CHAPTER XII.

"Oh, dar's glory, yes, dar is glory,Oh, dar is glory in my soul!Since I touched de hem of His garment,Oh, dar is glory in my soul."

Of all the queer families in the mountains, not one, surely, equalled that of Squire Perkins, a real down-east Yankee, whose house was not more than a mile west of Malden's Mill, on the Frost Creek road. A little weazened old man, who, while he had always been staunch to his political creed, and had been Republican supervisor of the town ever since people could remember, yet had drifted religiously till he was now a typical Spiritualist. The neighbor boys who used to go past his house evenings and see him with the "Truth Seeker" in his hands, wandering among the trees and gazing blankly into space, often took him for a genuine ghost.

His wife was quite unlike him. She was born in a house-boat on the Pearl River near Canton, and, with hair plaited down her forehead and cheeks, slanting eyes and wooden shoes and a silk robe, had landed at San Francisco when it was still a heterogeneous trading-post, and had come up with the miners to prattle "pigeon English," and cook, as it turned out, for Squire Perkins. When other women came—Americans from the States—the old man married her. Long since she had adopted American ways and had joined the Methodist church, and not one of the neighbors, who always sent for Squire Perkins' wife in time of trouble, thought less of her because she was a Chinese woman.

The long, white cottage, with its vine-covered walls, its "hen-and-chicken" bordered walks, and its old gnarled apple tree hugging the left side next to the stone chimney, became a still queerer place when Widow Smith, a tall, straight, firm, black-eyed, dark-skinned Indian woman, the descendant of a long line of natives of these hills, but withal a refined, womanly old lady, came to board with Squire Perkins and his wife. Widow Smith was a Presbyterian of the straitest sort. The Squire's was surely a home of many races and many creeds.

It was at this house that one Tuesday evening the Methodist class met, and Andy Malden came and confessed Christ, and all Grizzly county was startled thereby. It was here that Job often rode up on Bess beside the kitchen window where Aunty Perkins was making rice cakes, and heard her say: "Job, heap good, allee samee angel cake. Have some. Melican boy have no mother. Old Chinawoman, she take care of him."

And she kept her word. She won the boy's heart, till he found himself more than once going with his troubles down to Aunty Perkins', who always ended her motherly advice with, "Be heap good, Job, heap good. The Lord lub the motherless boy. 'He will never fail nor forslake thee.'"

It was here that Jane also stole with her heart burdens to the strange, great-hearted woman who mothered the whole county. It was here she was going one hot July afternoon, as, with blackberry pail on her arm, she walked slowly down Sugar Pine Hill, thinking of the day when she had first met Job on that very road. Her black hair was smoothly braided down her back, she wore a light muslin dress tied with a red sash, low shoes took the place of the tan and dust of other days, a neat starched sun-bonnet enfolded her face now showing traces of womanhood near at hand. As she turned the bend of the road, Job stood there leaning on the fence with a far-away look. It was he who was startled this time, as he dropped his elbows and hastened to lift hisfaded sombrero. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to walk slowly down the lane with her toward the Mill Road. The July sun was hot, so they kept on the shady side of the way.

Job thought enough of the girl to make him reserved. He wanted to tell her that she was first in all his prayers, and that up in his room he had the plans drawn for a cabin over on the corner of the ranch where she should stand in the doorway and look for his coming. Thrice he started to open his heart, then he shrank back abashed; talked of the cows and how the calves grew; told her Bess was lame—couldn't ride her this week; said that was a pretty fine sermon the parson preached last Sunday—and turned homeward; while Jane looked after him with wondering eyes and felt a great ache in her heart as she thought:

"It's no use; he don't care for me!"

She had barely passed the mill and the whiz of its machinery lulled into a murmur that mingled with the brook along the well-shaded road, when she heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and, mounted on an old white nag, Dan rode up to her side with:

"Hello, Jane! Get on and ride!"

Jane blushed. A year ago she would have done it; why not now, even if she was big? No one would see her. Dan was awfully good to ask her; Job wouldn't do it. So up she climbed on the saddle behind him, and Dan walked the horse as they chatted away in the most easy fashion.

She was longing to talk of religion to Dan; she felt he needed it. But one thing was sure—Dan was sober nowadays; he had actually improved. He was trying now to talk of love; for he was really beginning to feel that, not only because he had made a bet to do so and defeat Job, but because he did care, he should some day claim Jane Reed as his own. Neither succeeded in getting the conversation just where they wanted it before Squire Perkins' apple orchard came into view, and Dan was obliged to halt his old nag by the horse-block built out from the white fence and assist Jane to alight.

She actually stood there till Aunty Perkins called: "Gal lost one ting. Come lite in. All gone." At which Jane blushed and went in, though all Mrs. Perkins' words could not drive out of her mind the Job she loved and the Dan whom she wished she could love. How comely she looked as she stood in the doorway at twilight! Any one might have been proud of her.

The next fall was Job's last term at school. He felt awkward and out of place, for most of the boys of the country round left at sixteen, just as they were tangled up in fractions and syntax. Now he was close to the twenties, and the only big boy left in the Frost Creek school, whose white walls peeped out through a grove of live-oaks where the creek babbled merrily over the rocks.

Yet with a pluck that had always characterized him, Job stuck to his books and sat among the crowd of little youngsters who automatically recited the multiplication table when the teacher was looking, and threw paper wads when she was not. Jane was there, copying minutely in dress and manner after Miss Bright, the new teacher, whom she greatly admired. Job found it very pleasant to still walk home with Jane and talk of algebra, class meeting, and the trip they must soon take to the Yosemite—subjects which were mutually interesting. Yet somehow the wild, natural freedom of former days was missing. Both were painfully conscious of their awkward age and the fact that they were no longer children.

Charlie Lewis sat next to Job, a wee, frail little fellow, whose large eyes looked up endlessly at his tall next neighbor, whom he secretly worshiped, partly because Jobshielded him from the rough bullies, and partly because he had taken a fancy to the little lad and took him along when he went up to the mountains or down to Perkins Hollow swimming. A crowd of dark-eyed Mexicans and one small Chinese boy filled the right corner, while over on the left were the Dixon children and little Helen Day. Helen was a new arrival, a prim Miss of six, who used to live on the plains, where her father was section-hand on the railroad; which accounted, perhaps, for the fact that the time when Father Lane, the old preacher from Merritt's Camp, called and they sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and the teacher asked Helen what ties were meant, she promptly answered, "Railroad ties, ma'am."

As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing kindergartèn songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco, lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of philosophy—names which Job knew must mean something grand. He began to wish that Jane looked like her and talked like her and had lived in 'Frisco. He began to wonder who it was that Miss Bright wrote letters to every day, and who wrote those Dan Dean used to leave at the school-house for her postmarked "New York." His fears were relieved, though, when he heard her laugh merrily one day when inquisitive Maggie Dean asked: "What man writes to you all the time, Miss Bright?" and reply, "My brother, of course, Maggie. But little girls shouldn't ask too many questions."

They used to have morning prayers when the other teacher was here, but Miss Bright said that prayer was only the expression of our longings and we did not need to pray aloud, and she thought God knew enough to look after us without bothering him about it every day. Job was shocked at first, then he thought perhaps Miss Bright was right, she was so nice and knew so much. She boarded at Jeremiah Robinson's, who lived on the Frost Creek road. More than once Job found himself going there at her invitation, ostensibly to study Latin and literature, which were not in the regular curriculum. He did not care much for the studies—he found it hard to get far beyond "Amo, amas, amat," and as for Chaucer and his glittering knights and fair ladies, he detested them; but those moments after the lessons, when Miss Bright chattered away about the beauties of evolution and the loveliness of protoplasm and the immanence of Deity in all nature—Job fairly doted on them.

Sometimes she accepted his invitation for an evening ramble. He felt proud to have people see him with her. He would have liked to ask her to the class-meeting at Squire Perkins', but he was afraid to; she would think it beneath her to go among those country folks. And then, what would she think of Widow Green if she got one of her crying-spells? or lame Tim, who was a little daft, but who loved to come to class-meeting and said always, "Tim's no good; he ain't much; but Jesus loves him. Sing, brethren, 'I am so glad that Jesus loves me.'" So Job never invited her. In fact, he did not like to tell her he went; and, for fear she would know it, he stayed away two weeks when she asked him to walk with her those moonlight nights.

Miss Bright was so good, he thought; yet there was much he could not understand. She never went to church. She said it was too far, and besides she thought it more helpful to worship amid the grandeur of nature, reading the lofty thoughts of the poets. And after that Job thought the preacher at Gold City was a little old fogyish.

Dan Dean was not slow to observe the unconscious drifting of Job away from the church and toward the schoolma'am. Jane did not notice it till Dan hinted to her that the only reason Job had cared for the church was because she went there, and now that Miss Bright had come he had dropped her and the church both. Which was so near the truth that Jane began to feel strange when Job was near, and to do what she had never dreamed of doing before with a single human being—she began to doubt the occasional kind words he now gave her, and all he had ever uttered. With the impulse of a wounded heart, she turned to Dan. Yet try the best she could, she could never feel the same toward him. She pitied Dan; a philanthropic feeling animated her as she thought of him. She would do anything to make a man of him—marry him, even, if necessary; but to think of surrendering her life and very being to him, following him down the tortuous path of life, "For better or for worse, for richer or poorer," to have him as her ideal of manhood—that thought repelled her. Often she found herself standing behind a tree on the way home from school, waiting to catch one glimpse of Job as he sauntered by with Miss Bright's cloak on his arm and its owner chattering at his side. She was angry to think she did it; she ran home by the short cut through the woods, slammed the cabin door behind her, threw herself on the bed and had a good cry, arose and wiped the tears away, and vowed she would marry Dan if he asked her.

Job unconsciously walked into the meshes that fate seemed to have thrown around him. More and more he transferred the admiration of his heart to the stately, proud, talented girl of the world, who found him a convenient escort and companion in the mountain country where friends that suited her were scarce. Job was blind; he adored her. Later and later, daily, was his return from school. The little Testament grew dusty on the box-table in his bedroom, his morning prayers sounded strangely alike, and even Andy Malden wondered at the coldness of the lad's devotion at family worship. He went to church, but seldom to class-meeting. He devoured a book Miss Bright had loaned him, on "The World's Saviors—Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,"—in which he found his Master placed on a level with other great souls. He asked her the next day if she did not think Christ was divine, and marveled at her learned reply that "All nature is divine. Matter and men are but the manifestations of divinity, and the Galilean Teacher was undoubtedly a wonderful character of his day."

One night, as he left her, she loaned him a French novel full of skepticism and scorn of virtue and morality. He was tempted to throw it in the fire, but it was hers. He read it and rather liked it. He began to think he had been too narrow; he wished he could get out and see the world, the great world of thinking people where Miss Bright lived. The poison was in his soul. How commonplace the sermon sounded the next Sunday on "I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified"! How narrow Paul must have been! It was the Sunday night before Christmas. The fall term had ended, and the schoolma'am was going home; no more school till spring. A year before Job had stood in the great congregation and taken the solemn vow to be loyal forever to Christ and his church; to-night the Christmas service went on without him. Tony, who was there and who half suspected something was wrong, yet did not like to have anyone else think so, said to those who asked him:

"Yes, Marse Job's sick; dassen't come out."

But Job was not sick, as Tony thought. He was in the Robinson parlor, sitting with Miss Bright before the flickering log fire, which dimly lit the long, low room with its rag carpet and old-fashioned furniture. They were talking over their friendship, and she was flattering him upon his superiorityto those country greenhorns who lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act, in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and, on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken she was to leave the mountains and him.

Job went home in raptures, and lay awake all night planning how to get away from the mountains and the rude people who lived there, and down into the city somewhere—anywhere where Fanny Bright lived.

All that week he wandered about as if lost, cross and good for nothing at work. His city idol had gone home.

It was two days after Christmas that Job tore the wrapper off a 'Frisco paper and sat down to read, when, glancing over the columns, his eyes met the following:

"Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one in a double sense."

It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school, vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was gone—long since he had let Dan have her to himself—his church was gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike—all were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has learned—a bitter lesson—and all the forces of evil seemed to fight for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.

He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down the hill and toward home.

It was a wild March night when Job Malden found his way back to God. No one could ever forget that night. The storm tore over the mountains till the great forests fairly creaked and groaned beneath the mad sweep of the wind.

At dusk that afternoon a rap startled Job as he sat by the fire watching the logs crackle and thinking of by-gone days, while the rain poured without. He opened the door, and saw Mike Hennessy, dripping wet and with cap in hand.

"Shure, Mr. Job, the top of the evenin' to yez. But Mr. Schwarzwalder, the hotel keeper at the town, wants ye, he says, to bring the Holy Book;" at which Mike reverently crossed himself. "A man is dyin' and wants yez;" and the good-natured Irishman was gone in an instant, leaving Job in blank amazement.

Ride that awful night to Gold City—take the Bible—man dying. What could it mean? But the lad's better nature conquered, and, the Bible snug in his pocket, he and Bess were soon daring the storm, bound for Gold City.

It was a wild night. Wet to the skin, Job rode up to the Palace Hotel, late, very late, where he found a group of solemn-faced men waiting for him.

"Change your clothes, Job," said the hotel-keeper; "here's a dry suit. Hurrynow! Yankee Sam is dying upstairs, and he won't have no one but you; says you're his preacher, and he wants to hear you read out of some book."

"Listen, Job; I want to tell you.""Listen, Job; I want to tell you."

Job grew white. Yankee Sam dying, and he to hear his last confession, he the priest to shrive him, he the preacher to console him! The boy lifted up his first true prayer for months, and followed the man upstairs to a low garret room, where the door closed behind him and left him alone with a weak old man lying on a low bed, his eyes shining in the dim candle-light with an unnatural glare.

"Oh, Job, I'm mightly glad you've come to help an old man die! Yes, I am dying, Job; the old man's near the end. I'll no more hang around the Miners' Home and beg a drink from the stranger. Curse the rum, Job! It's brought me here where you find me, a good-for-nothing, dying without a friend in the world—yes, one friend, Job; you're my friend, ain't you?"

Job, frightened and touched to the heart, nodded assent.

"I thought so, Job. I take stock in you. That night you came here, a blue-eyed, lonely boy, I took you into my heart—for Yankee Sam's got a heart; and I felt so proud of you that night when you said, 'I renounce the devil and all his works,' and I wished I could have stood by you and said it, too. But Job, my boy, the devil has a big mortgage on Yankee Sam, and he's foreclosing it to-night, and—"

The tempest shook the building, and Job lost the next words as the old man rose on his elbow, then sank back exhausted. The wind died down, and Job tried to comfort him with some words that sounded weak and hollow to himself. But the dying man roused again, and, raising his trembling hand, said:

"Wait, Job. Get the Book. See if it has anything in it for me."

Job opened to those beautiful words in Isaiah: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

The old man bent his ear to listen. "Job, let's see it. Is it in there—'red like crimson, white as wool'? Oh, no, my sins are too red for that! Listen, Job, I want to tell you. I am dying a poor lost sinner, but I was not always a street loafer, kicked and cuffed by the world. Hear me, my boy! Would you believe that I was once a mother's blue-eyed boy in old New Hampshire? Oh, such a mother! She's up where the angels are now. I can feel the soft touch of her hands that smoothed my head when I was a boy. Oh, I wish she was here to-night! But—Job, Job, I killed her!—I did! I came home with the liquor in me and she fell in a faint, and they saidafterward that she never came to. Oh, Job, I killed her, and I didn't care! I went to the city. I found a wife, a sweet-faced little woman; she married me for better or for worse; and Job, it was worse—God have mercy on me!"

The old man gasped and then went on. "The babies came, and I was so proud of them! Then the fever broke out. I went to get medicine when she and the little ones were so sick, and I got on a spree—I don't remember—but when I came to, they showed me their graves in the potter's field; they said the medicine might have saved them. Oh, Job, I can't think! It makes me wild to think!"

The storm burst again in its fury, and the old man's voice was silenced. Then came a lull, and he went on, "Job, 'sins as scarlet,'—ain't they scarlet? Well, I came West, got in the mines, went from bad to worse and now, Job, I'm dying! And who cares?"

"God cares," said Job. "Listen: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'"

"Oh, Job, does that mean me?—poor old Yankee Sam!" said the dying man.

Again Job read the words, and once again told as best he could the story of the Father's love and of Jesus, who came to save from sin; came to save poor lost sinners.

The old man hung on every word. "Say it again, Job, say it again! God loves poor Yankee Sam! Say it again!"

Over and over Job said the words, then he sang soft and low:

"Jesus, lover of my soul,Let me to thy bosom fly,"

while the tempest raged without.

"Other refuge have I none,Hangs my helpless soul on thee."

Just then Yankee Sam stopped him.

"Job, that's me, that's me! Pray, Job! I am going fast!"

Oh, how Job prayed! Prayed till he felt God close by that dying bed.

"'As scarlet'—yet—'white—as snow.' Is that it, Job?" whispered Sam. "Oh, yes, that's it! They're gone. Job—the devil's lost his mortgage. Let me pray, Job. It's the prayer mother said for me when I was a little boy; it's the prayer Andy Malden said at his lad's grave; it's my prayer now:

Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep,And if—if—"

The low, quavering voice ceased, a smile came over the white face, the wind was hushed without, the stars struggled through the clouds. Yankee Sam was dead, and peace had come back into Job Malden's soul.

The next fall Mr. Malden got Job the place of assistant cashier at the Yellow Jacket Mine. His staunch character, his local fame as a student at the Frost Creek school, and his general manly bearing, added to Mr. Malden's influence in the county, won him the place when the former assistant left for the East. Andrew Malden thought it would be a good experience for a young man like Job, and perhaps would open the way to something better than a lumber mill and a timber and stock ranch.

The Yellow Jacket Mine was one of the oldest and most famous in the whole country. It was the very day they sighted the ship off Telegraph Hill that brought the news into 'Frisco Bay that California was admitted as a State, that gold was discovered in Yellow Jacket Creek, where, when the rush came some days later, the men saidthey didn't know which was most plenty—yellow jackets in the air, or yellow jackets in the gravel bed of the creek as it lay dry and bare in the summer sun.

At last the creek bed had been washed over and over till the red-shirted miners could find not one nugget more, and the Yellow Jacket was deserted. Then one day a poor stranded fellow, who came in too late to make enough to get out, was digging a well, and found quartz down deep and a streak of gold in it. That was the beginning of the real fame of the Yellow Jacket. A company bought it up, machinery was put in, and now, in Job Malden's day, the stamp mills and deep tunnels of the mine kept five hundred men busy in shifts that never ceased night or day.

Job never forgot the first day he went there as assistant cashier. He had seen it all before, but when one is a sort of "partner" in a firm, it looks different to one. And so it did to Job, as, after a long ride with Tony in the buckboard down the Frost Creek road, up past Mike Hennessy's, down and up and across Rattlesnake Gulch, and over the heavily timbered mountain, a bend in the road brought him in full view of the Yellow Jacket on the bare hillside opposite. The tall smoke-stacks belching forth their black clouds; the big buildings about them; the great heap of waste stuff at the right; the dump-cars running out and back; the miners' shanties bare and brown on the left, running up the hillside, hugging the break-neck steeps; the handsome house on the south which he knew must be the superintendent's home; the tall, ungainly brick structure of the company's store in the heart of things; the far-off thump, thump, and the ceaseless roar of the machinery—all this made a deep impression on Job.

For a year, at least, he was to live amid this scene. What a strange life it was for Job there at the Yellow Jacket! There, in sight of the eternal hills; there, only five miles, in an air-line, from the quiet ranch, from Bess, the great barns, the world of nature, and home—and yet it seemed five thousand miles away to him. Shut in that little office behind the iron bars, bending over the great books sometimes far into the night, looking out each pay-day through a little arched window on grimy faces and rough-bearded men who held out toil-worn hands to receive the week's earnings which long before another week would find their way into some saloon-keeper's till or gambler's pocket.

The only out-door world he saw was between the rear door of the office and the long, low boarding-house where the foremen and clerks lived. One corner of the great room upstairs, where a hard bed ran up against the roof, and one place at the long, oilcloth-covered table, he had the privilege to call his own for the modest sum of a gold piece a week. He had every other Sunday to himself by the extreme favor of the "boss," on whose own calendar Sunday never came, and who could not see why it should on any one's else.

At first, Job left the narrow, well-worn streets, always, it seemed to him, crowded with an endless procession of dirty, pale-faced, muscular, rough men going to and from shifts; left them far behind and tramped over to the Frost Creek school, redolent with peculiar memories, to the afternoon service. But when the snows came and winter set in, he dared not take the long tramps, but hugged the fire at his boarding-house, read his little Testament, and tried in vain to find one spot out of hearing of the noise of tramping feet, the roar of the stamp-mill, and the hoarse laughter and rude stories and language of the men ever coming and going.

He could never get away from the sound, and only in an old, abandoned shaft back of the office could he crawl down out of sight to pray. But Job never forgot to pray in those days. He was learning, as never before, what it is to be in the world and yet not of it; in its turmoil and din, sharing its work, mingling with its strange humanity,and yet living in the atmosphere of prayer and high thinking; in a world of impurity, yet living a pure life; a world of evil words, and yet never even thinking them; in the world, and yet not of it.

Job Malden was fast growing into manhood. It was in those long winter days at the Yellow Jacket that the heart came back to him and somehow he found himself thinking of Jane Reed. The bitter memory of the folly of those days last winter at the Frost Creek school still haunted him, and yet the hardness had gone out of his soul. He had no right to think of Jane, he felt; he had forfeited all claim to her affection. But somehow the old love came back, and he longed to go to her and be forgiven. What a true girl she was!—a child of the mountains. Little she knew of the city and its guile, of society and its masks. How could he ever have thought her common or beneath him! She towered up in his thought like the pines of her native mountains, as fresh and natural and wild as they. He would not have her different. She was far above him. Faith, and church, and simple homely virtues, and all that is holy, were linked in Job's mind with the memory of artless, honest, great-hearted Jane that came back to him in the lonely hours at the mine.

One day he started back at seeing a strangely familiar face present itself at the pay window.

"Oh, yer needn't be scart,' Job, because yer old pard's got a job in the Yellow Jacket as well as yer." It was Dan's voice. "Must be mighty nice in there handin' out the boodle to us poor, hard-worked laborers; mighty easy to tuck a little of it in yer pocket now and then."

Job colored, and replied that it was not his money, and he only took his pay like the men.

"Mighty good yet, ain't yer, Job; playin' the pious dodge still. Thought perhaps the way that schoolma'am jilted yer would take the big-head out of yer. Well, I don't make any pretense of bein' pious; don't need to, as I can see—get all I want without it. Every gal in town wants me, and a fine one that came near gettin' fooled on yer likes me purty well. In fact, that's what's brought me over to the mine—got to get a little stuff to fix up the house for her. When a fellow brings a wife home, he wants the old place lookin' slick. Good-day, Job. See yer again."

Job made no reply, but a lump came into his throat. He stood and stared, and then turned in an absent-minded way and bent his head over the great ledger, though he seemed not to care which page opened. Jane to marry Dan! Was that what he had meant? Had it come to that? Once Job had not cared, but now the thought made him wild. Could it be true? Jane to marry Dan Dean! Better she were dead. Job felt he could see her carried to the grave with less sorrow than to see her Dan's wife.

It was very strange how Job came to be the preacher at the Yellow Jacket mine. Not that he ever put on clerical garb or deserted the office or was anything more than a plain, every-day Christian. Yet there came a time when in the eyes of those rough miners, with hearts far more tender than one would think from their exterior—and not only in their eyes, but in those of the few wives and the half-clad children who played on the waste heap—Job came to be called "The Reverend," and looked up to as a spiritual leader.

It was the day that he went down to the eight-hundred-foot level that it began. He well remembered it. Up to the left of the stamp-mill, not far from the main office, was a square, red-painted building, up whose steps, just as the bell in the brick store's tower struck the set time, a procession of clean-faced miners went in and a procession of grimy ones came out. It was at the one o'clock shift that Job went in that day, watched the men hang their coats on what seemed to him an endless line of pegs, taketheir stand one by one on the little platform which stood in the center of the floor like a trap-door, grasp the iron-bar above them, and at the tinkling of a bell vanish suddenly down into darkness out of sight.

It was the first time Job had been down the mine. The sight of the constantly-disappearing figures on the cage that came and went did not encourage him to go, but soon it was his turn. One of the men he knew grasped one side of the bar of the trapeze over him, one the other, the bell tinkled, and down he dropped with a jump that almost took his breath; down past long, subterranean tunnels of arched rock, which, from the heat he felt from them, and the blinding glare of the lights, seemed to him like the furnaces of Vulcan. Further still he dropped to the eight-hundred-foot level, where he stepped off in a narrow cavern dimly lighted and stretching away into the distant darkness. Oh, how hot it was! The brawny, white-chested miners had thrown off all clothing but their trousers, and were dividing their time between mighty blows on the great solid rocks, and the air-shaft and tub of water, where every few minutes they had to go and bathe lungs and face. The sound of the picks, the rattle of the ore cars bringing the stuff to be hauled up the shaft, the steady thump, thump, of the pumps removing the water from the lower levels, the intermittent drop and rise of the cage, filled the weird place with strange sounds.

Job had delivered his message to the "boss" of the tunnel and was hurrying back to the cage, when a half-naked miner, all stained with the ever-dripping ooze from above, stopped him and said:

"Be ye the faither that prayed Yankee Sam t'rough?"

"Why—yes, and no," answered Job. "I was with Yankee Sam when he died, but I'm no priest or parson."

"Aye, I said to Pat it was ye as ye went down, priest or not. I've heard of ye, and the mon that could shrive Yankee Sam is a good enough priest for any mon. Now, me boy Tim is dying, the only son of his mother, and she in her grave. And Tim and me, we live alone in the hut back of Finnigan's saloon. Tim's a frail lad. He would work in the mines, and the hot air in this place and the cold air whin he wint up gave him the lung faver, and the doctor says he's got to go. The next shift I'm going up to him. Meet me at the pump-house. Don't tell him yez is not a priest; it's all the same to him, and he'll die aisier if he thinks the faither's come. Poor Tim, me only boy!"

What could Job do but consent? What could he do late that afternoon but meet the broken-hearted Irish father at the pump-house and climb the steep street to Finnigan's, and go in back to the poor hut that the miner called home?

On a low, matted bed of straw and a torn blanket or two, in a corner of the dismal shanty, through which the cold winds swept, lay Tim, dying. The hectic flush was on his thin cheek, the glaze of death seemed in his eye. He reached his wan hand to Job. A lad of sixteen he was, but no more years of life were there for him.

"Tim, the faither's come. Tim, me boy, confess now and get ready for hiven."

The boy glanced up. Perhaps Job did look like a priest, with his smooth face and manly countenance. He hardly knew what to say or do except to take that weak hand in his and press it with a brother's warm clasp of sympathy. The dying boy touched his inmost heart.

"Faither," the boy faltered, "I am so sick! I have been a bad boy sometimes. I—I—" Then he stopped to cough, and continued, "I haven't been to mass in a year—no chance here, faither—and I got drunk last Fourth—may the Holy Mother forgive me!—and I have been so bad sometimes. But—" and he faltered, "I had a good mother, and she had me christened right early."

"Aye, she was!" sobbed Tim's father.

"And," Tim went on, "and I'm so sorry for the bad! When you say the prayers, tellher I'm sorry; for, somehow I think the blessed Jesus"—and here the boy crossed himself—"the blessed Jesus will hear my mother's prayer for Tim as soon as he'd hear his own. Faither, is it wrong to think so?"

And Job, thinking of his own mother, with tears in his eyes could only say, "No, Tim, no."

The lad grew still; and kneeling, Job talked low of God's great love, as he had talked to Yankee Sam, prayed as best he could, and felt as if he had indeed committed this mother's boy into the keeping of his God, as Tim lay still and dead before him.

The news of Job's visit to the dying boy soon spread through all the miners' shanties, and soon more than one request came to him for sympathy and help. Preacher or priest, or only humble Job Malden—it mattered not what they thought of him. Job went on his errands of mercy, till, unconsciously to himself, he had won his way into the hearts of those rough, simple-hearted people, who lived more underground than above, at the Yellow Jacket Mine. In fact, so generally did he become known as "The Parson," that it was sometimes uncomfortable, especially on the occasion when Lem Jones wanted to get married. Oh, that was amusing!

It was in the spring. The new tri-weekly stage from Gold City was so late that night that it was pitch dark before it drew up, with a flourish, at the store. Job was busy at the books, and had not gone to supper, when a man came peeping in at the window and shouted through the glass:

"Job, you're wanted at Finnigan's Hotel!"

Donning his cap, and hurrying along the street and up the break-neck stairs to Finnigan's, Job entered the room which served as parlor, bar and office, and saw Lem Jones, one of the men at the hoisting works, "dressed up" in a suit much too large for him, with high white collar and red tie, while near by sat a tall, unnaturally rosy-cheeked spinster dressed in a trailing white gown, with orange blossoms covering a white veil hung over her hair, and an immense feather fan in her white-gloved hand. Around the room, decorated with some Christmas greens and lit by a red-hot stove, was gathered a group of interested observers of all descriptions—some evidently invited guests, some as evidently not.

"Mr. Parson, this 'ere's my gal, come from down East. We want to get spliced, and," with a blush, "we're waitin' for ye to do it."

"Why, Lem, I can't!" stammered Job, quite abashed and taken aback at the occurrence.

"Oh, yes," interrupted Lem, "I thought of that. Here's the paper—got it myself of the clerk. Read it. See, here it is: 'Lemuel Jones, a native of Maine and resident of the county of Grizzly, aged thirty-seven, and Phebe Ann Standish, a native of Massachusetts, resident of Boston, State of Massachusetts, aged thirty-one—'"

Quick as a flash, drowning Job's protest that he was not a preacher, came a woman's shrill voice:

"Thirty-one! I'd like to know who said I was thirty-one! Lem Jones, take your pen and ink, and correct that. Anybody would know I am only twenty-one!"

A general laugh followed. Job finally found a chance to make the pair understand that his performing the ceremony was out of the question, as he had no legal authority—was not a minister.

The wedding party broke up in confusion. The cook was filled with wrath at Job for spoiling the dinner; "the boys" insisted that he had kept Jones from "settin' it up," and ought to do so himself; the bride refused to be comforted and vowed she would go back to Boston.

It was less than a week after the wedding which did not come off, that Job saw Dan at the pay-window beckoning to him. Going nearer, Dan motioned him to lean over, drew him close, and whispered in his ear:

"I'm broke, Job, but got a fine chance to clear a slick hundred. Lend me fifty till to-morrow."

"I can't do that, Dan," Job replied. "It's not mine, and I wouldn't take a cent of the company's money for myself."

"Ye're a pretty parson!" hissed Dan, "sayin' prayers over dyin' folks, and never helpin' yer own cousin out of a tight place!"

"But, Dan, I can't take the company's money. If I had fifty of my own you should have it, though I suspect you want to gamble with it," replied Job.

"Yer won't give it to me?" said the other.

"No, I can't, Dan," Job answered in a firm voice.

"Yer hypocrite! Yer think yer got the cinch on me, don't yer, Job Malden! 'It's a long lane that has no turn,' they say, and yer'll wish some day yer'd treated Dan Dean square!" and he turned with a leer and was gone.

More than once after that Job felt uneasy and wretched as he thought of the possibility of Jane's linking her life with that of Daniel Dean. Twice he tried to write her, but he blotted the paper in his nervousness, and at last tore the letters up.

By a strange coincidence, it was the same week that Andrew Malden struck a rich pocket of gold back of Lookout Point and secretly carried it down to Gold City bank and paid off the mortgage on the four hundred acres back of the mill, that Job Malden was held up.

This is how it happened: Just after hours one night the superintendent called Job into his private office and said:

"Young man, how much will you sell yourself for?"

Decidedly startled, Job answered: "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean," said the portly, gray-haired man, with his set mouth and black eyes, all business, "Can I trust you with a large sum of money? or will the temptation to use it for yourself be too strong?"

"Sir," answered Job indignantly, "sir, I have no price! I want none but honest money as mine."

"Well, all right, my boy; I guess I can trust you," said his employer. "Now, I have some bullion to be taken down to the Wells-Fargo office at Gold City, to go off on the morning stage. You will find Dick, my horse, saddled at the stable. Eat some supper, mount Dick, come around to the rear of my house, and the bag will be waiting. Take it down to the Wells-Fargo office, where the man will be waiting to get it. I have sent him word. Hurry now! And mind you don't lose any of it. Will give you a week's extra pay if you get through all right."

With a "Thank you, sir; I'll do the best I can," Job hurried off on his responsible errand.

It was a beautiful moonlight evening in June. Crossing the summit of the mountain, the fresh breeze fanned his brow, heated with the warm day's labor, and he walked Dick along, drinking in once more with genuine joy the grandeur of the forests robed in silver light. Just beyond Mike Hennessy's, as he turned into the main road, clouds obscured the moon and a somber pall fell over the road. He felt to see that his treasure was safe, and urged Dick into a canter.

He had not gone far when he thought he heard horse's hoofs behind him. He stopped to listen, his heart beating a little more quickly, and then hurried on. Again, more distinctly, he heard them coming down the last hill. He put spurs to Dick as a strange fear came over him. Up the hill before him he rode at a gallop, and on down the next. Faster and louder in the dim darkness rang the hoofs of the horse behind him. He was being pursued—there was no doubt of it now. If there had been, the report of a pistol and the whiz of a bullet past his headwould have quickly dispelled it. Then began a wild chase. Up hill and down hill, over rough creek-beds, down the Gold City road, they flew. How Job wished for Bess! She could have outdistanced any horse, but Dick was not her equal. The hoof-beats in the rear grew louder.

Job was just going over the hill to Mormon Bar, on that narrow place where the bank pitches down to the creek two hundred feet, when he heard a voice, emphasized by a ringing bullet, cry:

"Halt, you thief! I'm the sheriff of Grizzly county!"

Whether it was because Dick stumbled and almost fell, or because his strength failed, or because of the bullet and the strange command, Job halted, stunned, to look into the dark barrel of a pistol and to see the white, masked face of a slim fellow in blue jean overalls and with a red handkerchief about his throat.

"Hand over that boodle mighty quick! Thought I was a sheriff, did yer? Ha! ha! None of your back talk! Give it here or swallow this!" poking the pistol into Job's very mouth. The voice was familiar—more than once Job had heard it.

He sprang from Dick to run as the other held his bridle, but heard the whiz of a bullet past him and felt a stunning blow on his head. When he came to, the treasure was gone and he could hear a horse's hoofs pounding faintly In the distance. On his side, with the blood oozing from his temples, Dick—poor Dick—lay dead!

It was a long walk back to the mine, and the first morning shift was going to work when Job reached there. The superintendent heard his tale, and without comment told him to get his breakfast and go to work. Later he called Job in and asked some very strange questions. Twice during the following day with aching head and troubled heart Job tried to get another interview with the superintendent, but failed.

How it came about he never knew, but before the end of the week it was common gossip around the mine that Job had made way with the company's bullion to clear off the mortgage on Andrew Malden's place. Job had never heard of the mortgage, and he tried to tell the superintendent so; but he would not listen. All he did was to tell Job on Saturday night that they did not know who took the money, but they would need his services no longer.

It was just as Andrew Malden was locking the doors for the night, that—with a small bundle thrown over his shoulder, shamefaced, discouraged, and so tired he could hardly walk another step—Job pushed in and sat down in the old rocker. The older man was surprised enough. What did it all mean? Job had soon told his story—the night ride, the robbery, the long walk back to the mine, the strange suspicion that had fallen on him, the refusal to believe his story, the coldness of his employers, his dismissal, and the sad walk home. He told it all through, then looking up into Andrew Malden's face, said brokenly:

"God knows, uncle, it's true, every word!"

Andrew Malden never doubted the blue-eyed, homeless boy who had grown to be the stalwart young man on whom he leaned more and more. It was a great comfort to Job when the old man told him this, and declared he would go over there in the morning and settle this matter; they would believe Andrew Malden. Then he thought of the mortgage; he had paid that, and no one knew where he got the money—and now perhaps they would not believe him if he did tell them. Perhaps he had better not go after all.

Late into the night the two talked it over, till they saw how dark things really looked for them. Well enough they knew who was the guilty person, but who could prove it? Finally Andrew Malden took down the old family Bible and read: "What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Thereader laid stress on that word "persecution." On he read: "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus."

"Amen," said Job, as the old man laid down the book. "Yes, and it says that 'all things work together for good to them that love God.'"

Together they knelt in prayer, and to Him who knows the secret integrity of our hearts, as well as our secret sins, they committed the burden that rested on their souls.

The next day was Sunday, a lovely June Sunday. The sunbeams were playing across his face when Job awoke, and the fragrance of roses filled the room as they looked in at the open window. How still and beautiful was all the world! No thumping machinery, no jangling voices, no grimy faces passing the window! Flowers and sunshine and the songs of birds, and—home! Oh, how happy he felt!

He dropped on his knees the first thing, in a prayer that was almost a psalm. He went downstairs in two jumps, and was out hugging Bess in no time, telling her she was the best horse that ever lived. Then he went racing Shot down to the milk-house, where he nearly upset Tony with a pail of foaming milk. The big fellow stared and said:

"'Pears like you done gone clean crazy. Marse Job! Guess you think you's a kid agin!"

When Job took the pail away from him and bore it safely in on his head, Tony chuckled and said, "Bress de Lawd, Marse Job! You's mighty good to me."

Job waited for no more of Tony's praises, but hurried off, with Shot barking at his heels. Never had the old ranch looked more beautiful to him—the house yard, the big barns, the giant pasture lot with the clump of live-oaks next the yard, the forests on all four sides, the wild-flowers covering the pasture with a variegated carpet, the garden on the side hill. Job was a boy again, and he came in panting, to nearly run over Sing, the new Chinese cook, who was not used to such scenes at quiet Pine Tree Ranch.

Not long after breakfast they had prayers, at which Job insisted that Tony and Hans and Sing should all be present. As he looked around at the scene, the African and Mongolian sitting attentive while he read the words, "They shall come from the east and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God," he thought the promise was kept that morning at the ranch.

After devotions, Sing surprised them all by saying, "Me Clistian. Me go to mission in Chinatown, San Flancisco. Me say idols no good. Me play (pray) heap. Jeso he lub Sing. Me feel heap good."

They were overjoyed. Andy Malden shook hands heartily all around. Hans said, "In Vaterland, Hans was sehr goot; pray for Hans, he goot here."

That was the great love-feast at Pine Tree Ranch, which Tony loved to tell about as long as he lived.

The church was crowded that Sunday when Job and Andrew Malden drove up behind the team of grays, with a lunch tucked under the seat, so they could stay all day. It was Communion Sunday. The neat white cloth which covered the table in front of the pulpit told the story as they pushed their way in. The congregation was singing, "Safely through another week, God has brought us on our way," and Job thought it was a long, long week since he had sat in the old church and heard that hymn. How natural it looked! The bare white walls, with here and there a crack which had carved a not inartistic line up the sides. The stiff wooden pulpit, almost hid to-day under the June roses. The same preacher who had said that Christmas night, "Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?" The little organ in the corner. The old familiar faces looking up from the benches, and some newones. There had been a revival that winter in the church, and now Job could see its results. The whole congregation was sprinkled with faces he used to see in the saloons and on the streets, but had never hoped to see in church. Aye, and there were some faces missing. Where was old Grandpa Reynolds, who at that long-ago camp-meeting sang "Palms of victory, crowns of glory I shall wear"? A strange feeling came over Job as he remembered that he had gone Home to wear the crown of a sainted life.

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