Many a bitter tear they have cost me—the different pets I have had: not their possession, but their loss, which followed as inevitably as fate, and as surely as day follows night. As far as my recollection goes back, my four-footed friends have occupied prominent places in my affections, and have eventually become the cause of great sorrow. The first doubt I ever felt of the justice and humanity of the world in general, and my kinsfolk in particular, was because of the cruel death of my favorite dog, Arno, who had been given away after my older brother's death, to a family who had more use and room for a large hunting-dog than my widowed mother.
At first, he refused utterly to stay with his new master; but when he found that the doors of his old home were steadfastly closed against him, he would lie in wait for me as I went to school; and on my way home in the afternoon, he would always follow me, drawing back his nose and fore-paws only in time to prevent their being pinched in by the sharp-shutting gate, and looking wistfully through the paling with his big, honest eyes. Perhaps my elders did not understand "dog-language" as I did; but I knew that Arno fully appreciated the feeling which led me to throw my arms around his neck and weep bitter, childish tears on his brown head; and he felt comforted by my sympathy, I am sure, for he would lick my hands, and wag his long-haired tail with a little joyous whine, before trotting back to the broad stone steps in front of his new master's house. But night always found him under my chamber window, which looked out on a narrowlane, used as a thoroughfare; and here I could hear his deep-mouthed bark all night long, as he kept fancied marauders and real dogs from encroaching on our premises and his self-chosen battle-ground. For he met his death here, at last.
He had become quite aged; and the other dogs of the neighborhood had frequently made common cause against him, for blocking up (to them) the passage in the lane, but had never yet been able to rout him. One night, however, they attacked him with overpowering numbers, and punished him so severely that it was found to be necessary, or, at least, merciful, the next morning, to send a bullet through his head and end his misery. To me this all seemed terribly cruel, and I cried wildly, and sobbed out my reproaches against everybody for having left him to lie out in the street at night, instead of allowing him a safe shelter in the house. I refused to be comforted, or adopt any other dog in his place; but bestowed my affection and caresses impartially on all the stray dogs and horses that happened to cross my path.
Some time after I was married, a little spotted dog, of no particular breed, sought shelter from the rain on the basement-steps, one day, and refused to "tramp" when the shower was over. She was a short-legged, smooth-haired little thing, with the brightest eyes I ever saw in a dog's head. Tiny soon became my pet, and amply repaid us for the food and shelter we had given her. She learned everything, and with such ease, that I sometimes suspected I had taken into my family one who had formerly been a public circus performer. She could stand on her hind legs and beg for an apple or a piece of sugar; she could find and fetch a hidden handkerchief, glove, or cap; she could jump through a hoop, and could pick out from among a lot of articles the shawls, comforters, or hats belonging to myself, or any member of the family. On the approach of a buggy to the house, she would rush to the window, and if she recognized it as thecaptain's, would scratch and whine till I opened the door for her, in sheer self-defence. Dashing up to the buggy, she would wag her tail with such vehemence as threatened to upset her little round body—begging in this way for a glove, or the long buggy-whip, to drag into the house.
Tiny also knew the name of the different members of the family, whether they occupied the same house with us, or only came on visits. If mother came on a visit, for instance, I could send Tiny from the kitchen with a key, a paper, or anything she could carry, and on my order, "Give it to mother," she would carry it to the parlor, or wherever mother might be, and lay it carefully in her lap, or on the sofa beside her. On the order, "Kiss the captain," she would immediately dart at that gentleman, and, if he ever so artfully avoided her little tongue for the time being, she would watch the first opportunity to climb into his lap, or jump on to a piece of furniture, to execute the command.
Soon after Tiny's advent, a young stag-hound was given to the captain, and him she took under her wing, though in size he could boast of three times her own volume. Dick, I am very sorry to own, was not so well treated as Tiny; and I smite my breast even now, and say very penitently, "mea culpa," when I think of how I hurt him, one day. I was lying on the sofa, half asleep from the heat and the exertion of cutting the leaves of a new magazine. Presently, Dick approached, and before I could open my eyes, or ward him off, he had jumped on the sofa and settled full on my head and face. Angry and half-stifled, I flung the dog with all my might to the floor, where he set up such a pitiful crying, that I knew he must be seriously hurt. Jumping up, I saw him, quite a distance from the sofa, holding up his foreleg, on which his paw was dangling in a loose, out-of-place manner. Comprehending what I had done, I carried him into the next room, and poured the basin full of water, in which I held his paw; andthen bound rags on the dislocated limb, steeping the paw into the water occasionally, to keep down the swelling till the captain should come. Sorry as I felt for having inflicted such pain on the poor animal, it was a perfect farce to watch his proceedings, and I had laughed till my sides ached before the captain got home. It so happened that mother and one or two other near friends came in during the course of the day. As soon as any one entered the room, Dick, who had been allowed to take up his quarters on a blanket in the sitting-room, would hobble up, hold out his rag-wrapped paw, and, elevating his nose, would utter heart-rending cries of pain, thus "passing his hat for a pennyworth of sympathy," as unmistakably as I have known human beings to do many a time before. Then, with cries and grimaces, he would induce the beholder to follow him pityingly into the next room, where he would immerse his foot in the water, as I had made him do, once or twice. During this performance Tiny would keep close behind him, and with little sympathetic whines, would echo all his cries and complainings; and this show was repeated whenever they could get a fresh spectator.
At the same time, we had in our possession a horse, which, for sagacity, kindness, and docility, outshone all the horses I have ever had the fortune to become acquainted with. Not the most partial admiration of Kitty's many virtues could lead me into believing her to be beautiful, though she was by no means an ugly horse. A bright bay, with well-shaped head, she was too short-bodied, though the long legs seemed to lay claim to an admixture of English blood. Kitty was a saddle-nag as well as buggy-horse, and the captain always chose her when he had a fatiguing ride to take; though, for my part, I should have scorned to be seen mounted on an ugly, stump-tailed thing like her.
This is ingratitude, however; I have never had a more devoted friend than Kitty. She was assigned to the duty oftaking me out to "mother's house," where she was always well pleased to go, for I used to take her out of the harness and let her run loose under the orchard trees. I have never met with a horse so expert at picking apples as she was; she never injured the trees, and seemed always to know exactly which were the best "eating apples." When the time came to go home, Kitty, like a sensible, grateful horse, was always on hand; the only trouble was to get her back into harness again—it generally being just milking-time then, and I never liked to admit to any of the men that I could not harness a horse as well as saddle it. So, it often happened that, after I got on the road, Kitty would stop short and refuse to go a step farther. Whipping would do no good on such occasions; she would only switch her tail, stamp her foot impatiently, and turn her head around, as if to say: "Don't you know that I have good reasons for acting so?" On throwing down the lines, and examining the harness, I would be sure to find that some buckle had been left unfastened, or some strap was dragging under her feet. One day a soldier came to my assistance, and he said it was the greatest wonder in the world that the horse had not kicked the buggy to pieces, for I had fastened a buckle on the wrong side, and with every step she took the buckle had pressed sorely into poor Kitty's flesh. I could appreciate Kitty's good behavior all the more for having seen her kick dashboard and shafts to splinters, one day, when the captain drove her, and some part of the harness gave way.
The friendship, however, was reciprocal; for many a bucket of cool, fresh water, many a tea-tray full of oats, and many an apple and lump of sugar had Kitty received at my hands, when she stopped at the door, or was taken into the back yard, to await her master's leisure to ride. The saddle she liked best, for under it she could move about in the yard. She would follow me like a dog, and tried to make her way into the basement one day, where I had gone to get somegrain for her. I always kept a sack of oats in the house, as we had no stable, and the horses were boarded at a stable down town; but Kitty would have gone without her dinner many a time had it not been for the "private feeds" I gave her, as the captain's opinion was that horses should not be "pampered and spoiled." Kitty knew how much I thought of her, and sometimes presumed on it, too. I have known her—at times, when the captain brought her into the yard late at night, previously to sending her to the stable—to set up such a whinnying, stamping, and snorting, that, to the captain's infinite amusement, I was compelled to leave my bed and take her a handful of oats or a piece of sugar. And on the street, if I met the captain mounted on or riding behind Kitty, she would instantly step on the sidewalk and make a dive for my pocket, to extract the apple she fancied concealed there. Moreover, she would allow Tiny to climb all over her back; but Dick she always greeted with a snort, and occasionally with a kick.
One day the captain furnished a valuable addition to the "happy family," without, in the least, intending to do so. It seems that just as he was leaving the house, he saw an open market-wagon, and on it two forlorn chickens broiling in the July sun. The man offered to sell him the chickens, so he bought them, threw them over the fence, and called to the servant to unfasten the string fettering the feet of the poor animals. His order was not heard; and I knew nothing of the existence of the chickens till Tiny's barking attracted my attention. There lay the two chickens, gasping and panting, and the dogs, like all little natures, exhibited great delight at being able to worry and distress the poor, defenceless creatures. I dragged the poor things into the shade, cut their fetters, and gave them "food and drink." One of the chickens was a gay-feathered rooster, the other, a plain-looking hen, who exhibited, however, by far the best sense, in this,that she did not struggle to get away from me as "fighting Billy" did, but allowed me to pass my hand over her soft dress, accompanying each stroke with a low crooning "craw-craw," as though wishing to express her satisfaction with her present position. When I thought the chickens were both safe and comfortable in the yard, I went back to my favorite resting-place—a soft rug, in front of the sitting-room fireplace. The summer was extraordinarily warm, and I had repeatedly wandered all over the house in search of the "coolest place," but had always returned to this. Not far from me was a window, from which the shutters were thrown back directly after noon, as there was shade then on this side of the house, and nearly opposite was a door leading to the vine-clad porch. Glad enough to pass a part of the hot afternoon in asiesta, I was surprised on waking, and stretching out my feet, to push against a soft, round ball; and the slow "craw-craw" I heard, caused me to start to a sitting posture. There, sure enough, was chicky, cuddled up close to my feet, repeating her monotonous song every time I deigned to take notice of her. I had never believed before that chickens had brains enough to feel affection or gratitude towards anybody; but I wish to state as an actual fact that chicky, as long as she was in my possession, never let a day pass that she did not come fluttering up the low steps to the porch and visit me in the sitting-room. During my regularsiestashe was always beside me; and if I attempted to close the door against her, she would fly up to the window and come in that way. Indeed, she wanted to take up her roost there altogether; and it was only with great difficulty I could persuade her to remove to the back-yard.
Fighting Billy proved by no means so companionable as chicky: within the first week he had fought, single-handed, every rooster in the neighborhood, and the second week he staggered about the yard with his "peepers" closed, andshowing general marks of severe punishment, from the effects of which he died, in spite of aught we could do for his relief.
But our "happy family" was broken up, after awhile: the captain was "called to the wars," and, in spite of all I could say, took Kitty with him, as the "most reliable horse." Kitty never returned; and I spent one whole day, during the captain's first visit home, in saying: "I told you so," and crying over Kitty's loss. Next, Tiny was stolen; and Dick went the way of most all "good dogs"—with our servant-girl's butcher-beau—at whose house I saw him, shortly after Babette's marriage, together with sundry lace-collars, table-cloths, and napkin-rings that had mysteriously left the house about the same time with her. Chicky disappeared the night before Thanksgiving day: perhaps they couldn't get any turkey to give thanks for, and contented themselves with a chicken.
When the captain next came home, he found nothing but a squirrel—but this squirrel was the greatest pet I had yet found. I came by it in this way: two small, ragged boys pulled the bell one day, and, seeing a little wooden cage in their hands, I went to the door immediately myself. How the little wretches knew of my silly propensity for collecting all vagabond, half-starved animals, I don't know; but they showed me a scraggy little squirrel in the cage, and said, with the utmost confidence, they wanted to sell it to me.
"How much do you want for it?" I asked.
"Two dollars," said the oldest, at a venture, and then opened his eyes in astonishment, as much at his own audacity as at my silence—which seemed to imply assent to his extortion.
You see, I had opened the cage, and bunny had slipped out, scrambled up on my arm, and lodged himself close around my neck, where he lay with his little head tucked under my chin. How could I let the little thing go? So I gave the boy his two dollars, for which he generously offered to leavethe cage, which offer I declined, intending to make a house-dog of bunny. The sagacity, gentleness, and playfulness of little Fritz are beyond all description; though his bump of destructiveness, I must acknowledge, was also very largely developed. He was still young, and I could keep him on a window-sill quite safely, till I felt sure of his attachment to me, and his disinclination to make his escape. The window-sill and the open window remained his favorite post to the end of his life; though when he grew older, he would occasionally jump from my bed-room window, in the second story, to the grass and flower-beds below. He had not been in the house more than a week before he followed me about like a dog, and took his place close by me at the table, eating and drinking anything I had a mind to offer him. He drank coffee out of a cup, and ate the meat I gave him—holding it in his paws, as little children hold a strip of meat in their hands—nibbling and sucking it, with great gusto.
I cannot conceal that the wood work, the furniture, and all the books, throughout the house, soon displayed ragged edges and torn surfaces; and mother (who had taken up her abode with us), who punished Fritz for his depredations sometimes, was held in high disfavor by him, in consequence. When I was not at home, he would hardly allow her to touch him, and would hide under the pillows on my bed, at her approach, barking and scolding with great vehemence. To me he never said an "unkind word;" on the contrary, I could hardly secure myself from his caresses. Sometimes I would place him on the top of a tall cupboard, or high wardrobe, to get him away from under my feet; but the moment I passed anywhere within reaching-distance, he would fly down on me, and, settling on my hand, face, or shoulder, would fall to licking my face, and nibbling at my ears and nose, to assure me of his favor. I fear I have slapped him more than once for marking my face with his little sharp claws, when making oneof these sudden descents. At night, he slept under my pillow; and early in the morning he would creep out, nibble at my eyelids, and switch me with his bushy tail. Without opening my eyes, I would reach out for a handful of nuts—opened and placed within reach the night before—and with these he would amuse himself for a long while, always cleaning his face and paws after disposing of his first breakfast. With sundown he went to sleep; but, of warm nights, when I went to bed late, I would carry his little drinking-cup to him, filled with ice-water. Half asleep, sometimes with his eyes closed, he would take a long drink; but never once, of all those nights, did he return to his pillow without first gratefully passing his little tongue over the hand that held him. That he knew it was my hand, I am quite certain; for if the captain ever attempted to touch him, in the middle of the night, when Fritz was ever so sound asleep, he would immediately start up with a snarl, and snap at the captain's fingers; whereas, if I thrust my hand under the pillow, in the dead of night, he would lick it, and rub his nose against it.
With nothing but a little basket to carry him in, I took him with me for a journey, on a Mississippi steamer. I left him in the basket, while looking after my baggage; but when I returned to my state-room, he suddenly jumped on my head from above, having eaten his way out, through the lid of the basket, and climbed to the top-berth. The stewardess on the steamer tried to steal him, when near port, but Fritz had made such good use of his sharp claws and teeth that she was fain to own: "She had on'y wanted totechthe lilly bunny—hadn't wanted to hurt'm, 'tall."
It makes me sad, even now, to think of the closing scene of Fritz's short, but, let me hope, happy life. Once a lady, the mother of a terrible little boy, had come to spend the day with us; and I soon discovered that either Fritz or the little boy must be caged "up and away." So, pretending tobe afraid that the boy might get hurt, but in reality fearing only for Fritz's welfare, I carried the squirrel up into the lumber-room, where I brought to him nuts without number, apples, sugar, crackers, and water to bathe in and drink from. There was a pane broken out of the window-sash, but this I covered with a piece of paste-board, and then went down to entertain the lady and her detestable little boy. Seated at the window, not long after, I saw an urchin come running around the next corner, and, when barely within speaking distance, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Say, Missis, they's got him, 'round here in the cooper-yard, and he's dead—the squirrel!" he added, in explanation.
Though by no means in a toilet representing a "street-dress"—in fact, with only one slipper on—I started off on a run, and never stopped till my youthful mentor pointed to a circle of men and boys, gathered around an object lying on the ground. It was Fritz, writhing in the last agonies of death, while the boys were calling each other's attention to the contortions of the poor little body. In a moment, I was among them, had lifted Fritz in my arms, and held him to my face.
"Who did that?" I asked, with pain and anger struggling in my heart; "which of you little brutes killed the poor, harmless thing?"
The little ragamuffin who had led me to the spot, pointed to two boys making ineffectual attempts to hide a long stick, they were carrying, behind them.
"They was a-hitting 'm like fury, and then I runned to tell you; please, Missis, gimme a dime."
Poor little Fritz! He knew me, even in the death-struggle; for he passed his tongue over my hand once more, just before the last convulsive shudder ran through his body, and his little limbs grew stiff and cold. I don't feel, in the least, ashamed to own that I cried—cried many tears—cried bitterly; and I felt dreadfully lonesome when I woke up atnight, and, from the sheer force of habit, put my hand under my pillow without finding Fritz there. I made a vow then never to have any more pets; but it was a rash one.
Some years later, when the war was over, the "theatre of our life" was to be shifted from the crowded, populous city to the lonely wilds of the frontier country. When we reached Fort Leavenworth, the quarters in the barracks were all occupied, and a number of our officers were assigned quarters in the Attaché Barracks. The captain had decided to purchase a horse from the government stables, and turn him over to me for saddle-use, as I did not want to go to our frontier-post without a horse of my own to depend on. It was in June; and the little square yards in front of the Attaché Barracks were fresh and sweet with grass and blossoming red clover. The door of our quarters stood open; the captain had gone out, and I was startled by a knock on the door-post. Looking up, I saw the head of an orderly appearing at the door; but, poking over his head, I saw that of a horse evidently taking a strict inventory of everything in the room. Of course, I was at the door, and on the horse's neck, in the course of a very few seconds, for, from the orderly, I soon understood that the captain had sent the horse for me to look at. Colonel L——, with his two little girls, came up just then, and, as we were all going in the same command, the acquisition of a horse for the march had an interest for all parties. Together, we surrounded and admired the beautiful white animal; and the two little girls and myself were soon braiding clover-blossoms into Toby's tail, and trimming his head and neck with garlands of butter-cups—operations which did not, in the least, interfere with his good humor, or his appetite for the juicy grass he was cropping. The captain, it seems, had already tried his speed and mettle; he was not appraised at at any unreasonable figure, and so Toby was mine before we took up the line of march for the Plains.
From the wagon-master I heard, later, that Toby had been captured in Texas, during the war. He had been raised and trained by a woman who had followed him around the country for some time, trying to get her pet back again; but Uncle Sam, no doubt, had the best right to him, and he was placed in the stables of the Fitting-out Depot. One thing certainly spoke for the truth of the story: whenever Toby had been let loose and refused to be tied up again, he would always allow me to come up to him, when he would turn and throw up his heels at the approach of a man.
Toby was soon a universal favorite and proved himself worthy of the preference, though he had one or two tricks about him that were by no means commendable. First: he was an inveterate thief; and then—at times when he was not ridden, but led along by the orderly—he had a mean way of lying back and letting the other horse pull him along, that fairly exasperated me. His thefts, however, were always carried out in such a cunning manner that I readily forgave the sin for the sake of the skill. We had not been long on the march when Toby perpetrated his first robbery. The captain rode him, and when the command halted for lunch, he would come up to our ambulance, dismount, and let Toby go perfectly free—for we had soon found that he would not stray from the command. Toby learned to know the contents and appliances of lunch-baskets very soon, particularly as he received his portion from ours regularly every day. One day, after having dispatched his bread-and-butter and lump of sugar in the neighborhood of our ambulance, he walked over to Colonel L——'s, and while Mrs. L—— was leaning out on the other side, speaking to the colonel, Toby quietly lifted the lunch-basket from her lap, deposited it on the grass, overturned it, and helped himself to the contents. Unfortunately for Toby, Mrs. L—— had spread mustard on her ham-sandwiches, and the sneezing and coughing of the erring horsefirst called her attention to his presence, and the absence of her lunch-basket.
Not long after, we made camp very early in the day, and the major's folks came to fill a long-standing promise to take tea with us, and spend the evening at our tent. The visit passed off very pleasantly, and an engagement was made to return it at an early day. Toby, who was prowling about the tent, no doubt overheard the conversation, and felt it incumbent on him to fill the engagement as soon as possible. Consequently, he stationed himself near the major's tent-fly the very next morning, and paid close attention to the preparations going on for tea; and just as the cook had put the finishing-touch to the table, and had stepped back to call the family and set the tea and the meats on the table, Toby gravely walked up, swallowed the butter with one gulp, upset the sugar-bowl, gobbled up the contents, and proceeded leisurely to investigate the inside of a tin jelly-can. The soldiers, who had watched his manœuvres from a distance, had been too much charmed with the performance to give warning to the cook; but when he made his appearance, meat-dish and tea-pot in hand, they gave such a shout as set the whole camp in an uproar, and Toby was fairly worshipped by the soldiers from that day out.
But the faithfulness and patience of the horse, in time of need, made me forgive him all these tricks. Months later—when still on the march, in the most desolate wilderness, in the midst of the pathless mountains, when other horses "gave up the ghost," and were shot at the rate of a dozen a day—Toby held out, carrying me on his back, day after day, night after night, till his knees trembled with fatigue and faintness, and he turned his head and took my foot between his teeth, at last, to tell me he could carry me no farther! Not once, but a dozen times, has he repeated this manœuvre; once, too, when we were coming down a very steep hill, he planted hisforefeet down firmly, turned his head, and softly bit the foot I held in the stirrup, to tell me that I must dismount.
The most singular devotion of one horse to another, I witnessed while out in New Mexico. The captain found it necessary to draw a saddle-horse for his own use, and selected one from a number which the volunteers had left behind. It had been half-starved latterly, and was vicious, more from ill-treatment than by nature. The first evening when it was brought to our stable, it kicked the orderly so that he could not attend to the horses next morning, and the cook had to look after them. I went into the stable to bring Toby a titbit of some kind, and here found that Copp (the new horse) was deliberately eating the feed out of Toby's trough. The cook called my attention to it, and explained that the horse had done the same thing last night; and on interfering, the orderly had been viciously kicked by the animal. I reached over to stroke the creature's mane, but the cook called to me to stop, holding up his arm to show where the horse had bitten him. I went quickly back into the tent, got a large piece of bread, and held it out to Copp. In an instant he had swallowed it, and had fallen back on Toby's feed again, without meeting with the least opposition from that side. Toby evidently had better sense, and more charity, than the men had shown; he knew that the horse was half-starved, and wicked only from hunger.
If I had never believed before that horses were capable of reasoning, and remembering kind actions, Copp's behavior toward Toby would have converted me. Often, when out on timber-cutting or road-making excursions, I accompanied the captain, and, mounted on Toby, would hold Copp by the bridle or picket-rope, so as to allow the orderly to participate in the pleasures of the day. The grass was rich up in the mountains, and Toby would give many a tug at the bridle to get his head down where he could crop it; this, however,had been forbidden by the captain, once for all, and Toby was compelled to hold his head up in the proper position. Copp, however, was allowed to crop the grass; but he never ate a mouthful, of which he did not first give Toby half! Sometimes he would go off as far as the bridle would reach, gather up a large bunch in his mouth, and then step back to Toby and let him pull his share of it out from between his teeth. But no other horse dare approach Toby in Copp's sight. I have seen him jump quite across the road for the purpose of biting a horse that was rubbing his nose against Toby's mane in a friendly manner. One day we met a party of disappointed gold-hunters, who were anxious to dispose of a little, light wagon they had. The captain bought it, thinking to break Toby and Copp to harness. Toby took to his new occupation kindly enough, but Copp could only be made to move in his track when I stood at a distance and called to him. He would work his way up to me with a wild, frightened air; but the moment I was out of his sight, neither beating nor coaxing could induce him to move a step.
But—dear me—those horses have taken up my thoughts so completely, that I have almost exhausted this paper without speaking of the other pets I have had. The horned toad could never make its way into my good graces; nor the land-turtle, neither, after it had once "shut down" on my dog Tom's tail. They were both abolished by simply leaving them on the road. The prairie-dog refused to be tamed, but ran away, the ungrateful wretch, with collar, chain, and all; a living wonder, no doubt, to his brethren in the prairie-dog village, through which we were passing at the time.
But my mink, Max, was a dear little pet. He was given me by a soldier at Fort Union, and had been captured on the Pecos River, near Fort Sumner. He was of a solid, dark-brown color, and the texture of his coat made it clear at once why a set of mink-furs is so highly prized by the ladies. Hisface was anything but intelligent; yet he was as frisky and active as any young mink need be. It was while we were still on the march, that Max took his place in the ambulance by me as regularly as day came. When we made camp in the afternoon, he was allowed to run free, and when it grew dark, I would step to the tent-door, call "Max! Max!" and immediately he would come dashing up, uttering sounds half-chuckle, half-bark, as if he were saying: "Well, well—ain't I coming as fast as I can?"
On long days' marches he would lie so still in the ambulance, that I often put out my hand to feel whether he was beside me; and wherever I happened to thrust my fingers, his mouth would be wide open to receive them, and a sharp bite would instantly apprise me of his whereabouts. He had his faults, too—serious faults—and one of them, I fear, led to his destruction. Travelling over the plains of New Mexico, in the middle of summer, is no joking matter, for man or mink, and a supply of fresh, cool water, after a hot day's march, is not only desirable, but necessary. But it is not always an easy matter to get water; and I have known the men to go two or three miles for a bucketful. Getting back to camp weary and exhausted, they would naturally put the bucket in the only available place—on the ground; and the next moment, Max, who was always on hand for his share of it, would suddenly plunge in and swim "'round and 'round" in pursuit of his tail—choosing to take his drink of water in this manner, to the great disgust of the tired men.
Company "B" was still with us at this time, and the tent of the company commander was pitched not far from ours. Sergeant Brown, of this company, was in possession of a dozen or two of chickens; and these, I suspect, were the cause of the mink's death. Like all animals out in the wilderness, the chickens could be allowed to run free, without ever straying away from their owner: there was thought to be nodanger lurking near for them; but suddenly one or two were found with their throats torn open, and the blood sucked from their lifeless bodies. Max was accused, with the greater show of truth, as the cook of the lieutenant had caught him the next day rolling away an egg, which he had purloined from the lieutenant's stock of provisions. The cook, following Max, discovered that he had already three eggs hidden in the neighborhood of our tent. I grew alarmed for the safety of my pet, though I knew that the men of our company would not have harmed a hair of his brown, bear-like head.
One night I stepped to the tent-door to call Max; but no Max answered. The orderly was sent to look through the tents, as Max sometimes stopped with the men who showed any disposition to play with him—but he could not be found. I spent an uneasy night, calling "Max! Max!" whenever I heard the least noise outside the tent. Next morning I got up betimes, and as soon as I had swallowed my breakfast, went down toward the Rio Grande. The ground grew broken and rocky near the banks of the river, and I half thought he might have returned to his native element. I climbed to a point where I could see the river, and called "Max! Max!" but heard nothing in answer, save the rolling of a little stone I had loosened with my foot. "Max! Max!" I called again; but the dull roar of the water, where it surged lazily against the few exceptional rocks on the bank, was all I could hear. Going back to camp, I found the tents struck, the command moving, and the ambulance waiting for me. Wiping the tears from my face, I climbed in—shaking the blankets for the fiftieth time to see if Max had not mischievously hidden among them.
From a conversation I overheard long afterward, I concluded that Max had fallen a victim to Sergeant Brown's revengeful spirit—in fact, had been slaughtered in atonement for those assassinated chickens.
Two motherless girls, and only a brother a few years older left to protect them.
When the father died, the mother had turned the old homestead—for therearehouses in San Francisco fifteen and twenty years old—into a source of revenue from which she provided for the children. The father had left nothing save debts—gambling debts—and the fraternity had not called on the widow to settle these. For her own existence she seemed to need nothing—absolutely nothing—but the caresses of her children, and the happiness and contentment mirrored in their eyes. When she died the girls were old enough, and competent, to look after the house, which the mother had made a pleasant home to many a "roomer" who had come a stranger to the city, had been badgered and harassed by flint-eyed, stony-hearted landladies, and had at last, by some good fortune, found his way into the precincts of the widow's cozy, quiet walls. The son had, through the influence of some of the roomers, obtained a position in a wholesale liquor establishment, where the salary was high, and—the temptation great.
That the two young girls should carry on the house just as their dying mother had left it to them, was something no one in San Francisco would think of commenting upon. And as the proverbial chivalry of the Californian would prompt him to suffer inconvenience and loss rather than to deprive women in any way thrown on his care or his protection, they missed only their mother's love and presence in the home, whichremained home to them still. After a while the painful truth dawned on them that their brother was being weaned away from it. His evenings were now but seldom spent with them in the little sitting-room whose ivy-mantled bay-window looked out on the garden, where the flower-beds had moved closer up to the house as the lots became more valuable, and the orchard had been cut down to a few trees on the grass-plot.
At first the excuse was, that customers from the country, buying heavily of the firm, had a right to expect attentions not strictly of a business nature from him, its chief representative. Then his absence from home grew more protracted, and often midnight tolled from St. Mary's before his unsteady feet mounted the door-steps. One night, a lady, attracted to the balcony by an unusually brilliant moon, when she awoke from her midnight slumbers, wonderingly saw a carriage drive up to the house where the two sisters lay in peaceful sleep. She was too far off to see whether there was a number on the carriage, or what the number was. Neither could she distinguish the face of the driver, nor that of the gentleman who assisted another, whom she rightly judged to be Edward Ashburne, from the carriage into the house. That the face of the one who supported, or rather carried, young Edward, was deadly white, framed in by a heavy black beard, was all she could tell. "Poor girls!" she soliloquized; "better that the boy was dead than turn drunkard, and gamble, like his father."
The carriage drove off rapidly after the gentleman—who, as she thought, had helped Ned to the door and rang the bell—had re-entered it; and carriage-driver and ghostly-faced gentleman could never be found or heard of afterward.
What the neighbor-lady heard still further that same night was, first, the furious barking, then the doleful howling of the young Newfoundland dog, which the Misses Ashburne had recently "adopted," and, soon after, a wild, heart-rending cry.
"The horrid boy!" she continued, full of sympathy; "is he so beastly drunk? Could he have struck one of his sisters?"
Aye, good woman; struck them both a terrible blow, but not with his hand, for that lay powerless by his side. And the eyes were sightless that stared vacantly into their own, as they bent over him where he lay stretched out on the hall-floor—his coat folded under his head, his latch-key close at hand. Only a painful gasp answered their pitiful entreaties to "speak once more;" and before the sympathizing inmates of the stricken house could remove him to his bed, he had breathed his last.
"Beaten to a jelly," sententiously remarked one of the men, under his breath, to another, as they left the chamber to the sisters and the more intimate friends of the family.
"Some woman scrape—you can bet on that," was the response. And they joined the others in their efforts to discover the perpetrators of the dastard deed.
But no clue was found, and after a while San Francisco forgot the sisters and their sorrow; and one day, when the neighbor-lady told her ever-fresh story to a new-made acquaintance, she added: "And now they have gone, the poor girls, and nobody knows where."
From the balcony of the two-story frame hotel-building a young girl was watching the sunlight sinking behind the dimly-outlined range of the Coast Mountains. Perhaps her eyes roved so far away because the immediate surrounding of the hotel was not attractive; though the streets devoted to private residences of this little city—to which the railroad was fast making its way—were pleasing to the eye, and rather Southern in their features. The orange, ripening in one cluster with the fragrant blossom, as well as the tall-growing oleander, embowering cottage alike with mansion, spoke ofoppressive weather in the summer, and promised glorious, balmy days during the short California winter.
Had the girl, at whose feet a large Newfoundland dog lay sleeping, stepped to the end of the balcony which ran along the whole length of the house, she could have followed the course of the Feather River, which but a short distance away mingled its clear waters with the muddy waves of the Yuba. But she was evidently not engaged in a study of the "lay of the land," though her eyes seemed to follow with some interest the direction of a particular road leading to the hotel. Directly she spoke to the dog, touching him lightly with her toe: "Cruiser, old dog, come, wake up, they are coming."
From out of the cloud of dust rolling up to the hotel emerged hacks and stages well filled with passengers, whom the railroad had brought from San Francisco to Yuba City, and who thus continued to this place and onward. Partly sheltered from sight by the boughs of a tree shading the balcony, the young girl leaned forward to scan the faces of the people who left hacks and coaches and hastened into the house to brush and wash off a little of the biting, yellowish dust clinging to them. It seemed to be a sort of pastime with the girl and her four-footed companion, this "seeing the people get in;" for she made remarks and observations on the looks and manners of people which the dog seemed fully to understand, for he would reply, sometimes with a wag of his bushy tail, sometimes with a short, sharp bark, and then again with a long yawn ofennui. Almost the last passenger who alighted was a gentleman whose large black eyes and raven hair would have thrilled the bosom of any miss of sixteen—as, indeed, they startled our young friend, although she might have been two or three years above and beyond that interesting age. The bough that she had drawn down to screen herself behind, sprang up with a sudden snap, which caused the upturning of a pale and rather severe face, from which looked those black eyes with a grave,rather than sad, expression. A sudden thought or memory—she did not know which—shot through her brain as her eyes looked down into his; it was only a flash, but it made her think of her childhood, of her mother—she hardly knew of what.
"Cruiser, old dog," she said; but the dog had squeezed his head under the railing as far as he could get it, as if making a desperate attempt to get a nearer look at the stranger. When he drew his head back he raised himself, laid his forepaws on the railing, and looked hard into the girl's face, with a low, questioning whine. "It's nothing, old boy; you don't know him. Come, now, we'll see if we can help Julia about the house."
Down at the bar, mine host of the "Eagle Exchange" was welcoming his guests, nerving himself to this task with frequent libations, offered by the fancy bartender, and paid for by such of his guests as had made the "Exchange" their stopping-place before, and knew of the landlord's weakness. Stepping from the bar-room into the reading-room, to look for any stray guest who might have failed to offer at the shrine, he met the dark-eyed stranger face to face, and recoiled, either from some sudden surprise or the effects of deep potations, steadying himself against the door-frame as he reeled. The stranger, continuing on his way to the staircase, seemed hardly to notice him, involuntarily turning his head away as if unwilling to view so fair-looking a specimen of humanity degrading himself to the level of the brute.
Later at night we find our young friend, together with her older sister, in the family sitting-room of the hotel. Annie, the younger, is softly stroking the sister's hair as though she were the elder, endeavoring to comfort a fretting, troubled child. No word was spoken until the husband-landlord entered the room. Julia gave a nervous start, while Annie touched her gently and soothingly on the shoulder. Mr.Davison was a great deal soberer than could be expected; and his wife gave a sigh of relief when she found that he was only maudlin drunk.
"Ah, there you are, both together again—as affectionate a pair of sisters as ever I see. Well, well, Julia, girl, maybe I ain't made you as good a husband as you deserve to have, but I'll see that our little sister there is well provided for. By-the-by, Annie, when Tom Montrie comes down from the mountains he'll find good sport: one of the nicest fellows you ever saw has come down from San Francisco, and I'll try to get him to spend at least part of the winter with us. Oh, he's on the sport," in answer to an anxious look from Julia, "but he's a mighty clever fellow—genteel, and all that sort of thing. Tom's made a pretty good stake again this summer, I know; and it'll be a good plan to keep him well entertained while Annie is away teaching the ragged young one—for I suppose she'll insist on keeping on in that stupid school, when she might just as well marry Tom at once and set herself and her poor relations up in the world."
The girl had listened in silence to this long tirade, a burning spot on each cheek alone showing that she heard at all what was said. It was Julia's turn to be elder sister now.
"Annie," she said, "I forgot to tell Peter that he had better use more yeast for the muffins he sets to-night; will you please to tell him so as you go up-stairs?" Drawing her fingers through Annie's curly brown hair, and looking affectionately into her deep hazel eyes, she kissed her good-night; and the sister silently departed, followed up-stairs by Cruiser, who kept watch through the night on his rug outside her door.
To discover the cause of Mr. Davison's unusual sobriety we must go back for an hour or two. When night had set in, the stranger from San Francisco, who had registered his name as J. B. Peyton, was promenading on the porch in front of the hotel, quietly smoking his Havana and thoughtfullyregarding the stars. Presently the host opened the door of the reading-room, stepped out on the porch, and closed it behind him again, as though to keep the chilly autumn air from striking the inmates of the room. Approaching the stranger, he eyed him as keenly as his somewhat dimmed vision, aided by the sickly light of a pale young moon, would permit, and then exclaimed, in a tone intended to be cordial:
"It's you, by ——, it is! Give us your hand, and tell us how you are and how the rest of them have fared."
The stranger, in a voice which, like his eyes, was grave rather than sad, replied, somewhat stiffly:
"I am quite well, as you see; whom else you are inquiring for, I don't know." Then, warming up suddenly, he went on, in a tone of bitter reproach: "And you have married one of these poor girls? You should not have done it had I known of it, depend on it."
"Well, well, wasn't that the best I could do for them?" In his tone bravado and reason were struggling for the mastery. "To be sure," he continued, quailing before the flashing eye of his companion, "I have not had much luck of late; everything seems going against me—I am almost ruined."
"You have ruined yourself. Why shouldyouhave luck?" He was silent a moment, busying himself with his cigar; then he continued; "Where is Celeste? What became of her?"
"Curse the ungrateful, perjured wretch!" answered the other, grinding his teeth with sudden rage; "when my luck first turned she went off, mind you, with a ship-captain, to China. She knew she could never live where I was. I'd—"
"Do with her as you did with—"
"Hush!" whispered the shivering host; "don't speak so loud! Wasn't there something stirring in the tree there?" And, like Macbeth seeing Banquo's ghost, he started backward to the well-lit room.
It is generally accepted that life in California, particularlyin earlier days, was full of excitement and change, every day bringing with it some horrible occurrence or startling event. Perhaps, at the date of my story—about 1860—this excitement had somewhat cooled down; or perhaps it was the life of our young friend only that had flowed along so evenly while at this place. The "horrible occurrence" of her day was the ever-recurring period of her brother-in-law's intoxication, sometimes maudlin, sometimes violent, but always fraught with bitterness and sorrow to her on account of her gentle, long-suffering sister. The "startling event" was the coming in of the hacks and coaches from the railroad terminus, which she watched, half-hidden by the tree, and together with her almost inseparable companion, Cruiser, just as she had done that day when Mr. Peyton made his first appearance at this place. Perhaps her interest in the arrivals was even greater now than it had been before. Often, when about to turn from her post of observation, a pair of grave black eyes, upturned from the porch below, seemed asking a question of her that she vainly puzzled her brain to understand. Once or twice she had started to go to her sister's room at such times, trying to frame the question she seemed to read in the stranger's eye. But the question remained unframed and unanswered; and day after day Annie taught her little pupils at school, came home and helped Julia about the house, and in the evening encountered the sphinx that baffled all her dreamy speculations.
It had been a matter of displeasure to her brother-in-law for some time that the arrival of the stage from Laporte was not noticed by Annie with the same degree of interest as the coming-in of the passengers from the opposite direction.
"Tom'll be coming some day," he said, grumblingly, to his wife, "and that fine sister of yours will take no more notice of his arrival than if a Chinaman had come!"
And so it proved. One morning as Annie, followed byCruiser with the lunch-basket, was descending the front steps of the hotel porch, Mr. Davison hastened to block up her road with his portly figure.
"Annie," he spoke majestically, "how often must I tell you that I cannot allow my sister-in-law to plod over to that school-house and bother with those dirty urchins any more? Let them find some one else, for you will not teach there much longer. Come, Cruiser, give us the basket! Annie'll stay at home to-day, at least."
"Don't trouble Cruiser unnecessarily," replied Annie, laughing pleasantly; "I haven't fallen heir to any fortune of late, that I am aware of, and until I do, I'm afraid that both I and Cruiser will have to follow our old vocation."
"You know that a fortune awaits you, Annie," was the persuasive response, "if you would only stretch out your hand for it. How will Tom receive the information, when he gets up this morning, that you have not paid him the attention to remain home for one day, at least?"
"I hope you will not conceal from Mr. Montrie that it is a matter of the utmost indifference to me how he receives the information."
"Your sister will talk to you about this matter," blustered the man. "A girl like you to throw away her chances!"
"I will listen patiently to anything my sister may have to say to me." And Annie, turning, was almost confronted by Mr. Peyton, coming in from an early walk. He lifted his hat with something like reverence, and drew aside to let the girl and her four-footed companion pass.
She did listen patiently to what her sister said to her that evening in the little family sitting-room just back of the ladies'-parlor, on the ground floor. One door of this room opened out on a porch, on the other side of which rose the blank wall of another apartment, built of frame, with only one window looking out towards the street, and the door opposite thiswindow. Between this and the bar-room lay dining-room, pantry, and kitchen; so that no one from the bar-room, which lay back of the reading-room, on the other side of the entrance hall, could see this room with the single door and window.
In California parlance, "the tiger" was kept in this room. If we could have looked into this gaily-furnished apartment about the time Annie was on her way to her room, having left her sister's presence with tear-stained eyes, we should have beheld Mr. Peyton's pale, clear-cut face bending over a table, around which a number of men were seated. The various accoutrements of the game spread out before him, denoted that this man, with the well-modulated musical voice, with the soft, grave expression of countenance, with the quiet, gentlemanly bearing, was "the owner of the tiger."
The individual occupying the seat just across from Mr. Peyton was his opposite in every respect. A tall, broad-shouldered mountain-man, whose rusty beard and careless dress showed that, while "making his stake" in the mountains, he had bestowed but little attention on his personal appearance. No one could have disputed his claims to good looks, though his glittering eyes seemed small, and were certainly too deep-set; and when he laughed, the long white teeth gave a kind of hyena-look to the whole face. Large hands, always twitching, and clumsy feet, forever shuffling, gave him the appearance of a bear restlessly walking the length of his chain. Altogether, in looks and bearing, he contrasted unfavorably with Mr. Peyton; the one, smooth and polished as ivory; the other, rough and uncouth as the grizzly of his mountain home.
But Mr. Davison, who had softly opened the door, and stood silently regarding him a moment, seemed fairly in love with Mr. Montrie's broad shoulders and matted hair—so gently did he touch the one, and stroke the other, as he whisperedinto the ample ear something which caused the small eyes to flicker with satisfaction and delight. Then, moving around the table to where Mr. Peyton sat, he laid his hand on this gentleman's shoulder, but much more timidly, though the faro-dealer looked delicate, almost effeminate, compared to the huge proportions of the man from the mountains.
"Jim—" he said, but corrected himself—"Mr. Peyton!" in an audible whisper, "I don't want you to be hard on that man yonder; he'll soon be one of the family, you know."
The information was given with many winks and nods and leers, such as men in the first stages of intoxication are generally prolific of.
A single keen glance from the eagle-eyes of the gambler was sent across to where the man from the mountains sat; but it sank to the depths of the man's heart, and went searching through every corner. The next moment Mr. Peyton was deeply engrossed in the "lay-out" before him.
It was long after midnight before "the tiger" was left to darkness and solitude in the little room at the rear of the "Eagle Exchange." In the course of the following morning, when Mr. Davison's brain was pretty well cleared of the fumes of last night's potations, and before the early-morning drams had yet materially affected it, he was made uneasy by the approach of Mr. Peyton, of whom he stood in unaccountable dread.
"Have a cigar, Henry?" Mr. Peyton extended one of the choice kind he always smoked himself; and then, by a motion of the hand, commanded the now thoroughly sobered man into a chair beside his own. The reading-room was deserted, and the paper Mr. Peyton had picked up was carelessly held so that the fancy bar-keeper, who was twirling his elegant black moustache, could not see his lips move.
"Henry," Mr. Peyton began, without further preliminaries, "if you allow that man from the mountains to press hisattentions on your sister-in-law against her wishes, I'll break every bone in your body."
The threat seemed almost ridiculous from the delicate, white-fingered stranger to this burly, overgrown piece of humanity; yet Mr. Davison did not consider it so, for he answered, with pleading voice and cringing manner:
"But if he is to marry her—"
"Marry her!" repeated the gambler, while a flash, such as the gate of hell might emit were it opened for a moment, shot from his eyes; "I would kill him first; yes, and tell the girl who it was that—"
"And send them both out on the world again, to work hard for their bread, as I found them?"
"Better that a thousand times than that Annie should be made miserable, like her sister, by being tied to a worthless sot, or a heartless desperado."
"You're hard on me, Jim," whined the other. "If the girl marries this man, a part of his money will go towards paying off my debts, and setting me straight again in this house. He'll be good to her; and what's the harm to anybody? You don't want the girl—I know your queer notions of honor."
"Hush!" He sprang to his feet, and for the first time his voice thrilled, and a quick flush darkened his brow. "Not another word; but so sure as you drive the girl to this step, so sure will I tell her sister who you are." His figure appeared tall as he moved away, and his shoulders looked broad and strong as those of the man whom he left cowering in his chair behind him.
This interview over, Mr. Peyton seemed utterly oblivious of the existence of the family at the "Eagle Exchange." Mr. Davison said to himself, with an inward chuckle, that he had "gotten round Jim before, in spite of his keen eyes, and was likely to do so again;" while Annie, still and white, lookedlike a bird wearied out with being chased, and ready to fall into the snarer's net. Once or twice, in meeting Mr. Peyton, it seemed to him that her hazel eyes were raised to his, with a mute appeal in them; and at such times he lifted his hand hastily to his forehead, where a heavy strand of the raven hair fell rather low into it, near the right temple, as if to assure himself of the perfect arrangement of his hair.
But in spite of all of Mr. Davison's cunning and contriving, Mr. Montrie evidently made slow progress in his suit; for his visits to "the tiger" grew longer and more frequent; and soon it came to be the order of the day that the afternoons, as well as the nights, were spent in the little room across the porch. A number of new arrivals from the various mining-camps in the mountains lent additional interest to the games; and bets were higher, and sittings longer, day after day. It was impossible to tell from Mr. Peyton's unchanging face whether luck had been with him or against him; but Mr. Montrie seemed all of a sudden elated, either with the winnings he had made off "the tiger," or the success he had met with in another quarter. Whichever it might be, Mr. Peyton, coming unexpectedly upon him, as he sat in close consultation with Mr. Davison one morning, could not have heard the mountain-man's invitation to drink to his luck, for he passed straight on without heeding the invitation. Mr. Davison quaked a little before the sharp glance thrown over to him; "but then," he consoled himself, "d—— it, Jim is such a curious mortal, and, like as not, he's forgotten all about it; he don't care for the girl, no how."
The afternoon saw them again gathered around "the tiger," the man from the mountains betting with a kind of savage recklessness that boded no good to those who knew him well. He had not forgotten the slight Mr. Peyton had put on him in the morning, according to his code of honor, but wascasting about in his mind for some manner in which to express his indignation.
"What do you want to be quarrelling to-day for, Tom?" asked a lately-arrived mountain-friend of him. "I see that gal of your'n this morning; took a good look at her when she went to school; and, bless my stars, if you don't know better than to grumble all the while on the very day when—"
"Your interest in the game seems to be flagging, gentlemen," came Mr. Peyton's voice across the table, with a somewhat hasty utterance; "shall we close?"
An energetic negative from the rest of the company decided the question; but Mr. Montrie, determined to play marplot, said:
"For my part, I'm tired of buckin' agin 'the tiger.' 'Pears to me a game of poker might be healthy for a change."
Without losing a word, Mr. Peyton gathered up the faro-kit before him, and laid cards on the table. Mr. Montrie's friend, a slow-spoken, easy-going man, called Nimble Bill, was seated at the right of this gentleman, across from Mr. Peyton's accustomed seat at the table; while beside Mr. Peyton sat two or three others, who had "come down in the same batch" with Mr. Montrie's friend.
The game progressed quietly for some time, Mr. Montrie alone manifesting uneasiness by frequently consulting his watch and casting longing glances through the window.
"Tom, old fellow, I believe you're regularly 'struck' at last," laughed his friend. "It's mighty nigh time for that school to let out, I know; so we'll let you off easy, and say no more about it; ha, ha, ha!" and he turned for approval to the snickering men at the table.
Just then Mr. Peyton raised his hand quickly to his head, and the light from the diamond on his finger flashed directly into the man's eyes.
"By-the-by, that's a mighty fine diamond you've got; Ishouldn't mind getting one to present to Tom's wife when he gets married. Now, what mought be about the price of one like that, Mr.—what did you say the gentleman's name was?" and he turned to his friend's working face.
"'Poker-Jim,' I should say," shouted the angered man, "from the way he's been handling them cards this afternoon."
There was a hasty movement among those present; the motion of Mr. Peyton's hand, as he threw it quickly behind him, was but too well understood by all, and hurried steps rushed toward the door. When the smoke had almost cleared away he was almost alone with his victim; only the friend, against whom the dying man had fallen, was in the room beside him. But from the outside approached heavy steps, while a shrill female voice sent shriek after shriek through the house. Mr. Davison's ashy face appeared at the door:
"Oh, Jim! what have you done? Let's lay him down here easy, Bill; and now run for the doctor, quick; and tell the other fellows to keep still, if they can."
"Go to your wife, Henry," ordered Mr. Peyton, with extended hand; "the poor thing is in hysterics."
A look into the gambler's face told the man he must obey; but in his perturbation, he did not see the white figure that glided by him into the room.
"Why did you do it?" asked the girl, wringing her hands, but looking intohiseyes without a glance at the prostrate body.
"I had to kill the brute to keep him from marrying you, Annie. How could I let you fall into his hands—you, the daughter of the woman who sheltered me and gave me a home, when, a poor deserted boy, I lay bleeding from a brutal blow on the street. Annie, do you not know me?" He raised the strand of hair that always lay low on his forehead, and a deep scar appeared under it.
"Jimmy!" she cried, between surprise and joy. "But, oh!" she continued, sadly, "I have found you but to lose you again. You must go, quick, before they can send the sheriff or the doctor."
"We must part; yes, and perhaps never meet again on earth. But, ere we part, I must give your heart another wound. Your brother—it was I who—"
"Murdered him!" shrieked the girl. "Cruiser!" she called, wildly; and the faithful animal, as if knowing the import of the conversation in the room, threw himself with a fierce, yelping bark against the door.
"Hold!" and he caught the girl as she sprang to open it. "Hear me out, while I have yet time to speak. It was I who brought him home, so that he might sleep quietly in the church-yard, instead of finding a grave at the bottom of the Bay. Ask Henry who killed him; ask him whether 'Celeste' was worth the blood of the poor boy, and he will not refuse to tell the truth."
At the door Cruiser was scratching and whining, accompanying the man's hurried words with a weird, uncanny music; and now he howled again as he had howled on the night of poor Ned's death.
"Farewell, Annie; your sister and that dog will soon be the only friends you have. I can neither claim you nor protect you. Farewell; be happy if you can, and—forget me."
"Never! never!" sobbed the girl.
A hand, softer even than her own, was passed tenderly through her hair and over her brow; a single kiss was breathed on her lips, and the next moment she was alone, the dog, her sole friend, crouching, with every demonstration of devotion and affection, at her feet.