can hear, Gabriel, you are a simple, honest fellow, and I frankly confess to you, but for the admission you have made to me, I would have thought you incapable of attempting to wrong a woman. I should have supposed it some mistake. I am not a judge of the motives of men; I am too old a lawyer, and too familiar with things of this kind to be surprised at men's motives, or even to judge their rights or wrongs by my own. But now that we understand each other, would you mind telling me what was your motive for this peculiar and monstrous form of deception? Understand me; it will not alter my opinion of you, which is, that you are not a bad man. But I am curious to know how you could deliberately set about to wrong this woman; what was the motive?"
Gabriel's face flushed deeply. Then he lifted his eyes and pointed to the screen. The lawyer followed the direction of his finger, and saw Olly standing in the doorway.
Lawyer Maxwell smiled. "It is the sex, anyway," he said to himself; "perhaps a little younger than I supposed; of course, his own child." He nodded again, smiled at Olly,and with the consciousness of a professional triumph, blent with a certain moral satisfaction that did not always necessarily accompany his professional success, he passed out into the night.
Gabriel avoided conversation with Olly until late in the evening. When she had taken her accustomed seat at his feet before the fire, she came directly to the point. "What did he want, Gabe?"
"Nothing partickler," said Gabriel, with an affectation of supreme indifference. "I was thinking, Olly, that I'd tell you a story. It's a long time since I told one." It had been Gabriel's habit to improve these precious moments by relating the news of the camp, or the current topics of the day, artfully imparted as pure fiction; but since his pre-occupation with Mrs. Markle, he had lately omitted it.
Olly nodded her head, and Gabriel went on—
"Once upon a time they lived a man ez hed lived and would live—for thet was wot was so sing'ler about him—all alone, 'cept for a little sister ez this man hed, wot he loved very dearly. They was no one ez this man would ever let ring in, so to speak, between him and this little sister, and the heaps o' private confidence, and the private talks about this and thet, thet this yer man hed with this little sister, was wonderful to behold."
"Was it a real man—a pure man?" queried Olly.
"The man was a real man, but the little sister, I oughter say, was a kind o' fairy, you know, Olly, ez hed a heap o' power to do good to this yer man, unbeknownst to him and afore his face. They lived in a sorter paliss in the woods, this yer man and his sister. And one day this yer man hed a heap o' troubil come upon him that was sich ez would make him leave this beautiful paliss, and he didn't know how to let on to his little sister about it; and so he up, and he sez to her, sez he, 'Gloriana'—thet was hername—'Gloriana,' sez he, 'we must quit this beautiful paliss and wander into furrin parts, and the reason why is a secret ez I can't tell ye.' And this yer little sister jest ups and sez, 'Wot's agreeable to you, brother, is agreeable to me, for we is everything to each other the wide world over, and variety is the spice o' life, and I'll pack my traps to-morrow.' And she did. For why, Olly? Why, don't ye see, this yer little sister was a fairy, and knowed it all without bein' told. And they went away to furrin parts and strange places, war they built a more beautiful paliss than the other was, and they lived thar peaceful like and happy all the days o' their life."
"And thar wasn't any old witch of a Mrs. Markle to bother them. When are ye goin', Gabe?" asked the practical Olly.
"I thought to-morrow," said Gabriel, helplessly abandoning all allegory, and looking at his sister in respectful awe, "thet ez, I reckoned, Olly, to get to Casey's in time to take the arternoon stage up to Marysville."
"Well," said Oily, "then I'm goin' to bed now."
"Olly," said Gabriel reproachfully, as he watched the little figure disappear behind the canvas, "ye didn't kiss me fur good-night."
Olly came back. "You ole Gabe—you!" she said patronisingly, as she ran her fingers through his tangled curls, and stooped to bestow a kiss on his forehead from an apparently immeasurable moral and intellectual height—"You old big Gabe, what would you do without me, I'd like to know?"
The next morning Gabriel was somewhat surprised at observing Olly, immediately after the morning meal, proceed gravely to array herself in the few more respectable garments that belonged to her wardrobe. Over a white muslin frock, yellow and scant with age, she had tied a scarf of glaringcheap pink ribbon, and over this again she had secured, by the aid of an enormous tortoiseshell brooch, a large black and white check shawl of her mother's, that even repeated folding could not reduce in size. She then tied over her yellow curls a large straw hat trimmed with white and yellow daisies and pale-green ribbon, and completed her toilet by unfurling over her shoulder a small yellow parasol. Gabriel, who had been watching these preparations in great concern, at last ventured to address thebizarrebut pretty little figure before him.
"War you goin', Olly?"
"Down the gulch to say good-bye to the Reed gals. 'Taint the square thing to vamose the ranch without lettin' on to folks."
"Ye ain't goin' near Mrs. Markle's, are ye?" queried Gabriel, in deprecatory alarm.
Oily turned a scornful flash of her clear blue eye upon her brother, and said curtly, "Ketch me!"
There was something so appalling in her quickness, such a sudden revelation of quaint determination in the lines of her mouth and eyebrows, that Gabriel could say no more. Without a word he watched the yellow sunshade and flapping straw hat with its streaming ribbons slowly disappear down the winding descent of the hill. And then a sudden and grotesque sense of dependence upon the child—an appreciation of some reserved quality in her nature hitherto unsuspected by him—something that separated them now, and in the years to come would slowly widen the rift between them—came upon him with such a desolating sense of loneliness that it seemed unendurable. He did not dare to re-enter or look back upon the cabin, but pushed on vaguely toward his claim on the hillside. On his way thither he had to pass a solitary red-wood tree that he had often noticed, whose enormous bulk belittled the rest of the forest; yet,also, by reason of its very isolation had acquired a certain lonely pathos that was far beyond the suggestion of its heroic size. It seemed so imbecile, so gratuitously large, so unproductive of the good that might be expected of its bulk, so unlike the smart spruces and pert young firs and larches that stood beside it, that Gabriel instantly accepted it as a symbol of himself, and could not help wondering if there were not some other locality where everything else might be on its own plane of existence. "If I war to go thar," said Gabriel to himself, "I wonder if I might not suit better than I do yer, and be of some sarvice to thet child." He pushed his way through the underbrush, and stood upon the ledge that he had first claimed on his arrival at One Horse Gulch. It was dreary—it was unpromising—a vast stony field high up in air, covered with scattered boulders of dark iron-grey rock. Gabriel smiled bitterly. "Any other man but me couldn't hev bin sich a fool as to preëmpt sich a claim fur gold. P'r'aps it's all for the best that I'm short of it now," said Gabriel, as he turned away, and descended the hill to his later claim in the gulch, which yielded him that pittance known in the mining dialect as "grub."
It was nearly three o'clock before he returned to the cabin with the few tools that he had gathered. When he did so, he found Olly awaiting him, with a slight flush of excitement on her cheek, but no visible evidences of any late employment to be seen in the cabin.
"Ye don't seem to have been doin' much packin', Olly," said Gabriel—"tho' thar ain't, so to speak, much to pack up."
"Thar ain't no use in packin', Gabe," replied Olly, looking directly into the giant's bashful eyes.
"No use?" echoed Gabriel.
"No sort o' use," said Olly decidedly. "We ain't goin',Gabe, and that's the end on't. I've been over to see Lawyer Maxwell, and I've made it all right!"
Gabriel dropped speechless into a chair, and gazed, open-mouthed, at his sister. "I've made it all right, Gabe," continued Olly coolly, "you'll see. I jest went over thar this morning, and hed a little talk with the lawyer, and giv him a piece o' my mind about Mrs. Markle—and jest settled the whole thing."
"Good Lord! Olly, what did you say?"
"Say?" echoed Olly. "I jest up and told him everythin' I knew about thet woman, and I never told you, Gabe, the half of it. I jest sed ez how she'd been runnin' round arter you ever sence she first set eyes on you, when you was nussin' her husband wot died. How you never ez much ez looked at her ontil I set you up to it! How she used to come round yer, and sit and sit and look at you, Gabe, and kinder do this et ye over her shoulder."—(Here Olly achieved an admirable imitation of certain arch glances of Mrs. Markle that would have driven that estimable lady frantic with rage, and even at this moment caused the bashful blood of Gabriel to fly into his very eyes.) "And how she used to let on all sorts of excuses to get you over thar, and how you refoosed! And wot a deceitful, old, mean, disgustin' critter she was enny way!" and here Olly paused for want of breath.
"And wot did he say?" said the equally breathless Gabriel.
"Nothin' at first! Then he laughed and laughed, and laughed till I thought he'd bust! And then—let me see," reflected the conscientious Olly, "he said thar was some 'absurd blunder and mistake'—that's jest what he called thet Mrs. Markle, Gabe—those was his very words! And then he set up another yell o' laughin', and somehow, Gabe, I got to laughin', and she got to laughin' too!" And Olly laughed at the recollection.
"Who'sshe?" asked Gabriel, with a most lugubrious face.
"O Gabe! you think everybody's Mrs. Markle," said Olly swiftly. "Shewas a lady ez was with thet Lawyer Maxwell, ez heerd it all. Why, Lord! she seemed to take ez much interest in it as the lawyer. P'r'aps," said Olly, with a slight degree of conscious pride asraconteur, "p'r'aps it was the way I told it. I wasthetmad, Gabe, and sassy!"
"And what did he say?" continued Gabriel, still ruefully, for to him, as to most simple, serious natures devoid of any sense of humour, all this inconsequent hilarity looked suspicious.
"Why, he was fur puttin' right over here 'to explain,' ez he called it, but the lady stopped him, and sed somethin' low I didn't get to hear. Oh, she must be a partickler friend o' his, Gabe—for he did everythin' thet she said. And she said I was to go back and say thet we needn't hurry ourselves to git away at all. And thet's the end of it, Gabe."
"But didn't he say anythin' more, Olly?" said Gabriel anxiously.
"No. He begin to ask me some questions about old times and Starvation Camp, and I'd made up my mind to disremember all them things ez I told you, Gabe, fur I'm jest sick of being called a cannon-ball, so I jest disremembered everything ez fast ez he asked it, until he sez, sez he to this lady, 'she evidently knows nothin' o' the whole thing.' But the lady had been tryin' to stop his askin' questions, and he'd been kinder signin' to me not to answer too. Oh, she's cute, Gabe; I could see thet ez soon ez I set down."
"What did she look like, Olly?" said Gabriel, with an affectation of carelessness, but still by no means yet entirely relieved in his mind.
"Oh, she didn't look like Mrs. Markle, Gabe, or any o' thet kind. A kinder short woman, with white teeth, and asmall waist, and good clo'es. I didn't sort o' take to her much, Gabe, though she was very kind to me. I don't know ez I could say ezackly what she did look like; I reckon thar ain't anybody about yer looks like she. Saints and goodness! Gabe, that's her now; thar she is!"