It was all done so quickly that the miners hardly knew where they were. The guards were on the run, and a troop of cavalry, with a solid front, stood facing the yelling, yet terrified, mob of men who blockaded lower Main street. It was only a hundred against five hundred men; but it was order, discipline, authority, against disorder, tumult and a mob. All rules were forgotten, all their plans went for naught. Dan yelled in vain. O'Donnell grew red in the face as he screamed orders. "Forward, march!" rang out the captain's voice, and a hundred sabers rattled and a hundred horses started, and five hundred terror-stricken men, each forgetful of all but himself, started in a panic to retreat.

From the open door of the office, deserted at the first alarm by the guards, the imprisoned officers of the company saw the mob come surging up the street.

Before noon the Yellow Jacket was a military camp. The miners were the prisoners, disarmed, a helpless crowd, the larger part already ashamed of having been influenced by such a man as O'Donnell. Before nightfall the men had personally signed an agreement to go to work on the morrow at the old terms, and were allowed to depart to their homes. The saloons were emptied of their liquors and closed until military law should be relaxed, and the ringleaders were on their way to the county jail at Gold City.

The strike was over without bloodshed, and when the men came to their sober senses, went back to their tasks, and saw the folly of it all—saw how they had been duped by demagogues—they were grateful that somebody had dared to end the strike, and Job was the hero of the hour. The reaction that sweeps over mob-mind swept him back into his place as the idol of their hearts.

We have said the leaders of the strike were taken to Gold City. No, not all. One lay crippled and fever-stricken in Pat Rooney's shanty back of Finnegan's. Pat had found him when the mob rushed back, borne down by the men he was trying to stop, and trampled on by some of the cavalcade of horsemen as they swept up the street.

Hurried hither by Pat, Job entered the familiar hut to find himself face to face with Dan. All that long day he sat by the side of the delirious patient. The soldiers, when arresting the men, let Pat stay at Job's plea. The troop surgeon came and ordered Job away. "Sick enough yourself, without nursing this mischief-maker who's the cause of all this bad business," said he.

But no; Job would not go. Dan was bad. Dan was his enemy, but "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you," to Job meant watching by Dan Dean when his own head was aching and the fever was even then creeping upon him.

All night he sat there, bathing the head that tossed restlessly to and fro. He heard the delirious lad mutter, "Curse the pious crank! He'll get Jane yet!" then half rise, and say with a strange look in his eyes, "Stand fast, boys! Stand, ye cowards! It's justice we want!" and fall back exhausted. Yes, it was Job who stood by, praying with all his heart, as at daylight the doctor did what seemed inevitable if Dan's life was to be saved—amputated the crushed, broken right leg. Never again would he roam over the Sierras as he had when a boy. For the sins of those awful days Dan was giving part of his very life.

Once he opened his eyes and saw Job, and as he caught the meaning of it all, a queer look came over his face. Finally he muttered:

"Job, go away from me! I don't deserve a thing from you! I can stand the pain better than seein' you fixin' me!" and a hot tear stole down the blanched, hardened face.

But still Job stayed, as the delirium came back and the fever fought with the doctor for the mastery. Only when the danger line seemed past, and the noon bell was striking, Job passed out of the old shanty, up the street by the crowds of men going to the noon shift, heard the roar of the machinery, staggered in at the office door and fell across the hard floor.

They were harvesting the August hay on the Pine Tree Ranch before Job left his invalid chair on the rose-covered porch and mounted Bess for a dash down to the mill with some of his old-time vigor.



CHAPTER XIX.

"DRIFTING."

She stood in the cabin door, where the morning sunlight stole through the branches and vines and played around her head. Against the well-worn post of this plain, unpainted old hut she leaned with a far-away look in her eyes. Nineteen years ago to-day she was born here where the hills shut in Blackberry Valley and the trees roofed it over. From the stream yonder she had learned the ripple of childhood's laughter; up yonder well-worn trail she had climbed these long years, away to the great outside world—to the Frost Creek school and the Gold City church. It was over the same trail that, wearing shoes for almost the first time in her life, and attired in a black calico dress and a black straw hat which the neighbors had brought her, Jane had taken her father's rough hand, long years ago, one summer day, and followed her mother to the grave. Ten years she had done a woman's work to try and keep a home for Tom Reed.

How much longer would it be? The impulses and longings of a maiden's heart were stirring within her. Father's rough, good-natured kindness still cheered her lonely life, but the morning sun would kiss two graves in God's Acre yonder some day instead of one. The father's step was feeble and the years were going fast, and she would be alone. Alone? Ah, no, not alone, for the loving Christ was hers. Ever since the old Coyote Valley camp-meeting a new friendship, a new happiness, had come into her life. No one who knew her could doubt it. It had added to the natural frankness of her modest, unsophisticated nature a staunchness of character, a womanliness, and a nobility of soul that gave her the admiration and respect of all true hearts. Yet how few knew her! Like earth's rarest flowers, Jane Reed's life blossomed in this hidden dell unknown to the great world. She had the love of Christ in her soul, and yet she longed, she knew not why, for some strong human love to fill to its completeness the fullness of her heart.

So she stood that morning dreaming of love—the old, old dream of life. And who should it be? One of two, of course. No others had ever come close enough to pay court at the portal of her soul. Job or Dan—Dan or Job? Sooner or later her life must be linked with one or the other. Dan cared for her. How often he had said it!—almost till it seemed commonplace. But she had never said yes; yet somehow she enjoyed the thought that somebody cared for her, even if it was poor Dan. She was at his bedside yesterday, down in the long, low house at the end of Dean's Lane, where they had brought him home from the Yellow Jacket. She had heard of it all at once—that Job was dangerously sick at the ranch, and Dan was crippled for life at the lane. She wanted to go to Job. Her eyes filled as they told her of his heroism. What a brave fellow! She brushed away the dust from the secret shrine in her heart and worshiped him anew.

She wanted to go to him. But what would he say? How forward, how unwomanly it would seem! Did he ever think of her? Ah! sometimes she thought so! But he was beyond her now; she could not go to him. But Dan would expect it. Poor Dan! He needed somebody to say a kind word. So she had gone. She had bathed his aching head; she had told him she was praying for him; she had left with him the blossoms picked at her door.

Dan or Job—which should it be? In the doorway she stood dreaming till the sun was between the tree-tops, and looked straight down the trail. All day at her tasks she dreamed on. Twice she took her bonnet and thought she would go to Job; then she hung it away again. There they stood at the doorway of her soul—Dan, crippled, helpless, selfish; a poor, wild, wandering boy. Job, strong, brave, the soul of honor, the manliest of men, a Christian in all that word means in a young man's life—her ideal.

There they stood on the threshold of her heart; and, lingering at sundown in the same old doorway, the tears filling her eyes, she took them both in—Dan to pity, comfort, cheer; Job to honor and to love. Job was hers; perhaps he would never know it, but that day she gave him the best a woman has—her first love.



CHAPTER XX.

ACROSS THE MONTHS.

The next two years came and went in Grizzly county without any events to be chronicled in the city press—no strikes or rich finds or stirring deeds; yet they were years that counted much in some lives.

Job went back to the mines, no longer behind the pay window, but as assistant superintendent. Never had so young a man had so responsible a place at the Yellow Jacket. The negotiations and intercourse with the outside world, and the complicated plans of a great company, were not his task. He was the soul of the mine. His it was to deal with the "hands," and stand between them and that intangible, soulless thing men call a corporation. He was the prophet of the company and priest pleading the needs of five hundred men at the doors of the directors. There was nothing in the laws of the company defining his position, and he could hardly have defined it himself. He only knew that he was there to make life a little brighter, home a little more sacred, the friction of business a little less, the higher part of manhood more valuable, to five hundred hard-working men of all creeds and races that lived on the bare mountain-side about the Yellow Jacket mine.

It was marvelous the changes that came. Personal influence and social power told as the days went by. The saloon-keepers felt it and grumbled, but the assistant superintendent was too great a favorite for them to dare say much. The Sunday work ceased. Every improvement for bettering the conditions under which the men worked was put in—better air-pumps; a large shaft-house with dressing-rooms for the men, to save them from going out while heated, to be exposed to winter's cold; a hospital for the sick; lower prices at the company's store; Finnegan's saloon enlarged and fitted up as a temperance club-house, with not a drop of liquor, but plenty of good cheer. More than once on Sundays Job talked to the men on eternal themes, from a spot where, on a never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, he had once faced a mob.

At last the company built a large, plain, attractive church, and the miners insisted on Job's being the "parson." But he firmly declined the honor. Yet he had his say about that church. He felt a wee bit of pride when, crowded to the doors with Scandinavians, Irishmen, Mongolians, Englishmen and Americans, with the Mexican and stalwart Indian not left out, he saw the preacher on the Frost Creek circuit and the priest from Gold City ascend the pulpit to dedicate it. It was to be for all faiths that point heavenward, all ethics that teach the mastery of self, all creeds that exalt Jesus Christ, all religions that really bind back to God. The company had said it; and the men knew that that meant Job.

It was a strange service. The Catholic choir sang "Adeste Fideles," and they all bowed and said the prayer of prayers. Some said "Our Father" and some "Paternoster," and they all meant the same. Job felt a strange thrill in his soul as all in the great audience joined in the last reverent "Amen." Both clergymen spoke, and when the preacher named the Savior, the Catholics crossed themselves; and when the priest said "Blessed Jesus," the Methodists responded "Amen." Both men caught the spirit of the hour; bigotry, creeds, conventionalities, were forgotten. They were face to face with hungry souls; with men who knew little of theology and ecclesiasticism, but much of actual life. God, sin, manhood, eternity, seemed very real to those speakers that day, and they made it plain to the tear-stained, sin-scarred faces that looked into theirs. When at last it was over and the priest had said "Dominus vobiscum" and the parson said "amen," Job slipped out of the rear door to escape the crowd and to pray for the Yellow Jacket and its five hundred men, while a voice whispered to his soul, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."

These years had made great changes in Andrew Malden. Since that night-watch at Pine Tree Ranch, he had been a different man. Tony and Hans felt it; the mill men commented on it; the world of Gold City began to realize that the master of Pine Tree Mountain possessed a heart. The old town had more public spirit than for years, and everybody knew that it was "Judge" Malden, inspired by a life close to his own, who was back of all the improvements. But not everybody was pleased with his influence in public matters, and when the Board of Supervisors one spring refused to renew the license of the Monte Carlo, and passed an ordinance against gambling, all the baser element in Gold City united in bitter hatred against the one who they knew possessed the political power that brought these things to pass.

From that day Grizzly county saw an immense struggle for supremacy between righteousness and vice, in the persons of the two political leaders, Andrew Malden and "Col. Dick." Col. Dick was the most clerical-looking man in the community. Always dressed in immaculate white shirt, long coat and white tie, with his smooth face and piercing black eyes, no stranger would have dreamed, as he received his polite bow on the street, that this was the most notorious character in Grizzly county, the manipulator of its politics, the proprietor of its worst haunt, the most heartless man who ever stood behind a bar in a mining camp. But Richard Lamar—or, as all familiarly knew him, Col. Dick, in honor of his traditional war record—was all this. For nearly twenty years he had stood coolly behind that bar mixing drinks and planning politics. All men feared him. Only one man ever refused to drink with him, so far as is known, and then everybody who could, steered clear of jury duty on that case, and those who could not escape pronounced his death due to heart-failure.

The election the next year was the most hotly contested ever held in the county. Job used all the personal influence he had in the Yellow Jacket; Andrew Malden himself personally canvassed every house in the county where there was the slightest hope. Tony said, "Bress de Lawd! guess de old Marse and de gray team done gone de rounds, an' ebery dog in de county knows 'em!"

Dan, poor Dan, limping through the crowd on crutches, was Col. Dick's chief lieutenant, and used with the utmost shrewdness the "cash" which the saloon interest placed at his disposal. He knew by election day the price of every salable vote in the county. The night before election excitement ran high; a scurrilous sheet came out with cartoons of Andrew Malden and "Gambler Teale's kid." All the hard things that could be said were said. That night, before an audience that filled the old church and hung on the windows and packed the steps, Job made a speech which thrilled the souls of them all. He told his life story; told of what rum had done for him and his, told of Yankee Sam and the scene at his death, till hardened men wiped away the tears. No cut-and-dried temperance lecture was his. He talked of life as all knew it, of Gold City and facts no one could deny; talked till waves of deepest emotion passed over the crowd like the wind over grain on the far-reaching prairies. The meeting broke up with cheers and hisses, and men went out to face a fight at the polls that was talked of for many a long day afterward.

The ringing of the old church bell at dark on election day, the cheers sounding everywhere up and down the streets, the sour, scowling faces of Col. Dick and Dan as they slunk down the alley and in back of the Monte Carlo, told a story which thrilled the hearts of good citizens—that righteousness and good government had won.

That night, between midnight and dawn, Andrew Malden's lumber mill went up in flame and smoke. Who did it? No one knew; no one doubted. The north wind was blowing, and the mill hands worked vigorously, worked heroically—it meant bread and butter to them—but they could not save it. Only great heaps of ashes, twisted iron, a lone smoke-stack and great piles of ruined machinery, were left to tell the story, where for many years the whirl of industry had made music beside Pine Tree Creek.

Yet the man who had once sworn to shoot his enemy at sight uttered no complaint or showed the least spirit of revenge. He came and stood in the night air and watched the flames lick up the old mill, stood with the ruddy glow lighting up his furrowed face, and with never a word turned and went home.

Dan was drifting further and further into the downward life; and yet, strange to say, it had lost its charm for him. That night when the election failed and Col. Dick scored him for not doing his best, he parted company with the Colonel and the Monte Carlo. More and more strongly two passions ruled his life. One was love for Jane Reed; the love of a man conscious of his own utter badness for that holy life he secretly envies and outwardly scorns. The other was hatred for Job Malden, who, ever since he came upon the stage in the long ago, had stood between Daniel Dean and all his ambitions.

So the world moved on, the world of Grizzly county, hid away among the grand old mountains and lofty pines of the Sierras. Impulses were passing into deeds; actions and thoughts were crystallizing into character—character that should endure when the pines had passed into dust, when the mountains had tottered beneath the hand of the Creator, when earth itself had sunk into endless space and the story of Gold City had forever ended.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE YOSEMITE.

"Well, Bess, old girl, we're off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag."

Job had left the Yellow Jacket forever. The years were beginning to tell on the strong man of Pine Tree Mountain and Job was needed at home. So he had come. Standing one night on Lookout Point, watching the setting sun gild the far-off crown of El Capitan, he had resolved that before its glow once more set on the monarch's brow, he would mount Bess and be off to see again the sights on which old El Capitan had looked down for innumerable centuries. Perhaps the knowledge that Jane was there camping with her invalid father, who fancied that a summer in the valley would make his life easier, had something to do with the decision.

It was on one of those beautiful mornings in the California mountains which come so often and yet are always a rare, glad surprise, that Job, mounted on Bess, went singing down through the pasture gate, down past the charred ruins of the mill, past the familiar entrance to Dean's Lane, on toward the Frost Creek road and Wawona. It was a very familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot of tourists up to the Wawona Hotel, sprang off Bess, turned her over to a hostler and went into the office to register for the night.

That load of tourists furnished ample amusement for Job all that summer evening. He had read of such people, but this was the first time he had ever met them. There was the fat man, jovial and happy, always cracking a joke, who shook the dust off what had been that morning, before he began a ride of more than forty miles by stage, a respectable coat, and laughed merrily till it nearly choked him. There was the tall dude, with wilted high collar and monocle on his right eye, drawling about this "Bloomin' dirty country, don'cher know." Striding up and down the veranda with a regular tread that shook the long porch, with clerical coat buttoned up to the throat, and high silk hat which was not made for stage travel, was Bishop Bowne. His temper seemed unruffled by the vexations of the day as he remarked, "Magnificent scenery. Makes me think of Lake Como, only lacks the lake. Regular amphitheater of mountains. Reminds one of the Psalmist's description of Jerusalem." Darting here and there, trying to get snap-shots, were two "kodak fiends," two city girls who pointed the thing at you, bungled over it, reset it, pressed the button, and giggled as they flew off. They fairly bubbled over with delight as they saw Job, and debated how much to offer to get him to sit for a scene of rustic simplicity out by the toll-gate.

But Job was too busy to notice. He was being systematically interviewed by the fat, fussy woman in black who was asking him, "S'pose you've seen Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and Colorado Springs? Great place; we spent a whole half day there. No? Been to Monterey, of course, round the drive? We did it! Foggy, couldn't see a blessed thing; but it's fine; had to do it. What! never been there? Too bad, young man. Oh, there's nothing like doing the world. I've seen Paris, Rome, the Alps, Egypt. Oh, my! I couldn't tell how much! Sarah Bell, she knows; she's got it down in her note-book. Dear me! I must go and see what time we can start back for this place over there—what do you call it? Some Cemet'ry?"

"Yosemite," suggested Job.

"Oh, yes, Yosemitry. We ought to go right back to-morrow. We've got to do Alaska in this trip, or we'll never hear the end of it when we get back East. Nothing like doing the world, young man," said she, as she adjusted her bonnet and eye-glasses and hurried off to the office, where he heard her an hour later lamenting, "Sarah Bell, we have got to stay a whole precious day in that Cemet'ry before we can go back!"

It was late when the babble of voices died away, the stars kept watch through the tall pines of Wawona, and Job fell asleep to the piping of the frogs in the pond back of the hotel and the pawing of horses in the long barn across the square.



"Inspiration Point!" called out the driver, as Job pulled up Bess the next day alongside the stage as it stood on the summit of that spot where the road from Wawona, which for miles has climbed up through the forest past Chinquapin and many a stage station, climbs still higher through the rare air of seven thousand feet, and then hurries down through the leaves of the trees, turns a bend and emerges in full view of the grand Yosemite.

There it lay in all its grandeur—the unroofed temple of God, Nature's great cathedral. Three thousand feet down, level as the floor, sunk beneath the surrounding mountains which stretched away to right and left in a gigantic mass, it lay clothed in a carpet of green grass and trees so far below that they seem to merge into one. Cut by a silvery stream that winds lazily amid the Edenic beauty, as if loath to be away, the valley a mile wide stretches back for nearly six miles, and then is lost to view as it wanders around the jutting peaks of the Three Sisters and climbs on for five more miles to the falls of the Merced, as they come tumbling down from the region of perpetual snow to that of perpetual beauty.

To the left is old El Capitan, three thousand feet high, and with width equal to height and depth to width—a mountain of solid rock. Well did the Bishop lift his hat, and, standing in silent awe, at last say, "The judgment throne of God." Far beyond it the silvery line of the Yosemite Creek reached the straight edge of the cliff and shot down twenty-six hundred feet. To the right, Bridal Veil Falls, a tiny brooklet it seemed in the distance, winding down a mountain meadow, looking frightened a moment at the edge of the cliff, leaping over into spray, caught up and transfigured by the afternoon sun, as it fell on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Beyond it, Cathedral Rocks, the Three Sisters and a mass of jutting summits stretching ever on till they were lost to view. Beyond and between them all, between and back, El Capitan and the Sentinel Peak, looming up, as the Bishop said, like "the sounding-board of the ages." From far away rose the Half Dome, at whose feet the famous little lake mirrors again and again the morning sun as it drives away the shadows of night from this home of the sublime.

Job instinctively bared his head and found himself repeating, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God."

Just then the silence was broken by the voices in the stage. "Ain't it pretty?" said the giggler. "Well, now, is that the Cemet'ry? Do tell! Driver, you're sure we can go back to-day? We've seen it now!" said the fussy woman. The practical man was asking the driver for minute statistics and copying them down in his book, the dude was yawning and hoping there would be a dance at the hotel, while the Bishop got out and, walking away from the rest, stood and looked and looked and looked, till Job heard him intoning in a voice in keeping with the grandeur of the scene, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."

Job stayed behind as the stage rattled down the side of the mountain, tethered Bess by a big cedar, lay in a grassy nook and looked down, down, where the Merced abutted the base of El Capitan and tumbled down the narrow canyon that leads from the valley far below to the plains. All the reverence of his soul, all that was noble and lofty in him, rose as he gazed upon the scene. The littlenesses, the meannesses of the world, were left far behind. Like Moses of old, he was in the cleft of the mountains and the glory of Jehovah lay stretched out before him.

It was toward sunset when he reached the floor of the valley and walked Bess across the three bridges that span the branches of the Bridal Veil Creek, saw the bow of promise in the misty spray that seemed to ever hang in mid-air against the cliffs, galloped down the Long Meadow, past the Valley Chapel, and pulled up at the Sentinel House for the night.

That night the silver gleam of the Yosemite itself looked in at his window, as the new moon shone on its waters falling from the endless heights above, and the ripple of those waters soothed him to sleep as they rolled past his door, under the bridge and away down the valley.

* * * * *

In a most romantic little spot just across the bridge near the Falls of the Yosemite, and where the icy creek hides itself in bushes and reappears under the bridge, stood an abandoned Indian wick-i-up, half hid among the saplings. Here, throwing flap-jacks into the air with a toss over a crackling camp-fire, singing merrily, Job found Jane the next morning as he was roaming the valley in the early hours on Bess' back. It was a genuine surprise. She was not expecting him, even if she had dreamed of him all night. Her first impulse was to express with childish glee her real delight, but her very joy made her reserved. She restrained herself lest she should display her real feelings. She was glad to see him, of course; her father was better, and was off getting wood for the fire. Were the folks all well? Had he seen Dan lately? (Which question cut Job deeper that he liked to acknowledge.) Would she go up to Mirror Lake after breakfast? he asked. Certainly, if father did not need her.

So a little later, leaving Bess neighing behind in the camp, up the long, dusty road Jane and Job rambled on, past the pasture and the Royal Arches, on along the river bank, and, turning away to the left, climbed on the rise of ground into that nook where the South Dome seems almost to meet the Half Dome, and stood by the glassy waters of Mirror Lake. In that early hour before the ripples had stirred the surface, this lakelet at the foot of the Half Dome was worthy of all its romantic fame. Nine times that morning Job and Jane saw the sun rise over the rounded peak of the Half Dome, as they followed slowly the shores of the lake from sun-kissed beach to shadow. Jane went into ecstasies. Was it not beautiful! What a picture! The clear-cut rocky mountain, its low edges fringed with trees, its top so bare, the blue sky and passing clouds, that bright spot which rose so quickly far back of the topmost turn of the Dome, all mirrored at their feet.

Job's esthetic nature was stirred to its depths, and he echoed Jane's adjectives. Before they reached camp she had yielded to his appeal for another walk to-morrow, perhaps to Glacier Point and home by moonlight.

That night Job took his blankets from the hotel and stole over back of the Reeds' camp, just beyond the Indian's "cache" on the gentle slope of the open valley where the great wall of Eagle Peak rises four thousand feet. Among a lot of boulders which look for all the world like tents in the twilight, there, between two great pines, he lay down to watch the moonlight fade from Glacier Point yonder across the valley, and fell asleep at last to dream of the Berkshire Hills, the winding Connecticut, and the scenes of childhood days.

It must have been three o'clock—it was dark, very dark, though the stars were shining brightly—when something awoke him. He roused to find himself striking his nose on either side in a strange manner. Fully awake, he discovered the cause. Two tribes of ants living on opposite pine trees had completed a real estate bargain that night and had decided to change homes. By some chance they found his face in their pathway, but, perfectly fearless of the giant sleeping there, had kept on their journey, passing each other on the bridge of his nose. As he woke, the tramp of myriad feet crossed that feature, the procession for the right marching over between his eyes; the procession for the left, over the point. Silently, boldly, the mighty host climbed his cheeks, surmounted the pass, and hurried down, till, with many a desperate slap, Job at last sprang up, thoroughly awake. Ants, ants, ants—millions of them! Ants in his shoes, ants running off with his hat, ants in his pockets. It was an hour before the giant had conquered the dwarfs and Job was asleep again, well out of the way of any tree.



The sun was shining in his eyes, the Indian's little black cur had come up and was barking at him from a respectful distance, and from behind a tree Job heard a girl's merry laugh, when he awoke the next morning.



CHAPTER XXII.

GLACIER POINT.

Mountains, mountains, mountains! Piled up like Titanic boulders, snow-capped and ice-bound, tumbling down from the far-off glassy sides of Mt. Lyell and Mt. Dana to the edge of that stupendous chasm. Gleaming glaciers, great ice rivers, eternal snow drifts, dark, bare, rugged peaks for a background. For a foreground, all the beauty of the valley far below you, three thousand feet or more, as, holding your breath, you gaze straight down the dizzy height from the projecting table rock. El Capitan on the left, the Yosemite Falls dancing down in three great leaps opposite; the Half Dome and Cloud's Rest off to the right, Vernal and Nevada Falls pouring their torrent over the cliffs at your side, the Hetchy-Hetchy Valley, the rolling plateau that stretches back to the perpetual snow and rising peaks behind you. All language falters here. Tongue can never describe, only the soul feels, the awfulness, the vastness, the sublimity, the stupendousness, the wild grandeur of the scene. Such is Glacier Point.

Here, speechless, overawed, and with the loftiest emotions sweeping over their souls, Job Malden and Jane Reed stood alone amid a silence broken only by the sighing of the trees back of them.

It was toward sunset of a June afternoon. For hours they had been climbing up the long, steep, winding trail that picks its way along the side of the cliff from back of the Valley Chapel toward Sentinel Peak, over the jutting point, and over the cliff's edge to this wonderful spot. Weary and foot-sore, they had reached it, only to have all thought of self overwhelmed and forgotten in that vision of visions which burst upon their eyes and souls. How long they stood there in utter silence they knew not. Time was lost in eternity. At last the tears began to trickle down Jane's cheeks and she sobbed, "It is grand, it is too grand! I have seen God! I cannot look any more!" while Job stood entranced, forgetful of Jane, forgetful of self, utterly absorbed in the consciousness of infinite power. Then he began to repeat in a solemn voice that favorite Psalm of his: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."

The saucy call of a squirrel in a tall pine near, the chill of the evening air coming down from the ice-fields, brought them at last to a consciousness of themselves. Withdrawing to a sheltered nook away from the dizzy cliff, and so hid among the trees that all view was shut off except that scene of dazzling beauty, the glitter of the setting sun on the distant Lyell glacier, Job and Jane sat down for the first real heart-to-heart talk they had ever known in their lives. They talked of the years gone by; of the outward story that the world may read, of the inner story that only the heart knows. Their theme was Christ, their mutual Friend, who had been the cheer and strength of all those years. Memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime that night. Jane talked of childhood days, of her mother's grave and Blackberry Valley, and of the old camp-meeting in Pete Wilkins' barn on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday night, when, lonely and heart-broken, she had knelt on the hard floor at the bench and whispered, "Just as I am, without one plea." Then her face brightened as she looked up and said, "Oh, Job, He came, and I was so happy! And, somehow, home has not been so lonely since then, and—I don't know; it may seem strange to you, Job—Jesus is just as real to me as you are. He is with me all the time; and, when I am tired, he says, 'Come unto me, and I will give you rest'; when father is so cross, and the tears just will come, he whispers, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. My peace I give unto you.' And he does. It comes so sweetly, and I feel so still, so rested! I know he is right beside me. Isn't it grand, Job, to feel we are His and He will always love us, and that He is so near us? It seems as if I heard His step now and He was standing by us. I know He is. I like that hymn we sang Communion Sunday—'Fade, fade, each earthly joy, Jesus is mine.'"

A moment they sat in silence, while the sun transformed the far-off glacier into a lake of glory, and then sank behind El Capitan for the night. Then Job spoke. A long while he talked. The memories of childhood; the sweet face that grew strangely white in the city of the plains and left him; the early days at Pine Tree Ranch; the steps of a downward life; that grand old camp-meeting and what it did for him—of these he spoke, and yet did not cease. The years of youth and young manhood, the bitter persecutions and temptations, the triumphs through the personal presence and help of the Master, were his theme. For the first time a human friend learned the real story of that awful night in the second tunnel and the long, long day in the lonely Gulch. The young man grew excited and stood up as he paid loving tribute to the reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it, but strode off alone. At last he came, and, sitting down, said:

"Jane, all I am I owe to Jesus Christ. The story of his love, and what he has been to me, is more wonderful than any story of fiction. 'More wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.'"



The twilight was deepening, the great mountains were fading away in the distance, the evening star was just peering over the horizon as, standing together by the iron rail that protects Table Rock—standing, as it seemed, in the choir loft of the eternities, they sang together—Job in his rich tenor, Jane in her sweet soprano:

"All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown him Lord of all."

As the moonlight stole down from the mountain summits to the edge of the further cliff and then plunged down to light the valley, Job and Jane still sat and talked. Was it strange that somehow the hidden love of long years would out that night, and, talking of life's holiest experiences and secret longings and loftiest dreams, somehow, before they knew it, they talked of love? Secrets locked in the heart's deepest chambers found voice that night. The unuttered longings of the years found language. Not as children prattle of sudden impulses, not as Job had blushed and simpered once; but with the consciousness of manhood and womanhood, and divinity within, they talked of how their lives had grown together till, in all that is holy and best, they were already one.

At last they started down the trail. It was late. The moon had crossed the sky dome of the valley and was hastening toward Eagle Peak. A peace and silence that could be felt filled the world, and found a deep response in their souls. They were going down from the Mount of Transfiguration, one with God, one with each other. Love, pure and holy, was master of their lives. A joy unspeakable filled their hearts. The culmination of the years had come. With the forests and mountains for witness, under the evening sky, with innumerable worlds looking down, with the presence of Infinite Power all about them, Jane Reed and Job Malden had, once for all, plighted their love to God and each other.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE canyon TRAIL.

It was just four days later, the day before the Fourth, that Job, mounted on Bess, rode up to Camp Comfort, as Jane called the little spot where she kept house in the open air for her father, listening to the roar of the Yosemite Falls back of her, and prepared their humble meals over the camp-fire. Job was going home; the old man would expect him on the Fourth, and that keen sense of duty which was ever stronger than his longing to linger near Jane, impelled him to go. He had come to say good-by. Old Tom Reed, sick and selfish, had been blind to the new light in Jane's eyes and did not know the secret which the birds and trees and sky had learned and seemed never to cease whispering about to Jane. He did not like Job. That pride of poverty which hates success put a gulf between him and this noble young fellow, who looked so manly as he rode up on Bess. Tom Reed liked Dan and thought, of course, that matters were settled between him and his black-eyed daughter. He felt to-day like telling this young aristocrat from the Pine Tree Ranch that it would be agreeable to both himself and Jane if he would seek other company. Only physical weakness kept him from following as Jane walked away by Job's side patting Bess' neck. She would see him to the end of the valley, she said; she did not mind the walk. Well, if she would—and what did Job want better than that?—she must mount Bess and let him walk. How pretty she looked on Bess' black back, with her shining hair and flashing eyes and ruddy cheeks! Never had she looked handsomer to Job. Close at her side he kept as Bess slowly walked down across the river bridge, past the Sentinel House, and on close to the Bridal Veil Falls.

As the rainbow in the spray, with its iridescent colors, laughed at them through the trees, Job thought of the gala day coming, when he should claim this noble girl for his bride, and an honest pride filled his heart. At the foot of Inspiration Point they tarried for a full hour, it was so hard to say good-by. How he hated to take Bess from her! At last a sudden thought came to him. She should keep Bess in the valley till the autumn days came and Jane could return home. He would go back over the Merced canyon trail, only twenty-six miles to his home; he had often wanted to try it and cross the river on Ward's cable. He could not go that way on horseback, and he would leave Bess. He would like to think of Jane and her as together. The girl protested, but she felt a secret joy. It would be next to having him. So she did not dismount, but through her tears saw Job vanish down the canyon, along the Rapids, towards the old, almost forgotten trail that leads for twenty miles by the river's roaring torrent, to where the South Fork joins the North Fork.

A sudden impulse seized her. She turned Bess' head toward the toll road and began to climb the steep three miles to Inspiration Point. Then she hunted for the Cliff Trail that leads away from the road out along the great left precipice of the canyon. She knew there must be some opening in the forest over there. She remembered it from the valley below, the day she had gone down by the Rapids. She would find it and catch one last glimpse of Job on the trail. She would wave to him, and perhaps he would see her. She had Bess, and it would not take long to return; father would not miss her.

Just as she turned into the trail a campers' wagon climbed the hill back of her and passed on over the road, but she did not notice it, she was so absorbed in her own thoughts. She must hurry. Would Job see her? Anyway she would surely see him—she would dismount and creep out to where nothing could hide her view.

* * * * *

Far below Job was already on his march homeward. With a swinging gait, and a determined will that said he must do it, though all the love in his heart said no, Job started off through the trees and on down the canyon trail. His eyes were misty and a lump was in his throat, as he caught one last glimpse of Jane. On he hurried. He was off now, and the sooner he got home the better. By rapid walking and some hard climbing he would reach Indian Bill's old cabin, ten miles down the river, by night.

He had just resolved on this, leaped over a creek stealing down far behind El Capitan, got full in sight of the roaring rapids, when he heard a step behind him and looked up to see Indian Bill himself coming. The old trapper was a well-known character in the mountains. His great brown feet looking out beneath torn blue overalls, his dark-skinned chest wrapped in a blanket of many colors, his long straight hair falling from beneath a well-worn sombrero, formed a familiar sight all over those mountains. Those feet had tramped every mountain pass and rugged trail and had climbed every lofty peak for a hundred miles about the Yosemite.

His approach was a glad surprise to Job. He could wish no better companion over that lonely trail which led along the precipitous sides of the canyon, with straight walls towering above it and steep descents reaching below to the Merced's angry waters, which dash for twenty miles over gigantic boulders with a fury unrivaled by Niagara itself.

Soon Indian Bill was driving away Job's gloom as, in his queer dialect, he told one of his trapper stories while the two swung on at regular gait, close upon each other's heels. Over the steep grades, through the deep, shaded ravines, and along the bare cliffs on that narrow trail, they went. They had gone a mile down the stream, when Job noticed something moving, high on the opposite cliff. He called his companion's attention to it, and the keen-eyed Indian said it was a horseman mounted on a black steed. Job thought of Jane, but at once said to himself that it could not be she—she was back at Camp Comfort by this time. A little later, Bill said the horse was now riderless and standing by a tree, and that a bit of something white was moving on the face of the cliff.

Just then they heard a terrible roar, and both forgot all else in the queer sensation that seized them. All the world seemed to sway before Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing of life. His feet slipped on the narrow edge of a steep cliff he was crossing, the gravel beneath gave way, and Job found himself lying at the foot of a steep incline, while a whole fusillade of stones was flying past him. A moment, and it was over, and the Indian said:

"Ugh! Heap big earthquake! Great Spirit mad! Come."

But Job could not easily come. His foot was doubled up under him and sharp pains were darting through it. Indian Bill sprang to his assistance, fairly carried him up the steep side of the precipice, from whence, fortunately for him, he had fallen on soft earth, and put him on his feet on the trail. Oh, that long walk over the jutting points, down among the boulders, and up again on places of the trail that seemed suspended between earth and sky! Every step brought a groan to Job's lips. He grew feverish and thirsty. Bill parted a bunch of almost tropical ferns which grew against the rocks, and led Job in to a place where, through the stone roof of a dark canyon, the ice-cold water trickled down drop by drop. It was well toward dusk when Job dropped exhausted on the trail, and the hardy Indian slung him over his shoulder, bore him up a narrow canyon that entered the main gorge on the right, and laid him down on his own blankets in the little wick-i-up made of twisted limbs and twigs that he called home. Soon the crackling fire warmed the water, the sprained foot was bandaged, and Job was asleep.

* * * * *

It was a strange scene on which Job opened his eyes the next morning. He was lying on a bed of cedar boughs, wrapped in an old gray blanket, and with one of many colors under him. A roof of gray and green was over him, the forest's foliage woven into a tent. Through the parted branches he could see the brown-skinned Indian bending over a ruddy fire from whence the savory odor of frying trout stole in. Through an avenue of green down the narrow canyon, he could see the morning sun shining on the waters of the Merced which tumbled over the great rocks. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain shot through his foot. Far away he heard the call of a bird, and out by the fire the weird strains of a monotonous folk-song rose in the air. Job closed his eyes and sent up a morning prayer. In it he tried to pray for Jane, but somehow could not. She was safe, he knew; probably at the fire, too, in the beautiful valley from whence those rushing waters came.

The trout breakfast was over—Bill knew where to get the beauties, and, after he had got them, knew how to cook them—when Job learned from the old trapper that he was to be his guest for a week; that not before then would he be able to continue the journey home, and that Bill would do his best to care for him till the sprained foot was well again. At first he rebelled. He must get home, he said; Andrew Malden was expecting him. But the Indian only grunted and sat in silence, as Job tried to walk and fell back upon the blankets with the realization that Bill was right.

All day the Indian pottered about in silence, fixing his traps and guns, and weaving a pair of moccasins for winter's use, while Job lay half asleep, half awake, living over again the glories of the week just closing. Toward evening the old Indian came in and sat by his guest and began to talk. Far into the night hours, while the camp-fire flashed and crackled without, he kept up his stories, till Job, intensely interested, forgot his pains and his dreams. In quaint English, shorn of all unnecessary words, Bill talked on.

First he told bear stories, finishing each thrilling passage with a significant "Ugh!" The one that roused Job most and held him transfixed was of once when he suddenly met, coming out of the forest, a giant grizzly, which rose on his monster hind feet and advanced for the death embrace. "Me fire gun heap quick, kill him all dead, he fall, hit Bill, arm all torn, blood come, me sick. Ugh!" And turning back his blanket, he showed Job the scars from the grizzly's dying blow.

Then he told tales of adventure. Of scaling the Half Dome by means of the iron pegs some daring climber had left there, and how finally, reaching the summit and lying flat, he peered over and saw himself mirrored in the lake below. He told of a wild ride down the icy slope of the Lyell Glacier; of a night, storm-bound, in the Hetchy-Hetchy, where he slept under the shelter of a limb drooping beneath the snow, with a group of frightened mountain birds for bedfellows. He told of beautiful parks far amid the solitude of the high Sierras, great mountain meadows where shy deer grazed, of crystal lakes that lay embowered in many a hidden mountain spot, of Mount Ritter's grandeur and the dizzy heights of Mount Whitney, till Job's head reeled, and he fell asleep that night dreaming of standing on the jagged, topmost summit of a lofty peak, with all the mountains going round and round below him, till he grew dizzy and fell and fell—and found himself wide awake, listening to the hoot of a distant owl and the breathing of his tawny host stretched out under the sky by the dying embers of the camp-fire.

During the next two days Job was much alone. Bill came and went on many a secret, stealthy errand to where he knew the largest, most toothsome mountain trout had their home. Busy with his own thoughts, Job lay and dreamed the long hours away.

"Make Bill feel bad. Want hear it? Ugh! Me tell it; me there. No brave; little boy. Bad day, bad day!"

It was the fourth day and Job was trying to persuade Bill to tell him about the dreadful massacre of the Yosemite in the years gone by. The fitful firelight played about the solemn face which showed never a quiver as that night Bill told the story which made Job's blood run cold.



It was in the long-gone years when the miners first came into the mountains. Living quietly in the beautiful valley to which they had given their name, his tribe dwelt. Wild children of nature, they had for many a century had the freedom of those hills. Far and wide on many a hunting expedition they had roamed, and none had said nay. But the pale-face, the greedy pale-face, came and stole the forests and creeks yonder. Twice, enraged at their depredations, the Indians had sallied forth from their homes and rent the hills about Gold City with their war-cries, then retreated to the mountain fastnesses of which the pale-face knew nothing. Once more they had gone on the war-path, and started back, to find the whites at their heels. To the very edge of the cliffs they had been followed, and their refuge was no longer a secret—the world had heard the story of the giant's chasm in the Sierras.

When they had gone up on the great meadows back of Yosemite Falls and El Capitan to live, there came a great temptation. The Mono Lake Indians, far over the pass, had stolen a lot of fine horses from the miners of Nevada. They hated the Mono Lake Indians. They watched their chance, and, while they were off on a great hunting trip, the Yosemites stole over the crest of the Sierras and brought a hundred head of horses back with them. Then the aged Indian went on without a tremor. He told how, one summer day, he was playing with the other boys around a great tree, when he heard the wild war-whoop of the Monos; he saw them coming in their war-paint, mounted on mad, rushing horses; heard the whirr of arrows about him; ran and hid in a cleft of the great rocky cliff, out of sight but not of seeing; saw his mother scalped and thrust back into the burning tepee and his father pushed headlong over the cliff; heard the death-cries of the Yosemites; saw the meadow bathed in blood; saw the end of the Yosemites; and crept down with a few survivors late that night to the valley and escaped to the whites. "'Bloody meadow,' white man call it. Him good name. Wish Mono come now—I kill! I kill!" and, with dramatic gesture that almost startled Job, the old man waved his arms and was silent.

Somehow after that the conversation drifted to religion. Bill talked of the Great Spirit, Job talked of God. The old story of the Incarnation—how this Great One came down to live among men and love us all—Job told as best he could, till the hard heart of the child of nature was touched, and he wanted to know if Job thought He loved poor Indian Bill. It was very late, when Job came back to the awful massacre, and tried to show Bill that the manly thing was not to cry, "I kill, I kill," but "I forgive."

The old man listened in silence. He walked out under the stars, then came back and sat down by Job's side and said, "Bill heap bad. Bill hate Mono Indian." Again and again he paced back and forth.

Job was almost asleep, weary with watching the heart-struggles of the wronged old man, when at last he came and said, "Boy, ask Great Spirit forgive Bill. Bill forgive Mono Indian." And there, at midnight, the love that transfigured Hebrew Peter, German Luther, English Wesley, that had changed Job Malden, transformed Indian Bill.

It was fully two weeks after the old trapper had borne him into his humble tent that one afternoon Job walked off, strong and brave, to finish his journey home. Bill saw him down to the river, where you swing across on a board hung on a cable, helped pull the return ropes that carry the novel car across, shouted as Job clambered up the other bank, "Bill heap glad! Love Mono! Love Job! Good-by!" and was off out of sight through the woods as swift and lithe as a deer, bound on another of his hunting trips far back of El Capitan.

Job saw him vanish; and, turning with a light heart and a merry song, climbed the ridge that separates the North Fork from the South Fork, fairly ran down past the old tunnels of the Cove Mine, skipped over the iron bridge, and began the steady climb of six miles home.



CHAPTER XXIV.

"GETHSEMANE."

It was evening and Tony was carrying the milk from the barn to the milk-house, when Job tripped down the trail from Lookout Point, and Shot and Carlo ran barking to meet him. A sort of momentary consciousness that Bess was not there came to him, then something that sounded like her neigh reached his ears. A shout to Tony—who in his surprise dropped the milk pail and vanished—a bound, and Job was on the veranda. He pushed open the door, and stood face to face with Andrew Malden.

The old man's face was white and deeply furrowed. He looked ten years older than when Job had seen him last, and the young man felt a sharp pang of remorse to think he had left him. Then he remembered Jane and knew he would not have missed the trip for all the world.

At sight of him Andrew Malden's face grew still whiter, he started back as if shot, and fell in a faint on the couch. Job was appalled and greatly mystified, as he dashed water into the wrinkled, haggard face.

At last the old man's eyes opened and he whispered hoarsely, "Oh, Job! Job! how could you? Once I could have believed it, but I cannot now! Oh, Job, tell me! tell me all! I'll stand by you, though you did it—you're my boy still! Oh, Job, it is awful, awful! But I knew you would come! Oh, Job! oh, Job!" he moaned.

Did what? "Awful"? "Come"? Of course he had come. It was an accident, Job explained; he did not mean to stay away.

"An accident? Oh, yes, I told them so, Job; but they won't believe it. They are coming to take my boy and—oh, I can't stand it! I won't stand it!" and Andrew Malden tottered to and fro across the room.

Was the old man insane? Had something dreadful happened? Job stood, his face growing paler, his heart sinking with an undefined fear. Then he caught the words, "Jane—dead—you!"—words that made every nerve quiver, and tortured him till he sank on his knees and begged to know the worst.

Oh, the awful story! It burned into the depths of his soul. Now it seemed like a dream, now dreadful reality. Jane was dead. Somebody had found her lifeless and still on the rocks below the cliff just around from Inspiration Point, and Bess had come home riderless. All the country was wild with excitement. Everybody was searching for him. He had done it, they said. Tom Reed had seen him go away with her, and knew there was a quarrel on hand. Dan was telling that Jane had promised to marry him, and that Job had followed her to the valley to make her break the engagement or kill her. All the evidence was against Job. They had buried her from the old church, buried her in the cemetery on the hill, outside of whose gate his father lay. Yes, Jane was dead!

Job listened and listened—all else fell unheeded on his ear. Jane was dead, his Jane, and lay beneath the pines far down the Gold City road! It was all he heard—it was all he knew. He did not stop to explain; he heard Bess neigh again, and rushed out into the shadowy night, and mounted her with only a bridle. He heeded not the old man's cries. His brain was on fire, his soul in agony. Only one thing he knew—Jane was dead and he must go to her; go as fast as Bess could fly down that road which many a dark night she had traveled.

Men standing on the steps of the Miners' Home that evening said a dark ghost went by like a flash—it was too swift for a flesh-and-blood horse and rider—and they crept in by the bar and drank to quiet their fears.

He found it at last. The fresh earth, the uplifted pine cross with the one word "Jane" on it, told the story. He left Bess to roam among the white stones and the grass, flung himself across that mound, half hid by withered flowers, and lay as if dead—dead as she who slept beneath. At last the sobs came; the tears mingled with the flowers; the heart of manhood was bleeding. Jane was dead! How had it happened? Who had done this awful thing? God or man, it mattered little to him. The dreadful fact that burned itself deeper and deeper into his soul was—Jane was dead!

Oh, that awful night! The stars forgot to shine; the trees moaned over his head; the lightnings played on yonder mountains. The thunders rolled, and he heeded them not; the rain-drops pattered now and then on the branches above, but he never knew it.

Gethsemane! Once it had seemed a strange, far-away place where the heart broke and the cup was drunk to its bitter dregs. Job had wondered what it meant. He knew now. It was here on the slopes of the Sierras. These pines were the gnarled olive trees, this was the garden of grief. Gethsemane—it had come into the life of Job Malden.

At length the first great storm of grief had spent itself, and he sat alone in the silence broken only by the far-off mutter of thunder; sat alone with his dead and his thoughts. Again, as on far Glacier Point, memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime. He was back in the old boyhood days, laughing at her dusty, tanned feet—he would kneel to kiss them now, if he could; again he was climbing Sugar Pine trail with her; he was following her and Dan out on that bitter winter night, maddened with jealousy and drink. Still the pages turned. He was kneeling by her side at the Communion table, and a voice said, "As oft as ye drink of this cup"—he was drinking of it now—the cup the Master drank in the garden's gloom. Then the sobs overcame him. Again he was still. The storm had spent its fury, the moon was struggling through the rifted clouds. He remembered Glacier Point and that immortal night, and he felt as if she was here and God was here, and he knelt and prayed, "Thy will, not mine, be done," and the angels of peace and rest came and ministered unto him.

From sheer exhaustion he finally slept. It was but the passing of a moment, and he was awake again. There in the moonlight he read, "Jane." Could he bear it? He could see her now saying good-by. Oh, it was forever, forever! Then, like a flash it came—forever? No; only a little span of life, and, at the gates of pearl, he would see her waiting to welcome him. She was there now, up where the stars were shining and the moon had parted the clouds. Her frail body was here perhaps—but Jane, his Jane, who that night at Glacier Point had said she loved him—she was there. He would be brave; he would be true to God; he would lean on the Master's arm. Jesus was left—he was with him here in the lonely graveyard, and Jane was his still for all eternity.

The young man looked up from the dark earth to the clear sky, and prayed a prayer of hope and trust and submission. Near the hour of dawn he walked out to the gate where Bess stood waiting. He mounted her—dear Bess! who alone knew the story of the awful tragedy. He patted her neck; he whispered his sorrow in her ear. And then a strange, wild thought came to him. He would not go back—he would go away to the great, outside world, never to see the mountains again. How could he ever climb Sugar Pine Hill, or go past the old school-house, or enter the old church? He would go where no gleam from sun-kissed El Capitan could reach his eye, where no associations that would remind of a life forever past could haunt his soul.

Then he remembered something—it seemed like a nightmare. They had said he did it—how, when, why, he knew not. If he went away they would think he was afraid to face them, they would believe him guilty, and the old man would be broken-hearted. Job had forgotten him—he had forgotten all but his awful sorrow. What of it? Go anyway, his heart said. Go away from this world that has been full of trial after trial for you. No matter what men think. God knows—God can take care of the old man.

There on Bess' back Job sat, while the bitter conflict within went on.

It was over at last. He turned Bess' steps toward Pine Mountain and home. He would face it all—the world's scorn, the old scenes which seemed each one to pierce anew his heart. He had been down to Gethsemane; he would climb Calvary.



CHAPTER XXV.

VIA DOLOROSA.

"I tell you he'll come! Don't say that about my boy! It was an accident—he said so—I heard him! He can explain it all. He saw it! He'll come!" were the words Job heard Andrew Malden saying as he rode up to Pine Tree Ranch in the dim light of early morning. The sheriff and his deputy had come for Job; and, maddened to find him gone, were cursing the old man and the one they sought.

Andrew Malden, quivering with excitement, tortured by a thousand fears, wondering if he would come, was defending as best he could the young man whom he loved, in this awful hour, more than ever before.

Job was close beside them before they saw him. Hitching Bess, he walked up to the door, saluted the sheriff, and calmly asked:

"Were you looking for me?"

The sight of that pale, manly face for a moment stilled the bluster of the rough officer of the law, and he almost apologized as he told Job he was under the painful necessity of taking him to the county jail to answer to the charge of homicide—the murder of a girl named Jane Reed. Job winced under the sting of the words. For a moment he felt like striking the man a blow for mentioning that sacred name; then he bit his lip, sent up a silent prayer, and said:

"Very well, sir; I will mount my horse and follow you. I know the way well."

In a flash the burly sheriff whipped the hand-cuffs upon his wrists, and said:

"Ride! Well, I guess not! You'll play none of your games on me! You will ride between me and my deputy, Mr. Dean!" And then Job discovered for the first time that Marshall Dean was eying him with a malicious grin of satisfaction.

In a moment, seated in the buckboard between the two men, with only time for a good-by to Bess, a shake of the old man's hand, and never a moment to explain that the accident he had mentioned had befallen himself, not Jane, Job Malden rode down over the Pine Tree road, handcuffed, on his way to the county jail at Gold City.

Past the Miners' Home and the Palace Hotel they drove at last. Bitter faces glared into the prisoner's, friends of other days met him with silence, and here and there a voice cried, "Lynch him!" Up past the old church where he and Jane had gone and come together; up to the door of the quaint white court house with square tower and green blinds they drove, and Job passed through the rear door, and into the narrow, dark dungeon, with only, high up, a little iron-barred window to let in light and air—a prisoner of Grizzly county, to answer for the killing of Jane Reed.

Only when he heard the sound of the bolt in the door, heard the crowd outside cheering the sheriff for his bravery in capturing the outlaw, and, seated on the narrow cot, looked around the cheerless cell with no other furniture, did a sense of what it all meant rush over him. Then the hot tears came, his head sank between his hands, and he felt that he had taken the first step up Calvary. Like a far-off murmur there came to him the words he had said in his heart on that long-ago Communion Sunday:

"Where He leads me I will follow, I'll go with Him all the way."

All the way? Ah, he was beginning to know what that meant! Then there came that other verse—how it soothed his troubled heart!

"He will give me grace and glory, And go with me all the way."

Just then the sun stole in at the little cell window, and the perpendicular and horizontal bars made the shadow of a cross on the floor, all surrounded by a flood of light. A great peace came into Job Malden's heart, as the Master whispered, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

* * * * *

All Gold City was stirred to its depths. Nothing had happened in forty years to so move the hearts of men. Business was forgotten, groups of men met and talked long on the street corners, the mining camp was deserted. There was but one theme—the tragedy of Inspiration Point. Up at the Yellow Jacket a great shadow rested over office, church and the miners' shanties. On the lowest levels of the mines, grimy men looked into each other's faces and talked in an undertone of the awful fear which they would not have the rocks and the secret places of the earth know; that "the parson" was in a murderer's cell, and the storm clouds were gathering fast about him, and the worst was, he was guilty—it must be so!

The superintendent drove his team on a run to the court house, and offered any amount of bail. This was refused, and he was denied even a look at Job. Up at the ranch, Andrew Malden neither ate nor slept. A terrible nightmare hung over him. His boy was innocent, of course he was. But oh, it was awful! The saloons were crowded, and a furtive chuckle passed around the bars. He was caged now, the one they hated, and the evil element were in high glee. O'Donnell and Dan Dean, Col. Dick and the sheriff, were the center of crowds who hung on their words, as they told the story of the crime over and over with a new force and new aspect that showed the utter hypocrisy, treachery and sin of Job.

The church was crowded. The preacher could not believe Job guilty, but he dared not say so. Tom Reed, wild with grief, pleaded with men to break open the jail and let him slay the murderer, slay him and avenge his Jane—his black-eyed, great-hearted Jane. The city reporters were busy, and the papers glowed with accounts and photographs of "the awful wretch who was safely held behind the bars of the Gold City jail." So the storm surged to and fro, so the days passed, to that dark ninth of August when the trial was to begin.

Of all the throng of men in the mountains in those days, he alone who sat in the silence of a dungeon in the old court house, was unmoved and at peace. Through the long hours he sat recalling memories of past years, living again the scenes of yesterday, which seemed to belong to another world and another life now gone forever. From his pocket he drew again and again the little Testament still fragrant with a mother's dying kiss, and felt himself as much a homeless, motherless boy as upon that long-ago night when he first saw Gold City and fell asleep on the "Palace" doorsteps. He read it over and over. It was of Gethsemane, the Last Supper and Calvary he read most. He knew now what they meant. Then he turned to the words, "What shall separate us from the love of God?" and the consciousness that God was left, that Jesus was his, was like a mighty arm bearing him up.

They asked him for his defense. He said he had none, except the fact that he knew nothing about the deed. They scorned that, and asked whom he wished for a lawyer. He had no choice—cared for none. The judge sent him a young infidel attorney, the sheriff refused him the privilege of seeing anyone, the iron gate was double-barred, and closer and closer the web of evidence was drawn about him ready for the day of the trial.

He asked for Andrew Malden, but was refused. He begged them to send for Indian Bill; they made a pretense of doing so, but the trapper was far from human reach, far up in the wilderness beyond El Capitan. All Job could do was to pray and wait, little caring what the outcome might be, little caring what might be the verdict of the world of Gold City; knowing only two things—that Jane was dead and life could never be the same to him; and that the God who looked down in tender compassion on his child shut in between those dark stone walls, knew all about it. Job had read how one like unto an angel walked in the furnace of old with God's saints; he felt, now, that the Christ came and sat by his side in those lonely prison hours.

* * * * *

It was Monday, the ninth of August. The sun's rays beat down on the dusty streets of Gold City and glared from the white walls of the court house. At ten o'clock the trial would commence—the great trial of "The State vs. Job Teale Malden." The streets were thronged with vehicles; it was like one of the old-time Sunday picnics, only saint as well as sinner was here. The Yellow Jacket had closed down by common consent of all, and hundreds of workingmen were pouring into town in stages and buckboards, on horseback and on foot. The old court house was packed to its utmost capacity; the gallery and stairs were one mass of writhing humanity. Outside, they stood like a great encampment, stretching away, filling the whole square. Still they came from Mormon Bar and Wawona—the greatest throng in the history of Grizzly county; men, women, and children in arms—all to see Job Malden tried for his life.

Through this crowd, Andrew Malden, leaning on his cane, passed in at the great door by Tony's side. The crowd was silent as he passed. Some muttered under their breath; some lifted their hats. That worn, gaunt face startled them all. It was through this same crowd that Tom Reed, with darkened brow, and Dan Dean, limping on his crutches, passed in together.

The clock in the tower struck ten. Job in his cell heard it above the din of innumerable feet passing over his head; heard it and knelt in an earnest prayer for grace to bear whatever might come; to suffer and be still as his Master did of old. He had gone all over it again and again; they knew his story of the walk down the canyon trail with Indian Bill, but even the lawyer doubted it. If they knew of Glacier Point and the betrothal, they might believe him. Should he tell it? All night he had paced the cell wondering if he ought—if he could. As he knelt in that hour, he resolved that, though it would save his life, no human ear should ever hear that sacred secret. That hour on Glacier Point should be unveiled to no human eye, but remain locked in the chambers of his soul, known only to God and her who waited yonder for his coming.

It was near noon when the judge ascended the bench. The hubbub of voices ceased, the case was called, the rear door opened, and, led in by the sheriff, handcuffed and guarded, with calm, white face, yet never faltering in step or look, Job Malden walked across the floor to the prisoner's seat, while the crowd gazed in curiosity, that soon changed to awe and reverence, at that grave face, so deeply marked with scars of grief.

It was a strange scene that met Job's gaze. All the familiar faces were there—Aunty Perkins and Tim's father; Dean and O'Donnell glaring at him; poor old Andrew Malden leaning on his cane; Tony and Hans and Tom Reed and—oh, no! Jane was not there, but gone forever from Gold City and its strange, hard life. A tear stole down the prisoner's cheek—he wiped it away. His enemies saw it and winked. Tim's father saw it and moaned aloud. The clock struck twelve in the high tower, and proceedings began.

It was two days before the trial was well under way. The quibbling of the lawyers, the choosing of a jury, the hearing of the witnesses who had found the wounded, silent form of Jane Reed on the rocks beneath the famous Point, filled the hours. Morning after morning, the scenes of that first day were repeated in the court room; the great crowds, the intense excitement, the friends and enemies intently listening to every word and watching every movement of the prisoner. And calm and still, with never a sign of fear or shame on his face, Job Malden sat in that court room hour after hour, and One unseen stood at his side.

On the third day the prosecution began to weave its web of circumstantial evidence about Job. How shrewd it was! How carefully each suspicious incident was told and retold! How meanly everything bad in his life was emphasized, everything good forgotten! They brought the tales of long-ago years when he was a mere boy. They proved that the passionate blood of a gambler was in his veins; that his father before him had shot a companion. The story of the horse-race and escapades of the reckless days of old were rehearsed by hosts of witnesses. It was proved, by an intricate line of cross-questions, that once before, on a bitter winter's night, young Malden had pursued this girl and Dan Dean with the avowed intention of harming them. The hot blood came to Job's face—he well remembered that night. Then he seemed to hear the distant voice of Indian Bill saying by the roaring Merced, "Bill forgive Mono Indian;" and, sitting there with this tale pouring into the ears of the throng who looked more and more askance at him, Job said deep in his soul, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Father, I forgive, I forgive!"

Closer and closer they drew the web. They made Andrew Malden—poor old man!—confess that he had heard Job say, "It was an accident," then showed that he had denied knowing aught of Jane's death until he reached home. Then Tom Reed took the stand. He testified that all Jane's preference was for Dan; that she went to him when he and Job were both so ill; that she wrote to Dan and never wrote to Job. The old man fairly shook with rage as on the witness-stand he took every chance to denounce the "hypocrite and 'ristocrat." Minutely he pictured Job's coming to the valley, the heated arguments he was sure the two had had, and how upon that awful day when Jane left him forever, she had walked away by the side of Job Malden.

Daniel Dean was the next witness. The crowd hung breathless on his words. Stumping up on his crutches, Dan took the chance of a lifetime to vent his hatred of Job. Keen, shrewd, too wise to speak out plainly, but wise enough to know the blighting influence of suggestion, Dan talked, insinuated and lied till the nails were driven one by one into poor Job's heart and the pain was almost more than he could bear. Insidiously, indirectly, he gave them all to understand that Jane Reed loved him and again and again by her actions had shown preference for himself. Then down the aisle he passed, while the crowd looked at him in pity, and Job felt as if he must rise and tell of the night at Glacier Point, must vindicate the memory of Jane Reed. But no! God knew all. Some things are too sacred to tell to any ear but his. He must suffer and be still.

When Job went back to his lonely cell that night a boy was whistling on the street, "I'll go with Him all the way," and Job Malden took up the words and said them with a meaning he had never known before.



CHAPTER XXVI.

"CALVARY."

On the fourth day the court called for the defense. Curiosity reached its culmination. Men fought for a chance to get within hearing distance. Dan and his comrades sat with an indolent air of satisfaction. Aunty Perkins crowded close to the front. Through the door and up to the very railing which enclosed the active participants, Andrew Malden and Tony made their way. There were only four possible points for the defense. First, it might prove Job's changed character; second, that it was Job, not Dan, to whom Jane Reed was betrothed; third, that Job was far away in the Merced canyon with Indian Bill at the time of the death; fourth, to show by what cause death came to the fated girl.

The last, the defense could not prove; for the third, they had no evidence but the prisoner's own word, and that the court would not accept; the second, not even the lawyer or Andrew Malden knew, and no power on earth could make Job Malden tell it; there was no defense to make except to show the character of Job and plead the fact that circumstantial evidence was not proof of guilt.

He did his best, that bungling young attorney. He tried to take advantage of technicalities, but Job utterly forbade that. If righteousness and God could not clear him, nothing else could. The defense was lame, but it proved that some people believed in Job and loved him. Tim's father told, between his tears, the story of "Tim's praist." Aunty Perkins and the preacher spoke ringing words for him. From the Yellow Jacket men came and defended his noble life. But it all went for naught with that jury. It was facts, not sentiment, they wanted. All this might be true, but if Job Malden had done the awful deed which the evidence went to show, then these things only made his crime the blacker.

The defense finished at noon, and the lawyers began their pleas at one o'clock. They hardly needed to speak—Grizzly county had tried the case and the verdict was in. Yet they spoke. How eloquently the prosecuting attorney showed the influence of heredity—that the evil in the father would show itself some day in the boy! How he pictured the temporary religious change in Job's life, and then his relapse as the old fever came back into his blood! He had relapsed before, they all knew. He did not doubt his temporary goodness; but love is stronger than fear and hatred than integrity, and meeting Jane in the valley had roused all the old passion. Out on the cliff they had walked, they had quarreled, all the old fire of his father had come back—perhaps the boy was not to blame—and, standing there alone with the girl who would not promise to be his wife, in his rage he had struck her, and over the cliff she had gone, down, down, on the cruel rocks, to her death, and he had fled over the mountains till, goaded by conscience, haunted by awful guilt, he had come home and given himself up.

The crowd shuddered as he spoke. Tom Reed fainted, Andrew Malden grew deathly white and raised his wan hand in protest, but still the speaker kept on. Job listened as if it were of another he spoke. He could see it all—how awful it was!—and it was Jane and he had done it! He almost believed he had; that man who stood there, carrying the whole throng with him, made it so clear. The voice ceased. Then Job roused himself. The consciousness that it was all false, terribly false, came over him, and he leaned hard on God.

The attorney for the defense said but a word. For a moment it thrilled the multitude. It was a strange speech. This is what he said: "Your honor and gentlemen of the jury, the only defense I have is the character of the young man. I can say nothing more than you have heard to show how far beneath him is such a crime as this. I know you doubt his word, I know you are against him; but, before these people who know me as an infidel—before God who looks down and knows the hearts of men—I want to say that I believe in Job Malden. What I have seen of him in these awful days has changed my whole life. Henceforth I believe in God."

It was over. The judge was charging the jury, "Bring in a verdict consistent with the facts, gentlemen; the facts, not sentiment." The sun was setting. The jury retired for the night; they would bring in a verdict in the morning.

But the verdict was in. Even Andrew Malden groaned as he leaned on Tony's arm, "Oh, Tony! Tony! How could he have done it!" As Job turned to go back to his cell, he looked over that great crowd for one face that trusted him, but on each seemed written, "Guilty!" He felt as if the whole world had turned from him and the years had gone for naught. There was no voice to whisper a loving word. "Forsaken! forsaken!" He said it over and over. His head was hot, his pulse was feverish. He longed for the touch of his mother's hand; he was hungry for the sound of Jane's voice; he longed to lay his head on Andrew Malden's knee; but he was alone—Calvary was here. The crucifixion hour had come.

At midnight he awoke. A strong arm seemed to hold him, a voice to say, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." It was the Christ. There alone on the summit of the mount of the cross, amid the bitterness of the world, pierced to the heart, crucified in soul, Job Malden stood with his Master.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE VERDICT.

It was Friday morning. The last day of the trial had come. The hot sun beat down on hundreds pressing their way towards the old court house, too excited to be weary. Never had Gold City known such a day. The court room was crowded two hours before the judge came to the bench. A profound silence filled the place. When Job entered one could have felt the stillness. All knew the verdict—all dreaded to hear it. Dan Dean shrank down behind the post when the jury filed in. Job sat with a far-away look in his eyes. Men, gazing at him, were reminded of pictures of the old saints.

The preliminaries were over, and the foreman of the jury rose to give the verdict. Men held their breath. Women grew pale and trembled. In a clear voice he said it: "Guilty!" For a moment the hush lasted; then Andrew Malden fainted, Tim's father cried, "My God! My God!" a storm of tears swept over the throng, and Job sat motionless, while a look of great peace came into his face and in his soul he murmured, "It is finished!"

But the judge was speaking. He was denying the motion for a new trial; he was asking if the prisoner had aught to say why sentence should not be pronounced against him, when a voice that startled all rang through the great room:

"White man, hear! Bill talk!"

There he stood—from whence he came no one knew—his old gray blanket wrapped about him, his long black hair falling in a mass over his shoulders, the blue overalls still hanging about his great brown feet. With hand outstretched, he stood for a moment in silence, while judge and jury and throng were at his command.

Then he spoke; brief, to the point, fiery, strong. The crowd was spellbound. He carried bench and jury and all with him. He told of the day in Merced canyon; of the figure on the distant cliff; of the earthquake and Job's fall; how he had seen what he dared not tell the boy—the cliff give way, a white thing go down, down, out of sight. Told of Job's many hours in his tepee, and of how the boy had brought him to the Great Spirit, who took the hate all out of his heart. On he talked, till Job's every statement was corroborated, till a revulsion of feeling swept over the multitude, till they saw it all vividly: that it was the earthquake—it was God, not man, who had called Jane Reed from this world; that the prisoner was as innocent as the baby yonder prattling in its mother's arms.

Dan slunk out of the door, Tom Reed sat in silent awe, Tim's father was in tears, Tony shouted, "Bress de Lawd!" And only Job said never a word, as the judge, disregarding all precedent, dismissed the case. The great trial of "The State vs. Job Malden" was ended.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN JANUARY AND MAY TIME.

The leaves on the mountain maples turned early that fall. The touch of bitter frost brought forth their rarest colors. The snowflakes fluttered down before November was past; fluttered down and softly covered the furrows and brown earth with a mantle of white.

So the days of that autumn came to Job Malden. The beauty begotten of pain crept into his face. The mantle of silence and peace hid deep the scars of grief. He never talked of the past—no man ever dared broach it. The children at their play in the twilight stopped and huddled close as they saw a dark form climb the graveyard hill, and wondered who it could be. Yet he did not live apart from the world. Never had Gold City seen more of him; never did children love a playmate so much as he who took them all into his heart. Yet he was not of them—all felt it, all saw it. He was with them, not of them. Up higher in soul he had climbed than the world of Gold City could go. He came down to them often, and unconsciously they poured their sorrows at his feet, and he comforted them; but when he went back into the secret holy place of his soul, no man dared follow.

Up at the old ranch, the gray-haired, feeble owner sat by the fire watching the crackling logs and the flames; sat and thought of the years that were gone. Visions of childhood mingled with visions of heaven; the murmur of voices long silent with the words, as Job read them aloud: "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." Tony still sang at his chores, Hans was still at the barn, Bess still neighed in the stable, Shot still barked at the door. But the old home could never be quite the same to the brave, manly fellow who strode in and out across its threshold.

It was New Year's Eve. Job sat by the old stone fireplace. The household had gone to rest. The clock was ticking away the moments of the dying year. Outside, the world was still and white. With head in his hands, Job waited for the year to end.

He was ten years older than when it had begun. He was still a boy then in heart and years; now he was well on in manhood. Yosemite, Glacier Point, Gethsemane, Calvary, Jane Reed's grave, were in that year. He longed to hear its death-knell. Yet that year—how much it had meant to his soul! The sanctifying influence of sorrow had softened and purified his life. The abiding Christ was with him; he lived, and yet not he—it was Christ living in him.

He knelt and thanked Him for it all—heights of glory, depths of tribulation; thanked Him for whatsoever Infinite Love had given in the days of that dark, dark year now ending. The clock gave a warning tick—it was going; a moment, and it would be gone forever. Into his heart came a great purpose—the purpose to leave the past with the past, and in the new year go out to a new life—a life of love for all the world, of service for all hearts. Over his soul came a great joy.

The clock struck twelve. Somebody down the hill fired a gun, the dogs barked a welcome—the new year had come. The school-house bell was ringing, and to Job it seemed to say:

"Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring in the Christ that is to be."

The young man rose from his knees. He went and opened the door. The white world flooded with silvery light lay before him. The past was gone. He stood with his face to the future, to the years unscarred and waiting. Into them he would go to live for others. He closed the doors, brushed back the embers, and crept softly up to his room, singing in a low voice the first song for many months:

"Oh, the good we all may do, While the days are going by."

All day the drums had been beating. All day the tramp of martial feet had been heard along the Gold City streets. The soldiers from Camp Sheridan had marched in line with the local militia, and a few trembling veterans who knew more of real war than either. "Old Glory" on the court house had been at half-mast, the children had scattered flowers on a few flag-marked graves, while faltering voices of age read the Grand Army Ritual. The public exercises in the town square were over.

The sun had set on Decoration Day when Job rode Bess up once more to the old graveyard where Jane lay. Not often did he come here now—he felt that she was up among the stars; it was only the shroud of clay that lay under the sod—yet on this day when love scatters garlands over its dead, he had come to place a wreath of wild-flowers on her grave.

He thought of that night when he had first visited this spot. How far in the past it seemed! He could never forget it, but he could think of it now in quiet of soul, and feel, "He doeth all things well." Reverently he laid the wreath on the grave, knelt in silent prayer, and tarried a moment with bowed head. Memories sweet and tender, memories sad and bitter, came back to him.

Just then he heard a noise, a foot-fall opposite, and looked up to see a tall form supported by a crutch standing with bowed head.

"Why, Dan!" Job said, startled for a moment.

"Job!" answered a trembling voice.

And there they stood, those two men whose lives met in the one under the sod; stood and looked in silence.

At last Dan spoke. But how different his voice sounded! All the scornfulness had gone out of it.

"Job," he said, "Job, I knew you were here. Many a night I have seen you come, have watched you kneeling here, and hated you for it—yet loved you for it. I knew you would come again to-night. I came to stand beneath that old pine yonder, and watched you lay the wreath on the grave. I could stand it no longer. I have come, Job—I have come—" and Dan, yes, Dan Dean, faltered!—"come to be forgiven. For years I have dogged your footsteps, hated you, persecuted you, lain in wait to ruin you. For this alone I have lived. God only knows—you don't—how bad I have been. But, Job, you are too much for me. The more I harm you, the nobler you grow. I have hated religion, but to-night I would give all I ever hope to own to have a little like yours. If religion can do for a fellow what it has for you, there is nothing in the world like it."

A little nearer he came, as Job, hardly believing his ears, listened.

"Job," he cried, "I don't deserve it, God knows! I have wronged you beyond all hope of mercy. But I must be forgiven, or I must die. You must forgive me. I cannot live another day with this awful feeling in my heart. I cannot sleep—I cannot work. I don't care whether I die or not, but I cannot go into eternity without knowing that you forgive me!"

At last the tears came, and Dan sank, crutch in hand, beside Jane's grave.

Job could not speak. For a moment, only the sound of a strong man's sobs and the hoot of an owl filled the air, then a passionate cry burst from Dan's lips:

"Tell me, Job, tell me, is it possible for you to forgive?"

For a moment Job faltered. He could see Trapper Bill pace the tepee and say, "Bill forgive Mono Indian;" he could hear the Master saying, "After this manner pray ye, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;" and, kneeling and putting his arm about the quivering form, he whispered:

"Dan, I forgive!"

Long hours they stayed there, praying and talking, till Dan, grown quiet as a child, looked up with a strange, new expression, and said:

"You forgive and God forgives! Oh, Job, this is more than I ever hoped for! I can hardly stand it!"

* * * * *

It was Children's Day when Daniel Dean was received into the Gold City church. No one knew what was coming. Job rode down from the ranch with the secret hid in his heart. It was a lovely June Sunday. The roses were blossoming over the cottages, and the birds sang as if wild with joy. The mountains were covered with green, the valleys were robed in flowers, and golden plains stretched below.

Old friends were greeting each other, and familiar forms passing in at the church door, as Job led Andy Malden, leaning on his cane, to the family pew. The church was a bower of flowers, the songs of birds rang out from gayly bedecked cages, and the patter of children's feet was heard in the aisle.

It was a beautiful service. Music of voice and organ filled the air, wee tots tripped up to the platform and down again, saying in frightened voices little "pieces" that made mothers proud and big men listen. The pastor brought forth a number of candles, large and small, wax and common tallow, and put them on the pulpit, where he lit them one by one, showing how one, lit by the flame of the largest, could pass along and light the others; how one life lit by the fire of Jesus' love could light all the hearts around it. And from smallest bright-eyed boy to gray-haired Andrew Malden, all knew what he meant by the transforming power of a transformed life. It was then that song and service had its living illustration.



It was just as the preacher finished his sermon and asked if any had children to be baptized, that Job arose and said there was one present who had come as a little child to Christ, and who wished to come as a little child into the church, and he would present him for baptism if he might.

The preacher gave willing consent, and the wondering congregation waited. Job rose and passed to the rear. Every head was turned. Then he came back, and on his arm, neatly dressed in a plain black suit, came poor, crippled Dan Dean.

The people who saw that scene can never agree on just what happened then. A resurrection from the dead could scarcely have surprised them more. It is said that they rose en masse and stood in silence as the pair passed down the aisle. Then someone started up, "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea," and the whole church rang.

Some say that Dan told of his conversion and his faith in Jesus; some, that Job told it; some, the preacher. The preacher's tears, it is said, mingled with the baptismal waters, and the noonday sun kissed them into gold, on that famous Sunday when Daniel Dean was baptized and received as a little child into the Gold City church.



CHAPTER XXIX.

SUNSET.

One evening soon after that memorable Sunday, Job reached home rather late. Putting Bess in the stall, he said a tender good-night, crossed the square to the gate, and went up to the house to find it strangely still. He pushed the door ajar and saw the old man leaning on his cane in his arm-chair. His white locks were gilded by the setting sun. His spectacles lay across the open Bible on the chair at his side. Job spoke, but there was no answer. Stepping over to see if the old man was asleep, he found he was indeed sleeping—the sleep that knows no waking.

Just at sunset, as the long summer day was dying, reading that precious Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the weary traveler on life's long journey had finished his course and gone to the rest that remaineth for the children of God. Beside him, he had laid the Book; he would need it no more—he had gone to see the Savior "face to face." He had taken off his spectacles—the eyes that had needed them here would not need them in that world to which he had gone. On his staff he leaned, In the old farmhouse, the home of many years, and gently as a little child falls asleep in its mother's arms, he had leaned on God and gone to the better Home.

A feeling of utter loneliness came over Job. The last strong tie was broken. That night he walked over the old place in the dim light, and felt that heaven was coming to be more like home than earth.

* * * * *

"Waal, the old man's gone," Marshall Dean said, as he drew his chair back from the table. "Mighty long wait we've had, Sally, but now we'll get ready to move."

"Move!" cried his wife, "move! Marshall Dean, where is your common sense? Don't you know the whole thing will go to that man that's no kith nor kin of his, while we poor relations has to sit and starve!"

"Mother," said a voice, "I think Job Malden has a better right to the place than we. He's been a better relation to the old man than all the Deans together, if I do say it." It was Dan who spoke.

"Yes, that's the way! Bring up a son, and hear him talk back to his mother!—that's the way it goes! Ever since ye got religion down there at that gal's grave, ye've been a regular crank!"

The hot words stung, but Dan remained silent.

"I don't care, ma," said little Tom, "I think Job's nice, and if he's boss I'm going up there every day."

"Yes, and he'll kick ye out, or do the way he did with Dan at the Yellow Jacket—set a parcel of soldiers on to ye, just as if ye was a dog!" sharply retorted Mrs. Dean.