"Hold yer tongue, Tom Davis," said Kentuck. "Hulloa, Bob! take my hand, won't ye? I'll introduce ye to my friends. My pardner is Huxly—a tip-top feller, as you'll diskiver fur yerself. Davis' pardner is Randolph—Gentleman Bill, we call him fur short, he's so nice and perlite. He's from yer State, too, I reckon."

"Randolphs of Booneville," said Gentleman Bill; rising and extending his hand.

Matheny, who was a mild-looking man of about fifty, with a hesitating manner and rather care-worn countenance, half concealed under a wide-brimmed, dusty black hat, instead of meeting half-way the extended hand of his friend's friend, thrust his own into his pockets and gazed fixedly at young Randolph. "Be ye Boone Randolph, or be ye his sperrit?" he asked, hoarsely.

"Neither, quite," said the young man, smiling, yet a little flushed. "I am son of Boone Randolph of Booneville, if you know who he was."

Matheny turned and hurried out of the crowd, followed by Kentuck, who wanted to have explained this singular conduct of Bob's towards his friends. As there was no witness of their conversation, its meaning can only be guessed at by another which took place two hours later, after Matheny had turned in at the Traveler's Rest. It was late, even for him, when Kentuck started for his lodgings at the other end of the long, densely crowded street—crowded not only with buildings of wood and canvas, but choked up with monstrous freight wagons, and their numerous horse and mule-teams, for which there was not stable-room enough in all Wilson's Bar. Stumbling along the uneven sidewalk, often touching with his feet some unhoused vagabond, Kentuck was about to mount the stairs which led to his bedroom, when some one touched him on the shoulder, and the voice of Gentleman Bill addressed him:

"I beg your pardon, Kentuck; but you've been with Matheny, haven't you? I want to know why he wouldn't shake hands. He told you, of course?"

"Waal, I'm a friend of Bob's, ye know, Bill; an' he is mighty rough on you, sure. Better not say nothin' about it."

"That wouldn't suit me, Kentuck. I want to understand something about the matter which concerns me so evidently. Come, out with it, and I'll leave you to go to bed."

"Waal, you heerd Tom Davis' blab this evenin'; an' you know that Bob's got the idee into his intelleck that the cuss of a sart'in man as he onct wronged is a-stickin' to him yit, an' never will let loose till he passes in his checks?"

"Who was the man?"

"Boone Randolph, of Booneville."

"My father?"

"Yaas, yer pap. He's down powerful on your pap, that's sart'in. Sez he to me: 'Loh! that's the ornary whelp ov the devil that cussed me. Old's I am I'd like to fight him, fur the sake o' the man that I knowed onct. I feel my young blood a-risin'; he looks so mighty like Boone Randolph.' But I tole him he war a fool to talk ov fightin' yer; ye'd whip him all ter flinders."

"I wouldn't fight him, of course: he's too old for me. And then he's just married, too, isn't he? I have no wish to make that young woman a widow."

"A widow!" said Kentuck, laughing. "That girl's name is Anne Matheny; but she ain't Bob's wife, not by a long shot. Why, she's Bob's darter, as has just come out to see her old pap."

"Well, I like that. I am less than ever inclined to fight the man who owns such a daughter. I must find a way to make friends with him, even if I have to quarrel with him to do it. Good-night, Kentuck. Pleasant dreams to you."

Gentleman Bill felt more than ordinarily wide-awake, whether it was from the novel excitement of the brief encounter with Matheny or not. When Kentuck had left him, he stood for some time irresolute, with no wish for rest, and no desire to go anywhere in particular. He looked up to the sky. It was murky with filmy fog-clouds and dust not yet settled to the earth. Not a star was visible in the whole arch of heaven. He looked down the street, and his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could just faintly distinguish the outlines of the wagons that crowded it. Every sound was hushed, except the occasional movement of a restless animal, or the deep sighing of a sleeping one. Not a light was burning anywhere along the street. While gazing aimlessly into the gloom he saw, all at once, as if lighted by a flash from the sky, a sudden illumination spring up, and a column of flame stand erect over the Traveler's Rest.

Now, Wilson's Bar did not boast a fire company. At some seasons of the year, had a fire broken out, there would have been a chance of its extinguishment, inflammable as were the materials of which the place was built; but just after the long, hot summer, when the river was all but dried up, and every plank in houses, fences, and sidewalks so much tinder, a fire that should get under headway would have everything its own way. Seeing the danger, Gentleman Bill started down the street on a run, shouting, in his clarion tones, that ever-thrilling cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" till it seemed to him he must wake the dead. But it was that hour of the night, or rather morning, when sleep is heaviest, and the watchful senses off their guard. The teamsters, who slept in their wagons, were the first to be aroused; but they, seeing the peril which might come to their teams, and destruction to their property, kept by their own. The inhabitants of the dwellings awoke more slowly, and came pouring into the street only in time to see the roof of the Traveler's Rest falling in, although the lower story was not yet consumed.

Nobody knew much about the details of the scene that ensued. The current of heated air produced the usual rush of cold wind, which spread and fed the flames, until, in half an hour, all hope of saving any part of the principal street in the Bar was abandoned, and people were flying for safety to the outskirts of the town.

On a little eminence, overlooking the burning buildings, together stood Gentleman Bill and a young woman he had rescued from smoke and flame just in time to save her from suffocation. Together they looked down upon the conflagration, and together listened to the horrible medley of sounds proceeding from it.

"If I could only know that my father is safe!" was the repeated moan of Anne Matheny, as she gazed intently upon the scene of distress.

Seeing the fright and trouble in her eyes, her companion cunningly diverted her attention for one moment to the weird landscape stretching away toward the western mountains. It was the same scene she had beheld for the first time with such interest twelve hours before; but in what a different aspect! The murky heavens reflected the red glare of the flames upon every object for miles around, tinging each with a lurid gleam like nothing in nature. The dark neutrals of the far-off mountains, the gray-green of the pines, the sere colors of the parched valley, the dark dull-green of the oaks, garlanded with hoary moss, and the gay foliage of the wild grape; all came out distinctly in this furnace-glow, but with quite new effects. In the strong and strange fascination of the scene, both these young people, so singularly situated, forgot for three minutes their mutual anxiety. Longer it would be impossible to forget it.

"Do not you think I might go to look for my father now, Mr. ——?"

"Randolph"—supplied that gentleman.

"Oh, thank you!—Mr. Randolph?"

"I do not see how you could, really;" and, without intending it in the least, but simply through his embarrassment, Randolph glanced hastily at her scanty dress, which thereby she blushingly understood to be his objection.

"If I could get only a blanket from father's wagon! Do you think it would be possible? Would you be running a risk to try for a blanket, do you think, Mr. Randolph? If there is any risk, please do not go; but I am so anxious—so terribly anxious."

He knew she was, and knew the reason she had for her apprehensions; so, although he mistrusted the result of his errand, he answered simply: "Certainly; I will go, if you are not afraid to be left alone. I shall be in no danger."

"O, thank you—thank you! You will bring me a message from my father?"

"I hope so, indeed, since you desire it so much. I think you had better sit down on this newspaper, and let me cover your shoulders with my coat."

"No, indeed. If you are going near the fire, you will need it to protect you from cinders."

But Randolph quickly divested himself of his upper garment, and laid it lightly over her shivering form; then quietly charging her to feel no alarm, and as little anxiety as possible, strode rapidly away toward the fire. Fifteen minutes afterward he returned more slowly, with a blanket, which Anne rose up to receive.

"My father? Did you see my father?"

"I did not see him. He must have taken his horses off a little distance for safety, and you may not see him for several hours. Do not indulge in apprehensions. In the morning we shall find him: it is almost daylight now."

He pointed to a faint light along the eastern horizon; but her eyes were blinded with tears.

"It is not like my father to leave me so long—at such a time, too! He would not care for his horses, nor for anything but me. O, can he have perished!"

She spoke as though the awful significance of her loneliness had just dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the midst of her alarm and distress.

The day had dawned when Anne Matheny lifted her tear-swollen face from her knees, and looked upon the smoking ruins of Wilson's Bar. It was but a blackened heap of rubbish; yet somewhere in its midst, she felt assured, were buried the charred remains of her father. Each moment that he came not deepened her conviction, until at last her companion ceased his efforts to inspire hope, and accepted her belief as his own. Then, with the inconsistency of sorrow, she violently repudiated the suspicion of her father's death, and besought him piteously to seek and bring him to her side.

It was while obeying this last command that Gentleman Bill encountered Kentuck, who, after the confusion of the fire was over, was, like himself, looking for Matheny. When they had consulted together, the two returned to the place where Anne was awaiting them.

"There is one request I have to make, Kentuck: which is, that you will not inform Miss Matheny of the enmity of her father toward my father and myself. It would only distress her. Besides, I should like to befriend her, poor girl! and I could not, if she looked upon me with her father's eyes."

"No, 'tain't no use to tell her nothin' about that, sure enough. It's mighty curus, though, 'bout that fire: not another man got hurt, not a mite; and Bob Matheny dead! I'll be hanged if it ain't mighty curus. I hope ye won't hurt the gal, bein' yer the son of yer father."

"Hurt her! I'd——"

Gentleman Bill did not say what he would do: but Kentuck, glancing his way, caught a perfectly comprehensible expression, and muttered softly to himself:

"Waal, if that ain't the dog-gondest curusest sarcumstance I ever seed. Hit, the first pop! Waal, I'm not the feller to come atween 'em ef thet's ther notion. Far play's my rule."

To Bill, aloud, he said: "Reckon you'll hev' to let me be her uncle for awhile yet. Yer most too young a feller to offer to take car' of a gal like that. Bob Matheny's darter has a right to what leetle dust pans out o' Kentuck's claim. Thet's my go."

Just at this moment Anne, who had been watching for the return of her friend, seeing two figures approaching, uttered a cry of joy and ran forward to meet them. The shock of her disappointment at seeing a stranger in place of her father, caused her nearly to swoon away in Kentuck's arms.

"Neow, don't ye, honey," he said, soothingly, in his kind Kentucky dialect. "Sho! don't ye take on. We's all got to die, sometime or 'nother. Don't mind me: I'm yer pap's oldest friend on this coast—hev' prospected an' dug an' washed up with him sence '49; and a kinder comrade a man never hed. In course, I consider it my dooty an' privilege to see that you're took car' ov. The Bar's purty much cleared eout—thet's so; but I'll soon hev' a cabin up somewhere; an' ye can jest run my shebang anyway ye like. Reckon I can find some nice woman to stay along with ye, fur comp'ny."

This was just the kind of talk best calculated to engage the attention of one in Anne's situation—half soothing and half suggestive—and by degrees her father's old friend succeeded in arousing her to face her loss, and the prospects of her future.

* * * * *

They told me at Wilson's Bar, only last October—it must have been about the anniversary of the fire—that in two or three months Anne had recovered her spirits and health so far as to essay teaching the little flock of children at the Bar, with flattering success; and that in two or three more it began to be observed that Gentleman Bill—now more commonly called Mr. Randolph, out of respect to Miss Matheny—generally happened to be in the neighborhood of the school-house about the hour of closing, in order that he might walk home with the teacher. In truth, the young people had taken to looking and sighing after each other in a way that provoked remark, and augured a wedding. As Anne insisted on completing her term of teaching, as well as on taking a little time for preparation, the wedding did not come off until the first part of September.

On this occasion—the only one of the kind Kentuck had ever had anything to do with—the rude, but generous-hearted Kentuckian made a point of displaying his hospitality on a scale commensurate with his ideas of its importance; and the elite of Wilson's Bar were invited to eat, drink, and dance from dusk till dawn of that memorable day. As for the bride, she looked as lovely as it is the right and duty of all brides to look—even lovelier than the most; and the groom was the very prince of bridegrooms—so all the maiden guests declared.

On the following morning, when the young couple were to go away, Annie kissed and cried over Kentuck, her second father, in a truly gratifying fashion; and Randolph behaved very gentlemanly and kindly—as, in fact, he always did; and Kentuck put on paternal airs, blessing his children in all the honeyed epithets of a true Kentuckian.

Alas, that the legend does not end here! If the reader is of my mind, he will wish that it had. But if he is of that sanguinary sort who always insist upon seeing the grist the gods send to their slow-grinding mills, he will prefer to know the sequel. As I have already told you, it was in September they were married. On the morning they left Kentuck the weather was extremely hot, with queer little clouds hanging about the mountains. They took the road up the canon, toward McGibeney's ranch—laughing and chatting, as they rode along side by side, Anne replying to every lark singing by the roadside in a voice almost as musical.

Well, if it must be told, there was a cloud-burst on the mountains about noon that day. Not four hours after they had taken leave of him, Kentuck received their poor bruised bodies at his very threshold, brought there without the interposition of human hands. Wilson's Bar will long remember that day. The fire took chiefly that which could be replaced; but the flood washed out claims, ruined aqueducts, and destroyed lives of men and brutes, carrying away with it the labors and hopes of years.



MISS JORGENSEN.

I am a plain, elderly, unmarried man, and I board at Mrs. Mason's. A great deal of what I am about to relate came under my own observation; and the remainder was confided to me from time to time by my landlady, with whom I am upon terms of friendship and intimacy, having had a home in her house for a period of seven years.

Mrs. Mason lives in her own tenement, in a quiet part of the city; and besides myself, has usually three or four other boarders, generally teachers, or poor young authors—some person always of the class that, having few other pleasures, makes it a point to secure rooms with a fine view of the bay. When Miss Jorgensen came to us, we were a quiet, studious, yet harmonious and happy family; so well satisfied with our little community that we did not take kindly to the proposed addition to our circle when Mrs. Mason mentioned it. Neither did our landlady seem to desire any change; but she explained to us that the young person applying had made a strong appeal; that her classes (she was a teacher of French) were principally in our part of the city; and that she would be satisfied with a mere closet for a room. The only privilege for which she stipulated was the use of the common parlor twice a week to receive her company in.

"But I cannot agree to give up the parlor any single evening," Mrs. Mason replied, "because it is used by all the family, every evening. You will be entitled to the same privileges with the others." After some hesitation this was agreed to, and our new boarder was installed in the upper hall bed-room, which, when it had received the necessary furniture and a saratoga trunk, with numerous boxes and baskets, would scarcely allow space enough to dress in. However, Mrs. Mason reported that the tenant professed real satisfaction with her quarters; and we all were on tiptoe with curiosity to see the new inmate.

"Miss Jorgensen," said Mrs. Mason, that evening, as she escorted to the dinner-table a small, pale, dark-eyed young person, in deep mourning; and we being severally and separately presented afterward, endeavored to place this little lonely scrap of humanity at ease with ourselves. But in this well-intentioned effort Miss Jorgensen did not seem to meet us half way. On the contrary, she repelled us. She was reserved without being diffident; mercilessly critical, and fierily disputatious—all of which we found out in less than a week. She never entered or left a room without somehow disturbing the mental atmosphere of it, and giving the inmates a little shock; so that Mr. Quivey, our dramatic writer, soon took to calling her the "Electrical Eel," substituting "E. E." when the person indicated was within ear-shot possibly or probably. In return, as we afterward discovered, Miss Jorgensen told Miss Flower, our other young lady boarder, that she had christened Mr. Quivey "I. I."—"Incurable Idiot." How the "E. E." came to her knowledge was never made plain. Before three months were past, she had quarreled with every one in the house except Mrs. Mason and myself; though, to her credit be it said, she always apologized for her temper when they were over, with a frankness that disarmed resentment. Nevertheless, she was so frequently in a hostile attitude toward one or another in the family, that the mere mention of Miss Jorgensen's name was sure to arrest attention and excite expectations. Thus, when I only chanced to whisper to Mrs. Mason at breakfast one morning, "Miss Jorgensen keeps late hours," every one at the table glanced our way inquiringly, as much as to ask, "What has the little woman done now?" And when she appeared at the close of the meal with pale face and swollen eyes, explaining her tardiness by saying she had a headache, no one gave her sympathizing looks except the landlady.

That kind-hearted person confided to me, later in the day, that her new boarder troubled and puzzled her very much. "She will sit up until one or two o'clock every night, writing something or other, and that makes her late to breakfast. She goes out teaching every morning, and comes back tired and late to luncheon; and you see she is never in her place at dinner until the soup is removed, and every one at the table helped. When I once suggested that she ought not to sit up so long at night, and that her classes should be arranged not to fatigue her so much, with other bits of friendly advice, she gave me to understand, very promptly, that her ways were her own, and not to be interfered with by any one. And directly afterward the tears came into her eyes. I confess I did not understand her at all."

"What about the young man who calls here twice a week?" I inquired.

"She is engaged to him, she says."

"What sort of a person does he seem to be?"

"He looks well enough, only rather shabby, is very quiet, very attentive to her, and what you might call obedient to her requirements. She often seems displeased with him, but what she says to him at such times is unknown to me, for she does her scolding all in French; and he usually then invites her out to walk, by way of diversion, I suppose."

"Do you know that he comes every morning and carries her books for her? He certainly cannot be employed, or he would not have time for such gallantries."

"Perhaps he is engaged on one of the morning papers, and so is off duty in the forenoon. I cannot think so industrious a person as she would take up with a man both poor and idle. But you never know what a woman will do," sighed Mrs. Mason, who had known something of heart-troubles in her youth, and could sympathize with other unlucky women. "Excuse me; I must not stand here gossiping." And the good lady went about her house affairs.

A few moments later I was hurrying down town to my office, when I overtook Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Hurst. As usual, she was leaning upon his arm, and he was carrying her books. She was talking excitedly, in French, and I thought her to be crying, though her face was covered with a black veil. The few words I caught before she recognized me reminded me of my conversation with Mrs. Mason.

"You must get something to do, Harry," she was saying. "You know that I work every instant of the time, yet how little I can save if I have to supply you with money. It is a shame to be so idle and helpless, when there is so much to be done before——"

She perceived me and stopped short. "So," I thought, "this precious scamp is living off the earnings of the little French teacher, is he? A pretty fellow, truly! I'll get him his conge if I have to make love to her myself." Which latter conceit so amused me, that I had forgotten to be indignant with Mr. Hurst before I reached my office and plunged into the business of the day.

But I never made love to Miss Jorgensen. She was not the kind of person even a flirtish man would choose to talk sentiment with, and I was always far enough from being a gallant. So our affairs went on in just the usual way at Mrs. Mason's for three or four months. Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Quivey let fly their arrows of satire at each other; Miss Flower, the assistant high-school teacher, enacted the amiable go-between; our "promising young artist" was wisely neutral; Mrs. Mason and myself were presumed to be old enough to be out of the reach of boarding-house tiffs, and preserved a prudent unconsciousness. Mr. Hurst continued to call twice a week in the evening, and Miss Jorgensen kept on giving French lessons by day, and writing out translations for the press at night. She was growing very thin, very pale, and cried a good deal, as I had reason to know, for her room adjoined mine, and more than a few times I had listened to her sobbing, until I felt almost forced to interfere; but interfered I never had yet.

One foggy July evening, on coming home to dinner, I encountered Miss Jorgensen in the hall. She appeared to be just going out, a circumstance which surprised me somewhat, on account of the hour. I however opened the door for her without comment, when by the fading daylight I perceived that her face was deathly pale, and her black eyes burning. She passed me without remark, and hurried off into the foggy twilight. Nor did she appear at dinner; but came in about eight o'clock and went directly to her own room. When Mrs. Mason knocked at her door to inquire if she was not going to take some refreshments, the only reply that could be elicited was, that she had a headache, and could not be induced to eat or drink—spoken through the closed door.

"She's been having a row with that sunflower of hers," was Mr. Quivey's comment, when he overheard Mrs. Mason's report to me, made in an undertone. Truth to tell, Mr. Quivey, from associating so much with theatrical people in the capacity of playwright, had come to be rather stagy in his style at times. "By the way, he was not on escort duty this morning. I saw her proceeding along Powell street alone, and anxiously peering up and down all the cross streets, evidently on the lookout, but he failed to put in an appearance."

"Which was very unkind of him, if she expected that he would," put in Miss Flower, glancing from under her long lashes at the speaker.

"That is so," returned Quivey; "for the fellow does nothing else, I do believe, but play lackey to Miss Jorgensen; and if that is his sole occupation, he ought to perform that duty faithfully. I do not see, for my part, how he pays his way."

"Perhaps it pays him to be a lackey," I suggested, remembering what I had once overheard between them. Mrs. Mason gave me a cautioning glance, which she need not have done, for I had no intention of making known Miss Jorgensen's secrets.

"Well," said Miss Flower, as if she had been debating the question in her mind for some time previous, "I doubt if a woman can love a man who submits to her will as subserviently as Mr. Hurst seems to, to Miss Jorgensen. I know some women could not."

"By which you mean you could not," Mrs. Mason returned, smiling. "I do not see that the case need be very different with men. Subserviency never won anybody's respect or love either. Neither does willful opposition, any more. Proper self-respect and a fair share of self-love is more sure of winning admiration, from men or women, than too little self-assertion or too much."

"But where the self-assertion is all on one side, and the self-abasement all on the other—as in the case of Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Hurst—then how would you establish an equilibrium, Mrs. Mason?"

"It establishes itself in that case, I should say," clipped in Mr. Quivey. "Oil and water do not mix, but each keeps its own place perfectly, and without disturbance."

I do not know how long this conversation might have gone on in this half-earnest, half-facetious style, with Miss Jorgensen for its object, had not something happened just here to bring it abruptly to a close; and that something was the report of a pistol over our very heads.

"Great heaven!" ejaculated Miss Flower, losing all her color and self-possession together.

"E. E., as I live—she has shot herself!" cried Quivey, half doubting, half convinced.

I caught these words as I made a rapid movement toward the staircase. They struck me as so undeniably true that I never hesitated in making an assault upon her door. It was locked on the inside, and I could hear nothing except a faint moaning sound within. Fearing the worst, I threw my whole weight and strength against it, and it flew open with a crash. There lay Miss Jorgensen upon the floor, in the middle of her little room, uttering low moaning sobs, though apparently not unconscious. I stooped over and lifted her in my arms to lay her upon the bed, and as I did so, a small pocket-pistol fell at my feet, and I discovered blood upon the carpet.

"Yes, Miss Jorgensen had certainly shot herself, I told Mrs. Mason, and the rest who crowded after us into the little woman's room; but whether dangerously or not, I could not say, nor whether purposely or accidentally. Probably not dangerously, as she was already making signs to me to exclude people from the apartment.

"You had better bring a surgeon," I said to Quivey, who turned away muttering, followed by Miss Flower.

With Mrs. Mason's assistance, I soon made out the location of the wound, which was in the flesh of the upper part of the left arm, and consequently not so alarming as it would be painful during treatment.

"Could she have meant to shoot herself through the heart, and failed through agitation?" whispered Mrs. Mason to me, aside.

"No, no; it was an accident," murmured the victim, whose quick ear had caught the words. "I did not mean to shoot myself."

"Poor child, I am very sorry for you," returned Mrs. Mason gently, whose kind heart had always leaned toward the little French teacher, in spite of her singular ways. "It is very unfortunate; but you shall receive careful nursing until you recover. You need not worry about yourself, but try to bear it the best you can."

"O, I cannot bear it—I must be well to-morrow. O, what shall I do!" moaned Miss Jorgensen. "O, that this should have happened to-night!" And momently, after this thought occurred to her, her restlessness seemed to increase, until the surgeon came and began an examination of the wound.

While this was going on, notwithstanding the sickening pain, the sufferer seemed anxious only about the opinion to be given upon the importance of the wound as interfering with her usual pursuits.

When, in answer to a direct appeal, she was told that it must be some weeks before she could resume going out, a fainting fit immediately followed, which gave us no little trouble and alarm.

Before taking leave, the doctor accompanied me to my own apartment and proceeded to question me.

"What is the history of the case?" said he. "Is there anything peculiar in the life or habits of Miss Jorgensen, to account for her great anxiety to get well immediately?"

"She fears to lose her classes, I presume; and there may be other engagements which are unknown to us." I still had a great reluctance to saying what I suspected might be troubling Miss Jorgensen.

"Neither of which accounts for all that I observe in her case," returned the doctor. "What are her connections?—has she any family ties—any lover, even?"

"I believe she told Mrs. Mason she was engaged to a young man who calls here twice a week."

"Ah! Do you know where this young man is to be found? It might be best to communicate with him, in the morning. Possibly he may be able to dispel this anxious fear of hers, from whatever cause it arises."

I promised the Doctor to speak to Mrs. Mason about it, and he soon after took leave, having first satisfied himself that the unlucky pistol was incapable of doing further mischief, and safely hidden from Miss Jorgensen.

Naturally, the next morning, the table-talk turned upon the incident of the evening previous.

"She need not tell me that it was an accident," Mr. Quivey was saying, very decidedly. "She is just the sort of woman for desperate remedies; and she is tired of living, with that vampire friend of hers draining her life-blood!"

I confess I felt startled by the correspondence of Quivey's opinion with my own; for I had heretofore believed that myself and Mrs. Mason were the only persons who suspected that Hurst was dependent upon Miss Jorgensen for the means of living. In my surprise I said: "You know that he does this?"

"I know that Craycroft paid him yesterday for a long translation done by Miss Jorgensen, and I do not believe he had an order for it, other than verbal. Craycroft seeing them so much together, paid the money, and took a receipt."

"Perhaps he paid the money to Mr. Hurst by her instructions, for her own use," suggested Miss Flower. "But then he did not see her last evening, did he? I hope he does not rob Miss Jorgensen. Such a delicate little woman has enough to do to look out for herself, I should think."

"One thing is certain," interposed Mrs. Mason, "Miss Jorgensen does what she does, and permits what she permits, intelligently; and our speculations concerning her affairs will not produce a remedy for what we fancy we see wrong in them." Which hint had the effect of silencing the discussion for that time.

Before I left the house that morning, I had a consultation with Mrs. Mason, who had passed the night in attendance upon Miss Jorgensen, and who had informed me that she had been very restless, in spite of the quieting prescription left by the doctor. "I wish you would go up and speak to her," Mrs. Mason said. "Perhaps you can do something for her which I could not; and I am sure she needs some such service."

Thus urged, I obeyed an impulse of my own, which had been to do this very thing. When I tapped softly at her door, she said, "Come in!" in a pained and petulant tone, as if any interruption was wearisome to her; but when she saw who it was, her countenance assumed an eager and animated expression, which rewarded me at once for the effort I was making.

"Thank you for coming to see me," said she quickly. "I was almost on the point of sending for you." Pausing for a moment, while her eyes searched my face, she continued: "I am in trouble, which cannot be all explained, and which will force you, if you do a service for me, to take me very much upon trust; but I will first assure you that what you may do for me will not involve you in any difficulty. More than this I cannot now say. Will you do this service for me, and keep your agency in the matter secret? The service is slight, the importance of secrecy great."

I expressed my willingness to do anything which would not compromise me with myself, and that, I told her, I did not fear her requiring.

She then proceeded, with some embarrassment, to say that she wished a note conveyed to Mr. Hurst; upon which I smiled, and answered, "I had conjectured as much."

"But you must not conjecture anything," she replied, with some asperity; "for you are sure to go wide of the truth. You think I have only to send for Mr. Hurst to bring him here; but you are mistaken. He cannot come, because he dare not. He is in hiding, but I cannot tell you why. Only do not betray him; I ask no more. You are not called upon to do any more—to do anything against him, I mean." Seeing me hesitate, she continued: "I need not tell you that I believe my life is in your hands. I have been living a long time with all my faculties upon a severe strain, so severe that I feel I shall go mad if the pressure is increased. I entreat you not to refuse me."

"Very well," I answered, "I will do what you require."

"It is only to take this"—she pulled a note from beneath her pillow, addressed to "Mr. Harry Hurst," and handed it to me—"to the address, which you will have no difficulty in finding, though I am sorry to have to send you on a walk so out of your way. And please take this also"—handing me a roll of coin, marked $100. "No answer is expected. Of course, you will not give these things to any one but Mr. Hurst. That is all." And she sunk back wearily upon her pillow, with closed eyes, as if she had no further interest in the affair.

I know as well as if she had told me that this note was a warning to fly, and this money the means to make flight good. I had promised to deliver them on her simple entreaty and assurance that I should not dishonor myself. But might I not wrong society? Might not she be herself deceived about Hurst? The assertion of Quivey that he had collected money from her employers the day before occurred to me. Did she know it or not? I questioned, while regarding the thin, pale, weary face on the pillow before me. While I hesitated she opened her eyes with a wondering, impatient gaze.

"Do you repent?" she asked.

"I deliberate, rather," I replied. "I chanced to learn yesterday, that Mr. Hurst had drawn money from Craycroft & Co., and was thinking that if you knew it, you might not wish to send this also."

For an instant her black eyes blazed with anger, but whether at me or at Mr. Hurst I could not tell, and she seemed to hesitate, as I had done.

"Yes, take it," she said, with hopeless sadness in her tone, "He may need it; and for myself, what does it matter now?"

"I shall do as you bid me," I replied, "but it is under protest; for it is my impression that you are doing yourself an injury, and Mr. Hurst no good."

"You don't understand," she returned, sharply. "Now go, please."

"Very well; I am gone. But I promise you that if you exact services of me, I shall insist on your taking care of your health, by way of return. You are in a fever at this moment, which I warn you will be serious if not checked. Here comes the doctor. Good-morning."

I pass over the trifling incidents of my visit to the residence of Mr. Hurst. Suffice to say that Mr. Hurst had departed to parts unknown, and that I had to carry about all day Miss Jorgensen's letter and money. On returning home to dinner that afternoon, I found a stranger occupying Miss Jorgensen's place at table. He was a shrewd-looking man of about forty years, talkative, versatile, and what you might call "jolly." Nothing escaped his observation; nothing was uttered that he did not hear, often replying most unexpectedly to what was not intended for him—a practice that would have been annoying but for a certain tact and good humor which disarmed criticism. The whole family, while admitting that our new day-boarder was not exactly congenial, confessed to liking his amusing talk immensely.

"He quite brightens us up; don't you think so, Mr. Quivey?" was Miss Flower's method of indorsing him.

"He does very well just now," replied Quivey, "though I'd lots rather see E. E. back in that place. When one gets used to pickles or pepper, one wants pickles or pepper; honey palls on the appetite."

"I thought you had almost too much pepper sometimes," said Miss Flower, remembering the "I. I."

"It's a healthful stimulant," returned Quivey, ignoring the covert reminder.

"But not always an agreeable one."

I suspected that Miss Flower, who had an intense admiration for dramatic talent, entertained her own reasons for jogging Mr. Quivey's memory; and being willing to give her every opportunity to promote her own views, I took this occasion to make my report to Miss Jorgensen. As might have been expected, she had been feverishly anticipating my visit. I had no sooner entered the room than she uttered her brief interrogation:

"Well?"

I laid the note and the money upon the bed. "You see how it is?" I said.

"He is gone?"

"Yes."

"I am so very glad!" she said, with emphasis, while something like a smile lighted up her countenance. "This gives me a respite, at least. If he is prudent"—she checked herself, and giving me a grateful glance, exclaimed, "I am so much obliged to you."

"Nobody could be more welcome, I am sure, to so slight a service. I shall hope now to see you getting well."

"O, yes," she answered, "I must get well; there is so much to do. But my classes and my writing must be dropped for a while, I presume, unless the doctor will let me take in some of my scholars, for, of course, I cannot go out."

"Your arm must begin to heal before you can think of teaching, ever so little. I have an idea, Miss Jorgensen, from what you have said of yourself, that this necessity for repose, which is forced upon you, will prove to be an excellent thing. Certainly, you were wearing out very fast with your incessant labor."

"Perhaps so—I mean, perhaps inforced rest will not be bad for me; but, O, there is such need to work! I can so poorly afford to be idle."

"What you say relieves my mind of a suspicion, which at first I harbored, that the firing of that mischievous pistol was not wholly accidental. I now see you wish to live and work. But why had you such a weapon about you? Are you accustomed to fire-arms?"

"The mischief this one did me shows that I am not; and my having it about me came from a fear I had of its doing worse mischief in the hands of Mr. Hurst."

"Are affairs so desperate with him?"

"Please don't question me. I cannot answer you satisfactorily. Mr. Hurst is in trouble, and the least that is said or known about him is the best. And yet you wonder, no doubt, that I should interest myself about a man who is compelled to act the part of a culprit. Well, I cannot tell you why at present; and it would be a great relief to know that you thought nothing more about it." This last she uttered rather petulantly, which warned me that this conversation was doing her no good.

"Believe, then," I said, "that I have no interest in your affairs, except the wish to promote your welfare. And I think I may venture to affirm that everybody in the house is equally at your service when you wish to command him or her."

"Thank you all; but I do not deserve your kindness; I have been so ill-tempered. The truth is I cannot afford to have friends; friends pry into one's affairs so mercilessly. Mrs. Mason tells me there is a new boarder," she said, suddenly changing the subject.

I assented, and gave what I intended to be an amusing account of the new-comers' conversation and manners.

"Was there anything said about me at dinner?" she asked, with a painful consciousness of the opinion I might have of such a question.

"I do not think there was. We were all so taken up with the latest acquisition that we forgot you for the time."

"May I ask this favor of you, to keep the conversation away from me as much as possible? I am morbidly sensitive, I presume," she said, with a poor attempt at a smile, "and I cannot keep from fancying, while I lie here, what you are saying about me in the dining-room or parlor."

Of course, I hastened to disavow any disposition on the part of the family to make her a subject of conversation, and even promised to discountenance any reference to her whatever, if thereby she would be made more comfortable; after which I bade her good-night, having received the assurance that my visit had relieved her mind of several torturing apprehensions.

The more I saw and thought of Miss Jorgensen, the more she interested and puzzled me. I should have inclined to the opinion that she was a little disturbed at times in her intellect, had it not been that there was apparent so much "method in her madness;" this reflection always bringing me back at last to the conclusion that her peculiarities could all be accounted for upon the hypothesis she herself presented; too much work and some great anxiety. The spectacle of this human mite fighting the battle of life, not only for herself but for the strong man who should have been her protector, worked so upon my imagination and my sympathy that I found it difficult to keep the little woman out of my thoughts.

I kept my word to her, discountenancing, as far as I could, the discussion of her affairs, and in this effort Mrs. Mason co-operated with me; but it was practically impossible to prevent the inquiries and remarks of those of the family who were not so well informed concerning her as we were. The new boarder, also, with that quick apprehension he had of every subject, had caught enough to become interested in the patient up-stairs, and daily made some inquiries concerning her condition, and, as it appeared to me—grown a little morbid, like Miss Jorgensen—was peculiarly adroit in extracting information.

Three weeks slipped away, and Miss Jorgensen had passed the most painful period of suppuration and healing in her arm, and had promised to come down-stairs next day to dine with the family. Mrs. Mason had just communicated the news to us in her cheeriest tones, as if each individual was interested in it, and was proceeding to turn out our coffee, when a servant brought in the letters for the house and laid them beside the tray, directly under the eye of the new boarder, who sat on the landlady's left.

"'Miss Jorgensen," said he, reading the address of the topmost one. "A very peculiar handwriting." Then taking up the letter, as if to further examine the writing, I observed that he was studying the postmark as well, which, being offended at his unmannerly curiosity, I sincerely hoped was illegible. But that it was only too fatally plain will soon appear.

With an air of hauteur I seldom assumed, I recalled the servant, and ordered the letter to be taken at once to Miss Jorgensen. Before leaving the house I was informed that Miss Jorgensen wished to speak to me.

"Mr. Hurst has done a most imprudent thing!" she exclaimed, the moment I was inside the door. "I ought to have published a 'personal,' or done something to let him know I could not go to the post-office, and to account for his not hearing from me."

"He has returned to the city?"

"Yes!" She fairly ground her teeth with rage at this "stupidity," as she termed it. "He always does the very thing he ought never to have done, and leaves undone the things most important to do. Of course he cannot come here, and I can not go to him without incurring the greatest risk. I really do not know what to do next."

Tears were now coursing down her pale cheeks—tears, it seemed, as much of anger as of sorrow.

"Let him take care of himself," I said, rather hotly. "It is not your province to care for him as you do."

She gave me an indescribable look. "What can you, what can any one know about it? He may want money; how can he take care of himself in such circumstances without money? I sent for you to contrive some plan by which he can be communicated with. Do tell me at once what to do."

"How can I tell you, when, as you say, I do not know what is required. You wish to see him, I presume?"

"How can I—O, I dislike so much to ask this of you—but will you take a message to him?" She asked this desperately, half expecting me to decline, as decline I did.

"Miss Jorgensen, you are now able to ride. Shall I send a carriage for you?"

"There may be those on the lookout who would instantly suspect my purpose in going out in that way. On the contrary, nobody would suspect you."

"Still, I might be observed, which would not be pleasant, I can imagine, from what you leave me to surmise. No, Miss Jorgensen, much as I should like to serve you personally, you must excuse me from connecting myself in any way with Mr. Hurst; and if I might be allowed to offer advice, I should say that, in justice to yourself, you ought to cut loose from him at once."

Miss Jorgensen covered her face with one little emaciated hand, and sat silent a few seconds. "Send me the carriage," she said, "and I will go."

"You forgive me?"

"You have been very good," she said. "I ought not have required more of you. I will go at once; the sooner the better."

When I had reached the head of the stairs, I turned back again to her door.

"Once more let me counsel you to free yourself from all connection with Mr. Hurst. Why should you ruin your chances of happiness for one so undeserving, as I must think he is? Keep away from him; let him shift for himself."

"You don't know what you are talking about," she replied, with a touch of the old fierceness. "I have no chances of happiness to lose. Please go."

On my way down to the office I ordered a carriage.

What happened afterward I learned from Mrs. Mason and the evening papers. Miss Jorgensen, dressed in deep black, with her face veiled, entered the carriage, directing the driver to take her to the houses of some of her pupils. At the corner of the street, a gentleman, who proved to be our day-boarder, got upon the box with the driver, and remained there while Miss Jorgensen made her calls. Finding him constantly there, and becoming suspicious, she ordered the carriage home, and gave directions to have it return an hour later to take her down town for some shopping. At the time set, the carriage was in attendance, and conveyed her to one of the principal stores in the city. After re-entering the carriage, and giving her directions, our day-boarder once more mounted the box, though unobserved by her, and was conveyed with herself to the hiding-place of Mr. Hurst, contriving, by getting down before the door was opened, to elude her observation.

Another carriage, containing officers of the police, was following in the wake of this one, and drew up when Miss Jorgensen had entered the house where Hurst was concealed. After waiting long enough to make it certain that the person sought was within, the officers entered to search and capture.

At the moment they entered Hurst's apartment, he was saying, with much emotion, "If I can only reach China in safety, a way will be opened for me—"

"Hush!" cried Miss Jorgensen, seeing the door opened, and by whom.

"All is over!" exclaimed Hurst. "I will never be taken to prison!" And, drawing a revolver, he deliberately shot himself through the head.

Miss Jorgensen was brought back to Mrs. Mason's in a fainting condition, and was ill for weeks afterward. That same evening our day-boarder called, and while settling his board with Mrs. Mason, acknowledged that he belonged to the detective police, and had for months been "working up" the case of a bank-robber and forger who had escaped from one of the eastern cities, and been lost to observation for a year and a half.

And we further learned in the same way, and ultimately from the lady herself, that Miss Jorgensen was a myth, and that the little French teacher was Madame ——, who had suffered, and toiled, and risked everything for her unworthy husband, and who deserved rather to be congratulated than condoled with upon his loss.

It is now a year since all this happened, and it is the common gossip of our boarding-house that Mr. Quivey is devoted to the little dark-eyed widow; and although Miss Flower still refers to "E. E." and "I. I.," nobody seems to be in the least disturbed by the allusion. When I say to Quivey, "Make haste slowly, my dear fellow;" he returns: "Never fear, my friend; I shall know when the time comes to speak."



SAM RICE'S ROMANCE.

The coach of Wells, Fargo & Co. stood before the door of Piney-woods Station, and Sam Rice, the driver, was drawing on his lemon-colored gloves with an air, for Sam was the pink of stage-drivers, from his high white hat to his faultless French boots. Sad will it be when his profession shall have been altogether superseded; and the coach-and-six, with its gracious and graceful "whip," shall have been supplanted, on all the principal lines of travel, by the iron-horse with its grimy "driver" and train of thundering carriages.

The passengers had taken their seats—the one lady on the box—and Sam Rice stood, chronometer held daintily between thumb and finger, waiting for the second hand to come round the quarter of a minute, while the grooms slipped the last strap of the harness into its buckle. At the expiration of the quarter of a minute, as Sam stuck an unlighted cigar between his lips and took hold of the box to pull himself up to his seat, the good-natured landlady of Piney-woods Station called out, with some officiousness:

"Mr. Rice, don't you want a match?"

"That's just what I've been looking for these ten years," responded Sam; and at that instant his eyes were on a level with the lady's on the box, so that he could not help seeing the roguish glint of them, which so far disconcerted the usually self-possessed professor of the whip that he heard not the landlady's laugh, but gathered up the reins in such a hasty and careless manner as to cause Demon, the nigh-leader, to go off with a bound that nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place. The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page—that was the lady's name—to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer the unaccountable disturbance of his pulses.

Sam had looked at the way-bill, not ten minutes before, to ascertain the name of the pretty black-eyed woman seated at his left hand; and the consciousness of so great a curiosity gratified, may have augmented his unaccustomed embarrassment. Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain and beautiful ones, to sit beside him, hundreds of times: yet this was the first time he had consulted the way-bill, on his own account, to find a lady's name. This one time, too, it had a Mrs. before it, which prefix gave him a pang he was very unwilling to own. On the other hand, Mrs. Dolly Page was clad in extremely deep black. Could she be in mourning for Mr. Page? If Demon had an unusual number of starting fits that afternoon, his driver was not altogether guiltless in the matter; for what horse, so sensitive as he, would not have felt the magnetism of something wrong behind him?

But as the mocking eyes kept hidden behind a veil, and the rich, musical voice uttered not a word through a whole half-hour, which seemed an age to Sam, he finally recovered himself so far as to say he believed he would not smoke, after all; and thereupon returned the cigar, still unlighted, to his pocket.

"I hope you do not deprive yourself of a luxury on my account," murmured the soft voice.

"I guess this dust and sunshine is enough for a lady to stand, without my smokin' in her face," returned Sam, politely, and glancing at the veil.

"Still, I beg you will smoke, if you are accustomed," persisted the cooing voice behind it. But Sam, to his praise be it spoken, refused to add anything to the discomforts of a summer day's ride across the mountains. His chivalry had its reward; for the lady thus favored, feeling constrained to make some return for such consideration, began to talk, in a vein that delighted her auditor, about horses—their points and their traits—and, lastly, about their drivers.

"I have always fancied," said Mrs. Dolly Page, "that if I were a man I should take to stage-driving as a profession. It seems to me a free and manly calling, one that develops some of the best qualities of a man. Of course, it has its drawbacks. One cannot always choose one's society on a stage, and there are temptations to bad habits. Besides, there are storms, and upsets, and all that sort of thing. I've often thought," continued Mrs. Dolly, "that we do not consider enough the hardships of drivers, nor what we owe them. You've read that poem—the Post-boy's Song:

"'Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of Fate, Forward and back I go.'

"Well, it is just so. They do bring us our letters, full of good and ill news, helping to weave the web of Fate for us; yet not to blame for what tidings they bring, and always faithful to their duties, in storm or shine."

"I shall like my profession better after what you have said of it," answered Sam, giving his whip a curl to make it touch the off-leader's right ear. "I've done my duty mostly, and not complained of the hardships, though once or twice I've been too beat out to get off the box at the end of my drive; but that was in a long spell of bad weather, when the roads was just awful, and the rain as cold as snow."

"Would you mind letting me hold the lines awhile?" asked the cooing voice, at last. "I've driven a six-in-hand before."

Though decidedly startled, and averse to trusting his team to such a pair of hands, Sam was compelled, by the psychic force of the little woman, to yield up the reins. It was with fear and trembling that he watched her handling of them for the first mile; but, as she really seemed to know what she was about, his confidence increased, and he watched her with admiration. Her veil was now up, her eyes were sparkling, and cheeks glowing. She did not speak often, but, when she did, it was always something piquant and graceful that she uttered. At last, just as the station was in sight, she yielded up the lines, with a deep-drawn sigh of satisfaction, apologizing for it by saying that her hands, not being used to it, were tired. "I'm not sure," she added, "but I shall take to the box, at last, as a steady thing."

"If you do," responded Sam, gallantly, "I hope you will drive on my line."

"Thanks. I shall ask you for a reference, when I apply for the situation."

There was then a halt, a supply of fresh horses, and a prompt, lively start. But the afternoon was intensely hot, and the team soon sobered down. Mrs. Page did not offer again to take the lines. She was overwarm and weary, perhaps, quiet and a little sad, at any rate. Mr. Rice was quiet, too, and thoughtful. The passengers inside were asleep. The coach rattled along at a steady pace, with the dust so deep under the wheels as to still their rumble. At intervals, a freight-wagon was passed, drawn to one side, at a "turn-out," or a rabbit skipped across the road, or a solitary horseman suggested alternately a "road-agent," or one of James's heroes. Grand views presented themselves of wooded cliffs and wild ravines. Tall pines threw lengthening shadows across the open spaces on the mountain-sides. And so the afternoon wore away; and, when the sun was setting, the passengers alighted for their supper at the principal hotel of Lucky-dog—a mining-camp, pretty well up in the Sierras.

"We both stop here," said Sam, as he helped the lady down from her high position; letting her know by this remark that her destination was known to him.

"I'm rather glad of that," she answered, frankly, with a little smile; and, considering all that had transpired on that long drive, Sam was certainly pardonable if he felt almost sure that her reason for being glad was identical with his own.

Lucky-dog was one of those shambling, new camps, where one street serves for a string on which two or three dozen ill-assorted tenements are strung, every fifth one being a place intended for the relief of the universal American thirst, though the liquids dispensed at these beneficent institutions were observed rather to provoke than to abate the dryness of their patrons. Eating-houses were even more frequent than those which dispensed moisture to parched throats; so that, taking a cursory view of the windows fronting on the street, the impression was inevitably conveyed of the expected rush of famished armies, whose wants this charitable community were only too willing to supply for a sufficient consideration. The houses that were not eating and drinking-houses were hotels, if we except occasional grocery and general merchandise establishments. Into what out-of-the-way corners the inhabitants were stowed, it was impossible to conjecture, until it was discovered that the men lived at the places already inventoried, and that women abode not at all in Lucky-dog—or if there were any, not more than a half a dozen of them, and they lived in unaccustomed places.

The advent of Mrs. Page at the Silver Brick Hotel naturally made a sensation. As assemblage of not less than fifty gentlemen of leisure crowded about the entrance, each more intent than the other on getting a look at the arrivals, and especially at this one arrival—whose age, looks, name, business, and intentions in coming to Lucky-dog, were discussed with great freedom. Sam Rice was closely questioned, but proved reticent and non-committal. The landlord was besieged with inquiries—the landlady, too—and all without anybody being made much the wiser. There was the waybill, and there was the lady herself; put that and that together, and make what you could of it.

Mrs. Dolly Page did not seem discomposed in the least by the evident interest she inspired. With her black curls smoothly brushed, her black robes immaculately neat, with a pretty color in her round cheeks, and a quietly absorbed expression in her whole bearing, she endured the concentrated gaze of fifty pairs of eyes during the whole of dinner, without so much as one awkward movement, or the dropping of a fork or teaspoon. So it was plain that the curious would be compelled to await Mrs. Page's own time for developments.

But developments did not seem likely to come overwhelmingly. Mrs. Page made a fast friend of the landlady of the Silver Brick, by means of little household arts peculiarly her own, and, before a fortnight was gone, had become as indispensable to all the boarders as she was to Mrs. Shaughnessy herself. If she had a history, she kept it carefully from curious ears. Mrs. Shaughnessy was evidently satisfied, and quite challenged criticism of her favorite. Indeed, there was nothing to criticise. It was generally understood that she was a widow, who had to get on in the world as best she could, and thus the public sympathy was secured, and an embargo laid upon gossip. To be sure, there were certain men in Lucky-dog, of a class which has its representatives everywhere, who regarded all unappropriated women, especially pretty women, very much as the hunter regards game, and the more difficult the approach, the more exciting the chase. But these moral Nimrods had not half the chance with self-possessed Mrs. Dolly Page that they would have had with a different style of woman. The grosser sort got a sudden conge; and with the more refined sportsmen she coquetted just enough to show them that two could play at a game of "make-believe," and then sent them off with a lofty scorn edifying to behold—to the mingled admiration and amusement of Mrs. Shaughnessy.

The only affair which seemed to have a kernel of seriousness in it, was that of Mr. Samuel Rice. Regularly, when the stage was in, on Sam's night, he paid his respects to Mrs. Page. And Mrs. Page always received him with a graceful friendliness, asking after the horses, and even sometimes going so far as to accompany him to their stables. On these occasions she never failed to carry several lumps of sugar in her pocket, which she fed to the handsome brutes off her own pink palm, until there was not one of them she could not handle at her will.

Thus passed many weeks, until summer was drawing to a close. Two or three times she had gone down to Piney-woods Station and back, on Sam's coach, and always sat on the box, and drove a part of the way, but never where her driving would excite remark. It is superfluous to state, that on these occasions there was a happy heart beneath Sam's linen-duster, or that the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were borne with smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs. Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together furnished a not unpleasing tableau of personal charms. Besides, Sam's motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary mortals—especially ordinary stage-drivers.

"I don't calkelate to drive stage more than a year or two longer," Sam said to Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return from their last trip together to Piney-woods Station. "I've got a little place down in Amador, and an interest in the Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage with vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the flowers in the front-garden."

As if Sam's heightened color and shining eyes had not sufficiently pointed this confession of his desires, it chanced that at this moment the eyes of both were attracted to a way-side picture: a cottage, a flower-bordered walk, a fair young woman standing at the gate, with a crowing babe in her arms lifting its little white hands to the sun-browned face of a stalwart young farmer who was smiling proudly on the two. At this sudden apparition of his inmost thoughts, Sam's heart gave a great bound, and there was a simultaneous ringing in his ears. His first instinctive act was to crack his whip so fiercely as to set the leaders off prancing; and when, by this diversion, he had partly recovered self-possession to glance at the face of his companion, a new embarrassment seized him when he discovered two little rivers of tears running over the crimsoned cheeks. But a coach-box is not a convenient place for sentiment to display itself; and, though the temptation was great to inquire into the cause of the tears, with a view of offering consolation, Sam prudently looked the other way, and maintained silence. The reader, however, knows that those tears sank into the beholder's soul, and caused to germinate countless tender thoughts and emotions, which were, on some future occasion, to be laid upon the alter of his devotion to Mrs. Dolly Page. And none the less, that, in a few minutes, the eyes which shed them resumed their roguish brightness, and the lady was totally unconscious of having heard, seen, or felt any embarrassment. Sentiment between them was successfully tabooed, so far as utterance was concerned, for that time. And so Sam found, somewhat to his disappointment, it continued to fall out, that whenever he got upon delicate ground, the lady was off like a humming-bird, darting hither and yon, so that it was impossible to put a finger upon her, or get so much as a look at her brilliant and restless wings. But nobody ever tired of trying to find a humming-bird at rest; and so Sam never gave up looking for the opportune moment of speaking his mind.

Meanwhile, Lucky-dog Camp was having a fresh sensation. An organized band of gamblers, robbers, and "road-agents" had made a swoop upon its property, of various kinds, and had succeeded in making off with it. The very night after the ride just mentioned, the best horses in Sam Rice's team were stolen, making it necessary to substitute what Sam called "a pa'r of ornery cayuses." To put the climax to his misfortunes, the "road-agents" attacked him next morning, when, the "ornery cayuses" becoming unmanageable, Sam was forced to surrender the treasure-box, and the passengers their bullion. The excitement in Lucky-dog was intense. A vigilance committee, secretly organized, lay in waiting for the offenders, and, after a week or two, made a capture of a well-known sporting-man, whose presence in camp had for some time been regarded with suspicion. Short shrift was afforded him. That same afternoon his gentlemanly person swung dangling from a gnarled pine-tree limb, and his frightened soul had fled into outer darkness.

When this event became known to Mrs. Dolly Page, she turned ghostly white, and then fainted dead away. Mrs. Shanghnessy was very much concerned for her friend; berating in round terms, the brutishness of people who could talk of such things before a tender-hearted lady like that. To Mr. Rice, particularly, she expatiated upon the coarseness of certain people, and the refined sensitiveness of others; and Sam was much inclined to agree with her, so far as her remarks applied to her friend, who was not yet recovered sufficiently to be visible. Indeed, Mrs. Page was not visible for so many days, that Sam's soul began to long for her with a mighty longing. At length, she made her appearance, considerably paler and thinner than was her wont; but doubly interesting and lovely to the eyes of so partial an observer as Sam, who would willingly have sheltered her weakness in his strong, manly arms. Sam, naturally enough, would never have hinted at the event which had so distressed her; but she relieved him of all embarrassment on that subject, by saying to him almost at once:

"Mr. Rice, I am told they have not buried the man they hung, so shockingly, the other day. They certainly will not leave him there?" she added, with a shudder.

"I don't know—I suppose," stammered Sam, "it is their way, with them fellows."

"But you will not allow it? You cannot allow it!"—excitedly.

"I couldn't prevent them," said Sam, quite humbly.

"Mr. Rice," and her voice was at once a command and an entreaty, "you can and must prevent it. You are not afraid? I will go with you—this very night—and will help you. Don't say you will not; for I cannot sleep until it is done. I have not slept for a week."

She looked so white and so wild, as she uttered this confession, that Sam would have been the wretch he was not, to refuse her. So he said:

"Don't you fret. I'll bury him, if it troubles you so. But you needn't go along. You couldn't; it's too far, and you're too weak,"—seeing how she trembled.

"I am not weak—only nervous. I prefer to go along. But we must be secret, I suppose? Oh!"—with a start that was indeed "nervous."

"Yes, we must be secret," said Sam; and he looked as if he did not half like the business, but would not refuse.

"You are a good man, Mr. Rice, and I thank you." And with that, Mrs. Dolly Page caught up one of his hands, and kissing it hastily, began to cry, as she walked quickly away.

"Don't cry, and don't go until I have promised to do whatever you ask, if it will make you well again," Sam said, following her to the door.

"Then call for me to take a walk with you to-night. The moon is full, but no one will observe us. They would not think of our going there,"—with another shudder—and she slipped away from his detaining hand.

That evening Mr. Samuel Rice and Mrs. Page took a walk by moonlight. Laughing gossips commented on it after their fashion; and disagreeable gossips remarked that they came home very late, after their fashion. But nobody, they believed, saw where they went, or what they did. Yet those two came from performing an act of Christian charity, each with a sense of guilt and unworthiness very irritating to endure, albeit from very different causes. One, because an unwelcome suspicion had thrust itself into his mind; and the other——

The ground of Sam's suspicion was a photograph, which, in handling the gambler's body somewhat awkwardly, by reason of its weight—Mrs. Page had found, at the last, she could not render any assistance—had slipped from some receptacle in its clothing. A hasty glance, under the full light of the moon, had shown him the features of the lady who sat twelve paces away, with her hands over her face. It is not always those that sin who suffer most from the consciousness of sin; and Sam, perhaps, with that hint of possible—nay, almost certain—wickedness in his breast-pocket, was more burdened by the weight of it than many a criminal about to suffer all the terrors of the law; for the woman that he loved stood accused, if not convicted, before his conscience and her own, and he could not condemn, because his heart refused to judge her.

When the two stood together under the light of the lamp in the deserted parlor of the Silver Brick Hotel, the long silence which, by her quick perceptions, had been recognized as accusing her, upon what evidence she did not yet know, was at length broken by Sam's voice, husky with agitation.

"Mrs. Page," he said, assuming an unconscious dignity of mien and sternness of countenance, "I shall ask you some questions, sometime, which you may not think quite polite. And you must answer me: you understand. I'm bound to know the truth about this man."

"About this man!" Then he suspected her of connection with the wretched criminal whose body had only just now been hidden from mocking eyes? How much did he suspect? how much did he know? Her pale face and frightened eyes seemed to ask these questions of him; but not a sound escaped her lips. The imploring look, so strange upon her usually bright face, touched all that was tender in Sam's romantic nature. In another moment he would have recalled his demand, and trusted her infinitely; but in that critical moment she fainted quite away, to his mingled sorrow and alarm; and Mrs. Shaughnessy being summoned, Sam received a wordy reprimand for having no more sense than to keep a sick woman up half of the night; smarting under which undeserved censure, he retired, to think over the events of the evening.

The hour of departure from Luckydog, for Sam's coach, was four o'clock in the morning; and its driver was not a little surprised, when about to mount the box, to discover Mrs. Page waiting to take a seat beside him. After the adventure of the previous night, it was with some restraint that he addressed her; and there was wanting, also, something of his cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room for the lady between himself and the driver, if she insisted upon an outside seat.

But Mrs. Page did not insist. She whispered Sam to open the coach-door, and quietly took a seat inside; and Sam, with a sense of irritation very unusual with him, climbed reluctantly to his place, giving the "cayuses" the lash in a way that set them off on a keen run. By the time he had gotten his team cooled down, the unusual mood had passed, and the longing returned to hear the sweet voice, and watch the bright eyes that had made his happiness on former occasions. Puzzled as he was, and pained by the evidence he possessed of her connection, in some way, with the victim of lynch-law, that seemed like a dream in the clear, sunny air of morning, while the more blissful past asserted its claim to be considered reality. Not a lark, warbling its flute-notes by the way-side, not a pretty bit of the familiar landscape, nor glimpse of brook, that leaped sparkling down the mountain, but recalled some charming utterance of Mrs. Dolly Page, as he first knew her; as he could not now recognize her in the pale, nervous, and evidently suffering woman, sitting, closely veiled, inside the coach.

Occupied with these thoughts, Sam felt a disagreeable shock when the outside passenger—in a voice that contrasted roughly with that other voice which was murmuring in his ear—began a remark about the mining prospects of Lucky-dog.

"Some rich discoveries made in the neighborhood, eh? Did you ever try your luck at mining?"

"Waal, no. I own a little stock, though," answered Sam, carelessly.

"In what mine?"

"In the Nip-and-tuck."

"Good mine, from all I hear about it. Never did any prospecting?" asked the stranger, in that tone which denotes only a desire to make talk, with a view to kill time.

"No," in the same tone.

"That's odd," stuffing a handful of cut tobacco into his mouth. "I'd have sworn 'twas you I saw swinging a pick in the canon east of camp last night."

"I'm not much on picks," Sam returned, with a slowness that well counterfeited indifference. "I was visiting a lady last evening, which is a kind of prospecting more in my line."

"Yes, I understand; that lady inside the coach. She's a game one."

"It strikes me you're devilish free in your remarks," said Sam, becoming irritated again.

"No offense meant, I'm sure. Take a cigar? We may as well talk this matter over calmly, Mr. Rice. You see it's ten to one that you are implicated in this business. Been very attentive to Mrs. Page. Made several trips together. Let her handle your horses, so she could take them out of the stable for them thieves. Buried her thieving, gambling husband for her. You see the case looks bad, anyway; though I'm inclined to think you've just been made a tool of. I know she's a smart one. Tain't often you find one smarter."

Sam's eyes scintillated. He was strangely minded to pitch the outside passenger off the coach. The struggle in his breast between conviction and resistance to conviction amounted to agony. He could not, in that supreme moment, discriminate between the anger he felt at being falsely accused, and the grief and rage of being so horrible disillusioned. Their combined anguish paled his cheeks, and set his teeth on edge: of all of which the outside passenger was coolly cognizant. As they were, at that moment, in sight of the first station, he resumed.

"Let her get up here, if she wants to; I can ride inside. I don't want to be hard on her; but mind, if you breathe a word to her about my being an officer, I'll arrest you on suspicion. Let every tub stand on its own bottom. If she's guilty, you can't help her, and don't want to, either; if she's innocent, she'll come out all right, never fear. Are you on the square, now?"

"Have you got a warrant?" asked Sam, in a low tone, as he wound the lines around the break, previous to getting down.

"You bet! but I'm in no hurry to serve it. Piney-woods station 'ill do just as well. Telegraph office there."

Mr. Rice was not in any haste this morning, being, as he said, ahead of time. He invited Mrs. Page to take her usual place on the box, telling her the gentleman had concluded to go inside; and brought her a glass of water from the bar. While he was returning the glass, the passengers, including him of the outside, being busied assuaging their thirst with something stronger than water, a rattle of wheels and a clatter of hoofs was heard, and, lo! Mrs. Dolly Page was discovered to be practicing her favorite accomplishment of driving six-in-hand!

When the "outside" recovered from his momentary surprise, he clapped his hand on the shoulder of Mr. Rice, and said, in a voice savage with spite and disappointment:

"I arrest you, sir."

"Arrest and be d——d!" returned Sam. "If you had done your duty, you'd have arrested her while you had the chance."

"That's so—your head is level; and if you'll assist me in getting on to Piney-woods station in time to catch the run-away—for she can't very well drive beyond that station—I'll let you off."

"You'll wait till I'm on, I reckon. My horses can't go on that errand, and you darsn't take the up-driver's team. Put that it your pipe and smoke it, old smarty!"—and Sam's eyes emitted steel-blue lightnings, though his face wore a fixed expression of smiling.

Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that horses might be procured a mile back from the station; and, while the baffled officer, and such of the passengers as could not wait until next day, went in pursuit of them, Sam mounted one of the "cayuses," and made what haste he could after the coach and Wells, Fargo & Company's express-box. Within a mile or less of Piney-woods Station, he met the keeper, the grooms, and an odd man or two, that chanced to have been about the place, all armed to the teeth, who, when they saw him, halted in surprise.

"Why, we reckoned you was dead," said the head man, with an air of disappointment.

"Dead?" repeated Sam. "Have you seen my coach?"

"That's all right, down to the station; and the plucky gal that druv it told us all about the raid the 'road-agents' made on you. Whar's the passengers? any of 'em killed?"

"Passengers are all right. Where is Mrs. Page?"

"She cried, an' tuk on awful about ye; an' borrered a hoss to ride right on down the road to meet the other stage, an' let 'em know what's up."

"She did, did she?" said Sam, very thoughtfully. "Waal, that is odd. Why, she ran away with my team—that's what she did; and it's all a hoax about the 'road-agents.' The passengers are back at the other station."

Sam had suddenly become "all things to all men," to a degree that surprised himself. He was wrong about the horse, too, as was proven by its return to its owner four days after. By the same hand came the following letter to Mr. Samuel Rice:

"DEAR MR. RICE: It was so good of you! I thank you more than I can say. I wish I could set myself right in your eyes, for I prize your friendship dearly—dearly; but I know that I cannot. It has not been all my fault. I was married to a bad, bad man, when I was only fifteen. He has ruined my life; but now he is dead, and I need not fear him. I will hereafter live as a good woman should live. The tears run down my cheeks as I write you this farewell—as they did that day when I saw that sweet woman and her babe at the farm-house gate; and knew what was in your thought. Heaven send you such a wife. Good-bye, dear Mr. Rice, good-bye.

"DOLLY PAGE!"

There are some men, as well as women, in this world, who could figure in the role of Evangeline, who have tender, loyal, and constant hearts. Such a one was the driver of the Lucky-dog stage. But, though he sat on that box for two years longer, and scrutinized every dark-eyed, sweet-voiced lady-passenger who rode in his coach during that time, often with an intense longing for a sight of the face he craved—it never came. Out of the heaven of his life that star had vanished forever, and nothing was left him but a soiled photograph, and a tear-stained letter, worn with frequent folding and unfolding.



EL TESORO.

"Wimmen nater is cur'us nater, that I'll allow. But a feller kind o' hankers arter 'em, fur all that. They're a mighty handy thing to hev about a house."

The above oracular statement proceeded from the parched and puckered lips of Sandy-haired Jim—one of the many "hands" employed on the immense Tesoro Rancho, which covered miles of valley, besides extending up on to the eastern flank of the Coast Range, and taking in considerable tracts of woodland and mountain pasture. Long before, when it acquired its name, under Spanish occupancy, there had been a rumor of the existence of the precious metals in the mountains which formed a portion of the grant; hence, its name, Tesoro, signifying treasure. All search for, or belief in, gold mines, had been abandoned, even before the land came into the possession of American owners, and now was only spoken of in the light of a Spanish legend; but the name was retained, partly as a geographical distinction of a large tract of country, though it was sometimes called the Edwards Ranch, after its present proprietor, and after the American fashion of pronunciation.

John Edwards had more than once said, in hearing of his men, that he would give half the proceeds of the mine and an interest in the ranch, to any one who would discover it and prove it to be of value; a remark which was not without weight, especially with the herders and shepherds, whose calling took them into the mountains a considerable portion of the year. But as the offer of the proprietor never seemed to assume the air of a business proposition, the men who might have been inflamed by it with a prospecting fever, held in check their desire to acquire sudden riches, and never looked very sharp at the "indications," which it was easy sometimes to imagine they had found. But that is neither here nor there with Sandy-haired Jim, who was not a cattle-herder, nor yet a shepherd, but farmer or teamster, as the requirement was, at different seasons of the year.

He was expressing himself concerning John Edwards' sister, who, just one year ago, had come to set up domesticity in the house of her brother; whereas, previous to her advent, John had "bach'd it" on the ranch, with his men, for four or five years. Jim, and the chum to whom his remarks were addressed, were roosting on a fence, after the manner of a certain class of agriculturists, hailing usually from Missouri, and most frequently from the county of Pike.

The pale December sunshine colored with a soft gold the light morning haze which hung over the valley in which lay the Tesoro Rancho. In spite of the year of drought which had scorched up the grain-fields, and given a character of aridity to the landscape, it had a distinctive soft beauty of tint and outline, seen in the favoring light we have mentioned. Of all the fascinating pictures we remember to have seen, the most remarkable was one of a desert scene, with nothing but the stretches of yellow sand and the golden atmosphere for middle distance and background, and, for a foreground, a white tent, with camels and picturesquely costumed Arabs grouped before it. There was the sense of infinite distance in it which is so satisfying to the mind, which the few figures and broken lines intensified; and there was that witching warmth and mellowness of coloring which does not belong to landscapes where green and gray hues predominate.

Having said thus much about a picture, we have explained why Californian views, even in our great, almost treeless valleys, grow so into our hearts and imaginations, after the first dash of disappointment at not finding them like the vernal vales of New England or central New York. But Tesoro Rancho was not treeless. Great spreading oaks furnished just the necessary dark-green tones in the valley landscape; and the mountain-sides had multifarious shades of color, furnished by rocks and trees, by shadows, and by the atmosphere itself.

It was no wonder, then, that sandy-haired Jim, sitting on a rail-fence, in an attitude more curious than graceful, cast his glance often unconsciously over the far valley-reaches, and up the mountain-sides, with a dim perception of something pleasant in the view which his thought took no cognizance of. In fact, for the last minute or two, his gaze had been a silent one; and any observer might have pondered, considering the sharpness of the perch beneath him, whether he might not be making up his mind to descend from it as soon as his slow-working mentality had had time to convey the decision of his brain to his muscles.

At all events, that was what he did in answer to our mental query, taking up the thread of his discourse where it was broken off, as follows:

"Miss Edwards, neow (thar she is, a-comin down from the mount'in, with her arms full of them 'zalias she's so fond of), she's a mighty peart kind of a gal, and wuth a heap more to keep a man's house in good shape than one o' them soft-lookin' Chinee. Them's my sentiments."

"That's so," responded his chum, seeming constitutionally disinclined to a longer sentence.

"John Edwards has tuk to dressin' hisself nicer, and fixin' up the place as he didn't used to when he bach'd it, I can tell ye! When I see her bringin' her pianny, and her picturs, and books, and sich like traps, I just told myself, 'Neow, John Edwards has got a pretty passel of trash on his hands, I veow.' And I ment her as well as the other fol-de-rols. But, you bet your life, she's got more sense, two to one, than ary one of us! It was a lucky day for Edwards when she came onto this ranch, sure's you're born."

What further this equally philosophical and devoted admirer of Miss Edwards might have said on this, to him, evidently interesting topic, had he not been interrupted, will never be known. For the lady herself appeared upon the scene, putting an end to her own praises, and discovering to us, upon nearer view, that she added youth and grace, if not absolute beauty, to her other qualities.

Checking the rapid lope of her horse, as she came near where the men were standing, in attitudes of frank, if awkward, deference, she saluted them with a cheerful "Good-morning," and drew rein beside them.

"Take Brownie by the head, and walk a little way with me, if you please, James. I have something I wish to say to you," was the lady's low-voiced command. A certain flush and pleased expression on honest Jim's ruddy countenance reminded her instantly of the inherent vanity of man, and when she next addressed her attendant it was as "Mr. Harris," for such, indeed, was the surname of our lank Missourian, though not many of his associates had ever heard it.

"How long have you been on this place, Mr. Harris?"

"Near onto six year, Miss Edwards," replied Jim.

"Did you know Mr. Charles Erskine, my brother's former partner?"

"Just as well as I know your brother, Miss."

"What became of him, after he left this place?"

"I couldn't rightly say, miss. Some said he went to the mines, up in Idaho, and other folks said they'd seen him in 'Frisco: but I don't know nary thing about him."

"He must be found, Mr. Harris. Do you think you could find him, if I were to send you on such a mission? It is a very important one, and it is not every one I would intrust it to."

The flush and the pleased look returned to Jim's face. "I'd do the best I could, miss; and, mebbe, I'd do as well as another."

"That is what I was thinking, Mr. Harris. You have been a long time here, and you are prompt and capable about your own business; so I concluded I could trust you with mine. I am sure I was quite right."

Jim was going on to "swar she was," when Miss Edwards interrupted him, to enlighten him further as to the requirements of "her business:" "I do not wish my brother to know what errand I send you on. They had a dreadful quarrel once, I believe; and he might not agree with me as to the wisdom of what I am about to do. It will, therefore, be necessary for you to ask John's permission to go on a visit to San Francisco, as if it was for yourself you were going. The drought has left so little to do that you can be spared, without embarrassment, until the rains begin. I am going to have a grand festival at Christmas, and I would like you to be home before that time. I will explain further when you have got John's consent to your absence. Come to the house after, and ask if I have any commission for you."

When Miss Edwards cantered off, leaving him alone in the road, Jim was in a state of pleased bewilderment, not unmixed with an instinctive jealousy.

"I do wonder, neow, what she wants with Charlie Erskine. He was a powerful nice feller, and smart as lightnin'; but, somehow, he an' Edwards never could hitch hosses. Erskine allus went too fast for steady John, an' I doubt ef he didn't git him into some money troubles. I'd like to know, though, what that girl's got to do about it. Wonder ef she knowed him back in the States. Wimmen is cur'us, sure enough."