“No, that’s just it; I felt awfully hurt and injured that he did not come up and speak to ME! I wonder if we got any fever or that sort of thing up there; it makes one quite superstitious.”

Christie did not reply; more than once before she had felt that inexplicable misgiving. It had sometimes seemed to her that she had never been quite herself since that memorable night when she had slipped out of their sleeping-cabin, and stood alone in the gracious and commanding presence of the woods and hills. In the solitude of night, with the hum of the great city rising below her—at times even in theatres or crowded assemblies of men and women—she forgot herself, and again stood in the weird brilliancy of that moonlight night in mute worship at the foot of that slowly-rising mystic altar of piled terraces, hanging forests, and lifted plateaus that climbed forever to the lonely skies. Again she felt before her the expanding and opening arms of the protecting woods. Had they really closed upon her in some pantheistic embrace that made her a part of them? Had she been baptized in that moonlight as a child of the great forest? It was easy to believe in the myths of the poets of an idyllic life under those trees, where, free from conventional restrictions, one loved and was loved. If she, with her own worldly experience, could think of this now, why might not George Kearney have thought? . . . She stopped, and found herself blushing even in the darkness. As the thought and blush were the usual sequel of her reflections, it is to be feared that they may have been at times the impelling cause.

Mr. Carr, however, made up for his daughters’ want of sympathy with metropolitan life. To their astonishment, he not only plunged into the fashionable gayeties and amusements of the town, but in dress and manner assumed the role of a leader of society. The invariable answer to their half-humorous comment was the necessities of the mine, and the policy of frequenting the company of capitalists, to enlist their support and confidence. There was something in this so unlike their father, that what at any other time they would have hailed as a relief to his habitual abstraction now half alarmed them. Yet he was not dissipated—he did not drink nor gamble. There certainly did not seem any harm in his frequenting the society of ladies, with a gallantry that appeared to be forced and a pleasure that to their critical eyes was certainly apocryphal. He did not drag his daughters into the mixed society of that period; he did not press upon them the company of those he most frequented, and whose accepted position in that little world of fashion was considered equal to their own. When Jessie strongly objected to the pronounced manners of a certain widow, whose actual present wealth and pecuniary influence condoned for a more uncertain prehistoric past, Mr. Carr did not urge a further acquaintance. “As long as you’re not thinking of marrying again, papa,” Jessie had said finally, “I don’t see the necessity of our knowing her.” “But suppose I were,” had replied Mr. Carr with affected humor. “Then you certainly wouldn’t care for any one like her,” his daughter had responded triumphantly. Mr. Carr smiled, and dropped the subject, but it is probable that his daughters’ want of sympathy with his acquaintances did not in the least interfere with his social prestige. A gentleman in all his relations and under all circumstances, even his cold scientific abstraction was provocative; rich men envied his lofty ignorance of the smaller details of money-making, even while they mistrusted his judgment. A man still well preserved, and free from weakening vices, he was a dangerous rival to younger and faster San Francisco, in the eyes of the sex, who knew how to value a repose they did not themselves possess.

Suddenly Mr. Carr announced his intention of proceeding to Sacramento, on further business of the mine, leaving his two daughters in the family of a wealthy friend until he should return for them. He opposed their ready suggestion to return to Devil’s Ford with a new and unnecessary inflexibility: he even met their compromise to accompany him to Sacramento with equal decision.

“You will be only in my way,” he said curtly. “Enjoy yourselves here while you can.”

Thus left to themselves, they tried to accept his advice. Possibly some slight reaction to their previous disappointment may have already set in; perhaps they felt any distraction to be a relief to their anxiety about their father. They went out more; they frequented concerts and parties; they accepted, with their host and his family, an invitation to one of those opulent and barbaric entertainments with which a noted San Francisco millionaire distracted his rare moments of reflection in his gorgeous palace on the hills. Here they could at least be once more in the country they loved, albeit of a milder and less heroic type, and a little degraded by the overlapping tinsel and scattered spangles of the palace.

It was a three days’ fete; the style and choice of amusements left to the guests, and an equal and active participation by no means necessary or indispensable. Consequently, when Christie and Jessie Carr proposed a ride through the adjacent canyon on the second morning, they had no difficulty in finding horses in the well-furnished stables of their opulent entertainers, nor cavaliers among the other guests, who were too happy to find favor in the eyes of the two pretty girls who were supposed to be abnormally fastidious and refined. Christie’s escort was a good-natured young banker, shrewd enough to avoid demonstrative attentions, and lucky enough to interest her during the ride with his clear and half-humorous reflections on some of the business speculations of the day. If his ideas were occasionally too clever, and not always consistent with a high sense of honor, she was none the less interested to know the ethics of that world of speculation into which her father had plunged, and the more convinced, with mingled sense of pride and anxiety, that his still dominant gentlemanhood would prevent his coping with it on equal terms. Nor could she help contrasting the conversation of the sharp-witted man at her side with what she still remembered of the vague, touching, boyish enthusiasm of the millionaires of Devil’s Ford. Had her escort guessed the result of this contrast, he would hardly have been as gratified as he was with the grave attention of her beautiful eyes.

The fascination of a gracious day and the leafy solitude of the canyon led them to prolong their ride beyond the proposed limit, and it became necessary towards sunset for them to seek some shorter cut home.

“There’s a vaquero in yonder field,” said Christie’s escort, who was riding with her a little in advance of the others, “and those fellows know every trail that a horse can follow. I’ll ride on, intercept him, and try my Spanish on him. If I miss him, as he’s galloping on, you might try your hand on him yourself. He’ll understand your eyes, Miss Carr, in any language.”

As he dashed away, to cover his first audacity of compliment, Christie lifted the eyes thus apostrophized to the opposite field. The vaquero, who was chasing some cattle, was evidently too preoccupied to heed the shouts of her companion, and wheeling round suddenly to intercept one of the deviating fugitives, permitted Christie’s escort to dash past him before that gentleman could rein in his excited steed. This brought the vaquero directly in her path. Perceiving her, he threw his horse back on its haunches, to prevent a collision. Christie rode up to him, suddenly uttered a cry, and halted. For before her, sunburnt in cheek and throat, darker in the free growth of moustache and curling hair, clad in the coarse, picturesque finery of his class, undisguised only in his boyish beauty, sat George Kearney.

The blood, that had forsaken her astonished face, rushed as quickly back. His eyes, which had suddenly sparkled with an electrical glow, sank before hers. His hand dropped, and his cheek flushed with a dark embarrassment.

“You here, Mr. Kearney? How strange!—but how glad I am to meet you again!”

She tried to smile; her voice trembled, and her little hand shook as she extended it to him.

He raised his dark eyes quickly, and impulsively urged his horse to her side. But, as if suddenly awakening to the reality of the situation, he glanced at her hurriedly, down at his barbaric finery, and threw a searching look towards her escort.

In an instant Christie saw the infelicity of her position, and its dangers. The words of Whiskey Dick, “He wouldn’t stand that,” flashed across her mind. There was no time to lose. The banker had already gained control over his horse, and was approaching them, all unconscious of the fixed stare with which George was regarding him. Christie hastily seized the hand which he had allowed to fall at his side, and said quickly:—

“Will you ride with me a little way, Mr. Kearney?”

He turned the same searching look upon her. She met it clearly and steadily; he even thought reproachfully.

“Do!” she said hurriedly. “I ask it as a favor. I want to speak to you. Jessie and I are here alone. Father is away. YOU are one of our oldest friends.”

He hesitated. She turned to the astonished young banker, who rode up.

“I have just met an old friend. Will you please ride back as quickly as you can, and tell Jessie that Mr. Kearney is here, and ask her to join us?”

She watched her dazed escort, still speechless from the spectacle of the fastidious Miss Carr tete-a-tete with a common Mexican vaquero, gallop off in the direction of the canyon, and then turned to George.

“Now take me home, the shortest way, as quick as you can.”

“Home?” echoed George.

“I mean to Mr. Prince’s house. Quick! before they can come up to us.”

He mechanically put spurs to his horse; she followed. They presently struck into a trail that soon diverged again into a disused logging track through the woods.

“This is the short cut to Prince’s, by two miles,” he said, as they entered the woods.

As they were still galloping, without exchanging a word, Christie began to slacken her speed; George did the same. They were safe from intrusion at the present, even if the others had found the short cut. Christie, bold and self-reliant a moment ago, suddenly found herself growing weak and embarrassed. What had she done?

She checked her horse suddenly.

“Perhaps we had better wait for them,” she said timidly.

George had not raised his eyes to hers.

“You said you wanted to hurry home,” he replied gently, passing his hand along his mustang’s velvety neck, “and—and you had something to say to me.”

“Certainly,” she answered, with a faint laugh. “I’m so astonished at meeting you here. I’m quite bewildered. You are living here; you have forsaken us to buy a ranche?” she continued, looking at him attentively.

His brow colored slightly.

“No, I’m living here, but I have bought no ranche. I’m only a hired man on somebody else’s ranche, to look after the cattle.”

He saw her beautiful eyes fill with astonishment and—something else. His brow cleared; he went on, with his old boyish laugh:

“No, Miss Carr. The fact is, I’m dead broke. I’ve lost everything since I saw you last. But as I know how to ride, and I’m not afraid of work, I manage to keep along.”

“You have lost money in—in the mines?” said Christie suddenly.

“No”—he replied quickly, evading her eyes. “My brother has my interest, you know. I’ve been foolish on my own account solely. You know I’m rather inclined to that sort of thing. But as long as my folly don’t affect others, I can stand it.”

“But it may affect others—and THEY may not think of it as folly—” She stopped short, confused by his brightening color and eyes. “I mean—Oh, Mr. Kearney, I want you to be frank with me. I know nothing of business, but I know there has been trouble about the mine at Devil’s Ford. Tell me honestly, has my father anything to do with it? If I thought that through any imprudence of his, you had suffered—if I believed that you could trace any misfortune of yours to him—to US—I should never forgive myself”—she stopped and flashed a single look at him—“I should never forgive YOU for abandoning us.”

The look of pain which had at first shown itself in his face, which never concealed anything, passed, and a quick smile followed her feminine anticlimax.

“Miss Carr,” he said, with boyish eagerness, “if any man suggested to me that your father wasn’t the brightest and best of his kind—too wise and clever for the fools about him to understand—I’d—I’d shoot him.”

Confused by his ready and gracious disclaimer of what she had NOT intended to say, there was nothing left for her but to rush upon what she really intended to say, with what she felt was shameful precipitation.

“One word more, Mr. Kearney,” she began, looking down, but feeling the color come to her face as she spoke. “When you spoke to me the day you left, you must have thought me hard and cruel. When I tell you that I thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her—”

“For Jessie!” echoed George.

“You will understand that—that—”

“That what?” said George, drawing nearer to her.

“That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her of me,” added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from him.

But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her side. “He will go now,” she had thought, but he didn’t.

“We must ride on,” she suggested faintly.

“No,” he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight lifting of his head. “We must ride together no further, Miss Carr. I must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with your party, whom I hear coming. But when we part here you must bid me good-by—not as Jessie’s sister—but as Christie—the one—the only woman that I love, or that I ever have loved.”

He held out his hand. With the recollection of their previous parting, she tremblingly advanced her own. He took it, but did not raise it to his lips. And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining his hand in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.

“Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted Devil’s Ford?” she said coldly.

He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, “Yes,” wheeled his horse, and disappeared in the forest.

He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and indignant. He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant. Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the singular rencontre and her explanation of the stranger’s sudden departure excited no further comment. Only Jessie managed to whisper in her ear,—

“I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn’t me he meant?”

“Not at all,” said Christie coldly.

CHAPTER VII

A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they received a letter from their father. His business, he wrote, would detain him in Sacramento some days longer. There was no reason why they should return to Devil’s Ford in the heat of the summer; their host had written to beg him to allow them a more extended visit, and, if they were enjoying themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend. He had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince’s place, and that a certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie.

“Do you know what all this means, dear?” asked Jessie, who had been watching her sister with an unusually grave face.

Christie whose thoughts had wandered from the letter, replied carelessly,—

“I suppose it means that we are to wait here until father sends for us.”

“It means a good deal more. It means that papa has had another reverse; it means that the assay has turned out badly for the mine—that the further they go from the flat the worse it gets—that all the gold they will probably ever see at Devil’s Ford is what they have already found or will find on the flat; it means that all Devil’s Ford is only a ‘pocket,’ and not a ‘lead.’” She stopped, with unexpected tears in her eyes.

“Who told you this?” asked Christie breathlessly.

“Fairfax—Mr. Munroe,” stammered her sister, “writes to me as if we already knew it—tells me not to be alarmed, that it isn’t so bad—and all that.”

“How long has this happened, Jessie?” said Christie, taking her hand, with a white but calm face.

“Nearly ever since we’ve been here, I suppose. It must be so, for he says poor papa is still hopeful of doing something yet.”

“And Mr. Munroe writes to you?” said Christie abstractedly.

“Of course,” said Jessie quickly. “He feels interested in—us.”

“Nobody tells ME anything,” said Christie.

“Didn’t—”

“No,” said Christie bitterly.

“What on earth DID you talk about? But people don’t confide in you because they’re afraid of you. You’re so—”

“So what?”

“So gently patronizing, and so ‘I-don’t-suppose-you-can-help-it, poor-thing,’ in your general style,” said Jessie, kissing her. “There! I only wish I was like you. What do you say if we write to father that we’ll go back to Devil’s Ford? Mr. Munroe thinks we will be of service there just now. If the men are dissatisfied, and think we’re spending money—”

“I’m afraid Mr. Munroe is hardly a disinterested adviser. At least, I don’t think it would look quite decent for you to fly back without your father, at his suggestion,” said Christie coldly. “He is not the only partner. We are spending no money. Besides, we have engaged to go to Mr. Prince’s again next week.”

“As you like, dear,” said Jessie, turning away to hide a faint smile.

Nevertheless, when they returned from their visit to Mr. Prince’s, and one or two uneventful rides, Christie looked grave. It was only a few days later that Jessie burst upon her one morning.

“You were saying that nobody ever tells you anything. Well, here’s your chance. Whiskey Dick is below.”

“Whiskey Dick?” repeated Christie. “What does he want?”

“YOU, love. Who else? You know he always scorns me as not being high-toned and elegant enough for his social confidences. He asked for you only.”

With an uneasy sense of some impending revelation, Christie descended to the drawing-room. As she opened the door, a strong flavor of that toilet soap and eau de Cologne with which Whiskey Dick was in the habit of gracefully effacing the traces of dissipation made known his presence. In spite of a new suit of clothes, whose pristine folds refused to adapt themselves entirely to the contour of his figure, he was somewhat subdued by the unexpected elegance of the drawing-room of Christie’s host. But a glance at Christie’s sad but gracious face quickly reassured him. Taking from his hat a three-cornered parcel, he unfolded a handsome saffrona rose, which he gravely presented to her. Having thus reestablished his position, he sank elegantly into a tete-a-tete ottoman. Finding the position inconvenient to face Christie, who had seated herself on a chair, he transferred himself to the other side of the ottoman, and addressed her over its back as from a pulpit.

“Is this really a fortunate accident, Mr. Hall, or did you try to find us?” said Christie pleasantly.

“Partly promiskuss, and partly coincident, Miss Christie, one up and t’other down,” said Dick lightly. “Work being slack at present at Devil’s Ford, I reck’ned I’d take a pasear down to ‘Frisco, and dip into the vortex o’ fash’nable society and out again.” He lightly waved a new handkerchief to illustrate his swallow-like intrusion. “This yer minglin’ with the bo-tong is apt to be wearisome, ez you and me knows, unless combined with experience and judgment. So when them boys up there allows that there’s a little too much fash’nable society and San Francisco capital and high-falutin’ about the future goin’ on fer square surface mining, I sez, ‘Look yere, gentlemen,’ sez I, ‘you don’t see the pint. The pint is to get the pop’lar eye fixed, so to speak, on Devil’s Ford. When a fash’nable star rises above the ‘Frisco horizon—like Miss Carr—and, so to speak, dazzles the gineral eye, people want to know who she is. And when people say that’s the accomplished daughter o’ the accomplished superintendent of the Devil’s Ford claim—otherwise known as the Star-eyed Goddess o’ Devil’s Ford—every eye is fixed on the mine, and Capital, so to speak, tumbles to her.’ And when they sez that the old man—excuse my freedom, but that’s the way the boys talk of your father, meaning no harm—the old man, instead o’ trying to corral rich widders—grass or otherwise—to spend their money on the big works for the gold that ain’t there yet—should stay in Devil’s Ford and put all his sabe and genius into grindin’ out the little gold that is there, I sez to them that it ain’t your father’s style. ‘His style,’ sez I, ‘ez to go in and build them works.’ When they’re done he turns round to Capital, and sez he—‘Look yer,’ sez he, ‘thar’s all the works you want, first quality—cost a million; thar’s all the water you want, onlimited—cost another million; thar’s all the pay gravel you want in and outer the ground—call it two millions more. Now my time’s too vally’ble; my professhun’s too high-toned to WORK mines. I MAKE ‘em. Hand me over a check for ten millions and call it square, and work it for yourself.’ So Capital hands over the money and waltzes down to run the mine, and you original locators walks round with yer hands in yer pockets a-top of your six million profit, and you let’s Capital take the work and the responsibility.”

Preposterous as this seemed from the lips of Whiskey Dick, Christie had a haunting suspicion that it was not greatly unlike the theories expounded by the clever young banker who had been her escort. She did not interrupt his flow of reminiscent criticism; when he paused for breath, she said, quietly:

“I met Mr. George Kearney the other day in the country.”

Whiskey Dick stopped awkwardly, glanced hurriedly at Christie, and coughed behind his handkerchief.

“Mr. Kearney—eh—er—certengly—yes—er—met him, you say. Was he—er—er—well?”

“In health, yes; but otherwise he has lost everything,” said Christie, fixing her eyes on the embarrassed Dick.

“Yes—er—in course—in course—” continued Dick, nervously glancing round the apartment as if endeavoring to find an opening to some less abrupt statement of the fact.

“And actually reduced to take some menial employment,” added Christie, still regarding Dick with her clear glance.

“That’s it—that’s just it,” said Dick, beaming as he suddenly found his delicate and confidential opportunity. “That’s it, Miss Christie; that’s just what I was sayin’ to the boys. ‘Ez it the square thing,’ sez I, ‘jest because George hez happened to hypothecate every dollar he has, or expects to hev, to put into them works, only to please Mr. Carr, and just because he don’t want to distress that intelligent gentleman by letting him see he’s dead broke—for him to go and demean himself and Devil’s Ford by rushing away and hiring out as a Mexican vaquero on Mexican wages? Look,’ sez I, ‘at the disgrace he brings upon a high-toned, fash’nable girl, at whose side he’s walked and danced, and passed rings, and sentiments, and bokays in the changes o’ the cotillion and the mizzourka. And wot,’ sez I, ‘if some day, prancing along in a fash’nable cavalcade, she all of a suddents comes across him drivin’ a Mexican steer?’ That’s what I said to the boys. And so you met him, Miss Christie, as usual,” continued Dick, endeavoring under the appearance of a large social experience to conceal an eager anxiety to know the details—“so you met him; and, in course, you didn’t let on yer knew him, so to speak, nat’rally, or p’raps you kinder like asked him to fix your saddle-girth, and give him a five-dollar piece—eh?”

Christie, who had risen and gone to the window, suddenly turned a very pale face and shining eyes on Dick.

“Mr. Hall,” she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, “we are old friends, and I feel I can ask you a favor. You once before acted as our escort—it was for a short but a happy time—will you accept a larger trust? My father is busy in Sacramento for the mine: will you, without saying anything to anybody, take Jessie and me back at once to Devil’s Ford?”

“Will I? Miss Christie,” said Dick, choking between an intense gratification and a desire to keep back its vulgar exhibition, “I shall be proud!”

“When I say keep it a secret”—she hesitated—“I don’t mean that I object to your letting Mr. Kearney, if you happen to know where he is, understand that we are going back to Devil’s Ford.”

“Cert’nly—nat’rally,” said Dick, waving his hand gracefully; “sorter drop him a line, saying that bizness of a social and delicate nature—being the escort of Miss Christie and Jessie Carr to Devil’s Ford—prevents my having the pleasure of calling.”

“That will do very well, Mr. Hall,” said Christie, faintly smiling through her moist eyelashes. “Then will you go at once and secure tickets for to-night’s boat, and bring them here? Jessie and I will arrange everything else.”

“Cert’nly,” said Dick impulsively, and preparing to take a graceful leave.

“We’ll be impatient until you return with the tickets,” said Christie graciously.

Dick shook hands gravely, got as far as the door, and paused.

“You think it better to take the tickets now?” he said dubiously.

“By all means,” said Christie impetuously. “I’ve set my heart on going to-night—and unless you secure berths early—”

“In course—in course,” interrupted Dick nervously. “But—”

“But what?” said Christie impatiently.

Dick hesitated, shut the door carefully, and, looking round the room, lightly shook out his handkerchief, apparently flicked away an embarrassing suggestion, and said, with a little laugh: