CHAPTER VI.

"All hail the power of Jesus' name!Let angels prostrate fall."

Strong and clear, a great volume of sound, it rang out on the air that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning, as Job rode Bess up the Coyote road to Pete Wilkins' barn, now transformed into a sanctuary where the Sierra District Camp-meeting was well under way.

"Bring forth the royal diadem,And crown him Lord of all."

The rafters of the barn shook with the music, while it rolled out through the great side and rear doors, thrown open so wide that the old building looked like outdoors with a roof on. The big structure was full to the doors, while around it all sorts of vehicles and nags were hitched. To the right and left rows of tents stretched away. Just outside, under the old oak, a portly dame was dishing out lemonade for a nickel to late-comers, while a group of boys were playing leap-frog. Job struggled throughthe outer crowd and pushed inside, only to find himself in the center of "the gang," who greeted him with a wink and a whisper, "The speakin' racket's next!"

"Oh, that with yonder sacred throngWe at His feet may fall!"

How grand it sounded! Such a host of voices were singing! Far up in front, on a platform, surrounded by several preachers, gray-haired and young, in varied attire, from the conventional black suit and white tie to a farmer's outfit, was a little organ, and a familiar form was sitting back of it and getting its old bellows to roll out the hymn. The organist was no other than Jane, and her face flushed as she caught Job's eye.

Just then the music stopped and a sweet-faced old man stepped up and said, "Brethren and sisters, we have knelt at the Lord's table; let us now tell of the Lord's love. Let us have fifty testimonies in the next few minutes. Let us sing, 'I love to tell the story of Jesus and his love.'"

The scene faded away; the music was a far-off echo, the barn was gone. Job was back, a lad, in the old New England church; grandsir was there, and mother, and the old, old friends, and Ned Winthrop was poking him with a pin. That song!—how it brought them all back!

Just then be heard a murmur behind him, and looked up to see, near the front, a trembling old man rise and begin to speak. He told of boyhood days; he told of a young man's sins; of how one day on the old camp ground back in York State he had learned that God loved him and could make a man of him. Then he faltered as he told a story of sorrows, and how at last, alone in the world, he awaited the angels that should bear him home.

Job trembled. Unpleasant memories arose in his heart. He grew pale and red, then bit his lips in excitement. He wished he was at home. Testimony followed testimony. Love, peace and joy rang through all. At last Jane rose—could it be possible? He hung on every word.

"Last night, down there at the bench, the Lord converted my soul. I have been a poor sinner, but I know Jesus loves me, and I wish—I wish," and she looked over to the far rear, "you would let him save you;" and she sat down in tears.

Job was wildly angry. "The mischief take her!" he muttered. And Dan leaned over and whispered, "See, she's gone daft, like the rest!"

The testimonies and love-feast were over, a prayer that made Job feel as if Some One great and good was near, had been offered, and then it was announced that the Rev. William Pendergast of Calavero circuit would preach.

"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

It was a young, fresh, boyish face that looked into Job's as the speaker uttered these words. Just such a bright, athletic, noble fellow as every true boy secretly wishes to be. He caught Job's attention and held it.

This was a very different thing from what he had thought sermons to be. The young man talked of life here, not hereafter; he showed how a man may live in this world and yet live a lost life; have gold and lands, and yet lose all love and hope and peace and manhood. He pictured the man who gains wealth and grows hard and loveless, and Job thought of Andy Malden; he told of him who plunges into dissipation and drink, and lingers a wreck in the streets, and Job knew he meant Yankee Sam. Aye, he pictured a young life that grasps all the world and forgets right and God and mother's Bible and mother's prayers, and grows selfish and the slave of hate and trembles lest death come, and Job thought of himself and the awful night in the snow and wished he was miles away.

But wait! They are singing:

"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,Weak and wounded, sick and sore."

They have cleared the mourners' bench and are giving the invitation:

"Jesus ready stands to save you,Full of pity, love and power."

Job trembles. Does that mean him? Tim Nolan the mill-man leans over and whispers almost out loud: "Remember your bet, Job!"

Poor Job would have given all the gold in the Sierras to be out of there. All the sins of his life rose before him, all his conceit and boasting vanished. He was ashamed of Job Malden. He longed to sink somewhere out of sight.

The preacher was talking again; the old, old story of the Prodigal Son and how God's arms are always ready to take in a mother's lost boy. The room swam before Job's eyes. The crowds were flocking to the altar, the people were shouting, the boys were punching him and saying. "Yer dursn't go!" Heaven, hell, sin and Christ were very real to him all of a sudden.

"All the fitness he requirethIs to feel your need of him."

How it happened he never knew, but just as Dan said, "Now, let's see Job get religion," he rose, and, striding down the long aisle, he rushed to the altar, and there, just where he had taken his first drink on that awful Sunday, he threw himself in tears, a big, heart-broken boy, with the thought of his evil life throbbing through his brain.

It was late that night when Job left the camp ground, flung himself across Bess' back and started home. The stars never looked down on a happier boy. The burden, the hate, the bitterness in his heart, were all gone. A holy love, an exaltation of soul, an awakening of all that is best in a manly life, stirred him. The past was gone; "old things had passed away and all things had become new." The world was the same. Dan, with all his meanness, was in it. The saloon doors were open, the gamblers still sat at midnight at the Monte Carlo. Grizzly county had not changed, but he had. A new life was his.

As he galloped down the road, far away he heard them singing:

"Palms of victory, crowns of glory, I shall wear,"

and a strange feeling came over him. He took up the refrain, and, looking up at the stars, he seemed to see his mother's face afar off among the flashing worlds. The tears stole down his cheeks, tears of joy, as, galloping on through the night toward home, again he sang:

"Palms of victory, crowns of glory, I shall wear."

It was a little, long, low, unpainted shanty, with a rude doorstep, almost hid amid a jungle of vines and overarching trees at the end of a long lane, where Marshall Dean lived. A sallow-faced, thin Kentuckian, he had come up here from the plains after his sister married Andrew Malden, in the hope that being near a rich relative would save him from unnecessary labor. Andrew Malden had given him a good place at the mill, but he found it too hard on his muscles, and so decided to "ranch it." Malden had then given him the old Jones ranch and a start; but as the years drifted by he had not succeeded in raising much except a numerous family of dirty, unkempt youngsters of whom Dan was the oldest and the most promising specimen, the one who had inherited his father's pride and selfishness, with a certain natural shrewdness and sagacity that his mother's family possessed, but of which she had failed to receive much.

While Malden's wife lived, they managed to silently share in the income of Pine Tree Ranch, but after she died the smugglingbusiness between the big place and Dean's Lane suddenly stopped. Nothing ever cut deeper—they could never forgive her for dying. At last they settled down to a stolid, long wait for the old man's end. The chief theme of conversation at home was the uncertainties of life for the "old miser," and the sure probability of their move some day on to the big ranch, though not one of them knew what they would do with it if they got it. Dan felt no hesitation about telling this at school, and it was common gossip of the county.

But alas! the night Dan came home and excitedly told the family, as they looked up from their rough board table and bacon and mush and molasses, that "the old man had taken Teale's kid in, sure he had," consternation seized them. It took them weeks to rally; and, when they did, for the first time in their history the family had an object in life, and that was to make life miserable for Job.

Unsuspecting and innocent, the twelve-year-old lad had gone over to play with the Dean children, as he would at any home, till the time when petty persecutions culminated in all the rude youngsters calling him vile names and throwing stones at him, and the father standing by and drawling out, "Give it to him, the ornery critter!"

Annoyance followed annoyance. Job's pets always got hurt or disappeared. Dick, his first pony, was accidentally lamed for life; the big dog he romped with was found dead from poison. All the mischief in the neighborhood was eventually laid at Job's door. For a long time the boy systematically avoided the Deans, till by some strange political fortune Marshall Dean was appointed postmaster for the Pine Mountain post-office. That was a gala day in Deans' Lane. Sally Dean had a brand-new dress on the strength of it, and Dan gave himself more airs than ever before. After that Job was obliged to go to the Deans' twice a week for the mail, and more than once went away with the suspicion that Andrew Malden's mail had been well inspected before it left the office.

The wrath of the Dean family reached its culmination on that Sunday night when Dan came home with the news that Job had attended the Coyote Valley camp-meeting and had been converted; "now he would be putting on holy airs and setting himself above folks." That night in Dean's shanty Sally and Dan and "Pap" put their heads together to plan how they could in some way make Job Malden backslide.

It was toward this house that Job was making his way, on the very next week, bound for the semi-weekly mail. As he went up the path old Dean himself rose to meet him; and, putting up his pipe, remarked on the "uncommon fine morning." As he pushed open the shanty door, Mrs. Dean and fifteen-year-old Sally were all smiles. The postman had brought no mail, the former said, but wouldn't he stay and rest? She had heard the Methodists were having a fandango down in the valley. Queer people, whose religion consisted in shouting and jumping. As for her, she believed in practical religion; she paid her honest debts and didn't set herself up above her neighbors.

Job was just leaving, when Mrs. Dean said:

"Oh, you mustn't go without drinking to Sally's health—she's fifteen to-day. See what a big girl she is—what rosy cheeks and big hands! Come, we have the finest cider out; just drink with us to Sally's health."

"Why, excuse me, ma'am," stammered Job, quite bewildered by this sudden good nature and the invitation to drink. "Why—I can't drink any more—I—"

"Oh, my!" said Mrs. Dean. "You're all straight! This won't be too much, if you have drank before this afternoon."

"Oh, but—" stammered Job, "I don't mean that. I don't drink any more—I have joined the Methodists and been converted."

"Such a likely boy as you gone and jinedthe fools! Surely Andy Malden don't know it, does he?"

"Why—no," stammered Job.

"Waal, now, purty feller you are, to take your bread and butter from Andy Malden, and then go and disgrace him by joinin' the hypocrites and never tellin' him, and then comin' round here and refusin' to drink harmless apple juice with our Sally! Puttin' yourself up above respectable people like us, whose parents lie in respectable graves."

Job faltered. That speech cut. The hot blood came to his brow. A week ago he would have lost his temper, but now he bit his lip and kept still.

Then the woman's mood changed. She wished him no ill luck, she said, and surely he would be good enough if he was as good as his Master, and she "'lowed that Christ drank wine at a wedding spread onct. Surely he wouldn't refuse a little cider with Sally?"

Perhaps it would be best. Perhaps he was trying to be too good. Aye, perhaps one drink would give him a good chance to escape. So Job thought, and he took the glass. But then came a vision of that bar at the horse-race, of that cider at Malden's mill, and the winter night and the snow, and his hand in his pocket touched the old temperance pledge he had signed again on Sunday night when he got home, and up from his heart went a silent cry for help. At that, he seemed to hear a voice saying, "With every temptation, a way of escape," and he said in a firm voice, as he sat down the glass:

"Best wishes for Sally, Mrs. Dean, but I cannot drink the cider."

Just then a shrill cry from outside sent both Sally and her mother flying to help rescue three-year-old Ross, whose father was hauling him out of the well.

In the excitement, Job started home with a light heart, singing to himself:

"Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin, Each victory will help you some other to win."

They were sitting together at Pine Tree Ranch, on the side porch of the neat little white farmhouse, over which the vines were trained and from which the well-kept lawn and flower-bordered walks rolled away to the white picket fence. It was a late August evening, which had merged from sunset into moonlight so softly and quietly that one hardly knew when the one began and the other ended. Job, in old coat and overalls and a broken straw hat, just as he had come in from his evening chores, sat on the veranda's edge. Back of him, in a low-bottomed, old cane rocker, was Andrew Malden in a rough suit of gray, his white beard reaching far down on his breast, while his silver locks were blowing in the breeze.

For once, at least, he was opening his heart and memory to the lad whom he secretly loved; the lad who often wondered why the latch string of Pine Tree Ranch was out for him, and what matter would it be if some day, when he and Bess went off over the Chichilla hills, they never came back again.

To-night the old man was talkative. It was his birthday and he was in retrospective mood. "Seventy to-night, Job—just to think of it! Twenty years more, perhaps, and then—well, a coffin, I suppose, and six feet of ground—and that's all," he said.

Job wanted to say, "And heaven," but he did not dare. And then a thought startled him: Was this man, who had gained this world, ready for any other?

For an hour Andrew Malden rambled on. He talked of the Mexican war; told of Vera Cruz and the battle of Monterey. "Bravest thing you ever saw, boy. One of those Greasers rode square up to our line and flung a taunt in our faces, and rode away in disdain, while all our batteries opened on him."

He came to the close of the war stories, when he suddenly stopped and grew silent, puffed at an old pipe, rose and walked back and forth. He was thinking of that day when he had come back so proudly to claim Mary Moore, and had found the blow under which he had staggered for nearly forty years.

"You've heard of Lincoln, my boy—old Abe Lincoln? Well, I knew him when we were boys," he said, as he sat down again. Then he told story after story of the long, lean, lank Kentucky boy, who rode a raft down the Mississippi and helped clear the frontier forests; the boy who was one day to strike a blow for right that would shake a continent.

Andrew Malden laughed till Job caught the contagion and laughed, too, as story followed story. Then, after another silence, he went on again:

"Dead! Abe Lincoln's dead, and Zach Taylor's dead—and so the world goes. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' the Bible says. My father used to read it to us boys, when I was your age. It's true, my boy. Have as little to do with the world as you can, except to get an honest living out of it—a living anyway. Don't love anybody. It don't pay."

The old man faltered. He got up and paced the porch again, then, coming back, he put his hand on the boy's shoulder, and, looking into his face, said:

"Job, I want to tell you something; seems as if I must to-night."

And there in the clear moonlight, interrupted only by Shot's occasional growl, and the distant hoot of an owl or bark of a coyote, Andrew Malden told his life story to the boy at his side, the boy who was just passing up to young manhood. He told of Mary Moore; of the weary tramp behind an ox-team across the prairies and Nevada desert; of that snow-bound winter near Denver Lake; of the early days of Gold City. He told of his son who slept beneath the graveyard pines; of his own lonely life in the mountains; then he came to that night when he had brought this boy home. He put his arm around the lad as he talked of his interest in him and how he had known more of his sins and downward life than Job ever dreamed.

"Now," he said, "they tell me you have joined the Methodists—have got religion or whatever you call it. Stick to it, boy. Andy Malden's too old to ever change his views. You may be right or not, but anyway I'd rather see you go to Methodist meetin' than Pete's saloon. You're going to have a hard time of it, boy; these pesky Deans, who owe all they are to me, hate you because you are mine. As long as you live with Andy Malden, you will have to suffer. Sometimes I think it ain't worth while—what do you care for an old man?"

Again the voice ceased, and Job trembled, he hardly knew why.

"Boy," up spoke the old man again, "boy, it isn't worth while! I will give you a bag of nuggets, and you can take Bess and go to-morrow down to the city and get some learnin' and be somethin', and be out of this everlastin' quarrelsome world of Grizzly county, and never see the Deans again. I will stand it; I lived alone before you came, and I suppose I can do it again. Only a few years and I will be gone; God knows where—if there is a God."

By this time Job was choked with emotion. All his nature was aroused. He fairly loved this strange old man. Looking up, he begged him not to send him away; stay he would, whatever it cost; and he would be as true a son to him as a strong young fellow could.

At that, the old man rose, went into the house, and came back with something that glittered in his hand.

"Take this, Job, put it in your hip-pocket, and the first time any one of the Deans, big or little, insults you, put a bullet through him."

Job shrank back at sight of the revolver.

"No! Oh, no! I can't take that! Down atthe camp-meeting I promised God to love my enemies, uncle. I can't take that."

Then Job poured out his heart to Andrew Malden. He told of his conversion, of his trust in God, and that he was no longer afraid of the Deans or of anything.

"Humph! humph!", said the old man. "Well, I won't argue with you, boy; but as for me, I'd rather trust my hip-pocket when I have to deal with the people of Grizzly county. Do as you please. But I'll keep this revolver, and death to the man that harms a hair of Job Malden, the only one in all the world that Andy Malden loves."

The old man's voice trembled, and he walked into the house and shut the door; and Job knew the talk was over for that night.

Whistling to Shot, he and the dog stole upstairs to Job's little bare room, where a few wood-cuts hung on the wall, and a long, narrow bedstead, a chair, and a box that served for table, were the only furniture. He took the little Testament from under his pillow and lovingly kissed it; then turning, he read for his good-night lesson from his new-found divine Friend: "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

Kneeling a moment for a good-night prayer, he was soon in bed and asleep, with Shot curled up on the covers at his feet, while through the open window the sound of a guitar came where one of the mill hands was playing the tune of

"Hush, my child, lie still and slumber,Holy angels guard thy bed."

The radical change that had come into Job's life cut him off from the companions of other days and left him without a chum. It showed the manliness of his nature that as he started out in the new life, seeing quickly that he must part company with the old companions who had nearly wrecked his life, he acted on the conviction at once.

Perhaps it was this, perhaps the fact that his life was now almost altogether on the ranch, that made Job and Bess boon companions. Many a mountain trip they took together. It was on one of these that they went to the Big Trees. That bright September morning, gayly attired with new sombrero and red bandanna above his white outing-shirt, astride Bess, Job rode slowly up the Chichilla mountain on his way to visit those giant trees. Up by "Doc" Trainer's place, over the smooth, hard county turnpike, where the toll-road, ever winding round and round the mountain-side, climbs on through the passes of the live-oak belt to the scraggly pines of the low hills, on to the endless giant forests of the cloud-kissed summits, the young horseman made his way. Now and then the road descended to a little ravine, where a mountain torrent had torn a path to the deep cañons below: again it stretched through a dim, royal archway of green where the great trees linked branches as over a king's pathway; and then it turned a bend where the steep sides sank so suddenly that even the trees had no foothold and the bare space disclosed a view over boundless forests of dark green, and the vast, yawning cañons and distant rolling hills, to where, far-off, like some dream of the past, one caught glimpses of the endless plains covered with the autumn haze and golden in the morning sunlight.

The grandeur of the scenery, the roar of the brook in deep cañons below, whose echo he caught from afar, the exhilarating ride, the fresh morning breeze, combined with the spiritual experiences of his nature, which were daily deepening, to rouse all the poetry in Job's soul, of which he had more than the average rough country lad who rode over those eternal hills. He shouted, he whistled patriotic airs and snatches of thepopular songs he heard on the Gold City streets; then the old songs of church and the heart-life came to him, and he sang them, while he laid his head over on Bess' neck as she silently climbed ever higher and higher.

Suddenly Bess gave a start that nearly threw him, as the delicate form of a deer rose behind a fallen tree. For an instant the beautiful animal stood looking with great soft eyes in a bewildered stare at the cause of his sudden awakening, then plunged his horns into the bushes and leaped away down the mountain-side.

Job quickly reached for his rifle, only to discover what he well knew—that it was far away at home; of which he was glad as he thought of those tender, pleading eyes, and a great love for the harmless creature, the forests, the mountains and all the world welled up in his soul. "My!" he said, "I'd like to hug that deer! I'd like to hug everything, everybody! I used to hate them; I would even hug Dan. Bess, dear old girl, I'll just love you!" and he flung his arms around her neck and hummed away as they passed up the hill.

Soon a turn in the road brought them to the summit, where for a moment the trees part and one catches glimpses of the long winding road over which one has come, and the ever-rolling forests beyond, climbing far up to a still higher ridge that reaches toward the Yosemite and the high Sierras. The view thrilled Job. The psalm he had learned for last Sunday came to him. He repeated it solemnly with cap off, as he sat still on Bess' back: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help; my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."

"Father of the Forest," Calaveras Grove."Father of the Forest," Calaveras Grove.

Only a moment be paused, and then started on a gallop down the hill. The ring of Bess' feet on the hard road scared the shy gray squirrels, which ran chattering up the tall pines, leaving their feast of nuts on the ground beneath.

A few minutes later and all the solemnity of his soul and the beauty of the forests was sadly interrupted as he rode round a curve and came out at the junction of the Signal Point and the Yosemite toll-road.

There stood, or lay rather, half on its side, a rickety, old two-seated structure shaded by white canvas supported by four rough-hewn posts. It leaned far to the side on one wheel and a splintered hub. Down the hill a broken wheel was bounding; while, on the dusty road, four women—one tall and angular in a yellow duster, one little and weazened, arrayed in a prim gray travelingsuit, a weeping maiden of uncertain age, and a portly dame of ponderous proportions, dressed not in a duster but a very dusty black silk—were pulling themselves up. Near by three little tots were howling vigorously, yet making no impression on the poor, lone, lank white mare which stood stock still in the shafts, with a contented air that showed an immense satisfaction in the privilege of one good stop.

"Mary Jane, this is awful! Every bone in me is cracked and this silk dress is ruined—yes, is ruined! I tell yer it ain't fit for Mirandy's little gal's doll! And my! I know my heart is broken, too; I can hear it rattle! I'll never come with you and that horrid runaway horse again!"

The poor horse flapped her ears as if in appreciation of this last remark, while Mary Jane, rising up like a yellow-draped beanpole, retorted in a shrill voice:

"Aunt Eliza, ain't you ashamed to be deriding me, a poor lone widder with three helpless children! I hope ye are cracked—cracked bad! Horse, humph! I guess my horse is the likeliest in Grizzly county! Yer know yer made all the trouble; any decent wheel would give way when it had a square mile of bones and stuffin's and silk above it!"

"Now, sister Mary and Aunt Eliza," spoke up, in a thin, metallic voice, that of the diminutive dame in gray, as she adjusted her bonnet strings, "let us not grow unduly aggravated at the disconcerting providence which has overwhelmed us in the journey of life. There are compensating circumstances which should alleviate our sorrow. Our lives are spared, and the immeasurable forests are undisturbed by the trifling event which has overtaken us poor, insignificant creatures, whose—"

"Insignificant!" roared Aunt Eliza, "I guess I ain't insignificant! I own twenty town lots down in Almedy, as purty as yer ever saw. Insignificant! I—the mother of ten children and goodness knows how many grandchildren! And as for them trees that yer say yer can't measure, I'd rather see the clothes-poles in Sally's back yard!"

"Yes," chimed in Mary Jane, "and 'trifles' yer call it, for a poor woman that raises spuds and washes clothes for the men at the mines for a livin', to lose her fine coach Pete built the very year he took sick of the heart-failure and died, and left me a lone widder in a cold and friendless world!" At which she wiped her eyes with the yellow duster.

"'Trifles'!" cried Aunt Eliza again. "'Trifles,' for us poor guileless wimmen to be left here alone in the wilderness, twenty mile from a livin' creature, and nobody knows what wild animals and awful men may come along any minute!"

For a moment Job halted Bess and watched the scene. An almost uncontrollable desire to laugh possessed him; but, restraining himself, he took the first chance he had to make his presence known, at which Aunt Eliza groaned, "Oh, my!" and Mary Jane instinctively grasped her yelling children, and the prim spinster curtsied and asked if he used tobacco. At Job's surprised look and negative reply, she said, "Very well. I never employ a male being who permeates his environment with the noxious weed. As you do not, I will offer you proper remuneration if you will assist us in this unforeseen calamity."

Assuring her that he would, without pay, do all he could, Job went to work. It was well on in the day ere, by his repeated errands down to the big hotel barn some distance below, he had procured enough material to get the rickety old structure in order and help Aunt Eliza back up its high side to the seat she had left so unceremoniously that morning. The last he heard, as the white horse slowly pulled out of sight through the forest, was Aunt Eliza's, "Go slow, Mary Jane, for mercy's sake! Don't let her run away!" while the prim spinster shouted back in a high key, "Good-by, young man! You're a great credit to your sex;" and Mary Jane, pounding the poor marevigorously, yelled, "G'lang! Get up! We'll never get home!"

It was nearer sunset than it should have been when Job reached the sign-board far up the toll-road that read, "To the Big Trees." Putting spurs to Bess, he galloped on at a rapid pace for a mile or more, when he became conscious that the sugar pines and cedars were giving place to strange trees which had loomed up before him so gradually that he was not aware the far-famed Sequoias, the giants of the forest, were all about him.

A dim, strange light filled the place. The twilight was coming fast in that far, lonely spot shaded by the close ranks of the Titanic forms. He walked Bess slowly down the shadowy corridor along the line of those straight giants, whose tapering spires seemed lost in heaven's blue.

How long it took to pass a tree! Bess and he were but toys beside them, yet he could scarcely realize their vastness till he slid off her back, and, throwing the rein over her neck, started around one, and lost Bess from view as he turned the corner and walked a full hundred feet before he had encircled the monster. How ponderous the bark, how strangely small the cones!

Mounting Bess, he rode down through the vast aisle of these monarchs of the mountains. A feeling of awe came over him. The world of Gold City and strife and jealousy and struggle, the realm of Mary Jane and Aunt Eliza, the world of petty humanity, seemed far away. He was alone with God and the eternities. Silent he stood, with bared head, and looked along the monster trunks that stretched far up, up, up, towards where the soft blue of evening twilight seemed to rest on them for support. He found himself praying—he could not help it. It was the litany of his soul rising with Nature's silent prayer: "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." All through he said it, to the reverent "Amen," then, putting on his hat, rode on toward the farther grove.

"Grizzly Giant," Mariposa Grove."Grizzly Giant," Mariposa Grove.

On he went past "Grizzly Giant," standing lone and bare, its foliage gone, its old age come—"Grizzly Giant," which was old before Christ was born; on by vigorous saplings, already rivals of the biggest pines. One time-worn veteran had succumbed to some Titanic stroke of Nature's power and lay prostrate on the ground. Decay and many generations of little denizens of the forest had hollowed its great trunk like some vast tunnel. Job, looking in, could see the light in the distance.

It was big enough for Bess and him—he was sure it was; he would try it. So, whispering lovingly to the horse, he rode into the gaping monster, rode through the dark heart of the old giant, clear to the other end and on into daylight. Enthused by his achievement, Job hurried on down the road and around the great curve, to see looming up before him "Wawona," far-famed Wawona, the portal of the silent cathedral through whose wide-spreading base and under whose towering form a coach and six can drive.

The sun was down, the shadows were fast gathering, the great trees were retreating one by one in the gloom, when Job found the little one-roomed log cabin with open door where he had planned to spend the night. Unsaddling Bess and giving her the bag of grain on the back of the saddle, hurriedly eating a lunch, and gathering some sticks for a fire in the old stone fireplace in case he needed one, throwing a drink into his mouth, Indian style, from the spring just back of the cabin, he prepared for the night. A little later, tying Bess securely to the nearest sapling, he closed the cabin door behind him, rolled down the old blankets he found there, and lay down to sleep.

How dark it was! How still the world! A feeling of intense loneliness stole over Job, and then a sense of God's nearness soothed him and he fell asleep.

It must have been after midnight when he awoke with a start, a feeling of something dreadful filling him. He listened. All was still save for Bess' occasional pawing near by. Then he heard a sound that set the blood curdling in his veins, that sent his hair up straight, and made his heart beat like an engine—from far off in the mountains came a weird, heart-breaking cry as of a lost child.

Job knew it well. It was the call of a mountain lion. Again it came, but nearer on the other side. It was voice answering voice. Bess snorted, pawed, and seemed crazed. What should he do? He trembled, hesitated; then, breathing a prayer, he hurriedly opened the cabin door, cut Bess' rope, led her in through the low portal, barred the door behind, and, soothing her with low whispers of tenderness, tied her to the further wall of the cabin, and crept back into bed. Then he lay and waited breathlessly for another cry, and thought all was well, till in a distant moan, far down the road, he heard it again.

For a moment fear almost overpowered him; then the old Psalm whispered, "He that keepeth thee will not slumber nor sleep." A sweet consciousness of the absolute safety of God's children stole over the youth; and catching, from a rift in the roof, one glimpse of the stars struggling through the tree tops, he turned over and fell asleep as peacefully as if in his bed at home.

It was Christmas Sunday when Job was received into full membership in the quaint old Gold City Methodist church. Snow was on the ground, and sleigh bells rang through the air. All day long the streets had been reverberating with that essential of a California Christmas, the fire-cracker. As the preacher came over from Hartsville, the service was in the evening.

The old building looked really fine in its new dress of holly berries, mistletoe and cedar. Across the front was hung in big red and white letters, "Unto us a Child is Born." Over the organ was suspended a large gilt star.

The place was crowded that night. The double fact that it was Christmas, and that the camp-meeting converts would be baptized, brought everybody out.

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"

sang the choir as Job, dressed in a neat new suit of gray and "store" shirt, entered the church, making a way for Andy Malden, who, for the first time in untold years, had crossed the threshold of the meeting-house. The arrival, a few minutes before, of Slim Jim the gambler, who hung around the Monte Carlo, and Col. Dick, its proprietor, had not attracted so much attention as the entrance of "Jedge Malden," as the politicians called him who sought his political influence.

The preacher, as he looked down on that audience, was amazed. He had seen no such scene in this old church since, with faint heart, he had first stood in its plain pulpit as pastor. The walls were lined with all the representative characters of the town, good and bad, rich and poor; merchants, bar-keepers, politicians and miners. In the center the old-time church-goers sat. Up the front, filling every inch of space, the starched and well-washed youngsters wriggled and grinned and sang without fear, as hymn after hymn was announced.

All soon caught the spirit of the hour, and a general feeling of good-nature settled down on all. In fact, the place fairly trembled with good-will, as a class of boys marched to the platform and sang:

"The Christmas bells are ringing over land and sea,The winter winds are bringing their merry notes to me,"

and the wee tots involuntarily turned to the rear as they ended with almost a yell:

"Then shout, boys, shout!Shout with all your might;For Merry Christmas's at the door,He's coming here to-night!"

On the programme went—recitations, songs, choruses, following close after one another. A fairy-like girl, with all childhood's innocence, told anew the old story of Bethlehem and the Christ Child. The tears stole down some rough cheeks as the memories of long-gone childhood's Christmas days came back to them.

The wee tots had sung their last hymn, when the preacher began his sermon on the angel's song that echoes still each Christmas over all the world: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will toward men." For twenty minutes he talked of glory, peace, good-will—those things so sadly lacking in many lives before him; talked till each face grew solemn, and Slim Jim looked as if he was far away in some distant memory-world. Andy Malden seemed to hear Peter Cartright, as he had heard him in his father's cabin when a boy, and remembered for the first time in years the night he had promised the eccentric old preacher he would be a Christian—a promise that had been drowned by the drum-beat of the old war days and the disappointment of a lifetime.

As the preacher finished, every man and woman there made a silent resolution to be better-natured and pay their debts and make life a little brighter for somebody. But, alas! resolutions are easily broken.

"The candidates for baptism will please come forward," said the parson.

Up they rose, old and young; Tim Dennis, the cobbler; aged Grandpa Lewis; a score of both sexes. Around the altar they stood, a long semicircle; and, as it so happened, Jane at one end, and Job, with serious, manly air, at the other.

Question after question of the ritual was asked. Clear and strong came the answers. "Wilt thou renounce the devil and all his works?" Jane nodded yes—how little she knew of the devil! Job answered loudly, "I will"—how much he did know! "The vain pomp and glory of the world?" continued the minister; and old Mrs. Smith, who lived alone in the hollow back of the church and had had such a struggle of soul to give up the flowers on her hat that she fancied were too worldly, responded, "Yes," with a groan. "Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?" asked the preacher at last. Aunanimous chorus answered, "I will," and, taking the bowl in his hand, he passed down the line of the now kneeling forms and administered the sacred ordinance. Job was last. Leaning over, the parson asked his name, then there rang out through the church, as the eager throng leaned forward to hear and Andrew Malden poked the floor with his cane, "Job Teale Malden, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

The service was over. The crowds were pouring out the door, the organist was playing "Marching Through Georgia" on the wheezy organ as the liveliest thing she knew, the people were wishing each other "Merry Christmas," as Job, hurrying out of the church, felt a touch on his shoulder, and, looking up, saw Slim Jim the gambler.

"Job, come out here. I have something to tell you," said he.

Pushing through the throng, they crept around the church in the dark, when Jim, putting his hand on the youth's shoulder, said:

"Job, I remember the night you came to Gold City, what a poor, homeless lad you were! I remember the day you won the horse-race and I said, 'The devil's got the kid now sure.' And now I am so glad, Job, that you've gone and done the square thing. I helped bury your father, and I tell you he was a fine fellow—a gentleman, if he had only let the drink and cards alone. Oh, Job, never touch them! You think it's strange, perhaps, but I was good once, far off in old Pennsylvania. I was a mother's boy, and went to church, and—Job, would you believe it?—I was going to be a preacher!—I, poor Slim Jim that nobody cares for, now. But I wanted to get rich, and I came to Gold City. I learned to play cards, and—well, here I am. No help for me—Slim Jim's lost this world and his soul, too. But you're on the right track, and, if when you die and go up there where those things shine,"—and he pointed through the pines to the starlit sky—"you meet a little, sweet old lady with white hair and a gray dress knitting a pair of socks, tell her that her Jamie never forgot her and would give the best hand he ever had to feel her kiss once more and hear her say good-night. Tell her—listen, boy!—tell her it was the cards that ruined Jamie, but he's her Jamie still." And with tears on his face and in his voice, the tall, pale wreck of manhood hurried off in the darkness, leaving Job alone in the gloom.

It was late that night when Job said his prayer by his bed at home, but he made it long enough to put in one plea for Slim Jim.

It is six miles from Pine Tree Ranch to the Cove Mine. You go over Lookout Point, from where El Capitan and the outline of the Yosemite can be easily seen on a clear day, down along the winding upper ridge of the Gulch, up again over the divide near Deer Spring and down along the zigzag trail on the steep side of Big Bear Mountain, then down to the very waters of the south fork of the Merced; just six miles to where, in the depth of the cañon, lies Wright's Cove Mine. In all the far-famed Sierras there can be no more picturesque spot. If one will take the trouble to climb the almost perpendicular ridge that rises two thousand feet behind the old tumble-down buildings, long, low cook-houses and superintendent's vine-covered cottage, along that narrow, half-destroyed trail that follows the rusty tracks and cogs and cable of an old railroad, up to the first and then on further to the second tunnel, where a few deserted ore-cars stand waiting the trains that never come, on still higher to the narrow ridge that separates the south fork from the north fork of the Merced River, he is rewarded with a view worth a long trip to see.

Let him stand there at sunset in the early spring and he has seen a view worthy of the land of the Jung Frau and Mt. Blanc. All around, the white-topped peaks of the high Sierras; far away, the snow banner waving over the Yosemite; to the left of him, far below, like a river of gold, sending up hither a faint murmur as it rushes over giant boulders and innumerable cataracts, the North Fork, hurrying from that ice-bound gorge which is the wonder of the Sierras; to the right, on the other side, dancing down from the far-off Big Trees, threading the tangled jungles of the Gulch, coming out through the dark green forest like a rim of molten silver, roaring down past the quaint little mining settlement, which looks half hid in partly-melted snow banks like some Swiss village, comes the south fork of the river, disappearing behind the mountain on which one stands.

The rushing stream, whose music is like some far-off echo; the strange deserted village; the narrow line of dark rails up the mountain-side through the snow; the gloomy, cavernous tunnels; the setting sun in the west gilding all with its transfiguring touch—these give a scene worthy the brush of a master-artist, who has never yet found his way over the Pine Mountain trail to the South Fork and Wright's Cove Mine.

It was just such a day in spring as this, as Job came whistling down the trail, gun in hand, looking for deer-tracks, that he thought he heard the report of a gun up in the second tunnel. He had often been there before; had climbed the trail and the cog railroad, played around and over the deserted buildings, and gone swimming off the iron bridge where the torrent was deepest. Once he and Dolph Swartz, a neighbor boy, had slept all night in the tool-house shed, waiting for game, and had seen only what Dolph was sure was a ghost—so sure that he hurried Job home at daybreak with a vow that he would never stay at Wright's Cove another night.

Job knew the place well, yet on this spring day he stopped and looked mystified. There it was again! Who could be in the second tunnel with a gun? Was it the spirit of some poor forty-niner come back again? He doubled his speed, slid down through the mud and slush, grasped a sapling and leaped down the short cut, ran up the bank and rocky sides of the roaring torrent, walked carefully over the slippery iron rails of the old rusty bridge, and made his way up the steep Tunnel Trail.

Soon he was close to the tunnel, so far up that the river's noise was lost behind him. He stopped and listened. Not a sound. Then clean and strong the ring of a gun, and a dull echo in the dim cavern!

All kinds of thoughts rushed through Job's head. He was not a superstitious boy, yet this was enough to make anybody feel queer—all alone in that deserted wilderness, with the echo of a gun coming out of the lonely mine, unworked for years and into which no human footstep had penetrated since the day that old Wright shot himself in the tunnel when he found that the mine which had paid big at first and into which he had put all his income, was a failure. Job had heard the boys tell that Indian Bill, the trapper, said he had seen the old fellow's skeleton marching up and down with gun in hand, two hundred feet down the tunnel, defending it against all intruders. Perhaps that was the ghost now! Would he dare to go? His flesh crept at the thought. He wished Shot was with him, or at least some living thing. Again he heard the report. His courage rose. He would face the thing, whatever it was.

Creeping up slowly and noiselessly, he reached the entrance to the tunnel and looked in. All was as dark as the grave. A cold draft rushed out over him. He could hear the drip, drip, of water from the roof. At first he thought he saw something moving in the distance, then he was not sure. He decided he would turn back; then curiosity was too much for him; he began to whistle and walked boldly into the darkness,followed the rotten ties, when, lo! he saw a flash of light, heard a thundering report, and, involuntarily giving a yell, started to run, when a familiar voice shouted:

"Job, Job, come here!"

He turned, and there loomed up before him, to his utter amazement, the form of Andrew Malden.

The old man was evidently disconcerted and angry at being found, while the boy was utterly dumfounded.

"Wait a minute, Job; I'll go home with you," said Malden, as he took out the queerest charge Job had ever seen in a gun—a load of gold dust, which he carefully rammed down the barrel, then, bidding Job look out, fired into the rock.

"Why, what are you doing that for?" stammered the boy.

"Oh, salting the mine, just so it will keep," laughed Andrew Malden—a strange, hoarse laugh. "But mind, Job, nobody needs to know I did it. The mine will keep better if they don't."

As they passed out, Job noticed that the wall of the mine glittered in a way he had never seen before. What did it all mean? He dared ask no more questions of Andrew Malden. Almost in silence they climbed down the old trail, edged across the bridge, and strode with a steady pace up the long six miles over the Point to their home.

"What's 'salting a mine,' Tony?" asked Job of the black hostler one day a week after.

"Doan' know, Marse Job, unless it's doctoring the critter so you can make somebody believe it's worth a million, when it ain't worth a rabbit's hind foot. Tony's up to better bizness than salting mines."

"Who owns the Cove Mine, Tony?"

"Why, Marse Malden, I 'spec," said the surprised negro.

That evening Job looked at his guardian with a queer feeling as they sat down to supper, and that night he heard gun-shots in his dreams, and awoke with a shiver and waited for something to happen. He was conscious of impending trouble. Something was wrong.

It had been a hard winter in Grizzly county, and throughout the whole country, for that matter; a hard winter, following a fatal summer which closed with crops a failure on the plains, the stunted grain fields uncut, and the whole country paralyzed. The cities were full of men out of work. The demand for lumber had fallen off, and the Pine Mountain Mill was idle over half the time. The pessimism that filled the air had reached Andrew Malden, and he sat by the fire all winter nursing it. If he could sell the Cove Mine—but what was there to sell? And he gave it up as a futile project. Then there came news of a rich strike of gold in Shasta county, and a little later in the far south the deserts of the Mojave were found to glitter. A perfect epidemic of mining excitement followed. The most unthought-of places, the old deserted mines, were found to be bonanzas. Andy caught the fever. He tramped all over the Pine Tree Ranch prospecting, but gave up in despair. Then he thought once more of the Cove Mine. He made many a secret trip there. Then he ordered a box of gold dust from the Yellow Jacket and stole down to the Cove again and again, till discovered by Job.

In all those years of living for himself and to himself, Andrew Malden had tried to be square with the world. Business was business with him. He made no concessions to any man; pity and altruism were not in his vocabulary. Unconsciously to himself, he had grown to be a very hard man, and the heart within him found it difficult to make itself felt through the calloused surface of his life. But with it all Andrew Malden had been honest. His word was as good as his bond in all Grizzly county. No man questioned his statements. Everyone got a hundred cents on the dollar when Andrew Malden paid his debts.

But no man knew that in those days of thehard spring the gray-haired pioneer was passing through one of the greatest temptations of his life. Men were buying up mines all about him, just at a glance; mines fully as worthless as the Cove Mine. Anyhow, who knew the Cove Mine was worthless? It had had a marvelous record in early days. A little capital spent might bring immense reward. The old man sat, again and again, alone on the front porch and turned it over in his mind. Then he would creep off down to the mine, and feel his way in the dark tunnel, looking for a new lead. He looked at the places he had salted, until he almost brought himself to believe them genuine. Nobody would know the difference, he argued. Job did not know what he was doing when he found him. He would take the risk; he might lose the ranch itself if he did not. And, coming home with the first stain of dishonesty on his soul, Andrew Malden astonished Job by ordering him to have Jack and Dave hitched up at three in the morning; he was going to drive to the plains and the railroad station, then take a train to the city, and would be back in a few days.

Ten days later, Jack and Dave and the carriage, all coated with slush and mud, drove up to the door, and Andrew Malden, with a strangely affable smile on his face, clambered stiffly out and introduced Job to Mr. Henry Devonshire, an Englishman traveling for his health and profit. With a gruff greeting the stranger said:

"We 'ad a dirty trip hup. The mud's no respecter h'of an H'english gentleman nor h'an American millionaire, don'cher know?" and the pompous Mr. Devonshire handed his hand-grip to Job, while he poked out his shoes for the gray-haired lackey to wipe, with an—

"'Ere, you, clean these feet, bloomin' quick!"

Job and Tony obeyed, but a significant look passed between them.

The next few days things went lively at the Pine Tree Ranch. Some of the mill men were ordered off to scour the mountains for deer, a new Chinese cook came up from Gold City, and the old man and the "H'english gentleman," as Tony called him with a contemptuous chuckle, mounted horses and went riding over the ranch and down to the mine. It took all the grace Job had to see the arrogant boor, with his two hundred and fifty avoirdupois, get Tony to help him mount Bess, and, poking her in the ribs, call out, "What a bloomin' 'orse! Cawn't h'it go!" and ride off toward Lookout Point.

It was astonishing, the politeness Andrew Malden assumed; how he overlooked all the gruffness of his guest and treated him like a prince. Job fairly stared in wonder. It capped the climax when one night—just as, tucked up snug in his bed, Job was dreaming of his last walk home from school with Jane—to feel a rude shake and to see Andrew Malden with excited face standing over him, saying:

"Jump, boy! Dress quick and saddle Bess and ride with all your might to Gold City and catch Joe before the stage leaves. Take this telegram, and tell him to send it as soon as he gets to the plains and Wheatland Depot! Here, up with you!"

It was not over fifteen minutes after that Job was galloping away on Bess' back in the cold, night air, over the muddy roads, stiffened somewhat in the frosty spring night, and lit only by the dim starlight. It was a wild ride, a ride that sent a chill to his very marrow; and if it had not been for his ever-present trust in God, it would have struck terror to his heart. It seemed as if it grew darker and darker. The clouds were creeping across the stars, the great trees hung like a drapery of gloom over the roadway. Faster and faster he rode. Now he soothed Bess as she shied at some suspicious rock that glistened with unmelted snow, or some crackle in the bushes that broke the stillness of the night air; then he urged her on till down the steep Frost Creek road she fairly flew.

It was at the dim hour of dawn, and outof the gloom the world was creeping into view, when Job, with the white foam on Bess, and both heated and freezing himself, rode up to the door of the old brick Palace Hotel, where Joe, just mounting the box of the familiar ancient coach in which Job had once years ago traveled as a passenger, was about to snap his whip over the backs of four doubtful-looking horses which stood pawing the ground as if anxious to be stirring in such frosty air.

A hurried conversation, a white paper passed into Joe's hands, and the long whip snapped, four steeds made a desperate charge forward, an old woman in the coach, wrapped in three big shawls, bounded into air, and Job saw the stage vanish up the hill, with the horses settling down to the conventional snail's pace they had maintained these long years.

Joe evidently sent the telegram, for his stage next day brought up the long-looked-for load of "bigbugs" that set the whole town of Gold City wild to know why they were there. A perfect mob of street urchins, loafers, shop-men and bar-keepers who could spare a bit of time, lined up in front of the Palace Hotel and watched the plaid-coated, gray-capped visitors in short knickerbockers and golf stockings puff their pipes around the bar and call for "Porter and h'ale, 'alf and 'alf."

Interest reached its climax when, after supper, three buckboards, loaded with the guests heavy in more ways than one, started down toward Mormon Bar and the Pine Mountain road.

It was quite late when the loud barking of dogs announced their arrival at Pine Tree Ranch, and it was still later when Job crept up to the hay-loft over the stable to find a substitute for his cosy bed, which he had surrendered to another "H'english gentleman," with an emphasis on the last word. The boy was in a quandary to know what it all meant. He felt an inward sense of disgust. He disliked such people as these new friends of the old man's. Then he remembered that the good Book says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and he was painfully conscious that they were close neighbors now; so he breathed a silent prayer that the Lord would make him love the unlovable, and after a time fell asleep.

It was the second day of the feast. Venison and quail, if not milk and honey, had made the table groan in the big center room, now changed into a dining-room. The parlor had been turned into a smoking-room, and Job had seen, with indignation that stirred his deepest soul, empty beer bottles on his bedroom floor. A whole cavalcade of horsemen had gone down in the morning to the Cove and come galloping back at night. Job had been to the milk-house and was coming back past the side door in the dusk of the evening; it was ajar and the fumes of tobacco smoke rolled out. He was tempted to peer in. Around the cleared dining-table the crowd of red-faced guests were seated, with Andy at the head playing the host in an awkward sort of way. On the table were spread a big map and paper and ink.

"Well, Mr. Malden, this 'ere nugget came from the mine, you say. Bloomin' purty, hain't h'it, fellows?" said a voice.

"Yes, gentlemen, I found that myself. My son Job and I were prospecting, and we discovered it—the richest nugget ever found in Grizzly county. Of course we kept it a secret; didn't want a rush up here," replied Malden.

"What a lie!" said Job to himself. "That's the very nugget Mike Hannerry found at the Yellow Jacket! Where on earth did uncle get it?"

"Come, Devonshire, let's buy 'er h'up and get h'out of this bloomin' country. I want to get back to the club. The boat forAustralia sails Saturday," spoke up another voice.

"But now I want to ask the mon a thing," said a little shrewd-faced Scotchman. "Is he sure the thing down the hollow isn't salted? I got one salted mine in the colonies, and—"

"Salted!" said Andy, with an unnoticed flush on his face. "Salted! Do you suppose, gentlemen, I would bring you here to sell you a salted mine? You can ask anybody back in the city if my credit isn't first-class."

"Oh, mon," said a tall Highlander, "oh, mon, the feller's crazy. Salted—humph! We saw the gold with our own eyes. I say take the mine. I'll take a thousand shares at a pound. How much is the deal, did the mon say?"

"H'an 'undred thousand pounds. Cheap, I think," answered Devonshire.

"H'it's a go. We'll 'ave the stuff h'at the h'inn down h'in—what's the name of that town?" said the tall one.

"Gold City, sir, Gold City!" spoke up the excited host.

"Well, Gold City—that's the spot. We'll pay the cash there. My banker'll come h'in there to-night h'in the stage."

And as Job crept away, he heard them planning, between drinks, the future of the "Anglo-American Gold Mining Syndicate," with main office in London and place of operation in Grizzly county, State of California, the United States of America.

Job did not sleep that night. All through the dark hours he tossed on his straw bed over the stable. Andrew Malden was going to sell the Cove Mine for five hundred thousand dollars—and it was not worth one cent! It was an outrageous fraud. The boy felt like going and telling those capitalists. He felt a sense of personal guilt. Yet he almost hated those men. What difference if they were cheated?—they would never miss it; they deserved it. How much Uncle Andy needed the money! And it would be his own some day.

That thought touched Job's conscience to the center. He was a partner in the crime! He half rose in bed, resolving that he would face the crowd and tell all—how he had stood by and seen the old man salt the mine. Then he hesitated. What was it to him? If he told, it would ruin Andy. What business had he with it, anyhow? But all night long the wind whistled in through the cracks, "Thou shalt not steal," and Job tossed in agony of soul, wishing he had never climbed down the Pine Mountain trail to the Cove on that spring day when Andrew Malden salted the mine.

The sun was well up the next morning when the procession of buckboards was ready to start for Gold City. Andrew Malden and the shrewd fellow had gone an hour before, the rest were off, and only the boorish Devonshire was left to ride down with Tony. Job stood, with heart palpitating and conscience goading him, down by the big pasture gate to let them through. All his peace of mind was gone. A few moments and the crime would be carried out to its end, and he would be equally guilty with the avaricious old man who was the nearest one he had in all the world.

Tony and the last man, the obnoxious Devonshire, were coming. How Job hated to tell him, of all men! The hot flashes came and went on his cheek; he turned away; he bit his lip; he would let it go—lose his religion and go to the bad with Andy Malden. Then the old camp-meeting days came back to him. He heard again Slim Jim's words in the dark behind the church that Christmas night; he remembered his vows to God and the church.

The horse and the buckboard had passed through the gate; the Englishman had thrown him a dollar; he was trembling from head to foot. He offered a quick prayer, then hurried after them, halted Tony, and, looking up into the red face of his companion, said:

"Sir, the mine is salted; I saw the old man do it—it's salted sure!"

The load was gone, the consciousness oftruthfulness filled his soul. That day he played with Shot and sang about his work.

The dusky twilight had come, when Job heard the stern voice of Andrew Malden outside, as, with an oath, he threw the reins to Hans. The boy rose to meet him as he heard his step on the porch. The door opened, and Job saw a white face and flashing eyes, the very incarnation of wrath.

"You pious fraud! What made you tell those men the mine was salted!" hissed the old man.

"Uncle, I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. I knew it—I had to tell the truth," stammered Job.

"Couldn't help it, you sneak! You owe all you are to me. I guess I am more to you than all your religion!"

"Uncle, I am sorry to hurt you, but I could do no less and please God. And God is first in my life."

"First, is he? Then go to him, and let him feed you and clothe you, you ungrateful wretch!" And with the words the angry man struck Job such a blow that he went reeling over, a dead-weight, on the floor.

It was midnight when Tony, passing the door, heard the old man moan. Peering in at the window, he saw him on his knees beside Job, who, with white face and closed eyes, lay on a lounge near the door. Tony stole away to whisper to Hans:

"Guess the old man's made way with the kid! Let's lay low!"

What a night that was for Andrew Malden! Two minutes after he had struck the blow, all the wrath which had gathered strength on that long mountain ride was gone. The blow struck open the door of his heart; he saw that the boy was right and he was wrong. That blanched face, those closed eyes—how they pierced him through and through! He loved that boy more than all the mines and gold and ranches in the world. The depth of his iniquity came over him. He hated himself, he hated the Cove Mine; but that stalwart lad lying there—how he loved him! All the hidden love of thirty years went out to him. "Job! Job!" he cried. "Look at me! Tell me you forgive me!"

He dashed water in the boy's face. He felt of his heart—he could hardly feel it beat. Was he dead? Dead!—the only one he cared for? Dead!—the poor motherless boy he had brought home one moonlight night long ago, and promised that he would be both father and mother to him? Dead!—aye, dead by his hand! And for what? For telling the truth; for being honest and manly; for saving him from holding in his grasp the ill-gotten gain that always curses a man.

The hot tears came, the first in years. Andrew Malden knelt by the bedside and groaned. And then he thought of Job's God and of the Christ he talked about: thought of the little Testament he cherished. He would call on Him, he would beg Him to spare Job. He knelt near the lad; he started to say, "Oh, God, spare my boy! spare my boy!" when a sense of his wickedness, his hard heart, his selfish life, his sin, came over him; and instead he cried from the depths of his soul, "God have mercy on me a sinner!"

The daylight was struggling through the shutters when Job turned and opened his eyes, to see an anxious face look into his own and to hear a familiar voice out of which had gone all anger, say:

"Oh, Job, my boy, I knew He'd hear me, I prayed so long! Job, God has forgiven me! Won't you? Oh, tell me you will! I am a different man! I read it in the Book while you lay here so still: 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' And Job, it's true!"

The fever stayed with Job many a day after that, and it was June before the natural color came back into his white cheeks. But the old ranch seemed like a new place to him; and when one morning Mr. Malden read at family devotions, "All things work together for good to them that love God,"he broke down in the prayer he tried to make, and rushed out of doors to hide the tears of joy that choked him, while he heard Tony singing as he went about his toil:

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